Embrace the Fire Page 35

  She glanced sideways at him. “No.” She led him off the dock and up a steep pathway into the trees. “Unlike me, you still maintain your naivete.”

  He almost did choke her then, a slight squeeze to see what she would do, but he resisted the anger. She may call it naivete. He called it honor. He would never hurt an unarmed enemy; it didn't matter who it was.

  * * *

  The next hour was grueling. They hiked through the trees and up steep hills. The sound of crashing water stayed to the east, though Cedric couldn't see any movement. “It's a gorge,” Lianna explained at one point.

  Cedric nodded. He tried to release his arm from her neck, but she wouldn't let go. “I don't think so.”

  “I won't run, I promise,” Cedric said. He couldn't have run anyway. His strength was flagging, and his wound felt on fire.

  “I don't help you for the sake being close to you, Cedric,” she said, her tone dry and sarcastic. “I simply want to get there faster, and you're taking too much time.”

  “Why bring me, then? Surely whatever plans you have with Sebastian don't necessarily include me.”

  “You're at the center of them.” She pulled him even faster.

  Ahead of them, the trees thinned, and a clearing opened at the top of a hill. Lianna wedged him behind a tree, her gaze searching the area.

  “Ah, here we go,” she murmured, a tight smile crossing her lips.

  “What?”

  She didn't answer, only jerked him into the clearing.

  The early moonlight spread across the ground, and a shadow moved into visibility.

  “Greetings, Dragon-Master. It has been quite a while.” Sebastian's voice rang out, and Cedric froze.

  Sebastian chuckled. “What, no hug for your dear old uncle? I'm hurt.”

  Lianna pushed Cedric forward until he stood no more than an arm's length from Sebastian. “As you see, Sebastian, I've fulfilled my end of the bargain. Do you yours?”

  Sebastian's dark eyes swept over Cedric's face with that look of visceral hatred that he wore whenever he was in Cedric's presence.

  “Aye,” he murmured without taking his eyes from Cedric. “I have kept my word.”

  For once in your life, Cedric thought. In Sebastian's expression, Cedric searched for anything that could tie this monster of a man to the duty, responsibility and wisdom he imagined must have been a part of his family.

  He could see only cunning and a megalomanic wish for power that grew stronger the closer he came to it.

  He hated the man.

  Sebastian tore his gaze from his nephew's and looked over his shoulder. “Bring him.”

  Cedric strained to see. In the silver glow of the moonlight, movement of men, perhaps fifteen or more, emerged from the trees, soldiers in Sebastian's colors. In front of them, another man stumbled into the clearing, his hands bound behind his back, his arms clamped in the grip of two large guards. Cedric recognized the man immediately.

  Lanier. Head Commander of all of Sebastian's armies.

  What under the Stars? Behind Lanier, Jerrus, one of Sebastian's other top Commanders, stepped into the moonlight.

  Cedric's eyes widened as he stared at Lanier. The man had always had an enduring loyalty to the King; despite Sebastian's changeable nature and violent eruptions of temper, Lanier had maintained it. He had explained to Cedric weeks ago why.

  Perhaps he won't be so blind in the future, thought Cedric, if he comes out of this alive.

  Lanier stumbled next to Sebastian. Exhaustion, and perhaps betrayal, shuttered his gaze as he looked first at Cedric and then at Lianna.

  Lianna smiled, dropping into a pretty curtsy. “My deepest thanks, Your Grace. I did not believe you would actually do it.”

  “He is not in your hands yet,” Sebastian said.

  Lianna hesitated. “What do you mean? I have brought you the boy.”

  Cedric stiffened. The boy.

  “Aye, but you have not yet told me what you wish to do with Lanier should I give him to you.”

  “'What is there to tell? Your head Commander will be in the power of my uncle. What more could we want?”

  Sebastian raised a gloved hand to his chin, stroking his beard as he took a step toward Lianna, closing Cedric and Lanier both out of the conversation, though Cedric could still hear them.

  “You have a great desire for that Amulet, my lady,” Sebastian breathed.

  “So I have, that is no secret,” Lianna returned.

