Daybreak (80 page)

He looked up and smiled at the dragon’s familiar, green-blazing stare. “Hello again.”

“Hello, my love.” The dragon held them between her foreclaws and rested her head atop Kyleigh’s shoulder. Her eyes closed with a contented sigh. “All of the little pieces of my soul are together again.”

“We’ve missed you, in case you haven’t noticed,” Kyleigh said. She kissed him on the top of his head before she called to someone beside them. “Well, what do you think? He’s a marvel, isn’t he?”

Kael groaned when an old woman’s voice replied: “He is, indeed.”

Fate looked exactly the way he’d expected her to: a crone with shriveled fingers clad in a tattered robe. She leaned heavily against a twisted cane and leered at him with a set of bottomless eyes. They were as dull as her brother’s were bright, as black as his were white.

Something
clink
ed against her long nails: a many-faced die that rolled inside the spidery cage of her fingers. As he watched, Fate let the die fall. It bounced across the ground and came to rest before his boots.

There were symbols painted across its sides, each appeared to have been scrawled in blood. But the die didn’t land on any of its faces. Somehow, it landed on its edge.

“Remarkable,” Fate said, smacking her gums against the word. “Even in my presence, you have no discernable future. My brother always knows just how to vex me.”

She snapped her fingers, and the die shot back into her hand.

Kael looked away and saw they were gathered on the edge of a forest. Dawn light spilled between the trees and the birds woke with song. Creatures of every shape and size ran wild beneath the canopy, their figures turned to shadow against the sun.

“The eternal woods,” Kael breathed.

Kyleigh held him tighter. “What do you think?”

“It’s … beautiful.”

“And it goes on forever.” Kyleigh’s voice dropped to a playful growl. “Think of all the trouble we’ll get into — an eternity’s worth of mischief.”

Kael groaned, half-laughing.

“Think of all the lands to cross, all of the winds to chase,” the dragon added with another happy sigh. “My wings long to take flight.”

Kael smiled out at the woods for a moment, listening to all of the creatures at play inside its heart. But it wasn’t long before a strange feeling drew his eyes away.

A thick cloud of haze covered the whole earth behind him. It stretched into the sky and ran in a perfect wall to either end of the horizon. Muffled voices drifted from inside the haze, their words lost behind the wall. Colors swirled into the blurry shapes of beasts and men. A few of them looked … familiar.

“This is the Veil,” Fate said when he asked. She hobbled to the wall’s edge and brushed her cane against it. The shapes stirred beneath her touch like the wind across a curtain. “A realm of chaos and strife, where all the desires of men war against their faults. It is an imperfect, desolate, and unjust span of time. All those who cross its shores in triumph have truly earned their eternal rest.”

Something about Fate’s toothless smirk made Kael uneasy. He remembered what Death had said — that Fate was angry with him for destroying her plans, that the torment he suffered in the barren lands was nothing compared to what awaited him in the realm beyond.

Now he stood inside that very realm … and when Fate spoke again, he knew he should’ve listened.

“I’ve waited a long while for this day. I tried to cast for Kyleigh’s life several times before, knowing that you would follow. But the future was always against me. This time, though,” she turned, and her bottomless stare scraped across him, “this time, the die landed in my favor. Her soul slipped beyond the Veil … and you followed. I’ve got you, now.”

Kyleigh’s arm clamped across his chest and the dragon snarled in warning.

But Kael wasn’t the least bit afraid. “Torture me however you like. Just make it quick, will you?” He wrapped his hands around Kyleigh’s arm. “I don’t want to waste another moment of our time.”

Fate cackled, leaning all the more heavily against her cane — as if the force of her mirth might very well knock her over. “Oh, my brother was right about you! You truly are Kael the
Fool
. What I had planned isn’t as simple as having your heart sliced out. No,” her dark eyes slid over to Kyleigh, “I was going to throw your love into the river and make you watch while she drowned … over and over again, for all e —”

Fury tore Kael into a sprint. He charged for Fate, his fist raised to put a dent through he middle of her face. But she stopped him with a wave of her hand.

His body fell as if he’d been kicked in the middle. His back struck the ground hard. Kyleigh and the dragon gathered him up again before he could stand and held him in a vice.

