The Hearts of Dragons (28 page)

They were too heavy for
her to carry as a Kodama, so Minawë transformed into a horse and galloped off
the battlefield. She ran for hours, not stopping until Hana and the terrible
Maantec city Hiabi were far behind.

At dusk Minawë spied a
cave in the distance. She walked inside it, changed back into a Kodama, and
leaned Rondel and Iren against a pair of stalagmites. Then, her strength long
exhausted, she collapsed on the cold stone.

Night had fallen by the
time Lord Melwar saw fit to find Hana. She was still clenched in that Kodama’s
accursed plants. Her only window was a small opening she’d left in front of one
eye too narrow for the vines to penetrate.

Lord Melwar adopted the
faintest of smiles. “Let me go out on a limb here.”

“That’s not funny,” Hana
snapped. “Would you mind helping me down?”

He shrugged. The
darkness around him deepened, then split into half a dozen knives. Each was as
long as Rondel’s Liryometa, and each was black.

Hana shuddered as they
appeared. She remembered, years ago, the feel of those knives slicing through
her armor like it was wet rice paper. Afterward, she’d lain in a pool of her
own blood as it leached out of cuts all over her body. She would have died had
Lord Melwar not kept a healer at the ready.

The knives floated in
midair as they cut away the vines with ease. They also carved through the walls
of earth Hana had constructed around herself. She dropped to the ground
unharmed.

As she landed, though,
one of the knives brushed against her sleeve. The blade sliced through her
clothing and hardened skin. It left a shallow scratch on her bicep.

“Thanks,” she spat. She
brushed herself off even though she wasn’t dirty. “What was that for?” She
pointed at her arm.

“You spoke rudely just
now,” Lord Melwar said. “I felt you needed a reminder.”

Hana’s expression turned
leaden. She had let her frustration get the better of her. “I remember,” she
murmured.

Lord Melwar half-smiled.
“Yes, it is hard to forget your first and only loss. I suppose today will help
with that.”

A sudden anger took
Hana. “Someday I’ll drive you both to your knees.”

“Perhaps,” Lord Melwar
replied. He shrugged again. “Until then, please keep in mind who owns that
pretty body of yours.”

Hana clenched her teeth.
“That,” she growled, “I promise you.”

Lord Melwar put his back
to her, and Hana had a flash of an idea to attack him. She could call up two
stone walls and crush him before he had a chance to respond.

But his casual stance
unnerved her. He knew she might attack, and he didn’t care. He knew that
whatever she did, he could escape it and slay her.

Instead of murdering
him, then, Hana asked, “Why didn’t you come with us today? We could have used
your help.”

“It was not my place to
kill Rondel,” Lord Melwar said without turning around. “I leave that task to
Iren.”

“Iren can’t defeat her,”
Hana said. “He needed No Mind just to keep up with her. Even then, she won.”

Lord Melwar shrugged his
irritating shrug. “I warned him he was not ready to face her. He is headstrong,
though, like his father. I knew he would not listen to my caution.”

“Then you knew you’d
sent him into a fight he couldn’t win.”

“True, but I also knew
he would not die. That Kodama would never allow it. It was obvious that they
care about each other. Only Iren could have removed Saito’s curse from her.”

“You ordered me to keep
her from interfering. If I’d killed her, Iren would have died.”

“Ah, but you did not
kill her,” Lord Melwar said. He smiled over his shoulder. “At best you could
call your match a draw, but that would be giving you a great deal of credit.”

The smooth way he said
it made Hana realize what he was implying. “You sent us into battle knowing
neither of us could win. You knew they’d take back Iren.”

Lord Melwar shrugged
again but said nothing.

His nonchalant manner
infuriated her. “Why bring him here at all then?” she roared. “What was the
point? How was he supposed to become the Maantec emperor and save us all if you
were just going to let him go?”

“Little girl,” Lord
Melwar said in his most condescending voice, “do you not understand? Iren lost
today. That will only increase his resolve to kill Rondel. I trained him. I
taught him No Mind. I am the reason he lasted against Rondel as long as he did.
That is why he will return to me. When he does, I will own him just as I own
you.”

Hana let that comment
pass. Fighting Lord Melwar was pointless. “Iren won’t come back,” she said. “He
found out about the Karyozaki.”

For the first time since
he had released her, Lord Melwar’s smug expression dropped. “How did he find
out about that?”

“Rondel mentioned Azar
before we fought. Through that exchange, Iren learned that you reforged the
Fire Dragon Sword and set the Yokai against the Kodamas.”

Lord Melwar stroked his
chin. His brow furrowed, and he walked twice in a tight circle.

Hana tensed. She could
sense the man’s frustration, and his frustration made him dangerous. Iren was
vital to their plan to reunite the Maantecs and conquer Raa. If he turned away
from them, all their careful maneuvering would have been wasted.

