Abbaz stared at her, wide-eyed, as if gazing upon a ghost. “Thalla?”
Zyryxa groaned. She knew she resembled her mother, but she snarled in disgust as all the old sentiments toward this man flooded back in. “Try again.”
His lips twitched. “Zyryxa?” He threw his big arms around her, sobbing onto her shoulder. “Zyryxa.”
Zyryxa knew as well as anyone in the world the loss he felt, but she couldn’t make herself show him compassion. It didn’t matter that he was the Hero of the Hill. She still saw him as a disappointment. Instead of holding his family together, he’d broken them further. Instead of rallying after his wife died, he’d wasted away playing discordant, self-pitying songs. Maybe her parents had been right. The man that fought through a swarm to save a champion was gone. All that remained was this pathetic shell.
Sensing the cold, he withdrew with a sigh. “Let me get you something to drink.”
“No,” she said, leading the way to the common room. She was thirsty but she didn’t want anything more from him than she needed. “I’m only here for information about the Rite of the Dragon Knight. Then I must go.”
“Stay in here, Basyx,” Abbaz said, shutting his son’s door.
Returning to the common room struck her harder than she was prepared for. This room was a repository of reminders of the life she’d had before. There by that fireplace was where her mother told stories of her youth on Telling, all three children giving her undivided attention as she spoke about growing up in a homestead in the hills near Antryx Mir. Zyryxa could taste the wyrm steaks they ate after she’d helped her mother bring down a blue wyrm, could even see her mother laughing about how Zyryxa had shattered an axe on the beast’s skull. The wyrmbone table they’d made from the creature was empty now, never again to hold that laughing woman. Nor was she sitting with their favorite blanket on the big sofa where they’d often snuggle. She remembered the last time they did that, the evening before Zyryxa left for her rite. Zyrthalla made her review every survival tip she’d ever learned, tested her knowledge of beast lore, or how to start fires or fashion garments while massaging her back.
More and more memories demanded recall. Zyryxa had to shut it down before she cried. She wasn’t going to give Abbaz the satisfaction of seeing her pain. Her back to him, she rechanneled her emotions toward the person-sized hole in the wall, smashed through the common room into the master bedroom. Stone and debris littered the scene. As did several broken lutes and all their divinedamned components. The home was broken not because of Zyrthalla’s death, but from Abbaz’s failure to take responsibility and work through the pain.
“Qoryxa’s flaming eyes,” she cursed, shaking her head. “What in Zamael’s Hells?” She closed her hands into fists, letting the anger keep her safe from having sympathy.
“Zeen,” Abbaz started, his voice catching in his throat. “I won’t hurt you.”
Zyryxa hated the protective tone. Like she wouldn’t wipe the floor with whatever was left of the warrior her father chose not to be. Did he take her for Zyrxine? She wasn’t some petulant child but a warrior that could tear the wing off a dragon and defeat an entire homestead of elite Fire Tribe warriors. Growling, she turned to him, eyes narrowed and tone sharp. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Abbaz gazed at her, open-mouthed like he was too stupid to breathe through his nose. Just another bardic performance. Another lie.
“I know,” she said, her voice ice. “Tell me why you robbed me of a father I could admire. Tell me why!” she roared, the ice shattering.
He closed his mouth. Tears coalesced in his already rheumy eyes. “Because the man who could do that,” he gestured toward the Zyrxine-shaped hole in the wall, “was no hero that I wanted my children to admire.”
Zyryxa scoffed, folding her arms in front of her chest. “Like you were worth looking up to as a dragonless bard, as a man that played songs while his lover was surrounded by enemies? Some fucking hero.”
Abbaz sank into his chair. He strummed another broken melody, a bastardization of “The Hero of the Hill” made discordant with two broken strings and a bent box. “The Hero of the Hill stood over the bodies of a hundred neighbors, the corpses of his own broodbrothers, of a noble knight and his dragon, and the thousand more that hadn’t yet died for Marazix’s feud.” He lowered the lute, his body going rigid, then lifted his eyes. “And do you know why he killed all those people in the land where fire and ice meld into one?”
