Daybreak (13 page)

“I’m not sure I would,” he said at her grin.

But in the end, it did him no good to argue.

They slipped into the Bay’s grand dining room unnoticed. The afternoon sky had again become clouded by a storm: it dulled the shine of the great window that overlooked the water below, and sent the tiny fishing boats scrambling to their docks.

Fortunately, there was a lunch waiting on the dining room table.

Un
fortunately, the table was already occupied.

“Hello, hello! Come in and join our feast,” Uncle Martin called from the table’s head. There was a grin on his face and what looked suspiciously like a large number of cookie crumbs scattered throughout his mustache. In his arms he held a tiny, wailing bundle.

Kyleigh moved so quickly that Kael hardly saw it: one moment she was standing beside him and the next, she’d plucked baby Dante from Uncle Martin’s arms.

“Hello, you,” she whispered, grinning as she held him aloft. “I hope you haven’t been too fussy for your poor old Uncle.”

“He starts wailing the moment he wakes and doesn’t pause for so much as a breath. But the moment a woman gets a hold of him,” he clamped his hand in a fist, “silence. He’s all giggles and grins. Yes, I know what you’re up to,” he said severely, when Dante’s wide blue eyes appeared from over Kyleigh’s shoulder. “Enjoy it while you can, you little villain — sobbing won’t get you anywhere with the ladies in few short years. Then you’ll be just as lost as the rest of us.”

While Kyleigh snuggled Dante, Uncle Martin went back to shoveling in cookies at his usual alarming rate. Kael took the opportunity to fill his pockets with bits of cheese and dried meats. He stuffed two fistfuls of provisions down and grabbed some bread to eat on the way.

He’d gone to tell Kyleigh that he was packed when she suddenly gasped. “What have you got there?” She unclenched Dante’s tiny fist and drew a small gold earring from between his fingers,
tsk
ing with mock severity. “I think you’ve got some explaining to do, little one. Whose is this?”

Uncle Martin looked up from his cookie long enough to frown. “It must be Clairy’s. She came along with Jonathan a little while back. Then after he went off with Lysander, she stayed here. It’s turned out to be a good thing, too. I don’t know what little Dante and I would do without her.”

“Where’s Aerilyn?” Kael wondered.

It was the wrong thing to say.

Uncle Martin’s cookie fell onto the table. As it rolled between the plates and onto the floor, Kael saw it wasn’t just any cookie: it was a ginger cookie with extra sugar on top — Uncle Martin’s favorite.

And Kael knew that nothing short of a disaster could’ve possibly made him lose his grip.
 

“Kingdom if I know!” Uncle Martin cried. “All my children have left me — scattering into the wind, fleeing in every direction. My son is arguing with merchants at the chancellor’s castle, my nephew took off to rescue one of his blasted ships. I can’t even tell you how they’re all getting on because that silly little bird-boy —”

“Eveningwing.”

“— hasn’t been by in ages. Elena might still be around here somewhere, but even if she is, I’ll never be able to find her!” Uncle Martin’s head sagged with a heavy moan. “Oh, but it’s gotten worse. It’s gotten so much
worse
.”

“How?” Kael said carefully.

Uncle Martin just moaned and shook his head for a moment. When he finally spoke, he sounded close to tears: “Even with the others gone, I thought I would always have Aerilyn.
She’ll never leave me
, I said to myself. Then not two mornings after everybody else scattered, I woke to discover that my favorite niece-in-law had slipped away in the dead of night — heading for the Grandforest, no less! It’s enough to make a poor old man’s heart seize up, I tell you, having to rise each day and wander an empty house!”

Kyleigh glanced down at Dante — whose eyes were falling heavy with sleep. “That doesn’t sound at all like Aerilyn. Did she happen to say why?”

“Oh, some rubbish about righting wrongs and saving the seas,” he muttered as he ground another ginger cookie absently into the tablecloth. “She wrote it all out, but I don’t remember the details. That girl always speaks in riddles — it’s her one and only flaw.”

Worry bent Kyleigh’s lips into a frown, and Kael began to feel it. “Can we have a look at the letter?”

“I burned it.”

“Oh, for mercy’s sake.”

“I’m a very passionate man,” Uncle Martin said defensively. “Once I’d read that letter, I knew I couldn’t stand to read it again. So I tossed it —”

“
Mr. Martin
!”

