Fraser Connell is the deadliest thing in the sea.

His mother was a nereid who fell in love with a human. A pirate she saved from drowning, and followed onto the land. Instead of dragging into the deeps as she should have. She gave up everything to be with him and he betrayed her. Big mistake. Their son emerged years later, a man grown with a thirst for vengeance.

How do I know his history so well? He told me.

From the personal journal of Ozora

Dean of Magics

The Bestiary

****

Three ships were outside of Hastrior’s protected harbor, firing their cannons at the elvish galleons. They’d held the invaders off so far, but they were outmatched.

The elves were returning fire and their mages were launching fireballs. I had no combat training and even I could see that they wouldn’t be able to hold against the elvish assault for long.

Taenya leaned forward and slapped Cassyrra’s neck, then twisted to shout over her shoulder.

“Hang on, this might get a little wild.” I barely caught the words before the dragon dropped like a stone, wings folded tight to her flanks. The wind rushed past, shrieking in my ears, and yanking at my hair. The stars turned into streaks as my eyes teared.

When she snapped her wings back out and leveled off, I dared to wipe at my eyes with one hand. There was no chance I would let go of those leather straps, my lifelines, with both hands.

We were much closer to the ocean and Cassyrra let loose a thick column of brilliant blue flame. Scything her long neck, she swept all three elvish vessels.

They roared into oblivion, their wood exploding in the dragon’s blast.

Cassyrra angled her shoulders and swept into a long curve that took us farther out to sea. Her wings boomed, and the wind was like a physical force, beating against my face and ears as she climbed up to just below the clouds. It seemed like I could see forever from up here, even in the darkness. We hovered high above the water, out beyond Hastrior’s tip. The continent swept away from us, back toward the east before the coast curved to the north and south, glimmering in the starlight. The waves breaking against the beaches glowed ghostly blue with their own light, limning the coastline. Neither moon had yet risen but the eastern hills were edged in gold, announcing their arrival.

There were no more elvish vessels. Just as the breaking waves glistened when they struck the shore, any vessel crossing these waters would leave a bluish wake in its path. None approached from the Vauxterel archipelago but who knew what lurked in the islands out of sight?

There was nothing else to be seen along the coast at the moment. Emberglen burned north of Hastrior, but that was it. No sounds of battle, no bursts of mage energies reached us as we scouted the offshore waters, but no other towns were as close as Emberglen.

I realized with a jolt, why the Crimson Death had also attacked Emberglen, the closest town to Hastrior. Taking Hastrior and Emberglen meant the invaders would control the entire peninsula and significant chunks of Alurenth’s coast to the north and south if they’d been successful. Enough to establish a secure footing in the East and starting point for their invasion. Seeing it from the air, even in the dark, made their strategy clear.

What was also clear—the Emperor wouldn’t have dared such an attack if Hastrior had been at full strength. Instead, he struck when she was weakened and depleted, a shell of her former glory and strength.

Cassyrra circled and cruised lower, aiming for the tip of Hastrior’s peninsula. A thick finger of land jutting out into the sea, pointing toward the West.

I held my breath, tension knotting my stomach.

He won’t be here. Why would he be here? If I say it enough, it’ll be true. Right?

I’d tried to kill Fraser Connell, the pirate captain rumored to have killed the ruling Prince, the last time I was in Hastrior.

Pretty sure he’s held a grudge against me ever since.

To be fair, it wasn’t my fault. It was his.

Completely.

Our history is a tragic one. I barely escaped.

It may be he let me go.

Either way, I’m the last person he’d want to see.

If he was even in Hastrior.

Which was doubtful. There hadn’t been even a whisper of a rumor that anyone had spotted him in years. I might just get lucky and never see Fraser Connell again. Ever.

That was my hope anyway.

Cassyrra landed in the wide-open fields of the peninsula’s tip. A massive, blocky keep sat in front of us, a few hundred feet away. A heavy stone wall formed the outermost rampart, running right up to the cliff’s edge. The single wooden door was closed and there were no windows on this side facing us.

Not surprising. They built it to defend against the very invaders Cassyrra had just destroyed. That no torches or magelights illuminated it and it appeared abandoned was concerning.

Climbing down from the dragon’s back was easier the second time. Bare feet helped. Somewhere along the way I’d lost my sandals, but that was the least of my worries.

Hastrior’s defenders still needed to sail back into the harbor. Taenya pointed at the longboats pulling to shore, tiny lights gliding across the black sea toward the harbor much faster than their mother ships.

“I think Captain Connell is in one of those.” She said.

Her words froze me. Why would she speak his name?

“Cap—Captain Connell?” I gulped to cover my stammer. “He’s long gone from all I’ve heard.” I couldn’t keep my voice from warbling from the sudden tension that gripped my throat.

