War of the Princes 02: Dragoon (19 page)

C
hapter 31: Burning Stone

Fire, brighter and bluer than the fading sky, lapped and curled all around us. Within seconds it shared the height of the balcony railing. Thin trails of nearly invisible smoke burned my sinuses and made me cough. I clutched my midnight and evergreen skirts, holding them as far away from the fire as I could. We were completely blocked off. Intense heat
threatened to smother us, forcing our backs to the stone rail.

Dylan gave a small cry, and pressed himself away from the flames. We were protected by two sm
all circles, free of the flame that surrounded each of us. The lapping tongues of blue didn't cross the threshold to burn us.

This was Rune's fire.

“Do yourself a favor and think the next time you cross me, Axton,” came Rune's voice from the doorway. I couldn't see him, but he was in the shadows there somewhere.

“
Coward!” Dylan barked.

“
Not a coward,” Rune's voice said. “And not a fool.”

The unburn
ed ring around me broadened, carving a path through the flames to the doorway. Dylan was given no such way out. I shrugged at him. He was not amused.

Gathering my skirts, I walked unafraid through the fire. The blaze closed behind me.

“The fire will only last for so long,” Rune said, already halfway out of the balcony lobby. “I need you to find us somewhere safe where we can talk.”

“
Okay.” I hurried to follow him, my pulse quickening. Once, trailing after my Dragoon had been a frightening experience. If we were discovered, there would be some very mortal, life and death kinds of consequences. We were in no less danger now. Maybe I was crazy, maybe I'd been too afraid too long and I was losing it, but quietly rushing away with Rune filled me with a terrible thrill that could never be properly described by words alone. When do words ever do the most potent of emotions any justice?

I caught up with him in the hall, sending my thoughts inward to reach for a nearby place where we wouldn't be discovered.
“This way.” The Pull led me away to the right, directly into a hexagonal sitting room. It looked like the kind of place where the wealthy visitors of the palace would come to mingle and drink tea. The room was empty of people, but full of tiered trays of berry tarts. I ignored the Pull just long enough to swoop by one of the tables. I took a napkin and plucked up one with raspberries, dusted with sugar, and another that was covered in strawberries and striped with chocolate.

Rune stared at me, perturbed.

I wrapped up the tarts in the napkin, careful not to smash them. “Sorry.” The Pull was back in an instant, and it led me straight to one of the paneled white walls. “This doesn't make sense.”

“
Doesn't it?” he said, walking past me. One of his knuckles wrapped against the wall, producing a distinctly hollow sound. Casting a cautious glance behind him, he began feeling at the wall with his armor-gloved hands.

I spun around to keep watch, and ended up snatching a blueberry tart before I heard the satisfying click that we were hoping for.

“There's a passage here,” Rune said. “Come on.”

By the time I turned around, he was already inside. As exciting as a secret passage should have been, the piece of false wall that had swung open to allow us entry was half the size of a regular door. The way in was dark, short, and narrow.

I frowned. There were footsteps clattering down the hallway outside. I didn't have time to hesitate. I held my napkin-covered tarts safely against my chest and snuck into the darkness, closing the secret door behind us.

C
hapter 32: A Hidden Place

We crouched in the hidden passage, ducking our heads and shuffling forward in a line. If I had held my elbows out, they would have scraped the sides of the walls. I didn't, I was just about as crumpled in on myself as I could be, but it wasn't good enough. I could feel the walls pressing in on me, the ceiling threatening to collapse over my head.

“Maybe I should have been more specific,” I complained.

“
Should be a roomy stroll for you,” Rune said, guiding us by his light.

He'd made a point. He was much larger than me, and I was the one complaining. Not that I'd ever heard him complain
... about anything.

Still, it didn't feel roomy by any means.
“Do I look like a small nocturnal mammal to you?”

“
Like an opossum?”

“
No, not an opossum! What is it with people calling me that?”

“
I didn't, you did.”

“
There are other small, nocturnal mammals!”

“
It was the first one I thought of. They love nesting in dark spaces like this.”

“
Well that's comforting,” I frowned, clutching my tarts protectively. Yet another thing to worry about. If I stepped on an opossum, I could swear I'd go into a mad fit of panicked screaming and kill us both in my rampage to escape.

“
Yes.”

“
Yes, what?”

“
You do look like a small nocturnal mammal. Of the human variety,” he added, just ahead of me. “You don't look like an opossum.”

“
Thanks, I guess.”

“
Wait.”

“
Wait to thank you? I wasn't actually grateful, you know.”

“
No, just wait. There's a drop right here.”

