by Black, C. I.
The Handmaiden pressed the medallion against the chest of the first corpse and whispered two words in Sumerian.
Anyone with enough earth magic can say the power words and activate the medallion to absorb a soul into it, but only a true sorcerer can cast the rebirth spell. It takes a great deal of concentration to cast the spell, and then draw out a specific spirit and encourage it to take host in a body.
And the Handmaiden is the dragons’ only true sorcerer?
Yes.
That seems dangerous. What if something happened to her?
I don’t think anyone would be stupid enough to try something. If she left, we’d have no way to recover souls. We were rare before we became spirits—
And being unable to have children, your numbers can only diminish.
And that was the sad truth about dragon-kind. They were a species facing extinction. It might be a slow extinction because of their indefinite life spans, but there was still nothing they could do about it. It was inevitable.
Energy surged from the Handmaiden’s hands, encompassing the medallion in blue flame. The same hues as Anaea’s fire, although that was merely coincidence. The Handmaiden’s magic always manifested as blue flame surrounding the medallion.
The heat within Anaea grew.
The Handmaiden whispered more words, coaxing the first spirit, Saber, out. Energy poured from her, blue and silver in a light show Hunter had never seen before. It had to be a result of Anaea’s connection to the earth magic. He just had no idea what it meant. And it had mesmerized Anaea. Hunter could feel her holding her breath, all her thoughts focused on the energy sizzling around the Handmaiden, as if there was nothing else in the room or even Hunter within her.
A shadow moved out of the corner of Anaea’s eye. Cold panic shot through Hunter. Something was wrong.
Look left.
Anaea didn’t respond, her attention consumed by the Handmaiden’s magic.
Anaea. Mother of All. If she could just move her head a fraction in any direction he could see beyond the medallion.
The Handmaiden jerked from the body, the medallion clenched in her hands, fire rippling over the surface. A metal wire appeared, wrapping around her throat.
Anaea gasped, her trance shattered. A cloaked and hooded drake yanked the garrote tighter. It looked like Homok. Which didn’t make any sense because he belonged to Barna’s Major Brown Coterie and not Zenobia’s or Nero’s coteries.
Get the medallion.
But—
She’ll survive, but she’s a slow healer. He could only hope they were just after the medallion and not out to kill the dragons’ only sorcerer.
Another drake, Curdus from the Minor Green, rushed at Anaea, slashing with his sword. She twisted out of the way, his blade skittering against the scale mail.
Get the medallion and run.
Hunter had no idea why the Handmaiden wasn’t casting something, anything, she just needed to think it. How the hell had the drakes gotten into the chamber?
The Handmaiden sagged to her knees, her face crimson. More drakes, wrapped in black cloaks with the hoods pulled low, stormed in. Hunter recognized less than half and their coterie allegiances were mixed. At least they were the last time he’d checked.
Anaea lunged for the medallion. She wrapped her fingers around it, meeting the Handmaiden’s gaze. The sorcerer nodded and drew her hand back. Magic still raced across the surface of the medallion, crackling over Anaea’s flesh. But more was building around the Handmaiden. She was casting a spell. A big spell.
Run, Hunter said.
Anaea scrambled to her feet. Curdus dove at her. She stumbled out of his reach and ran for the archway, her heart thudding in her chest. Hunter could barely hear himself think over the rushing in her ears. They had to move, get away.
A wall of energy slammed into her back, throwing her across the chamber. The magic engulfing the medallion shot through her. She rolled on her shoulder and staggered to her feet. Energy nipped her skin, poured through her veins, and ignited Hunter’s spirit. Flame surrounded him, burning through his soul. He retreated to his mental box but it followed. The magic was too strong. Agony burned through his remembered bone and sinew. He was falling, falling, plummeting to the ground and no spell, known or otherwise, could save him now.
CHAPTER 20
Anaea ran from the chamber, the assailants racing after her. Sparks danced over the medallion, around her hand, and dripped to the floor.
Someone yelled behind her. They were close and getting closer, she could sense it. She had to get out of there, but she had no idea where. Surely if she wasn’t safe in that sacred chamber, she wasn’t safe anywhere else at Court.
She scrambled around a corner, then another, zigzagging as soon as a new corridor presented itself. The heavy metal cloak slapped against her body. She hiked it higher around her knees, desperate not to trip.
Hunter?
He didn’t answer.
Damn it, Hunter. What do I do?
Still nothing.
More voices echoed through the passages, but she couldn’t tell from which direction. It seemed they were all around her now. She needed Hunter. Why wasn’t he answering her?
She pressed against her thoughts. He was there, she could feel him, but something wasn’t right. He’d never seemed so removed from her before. For lack of a better term, he seemed unconscious.
She leapt into the next passage. A small, empty chamber. No other exit. Shit.
“There she is.”
Double shit.
She spun to face her assailants. There were five of them, all cloaked. How the hell could they see with their hoods pulled so low? She gave her head a quick shake. That didn’t matter. Should she give up or fight? Well, she knew what Hunter would do. It didn’t matter what they wanted. Hunter’s last instructions had been to run and until he woke up, or came back from wherever he was, she was going to stick to that.
