Harbinger: Fate's Forsaken: Book One (39 page)

He wasn’t about to let that happen.

“Hold the wheel!” he said, and Morris wedged his arms obediently between
the knobs.

“Wait — where are you going? No, put that back on! You’ll drown!”

But Kael ignored him. He ripped off his lash and sprinted down the
stairs.

Kyleigh managed to break free of the tangle and was holding down one side
by herself, using her impossible strength to drag the sail back into position.
Kael grabbed the other side. He didn’t think about the fact that he was about
to do something a dozen men had just been struggling to do: he just knew it
needed to be done.

“Starboard!” he said, and Kyleigh nodded. They moved back and forth,
catching the wind and pulling
Anchorgloam
out of her fall. One by one, pirates broke free and lined up behind him.
Kael could feel a headache pulsing at the top of his skull, but he ignored the
pain and kept pulling.

They were nearly there, he could see the lip of the bowl. They were
almost over it. They just needed one final push. “Pull down, men, down!” he
said, and he heard the pirates grunt as they obeyed.

The sails tipped back and caught a jump of wind, just enough of a gust to
pop them over the wall and onto the solid ocean once again. The bow tipped
forward and pulled the hull over. It struck the water with a splash — a
splash that he hadn’t exactly been counting on.

He felt every drop of his momentary elation get sucked right back down to
his stomach as he watched the terrifying, blue-green beast rush towards him.
The wave hit him in the gut and knocked him off his feet. The sea rushed over
his mouth, nose and eyes as his body was thrown backwards. Then the water was
gone … and he was falling.

He plummeted over the side of the wall, watching as
Anchorgloam
’s rudder slipped over the top to safety. He shut his
eyes tight and let the roar of wind whipping past his ears deafen him. He knew
how far he fell by how much time he had to regret.

Why hadn’t he listened to Morris? Why hadn’t he held the rope a little tighter?
Why hadn’t he been expecting that blasted wave?

He wasn’t surprised when he finally struck the bottom of the bowl and
felt all the air get punched out of his lungs. The icy monster in the pit of
his stomach rose up as the waves dragged him under. It seized his heart,
gripped his limbs in madness. He fought against the ocean’s hold; he kicked and
squirmed.

Slowly, he lost track of where the surface was. His lungs screamed for
air, but the briny water rushed in and silenced them. He became part of the
ocean: a drifting, aimless being with a body and little else.

He couldn’t hear the tempest rage, couldn’t hear the bubbles that slipped
out from between his lips — though he imagined that when they reached the
surface and popped, the whole realm would be able to hear his screams.

But here, the world was quiet. So endlessly, blissfully quiet …

Kael knew he was dreaming again. He
knew this because people did not rise up out of the ocean and go flying through
the clouds. So if he was flying, if he’d somehow managed to escape the icy
clutches of the tempest, he knew it was because he was dreaming. Or perhaps he
was dead.

The clouds still belted out rain by
the river-full. He passed them, moving through a dark tunnel of gray and ice, but
he couldn’t feel a thing. The cold didn’t burn his nose and the wind didn’t
lash his cheeks.

Then he wasn’t
in the sky. He knew this because the sky was above him, and the hard earth was
under his back. The rain that struck his face sounded hollow, distant: more
like it was striking some roof high above him.

His lungs
tightened under a sudden pressure on his chest. Then he felt another pressure,
strange and foreign, upon his lips. It happened again, this time sharper and
more insistent. He thought he could almost hear the desperation behind the
pressure, the far-off cries of someone begging him to come back. He fought
against the numbness. He stretched out, reached for the cries —

Air rushed into
his lungs. It broke the seal and his chest convulsed as water spurted up and
out his mouth.

It all came
rushing back: the cold, the stinging rain, the rough earth beneath him, his
screaming headache. Someone was pounding him on the back, jarring his aching
head with every stroke. He recognized her voice as she cried:

“Breathe, Kael!
Breathe!”

