James Wyatt - Dragon war

"With my Mark of Storm," Gaven said. "The storm breaks upon the forces of the Blasphemer…"

"What's that?" Aunn asked, looking up at Gaven. "Oh, the Prophecy. Which reminds me." He collected a sheaf of paper from the side of the desk and straightened the pile. "Here's another thing I want to figure out about Kelas. While you were in Dreadhold, the dwarves recorded everything you said or wrote down about the Prophecy. They sent a copy to House Lyrandar, at your family's request. But how did Kelas get a copy?" He pushed the papers across the desk to Gaven.

Tumult and tribulation swirl in his wake: The Blasphemer rises, the Pretender falls, and armies march once more across the land.

Gaven didn't remember that verse, but according to the paper in front of him, he had written it on the wall of his cell sometime during the night of Zarantyr 29, 973 YK. One of his first nights in Dreadhold. He flipped through the pages, ignoring the Prophecy in its neat dwarf-printing, looking only at the dates. One entry every week or so, two or three entries to a page, covering all twenty-six years of his imprisonment-he held more than five hundred pages.

"Maybe the Sentinel Marshals or Bordan d'Velderan came to Kelas after I escaped," Gaven said, "looking for help from the Royal Eyes."

"That would be strange," Aunn said, "the dragonmarked houses asking for help from a national government. And why the Royal Eyes? You haven't spent much time in Aundair."

"But Kelas had his own interest in me. He wanted me for the Dragon Forge. Or he wanted my mark."

"And he was interested in the Prophecy as it pertained to you and the Dragon Forge, certainly. But that doesn't explain how he got these documents."

"He could have…" Gaven had reached the last pages of the stack. These were written in a different hand, a flowing script nothing at all like the block letters of the dwarves. His father's hand.

My dear friend Kelas.

"What is it?" Aunn asked.

I hope this letter finds you well. I've enclosed the latest reports from House Kundarak-more of the same. I certainly hope they mean more to you than they do to me.

Gaven's own father, writing to Kelas as if to an old friend?

"Gaven?"

"My father sent them."

Gaven flipped through the last pages, scanning dates again. The last letter was dated the fourth of Eyre, 999 YK-less than a week before Gaven escaped from Dreadhold, just over a month before his father's death. Dear Kelas,

My younger son and all Stormhome are sleeping soundly as I write this, but sleep eludes me. Perhaps I have let my mind be influenced too much by Gaven's ravings, if that's what they are. I feel the weight of the future pressing on me. My health, I must accept, is failing. But how can I accept that if it means I am never to see Gaven's face again?

You have long assured me that I would live to see Gaven walk free of his prison, his innocence proven at last, and that hope has sustained me through these years of our correspondence. But unless you know some way to prolong my life-or Gaven's release is somehow imminent-I fear you have been mistaken.

So now I am preparing myself for death. Thordren will carry on my business, as he has ably done for many years now. If you wish, I will send a letter to House Kundarak, asking them to continue sending their reports to Thordren, and instruct him to send them on to you as I have done. And I will go to the Land of the Dead and strive to retain my memories there in the endless gray, so that when Gaven joins me there-many years from now, if it please the Host-I might still know him and be able to tell him what I couldn't tell him while I lived.

Thank you again-a thousand times-for all that you have done for me and my son. I hope you will continue your efforts on his behalf after I am gone, for the sake of our friendship. Your friend, Arnoth d'Lyrandar

Gaven read the letter three times-the first time, blinking back tears as he thought of his father, gripped with the pain of having missed the chance to see him by a few hours. The second time, he hunted through every sentence for a hint of what Arnoth had wanted to tell him. The third time, his tears dried, he looked for a better idea of what Kelas had supposedly been doing on Gaven's behalf.

"You worked for Kelas," he said at last.

Aunn was holding a glass orb and peering intently into its depths. "I did," he said, setting the orb aside on the desk.

"He sent you to join Cart and Senya, to get me out of Dreadhold."

"I'm afraid so."

"Why?" Gaven asked.

"Why did he send me? Isn't it obvious? He wanted your mark for the Dragon Forge."

"Did you know that at the time?"

"No," Aunn said. "I knew he wanted your knowledge of the Prophecy. Please believe me, Gaven, if I'd had any idea-"

Gaven shook his head. Cart had said the same thing. It didn't matter. "Did you know he was corresponding with my father?"

"I had no idea."

"He thought I was innocent," Gaven said. "He called me his son, even though I was excoriate, and he always believed he'd live to see me walk free."

"And he did, right?

"No. He knew I'd escaped, but that's not the same thing. I'm still not free. I'm still guilty, they'd still throw me back in Dreadhold if they could."

Aunn leaned forward over the desk. "But are you really guilty?"

"What do you mean? I did the things they accused me of."

"But the dragon-"

"I wasn't possessed. Its memories confused me, to be sure, but it was still me, doing what I did. As much as I'd like to avoid responsibility, I can't. The Thurannis killed all the Paelions because of me."

Aunn sat back in his chair, his gaze fixed on the desk.

"Bordan d'Velderan kept saying that I was no different from any other common criminal," Gaven said. "I have to prove him wrong."

"And how-" The glass globe on the desk began to glow, cutting him off. He looked at it for a moment, as the light grew from a faint shimmer to a brilliant glare, then reached for it. As soon as his fingers touched the smooth surface, the light faded, but Gaven could see the hint of an image inside the sphere.

"Kelas?" A woman's voice came from the globe, as clear as if she were in the room. "What's going on? I've been waiting all night!"

The forest to the east burned with the false promise of dawn as Rienne kept watch over Jordhan. The airship's fiery ring held the vessel aloft just above the tops of the charred trees, but its harsh light was a small flicker in a much larger darkness, leaving Rienne to peer nervously at every hint of movement at the edge of the encroaching shadows.

No attack came, and at last the eastern sky came alive with fiery red and yellow heralding the sun's true arrival. No bird calls greeted the dawn light, though, and as the light spilled across the ground beneath her Rienne saw the extent of the devastation left in the barbarians' wake.

The earth was a wide field of black rock and gray ash, the charred trunks of once-mighty trees jutting up like the crumbling stone pillars of an ancient ruin, many of them half toppled, inclined almost to the ground in their grief. Bones littered the ground as far as she could see-the snarling skull of an Eldeen bear nearby, shattered ribs jutting from the blackened tatters of a chainmail coat just beyond it. Among the bones vultures hopped, flapped, and swarmed over the fresh corpse of the dragon.

Vultures wheel where dragons flew, picking the bones of the numberless dead.

The words from Rienne's dream sprang to her mind, and brought with them images of battle-dragons flying overhead, a bone-white banner marked in blood, wave after wave of the enemy crashing down over her and Maelstrom. A demon standing before her, his sword burning with hellfire.

Rienne shook herself-had she fallen asleep? — and walked the perimeter of the deck. She and Gaven had visited the Towering Wood once, chasing a rumor of a dragonshard deposit, and she had loved the feeling of shelter she found beneath the arching branches of the ancient trees. The ground seemed like a magical twilight world where the sun never quite reached, yet it was warm and alive. Now the ruin of the forest was laid bare to the dawn, extending as far as she could see in every direction.