Resistance: The Umbra Chronicles Book 3 Page 2

  Other guards took Rhiannon and Sparrow away. I lay on the ground, shivering and empty.

  I hardly had the strength to move. The guards scooped me up and I couldn’t even protest. Aoife tittered when my arm fell out of the guard’s grasp, limp and pallid.

  They put me into the cage. I probably would have been more upset if it was the first time I’d been in a cage. Looking back, I’d spent quite a lot of time in cages lately. They drew the featherskin off my body and I lay there like a dead thing.

  I was too exhausted to protest, too exhausted to do anything but lie there. It was halfway through the night before I realised I was lying in a puddle of light from the full moon and was not clothed in feathers. I stretched out a little, to let the moonlight limn my limbs. I turned my face to the moon and let the tears roll slow and fat down my cheeks. Umbra warmed in my brow and a shiver of silver ran along my bones.

  I reached out for her and I felt, more than saw, the flash from my brow. She opened her magic to me and I gathered it in. I drew in a deep breath at the familiar rush of magic through my body, more exhilarating than a kiss.

  ‘Don’t even think about it.’

  I rolled. Behind me stood a young woman, no older than I was. She was dressed like Aoife’s Dragon Magi would dress in the future, her tunic and trousers a close-fitting mesh of overlapping leather scales linked with silver. The hood snug about her face revealed a blue crystal in a silver circlet on her brow.

  ‘What?’ I asked, still groggy. ‘Don’t think about what?’

  ‘Magic.’ Her voice was terse, abrupt. If Aoife hadn’t put up with my shit like this guard wasn’t, then I might have never got so far. The blue crystal pulsed a warning and I felt a pressure on my body, holding my limbs in place against the floor of the cage. ‘Make one move and I’ll flatten you.’

  Umbra was no less inclined to take this than I was. She gave me everything she had and together we forced the weight off my body like it was nothing. I stood up and gripped the bars of the cage. ‘Just try and stop me!’ I ground out through clenched teeth. I’d spent too long in cages, far too long confined by feathers.

  Umbra’s light was like a star in my brow, a clear, pure light that lit up the whole compound.

  The guard gasped. She stepped forward. When she spoke this time, her voice was low, not harsh.

  ‘What family are you?’

  ‘What?’

  A corner of her lips turned up in a smile that I would have missed if Umbra wasn’t shining so brightly. ‘Is that your response to everything?’

  ‘It’s my response to everything when I don’t know what’s going on,’ I replied, echoing her smile with one of my own.

  She took another step closer. ‘My name is Bridget, of the family Fionn. We are kin, you and I. What is your family name?’

  My smile slipped, because I didn't know. I knew now that Aine was my mother. I had fought long and hard for that knowledge. I still didn't know my father's name. All I knew was that he was a prince from the Southern Isles who made a political marriage to my mother, then the Dark Queen. Up until a few days ago, I hadn't even known the name my mother gave me at birth.

  I lifted my chin.

  ‘I don’t know my family name,’ I said, ‘but I do know that I am Umbra’s heir. I am the Bach Chwaer.’ I renewed my grip on the bars. ‘I am here to make things right and I can’t do that behind the bars of a cage, Bridget of the family Fionn.’

  Umbra flashed in recognition of her name. Bridget of the family Fionn couldn’t help herself. She took another step forward, but she didn’t let go of her pike.

  She touched the blue crystal, now pulsing brighter than ever in her own brow. ‘That wasn’t a birthstone, was it?’ Suddenly, she took a step back and the pike was levelled right at me.

  I didn’t let go, even though that pike could come clear through the bars and end my career. I couldn’t tell her it was Umbra. If I told her, she might well go straight to Aoife and Kiaran and I’d find myself separated from Umbra in a more permanent fashion than I had in mind. I was all too aware that my head could be cracked like a nut if Kiaran decided it was what he wanted.

  I was also aware that my body was made out of squishy bits that would not play nice with that sharp, shiny pike.

  ‘Set me free,’ I urged, skipping the question entirely. ‘I am the Bach Chwaer, I have a duty to perform. And I can see that you, Bridget of the Fionn, are not the toadying lackey you’re pretending to be!’

