C
hapter 44: Freedom
I'd finally lost it. It was official. My head had turned to custard. In the half rain, half shine of the cold morning, I began to laugh. The duality of the weather was my mirror image. I marched through the city on foot, hitching rides on the backs of overladen supply wagons whenever I could.
I was going to get him, and nothing would stop me.
Had the city shrunk, or did the
installment and palaces crawl closer to the crescent cape harbor? The lanes had widened, making way for the grandiose entrances of the hulking structures.
Rune Thayer.
He was straight down the middle, directly into the oppressive shadow of the installment fortress. I stopped before I got to the portcullis, staring up at the iron teeth. Pressing my back against the outer wall, I stayed out of sight. The Pull had always served me honestly. It’d never led me wrong. Even when I'd lost faith in myself, its accuracy never strayed. I was lucky to have it.
I crossed the threshold and came into full view of the scene in the courtyard. A breath ripped into my lungs and I froze.
The broad entrance to the great hall was smashed, as though a massive explosion had taken place. Wood, metal, stone, and steaming ice solidified the wreckage, blocking anyone from getting in or out.
Between the
installment and myself, I faced a semi-circle of eighty Dragoons standing at attention. At their head stood two Cormorants with twisted, bird-like helms covering their faces. They each held a ten-foot-tall flag standard, black and red, and something else. I'd learned to recognize the elaborate fashion that the nobles of the region had prized. The two sets of clothes I saw here were better, more ornate, trapped in gold and silver... and spattered with blood. They hung like flags from each polearm, rippling in the icy breeze.
In the center of the group
, four Dragoons were on their knees. They faced outward, and their arms, stretching wide behind them, were tied elbow-to-elbow, wrist-to-wrist, forming a bound circle. Two of them hung, face down, lifeless, while the other two struggled to keep themselves upright.
The two limp Dragoons had been drained. Their skin, even their hair, had been sapped of all color, leaving them grey. A drained person's body could go on living, but there would be no brain activity, no intelligence, no consciousness. Eventually, two or three days later, the body would perish. So I'd been told.
“Thayer, wasn't it?” Margrave Hest growled, rounding on the Dragoon captives. Again, she'd changed. Her humanity all but vanished. Her arms and legs were longer now, and that one hand that had retained its natural appearance was slim and withered. Roping strands of metal had burst from her calves, and each of her feet had split into sets of claws. She was a monster worthy of nightmares.
“
Haven't I given you enough chances?” she asked with the voice of a disappointed parent. “Haven't we all been forgiving? You've had a perfect career record until these last few months. If you'd simply drained that sibling of yours you'd be on the front right now, riding alongside our Prince as a Commander. You'd feel the power of domination, and believe me, it is sweet.”
She
ran her claw arm over his taut shoulders.
I heard Rune's voice. It was low, strained.
“You... drained Lina, when I didn't.”
“
Yes?” she said, as though wondering at his point. “And you watched, so we’re both at fault.”
“You forced me,” Rune growled.
“Does that make me a monster? No, I’m afraid that’s not quite enough. What would you say if I told you I ate her too?” A laugh pealed out from her lips, heavy and shrill all at once. She actually found this funny.
Rune's mouth formed a grim line.
“I'd sooner die than spend another day following your orders.”
“
And I would be a wicked woman indeed to ignore such a compelling request.” Hest clucked her tongue. “Family is always the most tedious. You've been exhibiting signs of weakness since that mess at Breakwater, and you've brought it here with you. What did you think to achieve by sabotaging the installment? Did you really think that by killing the initiates, you'd hurt the Prince's army?”
The
Dragoon tied to Rune's left arm swung his head back, his dark eyes narrow with rage. “You'll get no more answers from us than you did from them.”
She was going to kill him. I had to do something. Frantically, I cast about, looking for
a way to help him. Thirty feet away, along the same wall I huddled beside, was a heavy wagon, laden with massive barrels. Liquid dripped into the dirt, and trailed in the direction of the center square.
“
Won't I?” she asked, smiling sweetly with those broken, round lips. I heard the pop, and jumped back on my heels. The dark-eyed Dragoon screamed. Hest had broken his arm with a single touch.
“
We won't fight for you anymore,” he shouted up at Hest.
She struck him with her heavy, metal arm, and when he sagged into unconsciousness, she turned on Rune again.
Holding my breath, I snaked against the back wall, keeping to the shadows. Everyone's attention was on Hest. Reaching the vat, I crouched and searched for the opening. It was on the side... a thin hairline crack. I took the Historian pin off of my shirt, and wedged it as hard as I could into the fissure. When I pulled it out, liquid began to spray through. I smelled it. Water.
“
So, you bought the Common-Lord and Lady with our weapons and armor. The Hibberns always were greedy, but I never thought they were capable of sinking so low as to betray our Prince. They'll serve as the first example,” Hest said, pointing up to the bloody clothes rippling on the flag posts. “You'll be the second.”
