Dragon Forge: The Draconic Prophecies - Book Two (48 page)

“I think you should accompany them for the demonstration.”

“Me?” Kelas said. “Why?”

“I want to hear the queen’s response from your mouth, first of all. And it will bring you to the queen’s notice.”

“That’s exactly what I was hoping to avoid.”

Nara grinned. “One of Thuel’s subordinates taking such initiative without his knowledge or approval—it makes Thuel look bad.”

“Does it matter?” Kelas asked. “Queen Aurala’s opinion won’t be important for much longer.”

“It matters to me. I want Thuel humiliated as quickly and as greatly as possible.”

“Very well,” Kelas said. “I will bring the queen to the Dragon Forge.”

“We can’t stay here, Gaven,” Cart said patiently. “Kelas knows about this temple. He ordered it preserved. Which means that Malathar probably knows about it as well. They’ll find us here.”

“They’ll find us if we go running across the hills,” Gaven said. “I’m ready to fight that damned dragon-king and get my dragonmark back.”

Ashara’s ministrations had removed Gaven’s wounds and the numbness that lingered behind Phaine’s pricks and jabs. Now they were enjoying a good meal Ashara had prepared with food she brought from the camp, and it was starting to restore Gaven’s strength as well, after weeks of near-starvation. Another artificer with excellent cooking skills…. Gaven shot Ashara a sharp glance.

She didn’t seem to notice. “You’re not even close to ready,” she insisted. “One full meal isn’t enough to fortify you after all this time.”

“You’re a changeling,” Gaven said, watching her face carefully for her reaction.

Her surprise seemed genuine. “What?”

“You faked your death at Starcrag Plain, took on a new face and rejoined Haldren. You’re Darraun.” Gaven was on his feet, pointing a trembling finger down at Ashara, who looked up at him incredulously. Of course she was surprised—surprised to be found out.

Cart put a hand on Gaven’s shoulder. “Gaven—”

“You don’t fool me,” Gaven continued, ignoring the war-forged. “Cooking was your mistake.” His certainty gripped his mind like a fever, and he felt unsteady on his feet.

“In case you hadn’t noticed,” Ashara said, getting to her feet, “I carry the Mark of Making.” She pulled back the arm of her shirt to make sure he could see the lyre-shaped tracery clearly, swooping across her upper arm. “That’s a difficult thing to imitate.”

“But you’ve done it before. You piloted the airship, you faked the Mark of Storm and even fooled the elemental.”

“You’re mad,” she said, and turned away. “As crazy as they said you were.”

Cart placed himself between them. “Gaven, I think you should sit down and finish your meal. We need to get out of here.”

Gaven whirled to put his back to Cart and Ashara. “Fine,” he said. He sat down and returned to his half-finished meal.

The storm faded quickly, leaving the sky a richer blue with its passing. Aunn carefully marked its location in the mountains, though, and he hurried on well into the evening, hoping that the end of the storm did not mean that Gaven was dead. He slept fitfully and rose before dawn, hurrying on toward the cut in the mountains etched against the slowly brightening sky.

He wasn’t sure what reaction he could expect from Gaven. As far as the Storm Dragon knew, Darraun had died at Starcrag Plain—assuming that Gaven had found the body he’d made to look like his. If he hadn’t … well, that might be worse. Gaven would believe that Darraun abandoned him, fleeing with Haldren, or perhaps chasing Haldren. He finally had to admit that he didn’t know what Gaven would think. But he knew that he’d misled Gaven, lied to him, and that he had to rely on the half-elf’s forgiveness.

Rienne, on the other hand—he was sure Rienne would forgive him. Rienne had seen him at his most vulnerable, weak from piloting the airship and tormented by his dreams, unable even to remember the name he’d chosen. And her first question had been, “Are you all right?” She had been all concern and care, not a hint of anger or condemnation. Rienne would welcome him back, glad just to see him alive.

It wasn’t until the third day, as the ground started rolling toward the foothills of the Blackcaps, that he began to wonder why he was seeking Gaven at all. Gaven and Rienne had struck him as two people he could trust—potential allies, perhaps his only possible allies, in warning Aundair and the Reaches about Kathrik Mel. But they knew he wasn’t trustworthy. Why should they help him?

He had no one. Except for the single evening he’d spent with the eladrin, he had been alone since leaving Maruk Dar. Everyone he had trusted or relied on up to that point was dead: Farren, Vor,
Sevren, and Zandar. Kelas had betrayed him, and he had betrayed everyone else, including Gaven and Rienne. He would have to complete his mission alone.

Besides, he reasoned, the storm had appeared in the mountains and since disappeared. Three days had passed, meaning Gaven and Rienne could already be three days away from the mountains in a different direction. What hope did he have of finding them in that enormous swath of wilderness and farmland? They might have traveled north to the forest along a path parallel to his own, or deeper into the Blackcrags. Or they might be bound for Arcanix, west on the shores of Lake Galifar, or Cragwar, in Breland to the southeast. The spires of Vanguard Keep rose above the middle of the plain. They could have gone there, or perhaps they were prisoners in the fortress outpost.

