29. Bree

29

Bree

The sword wasn't as heavy as it looked.

I had it slung over my shoulder. Cara had insisted that if Riggs refused to carry it, it belonged with another who could draw it. I didn't fully understand her reasoning—I wasn't a suitable candidate for it. But I respected her enough to end up shouldering the scabbard anyway.

The burden it represented weighed on me almost as much as it had on Riggs. I wanted to talk about it with Caliel.

What if Riggs refuses to carry the sword?

Fate will not be shunned, he replied.

But he could just walk away.

Riggs is first and foremost a soldier. He believes in the fight for the greater good. Caliel's mindvoice was faint and distracted sounding. Can we discuss this later? I have my hands full here.

I experienced a pang of guilt. I can send you sword power.

If you draw it now, it will attract too much attention. I am okay, I just do not have time for chatting.

I didn't consider this issue "chatting", but at least we were communicating. Until he withdrew, and I found my feet carrying me to the library, as if the information it contained could lighten the load.

Once there, I wandered the shelves, passing over books I'd already perused and selecting some that I hadn't. I was moving from one aisle to the next when something caught my eye.

Or rather, some one .

A striking young man with coppery skin and black hair sat at a table tucked in a corner.

My foolish chest was all aflutter. The new student, Tez.

I wrestled my traitorous heart into submission before he could notice my gobsmacked expression. Fortunately, he appeared engrossed in a book whose spine must have been three inches thick. But his focus on it seemed rather deliberate, considering I was standing no more than ten feet from him.

As I paused, a tiny bird emerged from beneath his hair. It took flight, and he made a grab for it, but it nimbly evaded him and darted toward me.

It hovered in front of my face, and chirped. For some reason, I shifted my heavy books to one arm before raising a finger—and to my astonishment, it perched upon it.

"Who is this?" I asked him.

The expression he now directed to his pet could best be described as a glare. Not something to be dismissed, it hardened every plane of his face and gave him a vibe best not tangled with in dark places. It also temporarily robbed me of breath.

A muscle jumped in his cheek as he replied, "Her name is Nemi."

I managed to wheeze, "That's pretty."

His brows dropped. "My grandmother named her."

The bird took off again when the books started to slip from my grasp, and I grabbed at them. Sort of. I made a lunge for the table, and dropped them onto it.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" I asked.

The tiny bird had returned to his shoulder. He hesitated, and to my astonishment, her wing rose up and thwapped him along the back of his head.

He said, "Go ahead. I'm leaving soon, anyway."

The bird pecked him hard in the side of his neck, and he winced, ever so slightly.

"She's hard on you," I commented.

"You've no idea," he said with a fair amount of emphasis.

I sat down. As we were now across the table from each other, it became apparent that he was avoiding looking right at me. So instead I glanced at the book opened in front of him. It took me a moment to read the title. Residents Of The Realms—A Synopsis Of Realmian Cultures .

"Is that a textbook?" I asked.

"What? Oh—no, I'm just looking up some stuff." He set the book down. The page he'd been reading offered a drawing of a two-legged being resembling a lizard, with a long tail.

"Don't think I've ever met one of those," I said.

He glanced to the picture. "I have. You have to watch out for the tail. And they spit acid, too."

"Must come in handy, if someone attacks them."

His mouth quirked. "Not as handy as you might think." He shot a glance down the aisle. "Where's your muscle-bound friend?"

His tone was casual, but rather deliberately so, and I thought I detected the merest hint of derision. Why was he asking about Riggs? "I don't know," I admitted.

"Are you two together?"

Why did my chest suddenly hurt? I countered with, "That's a rather nosy question."

It startled me when his eyes flared turquoise. "I'm a rather nosy guy." His gaze moved to the hilt looming over my shoulder, and his arched brows drew down.

"Isn't that your boyfriend's sword?"

"What? I never said he was my boyfriend."

"Then why do you have his sword?"

I swallowed. "I'm holding onto it for him."

Now his dark gaze fastened on mine. The intensity in it riveted me, and my heart did an odd flip. What was it about this guy? Compelling wasn't a strong enough word.

"I didn't think that sword was something you walked away from," he said.

My focus sharpened. First, he'd been able to draw it from the scabbard, now he claimed he knew what the sword was. "What do you know of it?"

His eyes skittered away again, and he shrugged. "Not much. It is ancient history where I come from, and so tied up with myth that who knows where the fucking truth lies."

Once again, Nemi thwapped him along the back of his head with her wing. More questions buzzed around in my brain. "Where are you from?"

His expression became guarded. "Now who is being nosy?"

When he didn't add anything further, I selected a book from the pile and dropped it in front of me. He wasn't the only student to have secrets, but it surprised me how badly I wanted to know his. If I pushed, though, I was pretty sure he'd leave. So instead I asked, "I'd like to hear what you know."

