Cerulean Magic: A Dragon Mage Novel

by Aimee Easterling

  Assuming the raiders didn’t get there first.

  “Should we bring pirates to Uncle Walt’s doorstep?” Sabrina asked tentatively, not wanting to gainsay her father but at the same time well aware of the rules of the game. “Loose lips sink ships,” the girl added, mimicking Uncle Walt’s frequent admonition. Back when she was a much smaller child, Frank had explained what the rhyme meant, had confided that no one spoke of Raft City outside its borders. Surely coming to call with a pirate on their tail was even worse than telling someone on shore about a colony that didn’t accept uninvited guests.

  But her father seemed unconcerned at the present moment. “Watch,” he said simply, bringing the Intrepid around so it hovered just beyond Raft City’s borders, a wide expanse of ocean remaining between themselves and their tenacious follower.

  And at first, Sabrina didn’t know what she was supposed to be watching for. But then the ocean became agitated as if a tremendous whale was breaking the surface to take in a great gulp of air. Wind picked up between them, the current so intense it pushed the Intrepid further away from the oceanic city. And, before either airship had time to steer clear, a massive spout of water rose out of the sea.

  The spinning vortex crashed against the pirate ship’s gondola, thrust its way through the canvas encircling the enemy’s balloon, and returned to the ocean with the airship caught in its watery clutches. Sabrina flinched away from the distant shrieks of drowning pirates, but her father remained stolid and steady at the railing, a vague smile crossing his lips.

  “Remember, sweetheart, no one goes to Raft City without an invitation,” Frank said after one long moment. “If you’re ever stuck and in need of help, just head east and find your Uncle Walt.”

  Which was why Sabrina had veered directly out to sea when that mechanical pigeon spooked her away from her original route two days earlier. Like a genie, Uncle Walt owed the Fairweathers three wishes. And Sabrina was willing to expend that social capital to save the lives of Steph and her unhatched egg.

  Only now, as the quiver in her companion’s shoulders turned into a quake, other hints of memory rose in Sabrina’s mind to compete with fond childhood remembrances. And questions she’d stuffed away in her teenage brain bobbed back to the surface like the pirate ship’s flotsam, demanding answers from her more mature mind.

  Why had Frank always found excuses to leave his daughter ashore when visiting his old friend after Sabrina’s breasts had begun to grow and her shape turned from child to woman? And what had Frank Fairweather and Walter Atwater shared to make Uncle Walt owe her father favors?

  The last time Sabrina had visited the colony, she’d been too young to wonder what sort of cargo was valuable enough for the Intrepid to haul for days out into the ocean. After all, Raft City was nearly self-sufficient, the pirate ships they crashed bringing in most of the gear necessary to expand and repair their living accommodations while the ocean itself supplied for their day-to-day needs.

  Adult eyes perused childhood memories and illuminated inconsistencies Sabrina had never considered in the past. Wincing, the captain now realized that many of the wonders filling Walter’s watery empire would have been illegal if the world had still been ruled by law.

  And if Uncle Walt gladly trafficked in drugs and guns and soldiers for hire, why would he draw the line at nubile young girls?

  “I remember,” Steph said now, the shifter’s gaze riveted on a city that had decided to welcome Sabrina’s airship despite the fact it had been at least seven years since Intrepid last flew east over open water in search of a low-lying cloud where one didn’t belong. “The ship, the city...the market.”

  Then, in a space far too small to house a full-fledged dragon, Steph’s skin erupted into a pillar of flames as the abused woman succumbed to her fear and prepared to shift.

  Chapter 26

  “Fire in engineering.”

  Nicholas was sprinting for the stairs before Gerry’s voice had faded from the intercom. The shifter would have liked to say that he was rushing for the sake of the airship, which was carried aloft by flammable hydrogen and wouldn’t fare well around open flames. Or he could have argued that he was concerned about Steph’s egg, lying unprotected in the path of the damaging fire.

