The Ritual (12 page)

My first impulse was to leave that very moment, to get far
, far away from them as soon as possible, but I fought it back, knowing that even if I
was
going to run, I couldn’t do it now – it was dark, cold and dangerous out there. Plus, I had Shani to think of, and I couldn’t just drag her with me without an explanation.

I forced myself to think, to consider all possibilities. We were half a day into the mountains; going back was an option, but if we went back we would return to a town abuzz with the news of the most daring theft in its history – not a good place for a half-elf stranger to be.

If we went ahead we would either need to outdistance the brothers, or stay with them. Whatever their plan was, I somehow doubted it would come to fruition in the mountains – Zash had mentioned a ‘he’, and I was pretty sure that no one lived in the Whitecaps, so outdistancing them could be an option.

If they let us. It would be easy enough to sneak away under cover of night, but staying ahead of them would be much more difficult. Moreover, I had no experience at all of travelling through the mountains, so doing so at night might achieve nothing more than to get Shani or me killed from dropping into some ravine. And if we didn’t, and Zash and Mior caught up with us…

Better to stay with them and not arouse their suspicion, for now. Much as I disliked the thought, we needed the brothers, at least whilst we were in the mountains.

Just as I had reached that conclusion Mior spoke again, now with a hint of amusement in his voice. “So, is she as fiery as she looks?”

“Go fuck yourself, Mior,” Zash replied, and then they both remained silent.

*   *   *   *   *

The next few days I spent in confused frustration. I wanted to speak to Shani alone, to let her know what I had overheard, but there was never any opportunity. With the Heartstone in our possession we were after the second item, a dragon flame, so we were going deep into the mountains, away from the roads and passes and civilisation, into dragon country. As a result the paths we followed were little more than goat trails, and there were no inns with separate rooms, no times when we could detach ourselves from the men to talk in private.

I could not separate Shani out as we walked either. Mior had been emphatic to Zash about no longer keeping his distance, and if I had ever had any doubts as to what he meant with it, they disappeared the moment he matched his strides to Shani’s pace and began to monopolise her attention. He talked to her, made her laugh, conjured up pretty things for her amusement, and he did it with such devotion that she barely even looked at me throughout the day. I watched with a hollow feeling in my stomach as he charmed her, and although I knew that she had fallen for him long before we had even reached Naylis, his actions now were cementing her to him more firmly than ever.

The trouble was, he made her happy. Shani was happier than I had ever seen her, and in light of Zash and Mior’s conversation it hurt me to see it. Zash had plans for us, plans that bade ill, and I could not understand why Mior didn’t fight him harder if he was so smitten with my sister. It made me wonder how genuine his feelings for her were – was he truly as taken with her as she was with him, or was he just after a quick bit of fun? I didn’t know, couldn’t ask, and couldn’t warn Shani.

What hurt even more was the contrast between their easy interaction and the complete breakdown of the relationship between me and Zash. Before, he had always continued his mockery and sarcasm towards me, but it had gradually become more teasing, sometimes almost affectionate, and my biting responses had often made him grin, even if he had seemed to try and hide it. Now all I got was cool politeness, absent-minded disregard, or on occasion a single line of scathing cynicism which cut like a knife. And that was when he was talking to me at all – most of the time he walked ahead of us, lost in thought, and the only comfort I had was that he didn’t speak to Mior or Shani either.

As a result I brooded. For days I kept telling myself off for wanting Zash to talk to me when he had so clearly deceived me. He had never been honest with me, and although I had suspected that all along, it still hurt to have it confirmed. I wanted to know what this plan of theirs entailed, but no matter how much I thought about it, I could not think of anything that made sense.

For Shani
and me, so far the only plan I had been able to think of was to trail along for now, do everything that was expected of us, then run as soon as we were out of the mountains. How I would present this to Shani eluded me, however, and the more I had to retreat into my own thoughts, the more my mind wandered away from my planning and back to everything that had happened up to the moment Zash had kissed me.

I still flushed with heat whenever I thought of that kiss, and could not deny that I desired him even more than I had before. Apart from that I still could not reconcile his prior behaviour with his bleak statements to Mior. Once he had loosened up he had been friendly, likeable, sometimes caring, and I loved that side of him as much as I hated this cold stranger he had become. Nothing made sense anymore, and my thoughts kept going around in endless circles.

Then, on the fourth day of our travels, I saw the first sign of dragons: the scorched, gnawed bones of some cloven-hoofed animal, possibly a sheep, though there was little left to tell. Everyone else seemed to have missed it, so I stopped and called to them.

Shani and Mior halted, looking at me curiously, but as I pointed out the bones to them I saw that Zash was still walking, either too lost in thought or too far ahead to have heard me.

“Hey, Black Eyes!” I shouted, and this time he stopped and turned around. I beckoned him and pointed at the bones again, and saw him give a resigned shrug before trudging back to where we were standing. Only when he got up close and saw what I was pointing at did his expression change to interested, and he knelt down and picked up one of the scorched hooves, sniffing it gingerly.

“No more than a few days old, I’d say,” he said before looking up. “We’d better start paying attention to the skies.”

“Easier said than done,” Mior muttered. “With the kind of ravines we’ve been passing I don’t really feel like taking my eyes off the path.”

“Maybe we should treat it like a watch,” I suggested. “We take turns, and whoever’s turn it is to keep their eyes up can hold on to someone’s shoulder so they don’t have an accident.”

“That could work,” Zash agreed, scanning the sky. “It still won’t be easy, but I’d rather not end up as dragon food.” He dropped his gaze to take one last look at the sad pile of bones, then turned around and patted me on the shoulder. “Well spotted.”

