Wind Magic

by Nicolette Jinks

  “Make him shift, and we’ll get a healer for him faster,” the big drake grumbled. I darted to Mordon, but couldn’t make actual words, just a pitiful whining sound. He seemed to get the message. I stared after him a little longer as Mordon’s scales started to turn to skin, and his bleeding lessened with the absence of wings.

  The new drake seemed to be a relative of Mordon’s, though I couldn’t tell how. I gave them a good burst of wind, and the drake looked at me over his shoulder, a little startled by the gesture as I trailed after. Mordon’s head went limp right outside the mead hall. They landed, and I followed.

  I ducked below the new drake to nuzzle Mordon. It was disorienting to have Mordon seem so small, when just a minute ago, he was so large.

  My proximity to the new drake made him uncomfortable, and so I backed off, content that Mordon was still alive. A bit to my surprise, the new drake shifted while holding Mordon, and ended his shift with Mordon held over his shoulder. It was Aeron.

  Aeron strode into the mead hall, and I had to stay outside for a few panicked minutes until I calmed down enough to make the shift back to human. By this time, I had accidentally scared off several curious drakes with snapping teeth and less than pleasant winds. I couldn’t handle my raging protective instincts at the moment, but when I finally exhausted myself enough, I crumpled down to the ground and limped through the mead hall.

  Luckily, I hadn’t chased off the healer. Nest was tending to Mordon with an annoyed scowl. “Testosterone runs thick, every mating flight, we always have something like this happen. Caledon.”

  “Caledon,” repeated Aeron, exhausted.

  Mordon was asleep, apparently doused out by the healers before they went to work closing up a wound over his shoulders.

  Shock registered through me in a white hot burst of adrenaline. I couldn’t think. I was instantly numb to everything except the fact that Mordon was unconscious and there was blood.

  Dizzy and disoriented, a single thought ran through my mind: this wasn’t like me. This wasn’t like me to freeze and feel a tightly constricted chest.

  “Is there anything I can do?” I forced myself to ask, though the words felt strange on my lips.

  Aeron turned to put one warm hand on each shoulder. His cheeks were pale, but the strength in his his expression came across clearly. He said, “Yes. Go to Nieve. Get yourself clean. Eat two fat balls. Stay with friends.”

  Belatedly, I realized I was naked. So was Mordon. I’d left my clothes in the orchard, same that Nest had. While this would surely have caused a lot of stares in other places, no one here seemed to care that I was exposed. I fought the urge to cover myself with my hands, which would have drawn attention.

  There came a clamor of noise from the town center, followed by the wrenching open of the mead hall doors. A bedraggled Caledon hunched against the wood, his tunic torn down the torso and sticking to his skin. He held his side, where blood seeped from around his fingers. A shadow passed by him, a man who hobbled along and wore a large shapeless cloak.

  Druidan moved far faster than the battered Caledon, bearing something piled high in his arms. When he stopped before Aeron, he dipped his head in a partial bow. “Milord Aeron.”

  “Master Elder Druidan.”

  “Milady,” Druidan said, his tone altered since he’d last spoken to me. It was kinder, gentler. He shook out the thing in his hand, revealing that it was a heavy rabbit fur-lined cloak to match his. It smelled of wooden wardrobes and the tint of many, many campfires.

  “Thank you,” I murmured. He raised the cloak, I slid into it, finding that it covered me all the way down to my ankles. When I tried to work the clasp, I discovered that my cold fingers could not close around the leaf-shaped pin.

  “Milady?” Druidan reached out quietly. When I lowered my hands, he took hold of the cloak and deftly secured it shut for me.

  Lips trembling, I managed to ask, “Nieve? Can you?”

  Druidan dipped his head once. “I will take you to her.”

  I mouthed a thanks.

  He grasped a rag, pressed it against his jaw, and I realized that he was hurt. At the alarm in my expression, Druidan cracked a thin smile. “The drunk caught me with a claw.”

  Caledon called from his place in the entryway of the mead hall, “I wouldn’t have been drunk if I’d known you were flying tonight.”

  I snorted. “I pick who I train with. You weren’t invited.”

  “I demand the flight happen now!”

