Chapter 28
K idron. Son of the Highest. Cursed. Never be.
The words rang in my head as a sort of jumbled litany. Confused, I wetted my lips with the tip of my tongue and ran my hands over my hair, fighting to make sense of this.
“Kidron,” I repeated. “Kidron. Son of the Highest. What is a Highest? Is that a—a lord? A king?”
“One might call my father a king,” he replied. “That is the language of the rest of the realm.”
I am mated to the son of a Warkin king. I am mated to a Dragonkind prince. How can this be?
I hardly knew what to do. I wanted to pace. That seemed inappropriate before a prince. A prince! And yet…and yet he had shared my bed, uninvited, for how many nights? Did I care about propriety?
“How can a Warkin pr-prince…” I stumbled over the word. “…be mated to a Sanlyn from the Jeweled Isles? It makes no sense!”
The depth of his stare haunted me. It was piercing, adoring, sad .
“That, I do not know,” he replied. “When I was cursed, I was forced to fly over the length and breadth of Aerisia, seeking my mate. She had to have magic. That was all I knew. Only her magic, and her love, could break my curse. I flew and I flew. I soared over the city and palace of Laytrii. I circled ‘round Cleyton, Braisley’s vale…”
“Who is Braisley?” I cut in.
“The head of all fairies,” he answered grimly. “The guardians. Those who protect the land. One of Aerisia’s most powerful beings. She sensed my need. She met with me. She told me of this cave and sent me on. From there, I flew near the Simathe stronghold in the Unpassed Mountains. I met with their First, and he told me I must seek a woman born with magic.”
I had no magic. I knew I did not. Yet I dared not disrupt his story.
Kidron concluded the tale by saying, “I met with the Mothers, and they sent me across the sea. By this point, I’d flown across Aerisia’s mainland and sensed nothing. I took to the sea. I bypassed ships and islands, sea creatures and mermaids. Still, I sensed nothing, Lorna. No matter how many lives I saw or creatures I met, I sensed no connection. No kinship. No sense of belonging.”
“No spark of magic?”
“There was plenty of that,” he chuckled grimly, folding his arms, drawing my attention to the breadth of his chest and the stain of candle wax on his shirt. “I passed many beings of magic. But no magic sang to me.”
“Until you sensed me. Through my father.”
He nodded, his keen eyes fixed on my face.
“You saved him from drowning. And my blood…”
“Sang to me,” he repeated, “drawing me to your island. There was no mistaking it, Lorna. Here we are.”
“Here we are,” I agreed. “Caught in this web of madness. ”
At this, his craggy features softened. His arms fell away from themselves and he took a step closer, gently grasping my upper arms.
“Lorna,” he said. “I am sorry. While I am sorry you were drawn into this, I am not sorry I met you. I never will be. Still, I am sorry you were taken from your home in this manner.”
“Stop,” I demanded. “You took me from my home. You brought me here. It was not a whim of fate, it was you.”
His hands did not release me, but he lowered his head in shame.
“I needed you,” he said humbly. “To break the curse.”
I could have been angry. I had a right to be angry. I knew that. I also knew everything had changed when I’d kissed him. Whatever he’d hoped to accomplish by bringing me here, I’d undone it by disregarding his warnings.
Rather than choose anger, I leaned into the feelings the first glimpse of his face had evoked. I leaned into the feeling of his hands on my arms, his flesh on my flesh, and I stepped closer to him, daring to place my palms on his chest, concealing the stain of candle wax—the mark of my disobedience.
“Tell me of this curse, Kidron,” I implored. “Perhaps there is yet a way to break it.”
Without raising his head, he slid his hands from my upper arms down to my wrists. I could not tell if he meant to hold me in place, to comfort me, or to comfort himself.
“It is finished,” he replied. “The terms of the curse have been broken. Soon, I will have to go.”
“No!” The word flew from my mouth, shocking me. “No, you cannot go,” I insisted, my fingers squeezing the front of his shirt, wrinkling it. “Tell me.”
He did. His hands began absentmindedly rubbing up and down my forearms, evoking sparks and light beneath my skin. My breath shortened, hitching in my chest, but my attention was fixed on the solemnity of his tale as it unfolded.
“My father is the Highest of our tribe. As his eldest child, I am his heir. I had a dragon, Nightflame,” he went on, “to whom I’d been bonded since he was a hatchling.”
I nodded, encouraging him to continue.
“My father needed help to overcome a rival clan,” he said. His face lifted, his gaze going to the opposite wall, which he stared at fiercely, as though the rock bore the secrets to his misery. “He went to a Scraggen.”
