The Scarlet Dragon (The Witching World Book 5)

by Lucia Ashta

  Despite my doubts, I didn’t ask. It wasn’t the time; I didn’t want to call any more attention to myself. My mental list of questions-for-later was getting long, perhaps too long to remember each one.

  It was Marcelo that asked a question, and it was one that made me feel guilty, even though I’d done nothing wrong. “Is Sylvia better?”

  “No,” Mordecai said, and that one word carried both sorrow and hope. “You’re the first to awaken.”

  Marcelo pushed off from the headboard and swung his feet out of the bed. “What do you think you’re doing, my son?” Mordecai blocked Marcelo’s path and braced both hands against his shoulders.

  “I can help her. I know where she is.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. She must be lost just as I was. In the darkness. I think I can help her find her way back.”

  “Good. Then I’m most grateful for whatever you’ll be able to do for her.”

  Marcelo moved weight into his feet and leaned forward. Mordecai pushed him back. “But you won’t go now.”

  “I have to. Sylvia is in a terrible place.”

  “I don’t want her to remain there a minute longer, however you can’t go to her now. You must recover your strength before attempting to aid her.”

  “But—”

  “You know I’m right. You can’t help others until you help yourself. Focus on recovering your strength so that you can help Sylvia as soon as possible.”

  Marcelo hesitated but then pushed back into the headboard. It was difficult to argue with Mordecai on the best of days—only Albacus had done it skillfully—and most especially when he was right.

  Mordecai released his grip on Marcelo. “You almost died. You cannot take things too quickly.” He reached for Marcelo’s left arm and pushed up the sleeve of his shirt. The flesh was discolored and swollen. Sir Lancelot and I tried to hide our alarmed looks. Brave and Grand-mère didn’t have to; they knew better than to react in the first place.

  Mordecai pressed two fingers on Marcelo’s forearm lightly. “Does this hurt?”

  “No.” If Marcelo was worried about the putrid color of his flesh, he didn’t show it. I could barely think for the beating of my heart. The gray flesh reminded me of the mark of the Black Death. I’d never seen bodies infected by the plague—Father had ensured that by sealing off the castle, no one in and no one out, until it passed through Norland—but neither Father nor Mother could keep me from the stories and the haunted looks of the staff, who had all lost someone they knew to the disease no one could explain or understand. The Black Death was the great equalizer. It killed kings, queens, and peasants alike.

  I wanted to yell my question. Is Marcelo infected with the Black Death? I knew the provenance of the black marks on his arm. Yet that was no reassurance. It was entirely possible that the undead Count was the source of the infection that spread across the lands mercilessly. If there were a way for Count Washur to feed off the souls of the victims of the disease, I would have been certain he was its cause.

  Mordecai skirted my searing gaze and wide eyes, even though he must have felt them. “Can you feel your arm, my son?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you move it?”

  Every set of eyes in the room, but Marcelo’s, swiveled toward his left arm. “No, I cannot.” Finally, Marcelo also turned to look at the offending appendage and I intercepted his eyes, but only for a second.

  “Perhaps you are right. I think I need rest.” He spoke straight toward me, but right through me.

  Mordecai patted Marcelo on the arm, the love of a father figure imposing itself upon the darkness. “I think that’s best.”

  I waited for Grand-mère to tell me to come with her, or that she would send Anna to dress me, or that someone would be along shortly to remove Marcelo from my quarters. But everyone, including Grand-mère, shuffled out of the room. Even Gertrude—or Mina—left me. Darkness cast a long shadow across my earlier victory call.

  When the door clicked shut behind the last of them, I waited for Marcelo to say something while I willed the tears that built momentum to stay within me. If I could do nothing greater to help him, at least I could show strength.

  But Marcelo didn’t speak to me. And so I lay down, where I was when this all began, when Marcelo first woke. I curled into a similar ball and huddled into myself for comfort. I yearned for my sister’s embrace but felt her too far away, even though she probably hadn’t even reached the stairs yet.

  Enough time passed that I thought perhaps I could sleep and shut out the awful sight of my beloved’s rotten arm. If the flesh wasn’t indeed putrid, then it was an infection from within, and no less serious.

