Daybreak (49 page)

His heart leapt up his throat as Ryane climbed the steps towards the carved wisps of flame. “Please, don’t —”

“I must,” she said firmly. She slid her sword into its sheath and her fingers coiled about the relic’s charred grip. “If the curse destroys me, you have to carry the relic away from here — as far as you can. You must be its guardian.”

Before Kael could stop her, Ryane tugged on the blade.

He heard the
clink
of the rounded hilt as it struck the stone top of the flames, but it didn’t come free. Ryane pulled again. She crouched and tugged hard, lending every bunched muscle in her arms to the effort. But the blade didn’t move. It was stuck inside the statue.

Kael’s legs carried him up the steps and he slid his hands beneath Ryane’s. “It’s a puzzle,” he said when she tried to stop him. “You can’t just pull it free. You have to work it out.”

“How do you know?”

“I … might’ve heard the shaman talking about it with his mate. It was dark out and I was bored,” he said quickly, when he saw her scolding look. “You can’t expect me to sit around all day
and
all night —”

“Search the city! Find the monsters!”

Ryane’s hair whipped across her neck as she turned. Her blade was out before she’d taken half a step towards the alley. “Work it out, then — but don’t pull it free,” she called as she sprinted away. “I’ll be the one to take the curse.”

Kael’s hands shook as he stared down at the flames. The coils nearly touched at their tops. From the side, it looked like a tangled mess. But if he stood on his toes and looked straight down, he could see that the gaps between their tops formed a maze.

Ryane cried out as she met a small company of soldiers in battle. They were men clad in armor that shone like gold — soldiers of the man who called himself
King
. They hefted swords that shone as brightly as their armor, and carried shields crusted in gold.

They were strong, but Ryane was quick: she cut inside their ranks and punished them with her speed. Kael’s hands paused as he watched her do battle. His eyes were entranced by the arcs of her blade, the dance of her feet. She was never silent — laughing when they missed her, grunting as she swung. Her voice rose and fell along the fury of her attack, like a song …

“Hurry!”

“I’m trying!” Kael said, forcing his eyes back to the relic. 

He dragged the grip quickly through the maze of flame-tops. More than once, he had to turn its edge in order to slide the scabbard between cracks. But it was coming free. There was only one turn left to get through.

“Have you got it?” 

Ryane was charging towards him. A pile of gold-tinged bodies lay in a scattered mess behind her. Delicate spatters of blood crisscrossed her features, and her hair whipped with her sprint. Her eyes — Fate, her eyes were fiercer than they’d ever been before. And in that moment, Kael realized their people needed Ryane’s strength far more than they needed him.

He shut his eyes against her scream and pulled the relic free.

He waited for the pain, for the fires the shaman had spoken of to burst from the relic and consume him, but they didn’t. No sooner had he allowed himself a breath did Ryane tear the sword from his hands.

There was a loud
thunk
as she gripped his face. “Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Fairly.” His eyes slid from hers to where the relic lay upon the ground. “I can’t believe you just tossed it like that. You’ll be lucky if its ghost doesn’t rise up and set fire to your arse —”

“That mouth!” Ryane growled. She kissed him swiftly, then pulled him onto his feet. No sooner had she slung the relic’s belt across her shoulders than another company of soldiers burst in from the blazing streets.

Their helmets swung from the pile of their slain companions to where Ryane and Kael stood beside the statue. Their leader raised his sword. “Monsters — over there!”

Ryane ripped Kael towards a narrow passageway, one nearly gutted by the flames. A yelp escaped his throat when they turned a corner and nearly ran flat into a man sprinting towards them. He ground his heels and his eyes widened in recognition.

“Ryane! They’ve swarmed the gates. We have to get to the northern w — gah!”

He lurched forward as if he’d been shoved. Three golden barbs ripped through his chest, their tips soaked in red. He dug his sword into the ground to keep his feet. The skin on his face went taut.

“Archers … go!” he spat through the dark wet that coated his lips. Then he swung around and broke into a stumbling run towards the men crouched at the end of the street. 

They drew back on their bows at the rise of their leader’s sword.

