by Viola Grace
Inheritor of a family vendetta, getting revenge on the dragons has side effects that raise a lot of questions.
All Aeli wanted was revenge for her father. She planned and schemed in secret, finally carrying out a plot that she had designed as a disgruntled teen.
She takes the spell to the dragon council and lets the ball go, shattering, spreading the banishment spell, and kicking all the dragons out of the city in one large cascade.
Imagine her surprise when she gets sucked out into the open wasteland outside the city, and the dragons know who is responsible for her plight.
Councillor Kreelo comes to her rescue and flies her to safety where she comes to grips with what her banishment means and how it will affect her life. She had no idea she was a dragon and thinks it is ridiculous, but how else would the spell grab her.
She needs to undo the spell so she can return to normal. If anyone in Rekker City will accept her apology.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Dragon Undone
Copyright © 2019 by Viola Grace
ISBN: 978-1-987969-61-0
©Cover art by Angela Waters
All rights reserved. With the exception of review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the express permission of the publisher.
Published by Viola Grace
Look for me online at violagrace.com
Smashwords Edition
Other Books in this Series
The Bastard Dragon
Dragon Astray
Dragon Engaged
Dragon Undone
The Covert Dragons Book 4
By
Viola Grace
Chapter One
“Thank you, Aelemilial. This is working very well.”
Aeli smiled. “I am glad. The cream is one of my own concoctions.”
Matron Callow leaned in. “What is in it? A little magic?”
Aeli laughed. “Maybe, but mostly it is beeswax, grapeseed oil, and peppermint with a bit of vitamin E. Your rough skin will remain strong and supple as long as you keep rubbing this in nightly.”
“I will. Put it on my tab, and I will settle at the end of the month.”
“Yes, Matron. Have a great day.”
Aeli watched the portly woman turn and make her way out of the shop. Her father’s magic was holding the displays in place, and it was the only thing that kept their flower shop crammed with useful and beautiful plants all year round. One elbow in the wrong place could bring the whole thing down otherwise.
Once the matron was out of the shop, Aeli caught a glimpse of the courier delivering down the street. She walked to the front of the shop and waited. The courier pulled up to the shop and stopped.
Aeli waited while he came around and opened the side of his vehicle. The pallet of plants was what she was waiting for.
Her father came out of the shop, dusting his hands on his tunic and wiggling his fingers. “What have we here?”
“The medicinals we are low on because you used the last of them without sprouting the roots.”
He sighed. “I get a little enthusiastic.”
She grinned and nodded to the delivery man. “Can you wait and take the pallet?”
“I will pick it up tomorrow, Miss Warrok. I am under pressure to deliver to city hall before the end of the day.”
Aeli’s smile tightened on her face. She could feel it. “Of course. The dragons must have their deliveries on time.”
He nodded and closed up his vehicle. “I am glad you understand. Thank you, Miss.”
Her father was talking quietly to the plants in his arms, and she picked up three pots on her own and pried the door open before walking through to the back of the shop and out into the greenhouse.
The plants would remain in quarantine until they were acclimated to their new home in Rekker City.
Grand Master Mage Norman Warrok was chuckling and talking to the new arrivals, leaving Aeli to get back to the curb to pick up the last batch of remaining plants.
She was just entering the shop when she heard a voice saying, “Where shall I put these?”
She winced at the familiar and lightly rough voice. “Councillor Kreelo, welcome.”
A chuckle came from him. “A pleasure, Miss Warrok. Now, where would you like them?”
“Please follow me. We put them in the greenhouse until we are certain they are healthy.” She led the way and talked as she went, so he could follow her voice.
“A wise practice. Is your father in?”
She forced a chuckle. “He is speaking to his plants.”
She opened the door to the greenhouse and stood aside as the dragon representative of their area passed her and found a space to put the plants.
Her father was at the end of the row, fussing and muttering, already taking clippings.
“Dad! Councillor Kreelo is here.”
Her father raised his head and looked from her to the dragon, his mouth tensed. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
The councillor inclined his head. “I am just here to renew the terms of your operations.”
“Ah, yes, it is that time of year again. I accept to be bound by the curse of the council.”
Councillor Kreelo smiled. “Thank you.”
Silence fell between them, and Aeli placed two fingers on the councillor’s arm when it looked like no one was going to say anything more.
“If you would come with me, I will see you out.”
Councillor Kreelo turned and smiled brightly at her. “I would like that, thank you, Miss Warrok.”
She nodded and escorted him out of the greenhouse, closing the door behind them, and then, the two steps into the shop were behind them, and they were walking through the mini jungle.
“Was that really necessary?” she asked as she led him through the shop.
