She never meant to touch the stone. One moment she was grieving her mother and the next she finds herself stumbling through the halls of Basgiath War College on Conscription Day - a stranger in the world of dragons, rebellion and lies. She doesn’t belong here. The dragons know it, the commanders know it and so does Xaden Riorson, a first year marked one with secrets he can’t afford to lose.
Chapter One
Elowen Stone _____________________
My mothers wake is miserable and it is too loud. The ropey guitar in Don’t Marry Her by Beautiful South fills the room and I have no choice but to pour myself another glass of wine. I close my eyes and I’m transported back to Christmas day. I’m four and I’m kneeling on the floor with a ring I got in my cereal box, begging my dad not to marry his new girlfriend but to marry me instead.
“Go easy,” my cousin Harris mutters. He leans against the bar beside me, tapping his finger against his glass as the song ends and Another One Bites The Dust by Queen rattles out of the stereo. He huffs a laugh. “Un-fucking-believable.”
This calls for drastic measures. I throw back the glass of wine, lean across the bar and grab the entire bottle. The pub smells of roses and whiskey. Sweet and sickly. Cigarette smoke hangs low in the air. “She would have hated this,” I say. He murmurs in agreement. Everybody has gathered. Neighbours. Distant relatives. Most of them haven’t spoken to my mother in years. Half of them wouldn’t have recognised her in the street. But now she’s dead they all want to pay their respects. Disgusting, all of them.
I press my spine against the bar and drain what’s left in the bottle. It does nothing to soften the sharpness in my chest. Grief has tunneled a path through my existence and a bitter lump of coal lies where my heart should be. The thought of going back to her house to clear out her belongings makes me want to find the nearest bridge.
“She was the best of us,” someone says. I turn my back on them and stare at the picture that has been hung on the back wall. It’s a headshot I took for her a couple of years ago so she could apply for a passport. We were going to visit France together. She’d never been out of the country.
“She was doing so well,” someone remarks. I bark a laugh. Lies. They didn’t see her in those last months. The half empty bottles under the sink, the crushed packets of medication piled up on the table. The last time I visited her the food in her fridge had gone mouldy and she’d been sleeping on the sofa. I’d told her everything would be fine like I was the one falling apart. I was wrong. It was never fine. She died of alcohol poisoning a few days later. She’d been dead for two days before I found her.
I could have saved her and now she’s dead and I’m standing here pretending I care that someone made brownies because she once heard my mum loved them. She fucking hated them.
The laughter bothers me the most. My uncle, red-cheeked, claps another man on the back as he tells a ridiculous story about farting in front of someone in the supermarket. He’s acting like this is another family party. Plates clatter and someone's child runs a moke on the dance floor. The world has moved on already and I’m still drowning in grief.
I shouldn’t drink anymore. My vision has already started to blur but it feels right. I swipe a half empty glass from the bar and hug it to me. “You’ve had enough,” Harris hisses. He tries to take the glass from my hand but I scoot away from him.
“She’s grieving,” Tobias, my mothers boyfriend, says. There is an edge to his voice. It’s tight with embarrassment. I know what he’s thinking. Like mother, like daughter. “Leave her alone.” He tries to comfort me. His hand squeezes my shoulder as the soft symphony of Nothing Compares To You by Sinead O’Connor starts playing and I reel back in disgust. Doesn’t he understand? Nothing can possibly contain the hurricane of guilt inside of me. It’s my fault. She’s dead because of me. I left her.
I lurch out into the front drive, still clutching the beer glass in my hand. The air smells of damp grass and cigarette smoke. I sink onto the step. Stars scatter across the night sky. I used to point them out to her. We would lie in the garden together and learn the constellations on warm summer nights. Now the stars look dull. Lifeless.
I lift the glass to my lips. It sloshes. Half of the contents ends up down my front. Maybe I’m more drunk than I thought. Still, I feel too much. The pain won't let go. It wraps its talons around my neck and squeezes.
“You’re not alone,” Harris had whispered earlier as we stood side by side in the pew at the church. He was wrong. I am alone. I’ve never been more alone. My life has been torn in two and I don’t have the energy to pick the pieces back up again. What’s the point?
