Kian dreamed of pain and fire and a beautiful dragon rising into the night sky, lit from below by fire, and above by the moon. The brilliant hues of flame and blood glinted on its scales, shading from pale gold through brilliant orange, to a dark, ruby red at the extremities.
It was so beautiful it took his breath away and made him forget, for a moment, the pain of his own body.
The reprieve was brief. As the dragon took wing with a cry of rage, Kian’s body convulsed. His back was ablaze, and sharp pains lanced through his middle.
Above him, a woman sobbed, her tears splashing on his bare chest. Prying open gritty eyes, he struggled to form words, to ask what had happened, why he hurt so much.
Blood filled his mouth and he turned his head to cough. Gentle hands held his head for him, and more hands carefully turned him on his side. The pain was like a black wave, threatening to engulf him.
“Kian? Kian, can you hear me? I don’t know what to do for you.”
It was Patra’s voice, but she sounded so far away. He tried to tell her it hurt too much, and he couldn’t focus, couldn’t even see the threads, let alone manipulate them, but the only sound he could make was a whimper. The pain slammed into him, brutal and fierce, taking away both his breath and his awareness.
When he woke again, he was inside, lying in a pile of straw. The air was warm and humid, heavy with the scent of horses. A chill gripped him, and Kian shivered. Someone pressed a cool, wet cloth to his brow and wiped his face with it.
“Can you help him, Wytch Master?” It sounded like Patra’s voice, but hoarse and choked.
“A waste of energy, if I’ve a rogue dragon to put down.” Wytch Master Taretha’s tone was brusque and clipped. “He’s bleeding inside, and he won’t last long. I can hasten his journey to the Dragon Mother, but it must be done now. There’s no time to waste if I’m to stop the prince from burning down the forest.”
“No!” Patra protested. “You can’t… I… my mother taught me some herb lore. Let me do what I can for him.”
“Have it your way,” the Wytch Master said. “I’ll be surprised if he lasts until morning, though.”
When she was gone, a cool hand cupped his cheek. “Kian, if you can hear me… you must try to heal yourself. Everything burned. I’ve nothing to give you for pain, nothing to wrap your wounds with…” She trailed off and made a choking sound.
“There, there,” a deep voice rumbled.
Kian struggled to open his eyes. Patra’s hair was in disarray, half of it hanging limp around her face, the rest tied back in a loose tail. She was kneeling at his side, tears in her eyes, cheeks smudged with soot. Behind her stood Jorin, one big hand resting upon her shoulder.
“You’re awake!” Patra took hold of Kian’s hand and squeezed it. “I wondered if you would…”
“What… where?”
There was a long silence. Patra tilted her head up to exchange a worried look with Jorin. “You’re in the stable,” Jorin said, his voice still hoarse from the cough. “It’s all that’s left after the fire. The prince… he…”
“Ai. I saw.” Kian’s throat was parched, and he hurt so much it was a struggle to get the words out. “In the sky… he was… beautiful. Like flames and sunlight.” A wave of pain gripped him, and Kian whimpered.
Patra’s hand smoothed the sweat-soaked hair back off his face. “Don’t try to talk, sweetling.”
But he had to know what had happened, whether or not Ambris was really safe. “Malik?”
“Dead,” said Jorin. “Along with all the rest of them. He chased them down and torched them all. Master Taretha showed up not too long after and called a storm to put out the fires. I… found them in a clearing not too far from here. Not enough left of them to tell who’s who, but… the numbers tally.”
“Wytch Master… here?”
“She was,” Patra said. “She’s gone to try and stop the prince. She said… she said he’s gone mad, as dragon shifters often do.”
Tears of despair burned in his eyes. Master Taretha would kill Ambris if she could. He struggled to sit, but strong hands pushed him back down.
“No, Kian.” Jorin’s voice was gentle. “You’re in no shape to be getting up.”
“Blackseed…” he whispered.
A cool hand stroked his cheek. “I’m so sorry, sweetling,” Patra said. “There isn’t any. Everything’s gone. There’s nothing left but ashes.”
Kian squeezed his eyes shut as the pain knifed through his middle again. “Water, then,” he croaked.
“I don’t think—”
“Please…”
“Kian… you’ve a gut wound. You know what that means.”
