Ember's Kiss

by Deborah Cooke

  It was about dragon shape shifters.

  The Pyr.

  They were an ancient race sworn to defend the earth’s treasures, which included the human race. The shifter shown in the YouTube video, while a different color, had definite similarities to the dragon that had saved her.

  Same species.

  Which led to the obvious question of what the black and orange dragon looked like in his human form.

  Liz bit her lip, because she was pretty sure she knew.

  Even the scientific part of her mind had to admit that there were lots of things in the world they didn’t know yet, lots of species yet to be documented. Plus she couldn’t think of how else Brandon could have gotten onto the island or off of it.

  She’d have to ask him herself. That was how she’d know for sure. His deep blue aura told her that he was trustworthy and not someone who could deceive. He might not offer the truth of his nature to everyone, but Liz believed that if she asked him, Brandon would tell her the truth.

  She checked on Kane‘ohe and discovered that there had been no deaths there, either. There was already an online story about a woman whose house had been damaged by the avalanche. Liz recognized her as the woman the dragon had swept out of harm’s way.

  So she and her child had been the only ones in peril in Kane‘ohe. Because of the dragon, three people had survived. That certainly fit with the idea of the Pyr protecting humans.

  It also meshed with her mother’s ideas of harming none.

  The reporter in Kane‘ohe didn’t give much credit to the woman’s story of the dragon, but provided a string of links to news articles about the Pyr. It was titled Do You Believe in Dragons? Liz scrolled through the list. She downloaded and watched a television special, stopping it when the reporter, Melissa Smith, mentioned a firestorm.

  Brandon had used that same word.

  Liz replayed the story, listening carefully at the explanation of the firestorm. It was vague and obviously details were being withheld, but the firestorm was the mark of a Pyr meeting his destined mate.

  She drummed her fingers on the desk, hearing Brandon’s romantic assertion again.

  She had to find him, wherever he was, and learn the truth. Liz terminated the connection and emptied the cache so no one would know what she’d been researching, then turned off the laptop. She went to find Maureen so she could borrow her car and catch a ferry ride to Kane‘ohe.

  The Slayer Jorge prided himself on being where the action was.

  After numerous insults from the Pyr—including a long captivity, essentially buried alive on Bardsey Island in Wales—Jorge was ready to even the score. He wouldn’t be happy with a single Pyr living out his life in freedom and peace.

  They would all die, preferably all at Jorge’s claw. He would hunt them individually, if necessary, and ensure that their deaths were slow and painful.

  He’d been disgusted to discover how few Slayers were left, never mind that the Pyr had been seen and documented by humans. The Pyr were so stupid that they deserved to lose the battle for domination of the world. The darkfire was loosed by some idiot’s miscalculation, which just added to the unpredictability of it all.

  Jorge wasn’t stupid. He knew he needed at least one ally. Magnus was gone, but so was the Dragon’s Blood Elixir and the Elixir’s source. That had been a terrific tool for enslaving young Slayers, but it was destroyed. Jorge needed more than an ally; he needed a tool.

  And he wouldn’t mind an additional supply of the Elixir.

  He chose Chen for all three. He’d underestimated the ancient Slayer more than once, but it wouldn’t happen again. Chen was powerful. Chen had secrets. Chen had old magic on his side, and he’d had that brand to enslave dragons, no matter what color their blood. Plus Chen had drunk of the Elixir, which meant that there was residue of it in his body.

  Chen was the dragon to see.

  Jorge would make an alliance, steal Chen’s sorcery, then eliminate his only real competition.

  He would win. Easily. Chen was wily, but Jorge was vengeful.

  Jorge had followed the sound of Chen’s chants, perceived the fault lines in the earth’s crust that the old Slayer had made, and had followed the trail to O‘ahu. He hadn’t rushed. He hadn’t attracted attention. He had changed names and passports, disguised his dragon scent—a feat he could do, thanks to the Elixir still coursing in his own veins—and made his way steadily closer.

  That Chen also could also disguise his scent made the hunt more interesting.

