Lonen's Reign Read online

  “Just don’t sit too heavily,” she cautioned him. Maybe it was her imagination that the platform sloped down slightly in his direction.

  “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “I don’t know.” Visions of the palace collapsing beneath them dashed through her mind. “Think light.”

  “Hurry up and I can be in the air,” he replied grumpily. And needlessly, because she was already there.

  Drawing on the magic, she created a harness of soft rope over his torso. Having done it several times already made it easier, as if the pattern settled itself into her mind, quickly accessed and recreated. It seemed to come from thin air, but that was an illusion. She’d pulled the fibers from the dead grasses beneath the snow cover on the forest floor. Her magical perception showed her all sorts of aspects of the world that she hadn’t perceived before—like that even dead-seeming grasses retained life, and a tangible energy available to be woven into a new thing entirely.

  It made sense, now that she knew. Now that her world had resettled into another way of perceiving and being. Bára had been built of stone, but the structures had a beingness of a sort she’d recognized since early childhood. The jewelbirds in her garden, the blossoms they fed from, the soil that nourished the flowers and the water that kept them alive, the stones of her tower—all of them had their own distinct presence and nature. All of it connected and needing balance.

  It was all so much more complex than the two faces of Báran magical theory, far more manifestations than sgath and grien. And yet, simpler, too. Everything was part of everything.

  She climbed up the rope steps of the ladder, settled herself, and fastened the straps.

  “I won’t drop you.” Chuffta sniffed—mentally, and with a puff of flame—and leapt into the air, wings working furiously to lift them.

  “I know, darling.” She stroked his neck. “But this is good practice for us. If we encounter the Trom dragons in battle, or spells from the city sorcerers, then you’ll need to be concentrating on dodging and flaming—not staying level so I won’t fall off.”

  “I shall flame them all!”

  “Well, maybe not all.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  “No worries—there will be plenty of flaming.” Probably far too much, but just as she’d had to pass through the crucible to emerge on the other side, so too would the Destrye and Bárans—and the Trom—to forge themselves into something new. Something once again balanced.

  Chuffta winged toward the distant mountains, the ground flying past below. Incredible how swiftly they covered distances it had taken her and Lonen days to travel, even on fleet Buttercup. They flew over Vycayla’s hermitage, a few white-robed women working the grounds pausing to shade their eyes against the bright winter sun, gazing up, and waving. Oria waved back, unsure if they could see her, a tiny rider atop Chuffta’s immense form, but glad that the news of who she and Chuffta were had spread to them even in Vycayla’s absence from the place.

  A short time later, they passed over a steep, snow-capped ridge of peaks, and spiraled into the valley below. Even from her high vantage, the steaming hot pools glistened below in violent shades of lime, orange, and even violet. The fiery ones were mostly molten rock, welling up from the volcanic pits below ground. The others were water, but teemed with plants and animals that thrived in the intense heat, lending their strange colors to the broth of their isolated seas.

  A triad of derkesthai flew toward them. The one in the lead had once been the largest derkesthai she’d ever seen—until she met their king, and then grown Chuffta to that size as one of her first great magical works.

  “Hail Soldano,” she projected. “May we be welcome to the Colony?”

  “It seems you have might on your side,” the colony guardian replied, his mind-voice dry.

  “Thanks to your and your king.” She tried to sound meek and grateful. “Though we would never bear ill-intentions toward those we call kin.”

  “‘Kin,’ are we now? Then—”

  “Leave off teasing them, Soldano.” The derkesthai king’s mind-voice thundered through hers. Chuffta didn’t sound like that—thankfully—despite his equivalent size.

  “The Great One is very old and powerful,” Chuffta told her quietly, and privately. “He sounds loud to me, too.”

  “Approach already,” the derkesthai king commanded. “I shall meet you outside the cavern mouth.”

  Chuffta angled in that direction, the guardian trio wheeling to flank and escort them.

  “Greetings Oria and Chuffta,” one of the smaller derkesthai, the healer Tukcha said. “You are both looking well. Especially you, Chuffta.”