  “Well, you ruined any chance of that,” I said and decided that it was time to leave. At my first motion, Druidan was in stride beside me as we angled for the stairs which would lead to the rest of the castle. Nieve was somewhere in that direction.

  “Don’t you turn your back on me, woman!”

  “I’ll do as I please, boy,” I said in as dismissive a tone as I could manage.

  That made Druidan smile again.

  Caledon lurched across the hall, coming to a stop in front of me with his hand still gripping his side. He spoke through gritted teeth and what must have been a good deal of pain. “Don’t you dare take this flight to the First Order. I heard the talk. Don’t you dare.”

  I paused. “Why not? It seems like the smartest thing to do, considering the stunt you just pulled.”

  “Because I don’t want it.” He lowered his voice. “I work for Death, and I can ensure Mordon sees him. You’d best behave.”

  I tipped my head to the side at his assertion. Did he know that I was an agent, too? Or was his threat intended as a general way? I said, “I dare you to repeat that a little louder.”

  Caledon froze. Whatever he’d thought I would say, it hadn’t been that.

  I stepped around him and made my way up the stairs.

  Chapter Nineteen

  By the end of the evening, I was in Mordon's sister’s suite of rooms in the southeast tower of the castle, overlooking the pergola and the pond with the fancy fish swimming in it.

  Druidan had been gone ever since pointing to her door. I’d eaten, washed with a hand towel in the sink, and was dressed in one of Nieve’s tunics despite a searing pain in my shoulder. By some twist of fate, we were approximately the same size, though she was considerably taller and not as full in the hips. I paced restlessly in the empty suite, waiting for Nieve to return from gathering up my clothes.

  She entered the suite, her cheeks slightly flushed from taking the spiral stairs too quickly. Red hair billowed in a wavy frizz about lean cheeks, and her eyes had a touch more green in them than Mordon’s did. In her arms she carried all my things, which she promptly deposited on the spare cot in a room the size of a large closet. It was positioned so the head of the cot faced the wall to the child’s nursery, and the opening to a tiny sitting room which was just large enough for a single sofa and a cushy chair.

  “How is Mordon?” I asked with an anxious twist in my stomach.

  She slipped out of her flat shoes to put them away in the shoe box in the cloak closet. “He’ll be recovered in no time.”

  “He was unconscious when I last saw him.”

  “Yes. An injured drake is nearly always easier to stitch when they’re out for it. If they’re awake, the dominant or scared can hurt those around them. Mordon has bitten people in the past.”

  “Ah.” I retreated to the kitchenette which was beside the shower room. “I made some chamomile tea. Would you like any?”

  For a second, I thought Nieve was going to refuse, but she thought the better of it. “I think I will.”

  “Where is your son?” I asked, remembering that she had left with him on her hip.

  “With my mate. It is his turn.”

  I took both cups to the sofa, sitting on it with one leg tucked up underneath me. It was impossible to feel relaxed in someone else’s home, particularly knowing that Mordon was not here. Nieve sat down on the other side of the sofa. She sipped at the steaming cup.

  “I feel like I should be with him,” I said.

  “Doing
so would aggravate Caledon, and put Mordon in harm’s way.”

  “True.” I rolled the cup between my fingers, hating the way that the fat balls and a snack of beef jerky sat in a lump in my gut. “What is Caledon's problem?”

  Nieve opened her lips, shut them, and furrowed her brow in a way very similar to Mordon and her father. I hadn’t fully thought the question through. If there was one person who knew exactly the issue between them, it would be their sister.

  She drank from the cup again. When she rested it on her knees, it was half empty and her eyes were troubled. “As the eldest, Caledon was spoiled despite our parents attempting to not pamper him. He has always had a way of getting what he wanted, no matter if that was through general manipulation or brute force. Our parents never approved of his outbursts, but they thought they could discipline it out of him. Teach him not to be a bully. I’m their daughter, and the youngest out of the three of us, so I truly was pampered. Which put Mordon in the middle.”

  “Mordon has middle child syndrome, huh?”