Worse, it was her fault.
Not only had she been the one to reveal Lord Melwar’s plan to Iren, but she’d
only had to do that because she had failed to kill Rondel in Serona.

Maybe it wasn’t too
late. “I could retrieve him for you,” Hana offered. “Rondel had to use almost
all her magic to defeat Iren, and that Kodama did the same to restrain me.
Neither of them will have recovered yet. I can track them down and bring back
Iren. I can even kill the others.”

“No,” Lord Melwar said.
He looked at her with a perilous glint in his eye. “We have pushed Iren as far
as we can. If we force him to come back, he will be useless. Even if he became
the Maantec emperor, he would never accept being my puppet. We must not concern
ourselves with it. His desire for vengeance may still bring him back. If not,
then he was not valuable in the first place.”

Hana dug her toe into
the ground. “We never should have reforged the Karyozaki,” she murmured.

Lord Melwar frowned, his
mouth a thin line. Hana gulped. She’d gone too far. Remaking the Karyozaki had
been his idea. She felt the blood trickle from the wound on her arm. Lord
Melwar wouldn’t let her die quickly.

Then the annoying shrug
came back. “Perhaps I was hasty,” he said. “I assumed you told the truth when
you said you had killed Rondel, and in my excitement to launch our war, I did
not verify your claim. But the Fubuki were in position to invade Lodia, and it
was logical to weaken all our foes at once. That mistake has cost me my emperor
and control of Aokigahara. Still, it was one battle. We will yet win the war.”

With that, Lord Melwar
started walking toward Hiabi. Hana sighed in relief. Given the depth of her
failures and the setbacks in their plan she’d caused, she had expected a greater
punishment.

Lord Melwar had gone ten
feet when he stopped and craned his neck around. “By the way,” he said, “now
that Iren is gone, I trust you will be spending your nights with me instead.”

Hana balled her hands
into fists. The gesture only made Lord Melwar smirk. So much for escaping
punishment.

She hated him. He was no
better than the human filth who had tried to rape her all those years ago. Hana
had counted on Iren to be her savior. Had he stayed, had he become the emperor
and she his empress, all the Maantecs would have united with them. They would
have ruled over Raa, and together, they would have deposed and executed Lord
Melwar. She would have been rid of him. She would have been free.

Hana recalled the feel
of Iren’s skin against her, his endearing timidity that first night they’d
spent together. He’d been so innocent. She and Lord Melwar had ripped all that
away.

What had they done to
him?

Then a second face
appeared in her memory, this time a human one. Human names weren’t worth
remembering, but this one came to her with ease. Balear smiled at her with an
expression that promised he would protect her, even though he knew she didn’t
need protecting. As though it had just happened, she pictured him standing in
front of the Ice Dragon Knight, blocking the Fubuki from her. He’d known he had
no chance of victory, yet he’d offered up his life to save her. No one had ever
done that for her.

She wished things could
have turned out differently. She wished that Lord Melwar had never found her,
that she had never become the Stone Dragon Knight, and that she had never
handed over the Ice Dragon Hammer to that Fubuki. She wished she hadn’t needed
to betray Balear or make him lose an arm on her account. She wished that
instead of sharing a futon with Iren or Lord Melwar, she was sharing one with
him.

A twinge of pain rippled
through Hana’s arm. She looked at the scratch from Lord Melwar’s shadow knife.
“A reminder,” he had called it. He was right.

Hana dropped her head
and walked to the Maantec lord. Together they headed back to Hiabi.

Balear was still in the
abyss, but at least he’d stopped falling. He lay on his back on what felt like
flat stone. Blinking his eyes made no difference. He saw only darkness either
way.

A drop of water landed
on his forehead. Balear started. He hadn’t expected there to be rain in the
afterlife.

Several feet away, other
drops fell into a pool. Thirst attacked him. Balear scrambled over the stone.
He cupped water in his hand and gulped it down.

Sated, Balear sat back
and listened to the water drip from somewhere above him. If this was the
afterlife, it was unlike any he’d ever pictured. He felt over his body.
Everything seemed to be intact, except for two things. One was his missing
right arm. The other was his hair. Someone had cut it short and shaved off his
beard.

The change to his hair
was odd enough, but he was also wearing new clothes. His outfit had ripped
apart when he’d transformed into Ariok, but now he wore a woolen tunic and
breeches.

Footsteps echoed nearby,
though in the darkness Balear couldn’t tell from where. A red light appeared in
the distance, dim at first yet growing brighter in time with the steps. Balear
groped for the Auryozaki, but he couldn’t find it. He stood and raised his fist
in preparation for a fight.

“Who’s there?” he
called, uncertain he wanted the answer.