  Then I reminded myself for the second time since I first awoke that morning. I remembered who I was and who I was on the path to becoming.

  I uncurled myself and turned over. Marcelo didn’t move as I sidled up to him and pressed my body alongside his. He didn’t move when I timidly draped an arm across the front of his waist either. He didn’t say a word, yet eventually, his breathing grew deep and steady.

  With my head pressed into his side, I fell asleep.

  Chapter 19

  Two days passed, and while Marcelo was out of bed shuffling across the castle, Sylvia was not. Since Marcelo woke, he barely left Sylvia’s side, and did so only when Mordecai insisted that he get some rest or eat. If Marcelo wasn’t with the firedrake, then Mordecai was. The ancient magician’s concern for his companion had increased exponentially since things hadn’t gone in the order he anticipated they would.

  We had all assumed that the firedrake, a powerful mythical creature, was better able to withstand Count Washur’s attack of darkness. Obviously, we were wrong.

  When I entered the room Mordecai had chosen for Sylvia’s convalescence, I walked into the middle of a conversation. The room was full of concerned and questioning glances, all wondering why the strong firedrake still slept.

  “She’ll need to eat soon, Mordecai. Or she’ll need some kind of nourishment. It’s been too long for her without food or water,” Grand-mère said. She brought Mathieu with her to check on Sylvia’s condition, and the other firedrake was forlorn, softly whining and whimpering at Sylvia, in the manner that I’d seen the dogs at Norland Manor do many times. If I didn’t believe that Sylvia could wake up, I would have thought that Mathieu was already mourning a fate he considered inevitable.

  Mordecai sighed loudly with one jingle of his beard, and rubbed his old hands along his face. “How long has it been since she ate?” he said to no one in particular as he stood and began pacing the length of the room.

  “It’s been five days since we left Bundry for Washur Castle, Lord Mordecai,” came the squeaky voice. I looked toward the window. I hadn’t noticed Sir Lancelot there. Only Brave and Gertrude were missing from the chambers.

  “How could it have only been five days?” I muttered to myself, but Sir Lancelot heard me.

  “We left Bundry in the dark of night, arrived in Washur by daybreak, fought most of the day, and then fled for Dillbasin. We arrived there past midnight. That’s one day.”

  “That’s a very long day.” And a horrific one, I left out.

  Sir Lancelot nodded, but continued. “Then we waited for word of Lady Ariadne’s brother, Lord Gustave, in Dillbasin. When it was certain he wasn’t coming, we left and arrived here by the setting of the sun.” That was another day, and another terrible one. Count Washur had very nearly done away with Brave and me, and Gertrude and Sir Lancelot along with us.

  “Count Bundry awoke the next morning. And now, here we are, two days later, and Sylvia is still lost to us.”

  “Thank you for that accounting, Sir Lancelot,” Mordecai said, his voice laden with exhaustion, and something else. Despair perhaps, but not likely. A man who’d lived as long as Mordecai had surely learned by experience to accept losses, and potential losses, better than this. Anguish wouldn’t help his patient, and he knew it. Whatever it was, the old magician dismissed it. �
�If it’s been five days since we first left Bundry, and Sylvia was traveling from Irele to here the whole day before, it may be a week since she has fed.

  “Did she come to see you?”

  I followed Mordecai’s gaze suspiciously. Why would Sylvia have gone to see Grand-mère?

  But Grand-mère was already shaking her head. “No. She didn’t come to Acquaine. She didn’t even come close. Mathieu heard her message from far away. And thanks to all things holy that he has such incredible hearing, or I wouldn’t have known that you needed help or where to go.”

  “How did you know that it was we who needed support in our fight against Count Washur? How did you know that it was your family?” I asked.

  “Ah. Well, you see, ma chérie, I knew that Gertrude was living at Washur Castle.”

  Grand-mère avoided my accusing stare and hurried to explain. “Even though Gianne wouldn’t let me near you any longer, and indeed had convinced you that I was dead, I didn’t forget about you. Just because you thought me dead didn’t mean that I didn’t keep watch over you from a distance.”