By the dawn of the fourth day, he had convinced himself that his journey wouldn’t be in vain. The storm had been a sign of more than Gaven’s distress, he decided, but some indication of destiny. He felt that his destiny was bound to Gaven and Rienne in some way he didn’t yet understand, and that fate would draw them back together after their long separation. Proof would come soon enough—he was close to where he had seen the storm, close enough that he could no longer see the cut in the mountains that had been his landmark.

The sky, brilliant blue for days since the storm faded, started clouding over again in late morning. A shadow fell over the sunlight, and Aunn looked up to watch the unnatural storm take shape, just off to the east. Dark clouds appeared in the air like steam churning up from a boiling pot, writhing in the air like a living thing. They swirled outward to coat the sky, whirling around the vortex where they had appeared. A boom of thunder nearly knocked him off his feet, and rain began to fall into a canyon just east of Aunn’s hilltop vantage point. He hurried down toward it.

As Gaven ate the last of his meal, Cart came to sit beside him. The warforged sat in silence for a moment, his face turned toward
the blue crystal and the snarling demonic figure that framed it. He waited until Ashara was at the far side of the ancient temple, busy with the pack she’d brought from the camp.

“Darraun was a changeling?” Cart asked quietly, still looking at the crystal.

Gaven cursed himself. He’d forgotten that Cart didn’t know, and he’d violated the changeling’s trust.

It doesn’t matter, he told himself, if Darraun really is dead.

“He was.” He wasn’t sure how much else he should say, or wanted to.

“So perhaps he’s not really dead,” Cart said.

Gaven felt his pulse quicken. Even in more lucid moments, he had half-wondered the same thing while building Darraun’s cairn—why didn’t he wear his true face in death?

“He can disguise himself,” Cart continued. “Why not disguise another corpse to look like him?”

“But why would he do that?”

Cart shrugged. “Why did he do anything? Why was he spying on the Lord General … on Haldren? Why did he help Haldren escape from Dreadhold in the first place?”

“He …” Gaven drew a blank. “I don’t know.”

Cart glanced over his shoulder at Ashara. “I don’t think she’s a changeling,” he said. “But I would have said the same thing about Darraun. How can we ever know for sure?”

“No, you’re right,” Gaven said. “I think I wasn’t quite in my right mind. Raving.”

He knew he hadn’t been raving. But it occurred to him that Ashara might somehow be listening, and he wanted her to think he’d abandoned his suspicions. She’d be more likely to slip up.

Cart got to his feet and helped Gaven stand.

“I need to go back to the forge,” Gaven said again.

“I didn’t rescue you just so you could go back and be captured again—or killed,” Cart said. “My goal was to get you to safety, and I’m going to do that.”

“It’s still all about duty, isn’t it, Cart? You’re always working on a clearly defined task, one after another. You can’t think about taking on another task until you’ve completed that one you set for
yourself. But I’m telling you I don’t want to go to safety. The forge is where my enemies are, and they have something that belongs to me.” He ran a finger over the tender skin his dragonmark had left behind.

“I’m not a machine.”

“Of course not. But you’re also not flexible. The world doesn’t conform to our plans. People never do what we want them to. You have to live with that.”

“Or you have to convince them that they’re being stupid and stubborn, and show them why your way is right. I’m not an idiot and I’m not naive, Gaven. I’m perfectly capable of changing plans midstream when I need to. But only when a better plan comes along. And going back into Malathar’s claws is not a better plan.”

Gaven clenched his fists at his temples. “I’ll do it alone if I have to.” His voice resounded in the chamber, uncomfortably loud. “I need her back.”

“Her?” Ashara spoke for the first time.

That was it. Gaven’s hands dropped to his sides and his shoulders slumped. He was being stupid and stubborn, he realized. It wasn’t his dragonmark he wanted back. It was Rienne.

“Rienne,” he said. “I need her back. I need her more than my dragonmark, more than revenge on Phaine and Kelas and the damned dragon-king. I—”

Cart put up a hand to stop him, turning his head toward the entrance. Then Gaven heard it as well—a rumbling like distant thunder, echoing in the tunnel that led out of the temple.

Cart stepped cautiously to the tunnel mouth, and Gaven circled around to the other side, staying out of the opening. Just as they started to peer into the tunnel, a hiss like the threat of an enormous serpent roared in the tunnel, then a spray of thick, black liquid gushed out at them. Gaven jumped back out of its way, but Cart shouted in pain. The warforged fell down, frantically wiping at the liquid that clung to his body. It bubbled and smoked, warping the metal plate of his face and searing the wood in his neck.

Ashara rushed to help Cart, so Gaven risked a look up the tunnel. It was long but straight, sloping up to where he could just make out the light of day beyond. A hulking black shadow blocked
his view of the light, though—the source of the acidic spray. Another dragon.

Faint echoes of voices outside told him that some of Kelas’s soldiers were there as well. Rage burned in Gaven’s chest. These people and that dragon had taken everything from him—Rienne, his dragonmark, his freedom. He tried to channel that rage and release it, to send a blast of lightning back up the tunnel at his enemies. Nothing.

“Gaven, get back!” Cart said.

Gaven heard the dragon’s deep intake of breath and leaped back away from the tunnel mouth just in time. More black acid sprayed out past him, spattering on the stone floor. Some reached as far as the blue crystal, and Ashara gasped as it burbled and disappeared into the azure pool.