She would have his son.
Aura bent and touched her lips to his, then she twined their fingers together.
She would sit vigil and wait for his kind, no matter how long it took.
Then she remembered his old-speak, how she had been able to hear it and how he had been able to hear the way she spoke to her sisters. Aura closed her eyes and tried to send a beacon to the other Pyr.
“The firestorm is satisfied, but the Pyr has fallen. Help us, please. Come to us, other Pyr, and help your own kind, please.” She broadcast the words, over and over again, Thad’s hand held fast in her own, and hoped it was enough.
Chapter Five
“Good thing it’s digital, or you’d wear it out,” Eileen said as she walked past Erik with a pile of clean laundry.
The leader of the Pyr didn’t even look up from the news footage displayed on his laptop screen.
“It’s Jorge,” he said, starting the clip again. “I’m sure it’s Jorge. Spontaneously manifesting in Seattle.”
“I wondered when he’d turn up again,” Eileen mused. She came to stand behind Erik and leaned on his shoulder to watch.
“You don’t sound worried,” Erik said, trying to not sound irritated by that.
Eileen pressed a quick kiss to the side of his neck. “I have a personal dragon protecting me.”
“But still...” Erik began to argue, then Eileen pointed at the screen.
“What’s in his mouth?”
“It looks like a severed limb.”
“Nice. With fingers. An arm, then.”
On the video clip, Jorge rose on his hind legs, displaying the splendor of his golden yellow scales. Erik peered at the screen, noting that there was a wound on the Slayer’s shoulder.
“He fought somebody recently.”
“A Pyr, no doubt,” Eileen agreed. “Those scabs look fresh.”
“And we know he heals very quickly because of the Elixir.”
“I wonder where he came from.”
Jorge took flight and even though he’d watched the sequence a thousand times already, Erik leaned closer so that he wouldn’t miss a single detail. Jorge flew a circle over the crowd and looked to be chewing on the severed limb. He shook it over the assembled crowd, dispersing a spray of blood. One drop landed on the lens or phone of whoever had filmed this version and it dripped in a red smear.
“That is gross,” Eileen said with disgust and returned to her laundry. “You’d think he’d be able to resist the temptation of doing that.”
“And then he vanishes,” Erik said, sitting back and tapping his fingers on the table.
“Spontaneously manifesting elsewhere,” Eileen concluded. “I wonder where.”
“I wonder why,” Erik said. “Jorge is very deliberate.”
“As well as a nasty piece of business,” Eileen said, giving an elaborate shiver. “How’s our dragonsmoke boundary mark these days?”
“Thick and deep,” Erik said, to her evident relief. “Even if he manifests inside it, I’ll be ready for him.”
“Ever vigilant. That’s what I like about living with a dragon.”
Erik started the clip again, then caught his breath.
“What do you see?” Eileen asked, and he knew she’d noticed his reaction.
“It’s at the very beginning. There’s a glimmer of blue-green light, I’m sure of it.”
“Darkfire,” Eileen whispered. She came back to his side and watched, then nudged him away from the keyboard. She could type so much more quickly than him, and he watched the screen, wondering what she was looking for.
“There have to be more filmed versions. Look at all those cellphones in the crowd. Maybe one starts sooner than the news version.”
“Before Jorge appears,” Erik said.
A range of search results were displayed on his screen, more versions of Jorge’s appearance than Erik could have believed possible. Eileen scrolled down and chose one that apparently started with a flash of light.
Blue-green light filled the viewfinder and when it faded, Jorge was in the middle of the road. He looked dazed, or maybe confused, then surveyed the crowd and seemed to smile.
“He didn’t know where he was going to end up,” Erik guessed.
“Because it was the darkfire that sent him,” Eileen agreed.
They grimaced simultaneously as he flew over the crowd, scattering the blood, then disappeared from view. The crowd was seething with excitement where he had been, many of the people rushing forward to the spot where Jorge had stood.