The first man rushed at her. She side-stepped his attack and let him careen into the back wall. He punched at her head. She ducked.
The energy still rippling over her flared, but did nothing. She reached for it. The man in front of her swung again. She staggered back, unable to call fire or anything else. If she could just get someplace safe.
A meaty hand clamped around her arm. She twisted in his grip, spinning away, and stumbled against the side wall.
Fire flared over her hands, scorching the rock. A burst of light blinded her, pulling energy from within her that she didn’t know she had. It latched onto the thought of escaping and sucked her in, just like Jade’s gate had when she’d traveled into the Dragon Court.
She was falling... falling... suspended in a brilliant, white nothing that was warm and embracing, unlike the black void from the gate before. Her skin tingled and the hair on her arms stood up. The nothing plugged her ears and poured down her throat. She was drowning, fully submerged in this viscous light.
She hit the ground, scraping hands and knees, and scrambled to her feet. The men weren’t behind her and she no longer stood in the chamber but on a snow-covered country road. Before her lay the grove she and Mark used to visit while in college. They used to pack a picnic lunch and travel here, to the outskirts of Newgate. A small stream meandered through what Mark described as interesting foliage. She’d bring her books and he’d take his sketch pad and they’d while away the hours together. But that was then and this was now. And now things were much different. She shivered in the crisp air and hugged the quickly cooling metal robe closer. Hunter?
Nothing.
Come on, Hunter. Please. She hadn’t expected his lack of response to unnerve her this much. Wake up. She needed him to explain what had happened.
But he didn’t answer.
She needed to do something. That’s what Hunter would say. She couldn’t just stand here and wait for those men to find her. When he woke they could deal with the situation. Until then, she was on her own.
At least one thing good had come
out of this. She was in Newgate. With no money, no winter clothes, and nothing but the stupid medallion that everyone wanted, her options were thin. But there was one person in town who she could turn to. Mark.
She slipped the medallion over her neck and hung it inside the cloak, hoping against hope he’d help her after one year of her not returning his phone calls and two years of him not returning hers.
* * *
Grey gated as close to the rebirthing chamber as the Handmaiden’s wards would allow and bolted down the hall. Something was horribly wrong. Moments ago Court had trembled as if struck by an earthquake, which was impossible since it was separate from the physical world. Nothing had ever shaken Court like that before and the only dragon powerful enough to have caused it was the Handmaiden. And Hunter was with her this very moment.
Grey careened through the arch and skidded to a halt. Crumpled, smoldering forms littered the chamber. The altar and floor in front of it were scorched and the corpses about to receive reborn dragon souls were charred skeletons.
His gaze raced over every detail, searching for any sign of Hunter or the Handmaiden, but everything was black, covered in debris.
One of the smoking piles near the altar shifted and moaned. Someone was still alive. Whoever it was moved again, sending up a cloud of ash. A hint of silver scales caught the light and Grey’s heart leapt into his throat. It was the Handmaiden.
He rushed to her side as she pushed back her hood. Soot smeared across her forehead and chin and a thick red line marred the pale skin on her throat. Grey’s throat ached in sympathy.
“What happened?” He helped her sit up.
“Politics.” Her tone made that one word sound like a curse.
“But you’re the Handmaiden.” Grey couldn’t wrap his mind around that. If anything happened to her all dragons were lost.
“They weren’t after me.”
“Is Hunter—?” He glanced at the closest corpse. Please don’t let it be him.
“I gave him time to escape.” She clutched Grey’s shoulder and used it to stand. “I do have a soft spot for him. But he’ll need help soon.”
“Have you seen something?” With the implication that she was leaving for an extended time and this latest comment, it seemed certain she’d looked into the future. He itched to do something. Something for Hunter or the Handmaiden. Right now. An assault on the Handmaiden in the rebirthing chamber required an aggressive response. Something so strong that no one would think of attempting an attack again.
The Handmaiden flicked a finger and the soot slid off her cloak. “I haven’t seen anything.”
“But—”
“Grey.” She cupped his face in suddenly pristine hands. “Things are changing. Like Hunter, you will need to adapt. And this time I can’t help you with it.”
“You what?” He hadn’t heard that right. He couldn’t have heard that right.
Magic billowed around her and she straightened. Behind her, without support of a wall or archway, stood a gate. It shimmered white, the signature of only her gates. All other dragons created black ones.
“You are stronger than you think. Don’t forget that.”
He snorted. Forgetting wasn’t one of his problems.
She offered a gentle smile and stepped into the white nothing. With a whoosh the gate disappeared, taking the Handmaiden wherever it was she was going. Now he had no idea what to do.
* * *
Anaea glanced over her shoulder down the apartment building’s empty beige hall.
Please, oh please, let Mark be home. She rapped on the door again. Still no answer. It was late afternoon. He had to be inside. God help her if he’d actually changed his routine since they’d last talked. He had to be home and she was too exhausted for any other option.
She’d spent all day trudging the cold, snowy back roads to get into town where she managed to flag down a woman willing to drive her to this side of Newgate even though Anaea was sure she looked crazy. All the while, she searched in her mind for any indication that Hunter was conscious. She was hungry and tired, still very much alone, and mostly freezing, although to her surprise she didn’t seem to have frostbite on her bare feet.
