Of Steel and Scale (The Drakkon Kin Trilogy #1)

Chapter 2

2

Rage filled me. Rage so deep and fierce that flames erupted from my hands, flowing like lava down the length of my sword to scorch the stones at my feet.

I clenched my free hand and fought for control. The last thing I wanted was to finish what the invaders and their flames had started. These people deserved better than that. They certainly deserved a more fitting burial than to have their bodies thrown around the old clock tower like so much rubbish and then set alight. Of course, affording each individual a sea burial—as was the custom in these parts—would be a task of monumental proportions, given everybody appeared to have been hacked into multiple pieces first.

Even the children.

May Vahree hunt these bastards down and torture their souls for all eternity.

And if the god of death didn’t, I would.

I forced my feet on and walked around the ring of death and destruction, trying to see something—anything—that might point to who or what had done this. The scent downwind was horrendous, and my stomach churned. I tried breathing through my mouth rather than my nose, but that only coated my throat with the ash of death.

And no amount of swallowing could erase it.

Swords—or perhaps even axes—had been used to hack the bodies apart, but it was hard to tell if it had been done before or after death. I hoped it was the latter. I feared it was the former.

My gaze fell on a tiny hand that still clutched the remnants of a rag doll.

The distant stoicism I’d been trying so hard to maintain shattered. Tears filled my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. I raised my face to the sky and let the rain wash the grief away. It took a very long time, but the souls of these people deserved that, at the very least.

Eventually, I gathered the fragmented wisps of control and walked out of the marketplace, stepping back onto the road and following it down to the small harbor. The long pier jutting out into the cove’s deeper waters had been destroyed; only a few stanchions and crossbeams remained. Where the rest of it was, I had no idea. Like the many boats that should have been here, it was simply gone. They might all be lying at the bottom of the sea, but surely if that were the case, there’d be more than a couple of masts sticking up out of the water, especially from those moored in the shallower waters.

Did that mean some of Eastmead’s people had escaped, despite the evidence to the contrary in the marketplace?

I wanted to hope so—I really did—but my gut said otherwise. Whoever had done all this had wanted utter destruction. Had wanted to ensure this small outpost wouldn’t easily be resurrected.

A flash of movement drew my gaze toward the neck of the cove; two longboats swept into view, riding high on the waves and the fierce wind, approaching at speed. Standing at the helm of the first was a monster of a man—he was tall, broad of shoulder, with a thick plait of silvery-gray hair that streamed behind him thanks to the force of the wind. Even though he was some distance away, I knew his brown features were weatherworn, and that his grin would be fierce and bright.

Knew because this was Rion Silva.

My father.

He might constantly berate my wanderlust, but in truth, he was little better. The need to get out, to see the world beyond the confines of Esan’s glorious walls before duty closed in on us, was a fault we both shared. It also happened to be the reason I existed. Had his boat not sprung a leak all those years ago, he would never have ventured into Jakarra’s harbor to seek repairs or met the island’s fiercely independent bow master. According to my father, it had been love at first sight. For him. Apparently she hadn’t been so convinced, and it had taken months of courting before she’d accepted his intentions were serious.

I envied their story, envied their love.

Wanted, with an ache that would now never be satisfied, someone to love me so fiercely, chase me so determinedly.

But their story would never be mine.

I drew a deep breath and forced the heartache, the anger, and even the brief stab of self-pity behind inner walls. I was a soldier—a captain. I had to act like it.

As the longboat drew closer, I spotted the man standing behind my father.

Damon Velez, firstborn son of Zephrine’s king, and my future husband.

What in the wind’s name was he doing here?

Wasn’t it enough that we’d see each other when we married tomorrow? Did he really have to intrude on my last few hours of freedom?

I huffed out a breath and sheathed my sword. I didn’t bother tugging my uniform into some semblance of presentability or run my fingers across my wet hair to smooth it down; both were well beyond that sort of quick fix. Besides, Damon might as well discover from the outset just what he was getting into when it came to our marriage. I was no royal wallflower—Mom had made damn sure of that—and the sooner he accepted it, the better.

The bow of the boat slid onto the sands, and several sailors leapt out to tie her off. My father didn’t wait for the ramp. He simply braced a hand on the gunwale, jumped over the side, and then strode toward me. Damon followed. I couldn’t help noticing he moved with the grace of a high-forest wildcat. My father was bullish in comparison.

I straightened and saluted. He might be my father, but he was also my commander, and I had no idea which I might be facing at this particular moment. “You got my message then, sir?”