“What?”
“Reinforcing that our building is under a curse and my father is not allowed to break it.”
He paused, and she turned to face him. “Is that what you think I just did?”
“I know you just did it. It is cruel.”
He took a step toward her and reached out his hand, stopping before he made contact. “Right. You see it that way.”
“Every year someone comes from the council and asks him to obey his oath and accept the curse on the property. It is just meanspirited.”
Councillor Kreelo frowned. “It is necessary. The words keep the curse active. That is important for the safety of the city.”
She waved that away and went to the door, stalking outside and grabbing the pallet. She bowed slightly and said, “Thank you for coming, Councillor Kreelo. Have a pleasant evening.”
He drew himself to his full height, nodded tersely, and left. She hauled the pallet inside and tucked it against the wall. Locking the door gave her a certain satisfaction.
Kreelo was the youngest of the councillors, and so, the duty of coming to remind them of their diminished social status was his. As Aeli walked through the building and tidied the stock, she thought about what she had learned of her father’s position before she was born. He had been one of the councillors of Rekker and had enjoyed a privileged position. Then, one day, something happened to have him banished from the council, and his life as a florist and herbalist began.
Aeli finished the bookkeeping before closing and putting the theft deterrent on the till. A charm that her father had taught her on that very spot had worked to keep them incursion free since she was born.
She looked around the shop like she did every night and smil
ed. She had lived every one of her twenty-five years here, before school, after school, and every holiday. She was a master of inventory, and the charms to keep the inventory happy and healthy were some of the first things she had been taught. Magic was in her blood. She wasn’t strong, but she was skilled.
Aeli finished locking up the shop, and then, she headed to the greenhouse. Her father was still talking to the plants.
“Dad, it is your turn to make dinner.”
He looked at her and sighed. “I used to be a grand master mage that had people working for me.”
“You still are, but you have to feed me. I am going to take some samples to build up our inventory. I should be up in an hour.” She shooed him out of his favourite place on earth and went to the new arrivals, taking cuttings from as low as she could manage before walking to her private lab.
She filled test tubes with her growth solution and put each stem into one. Once the rack was full, she placed her hands on either side of it and cast the growth spell that would trade some of her life for the life of the plants.
As soon as the spell took hold, she opened her hidden panel under her worktable and pulled out the old raggedy notebook that contained the revenge spell.
Five ingredients were missing for her to cast the spell that her father had written over two decades earlier, and those five ingredients arrived the next day.
The spell was designed to banish each and every dragon from the city until an agreement could be reached with the mages for reinstatement to power. Five percent of the city was made of magic users, and less than one percent were dragons.
The balance needed to be shifted, and if Grand Master Mage Norman Warrok couldn’t do it because of an oath, his daughter would do it.
She had her family honour to uphold. The dragons were going to pay.
Chapter Two
She made up the schedule while her father put dinner on the table. “Okay, we are getting into cough and cold season, so I have made up a stocking schedule for the remedies.”
Her father chuckled. “I said I was sorry, and no one got hurt.”
“Yes, but mixing up spells for an expectorant and cough suppressant is a very big deal.” She chuckled and set their portions out while he brought the gravy over. “I am just glad that advertising them as New Formula worked.”
“Fine. Show me the schedule.”
She set the schedule next to his place at the table and poured the precise amount of gravy that he liked onto his food before doing the same to her own.
Aeli listened to her father muttering as he went down the list.
She dug into her meal, and when she bit the meat, she paused. “Was this the last jar of roast?”
He nodded. “Yes. I will go to the butcher tomorrow and get some more.”
She gave him a dark look. “Make sure its lean. Last time the damned thing took forever to cap.”
“Fine. Do we have everything else?” He put the list aside and tucked into his meal.
“We do. I will get the supplies ready tonight so that they are ready for your purchase.”
Her dad gave her a sly look. “Can you do some apples as well?”
She chuckled. “Yes, I can do some apples as well. Spiced?”
“Yes, please.”
Aeli nodded and finished her dinner. When she was done, she took a second serving and thought about fitting all the canning into what she planned for her day. She might have to save banishing the local government for Friday. Tomorrow was going to be busy enough as it was.
Before going to bed, she walked to her window and stared up at the stars. The sight of dragons cruising around between her and her targets was irritating. Why did they think they owned the sky? Or the ground beneath it for that matter?
She went from staring dreamily to glaring at the skies above. The sooner the damned dragons were out of her city, the better.
She went to bed with a scowl and dreamed of a clear sky.
Aeli gave the pallet back to the courier and went through her parcels. “Wait, there are some missing.”
