A Birthright of Blood (The Dragon War, Book 2) (21 page)

Tilla shook her head, breath
shaky. "Commander, it's not my role to dictate policy. You are
wiser than I am. Yet if you ask me my thoughts, I will say: No."
She gripped her hands under the table. "You cannot slay an
idea with a blade. If you kill Relesar, you give the Resistance more
power. You would turn Relesar into a martyr. The people would rally
around his death; the idea would live on."

Frey
nodded slowly, lips pursed. "So are we to let him live, you
say? Are we to let him keep fighting, keep slaying our troops, keep
spreading this
idea
?"

"No," Tilla said. "We
cannot do that either. Again, Commander, you are wiser than I am.
Yet since you ask me, I speak to you freely." She raised her
chin and stared at him, forcing herself not to look away.
"Commander, we must capture Relesar, and we must force him to
abandon this idea. We must stand him upon the towers and walls of
Nova Vita, and we must have him hail the red spiral. The people will
see that even Relesar Aeternum, heir of the old dynasty, worships
your glory." She nodded. "All fire would drain from the
Resistance. Valien would be left with nothing but a few haggard
fighters."

Frey nodded. "You speak
wisely, child. A dead martyr is far more dangerous than a living
servant. People still fight for their dead. Have their hero
foreswear his fight, and their courage will abandon them. And yet,
what makes you think we can sway Relesar? With torture?" He
raised an eyebrow. "Would you have us torture your childhood
friend?"

Tilla swallowed, remembering the
man in the hut, the man she had burned and cut.

"If need be," she said
softly. "Yet I believe that I can sway him more easily.
Tortured lips reveal their pain; a forced vow of loyalty would sway
few." She leaned across the table. "I can sway him with
words, Commander. With my punisher if I must, but I believe my words
will work better. Please, Commander. I know Rune. I grew up with
him. He loves Requiem, yet Valien has poisoned his mind. Allow me
to show him your glory! Let us capture him. Let us bring him north.
I will show him your light and the errors of his ways. He will
become not a tortured, sniveling slave, but a true warrior to our
cause." She allowed herself a small smile. "Can you
imagine a greater blow to the Resistance?"

The emperor was silent.

Tilla sat still, refusing to
break their stare.

Please,
Tilla prayed silently to whatever gods, new or old, might be
listening.
Please
let him agree. Please. I cannot see Rune beheaded, despite all his
sins. I must save him.

The
emperor's stare seemed to last forever. His gaze bored into her,
seeking, rifling, searching for any trace of betrayal. Tilla forced
herself to stare back, chin raised and jaw squared.

Finally the emperor rose to his
feet.

"You are wise, Lanse
Siren," he said. "And you speak truth. My daughter is
right to groom you." He placed his hand on one jar; inside
floated the head that looked like Rune. "We will take Relesar
alive, and it will be your task to sway him. You will use words, or
you will use your punisher." His lips pulled back in a snarl.
"Relesar Aeternum will stand upon the tower of Tarath Imperium,
gaze upon the empire, and roar his loyalty to the red spiral. And if
he will not… his head will join the others."

As Tilla flew back to her tent,
her insides roiled and her wings shook.

I
saved your life today, Rune,
she thought as she flew over the camp.
You
might never know it, but today I saved you.

Below
her, a hundred thousand troops saluted and roared. War was near.

 
 
KAELYN

My father is coming to kill
me.

The
words echoed through Kaelyn's mind as she crawled down the tunnel.
The dirt walls closed in around her, reinforced with wooden slats.
Resistors crawled behind, lamps shining, boasting of how many
soldiers they'd kill. Kaelyn barely heard them.

My
father is coming to kill me.

The words kept rattling in her
skull. Kaelyn held a tin lamp and a parchment map of these tunnels.
She knew that she crawled beneath the tannery, heading toward the
butcher shop. Yet in the shadows, this seemed an older, darker
place. In the shadows, she was a frightened girl again, hiding under
her bed as her father raged. Again she saw his hands reaching to
grab her, his rod raised to strike, his eyes blazing.

"No, Father," she
whispered. "Please."