  “He had to work harder than either of us to earn attention. Caledon and I never got along, and it was Mordon who made life bearable. At times, Caledon could coerce him into his trouble, but Mordon learned quickly that he was punished harsher than Caledon would be.”

  “Why? If Caledon was the elder?”

  “Yes, but Mordon was wiser than his years. Our parents expected more of him. The harder Mordon worked for their approval, the higher the bar became.” Nieve shut her eyes against the flickering oil lamps taking up a lot of the small coffee table. “By the time Caledon left the colony, the tension between the two of them was terrible. Caledon baited Mordon constantly. He wanted a fight, but Mordon knew that he was supposed to be the peacekeeper. Any time Mordon did come to blows, he would spend weeks regretting it. I can’t say that Mordon was disappointed in the least when Caledon didn’t return.” Nieve tapped her thumbnail against the rim of the cup. “I thought it was the best thing Caledon could have done. With him gone, I decided to hold my mating flight as soon as I could. Caledon would have harassed the males of my choosing. His perception of what makes a good man differs greatly from mine.”

  “I understand,” I said. “Did your mate come from Kragdomen?”

  She shook her head, getting a distant expression. “He was a wandering gypsy who came in one winter during a harsh freeze. It was a bitter cold snap. We were sharing the mead hall with whatever livestock couldn’t fit into the barns. You’ll still see a few sheep in the fields without ears, and that’s why. They got too frostbitten before we could bring them in. So when a stranger showed up wet and half-frozen, we let him stay. The Elders said he would be up to no good, but he settled in well. He was from an outsider pairing, grew up amongst humans, and when he was old enough he decided to explore the world until he found other drakes. Eventually, he found his way here.”

  “And he met you.”

  “And he met me. But don’t think it was love at first sight. I had those I admired already.” She rested her cup in the table carefully as if it might fall off the edge. I realized that if her son was toddling, he would grab whatever was at hand. I’d have to remember that once he was in the house. Nieve asked, “This was your first flight, wasn’t it?”

  I nodded.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “My shoulder is better than I thought it would be.”

  Nieve laughed quietly. “How do you feel?”

  “Uh. It happened? Is there some way I’m supposed to be feeling?” I shrugged. “It might be the first time I’ve been like that in a dragon body, but I’m hardly otherwise inexperienced.”

  Nieve raised her eyebrow in another mirror of Mordon’s gestures. “It must have something to do with being raised amongst humans.”

  “It must, if you’re referring to my human-body promiscuity.”

  “That wasn’t quite how I would have chosen to phrase the concept, but yes. Dragon body is safer for liaisons. Human body is reserved for mates.”

  I caught the underlying question in her words. She didn’t know me well, not by a long shot. I rolled my thumb along the rim of my cup. “I don’t take that lightly, either, but there are times when you need to separate from someone dishonest.”

  She understood enough. She touched my arm. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not. Mistakes are made to be learned from, aren’t they?”

  “Yes.” Nieve nestled into her seat again. “So, who did fly you?”

  “I would have thought that people would be talking about it?”

  “You were rather far from the castle, and you discouraged onlookers from coming too close. Which I appreciate more than you know, I’ve been there, too. What people know is that you were close to Mordon and to Caledon. They didn’t see a dive, though.”

  I felt my cheeks heat under her casual comments. I said, “No.”

  “Did you fly anyone, then?”

  “Druidan.” I took a long, slow sip to avoid her gaze.

  “Druidan?”

  At her apparent shock, my cheeks lit on fire. I said defensively, “He can’t help his age.”

  “It’s not that. He hasn’t flown anyone in my entire memory.”

  I put my cup down by the oil lamp, too, and traded which leg I was sitting on so I could lean closer to Nieve. “Why? I mean, if he … well, why make an exception now?”

  She shook her head with a puzzled furrow above her nose. “He founded the colony. Many people here are his descendants.”

  “Surely there have been new females arriving? Did he not have a mate for himself?”

  “He has outlived two females. Each death took its toll on him emotionally. I always assumed that was why he never expressed an interest in anyone else.” She stretched her shoulders and continued, “Don’t worry about age. No one else here does. No, what is impressive is how you have interested him. When did you fly him? That wasn’t spoken about at all.”

