Flame Stirred (Seeking the Dragon Book 3) Read online

  I shrugged. “Okay. So Kaden’s a warlord. That still doesn’t explain why you have to obey him, though.”

  “In times of war, as now, the warlord of the Aethlings is second only to the king. Rhys is only a prince while our father still lives. Additionally, Kaden’s powerful dragon magic bolsters our protections in both the city of Alkazar and… elsewhere. Rhys cannot easily shove him aside and seize power without risking his fury, and even a small slight could cause him to leave. Losing the last dragon would be a greater blow for all of us than you can imagine.”

  The picture of Kaden which Valeria painted for me was very different from the image of him I’d built up in my head. The story of how he’d lost his family as a child hit a little too close to home, and his struggle to protect Alkazar and fight the Frystfolk to avenge their deaths made him sound so heroic and tragic. I found myself sympathizing with him despite my intentions.

  “It’s a very tragic story,” I said quietly.

  Valeria place her hands in her lap and stared at the floor. “I felt that it was important for you to know how much you risk when you risk Kaden’s life. The Dragon sees something in you—something worth tempting fate with the lives of everyone in Alkazar.” Her eyes flicked up at me. “You must be valuable indeed.”

  “Oh, I know why the dragon ‘values’ me,” I replied, the heat returning to my voice. I saw what she was trying to do. I couldn’t believe I’d almost fallen for it. “You tell a sad story, make him sound like such a noble, lost hero. But tell me this: why does the Dragon of Alkazar need to keep sacrificing all these women if he’s so powerful? And why are you trying to make me sympathize with him?”

  Valeria’s face stilled, and I sensed that I’d guessed her intentions correctly. Fennig nuzzled against her cheek and whined, but she ignored him. Finally she sighed.

  “It is not my place to tell you all of Kaden’s secrets,” Valeria said. “The Dragon will tell you more if and when he deems you ready. And I am not trying to manipulate you any more than you were trying to manipulate me.” Her keen eyes pierced through me, and I blushed, though I wouldn’t allow my gaze to drop. “I simply wanted you to understand how many lives you toy with when you endanger the Dragon. For now, the best thing to do is remain here in Alkazar. Now that you have learned to unleash your magic, it would be well for you to learn to hone it. Kaden tells us you have much power within you. The Dragon can help you with this as well.”

  I pushed myself up and crossed my arms, my expression darkening. “Sure,” I muttered. “I’m sure you would like me to hone my magic, since apparently you all want to use me for it. Is that how Kaden stays so powerful? He just keeps finding girls with magic and using them to increase his powers? And you and Rhys just encourage him. As far as I’m concerned, you Aethlings don’t seem much better than these Frystfolk. And I will not be a pawn in your games.”

  The last words were delivered with enough force that her drake reared up and hissed at me, but Valeria simply studied me with her calm, glowing eyes. She spread her hands out, palms facing up. “As you wish, child.”

  Her calm was infuriating. With no easy retort, I huffed and stormed out of her chambers. What a mess. After all of that, I didn’t know what to think: not about Kaden, my magic, or the Aethlings. I headed for my chambers, turning it all over in my mind.

  I only knew one thing for certain: some way or another I was getting out of here. I would not be just another sacrifice for the dragon prince, no matter how good of a sob story Valeria might spin for him.

  Ella

  Over the next few days I spent my time exploring the palace and trying to avoid contact with any of the Aethlings or servants. Thankfully, Rhys and Valeria were compliant—apparently off on their own, pressing errands. Most of the palace was exactly the same as what I’d seen on my first exploratory search: room after room full of art and furnishings and wondrous objects, but most of them empty and dusty, having evidently gone years without either an Aethling or Human to touch them. Eventually I grew tired of wandering from empty room to empty room, all the same, without a purpose or destination. The palace was too much like the Aethlings: beautiful, but also cold and empty. It depressed me, honestly. Even though I didn’t want to sympathize with Valeria, and certainly not with Rhys, I started to pity them a little. Would I grow as hard as they had if I had to watch my home empty out like this around me?