She winced. The scars flared
across her body, all those scars he'd given her and Leresy. She had
escaped. She had left her twin behind. She had grown into a strong
woman, a warrior, a leader. Yet here in the darkness, the walls
closing in around her, that strength vanished. Here she was young
and afraid.

My
father is coming to kill me.

"Kaelyn,"
Rune whispered behind her. "How far is it?"

She looked over her shoulder and
saw him there, covered in grime. He crawled on his belly, holding a
lamp.

"We're under Market
Street," she said, checking her map. "The fur shop is
above us; the butcher shop is ahead. That's where the tunnel goes."

His face was young and earnest.
He still did not know enough fear. He still had not seen enough of
her father's cruelty.

Kaelyn kept crawling.

Again
my father reaches for me,
she thought. Only now he reached toward her with an army. And if he
caught her this time, if she could not scurry deep enough into the
shadows, he would not just beat her. He would kill her and display
her mutilated corpse to the empire.

The tunnel curved up, leading to
floorboards above her head. Kaelyn pushed them aside and crawled
onto the floor of the butcher shop. Rubbing dust out of her eyes,
she reached down and helped Rune enter too. Ten other resistors
followed, clad in leather armor and bearing swords and bows.

Kaelyn looked around her and
nodded, satisfied. Large slabs of meat hung from hooks, providing
many places to hide. Cleavers hung upon walls, providing extra
weapons. A barrel of gunpowder stood at the door, wired to blast
outward should the Legions burst into the shop.

"I want to be stationed
here when the fighting starts," Rune said. He looked around,
smacked his lips, and nodded. "Lots of nice, fresh slabs of
ham. Perfect if you get hungry during the fighting." He
nodded. "Definitely the best place to be."

Kaelyn glowered and jabbed her
finger at his chest.

"You," she said, "will
fight from Castellum Acta with me and Valien."

Rune rubbed his chest and
moaned. "Can I fight from the bakery?"

"No!"

"How about the wine shop?
I can—"

"Rune!"
Kaelyn grabbed his collar. "Will you
please
stop thinking about your belly for once? The Legions fly here, and
you need to stay near me and Valien in the fortress. I need to look
after you."

He cleared his throat. "I
am, you know, your king." He puffed out his chest. "I
could just command myself to stay here with the nice food."

"You're not my king yet,"
she said, fixing him with her best glare. "Until we win this
war, you're nothing but a silly boy with a very hungry belly and a
very empty skull. Now come on, we have more tunnels to inspect."

They returned to the tunnel.
They kept crawling.

They crawled for hours.

During the past two moons, they
had dug a network of tunnels under every main street in Lynport. As
Kaelyn crawled, she examined her map.

"In these tunnels, we can
scurry between every shop in town," she whispered to herself.
"We can crawl from courthouse to castle, from cobbler shop to
chandlery, from forest to sea."

He
is coming to kill me.

She sucked in her breath; it
trembled in her lungs.

"Every doorway is booby
trapped with gunpowder," she whispered. "Archers stand in
every window, watching every street and alley. When the Legions
swarm, we will slaughter them everywhere."

Yet her heart kept thrashing,
and her fingers kept trembling, and she couldn't stop that voice from
echoing.

So
come,
she thought and tightened her lips.
Come and let us fight. Come and let it be done.

When evening fell, she and Rune
rose from the tunnels, shifted into dragons, and flew toward the
fortress on the hill. Castellum Acta now displayed the banners of
Aeternum, a silver, two-headed dragon upon a green field. The Regime
had been cleansed from this place. Its troops had joined the
Resistance or sat chained in its dungeon.

From
here we will command the battle,
Kaelyn thought, flying toward the tower.
Here
our fate will be decided.

Sunset gilded the tower and the
whispering sea. The scent of salt filled Kaelyn's nostrils, and the
northern forest murmured and swayed. She looked toward the setting
sun and felt small.

If
I could fly high as the sun,
she thought,
this
war would seem so small to me. We would all be but specks crashing
together upon the land. And still the sun would turn. And still the
sea would rise and fall.

