Wind Magic

by Nicolette Jinks

  Valerin shrugged.

  I continued, “Who else will be there? I saw but didn’t meet Firan.”

  “He’s of Heathvale. There will be Gudovan of Reyes Settlement, and Glyka of Kiasden. They’re friends of Selestiani.” Valerin proceeded to tell me of others whose names and homes I mentally stored away for later.

  Then he was done with the portal.

  I put the pitcher away and joined him in the circle.

  The portal started. The warm storm wind swirled through its maze of symbols. It fills the hole in space, it is eager to see where it goes, like a needle piercing through pinched fabric. It is restless, a traveler wishing to see the world before its time is out and it falls apart to the gentle tug of a breeze, then to still, stale nothingness.

  I felt the wind as it slowed, as it spread out over the new landscape and blended with the native breezes caressing the countryside.

  We arrived in a clearing in a redwood-dominated forest, one with thicker vegetation than I’d ever been in before. The air smelled heavy with humidity, and clouds blotted out the sun.

  A lake was nearby, and a massive mansion made of hewn logs at the top of a sheer drop-off. It was a good place, a quiet seclusion off the main path but near enough to reach a major road. The winds whispered this to me in short glimpses, that they played with large trucks and buffeted small cars about twenty miles away from here. The highway provided a quick entertainment, but it was little more than a trifle to them. Here, above the lake and within the trees, the winds made art with those on the wing.

  “That is where our host Gudovan lives,” Valerin said as he pointed to the mansion. His words brought me out of my strange trance.

  Valerin was none the wiser about my conversation with the winds, mistaking my dazed expression for something else. He explained, “Drakes do not sleep in his den, but in out-buildings or outside. The Reyes clan sleeps in the house, but the mead hall is open to all guests. For the non-drakes, they sleep in the north wing of the house.”

  “Where do I sleep, then?”

  He hesitated. “Not in the camp of any other clan. You are welcome at the Selestiani hearth. I know you like Kragdomen, but …”

  “Yeah, that’s not happening under the circumstances.”

  Valerin perked up, instantly intrigued. “Is it true, then? That Caledon and Mordon fought over you?”

  “Ugh, no. I was practicing with Mordon and Druidan—”

  “The Druidan?”

  “The man who founded Kragdomen? Yes, him.”

  Valerin shook his head. “He didn’t just found Kragdomen. He worked with Julius Septimus to establish Selestiani, and Reyes here, and Kiasden, too. He intended to stay in Selestiani.”

  All those places? Odd how he hadn’t told me. “Huh.”

  “He went on a mating flight, and his mate claimed him. He chose to stay with her in Kragdomen, but for a long, long time he made the rounds between the settlements until he didn’t have the endurance for a flight of that length any longer. That was the old way, to fly rather than portal.”

  “What is his connection with the First Order?”

  “He doesn’t have one. The First Order presides over the phoenixes, but over the years it has expanded to include members of other types. I don’t recall Kragdomen ever being invited before you.” Valerin tossed an arm over my shoulder in a way that wasn’t quite brotherly. “Any chance of being at my hearth?”

  Oh, Valerin. He had to know that I wasn’t going to stay with him. I ducked out of his arm and lightly punched his shoulder. “I appreciate the offer, but perhaps I could make my own camp adjacent to yours?”

  “So no one assumes you favor us? Yes.”

  “I didn’t bring any camping supplies. I have some back at the barn.”

  Valerin waved away the suggestion. “Reyes Settlement will provide. It is their duty as the host, after all.”

  We made our way to the cabin, where we met Gudovan. He was a solid block of muscle if ever there was one. His head was shaved and polished to a bright shine matched only by the gleam of his teeth, and his eyes a true amber color better suited to a gryphon than to a drake. But he was friendly enough, and he kissed the back of my hand in greeting.

  “Milady Feraline of the Swift Clan. You are born to Magnus of the Wildwoods, yes?”

  That impressed me. “Yes. Do you know him?”