The door opens behind me as one of my mum's old friends throws a scarf around her neck and fishes inside her bag for a set of car keys. “She’s drunk again,” Tobias says too loudly from the bar. His voice drips with disdain.
“She’s just lost her mother,” Harris argues. I don’t want their pity. I don’t want their whispered judgement. I want the silence back. Everything is too damn loud. I want the silence of her hand smoothing my hair back and telling me it will all be okay even when it wasn’t. The quiet moments spent in front of the TV watching the ten o’clock news.
The keys wink at me from the jacket pocket on the back of the door. My cousin's knock off Barbour jacket hangs on the hook with his wallet and car keys shoved inside the inner pocket carelessly. Before I can think better of it the keys are in my pocket. I’ve always excelled at thievery. My mother used to joke that I'd give Oliver Twist a run for his money.
I move fast. Gravel crunches under my boots. No one notices. They’re too busy telling stories and moving on with their sad little lives. The car door is cold as I wrench it open and collapse into the seat. I shove the key into the ignition and the engine roars to life. Music blares, Radio 1, blasting Creep by Radiohead. I twist the volume button until the words drown out my thoughts. The bass vibrates the console.
I ignore the pulsing pain in my head and speed down the country roads. They are slick with har. Hedges and fences blur past. I catch a glimpse of glowing eyes as the headlights carve a narrow tunnel of yellow through the dark. I know these roads like the back of my hand.
If I go fast enough, maybe I can leave it all behind. The wake. The pity. The grave. Maybe I can leave myself behind too. What’s the point if she’s not here to hold my hand?
The bend comes too fast. My hands are too slow. The car skids on the loose tarmac and the tires shriek. The useless car slides off the road and the impact slams me sideways. Glass shatters like gunfire and the airbag punches me in the chest. Stealing my breath. For one wild second I think this is it - I’ll join her - and to my surprise I feel regret. I’m too young to die.
But no. I’m still alive. My lungs gasp for air. My cheek is wet. Blood? Tears? Who the fuck cares. The door groans as I shove it open and stagger into the night. My legs barely hold me. I can now feel every inch of the wine I drank tonight. The smell of oil and smoke clings to my clothes and my stomach revolts. I fall to my knees and try to stop the blood. It drips from my head in thick rivulets. I taste copper in my mouth. I haven't been this much of a mess since our end of year graduation party when Connor McGregor's sister accidentally pushed me through a glass partition and I hit my head on the metal gate.
The forest looms behind the crash site, dark and endless. Against my better judgement I stumble into it and away from the twisted metal. The last thing I need is to be arrested for this. The only way tonight could get worse is if I end up spending tonight in a cell. Harris will never forgive me.
Branches claw at my oversized gray jumper. It has a dove sewn onto a pocket. I found it in my mum's closet. Mud sucks at my trainers. My head spins with every step but some invisible thread pulls me deeper and deeper through the brush until the noise of the crash and the echo of passing cars fades into nothing.
I stumble into a clearing and stop. In its centre stands a stone. It is black and towering with patterns paving a path across its surface. It looks out of place here. It reminds me of the fairy stones in Outlander, or the stone circle of Stonehenge. It gleams faintly in the moonlight and I squint at it. I’m too drunk for this. My breath fogs. The temperature drops as I cross towards it. My skin pickles as it knows something I don't.
I know I should head back to the main road and flag someone down. Every instinct screams at me to turn around and run but the grief is louder. I close my eyes and press my palm flat against the surface like it will save me.
The word tears itself apart.
A scream wrenches from my throat as I’m stolen from the present into a bottomless pit of nothingness. The ground disappears. My stomach lurches into my ribs and air rushes past. I scream louder but it is swallowed by the silence. For a moment I hang in suspended animation - neither here nor there - and then I am tossed into the air.
I land hard, against flagstone. It’s cold against my cheek and I gasp for air. I push up and look around me in surprise and confusion. I blink. Where the fuck am I? I’m lying in a cavern. I can see the sky above me through a gap in the ceiling. The sun is shining brightly through hte clouds. It can’t be morning already?