  Actually, that’s precisely what being dead means, I thought. Once you are dead, you can no longer help your loved ones in the ways of this world. But, as most things in my life had turned out thus far, nothing was as it initially seemed to be.

  “I kept track of what happened to you and your sisters as best I could. It wasn’t always easy, but I used friends and servants to keep me appraised of what was occurring.” Grand-mère blushed. “I used whatever ways I had to get the information, and I rotated out my… helpers so that Gianne wouldn’t become overly suspicious.”

  My “dead” grandmother basically employed spies to keep track of Gertrude and me. Just when I thought my life was weird enough, inconceivably, it got stranger.

  Grand-mère waved off the details. “Anyway, that isn’t important. I found out that Gianne married Gertrude off to Count Washur. Being part of the magical world, I of course knew of this terrible dark magician. Most witches know to stay clear of Washur and the surrounding area. They may not know why they should stay away, but they heard enough of the rumors to avoid it just in case.

  “But Gianne wouldn’t have known of it, as she did everything she could to avoid even thinking of the magical world.”

  “I hope you are right, Grand-mère, and that Mother didn’t know,” I said. Grand-mère looked at me with sharp eyes. She, better than anyone, was aware of what her daughter was capable of, and where her priorities lay.

  “Ay,” she said in response to my thoughts. “I don’t think she knew.” Yet I could tell that she wasn’t certain either.

  “I watched Washur Castle very closely after receiving the news. Already, I was trying to figure out a plan. What could I do to save our little Gertrude?

  “And then Mathieu heard Sylvia’s cry. What a firedrake can condense into a cry is incredible. Sylvia’s message was enough for me to understand that she and her master needed help in their attack of Washur Castle. It was a rescue mission, she said. Well, I didn’t know exactly who was to be rescued from the call message that Mathieu relayed to me, but I could guess. Whatever it was and whoever intended to do the rescuing, I wanted to be involved. I knew my little Gertrude was there at the castle.

  “Besides, it isn’t just anyone that can be master to a firedrake. Those magicians that can be close to firedrakes are few, and special all of them. And they’re good, at least every single one I’ve ever met has been. It’s my theory that firedrakes will only associate with magicians that have kindness in their hearts. If the magician isn’t kind, the firedrake will have nothing to do with him and in fact will be quite dangerous to him.”

  “But what about the dragon at the castle in Washur? He was associating with a magician, who doesn’t have a speck of kindness left to him.”

  “Yes, but Humbert is a dragon, not a firedrake, and dragons and firedrakes are very different.”

  Mordecai nodded next to Grand-mère. “They are,” he interjected.

  “And I don’t yet have Humbert’s full story. He and I haven’t had the chance to talk at length. But he may not have been as willing a conspirator to Count Washur as you think. Count Washur is—or, rather, was—a supremely powerful magician, perhaps even powerful enough to influence a dragon’s free will.”

  A shiver swept through me unexpectedly. It began in my shoulders and ran swiftly down to my toes. As dangerous as I knew Count Washur to be, I hadn’t realized how far his powers extended. It was just as well. It had been difficult enough as it was to gather the courage to invade Washur Castle.

  Mordecai interrupted my reminiscent thoughts, and I was grateful for the disruption. There were topics that were no fun to think back upon, and Count Washur was one of them.

  Mordecai spoke to Mathieu. “Thank you for hearing Sylvia’s call for help, and for sharing that call with your master. It’s likely that your interference saved lives.”

  Perhaps not at Washur Castle, as we were already vacating the area when Grand-mère arrived. But the dragon, Humbert, as Grand-mère had apparently named him, had saved Brave and me in the attack by Count Washur’s soldiers on our way from Dillbasin to Bundry. And no one else could have ridden the dragon but Grand-mère.

  Even as I thought it, I wondered. Could I ride a dragon? Had I inherited Grand-mère’s particular strand of mythical animal magic? I kept returning to this question, nervous already of what I might have to do to discover its answer.

  If a firedrake could be gracious, Mathieu was. He accepted Mordecai’s gratitude and then redirected everyone’s attention to the firedrake that needed help right now.

