The Hearts of Dragons (24 page)

“True,” Rondel said, “but
you also reminded her of something far more important. You see, when I returned
from the war, I brought Aletas two gifts. One was the Chloryoblaka. The other
was you. Do you understand? Aletas’s husband went away to war, and only his
weapon and child came back. Aletas protected you because you are Otunë’s
legacy. As long as you live, part of him lives on as well.”

Rondel took a deep
breath. Tears soaked her cheeks. She looked at Minawë, and she was crying too.
“Minawë,” Rondel said, “my daughter, I never meant to burden you with all this.
I wanted only for you to be happy. The Kodamas have suffered so much. I didn’t
want to hurt you more than I already had.”

“No,” Minawë replied.
She reached in and embraced Rondel. “I’m grateful, truly. All of you—Father,
Mother, and you—fought to protect me. All of you sacrificed yourselves for me.
The least I can do is love you in return.”

Rondel pulled back from
the hug. She’d expected Minawë to rage at her mother’s deceit. Instead, her
daughter’s words stole Rondel’s breath. “You . . .” she
whispered, “you lo. . .”

Minawë smiled and kissed
Rondel on the cheek. Then she walked to the door. “I don’t see any reason why
someone can’t have two mothers,” she said. “If anything, it makes me more
fortunate than most, including Iren Saitosan. So, Mother, that only makes it
all the more important that we help him. You’d better recover your strength
soon, because I won’t stop until we rescue him.” She left before Rondel could
reply.

For several minutes
Rondel sat in her bed and stared at the door. At last she laid down to rest.
When she fell asleep, she dreamed, and for the first time that she could
remember, the dreams were good.

Five weeks later,
Minawë, Rondel, Narunë, and a troop of Kodamas stood on Aokigahara’s southern
edge. Minawë was at once elated and dismayed. After so many months, she had
reached Shikari, the place where Iren was. That said, they still had to journey
through this harsh land of jutting peaks and deep crevasses. All the while,
they would be exposed to attack. Shikari was Maantec territory after all.

Minawë ran a nervous
hand through her long green hair. In Lodia it just stood out; here, it marked
her as an enemy.

“I wish we could go with
you,” Narunë said.

Minawë fought back
tears. She’d only known him for a few months, but she would miss her uncle.

“You’ve already done
more for us than we could have hoped for,” Rondel said.

“I suppose,” Narunë
admitted, “but I wish my niece had better protection than a decrepit Maantec.”

Rondel laughed. “Your
niece doesn’t need protecting. It’s the other way around. She’s protecting me.
If you have any doubts, ask Azar!”

Narunë joined the old
woman in her laughter, but Minawë kept silent. Sometimes even the strongest
person needed a little protection.

“You’d best be on your way
then,” Narunë said after he’d calmed down. “You might have reached Shikari, but
it’s a hike to reach Hiabi on the other end.”

Minawë threw her arms
around Narunë, heedless of everyone watching. “Goodbye, Uncle.”

He stroked her hair.
“Journey well, Minawë.”

Rondel smiled. “Narunë,
my best to all of you. With luck we’ll see you shortly, and with a Maantec in
tow.”

“Not another one!”
Narunë cried. “One of you causes enough trouble!”

They all laughed, and
then Rondel and Minawë left the forest. Minawë shuddered when she stepped
beyond the tree line. Compared to the vibrancy of Aokigahara, Shikari was
desolate. Minawë reached out to the plants, but they were scraggly and poor.
She frowned. She had needed the forest’s energy to defeat the Fire Dragon
Knight. That wasn’t an option out here.

If Rondel had any
worries about traipsing through enemy territory, she didn’t show them. Instead,
she talked amiably, like she was giving a tour. She pointed out the various
mountains, caverns, and distant terraced farms.

They camped that night
in one of the innumerable caves that filled this broken country. After they’d
eaten, Rondel looked seriously at Minawë. “Make sure to sleep enough tonight,”
the old Maantec said. “We don’t know what we’ll face tomorrow.”

