The Hearts of Dragons (23 page)

Balear trained.

He trained through the
summer, while the brutal sun beat on his head. He trained into fall, which he
marked by the changing colors in a small forest to the south.

When the nights became
frigid enough that he needed a fire, Balear headed for those woods and settled
there. The guards from Veliaf had provided him a tent, camping gear, some food,
and traps so he could catch game without using a bow. He lived like a wild man,
staying far from the village. He was alone.

At least, he was
physically alone. Every evening, after he’d spent all day working with the
Auryozaki, he heard Ariok’s voice in his head. It was never more than a
whisper, but he knew the Sky Dragon was watching him.

There were also the
dreams. They were the most vivid of his life. They showed Balear places he’d
never been and people he’d never met. In one he flew above a wide, green plain
speckled with thatched-roof farmhouses. In another he fought with the Auryozaki
in his left hand—even though his right arm was intact—against a Kodama who
could control water. A third had him sailing on a large ship, waiting for a
pirate attack he knew would come yet had no idea when or where.

All the while, Balear
practiced. He didn’t fall down anymore. Ever since the dream with the Kodama,
his stances no longer felt backward. He couldn’t explain it, but after that
night, all the left-handed movements made sense.

The harder he trained,
though, the more dreams he had. Lately, almost every one was a battle. He
always fought left-handed, even though in those dreams he still had his right
hand. His opponent was never human; they were either Kodamas or Maantecs. He
won every fight, but they were often narrow victories. His opponents would
attack with magic, and he responded in kind.

The dreams were strange
enough while Balear was in them, but when he awoke, they didn’t fade. He
remembered every detail of what he’d seen.

Balear shifted his
training approach to mimic the fights in his dreams. In his mind’s eye, he
could see each opponent. As he copied the moves he saw at night, his control
over the Auryozaki increased.

His left arm
strengthened too. Back at the hospital, Balear had barely managed thirty push-ups.
Now he could do more than a hundred and still have enough energy to leap up and
continue training.

Balear didn’t concern
himself with Dirio or the comments the mayor had made back in the summer. If
Balear was a “mad dog,” then so be it. Sometimes it took a monster to slay a
monster.

Melwar ushered Iren into
the Maantec lord’s chambers. Even at this late hour, there were servants at the
ready. Melwar pointed to each in turn. “Light the brazier,” he commanded. “Bring
us hot rice wine. Wake Hana and have her come here at once.”

Iren was in a haze as
the servants rushed to follow Melwar’s orders. When Melwar sat him down, Iren
felt like he would pass out. The Maantec lord held him steady, and a few
minutes later a servant arrived with a tall ceramic bottle of steaming rice
wine. She offered a cup to Iren, but instead he grabbed the bottle and took a
long swig.

“It’s a lie,” he said.
“Rondel couldn’t have killed my parents.”

Melwar didn’t answer.
Instead, he looked past Iren’s head. Iren turned and saw Hana come into the
room, bow shoddily, and approach Melwar. Her hair was tousled, and her
nightgown was crumpled.

Melwar and Hana sat next
to each other opposite Iren. They each poured themselves a cup of wine. Melwar
sipped his, but Hana threw hers back like she was in a tavern drinking contest.

When the Maantec lord
finished his drink, he said, “You relived Emperor Saito’s death.”

“It’s a lie,” Iren
repeated.

Melwar rubbed his
forehead with his thumb and index finger. “I knew you would find out
eventually, but I still do not know how best to explain it.”

Iren clenched his fists.
“So you knew? All along, you knew Saito was my father, and you knew Rondel
killed him. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I had no
proof,” Melwar said, “and because it was more important for you to focus on
regaining your magic so you could become the emperor.”

“But Rondel can’t have
murdered my parents,” Iren insisted. “Feng told me Amroth murdered them.”

“He lied to you,” Melwar
said, “for the same reason Amroth lied to you.”

“What do you mean?” Iren
asked. “Amroth lied to manipulate me into helping him become the Fire Dragon
Knight. But why would Feng lie? What did he have to gain?”

“He hoped to keep you
from becoming the Dragoon. As the Fire Dragon, he must have known you had the
potential to do it. No one had ever become a Dragoon before, so he did not know
what to expect. Rather than risk defeat, he decided it would be best to keep
you from transforming in the first place. He thought his lie about Amroth would
do that.”

Iren’s brow furrowed.
“How could a lie stop me from becoming the Dragoon?”