When he opened his eyes again, Patra’s cheeks were streaked with tears, clean trails carved through the sooty marks on her face. Kian knew what she thought it meant; she thought Master Taretha was right, that he’d be dead before long. And if he couldn’t pull himself together and focus, he would be.
“Need… to heal…” he managed to gasp out. “Water. Please.”
He heard the sound of her breath catching in her throat. “Can you?” Her hand reached for his and gave it a squeeze.
“Must… try…”
Jorin brought him water and squatted beside Patra. He helped Kian lift his head and shoulders while Patra held the cup to his lips. Kian made himself drink it all, and when he was finished, he lay back, panting from the effort.
“You’re not strong enough for this,” Patra said gravely.
“Have to… Ambris… needs help.”
“The Wytch Master’s already gone after him,” Jorin said.
“Ai. I heard. That’s why I have to…”
Patra’s mouth trembled and she looked away, but not before he caught the brightness of fresh tears in her eyes. Jorin’s arm settled over her shoulders, and he pulled her close.
Kian closed his eyes and gathered the last shreds of his strength, sinking into the mythe to survey the damage done to his body. The threads were dull, some of them fraying, others broken in two, and for a moment, Kian despaired. So much to mend, and he had so little strength left. All he really wanted was to sink down into sleep.
He thought of Ambris and settled in to work.
* * *
Time had no real meaning in the mythe, and Kian was never sure how long he struggled to mend his own broken threads. Patra and Jorin were there every time he came to the surface, offering him words of encouragement and sips of cool water.
Sometimes, he thought he heard the screams of a dragon overhead, but he could never be certain whether they were real or simply his mind’s interpretation of something he’d sensed in the mythe. Human senses didn’t work the way they ought in that realm, and Master Ilya had taught him not to trust his eyes and ears there, and not to be surprised by anything he thought he heard or felt while he was immersed in a healing.
Only when he’d repaired all the broken threads and smoothed the tangles did he allow himself to sink down into a deep, healing sleep.
When he woke, he was still lying in the makeshift bed of straw in the stable. He’d been covered with a rough horse blanket, and Patra sat on an overturned crate nearby. Just outside, Jorin was tending a campfire.
Kian shifted and sat up carefully. Patra rose and hurried to his side, her relief evident in the smile that lit her smudged face. “You’ve been asleep for ages,” she said. “I was afraid the healing might have been too much for you.”
“There was a lot to heal,” he admitted. “Malik intended to kill me.”
“How do you feel?”
Kian stretched, taking inventory of his body. The pain was gone, and the healing sleep had done much to restore his energy. “Better,” he said finally. His stomach growled, and he glanced toward the fire. “I don’t suppose there’s any food?”
“That’s what I like to hear.” Patra smiled and gave his arm an affectionate squeeze. “We’ve managed to scrape together enough to last a few days. The kitchen is gone, along with the store room, but the root cellar survived. We’ve flour and preserves and some root vegetables that have seen better days. Jorin went hunting this morning and brought back two rabbits. They were a bit on the thin side, but there was enough to make a stew of sorts. It helps that there’s only the three of us to feed.”
Kian bit his lip. “Only the three of us? No one else… Ella?”
The shimmer in Patra’s eyes told him without her saying a word.
“I’m sorry, Patra. I know you were fond of her.”
“Jorin tried to save her. She… she wouldn’t…” the words trailed off in a choked sob. “After Malik killed her sweetheart, she just…”
Kian reached out and took hold of her hand, squeezing it gently, and she squeezed back. Patra drew in a few deep breaths, and managed a watery smile. “I’ll just fetch you some stew, then. I managed to make some flat bread, too. It’s not fit for the king’s table, of course, but it’ll keep the wolves from the door.”
Patra brought him a bowl of stew and some of the bread balanced on a piece of board.
“Have you seen the prince?” Kian asked.
“Ai, late last night, and again this morning,” Patra said. “He’s flown over a few times, but… the way he screams, we weren’t sure what state he was in, so we stayed hidden.”
“That was probably wise,” Kian said, thinking back to Garrik’s first shift, when he’d burned the cottage on the shore of Lake Silvin, killing Master Tevari. “If the shift has driven him mad, he might not remember anything about his human self.”
“We’ve not seen him since this morning,” Jorin said, “but we’ve heard him. Off in the distance. He sounds hurt and angry.”