“And sent a guard to retrieve Desta. Report, Captain.”

His voice was curt, and relief swept me. Commander mode made it far easier to keep my emotions under control. “The village has been looted and razed, and all within murdered.”

He stopped abruptly, his golden gaze darting to the burned remnants above us. “The destruction isn’t the result of an out-of-control fire, as you’d initially theorized, then?”

“No. It’s very definitely a raid.”

My gaze found Damon’s. His eyes were the rich, clear blue of the ice melt lakes and just as damn cold. He gave me a nod but little else in the way of greeting. Which was damn fine with me. The less I had to do with the man until tomorrow, the better.

My father glanced back to the longboat and snapped his fingers. His personal guard immediately leapt onto the sand and came toward us.

“Jarrod, immediate perimeter search.”

As the tall captain saluted and started assigning his men locations, my father motioned me forward and then fell in step beside me. “Any indication as to who’s responsible?”

“I haven’t had the chance to search the southern end of the settlement as yet, but whoever did this has so far left nothing behind.”

“The Mareritt are very rarely that careful,” Damon commented. His voice was like good ale, so deep and smoky.

He’d fallen into step to my left. Despite the inner need to keep distance, I was nevertheless aware not only of his size, but also the barely restrained power in every movement. He’d certainly changed in the twelve years since I’d last seen him, and for the better. I wished the same could have been said about me, but I’d hit my teenage years tall and lanky, and had never really developed beyond that. According to the whisperers, my lack of “womanly” assets had been one of the reasons for the marriage agreement taking so long to finalize.

“Normally, no,” my father agreed. “But neither has a summer passed without a major assault against either fortress before now.”

“What happened here isn’t their usual mode of operation,” I commented. “Besides, they hate the sea.”

“So do you,” my father growled. “It’s never stopped you boarding a boat when necessary.”

“Yeah, but they live underground for nine months of the year,” I snapped back, then sucked in a breath to regain control. Commander, not father. Act appropriately. “That’s hardly conducive to boat building.”

“Which doesn’t negate the fact that it’s entirely possible,” he replied, “especially given the great magic their mages are capable of.”

If magic had been used here, then it wasn’t the type the Mareritt typically used. Why I was so certain of that, I couldn’t say. It wasn’t like I was in any way attuned to it. It was just instinct—a gut feeling.

But the only gut my father trusted was his own—and Mom’s. Everyone else had best provide evidence to back intuition or remain silent.

I turned right and led the two men toward the marketplace, my gaze on the blackened fingers of wood rather than the stomach-churning destruction that lay underneath.

“It wouldn’t be entirely surprising if this was the start of a new direction from them,” Damon said. “Even the Mareritt aren’t foolish enough to keep banging their blunt heads against the same impassable walls year in and year out.”

“And yet they’ve done exactly that for centuries.” My voice held an edge I couldn’t quite conceal. “If they were capable of learning such a lesson, they surely would have done so before now.”

He cast a somewhat scathing look my way. “It never pays to underestimate the enemy.”

“Or indeed so-called friends,” I bit back.

In the fading light of the day, I swear a glint of amusement briefly warmed his eyes. There was no alteration in his stony expression, however, so it was probably just a trick of the light.

“If not the Mareritt, then who else? Arleeon has few other enemies.”

“That we know of,” I said. “But we’re a continent rich in pastoral and mineral wealth; that’s always a lure to those who are less fortunate.”

“If one of our allies were intent on making such a move,” Damon said, “why start with a place as forsaken as this?”

“Perhaps they believed they could more easily traverse—” My father abruptly stopped, his expression dissolving into horror. “In Vahree’s name, who would commit such an atrocity?”

“Someone who places no value on human life.” Damon’s voice was a low vibration of anger.

I could understand that anger. Could feel its echo deep within.

“There’s no livestock within the mound that I could see.” My gaze remained on the blackened fingers of wood rather than the bodies. “And none in the holding yards. Both the buildings in the industrial area and the houses surrounding the marketplace have been stripped of all usable items. Whoever did this came here, killed all its inhabitants, and then seized every single thing of value they could get their hands on.”

“And burned the rest to hide anything they might have left behind that could identify them.” My father swept a hand across his heavily plaited silver hair. “I wonder why they didn’t simply leave the bodies to burn where they were? Why go to the trouble of stacking them here like this?”

“I don’t think they were stacked. I think they were herded here alive, then killed and set alight.” Damon’s voice was flat and unemotional—at odds with the thick waves of his fury and disgust that rolled across my senses. “The way they have all fallen suggests they didn’t put up a fight.”

