Chapter Ten
It was late when Rhi tracked her great-aunt down, with her twin cousins following right behind.
They didn’t like to let her “go off by yourself. Who knows what trouble you’ll get into?”
Talan and Talwyn still acted as if she were five winters old. It was irritating. She could take care of herself, thank you very much!
But that said . . . she didn’t mind them attaching themselves to her when she had to face Brigida the Most Foul. That she’d rather not do on her own.
Brigida stood in a burnt-out clearing where giant trees used to live and thrive. She was in her dragon form, and a wounded horse was screaming as it tried to get away from the beast looming over it.
The She-dragon stared down at the poor animal, fighting to get back on its feet, but she didn’t attack right off. She stared first. And Rhi got the distinct feeling the old Dragonwitch was enjoying the animal’s suffering.
Rhi looked away as the twins stood on either side of her.
“Do it, Rhi,” Talan urged.
With a nod, Rhi crouched low and touched the burnt ground. She buried her fingers deep and closed her eyes. Power slipped from her fingers, cutting through the earth until it reached the horse. Its entire body tensed and it screamed out one last time before mercifully dying.
Talan crouched down beside Rhi and he also dug his fingers into the soil as she pulled hers free. His power, dark and uncompromising, flew from his hand, through the dirt, and into the horse. Its eyes turned red and the animal scrambled to its feet. It still bled from its many wounds and was no longer alive, but now undead.
Sucking her tongue against her fangs, Brigida glanced back at the three of them.
“Always ruining my fun, ain’tcha?”
“You don’t toy with an animal like that,” Rhi chastised. “It’s wrong and you know it.”
“Depends on who you pull your power from, little girl.” Sitting back on her hind legs, she used her forearm to grab her walking stick. It lengthened and grew until she had to use both front claws to handle it. “My masters don’t care what I do, as long as I make me sacrifices.”
Rhi had long ago stopped asking her great-aunt what sacrifices those were. She honestly didn’t want to know.
Walking away from Rhi and Talan, Talwyn moved closer to Brigida, crossing her arms over her chest. “Why are you here, Brigida?” she demanded.
“To help me kin,” Brigida replied before she slammed the end of her staff into the undead horse. She beat its head until it stopped moving.
“Don’t give us that centaur shit, old bitch,” Talwyn snapped. “We know you. Why are you really here? What do you hope to gain?”
Brigida didn’t answer right away. She was too busy picking up the horse’s undead remains and shoving it into her maw.
Rhi glanced at Talan, her face—she was sure—showing her full disgust. Everyone knew that the remains of a reanimated animal or human were not for eating. As soon as Talan’s magicks touched one of his victims, the soul was immediately forced out and the insides turned fetid.
But there Brigida was, gulping down that horse with ease. After a few minutes, she burped and happily stretched. As though she’d just dined on tea and cakes.
Flames exploded around the old She-dragon and she was in her human form again. She slipped on her wool dress and pulled on her gray cloak. Then, leaning heavily on her walking stick, she slowly limped her way over to them.
“Your grandfather will be here soon enough,” Brigida said as she moved. “I want to make sure we’re ready for him when the time comes.”
“If Grandfather comes here,” Rhi reminded her, “you know what he will do.”
“He’ll tear this land apart and rip the castle down around that fancy Lord Salebiri and his whore-wife Ageltrude.”
Brigida had been cutting past them when she said that last part and Talwyn quickly stepped in front of her, stopping Brigida in her tracks.
“You know who Ageltrude really is—why are you acting like you don’t? What are you up to?”
It was a sound question Rhi’s cousin asked. They’d known for years now that Salebiri’s wife Ageltrude was actually Vateria, last of the House of Atia Flominia and hated cousin of the Rebel King. Gaius had discovered her involvement with the Zealots and warned Rhiannon and Annwyl, because there was no way that Vateria was a true believer. She only loved herself.
Not only had she convinced her husband she was human and a loyal follower of Chramnesind, but they’d had children together. Offspring like Rhi and Talan and Talwyn, Abominations.
Brigida stepped into Talwyn, her face close. “What if I am up to something?” she asked, her voice low. “What will you do about it?”
Rhi and Talan were about to spring to Talwyn’s side, but just as they were both going to move, Brigida’s damaged eye, all milky white and painful looking, suddenly swiveled over in its eye socket and locked on the pair.
“That thing has a life of its own!” Talwyn had screamed more than once at them. And Rhi feared her cousin might be right.
“You three got much work to do,” Brigida said, now moving around Talwyn to go her own way. “Better get to it. There won’t be much time left once your grandfather gets here.”
They silently watched her walk away until Talwyn asked Brigida, “Where’s my mother?”