“Because becoming the Dragoon
requires a will so focused that your dragon cannot break it. If you are
distracted, if the smallest doubt is in your head, you will not retain control.
Feng counted on his lie unsettling you enough to prevent you from changing. He
underestimated you.”

Iren folded his arms. He
was still coming to grips with what he’d seen, but the finality of Melwar’s
tone left little room for argument.

That begged a question
of its own. “How do you know all this?” Iren asked. “You live so far from
Lodia. Knowing about my father is strange enough, but you even know details
about Amroth’s and Feng’s conversations with me. How could you have so much information?”

For a few seconds Melwar
didn’t answer, but then he said, “Iren, forgive me for not telling you sooner.
The truth is that Hana and I have watched you almost your entire life.”

Iren’s head whipped from
Melwar to Hana and back again. “You’ve what?”

“I have long known that Emperor
Saito survived the Battle of Serona,” Melwar said. “He wanted to live in
hiding, and since he was my emperor, I respected his wishes and kept his
secret. Even so, I kept an eye on him. I clung to the hope that he would come
back and reunite the Maantecs.”

Melwar sighed. “But
centuries passed, and he did not return. I grew impatient. When I heard a rumor
that he was in Lodia, I went to seek him out. Unfortunately, Rondel found him
first. I was dismayed, but then I learned that the new captain of Haldessa’s Castle
Guard had brought home a boy whose parents a Left had slain. I knew that child
had to be Saito’s son. I resolved to take you away from Haldessa and raise you
to become the Maantec emperor.

“When I reached the
castle, though, I discovered Rondel was there too. If I tried to take you, she
would attack me. I could not match her, so I had no choice but to leave you, my
emperor’s only son, in the care of humans.”

The Maantec lord looked
into Iren’s eyes. “Ever since that day, I have waited for a chance to separate
you from humans and teach you of your Maantec heritage. Because I needed to be
here most of the time to govern Shikari, I asked Hana to observe you and, if Rondel
left, convince you to come here.”

Iren cradled his head in
his hand as reality sunk in. Rondel had hidden the truth from him all along.
She’d claimed to hate Iren because he was a Maantec, but it was more than that.
He was a constant reminder of the murders she’d committed and of how she’d
orphaned a child just like her parents’ killers had done to her.

“There is something else
you should know,” Melwar said. “A while back, we received a scout report from
Aokigahara. Rondel is headed for Shikari. She was waylaid in the rainforest,
but I have no doubt she will overcome any difficulties. She could arrive in a
few weeks.”

Iren clutched his knees
and stared wide-eyed at Melwar. Rondel was on her way! His parents’ murderer
was coming here!

Melwar frowned at Iren’s
reaction. “Wish all you want that your parents still lived, or that someone
else had killed them. Know, however, that such wishes cannot come to pass. I do
not believe in ‘should have’ or ‘could have.’ To me only one question matters:
what are you going to do about it?”

The question struck Iren
like the flat of a blade. What was he going to do about it? About Rondel
killing his parents? About her coming here?

A strange calmness
overtook him. His heart rate slowed. In his mind’s eye he pictured his friend’s
wrinkled face—her emerald eyes, her silver hair. He whispered his father’s
final words, “I love you.”

He had his answer.

“You have to break my
barrier,” Iren said. “Now.”

Melwar looked at him
with shock. “You have not yet mastered No Mind outside of battle. You will
never survive the attempt.”

“I don’t care. I have to
see Rondel, and I can’t meet her without magic.”

“The pain will overwhelm
you.”

“Pain can’t reach me,”
Iren murmured. “I am already numb.”

Melwar looked him over, the
lord’s eyes searching for something Iren couldn’t see. Finally, he released a
long breath and said, “Draw the Muryozaki. If this works, you will need its
healing power to restore any other parts of your body damaged by my spell.”

Iren unsheathed his
father’s katana. “I’m ready,” he said.

“No, you are not,”
Melwar replied. “You are just stubborn.”

Melwar placed both hands
on Iren’s chest. The Maantec lord’s arms darkened until they looked like they’d
been charred. Then he spoke a single word in Maantec, and Iren drowned in pain.

It was like his body was
being ripped into pieces and set on fire. He screamed, but he hardly knew it.
His eyes rolled back in his head, and he flirted with unconsciousness. The pain
training had been nothing compared with this.

He was going to die. He
had no idea how long it would take for the barrier to give, but his body
couldn’t last another second.

