“Oh no, my lady, not here. There are scattered boulderings in the southern peaks, but they have little commerce with me, nor I with them.” He lowered his voice. “Young fools, the lot. Still mired in the sediment of their first century. No respect for their elders. Here we are.” He stopped. “Just around that bend.”
“Aren’t you coming?”
He shifted from claw to claw. “The Hall is most strictly forbidden to me. I, ah, daren’t.”
“Who’s there?” Kaheset’s voice boomed out from the passage beyond. “I hear you, Mephistrophomorphinite!”
Ignaat shrank into the floor until only the top of his head was visible.
“Thank you, Master Ignaat,” I said. “You’re a true gentlegargoyle.”
He rose a few inches from the ground. “I am?”
“The best I’ve ever met.”
There was a thud of heavy footsteps from the inner chamber. “Ignaat!”
“Will you wait for me?” I whispered. “I don’t know if I can find my way back without you.”
Contorting that stony visage from its set expressions of disdain must’ve been difficult, but he made an honest effort at a grin. “May I be ground to dust and scattered to the Al’eketh before I leave my post, my lady!”
“Thank you,” I said, and entered the hall.
It spoke to the size of the room that an irate dragon was not the first thing I noticed. Like the Hearth Chamber, the ceiling of the Hall of Records was lost in shadow, but unlike the other rooms in the Keep, the walls here were filled with carvings. The trembling light of the central fire made them look almost alive. Kaheset stopped short when he saw me.
“What are you doing here?”
I curtsied. “Aliza Da—”
“Don’t waste your breath, I know who you are. We all know who you are. What do you want? Did Alastair send you?”
“No. I just—”
“If you wish me to change Neheema’s mind, you’re wasting your time.” He looked away. “I am called Vehrys as a matter of honor, but I am not one of the Keepers. It is not up to me whether the dragons go to war.”
“I’m not here for that. I’d like to know what happened between you and my husband.”
“He hasn’t told you?”
“No.” It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either. I wanted to hear Kaheset’s version of the story.
His wings drooped. “Has he . . . mentioned me at all?”
“Not really.”
With a deep sigh he beckoned me forward. “Come into the light, child. Let me look at you.”
I obeyed. The Hall was silent as he circled, studying me with an intensity that left me feeling mentally stripped.
“I see why you are really here, Aliza Daired. You wish to ask what I mean, living out my days as a chronicler in solitude instead of defending the children of my khela alongside Herreki and Akarra and little Mar’esh. Is that not so?”
“Aye, I suppose.”
“And yet you are the nakla that married a Daired.”
I frowned. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“It tells me a great deal about you. We have heard of you from Akarra and Herreki, of course, and I confess that you have been something of a puzzle to the Vehryshi. You gave up the tranquility of your people to unite yourself to a bloodstained House. It is a strange choice to those of us who know what the life of a Daired looks like. Are you sure you’re not here to ask what you mean?”
“I just want to understand.”
“As well you should. You should know the House to which you’ve bound yourself.” He started toward the far side of the Hall. “Has Alastair ever spoken of his father?”
“Aye,” I said quietly. “He told me about Cloven Cairn.”
“Then you know why Erran died.”
“It wasn’t Alastair’s fault! Kaheset, you must know it wasn’t. He tried to save him—”
He whirled around. “You think I blame Alastair for Erran’s death?”
“Don’t you?”
“Of course not! I know Alastair wasn’t responsible. It’s not him I can’t forgive.”
Then who? The words filled my head, my mouth, but he continued in a low voice, as if he’d forgotten I was there.
“It cannot be an accident, your arrival. Not with such tidings as you bring, not if the Ranger has returned. Perhaps it is time.” He gestured with one wing. “Come with me, Aliza. There is something I should like you to see.”
I followed him to the farthest wall. Torches blazed on all sides here, illuminating a series of carvings more ornate than all the rest. A single line of red followed certain channels, branching and connecting again like the root of some ancient gnarled tree. A bowl of water sat on the ground before it next to a small pile of crushed stones. Kaheset bent over the stones and breathed out a stream of dragonfire hot enough to make my face smart and the stones crackle and break apart, leaving a chalky reddish stain in the circle of black. He scooped some of the pieces into the bowl, waited for them to stop sizzling, and dipped the point of his tail in the dye.
“This is the accounting of the Fireborn’s bloodline,” he said, and daubed fresh crimson over a faded portion of the channel. “Few humans have seen it. Few dragons either, besides those who are charged with its keeping.” He pointed to a section near the bottom, where the red line stopped. “There. Read.”
There were names carved above the sketch of two human figures.
Erran Daired (Ah-Na-al Jeshke-Heshek’an-Kaheset)—Isobel Oranna-Daired (Greythorn Grimspike)
Between them branched two lines.
Alastair Daired (Ahla-Na-al Kanah-sha’an-Akarra)—Aliza Bentaine Daired (nakla)
Julienna Daired (Ah-Na-al Hon-she’an-Mar’esh)
There was nothing else. “I don’t understand.”
Kaheset pointed with his wingtip to Lord Erran’s name. “Look harder.”
The letters of his name went deep, carved with time and talon. The stone around it was smooth and bare, but there was a patch just to the left of his name that looked different. The stone wasn’t so smooth and there was an indentation there that didn’t match the rest of the wall. At a nod from Kaheset, I ran a hand over the section. I could just make out the impression of other letters, letters that had been carved or chipped away. Impossible to read in the shifting light, but still there. I closed my eyes and tried to string the letters together by touch. Y. O? No, not O. D? Yes, that was a D. Y-D-R-I . . . Y-D-R-I-C-K . . .
I jerked my hand from the wall. I didn’t need to feel again for the first letter to know it was a W. I looked up at Kaheset, aghast.
“Yes. Even with my best efforts, the truth cannot be hidden forever.” His head drooped. “I know little of her. Erran told me only that her name was Merranda and that she was a Ranger from Antward-on-Tyne, but his actions spoke the truth when he would not. My khela loved her as no man I’ve ever known has loved a woman.”
“Then Tristan Wydrick . . . ?”
“Yes. He is Erran Daired’s son.”
Chapter 6