Sadie
“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU CONJURED A FUCKING DRAGON,” KIAN said, holding a hand to the sky to block out the sun. His eyes trailed the flash of glittering carmine shooting through the sky.
We sat around a midday campfire, roasting a gamy lunch of squirrel and hare—a meal that I offered to catch seeing as I was the only Wolf of the bunch.
I would’ve been happy to just eat it raw, but I was sure that would garner some unwelcome looks from the others.
I was still on the back foot being surrounded by all these Songkeepers.
We’d crossed the Stoneater River on Galen den’ Mora—the wagon now packed with seven of us, including Navin’s little brother and my sworn enemy, Kian.
I hadn’t had a good chance to look at Kian when he was in his Rook uniform trying to kill me, but whenever I saw him now, it made me grab for my knives.
At the very least, he deserved for someone to pluck out an eyeball, but no, Navin said that would hurt the group morale.
And now that Navin was the involuntary leader of this group until Ora returned, I didn’t want to cause any dissent . . .
Well, not publicly.
“Do you think there’s a reason it was a dragon,” another musician, Svenja, mused.
She was a flautist with curly blond hair braided back off her temples, piercing ocean eyes, and a lithe body that she moved like dancing underwater.
“Why a dragon and not another creature? Is it the way you sang the eternal song? Or is it like your own personal brand of monster?”
“That is one of the many things we need to figure out,” Navin said as he licked the grease from his fingers. “There will be much to learn from the temple of knowledge.” I heard the unspoken word: “hopefully.”
Navin looked back up to the dragon circling the sky like a vulture.
She was every shade from rust to burgundy to bright scarlet, her scales every color of gore as if created from the Onyx Wolf blood itself, her body a reminder of the slaughter.
I swore she’d grown twice the size in only a week.
Already larger than a crishenem or samsavat, maybe she was still just a baby.
The thought was terrifying. Maybe she’d be big enough in a few more weeks that just the swipe of her tail would topple Nero’s castle.
Maybe . . . a dragon would be all we needed to win this war.
But first we needed to learn how to wield her. Right now, Navin treated her as no more than a scaly red puppy trailing our crew. We had to find a way to make her a weapon.
“You should’ve never done it,” Kian said, easily commanding the attention of the group, still ever the soldier.
His eyes were a cold hazel, his skin the same warm brown as Navin’s own.
He was incredibly tall and lean, only slightly smaller than his brother—undeniably related.
Both cunning and powerful in their own ways.
Though where Navin was passionate and creative, Kian was nothing but cold stoicism.
“You’re one to talk,” I muttered, flicking my knife back and forth.
Kian frowned down at the blade in my hand. “Do you always do that when you’re angry?”
“No,” I snarked, “sometimes when I’m angry, I stab smug little boys.”
Kian was about to reply when Navin held up a hand to his brother. “Don’t,” he commanded. “Or even I won’t be able to spare you from her steel.”
I smirked at Kian, satisfied that Navin was once again demonstrating he was firmly on my side.
Navin made a point of letting me know it at every available opportunity.
He wouldn’t make the same mistake of defending his brother again, and it was clear there was no love lost between the two.
Navin seemed to hate his brother even more than I did.
Still, we needed every advantage in this coming war and that meant having Songkeepers to wield their magic.
“You should give her a name,” Svenja said, squinting up at the dragon.
“I already have,” Navin replied, dusting his hands down his legs. “Haestas. After the old Valtan song ‘Nanesh ahm Haestas.’ ”
“That is a song about a phoenix rising from the burning sands of Lower Valta.” Svenja gave Navin an incredulous look. “You named your mythical beast after a different mythical beast?”
“Haestas means firestorm,” Timon said with a nod. “Good name.”
The crew started breaking out into song around the campfire. And while “Nanesh ahm Haestas” wasn’t part of their normal rotation, I couldn’t stomach listening to one more evening ballad. Apparently, Navin couldn’t, either.
“Save the songs for our travels. We should pack up and keep moving,” Navin said, nodding to Timon to go fetch the oxen.
Timon gave a grunt and pushed up from the log where he perched.
He was a short, stout man of few words, but Gods could he sing.
At night he’d regale us with sea shanties sung so deep that it made my chest vibrate.
It was amazing watching all of them together, performing music and improvising harmonies just for the fun of it.
It certainly made traveling far less boring .
. . although not entirely. For Navin and I also had to share the cramped wagon with all of them, which made finding any alone time nearly impossible.
I prayed that the temple of knowledge had lots and lots of bedrooms . . . with excellent soundproofing.
Or not. I was starting to not care if they heard—and felt—us set the wagon rocking.
You just have to wait a little longer . . .
But not too much longer.
Navin gave a whistle and Haestas sailed across the sky, off to go hunt for some lunch of her own.
I wondered if he could whistle for her to bring back a kill for us heartier than rabbit and squirrel.
If she could be trained to bring us back a goat or deer, what would stop her from one day bringing us back the bodies of Silver Wolves . . .
“She knows not to go too far north, doesn’t she?” Asha asked, nervously nibbling her bottom lip. She was the youngest of the musicians who’d come to Navin’s call—a mousy brunette, timid and shy, but according to Navin an incredibly powerful Songkeeper, too.
I’ll believe it when I see it.
“I can’t talk to her,” Navin said for what felt like the hundredth time. “But she knows. I don’t know how she knows,” he added quickly before someone could ask. “But she knows.”
We were all still trying to pick apart this bond he and his dragon shared, figure out all the working mechanisms to his magic.
Navin only had one quick peek at the vase engraved with the eternal songs in Valta before conjuring the beast, unable to study the intricacies.