He moved off and the tunnel got darker. Great. I could already feel the walls turning in on me.

I could summon some electricity for light, but I didn't want to risk damaging the desserts. I'd barely eaten in days and I was starving. It may have sounded stupid, but I desperately needed some comfort food. Little things like that can go a long way when your levels of physical and mental stress are unbearable. It's nothing to be proud of, but I'll be honest, if I'd dropped them, I probably would have cried, and then maybe eaten them anyway.

To my unabashed amazement, I can safely say that my need for des
serts taught me an invaluable new skill. I used my discomfort from the close, dark space to fuel my haste for coming up with a solution. Drawing on my knowledge of solidifying my electricity in a shape, I planted an image in my mind and focused. Two tall little triangles to light my way, somewhere that would help me see and not blind me. My head. The power was there. So was the desire, and somehow, the confidence. Determined, I forced the energy to solidify. It was easier than I thought it would be.

Small. Nocturnal. Mammal. I'd given myself electrical cat ears! Take that, opossum!

The compact corridor glowed white around me and I beamed a grin to match. I crept closer, keeping my eyes on the square hole that Rune had disappeared into. Feeling proud of my accomplishment at molding energy, I misjudged the height of the ceiling and bumped my head. In my mind, the impact would have crushed my ears. The moment my confidence faltered, the ears vanished. I cursed under my breath.

“
There are metal rungs. Just grab on and come down slow, it isn't far,” Rune's ghostly voice echoed in the darkness.

He must have found another tunnel or a room, and now he was leaving me behind. It would have been stupid to ask for help lighting the place up, on account of tarts. Hefting my prize one hand, I dropped to my knees and drew the symbol to call on the Shadow Chasers. The whole place was dark, so they shouldn't have any trouble finding a shadow to crawl out of. My assumption was right.
No sooner than my fingers had completed the broken circle and crooked arrow, four-dozen little white eyes poured up from the floor, surrounding me. There were so many of them, I nearly dropped my food.

I couldn't see their bodies in the dark. It would have been terrifying, if I
weren’t already so used to them.

“
There's a room here,” Rune called out to me. “I think it's between floors.”

Reaching a hand out, I electrified my palm and gave the little creatures a bit of my power.

The nearest Shadow Chasers blazed to brightness, letting the electricity add to their shape until they were rich with electric wings, and thorns, and spines. The energy spread throughout the many tiny bodies like a wave until each and every one of them was evenly lit. The passage was bright as day.

Shooing them ahead, they lit my path all the way to the metal ladder Rune had disappeared down. Some of the Shadow Chasers skittered away behind me, and others fell down the chute. For all of my efforts, I was presented with another impossible problem. The ladder. Too stubborn to back down now, I climbed carefully down,
one-handed, using my other elbow to steady me. The drop wasn't far. When I reached the bottom, the passage had grown in height and I stretched my back, glad to be able to walk normally again.

A crack of light was just ahead, and I left the glowing Shadow Chasers behind.

I thought we'd been headed for some dank, filthy bunker of a lost room. I couldn't have been more wrong.

The secret room was delicately designed in white
, ivory, tan and gold. It was a bit dusty, the air stale and unused, but that didn't take away from the beauty surrounding us. Bright, electric lamps lit the room and lent daylight clarity to its masterful design. A mural of a white horse charging across a dark field sprawled across an entire wall. It was a drama of light and darkness, and the muscular horse, with its flared nostrils, looked as though it might thunder straight off the wall and into the room. Twisting stone statues of wind or waves sat poised in every corner of the room, and fluffy gold sofas begged me to nap on them. Gravity, I was tired.

White marble shelves decorated the wall opposite the horse mural
. There were scrolling papers, plaques, small portraits and drawings of people, cluttering the surfaces. On the floor, there was a massive pile, dull pink and yellow and brown. They were flowers and leaves, thousands of them, dried, but still beautiful in their own way. I could smell them.

I found Rune just inside, waiting for me. He looked the part of a villain, all dark and imposing in his stature, a
stroke of black overlaying the soft antique elegance of the room.

Finding such a treasure of a place, a secret, and being there with him, striking as he was, I lost my words. Something about him, that white horse, and the scent of carefully laid, dried flowers made me sad. Their importance forgotten, I set my bundle of food down on a nearby end table and wandered toward the altar.

I looked over the faces in the portraits, some hand drawn, some masterfully painted, some faded photographs, all of men, women, children. My eyes tracked down to the rolls of papers. They were all names. Just names. Hundreds, no, thousands of them.

“
They were Dragoons,” Rune said, the lightness in his voice was gone.

“
How do you know?”