  I shrugged. “When I was being pursued by Caledon, he cut in between the two of us.”

  The furrow left Nieve’s brow. “Yes, he struck Caledon beneath the wing. It’s a sensitive place which causes muscle seizures and poor motor control. They thought he must have hit you by accident to cause a roll.”

  Now I almost felt smug about my conquest. Good grief, was that a good thing or not? “What he did was grab me and flip me onto my back.”

  “Yes, but there wasn’t a dive.”

  “I guess Druidan doesn’t need a dive if he can laterally spin.”

  Her mouth dropped open in utter astonishment. “What?”

  “You should close your mouth before a bug flies in,” I teased.

  She shut her mouth very deliberately, then drank the rest of her chamomile. At last, she was grinning. “You are ruined for the rest of your flights. You know that, right? That position is the dream. A dive is all fun and good, but it will be years before your mate has the practice to do that with you.” She shook her head with a faint hint of a smile dimpling her cheeks. “We’ve only started to manage the spin without crashing.”

  “Well, it looks like I have something to aspire towards, then.”

  Nieve sighed. “Druidan. Huh.” A thought crossed her expression. “Do you think you will try incubating a clutch or live bearing?”

  I had a feeling that the change in topic was not coincidental. Cautiously, I said, “I hadn’t put any thought to the matter. And I don’t know much about the dragon body.”

  “If you choose to have a clutch in your dragon form, the eggs will need to be laid and incubated. Once you start reproduction, you can’t shift between the bodies. The majority of females prefer their human bodies. It’s far more convenient to be stuck as a woman than as a dragon, and there’s less that can go wrong with a live birth. Laying multiple eggs can be risky, but what’s more at risk is keeping the clutch at the proper temperature and preventing anyone from stealing. Then there is the trouble that the infants will be in their dragon bodies. In our current world, it�
�s safer for someone to be a human if their shifting abilities don’t occur.”

  “Say that someone is stuck in dragon form from birth onwards?”

  “Then they’ll never be able to walk amongst humans or pass as normal in the sorcerering areas. Nor will they be accepted into the dragons. They may struggle to find a mate with another drake, because they could only mate in dragon form. The last thing someone would want is to have a clutch filled with non-shifters.” Nieve cocked her head to the side and added, “But the other side to this argument is that even a clutch with a poor shifting rate would produce more shifters than a woman would want to give birth to.”

  “What is the usual clutch size?”

  “Between seven and twenty.”

  I whistled in appreciation. “Think of all the nannies required. And they’d eat everything in sight.”

  She laughed. “Yes, that is also a consideration.”

  When her amusement died down, I asked, “And what does this have to do with Druidan?”

  “We need children, and historically the colony’s females follow the reproductive preference of the broody Lady.” She paused. “If you do choose to have a clutch, you can choose to increase the diversity with various fathers. Druidan’s lineage is old, and very strong.”

  I balked at the thought. “But wouldn’t Mordon—?”

  “I suppose you’d need to ask him. However, I would be very surprised if he did not accept all of your children as his. Having mixed clutches could do wonders to tie Kragdomen to other drakes, particularly given your station.”

  I held up a finger. “That is if I hold an open flight, and if that open flight consists of males from other places.”

  “Yes.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Forgive me if I’ve insulted you.”

  “No, not insulted. You’ve given me a lot to think about. That is all.”

  She nodded. A thought occurred to her. “Have they told you what to expect from the Rising?”

  “The Rising?”

  Nieve quickly smothered a frown and let out a mutter about men skipping common knowledge. “When your body is primed for a mating flight, you assume a dragon body and take to the air. That’s called a Rising. There’s a hormonal surge which will be stronger than the impulses you’ll have felt in the days prior. These hormones cause behavior you wouldn’t normally do.” She shook her head, as if remembering something she did that she couldn’t believe she’d done. “A few days before the Rising, you’ll be tired and hungry and you may be grumpy or flirtatious. A couple days before, you’ll still be hungry but this time, also euphoric and full of energy. The day of the Rising, you’ll feel the need to be in the sky with mates, and you’ll likely not be hungry on that day or the day after the flight. Then you’ll gradually drift back to normal.”