He checked his roster and blushed. “Let me check again.”
She smiled and waited politely while he rummaged through his delivery vehicle only to return to her emptyhanded.
“I am sorry. I know there were a few more when I loaded this morning. I will initiate the tracking system.”
Aeli nodded. “As will I. Thank you.”
He nodded warily. “Okay. Thank you for understanding, Miss.”
She smiled tightly and brought the packets into the shop. She nodded to her dad as he restocked the cough lozenges.
“I am just going to take this into the greenhouse.” She held up a packet with a seed company’s logo on it.
He nodded. “Don’t plant too many until we know how they grow.”
Aeli grinned. “Yes, Dad. Back in a few minutes.”
He hummed to himself as he put the candy away. One of the greatest mages of his generation and he was stuck dispensing cough drops.
Aeli gripped her parcels and headed toward the greenhouse with her mind getting cold so that she could do what needed to be done.
A cool whisper helped her as she set the packages down on a workbench then went to her private area and brought out the journal.
She confirmed the last of her ingredients, verified their origins with the manifest she had been carrying in her pocket for a week, and then, she dug out a map of Rekker City.
She got her notebook ready and made sure that the pencil was prepared. She was only going to get one crack at this.
A handful of black sand was held in her left hand, and she prepared the pencil and paper in her right. With her mind focused, she put the pencil down and started the location chant.
She moved her left hand across the map and whispered as she let the sand trickle out.
The sand clumped and gathered on certain addresses, and she quickly scribbled the addresses down while continuing the chant.
One package was in the other room, so the remaining four were in the city. She could see them in the small piles of sand on the paper. When she had all the addresses down, she put the remaining sand in the bowl and stopped chanting. The moment her magic stopped holding it in place, the sand flattened into small puddles, obscuring their precise location.
Aeli leaned back and flexed her hands. She could pick up the missing parcels right away. They were no more than five blocks in any direction. She ripped out the page of directions and went to change. The areas she was going to be in had a stricter version of what a woman should wear than the commercial district. It was time to dress up for her retrievals, but first, she had to stick to her alibi. She quickly removed the packet of crushed stone that she had ordered and tucked it in her collection before planting six of the seeds of a goji berry bush. They had all the time in the world to get the plants growing, and she had said she would plant them, so she did.
Her father couldn’t know what she was doing. She didn’t want to cause him any stress. He hadn’t included the notebook in his other magical journals, so it wasn’t something he wanted her looking at.
She washed her hands and took the page from her notebook. The folk that she was going to see might want to verify the manifest. She had no problem showing it to them.
Now was the rocky part of the event, she had to wear a dress.
Going up to her room, she had to go through her closet for several minutes before she decided on an outfit. The dress was dark green with a wide belt that would mimic the effect of a corset. She pinned her hair loosely on her head and added a bronze clip. There was no sense of dressing above her station. It was bad enough that she had to wear a deep bronze coat on such a warm and sunny day.
Aeli refused to change her footwear. The long skirts would have to be concealing enough.
She made her way down to the shop, and she smiled at her dad. “Sorry. I have to go and find some of our shipment. Some of the stuff I have been ordering has gone walkabout.”
Her father looked up from the statistics screen, and he nodded. “Did you dress for—never mind, I can see that you have. Enjoy the walk, Aelemilial.”
She grinned. Her father never shortened her name. He had told her once that it was important for her to know who she was and that he would never lie to her. It had seemed a little odd to her, but then, her father was a grand master mage. He was odd.
She set out with her proof and her address list to the nearest address. It was a pie shop just down the road.
The transaction was swift, and the woman behind the counter handed over the missing parcel with a smile. “That house of yours needs an exorcism, luv. This is the third one this year.”
Aeli shrugged. “The council won’t allow that kind of magic in our neighbourhood. We have petitioned, but the confusion spell stays. It is a miracle that any of our regulars can find us.”
The pie seller offered her one of their most recent bakes, but Aeli had to decline. “I have a few more items to fetch. Can I grab one on the way back?”
“Of course. Stop in.” Meggie winked. “My son may be on duty then. Try not to stop his heart.”
Aeli wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know why folks think I have powers over the opposite sex.”
“Oh, we don’t think, we see it. Any man you get near who doesn’t have a partner of his own will turn into a giggling teen the moment you glance at them. Here, we find it funny, but you had better watch it, Aeli, one day, it may go wrong.”
Aeli gave the woman a sober look. “I don’t control it; it is just the way things work out. Maybe all the magic I am around is wearing off on me.”
“Perhaps. Anyway, we are pulling out some steak and mushroom pies in an hour.” Meggie grinned. “See you then.”