  But the image filling his mind was instead tall and braided, shoulders stiff within her captain’s jacket. Sabrina was down in engineering. And even though the captain hadn’t graced him with a single word since he made the mistake of buying her ship, Nicholas didn’t intend to allow the wind witch to walk through danger alone.

  “She’s had enough space,” he growled now, allowing fiery wings to push him down the corridors that lay between himself and the woman whose sky blue eyes filled his dreams. He’d been careful not to force the issue when Sabrina evaded his presence for days on end, had allowed her to continue striding along without meeting his eyes the single time they’d accidentally ended up face to face in an otherwise empty hallway.

  But Nicholas was a dragon and better equipped than anyone else to deal with the disaster currently unfolding within the belly of the Intrepid. Even if she didn’t want him there, the ship’s captain would just have to deal.

  Nicholas’s brain had tunneled in on his goal so effectively, in fact, that he literally ran into the woman in question as he made a beeline for the smoke seeping out from beneath the engineering compartment’s door. A hand grabbed onto his bicep, though, and a voice tickled against his ear. Turning, he took in Sabrina’s grim face at long last.

  “Hang on,” she told him. “The fire is under control. Or, it will be. Steph started shifting, but Zach is talking her down....well, his tablet is talking her down. Whatever. The fewer people in the room the better.”

  Now that she mentioned it, Nicholas could smell the distinctive sweetness of dragon underlying the sooty aroma. Could sense flames winking out as they receded into human flesh and bone. Tendrils of smoke thinned as the danger he’d come to protect against passed without his assistance, and Nicholas’s face twisted in disappointment.

  So much for riding to the rescue, he thought wryly, fully expecting his companion to pull away now that his fire-fighting abilities were no longer in demand.

  Instead, Sabrina’s hand slipped lower, her fingers twining through his the way they had back on the beach. Flames licked against Nicholas’s skin as he basked in the contact, and the shifter resolutely ignored the fact that his companion was merely using her grip to pull him back the way he’d come.

  “We have a situation,” Sabrina was saying when Nicholas’s ears finally tuned back in to human speech. “I made a mistake....” She laughed shortly. “Not just a mistake. More like a disaster.”

  She hesitated beneath the last set of stairs leading up to the open deck and Nicholas risked pulling her in a little closer so they stood nose to nose. “Whatever it is, we can fix it,” he promised.

  He did want to fix whatever the mistake was. More, though, he wanted to tilt his head down and kiss those enticing lips, to bring a smile back onto his captain’s face. To remind her that they made a good team, never mind his ham-handed gesture that had sent her retreating behind familiar walls of efficiency and pride.

  Unfortunately, even such a minor indication of support soon backfired. Sabrina released his hand as if she’d been stung...or as if she’d finally realized that their skin had been in contact for several long seconds as they raced together toward the upper deck. “I don’t know if we can fix it,” the captain muttered under her breath.

  Nicholas’s flames flickered out in response. Because Sabrina might be talking about whatever mistake had initially thrown her off her stride. But she could just as easily be concluding that their relationship had deteriorated beyond repair.

  And...I guess it’s not time for that conversation yet after all, Nicholas decided. Instead, he brought them back around to the topic that had made his buttoned-up captain reach for his hand in the first place. “Tell me about the mistake.” Then, realizing his words sounded like
a command—definitely a bad button to push—he added: “Please.”

  The faintest crinkle of amusement drifted across Sabrina’s face, then her lips turned back down at the corners as she obeyed. “This morning, I remembered something that I should have considered before setting our course for Raft City. I thought it was a safe harbor, a place my father came for trading trinkets....”

  She hesitated, winced, shuffled her feet.

  Ah, so Raft City was that kind of port. “This is where your father sold his slaves.”

  “You heard everything I said the other day.” The realization brought a blush to Sabrina’s cheeks that Nicholas hoped was annoyance but thought might actually be mortification. And in response, he itched to tell her that nothing her father might once have done impacted her honor in the slightest. That anyone who met her would know the captain was a woman of her word who put the well-being of others before her own safety and comfort.

  But there wasn’t time to ease Sabrina’s secret into the light of day, so he merely nodded. “Some. Not everything. But enough.”

