Dragon Bones (Hurog #1)(45)

It made me angry, the way I'd been angry when my father hit Ciarra. I surged to my feet with a roar, startling the Tamerlain into backing away. "Enough! You have no need to torment him so. Leave my sister."

She looked at me through ember eyes, and still in my father's voice said, "Can you make me?"

Rage shook me, and magic from the foundations of the ancient temple came to my call, flooding me from my feet to my head as it forced a searing path through my body and mind.

She smiled, waved her hand, and the magic was gone as if it never had been. My body felt as if someone had filled it with ice water rather than blood, and I dropped to my knees, holding my head against the pain of it.

"Ward!" Tosten's warm hands closed on my shoulders.

"Not with my power, you can't." Ciarra's voice changed back to the first sexless whisper. "This is not the dragon's eyrie."

Ciarra closed her eyes, and her body toppled off the wall toward us, rather that down the hillside. Axiel caught her before she landed on the ground. Her body was limp, and she didn't awaken when Tosten patted her cheeks. The Tamerlain twitched its tail twice and disappeared.

I forced down panic and the throbbing headache that kept me on my knees. "Axiel and Tosten, take Ciarra back to camp and keep her warm. Oreg and I'll follow you."

"Are you all right?" asked Tosten in a low voice.

I nodded and gritted my teeth. "Yes. Fine. Go."

Tosten threw his head up at my tone like a young horse trying to evade the touch of the bit.

He looked at Axiel, said, "Let's go," and stalked off without looking at me again.

Axiel looked after him thoughtfully and glanced at Oreg. "If you're not careful, Tosten's going to hate Oreg - if he doesn't already."

"I'll deal with Tosten," I said shortly. "You take care of my sister."

Axiel nodded and followed Tosten into the darkness with my sister laid over his shoulder. I should have been tending to Ciarra, but she had Tosten and Axiel, and Oreg had only me. Aethervon said he'd reminded Oreg of what he was.

"It's all right," I told him, settling uncomfortably on the ground, for every muscle in my body hurt. "Aethervon's gone. You're safe." What was Oreg? A slave? Hurog?

He flinched away from my touch, pressing his face cruelly hard into the rock. "He wouldn't leave her." He said. "I tried, and he wouldn't leave her. It's my fault, my fault, my fault."

"Shh," I said.

"You told me to protect her, and I couldn't. It hurts, it hurts..." he moaned.

I was in pain myself, and it distracted me. I almost didn't catch the import of his words. "Trying's enough," I said, my throat tight. "Do you hear me, Oreg? Trying is always enough. I don't expect that you'll be able to protect her from everything."

I'd told him to protect her, I remembered. He had to follow my orders. I hadn't realized there would be consequences if he could not. At my words, his body relaxed, and he quit banging his head into the stone. After a moment, I realized he was unconscious. The pain that the Tallvenish god had inflicted on me seemed to have settled into the sort of muscle aches I got from training too hard. Resigned, I pushed myself to my feet and gathered Oreg over my shoulder for the walk back to camp.

I found Axiel, Penrod, and Tosten at the fire. Neither of them commented when I set Oreg on his blankets and covered him up. When I came up to the fire, Tosten walked pointedly back to his blankets and rolled up in them, his back to me.

Axiel watched him, then said, "I told Penrod what happened. Bastilla and Ciarra seem to be sleeping now. Hopefully, they'll wake fine after they've slept it off."

"I wish we could get them out of Menogue," I said. "I won't feel safe until we're well away from here."

Penrod nodded.

"Did Aethervon tell you anything helpful before I got there?" asked Axiel.

"No," I answered. "All he told me was something about the heart of the dragon rotting - as if I haven't known that Hurog is in trouble." He'd revealed that the stories about Axiel were true, though. Pushing aside my smoldering anger at the suffering of Oreg and Ciarra, I thought more carefully. "He said something about the return of the dragons if I choose carefully."

Penrod shook his head, but Axiel stiffened to alertness, like a hound at the sight of a leash. A small, satisfied smile touched his face.

After everyone went to sleep, I cupped my hands and stared at them for several minutes. At last a small silvery light hovered, cool and bright, a few inches above my fingertips - a child's exercise in magic. Untrained as I was, I could do no more with my magic. But it was my magic once more.

8 - WARDWICK

The Oranstonians had a difficult time deciding who they'd rather fight, we Northlanders or the Vorsag. They didn't like either of us much.

My father always said that you knew you were in Oranstone when the wind picked up and it began to rain.

Tallven, through which we'd been traveling, was mostly flat with a few rolling steppes, good grain country. Oranstone was more like my native Shavig in that it was rocky and edged in mountains. But Shavig had never been this wet.

Axiel slowed his horse until I was riding beside him. Mud-spattered, he looked nothing like the son of a king. He hadn't said anything about being a dwarf prince, so I'd left it alone.