  “Know him? Ha, ha, ha.” That was how Gudovan laughed, with distinct ha’s. He gestured with a massive hand that nearly knocked into Valerin’s head. Apparently ducking was a commonplace occurrence around the Reyes Lord. “I met Magnus once, in Devil’s Canyon when the Lady Durani was to rise. Large earth dark, he was, a true man to wrestle. He was not there for the flight, he was searching for some wayward old sod or another. I can’t remember who.”

  Gudovan hugged me against his side as he showed me the way down his halls. He kept talking. “Magnus was said to have a fey wife in the Wildwoods. Every man to his own. My understanding was that he had a pair of non-shifting children?”

  “I came into the ability late in life. My brother has not, however.”

  “Ah. Yes. He is wed, as well?”

  “He is wed to a fairy.”

  “Much to his mother’s disappointment, I am sure,” Gudovan said. “But tell me of you. I had thought that your parents would disapprove of our pagan ways.”

  “I’m sure that they would,” I said diplomatically.

  “Ha, ha, ha. You are here without their knowledge. To take a mate for yourself, not a husband. How I anticipate hearing word of the encounter when they know.”

  “Come, now, Gudovan. If you make me second-guess my purpose here, many people will be disappointed.”

  “Ha, ha, ha. Myself included. Yes. We had best see you settled in. But tell me, do you have a favorite?”

  I thought about saying yes, but decided against it. They would find out soon enough, and in the meanwhile, I wanted to learn as much as I could about everyone else. “I am here on my own, but Selestiani are friends of mine. And I would like to make new ones.”

  “Ha, ha, ha. Excellent, excellent. I will ensure they are friends to you. If any man is not, you tell me.”

  “If any man is not friendly, I think they will bear the evidence of it.”

  “Ha, ha. Yes. Excellent.” Gudovan shoved by a heavy curtain overhanging a storage room. He grabbed a back pack and held it out to me. “There is a grand old black walnut tree beside the creek near Julius's drake camp. It has a hut in its branches, and the best bed we have to offer. Use the iron brazier for your hearth, but see that you do not catch your roof ablaze.”

  “Thank you.”

  Gudovan bowed to kiss my hand again. He held it gingerly. “It is a modest accommodation. Do you accept our hospitality and safeguards?” He explained his rules, but I didn’t pay much attention. I said I agreed. He followed with, “Have you clothes?”

  “I wear a spider silk gown.”

  “A fine garment, but you shall have more. I will have other things for you in the wardrobe in your hut. There is to be festivities tonight, and you shall be dressed splendidly.”

  “What kind of festivities?”

  “Drinking, dancing, friendly sport. Heathvale has been so kind as to provide us some fine ales from their cellars. I recommend them, but do yourself a favor and take them slow.”

  I said my farewell and began to explore. The place was a massive lodge like that seen on ski resorts, with one-room cabin large enough for shops in the streets. Evergreen trees populated the mountainsides, thick and strong. I knew the feel of a healthy forest and ecosystem, and I knew that this was one of them. Wide trails wandered around the lakeside, bringing me to pebbly beaches with willows half-dipped in the water, bobbing with tall reeds in full seed.

  By the time I angled towards the camps with their fire pits glowing strong, I felt at peace again. I found my camp by finding Valerin. I knew the shape of his back and the dark curl of his hair. I avoided all other camps out of wariness as they
had been drinking around their fires. I didn’t know them well enough to feel comfortable greeting them.

  Issa was at the Selestiani site, too, and she greeted me as coolly as she always had. I was beginning to think of it as part of her charm, though I doubted that she found any part of me charming.

  My tree was above their camp, as Gudovan had said it would be. Julius was not at camp, so he had to have been in the cabin with the other phoenixes tonight. There had been a mention of a meeting, I recalled, amongst the phoenixes.

  No ladder provided a way up to the hut in the branches, but it was easy to launch myself up using my dragon’s body. There was a wide, flat spot in the deck which served as a landing zone, according to the gouges in the wood, and it could reasonably hold two dragons my-sized or barely fit one Mordon's size. Above this was a series of pegs to climb into the hut, which I entered through a trapdoor in the floor.

