In the past, he told her, daughters were thus often killed before they could take on dragon form—–but it was soon found that once the female line was eliminated, the power passed on through the male line weakened with every generation.
“Let’s say,” the stranger explained, “purely for the sake of argument, that on Lord Fergal’s death he leaves behind three healthy children.”
Coblaith’s face hardened, but she did not show any further sign of emotion.
“Those three children will each inherit a third of their father’s magic, in equal measures, whether they be male or female. Should each of them, in turn, have three children of their own, your grandchildren will inherit but a ninth of the power that Lord Fergal now possesses. And should your grandchildren each have three children in turn, your great-great children will have but a twenty-seventh share of that power in their veins.
Coblaith, whose bookkeeping had always been meticulous, nodded curtly. “I am well versed in arithmetic, my lord.”
“On the other hand,” the stranger continued, “the power transferred through the female line—–body to body, blood to blood—–does not lessen with each subsequent generation but remains unchanged; it may even gain in strength upon occasion. Should your niece therefore have daughters one day, and they have daughters in their turn, the power in their veins will be renewed and replenished with each generation born.”
“Why should the strength of my niece’s bloodline concern me?”
“Do you not see?” For the first time there was a hint of impatience in the stranger’s voice. “It is only by interbreeding with such a bloodline that the magic of your own children’s line will not disappear in time.”
“Incestuous bloodlines do not lead to healthy children!” Coblaith scoffed.
“Exactly. Which is why my Order is so important.”
“Make your meaning clear, I pray.”
“The Order I belong to is an ancient one which has gone by many names, none of which are important now. What is important is that all who belong to this Order are people of power: men and women who have inherited magic from the ten original bloodlines and who strive to protect their power against those who would take it from them.”
She lifted a mocking brow. “And who would dare to be so bold?”
“Dragons.” He said the word with a contempt that echoed her own. “A fully transformed dragon can leech all the power it wants from anyone sharing its bloodline. And so our mission has always been to keep the daughters of dragons both alive and weak. Alive, so that they can bear children who will renew and strengthen our own bloodlines, but also weak, so they can never transform into dragons to steal our power for themselves.”
“And this is why you’ve come?” Coblaith could not hide her disappointment. “To convince us to join your Order?”
“To the contrary. We will allow you to join our Order, but only on condition that young Moss becomes one of our wards. There is a dedicated group within the Order who will ensure she never grows strong enough to become a dragon. We will make sure that she is mated to a suitable bloodline, and we will, in turn, offer your male grandchildren the chance to mate with another of our wards, thereby strengthening the blood of their offspring.”
“That is supposing I want my descendants to share in this magic.” She glanced at her husband again, unaware that she was biting her thumb, the way she always did when thinking. “I do not deny that my husband had awe-inspiring powers once, enough to stand against even the high king himself. But lately he is either asleep or lost in a dream world beyond my reach. This is not the kind of life I want for a child of mine. Nor for a grandchild, or a great-grandchild.”
“There is a way to cure his affliction, my lady. Trueborn sons often become lost in their great power, but within our Order we have found ways to stabilize their magic and to anchor them fully to this world.”
“How?”
“Unfortunately, such secrets can only be divulged to those initiated into our ranks.”
Coblaith dropped her hands into her lap. “So if we join your secret Order, you promise not only to return my husband to me, but also to ensure the power and privilege of my children and grandchildren?”
“Indeed. And in return we only ask one thing: that your husband’s young niece, whom you call Moss, be delivered into our hands.”
His words clouded her visage. “You claim you want the girl to come to no harm: that she would breed with the best of your Order, and be cared for by a group dedicated to this task?”
“Verily, that is my promise.”
“Then what about my revenge!” Coblaith slammed her hand on the table, the sound almost loud enough to wake Lord Fergall from his trance. “That little demon has taken from me what I loved above all in the world, and I want her to suffer!”
The man smiled, yet she noticed that his eyes remained as cold and grey as the snows outside. “Do not fear, my lady. For I promise you this: for a girl such as young Moss, being delivered into the care of our Order’s Black Clan would be a punishment more terrible than anything you could ever hope to devise.”
Chapter 27
Those who believe that all Places of Earthpower are of equal value are, to put it bluntly, completely deluded. For how can a dirty, primitive and frankly unpleasant place like the so-called ‘Cave of the Yakumama’ ever be compared to the green and pleasant valley of Northwickham? The latter has seen miraculous acts of Healing while the former has only produced vague and misleading memories of a past that probably never was.
From How I See It: A Modern History of our Order; unpublished manuscript by Lord Phillip Shawcross.
I’m walking down the empty streets of our town with no clear idea of how I got here.
The road before me stretches out like a long, dark tunnel, and no matter how deeply I try to breathe, it’s as if I cannot get enough air into my lungs. My hands feel hot and clammy and my ears are filled with that low humming sound I’m beginning to associate with times of extreme emotional distress.
