Exile is never meant to be kind. Kings and queens of Dál Macha use it as a punishment sparingly, for those of us born to our island love it fiercely. The roots of our evergreen forests reach into our blood. Our rains nourish us. Our dragons protect us. The winds give us our breath and the black rocks of our cliffs are the foundation upon which we grow. From birth to death and ever after, our island is a part of us.
When we use exile in Dál Macha, we know what we do as it was exile that sent Ímar to our island. He came homesick and miserable, but the isle reached deep into him and gave him a home that he loved more fiercely than anything.
If they have the freedom, some spend their last days wandering the island to memorize everything they can so they might always hold it in their hearts and minds. I do not. I spend my two days with Senach while my mother argues with my uncle. We spar in the courtyard with the troop of dragon knights he’s been captain of since he was sixteen and swore his service into my hands. They’re a melancholy lot those two days, having volunteered to take me to the ship that will bear me from Dál Macha themselves, but Senach is unrelenting in acting as if nothing’s changed and forcing them to follow along. I spend the first night with them at one of the hearths in the hall of their barracks, all of us drinking and dicing. I win a gold armband of a snake from one of them, then promptly lose it to Senach.
But the second night I spend in my uncle’s study, dragged there by my mother so I might add my voice to hers while she continues to argue with him. I pour wine for myself and sit quietly in a window, never once speaking up. I manage to refill my cup twice before her furious pacing and his withering looks keep me seated. Talorc would argue at her side, were he here. He’d watch my uncle’s face and read his body to understand him, his motives.
But were Talorc here, he would be king if our father wasn’t.
I don’t watch my uncle, nor listen to my mother’s words. I don’t tell either of them that a frighteningly large part of me is excited about the exile. To be exiled from Dál Macha means to be away from the eyes of those who still hope that I’ll grow into the role of heir, a thing I was never meant for. When Talorc had died, so many gazes had turned to me and hoped, but I never did. Fourteen and I’d known the role would be an ill-fitting one. I’d feared the throne too much to ever want to sit it. A fear that was fed by haunting nightmares of Ímar being driven mad by the throne.
”Cináed, please,” my mother says. She stands with her hands at her sides, staring down at him as he sits in his chair. The fire behind her hides the silver that lines her golden hair, casts shadows across her face and once more makes her seem the fierce, young queen-to-be that beat the son of a great lord into the dirt. My father had pushed past the boundaries of her patience that day, and it seems his brother is to do the same sometime soon.
“No,” he replies, shaking his head.
The last of her patience breaking is like the cracking of a frozen lake. “He is your heir,” she snaps. “Or have you finally married? Fathered a child you’ve been hiding? You cannot lose him.”
I glance at her, wondering if she’ll finally voice the threat that’s loomed over Cináed’s head since he took the throne as regent after my father’s death—he’s not a descendant of Ímar, and there are many who only support him because my mother and I do so, as there were many who only supported my father because she did. But she doesn’t, merely stares at him in stony silence. I have to remind myself not to sigh in relief. If she wants to have that fight with him, let her do it once I’m gone.
And let him finally admit to having a child hidden away somewhere.
“I cannot keep protecting him,” he says instead, his voice soft. I frown at him. His profile is in shadows from where I sit, but I can tell his expression is still that stoic look he’s become known for. I’m not worth even a hint of emotion. “It will be recorded that he’s been exiled for the death of Agathe.”
Puzzlement cools some of my mother’s fury. She frowns at him. “We settled that.”
He shrugs. “Her father has been unhappy.”
Her eyes narrow. “What did he offer you?”
I stand and walk to the table holding the wine. “Agathe’s dowry, maybe,” I suggest, pouring the dark red wine into my cup. I drink half of it and refill it again before turning to face them. “Could have been a wife. Agathe had unmarried cousins aplenty.”
There’s not even a twitch to Cináed’s face.
My mother glares at him. “Bastard. I should never have supported Bridei when he said he wanted to take the crown after your death.”
