Regardless. He cleared his throat in a not-so-subtle ploy to give himself a few moments to recall his train of thought. Kant and the other nobles were never offered a chance to know me as capable of anything more than what they saw. It wasn’t that they weren’t aware that I could be more, but that awareness lacked the comprehension of my blood’s distinction. Had I been anything less than a primordial, they might have indeed been in the right to assume they’d have an opportunity, even brief, to deal with me with sheer numbers. His smile returned, sharper now. I am not, however, and that ignorance resulted in them drawing steel against me and a good number of people I had come to care for very dearly in the months of their company.

  It happened, then. For the first time in weeks, Declan felt himself spinning away, felt the world inverse beneath his feet as he was ducked into a different time, a different mind. Before him the light of the fire and the outline of his friends were as twisting, pale ghosts over a brighter, bloodier scene. He hefted a sword in his right hand, its smooth metal sheened wet under the day-like glow of oil-lit chandeliers that reflected against the polished white marble of the floor, now spattered with streaking red. Men, in the colors of his father’s court, surrounded him, and at his back he was aware of his sister’s presence, gathering her weaves in preparation to join Bonner in the fight. Elnaryl was there somewhere, he knew too, the prince’s life spilling out upon the ground with every passing second. He had seen the golden-haired elf take the blow which had felled him, had been unable to stop it even as he’d rushed to the er’enthyl’s assistance.

  Two of the soldiers darted forward in a pair, a third moving sidelong in an attempt to flank him. Declan’s sword moved with a fluidity he had never known, an instinctive, easy delivery he’d only ever tasted after years of hard practice. He darted laterally, away from the man attempting to get in from his right, simultaneously dodging one thrusted blow while parrying the overhead slash of the third, left-most man. Disengaging his sword with astounding deftness, Declan spared no energy on wasteful movement, flicking the blade up to cut across the soldier’s eyes with the same effort one might wave away a fly. The man screamed, tumbling back, but his comrades were already recovering, and more were moving to take their wounded comrade’s place. Declan cursed, forced to take a step back and evaluate, seeing no other future before him but one which ended on the bloodied steel of the traitors closing in on him.

  Then, just as the soldiers looked about to rush together, there was a roar of sound unlike anything Declan had ever heard before, imbued with such furious power that the chandeliers above tinkled and swayed threateningly overhead. Screams began to echo throughout the chamber, absent until that moment, and he watched with a convulsing mix of relief and terror as a shape seemed to erupt into existence over the heads of his attackers, scaled muscle and lashing, leathery wings swelling into being. The figure bloomed, expanding with such unnatural and astonishing speed that those soldiers standing closest to it were thrown bodily into the air under the sheer impact of the sudden presence. There was the clean gleam of white, hand-sized teeth and the flash of claws as the great beast—which had only moments ago been Declan’s slighter, less-imposing friend—cleared the floor before him of men with a single sweep of his foreleg.

  Then Ryndean opened his mouth, and all that was left to feel and see was a boiling, brutal assault of blinding white.

  “Declan. Declan!”

  Ester was shaking him, having noticed his absence before either of the others. Declan came back more smoothly now, either the brevity of the memory or the repetition of similar events in the past having made this slippage all that much easier. He blinked once, twice, then shook his head to clear his mind and looked up to find Ryn and Bonner watching him with a tense mix of concern and interest. For a moment Declan was distracted by the almost-amused consideration that—despite the pair’s very different countenances of face and feature—he was so able to distinguish the same expression from both of them.

  He decided not to keep them in suspense.

  “I saw it,” he told them all, the fading echo of the memory still fresh on his mind. “The attack. The ballroom. I saw you change.” He met Ryn’s gaze, and the dragon’s eyes widened in impressed surprise.

  I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that, Ryn muttered, and for some reason he looked down at his own hand. To think it had the power to pull an entirely different time into our own…

  “Magic is without time, Ryndean,” Bonner said sagely. “It does not exist as we do, living in the present and knowing only the past. Magic lingers in the very fabric of reality. It does not surprise me in the least that your blood could have carried this much of Amherst with it through the centuries.”

