“And that would be Éibhear and Celyn?”
“And Izzy. But they’l have to learn the hard way because they’re so bloody hardheaded. Trust me when I say there’s nothing you can do about that. But what you can do is not treat Izzy like some treacherous whore out to destroy those two idiots. If for no other reason than we need her focused and ready for whatever ends up coming our way. Not worrying that al her kin have turned against her.” Rhona closed her eyes and let out a breath. “You’re right.” After dealing with Éibhear and Celyn for five long years, it had been easier to blame it al on Izzy—since the girl wasn’t there and Rhona had to live with the other two—than it was to simply chalk it up to bad decisions on al their parts.
“Hey.” Vigholf tilted her chin up with his finger. “Look at me.” She did. “There’s no blame here. None. Let’s just try to make it out of this alive.”
“You can’t real y think we’re going to—”
“Positive. You must think positive. Like me.”
Vigholf winked at her and Rhona went up on her toes, her hand around the back of his neck, bringing him in for a kiss. She was beginning to adore this dragon and she had no idea what to do with that. Then again . . . if they got kil ed tomorrow, it wouldn’t real y matter.
Their lips touched and that’s when they heard, “Ooops. Sorry!”
Rhona pul ed away from Vigholf and watched Branwen back out of the cavern. A moment later, they heard her announce, “Oy! Iz! You owe me that ale. Told you these two were fuckin’.”
“See?” Vigholf teased. “Positive.”
“Yeah, positive. I’m positive every one of my kin is insane.”
Chapter 28
Briec the Mighty felt like he’d been stuck in this boring place for years. Nothing to read. Nothing to do but sit. Gods, he was so bored!
He looked off and he could see land, but he could never reach it. Under one sun, he could see dragons enjoying themselves. Eating and drinking and, from the looks of it, f**king.
And here he sat . . . trapped.
“And bored!” he yel ed out. “I am so bored! ”
The parchment floated from the sky and landed right by him. Briec picked it up. It wasn’t, as he’d hoped, a letter with instructions tel ing him exactly how to get out of here or, at the very least, directions that led over to the more funlooking place with al the dragons having a good time. But it did have something at the top he recognized.
Written very careful y was: For My Daddy.
Briec smiled. When posts were stil getting through, he’d often get sweet little drawings from Rhian with always the same message at the top. Yet this . . . this was different. She usual y drew horses or birds or the castle she lived in. But this was just . . . symbols.
Why was she drawing him symbols? Symbols that he vaguely—very vaguely—remembered.
He smoothed out the parchment on the ground. Yes. He did recognize at least one of the symbols. From his Dragonmage training days, when he thought that immersing himself in books and Magicks would be his entire life. But the cal of the Dragonwarrior had overshadowed it and that was the way he’d headed. Yet he stil remembered things. Like this symbol. It was incredibly old. And, if memory served, incredibly powerful.
“Where? Where do I know this from?”
Briec took his talon and fol owed the patterns on the parchment. The drawings looped and swirled around the page, and as Briec’s talon moved over the images, they began to lift off the parchment. They came alive, growing in size and swirling around him. He watched in fascination, the images moving faster and faster while growing brighter and brighter until Briec could no longer stand to look at them. Until he could no longer see.
Until the screaming had him sitting up straight with a roar.
Panting, he opened his eyes and looked straight at his brother.
“Fearghus?”
“Briec?”
Briec looked around. He was no longer on that lonely piece of land. He was in the cave, the sounds of an ongoing assault from siege weapons a welcome sound to his bored ears.
“Thank the gods. What a shit dream.” He smiled, but his brother just kept staring at him, saying nothing. Then Ragnar ran in, several of the healers behind him. And then they al stared at him, too.
“What? Why are you al looking at me?” When no one answered, he stood, which made them al gawk at him more. “What? ” When they still didn’t answer, he shook his head.
“I’m getting something to eat. I’m hungry.” He eased past them, not sure why they were al gawking, not sure he even wanted to ask. He could find out later . . . when they al regained the power of speech.
Fearghus pointed at where his brother had laid, near death, and then at where he’d just walked out. “How . . . ?” Ragnar shook his head. “I don’t know. You saw him, Fearghus. His back was . . . was . . .”
“Fucked. That’s the terminology we use among our kin. His back was f**ked.”
“Yes. I didn’t think he’d survive, much less . . .”
“Walk. But then how . . . ?”
“I don’t know,” Ragnar told him gravely. “And perhaps we don’t want to know what dark forces have your brother healed and walking as if nothing had happened.”
Rhian released her cousins’ hands and smiled. “That was fun!”
“That was boring,” Tal y complained. Then she glared at her cousin. “And we stil don’t have our swords.”
“I said I was sorry!”
“But that doesn’t bring back our swords!” Tal y pointed a warning finger. “And don’t you cry, ya big baby!”
