Dawnspell Read online

  Dawnspell

  Bridge of Legends, Volume 2

  Sarah K. L. Wilson

  Published by Sarah K. L. Wilson, 2019.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  DAWNSPELL

  First edition. May 24, 2019.

  Copyright © 2019 Sarah K. L. Wilson.

  Written by Sarah K. L. Wilson.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Other Books by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  Legends

  1: Adrift

  2: Xin City

  3: Hooded Help

  4: Cure Mistress

  5: A Matter of Debt

  6: Whorls and Maps

  7: A Sister’s Price

  8: Betrothed and Betrayed

  9: Windsniffer

  10: The Hunt

  11: At Home in a Library

  12: Chaos Bubbles

  13: A Strange Pairing

  14: Wind Rose

  15: Black and White

  16: Tenacity’s Plaything

  17: In Tune

  18: Rope and Riots

  19: Sins of the Father

  20: In a Flurry of Wind and Dust

  21: Black Plumes

  22: Spiral to Destiny

  23: Hunting Redemption

  24: Map of Deeds

  25: Open Eyes

  26: Hail the Conquerors

  27: Empty Hands and Empty Promises

  28: Bloodhound

  29: Sealed in Prisons

  30: In the Dark of Night

  31: Desperate Times

  32: Cathedral of the Clock

  33: Grandfather Timeless

  34: Pendulum

  35: Abelmeyer’s Eye

  Epilogue

  Behind the Scenes:

  For Cale.

  Always.

  Other Books by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  Dragon School Series

  First Flight

  Initiate

  The Dark Prince

  The Ruby Isles

  Sworn

  Dusk Covenant

  First Message

  Warring Promises

  Prince of Dragons

  Dark Night

  Bright Hopes

  Mark of Loyalty

  Dire Quest

  Ancient Allies

  Pipe of Wings

  Dragon Piper

  Dust of Death

  Troubled War

  Starie Night

  Ascendant Light

  Dragon Chameleon Series

  Rogue’s Quest

  Paths of Deception

  City of Ice

  Mist of Power

  Silver Eyes

  World of Legends

  Chase the Moon

  Shadow Quest

  Creeping Darkness

  Golem Siege

  Memory of Mountains

  Color of Victory

  Dragon Tide

  Dragonlet

  Dragon Staff

  The Unweaving Chronicles Series

  Teeth of the Gods

  Lightning Strikes Twice

  Thunder Rattles High

  Legends

  BYRON BRONZEBOW

  A good-looking hero who carries a bronze bow. Known in history for his care for the poor and needy.

  Deathless Pirate

  Known for his love of treasure and invulnerability and recognized by his hook for a hand and belt of human skulls.

  Grandfather Timeless

  Based in the Timekeepers religion he is known for his high hat, long black coat and golden waistcoat. He is Time in human form subjecting all to his will.

  King Abelmeyer the One-Eyed

  Known for his single eye and broken crown, King Abelmeyer united the five cities of the Dragonblood Plains in the alliance that lasts today.

  Lady Sacrifice

  Known for her loveliness, innocence and sacrifice for the people, she is usually clad in a white dress.

  Lila Cherrylocks

  A master thief and trickster. Known for her long cherry-red locks, deft skills, and adventurous spirit.

  Maid Chaos

  The right hand of Death. Known for destruction, death and the golden breastplate she wears.

  Queen Mer

  Queen of the Sea and mother to the Waverunners. Queen Mer is known for her revenge upon man in the form of hurricanes and typhoons and for the shells, scales, and seaweed that she wears.

  Ram the Hunter

  The unspoken Legend. Not mentioned in the Dragonblood Plains except in whispers, he is known for slaying dragons and going insane in the aftermath.

  “Dawn spells the end of fast, the cleansing of water, the newness of the coming year.” – Legends of the Dragonblooded

  1: Adrift

  Marielle

  MARIELLE FLINCHED BEFORE thinking – before realizing the shadow she saw was nothing more than a swooping gull. Not the dragon. Nothing more than a carrion-eater.

  Marielle’s head spun under the hot sun. It wasn’t the heat so much as it was the smell. Two days after the dragon Jingen had risen into the air and destroyed Jingen City, and the dead were still bobbing up to the surface of the sea. Two days and the brackish water still stank of chaos and fear, rising in horrible puffs of red and black scent that filled Marielle’s nose with vinegar and smoke. She coughed – again – adjusting the scarf Jhinn had given her and breaking her rhythm with the oars. The scarf wrapped around her nose and mouth wasn’t enough to break the scent – not even to mask it.

  “You got to keep your oar in the water or we’re never gonna get free of this mess,” Jhinn said from the back of the gondola.

  But he was on edge, too. They weren’t the only boat to have narrowly missed the dragon’s flaming rage that first night. They’d barely managed to beat the flames from the gondola. Luckily, they hadn’t been the target. It had been another raft of people fleeing the chaos of Jingen that the dragon had targeted, another raft of desperate survivors who had gone up like a lit torch in the water.

  The gondola swayed in the high, frothy waves as water broke over its low bow. And Marielle flinched, the memories still too strong not to make her shy away from the smallest violence. The gondola wasn’t made for big water.