“How should I know?” was the reply they got back.
“Is she dead?”
“Maybe,” Brigida said with a shrug. “Then again . . . maybe not. Who knows with that woman?”
* * *
The three cousins returned to the tent and Fearghus felt his heart drop when they told him what had been said. Sadly, though, he wasn’t surprised. He knew that Brigida would never tell any of them what she might or might not know about Annwyl’s disappearance, but they’d all needed to try.
He refused to believe his mate was dead. That somehow, Zealots had gotten hold of her. He refused to believe it because if he did, he’d never get through this. And he knew Annwyl would want him to lead this fight in her absence because she’d told him that more than once.
So he put his heartache away and focused on the more important matters at hand.
“We need to be ready before your grandfather gets here. There’s always a chance Salebiri could be planning something. Has already moved on it.”
“We have legions heading to his castle to surround it,” Izzy told them, sitting on the big table with all the maps. Éibhear sat on the ground, his head resting against the side of her leg. He hadn’t been himself since word came down that Branwen and his three Mì-runach brothers were missing, last seen heading to one of the mountains to take on a small group of Zealots. Most believed them already dead but bodies had yet to be found.
Then again, the debris from the fallen mountains went on for miles. They might never know what had happened to their kin and friends when everything was said and done. But Fearghus was sure that if Branwen could, she’d return to her soldiers.
Talwyn sat down on the armrest of Fearghus’s chair and rested her head against the top of his. She didn’t say anything, but she knew how he felt. Father and daughter had always understood each other.
Fearghus worried about the boy, though. He was as close to his mother as Talwyn was close to Fearghus. If something happened to her at the hands of the Zealots . . .
No. Best not to think of that, either. Not now. Not when they had plans to make, Zealots to kill. The idea of his only son becoming an evil necromancer kept him up some nights, but he hadn’t worried too much because Annwyl’s love had always kept their son from falling too far. But without her during his formative years . . .
They sat with their own thoughts for a long while until Rhi abruptly asked the room, “Anyone else worried about what Grandda is going to do once he gets here?”
“Gods, yes.”
“Blood will soak the lands for centuries.”
“The world is doomed.”
“I’ve given up hope. Just seems saner.”
She nodded. “Okay. Just wanted to make sure it wasn’t only me.”
The tent flap pulled back and a dirty and bruised Gwenvael stormed in.
“Bastards!” he roared. “They threw me into an endless pit!”
Rhi shook her pretty head at Briec. “Oh, Daddy.”
“It wasn’t just me,” Briec insisted. “It was Fearghus’s idea.”
Fearghus shrugged. “He asked for it.”
* * *
Dagmar Reinholdt stood on the top step of the stairs leading into the queen’s castle. Even though it was late, she gazed out over the courtyard and wracked her brain, once again, about ways she could protect Garbhán Isle and the family she had inside.
As things spiraled out of control around them, Dagmar had been determined to not only keep Garbhán Isle as safe as possible for all those within but to keep it as much the place she’d always known so that when Annwyl and the others returned, they’d have something to return to.
On Dagmar’s left stood her only son, Unnvar. On her right, her loyal nephew Frederick.
Together, the most reasonable beings Dagmar knew stood and studied the territory they had all committed to protecting.
They’d been doing this every morning and every night. Coming out here, staring, and wondering if they’d missed anything.
“The tunnels,” Var prompted.
The tunnels that the minotaurs had used to invade their territory from the Ice Lands. An attempt to end Annwyl’s life before she gave birth to the twins.
Turned out those minotaurs had been unnecessary. Annwyl’s twins eventually killed her themselves. Their births had been too much for the queen’s human body. But a god had brought Annwyl back and the queen had made it her business to fight anyone who had a problem with the presence of her babies. Then the presence of Talaith and Briec’s child, Rhi. Then all the others. The children of humans and dragons, which included Dagmar’s own offspring. Unnvar. Her eldest daughter Arlais. And the five younger ones that everyone called “Gwenvael’s Five.”
Offspring who’d had no choice in the games of gods. And that’s what all this was.
The games of gods.
But unlike the witches and priests who worshipped the gods, Dagmar didn’t. She believed in them. Knew they existed. But she did not make sacrifices or call on them in times of trouble. Especially since she believed that most often the cause of the “trouble” was the gods themselves.
Instead, Dagmar relied on reason to guide her decisions and life. Nice, sound, logical reason.
“Eh,” she heard from behind her. “Reason is overrated.”
Dagmar let out a sigh, not bothering to turn around and look at the god standing at her back.