  “Your blood?” Ester asked, mirroring Declan’s confusion. She was holding him again, this time by the arm, in such a position that made him suspect he had nearly toppled over despite the briefness of his departure.

  I’m getting to that, Ryn said with the quick air of one who has caught themselves letting slip something they shouldn’t. He grunted under Ester’s suspicious eye. I am, if only you would let me finish. He turned his attention back on Declan. What did you see? Exactly?

  Declan answered, satisfied for the moment with the dragon’s word given what he and Bonner had already divulged so far that night—Or morning, rather, Declan thought to himself, noting the faint glow of orange over the eastern tops of the trees across the stream. He told them of the fight, of knowing of Elysia and Elnaryl and Bonner somewhere at his back. He described watching Ryn—or Ryndean, as Herst’s mind had known him—take his true form to the immediate effect of a shift in the battle.

  “And then… fire, I think?” he finished somewhat anti-climactically, giving Ryn an inquisitive look. To his surprise, the dragon appeared almost to pale.

  The first time I’d ever set the dragonfire upon the likes of men… he muttered, partially to himself, clearly not relishing the memory. I had no choice, of course. I had to get you—Herst—he slid over the mistake as though nothing had been said amiss—and the others out of there. Even then I was mostly too late. Only Arathia and Elnaryl were left alive of the elves, she and Bonner trying to see his wound while Herst and Elysia defended them. It was all I could do to grab them up and get away, taking down half the chamber as I fled…

  “Elysia was screaming for her father, even as we flew,” Bonner recalled somberly, emerald eyes glassy beneath his heavy eyebrows. “And Elnaryl was beyond me the moment that sword cut into his throat. I don’t think he survived more than a few minutes after we escaped… I still remember…”

  Another flash, this one even shorter. The twilight darkness of a summer evening ripping past Declan at terrifying speed, his one arm pinned uncomfortably to his side by the great talons that had snatched him up from certain death. He could twist his head, could see his sister and Bonner held in the claws of Ryn’s back legs. Across from him—caged as delicately as he thought the dragon might have been able to manage—he could just make out the gleam of tears trailing Arathia yr’Essel’s pale face.

  Those tears, and the limp, unmoving form of the prince the Aveer al’En clutched to, much of Elnaryl’s white gown of elven silk stained black in the night with blood.

  We waited two days to bury him, just inside the edge of the western forests. Ryn’s voice spoke with what seemed almost forced calm. No one had noticed Declan’s short departure, this time. Arathia wouldn’t have it any other way. She refused to put him to rest in the flatlands that surround Aletha and its neighbors, insisting she would see Elnaryl lain down beneath the trees, even if they weren’t of the Vyr’en. She took his coronet, to present to his mother if ever there was the opportunity, and we left him there. There was no means by which man could have kept bodily pace with a dragon, but Bonner was hardly the only powerful mage in the kingdom, in those years, and I wasn’t going to take any chances. It took us ten days more to make the Reaches.

  He snorted, then, caught by some odd memory. Tyrennus didn’t so much as blink when I showed up on his doorstep with the kingdom’s heirs, a High Knight of the er’enthyl, and the greatest court mage of Aletha in tow. He was five hundred years the senior of any other dragon of the ranges, and three thousand years my own. I think he’d been alive too long to be surprised by anything, anymore. He took them all in with barely a word, and it was he who turned us all on to the very real possibility that we were hardly out of danger.

  “Because the Accord of Four still held?” Declan offered, for once managing to follow along. “Because the al’Dyors still lived?”

  “Almost.” It was Bonner’s turn to answer again, his words bitter. Over his head, the morning’s light was growing brighter now. “Though I suppose it amounts to the same thing, in the end. The nobility were hardly still bound by the pact, with Igoric dead and his children half-in-exile. The real trouble for them lay with the common folk of Viridian, the crown’s lesser subjects. Farmers. Merchants and traders. Even the army regulars. No fortune in the world would have been enough to put a gold lever in every hand, and the al’Dyors—Igoric in particular—had been well-loved by the masses. The old King had kept a peace he might have pressed, and the nation was prospering under his rule, as it had his father’s. Elysia was a handful in her own right, but she was hardly the bad sort, and had all the makings of her sires. There was little reason the larger populace would have lent their support to the nobility’s coup.”