“Yep. I was told he was the one spotted the incoming ships. I need to talk to him about something important.” This night was about to get a whole lot worse. And I’d thought it peaked with invasion from an ancient empire.

I didn’t stop to think about how she knew this. All I could hear was that she was planning to stand here in this field under the stars and have a conversation with the pirate who’d single handedly ruined the last free city of the East.

I wanted no part of it.

“Listen.” How to put it? All my past history with the infamous pirate captain. “I should point out that he would not be happy to see me.” Best I could come up with.

Before I lost my nerve, I spilled my secret to Taenya. I had to say something, couldn’t just stand there and pretend I wasn’t the one who set his ship on fire.

Taenya’s eye grew wide, but whether with respect or fear I wasn’t sure when I told her I’d planted the fireball spells in his holds. Detonated them while I looked him in the eye.

Then she burst into laughter.

“I had to do it. I did!” I rushed to justify my destruction. “I was told he planning to raid the hippocampus pods for brood mares. By someone I trusted because Fraser trusted him. Implicitly.” My explanation was jumbled, but I had to get it all out now. “There are several large wild pods living in the waters around the Vauxterel Islands.” Hippocamps, part-horse, part- fishy or dolphin-ish creatures, were common enough sights around port cities like Hastrior. I’d sometimes see them from Emberglen on my beach walks.

The boats had disappeared from view and I heard the sounds of splashing and faint men’s voices carried up from the beach far below on the incoming breeze. My heart rate notched up and I hurried through the rest of my story.

“Fraser planned to catch a bunch to sell to anyone with enough money to afford the luxury.” I didn’t bother to keep the disgust out of my voice. After all this time I still felt the revulsion as if I were there again, hearing of it for the first time.

The creatures were notoriously difficult to catch, and almost impossible to train if wild caught, but if raised from a youngling they are incredibly loyal. Wealthy merchants and nobles hire their riders to guard their ships. While most who tried to hunt the powerful predators were unsuccessful or even killed, I knew Fraser had an advantage most did not.

“He was planning to use his numin to control them.” Nereids and hippocamps live and work together. “Thanks to his elder blood, Fraser knew he could easily entrap the mares, the most valuable of all, and sell them for more than their weight in gold.” Just saying it brought back all the rage and fire I felt so long ago. “I was not going to stand for that. I didn’t much care if he was on his ship or not when I set the fire spells. My only goal was to stop him from raiding the poor creatures.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“You really thought that would stop him?” Taenya half laughed, half choked.

“No ship, no raids.” I flung my hands up as if to toss away her doubt. It had seemed so simple when I saw his ships holds refitted to transport the large beasts. “My only thought back then was to take away his ability to get to the pods.” It came out snappish, but I was feeling quite nervous. “I’ve avoided this place ever since.”

“It’s not like Emberglen was far from Hastrior.”

“It was far enough, and I didn’t go there directly.” I rubbed my arms, trying to warm them up. The chill of the skies was slow to wear off.

“Did he stop hunting the hippocamps?”

I shrugged. “He disappeared not long after I fled. There were rumors. Some blamed him for an attack on a noble but no one’s seen or heard from him since …” I trailed off, unable to say again that I sank his beloved Skirmisher past the sudden tightness in my throat.

We just waited. I twirled my hair, twining it through and around my fingers, braiding and unbraiding it. A nervous habit from my youth. It usually soothed me.

Not tonight.

In the intervening years I heard plenty of stories in my Journeys before I settled in Emberglen. Some reports had him in Hastrior that first year, but never for long and never confirmed.

They were just stories. Fraser Connell was a legend.

Some said he was killed by his second in command, Gordon Derryngton.

I’d long thought that was possible. Far more reliable folk came through and told how Gordon had taken control of Hastrior. That was consistent early on from many Journeying bards. As the years went by, Gordon’s leadership failed, and he himself vanished. They speculated he was murdered. I mourned when I heard. Gordon had been a genuine friend, and I couldn’t imagine he’d been part of the city’s ruin.

For ruined it was. Late last year a Journeying bard told why she was avoiding the city. Too risky after she learned of losing fellow bards to criminals in Hastrior who killed and robbed in broad daylight now. Sincere regret shone in her eyes along with tears for her fallen friends as she explained she had to think of her and her family’s safety.

I hope being with a dragon will keep me safe. I didn’t want to linger, or even be here. The once grand and prosperous city had sunk into squalor and none were trying to steer her back on course. The lawless and criminals ruled here.

Why in the hells does she need to talk to Fraser? The question burned, but more than that, I wanted to run. Run and hide. Behind the dragon, anywhere that man couldn’t see me.

“Do we really need to do this now? We’re all tired. Maybe we should come back after we’ve had a chance to sleep on it?” I asked in vain. “Maybe just you should come back, leave me out of this. I’ll only complicate things.”