He meets her gaze evenly. “No, you should have killed me.”
I drink my wine quickly, then drop the cup and let the noise of it hitting the stone floor silence my mother’s next words. “I’m leaving,” I say, loud and harsh. They stare at me as I walk to the door. “Goodnight, mother, uncle.” I pause in shutting the door, staring at my uncle. “Goodbye.”
Neither says anything as I shut the door. I lean against it and stare at a patch of shadows as I contemplate my future.
It happens before dawn, because the majority of the castle and the Lower City are still asleep. Those of us sent into exile are meant to be there one day and then gone the next. I’ll see none but the dragon knights who will give me a drugged wine before taking me to the ship that will carry me to a new home. I’ll wake first on the ship, then be drugged again when it’s time to unload me. I’ll never be told where I’m going, and will be given a letter to learn where I am.
Footsteps coming down the hall make me leave the door. I have dealt with too many mournful goodbyes since the Solstice, and I want none of them now. A few of them are genuine, people with tears in their eyes as they look away from me. Many more are false. I am not universally beloved here—I haven’t made myself so, as Talorc did, as he would have continued doing. He was beloved. He was the Uí Ímair prince to lead everyone. He was the one who had his own ship he took into battle, people who rallied around him with a battlecry. He was not a drunkard who stumbles through the castle and into a blistering rain.
The courtyard is empty as I cross it, everyone else smart enough to hide from the rain. I drank the last of my smarts away listening to my mother and uncle. Dragonfire torches burn still, lighting my way to the barracks. The air within is stifling warm, hall shut against the cold rain. Dragon knights sit at the hearths. Some mend harnesses, others dice. One tunes a lute. A young one reads cards, muttering to himself as his hands hover over each of them. Every single one pauses to look at me when I enter, and I feel like a fawn caught before a pack of wolves.
Senach’s not amongst them.
Members of his troop are, though, and they stand to salute me. I flee down a hallway to escape the way my heart twists. They formed around him when we were younger. Some came when he showed no fear of the children of nobility. Others after the cult took me. I can’t escape them even in the maze of hallways, as there are some walking from room to room and it’s impossible to avoid them all as I seek out Senach’s room. My body feels wound too tight as I stare resolutely ahead, refusing to look any of them in the eye.
There’s no light under Senach’s door, but it’s unlocked and I slip in quietly. A towel hangs by the door and I rub it over my hair as I cross the near-empty room. The desk is as clean as ever, the floor swept, sconces empty of any dragonfire. A near dead fire in the hearth. Dragonfire peeks into the room through the shutters of his window, enough light to show me Senach in his bed. He lays on his back, one hand under his head and chest bare despite the winter chill in the air. I stare at him as I pull the towel away.
I should leave him be, give him peace and a night free of my misery.
I drop the towel and sit on the edge of his bed instead, bending over to pull my boots off. He wakes immediately, resting his hand against my back. I glance at him, meeting his dragon-eyed gaze in the dark. He says nothing, just wraps my hair, shining with the light of dragonfire, around his fingers. I look away without saying anything to finish removing my boots and my belt, tossing them haphazardly onto the ground and letting my coat follow.
I cannot leave him because I need this last night with him.
He’s as warm as his dragon as I lift the blanket and lay next to him. No words pass between us as he rolls onto his side to pull me back against his chest. I hold onto his pillow as I lay there, his breath warm against the nape of my neck. He tugs my hand down gently, holding it over my heart and thumb moving across the back of it.
The first time I climbed into his bed, I was ten and he twelve and I had been dreaming of the cult and Ímar both. Priests in their fire-red robes anointing me with oil for their ancient deity. Ímar’s mad laughter ringing through the maze of dragon caves. The castle had turned terrifying when I woke, too full of spirits whispering at my mind. They cling to the bones and their words dig in like talons rip flesh from bone. The dragon knight barracks, though, is made only of stone. There are no bones here, nothing for spirits to cling to and send dragon riders tumbling into madness. The barracks is their sanctuary from the castle, and Senach is mine.
