Dragan Read online

  “Then it was someone?”

  She cocks her head to the side. “I’m beginning to think it was all a dream.”

  Her face is clenched in great concentration, but even so, she’s stunning. A tendril of hair falls in front of her focused features. “Did you see anyone?” she asks, almost hopefully.

  “No,” I tell her. And it’s the truth. I’d heard her voice, but when I arrived at the pond’s edge to see Eilish, she was entirely alone. I’d even summoned the Commune With Nature charm in order to scan the forest nearby but she was the only one there.

  “Cambion,” she starts and looks up at me. Her voice is soft and hushed and, despite my grating distrust of her, I feel lulled by it. Hearing her say my name tugs at something in my abdomen. I want to hear her say it again…

  “What?” I ask, rather curtly.

  “Is there anyone more powerful than Morrigan?”

  I stifle a laugh. “Of course not!”

  Eilish nods, but appears as though there’s more on her mind. “What about gods?”

  “Did that stone turn your head?”

  She’s quiet.

  “Why are you asking me about gods?” I ask, in a softer tone. I don’t know what it is about this woman but she makes me want to bark at her but at the same time, I recognize my own acidity and sometimes I even regret it.

  “The gods…” She looks up at me expectantly.

  I stop myself again. “You’re choosing an odd moment to begin a discourse on philosophy,” I say.

  She nods but her mind is elsewhere. “How do I learn more about the gods?”

  Somehow, I’ve all but forgotten I’ve just found her conversing with someone in the woods. I continue, “Variant burned all books referencing any of the gods when he took power.”

  “Why?”

  I shrug, thinking the answer obvious. “He didn’t want anyone learning there were beings more formidable than him. The Mortal and Shadow Realms are mostly godless now. You’ll find the odd believer here and there, but no one would dare speak the gods’ names outside the safety of their own homes.”

  “And in the Fae Realm?” she asks.

  I nod. “The Fae view them a bit differently. There are a number of Silvanite clerics who still actively preach, though they don’t reference the deities directly. Instead, the gods simply function as druids and rangers, ensuring the proliferation of the natural world and protesting civilization’s expansion into the woodland.” I pause for a moment and then frown. “They’re all a bunch of quacks if you ask me. If there are or ever were gods, I know one thing… they don’t care about us.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  I shake my head. “Look at what’s become of this world!”

  She nods, growing quiet for another few moments. Then she looks up at me again. “Once Baron is finished with the stone, will it be my turn?” she asks, hope in her expression.

  I shake my head. “The stone will need to be cleansed of Baron’s memories and re-energized with my own fae magic before it can hope to return your memories to you.”

  She nods but appears disappointed. “How long will that take?”

  “Perhaps a few hours to cleanse and another two or so hours to re-energize.” I give her a parental expression. “Patience is a virtue.”

  But then I wonder what the bloody hell I’m going on about. Why even attempt to return her memories to her when she’s a spy? Perhaps this was all an act on her part and she’s had her memories all this time?

  No, it’s important to subject her to the stone, in case there is some truth to her claims, I tell myself.

  We reach the border of camp to see an exhausted Baron seated beside a small fire. Nearby, Dragan crouches over the fire, his posture open and non-intimidating. He’s in the process of cooking something, proof in the fact that there appears an iron pot floating above the flames, courtesy of Dragan’s shadow magic.

  Baron’s shoulders are slumped forward; he looks exhausted.

  Eilish’s pace quickens until she’s nearly jogging to reach Baron. When she meets him by the fire, he looks up at her and her eyes are wide with worry.

  “Are you okay?” she asks as she extends a hand to his shoulder. He simply nods. Dragan, meanwhile, watches the exchange with an obvious frown and narrowed, angry eyes.

  He might not trust the girl, but it’s clear he still has feelings for her.

  “Whatever that is, it smells terrible,” says Baron, gesturing to the misshapen black pot spluttering and coughing over Dragan’s small fire. I bite back the condescending remark that rises up and into my mouth regarding Dragan’s Transmutation abilities as applies to his cooking.

