The Dragonprince's Heir (13 page)

"There is an easy explanation," I said. "Prisoner to the king. Carried captive from her home. We're three days from the Tower now. That's far enough to protect our people from any immediate response."

After a moment he said, "There is that."

"You said you could destroy this whole army single-handedly. You have two apprentices to stand with you, too. And Mother has a bonded dragon at her beck and call, which no one even suspects."

He said nothing. He was watching my eyes. And I was watching his.

"That's the lie you are looking for," I said. "I almost might have believed it, too. That you were planning to win our liberty against the king's army."

He shrugged one shoulder. "I have never been a clever liar. I've never had much need."

"I know better now, anyway. You've made it perfectly clear. We are prisoners to our own purposes. Mother would not attack the king's army, not at the Tower and not here."

"I'm glad you understand at last—"

"I do," I said. "And I also understand how much of that she risked sneaking away from the camp to meet with her dragon. She must have something planned."

He held my gaze.

"Tell me, Caleb."

He quirked one corner of his mouth. "I do not follow your orders."

"Whose knight are you, Caleb?"

He didn't hesitate. "Daven's."

"Some think he is dead."

"Doesn't matter. I know what he was after, I know what he loved most, and I will serve his purposes."

"Will you never serve me?"

He considered me for a long time. Then he said, "No. I won't. But you need someone who will, so I will give you Jen and Toman."

"Jen serves you and Toman serves himself.'

"There's still some training to be done. Some growing up. But I believe in time you will be satisfied with them."

"Do you...do you really think you can change Jen so much?"

He chuckled. "No, little prince. But I still have hope of changing you."

I grunted in irritation, and he reached across to clasp my shoulder. "I'll give you your answer, though. About tonight. Isabelle sends the dragon to find Daven."

"What?"

He shrugged. "It's not the first time she's tried, but Snezynka wouldn't range too far from her. Now that we travel north—"

"She's sending it to search for him." I felt a new grip around my heart at that. Hope so sharp it hurt, and shame to find it so strong despite the years I'd spent fighting it. I did everything I could to keep the emotion from my face and from my voice. It was a child's hope. "While we go to the capitol—"

"Snezynka will scour the Northlands. If it finds Daven—"

"He's dead." It hurt more than I expected it to, saying that out loud, but it didn't hurt half as much as the hope. "He's ten years gone. He's dead."

Caleb licked his lips before he answered me. "Daven is...an astonishingly powerful man. He would be difficult to kill."

"And more difficult still to imprison," I said. "What force could have held him for ten years? If he lives at all, what could have kept him from coming home? And what chance will one little white dragon have? He took an army of dragonriders with him, and three bonded dragons of his own."

"All I can tell you is this: Isabelle's dragon is...unique. Perhaps it can do what all his army of monsters could not."

"That's it?" I asked. "That's the foundation of this whole plan?"

"She has spent two years waiting for this opportunity. A thousand times she has made her plans to leave the tower, to fly north so her dragon might make this search. She needs to know she's tried, but....."

"But he left that burden on her shoulders," I said. "She could not leave the Tower."

"And then the king came," Caleb said.

I bit my thumbnail, trying to see the connection. After a moment I said, "Oh."

"She will go along with the king, because it allows her to do what her heart demands of her."

"And you?" I asked.

"I will go along with her, because she places herself in the hands of dangerous and stupid men."

I nodded. There was a little emptiness in my stomach, a ringing resignation in the back of my mind. I didn't need to ask, but I did anyway. "And me?"

"You're a problem," he said, no apology in his voice. "She could not leave you behind. No more than she could have left the Tower before. But you place her in greater danger. You distract me from my purpose. You confirm every paranoid fear of this jealous king and you chafe at every responsibility that might mitigate these things."

"We would all be better off if I were not here," I said. Saying the words hurt less than I'd thought it would.

"If only you had known all this before we left the Tower. But alas, that is now no more an option than going to war with the king. So we will do what we can with the field we are given."

