Page 47 of Caress of Fire
Fedryc walked around the rows of bodies—men, women and children—lined up in a neat order in groups of ten, side by side. Dead; all were dead.
A quick glance told Fedryc that Henron had descended from the transport and was standing by his side in silence.
“Your source, they told you what we’d find here?” Fedryc spoke to Henron but didn’t take his eyes from the rows of bodies. Mixed blood children were flanked by adults either Delradon or human.
“No.” Henron’s voice was low, like he didn’t want to speak louder so close to the dead. “Only that Lord Anion of Virhot had a message for you, and that it would be delivered at the border by people who belonged in Aalstad.”
“This was Lord Anion’s doing?” A darkness bloomed in Fedryc as he walked past another row of victims. Twin girls lay side by side, their faces peaceful and innocent, even in death.
This was an abomination beyond words, beyond what he had previously thought the Lord of Virhot capable of doing.
“It’s the only explanation I can think of.” Henron walked along another row, his face closed off as he inspected the dead but his eyes gleaming with an anger that bordered on fury. “We both misjudged him. He’s more vicious than we thought.”
Fedryc stopped as his eyes latched on to something red on the skin of an old Delradon woman lying next to a teenage boy. He walked up to the old woman, then delicately pulled the fabric from her shoulder, revealing a dark red mark.
“Sordied sangui,mors abomina.” Henron’s face grew slack and white as he locked gazes with Fedryc. “He is Knat-Kanassis, then.”
“And his message to me was clear.” Fedryc shook his head as his anger boiled over and spilled, threatening to wash away his sanity. “Marielle and any heirs I might have will be targeted by the order.” He got back to his feet and looked behind Henron to the dozen guards who stood, slack-faced and shocked at what they saw.
In the distance, a dragon’s roar traveled over the wind and Henron stood up straighter, his face turned to the source of the sound. A cloud passed over his old friend’s eyes and his expression became sharp, like he could hear something else, something Fedryc couldn’t pinpoint. Some longing, perhaps.
I’m so sorry, my friend. This just wasn’t meant to be.
Henron listened as the dragon roared, lost in the distance but still there. His friend’s face was a mask of longing and resolve. This was Henron’s deepest wound and the only thing he could never have. A Draekon without a dragon. A man forever with half a heart.
“Lord Anion’s dragon, perhaps. He’s not as far away as we thought.” Fedryc glanced at Nyra, at her great red form. “Nyra can beat Anion’s gray dragon.”
“No, that isn’t Lord Anion’s gray dragon,” Henron answered, his face still turned to the wind, to that beast in the distance. “That is something else. Don’t you hear it? It’s something the likes of which I’ve never heard before. Something…”
Henron didn’t finish his thought and kept looking into the distance. Fedryc watched his friend, unease growing in his mind.
But he didn’t have time to play games. His Draekarra’s life hung in the balance.
“The dragon is not important.” His harsh tone got Henron to look away from where the dragon’s roar was coming from and gradually, Henron’s eyes lost their strange cloudiness. “What matters is that an entire kingdom is now in the hands of a Knat-Kanassis acolyte, and we have no idea what their strength is, or even if there are more.”
“We can’t avoid it anymore.” Henron nodded, and he was Henron again. “If the Knat-Kanassis have taken an entire kingdom, you know what this means.”
Fedryc nodded. “This means war.” He swallowed as he stared down at the people who had been sacrificed to send him a message. His veins burned with frozen rage. “But to win this war, we need allies. Aalstad can’t stand alone.”
“But who?”
This was the question, wasn’t it? Who would stand with Aalstad against the greatest threat this Earth had ever seen?
Chapter 16
Marielle woke alone again. Fedryc hadn’t spent an entire night with her since Lord Aymond’s Mourning.
She pulled the covers over her body until they were up to her neck, but still the cold crept inside her body, bit by bit. The desert outside was breathtaking but all Marielle could see was Devan’s face as she had last seen it.
Am I ever going to see him again?
It had been a week since Asha had been found dead in her room. Two weeks since Fedryc had found Devan at Ignio Marula’s tavern, only to lose him again. Her eyes went to the Draekar bracelet at her wrist and her throat closed.
Doubt filled her mind and she traced the delicate lines of the flames carved out of Nyra’s scale. Loneliness was eating at her and her worries had long since reached an unbearable level.
All her instincts were screaming at her to run, to go to the capital and dig out Ignio Marula from whatever hole he was hiding in, then leave without looking over her shoulder. But she couldn’t leave.
Not anymore. Not when the thought of leaving was beginning to feel like cutting the oxygen out of the air. Like something that would be a life without life inside it.