  “If we row far enough, a current will catch us and we can drift south of the cities.” Jhinn had been saying that every hour for a day.

  Marielle pulled harder on her oars. Anything to avoid thinking about returning to the five cities. She couldn’t face them. Every bloated body that drifted by was her fault. The clouds of squawking gulls fighting bitter battles over the remains of the dead were because of her. If she had only died back there, everyone else would have lived. If she had only died back there, they wouldn’t be fleeing a raging dragon, an easy target for him as they bobbed on the rough sea.

  If Tamerlan hadn’t saved her life...

  Not that she’d had much choice when he threw her over his shoulder and fought his way to the top of the Palace.

  Her gaze drifted to where he lay on the floor of the boat, sea spray soaking him, muttering under his breath as the sweat of a fever beaded across his pale forehead.

  “Dragon,” he muttered, barely audible over the crashing waves as the little boat swelled up on the top of one only to come crashing down on the other side, jostling them all and clattering Marielle’s teeth together, intensifying her headache. “Must kill the dragon.”

  If only he’d killed the dragon back at the Seven Suns Palace. If only he’d done that instead of setting her free. Then maybe all these people wouldn’t have died.

  She’d stopped looking at individual bodies. She couldn’t bear it after the fir
st few. She could feel madness calling to her through the guilt and despair she felt at the sight of them. And she was worried that if she looked – if she saw one more face that was almost familiar, if she saw one more little body too small to be an adult’s – she might not keep her mind long enough to help Jhinn and Tamerlan to safety. She owed them that much at least. After all, they’d been trying to help her. They hadn’t known what that would mean for the rest of the city.

  And to save them, she might have to return to the cities, despite what Jhinn thought. Despite her bone-deep shame. Tamerlan was looking worse by the hour and heading into the waves was long, slow work.

  Tamerlan hadn’t known he would be freeing a dragon, letting him loose to blaze his wrath in the night on the unsuspecting. To be fair, neither had she.

  “Where do you think the dragon is,” she said again. She said it almost every hour since he disappeared a day ago. She said it so much that she thought she was saying it even when she was silent.

  “Not here. That’s all that matters,” Jhinn said. “I thought that perhaps he was heading to the mountains.”

  What would a dragon want with mountains? There was nothing there. Nothing but cold and silence. Maybe that was what he wanted. Marielle was pretty sure there were still buildings stuck to his back like barnacles when last they’d seen him setting ships on fire.

  She swallowed as their little boat hit another swell, lifting up in the waves, broken wood and tangled debris lifting up with them. From this height, she could see the distant white sails. A fleet had arrived the same night that their city had been destroyed. A fleet of mysterious ships that remained out in the distance two days after their arrival. The sight of them formed a knot in her belly. Merchants wouldn’t sail in such numbers or wait so far out. What could they want from the five cities?

  She’d seen a ship leaving Jingen at dawn on the first day and Jhinn had thought that perhaps that ship was going out to greet the fleet, but it had headed north instead, toward Xin. She’d wondered if it was full of refugees until Jhinn pointed out the Lord Mythos’ banner on the flag. A ship of Landholds or government officials was much more likely than refugees. And they’d carved through the survivors in the water like they were driftwood, never pausing for a moment to haul anyone else aboard. That had made her stomach turn. The wealthy always got what they needed at the expense of the rest – even now when they were all ruined, rich and poor alike.

  Despite Jhinn’s insistence that they could go south if they got far enough out, the current was dragging them ever north and east, out past the Jingen cliffs to where she could almost make out the arm of the Cerulean River flowing into the ocean in the Bay of Tears.

  Every other boat she’d seen – and there weren’t nearly as many as she’d hoped there would be – had been making toward the Bay of Tears just like that government ship. By that route, Xin City wasn’t far. Help would be in Xin – or at least commerce – and right now Marielle thought that would be a good thing. Tamerlan needed help from a real healer.

  She swallowed, looking down at Tamerlan as she rowed. How long would he last with a fever like that? She’d tried to poultice his wound and keep it clean, but in the bottom of the boat, constantly sprayed by ocean water – ocean water that was filled with the dead – it was easy to see how infection had set in.

  “We should turn to Xin,” she said for the third time that hour, shuddering at the thought even as she spoke the words. “I think Tamerlan needs a healer.”

  “It will be impossible to find one in the surge of refugees. We can tend to him here. He can fight this off.” That was what Jhinn had said in response every time. He sounded as tired by it as Marielle was.

  Their boat crashed down the wave, and Marielle’s belly turned with the spin of the little craft as Jhinn steered them into another set of breakers. She glanced back at his stony expression. He wasn’t going to change his mind on trying to flee the five cities. A boy with a look on his face like that one had made up his mind. Even with the waves and current fighting them constantly for the past two days, Jhinn remained set on the course.

  “I’m not sure he has the strength to fight it.” Her belly knotted at the thought. She’d changed his dressing twice today and it was still spotted with blood and yellow puss. That couldn’t be good.

