Dragon's Fire Read online

  But what if the ice crystal in Morass’s head malfunctioned and the moron harmed the Light-Bearer before Lukan had confirmation of Axel’s death?

  Lukan would go crazy with worry.

  But would that be enough to disrupt Lukan’s well-laid operation?

  And would Felix be able to get his hands on Lynx?

  He didn’t know. But it was a gamble he would have to take.

  Pity I have already lost at a game of tiles today. I hope it is not a portent of things to come.

  Grim-faced, Felix took out his informa and pulled up the screen to tweak the command to Morass’s ice crystal.

  He gasped, and his hand clutched at his chest.

  Tao! Impossible.

  But there it was. Lukan’s command to Morass to kill his brother.

  Sorrow for Tao—a truly great man—had Felix bowing his head.

  Then a thought struck. Using Lukan’s voice, Felix encrypted a new command to Morass’s programming: the low-born was to harm Nicholas right after killing Tao.

  If Lukan ever questioned why Morass had damaged the Light-Bearer, Felix could point out that Lukan would only have himself to blame.

  Felix slipped his informa back into his pocket.

  Perhaps the day would work out after all.

  Chapter 6

  Bathed and dressed in a new set of leather clothes, Talon slouched on a cushion on the floor. The scarred wooden table was set for four. The stew and the soup simmered on the stove. Extra candles, set out on the mantelpiece over the fire, waited to be lit. All that was missing was Lukan.

  He was late.

  Very late.

  Once this dinner ended, Talon could finally get the answers he wanted from Mom and Uncle Tao. But it couldn’t end unless it began.

  Talon stroked Thunder’s head, resting on his knee. Too old and rickety to go into the forest anymore, the dog hadn’t left Talon’s side since he’d returned from the fishing trip. Talon whispered to him. “You going to stay with me when he comes? Maybe growl, like you do at the foxes?”

  Foxes raiding the chicken coop were an endless problem. In his heyday, Thunder had sent many an intruder packing, but it had been some time since he’d had the strength to go after foxes.

  Thunder licked his face with a sandy tongue.

  Talon hugged him even tighter. His heart clenched at the thought of waking up one morning and finding Thunder had died. He was irreplaceable. Mom told him that Thunder had wandered up to the cottage just before he had been born. Yet another thing he couldn’t fathom. Why would Mom want to live in a forest with a small baby? And why with Uncle Tao? Where had his father been?

  Another sloppy lick from Thunder. Talon scratched Thunder’s neck as a reward. Mom said it was a miracle Thunder had lived as long as he had. A blessing from the Winds.

  Talon didn’t know about that. What he did know was that no other dog had ever stumbled on their cottage. So, when Thunder went, he would probably be the last dog Talon would ever see.

  Unless his father brought a puppy. Unlikely, seeing as Lukan had never brought him any presents.

  Mom clattered a pot in the sink. Talon looked up to see Uncle Tao put his arm—he had collected a couple of angry-looking stings—around her shoulders. In the private sign language he knew they used to protect themselves from his hearing, he indicated to her to calm down. She shook her head, then laid the pot aside and leaned against his shoulder.

  “Perhaps we should talk to Talon about Axel.” Although Uncle Tao mouthed into her ear, Talon could hear the words as if his uncle whispered to him.

  Talon’s eyes narrowed; who or what was Axel?

  Mom glanced in Talon’s direction, then whispered back, “I’ve told him we’ll talk after dinner. I don’t want him worked up about it with Lukan here.” A deep sigh filled with sorrow and longing. “Axel will be here in a few hours. Our last night with him.”

  Before Talon could call them out for whispering about him, or ask about this mysterious Axel, he caught another, more distant sound.

  Thunder raised his head, and his ears twitched. He’d heard it, too—the unmistakable plod of horse’s hooves over leaf litter.

  A mixture of unease, defiance, and loathing curdled Talon’s stomach. “Lukan’s here. I can hear him coming over the rise.”

  Uncle Tao sucked in a breath. “Okay. Best behavior everyone.”

  He shot Talon, and then Mom, warning looks before walking to the door to greet his brother.

  That Mom had been included made Talon chuckle.

