The Scarlet Dragon (The Witching World Book 5)

by Lucia Ashta

  “Everything Clara said was right.” Grand-mère looked at me with something different in her eyes—curiosity perhaps, or maybe it was something greater. “Washur has descended into the water of the open sea, the same sea that crashes at the cliff bottom beneath us.”

  My eyes grew impossibly wide. I tried to say what I needed to but had to stop to think, Oh my God, just as Maggie would have said all those years past in Norland Manor. Marcelo, Mordecai, Grand-mère, and Brave were beginning to gather in the center of the room to formulate a plan when I finally spit it out.

  “Mirvela.” I said just that one word, but my voice hinted at the rest of my thoughts, the ones I hadn’t spoken yet.

  All heads turned in my direction, even Sir Lancelot’s. “What about her?” Marcelo said cautiously, already moving toward me.

  “She steals souls of magicians too,” I said, breathless. The implications of that one fact hung in the air for a long time, until it final began to descend to the floor, where it would drop as heavily as a crystal tumbler before it crashed into pieces on the parquet. “Or at least, she steals their magic, their energy. I presume the effect on her supposedly bound magic might be similar …”

  Grand-mère walked briskly to the table that held the bell and rung it fervently.

  “What are you doing?” Mordecai asked.

  “If we’re going to have to go after Count Washur and Mirvela, both from my understanding incredibly powerful magicians that don’t play by anybody’s rules, then we’ll need all the help we can get. Especially with some of us still healing.” She flicked a quick look to Marcelo’s arm, and he self-consciously reached for the limp limb.

  When a servant I didn’t know by name yet appeared at the parlor entrance, my heart sank a little. Before, answering a call from the family had been Carlton’s job. After his disappearance, it had become Anna’s. Now, it was someone else’s.

  “How may I be of service?” the footman asked nervously, looking down to avert the many sets of eyes that studied him.

  “Please prepare a messenger for immediate dispatch.”

  “Yes, Milady. And where will this messenger be going, Milady?”

  “To Acquaine.”

  “Yes, Milady.”

  “Send him here as soon as he’s ready to depart. I’ll have his papers ready.”

  “Yes, Milady.” The footman bowed and pulled the door closed behind him.

  Grand-mère was already riffling through the drawers of the desk, pulling out fresh paper and then testing the ink well with the pen ready on the desk’s blotter. Before she sat, she looked at all of us. “If we’re going to have to do anything like what I think we’ll have to do, we’ll want my brother’s help. Trust me, we’ll want him—the real him—on our side.” Then she dipped the pen in the ink and turned her attention to her letter.

  If things were anything like what I was already imagining them to be, we’d need all the help we could get. And before this was over, our trust for each other would be tested several times over. I knew this, and from the drawn looks that had rapidly descended upon everyone else’s faces, they knew this too.

  Chapter 35

  In the days that followed, we made several plans and came up with various ideas, some outlandish, others plausible. In the end, we dismissed most of them. Even with a castle full of magicians, we were still at a disadvantage.

  Yet it wasn’t because of the differences in power. Yes, Count Washur was a viciously powerful magician. With the power of perhaps as many as fifty other magicians at his disposal, the thought of facing him was imposing. Still, none of the powers he could access were his own, which remained bound. It was likely that his magic would never be unbound. There would be no reason for Mordecai to do it. If Count Washur were able to access his own power, the one he’d built up and honed for more than five centuries, he’d undoubtedly unleash it upon us.

  We weren’t at a disadvantage precisely because of the imposing strength of Mirvela’s powers either. Merwomen, and especially a queen of the merpeople, could access powers within the water that none of us properly understood yet, other than to know that the element of water could magnify whatever already existed. Besides, Mirvela could potentially access the power of an untold amount of magicians. We didn’t know how old Mirvela was, or how many magicians she’d lured into her water underworld, where she drained them of all their magic and, ultimately, of their life.

  We weren’t certain that Mirvela, whose own magic Mordecai had also bound, had been able to use the magic of those she carried as a latent part of her since their demise. But it was a likely possibility.

  While every one of us, even Brave and I, the youngest magicians at the Castle of Bundry, were strong and becoming stronger in our magical powers, we were all frightened at the implications of facing down these two magicians. And we had to. We had no choice. We couldn’t allow Anna to suffer when there was a chance we could do something to save her.

  There was a good possibility that we’d discover Carlton underwater as well, as Mirvela’s captive. He seemed to be nowhere else. No one in the town of Bundry had seen anything that would hint to a disappearance onto dry land.

  All of us there—Marcelo, Mordecai, Grand-mère, Brave, and I—would have decided to go into the water to stop Count Washur and Mirvela from causing anyone else anymore harm—eventually, after enough time to heal fully and prepare.

  However, Count Washur and Mirvela had taken one, likely two, hostages we had to protect. And there were probably more victims.

  Understanding that their hostages were suffering limited the time we reasonably needed to prepare to oppose not just one of the most powerful magicians alive, but two of them. That was, admittedly, a disadvantage. One look at Marcelo’s arm that hung like a dead animal within his sleeve reminded me of that.

