Authors: Juliette Cross
Petrus had a kind face, wrinkles marking his brow and mouth, and twinkling gray eyes. He stood eye-level with me, which meant he was short by Morgon standards.
“Kol Moonring. What a peculiar surprise. Come in.”
“I’ve brought a friend.”
“I see that.” His eyes swiveled, taking me in. “A lovely, lovely friend. Please. Come in.”
The cabin was one large room, smelling of old parchment and heady spices. A fire crackled in a smallish hearth, soot stained at the base. A six-tiered candelabrum set on a desk piled with papers. Floor-to-ceiling shelves stuffed with books lined one wall. On the side of the fireplace stood a black, wood-burning stove, and in the far corner was a lumpy mattress piled with wool blankets, which I assumed was his bed. To say I felt as if I’d stepped back in time was an understatement. I knew that Morgons preferred natural elements like fire to electric lighting and stone to steel buildings. Something about their beasts was drawn to the natural. Petrus had immersed himself in the most comfortable Morgon abode I could possibly imagine.
“Have a seat.” He waved to a small couch, only enough room for two people. Petrus picked up a poker and stoked the fire. A log shifted and spit up sparks as I sat on the small sofa, nearly jumping right out of my skin when a cat-like creature leaped from the cushion to the arm rest. It was feline, no doubt, but I’d never seen a domestic cat like this before. Its legs were abnormally long, it’s ears big and pointed, its tail a short stub. With silver and black stripes, its orange-gold eyes glowed like fire coals in the gloom.
“Oh, don’t mind Seerie. She’s a little witch, but she won’t bite.”
Seerie aimed her golden gaze on me as I sat on the low-back sofa—made to accommodate Morgon wings. Kol took the seat next to me, his thighs brushing against mine. Unfortunately, there was nowhere to push over. We crammed in together. It didn’t seem to bother him, so I pretended it didn’t bother me.
“I’ve never seen a domestic cat like her before.”
“Oh, no. You never would. And don’t let her hear you calling her domestic.” He chuckled again. “No one owns her. If anything, she owns me.”
“She’s a necrominx, isn’t she? I’ve read about them, but I’ve never seen one.”
“Yes, yes. Only found here within Singing Wind Wood. I heard one clan tried to transport some of them to Cloven and domesticate them. Didn’t work. They disappeared and returned here.” Seerie began licking her paws, ignoring us with definite feline arrogance. “Now then, Kol. Please introduce our visitor.”
“This is Moira Cade of the Gladium Province.”
He took his seat in a tattered leather chair, angling away from the fire to face us.
“Well, now. The youngest daughter of Pritchard Cade.”
I started in surprise. He chuckled. The sound was infectious. I had to smile with him.
“I know all about your family, dear heart.”
Kol leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped together. One of his wings brushed my back. I glanced at him, wondering if this intimate touch was just an accident. He didn’t meet my gaze.
“We came to find out about—”
“Devlin Wood. Yes, I know. I’ve been waiting for you to come and visit, dear boy.”
Dear boy? How old was this guy? And how did he know Kol would come? Kol didn’t seem surprised at all. Weird.
“So,” I added, “you know about the women. The murders.”
“I do live in remote isolation, but I keep apprised of the world. What kind of historian would I be otherwise?”
He chuckled as Seerie finished her bathing and leaped across my lap onto Kol’s. She curled into a ball and purred in a low hum. Kol’s large hand stroked over her delicate head and neck in a steady rhythm. His gaze caught mine. One side of his mouth lifted.
“What can I say?” He shrugged one shoulder, his wing grazing me again along the spine. I shivered.
“The kitties like me.” He brushed his hand from her crown, down her neck, along her spine and tail. “Especially the wild ones.”
Blushing heat filled my cheeks. Before I lost all reason and started fantasizing about those hands stroking down my own spine, I flipped my attention back to Petrus whose eyes had glazed in thought.
I cleared my throat. “Tell me about Devlin Wood, if you don’t mind.”
He popped up at the sound of a rising whistle. “Would you like some tea? I nearly forgot about it when you two came in.”
I nodded. He fixed two cups and handed me one. I glanced at Kol.
“Oh, Kol doesn’t care for tea,” Petrus explained. Kol’s hand made slow, lazy strokes over Seerie’s coat, a broad hand that covered her entirely. Her purring grew louder, her orange eyes drooping to tiny slits.