  Kaden kept his distance after our flight from Vash. I kept my eyes out for him in particular, but quickly realized that he must still be recovering. I suspected that the fight had taken more out of him then he wanted to admit. But I wasn’t quite ready to face him again yet anyway. I didn’t trust myself to say something angry and stupid.

  The only person I had searched for—with no luck whatsoever—was Rowan. I still felt guilty about what I had done to her, and it seemed like the polite thing to do would be at least to offer an apology, but I didn’t get the chance. All my meals were delivered by a young boy with the same glowing runes that all human servants bore, and he avoided my eyes and said nothing as he ferried trays in and out of my room.

  By the third straight day of wandering, I gave up and just stayed in my room to sulk. What was the point of having the run of the castle if it didn’t help me find a way home? Despite my plans to find another way to escape from the Ether-Realm, the passing days had left me a little discouraged. No new plan had magically popped into my head, no daring new escape routes had presented themselves, and I began to accept that I might be stuck here for a while. Even if I wanted to risk the woods again, which I didn’t, the portal home would be closed by now, and I didn’t have another enchanted knife to open it. I might just need to make the best of a bad situation for a while.

  But there were still ways I could protest my forced captivity: I stubbornly refused to wear the Aethling fashions, no matter how silly I might look to them. Every day I went to my bureau, dressed myself in my jeans and sweaters, and didn’t even bother doing anything with my hair. I ignored the strange looks my clothes drew from the servants. If I was going to be forced to make this my home, then I’d really make myself at home. I didn’t need to impress anyone.

  All this alone time gave me plenty of opportunity to chew on the conversation I’d had with Valeria, but it still felt like I didn’t have the real picture of what was going on with these people. Kaden insisted that he wanted to protect me, and if Valeria’s story was true he’d risked quite a lot to do so. He’d seemed genuinely frightened of Vash back in the clearing when I kindled my spark, but a fear that was at least partly born out of concern for me. Valeria found it unusual that Kaden would be so invested in someone, and I wondered if he could really be so cold as to just want me for this weird spark of magic I had. Did he feel the same strange, stomach-churning pull toward me that I felt toward him every time we were close together?

  It was easier to be angry than admit that I might be developing a crush on my captor, but underneath my frustration I did feel a certain tenderness for the man. How many guys back at my high school would storm out into a forest and risk their lives for their girlfriend? I just wished that he’d be straight with me about why they needed my magic instead of issuing cryptic hints about how they’d tell me when I was “ready.” It made me feel a little too much like a calf being fattened up for the slaughterhouse.

  For that matter, I was still murky on the details of what my spark meant for me. It seemed like I could kindle it with my music—the one thing I’d always been truly passionate about. But I wasn’t sure if it was the song itself or my emotions that pulled the magic forward. And then it seemed I could latch my music into Kaden’s power, but was it only Kaden? Or would I be able to use magic myself if I agreed to start the training they’d all hinted at? I hadn’t tried to sing at all since the clearing, and I didn’t want to until I understood more about how and why the magic might work. The last thing I needed to do was accidentally open a portal to Vash or some nonsense like that, and who knew what I might do here in this weird place
?

  I didn’t trust anyone here enough to believe that I’d get honest and complete answers from them. I needed a neutral third party that could lay out the facts, help me think rationally about everything, and come up with a real plan that would eventually lead me home. Back in the normal world, that person would have been Katie. I rolled over on my bed and put my face in my pillow, trying to ignore the surging pang of home sickness. I hadn’t realized just how much I missed her until I needed her. She was always so good at helping me talk through things, helping me see clearly. Jeez, Ella. How are you ever going to deal with college if you can’t even spend a few days away from home?

  But there wouldn’t be any college for me if I was stuck here. I put my hands over my eyes and flipped onto my back. What would Katie tell me to do? She would tell me not to trust stupid, scheming strangers for one thing. She would probably encourage me to try to go figure some things out myself. But how could I do that? Where did you go for information without some kind of magical internet? Then my eyes popped open, and I sat up straight.