Ryane tore him away, but Kael still heard the sickening
thud
of their volley striking true.

They sprinted through a maze of burning houses towards the northern walls. The heat singed the flesh on Kael’s face; he shut his eyes against the stinging of the smoke and forced his legs to pound on through the ache. Still, he wasn’t strong enough.

He fell hard on his knees and Ryane jerked him back to his feet. “Just a little further, we’re almost to the walls —”

“Pick it up, you louts! The monsters can’t be far ahead.”

Ryane bared her teeth in the direction of the shouts and scooped Kael up around his waist. She carried him the last length of the street and stopped at the foot of the city’s wall. It stood at three times the height of a man. Its pale sides looked smooth from a distance, but there were plenty of cracks. Kael had climbed to its top many times before.

“Go, I’ll follow,” Ryane gasped.

Kael scrambled into the nearest foothold and pulled himself up — his limbs charged by fear as the soldiers’ shouting grew close. Ryane climbed behind him, urging him on. But as he neared the top, his arms began to hurt. The run had exhausted him. His arms shook, sweat slickened his grip. The ground spun beneath him and he feared he might fall.

“Keep going, we’re nearly there!”

“I can’t!”

“You
can
.” Ryane shoved him hard in the rump, hoisting him into the next foothold. “Go! Keep — ah!” 

The world stopped. The thud of an arrow piercing flesh was the only sound he heard. Kael felt the scream in his chest when he looked down and saw the barb hanging from Ryane’s leg.

“No, don’t kill them! The King’s offered a price for the women.” One of the soldiers knocked an archer forward with a thrust of his boot. “Now get up there and bring them down.”

“Riona … Riona …”

Kael tore his eyes away from the archer who climbed up after them and onto Ryane.

Pain filmed her eyes, but they burned through it furiously. “You’ve got to run,” she whispered. “Protect the relic.”

Time seemed to turn back on itself as she lifted the relic’s belt from her shoulder and hung it across his neck. Ryane’s lips peeled back from her teeth in a snarl when the archer grabbed her ankle, but she thrust forward.

She pushed as far as her arm could reach, more forcefully than Kael could bear … and he tipped over the edge.

He was still screaming when he struck the water below and its cold, dark flesh devoured him …

*******

Kael gasped when the vision left him. His arms ached badly. He was barely able to make his fingers work long enough to bolt the window shut before he melted onto the stone floor.

Tears rolled down his face unchecked. They burst from the depths and poured out in frozen streams — horrible, heavy things that struck the floor like lead when they dripped from his chin. They weighed him down, dragged his face to the cold stone beneath him. He sobbed until the mortar ran thick with his tears.

“My sister,” he gasped to a new flood of anguish. “No … my sister …”

Let me help you, my love
, the white dragon pleaded.

Kael’s chin ground against the floor as he shook his head. Kyleigh’s sorrow was leaving him slowly. If he could bare it a moment more, this horrible loss he felt would fade — just as the dragon’s anger had.

But he would never forget her story.

“… suppose I’ve got to trust you, haven’t I? Though I wish you’d just tell me what you’re up to.”

The silence and the darkness left him. Kael dragged in a shuddering breath when the storm winds blew across him. Its frozen moan startled the fog from his mind, and he slipped back into the present.

Kyleigh watched him curiously. Behind her, the clouds formed a looming shadow across the horizon. The storm’s blue-black light darkened her pale flesh, but somehow made the red of her lips more vibrant. Her eyes came to life in the gathering darkness: the hour when the world began to fade was the hour in which her fires burned brightest. They met the tempest’s fury with a danger all their own.

“Kael? Are you all right?”

The first drops of rain began to fall. They poured so thickly that he knew he must be soaked, but he couldn’t feel it. The cold and the damp couldn’t touch him: half of his mind still clung to the other world. He listened to the music of the rain as it struck Kyleigh’s armor — their hands twined together, his eyes wrapped in hers.

He took a half-step closer. All of the things he wanted to say, all of the things he’d felt and seen hung in a vapor before his eyes. If even a hint of the woman’s sorrow or the dragon’s anger flickered inside her gaze, all of these new, frightening things would come pouring out. 