  But none of these things were the greatest of our disadvantages. We’d find the way to surmount the odds against us. We had so far. And if we didn’t, well, we were prepared to accept the consequences. At least we’d be fighting for what we believed in.

  Every single one of us, even Brave, who was raised with Count Washur’s uncommon principles, believed in the balance between light and dark, and the importance of goodness, kindness, and righteousness. We were all individuals. Our personalities were markedly different from each other. We’d been raised in vastly different environments and arrived at magic in unique ways.

  Yet not one of us there was a murderer. Intellectually we understood that killing Count Washur and Mirvela wouldn’t truly be murder. Instead, it was borne from necessity, from a desire to protect goodness in the magical world. However, we’d be setting out with the intention of ending someone’s life. If we could, we’d end two lives.

  In all the time we’d dedicated to planning in the past few days while waiting for a response from Grand-mère’s brother, we’d talked of everything but this. We’d talked about it in circles, the one crushing and vitally important fact: that one of us would have to kill Count Washur and Mirvela. It was the only way to end their rule of torment. So long as they could call on the magic of others to continue their terror, there was no alternative.

  It would be an act of war, justified as much as any act of war was.

  But the fact haunted each and every one of us. It was visible in our eyes, dancing and shying away in the colors of our irises, trying to hide.

  There it was, the pressing question we each tried to push away: Will I be the one to have to kill Count Washur and Mirvela? Will I be the one that has to purposefully take the lives of others?

  I didn’t want to know the answer to these questions. I just hoped, with every breath that pulsed through my body, that it wouldn’t have to be me. Because I knew that, if I had to, I would. We all would. We had no other choice.

  We were at a severe disadvantage. The circumstances were forcing us into doing something that none of us wanted to do. They were making us commit an act that went against every one of our instincts: to protect, to help, to live in kindn
ess and in a way that caused no harm to others.

  One of us there would have to kill, against every one of our instincts.

  Chapter 36

  Days of conferencing and bouncing ideas off one another had ultimately led to rehashing the same simple plan. It wasn’t much of a plan considering we’d spent days circling around it before deciding it was the only thing we could do. And it was much less of a plan considering whom we were planning to come up against. But we’d all agreed on it, and everyone had a concrete task to accomplish in the upcoming days—save me.

  Even Gustave, once he arrived, had an assignment to complete before we departed for the underwater world. This morning, now that the snow had finally stopped falling, the messenger returned with news that Gustave was safe and well, and preparing to journey to Bundry.

  Gregore had indeed survived an encounter with Count Washur—news that brought us great relief and uplifted our spirits at a time when we needed it. Count Washur had attempted to kidnap Gregore, considering him the means to get to Lord Gustave. But Gregore had long been a member of the Acquaine household and a trusted man in Gustave’s employ. A magician himself, he’d acquired many of his own tricks from a lifetime shadowing a great magician. He cast a spell, which enabled his horse to outrun Count Washur’s. The Count couldn’t catch Gregore atop an animal that ran faster than it seemed animals should.

  As Count Washur’s attempt to capture Gregore, and through him Lord Gustave, failed, he was forced to choose another unsuspecting magician as his victim. This unidentified magician with the bald pate, round belly, and beady eyes—whose chilling cruelty I realized must have been Count Washur’s and not his own—was probably dead.

  Count Washur wouldn’t want to risk anyone discovering his true identity. Having a magician that looked like he did at the time ambling around risked exposure. When a wizard didn’t mind killing people, it could be the easiest option. Death was a useful tool for tying up loose ends, when your conscience didn’t prevent you from wielding it as a tool.

  Gustave predicted his arrival in Bundry two days from now. Once he arrived, Grand-mère would ask him to transform Gertrude right away. My little sister had waited long enough for her human body to be restored to her. I was anxious for Gertrude to look like herself again, not just for her sake, but also for my own selfish reasons. I very much missed her comforting hugs. My sister had always been a good shoulder to cry on, especially when there wasn’t one pinpointed reason to do so, but too many to enumerate.

  While we waited for Gustave to arrive, Grand-mère was to doctor Sylvia and Mathieu. She was to ensure that they were healthy and recovered from our ordeals—all of them—and explore the possibility that they could join us in the water. Firedrakes were mostly composed of the essence of fire, and fire and water were potentially incompatible. Water could overpower and extinguish fire. Fire could overpower and burn up water.

  However, all five elements were always present in life. Even if one of the elements seemed absent, it was there, just in lesser measure. Grand-mère’s part of our haphazard plan was to investigate the option of the firedrakes accompanying us in the water. It had never been done before as far as any of us knew. If they could join us, it might help, and we needed every single bit of help we could get.

  Mordecai was to attend to Marcelo’s healing. If Marcelo was to join us on this dangerous expedition, he had to regain function of his arm as well as his full strength. Mordecai was skilled in the healing magical arts, even Albacus would move past their playful sibling rivalry to admit it. Yet he wasn’t sure Marcelo’s complete recovery was possible, especially in such little time. He’d never seen darkness spread and root this deeply into a wizard that survived it.