“Where did he go?” Eileen asked.
“What does it mean?” Erik murmured, but he had no answer to that. They exchanged a glance, then Eileen returned to her laundry and Erik settled in to watch every single second of available footage. If there was a clue, he would find it.
* * *
Aura heard the steady beat of wings the next evening, just as the sun was setting. She thought it was her imagination, but the sound became steadily louder. She stood and turned, awed by the sight of dragons flying toward her from the east.
“Here!” she cried, holding up her hands, then repeated the appeal in the speech of her kind. “Here!”
They turned with grace and spiraled down toward her. One dragon was just as dark in color as Thad while the other was brilliant gold. They could have been day and night. As they descended, Aura saw that each dragon carried a woman, one of whom carried an infant in her arms. They landed near her and she heard a rumble like thunder. Aura smiled, knowing that what Thad had told her was true.
“It’s old-speak,” explained one of the women, stepping out of her dragon’s embrace and moving closer with confidence.
“The way they communicate with each other. I know. Thad told me.”
“Katina,” the woman said, then gestured to her dragon. “This is Alexander, who leads the training of the Pyr in our time.”
“Petra and Damien,” the other woman said, lifting her son for Aura to see. “And this is Orion.”
“The child of the firestorm,” Aura said. “So, you were the Earthdaughter who escaped the Underworld, and your Pyr was the one who struck down she-who-should-not-be-named.”
The two women exchanged glances of surprise. “You know so much,” Katina said.
“I was a nymph, now an Airdaughter. We listen.”
“And your firestorm is satisfied,” Petra said. “That’s good.”
They turned to consider Thad, who looked so pale that Aura’s heart clenched. “A yellow salamander changed to a dragon,” she said and the two dragons looked up at her words. “They fought and his blood ran black where Thad wounded him. Then he seemed to breathe and Thad became much worse.”
“Dragonsmoke,” Katina said with heat.
“He stole your dragon’s life force to feed his own.”
The dragons seemed to have come to the same conclusion, for they began at once to exhale steadily and in unison. They were extremely still but Aura could see the glimmer of their eyes as they concentrated. She narrowed her own eyes and thought she could see the same kind of sparkle in the air that she’d discerned before. It was like a plume or a ribbon, one that wound from the mouths of the two dragons, twined together, then touched the wound on Thad’s chest.
The two women took her hands and the three of them watched together. “They will give him some of their own strength,” Katina said, squeezing Aura’s fingers hard.
“Hera said he could only be healed by his own kind.”
“They will try,” Petra agreed.
“If only he hadn’t lost the scale,” Aura whispered. “If only he hadn’t become vulnerable.” She was aware of the way the two women glanced at her, though she guessed they didn’t want her to notice. Even the Pyr missed a beat in their breathing, their attention caught by her words.
They weren’t surprised by what she was telling them, so it was common.
They were expectant. She guessed that she had to do something, or say something.
Aur
a pulled Thad’s lost scale from her tunic to display it to them. “Can it be put back, once he’s healed?” she asked, and felt their relief.
“Only by you,” Petra said, squeezing Aura’s other hand.
“That’s what will heal him,” Katina agreed.
Aura was fiercely glad she’d stayed with Thad and that she’d chosen to be with him. She watched as the color returned to his skin and his breathing became deeper. The dragons breathed more dragonsmoke, exhaling with power, and Thad’s eyes opened suddenly. He looked around, smiling when he saw Aura. He started to sit up and she went to his side, wanting him to take it slowly, but there was no holding back her dragon once he saw his friends.
“Damien! Alexander!” he cried with joy. He was on his feet then, even before the pale blue shimmer of light flashed. In the blink of an eye, two men were embracing Thad. They all had that black dragon mark on their skin, although they wore it in different places. Thad reached up and ruffled Damien’s fair hair. “You look like you saw a ghost,” he teased.