  Did Oria detect a flirtatious tone from Tukcha? Perhaps so, because Chuffta managed a preening neck curve, even with their rapid descent. Oria held on, glad to be validated in her prediction that she’d need the straps if Chuffta became distracted. She loved her Familiar, but he had a fiery and capricious nature. The wise sorceress recognized that and compensated for it.

  “I am very big now,” Chuffta informed Tukcha, and Oria rolled her eyes at both his arrogant tone and statement of the obvious.

  “So I observe,” Tukcha replied mildly, but with enough amused reproof to make herself clear. “And very handsome and powerful,” she added, and Oria caught the wink in the healer’s tone, probably meant just for the sorceress.

  The derkesthai king emerged from the yawning cavern mouth just as Chuffta landed on the stone apron before it. Set a bit above the level of the surrounding pools, the reception area provided a safe place for creatures not immune to flame—like herself—and also created a nicely defensible area for the derkesthai to repel unwelcome visitors.

  “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon, sorceress. Itching for another lesson?”

  The king’s thunderous laugh was close to painful, but Oria sat tall on Chuffta’s shoulders, for once close to level with the big dragon’s eyes. “I believe I have plenty to work on for the time being, but thank you for the offer, Great One.”

  “Hmm. I can’t argue with that.”

  Oria very nearly preened like Chuffta at the implied compliment.

  “Then why are you here, wasting my time?” the king demanded. “I’m very busy.”

  “Have an important nap by the lava lake scheduled?” she retorted with impertinence.

  The great dragon’s jaws opened in a lethal grin, green flames licking around teeth sharp as swords. “As a matter of fact, yes. What do you want, sorceress?”

  Oria lifted her chin and met the dragon’s gaze, and spoke aloud. “I’ve come to ask you and your people to join our army, to fight with the Destrye to save Bára and destroy the Trom.”

  ~ 9 ~

  “It’s an audacious plan,” Arnon commented after stroking his neat beard in silence a few moments. “I have to hand it to your Oria—she doesn’t think small.”

  “She’s your Oria, too,” Lonen replied without rancor. “Your sister and your queen.”

  “Oh, yes, of course.” Arnon waved that away, still deep in thought. “The communication is a problem.”

  “That’s what I told Oria. She says she has a solution.” Tired of sitting, Lonen rose from the study table and paced over to the window, one of the few in the palace proper, and pulled aside the hide covering it to keep the warmth in. The new apartments would have many windows, according to the designs Arnon had showed him. His canny brother hoped to bring back the transparent glass the Bárans forged from the sands surrounding the city—or, better still, with the knowledge to make it themselves. The Destrye knew plenty about forging metal, Arnon reasoned—why not sand?

  “If we leave Nolan here, even as a fake king surrounded by people who know better, what’s to stop him from summoning the Trom and their dragons to set fire to Arill City in our absence?”

  “That would be bad,” Lonen agreed. Where had Oria gone?

  “Then we’d be a scattered people,” Arnon continued, “with no base to speak of, our warriors at Bára and
the rest of the Destrye isolated refugees.”

  “Our warriors would be at Bára, regardless.”

  “Yes, but even if we failed in the attack, the rest of our people would have a somewhat defensible place here. Some of our people would survive. At least they’d have a better chance together, with the moat and the stout walls of the palace between them and the golems and Trom. But not if Nolan has the power to undermine that.”

  “True,” Lonen said. “But he won’t have real power. We’ll have people watching what he does, which will give us clues as to what the Bárans plan.”

  “Not if the people watching him can’t communicate with us.”

  “I think I mentioned already that Oria has a way around that.”

  “What is it?”

  Lonen shrugged. Still no sign of her. Easy to promise to trust. Not so easy to set aside his anxiety. He felt her presence, however, a bright and vital sun at the other end of the marriage bond—which felt stretched over a distance. Though…maybe less so that it had only a few minutes ago?