  The thought of Marcelo never dispelling the darkness within him left a nasty sense of panic within me, which I had to work hard to keep from overcoming me. Somewhere along the adventure that my life had unsuspectingly become, I’d come to rely on Marcelo, and I didn’t want to have to do without him.

  Though Marcelo argued, insisting that he’d be more useful helping me to step more fully into my powers, he was overruled and ultimately, he relented. My power was so unstable, unpredictable, and unique that none of them understood precisely how to help me learn to control it.

  We’d already tried to have me learn through spells, like every other magician did, but spells just didn’t work out. I accessed magic through instincts and intuition. Neither instincts nor intuition were easily ruled by the mind. In fact, they couldn’t be.

  Eventually, Marcelo accepted that his time and focus was better spent on himself. Modesty aside, he knew that he was a powerful magician. He’d do everything within his power to ensure that he could join us on this expedition into the water. He’d rather risk his own life than remain behind while those he loved—me especially—put themselves at risk. And we weren’t fooling ourselves. The second our toes hit the water, we’d be at a risk greater than at any other time in our lives.

  We’d be facing not one but two evils, both of whom aspired to rid themselves forever of the nuisance we posed—although not before they stole our magic and our breath of life. They would suck our souls from us and possess them. Our souls would be stagnant, doomed to remain in the earthly world so long as the magicians that stole them still possessed life. Neither Count Washur nor Mirvela would ever surrender their lives on purpose. They had fought too hard and too long to prolong them unnaturally. They would fight for their lives with the greed of those that had already had more than their fair share.

  It was a terrible irony: Those that had more than enough wanted more, always more. Those that had little found complacency and contentment with what they had. There was little need for more when one was grateful for what one already had.

  Regardless of the power Mordecai, Grand-mère, Marcelo, Gustave, Brave, and I amassed together, and despite our whole-hearted ambition to set right the wrong that Count Washur and Mirvela represented, none of us knew how to survive underwater. Discovering how humans, and potentially the two firedrakes, would survive in freezing temperatures in the sea, without ready access to air, was Brave and Sir Lancelot’s part in the preparations.

  The two would scour their minds and Marcelo’s father’s study for the solution. We were confident there must be one within the dominion of spells. And if there was a spell that allowed us to breathe underwater and produce our own heat, sufficient to dispel temperatures that would otherwise shut down our bodies’ functioning in minutes, Brave and Sir Lancelot would be able to find it in Marcelo’s father’s study.

  Amid books of benevolent as well as dark magic, the solution would surface. It had to if we were to proceed. Marcelo’s father’s study possessed every single book that might hold the answer. Brave and Sir Lancelot were determined to begin with the forbidden ones.

  There was no denying that we were all entering a forbidden world. The underwater world wasn’t meant for human magicians, or else we would have been designed to breathe water. Simple logic often brought clarity to the situation. We were safer out of the water; logic made this evident.

  Neither logic nor safety could keep us from it now. We were driven by unseen forces that weighed on our hearts and our minds.

  Only I was left with an uncertain role in our rudimentary plan. Mordecai told me that I was to better understand my powers, without any specific instruction as to how I could achieve this goal. Grand-mère told me that I was to love Marcelo to aid in his healing, affirming what I already knew: that love was as powerful a force as any other type of magic, even that of the five elements, so much so that I could consider love a sixth element, the most important one of them all.

  But I already loved Marcelo, all the time. I couldn’t see myself milling around just loving him while the others worked hard to set the foundation for our success in the water.

  Marcelo just looked at me with haunted, loving eyes that raced ahead to the dangers that we’d inevitably face and the potential that one of us might not return from the wa
ter. The devastating possibility that either he or I would perish in the water was one that I wouldn’t consider if I was to do anything productive at all in the time before Gustave’s arrival.

  Still, the anticipation of loss hung all over Marcelo’s face, dripping from every one of his handsome features. His usually shining, blue eyes possessed sorrow. The upturn of his wide, full lips was forced as if he were trying very hard not to cry.

  I couldn’t bear to look at Marcelo any longer when I understood that it might be one of the last times. Nonsensically, I didn’t want to stare at him and memorize every detail of him that I had already memorized long ago. Instead, I wanted to do something, to move, to empower, to find a way—anything—so that I wouldn’t have to look at that beautiful face and fear that I might not see it again before too long.

  So I fled the castle and Marcelo’s foreshadowing look, the harbinger of further loss and impending doom. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. I had to do this—whatever this might be—alone. I had to be alone in order to find the way not to be alone—another of the many ironies of the situation. I had to be in my own strength, far from the scrutiny of others, in order to find a path to saving the lives of everyone I loved as well as my own.

  I left the parlor silently. Only Gertrude was looking my way. As always, she seemed to understand and did nothing to stop me. She didn’t even call out in any of the ways a cat could. She watched my retreat with those wide honey eyes that didn’t belong in the body of a cat. Her eyes were still those of my sister; they seemed to want to leap out from that small container covered in fur.

  Once I was free of the parlor, I tread lightly, grateful for the umpteenth time for the sensible leather shoes I insisted on wearing instead of the uncomfortable, high-heeled ones, which were the raging fashion. This was a time for agility.