“Because it was your duty to protect the champion.”
Abbaz snorted. “He didn’t care about things like duty, patriotism, or honor. He cared even less for Marazix.” Abbaz shook his head, his body trembling. “He didn’t care about the cost, didn’t mourn his brothers, didn’t even care that it meant the fighting would go on. No, that’s wrong. He wanted the fighting to continue, so that his axe might bleed Volqor dry.”
He set his eyes on her. “To call that monster a hero is to render the word worse than meaningless. The freezing Hero of the Hill is a savage contemptible enough to slam his own child through a wall.”
“So instead, you chose to become a coward. And now your wife is dead, you’ve lost both your daughters, and your son is terrified of you. You sit in this broken room playing broken songs on a broken lute.” Zyryxa shook her head. “The man who refuses to fight when he must is no better than the one who wants to fight when he should not.”
A flash of fire erupted in Abbaz’s eyes. He bit his lower lip, glaring at her. For a moment, she felt a tingle of excitement that the warrior would awaken, that he would fight for his daughter’s love. Then he slumped into his chair and played his divinedamned lute. All That Remains.
“You want to know why I stopped being that fighter?” he cried.
Her heart hungered for truth, but she wanted to hurt him. “You think I care about your excuses? I’m here for information about the Rite of the Dragon Knight. That’s all I need from you.”
He strummed his broken lute, his tearful eyes taking her in. Seraxa’s freezing eyes! He smiled at her, seeing through the lie. He changed the tune, to the one he played most often for her. The divinedamned Warrior’s Pride. For all that it was ruined, the music resonated with something deep in her soul, making her feel like a little girl in her gigantic father’s arms.
“After rescuing Marazix, I was sent on the Rite of the Dragon Knight. Knowing my barbaric nature, he paired me with the most coolheaded warrior in his swarm. At first, we were like fire and ice. Zyrthalla drove me mad with her talk of control, compassion, and worst of all…” Abbaz gave a dramatic pause, smiling at her, “…critical thinking.”
Zyryxa snorted, suppressing a more mirthful laugh, and fought back the tears. This was a side of their story she’d never heard. They’d alluded to not immediately falling in love, but Leverith, she’d never known they started so far apart. She’d always imagined her mother not being attracted to him because of his soft bardic ways, but it was the viciousness in him that kept their beginning cold.
“I sought to crash through Nix Tezyk,” Abbaz continued, “with nothing but my greataxe. I was determined to finish the rite as fast as possible so that I could get back to the frontlines and kill. I also wanted to shut Zyrthalla up, to show her that I didn’t need to think things through. She’d see that I could defeat the trials with nothing but my might. While she was procuring supplies to venture into the everlasting blizzards, I rushed in to kill a qione before Zyrthalla could.”
“Dumbass,” Zyryxa said, thinking of another man that rushed downhill in the dark to win the race to Riverwatch.
Abbaz chuckled. “Indeed. You see, Zyryxa, the qione cannot be defeated by a dumb brute. They’re the spectral existence of Qoryxa’s spirit, shards of her very soul from her death in the Divine Fratricide. I knew enough to rush deeper into the cold for they are the blizzard itself. I followed the wind as my body turned to ice. I was so cold I could barely hold my axe when I found the thing.”
“What do they look like?”
Abbaz grinned and Zyryxa found herself failing to resist smiling back. “Kind of like you.”
Zyryxa rolled her eyes. “Comparing me to a shard of Qoryxa’s soul to get on my good side? How bardic of you.”
“Is it working?”
“Does it ever?” She crossed her arms. “What do they really look like?”
“I didn’t lie,” he said. “They look like ethereal young women of unmatched beauty made of ice.”
Zyryxa didn’t mind the comparison, feeling herself soften enough to take a seat across from Abbaz.