“He could be lost,” Kian murmured. “He might not understand how to shift back. Someone needs to go for help. Wytch Master Ilya would know what to do.” He looked at Jorin and caught the guardsman’s pale blue eyes with his own. “How are you feeling now? I heard you coughing. Do you think you can ride for Castle Altan?”
“Ai,” Jorin said with a sharp nod. “It’s just a tickle in my throat that’s left. But what about Wytch Master Taretha? Won’t she be able to handle the prince?”
“I doubt it. She might be a Wytch Master, but she’s no dragon shifter.” Kian dared say no more. Jorin might have been willing to bend Malik’s rules for Ambris on occasion, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t loyal to Miraen and Master Taretha.
“I’ll go,” Jorin said with a nod.
“And I’ll go with him,” Patra said firmly. “Make sure he doesn’t overdo it.”
Jorin gave her a fond look before turning back to Kian. “What about you?”
“I’m going after the prince,” Kian said. “If he recognizes me, I might be able to talk him back to reason.”
“And if he doesn’t, you’ll meet the same fate as Malik and his lot,” Patra said.
“Ai, but if I don’t try, he could burn down the entire forest. How many villages would be destroyed?” Kian shook his head. “I can’t let that happen. Not when I might be able to stop it.”
Neither of them appeared happy with Kian’s plan, but they said nothing more, and Kian applied himself to his meal. Patra’s flat bread tasted better than anything he’d eaten in recent memory, and after devouring several pieces of it along with two large helpings of rabbit stew, he was feeling much stronger.
By the time Kian finished eating, Jorin had saddled three horses and found some weapons. He handed Kian a crossbow and a quiver of bolts. “Take this. You know how to use it?”
“Ai,” Kian said, examining the weapon. “I learned early on. Aeyr’s Grove is in the mountains, and I’ve helped defend it against wolves, bears, and rhyx.”
“I hope you won’t need it,” Jorin said, clapping his shoulder. “But if Prince Ambris is truly lost…”
Kian knew he’d never be able to turn the weapon on Ambris, even if his own life were in danger, but he didn’t voice his doubt to Jorin.
It was early afternoon before they parted ways, Jorin and Patra riding west, and Kian heading north, the direction the dragon had been flying the last time Jorin had spotted him.
Kian hadn’t gone far when a distant scream cut through the air. He jerked his head up, scanning the sky. The sound of that scream cut right through him. It was a draconic scream of pain and rage, a sound that might well herald disaster, if the dragon was so lost in its pain that it no longer remembered being human.
“Ambris,” Kian whispered.
Why hadn’t Ambris shifted back to human form and returned to Blackfrost? Was he trapped, unable to shift? Or was he hunting Master Taretha?
Memory supplied an image of a great orange dragon rising up from the flames that had consumed the cottage by Lake Silvin. It had screamed the same way, right before it had laid waste to the surrounding forestland.
Kian shuddered and urged the horse on.
* * *
The dragon soared through the air, eyes fixed on the pale green canopy of new leaves obscuring his view of the forest floor. He’d lost something… and he couldn’t find it.
It would have been easier if he’d known what it was he sought, but all he knew was the shape of its loss: a dark, empty shadow in his heart, hiding a place so bleak and barren, it froze his soul, trapping it in a fierce and endless winter.
He angled his wings in a clumsy turn. After several course corrections, he was gliding toward the place where the air hanging over the forest shimmered with heat, marking the clearing where his prison had stood.
A hard blink brought inner eyelids down over his eyes, revealing air currents that looked like wisps of rainbow: the updrafts all in hues of red, orange, and gold, and the downdrafts in the cooler shades of blue, violet, and green.
Clouds of brilliant orange and red billowed up into the sky as he approached the place of his confinement. He blinked again, and his vision returned to normal as he swooped over the place, scanning the stone courtyard for any sign of movement. Heat from the smouldering ruin warmed his belly as he studied the ground, then banked, coming around for another look.
Searching…
The fire was out now, and nothing remained but a glowing pile of embers. Only the stable had escaped the blaze. The flames had spread to the ruins of the main house, reducing it to a pile of hot rubble and ash.
Approaching from a different angle, he spied a length of chain still hanging from the gate, but there was no one there. A dark stain on the stones beneath the chain caught his eye, and he screamed again, knowing that stain was connected to his loss, but not quite understanding how.