A lump filled her throat, for
this sunset, these waves, and these trees—the land itself—seemed
sad to her. Kaelyn had never known peace; she'd been raised in
Tarath Imperium under her father's heel. Yet here in Lynport, she
caught glimpses of what peace could mean. It was a whisper of waves,
a song so ancient it had no words. It was the sway of trees, an
eternal dance. It was orange sunset fading into starry night.

This
is what Rune always meant,
Kaelyn realized. He had talked of walks along the beach, of laughter
with his friends, of peace, of hope. Kaelyn had never known such
things, yet she saw them in the waves, and she heard them in the
wind.

And
I will fight for them,
she
thought, the scent of water and leaves in her nostrils, tears in her
eyes.
And
maybe someday I will know peace too.

"Kaelyn," Rune said,
flying beside her. He nudged her with his tail. "Are you all
right?"

She managed a smile. "No.
I'm not all right. None of this is." She blasted smoke. "But
we're going to fight nonetheless."

The two dragons reached
Castellum Acta and landed upon its tower. The battlements rose
around them in a henge. The town stretched below along the coast,
trapped between sea and forest.

Kaelyn took a deep breath,
inhaling the crisp air.

Come
and fight me, Father. I'm ready.

As if in answer, a roar sounded
in the north.

Kaelyn whipped her head around.
Her heart thudded. For an instant, she was sure the battle had come,
that Frey Cadigus flew toward them with all his wrath and might. But
it was only a single dragon flying across the forest. The dragon was
still distant, but when Kaelyn squinted, she saw black scales crested
with a white stripe.

"Lady Lana Cain," she
whispered.

At her side, Rune growled.
Smoke rose from his nostrils.

"She brings news," he
said. "News is never good."

The striped dragon flew closer,
swallowing the miles and roaring her cry. When finally Lana reached
Lynport, she flew at a wobble, smoke trailing from her nostrils.
With a last flap of her wings, Lana all but crashed onto the tower
top. She shifted back into human form and lay panting, a woman clad
in yellow and gray, a streak of white blazing through her black hair.
A pin bearing the sigil of Cain, two statues guarding an archway,
fastened her cloak.

"Lana!" Kaelyn said.
She too shifted into human form and knelt above her friend. "Lana,
are you all right?"

Lana lay wheezing. Her skin was
pale, and her fingers trembled when she adjusted her eyepatch.

"The Legions," she
whispered. Fear filled her one eye. "So many… so many."

Whenever Kaelyn had seen Lana,
her friend had seemed a confident warrior, a smirk on her face, her
hand always clutching her saber's hilt. Yet now she trembled like a
woman returned from the Abyss.

"Do they fly south?"
Kaelyn whispered and clutched her friend's hand. It was ice cold.
"What have you seen?"

Lana reached up. She grabbed
Kaelyn's shoulder, her fingers desperate, her lips white. She seemed
like a drowning woman clinging on for life.

"Kaelyn," she
whispered, "we must flee."

 
 
VALIEN

He stood in the grand hall of
Castellum Acta, stared into the crackling fireplace, and growled.

I
need a drink.

He
clenched his fists. His head spun. His throat constricted; he could
feel the soldier's fingers squeezing him again, that grip from years
ago that had ruined his voice. Rye would cure that pain. Rye would
erase that memory. Valien grumbled.

I had to hide the boy in the
nearest tavern, didn't I? Now it's burned down and my throat is
parched.

"Valien,"
she said behind him. "Valien, please."

He turned and saw her there. As
always, when his eyes first fell upon her, he saw his wife again, saw
Marilion staring from beyond the years, beckoning, pleading, waiting
for him to save her.

"Valien," Kaelyn
repeated. "What do we do?"

He tightened his lips.

It was Kaelyn, of course. It
was always Kaelyn, a new light in his life, a reminder of throbbing
shadows.

Marilion
lives! She lives in my dungeon, you fool!

"Valien?" she asked,
voice hesitant.

She sat at the table, her quiver
slung across her shoulder. Rune sat at her side, clad in black wool
and brown leather, the Amber Sword fastened at his belt. Lady Lana
sat there too; her face was still pale, and her fingers still
trembled as she brought a mug of soup to her lips.