  The hut itself was rather luxe, with a wraparound porch, two sides which had hinges to open up into the vast emptiness that was the space below the tree, and plenty of air flowing in the gap between the roof and the walls. It had been made by someone with woodworking skill. Animals were carved into the door frame and on the rafters, delicate beasts with comical faces and fur or feathers which had been worked to resemble swirls and petals. A space between the floor and the wall allowed for free air movement, making the hut nice and drafty in the summer heat as well as potentially very dusty indeed.

  There were several beds on a raised platform, beautifully decorated with fancy bedsheets and a million bright pillows. As Gudovan had promised, the wardrobe against a solid wall was bursting with dresses in a multitude of color. Silk, cotton, crepe, tulle—I could run my fingers over them all day and never get bored by the fascinating combination of textures.

  Gudovan’s group did not seem to care at all for billowy skirts and voluminous petticoats, which I was very glad for. They preferred sleek lines and extravagant details, in particular lace that went down the center of the back and pale pink pearls set into the neckline. Then there was the fancy arms. One-shoulder, off-the-shoulder, a combination of this and that. Huge sleeves, transparent sleeves, skin-tight, ruffled, whatever.

  I picked one for the evening and laid it out on the bed. Compared to the rest, it was one of the least fussy and most plain of the lot, a peach-hued thing with white butterflies embroidered along the hem. It was also one of the shortest, cropped to midthigh which made it feel less formal and stuffy. I animated my dress to have the white moths beat their wings in tune with my energy level—that wasn’t precisely intentional, but I liked it.

  “Milady!” The call came from below. I ran to the porch and leaned over the railing to see Valerin staring up at me.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you want to accompany us to dinner?”

  “Issa’s not gussied up. Is that later?”

  Valerin held out his hands to showcase his own clothing, which I couldn’t see too well given the angle with me directly above him. “I’m pretty. You should be, too.”

  “You’re many things. I don’t know if pretty is one of them.”

  He clutched his chest dramatically and staggered. “You hurt me!”

  Even Issa laughed, but she stopped fairly quickly once she knew she had succumbed to it, suddenly appearing very straight-faced again.

  “Give me a minute,” I called, then hurried to get changed. Kind as Gudovan was, I wasn’t going to ditch my spider silk dress, so I pressed its sides together until it had changed shape to be the slip for the butterfly dress. Too late, I realized that I didn’t know if the fabric had an enchantment on it to allow for me to shift into dragon to get down. Then I noticed that the open back had been designed for wings to sprout.

  Accomplishing a partial form had never been high on my list of things to try, but I managed thickened scales, wings, and hands that were claws. It was easy to lose once I was on the ground again.

  Valerin offered me his elbow in a courtly gesture, but I was feeling a fresh burst of excited energy.

  With a tap on his shoulder, I yelled, “Tag!” and bolted along the trail.

  Valerin laughed in my wake, and Issa commented, “I know who isn’t wearing heels.”

  I stopped at that. “Don’t like my ballet flats?”

  “Simply suggesting you save the chase for tomorrow.”

  Reality slammed through my moment of blissful forgetfulness, exciting butterflies in the pit of my stomach instead. “Oh, that’s right.”

  “Don’t make her nervous, Issa.”

  “I am being sensible.”

  “Don’t be sensible, Issa. I want to see if I can catch her,” a strange male voice called. A pack of five drakes were on a fork of the trail that joined up with ours. I stood at the junction, watching them approach with increasing interest as I realized that they were dressed fancy in vests, decorated sleeves, and tied-up hair.

  At the head of the company was a man I’d seen before with faintly olive skin tone, pale hair, and blue-green eyes. He wore a vest to match his eyes, trimmed with golden thread which was very appealing with his features. From the quick flick of his eyes, he appreciated my legs. That, or he noticed that I wasn’t in the habit of tanning.

  “Don’t stare, Firan. My legs will make you go blind if the sun hits them,” I said with too light of a voice. Flirting. I was totally flirting with him, complete with the hot cheeks. He was not so easily flustered; in fact, he didn’t miss a beat before he spoke.

  “Then it is my privilege that the clouds will keep us concealed.”