  Something crossed her face and it looked like it hurt. A nerve pulsed in her jaw and her face firmed.

  ‘I am proud of my family name,’ she said. ‘Until today, I have never done a dark deed. But believe me when I say that if you make one more move to leave that cage, what I will do to you will blacken my family’s name for a thousand generations. And believe me also when I say that I shall walk away from here and never think twice about it again.’

  I stared at her. She meant it. Even if it tore her apart, she would obey Aoife’s orders.

  ‘Now, sit down, Bach Chwaer, before I make you sit down.’

  I sat ‒ slowly. I wasn’t going to make any fast moves. It was possible that Bridget of the Fionn was even more dangerous to me than Aoife or Kiaran. Both of them wanted something from me, even if it was only the pleasure of watching me squirm. I meant nothing to this Dragon Mage. She’d been telling the truth. She would wipe me off the face of history with no regrets.

  The next morning, Aoife herself came to greet me. We were still in a deep, round crevasse, surrounded by steep cliffs, above which the stars were shaped by the bowl of rock. There was a slit in the rock to one side, and when dawn finally lightened the circle of sky above us, that was where Aoife emerged, fresh, rested and regal in an ivory gown.

  Bridget didn’t snap to attention. She didn’t even look away from me as Aoife circled her, chuckling for a moment when they were face to face.

  ‘So, you’re still here,’ Aoife murmured. She turned to the cage. ‘And so is she. Most unexpected.’

  Stab her with the pike, I thought. While her back’s turned. Because while Bridget of the family Fionn might never have done a dark deed, I have. I’m not the nice one.

  ‘Did you have a nice sleep, Emer?’ Aoife crooned. ‘Are you well rested, my Bach Chwaer?’

  She was too close to the bars. I was struck by a sudden memory of something that hadn’t even happened yet. She’d held me like this when I was in the future, when she was the White Queen and I was a nameless orphan. She had to remember what had happened, but she did it nonetheless. Poor Aoife, doomed to make the same mistakes.

  So, I spat in her face. Again. Or for the first time, depending on your perspective, because I never learn.

  I paid for it. Aoife ordered Bridget to bring the featherskin and sling it over me. As soon as my magic was incapacitated, Aoife beat the piss out of me herself. She didn’t even have the guards do it.

  Bridget of the Fionn stood by, but she trembled from head to foot.

  After I was harvested again, I was sent back to Sparrow and Rhiannon. They had no magic to heal me, so I again received comfort from them both, but in the evening, when the cell door opened again, my ribs were still just as broken.

  Sparrow and Rhiannon helped me to my feet. Bridget stood in the doorway. Her dark skin had a grey undertone, even in the light of the torch she carried.

  Her eyes went right to the spot where my ribs were broken and I knew she remembered hearing them crack. She set the torch into a sconce, closed the door behind her and strode into the room. Her hand went right to my broken ribs through the featherskin and I sagged in sudden relief as the pain went away. A powerful mage, this Bridget of the family Fionn.

  ‘You need to be able to walk,’ she said by way of explanation. ‘I’m not carrying you.’

  Sparrow leaped forward and caught Bridget’s arm. ‘Please! She’s been through enough! Please don’t take her, please, please-’

  ‘Don’t make a scene,’ Bridget snapped. ‘You’re a
ll coming with me.’

  None of us argued. We followed her. There were no other guards in the hall.

  Bridget took us to the cage, settled in the bowl of cliffs around it. Then she stopped and faced me. She had been the one to clothe me in the featherskin this morning. She was the only one who could remove it. She took hold of a handful of feathers and pulled. The skin came away with a rustling noise and a prickling of my skin as the feathers withdrew.

  She drew in a deep breath.

  ‘I thought I could do this,’ Bridget said, her voice hard and clipped. ‘But I cannot. And she would not ask it of me.’

  ‘She?’ Sudden understanding dawned. ‘They have someone of yours?’

  Bridget nodded, once, sharply. ‘My wife.’