The walls are neatly carved and the air is thick with dust. I twist around and behind me the stone looms above me menacingly. I scramble to my feet, stumble and run towards the door in the back of the room. I need to get out of here. I’ve surely stumbled across a drug den.
“What the fuck is happening to me,” I mutter as I clamber into the hallway beyond. What was in that last drink? It must have been something strong. I’ve done recreational drugs before but this is extreme. I blink a couple of times and I descend down the empty corridor and try to wake myself up. I slap myself over and over again but nothing happens.
A door creaks open. Light spills across the floor and a woman strides in. Her uniform is as sharp as her expression. Her hair has been shorn short and it is tucked neatly behind her ear. Her eyes are cold hazel. I stop walking and squint at her clothes. She’s wearing some sort of cosplay costume. It’s made of reinforced leather and she has badges on her lapel. Too many of them to count. Is this a How to Kill a Dragon convention?
“Wow,” I murmur, taking a step closer to her so I can get a better look. “What do these all mean? Did you make them yourself?” She startles and takes a step back in horror. I look down at myself and shrug. Red wine and beer stains the front of my jumper and mud cakes my trainers. I do look a little worse for wear. I’d pass comfortably for a homeless person.
“Initiate, what are you doing sneaking around down here?” she snaps. She looks over my shoulder and down the hall towards the chamber with the stone. Her hands close into fists by her side. When she looks back at me she is filled with suspicion. Her fingers twitch over one of the blades she has strapped to her waist like she can’t quite decide if she should kill me or not.
“I’m not -” I begin to try to explain myself but my brain struggles to keep up. If she’ll just let me go back to the chamber. Maybe if I touch the stone again it will take me to the clearing. This is all just one big misunderstanding. I hold my hands out in front of me as I try to explain myself and I must look really silly. I bark a laugh and raise my eyebrows but I’m drunk and words are hard.
“Out, now. Before I hand you over to Melgren as a spy. The Parapet is this way.” She seizes my arm in an iron grip before I can protest and frog marches me down the corridor and up a set of stairs that seems to go on endlessly.
“No, you have the wrong end of the stick -” I begin to argue with her but she’s too strong and I feel like I’m walking through quick sand. My feet buckle and she has to pick me back up again in disgust. “- this is all wrong.”
She shoves me through another set of doors and the world drops away again. I step out onto a ledge and before me stretches an impossibly long skinny bridge. It looks like the bridge in Crash Bandicoot minus the wooden panels that fall away under your feet. Below it I can hear rushing water and half way, where the bridge bends ever so slightly, someone is making his way across. He has his arms outstretched. His balance is impeccable.
There are no handrails. “This one seems to have lost her way,” the woman tells a young man with a clipboard. She turns back to me and gestures out towards the bridge. The clouds overhead have thickened and they swell with rain. “The Parapet,” she says. Her smirk is cruel. “Cross it or die.”
The wind howls and my legs tremble. I think I might be sick. “You’re mad,” I whisper. She gives me one last smug look and then she disappears back through the door. I understand now. Why bother arresting me when you can just throw me off a bridge. It saves questioning me.
“I wouldn’t antagonise General Sorrengail like that,” he mutters. His eyes barely leave the clipboard in front of him. Name? ”He’s wearing a similar leather suit as the General but he only has two badges. One of them has a flame on it.
“Fire,” I say, pointing to it like I’ve just answered the one million pound question on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire. His lips quirk in disgust. “Is this some sort of scout class?”
“Name,” he repeats vehemently. I sigh and turn back to the bridge. The figure has now made it to the other side. That’s promising. I wonder what’s waiting for me on the other side.
“It’s Elowen Briar,” I say, turning back to him. “Look, I’m not supposed to be here. I dropped out of the Brownies because I couldn’t learn how to tie a sailor’s knot.” He makes a noise of irritation, packs up his clipboard and pushes me out onto the bridge with surprisingly strong hands.
