Silkkie’s yowl was so loud, Gaelyn almost dropped the ball.
“We have to get out of here!” Silkkie pounded against the sides of her crystal ball. “Now! Hazel is already on her way home!”
Gaelyn tucked the orb in her pouch and looked around Elm Hall one more time. “This is all wrong!” She turned in a circle scanning with all her senses. “I can’t leave! Elm is my home, my Court. Something is very wrong. The Great Hall is never empty.” She listened harder to the silence and stared harder into the intertwining trees and vines of the walls and ceiling. “Very wrong. The walls are never free of some kind of buzz, some courtier, some small Fae pet sent to spy on Uncle Firth or me.” An awful thought struck her. “I have to find Ian. Winter might have found out he was here and …” Gaelyn finished, her heart pounding at the peril her cousin from Summer Court could be in.
She and Ian had a kind of connection she still felt sharply even after all these years away in the Dr’gon Realms. Dr’gons could sense each other the way she thought she could pick out Ian’s vibration. It wasn’t that she expected to talk silently to him in the way she was sure Great and Mighty and Cl’rnce did, but she needed to know where Ian was and why he and the others were hiding, even from her. She wished as hard as she had ever wished that she could sense other Fae from as far away as Dr’gons could sense each other.
But this was something even a Jinn as powerful as Silkkie could not give her. Before Uncle Firth could send Gaelyn to Wiz-Tech, he had bargained for the unheard alliance of a Jinn and a Fae Queen. Jinn rarely agreed to serve Fae. But Uncle Firth had rescued Silkkie from being tortured by a unicorn. He not only saved the kidnapped Jinn, but he’d made a novel bargain. Usually it took the “owner’s” death to free a Jinn, but Uncle Firth and Gaelyn promised to give Silkkie complete freedom when Gaelyn became Elm’s ruling Queen.
Silkkie was not merely the magick that got Gaelyn across the planes to the forbidden Dr’gon Plane, she was Gaelyn’s guard. Over the years the Jinn had become more: an ally and friend, not just a hired partner. Gaelyn and Silkkie had combined magick to do more than Gaelyn could do alone. She was about to ask Silkkie for help finding the hidden Elm Fae when a high screech made her jerk around. The sound wasn’t Silkkie or the usual noise of a Fae. She held still waiting for it to repeat.
A second later Hazel’s frantic voice came through the crystal ball Gaelyn had pocketed. “Open the door, Gaelyn. What’s wrong with you? Open up. Great and Mighty is frantic. It’s Cl’rnce.” Gaelyn glanced into her pouch. The little Jinn’s eyes were closed in concentration. Silkkie was making it possible for Gaelyn to hear Hazel.
Gaelyn shut her own eyes. Cl’rnce was always in trouble. Being Primus hadn’t slowed his practical jokes or the chaos he caused. For once Gaelyn needed to pay attention to Elm Court.
“He’s been poisoned!” Hazel’s voice wavered through Silkkie.
Gaelyn’s eyes shot open. Cl’rnce poisoned? Had she been wrong about where the danger lay? Could the Fae she had tried to send back to Elm actually still be in Albion?
She dipped her hand into her pouch and gripped the crystal orb hard while looking around the chamber a last time, listening harder for Ian. She couldn’t feel his vibration. Did she have time to ask Silkkie to scan for him? Should she leave? Even though Uncle Firth had sent Gaelyn to learn from the Dr’gons, to make sure she understood the gravity and danger of the Queen’s Justice, Gaelyn still felt the connections to her court. Something was very wrong here.
But Hazel had said poison. No. There wasn’t time to find out what had happened here.
“Silkkie,” she addressed the little pink Jinn. “Take us home.”
“Oh, fine. Back to all those smelly Dr’gons,” Silkkie snarked. Despite her anxiety to get back to Wiz-Tech before, Silkkie hesitated now. She kept sliding her eyes around, looking like she expected something to happen in the Great Hall. The little Jinn wasn’t saying, but sometimes it was what Silkkie didn’t say that was important.
“What do you sense? Is Ian safe?” Gaelyn asked.
Before she could ask about Uncle Firth or the others in Elm, Silkkie interrupted, “There’s a greater question than the state of things in Elm right this moment.” She stopped and closed her eyes. Sighing first, she added, “The Prophecy Hazel fears. I know your connection to Hazel is important, and you know I do not care for Dr’gons. But that Prophecy is important and … well it concerns you as well as Hazel, so I agree that for now we should leave and come back later.”