“However,” he continued, “the better question would be what they sound like. The qione has a voice to rival Matyxal’s and uses sweet song, its beautiful guise, and mind-numbing cold to lull and charm. Thus, the unstoppable Hero of the Hill wandered into the depths of an everlasting blizzard to find a maiden of divine beauty with the voice of a goddess.”
She leaned forward. “You fell under its spell, didn’t you?”
Abbaz nodded. “I thought myself invincible. Alas, all it took was a beautiful woman to show me how vulnerable I was.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“What did the qione do?”
He ceased his strumming, wagging a finger at Zyryxa. “Wrong beautiful woman. I was stripping out of my furs when the heroine in this tale arrived. Zyrthalla rode a drake, both she and the beast armored in wind-retardant hides. In my stupidity, I didn’t even see the qione’s minions: a pair of floating orbs of ice with beady little eyes. Zyrthalla bashed them mid-gallop with her shield. They shattered into a burst of deadly ice, but her drake outpaced the explosion. As the qione bent down to kiss me, Zyrthalla’s sword swung for its head.”
Zyryxa could picture the scene, except for the part of her father being stark naked in the middle of a blizzard worshipping a monster. She sank into the chair, savoring every word. “Figures she’d save your dumb ass. What happened then?”
“The damned thing disappeared, then reappeared thirty feet away. Thalla tried to chase it down, but it kept shifting each time.” Abbaz laughed. “I’m out there, snow swirling so fierce I could barely see my own cock dangling while my breeches are frozen around my ankles, and your moth… Zyrthalla is screaming at this thing to fight her.”
“Zyrthalla losing her cool?” No way, she thought. She wouldn’t hear this slander meant to soften her up.
Abbaz nodded. “She was burning hot. Fortunately for her, I was starting to think critically.”
“Sounds like fiction to me.”
“Ha! I couldn’t pursue the qione, but I wanted to kill that thing like nothing before. You see, I knew better, once the spell broke. If a qione touches you, it siphons away all the warmth from your body. Believe me, if Zyrthalla was furious, I was enraged, especially after I stumbled cock first into the snow trying to get out of my breeches.”
Zyryxa hollered with laughter, then cleared her throat as she tried to banish the image of her father’s penis. Of course, it took the shape of Pelzyq’s, and she could feel the color flushing on her cheeks.
“Stuck in the snow, my frozen pants binding my legs together, I reached for the only weapon I could find.”
Please don’t say your cock, Zyryxa thought, not wanting to imagine her young father as Pelzyq.
“I took my knife,” he said, “waiting for Thalla to miss another slash, then hurled the blade at the creature’s heart the moment it reappeared.”
“You need to attack it from afar, right after it reappears,” Zyryxa said, “and also not fall under its spell or let it touch you.” She grinned. Her qoryxite throwing axes or Lexyn’s arrows would prove qione slayers. “But you also need to protect yourself from the cold, and not cluster around the qione’s minions when they burst.”
“Critical thinking,” Abbaz said, beaming at her. “But don’t only focus on the qione either. In Nix Tezyk, you must also beware your sister.”
Zyryxa frowned. “I’m not threatened by that little bitch.”
Abbaz shook his head. “She’s not so little that you shouldn’t feel threatened.”
Zyryxa hated being confused, some of her goodwill disappearing like a qione before a blade struck. “Speak directly, bard.”
Abbaz sighed. “I speak of the dragon that roosts in the everlasting blizzards: Amarzallax, who has never known a human bond in her seventeen years of life. Lacking a bond, she will be unpredictable.”
Of course, Zyryxa realized. Her mother used to joke that someday she’d meet her twin. Dragon eggs were created when a bonded rider shared the experience of procreation through their telepathic link. Beyond being able to experience the mental stability that came from being bonded, reproduction was the primary reason dragons chose to bond humans. Lacking the anatomy, they couldn’t procreate on their own. Amarzallax was born of Qorzillux, through the love of Zyrthalla and Abbaz. Zyryxa spent so much time dreaming of Duilahir who’d lived for thousands of years, that she didn’t consider her twin as an option.