My gaze unwillingly swept the pile of bodies. Now that he’d mentioned it, there was something rather... planned... about the way the bodies lay. It was almost a crisscross pattern, as if those behind this atrocity had begun their killing spree at the back and methodically worked forward.

I rubbed my arms uneasily. “If they didn’t fight, it would suggest they were either drugged or mentally prevented from doing so.”

Damon’s gaze met mine again. Something flickered through his eyes—something that vaguely resembled distaste. It was, of course, possible I was imprinting my own emotions about our impending pairing onto him.

“I doubt there’s a telepath alive capable of controlling several hundred people at the same time—though you would, of course, know more about that than me.”

The smile that briefly twisted my lips held little in the way of humor. “My talent lies with animals, not people, as I’m sure you’re well aware.”

“I’ve certainly heard you’re more comfortable with the former than the latter.” His gaze returned to the pile, leaving me wondering who’d told him that and whether those stories were another reason for the long delay in our inevitable binding. “It’s possible they could have used magic. There are spells that can sap the will.”

“But are those spells capable of entrancing a whole village?” my father asked.

“Yes, though it is not my area of expertise.”

I’d heard rumors that at least one of the Zephrine king’s many sons was a spell caster, though none had ever mentioned if it was either of his two legitimate sons or the dozen or so illegitimate ones. Nor had any rumor ever mentioned the type of magic Damon was gifted with. Which was decidedly odd given personal magic—aside from Strega—was usually celebrated rather than derided. “But you do know someone whose expertise it is?”

A cool smile touched his lips. “Indeed. I’ll scribe her this evening.”

Her . Maybe it wasn’t my lack of womanly assets that had delayed our binding as much as another woman. Or two. Which was to be expected, given he was two years older than me and the king’s heir, but it nevertheless annoyed me. I had by no means kept myself “pure” for our very delayed nuptials, but I’d also never really had a long-term relationship. I was a princess, even if not the heir, and there’d been more than one occasion where it was the supposed “prestige” that came with the title rather than the person that had attracted them. The last one had damn near broken my heart, and I’d basically sworn off attachments since.

Rion grunted, then turned to me. The sternness fell away, replaced by amused annoyance—an expression that was quite common when we weren’t in any sort of official situation. “Your mother has threatened to place an embargo on our bedroom activities if I do not get you home this evening.”

“But—”

“No,” he said, obviously understanding what I’d been about to say. “Rutgar will take you home. I’ll see you tomorrow, at the ceremony.”

I ground my teeth in frustration, though my banishment was not unexpected. He might be the king, but my mother ruled the family. This was her order, not his.

I nodded in acceptance, then turned and strode away. I was more than a little surprised to find Damon falling in beside me.

“You’re not staying here to help sort out the puzzle?” The question came out more terse than necessary.

“I am, but it would hardly be polite to allow my betrothed to wander a destroyed settlement alone.”

I snorted. “We both know you didn’t want said betrothal, Damon, so please feel free to be impolite. I don’t really care.”

“Oh, I think you care far more than you wish to admit.”

I shot him a glance. “In part, I suppose you’re right—I do care about a great many things. Sadly, you’re not one of them.”

He laughed, a short sharp sound that hung warmly on the cold evening air. “That may well be true, but we are, unfortunately, stuck with each other. We need to discuss a means of making this situation work for us both.”

“Ah,” I said, suddenly understanding. “You don’t wish our commitment to hamper your womanizing.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I’m not entirely sure what you’ve heard about me, but that’s not what I meant.”

“You deny the womanizing?”

“Of course not.”

“Are we talking conjugal rights, then?” I have no idea what he saw in my expression, but his gaze narrowed. “Because I feel bound to warn you, Damon: If you touch me without invitation, I will gut you.”

The glimmer briefly appeared in his glorious eyes again, though his expression showed little evidence of amusement. “Warning heeded, princess. But do remember that statement runs both ways.”

I let my gaze drift lazily from the top of his smooth, clean-shaven head, down his well-muscled length, before pausing on his crotch. “Oh, I think it fair to say you’re safe from me. My tastes run to men with a little more... hair.”

He stared at me for several heartbeats and then laughed again. “Oh, if this is but a teaser of what is to come in our relationship, I am delighted.”

“At least one of us is.” I returned my gaze to the sea. The storm showed no sign of easing, and the waters in the cove looked dark and turbulent. It was going to be a hellish trip home.