Gaelyn was torn. Stay and hunt for her missing Elm Fae, unsure what was wrong and how much danger there might be, or go back and help Hazel. If Silkkie recommended returning to Wiz-Tech despite the Dr’gons she disliked, then back it was. They would find the Fae Gaelyn suspected was still at Wiz-Tech and responsible for whatever had happened to Cl’rnce. Clutching the orb so hard a different crystal might have cracked, Gaelyn said the transportation words nodding to Silkkie to chant with her, “To my chamber. Now.”
Just as Hazel burst through Gaelyn’s chamber door, Gaelyn set her orb on the longest table and glared at the Jinn in warning to not harass Hazel.
“Gaelyn! Didn’t you hear me? I came home, and you weren’t in the library. Why are you staring at that silly cat? Unless she has a cure, forget her. Cl’rnce needs us! You have to cure him!” Hazel stood in the doorway, her Dr’gon’s head lowered a bit to duck under the door frame. She strode in, her scales red with agitation.
“Cure? Cl’rnce?” Gaelyn blinked ordering herself to stop worrying about Elm Court and Ian and focus on what exactly had happened here. A cold rush and the thought of the Dr’gon Fang hit her. Was Hazel talking about the possible poison from the Dr’gon Fang? No. That couldn’t be. Gaelyn had gotten the Fae out of the secret room, and she did not sense that the new wards had broken or that anyone, including Cl’rnce, had gotten back in. She shot a quick glance at Silkkie and mouthed, ‘Dr’gon Fang?’ The Jinn shook her head.
“Hurry. We have to cure Cl’rnce!!” Hazel jerked a paw backwards and pointed to the doorway. Since Hazel’s considerable body blocked Gaelyn’s view, Gaelyn couldn’t tell if Cl’rnce was standing behind his sister. If Cl’rnce was in the hall, he couldn’t be really ill. Maybe he’d just eaten the wrong nut.
“Cl’rnce is dying!” Hazel said, flame slipping out of her mouth.
“No!” If it wasn’t the Fang, where could a poison have come from? Gaelyn trotted across the chamber. As she neared Hazel, Great and Mighty elbowed her way around Hazel and into the room.
“It’s true. Come quickly. I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t know what happened.” Great and Mighty turned and slid back around Hazel and out the door.
“Do you think it’s the Fang?” Gaelyn couldn’t help asking.
Hazel shook her head as if to stop Gaelyn from talking about the secret. Her paw went to her pouch where the Prophecy scroll was secreted. “No. The Chamber is still locked,” she whispered. Louder she said, “Great and Mighty says she did not bumble a spell and cause this. Or if she did, it doesn’t matter. She’s sure he’s dying, and we have to save him. Even if he is my brother.” She rolled her eyes as she always did when talking about the “little” brother she described as a “Waste-of-Dr’gon-Scales.” But this time Hazel’s eyes shone with tears she would never, ever allow to fall.
Gaelyn took a breath and turned around to face Silkkie sitting in her crystal ball. Life and death spells were not something wizards usually dealt with, but it was said the Jinn could call the living back from the brink of death. She swept her arm in the air, curving it to her, and the crystal flew to her hand.
Silkkie stood on all fours, a grin stretching her muzzle. She made her usual demand. “I want my freedom.”
Gaelyn had heard this one a thousand times. It was Silkkie’s weird idea of a joke. She knew the rules. Freedom once Gaelyn took over as Queen of Elm. “Really? You want to argue about this now?” Gaelyn snapped her fingers causing the ball to drop hard into her palm. “I need you
r help, not this argument,” she hissed low enough that she hoped Hazel would not hear. She was startled at how angry she felt.
Silkkie huddled in the rear of her ball giving Gaelyn her most baleful look. Gaelyn had never been anything but polite and gentle to Silkkie. Obviously, the little Jinn didn’t like seeing her anger. Gaelyn’s lost patience over all that had been happening just wouldn’t let her put Silkkie’s feelings first. “The Primus is in danger! I demand your help now!” she ordered in a tone she’d never used with the cat.
A clawed paw came down on her shoulder. “What’s wrong?” Hazel asked. “You don’t sound like yourself. If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you sound a—”
“Fae!” the Jinn screamed. “She sounds Fae because she is one!” As soon as the angry cat spit this out, her eyes went large as if she was shocked at what she’d accidentally done in the heat of the moment.
Hazel turned to Gaelyn, her jaw dropped open. “I was going to say a squeaky Barforamous being chased by a Biting Eel. Not this!”