  “It’s a real flaw in the plan,” Arnon argued, as if Lonen had denied it. “A horse and rider, even with fresh mounts at intervals and going top speed through the tunnels, would still take days. Overland would take even longer. Birds… maybe we could use birds, but they’d need at least a day each way, and we don’t have messenger birds trained to find Bára. Besides, the Trom dragons could burn them from the air. And sending messenger birds could alert the Bárans to our movements and the element of surprise would be lost.”

  “Also true,” Lonen answered, though Arnon hardly needed a response.

  “I suppose we could just leave Mother in charge and trust her to use her best judgment. Alyx and her warrior women could serve as her personal guard and—”

  “Alyx comes with us,” Lonen interrupted. “So do all the warriors. Every Destrye who wishes to come and fight will be allowed—no, encouraged—to do so.”

  Arnon raised his brows. “You mean to stand by that idea, allowing the women to fight alongside the men?”

  “I do.” Lonen let the hide fall and turned to face his brother, leaning against the wall, arms crossed.

  “It will cause problems. You know that our father decreed that—”

  “I,” Lonen interrupted in a flat voice, “am not father. I will not repeat his mistakes.”

  Arnon paused, considering. “You think his decision that the women shouldn’t come to war with us, a war that seemed certain to end in doom—a debate argued long and hard with a great deal of input from all walks—was a mistake?”

  Lonen held his brother’s gaze. “Yes. It was a mistake. It resulted in a schism of our people at a time we could least afford to be divided, a fundamental division that reached all the way to the throne of Dru and resulted in our queen exiling herself from court.”

  “That was her decision, Lonen, and she—”

  “Is it a ‘decision’ when a person chooses to live their life on their own terms rather than bow to having their rights taken away?”

  Arnon pursed his lips. “That’s a rather dramatic way of putting it.”

  “Is it? If a person wants to fight the enemy that threatens their home, and someone else says they’re not allowed to, that’s taking away a fundamental human right. Even the lowliest of animals defend their territories.”

  “This is different, and you know it.” Arnon threw up his hands. “Those women will endanger us by being on the battlefield.”

  “How so?” Lonen asked quietly.

  “Don’t play dumb, Lonen. You can talk change and progress all you like, but we are at heart still the barbarian people your Oria calls us. We haven’t departed long from the days when women were legally property—ours to protect and cherish. If a woman is in danger on the battlefield, every man nearby will move to protect her. We won’t be able to help ourselves. It’s pure instinct. Would you punish a man for that?”

  “Yes,” Lonen replied. No question there. “If a Destrye warrior fails to follow orders, then yes, they will be punished. That’s basic discipline every warrior learns along with how to properly hold a weapon.”

  “But instinct can override their—”

  “Have you never had the instinct to run away instead of go forward in the crush of battle, Arnon? Have never had the impulse to do other than your commander ordered?”

  “Well… yes, but—”

  “There is no argument. We have military order because we have to override our instincts and impulses, for the greater good and strategy. You know that as well as I do, perhaps better.”

  Arnon raked a hand through his brown curls, stopping at the back of his neck and gripping it. “It’s a hell of time to test the theory, Your Highness.”

  “Oh, now I’m ‘Your Highness?’”

  Arnon grinned back at him, releasing his tense posture and shaking his head. “Absolutely. When I’m arguing with you, giving you my best advice, I’m your brother. When I’m certain you’ve decided, then I acknowledge that you are my king and have my unconditional support.”

  “Thank you,” Lonen replied, voice unexpectedly rough with emotion. “For both the arguments and the support.”

  Arnon’s smile took on a cocky bent. “Of course, I—what in Arill is that noise?”

  Lonen had already spun to pull the hide from the window again, leaning out and craning his neck. The beat of thousands of wings thundered through the air, shrill reptilian calls echoing above the lower voiced shrieks of humans. For a panicked moment, he thought the Trom dragons might be attacking, but Oria’s proximity—elated and triumphant—thrummed along the marriage bond.