Quiet thunder thumped rhythmically above us, and a rattle chased along the tops of the trees like a wave, speeding east to west above us. The dragon was leaving.

Caleb nodded. "She is done. We should head back to the camp. The guards will be waking soon."

I started to ask, "The guards—" Then my eyes widened in sudden understanding. "Snezynka did that?"

"As I said, Isabelle's dragon is unique." He climbed to his knees. "Come. We should hurry."

I shook my head. "I want to speak with her."

"Not tonight," he said. "It is too dangerous. We've spent more than the time we had. She shall go her way, and we'll go ours, and we'll be lucky if we're not caught as it is."

"But—"

"No," he said, and there was no argument against that bark of command. "You'll have your chance soon enough. Tomorrow will be Cara, and then the boats. You can speak with her then."

"But she's—"

He stabbed his hand out in another shooing gesture, and I knew he would resort to shoving me along on my belly again if I argued any further. I thought about calling out to her. I thought about defying him. But I remembered everything he'd just said, how I was such a problem to everything they were trying to do, and with a weary sigh I turned away and scurried out from under the twisted trees.

We returned to our camp among Souward's Seventh while my mother went quietly back to her place on the king's leash. And somewhere in the night, a dragon unlike any other soared north in search of my father's ghost.

7. Responsibilities

The next morning I woke to the sound of rumors. I fought yawns and bleary eyes as I breakfasted on stale bread and dried meat. Caleb generously set Toman and Jen to breaking our camp and readying the horses this time, but I barely noticed. I was too busy straining my ears for the snatches of conversation coming from the other soldiers around us.

"...glamour fell across all the Eagles together..."

"...some kind of attack on the king..."

"...no, it got the wizards, too..."

"...heard there was a dragon..."

"...white as snow..."

"...the Tower princess was the true target..."

"...no, she was the one behind it all..."

Everyone was talking about the strange magic Mother's dragon had used against the king's camp. I heard rumors of elves and sprites, of rebel wizards and demonic plots. A farrier stopping over to chat with one of Souward's soldiers suggested it was my father. That he'd come in the night to steal Mother from the king's clutches and left in disgust when he found her sleeping happily in the king's own carriage.

Jen stopped me before I could interrupt that conversation, and it was well she did. One thing absent from all the rumors was any reference to an errant young man or a false Green Eagle among the cavalry camps. Apparently in all the confusion that had come with the passing of the dragon's spell, they'd forgotten our altercation. Or perhaps the same magic had muddled their memories.

I tried discussing it with Caleb, but he only glared at me until I fell silent. Then it was time to go. Camp broke earlier than usual, and we moved west at a pace quicker than before. When we stopped to eat, we received word of the king's intentions. The king had secured accommodations for the nobles in the citadel and for the regiments in the city proper.

When we first received word, it seemed unlikely a city the size of Cara would have room enough to hold the sprawling mass of the king's army, but the plans were clear. We'd sleep the night in Cara, then sail north with the morning tide.

The promise of real meals and soft beds for the night made a short lunch and dragged everyone onto the road again. Well before noon we reached the wide pass that climbed up through the foothills and down to Cara on the coast. For the first time in five days Caleb allowed us to mount up and ride. Apparently, blending in with the footsoldiers was no longer a priority. After days of walking, I settled into the easy rhythm of my horse's pace and sank deep into my own thoughts.

Caleb's cold words still burned in my mind. I could taste the truth in them. Mother had a purpose here, and so did Caleb and the knights. I was nothing but a burden. I should have stayed behind at the Tower, but now I had another chance. The regiments would spend the night in the bustling city of Cara. That should be opportunity enough for me to lose myself. I had only to miss my boat, and at least one of Mother's problems would be solved.

It was not a happy resolution, but still somehow it lifted a weight from my shoulders. I held my head high and kept the pace. We followed the sun west, over steeper and steeper hills, then through long, lazy switchbacks, and finally down a path between sheer cliffs and into a city that crouched over a sheltered bay.