  Nicholas paused, remembering the floating settlement that had materialized into view just as the fire alarm came in over the intercom. He pulled out his tablet, ran a few quick calculations. “We’re very close, but we could still turn around. Intrepid’s stores are sufficient to make it back to land as long as we dig into the dry goods. It’ll be close, but we’ll squeak through.”

  But Sabrina was already shaking her head. “No, it’s too dangerous to retreat. Not when the whole city is run by water mages.”

  A sudden breeze filled the corridor as the captain began to pace, air currents picking up on her agitation. “We’ll have to tough it out,” she said, all weakness hidden too deeply to be visible now as she donned her captain’s persona like protective armor. Still, Sabrina slowed her steps long enough to meet his gaze, blue eyes questioning. “If this is going to work, though, you and I have to be on the same page. I’ll need to talk to Uncle Walt, which means you’ll be the one keeping the Intrepid on high alert. Keeping out potential invaders if I leave the ship. We can’t trust anyone in Raft City, no matter how nice they may seem.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Nicholas promised. And he would. He’d take care of it by imparting as much information as he could to the bosun’s mate...then by gluing himself to Sabrina’s side.

  Because there was no way Nicholas was letting the captain set foot off the Intrepid on her own. Not when she’d finally admitted to needing his help. No, Nicholas intended to guard Sabrina’s back even if it meant walking willingly into his worst nightmare—a world made up entirely of water.

  ***

  Walter Atwater looked exactly the way Sabrina remembered. A little fat, a little oily, but 100% good old boy underneath.

  Or so he took pains to appear.

  “Walter,” she greeted him, stepping out onto the ramp that Raft City had rolled up to attach to the cargo door at the base of her moored ship. The captain supposed she should have been flattered to find the settlement’s ruler leaving his office for such a minor meet and greet. Should have been glad that Walter considered the Fairweather ship’s arrival reason enough to abandon his duties and enjoy a day out under the sun.

  But instead she wished he’d sent a lackey in his place. Sabrina could have used more time to push the exhilaration of wind magic aside and settle her brain after bringing the Intrepid in for a sea landing without the help of her untrained crew. Because her head was spinning, her feet were wobbly, and she was having a hard time focusing on the task at hand.

  The older man didn’t seem to notice her shakiness, though. Instead, he shook his head sadly. “What, no hug? No kiss on the cheek? I’m not your Uncle Walt any longer?”

  Definitely not, Sabrina rebutted for herself alone. Externally, though, she forced a smile onto her lips and strode forward to embrace her father’s closest friend. After all, it wouldn’t do to annoy Raft City’s ruler, not when Walter’s water magic was reputed to be stronger than anyone else’s.

  Sabrina had expected to cringe away from his touch, though, thinking of all the little girls he’d bought and sold...and maybe used in other ways as well. But to her surprise, Uncle Walt’s warm bulk still felt like a safe harbor. He smelled like the same cigars Frank used to smoke, and for one long second Sabrina deluded herself into believing that her father had flown all the way out to Raft City to supply his friend with the simple luxuries they both enjoyed.

  Cigars. Could all of those journeys really have just been about cigars?

  She’d been hoodwinking herself for long enough already, though. So Sabrina pulled back and dove into business. “I’ve got a bit of a problem that I was hoping you could help me with,” she began, sticking to the story she’d rehearsed repeatedly over the fifteen minutes it had taken to ease her ship down toward the open sea. She just hoped the tale would be good enough to tempt Walter into coming to her assistance for old time’s sake then allowing the Intrepid to fly off into the sunset unscathed.

  In the interest of verisimilitude, Sabrina even forced a moniker past her lips that she hadn’t allowed to so much as enter her brain for seven long years. “Daddy always told me I could come to you if I ever got into trouble.”

  “Of course, Princess,” Walter answered. No hesitation, no slanty eyes. Instead, the childhood endearment sent a strange sort of tremor down Sabrina’s spine, a bittersweet wish that she was able to take their relationship at face value. That she’d never discovered what Frank had gotten up to when he left his only daughter safely ashore.

