by G. A. Aiken
And with that, the screaming stopped.
Flames briefly burst and Eanruig’s human remains returned to their natural form. Dagmar felt nothing as she stared down at what remained of Elder Eanruig. Perhaps it should have been other babes he’d set his sights on, but he’d come after Annwyl’s. That had made it almost a pleasure to work with the Dragon Queen to make sure the laws of her kind would protect Ghleanna and Addolgar, who’d been told nothing and yet reacted as Rhiannon guessed they would.
Ghleanna raised her blood-covered weapon and pointed it at the remaining Elders falling over each other. “Now listen up, you lot. As of this moment, Fearghus the Destroyer’s twins are under the protection of the Cadwaladr Clan. You come near them again without express permission from one of us or the queen herself, and the Cadwaladrs will come down on you like wolves on a wounded deer. We will tear the walls of Devenallt down around you and show you what the true meaning of civil war is.” She stepped closer. “Don’t fuck with my kin, or I’ll kill every last one of you and leave your rotting bones in front of the dens of your offspring.” She flicked her sword up, Eanruig’s blood splattering across the Elders, before she shoved it into the sheath tied to her back.
“Get out of our sight. And never come back here again without an invitation.” When the Elders only stared at her in mute horror…“Move!”
The old dragons shifted and slammed into each other as they fought to get away.
Brushing one hand against the other, Ghleanna headed back toward the training grounds Dagmar had dragged her and her brother from.
With a wink and a smile, Addolgar followed after his sister.
Dagmar realized she had the attention of Gwenvael, Briec, and Bercelak. “Yes?”
“She’s good,” Briec muttered.
“That she is.” Gwenvael slid his arm around her shoulders, his lips grazing against her temple. “With an impeccable sense of timing and knowledge of our bloodlines.”
“Don’t be nosey.”
“Tricky, tricky, tricky.”
“My Lady Dagmar!” A young soldier called out as he ran toward her. “Lady Dagmar!” He slid to a stop at the bottom of the stairs.
“Take your breath first, lad, and then tell me what you think I need to know.”
Hands on his knees, his breath coming in gasps as he bent over at the waist, he finally spit out, “You told me to tell you if I heard anything—”
“Yes, yes. What is it?”
“About three hundred leagues from here, my lady. Hoof prints.”
“You’ll have to tell me something a little more interesting than that, I’m afraid.”
“Pairs. What I mean to say is pairs of two hooves, marching, side by side. And then they just disappear. We can’t find where, although it looks as if they disappeared into rock.”
Not disappeared into rock, she’d wager, but under it. The way of the Ice Land Minotaur. Not only could they find their way underground with ease, but they could also cover their tracks quite well. They didn’t fool her. She’d bet they’d gone underground several leagues from where those tracks were found, most likely aware Annwyl’s army had been warned of their coming.
Dagmar motioned the young soldier away. “Good work.
Tell General Brastias if he doesn’t already know.”
“Aye, m’lady,” the young soldier promised before running off again.
She nodded at the dragons who watched her expectantly.
“They’re here.”
Chapter 27
Gwenvael found his brother where he’d been for the last three days. He hated to bother him now, but he’d received his orders from Fearghus himself three days before.
“Brother.”
Fearghus raised his head. “Aye?”
“Dagmar has received word that the Minotaurs are near.
We’re all meeting now with Father, Ghleanna, and Addolgar in the war room to discuss next steps.”
“Fine,” Fearghus said, his voice sounding very weary. “I’ll be right there.”
“You don’t have to. We can take care of—”
“These are my children’s lives we’re talking about,” he cut in. “I’ll be right there.”
Fearghus didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t get snappy as he was known to do in simpler times. Instead he no longer showed any emotion at all.
“We’ll wait for you,” Gwenvael said, and left.
Dagmar heard another shout and then more slamming from behind closed doors, but it was Talaith who jumped at the noise yet again.