Gaelyn felt her heart stop. She turned to Hazel ready to defend herself from a furious Dr’gon. From Hazel’s reaction to the Fae in the tower, Gaelyn knew that Hazel feared nothing more. Now Hazel would hate Gaelyn for not telling her the truth back in the tower, and Hazel never forgave.
Hazel seemed to be in shock. “You’re Fae?” Hazel said, disbelief evident in her eye ridges as they knit together.
Since first and foremost Hazel protected her brother and The Primus, if Hazel believed Gaelyn was the threatening Fae from the Prophecy, she’d destroy her Wizard Partner without a second thought. Gaelyn was not sure she could even defend herself, that she could or would do anything that harmed her best friend and Dr’gon Partner.
Gaelyn held her breath for what felt like an eon. Hazel stared into Gaelyn’s eyes. Hazel could not read Gaelyn’s mind, but Dr’gons could be amazingly intuitive. Hazel was the smartest Dr’gon Gaelyn knew. Could she tell that, despite not telling Hazel about being Fae, Gaelyn would do anything to protect her Dr’gon friends? She was not the Fae Hazel had read about in that legend about the Dr’gon Fang. Hazel had to know that. Didn’t she?
Hazel shook her head. “No. Not possible.” Her paw clutched at her pouch, and she pulled out the scroll. One paw up as if to stop Gaelyn from saying or doing anything, Hazel read the scroll painfully slowly. She looked back up, her face relaxed. “I missed this word. ‘Queen.’ It’s a Fae Queen who will … Not you.” She rolled the scroll up and stuffed it back in her pouch. For a second her face looked relieved, and Gaelyn thought there was the start of a smile.
Before Gaelyn could say a word, Hazel’s eyes squinted into slits, her claws digging into Gaelyn’s shoulder. “How could you keep such a secret all these years? What else have you lied about?” She removed her paw from Gaelyn’s shoulder. “No Fae are allowed in Albion. I don’t know how you crossed into the Dr’gon Plane, but I know you’re a liar, and you’re breaking the Peace by being here. And you lied!” She took a deep breath, flame spitting to within an inch of Gaelyn. “For the years in which you were my partner, I will not kill you. Leave.”
“I can explain,” Gaelyn said, her heart breaking, because she knew no matter what she had to say, it would not erase the lies. Hazel was right, but Gaelyn had done it for a good reason. She wanted to be angry at Hazel who had just turned on her despite all their years of friendship and who had lied too. Gaelyn had left her friend Ian behind when she came to Wiz-Tech, and now she had lost her best friend to the lies she had to tell to stay at Wiz-Tech.
Hazel squinted her eyes at Gaelyn. “No explanations!”
Silkkie had said Gaelyn was important to this Prophecy. She would not leave, because an angry Hazel said so. “I can save Cl’rnce.” She hoped Silkkie would do this. Surely her faithfulness to Gaelyn would override Silkkie’s disdain for Dr’gons.
Hazel took a deeper breath, and trembled as if too angry to contain her fury. Finally she nodded. “Swear a Heart Oath to save him. After that, after you save him, you leave.”
Gaelyn’s heart shattered. “No. I can’t swear that oath to a Dr’gon. No Fae can.” She stumbled over the words, not daring to say that only the Fae Queens could swear on their lives and then only to and for their Courts. Gaelyn owed her life to her Court. She was their Queen. An Elm Queen had never sworn a Hearth’s Oath to anyone outside the Court. She held a hand out to Hazel. “But I give you my promise that I will find a way to save Cl’rnce.”
She hoped Silkkie would cooperate. Gaelyn’s anger at the Jinn had already faded. She did not want to force Silkkie the brutal way Winter Queen would have. But if Cl’rnce was dying, was there time to beg and bribe Silkkie? She thought of the torture spells she’d heard whispered in the shadows by the less seemly members of Elm Court and discarded them. If she knew anything, it was that to save a Dr’gon, a Primus, she had to use Good Magicks. If her pleas went unheard by Silkkie, Gaelyn would use the Dr’gon Magick she had learned in classes with Hazel. Combining her own Fae and the Dr’gon Magicks might be enough to help Cl’rnce. This was one of the things her uncle had wanted her to learn at Wiz-Tech. He wanted her to learn Dr’gon Magicks to add to her own, and he had wanted her to use the more peaceful powers of the Dr’gons instead of the brutal power Winer and Summer Queens favored.