The footsteps stopped.
The red light wavered. “Balear?” a tentative voice asked. “Are you awake?”

Relief enveloped Balear.
“Dirio!” he shouted. Then grief took him. “Does this mean we’re both dead?”

The mayor’s laugh echoed
through wherever they were. “Not yet! You gave it a good try though.”

Dirio’s step quickened,
and the light, which Balear could now see was from a torch in the mayor’s hand,
came closer. As it did, it illuminated some of the pool Balear had drunk from.
It also cast a glow to the ceiling.

A memory came to Balear.
He had been in this room before. “This is the cavern where the Quodivar
imprisoned the people of Veliaf.”

Dirio walked up to him
and nodded. “Sorry to leave you down here by yourself,” he said, “but the
villagers were nervous about having you too close. They didn’t even like the
idea of having you aboveground since you’d be exposed to the sky.”

Balear felt his heart—his
beating, living heart—hammer in his chest. “Then you all survived!”

The mayor looked at the
deep pool in the cavern’s center. “Most of us,” he said. Regret tinged his
voice. “When the ice spread over the walls, we fought back with bows and
arrows. That Fubuki Dragon Knight stopped our shots with shields of ice. I was
there for some of it. I saw ice grow over my men and turn them to statues.
After that, I realized we couldn’t fight back. I ordered everyone to evacuate,
but by then, Fubuki were pounding on the gate as well. Our only escape route
was through the mine.”

Balear could have hugged
Dirio. The former general had forgotten all about Veliaf’s mine, let alone how
it connected to this cavern and ultimately to Akaku Forest.

“I’m sorry, Balear,” Dirio
continued, biting his lip. “I never should have thrown you out. If you hadn’t
shown up, those Fubuki would have killed everyone. Once they figured out we
weren’t in the village, they would have discovered the mine and come after us.
You saved our lives.”

In his mind, Balear
heard Ariok’s triumphant roar. He watched Veliaf shatter from the dragon’s
pressure wave. “No, you were right to send me away,” he said. “I wasn’t the one
who stopped the Ice Dragon Knight. Ariok did. I let him take over my body.”

Dirio grabbed Balear by
the shoulder. “If you hadn’t,” the mayor insisted, “you would have died, and
all of us would have too. There is nothing to feel guilty about.”

“But Veliaf—”

“Was destroyed before
you reached us. No one was in the village when Ariok cast his spell. In a way,
the Sky Dragon did us a favor. We would have needed to rebuild Veliaf anyway
after having everything covered in ice. He cleared the debris for us.”

“But you can’t rebuild,”
Balear said. “Without your wall, you no longer have protection. You’d be
vulnerable to the Lodian cities. The civil war is still going on.”

Dirio nodded solemnly.
“I know. Actually, I’ve known Veliaf couldn’t last for a long time now. Even if
the Fubuki hadn’t come, the first city’s army that showed up at our gate would
have meant our end. We’re only a few hundred people. I would have surrendered
to whomever showed up first.”

“What will you do now?”

“The villagers decided
to head for Kataile, south of Ceere along the coast. Ceere’s in no shape to
handle refugees, and Terkou’s reputation is too rough for me. Kataile’s a
tourist town, or at least it was before the war. They’re used to outsiders.
Plus, they have access to the sea, so they should have plenty of food. We’ll
join up with them. I hope you’ll come with us. They might not be keen to have a
couple hundred more mouths to feed, but they’ll take us more seriously if we
offer a Dragon Knight in return.”

Balear thought about it.
It meant the end of Veliaf, but at least this way its people could continue
living.

In the end, though, he
shook his head. “I’ll come with you,” he said, “but I can’t go as a Dragon
Knight.”

“Can’t?” Dirio asked,
cocking an eyebrow. “Or won’t?”

“Both,” Balear growled.
“How can you say you want me to go as a Dragon Knight? Did you see what I did
to Veliaf?”

“As I recall, the Fubuki
froze the village, and Ariok turned it into splinters,” Dirio said. “You didn’t
do anything to it.”

“But how can you trust
me? How do you know I won’t destroy Kataile? Next time, you might not have a
handy cavern to escape into.”

“That’s the risk I take,”
the mayor admitted, “but I’d be taking a bigger risk showing up at Kataile with
nothing to help them win the war. We don’t have many weapons, and we don’t have
any soldiers. Other than me, those few who could fight died trying to stop the
Fubuki.”

The thought of going to
Kataile as the Sky Dragon Knight made Balear sick. Dirio could convince himself
that Balear wasn’t to blame for Veliaf’s fall, but Balear couldn’t. He knew how
easily he’d given Ariok control. Worse, he knew that in a similar situation, he
would do it again.