Eirianwen. Goddess of war and death. The one who had given Annwyl her life back all those years ago, but not the one who had given humans the ability to mate with dragons. That had been her longtime mate, Rhydderch Hael, father of all dragons.
Frederick, oblivious to the god’s presence, continued to stare out over the courtyard, looking for any signs of weakness. Var, however, glanced back at the god, eyed her once, before ignoring her completely.
“Just like your mother,” Eir laughed. “He has more contempt than you, though.”
“Perhaps he has more reason.”
Frederick looked at Dagmar, frowned, but then his expression cleared. “Ah. Visitors.”
Then he too ignored the ongoing conversation. Frederick still had a god or two he insisted on worshipping. Otherwise reason would make the gods easy to see. Although Dagmar had begun to believe that her nephew continued to worship those gods only because he had no desire to see any in the flesh. He had no desire to talk to them when they were bored. No desire to find them sitting on his bed late at night, wanting “a bit of a chat.”
The boy had always been smart.
“Your son has grown, I see. Looks more like his father every day.” Eir’s grin was wide. “Gwenvael’s going to loathe him.”
“Why are you here?” Dagmar asked, facing her.
“Can’t a girl come see her friend for a bit of a—”
“If you say ‘bit of a chat,’ I’m going to scream.”
Eir laughed. “Sorry. Sorry.”
“Where is she?”
The god gave a very convincing frown. “Where is who?”
“You know who. Annwyl. Rhiannon knows she’s disappeared. Where did you take her? Or was it Chramnesind? Maybe his Zealots.”
“None of us have Annwyl.”
“And you’d know?”
“Of course I’d know. I’ve been connected to that woman since our bargain was paid in full. And right now, she is no longer in my sight.”
“And Chramnesind—”
“He can hide nothing from me. So, no. I don’t think he has her.”
“But you’re not sure.”
“Nothing in this world is sure. You should have figured that out by now.”
“Then why are you here?” Var abruptly asked, facing the god. He showed no fear, gazing directly into Eir’s brown eyes. “Why are you bothering my mother?”
“I didn’t see it as bothering, but if you—”
With an annoyed sigh, her son turned his back on the god. Dagmar had to fight hard not to react to the look of shock on the god’s face.
“Did . . . did he just dismiss me?” she asked.
“He did. Wouldn’t take it personally, though,” Dagmar explained. “He does that to everyone who bores him or can’t give him what he wants.”
“Can’t? Don’t you mean won’t?”
“No. I meant can’t.”
The god raised a finger. Not to strike Dagmar and her precious son down, but to argue, as she always seemed to enjoy doing. But before Eir could speak a word . . .
“Good evening, small Northland female and the males she will not give us for our strong daughters!”
Dagmar rolled her eyes and gritted her teeth. Eir cringed and disappeared. Not even a god wanted to face the Kolesova sisters. They were Daughters of the Steppes and, as Var had pointed out more than once, “pains in our collective asses.”
“Talking to yourself again, tiny Northlander?”
Dagmar slowly turned to face the two females that Annwyl had sent to “protect such a weak, insignificant woman.”
She wanted to think that Annwyl really had been worried about Dagmar and her nieces and nephew by mating. But Dagmar knew better. The treacherous heifer had simply been tired of dealing with the three sisters. They’d committed themselves to fighting by Annwyl’s side in the hopes of a glorious death so they could go to their horse gods with honor. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
But from what Dagmar had heard when information still flowed freely, they kept getting between Annwyl and those she wanted to kill. They thought they were protecting her. Annwyl saw it as plain rude.
The tribe the Kolesovas came from were considered annoying by their own people. Large, hearty females who didn’t know how to lower their voices or keep from insulting people. They found men to be weak and stupid and only good for breeding. More than once Dagmar had had to step in when they’d get drunk and round up men too young to fight to send to their multitude of daughters left back in the Steppes.
Six months ago, when Annwyl had sent them back with orders to “protect all those I love at Garbhán Isle,” there had been three sisters.
On their trip back, though, the three women fell into the hands of a battalion of Zealots. At least four hundred strong. All human. All loyal to Chramnesind.
Two days later, when the dust finally settled, only two of the sisters were left. But the battalion had been wiped out completely. The remaining pair brought back the body of their younger sister Inessa so they could have a proper funeral pyre and several days of mourning without worrying that more Zealots would come for them.
Those were the longest ten days of Dagmar’s life. It wasn’t the funeral pyre. The Southlanders and dragons did the same. And her people, the Northlanders, also burned their dead, putting them on wooden boats and setting them out to sea in flames.
So, no, it wasn’t the pyre that had bothered her. But the singing. For five days, the two women stood in the middle of the courtyard with their sister’s rotting corpse and sang songs of mourning to her “trapped” spirit.