  Of course, I realized. A library. It seemed so obvious. If other humans had this spark, there had to be someone who had studied it or at least written about it. The Aethlings might be immortal, but that meant they had lots of time to write books, and I’d never heard of a society this advanced that didn’t have some kind of books. In fact, yes! I remembered the many shelves of books that had lined the balcony where Rhys had first tossed me down, after our return from the Eldritch.

  But I’d wandered the castle for days and not seen so much as a hint of a dusty tome. I could go ask Valeria, but I didn’t think she’d tell me where any real information would be. I’d have to find someone else who I could trust to guide me.

  My eyes fell again on Rowan’s bell, which gathered dust on my bureau. I sighed. That was one thing I hadn’t tried yet. I had hoped to run into her at some point. Compelling her to show up for an apology didn’t seem like a very nice thing to do. But I needed help, and it didn’t seem like she was ever going to show up on her own. I hopped off the bed, grabbed the bell, and gave it a few quick shakes.

  The magical tinkle rang out and then died in my chamber, but it was a full twenty minutes before a stormy-faced Rowan sullenly shuffled into my chamber. She locked her eyes on the floor at my feet. “You rang. How can I serve you, my lady?”

  “Rowan…” I said, wringing my hands in my lap. I felt awful. She looked so hurt. “I’m so sorry for what I did to you the other day. Really.”

  Rowan stiffened. If anything, my apology seemed to make things worse. “That’s not a request, my lady. What do you need from me?”

  I sat down on the edge of my bed and patted the space beside me. “I’m trying to tell you I’m sorry. Would you please just come and sit down for a moment? Can we talk like friends?”

  Her nostrils flared. “Thank you for the invitation, but it wouldn’t be proper for me to sit. Nor would it be proper to talk to you like a friend. I must respectfully decline. If you don’t actually need anything…”

  She started edging back toward the door, and I threw a hand out. “Rowan, wait!” I could see that it wasn’t going to be enough to simply say that I was sorry. She must have been humiliated when they found her locked away in my room, and… Oh, crap. They would have found her wearing the dress I gave her, too, which she’d explicitly told me was inappropriate. I winced when I imagined how that must have looked for her. And it was all my fault. I’d have to find another way to make it up to her. “I do need you to do something after all. Is there a library in the Crystal Palace?”

  This finally drew a wary glance up at my eyes from Rowan. She frowned and chewed her lip like she was trying to think through all the ways I might get her into trouble by digging through a library. But eventually she nodded. “The grand library of the Aethlings is in the northeastern spire of the palace,” she said carefully. “I can show you the way if you’d like.”

  I rose from the bed and grabbed the canvas bag I’d been carrying everywhere. “I would like that, yes.”

  Rowan gave a curt nod and quickly turned, scurrying out of the room. I hurried to catch up and match her stride.

  “So did they punish you when they found you?” I asked, trying to draw her into conversation again.

  “The shame was punishment enough,” Rowan replied.

  I didn’t know how to respond to that except to feel horribly guilty, and we spent the rest of the walk to the northeastern spire in awkward silence. I couldn’t force her to accept my apology, after all.

  We finally arrived at a large pair of wooden doors carved with beautiful scrollwork around a central image of a closed book. Rowan stopped in front of them and gestured inside. “This is the library of the Aethlings,” she said. “Can you find your own way back to your room?”

  I’d had little else to do than study the corridors while we walked, and at this point I thought I knew the palace well enough that I could. I nodded, trying to think of something else to say to her. But she turned on her heel and departed before I could come up with anything.

  I sighed, watching her go. I wished I had an ounce of Katie’s social charm. Whenever my sister had hurt someone’s feelings, intentionally or not, she could always have them laughing like an old friend within twenty minutes of deciding that she owed them an apology. I, on the other hand, didn’t have the slightest idea how to undo the damage I’d done to my relationship with Rowan.

