The Witch Thief (Harlequin Nocturne)

by Lori Devoti

  Cared… Her mind got lost considering that. She forgot about figuring out what was happening to her.

  “Amma!” It was a scream this time—a demand.

  Amma didn’t do well with demands; she never had.

  “Damn it. Fight!”

  Now Joarr was angry. Amma frowned. He should be angry. Anger would make all of this so much easier. She frowned and thought of how the dragons would steal her baby, or try to, when they learned of him. Thought of how they separated other children from their mothers, didn’t even return them when their fathers died, like Joarr’s had. Just left the child to grow up feeling deserted and alone.

  It wouldn’t happen to her son. She wouldn’t let it…

  Suddenly she was more awake; she realized a dragon held her. It was a dragon’s heat wrapped around her, but not the warm, comforting heat she’d shared with Joarr. This heat was malevolent; it was the only word she could think of for it. Sticky and cloying. It made her skin crawl and her stomach turn…but it was heat. Which meant it was power.

  She gritted her teeth and began sucking it into her body.

  * * *

  Amma hung limply from the wyrm’s tongue, and Joarr watched helplessly as Fafnir reeled her in. His body was exhausted, his reserves were depleted. He needed time to rebuild them…not long…minutes would do…but he didn’t have minutes, didn’t have seconds.

  He screamed at Amma, angry now. Where was the witch who had captivated him? She wouldn’t hang like a broken doll from the wyrm’s tongue—she would fight.

  He closed his eyes and concentrated on rebuilding the ice. He could feel it hardening, but knew he had to wait. To shoot the shards too early, as he had done before, would cost him and Amma everything. He had to wait, had to make sure they were hard enough this time to do the job in one well-aimed hit.

  There was a noise, a whoosh. Joarr opened his eyes. Amma had moved. She didn’t just hang loose like a boneless cat. She was twisting, moving so her hands were pointed at Fafnir. Magic poured out of her palms, struck the wyrm between the eyes. He blinked and let out a guttural shriek but he continued to reel her in.

  Seeing her mistake, Amma twisted again, this time aiming her power at the tongue itself.

  An idea blossomed in Joarr’s mind. He might need his ice to kill Fafnir, but there were other ways to save Amma. He moved forward, did what the wyrm had done to his father. He opened his mouth and snapped his jaws down over Amma’s body, snapped his teeth through the wyrm’s tongue.

  Fafnir screamed. Blood spurted from his tongue. Joarr’s mouth was filled with it. He fought not to gag, not to spit out Amma along with the blood and chunk of tongue.

  Fafnir flailed from side to side, the end of his severed tongue hanging out of his mouth. He groped at it, feeling the end, then touching it again, as if he expected it to grow back…which it might, but not quickly, not within the time it would take Joarr to kill him.

  “Amma?” Joarr spoke to the witch, opened his jaws wide enough for her to get air and light. Fafnir’s blood leaked from his mouth, ran down his chin and neck. Again Joarr had to fight the urge to spit.

  “Put me on him,” Amma said. “I can use his power. I can transfer it to you.”

  Joarr shook his head, slowly, carefully. The idea was insane. He’d just saved her from the wyrm; he couldn’t put her back in danger. She was weak. Despite the magic he’d seen flowing from her palms, he could feel she held none now. He said as much in her mind.

  “I can’t hold magic like I should, but I can pull it and shoot it back out. I can share it with you.”

  Like she had when they made love.

  He nodded, just enough to let her know he agreed.

  Fafnir had his back to them now, was still mumbling and stumbling, but Joarr could see his rage was increasing and with it his fire. Steam poured from his nostrils and up, over his head.

  Joarr leaned closer, within inches of the dwarf. Amma rolled to her side and crawled out of his mouth onto the wyrm’s back.

  With Amma safely out of his mouth, Joarr spat, freeing his mouth of the taste and smell of wyrm.

  From Fafnir’s back Amma held up the chalice to Joarr. “Take it,” she said. “It’s yours now.”

  It was obvious she was feeble, that it was hard for her to even hold up the cup. Joarr dropped his gaze. He didn’t want the cup; didn’t want to go back to the Ormar…not without Amma and his son.

  “Joarr.” Her voice was weak, but it grew sharp as she called his name.

