The elders’ eyes all swung toward the Bloodrider.
“What?” Kast asked, irritation and growing impatience clear in his tight lips and squinted eyes.
They ignored him. Sy-wen’s mother turned to the senior elder. “Go on, Edyll. Finish the foul tale and be done with it. I, for one, have little stomach to dwell on this matter any further.”
Master Edyll bowed his head slightly in acknowledgment and returned to Sy-wen and Kast. “As I was saying, the islands were once our home, but it was not idyllic. On the contrary, the harsh seas of the distant ocean hardened our people. We started as a savage nation, attacking neighboring islands and ruling the conquered tribes like tyrants. We sacrificed children to our gods and drank from the skulls of our defeated. Our ancestors’ hearts were as cold as the ice floes of the north.”
“That cannot be,” Sy-wen moaned. She had never heard these histories before. As she searched the elders’ faces, she saw a spark of sympathy for her distress enter her mother’s eyes. The other council members kept their heads bowed, a mix of shame and anger clear in all their postures.
“One winter, a man appeared among our people. Some say he was born from one of our conquered tribes; some say he was the bastard son of our king. He declared our ways wrong and spoke words of peace. The downtrodden flocked to him, attracted by his words of kindness and compassion. He traveled among our many islands, and his flock grew larger and more vocal. The mer’ai ruler at that time, King Raff, sent his warriors out to slaughter these followers and bring back the head of this man.”
“Who was he?” Sy-wen asked.
Master Edyll sipped from a cup of kelp tea. “He bore several names: Spiritwalker, Dragonkin, Peacespeaker. But his true name was lost in history.”
“Further proof that the tales were mere myth,” Master Talon scoffed.
Sy-wen did not want a new argument to ensue. “So what happened to this man?” she asked.
Master Edyll’s gaze drifted away, into the past. “It was a long hunt. Entire islands were wiped out. It was said that the seas remained bloody for an entire moon. Finally, to end the massacres, the man came forward on his own, appearing in the throne room at the height of the slaughter. ‘Let this end now,’ he declared, and gave himself over to King Raff’s guards. They tortured the man for seven days and nights. They blinded him with flaming irons, they crushed his hands and feet, and finally they cut his manhood from him.”
Sy-wen cringed from these words. How could this horrible tale be true? How could this be her people’s heritage?
Master Edyll continued in the same tone of voice. “They lashed his bloody and broken body, still alive, onto a raft and sent him out to the sharks. He sang as his body floated away—not a song of vengeance and hate, but one of forgiveness. Those of his flock who still lived, and many who heard his song for the first time, followed his raft into the seas. Even the king’s own daughter entered the waves after this man. Some say she had been his lover; some say she was simply touched by his song. Either way, one thing was clear—she bore magick in her voice. As she entered the waters, she added her song to his, and from the seas, the mighty dragons arose, answering her calls. They claimed these exiles and took them safely from the islands.” Master Edyll paused and reached for his cup of tea with trembling fingers. The old man clearly grew tired with the telling of this tale.
“And so the mer’ai were born,” Kast finished for him, a sour set to his lips. “Seadragon and mer’ai united. How noble!”
“No,” Master Edyll said, shaking his head slowly. “You don’t listen closely enough. The tale is not yet done.” Master Edyll let his words sink in before continuing. “After the rescue by the dragons, King Raff sent ships out to hunt his escaping people. He meant to slaughter them all, dragons included. But again, the broken man would not let him. Atop a great white dragon, he met King Raff’s armada and asked for the bloodshed to stop. ‘Take my life in exchange for your people,’ he had yelled across the waves, his battered body barely able to stay seated atop his mount. King Raff laughed at the blind man and ordered the warriors’ spears and harpoons loosed. Dragon and man were pierced with a hundred blades. Dying, they sank under the waves, their blood mixing in the saltwater.”
Master Edyll’s voice grew grim. “But with the savage slaughter of their leader, the man’s flock grew wild. Aided by the dragons, they attacked King Raff’s armada and washed the decks with the blood of the slain, sparing no one. King Raff’s head was spiked atop the prow of the lead ship, put there by his own daughter, and the fleet returned to their home islands. It is said not a single islander escaped their wrath. These wild warriors were cursed by the islanders as dragonfolk—or in the old tongue, Dre’rendi.”
