It was our only hope that they would be too weak from the sunlight to do significant damage to my people.
At the explosion overhead, the shelter tensed and every eye panned upward. A subtle scattering took place as people sought out their kin immediately. Fire dragons, unlike ice dragons, were deeply attached to their family, their lovers, and their friends. In that moment, I had to wonder at where my own mother was. I even worried about where Michelle was, and she hardly qualified as anything at all… but she was still my responsibility.
Where is Mother?
Knowing her, she would probably have remained in the kitchens until every last portion of the breakfast had been taken; it hadn’t been so long ago that I had stormed past her, suddenly and inexplicably certain that Nell was nearby.
“Come with me!” I commanded for the second time, gripping Nell’s wrist with an uncharacteristic brutality and pulling her forward into the throng. “Mother! Mother!”
“Theon!”
I whirled at a touch to my shoulder and found her there, with a stab and a swell of vast relief in my chest. She had instilled such strength and comfort in me throughout my youth, I could not part with that reaction now, even as an adult man, even after the taste of battle. “Mother,” I breathed, embracing her, though I did not dare release Nell’s hand. Not after finally getting her back now.
“Theon,” my mother responded, her voice as relieved as mine. “Did you hear that horrible sound? Do you know what it was? Was it—”
“Yes,” I answered, not bothering to mince words. She had been the wife to my father for too many years now to suffer anything less. “They are upon us. This is Penelope O’Hara—”
“The ice bride?”
“My bride,” I corrected her, again stern. “I must find Father. Protect her; she is only human. The sun is out, Mother. They will be weak. Stay with her.”
Nell opened her mouth to protest, but I cut her off by releasing the leather satchel from my shoulder and thrusting it into her arms. “Weapons,” I explained shortly, and was then gone, swallowed into the swirling crowd, advancing toward the infirmary. I bolted forward and wove through the mob of panicked fire dragons. The last thing I heard as I left behind the main cavern was the rush and crackle of fire and ice meeting in mid-air.
The infirmary was absolutely thronged in wounded fire dragons, one of whom was Einhen, who had been deeply gouged by both fang and claw along one shoulder. He’d already recovered enough to be released at any moment. My father, however, was much worse off. His upper body was in a cast, and he had not yet been allowed off of his bed for more than a few minutes at a time. His leg muscles had begun to atrophy during his time in the dungeon, and walking was difficult. Some of the castle physicians had been tending to him, and projected that he could begin walking regularly within the next week, with daily practice. As it was, his steps were stilted and awkward.
Einhen called to me. “Theon!” he cried. “What has happened in the main cavern? We felt a shudder—”
“Go help!” I called over my shoulder, not stopping for anything. “Ice dragons are in the caves!”
It was all that I needed to say before Einhen lunged up from his cot and was gone into the swirling currents of fire dragons.
Father had half-started off of his cot, located near the back—where the particularly damaged were sequestered—as if he could have gone with Einhen.
“What did you say?” he demanded. “The ice people are in the caves? Where is Cordelia? How did they find us?”
I winced. “My mate,” I confessed. “The bride Lethe Eraeus would have stolen for his own. She escaped, Father. She escaped with the astrolabe, and has brought back the sun… but he had given her a clasp which tracked her location. It brought them straight to the shelter.”
We both knew what this meant. Between the sunshine, and the balanced numbers of ice and fire dragons, and the close quarters of the caverns, it would be a fairly even match. If anything, we stood at a disadvantage purely due to our nature. We had a tendency to be sympathetic, even in battle, and would never sacrifice a loved one in exchange for victory. An ice dragon, on the other hand…
“They will kill me.”
“Never,” I replied. “I will not leave your side.” With the astrolabe still in one arm and my father supported by the other, I moved from the infirmary, which had emptied of all but the dying. Anyone within these walls knew that to prepare to fight would be the surest chance of life, whereas cowering alone in the sick ward would only verify you were an easy target.