  Cedric tossed a look at Lanier. The Commander stood stiffly. One guard still had his upper arm clenched in his grip; the other guard stood at the edge of the clearing. Jerrus paced to stand in the darkness of a tree near Lianna. Lanier watched Sebastian from beneath his lowered eyebrows.

  “What is to say that I will not take the Dragon-Master and Lanier back with me and leave you with nothing?”

  Lianna's eyes flashed. “There is nothing to say that, but my Pixie charm works on all but the Andrachen line, Sebastian, and you cannot best me.”

  Sebastian still hesitated. “What is to say that I have not retained the Amulet? Perhaps I wish to keep it.”

  “If you did, you would not have come for your nephew; you would have no need of your nephew.”

  “Stop calling him that!”

  “You yourself greeted him as an uncle when we arrived.”

  Cedric could feel tense coldness in the air, as though heat were fleeing the scene, leaving only ice and frozen wasteland. He shivered.

  Sudden warmth flashed through his mind, a bright spot in the cold.

  Ember. He could hear the Dragon's thoughts, feel the rush of emotion as he connected once again with his Dragon.

  Come! he called, but he needn't have. Ember was already on his way. Cedric raised his gaze to the sky, searching. He could see nothing yet. Ember needed a distraction; if Sebastian spotted the Dragon now, Cedric could not run fast enough to escape the King or Lianna. He searched wildly, but suddenly, the sound of pitched battle clashed in his ears.

  Lanier straightened with an involuntary gasp, and Cedric swung his gaze to the slope from which they'd come.

  Griffons surged through the trees; he could hear their snarls and see the flash of their wings in the moonlight.

  Sebastian wheeled on his soldiers. “What's going on?” he shouted.

  “I—I don't know,” Jerrus gasped. “No one gave orders—”

  “Find out!” Sebastian roared.

  Jerrus sent a soldier running through the trees. Sebastian gripped Lianna's arm. “If your uncle—”

  “I had nothing to do with it, I swear!” she shouted, and then a burst of Dragonfire lit the cliff opposite them. In the brilliant flames, Cedric could see the beasts diving from the cliff into the thickness of Griffons below.

  Cedric backstepped into the forest, hoping to slip away to Ember. He could sense the Dragon cutting through the sky, dodging other Dragons and Griffons as they swirled and circled and wheeled. He needed to find another clearing, hopefully higher.

  “Dragon-Master!” Sebastian whipped his head around. “Command your Dragons to cease!”

  Cedric shook his head, tightening his lips. “I will not.”

  “Do it now, boy!” Sebastian shouted, drawing his sword. “Do it, or so help me, I will drive you through with the sharp end of this.” He held the steel out in front of him, the tip approaching Cedric's chest.

  Cedric's breath contracted, but as he opened his mouth to speak, a piercing light rose from the valley below them, growing brighter and brighter. Dragons and Griffons alike tumbled out of its way, blinded by the light and frozen by the high, piercing note that shuddered the earth.

  Sebastian crumpled, his hands clamped on his ears, a roar of rage shrieking from his mouth. Lianna leaned, sobbing, against a tree. Her hands clutched her chest, and everyone, Cedric included, shook in the power, the ancient music that shattered their souls.

  In that moment, a brilliant spot of fire pierced the sky above the light, swooping closer and closer unt
il Cedric could see his Ember, the flames licking each scale. On the Dragon's back, a dark-haired, dark-eyed figure crouched, balanced, waiting.

  With a roar and a blast of white-hot flame, Ember spewed a river of fire across the clearing, and everyone dove for cover except Cedric.

  He welcomed the heat of the fire. As Ember swooped low, Cedric grasped Ashleen's reaching hand, pulled himself up onto the back of the Dragon, and they were off into the sky. His shoulder throbbed, but he hardly noticed it.

  He was free. He put Lismaria to his back, he hoped, forever. This time, there would be no return.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Sebastian

  Sebastian had never felt such fury—not when Liam had hung him over a cliff's edge for a bit of sport, laughing with his friends amid his brother's strangled pleas for help, not when Liam had gained the throne, not when Olivia, his sister-in-law and later wife, had rejected him, not when Erlane had usurped the Lismarian throne.

