Verena lifted her head and scowled at me. “Your friend is becoming a nuisance. I believe he’ll be ready to leave tomorrow.”
“I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear that,” I said.
“You’ll owe me for this,” she warned.
I stopped on the porch. “What do you want?”
“Nothing yet.” She returned her attention to her garden. “I’m waiting for you to get stronger first.”
“And when I get stronger?” I asked.
Verena didn’t look up. “You’ll see.”
I hated owing her a favor, but it was even worse not knowing what she wanted. “It better not involve human sacrifices or something.”
She snorted. “Hardly.”
Well, at least I could mark that off my list of possibilities. I grabbed hold of the suitcase handle and wheeled it inside the house, finding Conrad in his bed. Verena had healed the worst of the damage, but with how much the process debilitated her she’d refused to do more beyond that. He’d been relegated to resting as much as possible while it healed further on its own. Conrad could move around the house now for short periods, but it would wear him out quickly. I supposed it was similar to how he might have been if he’d gotten surgery instead.
“Is that for me?” he asked, nodding at the suitcase.
“Yep.” I wheeled it next to the bed and opened it for him to see inside. “Pants, shirts, shorts, and shoes.”
He stared down at the selection. “Not bad. I just wish you’d bring me my other stuff. Can’t you give Justin some kind of excuse for why you have to take them?”
I stiffened. It was time to tell him, but I still didn’t know how to break the news. Talking to Aidan about it had been easier. During the week while he’d recovered from his injuries, he’d asked me for more details. I told him the whole story and all about my friends from the library. With them gone, it didn’t matter anymore if he knew about them. It had been comforting despite the fact they had died because of another dragon.
Since he’d gone back to the fortress, he’d become distant and acted as if that week had never happened. I didn’t mind entirely. We could never be anything more than friends, and even that was pushing it. I needed to focus on my training and not get entangled in something that couldn’t end well.
“There’s something I need to tell you, Conrad,” I said, focusing on shutting the suitcase. My chest tightened as I prepared to give him the news.
“What is it?” he asked.
“The library is gone.” There was no easier way to put it and even that much brought tears to my eyes.
He sat straight up. “You’re joking.”
“No.” I shook my head, giving him a mournful look. “The day after you were shot I went by there and found it burned to the ground. No one was there and I couldn’t find them at the other places we’d talked about moving to.”
He stared at me for a moment. “You think everyone is dead?”
“I don’t know where else they could be,” I said, choking on the words.
“Fuck. I don’t even know how to take this. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” He gave me an accusing look.
“I couldn’t. You were shot and it didn’t seem right to dump bad news on you.”
He buried his face in his hands. “Dammit, Bailey. Those were good people.”
“I know.” I got up on the bed next to him.
He sucked in a ragged breath. “You gotta kill the dragons who did it.”
“I will,” I promised.
We sat there for a long time in silence, remembering them and mourning our loss.
Chapter 38
Aidan
“Don’t force it. Relax your body and let your inner dragon help you,” Aidan instructed Ultan.
The ten-year-old boy’s face scrunched up. “But it hurts.”
“It always hurts in the beginning, but it will get easier with time.”
Aidan didn’t normally help children learning to shift, but Ultan was his cousin on his father’s side. The child should have been able to do it by now. If the delay continued, he’d become an embarrassment to the pendragon’s family. Aidan understood how difficult that could be and didn’t want that for him.
Ultan kneeled on the ground and squeezed his eyes shut. Once again, he was trying too hard. The child was going to make himself sick again if he kept it up. He’d already lost his afternoon meal in the grass nearby.
“Stop,” Aidan said and waited for the boy to open his eyes. “Now come here.”
Ultan took a few steps until he was standing right in front of Aidan. “Are you going to punish me, too?”
Aidan frowned. “No. Why would you ask that?”
“My father punishes me every time I can’t do it,” the boy said in a low voice.
Aidan’s dragon stirred. He didn’t like it when younglings were hurt because of something they couldn’t help. You couldn’t beat a child into shifting. It didn’t work that way, but he doubted Ultan’s father considered that.
