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“Nobody knew about him,” she said. “It worked.”
Fel’s uncle turned to Tzaria. “It worked by luck. Sheer luck. Because you never bothered telling me about him, never bothered telling me what happened to my brother.”
She rolled her eyes. “You were so willing to listen.”
“What happened?” Fel asked. “What happened to my father? You never finished your story.” Perhaps they had more urgent matters to discuss, but he felt uneasy with these questions in his mind, uneasy not knowing what had happened.
Ekateni threw his arms in the air. “Oh, she won’t say it. Better to keep it all a secret.”
Tzaria shook her head. “The secret was to protect him. Now that he’s been found, I don’t need to hide anything.”
Fel’s huge heart was beating fast in his chest, with the anticipation of the truth he was about to hear. How could the most powerful dragon mage have died? It didn’t make sense. Leah was close to him, her hand on his neck, a touch that brought him some steadying calm.
“So?” Ekateni’s voice was still hard.
Tzaria took a deep breath. “I already told him that we came to check on the noxious fae. Their city was isolated, but there was a possibility that the tragedy had been caused by Ironhold, so we went there. Ircantari met princess Ticiane, who ran away with him.”
Ekateni frowned. “Wasn’t my brother engaged to Relia? He wouldn’t—”
“No.” Tzaria shook her head. “He never had anything romantic or serious with her. She lied. Lied in order to get attention, sympathy, power. Lied to pose as Ircantari’s widow.” Tzaria laughed. “I have to admit, her plan worked. But it didn’t make any of that true. He fell in love with Ticiane, a princess from Ironhold. You know how we can sometimes see glimpses of the future? He recognized her. He knew she was the one, his companion until his death. He obviously had no idea it would be so soon.”
“How?” Fel asked, still puzzled about his father’s death.
Tzaria closed her eyes. “We were at an inn. In Umbraar. From where we could check the ruins of Formosa. Ircantari was agitated and planning to leave the next day. He didn’t want a confrontation with Ticiane’s family, and they had soldiers all over Aluria looking for her.”
Ekateni glared at her. “That makes no sense. My brother could easily deal with a few dozen armed human soldiers.”
Tzaria shook her head. “At that point, all he feared was a possible confrontation and the repercussions. Also, he didn’t want to hurt or kill any innocent. But that morning, that last morning, he woke up and Ticiane was not by his side.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “She left a note, saying she was going to say goodbye to her sister. It was a very small inn in a tiny town with only a tavern and a market. She was at the tavern. When he got there, the place was surrounded with more than thirty men, heavily armed. Someone was holding her by the hair, with a knife on her throat, asking her to take them to the man who had, in their words, dishonored her. As Ircantari approached, they knew it was him right away. Perhaps they recognized him from his visit to Ironhold, or perhaps it was the way he looked at her or she looked at him. These things can be hard to hide. Two guards advanced towards Ircantari. He was going to swap forms and fight, but a thought stopped him.”
Tzaria stared at Fel. “He realized Ticiane was pregnant. I doubt there was any recognizable energy in her belly at that point, but perhaps he glimpsed the future. I do not know. He’d been studying Cynon for his entire life, planning to fight him, and recognized Ticiane’s child for what it was: an ironbringer dragon. The meaning of it didn’t escape him. He realized that if he fought, there was a chance she could be hurt and even killed. Also, if he swapped forms, many people would realize that a dragon had been in a relationship with an ironbringer. Their child would be in danger.
“It killed him to have to do that, to have all that power, all that knowledge, and then, at the time it mattered the most, to have to give it all away. And yet, for him, who had sought knowledge most of his life, it was what made the most sense. It was the only way he could be sure you would survive. He sent me a thought explaining his choice. It was not just words, but an image, a feeling, so I know exactly how much it hurt him to have to have to give up everything, to have to make that huge sacrifice, to have to abandon Ticiane.”
She continued, “At that moment, he realized that the only way he could truly protect you was by letting them kill him, letting them think he was just a regular human, someone of no importance, with no magic. He asked me to leave Aluria, to avoid coming here, so that nobody would suspect your existence. That’s what I did. Risomu also received his message, also knows what happened. To honor our friend’s sacrifice, we did our part. As time went by and I saw how much the Boundless were infiltrating every dragon group, I understood the wisdom of keeping silent, of hiding this truth from everyone, regardless of the personal cost.”
“You could have told me,” Ekateni said.
“Right.” Tzaria snorted. “Because you love your brother’s child so much that in the first opportunity you found out he was the iron dragon, you agreed with having a big party, so that he would be an obvious target.”
Ekateni exhaled. “They already knew about his ironbringing. It wasn’t a secret anymore.”
“You didn’t have to announce it to everyone, make such a deal out of it.”
“It wouldn’t have made a difference,” Ekateni said. “They would have found him regardless.”
Tzaria shook her head, as if in disbelief. Her words were circling in Fel’s head. Ircantari’s death had been tragic, but he still wasn’t sure Tzaria had handled it the best way. “You couldn’t have known I would survive. I…” It felt odd to say the words aloud. “I was born without hands, and because of that, I was almost left to die.”
“Almost,” Tzaria said. “Ircantari asked me to trust that his spirit would look over you, would protect you. I assume you were raised with love and in great privilege, were you not?”
That was true. “I was. My father… adoptive father… He’s great.” He felt Leah’s hand flinch. She had her own reasons not to share the same opinion about Azir, which he understood, and wished he could comfort her more.
Tzaria nodded. “To let go… To trust… It’s hard. You have no idea how hard it is. How hard it was to be sitting in Fernick with no idea if you had even been born, if you were alive, if you were well, and yet I had made a promise and planned to keep it.”
There was something else bothering Fel. “Do you think I can make a difference? Against Cynon?”
“Yes, but I don’t think you should see it as a burden, as a responsibility, as something on your shoulders. Nobody does anything on their own. I’ll help you. Even your grumpy uncle here will help you. Perhaps all you’ll have to do is to be a link in a chain. Either way, Ircantari also protected you out of love, not because he thought you’d be a weapon. If he hid you, and meant for you to survive, it was because you were his son. He knew that the words of the seer would make you a target, but I don’t think he was sure how literally those words should be taken.”