  Her wife. Oh, God. ‘Bridget, I’m so sorry. I should never have asked; I had no right-’

  ‘You had every right,’ she snapped. ‘You had every right to expect a member of the family Fionn to do what is right and just. Only, I beg of you,’ and her voice broke, ‘if you ever hear the name of Eliann of Cairnagorn, please tell the world that she gave her life for yours.’

  A tear slipped down Bridget’s face. She wiped it away, quick and brutal.

  I put my hand on my arm. ‘If we’re leaving, then Eliann comes with us.’

  Another tear threatened Bridget’s composure, but she refused to shed it. Her eyes were wide with wonder. ‘It will be a great risk. She is closely guarded. Surely you would not do such a thing for a stranger.’

  I was just as determined as she was. ‘I would. Now, where is she? How is she guarded?’

  Hand trembling, Bridget began to draw a diagram in the dirt. Sparrow and Rhiannon came closer to watch, and make suggestions.

  Sparrow and Rhiannon stayed in the cage, the door pulled close as though it was locked, although it just rested there. I spent a while in the moonlight, gathering strength. When I was ready, I changed myself into a bird, into the hawk my sister described me as. I flew over the camp. No one was looking for a bird. Even if they’d known that I could transform, they had every reason to believe that I was still being guarded in the cage, where Bridget still stood, shining pike at the ready.

  Eliann was kept in a tent, not a cage. They weren’t as afraid of her as they were of me. I landed close by, dipped my small, feathered head, and eased my way under the edge of the canvas.

  Eliann was already asleep, curled up on the ground in a tiny ball with only a thin blanket to cover her. Her hair was pure white, spilling out over the dark blanket. She was shaking with cold. I changed to my own shape. As I approached, I realised that her eyes were open, watching me.

  I put my finger to my lips. ‘Bridget,’ I whispered, trying to avoid the sibilant sounds that would carry to the guards outside the tent.

  Eliann nodded. She sat up and cast off the blanket. I had to restrain my flinch. She wore the uniform of the Librarians of Cairnagorn.

  I’d promised to do this. I couldn’t leave her here. She was just as much a captive here as I was. So, I pretended that I hadn’t feared that uniform all my life, and leaned very, very close to her ear to whisper, ‘Trust me.’

  She nodded again, eyes wide. I turned her into the tiniest insect, then turned myself back into a bird. My power was waning. I hadn’t spent long enough under the moon tonight. I wasn’t going to have much energy left. I just hoped, grimly, that it would be enough.

  I pushed up hard from the ground, as hard as I could, to climb as swiftly as possible. I made it out of the camp, circling high above, before dropping down to the cleft of the rock where my sisters were guarded by Eliann’s wife.

  I thought we were going to make it. As I descended, my power began to stutter. I’d pushed myself too hard. From high, high in the air, Eliann and I transformed, and began to fall.

  Guards noticed our shapes as we plummeted to the earth. They cried out and fired arrows towards us. One grazed my hip, another parted my hair. Eliann screamed, the first noise I’d heard her make.

  Bridget, far below us, shouted. Another arrow whizzed past. The arrows were scary, but falling from a great height puts things into rapidly developing perspective. We might survive a wound. We weren’t going to survive this fall.

  A blue shadow burst from the cleft in the rock and hurtled towards us. Another dragon, with two riders on its back. I was alone, with no one but Eliann and the rapidly approaching dragon to hear me, so I let loose, unashamed of the sound, and screamed.

  The dragon came up directly under us and reared up. Eliann was scooped right out of the air. Another swipe of the massive claws and I was caught. I let myself go limp. There was no point struggling. I couldn’t fight a dragon, not in my present, weakened state.

  The dragon carried us gently, careful not to squeeze those claws that could destroy us. I expected to land back in the camp, but it kept on flying to the west. We didn’t stop until half an hour later, when the dragon landed, carefully releasing us from its claws before thudding to earth.

  One of the Riders on the back of the dragon gestured to us. ‘Come up here, she can fly more efficiently!’

  I stared. It was Sparrow, Rhiannon behind her. Riding a dragon. The dragon turned to look at me. I wasn’t sure of the dragon’s identity when she looked at me, but the look she cast on Eliann was adoring. This had to be Bridget.

