Dragon's Fire Read online

  The only way to tell them apart was from their hair and eye color: One was dark, with eyes like rich chocolate, and the other silvery blond, with cobalt-blue orbs. The blue-eyed boy reminded him of himself at sixteen.

  He shook his head in wonder.

  Truth be told, they both looked like he had at that age. They even dressed the same way he had when he was still an heir to the Chenayan throne: white shirts and black trousers.

  His head cocked in surprise.

  Perhaps not quite like he had at that age. Their clothes were ragged and their boots scuffed.

  Another major difference: the fishing rods in their hands. At that age, he had a hunting bird on his arm.

  It pained him that he was looking at his children but didn’t even know which twin was Grigor and which Meka.

  “Read their minds, Tao.”

  Dmitri’s voice startled him, and it took a moment to figure that the seer had spoken directly into his head.

  “Why else do you think I needed you dead for this task?”

  Tao almost choked in his surprise that Dmitri had profited by his death. But as much as he wanted to quiz Dmitri on it, he found himself utterly absorbed by his sons.

  Nothing else mattered.

  He reached out tentatively with his mind—and felt it slip into their heads.

  Invasive, he thought for Dmitri’s benefit.

  “Aye, but it gets the job done. And while I do not support murder, your death does serve me. You were useless with an ice crystal in your neck.”

  Tao wanted to object, but he sensed rather than felt Dmitri leave him alone with Grigor and Meka. Both boys were angry, caught in the midst of an argument.

  “Meka, I said stop!” the dark-haired one—who had to be Grigor if he called the blond one Meka—shouted as he trailed a few paces behind his brother.

  Meka ignored him and strode on.

  “Stealing the keys from the guard could get someone killed,” Grigor shouted.

  “Only if someone finds out.” Meka sped up to increase the distance between him and his brother. “And the way you’re yelling, the whole palace will know.”

  “What about Lukan?”

  “I don’t give a dragon’s testicle about Lukan.”

  It intrigued—and if Tao were honest—delighted him that neither boy considered Lukan as anything more than Lukan, the emperor, or sire. The word father was nowhere ingrained in their memories.

  Grigor grabbed Meka’s arm. “It’s too risky. I hate the cage as much as you do, but stealing the key is terrifying.”

  The cage?

  Tao noticed for the first time that a high palisade fence constructed from steel and granite pillars encircled the lake. Black, red, and gold Dragons in full flight had been mounted on each supporting pillar, creating the impression of a thousand leering Dragons dive-bombing the boys.

  On one side of the enclosure stood a collection of wooden playground rides. Weather-beaten, the once cheerfully colored paint had faded.

  There was only one gate in the fence. A padlock and chain wound around the metal bars gleamed in the sunlight.

  Tao hissed in shock.

  Grigor and Meka were right; they had indeed been locked in a cage as if they were little better than wild animals.

  Anger replaced Tao’s shock. He wanted nothing more to confront Lukan, to terrify the daylights out of him by appearing as a ghost from the grave, but that would mean leaving his sons.

  His feet refused to move.

  Torn, he stood helplessly by as Meka yelled at his brother, even though Grigor stood mere inches from him.

  “I’ve spent my whole life fishing in this stupid lake in this stupid cage. Summer will be over soon, and there’s a whole forest out there. I bet there are rivers with fish”—Meka opened his hands, exaggerating the size of the fish he dreamed of catching—“yea big swimming in them. And all you want to do is stand around whining that I shouldn’t have stolen the keys to the cage.”

  Tao glanced around to see if anyone listened to his sons yell at each other.

  The boys were quite alone.

  “You are such an idiot,” Grigor shouted right back. “Even if you get out of here, how are you going to get across the wolf enclosure?”

  Meka’s eyes narrowed, and then a look of resignation settled on his face.

  Despite the oddity of reading people’s thoughts, Tao delved into Meka’s mind to find the cause. His son knew the key to the padlock was a precious find, but it was useless without a means of slipping past the guardsmen who manned the drawbridges over the wolf enclosure. Meka had no solution to that particular problem.