“Something like that,” Damien said, giving Petra an intent look. Aura noticed that their son was fair-haired, too.
She’d have to ask for that story.
Thad turned to Aura and introduced her to his friends. She was pulled into their circle and savored the warmth of their friendship. “We all served in the Dragon Legion together,” Thad explained.
“The hunters of vipers,” Aura said, closing her eyes with joy when Thad held her tightly against his side.
“The Dragon Legion,” Alexander agreed.
But Thad was looking down at Aura with surprise. “What happened to the firestorm?”
“Don’t tell me you forgot that we satisfied it?” Aura teased. The women chuckled, but Thad frowned down at her.
“What happened?” he whispered.
“I’ll tell you everything later,” Aura promised. “It kept burning because I wasn’t mortal before. Now I’m an Airdaughter, and mortal just like you.”
“And you’ll bear my son,” he murmured with an awe that warmed her to her toes. “Aura, you shouldn’t have given up so much.”
“Shouldn’t I have?”
“But I’m glad you did,” he said with a grin, then kissed her with enthusiasm. His friends began to laugh, and Thad reluctantly broke his kiss. He kept Aura tightly against his side, though, and she was glad to be there. He demanded to know what had happened to the Slayer and she told him, as well as the fate of Tisiphone and Hera’s prophecy.
The new arrivals exchanged glances again. “Do you know what it means?” Katina asked Alexander.
“I know it has to do with the future,” her partner said. “The darkfire sparked for the first time in eons when we were there. It was what brought us back to this time.”
“Maybe it’s taken Jorge and Tisiphone back to that time,” Petra suggested.
“Hera said we and our children and our children’s children would be safe from her, but that one day, the Pyr would have to pay the price,” Aura supplied.
“What happened to the rest of the Dragon Legion?” Alexander asked Thad. “Are they here, too?”
“I can’t smell them,” Damien contributed and Alexander nodded agreement.
“They’re scattered throughout time. The darkfire took each of us to our firestorm,” Thad explained. “Each warrior was left in the time and place of his destined mate.”
“The darkfire took care of us after all,” Damien murmured.
“It saw destiny fulfilled,” Petra said, taking her dragon’s hand.
“But what about Drake?” Thad asked. “He was with me at the end and the darkfire took him somewhere.”
“He can’t be here,” Alexander said. “Cassandra has died and Theo is in training with us at Delphi.”
“Maybe Drake is further in the past,” Katina suggested.
“Maybe he’s in the future,” Petra said.
“We’ll find out if he’s here,” Alexander said with resolve and the others nodded. “But I think the darkfire must have had other plans for him.”
Aura noticed that the three Pyr looked thoughtful then, as if they were remembering some experience they’d shared.
“That still leaves the Dragon’s Tail wars,” Alexander continued. “If the darkfire’s gone and we’re here, how can we help the Pyr in the future?”
“Wait! We already are!” Thad snapped his fingers.
“I don’t understand,” Damien said, shoving a hand through his hair. “It looks as if I’ve made things worse for the Pyr by being here.”
“No,” Thad said, pointing to the sleeping Orion. “You had a son, and he will have a son, and his son will have a son. Because we are here, two millennia before the Pyr we came to know, we can build an army for them.”
Aura gasped in understanding. “Thad’s right! We have time on our side.”
Alexander laughed. “It’s perfect! We can pass that prophecy along, from father to son, so Erik will learn of it in time.”
“And we can mark the flesh of our sons,” Damien said, indicating the black dragon mark on his arm.
“That’s why the darkfire marked them at Delphi,” Katina said with excitement. “It was showing you what to do.”
The Pyr nodded and Petra spoke. “They’ll carry the sign of the Dragon Legion, so that they can recognize each other.”
“And best of all, the darkfire didn’t abandon the Dragon Legion or the Pyr,” Thad concluded. “It put everything in motion so the Pyr can triumph.” The three of them were so pleased that Aura feared they’d missed the point.