I could feel the weight of his gaze on me. It had the inner fires flaring to life, heating my blood and making my pulse pound.

“It is a marriage, not an execution,” he said softly. “You have nothing to fear from me.”

But plenty to fear from Zephrine itself. He didn’t say that, but it oddly seemed to hang in the air between us. “So says the man who gives up nothing. Not his friends, not his rank, not life as he knows it.”

And certainly not his drakkons... and while they weren’t “mine,” per se, it was the cut that hurt the deepest. I’d see my parents several times a year, as there were regular councils between the two great cities, but I would never see the queen or her drakklings again. Zephrine was not where she hunted, even if her grace lay in the Red Ochre Mountains. Where, I had no idea. She’d never mentioned the location, and I’d never asked.

I took a deep breath and released it slowly, but it didn’t do much to ease the inner churning.

“You are not alone in giving up your life or the things you love,” Damon said, a bitter edge creeping into his tone. “Remember that.”

My gaze unwillingly went to his. There was little emotion in either his expression or his eyes, and yet I felt the anger in him, the frustration. I couldn’t help but wonder who he’d been forced to give up for this farce of a marriage.

If he’d given her up, that is. Zephrine’s royal line did have a reputation for promiscuity, after all. I doubted being married to me would change that.

But then, this marriage was a tradition forced on us both; me because I was an only child, and he because his younger brother had secretly undergone a commitment ceremony, which he then presented as a fait accompli in order to negate any attempt to force the marriage onto him, as had been done in the past.

It was an action that threw another problem into the mix, at least where I was concerned. In marrying the heir, I would be under pressure to produce a son once we got back to Zephrine.

I really, really wished there was some way to put off going there anytime soon.

I continued silently down to the boat, all too aware of the man who strode at my side. Which I guess wasn’t such a bad thing. Being physically attracted to the man I was about to spend the rest of my life with was a far better option than being repulsed.

Rutgar—a thickset man with a fierce red complexion and a matching plait of hair—waited at the end of the gangplank. His expression was anxious—no doubt he wanted to get a move on before the tide turned and night closed in. While there was an air witch on board—they were something of a necessity when navigating the treacherous seas around these parts—Rutgar was the old-fashioned type who preferred magic only as a last resort. Not that he’d be relying on his skills tonight—not in this storm and not with me on board. He no doubt had orders to get me back to Esan quickly and in one piece, and that meant putting the air witch’s ability to manipulate the weather to full use.

When we reached the ramp, I stopped and turned to Damon. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You will.” He looked set to add something else but, in the end, simply bowed and strode away.

“Captain Silva?” Rutgar said. “We need to set sail, otherwise the seas will be against us.”

“From the look of things, they already are.”

“Close to, but we should make it out of the heads before things get too tricky.”

I suspected the chance of escaping tricky seas had well and truly passed us by, but I held my tongue and stepped onto the gangway. After clambering over the gunwale, I moved to the stern of the boat and the small, covered area that lay underneath the vessel’s ornately carved tail.

Oran—the air witch whose job it was to get us safely home—gave me a brief nod but his attention was already on the storm he’d soon be pushing us through. The air crackled with the force of his rising magic.

I sat on the opposite bench, dumped my backpack beside me, and tightly gripped the wooden hold above my head. The ramp was quickly drawn and, as the oarsmen assumed their positions, Oran’s magic surged. Its force was so sharp that my skin crawled. I leaned back in an effort to put a little more distance between us, but it didn’t really help.

The ship rocked from side to side as she eased off the sand ridge. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the rising tide of fear. There was no logical reason for it, especially when we had an air witch on board. Controlling the weather was what they lived for, and Oran had long guided my father’s ship to safety through storms far worse than this.

Once in deeper water, the ship surged forward, cutting easily against the wind and the waves as she headed for the heads and the open water.

I tried to relax, but my stomach felt as wild and stormy as the sea. The full force of the storm hit when we rounded the heads; waves crashed over the ship, washing her decks with their malevolence, drenching oarsmen even as they threatened to sweep away anything not tied down. The wind howled, and the ship pitched and rolled, the motion violent and unsettling.

Then Oran’s magic sharpened, and we were abruptly wrapped in a bubble of calm. The ship settled and surged forward again, slicing through the seas at speed, the bubble preceding us while the storm’s violence crashed into the foam of our wake. I sent a silent prayer to Túxn—the goddess of good luck—that Oran’s strength outlasted the worst of the storm. I really didn’t want to be sailing around the Throat of Huskain when it failed.