Minawë gulped. “Will we
reach Hiabi tomorrow? Is Shikari that small?”

Rondel shook her head.
“It would take weeks to traverse on foot at regular speed. We don’t have that
long. I wanted to go slowly today so you could get a feel for the landscape.
Starting tomorrow, though, you will fly, and I will run. I’ve been to Hiabi
before, so I know the way. We’ll meet up outside the city. Assuming I’m
recalling the distance correctly, we should arrive by midafternoon.”

“How will I know which
city is Hiabi?”

“It’s hard to miss. It’s
the only city in the territory. Apart from the farmers who work the terraces, few
Shikarians live outside it.”

With that, the old woman
curled up on the cave floor and made herself as comfortable as possible. She
was snoring within minutes.

Minawë knew she should
rest too, yet she lay wide awake. Six months had passed since she’d seen Iren.
Compared with her thousand-year life, it was nothing. Even so, she wondered
about him, and how much he might have changed.

*   *   *

Balear Platarch woke to
three inches of snow outside his tent. It caught him by surprise. He’d noticed
the weather growing colder, but he hadn’t realized he’d spent so much time in
the wild.

Fear took him. Maybe it
hadn’t been as long as it appeared. The Fubuki could change the weather and
make it snow.

Balear reached for the
Auryozaki and held it aloft. His eyes surveyed the woods. The Fubuki had white
fur; in the snow-covered forest, the beast would be almost invisible. His pulse
hammered, and his breathing came so fast it made him dizzy. If the monster
snuck up on him, he would die before he could swing his sword. He recalled the
piercing pain of the Fubuki’s Ryokaiten as it stabbed him, and the cold
numbness that spread through his body as the weapon worked its terrible magic.
That had just been his arm. What if it thrust through his chest?

He needed to calm down.
Back in the summer, the Fubuki hadn’t bothered with stealth. It had announced
its presence with a roar so terrifying it locked its enemy in place. That
hadn’t happened here.

Balear took a deep
breath, visible in the frigid morning air. The Fubuki hadn’t come. This snow
was natural. With a shiver as much from relief as from cold, Balear set to work
on a larger fire and breakfast.

The meat had just
finished cooking when the realization hit him. The Fubuki had used magic to
make its summertime blizzard. Balear didn’t know a lot about magic, but he
imagined it must require a huge amount of it to manipulate the weather. That
meant the Fubuki had been holding back during their fight, yet it had still
proven an overwhelming foe. In the winter, when it didn’t have to waste magic
chilling the air, its power would become incredible.

Balear didn’t bother
packing up his campsite. He threw some snow on the fire to quench it, and then
he took off at a run toward Veliaf.

He prayed he wasn’t too
late.

From the air, Hiabi was
even more imposing than the rest of Shikari. The ancient city had escaped the
Kodama-Maantec War, so it retained the splendor of the Maantec Empire. The
buildings seemed endless, a mass of ceramic tile roofs that concealed thousands
of Maantecs.

The realization made
Minawë’s eagle form tremble. The Kodamas were all but extinct, and Amroth’s war
had decimated Lodia. If the Maantecs ever united, no nation on Raa could
withstand them.

A high wall encircled
the city, and Minawë scanned it for sentries. She wanted to know the city’s
defenses. According to Rondel, the plan was straightforward. The old Maantec
would scale the wall, sneak inside, and make for the castle keep. That was
where Iren would likely be held. Minawë would meet Rondel there, changing from
bird to Kodama inside so Hiabi’s citizens wouldn’t see her green hair and raise
the alarm.

Minawë was about to head
for the castle to wait for Rondel when she noticed something odd. Two people
stood outside the city several hundred yards from the main gate. At this
height, Minawë couldn’t make them out even with the eagle’s keen vision, so she
descended in hopes of a better look.

