Narim’s eyes kept flicking from my sword to my face and behind me to the Senai. “Even if he warns Roelan away, I can’t allow MacAllister to live. Eventually the dragons will come back here. The pull will be too strong. We’ll wait—another five hundred years if we must, in hiding if we must—but we will keep the bloodstones; we will keep the lake tainted with jenica; and we will control the dragons. I can allow no one to live who is capable of undoing it.” As he spoke, his glance flicked again, but this time to his left. The torches from the distant shoreline had vanished. I dared not take my eyes from Narim, but I took a step backward to get a wider view. Not ten paces to my right were two hard-eyed Elhim sneaking over the end of the rockfall nearest the water, each of them wearing a bloodstone around his neck.
“I’m sorry, Lara,” said Narim, motioning his allies forward. The two took positions on either side of him, trapping Aidan and me between themselves and the boulder and the cliff, our only retreat the too-long path to my caves. “I’m too old for faith. Lay down your weapons.”
I couldn’t afford to look behind me to see if Aidan was capable of running. The screaming dragon swooped low across the lake, and the brimstone-tainted wind of his passing made the ground shudder. I settled my grip on the sword and drew my dagger. “I won’t.”
One of the newcomers, wearing a light-colored tunic, moved first. I beat back his attack, leaving him slightly off balance, and spun around just in time to catch his fellow’s curved blade that was on a line for my legs. One and then the other and then the first one again, I split my attention between the two Elhim, straining to see in the weak moonlight. My arms were longer, but the Elhim were light and quick, and I had to dance and spin and dodge, all the while keeping an eye on Narim, who stood on the strip of rocks watching us. When was he going to join in? How in Jodar’s name was I going to handle a third?
A rapier point glanced off my vest, and it took all my attention to discourage its owner, while preventing his friend from ripping my back open. Only when I had pushed them both back toward the lake, the rapier fellow with a bleeding thigh wound, could I spare a glance to my left. Narim no longer stood on the rocky berm. I whirled about, frantic. Almost invisible in the shadow of the cliffs, he had crept around behind me, dagger ready, heading for Aidan, who knelt glowing with more than moonlight and oblivious to the danger.
“You will not!” I screamed, and sprang toward Narim. But the other two leaped on me from behind, dragging me to the sand. “Aidan! Watch out!” Neither Elhim nor Senai paid me any mind.
But in that same moment, yellow light flared from beside the boulder at the water’s edge, and a voice boomed, “Hold, Elhim! Not one more step. Not one move, or my lieutenant’s arrow is in your throat. In the name of King Devlin, I command you stand down.”
Men rushed out of the darkness and disarmed Narim, while others yanked the weight off my back. I pressed my head to the sand for a moment, both ragged and relieved, the burden of life, death, and the world’s future lifted from my shoulders along with my attackers.
As a soldier bound his hands behind his back, Narim squinted, puzzled, into the torchlight. “Who’s there? Who are you?”
“My lord.” I scrambled off the sand and, without the least resentment, nodded to the dark-haired young Senai who stepped into the light, the same man who with his single strong arm had rescued me from the bowels of Cor Neuill in the very hour of my punishment. “Narim, meet His Royal Highness Donal, the crown prince of Elyria,” I said. Twenty more well-equipped soldiers, frayed and bloody, followed the prince into the sandy clearing. “I thought you’d never get here.”
King Devlin’s offer of protection for the Twelve Families in exchange for my release had rankled the high commander, but Prince Donal had been very persuasive. After all, the future of the clan was at stake, and MacEachern was directly pledged in fealty to the king of Elyria. The high commander, still reeling from the reports of escaping dragons, grudgingly agreed that King Devlin was the strongest of the clan’s possible allies. But when the prince escorted me out of the lair and into the Ridemark camp, the agreement fell apart. My brother claimed that King Devlin had forfeited the clan’s loyalty by freeing the dragons, and he roused the warriors to rebel against the high commander and reclaim their ruined honor, along with a certain traitorous daughter of the Ridemark. And so Prince Donal and his fighters had held off two hundred Ridemark swordsmen long enough for Davyn and me to get away, the prince risking his life and freedom because a man he had never met had asked him to do whatever was needed to save my life.
“Are you well, Mistress Lara?” asked the prince, examining me carefully. Once I showed him that the blood on me was not my own, he smiled and tipped his head to something over my shoulder. “And he ... we’re not too late, then?” His eyes shone with wonder ... and I understood when I turned to look on the one who knelt on the sand behind me.
Despite his filthy clothes and dirt-streaked skin, in that moment Aidan MacAllister had no kinship with any human creature. Tiny white flames danced about his body. His eyes were closed, his arms and hands spread wide apart as if to embrace the night. Only now that the blood rush of battle had faded in my ears did I hear that he had begun to sing—softly, as if soothing a child plagued with restless dreams. As we watched and listened, his powerful voice swelled into a torrent of passionate music.
Gathering what sense remained to me, I turned away.
Narim had no eye for Aidan or for the prince or even for the soldier who was binding his arms securely behind his back, but only for the Elhim who had followed Prince Donal into the torchlight. “Davyn!” said Narim, only to clamp his mouth shut again when he saw his dearest friend’s face grow stone hard at the sight of him.
“I must be the greatest fool who ever walked the earth,” said Davyn, striding briskly toward Narim, “and it would not be half so hard did I not love you still.” With a powerful yank, Davyn snapped the leather strap that held the bloodstone to Narim’s neck.
Narim did not drop his eyes.
Davyn turned on his heel, tossing the red gem on the ground by the prince’s feet. “We’ll find the rest of them, my lord.” The prince nodded, still mesmerized by the wonder behind me. Davyn led fifteen of the Elyrian soldiers off toward the Elhim caverns. I retreated into the shadows of the great boulder, where it hung over the lake.
Almost an hour passed until the last clear note of Aidan’s song fell silent. His fire died away with the music, and the silver-white glow of his skin faded into more ordinary coloring. He pressed his hands to his eyes and spoke softly in words that sounded very much like the ancient tongue we of the Ridemark used, but I did not know their meanings. He tried again with the same result. After a visible struggle, his third attempt produced, “It’s all right. It’s all right.” Sighing tiredly, he sat back on his heels, lowered his hands, and blinked in astonishment at the awestruck crowd surrounding him. He looked from one face to the next, taking in the captive Narim, who refused to meet his eye, the other two Elhim, hands bound, the remaining Elyrian soldiers ... until his eye stopped on my rescuer. Though Prince Donal wore no badge of rank, no garb different from any of his soldiers save for the empty left sleeve tucked into his tunic, Aidan pushed himself to his feet and bowed deeply, wearing a smile so brilliant it rivaled the moon. “My Lord Prince ...”
The prince returned his grin. “You know me!”
“Were we in the grand marketplace of Vallior on the day of first harvest, I would know you, Donal.”
“And I you. Though finding you immersed in such mystery gives me the easier part.”
“Is Davyn ...?”