  Jorge suspected that it was the Elixir alone that let him sense Chen’s location. Otherwise, Erik Sorensson would have been hunting Chen, and he apparently wasn’t. The brilliant quicksilver thread that drew Jorge ever closer to Chen had to be visible to him because of their shared connection to the Elixir.

  He refused to worry about the glisten of blue-green that occasionally touched that thread. This wasn’t about darkfire.

  Jorge had reached O‘ahu two days before the eclipse. Like Chen, he’d sensed the firestorm in the wind. On the morning after the eclipse, he’d enjoyed the destruction caused by the earthquake.

  Then he’d followed Chen’s trail to Hale‘iwa. He’d driven past one old Chinese man walking alone on the highway, leaning heavily on his cane, and had been tempted to run over the elderly idiot just for being both persistent and stupid.

  But he had no time for frivolous games.

  And savagery could draw attention.

  In Hale‘iwa, Jorge stood outside Chen’s lair and felt the frosty tingle of Chen’s protective dragonsmoke barrier. He’d smiled, knowing that he was the only dragon who could cross this line. He and Chen were the sole survivors of those who had drunk the Elixir.

  Which meant they were the only two who could take the salamander form and, more important, the only two dragons who could spontaneously manifest elsewhere. He wondered whether Chen remembered him. He doubted that Chen forgot much. Jorge manifested inside the lair and deliberately chose to unmask his scent.

  That would give the Slayer a fright.

  The lair was austerely decorated. Jorge was reminded of a Japanese shrine. The walls were empty. The windows were shuttered. There was no furniture, just a cushion on the floor against one wall. He could hear the surf on the beach and the wind crossing the roof overhead. He closed his eyes and felt the rhythm of the earth far beneath the lair, and understood why Chen had chosen such minimalist decor.

  He could focus on the elements, and, almost certainly, on controlling them.

  Jorge headed for the large central room and paused in shock at the threshold. The floor was covered by a layer of sand. The sand had been worked into a great spiral, one that filled the room, with whorls that turned in on themselves. The hills had to be six inches high, the troughs not more than a scattering of sand across the wood floor.

  What was it for? Jorge’s scalp prickled and he sensed that he was in the presence of potent magic.

  This was what he had come for.

  He saw something gleaming at the center of the whorl.

  Jorge walked across the sand sculpture, not caring that he disturbed it. In fact, he liked the disregard of his footprints in the sand.

  In the middle were three black dragon scales. Their arrangement—like three points of a compass—convinced Jorge that Chen had need of one more to complete whatever spell he was making.

  Whose scales were these? Chen was red in dragon form. The only other black dragon Jorge knew was Erik, but Erik was more of a pewter color.

  He wondered whether this dragon was the one who was having a firestorm. This black dragon must be close, since Chen was hunting his scales and apparently anticipated getting another one soon. The victim must be a weakened Pyr, one that Chen meant to enslave. Slayers had no firestorms, after all.

  Jorge crouched in the middle of the spiral, yearning to seize the power that he sensed in it. He had nothing to offer Chen, nothing with which to negotiate an alliance.

  He decided to change that.
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  Jorge bent and took one scale. It looked like obsidian in the light, a thin line of brilliant orange around its rim. Actually, it looked like a coal, one that was still glowing with the embers of a faded fire.

  He put it in his pocket.

  Jorge smiled in anticipation of his next meeting with Chen, then manifested outside the lair. He walked through the town, enjoying that people thought he was just another tourist, and took care to disguise his scent again. There was just a tendril of it, enough to taunt Chen, enough to show that he was in Hale‘iwa.

  Jorge would talk to Chen on his own terms, and not one minute sooner.

  In the meantime, he wondered what would happen if he broke the scale. A person didn’t have to fully understand magic to mess it up. He’d wait a while, long enough for Chen to realize he’d been robbed, then find out.

  Jorge was pretty sure it would hurt somebody, and that made him smile.