“I won’t overlook Amarzallax,” she promised. “Now, I assume you went for the Tarandrux after you got your pants back on.”
He snorted. “The cold died with the qione. But it was already too late for me. I’d been hypothermic for too long; despite my rage, I passed out. I woke up several days later, in a tent, lying in a bed of pasque flowers with Zyrthalla’s blankets covering me.”
“How embarrassing,” Zyryxa said, hoping he didn’t see her blushing. That was a story she hoped never got out. Knowing Pelzyq, half of Loxzua probably knew by now.
Abbaz chuckled. “Truly, it was. As I said, that beautiful woman taught me for the first time what it was to be vulnerable. I’d never needed anyone before, nor had I thought that I wanted anyone.”
Rushing for his lute, sobbing, Abbaz played his bonding song. The chords of “Cold Hearts Thawing” brought tears to Zyryxa’s eyes. She stared at the fireplace, remembering the echoes of hundreds of performances, seeing them in a new light. Her mother had smiled at him every time like it was the first time she heard it. He didn’t need to finish his story for Zyryxa to know the truth of why he’d changed from a vicious warrior into a pacifist bard. Not just because of Zyrthalla, but for Zyrthalla. Her mother, her hero, preferred Abbaz the bard to the freezing Hero of the Hill.
The cold lingering in Zyryxa’s heart for this man started to thaw. She let him see her wipe at her eyes, as he resumed his telling.
“I won’t lie to you and say it came easy. There are things I said in those next few days that haunt me now. She didn’t treat me like I was her soulmate, but for the first time, I felt someone else’s compassion, and slowly, the cold heart within me thawed. I started to want to be a better man, but every time I fought, I lost control and became the beast.” His music burst with passion as he sped up his tempo. “I’d go into rages fighting wolves or sabretooths or whatever the tundra threw at us on our way to Silvyzfryz.”
He gazed into Zyryxa’s eyes. “I’d be ripping these creatures apart with my bare hands, long after the fighting was done, and she started singing.”
Zyryxa grinned. “That helped?” Zyrthalla, for all her wonderful attributes, was not a songstress. Her voice could carry authority far better than it could a note.
Abbaz beamed at her. “She was horrible, Zyryxa. I think the sounds of two coldscales fucking were more pleasant than your mother’s crooning.” They shared a laugh. “But critical thinking prevailed again. Zyrthalla reasoned that if the qione had lulled me with a melody, other music might soothe the monster. And she was right, but not necessarily for the right reason. I started to sing, just to prove I was better at it than she was. So when your mother started singing, I stopped bloodletting, and sang along.”
“Music became your way to control the anger inside of you.”
Abbaz nodded. “Like a father singing to his little girl after her sister broke her favorite sword, it calmed the wrath. Not perfectly, but we’re not that far into the tale yet, my darling. You need to know about the five trials, so let us move onto the tarandrux.”
Zyryxa wouldn’t tell him that hearing her call him darling again made her feel a warmth she thought forever lost. Her mother was gone, but she wasn’t an orphan. Her voice choked as she said, “That would be appreciated, bard.”
“It is said that the tarandrux were Qoryxa’s favorite creatures, outside of dragons of course,” Abbaz added before Zyryxa could object. “The first thing you need to know about a tarandrux is that only an imbecile would attack a herd or strike at their legs.”
“How’d doing both work out for you?” Zyryxa asked.
Abbaz laughed, her lips rising too. “About as well as you’d expect. These beasts can rival an elder dragon in size, unless they’re named Freadal or Duilahir, standing on four legs that rise higher than ten coldscales stacked atop each other and are as hard and heavy as qoryxite. Even the best axewoman isn’t chopping those trees down in just a couple hits.
“When I tried, they trampled the ground, trying to squish me. The herd ripped through the gelubor, making so much noise that any other predator in the region thought it was a call to arms. An ulfhedinn happened to be in the vicinity that day.”
