“Why not?” Michelle snapped. “Are you going to miss your little girlfriend too much?”
“We’re not leaving her here because she knows exactly where we’re going, and she is the queen of The Hearthlands, whether you want to admit it or not,” Lethe snapped back. “Can you leave some of this tactical decision-making to me? I’ve only been trained in the art of war my entire life, Michelle!” Flames crept up the downstairs banister. “We have to go now! Without any reinforcement whatsoever, should we choose to fight, we would lose. We need to depart—Thundercliff is as good a place as any, if not better—and regroup there. That’s my command as king, and as husband,” he said, pointing at her as he spoke.
Spines and scales in an icy blue rippled upward and outward from his fingertip, and his nails elongated and blackened, becoming tubular and reptilian. I had watched Theon shift up close a few times… I’d never really seen it happen to Lethe. One second he was, by all appearances, a slender pretty boy—but, in the next instant his jaw and nose elongated to form a snout, and his blue eyes enlarged, his skin dried, his hair receded, his proportions ballooned and lengthened to the chorus of popping tendons, reshaped bone. It didn’t take long at all before he was something else entirely, something which filled the hallway itself.
Lethe wordlessly nudged Michelle with his head, scooping her onto his neck, where she slid down until she reached his shoulders. He did the same to me, and I locked my arms around his neck, terrified of the flight which was to come. I didn’t even have a coat. I could only pray it would be so fast, my arms wouldn’t have the time to numb.
Vulott allowed the auburn harpy to cradle the astrolabe in her withered arms before he transformed into a large beast of silver hide and blackest eyes.
I was clinging to Lethe’s neck when I caught sight of Theon heading up the stairwell. As Lethe charged out the open window, followed immediately by the bird-woman and Vulott, I craned my neck to maintain eye contact with Theon, hoping that I could silently send him a message. That everything was going to be okay. As long as I was his queen, nothing could come between us. And he would have his empire back if it was the last thing that I did.
Lethe pulled Michelle and me onward into the dazzling snow clouds of Everwinter, and Theon grew smaller and smaller in the broken window of the castle. It was the only building within the city walls which did not appear to be a blackened shell now. Smoke rose, thick and steady, from the ruined country.
“Did you hear that?” Michelle yelled into my ear. In spite of our differences, her arms were nonetheless locked around my waist.
“No!” I yelled back. “I didn’t hear anything!”
But it was a lie. I had heard. I’d heard a voice on the wind calling out my name.
Theon
The saddest element of our battle tactic was how readily the soldiers of Everwinter relinquished “their” property after it had become damaged. The castle particularly could be salvaged, as it was the greatest structure of The Hearthlands, and the most fortified and the last to be reached, but when we arrived at its gate and began sending our arrows through its windows, the ice dragons inside poured out as if a plague had entered the very air, poisoning all it touched. I almost wanted to yell at them, insulted by their behavior, even if it served me.
The city at our backs would take weeks to rebuild, months, maybe years, depending on the manpower we could invest.
As I had directed my men forward, part of my mind had continued to work—could never stop working—as a king, envisioning his future on the land. But the worst of it was already over. The majority of the common folk had fled, followed by the guards and the maids. All that remained within the walls, if they did in fact remain, was the royal family.
Before we entered the castle, I briefed my men on the situation. “My wife is in there,” I explained. “My wife is in there, and good fire people may remain in those dungeons, so listen—take care with what is destroyed. In so many ways, take care. There is not much left behind now. If we can manage to intimidate or discourage through shock and awe alone, let us. The island has shed enough of its own blood for our sake.”
As I moved through the ring of remaining fire dragons, I found older women amongst us—older women who had not been with us when we had departed from the ogres’ beach. I found malnourished men with stern faces and joyless eyes… and I recognized these people by the raw strips of flesh on their wrists and ankles, by the shabbiness of their garments beneath the off-key luxuriousness of their coats. They had come from within the castle walls, not without. They were prisoners. Had Nell taken the risk of setting them all free?
“Good woman,” I said, touching one of the escaped prisoners on the shoulder. “You did not come from our camp offshore.”
“No, sir,” she answered, bowing deeply. “My name is Ulla, and I hail from the mighty Iphras. I have been captured twice now in this godsforsaken war. The first time I was taken to the dungeon and freed by your own hand, my king, but stung by an ice arrow and recaptured in the resulting turmoil in which so many escaped. In the second time, I was freed by another of the Aena name.”
“Penelope?” I asked hopefully, casting my eyes toward the castle, haloed in snowfall.
“Nay,” the woman answered. “I know no Penelope. Altair Aena, the younger prince of Erisard.”
I stared at her without comprehending. I forgot the snow falling softly around us, forgot the smoldering desolation at our backs and the castle awaiting beyond. Everything fell away at the promise, within my fingertips’ reach, of family restored. It had been months since I’d seen Altair. I’d thought him dead. He had been missing since this battle began, almost two months ago, and I’d seen so many die, I’d thought that surely… surely…
I swallowed, blinking away tears. “Where?” I asked her thickly. “Where have you seen Altair?”