  I climbed up her extended leg and onto her back, where a series of ridges grew along the length of her spine. Her scales were the same deep blue as the crystal she had worn on her brow. Her wings stretched out either side and I grabbed hold, holding tight to the rounded spurs that grew along the ridgeline of her back. Eliann leaped up behind me like she’d done this a thousand times before, put her arms around my waist and held onto my belt.

  Bridget’s powerful legs bunched beneath us, wings taut and ready, and we launched into the sky again. Eliann leaned forward until I could feel her breath on the back of my neck. She shouted, directly into my ear, and the wind nearly stole her words. ‘Bridget asks, where do you want to go?’

  I thought hard. I wanted so much to ask Bridget to take me to Rheged. I’d been happy there, even if only for a short while. The Empress had been there, Lynnevet who had been thrown far into the past, and she had given me a position of power and respect. I hadn’t made any friends, but my name counted for something because of her. In Rheged, I was the Bach Chwaer, the rightful heir to the throne. I could stop Aoife by taking the throne myself.

  But seriously, anyone who met me would be the first to suggest that perhaps ruling a country was not part of my skill set the same way making enemies was.

  Caradoc had also been in Rheged. I’d loved him so much, and I couldn’t bear the thought of a world without him in it. I’d thought ‒ hoped ‒ that I might come back in time to save him, save us both and we’d have a fairy tale life together. But Aoife had been quick to inform me that he was slain.

  So, I leaned forward and said, ‘Take me to Ce’Branna in Camaria!’ I would have ‒ and had ‒ done anything for Sparrow, but there was more at stake here. Thousands: tens, hundreds of thousands would die if I didn’t stop the war that would come when Aoife stole the throne. I had to stop her from getting to Ce’deira, and I couldn’t do that alone.

  Chapter Three

  I’d flown from Ce’Branna to Rheged once as a bird and it took me days. Bridget made it there before dawn. The larger the animal the mage transforms into, the more energy it takes. I’d taken the form of a dragon once, but I’d used the magic of every Camiri in Rheged to do it. Bridget hadn’t even broken a sweat.

  This was her true form, like Darragh, except thanks to the curse I’d laid on Darragh, he couldn’t change back to human form anymore. There had been rumours that dragons had once been able to turn into humans, but they hadn’t been seen in centuries. Come to think of it, they hadn’t been seen since Umbra’s time.

  We flew on into the dark sky and eventually reached the capital city of Camaria, Ce’Branna, the fortress of the Dark King.

  The hom
e of my grandfather.

  And… went past it.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I yelled. ‘It’s down there.’ I pointed, like down is a valid direction when you’re flying as high as we were. My pointing finger took in an area of fifty miles or more.

  There was a pause, then Eliann leaned forward again. ‘First, we go to the Draceni, the dragon people. Bridget worries so. She wants to drop me off first.’

  We landed in a clearing I honestly hadn’t thought large enough for Bridget’s wings. We were alone, but movement in the wild forest around us indicated that we weren’t going to be alone for long.

  Out of the forest came people, all of them wearing a coloured crystal at their brow, like Bridget’s. They had tattoos on their skin. I looked over at Rhiannon, smoothing her grey dress. The tattoos on her face were of Draceni design. How did a girl raised in Rheged get Draceni tattoos?

  I was about to go to Rhiannon and ask, but the people came towards us.

  I thought they were going to attack us, but we were met with friendliness. They embraced Bridget like a long-lost daughter and exclaimed over Elainn like a girl who brings her date home to meet her family for the first time.

  A man came forward, a ruby worn in the circlet on his brow. ‘You are brought to us by our sister, you are welcome. I am Kevan, an elder of the Draceni. There is much that we would speak about, but first, you are in need of medical care, all three of you. Will you permit us to tend your wounds?’

  I nodded, swaying with tiredness. We were led to a caravan, finely decorated in jewel tones, with a bed behind a curtain at one end, some chairs in the centre, and a stove at the end, where someone was already kneeling to feed a fire into it.

  All three of us fell onto the bed, lying side by side. A healer came in and took care of our injuries, his hands glowing golden and the emerald jewel on the circlet in his brow glowing richly as he used his magic to heal us. The bed curtains swirled in the wind that is a side effect of magic.