  “And if they found out about it, it would have been disastrous for the houses,” Declan put in, catching on.

  “Especially—” Bonner pressed the point “—if that news came directly from the mouths of the children of the murdered King, bearing the mark of the al’Dyors as evidence of their station.”

  “Their signets?”

  It made sense, and knowledge of the King’s seals was common enough. The signets of the al’Dyors. The rings of their office and rank. Trinkets that held all of the power of a member of the royal line in their presence. Declan had never seen one himself, having never crossed paths with Mathaleus or his Queen. The pair were yet childless, or the chances of him having run into some little prince or princess in the streets of Aletha bearing their own signet might have been higher. Still, Cassandra had received more than one missive pressed with the King’s insignia, so Declan had had the opportunity to take in the shield and crowned stag up close on more than one occasion.

  Instead of answering, however, Bonner hesitated, glancing almost tentatively at Ryn. The dragon, in turn, seemed to be considering something, watching Declan carefully.

  Yes, the signets, Ryn said finally. A ring of the al’Dyors held the same power then as one does now, Declan. It was an absolute presence, a mark of Kings. It denoted one as a member of the direct royal family, and was not intended to be passed along. He stared and Declan pointedly. Still… Circumstances of the world do not often allow for the petty laws of man to stand it their way…

  Declan stared right back into his friend’s even gaze, perplexed. He had no idea what Ryn was trying to get at—and he was definitely trying to get at something—and could feel the old irritation begin to claw its way back into his thoughts.

  He was about to coolly demand further explanation, when it hit him like a lightning bolt.

  He looked down at his left hand, at the simple band of battered gold, set with a plain wedge of flat, black stone. He couldn’t bring himself to accept it, couldn’t even begin to contemplate it. And yet, Amherst had been an heir to the throne of Viridian, a prince of the line, if second to his elder sister. Perhaps, just perhaps…

  And then Declan felt the odd sensation in the back of his head, the loosening, unclenching feeling of Ryn’s magic falling away from his thoughts, releasing his mind to its freedom.

  Before his very eyes, the ring changed.

  The worn, dim luster of the metal vanished, replaced by a clean sheen of polished gold. The bland band became delicate, meticulously crafted, taking the form of paired swords behind matching shields, the blades bending around to encircle his finger. At its crown, set behind the hilts of the swords, the mundane stone took the form of a broad, polished black gem, emblazed with a coat of arms that was difficult to see in the dim light of their meager fire. As he peered closer, trying to make out the meticulously carved etchings, Declan recalled having known exactly such a ring before, flashing across his mind on the occasion Herst’s memories had pressed forward with such fervor they had dragged him down into unconsciousness.

  There was a crack and spark of the fire, the flames momentarily flashing brighter as the tinder resettled. In that chance of better light, Declan noted clearly the shapes at last, taking in the fine lines of the stag’s head, crowned and regal atop its simple shield. It was not exactly the same as the arms one could find born upon the banners of Aletha’s walls, perhaps having adapted with the passing of the years as new hands drafted its like over and over again.

  But it was an unmistakable mark all the same.

  Declan sat silent for a long, long time, gazing down at the crest of the al’Dyors. No one spoke. No one dared to speak. The others knew, he was sure, that it was not their place to break the stillness now, that such a step was his right to make, and his alone.

  When Declan finally found his voice, he could only do so much to keep the anger from spilling out into every word.

  “How much more are you yet hiding from me, Ryn?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  To Declan’s mounting fury, Ryn didn’t have the good dignity to look ashamed. On the contrary, the dragon held his head high and met Declan’s gaze unflinching.

  When his answer came, it was equally as unwavering.