The first person was a
woman with long black hair. Her posture indicated absolute confidence. She was
unarmed, which Minawë thought odd for a guard.

Next to the woman stood
a man. He had tan hair shorter than the woman’s, yet it was long enough that he
had tied it back in a ponytail. His clothing looked like nothing Minawë had
ever seen: a long-sleeved, sky-blue top above what appeared to be a pleated
gray skirt.

Minawë maneuvered so she
could see the man’s face. The moment she did, she shrieked. Her cry echoed off
the mountains north of the city. She plummeted as she briefly forgot she was in
midair, but at the last moment she regained her wings and sped back to Rondel.

“I saw Iren!” she said
after returning to her Kodaman form.

“Where?” Rondel asked. “In
one of the castle courtyards?”

“No, he’s outside the
city! He’s with a woman with black hair.”

Minawë thought this was
the best news they’d received in a long time, but Rondel didn’t look happy
about it. “You’re certain it was him?” she demanded. “Was he restrained?”

“No,” Minawë said, “he
was just standing there.” She thought for a second, and then she snapped her
fingers. “Hey, maybe that woman helped him escape. We can rescue him without
entering the city!”

Rondel didn’t answer for
a long time. At length she said, “Minawë, as your mother, I want you to promise
me something. Whatever happens, please don’t interfere.”

“What’s that supposed to
mean? I thought you brought me along to defeat the Stone Dragon Knight.”

“I wasn’t referring to
the Stone Dragon Knight. This is something else. Something . . . well,
let’s not jump to conclusions. Iren’s waiting for us. Let’s go.”

All pretext of stealth
gone, the pair walked around a corner and into view of Hiabi. Minawë gasped at
the city’s size. It had looked large from the air, but from the ground, it was
enormous.

“Stay focused,” Rondel
spat. “From here on, there’s no time for sightseeing.”

Minawë swallowed the
rebuke that came to mind. Rondel was right. They didn’t have to linger here.
They could grab Iren and leave.

Several hundred feet
away, Iren and the woman with him moved toward Minawë and Rondel. Minawë’s
pulse quickened. Iren was right there! They could be back in Aokigahara tonight
if they hurried.

As the pairs closed,
Minawë readied to shout Iren’s name. Before she could, though, Iren said, “I’ve
been waiting for you, Rondel.”

Minawë’s excitement died
in her throat. Iren didn’t sound like himself. His voice was low and angry.

Rondel stopped walking.
“Yes, I imagine you have. Tell me, what amusing stories about me have you and
Hana been swapping?” She glanced at the young woman next to Iren.

Minawë took a step back
as she realized the woman must be Hana, the Stone Dragon Knight and the person
who had kidnapped Iren.

Only the two of them
didn’t look like kidnapper and victim. If anything, they stood a little too
close together.

“Actually, just one,”
Iren said. He paused, and when he continued his voice had all the venom of the
most poisonous snake in Aokigahara, “The one where you murdered my parents.”

“It’s a l—” Minawë
started to yell, expecting to hear Rondel reject it too. Instead, the old woman
kept quiet.

“Will you deny it?” Iren
asked.

“If it’s true,” Rondel
replied, “what will you do?”

“The same thing I should
have done to Amroth. I’ll kill you.”

“Revenge?” Rondel said
with a scowl. “I thought you’d moved past that. I seem to recall you saying you
didn’t care who murdered your parents. You only cared about protecting your
friends.”

Iren hesitated, but it
lasted a mere second. “I do care about my friends,” he said. “For a long time,
I thought you were one of them. But all that time you lied and pretended you
didn’t know about my parents or what happened to them. Well, now I know the
truth!”

Minawë couldn’t believe
the accusations she was hearing. She was about to intervene on Rondel’s behalf
when the old woman retorted, “The truth? How arrogant! What makes you think you
know anything about it?”

“I saw it,” Iren said.
“I used Divinion to relive my father’s memories—Iren Saito’s memories.”