I’ll leave him in the morning.
I roll over to look at him, thinking him to be asleep for the evenness of his breath, but I find myself looking into his open eyes instead. We stare at each other. He lets go of my hand to trail his fingers along the side of my face. I open my mouth and then shut it before I can say something to shatter our peace. I shake my head, then scoot down to tuck my face against his neck. He sighs, his hand moving up and down my back slowly. I fall asleep inhaling his sandalwood scent, and my dreams are as peaceful as they can be for dreaming of a throne room with no doors and a dragon that curls around the throne, watching me with summer sky eyes.
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If I dream of something else, nails turning to talons against skin and someone saying my name in the most exasperatedly fond way I’ve ever heard, then that is my secret to take into exile with me.
At least when I wake, it’s to Senach leaning over me. Always he’s the one to wake me after I’ve crawled into his bed. Once, when we were younger, he simply threw his arm over me and went back to sleep. I woke to midday sunlight hitting my face through the open windows of my room and his arm heavy over my waist. It’d been such a heady moment that it’d taken me hours to convince myself I’d not woken in the midst of dreams. And now we only stare at each other before he lifts the cup of drugged wine. I make a face, rolling over to hide it in the pillow. He tugs on my hair playfully until I sit up and take the cup from him, though he keeps my hair wrapped around his fingers as I drink. He takes the cup from me before I drop back against his pillow, and we speak quietly of what the dragon knights are planning for their late winter trainings until the drug takes and I’m asleep again.
It’s no surprise when I wake alone, on a ship gently shifting with the sea. The rocking propels me from my cot and to a pot in the corner of the cabin, where I empty whatever’s left in my stomach. Then I clean myself up with water left for me on a table, raiding a chest for fresh clothes and a comb. I stumble around the cabin as I dress and braid my hair, cursing the dull ache in my head that makes my stomach roll even more. Eventually, I can no longer avoid leaving the cabin and yank open the door to blinding sunlight. I blink against it, holding a hand up to ward the sun off as I step out onto the ship’s deck.
The sky is clear, a gentle wind ruffling my clothes and hair. But my attention goes to the large shadow that passes over the deck, drawing my eye to the man who stands against the ship’s railing, looking into the sky to follow the dragon’s flight as she moves in a lazy circle to bring herself down just above the water’s surface. I walk over to him slowly, not sure I trust my eyes—but his broad shoulders are the same, as is his short dark hair. His eyes are the same summer sky blue and there, under his right eye, that scar I gave him when we were arguing in the courtyard and I got mad enough to shove him. He’d slipped and fallen against the stairs of the barracks, knocking his head against the stone and terrifying me with how dazed he’d become. I’d been terrified too by how easily he’d let me shove him—I was eleven and scrawny, while he was thirteen and a full hand taller than me, already bulky with more fat and muscle than I’d ever get.
“You’re supposed to be in Dál Macha still,” I say when I reach his side. Those exiled do not get companions.
“The world will devour you if you’re left alone,” Senach replies, turning to watch the sea. Aedín tilts to run the tip of a wing along the waves.
“Do you have so little faith in me?”
“I have the utmost faith in you.”
“Why are you here?” I demand, frowning.
He turns and looks me over slowly, then meets my gaze steadily as he steps closer. His pupils are barely there, so thin are they against the sunlight on the water. “I refused to let you be sent away alone.”
“How sweet,” I say flatly, turning away from the sea to watch the sailors. They’re trying to be inconspicuous about watching us. “You’re an utter fool to follow me into exile.” I glance at him. “I’m surprised they let Aedín come.”
“She’s never allowed herself to be caged,” he says. His arm bumps against mine as he watches her again. “Even if she did, she’d have gotten free and followed me eventually. They can strip my rank, but not my bond.”
I study him, but he seems unbothered by exile. “Where are we going to hide a dragon?”
He smiles. “The captain struggled with adjusting our course, but he found a location that works.”
