The End of Never (11 page)

From under his hood, the spell caster glanced at Kraven and turned to the glaring eyes of his pet. Rearing backward, the dragon roared. With a jab of his head into the air, the beast nastily spat a ball of fire at Kraven's feet.

The spell caster turned to face Kraven with an ultimatum. “Kilhaven shall be mine,” the spell caster spoke calmly, “or she shall die.” The fireball in front of Kraven sparkled in the wizard's black eyes.

The wizard's hooded head turned to the trees into which Iselin had fled for her life. In the heart of the valley, the remnants of a kingdom smoldered. The spell caster laughed as he patted the bowed head of the black dragon.

“Poor Prince Kraven,” he snickered at the enraged Kraven, who was waving a sword impotently in the smoky air. “My ultimatum was too harsh. Instead, I shall issue a wager. If you defeat my dragon in battle, you shall reclaim your lands. But you will give the girl to me.” He smiled crookedly.

“Never!” Kraven howled back.

Hearing this answer, the black dragon shook angrily, his thick scales a spasm of uncontrollable metamorphosis. Kraven, his jaw agape, witnessed the body of the dragon shrink into the form of a man—a giant and naked hulk of a man.

The wizard shook his head disapprovingly. “Syrius,” he spat at the figure. “You disobey my command.”

Drooping his head low, the naked man, his strained muscles bulging, sprouted a pair of black wings from his back. “Rest now,” the man said solemnly, stepping toward the fire of a burning cottage, his palms raised to the flame to gather warmth. Syrius motioned to Kraven and told the wizard, “He is nothing.” With his gaze turned toward the hills into which Iselin had fled, Syrius said, “She is nothing.”

With an amused laugh, the wizard patted the creature's broad shoulders. “Yes, rest, Syrius, before the games begin.” The wizard fixed his black eyes on the stunned prince. “You may run or fight.”

Fear had found Kraven. A heavy burden rested upon his shoulders. He tried to outrun the beast, his mighty horse galloping full speed beneath him. He passed the wide river and entered the hills. He was sure he could locate her.

The wooded slope rambled skyward. He climbed higher through the trees, past the ferns and ancient stones. The distant thunder of crashing waves told him that he was nearing the cliff's edge and coming close to the vast, endless sea. He decided rashly that if he could not save her, he would jump. In his mind's eye, he pictured the steep dive to the rocks waiting at the bottom of the jagged cliff wall.

His thighs hugged the horse and his fists clenched the bridle. Hope pounded in his chest. He knew she was alive because otherwise, his heart would not still feel whole.

A manic roar dropped from the heavens. Kraven turned his head to the sky. Above the towering treetops, a shadow moved across the sun. His horse neighed.

“Bucephalas,” Kraven whispered into the still air to calm the midnight-black steed beneath him. The raven-haired rider spoke the name of the horse again into the frightened beast's pointed ears. An overgrown briar bush scraped the mighty flanks of the towering animal.

A primal cry bellowed from deep within Kraven's soul. Fear had found him and it had lured him into a trap. His mind ached more than his weary muscles. He could not hide from the agony twisting within his body, but he could, perhaps, outrun it.

The frightened horse was calmed by the familiar rasp of his master. The steed eased his panting breath and issued a long sigh of resigned fortitude. “Brave one,” Kraven told the stallion and patted his mane, as he dismounted and stepped to the forest floor. Bucephalas stomped his heavy hooves into the moss-covered soil and bowed his head for a whiff of the moist ground.

Kneeling down, Kraven inspected the strewn leaves and scattered stones, finding a single drop of blood. “Iselin!” he cried.

Above him, a shadow had been hiding the sun. The shadow rumbled and descended from the heavens. The crash of bending trees caused Bucephalas to rear up onto his hind legs. The terrified horse was neighing and whining for his master to retreat. Kraven realized that the spell caster had followed them. Snatching the horse's reins, he mounted the beast and wailed, “Forward, Bucephalas! Forward!”