At first, I didn't think he'd tell me. He closed his reference tome and folded long, strong fingers around it.

Just when I thought he was going to push away from the table, the bird pecked him again. His fingers whitened on the book, but then, he began to speak. Of not just one story, but several—apparently there were many versions. Sometimes the wielder was an unknown peasant, sometimes a bastard son of a king. One of the stories involved a king proclaimed by the pulling of the sword free from a stone, which would have been unlikely except everything I'd read about this weapon seemed far-fetched.

But although the beginning of the stories varied, the end did not. In every version, the king had died after being betrayed by someone he trusted.

When he finished, I found myself clutching my book with a thundering heart and eyes pricking with tears.

He'd recounted the story with his own gaze fastened on the shelves behind me, but now he looked into my eyes, and said, "Are you okay?"

His voice was slightly hoarse, but there was genuine concern within it. And it elicited a response from me. "Every wielder of this sword dies."

"Everyone dies." His eyes flared turquoise again.

"Yes, but what if it is because of the sword?"

He was silent for a moment as he regarded me. When he spoke, there was an odd note in his voice.

"So tall-dark-and-dodgesome does matter to you," he said.

It was as though he stared straight into my soul, and perhaps because of that, instead of calling him nosy, I whispered, "He does."

His eyes narrowed. "He seemed surprised when I drew that sword."

"It doesn't let just anyone do that."

"Does it let you wield it, too?"

I nodded.

He pushed his book aside. "Perhaps Fate has spread its favors, this time. Just be careful that it also doesn't gift you the same ending." He rose, moving as though his body hurt him, before he fastened his gaze on me. "So be careful who you trust."

The statement seemed curiously emphasized, and for just a moment he hesitated, as though he would say more. Then the tiny bird on his shoulder twittered at him, and he walked stiffly away, vanishing into the aisles.

I regarded the stack of books he'd left behind. They were all general references on the realms and their inhabitants.

Strange that he would be researching those things. But that wasn't all that was odd about Tez. Or about my reaction to him.

From deep within, I sensed a surge of something indefinable. As if Caliel had thoughts on the matter.

I waited. But when he offered nothing, I reached for my first book.

Maybe not all the sword's wielders ended up betrayed and dead on a battlefield.

I stretched out on my bed and stared up at the ceiling.

The sword lay beside me. It represented the future. But what kind of future?

If Riggs was meant for bigger things, where did that leave us? If I wasn't meant to be with him—why had the sword let me pull it from the scabbard?

It suggested that I was part of the fate it had decreed for him. That was the only thing reassuring me right now. Because I didn't want to walk away from Riggs. The tales of other wielders filled me with dread—would he escape that fate?

And Tez—just who was he? My reaction to him was confusing. An attraction, but did it mean anything?

How could it, if I wanted a future with Riggs?

I'd expected all kinds of questions when Adilyn came in, but she flitted straight to her log, and a few moments later, the light went out inside. I guessed learning to swim was exhausting work. More likely, she had just been too preoccupied with her new matebond to even notice I had a strange bedfellow.

She was an aloof, but easy, roommate. Could she be more than that? After what I'd been through with Victor, I found her honesty refreshing.

There was something to be said for that. I almost wished she'd noticed the sword. I could use some brutal honesty right about now.

Caliel was remaining stubbornly silent. Despite me taking crystal dust at several intervals today, and braiding some crystals in my hair before I'd left Cara's, he didn't seem any stronger. I reached deep and immediately sensed the monster.

It was awake. Aware. And Caliel was all that stood between me and it.

I'd meant to ask Cara to help with it, but I had gotten distracted. But the sword had assisted Caliel in the past…

I pushed myself up on one elbow and used my other hand to pull the sword partly free from the scabbard.

The energy flowed through me, but the glow lit the room, and I glanced at the log before readjusting the sword so that it lay beneath the covers with me.

I sensed the thing within me stir, but the wall between me and it seemed to strengthen.

Is that better? I asked Caliel.

Yes, he replied, but his voice was barely audible.

Worry coursed through me. Are you okay?

Stop asking me that. I am busy.

I withdrew, but the hurt ran deep. He so clearly did not wish to speak with me. But I thought I'd try one last thing. Do you want to go flying?

No. This is taking all my concentration. So please stop talking.

Well, that was pretty clear. Brimming with tears, my eyes returned to the ceiling. For a bit there, I'd felt as though we shared something truly special. But now, it had all gone wrong.

I lay with an aching heart and thought of Riggs. Of his rejection of the sword, and all it stood for. Of my place, either with, or without him. And where did Tez fit into all this?

My fitful thoughts led to an equally fitful sleep. I drifted in and out—until something finally seized hold of me.