“You’re in my realm now, Forsaken One,” Fate hissed. The die clinked between her fingers as she watched him. “The more you vex me, the worse it gets.”

“If you hurt her —”

“You’ll do nothing. You’ll stand there like a root and watch. Don’t test me,” she added with a glare.

She stepped forward, and Kael held on tightly to Kyleigh’s arm. He wasn’t going to let her go. He wouldn’t let Fate harm her. He would do whatever had to be done, no matter how it stung him.

So he took a deep breath and whispered: “Please.”

Fate stopped. Countless more wrinkles popped up across her forehead as she raised her brows. “What was that?”

“Please don’t hurt Kyleigh.”

“Are you …
begging
me, defiant one? The one who laughs at Fate? Who’s cheated Death? Clever of you to force my brother’s hand, by the way,” she added with a smirk. “There aren’t many men who’d brave his sword a second time — let alone brave it
seven
.”

“I’d do it all again —”

“No, Kael,” the dragon said sharply.

Kyleigh looked to Fate. “I don’t want to lose him. But if it means he won’t be hurt, I’ll follow you to the river.”

“No, I’d rather die a thousand times —!”

“So would I!” the dragon roared over the top of him. “You’ve already done more for me than I could ever —”

“Enough.” Fate sealed their lips with a second wave of her hand. She regarded them for a moment with an inscrutable look. “Usually, souls beg me
not
to die. I’ve never come across a group of spirits fighting over the first to be drowned. No one’s dying today.”

Kael couldn’t believe it. Even when Fate released him, all he could think to say was: “You aren’t angry with me?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that I’m
thrilled
. But though you certainly ruined all of the little things I had planned, you saved the thing that mattered most — a reckoning a thousand years in the making.” Fate’s lips twisted around her next words, as if it pained her to speak them: “When you had the chance to slay my King, you didn’t. I watched you stand over him with your sword drawn, helpless to stop its fall. The last threads of my great plan lay tattered beneath your foot. But … you never cut them. You spared his life —”

“Wait a moment —
Devin
?” Kael said, his head spinning. “Devin is your King?”

Fate smiled wryly. “Yes, the shaman’s son. The last of his mother’s brood, the last of the halfdragons — my last chance to right an egregious wrong. I always regretted the roll of the die that brought the mages into the Wildlands. They will never be as grand a thing as they were before … but with a draega upon the throne, they will heal. No one among men will be fool enough to challenge him,” she added with a laugh. “His rule will stretch as long as his life — a truly eternal crown. And in time, my shamans will have their honor back. All will be as it was before.”

Kael was still trying desperately to make sense of what she’d said when he heard Kyleigh whisper: “That’s brilliant.”

“A great trick, isn’t it?” Fate agreed. “But how unlucky for me that my King’s life crossed paths with the Forsaken One. My sly, meddling brother never lets me have a moment’s peace!”

Kael thought it was rather bold of Fate to accuse someone else of being
sly
and
meddling
. But he also thought better of saying it aloud.

After a few moments of cursing under her breath, Fate’s wrinkled fingers twisted about her cane. “Yes, an unlucky thing, that the Forsaken One had a chance to do me a kindness. Now, instead of having the pleasure of torturing his spirit forever, I find myself in his debt. So, what’s it to be, mortal? What gift do you ask of Fate?”

Before he could open his mouth to say it, she rolled her bottomless eyes.

“Yes, yes — you can keep your love. No need to waste your breath. But I can’t have you sitting here at the edge. Your souls must move on. So, would you rather love her in the Veil … or in the woods?”

For Kael, there was only one obvious answer. He turned to face Kyleigh and the dragon. “If we stay here, we’ll never be apart. You’ll never have to suffer the way Dorcha did.”

When he turned to answer Fate, Kyleigh clamped a hand over his mouth.

“Death is an eternity, but life is merely a season,” the dragon said. “You are so young, my love. It would be a tragic thing to have it taken from you.”
 

Kyleigh nodded. “Yes, and the woods will still be here when our lives end … provided we behave.”

Kael didn’t return her smile. He remembered all too well how the valtas cursed the dragons. He wouldn’t leave her to mourn for hundreds of years after he’d gone.

