SINGED
Chapter 18

The young knight stood. The girl smiled brightly, rising as well. He touched her hand in parting, crossed the room, turning to wave at the door before he left. Only after he was gone did she sigh, laugh and then ascend the stairs.

“Come,” I said. “Time to finish this.”

We strolled through the door after the knight, saw him turn into the stables. I had disabled the first watcher, a scowling youth in the shadows between the stables and the supply shed but he would have been the first to be missed by Patch, so I began to walk quickly. If he had been replaced I might still fail to save him after all my hard work which would be a disappointment, and I decided in that event I would make Alister pay even more dearly.

However, there was no sign of another watcher. The knight saddled his horse and rode out, up the hill toward the Temple of Light.

“How can we keep up?” Sal asked. “He will be too far ahead for us to help by the time we get horses.”

“We will fly, I think,” I said.

For I had wings did I not? And so, I did. With that partial shift to my true form, came heightened senses.

I was reaching out to replace minds with malign intent. I absently caught up Sal and leapt into the air, eliciting a slight cry from him as I did so.

“You are safe, my friend,” I said, and he chuckled, nodded.

The night was filled with murmurs of human thought, most were sleepy and calm, but here and there I picked out the pounding dark hearts of wolves among my flock of lambs.

There, atop the guard tower to the cathedral courtyard toward which the knight rode was such a beast, one I had missed. He was manic with the hunt, his visions brighter and more vivid, and his pounding heart beat a wild staccato in my ears. Something about this one gave me a thrill of fear and excitement. This one might be interesting, dangerous.

He couldn’t be human. What was he, I wondered?

You know, he thought, and I gasped.

“What?” shouted Sal over the roaring wind.

I shook my head, concentrating. Was it a wizard? Another Dragon?

It laughed. It was reading my thoughts! It could even feel my confusion! Instinctively I sealed my mind as if I had put on a mask.

It chuckled quietly. It couldn’t sense me anymore, I thought, but I wasn’t sure. The mask made it hard for me to sense his thoughts as well.

I did the psychic equivalent of peeking out from behind my mental mask. It was veiled now too, it’s mind faint, hard to pinpoint. It was still close to the tower, but I needed to get closer now to replace it, and it knew I was coming.

The knight was several blocks away from the cathedral. He would be passing under the arch in a quarter of a candle, maybe less. The thing would need to reveal itself to strike. If it remained hidden, then I would have saved the knight by default, but I would feel cheated. I wanted this confrontation. This would be my first challenge since the Storm Hag.I landed on a roof with a widow’s walk atop.

“Stay here,” I told Sal. “There is someone or something hiding on the tower. Watch for it from here and I will see what you see.”

He hesitated, not understanding.

“It’s something, maybe another like me. Be careful.”

He nodded but his mind was still unsure.

I clapped his shoulder.

“I will return shortly.”

I leapt off the roof like some dark angel and soared up into the night. There was a flicker of movement on the tower and I rose, circling then dove toward it, veering and then dove again in an instant of instinct. I was rewarded with a sorrowful whistle as something fast and dangerous cut through the air off to my left. I rose and then dove straight down to the top of the tower. Whoever, whatever had shot at me would replace it more difficult to hit me from this angle and to remain hidden.

I dropped onto the slate shingles without a sound, and all the world was silent too except for the faint moan of the wind which only seems to make everything else seem that much more silent, as if waiting. The air felt tepid and fragile, prepared to shatter when the inevitable confrontation occurred.

There I waited, listening to the pregnant silence that was anything but peaceful. It was a preemptive assault on the mind. For a mortal, this moment would have been torture or at least something to endure. I fed upon it, consuming the electric charge in the air, absorbing the pattering of the tower, the shapes of things and the lack of things in between, time was slipping away.

The knight would come into view soon, become a new target for the hidden archer. Time slowed as the excitement of the hunt coursed through my blood, filling every vein with fire or the potential for fire. My hands were claws. I could taste blood.

Some brittle bits of stone or mortar rattled on the cobbles somewhere below, and I oriented on it. It was a decoy. The fragment of slate had been tossed. I do not know how I knew, something in the abruptness of the tingling rocky sound. If it had come loose with the weight of gravity I would’ve sensed it. Instead the sound had rang as if thrown onto the road leading up to the arch through which the knight would ride.

There it was in the arch, crawling through the catwalk above the murder holes through which boiling oil and arrows would fall upon attackers if the tower was assaulted. It was directly above where the knight would enter, and as if on cue the shadows moved on the roadway, coalescing into a mounted rider. I heard the clatter of hooves.

I could feel the mind now, furtive, waiting. It had thrown the stone near the mouth of an alley on the opposite side of the great arch. I frowned. If the purpose of the stone was to position me for another deadly bolt, it did not appear to put me in range.

Perhaps it was to shift me away so that I could not save the knight, but how had the mysterious archer thrown the stone around the massive perimeter of the arch to land on the opposite side? It seemed impossible. The stone would have turned two corners before striking the ground. The stone would have had a mind of its own. Perhaps it did.

I could hear the knight, louder now. Any moment he would come into range of the archer. I tensed, understanding. The stone was not a decoy for me. It was a signal for the archer. It was thrown from the darkened alley. Reinforcements were waiting in the shadows. From that angle, I was still a target at extreme range. I thought I could see eyes glittering in the dark. If I engaged the archer in the arch I might not be able to counter the others, but I had no choice if I wanted to succeed. And I wanted to succeed, to overcome in my very bones. Yet I waited, searching with every sense available to me.