“What did he decide?” I ask, more curious than hopeful. My uncle wouldn’t have been cruel with choosing where to dump me, and I doubt the captain will be as well, but none of that means I’ll learn where it is until I wake there. Ignorant until I’ve been left to thrive or rot.
Thriving seems more likely with Senach at my side again.
He shakes his head to my question. I sigh and wrap my arms around his as I lean into him, my cheek against his shoulder. The sailors keep glancing at us. I watch them as they scuttle about the deck, tending to whatever it is they do. Senach’s head rests against mine as he watches the sea, his warmth pleasant against the sea breeze. I smile when Aedín roars and shoots a gout of flame into the sky, her shadow crossing over the ship again as the sailors swear and mumble prayers to themselves.
“What are we going to do?” I ask quietly.
“Survive,” he replies. “The same thing we’ve been doing.”
“We had a troop of dragon knights behind us before.”
He shrugs. “We’ll manage.”
I sigh again. He squeezes my arm gently.
Our voyage takes a little over a week. Senach and I share my cabin, the cot just barely big enough for the both of us. I think it’s only the long years of me climbing into his bed or pulling him into mine to hide from nightmares against his side that makes him agree to sharing the cot. He’d sleep on the floor otherwise if I let him, or sleep with the sailors in their hammocks. He considers a hammock in the cabin, then dismisses the idea with how small the cabin is. The only way to make it work would have his long body half over the cot.
We pass a bottle of rum between us the first night, but the way the rocking of the ship upsets my stomach with the alcohol has him hiding any I could get my hands on for the rest of the trip. I don’t mind it, and turn into his shadow over the days. We’re no help to the sailors unless they need Senach’s muscle, and we turn to sparring with each other on the deck to alleviate the boredom that threatens us. Aedín flies or floats in the water next to the ship as we travel, diving deep to gorge herself on the sea’s inhabitants or fling herself from the water to launch herself back into the sky and douse everyone on the ship.
The sighting of land comes at midday, the captain quick to usher us into the cabin and bar the door from the outside. Senach tests the door once, then sprawls on the cot to wait. The drugged wine comes with a sailor who carries a tray with our dinners. Faced with this final meager meal, I can’t wait suddenly to be on land with food that isn’t ship’s rations. The sailor leaves us to eat alone and Senach slips into a trance, sharing his mind with Aedín as she flies over the land to find a place to nest. He tells me of what he sees through her eyes, but it gives neither of us any information as to where we’ll find ourselves when we wake. Aedín avoids any traces of civilization, flying over trees and a lake for the mountains. He pulls from her as she settles, and he in turn settles out along the cot with his hands under his head. I pace, anxious to be off the ship and nervous about what we’ll find when we wake. He watches me with half-lidded eyes, waiting until I’m close enough to grab my wrist and pull me to him slowly. His touch calms me enough to get me to sit on the edge of the bed. The warmth coming from him lures me into laying next to him. His playing with my hair lulls me into sleep.
And I find myself in a large, unfamiliar room when I wake. Morning sunlight floats in from a window and the bed is soft under me, the hearth crackling with a warm fire. Senach leans over me, brushing my hair from my face. His pupils are thin, teeth a little more pointed than they should be. Over ten years and I’ve yet to wake to see he’s suddenly grown scales, but I suddenly find myself wondering if there are any along his body. There are no feathers in his hair, either. He only wears Aedín’s shed feathers and scales as earrings today.
There’s a marked lack of nausea sending me from the bed. I look at him curiously. “I don’t feel like I’m going to vomit this time.”
He nods. “I called on Aedín’s magic.”
I grab his hand, looking at his fingers—but he still has nails, not talons. He snorts. “Thank you,” I say as he helps me to sit up. He nods, still holding onto my hand as I climb off the bed. I lean heavily against him for a moment, then step aside to stretch. He stays on the bed, shifting to lay back against the pillows, and watches me. There will be more time for a proper bath later, and already I yearn for it as I wash up with the warm water resting on a table for me. I glance at the window as I open my clothing chest, but Senach speaks before I can ask.