“My people,” Kast said, horror in his voice.
“Yes. Led by your first leader.”
Kast’s eyes grew wide. “The warrior queen Raffel.” Sy-wen saw the look of recognition in the large man.
“Raff-el,” Master Edyll elaborated. “Daughter of Raff. One and the same.”
Into the stunned silence, Sy-wen spoke. “But how does this lead to our people’s origin?”
Master Edyll sighed. “As the seas ran red with the blood of the slain, we were already being born. The leader who preached of peace, he who had sunk under the weight of a hundred spears, did not die with his great white. For three days, under the waves, the blood of dragon and man mixed with the salt of the sea. The healing properties inherent in the dragon’s blood began to transform in the swirl of mixed bloods. Magick began to blur the line between man and dragon. The man became a little like the dragon, the dragon a little like the man. The two were forever fused and bonded.”
“He became the first true mer’ai,” Sy-wen said with a tinge of wonder in her voice.
Master Edyll nodded. “Once fully recovered, the man rose from the seas atop his white dragon. His dark hair had gone white to match the dragon’s scale; his fingers and toes had become webbed like the great beast’s. Dragon and man could now speak to one another as kin. But with all the changes, one aspect of the man remained untouched by the magick—his heart. When he saw the slaughter done in his name, he cried to the cruel skies above and cast his gaze forever from the world of sunlight and rock. But before he fled, he went to his followers on their bloody ships and commanded them to end their murderous ways. The Dre’rendi bowed before his miracle and begged to join him. ‘Not until the blood is washed from your hands,’ he told them. ‘Serve the children of the dragon to come. Protect them well, and one day I will call you back home!’ With those words, the man left, taking the seadragons with him.”
Kast cleared his throat. “But he was only one man. How could he be the father of your sea-dwelling clans?”
“Our forefather was more than a man. He was part dragon now.” Master Edyll stared Kast in the eye. “And his white dragon was a female. From their union, the mer’ai clans were born.”
Now it was Sy-wen’s turn to struggle to speak, her voice grown incredulous. “You mean we descend from the dragons themselves? We were once actual mates with the great beasts?”
“Yes, long ago. Though we can no longer conceive with dragons, we still share a blood bond with the great creatures that harkens back to such a time. Over the passing winters, other men and women, people from many lands, added their blood to our lines, expanding our clans. But then we fled with the coming of the Gul’gotha, exiling ourselves forever from the rock and coast.” As he finished, Master Edyll glanced significantly at Sy-wen’s mother.
To Sy-wen’s surprise, her mother swung away from the elder’s gaze, almost in shame, but not before Sy-wen noted the flicker of pain and sorrow in her mother’s eyes. Something unspoken had passed between them. Another secret.
Kast scowled. “You expect me to believe all this?”
Master Edyll turned back to the Bloodrider. “Believe what you will, but one thing is certain. Our two fates are tied—mer’ai and Dre’rendi.”
“And you have something to
prove the truth of your words?”
Before the old man could answer, Talon interrupted. “Just dusty relics from the past. He puts too much potency in ancient scraps.”
Master Edyll turned to the young elder. Sy-wen had never seen the old man’s eyes flash so fiercely. “You malign the past at your own risk, young Talon. You have lived too few winters to appreciate how quickly the past can bite you from behind if you stare only toward the future.”
Talon grumbled but could not meet Master Edyll’s furious gaze.
Kast clearly grew tired of this bickering. “What is this proof, then?”
Turning to face the Bloodrider, Master Edyll’s brows rose slightly. He nodded toward Kast. “Why, you yourself are my proof, Master Kast.”
“What do you mean?”
“It is time you learned who you truly are.” The old man waved a hand, and a fold of wall pulled away to reveal an ancient painting hanging behind the council table. It was of a white-haired man seated atop a great dragon whose scale was the color of pearl.
“Dragonkin,” Master Edyll named the figure. “Our forefather.”
