The Dragon Heir

by Cinda Williams Chima

  Copyright © 2008 by Cinda Williams Chima

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Hyperion Books for Children, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011-5690.

  First Edition

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Printed in the United States of America

  This book is set in 12-point Bembo.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file.

  ISBN 978-1-4231-1070-5

  Reinforced binding

  Visit www.hyperionteens.com

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  1. Raven's Ghyll

  2. Sanctuary

  3. Banished From The Sceptred Isle

  4. The Art Of The Deal

  5. To Church

  6. Passages

  7. A Change Of Plans

  8. Transitions

  9. Terror In The Crypt

  10. Coal Grove, Act I

  11. Painted Poison

  12. A Babe In The Woods

  13. Up Mountain

  14. Gone South

  15. Along Came A Spider

  16. Arrivals And Departures

  17. Strong-arm Tactics

  18. Mind-burner

  19. Boundaries

  20. The Trader

  21. Life As Art

  22. Strange Bedfellows

  23. An Ultimatum

  24. Fool

  25. Sightings

  26. No-man's-land

  27. A Deal With The Devil

  28. To The Salt Mines

  29. Exodus

  30. Agreeing To Disagree

  31. Armageddon On The Lake

  32. Don't Look Back

  33. Weirstorm

  34. Through Enemy Lines

  35. A House Divided

  36. The Dragonheart

  37. The Dragon Heir

  For Eric and Keith—who believe in dragons

  Acknowledgments

  A book is like a ship. It requires a host of people to launch one. Some help with the structure and design, others provide the financing, some cheer from the shoreline, while others put their shoulders to the keel and push it free from its moorings.

  I’m grateful to all the talented people at Hyperion, especially my editor, Arianne Lewin, who made me rewrite the whole thing and make it a better book. Thanks to Elizabeth Clark, who, along with artist Larry Rostant, is responsible for those gorgeous covers. Thanks to Angus Killick and his team, who put my books into the hands of teachers and librarians. (And thanks also to those teachers and librarians who put my books into the hands of readers.)

  Bless you, Christopher Schelling. In addition to being a stellar agent, he regularly convinces me, rightly or wrongly, that I’m not crazy.

  Thanks to the genius Pam Daum, for the gorgeous photographs. Writer, artist, forever friends. I miss you.

  Thanks to my generous colleagues in Hudson Writers and Twinsburg Writers for providing the gift of loving, specific critique. Thanks especially to Marsha McGregor, who endured some rather incoherent phone calls and talked me down.

  I owe a heartfelt thanks to Rod, who provided moral, emotional and technical support (Website, photography, layout and design, printer diagnosis and treatment) while enduring the occasional rant and doing more than his share of housework and relationship maintenance. (Those birthday cards that went out—wasn’t me.)

  Finally, thanks to my early readers, Eric and Keith, who started it all.

  Prologue

  Seven Years Prior

  Fog clung to Booker Mountain like an old ragged coat. The pickup’s chancy headlights poked frail tunnels through the mist. Although the road was narrow and treacherous, Madison didn’t worry. Her grandmother Min could find her way blindfolded and sound asleep.

  Min rammed the truck into low gear as the grade steepened. Her face was set in hard, angry lines, but Madison knew Min wasn’t mad at her. She felt rescued, cocooned in the pickup with John Robert on her lap and Grace jammed between her and the door. Grace was sleeping, her head braced against the window, her hair hanging in knots around her face. Min hadn’t taken the time to comb it.

  “Won’t Mama worry when she comes home and finds us gone?” Madison asked, speaking softly so as not to startle John Robert, who was sucking his thumb with that drunk-baby look on his face.

  “Carlene could do with a little worrying, if you ask me,” Min said. “The idea, leaving a ten-year-old in charge of a baby and a toddler for two days.”

  “Somebody probably called off,” Madison suggested. “Or maybe Harold Duane asked her to work late.”

  “The tavern’s only open till two. She had no business staying out all night.”