“Sit with me,” Aidan said. He lowered to the ground with the boy so that they sat crossed legged, facing each other. “Now take my hands.”
Ultan reached out his tiny hands. Shape-shifters didn’t grow as fast as human children and his young cousin appeared to be slower than most—much like Aidan had been. If Bailey saw him, she might think he wasn’t more than six or seven years old.
“Now I want you to think of your dragon,” Aidan said, watching as Ultan closed his eyes. “Focus only on him, but don’t try to shift. Until you accept your dragon and bond with him, you will not succeed at changing your form.”
“Okay,” the boy said.
“Speak to your dragon in your head. Get to know him,” Aidan suggested.
Ultan licked his lips. They couldn’t stay out for much longer in this heat before the child would need a break. It was almost too hot for Aidan in his human form. He’d even told Bailey to come to her training sessions in the late evening when it was cooler. The afternoon high temperatures were slowing her down, which did neither of them any good.
Aidan squeezed the boy’s hands. “Do you feel your dragon?”
“Kind of,” Ultan answered.
That wasn’t a good answer. Most shifters could feel their dragon spirit inside them from the beginning of their life. Ultan had been avoiding his. Aidan suspected it was because the boy had seen his mother killed by a pure dragon when he was five. She’d taken him and a several other children outside the fortress to play. No one had expected the attack. While another adult shifter herded the young ones inside, she’d stayed and fought, buying them time to get away.
“Your mother was one of the bravest dragons I ever met. Don’t you want to be like her?” Aidan asked.
Ultan’s chin trembled. “Yes.”
“She accepted the dragon inside of her. Now you must do the same,” he said in a calm voice. “Take a deep breath…then let it out, along with all your fears.”
The boy did as Aidan instructed and a moment later a smile formed on his face. “I feel him.”
“Good. Very good. Now talk to him.”
For long minutes, Aidan waited while Ultan got to know his dragon. He could sense the change in the child. The more he accepted that part of him the more the beast surfaced at the edge of his skin. Tiny flames began to lick across Ultan’s arms. Aidan felt a thrum of excitement for the child—this was going to work.
“That’s it, you’re doing well,” he said, squeezing the boy’s hands.
Ultan gasped. “The dragon wants to shift.”
“Are you going to let him?”
“You mean I can choose?” the boy asked, surprised.
“Yes.”
Ultan took a deep breath and let it out. More flames licked up his skin until Aidan was forced to let go and move away. The child would need room to complete the transition. He stood up and watched as the fire grew large enough to engulf the boy’s body.
Ultan screamed and whimpered for many long minutes before the sound transitioned into a weak roar. Aidan winced at the discomfort the child must have been feeling. It was easier when the change happened quickly.
Nearly twenty minutes passed before the flames died back down, revealing a tiny red dragon whose head didn’t quite reach Aidan’s waist. It stretched its fledgling wings, unsure what to do with them. They would need years to fully form for flight and many shifts during that time to build their strength. At Ultan’s age, they mostly got in the way.
“You have done well. Congratulations,” Aidan said, leaning down to rub his nose against the little dragon’s snout. It was a form of affection for children.
“Is this my son?” Ultan’s father came running across the field.
“It is,” Aidan answered.
“By Zorya’s grace, you did it!” The large man stopped before the little dragon, checking him over. One would have thought he was seeing his son for the first time.
Aidan cleared his throat. “No, your son did it.”
“I was beginning to lose hope,” he said, shaking his head. “You can leave the rest to me. I’ll help him shift back. There was an accident in the keep and they told me to come get you.”
“An accident?” Aidan asked, stiffening.
“Your cousin Donar has been badly injured. He fell from the castle parapets.”
Aidan glanced at the fortress and back at Ultan. He hated to leave the boy without helping him to return to his human form—which could be just as difficult—but he had to check on Donar. His cousin wasn’t the clumsy type to fall from the parapets. He’d worked up there several times before without incident.
“Thank you for telling me,” Aidan said.