There was a new threat against the dragon shifters. Even if she-who-should-not-be-named had been banished to another time and place, she wasn’t going to see Thad struck down like that ever again.
“First we have to fix Thad’s scale, and we have to fix it now,” Aura interrupted, holding up the scale. “Tell me what I need to do.”
* * *
Drake sat opposite Erik in that Pyr’s loft apartment. The kitchen was austerely black and white, the single yellow gerbera daisy in a vase on the table making a bold splash of color. The sunlight streaming through the windows and touching on the daisy was bright enough to make Drake think again of Greece. He had slept and eaten, and he had told Erik all that he knew. He was still exhausted and Drake feared that this weariness would persist.
His men were lost.
The darkfire crystal was extinguished.
He didn’t know what the point of anything was anymore.
For the moment, he was content to just sit, to just be. He was aware that Erik watched him closely and that the other Pyr saw far more than even most dragons. On some level, he hoped Erik would make a suggestion or give him an assignment. On a deeper level, he wanted this tranquil moment to continue undisturbed.
Erik, however, was not as tranquil as Drake. He got to his feet and paced to the window, moving with a deliberation that didn’t disguise the tension within him. Drake watched and appreciated that Erik was tempering his impatience. Dragons weren’t always so kind to each other.
“Partial eclipse today,” Erik murmured, recalling Drake to the moment.
“Is there a firestorm?”
Erik shook his head, not looking away from the window. Then he stilled, as if listening, then shook his head again. “It is so strange,” he murmured, then continued in old-speak. “I thought you would know more.”
They had been through this several times. Drake couldn’t explain the light Erik was seeing, or the sense of impending doom that apparently all the Pyr were experiencing.
Maybe it was time for dragons to fade from the world. Drake felt old at that thought and refused to say it aloud.
The silence embraced them again, just the faint tinkle of Erik’s dragonsmoke audible to Drake. He liked the sound of it, the comfort of it, the appearance of security it gave him. He knew that he couldn’t have slept anywhere else these past days.
The sound of a key turning in a lock made Drake jump. Erik turned as Ei
leen spoke to their daughter, Zoë. The little girl should be the next Wyvern, Drake remembered, for she was the only female child of one of their kind and the former Wyvern was dead. Drake knew that Erik was impatient for the child’s powers to develop, just as he knew that Erik expected no such development until Zoë came of age. Male Pyr came into the bulk of their powers at puberty, when their voices deepened and their bodies changed.
He watched Zoë with interest, but saw nothing remarkable about her. She appeared to be a solemn child, with her father’s dark hair and green eyes. She couldn’t have been four years old, though she was tall for her age. That trait would have come from both of her parents. Drake knew that she went to a daycare at the university, where her mother taught. He never felt much connection with young children, especially girls, so he returned his attention to the yellow daisy.
To his surprise, Zoë appeared suddenly beside him. She could move with her father’s silence and stealth, and her gaze was fixed upon him with the same intensity. “I made this for you,” she said, then put a large piece of paper on the table before him. Drake was too surprised to speak. Children did not give him gifts. In fact, no one had given him a gift in a long time. She stared at him for a moment, then followed her mother to the fridge.
It was a drawing.
The drawing was clearly the work of a child, but still Drake recognized the location. There was a black oval in the middle with blue spraying out of a block in the center of the oval. Drake knew it was a fountain. There were green curly lines around it, evoking the shrubbery of a park, and the sky was colored in black with yellow dots for stars. Two stick figures sat on the lip of the fountain, and Drake guessed that they were men. One held a blue-green rectangle in his hand and there were rays of blue and green emanating from it.
It was Thad and Drake, just before Thad had felt the spark of his firestorm.
Drake looked at the little girl with shock. Zoë was drinking a glass of milk, more interested in how many chocolate chips were in her cookie than the attitude of her father’s friend. Eileen must have noticed his expression because she came to his side.
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