“I can’t concentrate when they get like this!” She looked at Dagmar. “How do you ignore it?”
“You so clearly have not met any of my family.”
Talaith let out a breath and returned to the book in front of her.
Dagmar glanced over at the woman. She hadn’t been sleeping, the circles under her eyes a clear indication of that. Instead she spent nearly every moment trying to help Annwyl in a last ditch effort to save her life. Or, on occasion, helping Dagmar. “Talaith, perhaps you should get some rest?”
“I can rest when she’s dead,” she answered gruffly. Then, horrified at her own words, she shoved the book away from her and covered her mouth with her hand. “Good gods.”
Dagmar rested her hand on Talaith’s shoulder. “There’s only so much you can do.”
“I know. But I can’t stop hoping that Morfyd or I will find something, anything, that can bring her back. Even Rhiannon’s power won’t hold for much longer.”
Dagmar sat back in her chair, her maps and notes spread out in front of her. “Tomorrow?”
Talaith shook her head, immediately understanding what Dagmar’s real question was.
“More like tonight.”
“Does Fearghus know?”
“Has anyone told him? No. Does he know? I strongly think yes.”
Letting out a breath, Dagmar sat up and began to lean over the maps again when she saw him. He strode through the doors and absolutely no one paid him any mind. Considering the way the security had been ridiculously amplified—at Gwenvael’s firm direction—the fact that no one would even look his way irked her. She’d specifically added that even dragons in human form were to be questioned or Gwenvael’s kin alerted.
“Who is that?” She motioned to him with her chin and Talaith looked directly at the dragon.
“Who? Samuel the washing boy?”
Dagmar frowned and looked again, quickly realizing Talaith spoke of the boy currently on his knees scrubbing the floor.
“Not him.” She searched for him again and saw him casually walking up the stairs. “Him.”
Talaith stared blankly at the stairs. “Who?”
“You see nothing?”
“Am I supposed to see something?” She made it sound as if Dagmar had lost her mind. Dagmar knew witches like Talaith and Morfyd could see what others could not, but as long as Dagmar wore her spectacles, she wasn’t blind. She knew what she saw…so why hadn’t Talaith seen as well?
Pushing her chair back, she stood. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
Lifting the skirt of her gown, Dagmar went up the stairs after him. As she stepped into the hall, she realized he’d disappeared. Perhaps he was someone’s lover, stopping in for a visit. Yet she heard no doors opening or closing. Saw no mid-morning light momentarily streaking into the hallway as someone entered a room.
She headed down one hall, turned, and went down another. She walked toward the room Annwyl lay in but stopped short when she saw the man reappear from the twins’ nursery. This time he held Annwyl’s twins in his arms. He stood in the hallway, bold as brass, in front of the guards who were supposed to be protecting the babes and their nursemaids. But the guards didn’t move. They didn’t even acknowledge his presence.
Then she understood. They didn’t see him, Talaith didn’t see him—no one saw him. No one but Dagmar.
It was something Aoibhell herself used to complain about in the letters Ragnar had given Dagmar. She wrot
e faithfully to a friend, mostly reiterating her beliefs—or lack thereof. But a few times, something she said hadn’t made much sense to Dagmar. Until now.
“At first they were always so surprised when I could see them, Anne. Now they stop by for chats. Tea. It’s like I can’t get rid of them. It seems to only happen to those who truly do not worship. Not the ones trying to annoy their family or who feel betrayed when someone close to them dies. But the ones who truly understand that the gods are no better than anyone else.”
Dagmar studied the male holding Annwyl’s babes. His mouth twisted a bit as he debated something and, with a small shrug, moved forward, heading toward Annwyl’s room.
Dagmar followed right behind him, the guards noticing her immediately. She waited a moment, took a breath, and entered the queen’s dying chamber.
He stood beside the bed, staring down at Annwyl.
“Wanted to give them a chance to say good-bye?” she asked coldly.