And he did. He
sucked in a full breath of the biting cold air and swore that nothing had ever
tasted sweeter. It burned his lungs, but he didn’t care. He rolled over and
tried to pull himself up, but his arms collapsed beneath him. His chin hit the
ground and he could feel the pain in his head radiating down his spine. He
groaned as his body turned over onto his back, urged forward by a pair of
impossibly strong hands.

A streak of
lightening flicked across the sky, illuminating the worry on her face as she
leaned over him. “Kael? Are you all right? For mercy’s sake, talk to me!”

“I’m fine, Kyleigh. I’m fine,” he said, and the effort nearly cost him
his supper. “Ugh … my head’s about to explode.”

He closed his eyes against the bright flashes of lightening and felt her
hands on either side of his face. She lifted him gently, and he gasped as fire
glanced his forehead.

It was a burn the likes of which he’d never felt. Heat blossomed in his
cheeks, his stomach — it rushed down and warmed the frozen tips of his
toes. The pain in his head was driven back by it, burned away by the flames. He
opened his eyes.

Kyleigh was gone, but the warmth in his body lingered. He rolled over on
his side and put his arm over his head, trying to block the rain. Soon, the
heat was back — and this time it was familiar. Orange light danced behind
his eyelids and the smell of burning wood filled the air. Somehow, Kyleigh had
managed to get a fire started.

He felt her lay down beside him, felt her arm drape across his chest. He
was too exhausted to try and push her away, too cold to mind how her closeness
burned him. Sleep was coming fast. “How did you do it?” he muttered. “How did
you save me?” He didn’t see how it was possible. For all he knew, they were
both dead.

Her arm tightened around his chest and she whispered: “A knight never
reveals her secrets.”

Her breath tickled the back of his neck — sending another wave of
heat that picked him up and carried him gently into the realm of dreams.

*******

When morning
came, Kael had to peel his eyes open. Salt, capped off with a light dusting of
gritty sand, crusted over every inch of him. His throat was so dry that he
could hardly swallow. He opened his eyes and had to blink several times before
the world came back into focus.

A small fire was
the first thing he saw. Three rabbits cooked over it, filling the air with the
smell of roasting meat. Though the sky was gray, no rain fell. The trees around
him were pines — so spiky and tall that for one mad second, he thought he
was in the Unforgivable Mountains.

But then he
remembered where he was, and all the events of the night came groggily back to
him. His face burned to think of how he nearly drowned. Morris would never let
him hear the end of it — provided he ever saw Morris again.

A bent strip of
bark lay on the ground in front of him. He stretched for it, grimacing as his
muscles stung and wincing when his grimace pulled at the tender skin above his
left brow. A shallow pool of water glistened in the crook of the bark, and he
wasted no time gulping down a mouthful. It was cool and sweet.

He studied his
reflection in the water’s surface. Even the leviathan would lose its appetite
if it saw how bruised his face was. There was a narrow gash that ran through his
left eyebrow, and it twinged every time he blinked.

He was trying to
decide if he had enough energy to heal it when he saw something move in the
reflection behind him. He’d nearly forgotten about Kyleigh. “Are you as covered
in salt —?”

Everything: his breath,
his question, his heart, caught in his throat. For the enormous beast he was
tucked in next to was not Kyleigh at all.

Fear gave him
wings. He leapt up and tried to dart away, but his mind moved faster than his
legs. He tripped over a log and fell hard on his elbow, cursing as he rolled
over and got back on his feet. He was going to sprint into the woods, put as
much distance between himself and the monster as possible, when a noise made
him stop.

It was low and
light. A growl, but not ferocious. And for some reason, it embarrassed him.

He turned slowly
to face the beast that lay beside the fire. Its head was a little larger than a
horse’s, topped with a pair of curved horns. Its body was easily the size of
two horses. Long, crooked claws stretched out from each of its four legs. The
front two were crossed and digging lazily into the dirt. A spiked tail coiled
around its body, and the barbs that stuck out from it looked more than a match
for any suit of armor. Enormous wings furled from its back. One was slightly
bent over the spot where Kael had been sleeping.