There was nothing for him here.
Nothing to return to.
With a piercing cry of loss and pain, he turned north, pumping his wings, propelling himself toward the mountains, where he could hide in stone and snow, and dream of a time when the shards of loss hadn’t torn his heart to ragged shreds.
He soared over an overgrown ruin standing in a clearing, and something about it tickled his memory. He circled and dipped to get a better look. A chill of dread went through him, and he knew it for a place of pain and desperation.
This place…
Somehow, it was tied to the emptiness within him.
He landed in the clearing, folding his wings neatly along his back, and stepped carefully around the ruined stone cottage, surveying it from all angles. Wisps of memory swirled around him, broken images, shards of pain and despair piercing his heart…
There was the garden wall with the broken hole that sometimes flared with the light of the mythe. And there, what was left of the chimney, the damp, broken stones misted green with spring’s new growth.
Dimly, he remembered another life, but it was as if he saw the scenes of that life through water. They shimmered and shifted out of focus, the colors running and fading until all that remained was a sense of pain and betrayal.
He walked the perimeter of the ruined cottage, and stopped when he came to the wooden door that covered the cellar. Beyond that door, down in the earth, lay the dark place where he was tortured, over and over, the place where he fought for control and lost every time. The place where his body was beaten and torn apart.
Rage and flame filled his mind. He couldn’t bear that such a place existed. He drew in his breath, anger and loss fueling the fires within him, and was just about to let the flames loose when mythe-light flared around the corner of the soot-darkened, half-tumbled wall.
He flinched.
That light meant pain… and it was tied intimately to the dark, empty place inside him. He edged around the corner just in time to see a black-robed figure stride through the hole in the garden wall.
It was a human woman, and she stood at the end of a corridor formed on one side by the broken remains of the cottage wall, and on the other by a tangled, overgrown hedgerow. She was stick-thin and pale, her head topped with fine, straw-colored hair, her lips drawn up in a disapproving pucker.
Her face…
It was the face of all his pain, all his sorrow.
The flames licked at the edges of his mind, whispering to him: Burn her.
Burn the forest.
Burn the sky…
The flames of his wrath were so hot that even the ruins of the garden wall behind her were reduced to ash.
Not the woman, though.
She held up one hand, and the flames coursed around her like a stream flowing around a stone dropped in the middle of it. Flames crawled up the trees behind her, and great clouds of smoke rose into the air, but when he’d run out of breath, still she stood, pale eyes flashing.
“I don’t think so, Ambris,” she said tightly.
The mythe flared, and lightning gathered around her. She raised a hand, and a bolt shot toward him. He tried to move aside, but he was still unused to his dragon body, and a stinging line of sizzling heat scored his back, gouging a deep furrow in his hide and tearing his wing.
He let out a great bellow of pain and drew in his breath to douse her in flames.
* * *
Kian heard the scream again, closer this time. A shadow passed over him, there and gone in the blink of an eye. When he looked up, all he caught was a brief glimpse of shimmering gold shading to red.
“Ambris!” he called, but the dragon was gone.
Silence fell over the Blackwood like a thick blanket. Kian listened for any sign of the dragon before continuing to pick his way through the forest, trying to keep to the direction the dragon had gone.
The tangle of trees had grown thick enough that he’d had to dismount and lead the horse. He’d backtracked and circled so much, he was now hopelessly turned around, and had no idea which way was north. He’d have to climb a tree and see if he could catch a glimpse of the mountains over the forest canopy.
He tethered the horse and sought out a tall tree with evenly spaced branches. It didn’t take long to find one, and Kian jumped for the lowest branch and hauled himself up. He wasn’t even halfway to the top when he heard the dragon scream again. It was close, too close, but there was no sign of it in the sky above. Kian climbed faster, and when he finally emerged above the treetops, mythe-light flared a short distance away.
The Wytch Master?
He heard another draconic scream, and moments later, a cloud of smoke rose into the air. It wasn’t far ahead, and he saw no sign of flames.
Kian climbed back down as fast as he dared. He left the horse and set off in the direction of the smoke. Crossbow in hand, he shifted his vision so he could see any disturbances in the mythe, and began to fight his way through the tangle of thorns and vines.