Looking up in surprise, he smiled. “Amazing. That you can see me, I mean.” When she didn’t comment on that, he seemed to lose interest.
“It seemed only fair to bring them to their mother. Don’t you think?” He placed the babes on their mother’s chest and stomach. His smile was indulgent, like a father’s over a puppy his children had grown fond of but could no longer have. “Now say bye-bye,” he told them, his voice teasing. “Can you say bye-bye?”
Dagmar’s eyes narrowed, her top lip curled, and her hands turned into tight fists.
God or not, she wouldn’t be letting this bastard off that easily.
Briec, thoroughly disgusted with his kin, rolled his eyes. The mate of his brother lay dying in the rooms above and all these idiots could do was argue about the best way to track down and decimate Minotaurs.
A waste of energy in his opinion. But typical of the way the Cadwaladr Clan handled something like this.
They couldn’t help Annwyl, and his father’s kin did like to “help.” So they would do what they did best: kill and destroy. But they couldn’t do that if what the tiny barbarian female had told them was true—that the Minotaur tracks may be in one location, but that only meant the Minotaurs themselves were surely in another. So they stood over maps and argued and debated and disagreed. All while Fearghus sat in a chair, staring at the table with the maps. Briec knew his brother saw nothing that was in front of him. Felt nothing except the loss of his mate.
Late every night Briec had to track an exhausted Talaith down and pull her away from her books so she could get at least a few hours of sleep. She didn’t sleep, though. She mostly cried. It was heartless and cruel, he knew, but it would be better for all if their mother—who sat silent across the room staring at Fearghus—would simply let Annwyl go. Let her go so they could release her ashes to the wind, and then move on to the business of raising her offspring the way she would have wanted.
It wasn’t that Briec wanted her to die. He’d never disliked her that much. But keeping her around for no reason other than to give Fearghus a still-breathing corpse to stare at every day and night didn’t seem like a much better idea.
Of course, whenever he thought of himself going through any of this—losing his Talaith this way—he felt the pain as a physical thing. Never before had he wanted so badly to do something, anything, that would help his brother. Fearghus had never been a happy-go-lucky dragon like Gwenvael, but Fearghus had never been like this.
Broken.
His brother was broken. And although Fearghus’s devastation would have been great if Annwyl had fallen in battle, his enemy would have been clear. His task clearer—to kill and destroy all those who’d had a hand in Annwyl’s death.
But how did one kill a god?
If Briec knew, he would have done it himself long ago.
As Bercelak’s bad temper lashed out at his own brother and Addolgar—whose temper could be much worse—lashed back, Briec glanced around the room.
Something…he felt something.
He immediately glanced at his sister. Her expression didn’t change, her annoyance didn’t dwindle.
If Morfyd felt nothing then perhaps there was nothing to feel.
He dismissed it all and focused on his father, wondering which one of them would throw the first punch.
Ahh. Bercelak, of course. Not surprising.
The god in human form stood tall and looked at her. His hair was wildly long, a good portion of it dragging along the floor, and it seemed to have an array of colors streaking through all that black. When she’d first seen him, it had been too dark to tell all the nuances, but now she saw it all clearly. Even his eyes were a strange color. Violet perhaps? Very much the color of Briec’s eyes, although more vibrant—and surprisingly warmer than Briec’s. More friendly. Just like his handsome face.
Everything about him said handsome, charming, and sweet—and Dagmar didn’t believe any of that for even a second.
“So you don’t worship the gods.”
Dagmar moved farther into the room.
“Reason and logic are all I need.”
“But so cold and unfeeling are dear reason and logic.”
“They’ve done well enough for me. I’ve seen my people worship at the altars of gods like you and I have yet to see the benefit. Men cut down in their prime during battle, leaving wife and babes to their own. So the wife prays to her god. ‘Please god, help me now that my husband is gone.’” Dagmar shrugged. “Within a month or two, when she’s worked her way through the paltry sum given to her by the army, I’ll see her in the market, selling herself on the street to the highest bidder. Hoping to earn enough to put food on the table for babes who’ll grow up as thieves and murderers. Or maybe as soldiers, because their father was, and then it can start all over again. No, I’m sorry. That I cannot worship.”