  “Stand, Talon,” Mom commanded. “It’s always better to be on the same level, so you can look him in the eye.” A pause, then a slow grin. “Especially if you have eyes like ours that tend to make him nervous.”

  Talon smiled back as he lumbered to his feet. Thunder stood next him, his frail body quivering.

  Talon brushed the dog’s back with his hand. “I thought I was supposed to be nice.”

  Mom cleared her throat. “Right. Forgot that in my eagerness to see your father. ‘Nice’ is exactly what we’re both after.” She glanced at the door. “I can hear him, too.”

  The horse stopped, and Talon heard someone drop down onto the yard. Thunder burst into a flurry of barks. He tried to restrain the dog, but Thunder bolted to the open door with surprising agility.

  Lukan stood framed in the doorway. His charcoal-black eyes widened at Thunder’s bared teeth. A scowl scrunched his face, puckering a jagged scar that ran from his left eye to his chin. The scar was old and had faded to a thin white line. Like Uncle Tao, he also wore a diamond next to his right eye. Instead of looking familiar and comforting the way Uncle Tao’s did, it glinted angrily in the candlelight, even with Talon’s poor vision.

  Talon was struck how different the two brothers were.

  Gentle as Uncle Tao’s temperament was, he was tough and muscled from eking out a living in the forest. Like Talon and Mom, he dressed in rough leather trousers, moccasins, and a leather tunic made from the deer they hunted for the pot. In winter, he wore an ancient sable fur coat. As a boy, Talon had loved to wrap himself in it on cold evenings while Uncle Tao had told him bedtime stories. Every story had always included a young forest boy, a dog, and a gray-and-black falcon called Bird. Talon had never tired of hearing about them.

  Lukan, on the other hand, looked soft, even with his scarred, arrogant face. He was impeccably turned out in a fancy coat, waistcoat, and trousers. A pair of highly polished black boots completed his outfit. Mom had once told him Lukan only ever wore black and silver clothing made from velvet and silk, with solid silver buttons.

  The tattered curtains hanging on the windows in the cottage were made from thin silk, so Talon knew what silk felt like. Given his pathetic eyes, touch was a vital part of how he sensed the world. He had never fingered velvet before, but as he wasn’t about to touch Lukan’s clothes, that part of his father would continue to be shrouded in mystery.

  What wasn’t a surprise, though, was the lack of gifts in Lukan’s hands.

  His father hadn’t brought a puppy. Or a fiddle.

  Talon brushed his unreasonable disappointment away at the same moment Lukan said, “Hello, Lynx, Tao. Another warm welcome from your dog, I see.”

  Talon’s stomach clenched, not at his father’s scathing tone, or that he hadn’t gotten a mention in the greeting, but at the way Lukan’s eyes undressed his mother. Talon may not have had any exposure to girls his own age, but he had lived around animals all his life, and Lukan eyed Mom the way a stag did a doe during the rut.

  Face like stone, Talon stepped between Lukan and Mom, cutting her off from his father’s view. “Thunder is my dog.”

  Cold, dark eyes settled on Talon. “Well, I suppose that explains everything.”

  All thoughts of being nice vanished from Talon’s mind. Fists clenched, he surged forward, aggression in every step.

  Uncle Tao grabbed his arm. “Talon, how about you take your father’s coat? Hang it up on the hook in the entrance.” To Lukan
, he said, “Come, sit. Dinner is ready.”

  “Has been for the last two hours,” Talon muttered loud enough for Lukan to hear. He caught the coat his father flung at him.

  Turned out velvet felt as soft as Lukan looked. Talon crushed the fabric, wishing it was his father’s face caught between his fingers. He’d squeeze until Lukan’s cheekbones snapped. He swallowed hard, shocked at his violent thoughts. He didn’t need to see Uncle Tao’s gentle eyes to know his uncle would not approve. Feeling ashamed, Talon slung the coat on the hook, took a deep breath, and forced a neutral expression.

  By the time he reached the table, Lukan and Uncle Tao had sat and Mom had finished dishing out the soup. She placed the first bowl, brimming with trout and homegrown leeks and carrots, in Talon’s usual spot. He smiled at her and mouthed a “sorry” for his spurt of temper.