Then an image floated
before him. Rondel leered at him with cold, sparking eyes. For a moment he was
back in his own memory. He was a baby looking up at her. His parents’ blood
stained her dagger.

Through the pain, Iren
fixated on that image. The agony came worse than ever, but Iren endured. He
couldn’t afford to die here, not before he saw Rondel again.

A tremendous tearing
sound filled Melwar’s room. White energy surged through Iren like a wave. It
smashed apart his body’s defenses, drawn toward the shadow that opposed it. The
two magics clashed inside him, and as they touched, they detonated.

The pain of breaking the
magic barrier had been the worst Iren had ever experienced, but the explosion
afterward surpassed it tenfold. He never even had time to cry out before his
heart stopped.

Rondel groaned as she
came to and struggled to sit up. She was in a large room, surrounded by wood.
It made up the floor, walls, ceiling, and every piece of furniture. She sat on
a bed with a soft mattress and silk sheets. Her clothes were also silk, and when
she rubbed the fabric between her fingers, she recognized the weave as Kodaman.

She’d spent enough time
in this room to know where she was—the Kodamas’ hospital. She couldn’t believe
it. The last thing she remembered was Azar cooking her alive. Now she didn’t
have a mark on her.

Narunë’s face popped
around the doorway. “Sitting up already!” he shouted, which prompted hushing
sounds from the main room of the hospital. “It’s only been three weeks. I
expected you to be out for a month. Our healer had a time keeping you hydrated,
but he’s the best for a reason.”

Rondel rubbed her face
to clear some of the confusion. It didn’t help.

Narunë handed her a
wooden cup. “Here, drink this.”

She sniffed it. “Water?
I could use something a little stronger.”

“That’s like you,”
Narunë said. He stepped inside the room and shut the door. “Stick to water for
now. Maybe if you behave and don’t cause me too much grief, I’ll sneak in
something for you. We don’t have any maple brandy, but several of the local
fruits make excellent wine.”

Rondel sipped the water.
To her chagrin she had to admit that it did help clear her head. “What happened
to me?” she asked between swallows. “What happened to that Oni?”

Narunë smirked. “Minawë
happened. She killed Azar. Our sentinels saw the line of smoke and went to
investigate. They brought you back to the village.”

Rondel barely heard what
Narunë was saying. She was hung up on Minawë killing Azar. “Is Minawë hurt?”
she asked. “Is she in the hospital too?”

“No, no, calm down!”
Narunë couldn’t seem to stop grinning today. “She’s watched over you all this
time. She hadn’t eaten in two days, so I made her promise to find some lunch. She’s
been worried about you, and so have I.” His smile became, if possible, even
wider. “If you died, what on Raa was I going to do with this?”

Narunë reached behind
his back and pulled from his belt the sheathed Liryometa.

Rondel accepted it from
him and drew it. She gasped. It was repaired. “How?” she asked. “You said your
smith couldn’t fix it.”

“You have your daughter
to thank for that, too,” Narunë said. “She brought the Karyozaki back with her.
From examining it, my smith Palentos was able to repair your rondel. It was
delicate work, since he couldn’t touch the Karyozaki. Still, I never lost faith
in him.”

Rondel’s restored dagger
awed her, but she frowned all the same. “I appreciate your smith’s work, but
bringing the Fire Dragon Sword here was a mistake. Some of your Kodamas might
try to control it.”

Narunë shrugged. “Not
likely. After we finished with your rondel, I had Minawë hide the Karyozaki.
Only she and Palentos know where it is now. Even I couldn’t tell you where they
put it.”

The door to the room
opened a crack, and a familiar voice asked, “How’s she doing, Uncle?”

Narunë laughed. “Come
see for yourself!”

Minawë stepped inside.
She smiled when she saw Rondel sitting up.

“I hear you’ve been
taking care of me,” Rondel said. “Thank you.”

The Kodama blushed. “It
was nothing,” she said. “I’m glad to see you awake.” She paused a moment before
adding, almost inaudibly, “Mother.”

Narunë stood. “I’ll take
my leave,” he said. “Minawë, Rondel is still recovering, so don’t keep her too
long.” He left the room and shut the door behind him.

For a long time Rondel
and Minawë sat in silence, neither able to meet the other’s eye. Finally,
Rondel said, “I hear you killed Azar.”

“Only because you saved
me.”

Rondel looked at the
ceiling and whistled. “That was a hell of a gamble.”

“What do you mean
‘gamble?’” Minawë asked. “I thought you saved me because you knew I could kill
him.”

