Even though he described the hunting of one of her Kind, and her heart felt a fearful pang, it hurt more because ofhim. Because she felt his pain vicariously.
Because she had come to care for Wolfe.
“He’s left me for last, the ugly, overgrown lizard.”
This time, Rui didn’t take offence at the slight.
“I don’t know why he doesn’t kill me like the others. It would be so easy for him. But he always gives me the option to run. I never do. Only one of us is leaving that cavern alive. I’ll make certain of it.”
She squeezed his fingers so that he looked at her, seeing the question in her eyes.
“Who is this dragon to me? Why am I hunting him?” he accurately guessed her unspoken query.
She nodded.
“He killed my mother,” Wolfe whispered.
Rui inhaled sharply.
“I saw it with my own eyes.”
Their gazes fused as he spoke. She felt like she was staring directly into his soul.
“I never knew my father. My mother never told me who he was, not even whether he was a beggar or a king. She only said that she loved him, and that he wanted to be with us, but couldn’t be. I invented stories in my own mind about him. That he was a great hero who protected the weak.”
Rui smiled a little at the description. Because Wolfe might as well have been describing himself. She hadn’t had much tangible proof of her suspicions about him, but her instincts never lied.
“Once or twice a year, a man came to see her. I think I saw him as a babe, but I never remember his face. Only vague impressions. As I grew older, she would send me away when he came. I always knew it was him, because there was a restlessness about my mother when the time drew near. She was calmness and equanimity personified otherwise.”
Rui’s eyes skimmed the strong, bold features of his face. His mother must have been a striking woman.
“Sometime near my tenth year, the village came under attack. I was old enough to wield a sword; I had a knack for it. So, I joined the militia to fend off the invaders. I barely knew what I was doing. Real battles were nothing like the playfighting I did with other boys my age. There was so much blood. Shouting and screaming…”
Rui squeezed his hand again.
She couldn’t imagine it. A small, human boy barely ten, fighting for his life against grown men. He was very, very brave.
“I was almost cut down by an enemy marauder when a soldier saved me from the mortal blow. He yelled at me to pay attention and focus. I stared directly into his face. I saw him clearly. For the rest of the battle, I stayed close to him, trying to help however I could. He defended me more than once. And I killed my first man to defend him as well.”
He looked down and clenched his jaw, and Rui knew to brace herself for what came next.
“We won the battle just barely. At great cost to our own. I didn’t realize until, at the end, the man who saved me collapsed at my feet. Blood was everywhere. He’d sustained too many wounds. I don’t know how I did it, but I dragged him back to my mother’s cottage. She had a way with healing. Many ill or wounded in the village came to her for it. I thought she could help him.”
“But when I got him through the door, and my mother came running to see what was wrong, she screamed like her very heart had been ripped from her chest. She fell over him crying, tearing at his armor. I saw then that he was already dead. There was nothing more she could do.”
“I tried to pull her away, but she wouldn’t let go. She clawed at him with her hands, beat his chest with her fists. All the while she kept wailing and railing. I could only make out a few words, for she kept repeating them. ‘You were just here,’ she cried. ‘You can’t be dead. You were just here.’”
Rui’s breathing came faster as he spoke.
She struggled to make sense of what he said. How could the same man be in two different places? For that was what it sounded like. One version of the man was fighting off invaders with Wolfe. While the other one was with his mother.
Unless…
One of the men was an imposter.
Thoughts whirled in her head, trying to piece different bits of information together. Perhaps the truth wouldn’t have come as quickly to another as it did to her. But Rui was special.
She wasdragon.