Harbinger: Fate's Forsaken: Book One (59 page)

“Where are you
going?”

“To work,” Kael
said bluntly. “If we’re going to take on Gilderick, we’re going to need a
plan.”

Uncle Martin
tipped his glass. “Absolutely. Our fate is in your hands, Sir Wright!”

Kael was well
aware of that. And yet all he could think about as he marched purposefully down
the hall, was that Lord Gilderick had better be prepared to do battle. He’d
better shore up his walls and sharpen his swords — because he would get
no mercy, come spring.

There was simply
no room left in Kael’s heart for it.

*******

Shamus thought
the repairs were coming along nicely. Already, the outer wall of Wendelgrimm
was rebuilt and the great hall restored. There was still a good deal of work to
be done before it could be deemed livable, but he thought he could actually see
daylight.

About a month
ago, ships began pouring into Copperdock for repairs — sailing in from
every end of the High Seas. They hobbled up to the docks, carrying in all
manner of goods, and of course — all manner of rumors. Shamus had heard
about a dozen different versions of how it was the Duke came to lose his
throne, and none of them came close to the truth. But he supposed it was
probably for the best.

Since the
treasures of Wendelgrimm left them with a fair amount of gold, Shamus had begun
trading repairs for building materials, instead. There was one fellow from the
desert who thought he might be able to procure new glass for the windows, but
Shamus was far from convinced.

“I know they got
molds for the smaller windows, but what I want to know is: have they got a mold
for
that
?”

He pointed to
the highest tower of the castle, the one that teetered so badly he’d had the
men build scaffolding around it just to keep it from tipping over. Below the
roof was a large window with eight sides. The little glass left in it hung on
in jagged pieces.

The captain
narrowed his eyes at it. “Well, it’ll certainly have to be replaced.”

“I know that,
Captain. Have you got the glass to fix it?”

“I meant the
tower.” When Shamus didn’t laugh, he cleared his throat. “It’s difficult to get
special items like this without paying the Baron’s craftsmen an exorbitant fee
to make them. But I think I can find you something for, say, twenty-five
percent off my repairs?”

“Ten,” Shamus
countered. “And another five once you’ve got it.”

“Deal.”

With the captain
taken care of, he turned his attention to the men working on the front gates.
They’d managed to trade for a good bit of hard oak from the Grandforest. With
any luck, they’d have the new doors up by week’s end.

“Seal her tight,
lads. We don’t want the rain to abuse her too badly,” he said, and the men
raised their hammers to show that they’d heard.

He was helping
unload a fresh shipment of stone when the sound of hurried footsteps made him
turn. A young lad sprinted towards the castle, kicking dirt up behind him. When
he got within shouting distance, he gasped: “It’s — the Dragongirl!”

Shamus couldn’t
stop himself from grinning. He made sure the lad got a cup of cool water before
he jogged down the path. It only took a handful of days to find his legs, but
he still hadn’t quite gotten used to the feeling of having them beneath him. He
didn’t know if he would ever get used to it, but he knew one thing for certain:
he’d never take the ache of a hard day’s work for granted again.

He met Kyleigh
about halfway down. She had that white sword at her hip and she looked well
enough. He was surprised to see Jake following behind her.

“I thought you
might be making your way back to us,” Shamus said as he took her hand. “And to
what do we owe this great honor?”

She smiled, and
he saw it: the heaviness in those strange eyes of hers, the almost certain
sadness hidden behind her grin. It was a haunting look he knew all too well.

“I thought we
might stay with you for the winter. Though it’s really too hot to call it
winter, isn’t it?” She propped her hands on her hips, squinting up at the sun.
“The truth is that I’ve got some mischief to prepare for — and Jake
thought he might be useful.”

Shamus clapped
him on the shoulder, and thought he might have bruised his palms on Jake’s
bones. “Sure you can. We’ve got a lot of work going on at the top of the hill.
The lads might need a little magic to make the building easier.”

“All right, I
can do that,” Jake said. And he walked on ahead of them.

Shamus followed
next to Kyleigh at a much slower pace. She still moved gracefully, yet she
dragged her heels — as if all the sunshine had been soaked right out of
her sky. He knew that walk.

When Jake was
out of earshot, he bent his head and whispered: “He’s a nice lad, don’t get me
wrong. But he’s not the one I thought you’d be bringing back with you.”

She sighed heavily.
“How long have you known?”

“Since the day I
saw you carrying him down from Wendelgrimm. He was out cold, and you were so fussed
over him I thought we might get our arms lopped off if we tried to take him
from you.”

She smiled
slightly. “You very well might have.”

They walked the
rest of the way in silence. Then at the top of the hill, she gasped. “It looks
so different,” she said, her eyes wandering the length of the castle. “Good to
see you’ve got those nasty vines taken care of.”