I walked through a fog. So thick I could see nothing, but beneath my feet was something very solid, like rock. I could hear what sounded like a restless crowd somewhere ahead, and the voices within it set my skin to prickling.

There was anger in the air. And fear.

I carried the sword. The sheath lay heavy against my back, as though I shouldered the weight of destiny. I scoffed at the thought, but it persisted.

Then, a breeze moved the fog aside, and I froze.

I walked along the edge of a cliff. Three moons shone fitfully down amid scudding clouds, but all three were there, and bright beyond them. Before me was a sheer drop, and below me ? —

Below me stood Dragons.

There were hundreds of them, stretching as far as the eye could see, in every color of the Dragon rainbow. All their metallic gazes were focused on the cliff.

But not on me. I followed their gazes and saw two men standing at the pinnacle of rock.

I knew one of them. Tez, standing to the left, the wind blowing through his thick black hair. When he turned his head to me, his eyes gleamed turquoise. I was aware of the swirl of feathers far above—birds, thousands of them, circling amid the clouds.

I did not know the man standing a distance to the right. He was big, with pale striped hair and hulking muscles. Then he turned his head to me, and the vivid-blue eyes altered slightly. What I saw within them punched straight through to my gut, and I hovered on the edge of recognition…

A huge form approached us from above. Wings that shone purple and black in the moonlight—Riggs.

No, not Riggs. This was Razir. The prince.

The crowd fell silent as he cruised to a landing on the cliff, and shifted to human, standing between the other two. They ignored each other. All three stared out over the silent crowd.

Silent, as if waiting.

Something was wrong. I sensed the disconnect, where we needed cohesion. So I stepped forward, to stand beside Razir.

"Go away, Bree," he said. "This isn't your fight."

Bree. Not Breana. And suddenly, I knew what was wrong. Fractured, he was fractured. The Dragon, and the ordinary guy.

I stepped before him and pulled the scabbard off my shoulder. Offered it to him.

"I do not want it," he stated.

I snorted a laugh. "As if you have a choice." And I drew the sword.

It should have been too heavy for me, but it was so perfectly balanced I could hold it aloft. It blazed like a beacon into the night, and as the clouds raced away from it, starlight shone down on us from above.

My voice rang out into the silence. "Take my hand."

Razir stared down at me, and the chaos in his eyes pierced my heart. But it was the hulking stranger beside him who stepped up to me and folded his massive fist around the cross guard.

The sword brightened. I looked to Tez. "Now, you."

He glared at the other two, his features stamped with arrogance.

"Please," I requested.

The hummingbird darted from his shoulder, to land on mine. Tez's lips curled into a sneer, but he stepped forward to fold his hand onto the other cross guard.

Another surge of light from the sword. I matched Razir's gaze.

"Riggs," I said. "Fate has spoken. Grab hold."

His eyes flared metallic. "My name is Razir."

"Yes," I said. "But you are also Riggs. Only by accepting that, can you ever be whole."

His head lifted, and his wings sprang free from his shoulders. I raised the sword higher, and the crowd below us hung on his response.

"Do you trust me?" I asked.

His eyes flared. "You know I do."

"Then do it, Riggs," I said.

Something gave within him. He reached out and folded his hand around mine. And the night sky became as day…

I awoke to a racing heart, my breath catching in my throat as if I was choking. The entire room was lit up, and I saw Adilyn's startled face. She was sitting in human form on the bed opposite me.

The sword was alight, lying completely naked beside the scabbard. It had burned clear through the covers, and smoke hung in the room.

Adilyn looked at me, and said, "What the…?"

I rolled to a sitting position and grabbed the sword, shoving it back into the scabbard. Darkness returned to the room, and Adilyn reached over to switch on the light.

"Sorry for waking you up," I said.

"Waking me up? You almost burned the place to a crisp. I thought it was morning. And then I smelled the smoke." She tilted her head. "Were you dreaming? You were muttering things. Names." Her eyes dropped to the weapon. "And what are you doing with Riggs's sword?"

"He's decided he doesn't want it," I said.

"Sid says that's a special sword." She still sounded annoyed, but now also confused.

I wondered just how much Sid had told her. But then, he didn't know who Riggs really was. "I think sleeping beside it gave me nightmares."

"Well, keep it wrapped up in that scabbard. I'm not rooming with an effing firebug."

I felt I owed her an explanation for almost burning down our room. "It has an energy that helps me control the Ice Drake inside me," I said. "But I won't go to sleep with it unsheathed again. I didn't know it would burn through the covers."

She didn't look entirely reassured, and I couldn't blame her. But it wasn't the sword's power that had me so unsettled.

It was the dream. Mostly because I was pretty sure it wasn't a dream.

It was a damned vision.