“
I do.”

Something snagged my attention.
“What do you mean, ‘were?’”

“
They're dead,” he said, somberly. “This is a memorial.”

“
That's why it's hidden? Are families not allowed to mourn when a Dragoon dies?” I asked, appalled.

“
No,” he said. “I've told you, we are already dead to our families.”

“
But you're not! Look at this!” I looked back at the portraits, ignoring the pain in my chest. “Someone cares, a lot of someones. For a long time too. This place is proof of that.”

“
So it would seem.” A thin, faraway smile formed on his lips. He strode forward and ran a hand along one of the plaques of engraved names. “If this place was discovered, it would be destroyed. Whoever has been maintaining it has put themselves in as much risk as those adding to it. I wonder if Lord and Lady Hibbern know of it.”

I had no idea.

He was looking back at the portraits too. “These Dragoons are lucky.”

He was so alone. It hurt to look at him like that.
“Rune.” I wanted to tell him that he was luckier than them because he had me. I wanted to tell him that I knew his family would grieve for him. His mother had made me the orange scarf and told me no one was sorrier than she was, his sister barely accepted his distance from their family at all. I could have said so many things, but I wouldn't acknowledge the idea of his death.

“
He wasn't wrong. Axton. I risked your life,” he said abruptly.

“
You're risking yours, I'm risking mine, we're even,” I said, hoping that would be the end of it.

“
Nothing is ever that simple.” He walked away from the memorial, and paced back to face me, like he needed to look me in the eye for what he was about to say. “I knew that it wouldn’t be safe to go there. That room is locked down with guards on the quietest of days. I should have been more careful and put your safety first. But your reaction to that room confirmed the truth. You really are Katelyn Kestrel of Haven. I was wrong to be so distrustful. You’re unlike anyone I’ve ever known. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that anything good can exist in life. I’m not making excuses for my actions. I held a
knife
to your throat. I could have hurt you. Axton didn’t know how right he was to make me do the same to myself. You didn’t deserve to be treated that way. I needed to tell you... that I'm sorry.”

For anyone else, I may have flown off the handle, shouting in
exasperation, “You're damn right you were wrong!” But not him. I sighed.

He looked at me like my expression had said something to him.
“I don't need to be forgiven.”

I walked past him and fell into one of the couches, not caring about the preservation of my dress. The embrace of such soft cushioning was a relief. I rubbed my eyes with the fingers of both hands.
“Rune, I forgive you.”

He looked disbelieving, and walked slowly parallel to the couch.

“This place,” I said, not knowing where to begin. “It's nothing like where I'm from. It's twisted, complex, hard. I wish you'd believe in me, I wish you could magically trust me, but that's not real life. This mess is. The things I've seen,” my voice broke. “In the past few days alone... I could never presume to understand what life must be like for you. If you needed to test me in order to trust me again, I won't be angry with you for it. I just hope you believe in me now, and that these trials are behind us.”

Rune seemed puzzled, like he didn't expect my reaction to be so generous. He was reserved, distant. I could feel the space between us. Six feet had turned into a hundred miles.

“I believe you,” he said. “It isn't easy, but I do. You know what's really strange? I believe Dylan too. He was no more ready to see what I found there than you were. I don't think he has anything to do with Hest or the Commanders.”

“
But you don't trust him.”

“
No,” he agreed. “I don't.”

I couldn't
contradict him. “I had a pistol with me.”

“
I remember,” Rune said wryly.

“
I brought it from Haven. It had three special bullets. They dissolve into your body when they strike, and block your Abilities.”

“
That's incredible. A weapon like that could be useful... and dangerous.”

I nodded, resting my hands in my lap.
“The first shot is supposed to last one day. I used it on Dylan, and he lost the Lift and the Command for almost a week.”

“
If this weapon was designed for people with multiple Abilities, Lodestones like you, we might be even more susceptible to its effects,” he pointed out.

“
Maybe. That would explain it. It means that the Command is like an Ability, since he lost his control of that too. Each following shot lasts longer. For us, it should be that the first shot takes away your Abilities for a day, the second, a month and the third, forever.”

“
Forever?” Rune actually blanched.

“
That's what I was told.”

“
If Dylan reacted this strongly to one shot, he may very well lose all Ability if he's shot a second time.”

“
There are two bullets left, and one big problem.”

“
What?”

“
Dylan took the pistol.”

Rune laughed. I couldn't believe it. What did he find so funny?

“Odds are, I'm target number one,” Rune said, pacing around to lean against the couch across from mine. He folded his arms over his chest, blue eyes twinkling with some kind of self-deprecating amusement.