  Instead, I save my attentions for Baron. His voice is low and tired, his face sickly. His comment regarding the stew wasn’t exactly the revelation we all were hoping for, but at least he still possesses his language faculties.

  “Didn’t need no fancy stone to tell you that much,” points out the disgruntled sprite as he stares dejectedly into the cup of stew that rests in his lap, untouched (impressive for the portly creature).

  The steam rising from its surface smells acrid, and I decline to help myself to the remaining stew. The liquid inside looks to be hardly more than water, a few errant roots and questionable meat float inside. Rabbit? I’ve seen a few near camp, though all were skinnier than food grade.

  Dragan grunts.

  We all settle in once more, no one wanting to be the first to break the silence.

  Baron’s somber mood is understandable. Our collective history isn’t a pretty one. If I had a choice between knowing and not knowing, I’d choose the latter. I wonder if Baron regrets his decision to witness the suffering we’ve all endured. He isn’t the only member of the walking dead—none of us is the same man we were when crowned all those years ago.

  The mood around the fire is dark while we wait for Baron to speak. I would assume Dragan’s thoughts aren’t far from mine. We both know what Baron has most likely seen in the stone—his own death at the hand of a man he once called brother. It’s an image neither Dragan nor I have been able to carve out of our memories, no matter how hard we’ve tried. But the memories extend beyond just Baron’s murder to include visions of the war, the loss of our soldiers, the betrayals.

  “It’s bleak, isn’t it?” Dragan says finally as he faces the vampire.

  Baron doesn’t look at the gargoyle. Instead, his eyes find Eilish and his eyebrows knit together as though he’s remembering who she is. He appears to be wholly confused and out of sorts. No matter—it’s to be expected. The stone just returns memories to you—it doesn’t bother to put them into context or chronological order. And there’s no guarantee the memories it does return are complete.

  Baron nods. “It’s difficult to explain, everything still blends together and makes little sense.” He raises his hands to his head to rub his temples. Eilish looks first to Dragan, then to me.

  I offer a shrug.

  “I need to speak with Eilish alone,” Baron announcess after a protracted pause.

  I see Dragan tense.

  “Why?” I ask at the same time Dragan says, “No.”

  We all look at him but his eyes are focused only on Baron. And they’re angry.

  “You have no more business here,” he starts. “Cambion restored your memories to you and now you need to make your way on your own, just like we agreed.”

  TEN

  Cambion

  Mortal Realm

  “Dragan,” Eilish starts as she turns from Baron and faces the barbarian.

  Dragan staunchly shakes his head and refuses to look at her.

  “Baron,” I begin but the vampire interrupts me.

  “Revenant,” he hisses. “My name is Revenant.”

  Fuck calling him Revenant. He’s Baron, just as much as he always was.

  Dragan spears Baron with the weight of his stare. “The agreement was that once Cambion restored your memories, you’d leave.”

  “No, Dragan,” Eilish
says, her tone of voice bordering on panicked. “He needs us as much as we need him.”

  “Revenant is weak after experiencing the stone,” I say in a low, yet strong voice as I face the immense gargoyle. “It wouldn’t be right to set him on his own at this point.” I don’t tell him that we need Baron because I figure that avenue of argument won’t get far.

  Baron has somehow upset the proud barbarian and I have a feeling that upset has everything to do with the girl. Fucking fools—both of them.

  “I don’t give a fuck,” Dragan says as he faces me.

  “Well, I don’t believe your not giving a fuck matters much,” I answer with a simple shrug. “It would seem you’ve been outvoted, old chap,” I finish with a smug smile.

  Dragan inhales deeply and there’s a pronounced reddish hue overcoming his cheeks. Well, fuck him! Clearly he’s forgotten the fact that I’m now in charge and for good reason. I don’t allow my fucking jealousy to get in the way of what needs to be done.

  “I need to speak with Eilish alone,” Baron says again.

