Daybreak (85 page)

There was an odd assortment of rings on Lysander’s fingers and a tangle of necklaces upon his arm. He dug through them until he found one with a blood red jewel hanging from its middle.

“I don’t know who half of these belong to — he nicks them before I have a chance to see, most times. But I know for certain that this one belongs to Gwen. Make sure she gets it back, will you?”

Lysander rushed off before he could reply, already yelling at Dante for rubbing jam into the curtains.
 

Kael turned to search the room — and nearly skewered himself on the tip of Elena’s black dagger. “I thought you were never coming back to Midlan?” he said.

“Well obviously, I’ve changed my mind.” She slid the dagger upwards to press it against his chin. “Congratulations on becoming a father.”

“Thanks,” Kael said warily. “I hear you run an inn?”

“
The
Mage and Blade
,” Jake said as he came up beside her. There was a rather potent scent wafting in behind him: the stink of the skunk oil he used to cover his magic.

Elena didn’t seem at all to mind it. She smiled as she nudged him with an elbow. “I’d rather missed having an inn.”

“Yes, and we felt it only right to help rebuild Crow’s Cross, after the … incident with the lantern. It turns out that the Valley is a very peaceful place to settle.”

“Jake does his own brewing,” Elena said, sliding the dagger back into its sheath. “It’s made things rather … exciting.”

Though Jake tried to wave her off, it was too late: Kael was already interested.

“I don’t know what it is. The spells I use
should
work,” Jake groaned when he asked. “But for whatever reason, my patrons keep turning purple. One in eleven of them, to be exact.”

“They come in groups, and the man who turns has to pay for everybody else’s drinks. Word’s started to spread. We’ve got travelers from all over the Kingdom coming to give it a try. I doubt we’ll be able to make it out the door, before too much longer,” Elena said.

Jake nodded in agreement. “Yes, the inn’s doing well. We’re rather enjoying the quiet life.”

They fell silent for a moment. Elena fidgeted with her bandolier while Jake stared into the hearth. Something hung between them — a thick, uncertain air. Both seemed to be just at the edge of speaking.

But it was Jake who spoke first: “Although …”

“Yes?” Elena stepped closer to him, her dark eyes searching.

“It’s nothing, really. I’ve certainly enjoyed every peaceful moment we’ve spent in the Valley. But I was thinking about the minceworms the other day. Now that their queen is, ah …
deceased
,” he smiled at Elena’s grin, “I’ve realized that there might not be much time left to study them.”

“You ought to go back to the desert, then.”

He shoved his spectacles up his nose thoughtfully. “Yes, I’ve considered it. Though there are outlaws in the desert. So I’d probably need some sort of protection.”

A glint crossed Elena’s eyes. “I think I can help with that. I’m sure the girls can run things on their own for a bit.”

“But we can’t do anything too dangerous. We have an inn to manage, after all.”

“Of course not. And once we’ve finished your research, we’ll come straight home.”

“Yes, I’m sure we’ll be more than ready to get back to something peaceful, by then,” Jake agreed.

While they discussed their plans, Kael slipped away quietly — shaking his head as he went.

The crowd that’d been gathered around Ryane slowly spread out across the room. Kael thought he saw a patch of flaming red hair in the far corner, but he wasn’t at all eager to go fighting through the bodies to get to it. Fortunately, Jonathan came bursting through the doors at that very moment — and his announcement drew the crowd away.

“Prepare yourselves, gents!” he cried.

Kael cringed, expecting an atrocious note to go screeching off his fiddle. But instead, Jonathan merely swept aside to let Clairy through.

Crimson stained her cheeks when she saw everybody watching her. She wore a deep blue dress and had her hair braided softly over her shoulder. There was a light in her eyes, a smile upon her lips …

And an unmistakable bump on her belly.

Most of the room erupted in cheers — though Aerilyn swore loudly.

“That’s exactly what I said when I found out,” Brend grunted, shaking his head.

“Oh, and there’s going to be more of them!” Aerilyn pressed her hands against her face, as if it was all she could do to keep from fainting. “I don’t think the Kingdom’s prepared.”

