The Dragonprince's Heir (12 page)

The answer came to me with a sudden certainty. It had to be the pool. There had been a pond at the heart of the dell. It would provide more protection than these brittle, dry woods. The water could perhaps be deep enough to conceal someone from a dragon's sight. It could certainly offer some hope against the forge-hot fire of a dragon's breath. She had to be there, and I had to get to her.

I stayed low, beneath the reaching branches of the trees, and made a hasty crawl toward the pool. Once I heard the low, slow thunder of the dragon's wings beating past above, but I froze in place and it passed over me. I moved again, and some short time later I heard a terrible crashing as a massive monster tore ferociously into the gnarled trees that gave me cover, but it was some distance off to the left, and I was able to slip past it during the commotion.

And then I saw the rippling glint of moonlight on water up ahead. I scrambled forward, filled with a sudden hope, but reason caught me one pace short of the pool's edge, and I went still. I strained my ears and caught the sound of breathing—the short, sharp breaths of someone trying to maintain a tenuous calm, and the low whistle of a dragon catching its breath.

It had to be Mother. I dropped a hand to my sword hilt again, summoning my courage, and inched forward to get a clear view. I wanted it to be Caleb. Perhaps I was praying deep in my soul that it was Caleb so unnerved he could not hold his breath steady. But I knew it couldn't be him. Stretched out almost prone, I pressed my palms flat against the earth, dug in with my toes, and pushed myself ahead without a sound.

She was there, just across the water from me. She wore a simple, light dress of cotton like one of the servant women might have worn. Her dark hair was tied back, her skin unadorned. She looked younger than I had ever seen her. She looked...soft. Fragile. This was not the Lady of the Tower of Drakes. This was just a defenseless woman, small and weak.

And towering above her was the dragon. It was so much larger than I'd thought. I had never seen a white dragon before. I had never even heard of one. Moonlight hung around the beast like the glow of a perfect pearl. The dragon stood as still as a statue, gathered high above my mother, ready to strike at any instant, but neither of them moved.

They were perhaps a dozen paces away from me. I could see the careful control in her eyes, but her lip trembled. Her hands, too, at her sides. She had no weapon. Still, she stared up the creature with something almost like defiance. I marveled at her control, but it would count for nothing against one of those scything talons, or teeth strong enough to crush stone.

She was no more than a dozen paces away, but the pool stretched between us. I could not approach with any kind of stealth. I'd have to throw myself into the open, then run splashing through the water. I might gain some advantage of surprise, even over a monster like that, but I could not cover the distance in time. It had only to take to the air, and I'd be unable to touch it.

But at the very least I could help her. I could distract it. I could lead it away and give her a chance to run. I nodded once. I took a slow breath and let it out, then dropped a hand to draw my sword. For all my care I heard a rustle in the brush by my hip. I froze, eyes fixed hard on the creature looming over my mother, but neither of them gave any indication they'd heard the tiny sound. I tore my gaze from that tableau and looked down to my side.

Caleb's eyes shone wide and white with reflected moonlight, but otherwise he was a shadow lost among the trunks and branches. Somehow he had moved all the way to my side without a sound. I gestured with my free hand to catch his attention and jerked my head back to the dragon.

A frown creased his forehead, and he nodded sharply at me. He knew what was out there. I reached on toward my sword, but Caleb shook his head. I frowned right back at him, and jerked my head toward the dragon again. Then I gave a little sigh and eased myself back the way I'd come, out of his line of sight, so he could see the threat hanging over my mother. For everything I held against the man, I could not believe he might leave my mother in any kind of danger. He'd have given his own life a dozen times over to protect hers.

And he watched. For a long moment after I'd ceded the place he lay still, staring across the short distance at her. I could see all the fear and worry this man would ever show in a tiny wrinkling around his eyes, a tension at the back of his jaw. It was there, though. I loosened my blade in its scabbard, and steeled myself to rush beside him into battle. With Caleb here, everything was different.