Man and beast became a streaking blur of black mane and fury. Racing upward through the silent trees and ancient stones, they searched for the summit and the edge of the cliff. The prince feared the silence that had settled upon the forest around them. The caw of a crow perched high above his head drew his eyes to the sky.
Blue
, he thought.
No smoke. No fire. Destruction has been contained to the valley, for now.

A soft breeze stroked the mane of Bucephalas as he carried his rider—a prince clad in the leather armor of his long-fallen father—higher toward the edge of the sea cliff. He no longer heard the crow, but the roar of the ocean greeted his climb to the summit. With his heart racing in his chest, Kraven squeezed the reins and shouted into the black horse's ears: “Faster boy! Faster to our Iselin.”

Obeying, the horse neighed and stomped his legs harder into the moss-covered ground. Kraven felt her, smelled her; she had been here. Then suddenly he saw her through the trees, her body perched precariously on the edge of the steep sea cliff.

“Iselin!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. He could see her feet stumbling on the shifting pebbles beneath her bare toes.

A hellish roar drowned out his cries, and a shadow blackened the sky above the treetops. Swoosh! The sound of flapping wings assaulted the air. Kraven rode full speed toward the edge of the cliff, tree limbs slashing at his face. When he looked up once more at the cliff, she was gone.

He blinked his eyes, but he was not mistaken; she was gone. He reared Bucephalas to a halt. The horse came up quickly on his hind legs and shook his head.

“No!” the prince wailed. Startled by the prince's cry, the steed shook his rider to the ground.

Scrambling from the leaves and moss, Kraven ran from the tree line to the edge of the cliff. In the sky, a black dragon flew high into the white, wispy clouds.

“Iselin!” cried Kraven. He shouted to the heavens, but she did not hear him. He fell to his knees.

When the princess felt the sharp talons of the dragon release her body, she grabbed the medallion dangling loosely from her neck. She swore her love to Kraven forever. Her fingers caressed the medallion, which had a figure, half-man and half-dragon, etched into the bronze.

Kraven leaned against a boulder near the edge of the sea cliff. At first, he decided to follow Iselin into the sea. But vengeance overtook him with a powerful hold, whereupon Kraven made two promises. Louder than the surf below, he swore, shaking his fist at the clouds, “I shall only live to see evil die!” Then he brought his fist over his heart, saying softly, “And I will love you forever, Iselin!”

10
Blood Stains

Although Alexandra was sitting in the park with Jack and Kraven, her thoughts were miles away—in fact, many years away, riding with Kraven that fateful day to the summit.

I've never felt more alive, she thought, so completely and wholly awake and thriving.

A blur of images pulsed inside her brain; she was connected to Kraven's memories. The frowning face of Kraven, frightened but brave, gripped her thoughts. His countenance was shrouded in smoke. Trees swirled by her eyes and the snapping of twigs echoed in her ears.

Alexandra squeezed Kraven's wrists more tightly, her ragged, bitten fingernails digging into his warm flesh. Her eyelids fluttered.

“Alexandra,” Kraven whispered over the top of her auburn head. “Let go,” Kraven asked her calmly, although droplets of blood were rising from thin scratches she was making across the pulsing skin of his upturned wrists.

“Sorry,” Alexandra stuttered and tried to focus her blinking green eyes on her companion's face.
He has not changed since that day—not a line on his forehead, not the terror in his blue eyes.

Alexandra rubbed her tired face, trying to clear the haze of remembrance from her clouded mind. He saw me . . . her . . . me . . . on the cliff.
He was there when she . . . when I . . . when Iselin . . . died.

She knew. She saw.
My gift or my curse?
she wondered about her ability to see what others have experienced by touching them.

Smudges of brackish blood stained her fingertips. Her head swooned. Her pulse beat rhythmically with her pounding thoughts.
Smoke? Rain?
Alexandra sniffed the thick red substance—Kraven's blood—clinging to her pale hand.