I gasp as the wind whips at my hair. The first step nearly kills me. The second scrapes my trainers against the stone and I realise my laces have come undone. Fuck. By the third I’m gagging. Bile rises thick and fast in my throat. I drop to my hands as it reaches my mouth and I make the executive decision to swallow it back down. I regret it instantly. The bastards are trying to kill me.
I’m dreaming. This is just a dream. I’m drunk. Probably drugged. Worst case scenario I’ll wake up in a hospital bed with points on my license. I can do this. This is totally okay. I won't really die if I fall.
I push up and step forward. I stumble. Take another step. Somehow my feet carry me forward and somehow the abyss doesn’t swallow me up. It’s not elegant and by the middle point I have to hold my arms out to try and stay balanced. All of those gym classes have paid off. I deserve a gold medal for this. I should join the Olympics.
When I reach the other side I collapse onto the stone steps, chest heaving and vision blurred. I think I might pass out. What the fuck is wrong with these people. Do they do this kind of thing for fun? Have I stumbled into some kind of live action game of gladiators?
“Pathetic,” a girl mutters from behind a desk. Her brown hair is tied back and she only has one badge.
“Pathetic but alive,” I whisper. I lean back on my knees and use the arm of my jumper to wipe at the sweat and blood on my forehead. Fuck. I must look like a state. I hope when I wake up the doctor isn’t some attractive graduate or I’ll die from embarrassment. I look down at my leggings and try to remember what underwear I’m wearing.
A voice breaks through, warm with relief. “Xaden!”
I lift my head. Two men clasp arms the way men do. Hands on elbows and a strong thump to the shoulder. One is impossibly tall, with brown wavy hair and muscles the size of craters. He reminds me of Wreck It Ralph. God, I love that movie. The other has dark wavy hair that has been cropped short and a smirk that could cut through even the coldest of hearts.
“Garrick,” he grins back. My stomach lurches. They know each other. Are they brothers or friends? I manage to clamber onto my feet and disappear further into the courtyard. I search for an exit but I’ve no idea which way is up and which is down. This place is huge.
“Excuse me, which way is it to the pub?” I ask a woman with black curly hair. She ignores me.
The initiates fill the courtyard. All of them are wearing black uniforms with an array of weapons strapped to every inch of their body. Daggers, swords and bows. Someone even has a scythe. Okay, so maybe this isn’t club scouts. Maybe I’ve stumbled into one of those medieval village reenactments.
“What the fuck are you wearing?” someone mutters. He steps in front of me. His armour gleams and his light brown hair has been swept back from his head. I falter for a moment when I look up at him. He has the prettiest green eyes I’ve ever seen. “Do you hear me, what’s wrong with you?” He clicks his fingers in front of my face and I startle in surprise. Those around us stop talking, their attention falls to me. Garrick and Xaden included. Suddenly I’m the most interesting person in the room.
“Oh I heard you. No offence but I’m not about to answer to someone who is dressed as Lord Farquhar," I take a step towards him. “Why don’t you do me a favour and fly away to your fairy god mother and get out of my face.”
He looks like I’ve just slapped him, hard. Okay, maybe this isn’t a costume party after all. I really need to find someone to speak to who I can explain myself to. “Who’s Lord Farquhar?” he asks, turning to the girl standing on his right who looks just as pompous as he does. I laugh. I can’t help it. All of this is so ridiculous. “My name is Alric, Prince Alric.” I roll my eyes. Everybody wants to be a bloody prince.
A bell sounds through the courtyard and everybody begins to move. The space is the size of at least four football pitches. It fills with more and more people. All of them are more menacing than the next. “That’s right little dove,” the swath bastard - or should I say prince - murmurs leaning closer to me. “You should have done us all a favour and killed yourself.”
I reel back from him and harden. How dare he. After everything I’ve been through. I don’t think before I act. Alcohol still clouds my vision and apparently my decision making. I pull my fist back and punch him in the face. His nose crunches under my knuckles and it makes a satisfying snapping noise. He yowls in pain like a baby and tries to quell the bleeding with his hands. Unfortunately my satisfaction doesn’t last long. Alric may now have a broken nose but the sight of blood has my stomach rolling. I dry heave and much to both our disgust, I bend forward and am sick all over his neatly polished boots.