“The last I saw of him, he was expelling me from the castle walls, sending me to be of any service to the cause,” she explained. “He found these shoes for me.” She kicked up her fur-lined, suede boots, which I recognized as originally belonging to my grandmother’s collection. “And last I saw him, he was throwing a coat onto a young man and driving him out the door. He was in the dungeons with us. But a woman claiming to be queen set him free.”
I swallowed again. Penelope. This moment couldn’t be more sweet or sharp in my chest, and it made the whole world vivid and bright with new color, new dimension. My brother was alive, and it was my beautiful wife who had freed him herself. They had worked together to free the fire people from the dungeons so that they could join our fight, even as weak as they were… and they had the passion and the determination to agree to do so. I was so proud.
I doubled back to the front doors of the castle, giving my call to hold all fire until I had returned, and ascended the stairwell toward the grand hall I knew so well. It would be heartwrenching to allow it even the slightest hint of smoke damage… but one glance through a frosted window revealed that it had already been demolished by its own inhabitants. Tapestries hung in tatters on the wall, and royal crests on shields which dated back into long-gone centuries were only evident by the shadows they had left behind on the wallpaper. Shattered china and shards of crystals and gems were strewn, forgotten, crushed into the carpet. Ice dragons moved through the entryway, many of them loaded down with the extravagant memorabilia of my dynasty, not their own.
As my eyes turned over the scene within, they caught upon something which brightened the demolition of my childhood home beyond words, which made it fall away and become small: the profile of my younger brother, framed in the foyer, just beneath a chandelier, propelling another man in a coat toward the entrance. The youth came dancing down the stairs in fresh boots and coat, ready to fight.
Altair’s eyes turned and caught mine. They leapt and steadied, transitioning from relief to desperation as he moved rapidly toward the entrance… and so did I. He slipped from the foyer and closed the door behind him; we met in the arched entryway and em
braced. I pounded Altair on the back with one hand, reassuring myself that he was real, warm and solid; my other hand ruffled his thick, dark hair, and then both shoved him back so that I could look at him more closely. Suspended outside the horrors of war for that moment—even while the entire city smoldered at our backs—we appraised each other as merrily as any two party-goers reunited.
He had lost weight. I could see that much. His eyes were still young, but his face… his face had weathered in his time in the dungeon.
“I thought you were dead,” I blurted.
Someone on the other side of the door twisted the lock, the bolt clicked into place, and I smiled without mirth. The ice dragons were terrified of us.
Altair let loose a belly laugh. “It’s good to see you too!” he replied. “I met your wife. She’s a precious thing. And there’s an uprising, apparently.”
I grinned. Altair’s loose, child-like nature was contagious. “Apparently,” I agreed. “We’d like to spare the castle. Come with us. Have the dungeons been emptied?”
“Of all but their rats,” Altair confirmed.
“Then join our front. We will drive the dragons from within, but they seem to be moving quickly enough without as much as a flame being hurled in their direction.”
“Aye, true enough indeed,” Altair said, his gaze turning to the city. “The snow is putting out the rest, it seems. So, to save our faces, we have cut off our noses, have we?” he asked.
“You say that as if this plan was a simple last resort,” I chastised him. “It was a careful attack, targeting the deepest weakness of the ice dragons.”
Just then, a window broke. One of the dragons, impatient, had unleashed a belt of fire into the main hall. “Hey!” I bellowed. “I said to hold your fire!”
Altair and I advanced together on the disobedient soldier, but it was already too late. Tension had broken somewhere in the ranks, and another window burst further away. Simultaneously, the castle’s front door opened, and out poured more ice dragons than could fit through the awning at once. They took flight, haphazard and desperate, some shifting in the air, clutching chests and satchels and fine garments in their talons or mouths.
“I suppose there is no stopping it now,” I commented, turning back to Altair.
“Have wiser words ever been spoken?”
I grimaced, remembering then what a smartass my little brother was. “I’ve got to get in there. Nell is in there somewhere.”
Altair gave my shoulder one slap. “Of course. You go. I’ll take over out here. Wait—how’s Mother?”
I glanced back at him and winced. I didn’t want to have to be the one to tell him about Father… but from the pained and hollow glint in his eyes, I didn’t have to. He already knew. Best to let it exist outside of words. That was enough.
“She misses you,” I answered instead. “She loves you.”
“I’ll see her soon,” he replied, turning from me. “Go find your lady, and I will handle the troops.” I strode toward the door, now banging open and shut in the wind, and Altair called after me, “I love you too, brother.”
I looked back at him and placed my hand over my heart, smiling. He knew what it meant. I turned and marched into the foyer… almost totally deserted. I cocked my head to the side and frowned. Ice dragons must have been fleeing from every exit in the palace. Now, none remained. The closest voices I heard emanated from further down the hall: other fire dragons, scouring the floor for ice dragons remaining on the premises. I hoped they didn’t get too zealous and set anything else on fire.
There was one other set of voices upstairs.
My eyes bulged.
It was Nell! Nell… and Michelle… and Lethe… and Vulott…
My jaw clenched. She was with the traitorous court of ice people. I understood why she had remained in the castle, even after I had been here and seen her so briefly—but now we had driven them off our land, and there was no royal family to whom she needed to play insider. No royal family, save our own.