But then she did have the spirit of a dragon in her—a spirit who was going to wake up any minute now. Please. She was shocked to discover just how alone she felt, after all this time with him inside her head. It felt so… wrong. She hadn’t thought her life could get more confusing, and yet, she hadn’t felt more alive in years. The last time she’d really felt like herself had been here in this hall. That was before the cancer. She had been recently married and had come to see Mark to commission a painting with her newly wedded wealth as a way of an apology for how things had turned out between them. But he’d refused and they had fought.
Less than a year later, ten months into her marriage, she’d realized she was a trophy wife. And as soon as she’d become sick she was no longer a prize. She had called Mark, realizing how foolish she’d been picking John over him. But he never returned her calls. It was unlikely Mark had forgiven her for marrying John. But he was all she had at the moment and she was tired enough to accept pity if it got her a change of clothes—although not as tired as she’d have expected with the cancer.
The door to the stairwell at the far end of the hall opened. Her stomach clenched. She looked for a place to hide, but there wasn’t anywhere to go.
Metal jingled against metal and she whirled around, ready to make a stand.
Mark dropped his keys.
Her heart skipped a beat. Thank God.
“Anaea?” He didn’t move, didn’t smile, just stared at her.
Not the reaction she was hoping for. She hugged herself, the metal scales hissing with the movement. “Hi.”
His eyes narrowed. After a moment, he broke eye contact and picked up his keys. “Still married to that prick?”
“Unfortunately.” Since her lawyers seemed to work at a snail’s pace. Please just let her in. All she needed was a moment to catch her breath and figure out what was wrong with Hunter.
“So what are you doing here?” He pushed past her and shoved his key into his lock.
“Well, I...” She didn’t know what to say. That she’d been possessed by a dragon spirit and someone was trying to kill her? Perhaps something more believable. She was dying and her husband didn’t care; he was already working on his next trophy wife. “I just need...” Shit. What could she say? “Don’t be a dick.”
A slight smile pulled at his lips. “Get in here. You look like crap. And what the hell are you wearing?” He opened the door and ushered her in.
His apartment was as she remembered. A battered orange sofa faced an old computer monitor hooked up to a VCR and the rest of the room was filled with canvases of various sizes in various stages of completion. A rickety bookshelf sat beside the monitor, the bottom filled with cop movies, the top littered with painting supplies.
“Pardon the mess,” he said.
“What mess?”
He flashed her a full smile and pushed a pile of National Geographic from the sofa.
“So I love the new haircut.”
She ran a hand over her stubble. She hadn’t told him about the cancer. Hadn’t been given a chance.
“I’ve been changing it up since college.”
“Bet John never saw your pink phase.” Mark crossed his arms.
“John doesn’t have a say on how I cut my hair.”
“Really?”
“Really.” She met his gaze, daring him to keep up the line of conversation. She might need his help, but there wasn’t any point arguing over old discussions.
He shifted from one foot to the other. “So why are you here?”
“I wanted to see you.”
“Uh huh. And you decided to wear a Halloween costume to do it?”
“Fine.” She sighed and dropped onto the sofa. “I needed a place to hang out for a while.”
“Better answer.”
“Gee,
thank you.”
* * *
A few hours later, Anaea was warm and clothed and fed and alone in Mark’s bed. And still uncomfortable. She’d thought going to Mark would be the right thing to do but she wasn’t so sure any more, despite the fact that he’d been her only option. Hunter still hadn’t made an appearance, and the thought made her pizza dinner churn in her gut.
The meal with Mark had been rife with uncomfortable silences and talking about their college days only made her feel more out of place. The freedom and confidence to love from those days were definitely past her. Were past them. She’d made her choice, albeit a bad one. But she’d made it.
And with her situation now, with cancer and being hunted by dragons, she was even further from those days and those possibilities. But Mark knew nothing about that. There wasn’t any way she could explain it—at least the dragon bit. As for the cancer… well, it wouldn’t be fair to have him suffering along with her for her remaining few months. It was best just to leave it with the only thing he really knew, which was that she’d picked John over him. Anything else would just complicate an already complicated situation.
She hugged the sheets to her chest. They smelled like Mark, fresh and soapy, mixed with a hint of turpentine and oil paint. It was obvious from the way he looked at her—the way he still looked at her—and the things he hadn’t said that he still loved her. While she wasn’t sure if she had ever truly loved him.
Maybe she had. She thought she had. He was clever and talented. Definitely attractive with gorgeous curly black hair, fine features, and long-fingered artist’s hands. But John had swept her off her feet, whirling her thoughts and emotions in a rosy frenzy until Mark was a distant memory. If she could forget him so easily it meant she didn’t really love him. Didn’t it?
Mark rapped on the doorframe and crossed his arms. “So...”
She clenched the blanket tighter, a weak defense against her unwanted examination of her emotions.
“I’ll be on the couch.” He pursed his lips, obviously wanting to say more. She could feel his questions like a heavy fog pressing around her. His anger and hurt and continued love hung between them.