  Mordecai’s gaze followed Mathieu’s. Concern clouded it when it landed on Sylvia. She was breathing and seemed placidly asleep. Perhaps we wouldn’t have worried overly about her extended sleep if we hadn’t known what had brought it on. But we did know. Mordecai, Brave, half of Marcelo, and I had experienced the same darkness as Sylvia in the dungeon of Castle Washur. We watched the descent of the dark blobs, stretching their amorphous bodies to invade and attempt to overpower the light we carried within. We experienced the threat of their darkness, and we imagined how devastating the extent of that darkness could feel inside a kind creature like Sylvia.

  Marcelo, now merged with his split, knew what it was like most of all. The darkness invaded his body in the form of bats instead of blobs, but it wasn’t all that different. Darkness was darkness, despite the form it took.

  Marcelo paced the room slowly, mindful of the weakness that still pervaded his body, of the arm that hung limply at his side, useless. Marcelo showed visible traces of the darkness that infiltrated him. The blackened flesh was enough to fear the worst within Sylvia.

  He said, “I’m not sure what to do about Sylvia’s lack of eating. I don’t want her to weaken any further. But perhaps inserting anything more into her body now will cause more harm than good. It’s often best to leave the system undisturbed when it’s working to fight what amounts to an invasion, of illness or darkness.”

  There was too much uncertainty. This was uncharted territory. What they experienced at the direction of Count Washur was unheard of, perhaps never done before.

  “I think a creature as strong and powerful as Sylvia can continue without food for a time longer without imperiling her physical operations. If we estimate she may have already gone a week without food, could she go another week if necessary?” Marcelo looked to Mathieu. No one would know Sylvia better than one of her kind.

  Mathieu walked over to Grand-mère in the endearing waddle of these magnificent creatures designed mostly for flight. He spoke to her in the musical calls that I’d come to recognize as the firedrake way. I watched Mordecai closely, wondering if he too could understand what Mathieu said. I knew he could speak with a firedrake, but could he understand all of them, or just his own?

  When Mathieu finished, Grand-mère interpreted. “Mathieu says that Sylvia should be able to survive for several weeks without food or water.”
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br />   A wave of relief spread throughout the room. It was tangible, like a soft breeze that you thought you might have made up, but cooled you just the same.

  “Merci, Mathieu, darling.” Grand-mère nuzzled the smooth, unblemished skin of her face against the pearly green of his. He made a short cooing sound before moving to Sylvia’s side. There, he settled next to Sylvia on the bed, in the same squatting, watchful position I had seen her take over the lintel in Mordecai’s study back in Irele Castle. Mathieu perched his head upon the solid opalescent chest.

  “Marcelo,” Mordecai said, “you think you might be able to help her?”

  “I do.” Marcelo spoke more slowly, with more measure, than he had before his dark sleep. “I’m not certain what I can do to help her, but there must be something. There must be a way for me to guide her back from the darkness that tries to keep her trapped within herself.”

  Mordecai nodded, beads jingling sadly. “What can I do to help you?”

  “Nothing. Leave me with her. Alone.”

  Grand-mère looked at Marcelo, surprised. I looked away from him, a hot lump of emotion forming in my throat. He’d barely looked at me or spoken to me since he woke up.

  “Your firedrake can stay,” Marcelo said, “but everyone else should go. Then I’ll do what I can.”

  None of us wanted to leave. He was asking us to leave the side of a friend in need, and besides, we were by nature curious witches and wizards. Marcelo sounded like he was going to try new magic. If he was going to forge his own way, we wanted to be there to see it.

  Mordecai moved toward the door first, patting Marcelo on the shoulder as he passed. “Take it easy, my son. Don’t do anything that will endanger you. Remember, you aren’t at your full strength yet.”

  Marcelo nodded his assent. Still, Mordecai hesitated. Finally, he squeezed Marcelo’s shoulder again, harder, and walked out the door. Grand-mère followed, after whispering quickly to Mathieu.

  I paused at the door, my hand on the knob, vulnerability and hope evocative, inviting response.