  Sara Keegan, partner of Quinn the Smith and herself Seer of the Pyr, was ready to drop even though it was just after lunch on a routine Saturday. She sat down at the kitchen table and sipped a cup of tea. She could hear Quinn talking to their older son, Garrett, as they headed back to Quinn’s workshop together. Ewan, the second of their sons, was sleeping blissfully in his crib.

  Sara sipped her tea. Too bad Ewan hadn’t been inclined to sleep the night before. Sara had gotten up to nurse him at eleven, an hour early, fed up with his fussing and restlessness, but he hadn’t gone back to sleep after his feeding.

  She couldn’t figure out what had troubled Ewan the night before, but he had refused to sleep a wink. That would have been one thing, but he had also screamed himself into a fury and wouldn’t be soothed. That had put her nerves on edge. Quinn had been restless, too. At the time, she’d thought the baby was keeping both of them awake, but now she wondered whether Ewan’s mood had something to do with the Pyr.

  There had been a lunar eclipse the night before. She guessed from Quinn’s gruff manner this morning that a firestorm had been sparked somewhere. He would have felt it and might be wondering whether they would be expected to join the Pyr there.

  But Ewan shouldn’t be able to sense any of that dragon stuff yet. The Pyr came into their powers at puberty, and that was mercifully far in the future. Sara sipped her hot tea and yearned for a nap.

  An hour wouldn’t hurt anything and she’d feel much better. The problem was that Sara wasn’t positive she’d wake up in an hour. She might sleep four, and that would put everything off.

  She was just stifling a yawn when there came a crack like lightning.

  A brilliant light flashed outside and Sara was wide-awake. She raced to the window in time to see sparks radiating from the lightning rod on the roof of the studio. She ran to the studio, fearing that Quinn was hurt, only to find him striding for the house as soon as she got outside. He had Garrett in his arms and looked intent.

  The sky was perfectly clear and blue. The snow all around their country home was pristine and the woods were quiet. A last strand of dark smoke wound upward from the lightning rod, and Sara could smell ash.

  Something was terribly wrong.

  “What’s burning?” she asked.

  “I thought you knew,” Quinn said. “Where’s Ewan?”

  “He’s asleep.” Even as she spoke, Sara hurried back into the house.

  To her relief, their baby was sleeping quietly, his fist in his mouth. Sara picked him up all the same, needing to feel his warmth against her. She turned to face Quinn, who had paused in the bedroom doorway behind her, and saw the flames in the mirror over the dresser.

  There were letters there, like handwriting wrought of flames, burning on the glass. It made absolutely no sense, but Sara knew better than to ignore it.

  She also knew better than to expect it to last. Portents tended to fade.

  She handed Ewan to Quinn, grabbed a pen and paper, and wrote down the verse written in burning letters on the mirror.

  “What are you doing?” Quinn asked, standing behind her with the boys.

  “Can’t you see the words?” Sara asked, not pausing in her transcription.

  “What words?”

  “There’s a verse, written in fire, on the mirror.”

  “One ring to rule them all,” Quinn suggested, humor in his tone.

  “Not quite,” Sara said, scribbling to get it all down as she saw the letters start to fade. The mirror glimmered, flashing once before all the text disappeared.

  It looked perfectly normal again.

  “Gone,” Sara said, putting down her pen.

  “Not gone,” Quinn corrected, nodding at the pad of paper as he juggled the weight of their sons. “Read it to me.”

  “Dragon lost and dragon found;

  Dragon denied and dragon bound.

  Down to embers, his fire chills,

  In thrall to one whose intent is ill.

  Firedaughter’s spark can ignite the flame,

  Give him strength to fight again.

  Or will both be lost on ocean’s tide

  Surrendered as a failed test’s price?”

  Sara glanced up at Quinn, only to find his expression thoughtful. “What’s a Firedaughter?”

  “My father spoke of them. They’re witches who can assume the form of fire.”

  “They can become fire? Literally?”

  Quinn nodded. “I think there’s more than that, as well.” He frowned. “My father always spoke of them with awe, maybe a bit of fear. He preferred to not talk about them.”

  Sara got her keys and her purse, newly invigorated. “I’m going down to the bookstore. I’ll find out what I can.”