“
It was you, wasn't it? You're the leader. Commander Stakes' coup de tat put ideas into that simple head of yours. Did you really think you could overthrow our Prince?” she laughed like the thought was utterly absurd.
Rune's shoulders shook and when he turned his head up to hers, I saw that he too was laughing.
“We have no leader, but there are more of us. We are infinite in number, corrupting your army with visions of freedom.”
“
You're bluffing.”
Rune laughed again. I could see his rare dimple, but there was rage in his blue eyes.
“Why should I bluff? What do I have to gain from the executioner’s block? We are many. We don't crave power, but we are strong. We'll quietly undermine you until everyone sees that we don't need to be your slaves anymore.”
“
If you don't fight for Raserion, will you fight for yourselves? Need I remind you that Prince Varion was the one who started this war? He the Coward, Liar, Murderer. His soldiers wouldn't think twice about lopping your head from your shoulders. Have you thought about that?”
“
We don't need to kill for you anymore. Our lives are our own.”
I rattled my pin in the crack of the vat until my fingers hurt. Water poured free, seeping
inconspicuously into the square.
“
Freedom fighters then? Could you really be so naive? Did you know that there have been over twelve hundred internal plots to disrupt Prince Raserion's rule throughout history? More than half of those were pitiful attempts for some misguided notion of freedom. Look around you. They all failed. Why should you succeed?”
The dark-eyed
Dragoon who was presumably unconscious nodded to Rune. His arms began to turn a white blue, and glazed over with frost, and Rune's burst into flame. The dark-eyed Dragoon cried out when the flames lapped against his arm, but gritted his teeth. Their bonds fell away to ash and Rune recalled the fire, rising to his feet. Still tied by one arm, the dark-eyed Dragoon chilled the strap around his broken arm until it cracked. He worked at it until he was free and able to clutch the broken limb.
“
Stop them!” Hest screamed.
Water touched the feet of the
Dragoons nearest me. No one saw it or cared. It seeped out farther, reaching the Cormorant flag bearers, and soaking the soles of Margrave Hest's clawed feet. In a few seconds it would reach Rune and the other Dragoon.
I dropped to the ground, flattening my palm into the puddle. Feeling the storm that surrounded Cape Hill, I turned inward and called up my own maelstrom. It had been waiting there for me, the storm, building up for every tear I hadn't shed, for every bit of anger I hadn't screamed out. Some of the
Dragoons out there could have been Rune's other allies. I thought of Calvin Cale, and Stakes, and I tempered the level of my strength, before letting it strike out from my palm. The water carried my electric current and met my targets, leaping into their ankles with a loud crack. Some of them cried out, some were quiet, but nearly forty Dragoons were knocked from their feet, collapsing rigid to the ground.
Hest
remained upright, shouting an alert to the remaining Dragoons. They lowered their weapons at Rune and Dark-eyes. The Margrave followed the track of the water to the wagon I was hiding behind.
Slinking backwards to remain out of sight, I nearly slid in the slickness of the pooling water. Turning to flee for safer ground, I ran into a tall, oily black form, and stared directly up into the round white eyes of the Voice of the Prince.
C
hapter 45: The Prince of Shadows
The bright colors of the morning light buckled and folded behind him, until they were so deep, so vivid, they were near blackness. The change was alien, wrong. The Voice's flat white eyes grew wider and wider. His body smoldered with shadowy flames, lashing away from him in sharp bursts, building his mass
until he was larger than my range of vision. His eyes were always level with mine, staring. Then he burst, peeling in half, and swirled around me like a vortex.
I was looking down a long tunnel. It
led far away. I could feel the space. I lost my breath like I'd run a thousand miles and I might suffer a heart attack. The wind in this tunnel was roaring, hurting my ears. Shifting, turning, the walls spun like smoke around the shape of a man.
I could see his shoulders, his face, like he was beside me. The blue light was too strong
. He was more of a silhouette. But he was a regular man, wasn't he? His shape seemed normal enough, and that in itself gave me reason to distrust what I saw.
His eyes pierced me like daggers. They glinted silver. Not like the
slightly metallic grey of my irises, no, his eyes were solid. No white, no black, just liquid... like molten metal. He shifted his body, like he was interested in what he was looking at, and the coursing noise of the wind vanished to hollow, startling silence.
His presence was as vast and consuming as a
merciless, raging ocean.
“
You.” His voice was smooth, strong, and horrifyingly attractive. It was not young or old. It was powerful. The word trailed off in a deep and gravely echo that reminded me very clearly what he was. “You,” he said again with more familiarity, looking through me. “A Lodestone. Here. And not one of the others. You're a troublemaker. I can see by the way you're looking at me. That jaw, those eyes... you're sad, and very angry. Why aren't you afraid?”
“
Bite me!” I snapped, and lit my face up with a thousand volts of lightning.
The
silhouette of the Prince looked stunned, squinting. The roaring of the wind returned, violently swirling between us until he disappeared. Everything went black as the Voice stretched and snapped back into his natural form. I squeezed my eyes shut and tore myself away from him before I could fall into his gaze again.