“Sure, let’s go with
that.” In truth, Rondel had hoped Minawë would take advantage of her sacrifice
and escape. She had never imagined that Minawë could defeat that monster.

Rondel looked on her
daughter with new respect. She had always admired her, but since Minawë had
become the Forest Dragon Knight, the woman had far surpassed Rondel’s
expectations.

Minawë creased her
eyebrows. “Why are you staring at me?”

Rondel shook her head.
“Oh, nothing. I just had a strange thought. The Maantecs nicknamed Aokigahara ‘Suicide
Forest.’ Who could have suspected it would become a place of healing for me?”

To Rondel’s surprise
Minawë said, “I can understand why they call it that. I feel like I died here.
The Minawë who left Ziorsecth and the Minawë sitting here now can’t be the same
person.”

The room felt stuffy.
Rondel wanted to blame the tropical climate, but she knew there was more to it
than that. “Minawë, I never wanted you to learn the truth, but now that you
have, I’ll keep no more secrets from you. Ask me what you will.”

Minawë thought for a
moment. Then she said, “How did you seduce my father?”

Rondel cringed. She
suspected it wouldn’t be the last time in this conversation she reacted that
way. Even so, she said, “During the Kodama-Maantec War, our races fought to a
standstill. Iren Saito knew that to defeat the Kodamas, he would have to take
Ziorsecth Forest. He invaded it twice, but both times your father, Otunë,
repelled him.

“Those defeats taught
Saito that he couldn’t conquer Ziorsecth without some kind of an edge. He
needed a spy, and I was the only one who could do it. I was faster than any
other Maantec, and I was small and clever enough to avoid detection. I could
also enhance my senses, so I could learn secrets from a distance.”

Minawë waved her hand
dismissively. “I’m familiar with the history of the war. You said you would
answer my questions.”

Rondel shivered despite
the room’s heat. “I’m not telling you this to dodge your question,” she said,
“I’m saying it because it matters. My role as a spy is how I first came to know
your father. I spied on him and the other Kodamas for years. What do you think
I saw?”

When Minawë shrugged her
shoulders, Rondel continued, “I saw people. I saw women and children. I saw
families. I saw that our terrible enemies, the Kodamas, were no different from
us. They weren’t evil. They weren’t inferior. They just wanted the war to end.

“As I traveled from
Ziorsecth to Serona and back again, the disparity between Otunë and Saito
magnified. Saito sought conquest; Otunë sought peace. Saito wanted to rule;
Otunë wanted to serve. In the end, it was Saito’s fault that I defected. Had he
not sent me to spy on the Kodamas, I never would have learned enough about them
to make me join their side. As it was, I finally approached Otunë and offered
him my rondel.”

“Why didn’t the Kodamas
kill you?” Minawë asked. “They would have had no reason to trust anything you
said.”

“Did you already forget
that I was a spy? When I confronted Otunë, he was alone in a Kodaman tree home.
I slipped in without his guards noticing. When I woke him, I saw his fear. The
Chloryoblaka was out of reach, and he knew he couldn’t best me when he’d been startled
from sleep. The fact that I didn’t kill him then convinced him to accept me.

“After I joined him, I
wanted to march against Serona and wipe out the Maantecs. But Otunë argued that
even with my help, it would cost many lives to invade Serona. To give the
invasion the best chance of success, he needed information about the Maantecs. So
instead of using me to support his military, he gave me a different job.”

Minawë interjected, “Double-agent.”

Rondel nodded. “Saito
was my husband. He shared all his strategies with me, never suspecting that I
relayed everything to his foe. That’s all it was for the first year.

“Over time, though,
something changed. I found myself not just caring about Otunë’s people, or
Otunë’s cause, but Otunë himself. He was so strong, yet he was also vulnerable.
When you saw him in public, rallying his soldiers, he defined resolve. But I
saw a side of him he didn’t show anyone else, not even his wife. When I brought
him information, it was always one-on-one. Narunë was the only other person who
knew we were meeting. It had to be a secret, otherwise a captured Kodama might
reveal the truth under torture. As a result, Otunë didn’t have any masks around
me. I saw his face contort in agony whenever I informed him of some Maantec
victory or of Saito’s latest plot. I saw him cower on beds with his head in his
hands, wondering if the war would ever end. I wanted to lessen his pain, or at
least to share in it.”