  In his frustration, Meka railed, “I’m an idiot? What about you? You never want to try anything different. It’s always Lukan this and Lukan that. You’re a coward, Grigor.”

  Grigor bunched his fists. “Take. That. Back.”

  Meka laughed. “Or what? You’ll smack me? Dragon’s ass, now I’m really scared.” He set off toward the gate.

  His son had no other plan in mind other than to infuriate Grigor.

  Meka had not gone more than three steps when Grigor leaped on his back.

  The blond boy stumbled.

  Grigor tumbled off his back onto the ground.

  Tao chose that moment to step into his sons’ line of sight. He suppressed a smile at their shock as they took in his very foreign appearance. He knew no man at the palace would ever dare dress in leather clothes like his. Not to mention his dreadlocks and feathers. It was far too Norin.

  Grigor recovered first. “Why are you watching us? Don’t you know low-born aren’t permitted near us?” His eyes darted to the gate. They widened in surprise at seeing it still padlocked. He licked his lips. “How did you get in here?”

  Tao was about to say he didn’t approve of the title low-born when Meka drawled, “I’d be worried if I were you, low-born. They kill people who interfere with us.”

  Meka shrugged his shoulders like that didn’t matter.

  Hiding his sorrow at his son’s callous response to a stranger, Tao took a step closer. Worry about titles was now the least of his concerns.

  “How did you get in here?” Grigor demanded again. “The guardsmen don’t let low-born across the drawbridges. And no high-born would dress like you.”

  “Grigor, perhaps if you will consider looking past my appearance, you will find we have lots we can talk about.”

  Grigor’s jaw dropped. He studied Tao with open fascination. Rather like he was a rare or unknown treasure. He took a step closer. “Intriguing idea. But you know who I am, don’t you?”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “I’m the crown prince. People don’t talk to me. Ever.” His voice carried a wealth of regret and longing.

  “I see. Such a grand title.” Tao looked at Meka.

  The blond boy clutched his fishing rod and tackle bag as if still intent on his excursion.

  “And you, my young fisherman, what heavy title do you carry?”

  Meka surprised Tao with another shrug. “I’m just . . . ‘Your Highness,’ I guess. But I never see anyone but him”—he thumbed Grigor—“the guardsmen, and our tutor, so it really doesn’t matter what people call me.”

  That had once been Tao’s title. “I am far more familiar with that rank.”

  “Low-born, I wasn’t joking when I said they’ll kill you for talking to us.” Fear flitted across Meka’s face, belying his previous callousness. “If the guardsmen come, they’ll cut you down without asking questions.”

  Tao canted his head. “And would that worry you, Meka?”

  Another shrug that quickly masked all fear. “Not my hook—”

  “Not my fish,” Grigor finished for him.

  Tao worked hard to keep his outrage—mainly aimed at Lukan and Kestrel—off his face. He forced a pleasant tone. “I take it we’re going fishing.”

  Meka and Grigor looked at each incredulously.

  Then Meka said, “Got a death wish, hasn’t he?”

 
“Not the sharpest hook in the tackle box.”

  Dismayed at their blatant rudeness, Tao’s smile felt strained.

  “I’m anxious to see these fish.” He held out his arms. “’Yea big,’ I believe, Meka?” He pushed his most tantalizing tone, the one he used to coax Nicholas out of his stubbornness. “Although, if my memory serves me, the streams in the woods around the palace never had any really big fish. For that you have to go deeper into the forest.” Pain shafted him as he thought of Nicholas. “That is where my boy and I always fished. We caught some monsters, too. I can show you some good spots, if you like.”

  A fascinating war of longing, fear, and astonishment waged across their features.

  Finally, a speculative look Tao knew well gleamed in Meka’s blue eyes. Tao had seen it on many an Avanov face over the years.

  Meka clutched his rod tighter and hitched his tackle bag over his shoulder. “I’m in.”

  The young scoundrel was happy to risk getting Tao killed if it meant he could escape the cage. Tao didn’t know whether to cry or to rage against his brother and his wife for the way they had allowed Meka’s character to form.

