She wrung out her arms, her green eyes hard and soft all at once. “I was about to say thank you, you know. Right then, when you came out of the loo. But then you had to go and open your bloody gob and all that other stuff came rushing back.” Still leaning on the frame, she nonetheless straightened up as if trying to match its strength. Her fingertips pressed to her brow and slid back through her hair from there. “And I’m just — so tired.”
Austin remained where he was, as if the very sound of the word “tired” heightened the lethargy lingering in his bones. What could he do or say that would possibly fit? A confusion of thoughts and instincts competed for attention.
The strongest won out swiftly enough. His anger had fled in shame of its foolishness. He reached for her, crossing the short distance finally until his hands settled on her shoulders. Corinna let them, her eyes still a jumble. She looked as vulnerable as he had ever seen her, but swallowed it away. Now, in her eyes was the woman who had brazenly stolen Rhi’s pendant, and in her eyes was Rhi herself.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
She pulled him closer. “Thank you.”
They kissed, lips meeting in some unspoken agreement as they clung to each other in a tangle of thankfulness and relief.
“It scared the hell out of me,” Austin confessed when the kiss broke. She rested her head against his shoulder as he held her, as his fingertips marveled at the fresh softness of her hair, still damp. “The thought of losing you, or losing you again, maybe. I don’t know. I didn’t mean to ignore everything else, I’m sorry, I just . . .”
“Shh.”
“I’m trying to be as brave as you, as Rhi was. It’s — ”
She kissed him again. In their exhaustion they wound up on the sanctuary of the mattress a few moments later, wrapped in fatigue and each other. Corinna lay her forehead against his, eyes opening to watch his, drowsy.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, “I’m sorry you got sucked into all this.”
She brushed her lips to his. “Aye, likewise for you.”
“That’ll teach you to swipe things from tourists, huh?”
He smiled and tickled across her hip to let her know he was teasing. To his relief, she giggled a little and flashed the smile he had hoped to inspire.
“Hardly my fault you’re too flummoxed by a redheaded grin to keep track of your pockets, Austin.” She kissed him again and then snuggled in closer, eyelids drooping. “We might be safe here for a little while longer. Let’s get some rest, and then . . . I’ll have a look at the book.”
Austin nodded reluctantly. Preoccupied with the feel of her and questions of her well-being, he had forgotten the book. Holding her in an exhausted embrace, he settled into the cocoon they had made and tried not to dwell on the worries threatening to tunnel in.
“My head hurts,” Corinna mumbled, halfway asleep already. “Bumped it when I fell, maybe.”
TWENTY-ONE
“She had a headache. Did you note this?”
Boden’s voice came as sleep gave way to the ceiling above Austin’s head. Corinna lay beside him on her stomach, her face turned toward him, one arm draped across his chest. She continued to sleep. The clock read half past five in the evening.
“Yeah,” Austin whispered. “She bumped her head when the spriggan caught her.”
“Perhaps.”
Austin laid an arm over Corinna’s but turned his head to whisper away from her. “She promised to tell me if she noticed any memory troubles, if that’s what you’re hitting at.”
“Indeed. I’m sure she was correct about bumping her head. I wished only to be certain.”
“It’s fine.”
Austin tried to focus on something else. They should probably get up soon. Though he had only caught a few hours’ rest, he already felt better for it. He would let her sleep a little more.
“It would be wise to remind her of that promise, when she wakes. There is always the possibility that it may be among the first things she will forget when it occurs.”
Austin’s stomach twisted at the thought of broaching the subject again, especially after what she had told him earlier. “Yeah,” he whispered after a time.
“You will forgive my concern. It is not my intent to trouble you. I would expect her own memories to be far less vulnerable than those Rhianon implanted, ergo the promise itself is, at least, in little jeopardy.”
“If you’re trying to make a point, then make it.”
“Very well: Rhianon’s memories will fade, Austin. I can sense it, regardless of her own uncertainty in the matter.”
“You can sense it.” Though dubious, Austin nonetheless had to shut his eyes against the icicle that pricked his heart at the thought. “How?”
“I am uncertain. Perhaps a side effect of the crystal’s weakening bonds. It may be that forgotten senses return before I am capable of placing a name to them. I can only say that I know it to be true.”
Austin rolled to his side, his back to Corinna. “Well I don’t!” he hissed. “No offense, but I don’t entirely trust you.”
“This is your choice. I can do little to affect that, ergo I will not try. Yet nor will I hide this from you. Such deception would certainly make me unworthy of trust, would it not?”
Austin only grunted. He weighed all Boden had told him with all Corinna had shared and tried to reconcile them against what he ought to think. Boden claimed imprisonment had changed him, but Austin held no evidence to sway him either way. Even if it was true, it didn’t necessarily follow that the dragon was correct about what he believed to sense. And, Austin admitted, vice-versa.
“Do you recall what I told you in the park in Cardiff?”
Austin nodded. While Corinna had gone to the restroom, Boden had surmised he might have the power to draw Rhi’s memories out of her again if he was freed. “Yeah.”