They all jumped at the indignant cry. A plump woman with rosy cheeks burst in from the kitchens. She’d replaced her usual apron with a light coat, and wore a broad hat over her tight knot of hair. There was a small basket hanging from her hand — and she brandished it at Uncle Martin like a sword.

“Would you kindly stop grinding your lunch into my good cloths? They’re stained enough as it is …” Her words trailed away as her eyes narrowed upon the crumbs. “Is that a cookie?”

Uncle Martin’s shoulders straightened. “So what if it is, Bimply?”

“You know you aren’t supposed to have sweets, Mr. Martin. They’re not good for your — no, never mind it. Not today.” Mrs. Bimply straightened her hat and marched abruptly for the door.

Uncle Martin nearly toppled his chair in his rush to stand. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going out!”

“
Out
?” he said, as if he’d never heard that word spoken before.

Mrs. Bimply spun in the doorway. “Yes, I’m going out. Harold’s promised to take me sailing. We’re going to catch some fish and have a lovely picnic on his boat.”

“Harold? Harold the
blacksmith
?” Uncle Martin sputtered. “But — but what about the cooking?”

“There’s a giantess in my kitchens, Mr. Martin. A
giantess
. I think she’s got things well in hand. I’ll be back late. Good day to you all,” she added, curtsying as she swept out the door.

Uncle Martin stared after her with the look of a man who’d just taken a boot to the breeches. “It’s all falling apart, I tell you. My whole life is crumbling before my very eyes,” he moaned as he slumped down into his chair.

Kyleigh patted him on the shoulder. “Cheer up, Martin. It’ll all come back around. And in the meantime, you’ll have this little pickpocket to keep you company.”

Amazingly, Dante had managed to fall asleep through the racket. Kyleigh place him gently into Uncle Martin’s arms — and set Clairy’s earring on the table beside him.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Uncle Martin whispered, grinning down. “All of these things just follow a pattern, don’t they?”

Kyleigh slipped back, grabbing Kael around the wrist as she went. He followed her out the door, glancing behind him one last time … and the realization finally struck.

They might not ever come back to Gravy Bay. As long as the King could find Kyleigh, they wouldn’t be able to come back. They couldn’t risk the lives of their friends. The same emptiness he’d felt when they’d set out for the Mountains pressed down upon him again.

Only this time, it felt more … permanent.

As they made their way down the hall, Kyleigh’s hand slipped from his wrist to wind her fingers in his. “After all the goodbyes I’ve said, you’d think I would’ve gotten used to it,” she whispered, her eyes hard. “But it always hurts just the same.”

*******

They wound their way through the mansion’s passageways and up several flights of stairs — each narrower and more impossibly twisted than the last. When they reached a room so bare and filled with dust that Kael’s eyes began to water at the sight of it, he thought for certain they’d reached the end.

“What’s up here?”

Kyleigh glanced at him from over her shoulder. “It looks like quite a bit of dust and nothing to me.”

The ceiling was so low that it scraped the top of Kyleigh’s head. Kael had to hunch to follow her. “Well, then why are we here?”

“Patience,” she growled.

“What —?”

Kael’s words were cut short as Kyleigh rammed the side of her fist into the planks above them. A hatch sprung open where she struck — and sent a shower of dust down the back of his neck. 

He tried to shake it off before it could trickle down his shirt, but wound up smacking his head against the low ceiling, instead. “Well, you could’ve at least warned me!” he cried, groaning as he felt a line of grit slide down his shirt. “It would have taken you no time — it isn’t funny!”

“Yes it is! It’s
always
funny.”
 

He felt a reluctant grin tugging at the corners of his lips at the sound of her laughter. So he shoved her out of the way and climbed from the hatch — prepared to march purposefully down whatever twisting hallway awaited them next.

Instead, his toes curled inside his boots.

He stood at the mansion’s top: a flat section of the roof where the breath of the wind felt more powerful than ever. The Bay stretched out beneath him — a bowl of ocean turned dull by the thick clouds above it. The only things taller than he stood now were the white cliffs that ringed the village.

“What do you think?” Kyleigh called from behind him. She’d pulled herself over the ledge and was dusting the grime from her armor when she saw the look on his face. She laughed again. “It’s not too late, whisperer — you can always turn back.”

