Calen drew in a slow breath, wind howling like thunder in his ears. The warmth of Valerys's scales against his palms was in enmity with the icy chill that swept over him like a crashing wave. His body shifted with a crack of Valerys's wings, lifting higher, pushing through a thick bank of clouds, before diving. They were one. Eyes, ears, heart, and body. The world was clearer, sharper. Their heart thumped, slow and rhythmic. Their body narrowed, slicing through the air.
The first time they had flown together had been after Tarmon and the others had rescued Calen from Arisfall, and Calen had not been entirely conscious. It was a feeling like no other. A closeness of body and soul that felt intrinsic to life. As they tore through the cloud-laden sky, Calen came some way closer to understanding the nature of the bond between them. They were two halves, blended at all points, one incomplete without the other. Together, they were something entirely different than what they had each been before.
Calen leaned back, spreading his arms wide, filling his lungs with ice-cold air. There, dropping through the night, Valerys below him, he felt no fear in his heart, no anxiety or burdens. This was where he was meant to be. This was where he belonged. Even as the dragon spread his wings and banked hard left, Calen barely shifted where he sat at the nape of Valerys's neck. He felt the binding between them, the intrinsic magic that held Calen in place and moulded the dragon's scales to his presence.
Power radiated from Valerys as he broke through the clouds and into the open sky, muscles rippling. Calen could still remember the vulnerable, frail creature that emerged from the egg in the forest outside Camylin. The creature that had spent more time asleep than awake and only woke to be fed. The memory caused him to smile from ear to ear. It was nearly impossible to reconcile that small creature with the dragon beneath him now. Shoulders three times as wide as a horse, wings that could spread past five carts side-by-side, jaws that could rip an Urak in half, fire that could melt steel.
Below, through Valerys's eyes, Calen could see the camp they'd set up for the night, feel the warmth radiating from the bodies. No fires had been lit so as not to betray their position to any Lorians who might have been following them from the city, but Calen could see the threads of Fire being used to cook two deer and some fish that had been skewered on spits. After Calen had agreed to taking the five knights with them, the group, along with the Lorian rebels, had set off for the Burnt Lands. From what Calen could see from Valerys's back, there was nobody following them, but it was better to be safe than sorry. They'd walked through the remainder of the night and the next day, stopping only an hour or so ago to set up camp, eat, and rest.
Calen had spent most of the time on dragonback. Partly to make up for the lost time not spent flying with Valerys while the dragon was injured, and partly because the idea of talking to Haem sent anxiety coiling through him. All he wanted was to pull Haem into an embrace and not let go. For over two years Calen had mourned his brother's death. He'd wept, grieved, lost his temper, drank his sorrows, and finally had begun to come to terms with the loss, only to then find his brother still drew breath but had decided to let his family believe he was dead.
Calen let out a sigh, shaking his head, as Valerys spread his wings to their fullest and soared over the camp, eliciting a series of gasps and cheers from those below. Calen smiled at that, his mood lifting.
Valerys alighted on a clear patch of earth on the far side of the camp below a rising rock face, whipping up swirls of dust and dirt with his wings. Calen slid from the dragon's back, softening his landing with thin threads of Air. If it had been up to him, they would have flown for hours, sweeping through the barren valleys that bordered the Burnt Lands and soaring across the cloud-filled night sky. But they had spent too long away from the group as it was, and, in a way, he felt indebted to these people. If he hadn't come to Berona to find Rist, they would still be sleeping in their warm beds, still going about their normal lives. They had fled their homes because that Battlemage, Black — or Tarka, as Sulin had called him — had betrayed them, but it had been Calen's arrival that had triggered that betrayal.
Warmth touched the back of Calen's mind, and he looked up to see Valerys staring out over the camp, head lifted high, shoulders pushed back, a deep rumble resonating in his chest. The dragon's lavender eyes glistened as he gazed over the gathered men and women. A sense of pride filled Calen, spilling over from Valerys, the instinct to protect, to defend. Our people. Our family.Calen rested his hand on the scales of Valerys's chest, resting his fingers for a moment on the beginning of the long scar of fused scales that ran along the dragon's side from the Fade's lightning. "Our family is getting bigger."