He raised one hand, and I watched it closely. There were hand signs he used to direct the knights in battle—a silent language for passing orders in utter stealth. He'd never taught me the signs, but for Mother I would figure them out. I stared hard at the big hand, spread wide, and watched as he made a pushing gesture, straight toward my face.

He didn't stop. He clamped his hand over my mouth and nose and pressed me back with an effortless force that nonetheless drove me a full pace backward sliding on my belly. I strained my eyes wide, pleading with him, but he twisted in place almost like a cat and came crawling after me. He blocked my only path to the pool and bore down on me.

I shook his hand off my face, and as he came closer he couldn't get the same angle again. He pressed his palm around the top of my head instead and tried to push me that way, but I dug in my toes and tried to shake his hand off.

I jostled one of the trees, and dry branches rattled above me loud as a raging sword fight in the night's stillness. I froze, but Caleb relented too. He drove his chin against his chest to try to look past his own bulk toward the pool, but neither of us could see anything. So we lay still for several long seconds, suppressing our breath and straining our ears desperately for some hint of whether we'd been heard.

And then, before I had stopped listening, Caleb moved. He didn't try to push me this time. Instead he threw himself forward, fast and silent as a snake on stone, until his face was mere inches from mine. I could feel his hot breath puffing on the ground beneath me.

"Just. Go." He weighted the words with as much authority as I had ever heard from him. Yet somehow there was a plea in it, too. Perhaps I took that from his eyes. He looked terrified, and I knew it was not for his own safety. He pinched his brows together when he saw me considering him and showed me his teeth. "Go!"

I felt a flash of gratitude toward him then, but I hissed back. "No! I can't leave my mother—"

"It's hers," he said. I blinked at him, uncomprehending, but before I could ask for explanation he growled, "That is Isabelle's dragon. It will no more harm her than Vechernyvetr would turn on your father."

"Mother doesn't have a dragon," I said.

Irritation flared in his eyes. "She does, and it's a skittish thing for all its strange power. Now go before you scare it off."

"But—"

"Wind and rain, child. I'll come with you. I'll explain."

When I didn't respond he raised a hand to my shoulder and propelled me another pace backward scraping on my belly. I blinked and shook him off and started moving backward on my own. I went ten paces before I found a spot I could turn around in without raising a great rustle.

Another fifteen paces had me halfway back to the outside edge when he slapped the side of my boot to catch my attention. I turned and found him climbing into a sitting position where the tangle of branches above us did not press quite so low. He beckoned me back, and I went to sit before him in the darkness beneath the twisted trees.

"This is far enough, I think," he said. His voice was still low, but it was not the puffing whisper he'd used before.

"You...you truly believe she's safe with the dragon?"

He nodded.

I shook my head in disbelief.
Her
dragon. "How? When did she...how?"

"It's a long story," Caleb said. "And a secret one." I frowned, and he spread his hands to forestall my anger. "I will explain. I said I would explain. But you will be only the third person to know."

"My father—"

"Would be furious," Caleb said. "Hah. He might have torn the Tower down. Might still do, when he learns of it."

"Then why would she...I mean, why did you let her?"

"Let her?" He gave another half-hearted chuckle. "I do not control Isabelle's choices. And I can no more restrain her than I can you."

I was barely listening to him. I chewed a thumbnail while my mind raced. "She bonded it?" I asked, not really looking for an answer. Cold shock cramped in tight behind my eyes, pushing away the world around me. She bonded a dragon? Tears stung in my eyes. She bonded a dragon? "Why?"

"The same reasons Daven bonded Vechernyvetr. She believed she was out of other options. And she had no idea how dangerous it was."

"She was cornered? But...when? How? Has she ever left the Tower?"

"She has, but no, she was not cornered. She heard a rumor of a white dame's den near Palmagnes, and one night while we were all distracted, she stole away in secret."

I gaped. "She did it on purpose?"

"She thought she had to."

"But...there are rules!
You
never bonded a dragon."

"And never will. But Isabelle came through it, Taryn. Calm down."

My heart pounded as hard now as it ever had when I only thought the dragon was hunting me. This was worse.