Rondel wiped her eyes.
“I never meant to pull your father away from Aletas, but in the end, that’s
what happened. For all her qualities, Aletas never took part in the war. She
could whisper words of comfort to Otunë, but she didn’t understand what he was
going through. I did. In me he found a kindred spirit, someone who had seen the
horrors of war and was as disgusted as he was.”

“And that was when you
started sleeping together.” Minawë’s voice was cold. It made Rondel cringe
again.

“No,” she said, “it was
innocent enough at first. We would meet ostensibly for me to relay information,
but in reality it was so we could comfort each other. Things gradually
escalated, but we only shared a bed once—the night before we stormed Serona’s
capital of Edasuko. That night, both of us were terrified, not for ourselves,
but for the Kodamas we led and for each other. We both feared that it was the
last night we would be alive.”

Rondel sighed. “It isn’t
an excuse, but take comfort in this. Otunë never stopped loving Aletas. Our
night together was born of passion, fear, and desperation. It never would have lasted.
Had Otunë survived the war, I have no doubt he would have gone back to Aletas.
He was not the type to abandon those who cared about him.”

Minawë sat so still
Rondel wondered if her daughter had turned to stone. Finally, the Kodama said,
“So I was conceived that night. You were pregnant with me during the final
battle.”

“That’s right,” Rondel
said, “although I didn’t know it. At the time, I didn’t think it could happen.
Otunë was Kodaman after all, and I was Maantec. Even if it was possible, the
thought of becoming pregnant never entered my mind. You probably already know
this, but because of our immortality, it’s difficult for Maantecs and Kodamas
to conceive. A couple can sleep together hundreds of times without becoming
pregnant. That’s why our populations never recovered from the war, even though
it happened a thousand years ago. Conception takes extreme emotion from both
partners, because the child is created from tiny amounts of biological magic
from each parent. Those energies combine in the mother’s womb and create the
child. In our case, Otunë and I were so anxious about the upcoming battle that
we met the conditions for pregnancy without realizing it.”

Minawë folded her arms.
Her expression was still flat and cold, but she didn’t look angry. On the
contrary, she looked like she was working out a puzzle. “If what you’ve said is
true,” she said, “then I was conceived before Saito’s curse took effect.
Shouldn’t I have died in your womb, an unborn victim of his spell?”

“The mother’s body
protects the child,” Rondel said. “As long as you were within me, the curse
couldn’t harm you. It also affected you less than a typical Kodama, because
you’re half Maantec. That’s why you were able to survive in Lodia during your
mission last year. Your Maantec blood slowed the curse’s effects and prolonged
your life.”

“I always wondered about
that,” Minawë said. “Mother died in seconds after Feng pulled her from
Ziorsecth, but I lived outside the forest for weeks. Even so, I would have died
eventually. That’s why you left me in Ziorsecth as a child.”

Rondel didn’t answer
right away. It would be so much easier to let Minawë go on thinking that the
curse was why Rondel had abandoned her. She had promised her daughter no more
secrets, though, so she said, “Leaving you in Ziorsecth did keep you safe, but
that wasn’t why I left you there. The truth is that where I was going, I
couldn’t have you with me. I went in search of Iren Saito, in order to kill
him.”

“Iren Saito?” Minawë
looked shocked. “But he died during the final battle! All the histories say he
did!”

“All the histories are
wrong, or at least they misrepresent the truth. In a way, Saito did die in that
fight. The emperor was gone, his army defeated, but the Maantec who was Iren
Saito survived. He renounced his title and became a wanderer. I think he wanted
to forget what he’d done.

“But I couldn’t forget.
I hunted him across the continent. By the time I brought him the justice of
Okthora’s Law, you were an adult who believed Aletas was your mother. I
couldn’t face you, so I went into hiding. I thought I’d never see you again,
but then Iren Saitosan and I rescued you in Akaku Forest.”

Rondel leaned back
against her bed’s headboard. For a thousand years she’d kept these secrets. A
small part of her felt relieved not to have them locked inside anymore, but the
greater part felt ashamed that she had them at all.

Minawë, meanwhile, had
become contemplative. She had a hand on her chin, and her gaze looked at
something far away. “When I was a child,” she said, “Mother warned me once
about seeking revenge. She said it couldn’t make me happy. I had no desire for
revenge, so I didn’t understand why she spoke to me so passionately. Now I do.
She knew you were my mother, and she knew the pain you must have felt
abandoning your child to pursue Saito. That brings me to my final question. Even
if it was for one night, I was still born of Father’s affair. Why would Mother
take me in? Every moment with me would remind her of it.”