We were a little over two hours into the four-hour journey home when the vague feeling that something was wrong stirred.

At first I thought it was simply our nearness to the Throat; the seas that crashed against its fortress-like walls might provide rich pickings for fishermen, but the uncertain currents made it a dangerous area to traverse in calm seas, let alone storm-clad.

But the closer we got, the more certain I became the wrongness had nothing to do with the sea or the storm.

Then the vibration began along the mental lines.

I frowned and silently reached out, trying to find the source of whatever I was sensing. After a moment, I pinned it down—it was at the very far edges of my reach, and it was a mind unlike anything I’d ever come across before. It was fierce and cruel, a mind whose patterns of thought were both foreign and bizarre. In thirty years of existence, I’d not sensed anything like it.

But as I tried to forge a deeper connection, the link was severed, and so damn brutally that pain rebounded and made me gasp.

I blinked back tears and rubbed my head. Though I had no idea what I’d briefly connected to, I was certain of one thing. Someone else had severed the connection.

I rose, clipped myself onto the guide rail, and then stepped out of the shelter. Oran’s bubble continued to protect us, but the seas around the Throat were so unpredictable the occasional wave got through. The unwary—or unsecured—could easily be washed overboard.

Rutgar hurried over. “Is there a problem, Captain?”

“Maybe.”

I studied the white-capped seas uneasily. There was life underneath those waves—white-finned blackfish, sea devils, and deadly spear rays. None of them were the source of what I’d sensed.

My gaze rose. Light rolled across the darkness, a brief flash that lent the low clouds an ominous glow.

And hid whatever it was that now approached.

Rutgar’s gaze followed mine. “You sensing a drakkon?”

“Drakkons have more sense than to come out in weather like this.”

“Not so. We’ve lost ships to them before, and in storms far worse than this.”

“Only because we were killing them en masse,” I said. “There hasn’t been an attack since the ballistas fell silent.”

“Revenge is a trait both humans and drakkons share,” he said.

And no matter what I said, I wasn’t going to convince him otherwise. “Whatever is out there isn’t a drakkon.”

Something thumped heavily against the roof of the covered area. I spun around, one hand instinctively gripping my sword. On the top of the wooden structure was what appeared to be a mound of dung. Dung that was melting into the wooden struts.

Before I could investigate further, a shout from the prow had me spinning around again. An oarsman was down. Rutgar swore and sprinted forward. I followed.

More thumps. More steaming piles of stinking dung. More men down.

Screams of shock and anger now filled the air, the noise almost masking another—a thick, ominous splintering.

My gaze jumped to the mast. A crack raced down its center, cleaving the thick beam in two. It crashed onto the deck, smashing into the gunwale and killing two oarsmen who didn’t get out of the way fast enough.

“What in Vahree’s name is happening?” Rutgar shouted.

“I don’t know, but the sooner we get out of here, the better.” I spun around. “Oran, we need?—”

The rest of the sentence died in my throat. Oran was dead, slumped sideways on the bench, half his face sliced away. Something glittered in the bloody remnant of his left cheek—something that was gold and metallic.

I swore but before I could do anything, say anything, the bubble protecting us shattered, leaving us at the full mercy of the storm. The boat plunged steeply, sending me tumbling toward the broken part of the hull. A second before I would have plunged into the icy water, the safety rope snapped taut, cutting deep into my waist even as it stopped my fall.

“Ingrid, Tennent!” Rutgar was shouting. “Get the trysail and jib up!”

As they obeyed, I hauled myself up and away from the gunwale. More thumps on the deck. More blobs of brown. This time, they weren’t just melting through the deck, but dropping into the bilge. Dark water welled up through the emerging holes.

I swore and ran for one of the hand pumps; it took a few minutes to ease the stiff lever into a constant rhythm, but even as it ejected water swiftly over the side, I knew it was useless. The pumps were too slow, and the hold filling too fast.

We were going to sink.

“Rutgar!” I shouted. “We need to get to the shore!”

“Can’t,” he replied. “We’re in the middle of the Throat—the rocks will smash us to pieces.”

And if we stayed out here, the seas would do the same...

The thought had barely crossed my mind when a massive wave broke across the bow and the boat began to roll.

Rutgar immediately shouted more orders, and the ship began to turn. For an instant, I thought we were safe.

But the incoming wave was too big, and the boat too small.

It swept us up, then smashed us down, breaking the ship into multiple pieces and pushing us deep under the malevolent sea.