“Tsernia.”
I stare at him.
He smiles wryly. “I know. But they have a mountain range Aedín can nest in.”
Tsernia. What an utterly ridiculous twist of fate. I dress slowly as I let that roll over me. I was thirteen, almost fourteen, when the councils of Dál Macha agreed to go to war with them. Senach was made a dragon knight not long after, one of the youngest. He would have gone to war with many of the others if he hadn’t done something silly like swearing himself into my service, instead of the service of the throne. I could have lost him then, and he would have been one more name to the list of fallen. We would have had something of him, though, for dragons won’t leave their dead for carrion or enemies—and that includes those bonded to them. Instead I lost my father and brother. Dál Macha lost their king and crown prince in a battle where no one won, the battle that ended the war with deaths of royals on both sides.
“Where did my uncle originally plan to send me?” I ask, frowning as I turn to Senach.
He holds up a letter, the seal on it already broken. “Your uncle left this with the captain.”
“Did you read it or did he?” I ask as I take the letter. Another, unsealed, falls out onto Senach’s chest.
“I did,” he answers, picking that second letter up. I take it from him as I sit on the edge of the bed, reading my uncle’s words.
Bridei—
You’ll be in Nyvhael when you read this. I am sorry, but this is what must be done. I’ve softened the blow as much as I can. You’re to meet with a lord named Lambert, and he will help you. He will require the letter of introduction I’ve provided, but he has promised to do his best by you. Be safe, for your mother will worry.
With love,
Cináed
I look at Senach to avoid sneering. “Nyvhael would have been fun.”
“You can’t hide a dragon in Nyvhael,” he says mournfully. South of Tsernia, but smaller than Dál Macha. Despite the mournful tone, though, Senach’s unbothered. He taps the second letter. “We can still use this here and find someone willing to house you.”
“We could,” I agree, reading the letter of introduction quickly. I consider it, the swooping letters of my uncle’s handwriting, the seal pressed next to his signature. My name—Bridei, son of Muirenn and Eógan, last Prince of the Uí Ímair. The basic description of me and my lineage, but nothing to say what I’m talented at, what one might use me for. I don’t even know what I’d use me for. I rise, walking across the room to the hearth and dropping both of my uncle’s letters into it. Senach sits up, immediately alert. “We won’t.”
“Are you mad? What are you planning on doing without that?”
I shrug. “Survive.” He sighs, falling back against the pillows. I lean against the mantle and stare into the fire. “Bridei, son of Muirenn and Eógan, last Prince of the Uí Ímair, can be lost to the pages of history,” I add. “That’s what my uncle condemned me to when he exiled me, and I don’t think I mind that fate.”
“What if I don’t want the last Prince of the Uí Ímair to die nameless?”
“Then we make a name a different way,” I say. He grunts. I make my way to the bed, climbing on it and straddling his waist. He stares up at me as I lean over him, lifting one hand to wrap my hair around his fingers. “Imagine, Senach. We’re free of the castle’s burdens and the crown.” I tap his temple. “No more whispers from ghosts.” My finger moves to trail along the curve of his ear. “No more whispers following us.” I follow the line of his jaw next. “We can go wherever we want. We can do whatever we want. We can be whoever we want.”
He smiles a little. “And who do you want to be, O Nameless Prince?”
“Braver than I’ve been,” I whisper.
“I think you’ve been plenty brave,” he whispers back.
“Really?” I ask, sitting up abruptly. My hair slips free of his fingers. “I think I’ve been a drunk coward that everyone thinks is going to kill himself. At least there are no towers or walls I can throw myself from here.” I run a hand through my hair, teasing a knot from it as I look out the window. “Maybe I can do things differently here.”
“Then we will,” he says, propping himself up on his elbows to look out the window as well. “Shall we learn what city we’re in?”
I grin at him.