“It’s okay,” Echo said softly. “He won’t hurt you. We heard you were here and we thought you might need help.”
It wasn’t entirely the truth—they could have been hostile, for all Echo had known—but their current state made it painfully obvious that they did need help. Desperately. Their clothes were dusty from travel, worn through in places and held together by careful mending. The adults looked gaunt, their cheeks hollowed in a way that spoke of long periods without adequate sustenance. The children didn’t appear to be as malnourished. The elder Drakharin had probably rationed their supplies among themselves, giving the children the lion’s share of food. They went hungry so the little ones could eat. Echo was no stranger to hunger. She knew the feeling of an empty stomach cramping around nothing, and she wouldn’t wish it on her worst enemy.
One of the Drakharin stepped forward, a woman of apparent middle age, though her kind matured like the Avicen. When they reached physical maturity, the aging process slowed considerably, depending on how powerful their personal magic was. At nearly a thousand years old, the Ala didn’t look a day over thirty, but she was easily one of the most powerful beings Echo had ever met. This woman could have been in her midforties, maybe fifties. For all Echo knew, she had seen five centuries in her life, not five decades. A little girl clung to her legs, and though one of the Drakharin men tried to pull her away, she refused to budge, burrowing deeper into the woman’s leg. She peered around the woman’s knee, her eyes as round as saucers. She couldn’t seem to decide whom she found more fascinating: Echo or Rowan. Her gaze bounced between them frantically. A smattering of barely visible scales peppered the bridge of her nose.
“The prince told us to find you,” the woman said. The child huddled even closer to her, hiding her face in the woman’s skirts.
“The prince?” Echo said. Pricks of unease marched down her spine. This was a trap. They’d walked right into a freaking trap. “Tanith?”
The woman shook her head rapidly, her eyes wide and pleading. “No. The true prince,” she said in a rush, tripping over her words. “He said that you would help us.” She eyed Rowan with a wary look. “He said the Avicen were not our true enemy. Not many believed, but we had no choice. The prince”—she shook her head as if dislodging something stuck—“the false prince, his sister…she has gone mad with power. It is not safe for us there. There is nowhere safe for us now.” She lowered her gaze to the floor, then dropped to her knees in a gesture of supplication. Her companions followed suit. “We are at your mercy, Firebird.”
Echo stepped toward her, but stopped when the woman cowered and pushed her child behind her. “Echo. My name is Echo. You don’t have to call me Firebird. And you really don’t have to grovel.” The woman didn’t budge. “Please stand up.” She didn’t. “Pretty please? With a cherry on top?”
The ragged group of Drakharin rose, uneasy, as if they didn’t trust her not to punish them for not showing the appropriate respect. It made Echo wonder just how badly Tanith had been mistreating her own people, to have drilled that level of fear into them.
“Caius told you to find me?” That Echo managed to formulate the question coherently was nothing short of a small miracle. A steady mantra pounded through her mind: He’s alive. He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive.
The woman nodded, though she had flinched at the sound of Caius’s name so casually invoked. Once a Drakharin was elected to the throne of the Dragon Prince, their names were consigned to memory, and eventually forgotten. Their names were shed like the lives they’d lived before, so that all that remained was a person wholly devoted to a life in service of their people. When Echo had asked Caius how the Drakharin referred to Dragon Princes of eras past, he’d laughed and said, “With great difficulty.” They were given titles after their deaths based on significant events during their reigns, but there was little consensus on which events were deemed most worthy of remembrance.
“How is he? Is he okay? What’s Tanith doing to him?” The questions tumbled from Echo faster than the woman could answer them.
“Echo,” Rowan prodded. “What are we going to do about them?” The last word was punctuated with a dismissive tilt of his head toward the ragtag group.
“Right,” Echo said. They couldn’t just leave them there. The next Avicen scouts to find them might not be as cautious as the one who had reported to the Ala. And if humans stumbled upon them…Well, that sentence was best left unfinished. She turned back to the woman, who seemed significantly less cowed by their presence after Echo’s display of concern for the true Dragon Prince. That must have earned her some brownie points. “Does everyone here speak English?”
The woman shook her head.
“Can you translate?”
A nod.
Echo addressed the Drakharin, pausing every now and then to give the woman time to translate. “There’s a safe place we can bring you. There are wards—strong ones—that will protect you. Not even Tanith can get through them.” Echo recalled laying the ward with her strength and feeling her magic seep into the land. “Trust me. I built them myself.”
The Drakharin shared a dubious look, none of them appearing convinced that leaving the relative safety of their hideout with an Avicen and public enemy number one was a grand idea.
“It’s an island,” Echo continued. “With a castle. It’s very nice.”
“Avalon?” Rowan’s voice was flat and disbelieving. He spoke slowly, as if she had just said something very, very stupid. “You can’t seriously mean to suggest we bring them to Avalon. That’s insane. You’re insane.”
Echo grabbed hold of Rowan’s sleeve and dug her nails into his arm as sharply as she could. He scowled and tried to tug his arm free, but she held on.
“Rowan,” Echo said through gritted teeth. “Sidebar.”
She guided him to the far corner of the room. The Drakharin could still see them and they could see the Drakharin, but if she pitched her voice low enough, she might not be overheard.
“Look at them,” said Echo. The Drakharin were a sorry sight, but it was the children who tugged at her heartstrings the strongest. They were so young. Too young for the hardship they faced. And their parents didn’t deserve to see their children suffer while they tried to find a better life for them. “They obviously need help. And think about the little ones, Rowan. They’re just kids. We don’t hurt kids.”
“I’m not suggesting we hurt them,” Rowan said, seemingly horrified that Echo would dare to accuse him of such a thing.
“No, you’re just suggesting we don’t help them, which is pretty much the same thing as hurting them,” Echo said.