An urge to roar rippled in Valerys's mind, a primal instinct to tell the world that these people were now under his protection. But the dragon held back. They were halfway between Berona and the Burnt Lands, the Beronan Lake at their back. They couldn't risk giving their position away.
A warning from Valerys flashed in Calen's mind, giving him a moment's notice before he heard Haem's voice.
"Calen."
Calen's throat felt as though it had been pulled tight with rope, his chest seizing. Every drop of moisture in his mouth evaporated. He didn't turn. He stood frozen with his hand resting on Valerys's chest.
"Please, Calen."
Calen tried to stop his stomach from somersaulting. He straightened his back, lifted his chin, and turned. He let his anger rise; Haem deserved it. "What do you want me to say, Haem? Or should I call you Arden? You walked away when—"
The wind was knocked from Calen's lungs as Haem crashed into him, wrapping him in an embrace so tight Calen thought his bones might break.
"I love you, I've missed you, and I'm here."
Calen had managed to keep his composure until he felt the cold wetness of Haem's tears against his neck. That broke him. He leaned into Haem's embrace, squeezing back, his fingers twisting in the linen of Haem's shirt. Tears streamed down Calen's cheeks, mixing with snot. A dam broke, everything he had been holding back pouring forth. He wept for his mam and for his dad. He wept for Ella and Faenir and all those he hadn't been strong enough to save. And he wept for the brother that had come back to him. Calen shuddered, his stomach lurching, twisting into knots, his body jerking with the strength of the tears, and Haem just held him.
"I'm here, little brother. I'm here."
They stayed like that, tears streaming down both of their faces, arms holding tight. Finally, a warm breath blew over him, sweeping his hair off his face, followed by the scaled snout that nudged his side.
Reluctantly, Calen pulled away from Haem, wiping the tears and snot from his face with his sleeve.
Haem looked from Calen to Valerys, who loomed over them, forelimbs grinding into the ground, shoulders rising at least twice Haem's height, muscular neck stretching even higher, white scales gleaming. Valerys stared down at Haem before lowering his head so their gazes met. A feeling of deep interconnected intimacy drifted from Valerys's mind to Calen's. This was the brother the dragon had never met. The kin taken from him before birth. The kin that had now been returned.
Valerys leaned forwards, tilting his head so the flat of his snout pressed against Haem's shoulder, nudging him. A low rumble sounded in the dragon's chest, more purr than anything else.
"Rest your hands on the sides of his snout," Calen said to Haem, wiping the fresh tears from his cheeks.
Haem did as Calen asked, hesitating only for a moment. "Does it have a name?"
"His name is Valerys. It means Ice in the Old Tongue."
"Valerys," Haem whispered, running his fingers along one of the long horns that framed Valerys's jaw. He then swept them across the dragon's scales, feeling at a groove that had been scratched into a scale just above Valerys's lip. "It's as if he knows me."
"You are family," Calen said, his eyes locked on Haem. "He knows you as I do. He is me, and I am him."
Haem reached out one hand and rested his palm against Calen's cheek, brushing a tear away with his thumb. "You've grown, little brother."
"I've had no choice," Calen said, wishing he had put less sting in the words. With a low rumble, Valerys pulled away from Haem and dropped to the ground, curling up, his tail meeting his snout, enclosing Calen and Haem in a ring of his body. Calen lowered himself to the ground, resting his back against Valerys's side. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that."
Haem sat at Calen's side, pulling his knees towards his chest. "I'm sorry I wasn't there. I would have given my life to be. I would have given anything to take that pain from you."
"I watched them die." Calen stared at the ground, a tear streaking down the bridge of his nose and dripping from the tip. Haem was the only one who could ever truly understand. The only one who could comprehend the pain.