I stared at his back in shock as he walked away again. That simple gesture of praise was the kindest thing he had said to me in four days, and I got the feeling that he hadn’t even noticed that he’d done it.

I was suddenly reminded of Mior’s words to him: ‘you like her’ and ‘she’ll make you crack’. It was clear enough that his cold behaviour to me was deliberate, but it had never occurred to me that it might be costing him an effort, and that
that
was why he seemed to avoid me rather than speak to me.

For the first time in days I took a really good look at him, and I noticed things that I hadn’t seen previously. The dejected slump of his shoulders, the listlessness in his step, the way he looked only ahead, with never a glance for the magnificence of the mountains around us.
He’s as depressed as I am
, I thought, and winced at the squeeze of sympathy I felt in my heart.

I had got through to him before, and his own brother didn’t seem to think him capable of whatever it was he had in mind for us, so maybe what I ought to be doing was try to get through to him again – Mior seemed to think I could. Mior was an optimist, of course, but he did know his brother better than anyone else, so maybe I should test his judgement. At least it might distract me from my brooding.

“Shall I take first watch then?” I offered, and Zash stopped again.

“Sure, if you want to,” he replied after a moment.

“Here, take my shoulder,” Shani said, thwarting my very first attempt at reconciliation. I could not refuse, so gave her a vague smile, took her shoulder and raised my eyes to the sky.

It was dizzying to walk like that, with the mountains moving past in the periphery of my vision and the clouds drifting perpendicular to the direction I was travelling in. Without Shani’s support I would have stumbled or tripped often, and it took only a measure or so before I felt I was losing concentration and called for a stop. “It’s very disorienting to look up all the time,” I said by way of apology, but Mior gave me a reassuring smile.

“Fair enough,” he said. “Want me to take over?”

“Please,” I replied with a grateful nod, and Shani offered her shoulder to him instead.

Mior lasted about as long as I had before Shani took over, and then it was getting too dark and we stopped to make camp. This part of the mountains was riddled with caves, some little more than hollows in the rock, but others deep enough to get lost in, which was exactly why it was such excellent dragon country. Dragons nested in deep caves, so we carefully checked our chosen campsite to ensure it was not already inhabited.

“So, what’s the plan then?” I asked when the fire was crackling and we were chewing our travel rations. The leaping flames sent shadows dancing against the cave walls, which glistened with moisture, and I huddled in my cloak to keep away the faint draft that was coming up from the narrow passageway into the mountain.

“Hmm?” Zash said. His eyes were focused in the distance, but this time I wasn’t going to let him get away with staying absorbed in his own thoughts all evening.

“The plan,” I repeated. “We’re getting close to where the dragons are, so we need to have an idea of what we’re doing and how we’ll be doing it.”

Had there been a brief glimpse of panic in his eyes when I mentioned a plan? I couldn’t be sure, and his expression changed to annoyance when Mior backed me up.

“She has a point,” he said. “Isn’t it time you shared what’s in your head?”

“I’m still thinking, don’t rush me,” Zash snapped. “I’ve got some ideas, but I’m still working it out.”

“So share them,” I said. “Four heads are better than one. Why would you need to think of everything on your own?”

“Because I–“

“Again, she has a point,” Mior interrupted him, winking at me. “Besides, what if we run into a dragon tomorrow and we still don’t have a plan yet? Come on, Zash, spit it out.”

Zash looked from him to me and back, then sighed. “Fine. I’m thinking we need to work with what we know of dragons and use that to our advantage. I’m sure you know that they’re territorial, and extremely competitive?” He addressed his question to Shani and me, and we both nodded.

“Right, so as far as I understand it, dragons breathe fire under two circumstances only – to scorch their food or to challenge a rival. It follows that if we want to capture their fire, we need to present one with either of those things.”

“Would an illusion work?” Shani asked. “I’m sure Mior or I could conjure up a convincing-looking sheep or something.”

Zash grimaced. “You could try, but by all accounts dragons are highly intelligent and able to see illusions for what they are, so it might not work. You can conjure up a sheep, but we’d all know it was fake, and apparently so does a dragon.”

“Shame,” Shani muttered, biting a nail in thought.

“How will we capture a flame anyway?” I asked.

“With this,” Mior said, digging into his backpack. He produced a small, round glass bottle, the belly about the size of his fist, with an elegant little glass stopper. I recognised it as the bottle he had bought at the midnight market.

“This is spelled to draw in dragon flame if it is engulfed in it, and as long as you retrieve it quickly and
seal it, it won’t escape again,” he said, and I understood now why he had paid so many gold coins for it.

I swallowed. “When you say quickly…?”

“Um…” Mior hesitated and glanced at Zash.

“Twenty heartbeats, no more,” Zash said. “And the flask will only work once.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “So just to make sure I’ve got this straight: we have to get a house-sized dragon to breathe fire on this tiny little flask here, then retrieve it while said dragon is still around to do the same to us, and we only get one chance at it?”

His mouth twitched. “Pretty much, yeah.”

“If we retrieve it on the dragon’s upsweep we can get back to cover before it turns around?” Mior ventured.

“Or maybe we can find a little dragon?” Shani said hopefully, but Zash shook his head.

“Only adult dragons can breathe fire, and by the time they are adults they are
big
.”

“Well shit,” I said. “That sounds pretty fucking tricky to me.”

“I never said it’d be easy, Little Firelocks.”

My breath hitched, and I had to pretend interest in a loose thread on my cloak for a heartbeat. It was the first time he had called me that since our kiss, and I had missed the affectionate way he could say it. I took it as a good sign that he used it now.

“So an illusion might not work,” Shani said. “Did you have any other suggestions? We’ll have to place the flask somewhere, so if we can’t use an illusion we’ll need some other way to get a dragon to breathe fire over it.”