Читать книгу Dragon Actually - G.A. Aiken - Страница 11

Brastias, general of the Dark Plains rebellion and Annwyl’s second in command, leaned back into the hard wood chair and rubbed his tired eyes. She must be dead. She had to be dead. Annwyl would never disappear this long without word sent. He’d already sent trackers out to find her, but they came back empty-handed, losing her trail somewhere near Dark Glen, a haunted place most men dare not enter.

Of course, Annwyl was not most men. She often dared where others fled. She remained the bravest warrior Brastias knew and he’d met many men over the years who he considered brave.

But Annwyl could be foolhardy and her anger…formidable.

And yet every day for two years Brastias thanked the gods for his good fortune. On a whim they had attacked a heavily armed caravan coming from Garbhán Isle. Its cargo had been Annwyl. Dressed in white bridal clothes and chained to the horse she rode, her destiny to be the unwilling bride for some noble in Madron. And based on how heavily armed her procession was, dangerously unhappy about it as well. Once the attack began, one of his men released Annwyl and told her to escape. She didn’t. Instead she took up a sword and fought. Fought, in fact, like a demon sent from the gods of hate and revenge. Her rage a mighty sight to behold. By the time the girl finished, she stood among the headless remains of those she killed. Her white gown completely covered in blood. On that day the men had given her the name Annwyl the Bloody and, as much as she hated it, the name stuck.

They returned with her to their encampment, but no one knew what to do with her. The women of the camp shunned her. She frightened them and she turned out to be completely useless with anything domestic. But she possessed information on her brother. She knew where to attack and when. She knew his strengths and his weaknesses. And she wanted nothing more than to destroy him. Soon she brought in the financial assistance of other regions. No one wanted Lorcan in power longer than necessary. If his sister could stop him, she would have their loyalty. She protected their borders and the rebellion’s troops grew.

Eventually Annwyl took control and Brastias gave it over gratefully. She earned their loyalty and trust, and after two years the men would follow her down into the very pits of hell if she asked them.

But, if she were dead…Brastias didn’t want to even consider it. They hadn’t found her body. Perhaps they could still rescue her.

“General.” Brastias’s eyes shifted to the front of his tent. Danelin, his next in command, stood waiting. “There’s a witch here to see you.”

Brastias nodded once. She probably wanted to see Annwyl or, if his world contained any luck at all, perhaps she could tell him where to find his missing leader.

A tall woman entered his tent. An astounding beauty, tragically marked as a witch. He truly hoped that a special hell waited for men like Lorcan.

She walked toward him. Almost glided. He knew he’d seen her before. The people considered her a talented witch with healing powers. But he had no time for magic or witches. Even beautiful ones. He had a rebellion to win.

“Yes, lady?”

“You are General Brastias?”

“Aye.”

The witch glanced at Danelin, refusing to speak in front of him. “Go, Danelin. I will call if you are needed.”

Danelin left, closing the tent flap behind him. The woman stood before him. She didn’t speak. She just stared.

“So, what is it, woman?” She raised one delicate eyebrow and he felt as if she’d dug down into his very soul.

“I have word of Annwyl of the Dark Plains.”

Brastias stood quickly, grasping the woman by the arms; she stood almost as tall as he. “Tell me, witch. Where is she?”

She stared at him. “Remove your hands, or I’ll make sure you don’t have any.” Brastias took a deep breath and released her. “She is safe and alive. But she is healing. She won’t be back for another fortnight.”

Brastias heaved a sigh of overwhelming relief as he sat heavily in his chair. “Thank the gods. I thought we’d lost her.”

“You almost had. But the girl must have the gods smiling down on her.”

“Can I see her?”

The woman watched him carefully. “No. But I will get any messages you may have to her.”

“Give me a few moments, I need to write something.” He grabbed quill and paper and wrote Annwyl a brief-but-to-the-point letter. He folded it, affixed his seal, and handed it to the witch. “Give her this and my love.”

“You are her man then?” she asked cautiously.

Brastias laughed. He did like his head securely attached to his shoulders. Becoming Annwyl’s man risked that.

“Annwyl has no man because there is no man worthy of her. That includes me. So she has become the sister I lost many years ago in Lorcan’s dungeons.”

The woman nodded and walked back to the entrance of Brastias’s tent. She stopped before leaving. “She asks,” the witch spoke softly without turning around, “that you not lose hope.”

“As long as she lives, we won’t.”

Then she was gone. Brastias closed his eyes in relief. Annwyl wasn’t dead. His hope returned.

Morfyd landed softly on the glen grounds. Unlike her brother, she’d learned to move silently as dragon.