Zyryxa pictured her father, armed with a broken lute, trying to outlast not only a herd of gigantic, antlered beasts with impenetrable, enormous legs, but also an ulfhedinn crashing the dance. Her lips twitched, trying to still the laughter within. “Couldn’t sing your way out of that one, could you?”
Abbaz shook his head. “Having already climbed one of the tarandrux, ripped out its antlers, and leapt off, Zyrthalla tried to pull me out of there, but I was too far gone.” His smile faded fast. “I threw my axe, splitting the ulfhedinn open, then I seized Thalla—”
Zyryxa leaned forward, glaring at him. “You didn’t?”
“I did,” he said, lowering his eyes. “I was a monster, Zyryxa. I don’t know what crazed thoughts I had, but I lifted her over my head and tossed her at the tarandrux’s skull.”
“Drakeshit,” she called, rolling her eyes.
Abbaz sighed, his gaze going to the hole in the wall. “The monster within me despised nothing so much as losing. I hated the tarandrux for repelling my cuts, I hated Zyrthalla for already succeeding, then trying to pull me away before I was victorious. So, yes, I threw her, a very muscular Volqori woman, forty feet in the air into the side of the tarandrux’s skull. Turns out that their skulls aren’t as tough as their legs.”
Zyryxa shook her head. “Come on. Enough bardic exaggeration. Tell the truth.”
“The tarandrux toppled, Zyrthalla in its brain. The rest of the herd broke off and scattered through Silvyxfryz.”
Zyryxa kept shaking her head. She couldn’t fathom anyone possessing such strength. It was preposterous to throw a three-hundred-pound warrior forty feet in the air through the skull of a mythical beast. She wouldn’t entertain it any longer. She climbed out of her chair and turned her back to him. “Target the tarandrux’s vulnerable head or antlers, don’t engage them in groups, use stealth or high ground to ambush one, be aware of furry friends joining the fray.”
“While I was rampaging—hacking off one of the fallen creature’s legs—Zyrthalla was struggling to survive. Still,” his voice caught, “I heard her singing.” Abbaz moaned, his tears falling in thawed rivers down the blue forest on his face.
Zyryxa stalled, her mouth going ajar, stupid like Pelzyq or Abbaz himself. “You really threw her through a tarandrux’s skull?”
“Yes,” he croaked. “It was the first time I can remember crying in my life.”
Zyryxa realized then that the man in front of her was more powerful than her, stronger than the Ice Champion, and perhaps most importantly, mightier than Zyrthalla had ever been. She looked at her own hands, remembering times she’d lost control, went too far. She was as much Abbaz’s daughter as Zyrthalla’s. Within him was a monster, one with insatiable rage. A creature like that which could kill any of his loved ones in a split second was too dangerous to be left unrestrained. She worried the same monster existed inside of her.
“That was the day I promised that I’d never hurt her again, that I’d learn to make music,” Abbaz said, playing “Cold Hearts Thawing.” He focused on the lute for several heartbeats, gathering his composure. “I would learn to control myself or I would forever put down the axe.”
She closed her fists. “And you couldn’t do it?”
Abbaz met her gaze. “Never again did I lay a hand on your mother, except in love. I bartered a tarandrux antler for a lute at a homestead, and I practiced every day. I got better, but never enough to be confident that I wouldn’t lose myself again if I fought, particularly if I started losing the fight. Thus, when I performed the sixth trial, and had the choice of becoming a dragon knight, destined to fight but with even more power, I turned it down.” His eyes went to the hole in the wall. “When you were born, your mother and I talked about what it meant for me. I needed to be sane for you, Zyryxa. And for Zeen and Basyx. I swore to never fight again.”
Zyryxa stood up, feeling a wave of emotion battering her. She saw him now, not as a weak man clinging to discordant melodies instead of stepping up, but as a man who’d become something better for the love of his life and his children, who desperately clang to his music to keep from lashing out at his loss. Perhaps it was Lexyn’s influence, or Pelzyq’s, but Zyryxa did something she hadn’t planned, something that previous her would’ve never considered. She hugged her father.
“I forgive you,” she said.