“Devlin Wood has a long history of witchcraft,” said Petrus, settling into his squeaky leather chair, dragging my thoughts away from Kol and his steady hands.
My eyes widened in shock as I drank the minty blend, coughing on a sip. “As in”—I cleared my throat—“as in flying-on-a-broom, cooking-in-a-cauldron witches?”
He chuckled. “Yes, dear heart. Humans believe it the stuff of fairytales and legends, but do not legends always have a grain of truth?”
I tilted my head. “Are you referring to dragon magic? The myth?”
“Morgon magic. And it’s no myth. Morgons have gifts outside human understanding.”
“Because of their dragon heritage,” I added.
He smiled, wrinkles crinkling around his eyes. “Now, not all Morgons have abilities outside their dragon senses, like their heightened sense of smell, eyesight, and so forth, but…some do.” His pale-blue gaze roamed from me to Kol who said not a word, petting Seerie into a pleasure-induced coma. Now this was ridiculous. The first time I’d felt envy in a very long time, and it was of a cat.
I turned back to Petrus. “Like the Icewing clan…your clan,” I added.
“You know of our clan?”
“My sister. She was injured and one of your clan healed her. I don’t know exactly how, as she was very secretive about it. But the mark it left behind is extraordinary.” Yes. Out of the ordinary. As in, caused by some supernatural gift. Why had I never considered this before? That the Icewing clan wasn’t the only one harboring uncanny abilities.
“That’s right. My clan has the power of healing.”
“The Nightwings. What about them?” I had to know.
“The Nightwings are direct descendants of King Radomis and Larkos. Their gift is sheer dominance. No opponent ever wins against them. No one. Their dragon is too strong.”
I mused about the clans that came about after King Radomis took a human as his bride and his queen. History told that other dragons saw fit to take human brides, thus populating the world with the varied clans of Morgons. When Larkos let loose his rage on his father and dragonkind, he allowed the Morgons to live, desiring them to become the superior race.
What gift did the Moonring clan have? There was a story behind those fey eyes, and I was going to discover it. Soon.
“Devlin Wood,” he continued, “was a place of ritual and sacrifice. The witches I speak of are dragons who sought to use their innate gifts and amplify them with perversions of nature. Thereafter, there were a few Morgon witches. There actually still is one coven, the Syren Sisters. They live far to the north in the frozen Wastelands of Aria, outside the dominion of human and Morgon civilization. And the Syren Sisters profess to practice only good magic, using only animal sacrifice for their rituals. As far as I know, they speak the truth.”
“But,” I protested, “could there be others who’ve perhaps strayed from the natural path, who might still practice some sort of dark rituals?”
“Like what, my dear?”
“Like the sacrifice of blood brides.” My mouth had gone dry. “The Larkosian ritual to honor their god, Larkos.”
He smoothed his thumb and forefinger along his white beard. In deep thought, he grimaced. “The Larkosians used the site of Devlin Wood for ritual, as have many others before them. The original Larkosians used the deep caves of Mount Obsidian, but Devlin Wood has always held an air of mysticism. Dragon witches used spells, binding their powers with the sacrifice of flesh and blood, to gain more power. The witch Balsheba was one of the most prominent in dragon history.”
“Funny, I just told my nephew the story of
Balsheba and the Poisoned Cup
.”
The old Morgon’s smile reminded me of one who’d seen too much of the world and wished he hadn’t. “Of course, that fairytale you speak of is more fact than fiction. I bet you tell it where she dropped a ruby into the chalice, lacing the wine with poison.”
Sitting straighter, I replied, “Yes. That’s the story.”
“Ah, but my dear girl. The truth is that the ruby wasn’t poisoned.”
I frowned. “Then how did she drink from the cup before she passed it to the queen?”
“The Bloodbacks were a clan with a dark gift. Poison pumped through their veins.”
“Were?” I asked.
“Yes. I’m afraid their kind died out. Because of their lethal ability, they were feared. Few of them mated because other Morgons feared their fatal kiss, until eventually, there were none left. The last two daughters of the Bloodback clan disappeared almost a century ago. It is believed they were murdered, though bodies were never found.”
“What do you mean by fatal kiss?”
“They had glands in their mouths that could release venom directly into a victim with a bite. Or a kiss.”
My eyes widened. “Or with a sip into a cup.”