Maybe, though, there was
another choice. The only reason Ariok had taken over was because Balear had
used magic. If he didn’t cast any spells, Ariok wouldn’t have a chance to
overwhelm his mind.

“All right, Dirio,” he
said, “I’ll go to Kataile with you. I’ll even come as a Dragon Knight. I owe
you that much after everything you’ve done for me, and after all the pain I’ve
caused Veliaf. But I have one condition. Don’t ask me to cast any spells. From
this moment on, I swear I will never use magic again.”

Dirio rocked back on his
heels. It took him a moment to recover. “I don’t know how Kataile will take
that,” he said at last. “Still, I know by now that I can’t persuade you once
you’ve made up your mind.”

Balear smiled, but his
expression quickly darkened. “There’s one problem with your plan,” he said. “I
have no idea where the Auryozaki is. You won’t convince anyone in Kataile that
I’m a Dragon Knight without it.”

“That’s no problem,”
Dirio said. “We carried you here after the battle and dressed you in a spare
set of clothes one of the women was thoughtful enough to bring with her. The
Auryozaki, though, was beyond us. Four of us tried to lift it, but we couldn’t
make it budge. It seems you’re the only one who can carry it. It’s waiting for
you where Ariok dropped it. We’ll head up to Akaku Forest and join the rest of
the villagers. We grabbed only what we could carry on our way into the mine, so
it won’t take long for us to get on our way. You can retrieve the Auryozaki as
we head past Veliaf on our trip to Kataile.”

Dirio paused, and then
he held up a finger. “Oh, that reminds me!” he said. “I have a present for
you.”

He guided Balear to the
far end of the room and up the tunnel that led to Akaku. At one of the side
chambers, Dirio gestured for Balear to enter. The mayor then stepped to the far
end of the room and held up a leather harness. “I asked the blacksmith and
leathersmith to team up on this,” he said. “I intended it to be a reward when
you came back to us.”

The mayor offered the strange
creation to Balear. “What is it?” the soldier asked.

“Let me show you,” Dirio
said with a grin. He took the harness and strapped it onto Balear’s back. It
hung balanced on both collarbones. Reaching back with his left hand, Balear
felt a strip of metal along the top passing between his shoulder blades.

“That strip is
magnetic,” Dirio said. “Some of the metal in the mine is naturally that way.
Used to give us all kinds of trouble, but for you it should be perfect. It
occurred to me that since your sword is weightless when you have it, the magnet
should hold it in place. Even with one arm, you can carry the Auryozaki with
you anywhere and still have your hand free.”

Balear marveled at the
harness and its craftsmanship. It had clearly been designed with a one-armed
man in mind. He could both take it off and put it back on with just his left
hand.

Tears welled in the
soldier’s eyes. “This is more than I deserve,” he said. “Thank you.”

Dirio smiled but said
only, “Let’s head up now. The trip to Kataile will take a few weeks at best,
likely longer with all the snow. The sooner we go, the better.”

The mayor led the way as
the pair followed the passage to the surface. It was after dark, but most of
the villagers were awake, clustered around fires for warmth. Dirio called them
together and announced his intention to leave at dawn. There were some
grumblings, but everyone knew it was the only decision they had.

Of course, that didn’t
stop them from glaring at Balear. He flushed. Dirio might have forgiven him,
but that didn’t mean his people had.

After facing their angry
expressions for a few minutes, Balear needed to escape. He left the survivors
and headed south.

He paused in shock when
he reached the border between Akaku and Lodia. The aftermath of Veliaf’s destruction
was more horrifying than he had dared to imagine. Where once a thriving town
had stood, only a flat ring of debris remained.

Balear walked the short
distance from Akaku to Veliaf. As he approached, he realized “debris” was too
optimistic a term to describe what was left. The largest piece was smaller than
his hand. Shards stretched for miles, and some had even embedded themselves in
Akaku’s trees.

He clenched his fist.
This was why the dragons had been imprisoned. They might provide great power,
but they were not benevolent.

Amid the rubble, Balear
saw the Auryozaki spearing the ground. Even at night, it was easy to spot; it
was the only object still standing in the village. Balear pulled it from the
soil and held it in front of his face. “You weren’t there for my oath,” he told
the sword, “so I’ll say it again. Don’t expect to escape a second time. I will
never use magic again.”

If Ariok could hear him,
the dragon gave no sign. Balear didn’t care one way or the other. Ariok no
longer mattered.

Balear placed the
Auryozaki against his harness’s magnet. The sword stayed in place when he let
it go.

He smiled. He didn’t
need magic. Even without it, he was still the Sky Dragon Knight.

“I promise you,” he said
to the ruins of Veliaf, “I’ll end this war, and I won’t let this happen to any
more towns.”

Satisfied, he returned
to the villagers in Akaku.