“For what? Wee giantlings with the fiddler’s gift for mischief? No.” Brend laughed through his grin. “No, but the Kingdom’ll
never
be ready for that!”

With the crowd moving to congratulate Jonathan and Clairy, Kael finally got a decent look at the other side of the room.

Gwen leaned against the far wall, staring listlessly out the window. Several of the wildmen had turned up in Midlan for the King’s coronation feast. They’d spent the evening telling her all about their adventures in other parts of the realm — and instead of gutting them, she’d actually listened. She’d been reasonably pleasant and had even managed to smile at a few of their stories.

But once the wildmen drifted to other parts of the room, her misery returned.

She slumped against the wall, arms crossed over her chest. Her paint was gone. She wore a soft linen tunic and breeches. The wide belt around her middle revealed a surprisingly graceful figure. Aerilyn had even convinced her to run a brush through her hair, which beat the mad, red tangles into waves.
 

Gwen was lovelier than Kael had ever seen her … and he thought it would be a shame if she wasted the whole night moping about the wildmen. So he came up with a plan.

He made a great show of straightening his collar before he stepped towards her, hoping it would draw the attention of a certain glowing set of eyes. And he wasn’t disappointed.

“Where do you think you’re going, Marked One?” Silas hissed as he stepped into his path.

Kael held out the necklace. “I was just going to return this.”

“
I’ll
return it. Go back to your side of the room.”

Silas snatched the necklace from his hand, but Kael didn’t flinch. Instead, he stared unblinkingly at Gwen.

“What are you …? No, stop looking at her! She isn’t yours to look at!”

“She’s not
yours
, either,” Kael retorted. “And it isn’t against the law to look. She’s beautiful, isn’t she? But she seems so … upset.”

Silas’s brows bent into pained arcs as he glanced at her. “My Thane misses her people. She does not live as wildly as she used to. That’s all it is. Looking at her won’t make her feel any better,” he added with a growl. “So go away.”

“No … in fact, I think I’m going to kiss her.”

“What? No!” Silas dropped the necklace and grabbed Kael roughly by the tunic. “You can’t kiss her!”

“Sure I can.”

“She won’t like it!”

“She liked it well enough, the last time.” Kael bent to whisper menacingly into his ear. “And I’ve learned an awful lot since then.”

When he tried to step past, Silas held desperately onto his shirt. “But — but you already have a mate! The dragoness will be furious with you if you kiss someone else.”

“Oh, I don’t think she minds it. Do you, Kyleigh?”

She stood beside the hearth, bouncing Ryane gently in her arms. “Do I what?”

“Do you mind if I give Gwen one of my deepest, most passionate kisses?”

“Of course not. And give her one from me, as well,” she added with a wink.

By now, Silas’s eyes had grown so wild with terror that they looked as if they were about to burst from their sockets. “Please, Marked One!
Please
don’t kiss her!”

Kael grabbed him around the collar. “Someone’s going to kiss Gwen tonight. Either you do it … or I will.”

“But it’s abomination,” he moaned.

“There’s no such thing as abomination. I’ve seen how you protect her, how you follow along in her shadow. You obviously care for her, and you have a chance to make her happy. So quit twiddling your thumbs and get on with it.”

Kael didn’t like shoving Silas around, but that seemed to be the only way to get through to him. The halfcat took an eternity to slink across the room, hands twisting nervously before his chest. When he finally reached Gwen, he froze.

She turned from the window and looked him up and down. “What is it, cat? And why are you …
sweating
?”

Silas said nothing for such a long moment that Kael feared he might faint. Then all at once, he grabbed Gwen by the face and slammed his mouth against hers.

It was easily the worst kiss Kael had ever seen. No woman could’ve possibly enjoyed it — unless that woman’s name happened to be
Gwen
.

After a brief moment of shock, she grabbed Silas by the hair and pressed against him so roughly that Kael thought for certain one of them would break. But they didn’t. And several seconds later, the kiss still hadn’t ended.

“Ugh, it’s like watching a lion tear into a goat,” Kyleigh muttered as she slipped in beside him.

“Well, I’m sure he hasn’t had much practice,” Kael said with a grimace.

She smirked. “I wasn’t talking about
Silas
.”