Kael quickly hid his shock with a scowl. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“All right, then.” 

Kyleigh stretched her arms over her head, bending herself in a curve that made him lose track of his feet … 

“Kael?”

“What?”

“I said you’re going to want to step back.”

He knew there was no point in trying to hide it: a blind man could’ve seen the burn on his face. “Well, you shouldn’t do such distracting things if you don’t want people to gape.”

“I don’t mind your gaping. I like the way you look at me,” she added, with a smile that set his skin ablaze.

He watched in amazement as Kyleigh transformed. Her limbs grew long and her neck bent into a graceful arc. The black of her armor stretched into the lines between her scales to reveal the pure white beneath it. Wings unfurled from her shoulders. Even paced back, he had to duck to avoid getting swept off the roof as she flexed them.

A dragon now crouched in the spot where Kyleigh had been standing only moments before. Her scales were snow-white, her eyes a fiery green. The dry, rasping sound of her dagger claws scraping against the shingles was the only sound for miles.

Well, besides the worried thuds of Kael’s heart. 

“All right,” he said when she tilted her wing back. He followed the line of her eyes and saw she meant for him to climb onto her shoulders. The warmth beneath her scales made the pads of his fingers tingle as he braced himself against her side. He raised one leg hesitantly. “Should I …? Or is it like this? I don’t want to — oof!”

He managed to grab onto one of her spines as she nudged him up — the only thing that kept him from falling off her back. No sooner had he gotten settled than faint pictures began sliding behind his eyes. He realized Kyleigh was trying to talk to him, to show him something.

As he focused, he saw other hands grasping onto one of her spines. There were other legs sliding into place — wedged securely against a line of her ribs. Kael followed their instruction carefully. “This is what you did with Setheran, isn’t it? When you flew him into the mount —? Yes, I know,” he said, when she showed him what would happen if he didn’t mind the spine near his rump. “I know things could get crushed. You don’t have to show it so … clearly.”

Her rumbling laughter brought such a wave of heat under her scales that Kael had to rise up to avoid getting singed.

Once he’d insisted for the third time that he was ready, she raised her wings. Kael clamped his legs down upon her ribs as she leaned over the edge and he saw the fantastic drop awaiting them. He held on tighter to her spines, so tight that his hands began to sweat. When he loosened his grip, his stomach lurched and screamed that he wasn’t holding on tightly enough — which made his hands sweat all the more.

Her low growl came out as a question.

“Just get it over with,” he groaned.

And with another rumbling, singeing laugh, Kyleigh fell headfirst into oblivion.

The roar of the air filled his ears as they dropped from the roof. He had to squint his eyes as the wind beat across them. They were halfway down before he realized that his stomach hadn’t followed: he was certain it was still lying on the roof somewhere, leaving him with this strange, panicked emptiness that kept trying to force its way out his throat.

Kyleigh bolted down; the glittering waters rose to meet her. And just when Kael thought they might crash into the waves, her great wings opened into a soar.

He held on tightly as she carried them into the clouds. They left Gravy Bay far beneath them and burst into a world that was rife with white and silence. Here, the land swelled in drifts that sat thickly side-by-side. It reminded him of the snowy banks that crowned the mountains …

“Where are we going?” he said, forcing those memories aside.

His heart throbbed again when her vision struck him: miles of land held pinned by monstrous walls, trapped beneath the gaze of dark, leering towers. He saw the gold-tinged horde gathered across the ramparts, heard the thunder of its undefeated steps.

“Midlan?” he gasped, pulling away. “You can’t be serious — the King will see you!”

Isn’t that the point
?

He jumped. The way her voice filled his head made it sound as if she spoke directly into his ear. “You ought to warn me before you do that.”

How am I supposed to warn you that I’m about to speak, exactly
?

He didn’t know. As long as they touched, the healer in him allowed him to see whatever she chose to show him: thoughts, memories, even words. Though Kyleigh’s thoughts always came to him clearly, he often had a difficult time sharing things with her.
 

Even now, his mind moved in a thousand directions. There was the anger over what’d happened to Copperdock, the frustration of not knowing what would happen next — all covered over by great, billowing clouds of worry that muddled all of his thoughts.