"I'm sorry, Calen." Haem's voice trembled. Calen looked up to see tears streaming from his brother's eyes. Haem had sucked in his cheeks, biting down on the insides as he stared off into the distance.
"It's my fault." Calen shook his head. "I'm the reason they're dead. The empire came looking for me. I killed a soldier in Milltown. I—"
"It's not your fault." Haem cut Calen off. "Don't you dare hold that weight on your shoulders. I won't let you."
Calen drew in a breath, then let it out through his nostrils. "I killed the man who killed dad… drove my sword through his chest in Berona." Calen's words lingered in the air, followed by a short silence. "Why didn't you come back?" He could feel the tears welling in his eyes again, but he pushed them down, his stomach twisting. "Why did you let us think you were dead? If you'd been there… if you…"
"I was dead, Calen. Or at least I was dying when Kallinvar and the others found me in Ölm Forest. We chased the Uraks from The Glade and pushed them towards Wolfpine Ridge, but it was a trap. They surrounded us. I watched everyone die. I was bleeding out from a gut wound, and Kallinvar offered me a chance to keep fighting." Haem pulled back his shirt revealing a metallic green tattoo in the same shape as the symbol the Knights of Achyron wore on their armour: a downward facing sword set into a sunburst.
Calen's mind drifted to that dream he'd had in the Burnt Lands — the dream of Haem in Ölm Forest. Had it truly been real? "What is it?"
"It's the Sigil of Achyron. It's what saved me."
"Did it hurt?"
"Like you wouldn't believe," Haem said with a short laugh. Calen's heart clenched. Haem's smile was something he'd never thought he'd see again. "If I had said no, I would have died there and then, in a pool of my own blood, surrounded by everyone I'd grown up with. Saying yes meant that in some way I could still protect you. It meant hope. But I couldn't come back. Taking the Sigil means swearing your life to Achyron. It's an oath of the soul, and to betray that oath means to have your soul burned from you. I couldn't come back until it was what Achyron required of me. I'm here now, and I'm not letting you fight this fight alone." Haem leaned over, touching the side of his forehead against Calen's. "I promise."
They sat in easy silence.
"You passed The Proving then?" Haem gave Calen a half smile, a prideful look in his eyes.
Calen nodded. "Despite Fritz Netly's best efforts."
Haem looked over Valerys's tail, his eyes narrowing. "Did I see that little shit here, with the others?"
"It's a long story."
"We have a lot to catch up on. And a lot of time."
Tarmon sat on the trunk of a fallen tree near the edge of the camp, the tip of his greatsword resting on a folded cloth, the flat of the blade against his inner thigh. He ran a lightly oiled whetstone along the edge of the blade methodically, his hands moving through the motions born of repetition.
Across the way, Valerys was curled up from head to tail, Calen and his brother sitting on the ground, resting against the dragon's side. They'd been there for hours now, talking, laughing, crying. At first, after what had happened at Kingspass, Tarmon had been worried. Calen had a temper. A righteous temper, but a temper nonetheless, and Valerys's was no better. The pair of them fuelled each other.
But the unease had drained from him when he'd seen the two embrace. Calen might have been a Draleid, but he was still only a young lad with the weight of the world on his shoulders. More than any of them, Calen had needed a bit of happiness. Especially after they'd not found Rist in Berona.
"What will you do?"
Tarmon looked to his right at the sound of Vaeril's voice, the elf dropping to the ground and folding his legs beneath him, the light of the moon bright against his white-blonde hair. "What will I do with what?"
"In a few weeks we will be in Aravell. There, we will reach out to Aeson Virandr, and the rebellion will truly begin. What will you do?"
"Still not sure what you mean."
Vaeril drew in a breath, looking over at Calen. The elf was a strange one, but Tarmon had come not only to respect him, but to admire him and to consider him a friend. There wasn't a doubt in Tarmon's mind that Vaeril would give his life not only for Calen, but for any of them. "You are Lord Captain of the Belduaran Kingsguard."