“I am not a baby!”
The door to the smal room they were in on the top floor of the castle opened and Ebba walked in. She scowled down at them. “How . . . when did you . . .” She stamped her foot and whispered, “How do you keep getting away from me?” Rhian and Tal y just stared at Ebba, and Talan . . . wel , Talan yawned and was asleep before his head landed comfortably in Rhian’s lap. Either someone’s lap or some dog’s back were usual y his favorite places for naps.
Annwyl didn’t sleep that night. Then again, she didn’t sleep much anymore. No matter how exhausted she was, the task of closing her eyes and sleeping was lost to her.
She missed sleeping. She missed shutting everything in her mind off for a few hours. Yet somehow her body kept going, though she didn’t understand how that was possible. She should be dead on her feet, but she kept going.
Then again, she was being pushed, wasn’t she? Always pushed.
When she heard people and dragons moving about, she guessed it was morning and went in search of some place to bathe. Izzy, after handing her some bread and cheese, told her she’d found an underground lake, but Annwyl had just nodded at that. She hadn’t been in the mood to find it.
She hadn’t been in the mood to feel water on her skin. Instead she stood in the middle of that big cavern and waited. Waited for the Rebel King to do what she needed him to do.
Yet when morning final y came she stil hadn’t gotten her way. So with time quickly running down, Annwyl searched out that lake. She was vaguely aware that, as she walked along, human and dragon alike moved out of her way. No one wanted to get near the “crazed queen.” There was a time Annwyl would laugh at that kind of reaction. She was only as crazy as she needed to be to get the job done, she’d often tel her mate. But these days, Annwyl was beginning to feel as crazy as everyone thought she was.
Probably the loss of sleep. She was pretty sure one needed sleep, a good sleep, to function properly. How could she expect to function properly when she couldn’t sleep? When they wouldn’t let her sleep. Why wouldn’t they let her sleep?
Annwyl found the lake and stripped off her clothes and dived in. She scrubbed her scalp, realizing she stil had bits and pieces of the Sovereign soldiers who’d taken her stuck in her hair and on her body. Her original plan had been to kidnap the commander of one of the Sovereign units and find out the information she needed to track down Gaius, but she had to al ow herself to be taken instead. That’s what she’d been told to do.
She was tired of being told to do things.
Dragging her body out of the water, Annwyl sat on the edge of the lake nak*d and soaking wet, her arms wrapped around her raised legs, her forehead resting on her knees. She began to rock back and forth. She tried not to do that—it seemed to upset everyone when she did—but it felt soothing to her somehow. So she rocked and she tried to think. But her mind . . . it was so tired.
It was usual y when it got this bad that he showed up. He did what he always did. Laid down next to her, pressed his head against her.
“He won’t help,” she told him. “Your Rebel King that you were so sure about. He won’t help.” She began to rock more, harder. “I could just go there myself without him.” And she knew she was babbling—again. But she couldn’t stop. “I could just go there and kil everyone. Everyone in the Provinces. I could kil them. The soldiers, the guards, the women, the children. I could kil them al until I get what you want. Until I kil the one you want. You just want the head, right? I could bring that to you. I could stab and stab until I get the gods-damn head! I could—” He licked her. Giant, wet, disgusting tongue, slathering across her forehead.
She leaned away from him, but then she blinked, and everything sort of came into focus. She stopped rocking. She stopped babbling.
Annwyl looked at what sat next to her. “You should have come sooner,” she said, calmly. “I’m relatively certain I’ve destroyed any hope we had he was going to help.”
She took a breath. It felt so good to think again without al the screaming that went on inside her poor brain. “Look, if al you need is for me to kil
—”
He pressed his snout against her cheek and that’s when Annwyl heard that voice in her head. He only talked to her like this. Probably because he was a big, shaggy wolf-god. The one time he’d softly “moofed” around her, Annwyl’s ears had bled for days. She thought for sure she’d be deaf forever. So he did this instead. Told her things in her mind and she listened. She had no choice.
Because Thracius had a god on his side, too. Helping him fight and win, unless Annwyl did something. Unless Annwyl went against everything she believed in and gave her soul to a god. At least she liked dogs. That helped.
“Al right,” she told him when he’d finished tel ing her what to do. “I’l suggest it. But when this is over”—she looked at the god lying beside her—“I want my life back.”
He nodded, then pushed his body into hers.
“Is that real y necessary?” she demanded. “I’m not some whore who wil just do things on command. I’m a bloody queen!” But her protests were ignored and he pushed her again.
Sighing, Annwyl got to her knees. “I’m doing this,” she said, “But if you ever tel Fearghus—I’l find a way to destroy you.” With a quick glance around to make sure they were alone, Annwyl gripped the wolf-god, Nannulf was his name, on either side of his head behind his ears and proceeded to dig her fingers in and scratch and scratch and scratch.