  She nodded and indicated he should sit.

  Once everyone had a bowl of soup, and Mom had taken her place, Uncle Tao held up a wooden mug of homemade mead. “To Nicholas! All sixteen years of him.”

  A frown robbed Talon of his appetite.

  Nicholas?

  Since when did Uncle Tao call him that? Only his father ever called him Nicholas. Lumped with that horrible name at birth, at least Mom and Uncle Tao were decent enough to call him by his nickname. Last year, when his father had come for the birthday dinner, he had asked Lukan to call him Talon. The bastard had refused. It had made Talon despise the man even more. He looked at his uncle questioningly and received a smile in reply.

  Mom raised her mug. “To Nicholas.” She turned hard eyes on Lukan. “May the Winds ever find access to him.”

  Talon cocked his head as he considered that cryptic comment. He, Mom, and Uncle Tao worshiped the Winds—or, rather, Mom and Uncle Tao did; Talon wasn’t convinced the Winds could actually do anything other than whistle through the trees. But Uncle Tao and Mom where convinced that, no matter where you were, the Winds could answer your prayers. So why the strange comment?

  With no answers, Talon’s eyes shot to Lukan.

  His mug, held by manicured fingers, hovered in the air, but he didn’t join in the toast. Instead, he said, “Mead? How Norin of you, Lynx.” He glanced over at Uncle Tao. “Chenna? Surely you still have some?”

  Uncle Tao took a sip of his drink and, with deliberate slowness, placed the mug back onto the table. “We haven’t drunk chenna in this house for over sixteen years, Lukan. You know that.”

  Talon wondered what chenna was and why it was such a big deal.

  He also wished the meal were over and Lukan long gone. Despite all Mom’s efforts to make him his favorite food, she could have put rocks in front of him and they wouldn’t have been any more or less unappetizing. He played with his soup and listened to the others swallow their food. Then, when Mom dished up the stew, he pushed that around his plate, too.

  Yet again, he wondered why Lukan bothered to come when only Uncle Tao made any attempt at conversation. That was quickly exhausted once he’d discussed their vegetable garden and the upcoming good harvest; his falcon, Bird, still menacing the smaller birds and rabbits in the forest; and the weather, unseasonably rainy this summer, which had helped the aforementioned vegetable garden.

  Talon rolled his eyes with boredom. It started to rain during dinner, leaving the night cold. The fire was a pleasant addition to a horrible evening.

  The person he knew the least about offered no information about his life, where he lived, or what had kept him busy, supposedly, for a whole year since his last visit. Hardly surprisingly, Lukan also expressed no interest in what Talon had done during that time.

  The entire evening was a complete enigma.

  It was only once the last licks of goat’s milk cream, honeycomb, and forest berries had been cleared away, and another log put on the fire around which they all sat, that Lukan turned to Talon.

  “So, your mother says you’re a talented at music and math,” Lukan said with a sneer. “Is that so?”

  Talon focused on the flames, pretending not to hear him. In reality, he was thinking hard. His talents hadn’t been mentioned during dinner. Did that mean Mom discussed him with Lukan when he came for his monthly visits? Betrayal stabbed him.

  His father’s voice rose a notch. “Nicholas, it would seem that you are hard of hearing. I’m speaking to you.”

  Despite everything, Talon smiled inwardly at Lukan’s stupid comment. Mom had clearly said nothing about his ears.

  Mom reached over and touched him on the knee. “Talon, your father has asked you a question.”

  Face blank, Talon looked up Lukan. “Oh. What did you say?”

  With ill-concealed exasperation, Lukan repeated himself. “I understand you can do complex math equations in your head and play music very well,” Lukan said. “Is that true?”

  “I guess.”

  Lukan’s eyes narrowed. “I suppose it’s just as well I never allowed books and the like here. Imagine if you could read and write, too! We might never shut you up.”

  Talon glared at him. Uncle Tao and Mom had tried to teach him the alphabet by writing with bits of charcoal on homemade vellum, but because the symbols had meant nothing to Talon, he’d resisted learning. Now he wondered if that had been a mistake.