  That had distinctly sexual overtones of the drake kind, and my body knew it. So did the others, who hid or exchanged appropriate chortles. I clucked my tongue at him, dismissing the idea with a wave of the hand. “Afraid you don’t have the privilege of manipulating the weather, sorry to break it to you.”

  He twirled a finger in the air, and I felt a corresponding tug in the wind as someone who wasn’t me told it to snap a flower off a beech tree. The spike of white flowers descended towards me, twirling in time to his finger. Shocked, I realized he was a fellow wind drake. I hadn’t seen very many others like me. I knew there was one at Kragdomen, and that my grandmother had been one, but I hadn’t been introduced to a male wind drake before.

  “I think I can change the weather at will,” Firan said in a voice as smooth as a baby’s oiled bottom.

  Though I hadn’t known it before, I knew it now: he was a player. I should have seen it earlier with the perfectly mussed hair, the alluring eyes, the warm welcome. That was the Bermuda triangle of a playboy.

  “Well, I think I don’t waste time on boys who take longer to clip their nails than I do.”

  From his position several feet away, Firan reached out as if to stroke my cheek; the wind did it for him. “You could make an exception in my case.”

  I brushed his wind aside with a bit of my own, but I did mine without waving my hand around. Perhaps he did his motions out of necessity, perhaps it was just a way to visually lay claim to his actions. To me it seemed sloppy, or showy. But there was something about the ticklish touch of the wind that appealed and made my scales want to harden over my skin.

  Valerin touched my elbow to lead the way on the trail. I let him. Firan picked up his pace to take my other elbow in a display of attention that I rather enjoyed. I felt odd. Buzzing. Whirling. Lost in a wave of bliss.

  “You have not known the pleasures of the wind under you belly, doing exactly as you want it to do,” Firan continued. If this was drake dirty talk, it was an amusing version of soft core porn. Still, I didn’t want to give way to him. I wanted to fluster.

  “Oh, I don’t know. That gentle stuff is terribly boring. Now, if you were talking shackles and leather crops, you might get me intrigued.”

  Valerin had gone noticeably stiff beside me, his cheeks brilliant red in a way that would have been comical if only I’d been able to keep my own under control.

  “If we’re talking kink in the pink, I’d be more t
han happy to oblige,” Firan said, utterly unphased.

  “Good to know, but I don’t think your services will be required.”

  Firan made a motion with his hand that I couldn’t quite place until I felt a soft caress sweep up my shoulder blades and dip straight across the front. I gasped and backfisted his chest; when he laughed, I shoved him with both hands so he had to stagger to stay on his feet.

  I jabbed a finger at him. “You be decent, or I’ll make your crotch itch every time you hear your name, Firan!”

  The threat made everyone laugh, as they recognized what must have been a very common curse. Firan recovered enough to say, “I haven’t heard that since I was ten!”

  “Well, it’s still going to happen, buddy.” That was not a lie. I didn’t know how to do that curse, but Denise did, and she would relish the opportunity to unleash it at my command. “And maybe I’ll let my student get a bit creative. She’s good at that.”

  “Student?”

  “Potions.” I cocked my head at him, fluttered my eyelashes as sweetly as possible. “I thought you knew I was a Swift.”

  He mouthed an ‘o’.

  “I will be sure that I watch my drink tonight.”

  “Annoy me, and you’ll have to watch your drink every night.”

  Firan considered my words, gears visibly turning behind that expression of his. “That sounds like a challenge. Do you wish to challenge me?”

  “I thought I already had,” I said, flippantly, way too flippantly, with a confidence I’d only ever dared to show in front of Mordon.

  Firan pulled me into a kiss. He startled me, but not nearly as much as my reaction did. I liked it, accepted it, yet it meant almost nothing to me. It might have been a handshake for all that it mattered. It was a surprisingly good kiss, dry at first, then with the barest brush of a tongue once my lips softened against his. Instead of deepening the kiss, I broke off and skipped away, feeling far too energized for my own good and giggling my high fey giggle. I was confused, elated. Never was I like this.

  “You aren’t going to kiss Selestiani, too?” Firan asked, a smirk back on his face again. “Showing your preference for me?”