  Grigor hesitated, his face still torn with indecision. He kept looking at the locked gate, trying to fathom how Tao had apparently walked through metal.

  Tao decided to push him a little. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to, Grigor. I only share my fishing holes with those who want to fish.” He turned to Meka. “Should we go?”

  “Yes, please.” Meka shot a disparaging look at his brother. “And quick, too, before he has time to make up his mind.”

  Meka at his side, Tao walked toward the gate. Grigor cursed, grabbed his rod, and followed.

  “So where exactly in the forest are you taking us?”

  “You’ll see, Meka. I take it you both visit the forest often?”

  Meka and Grigor rolled their eyes at each other.

  Grigor said to his brother, “The world would definitely be a smarter place if the guardsmen popped this one.”

  Meka laughed. “But his stupidity works in our favor. He looks so bizarre that the guardsmen will be too focused on getting rid of him to worry about us.”

  Tao gritted his teeth and quickly riffled through their thoughts to determine just how many executions they had witnessed.

  None, he was happy to discover. Although they were keenly aware of people who had been killed for daring to talk to them when they were younger. Thanks to those deaths, it had been many years since they had risked speaking to anyone other than their appointed guards and their tutor, the elderly Arkady.

  Their so-called father kept them so isolated they even ate their meals alone in their apartment in one of the palace turrets. Virtually their entire sixteen years of existence had been spent in the turret or here in the cage. In their way, they had been as marooned as Nicholas.

  All this showed in his sons’ lack of social skills, Tao decided.

  They reached the locked gate.

  Grigor’s eyes bored into Tao as he searched for an answer to the mystery Tao had no intention of solving.

  Meka didn’t seem to care how Tao had entered the cage as long as he offered a way out.

  Tao spoke to him. “You have the key.”

  Grigor grabbed Meka’s arm. “Wait.” He looked at Tao. “The guardsmen come for us when the sun goes down. If we are not back—”

  “You will be,” Tao interrupted. He nodded at Meka. “Unlock it.”

  Hands shaking, Meka pulled a shiny brass key out his pocket. A quick check of the boy’s thoughts revealed both terror and excitement. He slipped it into the lock and slid the padlock open. Desperation to be free prompted him to pull the chain away and creak the gate open on its hinges.

  “Lock it behind us,” Tao instructed.

  After locking the gate, Meka looked at Tao with expectant eyes. “Now what, low-born?”

  “To the drawbridge,” Tao said with a confidence he didn’t feel. He set off down the path with absolutely no idea how he would lead his sons past the guardsmen without being accosted.

  It was time to call on Dmitri.

  How do I make my boys disappear? he asked the ether, expecting Dmitri to reply.

  A whisper of wind, and Dmitri stood at his side.

  Tao didn’t need to read his sons’ minds to see that they were oblivious of Dmitri’s presence. Dmitri looked hazy; the seer was still in the fourth dimension.

  “You bend the light waves around them with intent,” Dmitri said in his head. “I’ll show you how it’s done.”

  They reached the drawbridge, and despite their bravado, both boys cringed back into Tao’s shadow.

  They had at least been brave enough to try to escape Lukan’s prison. Tao’s heart went out to them.

  He could work with that.

  “Think of the desired outcome,” Dmitri instructed as his gleaming hand clasped the air. Like it was a blanket on a bed, he ripped it back.

  Tao caught a sparkle of rainbow colors around his sons. Trouble was, he could still see them. He wondered if it had worked. He glanced at the guardsmen, but they were busy searching a group of minstrels lined up to enter the palace grounds.

  “Some confidence, if you please, Tao.” If the seer’s spirit had still been in Thunder’s body, Tao would have imagined the dog’s tongue lolling and his tail wagging.

  Tao found himself smiling. His belief built that Dmitri had indeed made his boys vanish.

  “Stop grinning!” Meka hissed at him as they stepped onto the drawbridge. “Do you want to draw attention to us?”

  Tao felt Meka’s heart threaten to explode from his chest. He almost stumbled, stunned that, without even trying, he could feel his son’s emotions as if they were his own. He wondered if Dmitri had experienced that with Nicholas.