"Ah." Tarmon frowned. He understood what the elf was asking. At first, when the Wind Runner had crashed in the tunnels below Lodhar, Tarmon's only thoughts had been to get back to his king, to get back to Daymon. The young man had a good heart, but he had been consumed by the loss of his father. He needed guidance.
But the more time Tarmon spent with Calen and the others, those thoughts drifted increasingly towards the back of his mind. It was not a simple question. Belduar was his home, but the city was gone now, charred and burned, destroyed by the empire. His parents were long taken into Heraya's embrace, and both his brother and sister had been killed in the Fade's attack on the city.
Erik, Calen, Vaeril, even Valerys — they were his family now. They'd fought, bled, suffered, and lost together. Honour tugged him towards Daymon and Belduar, but his heart tethered him here. He let out a sigh, sitting up straight, pulling the whetstone away from his blade. "I'm not sure."
Vaeril nodded, standing and slinging his bow across his back. The elf was likely going off on one of his patrols. Regardless of whether Vaeril had been assigned first watch, he often took it anyway. The elf rarely slept, and even if he did, it was with one eye open and a hand on his bow. He took a few steps, then turned back to Tarmon. "We are Vandasera, you and I. Erik and Calen too."
Tarmon raised an eyebrow.
"It is a word of the Old Tongue. It means to be bound not by words but by honour and a singular purpose. An understanding of what is right. Vandasera. Oathsworn."
Shadows crisscrossed the ground,cast by the cold light of the moon breaking through the trees that lined the eastern edge of the camp. Erik slid his knife from the sheath at his hip. He flipped it into a reverse grip, his thumb resting against the pommel, fingers wrapped tight around the hilt.
He weaved through the foliage, his steps light and purposeful. He drew his breaths in through his nose, releasing through his mouth, slow and careful. Ahead of him, a shadowy figure stalked through the thicket, the hood of their dark cloak pulled up over their head, bow held firmly in their left hand.
Erik had been just about ready to wake Tarmon to replace him on watch when he'd heard rustling in the trees, a branch snapping. At first he'd thought it a fox or a kat, but then a heavier snap sounded — too heavy for either animal and too sure footed for anything larger.
Ahead of him, the figure moved from tree to tree, moving like someone who understood how to move silently in a forest but hadn't spent enough years putting theory into practice. They stood too high, moved too quickly, and left signs of their passage everywhere. Erik picked up his pace, moving when the stranger moved, using their noise to hide his own.
After a few minutes, he could see where they were going. They were working their way towards the rock face that dropped from the ridgeline at the far end of the camp. Where Calen and Valerys are sleeping.
Looking through the trees, Erik saw shapes moving around the camp — the others who had been set on watch. But if this archer could get a clear shot from the woods, it wouldn't matter how many eyes watched the night.
As Erik drew closer, he drew his breath in slower, holding it for longer. He crouched as he moved, lowering his centre of gravity. He was close enough now he could make out the brown colouring of the archer's cloak, illuminated by the sporadic rays of interspersed moonlight.
He glanced ahead. They were only twenty feet from the trees nearest to where Calen was sleeping. With his eyes adjusted to the dim light, Erik could just about make out the rise and fall of his friend's chest against the gleaming white of Valerys's scales; the dragon's scales seemed to almost draw in the moonlight, harnessing it. Calen slept in a half-seated position with his head resting against Valerys's side, a blanket drawn up over him. To Calen's right, another figure sat on the ground, legs crossed, sword resting across their lap. Erik had no doubt it was Calen's brother. Erik hadn't gotten much of a chance to speak to the man, but he seemed decent enough. He and the other knights had been on watch all night, most of them still wearing that strange green armour.
A few more paces and the archer was slowing, scanning for the right spot. The figure slipped an arrow from a quiver on their back.