I do not think about anything. Instead I bury my thoughts and feelings deep under a cold blankness that has crept over my mind—–the only thing, I suspect, that’s keeping the fury of the slumbering firedragon inside me at bay.
I cannot allow the power inside me to take over now.
I’m afraid of what it might do. What I might do.
And so I keep on walking, breathing deeply and evenly and concentrating on nothing but the immediate physical sensations around me. The solid feel of the tarred road beneath my feet. The brightness of the full moon above me. The cold autumn night breeze on my skin. The sound of a dog barking somewhere in the distance. The dull yellow glow of the streetlamps.
A part of me knows that I shouldn’t be out like this, alone at night on dark, deserted streets. But there’s nowhere else for me to go. Ingrid’s house, my childhood home, belongs to the Black clan. And the Black clan is nothing but—–
I gasp for breath, trying in vain to control my thoughts.
Holy fuck.
All those girls.
Young girls just like me, who were tortured and killed and kept alive just long enough to be part of their fucking breeding scheme.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Keep walking.
One foot in front of the other. Just keep walking.
He appears out of nowhere. There’s nothing to warn me; not a sound, not a shadow.
The one moment the road is empty, and the next he’s standing right in front of me, his face hidden in darkness.
I flinch away instinctively, stumbling back a step. Then I look again.
“Jonathan?”
He doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t need to. I know it’s him even though he looks altered in some terrible way, smaller and gangly and wrong, his body stripped of all athleticism and his frame weirdly shrunken, like Captain America before he got the super soldier drugs.
I look again.
No. It’s worse than that. There’s somethin
g wrong with his face too: his eyes are too close together and his jaw juts out into a severe, malformed under-bite. When he speaks, he spits his words out with difficulty. “You ruined my life, you bitch.”
I take another step back. “What happened to you?”
“You happened,” he sputters, the words half-formed and unclear. “You destroyed everything. My family. My power. My health. Everything.”
“That’s not true. I promise you. All I did—–”
“Look at me!” He shambles closer like zombie. “Open your fucking eyes and see what you did!”
It takes a few seconds for me to put the pieces together, and when I do, my heart contracts with pity.
“It wasn’t me who did this to you, Jonathan.”
His hands flail in an uncoordinated, outraged movement. “How can you look me in the face and say that?”
“Because it’s true, and deep down you know it.”
“Lies!”
“We sat in the same Biology class for two whole years, remember? You know just as much about the dangers of limited gene pools as I do.”
“So somebody finally spilled our family’s dirty little secrets.” An ugly expression flickers over his face “Does it make you feel better about what you did? Did they say you did the right thing? That you purged the world from a terrible evil?”
“I heard a really sad story, that’s all.”
“A story. Exactly! That’s all it was. You know nothing about me. Everything was fine while the magic worked. Do you hear me? It was fine! Better than fine.”
“I know it must be hard to believe—–”
“You know nothing!”
“They’re not dead, Jonathan. I swear it.”
“How can you expect me to believe you when I look like this?” He shuffles closer. “When the lake is empty, and their bodies have crumbled, and their magic is gone?”
“The magic isn’t gone,” I say firmly, even though, looking at him now, I’m not entirely sure if it’s true. “My guess would be that they’re using every last drop of their power to recreate themselves. To become what they were meant to be all along.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about! We had a plan. We’ve always had a plan! And it worked too. We had more magic than anybody else in the world!”
“Maybe, “I say sadly. “But at what cost?”
“Don’t you dare pity me. When the magic worked, everyone thought I was perfect. Irresistible! Even you felt it. Even you wanted me.” He takes another shuffling step toward me. “The magic made everything fine. Nobody saw what was underneath!”
Between the lines, his words reveal a terrible truth to me.
“But you saw what was underneath, didn’t you? The magic never blinded you for one moment.”
“It doesn’t matter what I saw! What matters is what other people saw.”
“You don’t believe that,” I say, wondering what it must be like to see yourself as ugly and deformed while the rest of the world sees you as a glittering young prince. “Not really. You haven’t believed that for a very long time.”
“You don’t know me!” Spit begins to gather at the corners of his mouth. “And stop trying to confuse the issue. You destroyed everything and I’m going to make you pay.”
Suddenly there are two guys standing next to me, one on either side. I don’t take my eyes off Jonathan, but out of the corner of my eye I can see that one of the men is carrying a baseball bat.
“Really? That’s the plan? To bludgeon me to death with a baseball bat?”
“They have strict instructions not to kill you. I need you alive for what I’ve got planned.”
I sigh. “Look. I understand that you’re worried about your mom and your sister. And I know you’re upset about the loss of your magic, and that you don’t trust me enough to believe it’s temporary. But you’re not stupid, Jonathan. You know I can stop all this by saying a few words. So why risk the sanity of these poor idiots? Or your own? You can’t know for sure that you’ll be protected against my firemagic while your own magic is so deeply dormant. Have you even thought about that?”