  And then he saw them. Arnon, wedged into the window beside him exhaled a giant breath of stunned awe. “Are those…?”

  “Derkesthai,” Lonen confirmed. “An entire colony. Oria brought them here.”

  Arnon cleared his throat. “For what purpose?”

  Lonen pulled back, looping an arm around his brother’s shoulders, letting the hide fall into place again. “Let’s go find out.”

  Atop the palace, all but a few of Arnon’s Destrye workers had fled from the onslaught of derkesthai. The smaller ones—the size Chuffta had been when he easily perched on Oria’s shoulder—lit on the branches of Arill’s tree. They looked oddly in place there, like exotic white flowers bringing the goddess’s tree into bloom early. If Lonen let his gaze unfocus, the hundreds of bright green eyes could be new leaves amidst the living, shimmering wings, unfurling like waxy blossoms.

  The derkesthai too large for the branches—fortunately no more than a handful—settled on the platform itself, and Chuffta landed on his accustomed spot, Oria on his back. She seemed to be unbuckling herself, then slid down Chuffta’s leg and trotted toward them, an exultant smile on her face.

  “I don’t know that the struts will withstand this amount of weight,” Arnon said, dropping to lie flat and look under the edge.

  Lonen had eyes only for Oria. She looked to be wearing fighting leathers like the women warriors did, an adaptation of the standard male warrior’s gear, scaled to size and reinforced in slightly different places to accommodate the female form. Only her leathers were a bright metallic copper that seemed to be embossed with scales. She gleamed in the late afternoon light like a derkesthai herself.

  “What have you done, Oria?” he called, more forcefully than he meant to, overcome with both her feelings and his own.

  She grinned at him, radiant with victory. “I’ve brought you reinforcements.”

  He opened his arms and she launched herself at him, wrapping her slender legs around his waist and returning his kiss with passion. Unable to resist, he slid a hand down to cup her small bottom, so enticingly clad in the soft leather. The embossed scales gave it an intriguing texture, and he squeezed, exploring.

  She laughed, breaking the kiss. “Like them?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “Who do I have to thank for these?”

  Her eyes danced with amusement. “Alyx provided the leath
ers, and my army of seamstresses adapted them to fit. Then I experimented a little with the color and design. I want something I can wear on Chuffta’s back in battle that will suitably impress the Bárans when we accept their surrender.”

  “I understand the Bárans care about such niceties,” he commented blandly.

  “Oh yes,” she replied in a mock serious tone. “Can you imagine what terrible terms we’d be forced into if we arrived at their gates dressed like barbarians?”

  He scowled at her and bit her neck when she, giggling, dodged his retaliatory kiss. “Just so long as you don’t agree to marry anyone else,” he growled.

  “If you two are finished,” Arnon inserted, coming to stand beside them, “Your Highnesses, we really should relieve some of the weight on this platform before it collapses and takes the palace with it.”

  “Oops, sorry, Arnon.” Oria glanced to the side, and the derkesthai, Chuffta included, took wing in a temporary blizzard. “I just wanted you to see them.”

  Arnon surveyed the departing… it seemed wrong to call them a flock, like birds. Perhaps a squadron? His brother cleared his throat. “It’s an exhilarating sight, to be sure, but why are they here, Your Highness?”

  Oria wiggled, so Lonen set her down. Even though she was shorter and far more delicate than the two of them, Oria stared Arnon down with all the regal arrogance of her heritage. “My dear barbarian brother of the heart, I can communicate mind-to-mind with these derkesthai.”

  Understanding dawned. “Over long distances?” he asked.

  Oria held up her hands. She wore gloves of the same close-fitting, textured copper leather. “We need to test it, but I figure we can post the smaller derkesthai at intervals that match the range of their communication distance. The relay would be nearly instantaneous—at most a matter of minutes.”

  “Why only the smaller ones?” Arnon wondered, eyeing the many winged lizards festooning Arill’s tree, preening and fluttering thin-membraned wings.