Shaking with anger, Hazel turned away from her Wizard Partner. There was no more time to talk about Gaelyn’s lies and that the one person she had trusted most was Fae, the enemies of the Dr’gons and the ones who wanted to kill Cl’rnce. Although part of Hazel had a hard time believing that Gaelyn had done anything to her brother, Hazel didn’t feel she could trust her. Yet, Gaelyn had offered to cure Cl’rnce. Maybe her Wizard Partner was still the same person she had always been.
Hazel forced herself to focus on Cl’rnce. Great and Mighty thought Cl’rnce was dying. Hazel believed her, but neither Great and Mighty, nor Hazel herself, or anyone she knew had the magick to save someone who was dying. Gaelyn had that Jinn, a creature unique in the Dr’gon Realms. Could Gaelyn and her Jinn have a magick that would save Cl’rnce?
It didn’t make sense to count on Gaelyn. The old stories about Fae, even before they were banned from the Dr’gon Realms, never said anything very positive about them. Summer Queen was supposedly as old as her Court, and twice as hateful. And the stories about the even worse Winter Queen were the kind Hazel once loved to tell her little brother to scare him.
Truth be told, despite those stories, not once in all the years that Gaelyn had been at Wiz-Tech had she ever been cruel or mean. She’d even snuck out at night to sit with the homesick youngest knight school students, telling them stories until they fell asleep without tears. Hazel snorted.
But that had always been the kind of person Gaelyn had been. Hazel just couldn’t picture her Wizard Partner doing anything evil. She wanted to believe Gaelyn. In truth there were no other choices. Hazel would have to use Gaelyn’s help. She would deal with Gaelyn’s lies and her being an enemy Fae after they saved Cl’rnce.
Hazel took in a deep breath, but her mind wouldn’t let go of Gaelyn’s lies. No matter how angry she was, or how she tried, there was nothing Gaelyn had ever done that was like the Fae Queen the Prophecy said would come for Cl’rnce. Gaelyn had always been helpful, thoughtful Gaelyn, who was always ready to do what Hazel asked, and never asked for anything in return. Gaelyn, one of those Fae from the old stories? How could that be true?
One thing Hazel remembered from the stories, especially the ones featuring the Summer Queen, Fae never did a “favor” without demanding a price in exchange. Maybe Gaelyn was super clever and all these years she’d been such a good friend to Hazel and the Dr’gon Nations, she’d been plotting to demand something huge and awful in return for all of her help. If she saved Cl’rnce, this would be the time to claim her reward.
Hazel would face that later. She had to focus on helping Cl’rnce. But before she was forced to ask Gaelyn for help, there was something she had to do. “We have to see my broth
er. Maybe one of the professors of medical arts can do something.” But as she looked past Gaelyn, she spotted Great and Mighty. She hadn’t noticed the little wizard’s arrival. Why was she smiling?
Great and Mighty clapped her hands, and Cl’rnce slowly walked into Gaelyn’s chamber. Hazel’s heart soared. It was all a mistake! She hurried over and threw her arms around her brother, then quickly stepped back. “If it isn’t that ‘waste-of-scales’ brother of mine.”
“He’s fine now,” Great and Mighty said with a small laugh.
“Are you laughing at me?” Cl’rnce, usually the one to laugh first at jokes even at himself, snarled. “Don’t you dare laugh at the Primus!” He looked a little confused, but then he shook his head and straightened up so that he stood taller, by just a scale, than Hazel.
Gaelyn put a fist to her mouth to cover a grin. Hazel choked down her own laugh. She was relieved that Cl’rnce’s Bumblespells Wizard Partner had gotten it wrong. “Now you’re the Primus?” Hazel said. “Not when all the scrolls come in from all the Dr’gon clans? Not when there’s days of work to do for that party you want?” Hazel choked and spit out another laugh. She stepped back another pace and looked hard at him. “Look at you, Primus. Why is your left leg bloated and floating like a balloon?”
Cl’rnce looked down and growled as he hopped on the leg that was normal. The inflated leg floated a bit off the floor, like he couldn’t get it to land. These symptoms were a little like that time he ate the wrong nut and had an allergic reaction.
“And why is the right side of your muzzle so ... so ...?” Gaelyn demonstrated his puffed cheeks by blowing out her own normally slender cheeks.
Laughing felt good after the fear Great and Mighty had caused. Except: Cl’rnce angry? He was perpetually in a good mood, never snarly. Despite him looking pretty healthy, comical but healthy, Hazel couldn’t get rid of the feeling tickling the back of her horns that something was actually very badly, even dangerously, wrong. “Did Great and Mighty bumble a spell again?” she managed to ask.
Dragon Bonded: A Bumblespells Novel Page 3