They would wash away the wall between them — a wall he’d had no idea existed before now. He would drag her in against him until their wounds touched, until the unscathed portions faced the world while the raw, aching gashes pressed together. He knew their wounds would never heal entirely. 

But as long as they held each other close, their hearts would be whole.

He waited, breathless — searching for the sputter of flame that meant Kyleigh’s guard had fallen. Even if she couldn’t remember everything, perhaps she could see that he’d surrendered. Perhaps his vulnerability would draw the dragon out …

But it didn’t.

“What is it?” Kyleigh arched a brow. A drop of rain slipped from its curve, down her nose, and to her lips.

Kael brushed it away before he leaned in to kiss her gently. “I know your names.”

“What? How could you …?” 

She dropped his hands and backed away. He looked at her through the hair that the rain had plastered against his forehead, as if its strands might somehow lessen the look of horror upon her face. But they didn’t.

The way Kyleigh glared made him feel like the worst sort of villain. His spirit shrank back and his temper rose in defiance. “You know very well it was the only way.”

“You could have asked me! You could’ve at least warned me before you crawled inside my …” She gripped the side of her head. Her knuckles went white and she spun away from him.

Kael knew what was coming. At any moment, she would burst into her wings and tear off into the skies. She would spend every hour until dawn hiding from him — as she always did when she was furious. But Kael wasn’t going to let her run any longer.

Two steps into her sprint, and he’d already tackled her.

They landed heavily upon the grass. Kael caught most of the force of their fall on his elbow. Kyleigh arched away from him with a growl. She grabbed his wrists and pressed the spurs of her boots against his legs in warning, but he didn’t budge.

“I know you won’t hurt me.”

She struggled for a while longer and Kael held on tightly. When she finally went still, he eased his grip.

It was a mistake.

The pouring rain slickened Kyleigh’s armor. No sooner had he relaxed than she tore from his arms with a burst of strength. He lunged for her, and he didn’t see her fist. In fact, he didn’t realize that she’d swung for him until he’d already gotten his breath knocked out. 

He managed to catch her around the shoulders as she scrambled away. Kyleigh twisted again, and it was only by sheer luck that he caught her neck as she spun around. Soon they were stuck: crouched in the grass with the rain beating down upon them — his face squashed against the scales on her back, her head trapped very firmly beneath his arm.

And neither of them would budge an inch.

“Let me go!”

“No, you’re going to stay here and talk to me!”

“What are we going to talk about, Kael? The fact that you just spent Fate knows how many hours digging around inside my head without even
asking
first?”

“Well, had I asked, would you have let me?” 

“No!” Kyleigh roared. “No, I wouldn’t have blasted let you!”

“Then you left me no ch —! Stop it,” he warned, when he felt her body swelling to take its second shape. “Don’t — Kyleigh!”

He jerked his head back when spines grew out of her armor, stretching the blackened scales until the stark white appeared beneath them. He grabbed the horns that curved out of her scalp and held onto them tightly. 

His warrior’s strength swelled until he could feel it pressing against the edges of his skin. It filled the cords of his muscles until they became parchment-thin. Though he swore the blood was about to erupt from his veins, he managed to hold his ground. He forced his feet to stay glued to the earth and forced everything else to hold on to Kyleigh.

Her furious roar burst the insides of his ears; her wings beat him with gales made sharp by an icy lash of rain. She pressed her bared fangs against his forehead so that he could feel their dagger points — and the flames that churned behind them.

“I don’t care!” Kael shouted over her growling. “Burn me if you like, but I’m not letting you go. It’s too dangerous. Rua will kill you if he sees you like this. And I …” Kael grit his teeth against the memory, but he thought the black dragon’s words might be the only way to staunch her anger. “I couldn’t bear it if you died even a moment before me. Please … I couldn’t bear it.”

Her growling stopped immediately. Kael’s grip loosened as she shrank back into her human skin. He let her drag him down into the sopping grass, let her arms wrap about his shoulders and pressed his face against her chest. That’s what he told himself, at least.