Dragonfly Refrain Read online

  Dragonfly

  Refrain

  From the Ashes, Book 2

  Aimee Moore

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  For anyone whose soul chorused a refrain that the world frowned upon. Sing loud.

  Chapter 1

  Magnificent

  They had every reason to kill me.

  The grieving: that’s who these people were. Muddy tears and snot glistening on faces puckered with anguish; howls of despair lost to the unfeeling wind. Wind that carried with it the stench of death and smoke, summoning the carrion birds who feasted among the mourning. This fly-infested field of finality; I was responsible for it.

  But beyond the wreckage of Elanthia’s gates, the grief-stricken no more recognized me than the lifelessness in their kin. The looks of loathing were directed, instead, at the man by my side. Because they would never forget that his people, the Kraw, did this to them.

  There was no hope of disguising Dal, the last remaining of the Kraw warriors, as human like myself. Already his muscled bulk was out of place, but his tattoos were what distinguished him the most. The bold black lines whispering ancient spells and symbols across his entire body were as foreign to my people as the deep rumble of his voice.

  But I was not to be deterred from my quest.

  Dal shifted next to me, the clink and rustle of the massive pack he shouldered barely audible over the cries of despair among the rubble.

  “I will not be welcome here a second time,” Dal said to me. His grasp on my language, though worked into comfort, still held the broken cadence of an accent.

  “You weren’t welcome the first time, either.”

  “We will have to procure an escort so that I may pass with you.”

  “None here would offer aid to a woman with a Kraw at her side,” I said, looking over the hostile glares of what few humans cared enough to turn their attention from the dead. The soldiers in the distance ignored us completely as they hauled the dead into carts.

  “There.” Dal pointed.

  I followed his gaze to the soldier in a helmet that obscured his face, leaving only a series of pencil-sized holes for him to see out of. I wondered how he could breathe through it in this muggy heat. The soldier was gesturing wildly and laughing with a dirty little man, despite the somber atmosphere.

  I frowned up at Dal. “Why that one?”

  “He is what you need.”

  I took in a lungful of rot, shouldered my small bag higher, and began to limp my way toward the turning point in my destiny. If I had known that so much regret would hinge on this moment, I would have fled instead.

  As we walked through the blocks of mortar and piles of dead, the reactions to Dal were mixed. Some cursed him, some threw crumbled pieces of Elanthia’s great wall, some went back to digging or praying to their gods. One scrappy fellow tried to incite an angry mob to avenge their fallen as the lone Kraw walked among them.

  But ultimately, the only creatures that stirred were the carrion birds, festering strings of human flesh dangling from cruel beaks. As we approached our target and his companion, the dirty little man took one look at Dal and scurried off, leaving the soldier to stride forward in an odd swagger. Perhaps he was intoxicated.

  “Oy there, you can’t bring that Kraw into the city, it’ll be strung up by its stones and beaten to death,” the soldier said in a voice that rattled around in his helmet. I wished I could see his eyes through the small holes.

  I brought myself up to my full height, which didn’t match the soldier or Dal by any means, and spoke in the commanding voice I had mastered as the Eyes and Ears of the Kraw Warlord.

  “I’m Seraphine of Lambston, and this Kraw is my slave. I’ve come to trade for goods to bring to the village of Sunwold. They suffer still from the Kraw invasion, and will be without food before the season has ended.”

  The tall soldier set his weight back. “Woman, you’re daft if you think that your Kraw will make it ten paces through the inner city without being killed; slave or not.”

  “This is why I ask your aid. With your escort, the people will think him captive and leave us be.”

  The soldier let out a guffaw. “What gives you the idea I want to help? You think I want to be gutted for bringing that damn Kraw into Elanthia?”

  I gritted my teeth as the words of another flashed through my mind. Cook him in his armor for his insolence. My gift responded to the call of destruction in my mind, flame licking its way up my fingers. In all my efforts to mimic Patroma so I could survive in my role as the Eyes and Ears, I made the mistake of letting her memory take residence in my soul. And there it festered, a constant reminder of the atrocities I’d committed in her place.

  I sucked in a breath, pulling my flame inward. The Kraw had left my world, their ways were no longer needed to achieve my goals.

  “What sort of compensation do you require?” I bit out.

  The soldier leaned back on his heels again, tilting his helmet at me. For a heartbeat in time, I thought he would request me as payment.

  But then the soldier said, “What you got for trade there?” Shielded by his helmet, I didn’t see the soldier’s gaze trained on Dal and his massive pack behind me.

  I turned to Dal and gave a nod. My slave knelt, revealing the many things we carried. The soldier approached, examining, until something caught his eye.

  “Oh-ho! This sword is magnificent, eh?” The soldier picked out one of the smaller Kraw swords, the blade etched with blood red so that it always looked fresh from a kill. It even had a weighty spike on the hilt for close combat. On him, it was a sizeable blade.

  “Imagine that coming at your face. You’d shat so hard your gods would feel it.” I could hear the smile coming through his helmet.

  “Great,” I said in a dry tone. “If that is what you wish, then perhaps we can be on with our errand.”