He made a dash for the fortress, running through the gates toward a gathering crowd. Pushing his way through, he found Donar lying on the ground. Blood seeped from his head and his leg bent at an odd angle. Olin hovered over his son, gently trying to wake him
“We must get him to the healer,” Aidan said.
Donar’s father lifted his head up. “He hardly breathes.”
It took a lot to damage a shape-shifter’s skull, but a fall from the parapets could do it. Aidan leaned down and helped Olin pick up his son. They worked together to move him out of the keep and toward the healing stones beyond the walls.
Donar didn’t stir even when they accidentally jostled him. Aidan feared the worst. If his cousin was too close to death, the healer wouldn’t be able to help. His spirit had to still be close enough to the surface for the stones’ magic to help. There was no way to know for sure until they got there.
They made it through the gates and followed the fortress wall around to the south side until the stones came up ahead. Aidan wished they could move faster, but didn’t want to risk Donar any further. He was almost certain his cousin’s neck had been damaged, though not enough to kill him—yet. They set his body down in the middle of the stones.
“Go,” the healer ordered. “I will call you back when I am done.”
And so the wait began. Donar’s mother arrived an hour later. She was a warrior and had been out on patrol when she received the news. Mates rarely showed affection in public, but she took Olin’s hand and stood at his side as two more hours passed. He’d never seen a healing take this long.
Kayla appeared nearby and beckoned to Aidan. She gave a worried glance at the stones as he approached. It turned apologetic when he reached her.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I’m sorry. I just found out or I would have told you sooner.” She bowed her head. “I watched Ruari and didn’t notice anything, but a friend of mine followed Ember.”
Aidan tensed. “What did Ember do?”
“Some of the servants were asked to bring drinks up to the masons working atop the castle. Donar was working in a different section than the others and he was given his drink separately. Ember was close by when the drinks were prepared and my friend thinks he saw her drop something into his mug.”
Aidan’s dragon raged inside him. “Is he sure?”
“It happened so fast he doubted what he saw until Donar fell from the parapets,” Kayla said. She looked like she was ready to burst into tears.
“This is not your fault,” he said, resisting the urge to take her arm. “I thank you for telling me and for thinking to have Ember followed. That was very smart of you.”
Aidan wanted to grab something and break it, but he couldn’t lose control now. He needed to see what became of Donar first. He prayed to Zorya that his cousin did not die.
“Is there any chance the mug can be retrieved?” he asked.
She shook her head. “They’ve all been taken for washing already.”
Which left no proof of what had happened. It was against their laws to accuse someone of murder—or attempted murder—without evidence. And if Donar was healed by the stones then they would say it couldn’t have been poison that harmed him. Aidan suspected Ember would have put just enough in his drink to dull his senses and make him clumsy.
Why Ruari had gone after Donar, he didn’t know. His cousin was technically eligible to compete for pendragon, but he would be very low on the list. Ruari must have done it in order to strike a blow at Aidan for surviving the recent battle. He’d probably hoped it would take Zoran out as well, but Ruari had lost on both accounts. Now his brother was just being petty.
Aidan’s inner dragon roared and demanded he attack his brother now, but he couldn’t. He’d have to bide his time and wait for the perfect chance to get his revenge on Ruari. Acting in haste wouldn’t be the way to do it, even if the beast inside him thought otherwise.
“You should get back to the castle,” he told Kayla. “I should not need to tell you to be careful if you choose to continue watching my brother.”
She nodded. “I will.”
A shout of joy came from behind him. He turned and found Donar’s parents rushing up to the healing stones with relieved expressions on their faces. The tightness in his chest eased.
“It appears that Donar shall live,” he said.
Kayla smiled. “I’m glad to hear it. He’s nice.”
Aidan left her and went to the stones, going between them. Donar’s eyes were open, but glazed over. It looked like he was still in some pain. The healer was hunched over, tired from working his magic for such a long period.
“Your son’s injuries were severe and he was close to death,” he informed Donar’s parents. “I’ve repaired the worst of the damage to his spine and skull, but he will need to return tomorrow after he’s rested.”