  “I did, and still do. From the day he was born. Now focus on Grigor. The boy needs you.”

  Head down, eyes averted, Grigor hunched his shoulders as if he were a low-born beggar stealing into the palace. Tao pulled his son closer—and smiled when Grigor didn’t resist.

  Unaware that they were invisible to anyone but the dead, his sons slunk in silence over the bridge. Once clear of the threat, both Meka and Grigor burst into a sprint. With no thought for stinging nettles, brambles, or other forest hazards, they dove into the undergrowth at the foot of a giant oak. Tao smiled at their muffled cries of alarm as every inch of their exposed skin was stung. Thankfully, while he experienced their discomfort, it caused him no physical pain.

  Dmitri snorted a laugh. “Today is all about new experiences for them. And no one ever said new experiences are easy.”

  Tao was conscious that Dmitri’s words applied to him as well as to Meka and Grigor.

  He joined his sons at a more sedate pace.

  They were hopping on their haunches, rubbing their arms and faces, little realizing that every time they bumped the nettles, they recharged the leaves’ vicious needles. Meka tumbled back into a bramble bush and got raked across the cheek by its spines for his trouble.

  Although Tao empathized with their ignorance, he had to force a straight face. “First lesson on surviving in the forest—avoid nettles and brambles.” He pulled up some dock leaves. “Here, rub this on the stings.”

  He expected some resistance, but both boys grabbed the offering. They looked at the dock, their faces perplexed.

  Tao couldn’t help drawing a comparison with Nicholas. His cub wore the forest like a second skin. He pushed his grief at the loss of Nicholas away and crushed the leaves. Deciding Meka was more amenable than Grigor, he reached tentative fingers for the blond boy’s arm. Cautiously, as if he were dealing with a skittish young wolf, he gently rubbed the dock against the worst sting on Meka’s skin.

  It only took a few seconds, and Meka snatched at the leaves growing at his feet. Grigor quickly followed his example. Soon, both boys were streaked with green plant sap.

  “When you are both quite done, let’s go fishing.”


  Meka jumped up, pushing the now-familiar bravado.

  “I’m ready.” He smiled at Grigor—and spoke as if Tao weren’t there. “See, I told you we could use him to sneak past the guardsmen.”

  Grigor dropped his dock leaf. Completely ignoring Tao, he replied, “I still almost died of heart failure. You know Lukan will kill us if he finds out. It’ll be worse than a thousand nettles.”

  Meka’s bright blue eyes fixed on his brother. “I’m not telling him. Are you?”

  “’Course not. I’m not an idiot like you.”

  It was time to get the expedition moving before his sons degenerated into more name-calling.

  “And as I intend to say nothing, either, I would say we are all safe to go and have some fun.” Tao led them to a stream a short distance away that had always had much better fishing than the lake in the gardens.

  Meka bolted ahead and tossed down his rod and tackle bag. He flung himself down on the grassy bank next to them. He was digging through his gear before Grigor had even finished scanning the trees and undergrowth.

  “Looking for guardsmen, Grigor?”

  The boy nodded, then turned suspicious eyes on Tao. “We still know nothing about you. How can we trust you?”

  Meka may have been the more dominant of the two, leading by his gut, but Grigor was definitely the thinker. As much as he craved company, he was not going to fall readily into a trap. Tao found that revelation about his children fascinating. It also gave him a little insight into how his sons may develop with guidance. While neither would ever rule Chenaya, leadership and reasoning skills would be invaluable to Nicholas and the alliance when the time came to overthrow Lukan.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “A name would help.”

  “Hmm . . . I see. Yes, I suppose that would make you more comfortable. You can call me—” Tao had no idea what name to give himself. He glanced about for inspiration—and then remembered Dmitri had said he should stick to the truth. “Tao. You can call me Tao.”

  He studied Grigor’s face for some flicker of recognition, but there was nothing. He couldn’t resist a quick flutter through Grigor’s memories. The name Tao meant absolutely nothing to him. Although it was to be expected, a flash of resentment at Kestrel, who had known and hidden the truth, flared. He worked to suppress the useless emotions.