Minawë had thought the
conversation couldn’t get any weirder, but she’d been wrong. No matter how much
these Maantecs had manipulated Iren, he couldn’t believe Emperor Saito was his
father.

To Minawë’s further
surprise, though, Rondel nodded and said, “Then you know why I had to kill
him.”

Rondel put it so matter-of-factly.
There was no guilt. There was no regret. She’d admitted to murdering Iren’s
father as easily as if she’d told them it was sunny today.

“Okthora’s Law,” Iren said.

“You know what Saito
did. I didn’t lie to you, except to repeat the official version of events that
says he died a thousand years ago. I didn’t want to ruin the image you had of
your father as a simple farmer. The reality was that he was a madman obsessed
with power and Maantec dominance.”

Minawë couldn’t listen
anymore. “This is impossible!” she cried. “Iren Saito can’t be your father!”

Iren looked at Minawë as
though noticing her for the first time. “Rondel, you dragged her along?” he
asked. “Why? Was it to soften my heart against killing you?”

“Don’t be so self-centered,”
Rondel said. “Minawë’s here because of Hana.”

Hana smirked. “You
needn’t have bothered. I have orders. This is between you and Iren. I’m not to
interfere.”

“Not to interfere?”
Rondel mimicked Hana’s smile. “Is that what you call attacking me, stealing the
Burning Ruby, reforging the Karyozaki, and giving it to an Oni to wipe out the
Kodamas in Aokigahara?”

Iren’s resolute
expression wavered. He looked at Hana. “What’s she talking about?” he asked.
“You reforged the Karyozaki?”

The formerly implacable
Hana shifted on her feet. “Not me,” she said, speaking faster than before, “Lord
Melwar. He wanted to buy time to make sure you could regain your magic before
Rondel arrived. Azar was supposed to delay them.”

“A lie,” Rondel said, “and
a poor one. Hana took the Burning Ruby from me before you even left Ziorsecth.
She thought she’d killed me, so there’s no way she could have known we were
following you.”

Iren’s eyes flicked from
Hana to Rondel and back again. “Then why, Hana? I almost died to stop Feng. It
took the Dragoon to defeat him! Why would you and Melwar risk that again?”

Hana gulped, but then
her face hardened. She tossed back her hair. “For conquest,” she said. “We
didn’t want to waste Maantecs fighting veteran Kodamas in Suicide Forest. Azar
and his Yokai know the jungle better. They were supposed to kill the Kodamas so
they’d be out of the way once you became Maantec emperor. You could have led
our armies north without interference. Besides, there was no risk in it. Melwar
knows all about the Ryokaiten. He reforged the Karyozaki correctly. There was
no danger of Feng taking over Azar’s mind like he did to Amroth.”

Iren eyed her with
wrath. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you. I trusted you. All this time
I thought you were helping me, but you were just using me. I thought you and
Melwar wanted me to become emperor so we could bring about peace. That wasn’t
it at all, was it? You wanted me to unite the Maantecs so you could conquer
Raa!”

“Are those goals so
different?” Hana asked. “Your father believed they were the same. The other
races need to be ruled. Look at Lodia! They’re falling apart because they lack
the steady hand of a powerful, immortal Maantec leader. If you brought the
Maantecs together, the humans would surrender without a fight. Under your rule,
Lodia would have peace forever!”

He should have rebuked
her right away. Minawë clutched at her chest. The old Iren never would have
entertained such nonsense. Instead, it took him nearly a minute before he said,
“You’re right, Hana. For a time Iren Saito did believe that. Yet in the end he
changed. He realized the Maantecs don’t deserve to rule any more than any race
does. He came to respect the other races. He even loved and married a human. If
I’m going to follow him, then I have to refuse you.” He met Hana’s gaze. “I’m
sorry. I can’t be your Maantec emperor.”

For the first time since
Iren had made his accusation against Rondel, Minawë dared to hope. They had
almost been too late, but they had arrived in time after all. Iren had seen
through Melwar’s deceptions, and he would return home. If Hana or Melwar
attacked, Iren would stand alongside Rondel and Minawë to stop them.