Shamus chuckled.
“Aye. When the Witch died, they shriveled up. After that, it was just a matter
of setting the tinder and striking the flint.” He watched her stare for a
moment more. “You see the possibility, don’t you?”

She nodded. “I
imagine it was a very grand place, once.”

“Aye, that it
was. And it will be again.”

“Though it seems
like the stones might be worth more than the actual structure, in places.” She
glanced at the teetering tower. “Why are you bothering to fix it?”

Shamus tried to
bring it up casually. “Well, about a month ago, a fellow sailed in and said he
was running his own trade. I told him that was illegal, and he said no it
weren’t because the Duke had been sacked. You hear anything about that?”

She smirked. “I
hear lots of things, Shamus. Most of it isn’t true.”

“Hmm. Well this
certainly is, because now I’ve got all sorts of captains from different trades
packing up my harbor. They’ve snagged whatever ships the Duke’s army left
behind and brought them here for work. It seems like the old ways are coming
back — people are organizing, towns are appointing their lords and
ladies. I hear they’ve even got a new high chancellor. What was his name
again?”

“Colderoy.” She
seemed to be fighting back laughter as she said it. “Apparently, it was quite
the upset. Not a soul will admit to voting for him.”

“I’ll bet not,”
Shamus muttered. He squared his shoulders at her and took a deep breath. “All
this talk of the towns picking back up has got me thinking: Copperdock used to
have a noble family —”

“Of whisperers.
Yes, I’ve heard.”

“Well,” Shamus
put a hand on her shoulder, “it’s got me thinking that we could use a Lady here
in Copperdock.”

It took her a
moment to catch the look on his face. But when she did, she took an involuntary
step backwards. “I don’t think —”

“Good, don’t
think — just say you’ll do it. We’re real easy people, we mostly govern
ourselves. It’d just be nice to have an official protector.” He lowered his
face to hers. “So will you stay here with us? Be our Lady?”

She seemed
resigned to her fate. “What do I get for it?”

“All of this,”
he said, with a sweeping gesture at Wendelgrimm.

She laughed.

“And I’ll even
let you give it a new name.”

“I’m not very
good at naming things.”

“You’re a
dragon, aren’t you?” He spread his arms wide. “And this is your roost. So why
don’t you call it —”

“Roost,” she
said, grinning to either ear. “Castle Roost. It’s brilliant.”

They both
laughed. But in the end, the name stuck. As they walked around and he showed
her all the work to be done, that’s how they referred to things. Roost had mold
growing on her ceilings; Roost had a colony of mice living in her cellars;
Roost needed more support on the upper levels, or she was likely to cave in.
And the more they talked about it, the more Shamus came to like it.

They watched
Jake use a spell to cut lengths of wood into planks. He could get the same
number done in half the time of an axe. The men had to run to keep his
workspace full of logs. Shamus couldn’t be sure — it was hard to tell
with magefolk — but he thought Jake looked pretty happy.

“I’ve got a
question for you,” he said, and Kyleigh raised her eyebrows. “What sort of
mischief are we going to be getting ourselves into, come spring?”

“The main
party’s heading to the plains. I know,” she said when Shamus whistled, “it’ll
be no stroll in the woods. As for me … well, I was thinking I’d search
somewhere a little hotter.”

“And drier, and
exceptionally sandy? Yeah, I think I know the place you’re talking about,”
Shamus said, returning her smirk. “And while I don’t fancy the desert, I
certainly don’t envy the poor fellows treading on Gilderick’s soil. There’re
some pretty salty rumors wafting up from that place. I hope they know what
they’re getting into.”

She wrinkled her
nose. “I doubt it. But they’re in good hands.”

He watched her
stare vacantly at Roost: looking, but not really seeing. There was no end to
the emptiness behind her eyes. He couldn’t stand it any longer: he had to ask.
“Will we ever see young Master Kael again?”

Her shoulders
rose and fell. “That’s entirely up to him.”

“Haven’t you got
a choice?”

“No, I haven’t.”
Her eyes hardened, she seemed to be fighting against a great swell of emotion.
“It’s a strange feeling … and here I thought I’d been wounded in every possible
way. I’m not sure how to go on. How
does
one go on?” She turned to Shamus, the steel in her eyes replaced by hurt. “How
can anybody stand it?”

Poor lass.
Shamus put a hand on her shoulder, squeezed until his fingers hurt and doubted
if she ever felt a thing. “You can’t stand it,” he said, and tried to say it
gently. “It bites us all, Lady Dragon — no matter how thick the armor.
And you can’t heal it, not really. You just got bury it under your work and let
time do the rest.”

She smiled,
then, though it was a sad smile. She crossed her arms and looked out at the
sea, and still smiling, she said: “Well, time is something I’ve got plenty of.
I suppose I’ll just wait for him, then. And I’ll wait forever … until the last
sun rises.”