  “I’m real grown up for my age, Mama says.”

  Min snorted and rolled her eyes. “I know you are, honey. You’re more grown up than your mama. You were born wise.”

  They swept past the brick-and-stone wall and lighted gateposts that marked the Roper place. Min made a sign with her hand as they passed the broad driveway.

  “What’s that for?” Madison asked, knowing it was a hex.

  Min didn’t answer. Min always said good Christians didn’t hex people.

  “Why do you want to hex the Ropers?” Madison persisted. Brice Roper lived there. He was in her class at school. He had this glow around him like light through rain-smeared glass— the kind of glow rich people had, maybe. Brice had four Arabian horses, and he’d let you ride them if he liked you.

  Madison had never been riding at the Ropers.

  “The Ropers want our mountain,” Min said.

  Madison blinked. Booker Mountain? What would they want with that? “But their place is much nicer,” she blurted out.

  If you liked fancy stone houses with pillars and grassy lawns and miles of white fence. And Arabian horses.

  “Coal,” Min said bluntly. “Bryson Roper can’t get the rest of his coal out of the ground without going through Booker Mountain. And that belongs to me.”

  They rounded the last curve, past the mailbox that said M. BOOKER, READER AND ADVISER. The pickup rattled to a stop at the foot of the porch steps.

  Madison carried John Robert and Min carried Grace. Madison walked flat-footed across the weathered planks of the porch, so she wouldn’t get splinters in her bare feet. By the time they’d climbed the steps and crossed the porch and carried the kids to the back bedrooms, Min was breathing hard, her face a funny gray color.

  Madison felt the cold kiss of fear on the back of her neck. “Gramma? You all right?”

  Min only waved her hand, too breathless to speak. She clawed open the neck of her blouse, revealing the opal necklace she always wore. The one she sometimes let Madison try on.

  Once they had the young ones settled in bed, Madison built a fire in the stove and made coffee for both of them. Min didn’t even complain about how she made it, which was worrisome.

  “It’s going to be a cold winter,” Min predicted, settling into the only chair with arms, and wrapping a shawl around her shoulders. Some of her color had come back. “More snow than we’ve had in a long time. A dying time.”

  When Min predicted anything, it was best to listen. Still, Madison was old enough to wonder how a person who could foretell the future could run into so much bad luck.

  Madison liked sitting at the table in the front room, drinking sweet coffee with Min. The stripey cat lay purring in front of the fire. Only one thing would make it better, if Min would only say yes.

  “Read the cards for me
, Gramma!” Madison begged. Reading the cards was a serious business, her grandmother always said, and not done for the entertainment of young girls.

  But Min studied Madison a moment, her pale blue eyes glittering like moonstones, her capable hands wrapped around her mug of coffee, then nodded. “All right. It’s time. Fetch the cards from on top of the mantel.”

  “You mean it?” Madison scrambled down from her chair before Min could change her mind.

  Min kept two decks of cards in a battered wooden box with a cross carved into the top. She called them “gypsy cards,” but they looked like regular playing cards to Madison, with a few extras. The box also held a leather pouch full of pebbles and little bones, but Madison had never seen Min use those.

  Min handed her the thicker deck. Madison shuffled the cards awkwardly, cut them three times, and shuffled again.

  “Lay them out in three rows of three,” Min said, and Madison did.

  Her grandmother flipped them over, the cards slapping softly on the weathered wood of the table.

  “Madison Moss.” Now her voice was a stranger’s, the voice of the reader. “Would you hear the truth?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Madison answered, swallowing hard, hoping there wouldn’t be anything scary.

  Min studied the cards, pushed her glasses down on her nose, and studied them some more. Madison leaned forward, squinting down at them. The center card in each row was a dragon with snaky eyes and a long, twisting tail, brilliant with color, glittering with gilt.

  Abruptly, Min scooped them up and handed them back to Madison. “Shuffle again.”