I pounded up the stairs to the second floor, searching for her… but saw only ice dragons crowding the corridor. One I recognized immediately as Lethe, Michelle on his back, and then, he nudged downward with his head and Nell appeared, sliding down his neck to join Michelle between his shoulder blades and his leathery wings. They were taking her! They were taking Nell!
I bolted forward, pounding down the hallway, but Lethe and Vulott had already taken their exits, out through a broken window with one other woman: Parnassia. I knew where they were going, but still, I could not bear to lose sight of Penelope. I shifted with the same speed of any cowardly ice dragon fleeing this castle, my feet hardly having time to transform before they were drawing up and leaving behind the ground.
I swept to the side of the castle and passed Altair quickly, sliding down into the snow only long enough to say, “When the castle is secured, follow through the portal to the rock island! And go from there to the portal of the ghouls!” I did not give him a moment to respond. The wind caught beneath my wings, I moved the bones of my shoulders with power, and sent myself rocketing back into the air. The Eraeus family were nothing but grains on the horizon now. It didn’t matter to me that the sky was crowded with snow clouds. My wings moved with fury against the wind. It didn’t matter to me that the drag of the wintry blasts pulled me to the side and stung at my hands and feet.
All that mattered was that I could see them, becoming smaller, and I wondered if Nell had heard me calling her name. I wondered if she knew that I was coming for her. I would not lose her again. This had gone on long enough; the castle was mine again. And she was, too.
I careened onward toward the portal.
I would not lose her again.
I passed through the portal, exploding out of the darkness and into the slate sky of Maine. America. It felt like a lifetime since I’d seen this land. I skimmed over the black, salty waters of this ocean—the “Atlantic,” it was called—to trail behind the two large shadows which moved ahead of me, one small. Vulott was the largest, then Lethe, and then Parnassia. I knew that it was Lethe who harbored the girls—his queen, and mine.
I should hang back. The sight of me would ruin any element of surprise in a later attack. But it was so hard to see Nell with them… the gods alone knew what they had in store—
Just then, a slender shadow, a tiny dash of black against the churning gray of cloudy sky, went toppling off of Lethe, and my heart leapt into my throat. It was Nell. I knew it. I just knew it. I lunged forward, but I knew that I would be too late. She fell too fast. Fell like a stone.
Nell
“You think I can talk Lethe into taking over Beggar’s Hole, too?” Michelle bellowed into my ear. “You could work in that castle, you know? Still see your family. That’d be nice. We could start a campaign to, like, support ice dragon awareness. A charity!”
I twisted slightly so that my voice would be angled toward Michelle, rather than thrown into the wind. Neither of us were sufficiently dressed for this weather, but Lethe rode too high in the sky for me to be able to think about much else. No matter how cold my fingers got, I would need for them to snap off before I let go. “I don’t think you get it,” I hollered back to her. “They’re two different worlds. You can’t bring one into the other and mix them—you can only pick one. If you want to be here, you should stay here.”
“I’m not a queen here!” Michelle called back.
“Yeah, well.” The next words came out of my mouth without my really meaning them to. They just popped out because they were true. “You’re not really a queen anywhere anymore.”
The next thing that I felt was a wrenching at my waist where Michelle had been clutching me for balance. Suddenly, my stiff, cold fingers were forced to scrabble at Lethe’s scales for a better grip—but I was too late. I hadn’t seen it coming. Somehow I had thought that Michelle, in spite of being shallow, and self-centered, and cold, and manipulative, was not capable of the greater evils we saw perpetrated in our world.
I did not think that, as much as she could steal or lie, she could murder. But she proved me wrong the moment her thighs clutched to Lethe’s shoulders for balance and she dug her fingers into my hips, tilting and shoving me from his back.
I let loose one long shriek—it really didn’t end until the breath in my lungs was exhausted—as my legs thrashed in the whipping wind and I toppled toward the ocean. It’s going to be so cold, I thought, screaming again and shielding my face in anticipation of the impact. I’m going to freeze to death. No… no, I’m going to drown, just like I did the night that Theon and I met. How… fateful.
I slammed into something cool and solid, yet spongy and yielding beneath my weight, what little oxygen I had left after all the screaming was pushed from my lungs immediately upon impact. I bucked and clawed against the scales which enwrapped my torso, peripheral vision swimming in dots. Don’t lose consciousness. Don’t lose consciousness. I don’t think he could catch you again.
Who had caught me?
Blinking, I raised my head. My legs hung loose in the air, my arms instinctively looped to clutch the length of skin which now cradled me. The scales were chilly to the touch, and pale blue… and up, sitting at the base of Lethe’s shoulder blades, I saw the shadow of Michelle’s back. I glowered at her. She had tried to kill me. She really had.
And Lethe had saved me… with his tail.
It was from this vantage point, dangling behind Michelle, Lethe, Vulott and the leading harpy, advancing onward toward the shore, that I was able to see another scaled creature in flight behind us. Behind us, and so low to the ground his belly might have been skimming the water. He was as large as a small house, a shimmering black dragon with golden embellishments.