  “But you’re closed today.”

  Sara paused on the threshold and glanced back at him with a smile. “I’ve known you long enough, Quinn Tyrrell, to recognize the influence of a firestorm. This may be the only chance I have to do any research.”

  Quinn’s lips tightened and he averted his gaze.

  “Won’t you go?” Sara asked, then continued when he didn’t immediately reply. “You used to go to firestorms, to heal the armor of the Pyr in question. Who is it this time?”

  “No one I know,” Quinn said flatly. He shook his head. “It doesn’t feel right to me.”

  “What does it feel like?”

  He winced. “Darkfire.”

  Sara swallowed. He referred to the force that had been set loose before Rafferty’s firestorm. Darkfire seemed to turn everything upside down. She knew that Quinn distrusted its power and that’s why they hadn’t gone to the last firestorm.

  “You can’t stay away forever,” she said, tugging on her coat. “It’s your responsibility.”

  Quinn looked grim. “I have a responsibility to you, as well.”

  Sara kissed him, pausing when her lips were still close to his cheek. “I have a feeling this Pyr needs us, Quinn. Not just you, but me, too. I think that’s why I got the prophecy.”

  Quinn frowned and exhaled, looking down at the boys. Ewan was still sleeping, but Garrett was clearly listening. There were times when Sara thought he understood far more than he should for a boy who was not quite three years old.

  “I’ll take Ewan with me to the shop. I’m sure he’ll keep sleeping after last night. Why don’t you go into your studio?” Sara smiled. “The forge always helps you think.”

  Quinn nodded and gave Garrett a bounce. “I have a piece of reclaimed wrought iron that’s been tempting me. Garrett can help me.”

  Garrett grinned, then lifted his hands the way dragons lifted their claws in challenge before they fought. He bared his teeth and pretended to breathe fire.

  Was he just playing dragon?

  Or did he sense a coming battle?

  Sara gathered her things and tucked Ewan into a carrier. She was heading out to the car when Quinn called to her. “Come into the studio instead,” he said, his expression grim. “Erik’s coming.”

  So the Pyr did need them. Sara wondered what Erik knew.

  Quinn Tyrre
ll wasn’t surprised to see a pewter and ebony dragon land in the snowy field beyond his studio. He wasn’t surprised when that dragon shimmered blue and a tall man with dark hair took the dragon’s place. He certainly wasn’t surprised when Erik Sorensson strode determinedly toward him and his workshop.

  That Erik came in person to make his request for Quinn’s help indicated how important the leader of the Pyr perceived Quinn’s participation to be. Or maybe it was because Quinn had refused to go to the last firestorm.

  Sara rocked Ewan and watched by the window, not saying anything.

  The forge was roaring, the flames hungry and powerful. The firestorm, however distant, could also give something to his work. Quinn found that the iron worked more readily on the days surrounding the spark of a firestorm—it seemed that there was a perfect link between his vision for the piece and the reality of the shape it assumed.

  Garrett played in the corner of the workshop. Quinn knew that his eldest son would make a good Smith, perhaps even a better one than Quinn was himself. Garrett was drawn to the forge and to the flame, and he was invariably close when Quinn was working. Going to school was difficult for him, as Garrett seemed to believe that he was missing the more important lessons while he was at nursery school.

  In a way, he was right.

  Erik rapped once on the door before he entered the studio, and on the threshold he shook the snowflakes out of his hair. He looked Quinn in the eye. “You know why I’ve come.” He nodded to Sara, and Quinn guessed that Erik spoke aloud—instead of using old-speak—in deference to her.

  Quinn nodded agreement and shoved a rod of wrought iron into the forge. Garrett gave a cry of delight and came running to his “uncle,” who crouched down to speak to him.

  Quinn watched the flames lick the wrought iron and saw it heat to orange and then to yellow. He liked wrought iron, and he salvaged it wherever he could. It worked well and it carried power. Quinn knew the history of this piece as soon as the flame touched it, then understood what it would be.

  Perhaps what it had always wanted to be.