  Mystified, Madison shuffled and spread them. Dragons again. Min frowned at them. Moved them about with the tips of her fingers. Pulling the leather pouch from the box, she emptied it into her palm. Tossed the pebbles and bones down onto the table. Raked them up and threw them down, muttering to herself.

  “What’s the matter?” Madison asked, disappointed. “Aren’t they working?”

  “Oh, child,” Min said, shaking her head. The color had left her face again. She extended her trembly hand toward Madison, then drew it back as if afraid to touch her. “Never mind. Let’s try something else.” Min handed her the smaller, thirty-two-card deck, sevens and up.

  Madison shuffled the cards again and set them out in the familiar gypsy spread, three rows of seven cards in pairs. Past, present, and future.

  No dragons.

  Personally, Madison wasn’t all that interested in the past or the present. But she had hopes for the future. She leaned forward eagerly as Min flipped the cards over one by one. Min whispered her reading, as if unsure of herself.

  “A squabble over money,” she said, turning over the seven of diamonds. In the next pair, the nine of spades lay over the queen of clubs. “The death of a wise woman.” A three of diamonds placed over the other two. “A legal letter and a bequest.”

  Madison was bored by the notion of squabbles about money and legal letters. “Will I ever have a boyfriend?” she demanded. She was already old enough to know she didn’t care much for the boys of Coal Grove.

  Min turned the face cards up. Two kings. King of clubs and king of spades. Jack of diamonds. She flipped up the modifiers, stared at them a moment. Seemed like she didn’t like what she was seeing. Min gripped both of Madison’s hands, leaning in close, her blue eyes like windows to a younger Min enclosed in wrinkly skin.

  “Maddie, honey, listen. Beware the magical guilds,” she whispered. “Especially wizards.”

  “Gramma, I don’t know any magical gills,” Madison said, floundering for understanding.

  “Brice Roper,” Min said. “He’s a bad one. Ain’t nothing good about him.”

  Madison blinked at her. “Old Brice or young Brice?” she asked.

  “Young Brice,” Min said, which surprised her, because old Brice was scary and mean, and everybody said young Brice had a way about him. People buzzed around young Brice like yellow jackets around lemonade.

  “Do not mingle with the gifted, Madison. Do not mess with magic. It’s meant nothing but trouble for our family. Swear you won’t truck with them.”

  Min sounded almost like the preacher in the Quonset hut church Madison went to once, who talked about those who trafficked with the devil. “But, Gramma. Aren’t the cards magic?” Madison ventured.

  “Swear it!” Min squeezed her hands so hard that tears sprang to Madison’s eyes.

  “All right, I swear!” she said, blinking fast to keep the tears from escaping her eyes and running down her face. She didn’t think the Ropers wanted to truck with her, anyway.

  Min released Madison’s hands. “My wisdom is wasted on you, child.” She looked more sad than mad.

  Her gramma looked back at the cards. “I see four pretty witch boys coming. Two will claim your heart in different ways. Two are deceivers who’ll come to your door, one dark, one fair. All of them have magic ...”

  By then, Madison had kind of lost track of who was who. Still, this was a wonderful fortune, with four pretty boys to dream on.

  Min caressed the tiny portraits of the kings with the tips of her fingers. “But, remember this, Madison Moss:they have no power that you don’t give away.”

  Chapter One

  Raven’s Ghyll

  The wind shrieked down out of Scotland, over Solway Firth, and bullied its way between the peaks and fells of the Cumbrian lakes, driving snow before it. Jason Haley hunched his shoulders against the sleet that needled his face and hands.

  Raven’s Ghyll spread before him, alternately hidden, then revealed by swirls of cloud and ice. A treacherous sheep path, pricked by cairns of stone, descended toward the valley floor.

  His wizard stone thrummed within him, responding to the proximity of the Weirstone. The massive crystalline stone gleamed like a sapphire against the flank of the mountain known as Ravenshead. Blinking snow from his eyelashes, Jason peered up at it. Also known as the Dragon’s Tooth, the Weirstone was the source of power for all of the magical Weirguilds.