My ears were ringing, and my face
was still hot from the flash of intense light I'd produced. My skin prickled against the cold breeze. There was shouting around me.
Rune.
I scrambled to get away from the Voice.
“
Stop!” Hest Commanded, and I was helpless to deny the order. I stood straight up in a full body chokehold. Even my chest had gone tight, and I panted frantically, unable to take full, deep breaths. My eyes and mouth were the only things that remained under my control.
In my line of sight, I could see that Rune's ally was dead. He was face down, with two swords in his back. The
Dragoons weren't in an orderly formation anymore. Some of them were still on the ground, but they were beginning to move, the others clustered around Rune and Hest, weapons lowered.
“
Historian!” Hest roared, stalking toward me in a broken stride. One of her legs was longer than the other. She ripped the partial helm from her eyes and flung it down behind her. “What is this?”
The Voice crawled out of a shadow in the corner of my vision, black trails sticking to him like rubber bands.
“Lodestone!” he shouted in his oily voice. “She's a Lodestone!”
Hest
looked between the Voice and me.
“
Why Kestrel, you cunning deceiver,” Hest said, gritting her teeth and flashing a viciously sweet grin. “For a while I had my doubts, but now I know it. You and I really are alike.”
To my surprise, she released me. I loosened my shoulders, and looked at her with suspicion.
Hest opened her arms wide. “Well, go ahead! Run! Attack. Show me how you'd like to spend your last moments.”
I stared her in the face, and walked right by. She watched after me and began to laugh.
“You really have some attitude,” Hest mused. “I'll give you that.”
Not breaking my stride for anything, I walked past the
Dragoons on the ground who were stirring. I walked past the others, who held their swords at the ready. I walked directly to Rune, feeling a blushing heat rise to my cheeks. A smile crept to my lips.
Rune was going to die. He'd been right about that part. But he thought he'd die a
Dragoon, cut away from his life, abandoned, forsaken to cold loneliness. That was where he was wrong. He would know that he was loved beyond reason. It was something he never had before. He had me. We would die together.
He looked sad, afraid for me at first, but when he saw me smiling, he grinned in kind.
I walked directly up to Rune Thayer, the Cormorant Dragoon, wrapped my arms around him and drove my lips to his for a deep and passionate kiss.
So soft. I could feel his lips, his tongue, his breath. Rune's arms squeezed me into his strong embrace, a hand winding into my hair.
The gasps around us were audible. We'd crossed the line of an immense taboo. To love a Dragoon was punishable by death.
The combination of my adoration for him, the pain we'd both suffered, and the danger we faced, made the moment
transcendent. We were standing in the solemn elegance of the secret room again, we were in the dark of a scorched field, we were in a dilapidated greenhouse tower, and I belonged. Part of me was Haven, part of me was what I'd suffered, but all of me belonged with him.
That kiss was beyond compare.
“Are you okay?” I whispered into his cheek.
He pushed me away a little with his nose, so that our eyes could meet.
“You've got to be joking,” he said, the threat of tears glossing and reddening his smiling eyes. “This is the greatest moment of my life.”
A laugh bubbled out of me and I sniffled, forcing myself to pull away.
My body was afire, battling away the cold of the morning. When I turned back to Hest, I gave her a predatory look of my own, daring her to try and take him from me.
“
Well, well,” she said, not skipping a beat. “That was unexpected, and quite scandalous, I might add. You've added a death sentence to his death sentence, little sister, but you... you're special-”
I was finished listening to her condescend. Raising my right hand, I produced a bolt of electricity that flashed out like the leafless branch of a tree, extending my reach, and I brought it down on her. The diagonal impact of the bolt struck her down to one knee.
A barrier of blue flames rose up behind us, blocking the other Dragoons. Already, some with fire Abilities were pushing the blaze away. The Voice vanished back into the shadows. There was no time to wonder. We sprinted for the portcullis gate.
It'd already begun sliding downwards, but we threw ourselves beneath, seconds before it closed.
“Stop them!” I heard Hest shrieking. She must not have been able to Command us from such a distance. “Stop them!”
The gate burst open, curling away to allow the other
Dragoons to pursue us.
We'd barely made it to the middle of the road. I held Rune's hand, squeezing it. Citizens of Cape Hill walking down the street, riding bicycles, and driving carriages, scrambled away to avoid us. Some even abandoned their automobiles to escape our general vicinity. There were shouts of alarm. These people had seen war all their lives
. They knew tragedy, but they'd never seen this, an armor-clad Dragoon fleeing hand in hand with a girl.
Forty
Dragoons, mounted atop their shadow horses, surged from the broken portcullis. Leading them was Margrave Hest. A wicked spear of white bone was a bright contrast to her dark visage. Her face was twisted in a murderous scowl. Straight black hair whipped behind her like a cloak. The three unnaturally long heads of her mount pulled and thrashed against its reins. She charged us, riding the Voice's warhorse.
Just like in my dream.