Sy-wen gasped, unable to restrain her outburst. She took a step closer to the painting. Even with the man’s strange hair, Sy-wen could not mistake the familiar features. The man was Kast’s twin—even down to the dragon tattoo dyed on the skin of the man’s throat.
Master Edyll spoke into their shock. “You are our forefather reborn! Dragon and man united once again by magick.”
“It cannot be,” Kast mumbled, his eyes fixed on the painting.
AS THE SUN crested high in the blue sky, Pinorr stood behind the keelchief of the Dragonspur. The old shaman waited patiently for the ship’s chieftain to finish whipping one of the boat’s crewmen. The punished man’s cries competed with the crack of the rawhide. Ten lashes was the common punishment for being found asleep on a watch.
The remainder of the crew went about the decks as if the screams of pain were nothing more than the cries of angry gulls. On a ship run by a hard keelchief, Pinorr had learned that such a chorus was routine. Still, as Pinorr watched Ulster soak the leathers of his whip in seawater, he noted the glint of hunger and pleasure in the young keelchief’s eyes. Not all chiefs soaked their leathers in salt to heighten the burn of their whip’s touch.
On this ship, the current keelchief always did.
Ulster caught Pinorr’s gaze as he soaked the whip for the final lash. “ ‘Add salt to a wound to help them remember,’ ” the keelchief said, quoting the old codes of the Dre’rendi, as if to justify the added harshness to his punishment. But the hard grin on the man’s lips belied this excuse—Ulster truly enjoyed the pain he caused.
Pinorr simply nodded at the keelchief’s statement. He let no sign of his true feeling show on his face. It was not his place to question a chief’s punishment. Besides, Ulster was new to his chiefdom. After serving on many ships under countless keelchiefs, Pinorr had known many such young chiefs who had tried to prove their toughness and strength by brutalizing their crew, striving to earn respect through fear. Only the passing of many winters would teach such young men that terror never won a crew’s respect; only honor and a chief’s firm compassion earned a ship’s loyalty.
Still, Pinorr suspected it was more than a lack of experience that spurred Ulster’s cruelty. With the whip, the man exposed his true heart. Even now, Pinorr noted how Ulster had to shift himself in his breeches to hide how pleasurable he found these punishments.
As the keelchief turned away to deliver his last blow, the scowl that Pinorr had kept hidden rose to the surface for a brief flash, then retreated again under his placid expression. He hated this young chief—not just for his easy cruelty, but for everything about him. He hated Ulster’s continually smug expression and his habit of weaving his warrior’s braid in a pattern normally reserved for the survivors of mighty battles.
Even Ulster’s chiefdom had not been earned through any triumphs of his own, but from the respect that the Dre’rendi had had for his dead father. Ulster’s sire had been the fleet’s high keel for almost two decades and had led the fleets to their current dominance in the Shoals. During this time of glory, Pinorr had been the high keel’s shaman aboard the mighty Dragonsheart. But more than chief, Pinorr had considered Ulster’s father a close friend. They had weathered triumphs and tragedies together: the death of Pinorr’s dear wife, the loss of the high keel’s first son to the madness of the sea, the victory of the fleet over the Bloody Wights. After all this shared blood, Pinorr could refuse his friend nothing.
On the man’s deathbed, with an arrow still sprouting like a weed from his bloody chest, the high keel had begged only two requests of his people. First, before he died, he wanted to see his son receive the dragon’s tooth brand of chiefdom. And second, he wanted Pinorr to serve his son as shaman. Nobody could dishonor the man by refusing. Before the sun had set that day, Ulster received the chiefdom of the Dragonspur, and Pinorr followed him to this smaller ship.
A scream of agony broke through Pinorr’s reverie. He watched the whipped crewman collapse in his shackles to the deck. Bloody stripes scarred his back. The cuts were deep. Pinorr spotted the white of bone through one of the strokes. Pinorr’s face grew ashen. There was no excuse for such force. A lashing was meant to discourage and punish, not kill.