  But then Raft City’s ruler held up one pudgy finger, cupping the other hand above his left ear, and they all stood frozen for one long moment. Nicholas was half-hidden in the shadows of the corridor behind her back and Walter’s men milled about at the far end of the ramp. Meanwhile, breezes danced around Sabrina’s head as she attempted to overhear whatever Walter was listening to...and failed.

  Finally, her companion lowered his hand and smiled again, just as oily and open as ever. “Sorry, Princess. Just Raft City business. Sometimes I wish I’d left these earbuds buried in the Before, but—” he shrugged “—if my people have questions, I need to have answers.”

  Sabrina smiled, shrugged, raised one eyebrow. “It’s hard to find good help,” she offered.

  “Exactly,” Walter agreed, clapping her on the shoulder so hard it would have sent a lesser mortal tumbling off the ramp. Sabrina barely swayed though...then wished she’d shown a little more weakness when her companion narrowed his eyes ever so slightly. For the first time, she felt like her story wasn’t holding water, like her adopted uncle doubted her cover story.

  As well he might. Sabrina was terrible at pretending to be a damsel in distress.

  Still, Walter didn’t sound suspicious when he pulled her in for another short hug, then held her out at arm’s length as if assessing how much she’d grown over the last fourteen years. “Tell me your troubles, Princess, and I’ll take care of them.”

  So Sabrina did. Not all of her troubles, of course. She didn’t mention the dragon shifter who kept dancing through her thoughts when she had more important business matters to attend to. Nor did she mention Steph, whose abusive history was trailing along in their wake. She definitely didn’t allude to the egg attached to sensors down in Intrepid’s engineering department.

  Instead, Sabrina kept it simple. “I think there might be dragons on my tail,” she offered, feeling thirteen again, as if she was owning up to another failure beneath her father’s gimlet gaze. “Plus, I have a problem passenger who needs safe passage back to land.”

  She expected pursed lips, disappointed head shakes. Instead, Uncle Walt’s booming laugh rang out across the platform and his meaty hand landed on her shoulder yet again.

  “That’s all? Measly problems like that will barely put a dent into the debt I owe your father.” Then, slinging one arm around her shoulders, he turned them both around to face Raft City. “I’ll have it all taken care of. No p
roblem. Now, let’s go somewhere more comfortable so you can tell me about your travels. It’s been far too long since I last set eyes on your lovely face.”

  Chapter 27

  She was leaving. Without him. And Nicholas hadn’t quite completed the duties he needed to attend to aboard ship.

  “Do you understand me?” he asked the sailor standing by his side, words clipped in his haste to depart. The shifter would have rather relayed this message directly to Dominic, who seemed the most solid of Intrepid’s newly hired crew. But the bosun’s mate was still on the upper deck, so George would have to do.

  And the sailor seemed to have gotten the drift. “Lock all hatches as if we’re pressurizing once you leave,” he parroted back. “Allow no one aboard except you and the captain. Take off if we haven’t heard from you by tomorrow at noon. Protect the egg and Steph at all costs.”

  Nicholas winced. He didn’t want to leave the Intrepid unattended for so many hours. But Walter Atwater had already teased a promise out of Sabrina that she’d dine with him and enjoy one of his luxury apartments for the evening. Cleverly, she’d evaded his request that she bring the crew along, explaining that her sailors were new and untrained. But the captain—like Nicholas—must have noticed the narrowing of Walter’s eyes when she attempted to take herself back to the ship immediately. So, gracefully, she’d given in.

  Now Sabrina’s feet clattered down the ramp as she was drawn away from his draconic protection. In response, Nicholas’s muscles tensed, itching to follow in her wake. One more duty, then I can catch up, he promised himself.

  And something finally went right for a change. Turning, he found Zach double timing it down the corridor toward him, holding onto one of Gleason’s arms while the apprentice engineer gripped the other. Between them, their efforts forced the prisoner to pick up his pace or be dragged along behind.