Then Iren turned back to
Rondel. “Don’t think this changes anything between us,” he said. “I haven’t
forgotten you, or what you did. You say you follow Okthora’s Law, but that’s an
excuse. Even if it did apply to Saito, which I’m not sure I believe, it doesn’t
explain your other murder.” He clenched his fists and growled, “It doesn’t
explain why you killed my mother.”

Up until that point,
Minawë had thought Rondel composed in the face of Iren’s accusations. Now the
old woman’s jaw hung slack. She stepped back as if Iren had slapped her. Her
eyes fell to the ground.

“Why did you do it?”
Iren demanded. “Why did you kill her? She didn’t know who he was. She didn’t
know about Maantecs. She thought he was a farmer. You claim evil must be
annihilated? Then explain why she was evil!”

Rondel collapsed to the
dirt. “I never meant to kill her,” she said. “I went to that farmhouse
intending only to kill Saito. Had she stayed in the house, she would have
lived. But when I heard her wailing for Saito’s worthless soul, I couldn’t
stand it. He didn’t deserve to have someone cry over him. He didn’t deserve to
have a wife. He had that chance with me, and he wasted it.”

The Muryozaki sang as
Iren drew it from its sheath. “I’ve heard enough,” he hissed. “I thought you
were a good person, fighting against evil. I was wrong. You’re nothing but a
jealous hag who couldn’t stand that someone else might be happy with the man
you tossed aside!”

Rondel laughed then, but
it was unlike any laugh Minawë had ever heard from her. It was too high-pitched
even for Rondel’s sarcastic front. It was shrill, almost manic. “I knew,” she
said, “that I made the wrong choice that night.”

Iren wasn’t laughing.
“You thought killing an innocent woman could be the right choice?”

The old Maantec stopped
her bizarre cackling and regained her feet. Her eyes sparked as Lightning Sight
activated. “I wasn’t talking about your mother,” she said. “I was talking about
you. I could have killed you that night too. I almost did. You were lying in
the grass, your shoulder against the Muryozaki’s hilt. I knew then that you
were the Holy Dragon Knight. It was unthinkable. I couldn’t let another Saito
become the Holy Dragon Knight. I thrust my blade down to end your life, but
then I saw your eyes—Iren Saito’s sky blue eyes. And not the eyes of the man
I’d killed, but the eyes of the kind-hearted boy who healed me after my parents
died, the eyes of the man I married. When I saw those eyes, I couldn’t bring
myself to kill you, so I left you there.

“I thought I could
forget the whole thing, but the next day the dreams started. Everywhere I went
I saw your eyes. I realized I’d killed you, even if I hadn’t stabbed you. You
were an infant. If you didn’t starve, you’d freeze. Either way, you’d die. So I
went back to find you at the farmhouse, but of course you were already gone.”

Minawë listened in
stunned silence. She knew some of this tale. Amroth had found Iren and taken
him for his own by that time. He must have been on his way to Haldessa when
Rondel reached the farmhouse.

“When I arrived and
found three fresh graves, I despaired,” Rondel continued. “I thought you had
died, and I knew I would never survive the guilt. I went to Haldessa, and that
was when fortune came to me. Amroth arrived with you in his arms. When I saw
you alive, I couldn’t help but exclaim in surprise. Not because I wanted you
around, but because your survival meant I didn’t have to die.”

Iren raised his sword.
White light swirled around him like a tempest. His magic had returned. “Stop
talking, Rondel,” he said. “I’m not interested in your guilt, or how much you
suffered. I care about avenging my parents. I care about avenging my mother.”
He stepped forward.

Minawë leapt between
them. “Stop!” she shouted. “I won’t let you two do this!”

“You’re going to defend
this murderous witch?” Iren asked. “After all you’ve heard, you’ll still
protect her?”