There were rules to the dragon bonding. The monster had to be subdued somehow, restrained until a willing warrior could complete the blood rite. The rite itself was a vicious trauma, leaving dragon and man alike unconscious, but one of them would wake first....

In five years of trying, the Captains of the Hunt had never found a way to control which one woke first. It was no matter of stamina or strength, or mental or moral fortitude. There was nothing they could find to influence the chance, but whichever soul recovered first could obliterate the other and control its body.

If the man woke first, he would speak a ritual phrase to the other dragon hunters present and cause the beast to bow. Then he became a dragonrider. If the beast woke first.... The hunters were very good at killing dragons, but they hated having to kill their brothers.

"She did it in secret?" I asked. "No one went to stand her vigil?"

He narrowed his eyes. "Who would have agreed to such a thing?"

"No one," I said, numb. "She went alone. She performed the rite. And now the dragon has control of her."

"Don't be a fool," he said. "Isabelle is in full control."

I shook my head. The tears were blurring my vision again. "No. Oh, Haven, Caleb. No, you couldn't see it. You were too busy. But I noticed."

He rolled his eyes. "Noticed what?"

"She changed. I never understood, but I noticed." I swallowed hard, and tried to ignore the crushing pain around my heart. "The dragon has control of her."

Caleb didn't answer. For a long time he didn't answer. At last I sniffed and scrubbed quickly at my eyes, then looked to his face. I found him smiling. There was not much joy in it, and no mockery, but still I felt heat rise in my cheeks. "Why do you smile?"

"I have stood vigil over nearly three hundred bondings," he said, measuring his words. "I know when a dragon takes control. I would never have allowed her to take the risk, if I had even known. But I swear you, she came through it."

"But she changed," I said. "I swear you that! I've watched it."

"When?" he asked, challenging. "If you saw it happen, tell me when."

"Seven years ago. She changed. I remember her, Caleb! I remember when she used to laugh. I remember when she used to smile. I remember—"

"That was all because of Daven," he said.

"No. That's what I always thought, but Father has been gone ten years."

Caleb showed me his sad smile again. "It took her three years to believe something had gone wrong. Seven years ago—"

"No," I said. "I wish it were just that, but she's changed so much. It has to be the dragon. That's the only—"

"Two years ago she bonded Snezynka," he said.

The words washed across my mind like cold water. I sat for a moment, trembling. Then I looked up into his face. "Two years?"

He nodded.

After a moment I said, "But...."

"Daven left a great burden on Isabelle's shoulders," he said, solemn. "Not too great a burden, she has proven. She is a marvelous woman. And more courageous than I ever might have guessed. But such a weight must take its toll."

The pain in my heart unraveled. Some shade of it still remained—the familiar ache I'd carried for half my life—but this new agony drained away. I sat breathing for some time, then I asked again, "Why?"

"Because six thousand lives depended on her. Because Daven took every dragonrider with him when he left, and in eight years not one of them has come back to us. Because there is power in the bond. And because Isabelle had done everything she could and she was nearly dead already. And because, despite every nightmare she has seen, she still has faith in men and monsters."

"She conquered it?"

He took a deep breath, and let it out in a slow sigh. "No. She is...friendly with it. Like Daven and old Vech."

"Oh." I had more questions. I wanted to hear the full tale of it. I wanted to understand my mother's heart. I wanted to explore the mysteries in some of the things Caleb had just said. But I would get no more from him. He had promised to explain, and he would go on explaining, but he had no room in his heart for the things I wanted to know. I would have to gain those answers from her.

But I could get an answer for his behavior at least. I straightened my back and brushed at my tattered leggings for a moment, then I met his eyes. "And what is this? Tonight. Now. Why is she slipping away from the king's camp to meet with her dragon so far from home?"

He scowled at me instead of answering right away, and for the first time I understood it as a tactic. He wasn't scowling at my ignorance, my impertinence, my idiocy. He was scowling at my question in the hopes that it would slink away and leave him alone. He was buying time while he looked for an answer.