All fear left
him, replaced swiftly by a feeling he could only describe as shock: it was a
dragon — a
real
dragon.

From the tip of
its long snout to the last barb on its tail, the dragon was covered in
snow-white scales. The only part that wasn’t white was its eyes: they were
green …

No, it couldn’t
be. But then the dragon turned its enormous head to look at a dagger sticking
out of the ground, inches from its front claw. Kael checked his belt to be
sure, but there was no denying the knife in the ground was his.

“Kyleigh?”

The dragon
—
she
, Kyleigh — inclined
her horned head, and her snout bent in what he could only describe as a smirk.

“But … how?” He
closed the space between them quickly. He couldn’t help it: he wanted a closer
look. “Did the witch curse you, too?” he guessed, but she shook her head.

He was about to
ask another question when she touched her snout to his hand. A picture flashed
before his eyes, so sharp and fast that he jerked away.

“What in
Kingdom’s name was that?” he gasped.

She looked
highly annoyed with him.
Give it a
moment, and you’ll see what it is
, her face clearly said.

In the end,
curiosity won out over his worry. He put his hands on either side of her scaly
face and braced himself for what he was about to see.

An image rose
out of the darkness. He recognized the rocky canyon as Bartholomew’s Pass. A
wolf monster leapt in front of him — its black eyes boring into his. A
flash of white, hot blood spurted up into his face, and the monster lay dead.
Then the scene changed: he saw himself leaning over a half-buried wolf, helping
to lay the stones.

He was so
excited that he took his hands away, breaking their connection. “You’re like
them. You’re a shapechanger, aren’t you?”

She inclined her
head, her eyes shining warmly. She was pleased that he’d guessed it so quickly.

“Well, I’m not a
total idiot.” But he was too thrilled to be angry with her.

So
this
was Kyleigh’s great secret —
the source of her power. And it all made sense: her ability to travel so
quickly, her impossible strength … and her age. Roland told him once that
shapechangers lived two lifetimes: their human years, and those of the animal
whose shape they took. So if Kyleigh’s life was entwined with her dragon life,
she could live for thousands of years …

Mercy’s sake,
she must be ancient.

“I’ve never
heard of a shapechanger who could take a dragon’s form. Are there others like
you?”

She shrugged.
Then she saw the grin on his face and cocked her head at him.

“Oh, nothing,”
he said, still smiling. “But I think I might have figured out why we never ran
into any bandits in the Valley. You didn’t, um, eat them, did you?”

She shook her
head. The deep tones of her growl rumbled in his chest and probably would have
been terrifying, if he didn’t know it for what it was: she was laughing.

Then he thought
of something else. It seemed like ages ago that Roland had burst into the
hospital, worried over the fact that the monster of Tinnark hadn’t taken his
sacrifice. And now Kael realized why. “So it was you all along —
you
were the beast that tormented us!”
he said accusingly.

She showed her
pointed teeth and her rumbling laughter sounded deep inside her chest.

“I used to sleep
with the covers over my head because of you. Amos said that if I didn’t behave,
you’d carry me off in the middle of the night — it isn’t funny!” he
snapped, as her shoulders shook with the force of her laughter. “I thought you
were a bloodthirsty monster from the summit. You might have told us you were just
some great silly girl.”

She wasn’t
sorry, not in the least bit. He imagined she must have giggled every time
Roland left an offering for her — and eaten it just to humor him.

“Lysander told
me you once fought Setheran the Wright. Is that true?”

This staunched
her laughter. She nodded once, and it was all he could do to keep from
squealing like Aerilyn.

“Will you show
me your memories of him? That’s what I’m looking at, isn’t it?”

She nodded, her
face crossed between surprise and annoyance, then bent her head down so he
could reach.

This time when the picture flashed, they were back aboard
Anchorgloam
. The waves glistened warmly
in the fading light, he could hear cry of gulls in the distance. A man bent
over the rails directly in front of him. His thin face was shadowed by his hair
— hair that burned as red as the setting sun.