Snap.
"Fuck." By the time Erik had felt the resistance of the branch buried beneath the foliage, it had been too late, he'd already placed his weight on it. It was only by instinct that he threw his shoulder back, praying to Achyron and Elyara both that he'd picked the correct shoulder. A whoosh tore through the air, soaring past his left side, followed by a thunk as the arrow lodged into a tree.
The lack of pain was Erik's second assurance the arrow had indeed missed him. He lunged, twisting to his left as the archer swung their bow in an arc, glancing off the side of Erik's head. Erik brought his knife across his chest, then stabbed down into the back of the archer's elbow, skin parting, tendon snapping away from bone. The archer let out a horrendous shriek, reeling backwards as Erik yanked the knife free, stepping forwards.
The archer pulled a knife from somewhere beneath their cloak, the steel glinting, left arm hanging limp. They swung the knife in frantic swipes, slashing at Erik.
Erik waited. As they slashed their blade across Erik's path, Erik stepped forwards, clamped his hand around the back of the archer's wrist, holding their knife hand in place, then rammed his own knife blade down through their forearm, twisting. He could feel the vibration as the blade grated against bone, blood spilling out through the wound. He must have missed the artery, as the blood was spilling as opposed to spurting. The archer stumbled backwards, one arm hanging limp by their side, tendon severed at the elbow, blood streaming from the other.
Erik lunged, grabbing the stranger by the throat and slamming them back against a tree trunk, head bouncing off hard wood. Reaching up with his knife hand, Erik pulled the stranger's hood down.
"You fucking rat." Erik found himself staring at the shocked face of the Inquisition apprentice they had taken from Berona. The one who hailed from Calen's home village — Fritz, Erik was sure his name was. The man's face was narrow and slender, a hooked nose at its centre, sharp weaselly eyes either side.
"I'm… sorry… I…" Fritz tried to choke words past Erik's iron grip, but Erik only squeezed tighter, pushing him harder against the bark.
"What are you sorry about?" Erik said, shaking his head in disbelief. "I'm actually curious." He loosened his grip on the man's neck. "Come on, speak."
"I'm sorry," Fritz said, his voice hoarse, breaths ragged. "I didn't… I'm not…"
"You're sorry for getting caught. You thought killing Calen with an arrow while he slept would, what, win you favour with the empire? Grant you fame?" Erik stared into the man's beady eyes. "Calen let you live after what you did to Gaeleron, after what you allowed to happen to that man and woman. I don't know why, but he did. I'm not Calen. And I won't risk his life for yours."
Shock touched Fritz's eyes before Erik flipped his knife and drove it up through the bottom of the man's chin, pushing until he felt the hilt click against bone. Fritz jerked for a moment, blood spluttering from his mouth, eyes gaping, then Erik twisted the blade and dragged it free, letting Fritz slump to the ground, still twitching.
Erik dropped to his haunches, wiped the blood from his knife on Fritz's robes, then slid the knife into its sheath. He looked at the dead man as he rose to his feet, lip curling in contempt. He had to die. Erik had known men like him. He was a weasel, a rat, and he would have done anything to get ahead or save his own skin. Leaving him alive would have put Calen and all the others at risk.
Erik snatched up the bow and pulled the quiver from Fritz's back. No doubt the man had stolen it from one of the fleeing rebels.
Erik turned to leave and found himself staring straight at Vaeril. The elf was close, white-wood bow gripped in his left hand, arrow already nocked. He slipped the arrow back into his quiver and nodded, moving to leave Erik where he stood.
Things had been frosty between Erik and Vaeril since the Burnt Lands. At least, they had seemed so to Erik. It was hard to tell with Vaeril. "Vaeril, wait."
Vaeril stopped, turning, lifting an eyebrow, the moonlight pale against his skin.
"The things I said, in the Burnt Lands—"
"Are already forgotten." The elf slung his bow over his shoulder and disappeared in the dark, blending with the woodland.