“I am more certain of it now. They could be preserved in another pendant, or some other receptacle. I may even be able to breathe life into such a receptacle, allowing her to speak to you as I do. And there, they would not fade. No more than they have thus far.”
He wouldn’t need to lose her again. He could keep her safe. Austin swallowed and managed to shake his head. “I can’t do that. I can’t just free you after everything Corinna’s told me.”
“You can. What is more: it is the wisest course before you. Would you instead continue to flee from Maeron, endlessly hunted as Rhianon was? Unable to match his magic for fear of weakening the bonds that only hold me back from helping you? The book’s secrets, should Corinna risk the power to use them, may prevent my speaking to you, but all evidence marks those secrets no help against Maeron. Yet once I am free, he will have failed! He cannot take the crystal from you if there is no crystal to take, and I give you my solemn promise he shall not harm you while I am around.”
Austin looked over his shoulder. Corinna still slept. Her hand lay warm on his hip.
“You have found a likely place for dragon bones,” Boden pressed. “You have struggled nobly to find other paths, and I applaud your effort and bravery. Rhianon would be proud of you. I have done my best to provide wise counsel and let you choose our course, but I must urge you to do this: Take me to Dinas Emrys, release me there that I may reform those bones, and let us bring my magic to bear before Maeron finds you. Before we lose Rhianon again, forever.”
“And if I did that, what would you do after?”
“Find some secluded place in this world to dwell, in my own way. I have seen your cities and the technological power your people hold. Should I ever desire to measure my strength against that, I would be found lacking. Even were I disinclined to live peacefully, it would be in my interest to do so. There are places in this land I could be left alone, and out of sight.”
“How do I know you wouldn’t go back to Rhyll?”
“You do not. And yet I possess no desire to return, regardless of whether I discover the means to do so. You will, in this case at least, need to trust me.”
“Trust you. That’s it?”
“Were there an argument sufficient to persuade you of my earnestness in the absence of your trust, I would make it. I can conceive of no such argument. You are an intelligent person. I have no proof to offer, only my word.”
“I don’t think that’s enough.” Nevertheless, Austin found himself searching for ways Boden might provide that proof.
“It is a hard choice, but it is one you must find the courage to make! Take this risk, and you may save Rhi from a second death, thwart Maeron, and end this crisis. To do nothing, to play it safe, is to dead-end in disaster. The wise understand that risk is the gatekeeper to anything worthwhile.”
“And Corinna?”
“She will be as she was, freed from any damage to her mind that Rhianon’s memories may do. Free of the pain of a usurped life and spirit. I heard what she told you. She is afraid. She is frustrated. The ghost of Rhianon haunts her. Rhianon was a kind, gentle woman. She would not wish to inflict such troubles on another.”
“Rhi didn’t mean to. She didn’t know what would happen.”
“No, she did not! It was an accident! And we can remedy its damage! This morning you ignored the risks, both to yourself and to keeping safe the crystal, all to protect Rhianon — because you knew it was the right thing to do. You promised to do whatever it took to save her, and such love led you through that risk to something better. Now you stand at the edge of the same choice again. None would judge you for breaking an inconvenient promise, but I do not deem you the sort who could abandon a loved one, promise or no.”
Boden went silent. Austin stared across the room to the window where the growing twilight peeked through the gap in the curtains and fell in a sliver on the floor. He couldn’t see what was beyond.
“I’ll need to talk to Corinna about it.”
“She will not understand, and you will only add to her burdens. Indeed, she may take the crystal to prevent you, and with no magic of your own, you cannot stop her. You have made your decision already. Would you sabotage your efforts to seek approval of what you know to be right?”
Austin turned to face Corinna. He reached halfway to her shoulder, and then drew back.
“I can make Rhianon live again, Austin. Flesh and blood.”
“What?”
“It is . . . possible.”
It couldn’t be possible. He couldn’t think that. Damn it! Austin turned back toward the window. “Why didn’t you say that before?”
“I did not wish to speak of it so soon, as it is not as certain as returning her memories to a pendant. Yet if her remains are still together, bones, or ashes, it is conceivable that I could restore her body and then return the memories to her own mind. It would take much of my strength, but I believe it could be done.”
“You’re using that to persuade me.”
“Which makes it no less true. Dragons are not given to entreaty, so let it demonstrate the earnestness with which I make it: Please, Austin. You must do this. Be brave. Stop Maeron. Do not let Rhianon perish a second time.”
TWENTY-TWO
Either the idea itself jolted Corinna awake, or it had waited to pounce the second she became conscious. Regardless of which, she seized her sudden clarity. Scrutinizing it to ensure it held more promise than a fading dream, she wrestled to grasp her epiphany before it faded:
To do magic in this world, whatever means Maeron used must operate on the same general principle as the Draig Crystal: generating an aura in which he could work magic well enough to manifest an effect. All right, she considered, perhaps not “must,” but the odds were good. Didn’t it then follow that whatever generated the aura — unless it was improbably powerful — would need to be kept on his person to do so?