  Dal hoisted the enormous bag on his back again with a great clanking noise, the weapons bundled on top or on the sides knocking together. Now that I looked at him, he rather reminded me of a walking tree with the bits of weapon sticking out.

  “What else you got in there?” The soldier asked.

  I gave an irritated sigh. “Furs and jewelry and medicines. For trade.”

  The soldier waved a dismissive hand toward Dal. “Frippery.” With the imposing sword in hand, he led us through the gates, into the world of humans that had every reason to hate Dal, and more reason still to hate me, the human woman who had helped kill her own species.

  Chapter 2

  Unwelcome

  The soldier procured a covered cart for our journey into the city. It reeked of rotting flesh, leaving nothing to the imagination of what its purpose had been. Dal and I kept our distance from each other in the small space, knowing from experience that this journey would eat up most of our day.

  “You wanted to kill him,” Dal murmured to me in the shadows of our creaking cart. His dusky skin and black hair blended with the darkness far better than my own pale complexion and red hair. He might yet pass u
nseen.

  “Patroma wanted to kill him,” I said.

  “Her presence in your mind is no longer needed for your survival. You will heal.”

  “It’s easier to take a life than to heal one. I am the Warlord now, and Warlords do not compromise.”

  “Warlords have armies to command,” Dal said with a note of humor.

  “I need no army. The power of my gift can kill far more efficiently.”

  “Hm. To wage war on one city to save a second would be foolish.”

  “I know,” I said with a sigh of defeat. “A good deed undone, as it were. I wonder at the wisdom of our errand; we’re cutting it close.”

  “Yes. After the Longest Day passes, my ability to take us to my world will be lost until the days lengthen again.”

  “And still you insist upon this, despite the risk,” I said.

  Dal gave a nod. “Offering aid to your friend’s lawless village will bring you peace; make the burdens of war less heavy upon you.”

  “I only hope Sunwold isn’t beyond help. Food and clothing will alleviate their immediate needs, but it won’t change the ways of the people. Nor will it halt the terror they inflict on the women behind closed doors.” A shudder ran through me as I recalled that rainy night when I had stumbled upon my friend Kenni being assaulted.

  “Kraw have a saying. Better that an ax have half a handle than none at all,” Dal said in his language.

  “An ax,” I whispered as a thought dawned on me. Perhaps there was no hope of changing the men, and Sunwold’s hope lay elsewhere.

  The day wore on as we passed more carnage and ruin, and in time the cart tumbled into the streets of the city’s lowest ring. Peering through the back opening of the cart, I noticed various merchant stands passing us by. All of them were somber and bleary-eyed, conducting their business with the hushed reservation of grave diggers.

  I poked up through the front of the cart’s canvas covering, level with the soldier’s shoulder. “We’ve passed many a merchant. Why do you not stop?”

  The soldier still had not removed his awful helmet. “Well, as luck would have it, you need a permit to sell in Elanthia. I’m already in a spot of trouble, if ya know what I mean, so I’d best be following orders and taking you to the palace for that permit. Wouldn’t want to give our king a reason for a tantrum.”

  “King?” I asked. “He’s dead, it’s why the council of Gifted stepped up to rule.” My people’s gifts, should one be lucky enough to be born Gifted, were various. Earth movers, light benders, wind drifters; the possibilities were diverse. My gift of flame was a bewilderment to me, and a bigger shock to the council I’d helped kill.

  “Oh aye. Deader’n those fellas back at the gates. But now we’ve got Sol Lalpund’s errant bastard to answer to. If you ask me, he’s a useless cow pie. Rotten, clueless, limp dick. But you didn’t ask me. So I didn’t say. Anyhow, permits don’t take long, you’ll be on your way soonish.”

  I sat back under the cart cover with a huff, murmuring to Dal in Kraw language. “I do not wish to see that cursed palace again.”

  He responded in his tongue, quietly enough that I had to strain to hear him over the creaking cart and buzz of city life. “I do not relish the idea, either, but they cannot keep us here if we do not wish it. Have patience, Sera, no good deed is without cost.”

  I nodded and sat back for the remainder of the ride. Each ring of Elanthia’s cities took hours to pass, and I grew bored with the people and horses unfolding through the opening in the back of the cart. I knew we were approaching the palace when the squat homes and shops had traded wood for stone, cradling between them lush planter boxes instead of ruddy laundry lines. The cobbles were smoother here, making for a less jarring ride as I peered at the affluent men and ladies of upper Elanthia. Everyone was reduced to mourning by the shock of the Kraw invasion, whether their lives were lit by pauper’s torches or gilded streetlamps.

  At long last, we arrived in the courtyard where the grand white castle seemed to eat up the sky. The soldier jumped down into the gravel, stretched and groaned in an obnoxious manner, then crunched over to help us down. The familiar smell of the sea and the fragrant blooms of the exotic palace gardens tickled my nose.

  “Thank you,” I said, hopping down on my good foot and craning my neck up to see the tops of the palace. The setting sun illuminated the destruction wrought on the imposing structure. Fancy stone work, statues, stained glass; all had been shattered away, littering the ground with debris. Most of the portion closest to the sea was in shambles.