Ulster crossed to the prone man, carrying the bucket of seawater in which he had soaked his whip. As the chief drew near, the man moaned and tried to curl into a ball, as if expecting another blow. The pain had long driven the count of lashes from his poor mind. He was now just an animal in agony. Ulster stood over the pathetic man and slowly poured the salty waters over the man’s wounded back. His screams began anew, stretching across the deck, flowing over the sea.
Pinorr tried not to cringe. He kept his features bland as Ulster finally dropped the bucket, now empty, and turned to Pinorr. The old shaman saw the look of satisfaction in the young man’s eyes.
Clenching fists behind his back, Pinorr kept silent. How could this petty creature ever have been spat from the loins of such a fine man as the high keel?
Wiping his damp hands, Ulster stepped beside Pinorr. “Now what news have you for me?”
Pinorr fought to keep his tone even and respectful. “I sense a storm coming from the south. A large one.”
Ulster glanced at the clear skies and calm winds.
The doubt in the keelchief’s eyes almost drove Pinorr to throttle the man. No one disrespected the word of a shaman, especially not when that shaman was Pinorr di’Ra. All knew his rajor maga, his sea senses, were the most regarded of any shaman’s. The sea gods had richly blessed Pinorr, and for this scrap of a man to doubt not only the shaman, but also the gods, was a dishonor that could only be cut away with the edge of a sword. Still, Pinorr kept silent. Ulster was the son of his friend, and he would honor the dead man’s memory by serving this fool as best he could manage.
“So what should we do?” Ulster asked, facing Pinorr again.
“The storm that comes will strike with the night. We must flag warnings to the other ships of the fleet. We must seek—”
Ulster waved Pinorr’s words away in impatience. “Of course, of course. I’ll have them signaled before the sun sets. What else do you have to report? My meal awaits.”
Pinorr bowed his head slightly. “I apologize for not making myself clear from the start, Keelchief Ulster. What rides down upon us is no ordinary storm that requires only the reefing of sails, the laying of storm lines, and the battening of hatches. This squall hails from the deep south. A ship killer.”
Again doubt shone in the man’s eyes. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying,” Pinorr stated coldly, letting a bit of anger slip into his voice, “that the fleet needs to be alerted now. To protect the ships, we must seek a sheltered harbor before the squall strikes.”
Ulster shook his head, stiffening slightly at Pinorr’s harsh tones. “The Dre’rendi don’t run from storms like so many thick-b
ellied merchant ships. Our keels will ride any squall.”
Pinorr gave up any pretense of obeisance to this fool. “You’re wrong, Ulster. You’re too young to have seen the worst that can blow out of the south. I’ve seen storms that split boats in half, waves so high that boats topple end over end down their roaring troughs, skies so dense with lightning that night becomes day from their glow. What rides toward us now is worse than anything I’ve sensed before.” Pinorr leaned closer to Ulster. “Send my warnings or die with the setting sun. It is your choice, Keelchief.” He spat the honorific so it sounded more a curse than a respected title.
Ulster’s face had grown red with Pinorr’s spouting anger. The tattoo of a diving seahawk blazed on his jaw. “You overstep your station, Shaman. Don’t rely on your old friendship with my dead father to keep you from my whips.”
Pinorr did not back down, not from this mud crawler. “Send my warnings, Ulster, or I’ll rip the blessing of the gods from this ship’s keel and no shaman will ever walk these cursed decks again. See then what crew remain aboard your ship!”
The blood drained from Ulster’s cheeks. “You dare threaten me!”
“You are a keelchief here, Ulster, not a god. The order of shamans will not tolerate any disrespect, not even from the high keel himself. By ignoring my vision, you insult the sea gods who have sent us this warning. That I will not tolerate! I will not let a fool like you bring the wrath of the gods down upon the Dre’rendi.”
By now, other crewmen had gathered nearby, feigning work: coiling rope, dry scrubbing the deck, mending nets. They sensed the storm brewing here and had come to see the play of thunder.
Ulster was well aware of the others’ gazes. His back grew straight and his shoulders square. “I will not dishonor the gods,” he said stiffly. “But that does not mean I have to suffer your tongue either, Shaman. You know the law: ‘Shaman will guide, but keelchief will lead.’ ”