Finally, on the fifth day, they’d built a funeral pyre and put their sister upon it and set her aflame.
Dagmar had let out a sigh of relief, thinking it was all over.
It wasn’t.
What came next was five more days of singing songs of celebration for their sister’s “freed” spirit.
And despite ten days of continuous singing, their horrid voices not only didn’t fade, but they bloody traveled. For miles, their voices traveled.
Once the mourning and celebration were over, the two Riders had gone on to obey Annwyl’s orders . . . by following Dagmar around. As if they were her dogs. But, unlike her dogs, they couldn’t follow orders. At least not from her. The Daughters of the Steppes had no respect for the “North-women” as they called Dagmar’s womenfolk. They thought them weak and unworthy of the respect they offered warrior women like Annwyl and Izzy.
Lately she’d been finding them camped outside her room inside the castle, like two stray dogs that had latched on to her for some reason. Except Dagmar’s dogs smelled better.
“Where have you two been?” Dagmar asked the women, since they rarely left her side these days.
“We do not trust these lizards the Dragon Queen has put in charge of your lands. So we went around to make sure all is well.”
“Those lizards,” Var informed them, “are my kin. I’d strongly suggest you remember that.”
“Does it not bother you, boy,” Nika, the eldest sister asked, “to be half of one thing and half of another? Would you not rather be all human, like me and my sister?”
Var laughed until he noticed the sisters did not join him. “Oh. You’re serious?”
“Come, Oksana,” Nika ordered her sister. “Let us go feed.”
They came up the steps, Oksana pausing to glare at Var. “I think our amazing daughters deserve better than this . . . strange boy.”
Var smirked, looking more like his father than Dagmar wanted to think about.
Leaning in, he said to the Rider, “I can unhinge my jaw and swallow your soul whole . . . or you can get out of my sight, Oksana Kolesova of the Mountain Movers of the Lands of Pain in the Far Reaches of the Steppes of the Outerplains.”
Lifting her chin, trying to at least pretend she wasn’t terrified at the threat of her soul ending up inside Dagmar’s son, Oksana sniffed and followed her sister into the Main Hall.
“Can you really do that?” Frederick asked Var.
“Do what?”
“Swallow her soul whole?”
Var snorted. “Of course not . . . but I can unhinge my jaw.” He shrugged at Frederick’s concerned expression. “At least I don’t have a tail. Some of my fellow Abominations have tails.”
* * *
Elina Shestakova of the Black Bear Riders of the Midnight Mountains of Despair in the Far Reaches of the Steppes of the Outerplains came out of her room, tying the black patch she often wore to cover her missing eye, only to immediately stop when she found the Kolesova sisters waiting for her.
She hated dealing with the Kolesova sisters. They were nice enough, usually. But they were such—such!—pains in the ass.
But they were here to protect Dagmar Reinholdt who Elina had become quite fond of over the last few years.
“Do you want something, Kolesovas?” she asked in the language of their people as her stomach grumbled. “You are denying me food.”
“You have become soft, Elina Shestakova, living among these decadent people who give you everything.”
“Yes. I know. My sister informed me of that last time she was here. I’ve just learned to accept it. Is there anything else?”
“That boy,” Nika said.
“You’ll have to be much more specific.”
“Dagmar Reinholdt’s son. Is he a demon who can eat souls?”
“Are you talking about Var?”
“Yes.”
Talaith, mate of Briec the Mighty, and mother of her own Abomination, was heading toward the Main Hall. She smiled at Elina as she walked by.
She caught Talaith’s arm and pulled her close. “Nika and Oksana want to know if our Var is a demon who eats souls.”
The two women stared at each other for a long moment before they faced the Kolesova sisters and said together, “Yes. Yes, he is.”
“Thank you, Elina Shestakova; Talaith, the brown one—”
“I wish you’d stop calling me that.”
“—we now know to avoid the boy. But I think the Northwoman is safe with him. He seems to like her. As much as a demon can like anyone.”
Talaith nodded. “Excellent point.”
The Kolesova sisters walked off and Elina let out a breath. “Thank you, Talaith.”
“Let me ask you, Elina . . .” Talaith put her hand on Elina’s shoulder and leaned in close. “. . . can we kill them with honor? You know, give them that glorious death they’re so desperate for? So we can stop having these bizarre conversations in the hallway.”
“Sadly, Kolesovas are very hard to kill. I know this because many have tried.” The two women made their way to the Main Hall and dinner. “But I am sure that if anyone can figure out how to kill them . . . it will be Dagmar Reinholdt.”
“And she is so close, my friend.” Talaith sighed out. “So close.”