  He watched the Ember sweep into the sky, his nephew and a black-haired girl clinging to the creature's back. He turned toward Jerrus in white-fisted rage. “Look at your inept bungling of the situation!” he roared.

  Jerrus eyed him seriously. His mustache looked droopier than normal.

  “Lanier could have done a better job than this!” Sebastian whirled toward the treeline where Lanier had stood, and shock lanced his spine.

  Lanier was gone.

  Ice crackled up Sebastian's arms, dusting his armor with frost

  His strangled roar was hardly intelligible. “Find the dog!” He jabbed a finger at the woods. “Jerrus, you blundered this beyond redemption! Go find him now!”

  Jerrus separated his fifteen soldiers into three groups and sent them in different directions. He hurried away with one of the groups. They spread into the woods.

  Sebastian slowed his breathing, but Lianna's quiet sniffs jerked Sebastian's attention back to her. “What are you still doing here? Get you gone, back to your uncle where you belong!”

  Slowly, she stood. “We had a bargain, Your Grace.” Her words were weak, forced bravado that had no substance behind them.

  Sebastian hated her in that moment. He despised weaklings.

  “Did we?” His voice was quiet, but threaded with an undercurrent of hostility. “I believe we both fulfilled our end of the bargain, my lady.” He stepped toward her, and she stepped back.

  “I still do not have a man or an Amulet.”

  “Ah,” Sebastian nodded, stepping closer to her again. She backed again, but ran into a tree. “Then it appears we are both missing something. You, my former Commander and the Amulet, and I, my Dragon-Master nephew.”

  “The boy's escape was no plan of mine.” Her voice trembled. Her fingers wrapped around a birch sapling, white in the moonlight.

  “That may be,” Sebastian whispered. The roar came in a moment: “But it still happened!” He kicked a rock; it thudded into a nearby tree. “You pleaded for my mercy and understanding. My mercy is gone, and my understanding is that you are a coward, a weakling, and inept to boot!”

  His shout turned her, and he watched her flee through the forest. “Good riddance!” he bellowed after her.

  Overhead, Dragons and Griffons roared, and soon, other pockets of creatures added to the pandemonium.

  In the midst of the fury, Jerrus returned to the clearing, panting. His men appeared behind him. “Your Grace, we could find no sign of Lanier in this immediate area. It—it seems that he has disappeared without a trace.”

  Sebastian's jaw felt embedded in granite.

  “And—Your Grace,” the Commander continued uncertainly, “the battle is no longer contained.”

  “I realize that,” Sebastian shouted, finally unscrewing his jaw. “In which case, I have a new plan.”

  A spark lit in Jerrus's eye. He glanced warily at the battle and then back at Sebastian. “Have you, Your Grace?”

  “Aye. We will not be able to take the castle by the front gates tonight, though we may over the course of several days. However, I can think of a much quicker way to conquer Nicholas Erlane.”

  Jerrus's eyebrow lifted. “And what is that, Your Grace?”

  Sebastian nodded at Lianna, fleeing through the trees, down the slopes toward the castle. “She came from the castle with the Dragon-Master; she returns the same way.”

  “But even if we followed her in, we could not take the interior of the castle only by ourselves.”

  Sebastian narrowed his eyes, his glare burning into his cowardly Commander. “Many things can by done by a powerful few. Command your men; you have fifteen strong men whom you brought tonight. We give chase to a single girl. Surely, they will not shrink from that.”

  Jerrus's silence quivered beneath Sebastian's flaying accusation. He sketched a bow. “As Your Grace commands.” He drew his sword and waved it to his men who waited for his instruction.

  “Hurry, Jerrus. Time runs short.”

  Lianna was nearly out of sight, nearing the lake where it spread near ClarenVale's wall. Drawing his own sword, Sebastian motioned for Jerrus and his men to follow him. As a horde, they ran down the slope after her.

  They could not run quietly, not that many of them, and even through the noise and confusion of the Griffons and the Dragons, as well as the Direwolves, Phoenixes, Dryads, Valkyries, Sirens, Pixies, Trolls, Goblins, Cerberuses, and Ogres, Lianna became aware of their pursuit.