  Men and women were trying to make a dent in the mess. Many were attempting to put new glass in the jagged, toothy holes of what used to be stained glass windows. The Kraw catapults couldn’t have reached this far back, it didn’t make sense. I glanced at Dal, and he gave me a knowing look.

  By the gods. I did this. I gasped and looked up at the palace again. The great shockwave of my gift must have traveled through the palace and found relief through the backside.

  “Come on then,” the tall soldier said, ignoring my shock.

  I glanced at my slave again and marched forward as I clutched the whorled seashell at my neck. Holding it was becoming a comfort to me, the memory of a joyful moment whispering across my mind.

  But no amount of comfort was going to get us the permit we needed, for we were detained at the door, and then brought before the one person I didn’t want to see in all this wretched city.

  ∞∞∞∞

  “Tell me, woman, why you inflict your own people with the horror of bringing that into our city,” the young king said into the tense stillness that filled the room.

  Dal and I stood in the middle of the largest throne room I’d ever seen. Stained glass windows stretched high into the darkness that waited to swallow the candles, a battalion of soldiers glinting in the flickering light, waiting for me or Dal to make a wrong move.

  The king was a young boy of about fourteen years wearing royal garb, the awkward way he held himself under the glittering gold and silk a complete mockery of his position on the throne. I wouldn’t have believed my eyes if I hadn’t heard the boyish pitch in the newfound deepness of his tone. And behind him, the draped menace of stooped advisors glaring their intent at Dal. It should have been me.

  “I’m a small woman with a lame foot, I cannot carry the load he bears. He is my slave, a means to my ends. I’m only here to make trades for Sunwold and leave, nothing more,” I said to the scrawny youth on the throne.

  The boy king looked down his pointed nose while he considered me. Ignite the insolent little wretch, Patroma’s voice hissed in my mind. Melt his skin and spit on him to hear it sizzle. I shook her away.

  “I am Caelund. King, Caelund; son of council member Sol Lalpund. Your Kraw should be slain on the spot, his head mounted high above the city. It would please our people to witness my great power to exact revenge upon the beast.”

  I ignored the threat and the name. Though Dal looked nearly as human as the rest of us, his brute strength and barbaric traits often caused my people to label him a beast.

  “He would not stand before you now if I allowed him to be taken with such ease,” I said.

  The boy king, Caelund, sat back in his throne, considering me with all the arrogance of an entitled youth who hasn’t benefited from the swift kick of humbleness yet. His scrawny neck bobbed as he spoke. “You’re one of the Gifted,” he said in a thoughtful tone. “That is my gift; to see that of others. I see fire igniting your blood. Excessively.”

  “Then you see what I’m capable of.”

  “Gifted belong to me, you know. I am to use them as I wish. I can choose to keep you for my armies or my amusement.”

  “I belong to only one man, and since you are not yet a man, I have no worry of your intent.”

  Caelund stood. “Do you wish to die, woman?” he snarled.

  I glanced at Dal to see that his hand had drifted to the hilt of his black-flame sword, body tensed to readiness.

  Bu
t I needed no protection. “Any hostile attempts to impede our task will result in bloodshed. I implore you to think about just whose blood it will be,” I said.

  The tall man in robes behind the throne placed a hand on the boy king’s shoulder and whispered something, giving the young man pause. “What are your names?” Caelund asked.

  Dal spoke quietly in Kraw as he relaxed his hand away from his sword. “He knows.”

  I furrowed my brow at Dal, whose Kraw hearing must have heard the advisor, then spoke to the boy king. “I am Seraphine of Lambston, and this is Dal.”

  Caelund sat with a thump that unseated his crown, then laughed. “Oh, this is too good,” he said between peals of laughter. “Which of you idiots brought traitors to me?”

  I gave a hard sigh. I’ve had enough of this traitor business for one lifetime. Dal caught my eye as I tensed for battle and gave me the tiniest shake of his head. I calmed my flame.

  The taller soldier stepped forward with his odd swagger and spoke in that familiar voice. “I did, ‘Majesty.”

  “Remove your helmet, soldier,” Caelund said in a bored voice.

  “Rather not, sir.”

  “Do it or I’ll have it removed with your head,” the boy said.

  The soldier seemed to deflate for a moment, then gave his head a tiny shake before wrenching the awful helmet free.

  Chin-length, chestnut brown hair cascaded out of the helmet, revealing the softest long-lashed eyes I had ever seen. A woman. A tall woman, yes, a woman with considerable muscle bulk, but a beautiful woman nonetheless. Shocking in her loveliness. Despite her looks, an air of intolerance seemed to sweep around the room among the other soldiers.

  The boy king laughed again. “Lianne? You brought me traitors?”

  Lianne’s voice, a lower octave than most women’s, was no longer muffled by the metal helmet, and thus rang through the throne room. “It appears so,” she said.

  “She brought them to the court of merchant appeals, Majesty, to obtain permits to sell whatever it is that they bring,” another soldier said.