Page 10

SENARIA

During the thirty years of the Chaos, the dragon lords fought the blue rain, protecting allies and enemies alike. But they were betrayed on the Plains of Celandine, ending the Age of Dragons in disgrace.

—Excerpt from the forbidden book, The Hidden History: An Age of Dragons.

We’d been marooned on the coastline, but still in the Southern Lands, somewhere north of Thales and closer to Deimos, the demon island owned by the Davinicus priests—that was the extent of my knowledge.

Kion Abaddon, though, didn’t need a map.

His sense of direction was uncanny, as if he’d been here before.

With the sun high in the sky, there were no stars to follow. No significant landmarks or mountain ranges in the distance. Only the endless, rolling fields of grass, knee-high and browning from the early frosts .

We hiked in silence while I hardened my resolve. I would take Kion Abaddon back to Thales—this prisoner who said he feared me.

Did he fear me because he wore mage shackles? The spell would torment him, weakening his will to resist.

The idea didn’t fit. Even with the mage shackles, the prisoner had confronted a red priest without hesitation. Saved me in a storm and dragged me up a cliff. He had magic like mine, so I could not invade his thoughts. Caution was required until I figured out what game he played.

Kion Abaddon saw me as the same sheltered, shallow Silk people talked about, and I didn’t need Nikias spying to know what was said. I’d heard the whispers in the castle halls. Watched servants turn to avoid eye-contact or find a sudden urgency in the chores.

Maids rushed away. The scrub boys spilled their dirty water, and I learned what being the villain was like…the woman who could see their sins. Who kept men honest and the children well-behaved.

I steeled myself, late at night, when the moon hid behind the clouds.

When I paced like a wild creature in a cage, screaming at the silent sky.

The words were lost on the winds while something broke inside…

and yet, I couldn’t stop believing. I couldn’t stop hoping that something more waited for me.

More than what I’d been given, an unbelievably selfish idea considering everything the king had provided.

It wasn’t the things, though. It was my life that I wanted. To be able to smile at a man from across a room and have him smile back. To know I was important to him. That I was free to do what I wished.

But no scrap of sympathy existed in this situation.

The rules were the king’s rules, and I’d pay the price for breaking them.

I blew out a breath and stared at the bright, clean blue of the sky.

The earthy scent of the grass was soothing even though it was brown with the end of the growing season.

The cycle of life continued despite the Malice Moon.

Distant birds sang their songs. Insects buzzed.

The sun warmed more than the breeze cooled, and I held on to the normalcy.

And to Bogo, finding me. He always did—the one creature who looked at me through honest, trusting, wild eyes.

Salt on my skin itched. I wiped sweaty palms against my thighs, worked at ignoring the pain in my feet.

We’d been walking for an hour, but complaints would provoke more taunts about shoes I refused to wear.

I wouldn’t wear them though, because magic might be infused in a red priest’s shoes.

Why take the risk for the sake of aching feet?

I needed to silence the mental nagging, and after the second hour of walking, I focused on the weathered stones poking through the grass.

Nothing about them stood out, other than the clusters of some while others were more distant.

They weren’t ritual stones or standing stones marking a boundary.

No sign of a meditation spiral leading to a center and then back out.

But they marked something significant, and when we paused—when Kion Abaddon stood with his head bent—I guessed the importance .

He stared at a single stone, at the carvings on the rounded surface, and the reverence in his posture, his silence, stabbed my heart.

I whispered, “These are the Plains of Celandine.”

The plains of the swallows. Birds that migrated every year, but always returned to the same location each spring, and two hundred years ago, in what the books called the bloody spring, mage masters and dragon lords fought a pivotal battle on this field.

The engraved stones marked the places where the dragon lords fell.

During the previous century, people celebrated the battle.

Images filled the history books: beating drums and bonfires, burning until dawn.

People singing and dancing. They’d gotten drunk, defaced the stones with vulgar markings.

Pissed on the graves of the fallen and pounded each other’s backs for their bravery in insulting the dead.

But recent generations had abandoned the practice. The site was too far from the capital, and the victory was too ancient. No one cared when current worries demanded attention.

But as memory decayed, so did the field; it was now a place with overgrown grass and hollow winds.