  She'd reached a steep dip, and looking right at Sebastian, she leaped from the edge of the waterfall, landing in the lake, the white splash a phantasm of foam that dissipated in a moment. Sebastian spied the doorway before she could even start swimming toward it.

  “There it is, men! Take the entrance and the girl!”

  The men plowed around the edge of the lake. Several of them stripped off their armor and dove into the water, swimming to block the entrance of the underground reservoir.

  Sebastian cursed as he watched Lianna pause, treading water. She gasped as she wiped the hair from her face, and opened her mouth to sing.

  He was the only one, he and his bloodlines, who were immune to her Pixie charm. He dropped his sword on the bank and dove in after her, swimming beneath the water, reaching her in half a moment. His men slowly stilled; their bodies turned into statues that bobbed on the gentle currents, some slipping silently beneath the surface.

  Sebastian plowed into Lianna, submerging her. His men broke into action again. One found a boat docked at a pier on the far side of the water, and rowed it toward Sebastian. He took the dripping lady from Sebastian's arms and helped her into the boat, clamping his arm firmly around her mouth to prevent a song from escaping.

  Sebastian hauled himself into the boat. His men swam through the open door and into the gloom of the underground reservoir. The boat cut through the waters as Lianna struggled, but she was fruitless against the soldier's tight grip. Sebastian pushed the oars, feeling the sweat build beneath his sodden clothes. It felt good, releasing the energy and adrenaline that pulsed through his veins.

  He docked the boat at the empty pier on the far side of the cavern. Every man would be at the walls, he knew, the women and children huddled in their homes, unless they were a Dimn. Then they would be lining the ranks behind the soldiers.

  “Out,” Sebastian ordered the soldier and Lianna. The soldier roughly shoved Lianna from the boat, holding her against his front with his hand intact over her mouth.

  Her blue eyes were terrified.

  Sebastian stared back. “You know very well that your Pixie magic does not affect me, and if you should choose to employ it now or at any other time while we are in the castle, I will end your life and end it fast, do you understand?”

  She gave a tiny nod, and Sebastian motioned for the guard to release her. The man stepped back and pulled the boat closer to the dock. The other men who'd swum the distance heaved themselves onto the wood planks, and surrounded Sebastian.

  “My lady, shall we go?”

  She didn't answer
.

  Sebastian drew closer. “Lianna, you will lead us to your uncle and you will do it swiftly and without attracting attention. If you don't, you will die.”

  While most of the men had discarded their broadswords on the bank before diving in, all of them still carried daggers in their boots. They drew them now, and at Sebastian's motion, Jerrus pushed his into Sebastian's hand and pulled a second one free of his opposite boot.

  Sebastian pushed his dagger against Lianna's back, and she stumbled forward. “Now, my lady, we don't have time to waste.”

  The trek up the slope to the doors of the courtyard took quite a while, but the company was nearly dry by the time they arrived.

  “Sebastian,” Lianna whispered, stopping at the doors, turning to face him. “Please, if you have any sense of kindness or pity, please, spare my uncle's life.”

  Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “I fail to see why I should do that.”

  His words echoed along the corridor, and she flinched beneath them.

  The doors groaned open, and as Sebastian suspected, no one was about; all attention was engaged in the raging battle to the northwest of the castle.

  He pushed her into the courtyard guiding her forward. He knew of a room that gave a grand view of all the lands around the castle. He'd used it himself when he'd held the throne, and Liam before him, and his father before him. It was the natural place where the throne's incumbent would watch the battle ... if he were too cowardly to enter the fight himself, that is.

  Sebastian strongly suspected that was where Nicholas Erlane was, and as Lianna led him through the twisting corridors and narrow alleys and wide courtyards toward the western edge of the castle, his confidence grew.

  They came around a turn, and there in front of them was the wide entrance to a courtyard, the portcullis and drawbridge closed. Along the top, wave after wave of soldiers lined the thick walls behind the battlement. It was chaos as archers took their positions and drew their bows. By now, Sebastian's men outside had pushed siege towers against the wall, and fights erupted all along the battlements as soldiers from both sides clashed swords and weapons, screams and battle cries.