Like a heavy veil, the lie was torn asunder. There were no hearts beating in the alley, no breathing, no movement. Only the glowing eyes. It was an illusion. It almost fooled a dragon, who is resistant to all but the most powerful spells, and something else. It was willed into existence, just the way my magic worked. Was the creature within the arch a dragon?

Could it be her? Had she aligned with my enemies? I could feel the old rage rekindled in my chest. I had given up my sibling rivalry because of Miranda. It had not been a conscious decision but because of Miranda, I could no longer tolerate the hatred. It was meaningless compared with love. It made no sense, but now the old vendetta surfaced, built on old instincts that my human self could not understand, but somehow, they reopened the wounds of losing Miranda, taunting me.

“See, love is weak. It is a meaningless emotion. Only a dragon can stand the test of time,” it said.

I knew it was her. I felt it and, forgetting the knight, I rushed down into a narrow window and onto the catwalk above the archway before I thought what I was doing. In the center of the arch, the figure crouched, cowl covering her face, a cocked crossbow braced upon the railing. She turned immediately sensing my presence and pulled away the hood, but it was not my sister. It was Cayn.

“Let me kill the knight,” Cayn said.

It was not a plea, more of a dare. His eyes glittered, taunting me. For a moment, I was unable to respond. I’d been so sure it was my wayward sister.

“It was Alister’s fault about Miranda,” he said, “and the lies about the knight. I told him to tell you the truth. I told him you would know they were lies. I did not think you would care though. The knight means nothing to you.”

“No,” I agreed, “but the enemy of my enemy…”

“Is your friend,” he finished.

“No,” I said, “but he might be worth saving, just to strike back at my enemies.”

I hissed the last word menacingly and was satisfied when the smile slipped from his lips.

“I don’t fear you, dragon,” he said, “but I didn’t want this. It is unfortunate.”

The knight was in range. I could see his shadow.

“Spare the knight and we can…”

I lunged midsentence, becoming a smear of shadow as I bridged the gap between us. It was not unlike running into a stone wall, although for me that experience is different than it would be for a mortal. The stonewall gives for me grudgingly. A well-made wall might even withstand several collisions but in the end, it would fall. Cayn was a well-made wall, to my surprise. So, the feeling was mutual. He had not expected me to charge and I had not expected the resistance as I slammed into him. He staggered backward but held. Our forearms entangled, quivering as our muscles contended with each other. He was the first to smile.

“Did not expect much of a fight, did you?” he panted.

“What are you?” I snarled.

“Same as you,” he said, “the blood of Dragon flows in my veins as well.”

I pushed, and he took a step back. Then he leaned forward and shoved me hard enough to regain the lost footing.

I shook my head.

“No I can smell you, human.”

Yet even as I spoke I could faintly taste the scent he claimed on his breath.

“You drank dragon blood, I said. “That does not make you a dragon.”

He scowled.

“Yes,” he conceded, “but it is the blood of one much greater than you, little worm.”

With a movement so fast I could not see it, he twisted away, sidestepping as I stumbled forward. In an instant, he was at the end of the catwalk. I had fallen to one knee. By the time I rose, he had seized a heavy oak and leather bound to an iron winch, a great chain, slick with oil, wrapped about it.

“Which do you want more,” he asked. “The knight or me?”

Then before I understood he heaved on the lever, releasing the portcullis. There was a deafening rattling of the chain as the heavy iron gate fell. I am honestly not sure why I chose what I chose. I would like to say it was my draconic will. I had set out to save the knight and I was following through with single-minded intent. At some unconscious level that might have played into my decision. The truth though is, my decision was mindless as I grappled with it.

Even as I leapt up, vaulting seven horns to seize the rusty links of the chain, I was undecided. Why was I here? How would this help me replace Miranda? She was my heart, my human heart, for dragon hearts yearn only for gold. Somehow the knight was leading me back toward my humanity. Where she waited for me.

I was jolted back to the present by the force of the chain. I was braced against the stone wall, my boots scrabbling scrambling for footing. The weight of the gate nearly yanked my arms out of socket, but I held. One, two, three heartbeats before my feet slipped and I lost my balance. I released the chain rather than be thrown forcefully against the roof of the arch. The gate crashed to the stones below with a resounding boom. A frenetic clatter meant the horse at least had avoided being impaled then I could hear the gentle whispers as the knight calmed his stead.

I spun about, searching, but Cayn was nowhere to be seen. A chill settled on my bones in his absence. Suddenly I was running, leaping out into the night, wings unfurling. I circled once, twice. The night had recovered and fled in case danger still lingered about the gate. He would enter the glowing cathedral with its many guards soon unless Cayn struck again but I could not replace a sense of danger anymore, not here, but the sense of wrongness persisted.

“Sal!” I whispered with a gasp.

I soared through the night, back toward the widow’s walk where I had left him, safe. A growing dread filled me, but it was not for myself.

“Not Sal,” I breathed. “Not him too.”

He was standing in the shadows of the eaves when I arrived, not far from where I left him. I sighed with relief. He stepped out when he saw me, and I landed.

“Stay there,” I said.

He stopped abruptly with a look of confusion, staring out into the night. Then I saw the trickle of blood escape from the corner of his mouth and a crimson blossom spread over his chest.

“No!” I cried.

I caught him before he fell from the roof. As I leapt into the air again with him in my arms, I could hear the laughter echoing from the streets below.

“Help me!” I screamed, as I entered the inn.

A serving girl gasped and ran for help. Guards and porters swarmed about us.

“No use,” Sal murmured.

He was calm, smiling slightly. I frowned.

“Don’t,” I said. “You will lose more blood if you speak. Lay still.”

He nodded, closing his eyes.

“No!” I shouted but he was gone.