“No kidding.” Taenya gave a cough that sounded self-deprecating. “Nope. We need to have this talk right now. All of us.” I wondered why she had said the last with a growl.

“Maybe I should just go wait over there with the dragon.” I tried. It didn’t work.

“Cassyrra.” Taenya corrected. “And no.” She muttered something else, but I couldn’t catch it. I shivered even though the night was balmy. Fraser could go full scary person in a heartbeat. Even with my defensive magics, he was fast and I hadn’t anything prepared or close at hand. Which meant he’d have the advantage.

“Listen. He won’t be happy to see me either, but…” Taenya spoke up, this time so I could hear. “Fraser owes me now. I did just save his ship.”

Cassyrra coughed, then rumbled. The air against my skin tingled.

“Sorry love. We just saved his ship.” Taenya answered the dragon as if she had spoken aloud.

A few moments later, Fraser Connell stepped onto the field.

I remembered seeing a stairway carved into the cliff side, glowing magelights illuminating the way up as we’d flown in. The longboats must’ve beached there.

The Captain was soon joined by two others who stepped wide to flank him. They made quite a dramatic picture, striding across the field.

Fraser Connell’s teal blue hair tumbled to his shoulders in careless waves and his skin was burnished copper from so many years on the sea. The moons had by now climbed into the sky, and we could see each other clearly as he got closer. A fine tremor ran through me. I grounded hard, gripping the dirt and grass with my toes. He came to a sudden stop as soon as his eyes met mine.

“You.” He smiled like a shark. Lots of teeth, but zero humor.

I’d been dreading this moment. When I saw him again, and he saw me. All the things I’d done, I’d said, rose within my memory, reminding me what we’d had, what I’d torched.

I did it for all the right reasons though. I just never thought I’d ever be this close to him again.

“She’s my apprentice, Fraser. So whatever issue you had with her, you now have with me.” Taenya said.

His burning blue eyes turned to the woman next to me, recognition once more spreading across his face.

“By all the gods above and below, Taenya DeLange!” Honest surprise, and that same self-deprecating laugh I’d once loved burst out of him.

Wait. She knew Fraser too? Although, to be fair I’d only just met her, and we’d had little time to chat.

It seemed I was momentarily forgotten. “Oh, I have an issue with you too. Did you forget? I didn’t.” His handsome face seemed to shine with delight. I’d seen that look before. Fraser was at his most dangerous when he seemed to be at his most charming.

“Only I could be so lucky. How did I get so lucky? Both of you? Tonight? Last I saw you, Taenya …” Fraser tapped his chin and rolled his eyes as if searching for the right memory. “You and your brother were galloping out of Hastrior. I was feeling generous that day and didn’t hunt you down for trying to start a mutiny on my ship and encouraging my men to kill me. Very reckless of you.” He chided, shaking his finger at Taenya, as if scolding. “I thought my reputation alone would’ve convinced you how futile that attempt would be.”

“You did kill my Prince. And ruined my father.” Taenya was quick with her answer, her voice neutral, but her expression went hard as her jaw clenched.

“Your father was a brilliant man who gave his loyalty to a fool and paid the price.” Fraser said, sidestepping her accusation.

I wondered if she intended to strike Fraser with that fist at her side. “For what it’s worth, this wasn’t my idea, and I’m not thrilled to be here either. But you need to hear what I have to say.”

“Flying in on a dragon just when the Empire invades, thereby saving me and my ship is one way to ensure I don’t kill you on sight.” Behind us, Cassyrra growled and brought her head next to Taenya, drawing Fraser’s attention. “How did that happen?” He asked, real wonder in his expression as he gazed at the dragon, but then stopped himself. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. Why are you here?” His face and words were now hard, tight, as if he didn’t have time for this.

“Cassyrra has chosen you and Ozora as her first students.”

We were both struck speechless.

“We are needed. You are needed.” Taenya lifted her palms in a wide shrug, as if trying to lift a heavy weight from her shoulders. “I’d been warned the Emperor was on the rise again. I didn’t expect to find him invading tonight though.” Taenya sounded a little breathless, as if what she had to say went against everything in her. “I can’t tell you why. Yet. Only that it has to be the three of us, or the East is doomed.”

Fraser crossed his arms, causing his leather armor to creak and shook his head. “This is not the way to win me over. She.” He jerked his chin at me. “Is a deal breaker for anything you might suggest.”

“Look, I get that we all have history and baggage.” Taenya began only to be cut off.

“She torched my ship!” He yelled, stabbing a finger in my direction. I could hear in his voice that it still pained him.

“You were raiding the hippocampus pods for their mares.” I shouted back.

It had near killed me back then, finding out. The man I fell in love with was not only a mercenary, but a merchant of innocent wildlife.