As the whole vast army crowded into the narrow pass, I caught a glimpse of them from the back of the train and wondered how the king hoped to fit them all inside the city's walls. Our regiment finally reached the gates as the flame-red sun was setting in the sea, and then I understood: the city was decimated. Along the walls there were places where mile-wide blocks stood empty of everything but charred dirt and cracked cobbles. Even in the heart of the city I saw great gouges carved out among the dense quarters, and the bright sheen of new construction among centuries-old houses.

Streets wide enough to accommodate the king's army seemed otherwise almost deserted. It had to be years since the last dragon raid in this area, but from the look of it, the city would need decades more before it recovered completely. And this was one of the nine cities that had survived.

Half a mile inside the walls, the soldiers of Souward's Seventh turned down a wide lane to the left, but Caleb caught my shoulder, gathered up Toman and Jen with his gaze, and led us on up the King's Way toward the citadel. Far ahead was a little rise overlooking the bay, crowned with a fortress of stone almost as impressive, in its way, as the Tower of Drakes. I could just see the nobles' carriages passing through its gates, still surrounded by the loose formation of the Green Eagles.

"We're going to the citadel?" I asked.

Caleb nodded.

I growled, low and angry. "Now?
Now
we will defy the king and rejoin Mother?"

He raised his eyebrows. "You sound displeased."

"I
am
displeased. I had a plan!"

"Do tell."

I moved closer to him, glanced around, and still lowered my voice. "I've been thinking about everything you said."

Jen snorted. "There's a first."

I threw a glare at her, but she met it evenly.

I turned back to Caleb. "I've been considering the favor you asked of me at the Tower."

He shook his head, short and sharp. "No. Won't work."

"It will. Looks at this place. It's a mess! I could get lost in there."

"Taryn—"

"Listen! I understand. It...it took me a while. I'm sorry for the trouble I've caused you all. But I'm ready to fix it."

"Hm. If only it were so easy."

I nearly shouted. "There's nothing easy about this!"

"You want to give up and go home?"

"No, Caleb. No. I want to stay with Mother."

"Good! Because you're going to have to."

I shook my head. "But I also want to see her happy. I don't want to be another burden."

"You can't seem to help it."

"Why won't you listen to me? I'm trying to do what you want—"

"No. You're trying to do what I
wanted
. Things change, Taryn. If we'd left you at the Tower, Isabelle would've heaved a big sigh and maybe cursed a bit when no one was around to hear, and then she would have gone on with her plans."

"She still can."

"No! She can't. She could have been happy leaving you at home, but not here. Not on the road."

"What is there to fear? It was an easy journey—"

"With how many thousand armed men around you? No one came within a mile of the king's army, but if you were out there on your own...."

"I have my sword and all your training. And it's not that far. On my own, I could probably make it in three days."

He smirked. "Easy as that? What will you do when you sleep?"

"Climb a tree?"

He didn't even answer, just shook his head.

"You never let me outside the walls before!"

"And glad of it now!"

"Well, what do you suggest?" I asked.

"Travel with a companion who can share watches."

"Fine," I snapped. "I'll take Toman."

Jen and Toman shouted together, "Hey!"

Caleb flicked a smile at them, then shook his head at me. "Can't. I need them."

"Oh? For what?"

"Protecting your mother. Timmon granted me a force of two retainers. I'm not giving up half of them so you can go home."

"Wind and rain, Caleb, I'm doing this for the good of everyone. I don't
want
—"

"Good," he said, turning his back on me and spurring his horse into motion again. "Because you're not going to."

Again we'd had our argument while Jen and Toman watched with interest. They waited now to see if I would throw some humorous fit, but I just stared after Caleb. I didn't
want
to go home. I was trying to make the noble sacrifice. He wouldn't even let me do that. I shook my head, baffled, then finally turned back to my knights.