  I’d have to try harder. She was one of the few people in this whole stupid place that had been nice to me. But there would be time to think about that later. I pushed open the carved library doors and moved cautiously under the threshold, but then I stopped and gaped. Rowan hadn’t been kidding when she called this the “grand” library of the Aethlings. I’d expected a large room, but the doors opened up into a space that could have been a building in its own right. It was cavernous. Glowing balls floated here and there, casting wan light across row after row of dusty shelves. I made out no fewer than five floors rising up into the gloom above me, connected by a spiraling staircase that ran along the outer edge of the main room, and more shelves on each story appeared to radiate back off into the darkness.

  I hadn’t the slightest idea where to begin my search. The Aethlings didn’t seem likely to have a neatly organized computer catalog that I could search. I wandered from shelf to shelf at random, dragging my fingers lightly across the spines of books. The titles weren’t in any language I recognized. After roaming for a bit, searching in vain for anything at all that I could read, I sat down at one of the long wooden tables between the shelves with a long, exasperated sigh.

  One of the pale orange light balls hovered in front of me, gently bobbing over the surface of the table. I balanced my cheek on my elbow and stared at it glumly as I tried to think. At this rate, even if I could find a book that would tell me about my spark, it’d be written in a language I couldn’t read.

  “You’d think they’d have some kind of catalog system…” I murmured.

  The light ball glowed brighter and expanded a little. “Treatises on methods of categorization can be found on level 3, section 2, row 37,” it informed me, speaking in a high monotone.

  I straightened and blinked at it. Well that was useful. What else can this thing do?

  “What… are you?” I asked the glowing ball.

  “Indistinct query,” it replied. “Please select a topic.”

  I frowned. Apparently it was a finicky glowing ball of light. Leave it to the Aethlings to make even their magical catalog system sound haughty.

  “Can you tell me where to find books on the spark?” I asked.

  The ball dimmed and rumbled in place for a few seconds and then bloomed again as it spoke. “Indistinct query. Please narrow your parameters to a specific category. Is your area of interest fires or magic?”

  Both, I thought. But instead I said, “Books about magic and the spark, please.”

  The ball dimmed again and then brightened. “Mai
n floor, section 6, row 58.”

  I gazed around uncertainly. I hadn’t seen any row or section markers anywhere in the giant library. How was I supposed to navigate this place? Unless… I narrowed my eyes at the ball. “Can you lead the way there?” I asked it.

  It liked this question better than my first one. The ball brightened again and began to bob away from the table. I scrambled to my feet and followed it, walking briskly to keep up with it. It led me deep into the main floor of the library, turning a dizzying number of tight corners as it wove through the stacks. Soon the other lights of the entrance area faded, and my little orange ball was the only source of light around. I would have thought the Aethlings would put more windows in their tower library, but maybe the wind and light wasn’t good for the books or something.

  It occurred to me that I’d neither seen nor heard a single other person in the library so far, and I shivered and glanced over my shoulder. I was alone, but it was creepier than I’d expected it to be in a library. The darkness felt oppressive.

  The light ball finally paused in front of a row of books that looked no different from any other we’d passed. “Main floor, Section 6, row 58,” it announced cheerfully. The row was about thirty feet long, crammed full of books of varying thickness with covers of all different shapes and sizes. Some were leather-bound, some cloth. Some even had the cellophane shimmer of modern hardback book sleeves, oddly enough. But I didn’t see a single copy written in any recognizable language.

  “Don’t you have any English books in this library?” I asked the orb.

  “Querying. Total number of English books currently in the library: zero,” it informed me.

  I let out a long, frustrated sigh and sat down against the stack. “I don’t have time to learn to learn a completely new language. How can I read these when they’re all written in gibberish?”

  “Translating row 58 to gibberish,” my orb said. Surprised, I turned to look at the books beside me. The spines shimmered and the titles changed. Now, instead of just being written in a language I didn’t understand, they didn’t even look like letters to me; just bizarre symbols scratched out on the edge of the books.