He supposed he could see her point.

When the doors opened again, it was Eveningwing who stepped through — followed closely by the shamans.

From what Kael could make of the rumors, the shapechangers had begun wandering up to the castle not long after Devin was made King. They came in flocks and packs to greet him. Many of them roamed for days around the fields, leery of stepping inside the fortress walls.
 

So Devin removed the outer gates, which allowed them to come and go as they pleased.

It was nothing any other ruler would’ve done. Crevan’s fortress, Reginald’s island, and Gilderick’s thick reddened walls — each of their castles had been designed to keep people out, to keep a barrier between their subjects and their thrones. But Devin wasn’t like any other ruler, and what he’d done for the shapechangers was only the beginning.

The giants had sent him a caravan’s worth of saplings and seed as a coronation gift. According to what the merchants in Copperdock had said, Devin spent weeks planting them all by hand — packing the courtyards and the fields around the castle with green. Several of them exclaimed that they’d been shocked to find their new King kneeling in the mud.

But though Kael had heard the rumors, he didn’t quite believe them until he saw the castle grounds for himself. Now he thought that if Devin cared for his people even a fraction as much as he cared for his garden, the Kingdom would thrive.

It took quite a bit of convincing, but Devin had finally managed to get the shamans to come inside long enough to join the coronation feast. Though they wore far more clothing than usual, their feet were still bare.
 

Graymange’s sharp eyes roved until they found Kael — and he bared all of his teeth into a wolfish greeting.
 

The shamans stood quietly while Eveningwing spread his arms and blurted:

“Dinner’s ready!”

“No, it’s
dinner is served
,” Horatio hissed loudly from behind the door.

“Oh. There’s a dinner served and the King wants to see you!”

“Remember to thank them, now.”

“And thank you!”

“Gah!” Horatio bustled out from behind the door and shooed Eveningwing to the side. “Dinner is served, and His Majesty eagerly awaits his guests of honor. On behalf of his shamans and his court, he thanks you all for your gifts. Now, please follow me.”

The crowd spilled from the room in an excited, chattering rush — eager to see Devin.

Their new King had spent his first few months of rule soaring around the realm, learning everything he could about his Kingdom. There wasn’t a region he didn’t visit or a village he overlooked. People were certainly leery of him, at first: not only because he rode in on monstrous wings, but because even his human body was twisted with spines and scales.

Still, Devin managed to win them over — if not with his kindness, then with his complete disinterest in trying to tell anybody how to live. Every region was left to its own devices, governed by its own chosen form of rule.

In the end, Kael supposed Argon had been right: Devin truly
was
more a caretaker than a King. After having been ruled over for so long, he thought a
caretaker
was exactly what the Kingdom needed.

“I suppose we should follow,” Kyleigh said quietly.

They were the last ones left — even Silas and Gwen had managed to pull apart long enough to go to dinner. “Fine,” Kael said with a sigh. Then he held out his hands. “But it’s my turn to hold her.”

Kyleigh laughed as she handed her over. Ryane stared up at him through a pair of wide, green eyes, her lips a bright pink against her pale skin. She looked like her mother in every way, save one.

Flaming red curls had begun to sprout up across her head. He loved how they seemed to war against the green of her gaze: two separate colors, each shining equally as bright. But there was something odd about it.

Only children born in the Unforgivable Mountains had red hair. It was their crown and curse. He’d never heard of a redheaded child being born any other way … and yet, Ryane had been born in Copperdock.

Kyleigh insisted that her hair was just a bit of mountain blood showing through. But Kael knew differently. He’d known from the moment her first curl appeared that the red was a message, and a taunt. It was a final jab from the world beyond, a weighted roll of the die:

Ryane was the
little reminder
that Fate had promised him — a warning that she could always cast for the ones he loved. But though it had clearly been meant to keep him from interfering with her plans, Kael didn’t mind it.

He would’ve given up far more than a bit of freedom, for Ryane.

“I know what you’re doing, whisperer,” Kyleigh said when he turned Ryane towards the hearth. She stepped in behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. He could feel her smile against his shoulder. “No matter how many times you look, it’s going to be the same.”