Travelers and traders believed the ghosts of the dead haunted the land.

They took alternate routes, traveled on roads connecting the outer settlements to Thales.

Roads I could follow—if I found them—that would take me back to the capital.

Caravans often helped travelers, although they might question anyone with a prisoner.

Worry if it was safe. The King’s Guard was a possibility.

Patrols were constant along the main roads, and they would react if I explained who I was…

or they might take one look at the mage shackles and send for the red priests.

While the questions overwhelmed me, it was sorrow that drove me closer to the prisoner’s side.

His hands had fisted. The knuckles were white.

On the rounded stone at his feet, more recent markings obscured the ancient inscription.

But the design beneath matched the one etched on the curse tablet suspended around his throat.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, fighting the urge to skim my hand against his arm, a gesture to reveal he wasn’t grieving alone. I understood loss, the deep pain.

“Did you deface the stone?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then do not apologize for the sins of others.” His voice grew neutral. “What did they teach you about this battle?”

“That we won.”

“Did they tell you how you won?”

My gaze drifted over the grassy field, on and on, so peaceful in the sunlight. Ancient trees stood tall in the distance. The trees were long-lived. Many had been silent witnesses to the battle. The carnage.

“The dragons,” I said and pointed. “They came in over those trees with the rising sun at their backs. There, and there…the King’s Guard stood in ranks, willing to sacrifice their lives for the realm. The mage masters hid in the rocks. For hours, the battle raged until the magic prevailed. ”

I swallowed, unable to go on with the descriptions. Not when I stared at the stones, silent in the grass. So many had died. Dragons. The dragon lords.

The King’s Guard hid beneath mage magic, a shield that kept losses to a minimum.

Men still died from dragon fire. But they weren’t slaughtered like the enemy.

Slaughtered by mage magic few had ever seen before, magic that had ripped them apart.

Knocked the dragons from the sky with wings shredded.

Mage flames…burning dragons more than the dragon fire had ever burned the field. A massacre.

As a child, I’d found one of my father’s books, read the details secretly, and suffered for months with nightmares that I blamed on some monster story a friend had told me.

When I turned to look at Kion, the desolation glittering in his eyes made me wonder if I’d been gloating. Had I glossed over details the way some magic wielders glossed over tragedy? A thin, shining skin of optimism to cover the bitter reality?

Dark emotion hummed from him, and as Silk, I grasped the energy, followed it, searching for some hint of his thoughts. But they hid behind a slammed door. Beyond my reach.

Then his shoulders rolled as if he shrugged a memory aside and said, “They lied.”

The words chilled. With nothing more to say, I turned toward the distant horizon, studied the faded blue of the Pelagios Sea. Despite the sun’s warmth, I shuddered. “We should go. Not stay out in the open.”

“You’re being cooperative,” he said.

“Then you should not trust it. Nothing has changed. ”

He exhaled with the male arrogance I expected. “Nothing will change unless you change the way you see the world.”

“You came to my realm. I didn’t invade yours.”

“What you do is worse.”

I set out walking, ignoring the pain in my feet; if I limped, this man would say it was my fault, and I didn’t have the will to argue with him. He needed to remain the prisoner and not Kion Abaddon from the Faded Lands, a man too confusing to measure.

“How old are you, anyway?” he asked, striding beside me.

“Twenty-six. A spinster’s age in Thales.”

“You have no wish for a husband? Children?”

“No.” I blew out a thin breath. “Men are afraid I’ll creep into their minds and make them do strange things.”

He laughed. “How strange?”

“Make them beg for sexual favors from a donkey.”

“Your men are so weak-willed that they’d let you do that?”

“They can’t fight magic like mine,” I said.

He glanced at me with those marvelous eyes. “You aren’t someone who dreams of love?”

“Not when men fear me. Love is not my dream.”

“Then what do you wish for in your bed, when the sheets are cold and the nights are too long?”

I swiped at the hair skimming across my face and murmured, “Freedom.”

“An elusive word.”

“Freedom always is.” Plucking a blade of grass, I pulled it through my fingers. “Promise me one thing, Kion Abaddon— no lies. No games. Don’t use your magic on me and I won’t use mine on you.”