Corinna sprang up to sitting. Her legs dangled over the side of the mattress, her mind frenetic: Maeron fueled his magic with death — or so he claimed. Yet according to all she knew — which, okay, was hardly exhaustive — it followed that whatever energy death released must be harnessed before it faded away.
The applicable theories ran through her head as she rechecked her logic. To shackle that energy within himself wouldn’t work, not for long. The Principles of Arcane Interactions, assuming they held true in this world as Tragen suspected, demanded such energy stored in a human vessel would decay rapidly. Storing it in an object would be far more efficient. The energy could then be drawn out as needed — either to infuse into himself or, more likely, to create a temporary aura akin to the crystal’s. They had used something similar upon first coming through the rift, after all; essentially a flare created in Rhyll that radiated enough of an aura to allow magic for a brief time before it burned out . . .
She stopped and mentally swung back around. That flare had been launched from Rhyll. It had lasted only minutes. She was assuming things worked the same way with Maeron’s method. Didn’t he talk of death “fueling” the magic rather than enabling? On the other hand, he had not been instructing her, he had been taunting. Not exactly the optimal means for precise detail.
It was a guess at best, but an educated one. Maeron would need some talisman to store the energies he had gained, be it akin to a flare, a battery, or some other mechanism. Simply steal that talisman from him, and he becomes powerless.
That made her laugh. Simply? He wasn’t some tourist in a train station. Even so, the idea glimmered brightly enough to restore life to her hopes.
Corinna turned, thinking to shake Austin awake and share it with him. Only then did she notice the empty bed, its covers thrown back. The loo? It stood open and dark. No sound or movement came from within. Nor, she realized, did any of Austin’s belongings remain in the room.
She flung herself off the bed. Bare feet landed in a scrape along the carpet so hard her soles burned. She cast about for some sign of where he went, hoping for a clue, dreading the evidence of disaster that her gut whispered was far more likely.
The crystal was gone. Austin was gone. The security chain on the door dangled free. Frustration and fear tangled together in her throat until she spied the note scribbled on a hotel pad on the narrow maple dresser. She crossed the room in an instant and snatched it up to read.
Corinna ripped it in half moments later. The crumpled pieces fell to the dresser.
“Mind the gap, please.”
It echoed over the station’s loudspeakers as the Tube car’s doors released an exodus of travelers from the car to the platform. Swept along with them, Austin scanned the signs dangling from the tiled ceiling, trying to locate the Northern Line. The Northern would finish his journey to Euston Station. There, he expected to find the swiftest means to get him to the town of Beddgelert, outside of which stood the hill of Dinas Emrys.
The Northern would depart from Platform 4, he saw. He joined the throng shuffling down the pedestrian tunnel toward it.
Austin glanced behind him on impulse. Strangers’ faces pressed toward him. All politely avoided his gaze. Those ahead moved at such a methodical pace Austin could scarcely resist the urge to shove through them.
He was doing the right thing. Yet now that he had a clear goal, he couldn’t shake the feeling that his chance of failure increased the longer it took him to accomplish it.
The vulnerability of being outside Corinna’s protection had descended on him the moment he had stepped out of the hotel, maybe even from the moment he had left the note on the dresser. She would forgive him. The note probably wouldn’t be enough for that, but when they stopped Maeron, when the memories were safely out of her . . .
It would have been easier with her help, if he could have made her understand. No maybes: he should have made the attempt. Logic was on his side. They had no other way to deal with Maeron. Fighting him with magic could release Boden anyway. Better that happened where Boden could enter a suitable body to join the fight rather than becoming just a lost asset. If Boden had no body, he might even get sucked into whatever fed those memory founts in Rhyll, and how big of a disaster would that be?
Austin boarded an escalator leading deeper into the Tube station and kept to the right to allow room for anyone wanting to hurry past him.
Yes, it was a risk to set Boden free. He accepted that. Corinna had specifically said no one really knew what would happen if Boden was unbound while still outside Rhyll. Yet she had also called Boden’s binding a microcosm of the other dragons’ banishment. Didn’t it therefore follow that if Boden remained outside Rhyll, so would the others?
Maybe it made things weaker, but surely that could be fixed. It was far better than Maeron capturing the crystal, taking it back to Rhyll, and releasing the dragons himself. No, he hadn’t discussed it with Corinna, but, logically, he was doing the right thing. For Rhyll, for Rhi, for all of them.
So why didn’t it feel right?
Austin stepped off the escalator, glanced back up where he had come from, and then carried on.
The crowd separated along different paths. Austin continued, uneasy, along his own. Vulnerability, that’s all it was. Guilt for going without Corinna, too, and for leaving without telling her. Yet leaving her alone in a hotel room was worlds better than abandoning her to the spriggan’s mercy, and she had demanded he do that.
But what if he was wrong about finding dragon bones at Dinas Emrys? What if Maeron caught him somehow? Heck, what if the crystal didn’t shatter as easily as they thought it would?
What if Boden was lying?
He cursed under his breath. It caught the attention of a man beside him, and Austin turned away from his dirty look without explanation. Agonizing over too many what-ifs would paralyze him. Taking action was better than doing nothing.
Memory of Dragons Page 21