“A witch-woman,” I supplied. “Some are exceedingly powerful.”
“Aye,” he agreed, almost glaring at the wall. “My father went to the most powerful Scraggen he could find. I was there, as his heir, when they met. She agreed to help him—for a price. Me.”
“You?” I heard my own gasp, felt my fingers tighten in his shirt. “The Scraggen wanted you? For what?”
“Her daughter,” he chuckled roughly. “She wanted me for her daughter.”
“And your father…agreed to those awful terms?” I faltered, even as the strangeness of the parallels between his story and mine struck me.
Both of us, demanded by a creature of magic. He, by a Scraggen, for her daughter. Me, by a dragon. Him. His father, surrendering to the demands. My father, doing likewise.
“He believed he had no choice,” Kidron answered.
Just as my father had believed there was no choice.
“There is more to it than that,” I said. “Clearly. Else we would not be here, speaking.”
Kidron’s hands slowed, but his thumbs continued to gently stroke my forearms as if he thought better while touching me. Or, perhaps, found this difficult story easier to tell while stroking my skin .
“I had no wish to be given to a Scraggen’s daughter,” he said. “I was young and impetuous and wild. Also, I considered my father’s problems to be his.
“That is the difference between you and me,” he said, catching my attention with a sad smile. “You went with me willingly to save your father, your family, your island. I was determined to free myself from the trap my father had set. And flee I did. On my dragon. I did not know where or why. I suppose I hoped the matter would resolve itself or blow over.”
I studied his face in the dim light. The close-cropped beard. The tattoos. The fathomless gold of his eyes.
“How old were you?” I asked. He did not appear much older than me, yet he spoke of being a youth. He’d acted as a youth. One would think a king’s son would be raised with more dedication to his father, throne, and kingdom. His actions were those of a child, not a mature man. Not to mention the recklessness of the deed. There had been little foresight or planning in his method of escape. His answer confirmed it when he replied,
“I was fourteen. The Scraggen wished me to wed her daughter on my eighteenth birthday. I fled, thinking my dragon and I would fly to the farthest reaches of the realm and make our own way. After a time, the Scraggen would forget her claim on me, I would return home with Nightflame, resume my rightful role as my father’s heir, and all would be forgotten.”
Aye. That sounded like the impetuosity of youth. I’d had no dealings with the Scraggens, yet even I knew one did not lightly anger a witch-woman.
When I said this last part aloud, Kidron’s mouth turned down in a frown .
“No. I should not have angered her. I quickly discovered that I might flee as far as I wished, but I could not outrun a Scraggen’s magic. A strange thing began to take hold of me. Although I had been bonded to my dragon since it was a hatchling, we were two distinct entities. Nightflame was a dragon; I was a human. But that began to change.”
Before he spoke, I grasped what he was going to tell me. It explained so much.
“The Scraggen forced you to assume your dragon’s form,” I guessed.
The Warkin prince nodded soberly.
“Nor could I escape it. During the day, we are one. Only at night, in the dark hours, am I permitted to resume my humanity and my dragon his form. We have lived this way for nearly seven years, while I sought my mate. The longer this goes on, the more dragon I become. If the curse is not broken, Lorna, or I don’t marry the Scraggen’s daughter, one day, I will be dragon altogether. Nightflame and I will meld into one creature.”
Ice sluiced over me at the terrible words.
“Surely, there is a way to break the curse!” I said. Forgetting that he should be my enemy, that I should hate him, I stepped closer to the Warkin, clutching the shirt I had stained with candle wax.
“There was,” he replied solemnly. He reached up, clasping my hands and removing them from his shirt. Holding them firmly in his fists, he repeated, “There was. Unfortunately, it is crushed. I must go away to the Scraggen, and you will be free to return home.”
Even as he spoke, I felt my head shaking in denial.
“No. No! I don’t wish to be free to return home.”
Kidron regarded me sadly. “Don’t you? ”
“No!” I asserted stoutly. “Well, yes. I wish for freedom to choose whether or not I’ll return home or stay here with you. That is what I wish.”
“Would that I might have given you that choice,” he said soberly. “The Scraggen stripped it from me by the terms of her curse, making it nigh impossible to break. Alas, she has won.”
“No.” Angry, I twisted my hands, pulling my fingers free. “No, she has not. I know I blundered by disobeying your suggestions. Tell me what I did wrong, so I might repair the damage!”
“There is no undoing it,” he said. He took a step back. I felt him withdrawing from me, shutting himself off.