  This is the last of my secrets, Declan. There is nothing left for me to hide from you, nothing left for me to hold back. You’re not even aware of the fact that you’ve been bearing the weight of your own mind for days now, unassisted. You’ve been free of my influence since before we reached Ranheln. This—he motioned to the ring, revealed from behind the veil of his magic—was all that remained. And don’t ask me why. His hand stayed up in a halting gesture, foreseeing the demand even as Declan opened his mouth to make it. Only stop and recall that Bonner and I would have gladly told you the truth of things already—we tried to, even. Remember that you were the one who wished us to hold back before you bare your teeth at me too fiercely. How would I have revealed this to you, given that request? What sort of conclusions would you have been left to make, having only heard a fraction of the story, and less of your family’s history?

  The words rang hard and true. Declan’s anger didn’t dissipate, but rather turned inward, and he eased himself back again. He noticed then, Ester’s restraining hand, her fingers having taken the loose cloth of his shirt sleeve tentatively, like she’d been prepared to reel him in herself. It was then that her words came back to him, that morning he’d finally learned the truth of the world, her demands and insistence on his behalf. He remembered her fighting for him, fighting for his right to be told, to know.

  Just as sharply, he recalled Ryn’s cutting answer. “Almost a millennia of history,” the dragon had said.

  All at once, Declan felt the fatigue of their interrupted night once again, felt it press on him tenfold, along with every pain and ache Bonner had been unable to relieve after the fight. He wanted nothing more than to make his excuses, to be allowed to sleep and give himself a breath to accept the burden Ryn was casting upon him. Just as firmly, he knew he couldn't, knew he had neither the right nor ability to shy away from the dragon’s words, now.

  Steeling himself, Declan considered the ring more carefully.

  He was not an al’Dyor, he knew, not in the real sense of the name. Even if this signet had passed down in a direct line, hand to hand, eldest to eldest, the centuries had undoubtedly diverged him from the royal lines too far to make any such claim. But to Declan, that distant relation was not what pulled on him so fiercely. The crest set into the black stone did not represent that chance, that sliver of possibility.

  To Declan, it rather made whole the truth of his lineage, brought to bear an understanding of what it might mean to be the descendant of Amherst al’Dyor, heir to the blood of the second prince of Viridian.

  “They framed you.”

  Despite every intention otherwise, Declan’s voice came out hard and unforgiving, unable to quite shed the resentment that he could only redirect at his own weakness. He hoped instead that Ryn would take the offered chance, take the opportunity Declan was attempting to extend.

  “They framed you,” he said again, only slightly less severely. “The nobles. Kant, al’Behn, Vostyk. They threw the King’s death at your feet.”

  It had not been a hard conclusion to draw. He’d never really reconciled the story Brohn and Dia had shared with the character of the creature that had been his truest friend and companion for the duration of his life, and Bonner had hardly made any attempt to conceal the bitterness of his memories, even before sharing them.

  That, along with the other hints scattered for him along the way, brought Declan to the steps of comprehension.

  They did. Ryn took Declan’s offering graciously, not even blinking at the sudden return to his story. And without much effort. Whatever clues of the reality of the coup might have been left for the uncorrupted to find must have been as nothing to the remnants of my own actions. I did not hold back when I understood what was happening, when I knew the King to be dead and my friends to be threatened. Between my flames and the violence of our exit, I don’t imagine much of the ballroom was left untouched. I dare say the houses had nothing more to do than burn the bodies of Igoric and the elves to make the lie complete.

  “From there, it would have posed small issue to feed the tale to the masses,” Bonner picked up with a sigh. “Even with a peace that had already lasted centuries, do you think it took much to convince the common man that a dragon had lain waste to the palace?” The old mage shook his head in disappointment. “There was no reason given to consider otherwise. Even if there had been rumors and whispers, what do you imagine was easier to swallow? That a beast of the distant west, mysterious and terrible in its power, had taken it into its mind to strike at the heart of man? Or that the great houses of Aletha—the very nobles now calling to arms the vastness of the Vigil to hunt after the creature and ‘rescue’ the King’s heirs—had conspired together to see to the fall of Igoric for nothing more than their own ignoble intents?”