“I’m not afraid of you.” He smirks, his head lolling slightly on his neck as he pulls a pair of sound-canceling headphones over his ears. “And both these guys are stone deaf and fully shielded against your magic by a Skykeeper spell. Your voice won’t be able to touch them, and your shine won’t affect them in any way.”
Oh man.
The poor guy has obviously lost the plot completely if he thinks my firemagic can be neutralized by something as simple as blocking your ears.
I all but roll my eyes, irritated that he’s actually making me do this. Then I blink once, drawing on my power instantly.
“Go away.”
My voice sounds so flat and weak that I would’ve known something is wrong even if it hadn’t been for Jonathan’s smug, ugly expression.
“Go away!”
“Oops,” Jonathan smiles gleefully as he pulls off his headphones. “Guess I’m not the only one whose magic has left me.”
I give my head a quick shake, trying to understand what’s going on. There’s no reason for my magic to be gone; I’m always at my most powerful after a long period of rest. I try again, this time closing my eyes properly while I concentrate on drawing the power right from my center, digging as deep as I can into that great well of magic inside me.
“Go. Away.”
When I open my eyes, the world looks the same as always. But that’s not particularly unusual; the world often looks pretty normal to me even when I’m shining like a light, shimmering with my power.
No. What is unusual is the fear that suddenly threatens to close my throat.
I have never, not once, known a moment of fear when my power filled me, and right now I’m so scared I can hardly breathe. Because I’m in deep trouble here. It’s clear to me that Jonathan won’t listen to reason; he’s decided that I’ve ruined his life and killed his family, and nothing I can say will change his mind.
I have to get out of here fast.
For the first time tonight, I take my eyes off Jonathan to have a proper look at the two guys on either side of me, trying to sum up the situation.
It doesn’t look great.
Neither of the men is particularly big, but they look hard and fit and quick. Trained. And the guy with the baseball bat looks as if he means business: he’s carrying the bat two-handed, like a riot stick, which means he’ll probably use it as a bludgeoning object rather than take a slow and obvious swing at me.
If my magic doesn’t start working soon, I’m going to have a real problem.
“Go away!” I say again, louder and more desperately than before, my body trembling with the adrenaline shooting through me. “Leave!”
“Harder than you remember, isn’t it?” Jonathan gives a short, bitter laugh. “We all like to think of our power as a curse, but funny enough, the moment it’s gone it’s impossible to imagine how normal people live without it.”
His words were meant to hurt me, but they have exactly the opposite effect. Because he’s wrong. Dead wrong. I was an ordinary girl for most of my life, and I know exactly how to handle myself without magic.
I take a quick breath to steady my nerves, tensing my core muscles to center myself in my normal human body.
The next moment I explode.
There’s no sense in waiting for them to grab me; right now the element of surprise is the only weapon I have. And so I go for the guy on my right, the one without the baseball bat, launching myself off my back foot and diving at him by using all my weight, just like Gunn taught me, and hit him in the throat as if I’m trying to punch right through him.
He makes a rasping sound and grabs at his neck, choking for breath, and before the guy with the bat can recover from his surprise, I make a run for it, scrambling away as fast as I can.
Not fast enough.
The bat catches the back of my leg, missing my knee by inches. Thankfully it’s not a per
fect hit, the blow only half-connecting after what must’ve been a very hasty swing, but it’s enough to make me stagger wildly off-balance, my leg numb.
I spin around just in time to see him taking another swing at my legs, and I jump back, keeping my balance by some miracle.
As the bat swings wildly, connecting with nothing but air, I realize that it’s now or never.
I have a second while he’s pulling the bat backward again and that’s it.
Not enough time to run with my numb leg.
Not enough time to do anything except to launch myself right at him.
Just before the bat comes my way again, I go straight for his face.
The guy didn’t expect the move, and because he’s got both his hands on the bat, which is now moving with the momentum of the swing, his face is unprotected. I jab my right thumb straight into his left eye but he flinches away in time, and when he instinctively raises his hands to protect his eyes, I grab the bat and yank it loose from his fingers with a hard, sudden twist.
I don’t use the bat.
If there’s one thing Gunn has taught me, it’s that a weapon is never really a weapon. You are the weapon—–a bat or a knife or a gun is merely a tool in your hands.
If I use the bat now, my body would be unprotected on the backswing; I’ve seen how fast this guy is, and he’s close enough that a fist can do real damage. So instead of swinging at him, I drop the bat right next to me and when he reaches for it, distracted by the temptation of gaining a weapon, I kick him hard in the groin.
It’s a powerful, perfectly aimed kick.
His face crumbles in agony and he bends over, retching.
Good. It’s bought me some time, at least.
As soon as he goes down, I spin around and run.
I don’t get very far.
The other guy has recovered from the blow to his throat and he’s blocking my way, panting for breath and snarling at me.
Oh God. I don’t want to fight this guy—–he’s a lot bigger and stronger than me and from his perfectly balanced, relaxed stance it’s clear he knows what he’s doing. I caught him by surprise once; I won’t get the chance again. His friend won’t take too long to recover either, and that baseball bat is still lying around somewhere.
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