He nodded. “In the story, before her attack on the queen, Balsheba had always been a vain creature, obsessed with prolonging her beauty and her life, one reason she sought a bond with the king. Naturally, dragon kings live longer than the average.”
“Our history books claim he was nearly seven-hundred years old when Larkos killed him. Is that true?”
“Closer to eight-hundred actually.”
I set my tea to the side. “Wow.”
The average Morgon lifespan was three-hundred years old. This was why it was always so difficult to guess their age. Petrus must be nearing these upper years. I glanced at Kol, suddenly wondering if he was twenty-five or one hundred and twenty-five. One could never tell once a Morgon reached adulthood.
My hand went to the medal at my neck, fingering my most precious possession. Petrus shifted in his chair, watching me. “May I see your pendant”
I paused. No one had ever asked to see it before. “Um, sure.”
I unclasped it and passed the coin-sized medallion on the silver chain to him. He examined it closely, a broad smile creasing his weathered face. “Saint Portia. The female avenger.” Shrewd eyes fixed on me. “The martyr who sacrificed herself to save us from the evil of Larkos.”
I straightened, proud of my patron saint.
“My dear boy,” he said, looking at Kol who was certainly no boy, “do you know the history of Princess Portia?”
All this time, Kol had said nothing, hadn’t even looked in my direction. “All Morgons do.” His voice was rough and strained. “We’re taught it from our earliest years.”
“Well, let’s hear it then,” said Petrus.
Still stroking Seerie in his lap, he lifted his voice and told the tale that had haunted me all my life.
“When Princess Portia set out with her handmaidens and attendants to visit her sister, the queen of the dragonlands in the North, she had no idea she’d arrive to find blood and death. She’d sent messenger after messenger with letters. None of them returning. No word of what had happened. Knowing something was wrong, she armed a band of warriors and journeyed north to discover what had happened.”
Kol paused and angled his body toward us, stretching his arm along the low sofa-back before continuing the story.
“Portia found her sister in her bed, death marking her cold body. When her husband, King Radomis, was killed by Larkos, their soulfire bond demanded that her heart stop beating as well. She’d lingered for a day after Radomis took his last breath, finally expiring with the setting sun. It was the way of dragons and their mates, and now Morgons and their mates, those bound by soulfire. One could not outlive the other. When Larkos entered his mother’s chamber to say his final farewell, his heart seized at the site of beautiful Portia mourning at Morga’s bedside. Though she was his aunt, he hungered for her so desperately that he wanted to bond in that unbreakable way of soulfire. Repulsed at the thought, Portia saw only one good if she could bear to tie herself to Larkos. She accepted the heartbonding of soulfire, the elixir to synchronize their hearts, allowing him to sate his burning lust on her body. When he had finished, the bond complete, she stabbed herself in the heart with his own dagger, ridding the world of the tyrant, Larkos.”
Entranced by Kol’s rolling timbre and heartfelt words, I jumped when Petrus finally spoke. “Well done, my boy.” Petrus turned his gaze on me so fixedly, it was apparent he understood why I was devoted to Saint Portia.
“You know, don’t you?” I asked in a whisper.
“Know what?” demanded Kol.
“What most Morgons don’t know,” said Petrus, his white brows pursed. “Princess Portia was married to the human prince of the west intended for her sister, Morga, before King Radomis took her as his bride. When Portia set out to visit her sister, she left behind a young son, knowing the journey might be dangerous for a human boy. Besides, her husband would not permit him to go. Princess Portia was extraordinary in the eyes of humans, not only because she sacrificed her own life for the good of others, but she did so knowing she left her son motherless. A true selfless act. Her son was the first of many in the powerful Kadenstar dynasty. Their descendants would shorten the name, when monarchies fell, to the surname Kaden. And about five centuries ago, one eccentric and rather racist descendant changed it altogether to Cade, desiring to distance his family legacy from the humans tied to dragon and Morgon lineage. My dear boy, you are sitting beside the ancestral granddaughter of Saint Portia.”
Silence, except for the soft hiss of flames flickering. Petrus passed me the medal. I felt Kol’s eyes heavy on me as I reclasped the chain around my neck.
“You even have the tell-tale ebony hair and fair skin,” added Petrus, setting his tea cup down.
I swept my hair over one shoulder. “Yes. My brother and sister do as well.”