I know. Why were the hippocampus mares what flipped me into a rage? I knew he was dangerous, but never around me, and well … a mercenary. I’d seen him make business decisions with cold calculation for his profit but it was a side I rarely saw. He was also a handsome, charming man and wooed me like he meant it. A heady thing for that younger me.

But he knew how I felt about such things, and he deceived me. We’d talked about it more than once. Ripping wild animals away from their families, enslaving them, was never okay with me, then or now.

His aquamarine eyes were deeper than the ocean, and I wanted to drown in them. Five years had run between us and I still felt that familiar flutter in my belly when his hungry gaze locked with mine. Even with all he’d done, he hadn’t lost a bit of his effect on me. When I saw his eyes light, I knew he could tell. His lips lifted in a cruel half smile.

Fraser was about as handsome a man as there ever was, and he knew it. It was just another weapon for him. Yeah, I found that out firsthand too.

It may have partially motivated me burning his ship.

The look he gave me right now had made stronger women than I melt into his arms.

I hated that I still wanted him to them wrap around me.

He practically purred. “Is that what you think I was doing?”

“I know it’s what you were doing.” I grasped at my fury like a drowning woman, wanting to feel anything but that pull, that need. So I swerved into rage. Immersing myself in something very close to desire, and just as hot. How dare he deny to my face what I knew to be true? How dare he look at me like that, now that I knew he’d lied to me?

“This is going about as well as I expected.” Taenya said to no one.

Rather, she said it to her dragon, who was nodding her head in agreement.

“Any suggestions?” She asked her dragon.

Cassyrra stood, shaking her wings. Stretched out, they blocked the stars. She was so huge, I had nothing to compare her to. I’d seen elephants in menageries but Cassyrra dwarfed them.

A low thrumming vibrated the air. I felt more than heard it. Couldn’t tell if they were from the slow beats of her wings as she extended, then folded them, or some sort of vocalization. They carried a sensation of motherly calm, chiding her children for squabbling but in a loving manner. Strange to feel it from a creature I’d think more likely to eat me than feel tender affection for me.

I hadn’t realized how tightly I’d held my shoulders until they relaxed under the dragon’s soothing vibrations.

Didn’t seem to have the same effect on Fraser.

“There is nothing you can say that will convince me to listen to either of you.” Fraser spoke calmly. As if to a small child. “You should probably leave.”

Silence dragged but the tensions bounced between the three of us, drawing tighter. Fraser’s men stepped back, sensing danger and not wanting to get caught in the crossfire of two mages and their captain.

Cassyrra stretched her long neck to the sky and loosed a low, crooning roar. Not loud, but powerful. Like with the humming vibes, it brought that sense of motherliness, but now tinged with irritation, as if it frustrated her we were still arguing. Her voice rolled out over the field and dropped over the cliff, echoes bouncing back up before fading. An eerie ripple passed over us all. Not numin, not a spell, but a magical energy nonetheless, leaving a sense of tightness, desperation even, but whose I couldn’t tell.

“Your beloved hippocamps will die if you don’t help us.”

Taenya’s words dropped into the brittle silence like rocks into thin glass. Tiny tinkling shards scattered into the night, cutting us loose from our stiff stalemate. Fraser Connell paled, and I saw real fear wash over his features, making them go slack.

Why would he look like that? Didn’t make sense. “Beloved hippocamps?” I couldn’t stop myself. “That’s impossible.” I wanted to say more. I just couldn’t. I was too shocked. It couldn’t be true.

Fraser protecting hippocamps? No.

No!

He was catching and selling them. They were nothing but a money stream to him. I’d seen the proof.

“Not quite what you thought, Ozora?” Fraser’s voice sounded hollow, as if he’d heard my inner thoughts.

Beautiful, sad blue eyes welled up with pain. Something in Taenya’s words had cracked him open. It was as if I could see into him, see his true self. What his ripped open gaze revealed filled me with doubt. Ashamed, I looked away, not able to stand seeing that rawness. Looking away, I could deny it had ever been.

The moment passed.

He coughed and straightened, tugging his leather vest and settling his sword hilt. “But you never could hear that you might be wrong.” That accusatory tone was back and his deep indigo brows lowered. The vulnerable Fraser I’d just seen was gone.

“No. … Look.” Weariness laced with sadness filled Taenya’s voice and crumpled her. She scrubbed her face with both hands as if she could erase her words. Dropping them, she tried again.

“We both know Prince Bartholomew Crummey was worthless. I knew it then, but he was also mostly harmless, and his death just seemed so senseless. When you took over the town, well, Dad, Dylan, and I got ideas. I … I was an idiot. We all were.” It sounded like Taenya’s teeth barely moved, as if this was as much of an apology as she could muster.

“I can’t convince you. I know that. I’m not even going to try. I’m just asking that you meet the one who can.”