“But to save your friend, won’t you lie to me? Tell me what I want to hear? Won’t you play those same games you play with others?”
“I’ve read enough about the dragon gods to know that will be of no use to me. I can flatter you with compliments, but what will it buy me?”
“So then why are you here, my good Lady Dagmar?”
“I want to understand why.”
“Why what?”
“Why you’d do this to them. There was no one protecting my mother or me, so her death was unavoidable. But these babes”—she pointed at the twins, who tugged on their mother trying to get her attention—“they’re your creation. Why would you do this to them?”
“I’ve done nothing to them.”
“Taking their mother from them? Do you think they’ll forgive you?”
“They’ll have to understand. She’s too weak to protect them.”
“Now, yes, she is. But not before she was pregnant. And you’re a god. You could give that back to her.”
“If I deemed her worthy. I don’t. But fear not, sweet Dagmar, I’m taking them away from here. I’ll protect them and make sure they’re raised properly. I did a very good job with Izzy.”
“You don’t think their father will do a good job?”
“He’s very angry. He doesn’t want to blame them, but he does.”
“He wouldn’t have to if you gave him his mate back. Only she can protect these children.”
“That’s what I thought.” He glanced down at her, an insulting pout on his lips. Insulting because he wasn’t nearly as sad as he pretended.
“They will never forgive you,” she promised.
“They won’t have to know.”
“Ahhh, I see. Take them from their kin and they’ll never hear the stories about how you killed their mother.”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“Yes, you did. This is down to you, my lord. You and only you.”
“Well, it’s too late now.” He dismissed her with a wave, becoming frustrated. “By tonight, she’ll be greeting her ancestors. Now if you’ll excuse me—”
Her mind moving fast, Dagmar tried to find a way out of this. A way to help the babes
first and perhaps, if she were lucky, Annwyl second. But for some reason, she could only think about wool socks. What in all of reason did wool socks have to do with anything?
She no longer even had that pair she brought with her. She’d given it to…
Dagmar rested her hand on the baseboard of the bed, steadying herself. She had only one chance here; she’d better make it good.
“And what of your mate, Rhydderch Hael?”
He stared at her. “What of her?”
“Ragnar told me the stories about the dragon gods.”
He laughed. “You mean when you thought he was a monk?” When she didn’t laugh along, he let out a bored sigh. “So what about my mate? And can we make this speedy?”
“I have a theory.”
“That does not sound speedy.”
“Everything I’ve read by humans or been told by Ragnar and those who traveled with him is that Eirianwen, your mate and the most feared goddess of war, is a dragoness.”
“I grow so bored,” he suddenly said.
“I’m sure you do. But just hear me out. I found this very old text written by a monk believed to be completely insane—”
“That’s always a good source.”
“—and he wrote about a tale of two goddesses. One, Arzhela. A goddess of beauty, light, and fertility. Loved by all the human gods. Worshipped as one of the most loved deities. Then there was her younger sister. Eirianwen. A dark goddess. Opposite in purpose and even looks. She favored the desert gods. Brown of skin and hair and eyes. And”—now she made a sad, pouting face—“so unfairly feared. Even by her own sisters and brothers. Because she looked nothing like them and she had a blood thirst rivaled by few. It makes sense she’d become a god of war. Aaah.” She wagged her finger. “But few human warriors would worship her. Those who followed Arzhela had nothing but horrible things to say about poor Eirianwen and gave her nothing but a horrible reputation throughout the land. Saddened, Eirianwen wandered away, becoming the traveling war god. Until she eventually wandered into the midst of the dragon gods. Unfortunately, she was human and they did not like human gods.”