  “Why did he fight like he did when he rescued me? So strong and mighty one minute, and then weak the next?” she asked Jhinn.

  “All I know is that he saved me when no one else cared. They were going to sink my gondola – two Watch Officers,” Jhinn explained as they rowed. “You know I can’t go ashore. And there were no other boats near who could take me. Maybe one would have happened by while I swam. Maybe not. It might have killed me.”

  “He killed a lot of people in the Temple District,” Marielle said, still not able to balance Tamerlan the kind-hearted savior of both her and Jhinn with Tamerlan the ravening killer.

  “You sure it was him?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Jhinn shrugged. “All I know is that he’s only done good things around me. Only ever wanted to save people from harm.”

  As they rose over another wave a small fishing trawler came into view, the sail ripped and ragged, flapping in the wind. Burn marks scarred the sides of the boat and a hunk of wood was missing from the bow, letting seawater pour into the larger craft.

  “Ho!” a woman called from within the boat. At the sight of them, she scrambled up onto a bench, waving her arms above her head, her long grey hair wet and wild in the wind and spray. “Ho, there! If it’s to the sea you take, turn back!”

  Marielle glanced at Jhinn. His expression hadn’t changed, his eyes still set forward.

  “If you value your lives, turn back!” the woman called, while around her three others worked the oars. “We were fishing with five other boats on the shoals off the Fang when they came – a fleet of ships and not merchant ships as we see in summers, oh no! They call themselves The Retribution and we are the only ones who escaped their wrath!”

  A breeze had stirred up, blowing into Marielle’s face in a way that made it hard to catch the scent of the boat. She frowned, blind without her sense of scent.

  “The Retribution?” This time, when Marielle glanced back Jhinn’s face was pale. She could barely catch the worry of his scent – ochre and smoked paprika swelling into the air around him. “Queen Mer’s Retribution?”

  “The very same! No ship or boat shall be allowed to pass! We were warned to return to the land. We were consulting together when they attacked. We are the only ones who survived. If you value your lives, turn back!”

  “Mer’s spit!” Jhinn cursed, but he was already turning the gondola around, fighting not to be swamped by the rolling swell as he worked his oar, the smell of fear swirling in his every movement.

  Marielle swallowed, wiping her brow. She finally had a whiff of the people in the boat and it backed up the words of the people – fear in lightning blue and acid scent was laced with the sparkling silver and mint of truth. As they turned, she looked over her shoulder at the white sails in the distance. There would be no escape by sea. A fleet behind, a dragon ahead. They’d wasted two days on nothing.

  “It will be faster when we aren’t fighting the swell,” Jhinn called. “Already, our speed picks up.”

  “Tamerlan needs a healer,” Marielle said, despite the worry swirling in her belly. The wind was whipping up, stealing words from their mouths so that speaking was an effort but Tamerlan looked worse. His face was drained of all color and his breath appeared shallower. “If we can get him to Xin, perhaps we can find one.”

  She stopped to tend to him, letting the swell speed the boat forward as she placed her oar down and crouched over Tamerlan. She wiped his brow gently as his beautiful face screwed up with pain. He hadn’t been conscious since their flight from Jingen City and if she didn’t get him to a knowledgeable healer, he never would be conscious again. And then she’d never really know if he was a kind man to whom she ow
ed everything or a horrific killer who would need to be put down like a rabid dog.

  She picked up her oar again, pulling against the waves with Jhinn, letting worry tick through her like a clock tracking the moments of their lives. If only she could speed it up and get him to safety sooner.

  2: Xin City

  Marielle

  THE CERULEAN RIVER flashed blue and clear – as different from the Alabastru as two rivers could be. But here in the island city of Xin, the water was high. It raged around the cliffs and harbors were few.

  Boats of every type and shape clogged the docks and moorings in a forest of masts and a jungle of seaside scents flashing white and blue and green across Marielle’s senses in a way that was almost calming. Fish and trade wares, sailors and ship-owners, hard work, hopes and dreams, longing for home, sentimental memories, all the scents of a harbor tangled together in a tapestry of sea and sun and sand.

  Pigeons flew in and out of the city from every direction. Marielle longed to read the messages they carried. Were there plans about what to do next now that the dragon had surfaced? News about survivors – maybe even about her mother? She felt a tug at her heart at the thought of Variena. She was a survivor. If she was alive, she would stay that way. And yet, Marielle felt a tug like she should be heading back to Jingen and sifting through the ruins looking for her. What if she was trapped somewhere? What if she needed help? No. Thinking like that would only drive her mad. She had to stick to what was at hand.

  Refugees choked the entrances to the canal system of the city, waiting in long lines to be admitted through the city’s locks, their small boats tattered and ragged and their occupants hunched desolately in the confines of their hulls, their eyes hollow and clinging and their scents black with despair.

  Marielle tugged at her scarf, trying ineffectually to block out the black licorice whorls of their despair.

  Jhinn watched the lines of refugees from a distance, his eyes narrow as if looking for something specific. Occasionally they would flick up to the sky, as if watching for the dragon to emerge again. He’d been like that for the past hour as they neared the island city while Marielle tried to get Tamerlan to drink something.