  It had been six hours by car from London to Keswick, over increasingly hazardous roads, fighting the weather and the weird British custom of driving on the left side of the road. By the time he reached Keswick, Jason’s eyes were twitchy from peering through the swirling flakes and his arms and shoulders ached from gripping the steering wheel.

  That was the easy part.

  He’d made the long climb to the top of the ghyll, his feet sliding on the weathered stones despite his spiked climbing boots. He’d had to slide between the sentries posted by the Roses on the surrounding hills. The Wizard Houses of the Red and the White Rose had laid siege to Raven’s Ghyll after the lord of the ghyll, Claude D’Orsay, betrayed them on the island of Second Sister.

  At least Jason was in good shape, better than he’d ever been. Most wizards were soft, since they used magic to do the heavy lifting. Jason, on the other hand, had been training under the tender hand of Leander Hastings, who favored five-mile runs before breakfast. Jason was only seventeen and Hastings had been around for more than a century, but it still wasn’t easy to keep up with the lean wizard.

  Turning his back to the wind, creating a small shelter with his body, Jason lit a cigarette. Hastings was always on him about the smoking. But the risk seemed small compared to the danger he was in, here on the edge of the abyss.

  He’d be lucky to make it to eighteen. For one thing, there was a good chance Hastings would kill him when he found out what he’d been up to.

  Somewhere down below was D’Orsay, renegade wizard and holder of the fraudulent Covenant signed at Second Sister—the document that threatened to enslave them all.

  D’Orsay was everything Jason was not: he was a cake-eater, born to privilege, former Master of the Game, heir of an aristocratic Wizard House. Jason was an underpowered street punk, a mixed-blood orphan holding a grudge.

  Hopefully D’Orsay had no idea that bad news was coming down the hill toward him. Hopefully no one would expect an intruder on a night lik
e this. Hopefully he could locate the Covenant and be away with it before anyone knew he was there.

  If he couldn’t find the Covenant, he’d look for D’Orsay’s legendary hoard of weapons—the last legacy of Old Magic. That rumor was the only thing keeping the Roses at bay.

  At the very least, he’d scope out D’Orsay’s fortifications and find out how many wizards protected the ghyll. If he could succeed at any one of those things, Hastings might give him a longer leash.

  At least he was doing something. Maybe Hastings was content to hang out in London, watching and waiting for somebody to jump. But there was nothing more boring than watching the Roses watch D’Orsay.

  When Jason finished his cigarette, he shrugged into his backpack and began the painfully slow descent to the floor of the ghyll. To call it a trail was a stretch—he’d chosen it for its obscurity. D’Orsay couldn’t possibly monitor every overgrown sheep track and hiking path that led into the ghyll.

  Jason had hoped the weather would let up once he got below the shoulder of the peak, but the biting wind still slammed snow into his face and tugged at his extremities, threatening to rip him off the mountain.

  Ahead, a yellowish mist shrouded the trail, close to the ground, strange for the weather and time of day. An odd color for any season. Jason eyed it warily, extended his gloved hand, and spoke a charm. Nothing. He didn’t know if the problem was in the charm or in himself. Wasn’t that Shakespeare?

  He tried a couple more charms without success until the mist grudgingly yielded to his magic, dissolving to shreds that the wind carried away.

  By now it was dark in the ghyll below, the peaks around him gilded with the last of the light. Lamps kindled in Raven’s Ghyll Castle, at the far end of the valley. The dark shape of it bulked through the swirls of flakes and blowing snow.

  He was able to move with greater speed as he neared the bottom, since the sharp verticals gave way to more gradual switchbacks. Until he rounded a corner and blundered into a mess—like a giant cobweb made of thick, translucent cords—nearly invisible in the failing light.

  It was a Weirnet, a magical web made to capture the gifted. He tried to back out of it, but it was incredibly sticky, and every move embedded him further.