But before he could say as much, Kyleigh blurted out: “We want to return to the Veil.”

Fate bent her wrinkly head. “All right —”

“No, it isn’t
all right
! This was supposed to be my choice!” Kael fought his way out from under Kyleigh’s grip and stormed up to Fate. “You can’t let her do this — you can’t just change the rules!”

She cackled in his face. “I’m
Fate
, mortal! I’ll do whatever I please. Though I can’t cast for your soul, I can always cast for the ones you love. You’d do well to remember that,” she added, when Kael began to argue. Her eyes wandered over to Kyleigh, and her mouth bent in an unsettling grin. “Perhaps I ought to send you a little …
reminder
.”

Kael’s stomach twisted into a knot. He knew he had no choice. “Fine, we’ll go back to the Veil. I won’t say another word about it. But I’m still furious with you,” he snapped at Kyleigh, who only grinned in return.

Fate threw a frail arm about his waist. “It’ll do you no good to be angry with her — her soul traveled here the
right
way. She won’t remember any of this … but you will.”

Kael didn’t like her words — and he liked her smirk even less.

But before he had a chance to worry, Fate reached for the Veil. “I’ll hold onto her spirit from this side and make sure she doesn’t slip away. But you must work quickly, mortal,” she added with a glare. “Do not test my patience.”

*******

“No …
no
.”

Kael pulled himself from the darkness, following along the path of a sobbing voice. For a moment, the world seemed upside down. He had no idea where he was, or which direction his head was turned.
 

Everything wavered beneath the pressure of sleep. But there was an echo in the back of his mind — words that stung him with their urgent message:
Work quickly, mortal
.

He blinked the sleep from his eyes, and the shattered room came into focus.

Devin crouched beside him, rocking on his heels. He sobbed thickly into the crook of one arm and reached out with the other. His fingers brushed across Kyleigh’s face — so horribly pale and transfixed by death that for a moment, Kael thought he’d been tricked.

Then all at once, she woke with a gasp.

“Hold on!” Kael cried, nearly choking on his heart. “Hold on, Kyleigh!”

His hands shook as he placed them against her wounds. There were tears across her innards, through every layer of her muscle and flesh. She shook badly as the pain seized her limbs. Kael nearly lost his grip a few times, but he fought to hold on. He wasn’t going to lose her again.

They were the most agonizing moments of his life. Each second that slid through the glass carried with it the weight of everything — every cord of his heart, spread out and bound across the grains of time. Every breath that passed between them had the power to tear the Kingdom from its roots. And if he was even a moment too slow, they would.

By the time Kael had sealed the last bit of her skin together, Kyleigh stopped moving. He was afraid to look up at her, afraid of what he might see. He clung to this final moment of uncertainty with the knowledge that it might very well be his last chance to feel hope. Once he looked up, all of the light could leave his world forever.

But that didn’t happen.

Kyleigh’s chest rose with a shuddering breath. Her hand ran up his arm, grasped him around the neck — and the next thing Kael knew, he’d been dragged to the ground.

She kissed him savagely, laughing at the fall of his tears. “Don’t cry, you silly whisperer. You haven’t lost me, yet.”

But he
had
lost her. He’d lost her for a thousand years, while Death gouged his heart inside the barren lands. It was only by the mercy of Fate that he held her now.

And though he might wish to, Kael would never forget it.

They stayed tangled for a few moments more — Kyleigh smothering him with kisses while he tried desperately to hold on. A slight cough finally reminded them that they weren’t alone.

“Are you all right, Devin?” Kyleigh said as Kael helped her to her feet.

He nodded, and his face turned red as his stark blue eyes flicked between them. “I suppose this must be your mate?”

He smiled at her nod — and that’s when Kael realized just how badly wounded Devin was. There were little punctures across his shoulders and above his brows. When he turned, he saw there were a number of shallow cuts down his back. The burn lines that split his face and the scales across his chest belonged to Daybreak.

And Kael immediately felt guilty for it. “Come here, and I’ll seal you up.”

“It’s all right,” Kyleigh said when he hesitated. “Kael doesn’t bite often.”

After an uncertain moment, Devin smiled. “You’re joking.”

“Yes, and more often than not,” Kael said, shooting her a look.