With a little more time, he might’ve been able to fully decode communication with her like Rasil had with his samsavat.
“Hopefully the library of knowledge will contain hidden songs,” Svenja added, giving voice to my own thoughts. “It’s time to see what else your dragon can do.”
“Aye,” Timon added.
Ignoring their comments, Navin tipped his head to the fire. “Put that out—let’s go.”
I liked the new aura of command in his voice since Navin had become our de facto leader of this splinter group of the Songkeepers.
We needed this leadership, as it now seemed the musicians of Galen den’ Mora were on the other side of a war from their musical brethren—the ones who still backed Rasil.
Rasil—the Head Guardian of the Songkeepers, traitor, friend to the Onyx Wolves .
. . and Navin’s husband. That last part still grated me just as much as the rest, maybe more.
I couldn’t wait to help annul their nuptials by slicing Rasil’s throat open and letting him bleed dry.
It was the least he deserved for what he’d done to us.
The world would be safer for it, too. Who knew if Rasil would use the eternal songs to conjure more monsters into the world.
Gods, there might be no world left to save if the continent became overrun with beasts and dark magic again.
As if Nero wasn’t enough of a monster to deal with.
Navin slung his long arm around my shoulders and guided me back to the wagon as I frowned up at the familiar trees.
The heat of the desert had morphed to the cool lushness of the pine forests of Damrienn.
I’d never been this far south in my homeland.
No Wolf had. We’d always stayed close to the capital and our pack.
Guilt crept through me at how good it felt to be back in Damrienn. Something in me eased at the smell of the trees and wet earth. It was like an old friend welcoming me back home.
The humans were sparse down here, too, nothing but rolling forests as far as the eye could see . . . except—
I sniffed the air again. Just the faintest whiff on the wind.
Navin paused. “What is it?”
My eyes narrowed as I stared through the endless trees. “A scent in the distance.” I focused on it, more certain now of the acrid decay that lingered in the air.
“What is it?”
My hand drifted toward my knives. Fire, ashes, blood, bile, rot.
“Death.”
BILE ROSE IN MY THROAT AT THE OLFACTORY OVERLOAD IN MY nostrils, the repelling stench not only of death but also of rot, the kind that had been festering for weeks.
Scavengers feasted across the rubble. Vultures, foxes, rats, and creatures I’d never even known all fed.
Most of all the insects. Some corpses were so covered in ants, no flesh could be seen underneath the carpet of writhing black.
Others were like nurseries for maggots and the wriggling horror they became.
The decay choked my throat. I’d seen gore, I’d known death, but this was a kind of devastation that would haunt me for the rest of my days.
There were no survivors, and for that I thanked the Moon Goddess.
Rockford had been the town’s name, the southernmost dot on our map of Damrienn.
Below it had been only forests and a few hunting cabins, too small to be noted.
How many dots would be left on the map if Nero had his way?
One, I thought. Highwick and then nothing but forest and scorched rubble, pockmarked ashes of the humans that no longer existed in his kingdom.
Someone must avenge them. As I surveyed the eyeless sockets of decaying corpses, I vowed that Rockford wouldn’t be forgotten.
Navin and I took the lead, scouring the village reduced to ashes.
The others I tried to encourage to stay in the wagon and let it travel through the outskirts of town.
They were musicians for Moon’s sake; they didn’t need to see this kind of carnage.
I’d known my fair share of death and even I found the site haunting.
But I had once again underestimated the Songkeepers.
They were made of stronger stuff than they appeared.
Their nostrils flared and they covered their mouths with cloths, but still they searched.
Kian turned over beams and doorways, Svenja flipped over bodies that were clearly gone, and even Asha searched.
Still, the farther we moved through the town, the more we abandoned any hope.
I couldn’t hear a single heartbeat, couldn’t sniff out the pumping blood of a single living soul.
Some of the bodies were far from intact, injuries that weren’t inflicted by those scavenging their flesh.
A few had fought valiantly, it seemed. I scented Wolf blood, saw a few patches of silver fur torn out by panicked fingers, but humans were no match for trained Wolf soldiers.
Nero’s Silver Wolves had torn them all to shreds, and it was soon apparent they’d been unleashed on this little town.
In all my years as a soldier for the Silver Wolf King, never had I seen such untethered wrath.
I shuddered to think of the murderous frenzy that played out across Rockford, for the mutilation of these corpses was far beyond what was required to kill. This was the epitome of hatred.
The state of the world around me was the clearest indicator that the Silver Wolf King had gone from ruthlessly calculating to utterly insane.
My fear of him grew with every step. If he inspired this kind of violence. If he commanded it to spread . . .
If he brought this wreckage to Olmdere . . .
When we’d turned over every corner left of the little village and found nothing but despair, the Songkeepers gathered to sing the souls into the afterlife. The harmonies of their voices were rousing and hauntingly beautiful, blanketing the silent landscape in song.
I cleared my throat and wandered to the far side of the wagon, permitting myself a few tears before squaring my shoulders and returning.
I stared up at the brilliant red dragon circling high above us and I once again thought of Nero.
We needed to end him. I once called his pack my own, but I now knew he needed to be gone for good, and perhaps the entire depraved pack along with him.
Too much was at stake. How many human villages were there even left?
How many towns sat poised at the edge of his domain, living in fear of becoming the next Rockford?
My homeland was in ruin, the humans the whipping boys of Nero’s jealous anger.
Except sometimes whipping boys lived. There was no such hope here.
Their song finished, we solemnly loaded back into the wagon before pressing on toward the temple of knowledge, resolute in our mission. The only thing that mattered now was stopping Nero, whatever it took.
I thought of Navin’s dragon and once more wondered if it would grow big enough to handle that task.