Once securely on hard earth, she shook her body, releasing the wetness her wings picked up along the flight. She spoke the ancient words of enchantment that allowed her to shift back to human. Moving swiftly, she picked up the clothes she’d hidden away earlier and garbed herself. Her body shook from the chill and she wanted nothing more than to settle in front of a fire to warm her human form.

She’d taken longer than she originally planned to get back. But if Fearghus needed to involve himself in the Sibling War, she wanted to let the queen know now. It would be worse for him if she found out after the fact. Of course the queen didn’t seem too interested, but Bercelak was and that could be a problem for them both.

But first she wanted to get the note from the general to Annwyl. She’d learned to like the human girl, with her sudden rages and tendency to end up on the floor. And clearly Annwyl had enthralled her taciturn and cranky older brother.

Fearghus didn’t really like anyone. Human or dragon. Among their kind, many considered him rude and inconsiderate. Among humans, they feared the black dragon who smote whole villages. Of course, leave it to humans to exaggerate the truth. He’d only smote one village when their king made killing him into a tournament event.

Morfyd wrapped a cloak around her witch’s garb and headed to her brother’s den. As always when in human form, she pulled the hood of the cloak over her head to hide her mane of white hair. It was not white from age. Like her mother, she’d been born a white dragon. White dragons were rare and often born with powers far outreaching of other dragons. But she still had a way to go before she could even think to compete against her mother’s skill.

She entered her brother’s den and moved deep within to reach the girl’s chamber. He had practically made that section of the cave into the girl’s bedroom.

Very subtle, Fearghus.

As she neared her destination, she heard Annwyl speak and her brother…laugh?

Morfyd stopped. Perhaps she heard wrongly. Perhaps she’d finally gone insane. Morfyd inched closer to the chamber and waited.

“Now, I did try to set him on fire once when I was 12. But, I assure you, I felt awful about it later.”

“And how long did that awful feeling last?”

“Until he set the dogs on me.”

She heard her brother chuckle and she started at the sound.

“Can I ask you a favor?”

“Another? What do you want now, woman? My gold? My lair?”

“No. No. No. Nothing like that. And this might sound strange…”

“…as opposed to your horse manure story.”

“But…”

“But?”

“Can I touch your horns?”

Morfyd blinked and looked around, half expecting her three other brothers to be standing behind her, proving this was nothing but a joke. Could she have truly heard what she thought she’d just heard?

“I’m sorry. Could you repeat that? Because I think I just got the brain fever.”

She heard the girl give a very unladylike snort. “I’ve never touched a dragon before. Your horns look so beautiful and I would just like to—”

“All right. Stop. Before you say something that will make both of us uncomfortable.” She heard her brother move his body. Morfyd realized he was lowering himself so the girl could reach him.

Morfyd couldn’t stand not knowing. As silently as she could manage, she peeked around the corner and looked into the girl’s chamber. What she saw astounded her, simply because it was Fearghus.

The girl stood on tiptoes, Fearghus allowing Annwyl to lean against him as she reached up and ran her strong, battle-scarred hand across his horn, her tanned skin standing out against its shiny blackness. Her other hand moved down his neck and grasped the mane of black hair that flowed across it.

“I didn’t know dragons had hair. It’s like a horse’s mane.”

“It is not like a horse’s mane,” Fearghus snapped. To Morfyd’s surprise, Annwyl didn’t shy away from her brother and scurry across the room. Instead, she laughed, leaning closer against his body.

“No need to get testy. I was merely implying that your kind was really meant to be beasts of burden for us humans. Just like horses. And centaurs.”

“Oh, is that all? Well, I apologize, Lady Annwyl. I thought you were saying something insulting.”

Morfyd stepped away from Annwyl’s chamber. Her brother making jokes? Well, perhaps the time had come for her to completely lose her mind, considering the family she came from. Dragons did do that sort of thing on occasion.

She looked down at the letter she had clutched in her hand. It could wait until tomorrow.

Silently she turned and went to get something soothing to drink. Or, at the very least, some hard ale. She needed something to help her sleep because the last image she’d witnessed before turning away from the chamber would have her awake and obsessing for hours. The image of Annwyl the Bloody, known terror of the Dark Plains, lovingly running her hand down Fearghus’s snout…and Fearghus the Destroyer letting her.

Fearghus watched Annwyl sleep. They talked long into the night. And she fell asleep lying against his side, a handful of hair wound around her fingers. When she started to slide to the floor, he picked her up, laid her out on the bed, and covered her with one of the furs.

His affection for the human grew steadily by the day. Sometimes by the minute. And it wasn’t simply her beauty, but her utter lack of fear of everything and anything except her brother. She didn’t fear dying. She didn’t fear battle. And, most importantly, she didn’t fear Fearghus. She touched him. Ran her hands across his scales and through his mane.

But it was when he covered her up with the fur and she sighed his name in her sleep, that he lost his heart.