“After a few years in hiding, I sent word to my father. I wished to see if anything had changed and if I might return home safely. He dispatched a reply that the Scraggen had delivered her official terms to him. Before my twenty-first birthday, I must find a woman, born with magic, who would be content to dwell with me for a year without seeing my true form. If I could manage that, her magic would break the curse. My dragon and I would be separated, allowed to return to our natural state. If not, the magic of her curse would compel me to return to her and bow to her demands. Either that, or, if I tried to remain in hiding, I would become my dragon forever.
“From that point on, I sought such a woman, but by the time I found you…” His voice grew hushed. “I fear it was too late for me,” he finished.
My throat tightened as I considered the culmination of his tale and the ramifications of the curse. No wonder he had warned me against being alone with my mother. My mother had done exactly as he’d feared, and encouraged me to look upon his true form, thereby shattering his one chance at freedom .
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I did not know. You ought to have told me.”
“I couldn’t,” he shrugged. “Again, such were the terms of the curse. The Scraggen made it nearly impossible to break. She desired me to fail, so I’d be forced to wed her daughter. I couldn’t even tell you why I never left you unguarded at night, but I feared the Scraggen, by some witchery, finding my cave and killing you so I’d be bound to her daughter. Now…I am.”
“I will not accept that!” I cried fiercely, stepping towards him. “I made a mistake, but I can rectify it.”
The Warkin prince shook his head. His torment when he gazed at me bespoke more than sorrow at his own fate. His words confirmed it when he said,
“I would give anything for that to be true. The time we have spent together, although short, was the most peaceful time of my existence. There is something calming in your presence, Lorna. And joyful. You are my mate. I could have happily lived with you forever.”
Tears sprang to my eyes, burning. I would not let them fall.
“Tell me what to do, Kidron,” I pleaded. “At the very least, tell me where you go. I will follow you. I will find you.”
“I cannot ask that of you,” he replied. “I’ve asked far too much already. We tried, Lorna, and we failed. It matters not. I deserve my punishment for taking you from your family and keeping you here. You’re free now. Go home. Forget the dragon prince who lay beside you at night. Find happiness on your island with your family and tribe.”
“I will not do that.” Again, I stepped towards him, albeit he was retreating from me physically and emotionally. “Tell me where you are going. I will find you,” I vowed .
Kidron gravely studied my face, as if judging the weight of my promise. At last, soberly, he replied, “I know not. When I leave this cave, the magic will whisk me there. The name of the place is Moonswept, and it lies east of the sun and west of the moon.”
“What sort of directions are those?” I cried helplessly, throwing my hands in the air. “That is nonsensical. It could be anywhere!”
“It could,” he agreed. “Were I able to give you further instructions, I would. I cannot. I’ve not been there. However, since this attempt failed, once I leave the protection of the cave, the Scraggen’s curse will whisk me away.”
“Then don’t go.” Forcefully, I marched forward, grabbing his shirt and turning my face up to his. Demanding. Beseeching. “Stay here with me. Don’t go. Don’t leave the cave, Kidron. The cave provides all we need, does it not? I will stay here with you forever.”
Even as I spoke, he was shaking his head. His hands came up to entrap me. Gently, he drew me into his arms, holding me as I hadn’t even known I wished to be held. He pulled me against his body, into the strength of his broad chest and powerful arms. I laid my head on his shoulder and felt a tear slide from beneath my closed eyelids, even as I felt his arms tremble with the force of his emotions.
“Sweet Lorna,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “You are the bravest being, human or dragon, I have ever known. If there was a battle to be fought, a world to be won, or a conquest to be made, I would wish for none other than you by my side.”
Before I could reply, he pushed me from him and stepped back, regarding me with true sorrow.
“More than losing myself to the Scraggen’s spell, I regret that I cannot be with you as a fate intended. But I cannot stay. Already, I feel the pull of the witch-woman’s curse. Farewell, Lorna. Use the mirror to return to your island, and may you never know anything save happiness.”
“Kidron—”
He turned his back on me, ignoring my cries as well as my outstretched hand.
“Kidron!” I shouted as he marched away, his manner determined, like a man facing his death with bravery and acceptance.
“Kidron!”
I ran after him. His legs were longer than mine, meaning his stride was quicker. By the time I’d gathered my wits enough to give chase, he’d already made it past the doorway and into the shadows beyond. The darkness of the cave swallowed him whole. I could not see him.
“Kidron!” I cried desperately, but heard nothing in return, save the echoes of my own voice, bouncing back at me.
“Kidron! Kidron!”
Nothing. Too late. He was gone.
My once fondest wish—to be free of the dragon and no longer a prisoner—had been fulfilled.
And yet…it was the exact opposite of what I now wanted. I sank to my knees, hopeless and overwhelmed, covered my face with my hands, and wept.