* * *
The black-robed woman was too fast, too powerful, too canny. She diverted his fire as if it were nothing, and still managed to throw bolt after bolt at him. He spread his wings, intending to take to the air, but she was ready for that. Instead of another barrage of bolts, she threw a lacy net of lightning that tore his wings to bloody shreds.
Screaming in pain, the dragon came down hard on the ground, spraying flame. The ruined stone wall on his left cracked and broke, scorched stone tumbling to the ground and singeing the grass. The hedgerow on his right was charred to glowing ash in a single breath, and still she stood, a mocking grin twisting her pale, thin lips.
Above him, the sky darkened, but whether it was from smoke or storm, he couldn’t tell. Lightning danced in the clouds, and the woman called it down to herself, weaving it into something that glowed like white fire in the mythe.
He shook his head as his vision blurred. The pain of his shredded wings was almost too much for him, but he would not succumb to the darkness without taking her with him. His memories might be hazy and distant, but he knew with iron certainty that she was the architect of all his pain.
With a roar of fury, he threw himself toward her.
Lightning exploded around him, blinding him, burning him. It drove itself through his very bones, blasting him from the inside out. His body warped and twisted, pulled into the shift by an instinct far more primal and imperative than the one urging him to kill: the instinct to survive. To shift back to human form and thus heal the damage.
He fought the shift with everything he had, knowing that his frail human body would be no match for the power she commanded, but the struggle was futile. His dragon body was too badly damaged. It was shift or die, and he was not yet ready to die.
With a final scream of fury, he stopped fighting and let the blackness take him.
* * *
When consciousness returned, Ambris’s shoulders felt as though they were being pulled apart. For a moment, he thought the pain was from his tattered wings, but his body felt too small, too human. Too weak.
He opened his eyes to find himself chained to a wall in a place that was frighteningly familiar. The cellar where Taretha and Malik brought him for the lessons that weren’t lessons at all.
Taretha.
He’d fought her with fire, and she’d blasted him with lightning.
With a whimper, he tugged at his bonds.
Face the fire…
Wisps of flame beckoned enticingly from the glowing core of fire at his center, a promise of the destructive power that would be his if he could just reach for it and take what it offered…
Face the fire…
He visualized his pattern of ice and moved it toward the fire, needing the power, the flame, the fury, but he couldn’t get close, couldn’t wrap the pattern around it, and this time, it wasn’t his own fear driving him back. Something else was in the way, an invisible barrier preventing him from getting close enough to wrap his pattern around the core of his power.
But he’d done it once.
It hadn’t been a dream, he was certain. Visions of flame rippled through his mind, and he remembered great, powerful wings lifting him into the air, the searing fire of his rage unleashed upon those who had dared take what was his…
Those who had dared to hurt—
Kian.
Ambris’s heart squeezed in his chest, and a black wave of grief rolled over him. Kian was dead. Malik had run him through and left him to bleed out on the cold, unforgiving stones of the courtyard. A sob tore from his throat, and hot tears scalded his cheeks.
“Now we’ll finish this.”
The voice came from behind him, and it filled him with dread.
Taretha.
He twisted around to see her, and that was when he felt the pull of the collar around his neck.
Blood-chain.
That was what was in his way. It didn’t matter that he’d found the courage to face the fire and cage it; the blood-chain would prevent him from shifting.
He blinked at Taretha. Her pale hair was in disarray and there were smudges of soot on her face, but she still managed to look every bit the Wytch Master who had kept him confined and afraid since the day his Wytch power had awakened. She pulled the blue jewel from beneath her cloak and walked purposefully to the wall where Malik’s whip hung.
“It won’t work,” Ambris said in a quavering voice. “The blood-chain will—”
“Which is why I’ve crippled it,” she snapped.
Crippled it?
What in the Dragon Mother’s coldest hell was that supposed to mean?
He wasn’t long in doubt. The lash bit into his bare back, and Ambris screamed in pain. When the whip came down again, the shift began. Ambris struggled to visualize the pattern, tried to cage the fire as he had before, but he couldn’t get close enough…
His body started to change anyway, bones warping and twisting, skin tearing, muscle ripping… Ambris cried out, the pain almost beyond bearing. And there he hung, stuck halfway between forms, bleeding and in agony.
He screamed again and wished for death.