  Lukan waved a hand at a shelf laden with musical instruments. Some were Mom’s, others he had constructed from skins, reeds and wood gleaned from the forest. “And which of the clutter of instruments in this house do you like best? Xylophone? Fiddle? Flute? Drum?”

  Talon didn’t want to answer, but all three of them stared at him. Worse, from the corner of his eye, he saw Mom mouth, “Nice!”

  He sighed. “Fiddle.”

  Lukan turned to Mom. “Your son is not exactly verbose, is he?”

  “He has had no exposure to strangers.” Mom’s voice was flat, hard. “And I broke nearly seventeen years of protocol by asking you to bring us something. A fiddle for Talon. You didn’t.”

  How come she wasn’t being nice? Another burst of irritation at his mother sliced him.

  Lukan’s eyes softened, and his skin darkened almost to black. Talon recognized that to mean a blush. Was his father embarrassed? His skin tone reverted to his usual mid-tone gray too quickly for Talon to be sure.

  Uncle Tao nudged Talon with his moccasin. “Come, up and play for your father.”

  Talon glared at his uncle. Then an idea flashed at him, and his face broke into a wide smile. “Of course, Uncle Tao. For you, it would be a pleasure.” He sauntered over to the shelf and grabbed the fiddle.

  Eyes fixed on Lukan, he lined it up to his chin and shoulder. A rasp of his bow, and the fiddle burst into a staccato frenzy of sound. With each sweep, his music grew in aggression and boisterousness, but not once did he take his eyes off his father. Cold and calculating, like Bird’s eyes. That’s what he hoped they looked like.

  He suppressed a grin when Lukan shifted in his seat, looking decidedly uncomfortable. When it looked as if Lukan was about to get up, Talon changed tempo, allowing the music to fall away. Lukan settled back in his seat.

  Still watching Lukan the way Bird skewered her prey, Talon swept his bow into a soaring, triumphant climax.

  Lukan looked afraid.

  It filled Talon with pleasure.

  Considering his work done, he turned to Uncle Tao and bowed.

  No one was more startled than Talon when Lukan cried out, “That’s incredible! If your math is anything like your fiddle playing, then you must be some kind of genius. Your mother has always claimed you are bright.” He turned to Mom. “Did you compose that?”

  Mom smiled at Talon with deep affection—then betrayed him by saying, “No, Talon did. He hears things in the forest and translates them into music. That piece is a portrayal of the little birds mobbing Bird when she goes soaring. The more aggressive and angry they become, the more aloof and disinterested she acts, until she breaks away and flies above them. Lording over them, we always say.” She smiled at Talon, brimming with love.


  Lukan shifted in his seat again. “Interesting piece.” He turned to Talon. “Care to explain why you chose to play that?”

  Talon studied his father and saw definite dread in his eyes. Knowing he would get no answer as to why that was, he put the fiddle down.

  “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.” He hugged Mom and Uncle Tao, ignored Lukan, and stalked out, leaving the room in silence. Even though he closed his bedroom door, he knew he’d hear every word said.

  If anyone ever spoke again, of course.

  Lukan finally recovered. “Well, I guess that’s my cue to leave. You have an . . . interesting son, Lynx. Perhaps a little too Norin to really be pleasing, but I suppose it was to be expected. Don’t bother seeing me out. I know the way.”

  A few strides, and the door clicked closed.

  Talon waited at the side of his bed for the summons he knew would come.

  Chapter 7

  Talon didn’t have to wait long.

  “Would you like to tell us what that was all about?” Mom demanded.

  “You promised me answers,” he called back.

  He heard a horse snort in the barn. They didn’t own any horses, so that meant Lukan had not yet left the property. It made him nervous.

  “If you were nice,” Mom replied.

  He walked to his bedroom door. Mom and Uncle Tao looked as concerned as he felt. “He hates me.” His fingers tapped the door jamb. “And he sees Mom as an object. I’m sorry if I couldn’t sit there like a chicken, but it’s not within my power.” He looked out the window toward the barn. “And he’s still here. Hasn’t left yet.”

  “He’s probably still recovering from the shock you were to him,” Uncle Tao said. “Especially that stare of yours.”

  Talon couldn’t resist snorting with pride that he had scared Lukan. It served him right for arriving empty handed for a birthday dinner.