  Flumph pipes up, “Secrets don’t make friends,” he half mocks before clumsily tipping his stew, its hot contents falling across his lap. “Christ on a corndog!” he cries an’ then flies upward and begins circling, all the while doing a strange dance midair.

  “Flumph is right,” I say, before wincing at the indignity of aligning myself with the imbecile sprite. “If we’re to beat Variant, it’s important we all be open and honest with one another.”

  Dragan and Baron exchange a look; I see Eilish shrink into herself. I wonder at their expressions and begin to believe the three of them have a secret of their own…

  “I’se gotta secret,” the sprite confides. He looks guiltily into his lap. “Earlier when me and Gar-boil was collecting firewood, I took me a nap instead.”

  “We know, Flumph,” say Eilish and Dragan in unison. Eilish blushes.

  The sprite looks relieved after his confession.

  I don’t have time for this crap.

  “It’s… important I speak with Eilish,” Baron says again.

  Dragan and I exchange looks, but this will be my call. “Very well,” I say as I flash Dragan a look that warns him not to argue. He glares at me but turns and trudges into the forest, wandering away, perhaps to regurgitate the slop he calls stew.

  “Be quick,” I say to Baron as I prepare to depart and allow the two of them their supposed privacy. Truth is, I have every intention of spying on them. In times of war, privacy is not a right. It’s a luxury.

  Baron nods and I depart, marching along the crunchy sticks and leaves that litter the forest floor as Eilish and Baron’s conversation begins. I can hear the low hums of their voices carry across the empty tree branches, but before I can listen for specific words, my hearing is obscured by the loud flapping of Flumph’s wings.

  “Whatcha think they’re talkin’ ‘bout, all secret-like?” he asks, annoying the bloody fuck out of me.

  “I don’t know,” I say, swatting at the sound of his wings hovering close to my ear. He doesn’t take the hint, just as I knew he wouldn’t. If my owl, Trym, were present, I should order him to eat the bloody thing with immediacy. Luckily for Flumph, he’s not.

  “Think they’s talkin’ ‘bout bein’ in looooove?”

  “No,” I respond coldly. I’ll need my focus in order to cast a scrying spell, which means the sprite needs to bugger off. I begin looking for something I can use as my focus—in general, scrying spells require a mirror, or a fountain filled with water. Yes, I could create either with my Transmutation Magic but doing so is time-consuming and quite frankly, I don’t believe I have the time. In a pinch, I can use the fluorite crystal in my ring, but I don’t wish to be sloppy. Baron will know someone is listening if I’m not careful.

  “Or maybees they workin’ for Variant now. That stone changed their ‘legiances!” Flumph continues.

  “Why don’t you go spy on them and see what you can find out?” I ask in an attempt to rid myself of the infuriating thing.

  “Me?” he asks.

  “Of course!” I fake urge him back the way we came.

  “I isn’t very sneaky,” he hedges.

  “You may surprise yourself,” I reply, already distracted. I focus my energy on the stone in my ring, hoping Baron’s exhaustion will cause his guard to slip.

  As soon as Flumph’s wings flutter away, back in the direction in which we just came, I close my eyes as I press the ring to my forehead and channel my energy into the fluorite. Immediately the crystal begins to heat and I instruct it to act as my ears.

  At first the sounds of Baron and Eilish’s conversation meets my ears in a blur but slowly the words begin to take legible shape. I deepen my concentration and fairly soon I can hear Baron as clearly as if he were standing beside me.

  “… destroyed by the last of the Succubus,” Baron finishes.“But deep down Dragan knows you aren’t the same as Lamia and her sisters. If he actually believed you were, he wouldn’t still care about you.”

  “And why do you even think he does?” Eilish’s clear voice rings out, startling me out of the lull of Baron’s deep bass. I’m immediately waylaid by my own confusion.

  “It’s obvious in the way he looks at you, and the way he dislikes me.”

  “But what does it mean?” Eilish continues. “So what if I’m part Succubus? I’m still me. I haven’t changed. Dragan can’t hate an entire race of people just because he was manipulated by three.”