Her tongue flittered between her clenched teeth to lick the blood from her fingers.

“No,” Kraven said firmly.

“Let me taste it,” Alexandra pleaded and pushed clumsily at his stone chest.

At her feet, the brown-and-white bulldog growled at Kraven, who was casting a towering shadow.

Embers of wild madness burned in Alexandra's emerald eyes. But her pleas were met by Kraven's resolute, cool azure stare. If he was startled by her insistence, he did not show it. “Never,” he told her, while Alexandra spat at the ground, the taste of smoke nipping at her tongue. He knew the curse that was flowing in his veins.

“Wash your hands, Alexandra,” he requested sternly.

She smirked at him flirtatiously and slowly drew her stained fingertips across her pink, blushing cheeks. Around her neck, the bronze medallion gleamed in the bright, midday sun. The frayed leather strap hung loose around her thin neck and collarbone.

The blood from Kraven soaked through her pores, making her hands burn as if she had plunged them into a bonfire. She wasn't even sure where she was. Her body spiraled out of control. She stood and rocked back and forth on the tips of her toes. She scanned the cement pathway through the playground. The park buzzed with life: joggers, ladies with strollers, and a homeless man dozing in the trees.

She started to realize that she was in the park and that her apartment building was nearby. She waved at Jack, who was cowering behind a wooden bench. “Come boy,” she yelled. Fire was racing up her arm. She knew that her home was close and she felt that they needed to run. She bolted down the cement pathway toward the exit, the bulldog close at her heels.
I need water!
she thought desperately, risking a glance at her reddened fingers.
Get it off me!
They were stopped short at the street corner by the red light.

Left alone in the grass, Kraven let her run away from him. He wished she could escape, but he knew she could not hide. In his wrists, his purple veins pulsed excitedly. Before his eyes, his skin was healing from the scratches of Alexandra's ragged fingernails.

As soon as the streetlight turned green, Alexandra and Jack shot across the street at the painted crosswalk. They focused on the glass entrance doors of Park View Tower. Alexandra winced because blisters had broken out across her soft fingertips.

Benjamin was standing in front of the apartment building. He blended in well, just a boy in ripped jeans and a faded, USC football t-shirt. He was following each of her footfalls behind his mirrored sunglasses. He observed Alexandra and Jack as they bounded over the curb and then to the gray, cement sidewalk. Watching them, he considered that the strong draw that he had for her might not be in his best interest.

She was beautiful. Her wild, auburn hair flung across her face. Her green eyes flashed at him in the sun.

But while Benjamin was leisurely taking in how pretty she was, Alexandra was running, frantic to get Kraven's hot blood off her skin. Alexandra clawed at her skin, her footsteps not able to keep pace with her racing mind: I'm burning alive!

Benjamin stared at Alexandra as she raced toward him. He could tell that she didn't see him.

The door of her apartment building loomed ahead of her. With Jack's leash trailing behind him, the dog sprung ahead and barked furiously at Benjamin, who was standing in their way.

Benjamin realized, before Alexandra did, that her red-rubber flip-flops were going to tangle with the flailing dog leash. Lunging past the growling bulldog at his feet, Benjamin threw his arms out and fell to the cement, with Alexandra tucked into his lap like a football.

“Alex!” he cried, wincing, his knees cracking against the sidewalk. His bare arms burned from the fiery heat of Alexandra's sweaty, blood-stained skin.

“No!” she yelled, beating against his chest, her arms fighting helplessly against his grip. Kraven's blood had stained Benjamin's faded gray shirt. He did not understand her fury. “Get off me,” Alexandra demanded. She pushed herself up from Benjamin's lap. “Look what you've done,” she groaned and stared, transfixed, at the blood on his shirt.

On the cement sidewalk across from the apartment building, a figure in black emerged from the city park and stared at the tangling couple. Kraven wanted to go to her, but he did not.

“Are you hurt?” Benjamin said softly. He wrapped his palms gently around the tops of Alexandra's arms.