  What the fucking fuck? I rail against myself as shock launches a bomb inside my stomach. The bloody angel is a fucking Succubus?! How is it even possible? The last of the Succubae died when Dragan sacrificed Lamia and her daughters!

  “I think Dragan can and does,” Baron says.

  “It’s… it’s so unfair.”

  “Such is the way of the world,” he responds with a snicker. I’m still so fucking floored, I find it difficult to continue paying attention to their conversation.

  “I’m not those women,” Eilish says stubbornly.

  “Aren’t you, though?” Baron asks.

  If she’s Succubus, she’s demon. There’s nothing more to be said on the subject.

  It’s a moment before I can detach my focus enough to process what they’re saying. The events of the last few days begin to make so much more sense. In fact, everything makes so much more sense.

  Dragan’s sudden cold attitude towards her…

  My attraction to her, my distrust of her from the outset…

  She isn’t the creature of light I thought she was.

  Eilish being Succubus changes everything.

  My confusion doesn’t stay long. Soon it’s replaced with a boiling fury as something else occurs to me.

  They lied to me! They fucking lied to me!

  All three of them—Baron, Dragan, and Eilish.

  They knew what she was and they kept it a secret. Why? Aren’t we all on the same team? Dragan wants my help with his suicide pact, and he still can’t even manage to give me a modicum of fucking truth!

  My rage is enough to make my focus fail, and there’s a small shift in the air as I hurry to correct my mistake.

  “Shhh,” Baron says urgently, “someone’s listening.”

  I freeze, certain I’ve been caught.

  “There he is!” Eilish shouts. I whip around, but I’m still out of sight from both of them, thus I realize she can’t be referring to me.

  Then, I hear it, Flumph’s tinny voice joins the scene.

  Relief washes over me, but it’s not long before my anger returns. I open my eyes and detach my focus from the ring, taking long strides toward the vicinity in which I saw Dragan heading.

  The forest is empty, the dawn of a new day casts its eerie blue over the still trees. Dragan is nowhere to be seen. I use Locate Creature to sniff him out and my attention is directed nearby, up the branch of a tree not ten yards from me.

  Sitting on the lowest branch, so still he could be a statue, is Dr
agan.

  “I have a fucking bone to pick with you!” I say. I feel like sucker-punching him but I know better. Punching Dragan is like trying to punch a grizzly bear.

  With an impressive leap, he lands in front of me, rattling the forest.

  “What’s up your butt?” he asks before stalking off deeper into the forest. I follow him.

  “Maybe it has something to do with the fact that everyone is fucking lying to me.”

  He scoffs. “Lying to you?”

  “About the angel,” I continue. “If we can even call her that anymore.”

  “You know, then?” He stops in his tracks and turns to face me.

  “Yes, I fucking know! And you know what else I know? This whole fucking thing is now a doomed mission!”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you would or wouldn’t say, you cock! Look at the fucking facts!”

  “Calm down.”

  “Calm yourself down!” I glare back at him. “The three of you fucking lied to my face while trying to sell me on this team shit, that using the power of the angel we could defeat Variant. What a load of fucking shit!” I spit at his feet and when I look up, there’s fire in his eyes.

  “We had no other choice.”

  “Fuck no other choice!”

  “Revenant and I haven’t known long,” he asserts. “We found out right before we crossed the River of Souls.”

  “So why the fuck didn’t you tell me then?”

  “Because… it was complicated.”

  “Fuck complicated!” I pause to take a breath. “You owed it to me to tell me.”

  “And give you even more reason to hate her?”

  “I would have every right to hate her! She’s a fucking demon! A manipulative, powerful demon who’s probably been draining every one of us this whole time! Fucking fuck, Dragan! I shouldn’t have to explain that to you, of all fucking people!” I inhale deeply and notice he hasn’t responded. “How could you possibly still trust her after learning she’s fucking Succubus?”

  “I don’t trust her,” he tells me. His voice is low, a growl. I know I’m entering dangerous territory, but I can’t stop myself. Fury is consuming me.