  He looked up at her. “Save yourself, save my son, and I’ll give you anything you ask.”

  It was all that mattered to him now. He would become a wyrm himself if it meant Amma and his son could live.

  * * *

  Amma was dying. She knew it; knew that meant her baby wouldn’t survive, either. It was unfair, beyond unfair. He’d waited so long to be born. One hundred human years.

  And now because she’d thought she was being smart, had tried to trick the dwarf by giving him her blood instead of Joarr’s, she and her baby were going to die. Somehow the dwarf was doing what the elves had failed to do; he was killing her.

  Joarr still thought he could save her, and she wouldn’t argue with him. There was no time for that. Time wasted meant less time for her to be alive and to help Joarr kill the horrid dwarf.

  Helping to kill him might be her last act, but it would be a good one.

  She placed one palm flat on Fafnir’s back, her stomach and face against his black scales, and pointed her other palm at Joarr. Then she began to siphon.

  * * *

  Amma’s power—or Fafnir’s through Amma—hit Joarr hard. She was pulling his magic quickly, letting it flow through her body unheeded. At first he resisted. She needed the power, their son needed the power, but then Fafnir turned his head and shrieked. He realized what was happening. He shot balls of molten rock onto his own back, peppered the area around Amma.

  In her current state, one strike would surely kill her.

  Joarr had no choice but to take what she offered and end this fight once and for all.

  He dropped his guards and accepted her magic.

  It flowed into him like an electrical charge. He gasped and locked his jaws to keep from crying out. His eyes closed, too. It took every bit of control he had to manage the power, channel it to where his ice stores were building.

  Cold, arctic. The temperature inside him was dropping. He could feel the shards sharpening. In his mind he whittled their tips, tested them for cold and strength.

  Amma’s magic was amazing, intoxicating. It surged through Joarr until he knew he was more powerful than he had ever been, than any dragon who had ever lived.

  This is what the Ormar feared. A dragon with this much power could destroy anything, everything, the world even. And if Amma died, if Joarr never got to meet his son, that is exactly what he would be tempted to do.

  But not yet. All wasn’t lost yet.

  He reached into his core, sorted through the diamond-hard ice crystals and selected the sharpest.

  Then he waited for the wyrm to turn.

  It didn’t take long. Fully aware the witch was on his back, Fafnir shuffled his heavy body around. Amma continued to cling. Fafnir switched his tactic, curling his tail and taking swipes at her. Without his tail to balance on, his weight shifted forward onto his arms. It also blocked any clear path to his heart.

  “Slide off,” Joarr yelled into Amma’s head. “Slide and roll.”

  Amma looked at him. There was regret and sorrow in her eyes. She thought she was going to die.

  She was wrong. Joarr wouldn’t let her, but he had to move fast. Once she was off the wyrm’s back his flailing could easily crush her.

  She broke her connection to Fafnir’s power. Without it, she lost her grip and immediately slid down under his belly. There she reconnected and hung by one hand from the dwarf’s side. Her other hand still gripped the chalice. Joarr wondered briefly if she even could let go of it.

  But her
move had been perfect. It caused Fafnir to rise back up onto his tail, leaving his chest fully exposed. Joarr focused on the ribbed stripe of scales that covered his heart—only a few feet from where Amma hung.

  Then he fired.

  The ice shard burst from Joarr’s throat and into the wyrm’s chest, crunched as it pierced his scales. Fafnir’s body flew backward, slamming into the club’s wall behind him. A dwarf-made stalactite crashed to the ground. Barware exploded, and the partial floor above Fafnir’s head collapsed, raining rubble and debris over him.

  Amma lifted her head to stare at Joarr. Her lips twisted into a weak smile, then she released her hold, or the wyrm’s power gave out, Joarr couldn’t tell which, and she fell to the floor. As she hit, her hand opened and the chalice rolled across the dirty concrete toward him.

  With a curse and without bothering to check to see if the wyrm still lived, Joarr shifted and strode to her side, kicking the chalice out of his path as he did. He scooped the witch up and cradled her against his chest.

  She was cold and her head tipped back, her hair cascading over his arm.

  Desperate, he poured heat into her, willed her to accept it, to grow stronger…to live.

  Her skin warmed to his touch, but she didn’t move, didn’t gain any power. He was warming her, but as his heat would warm any inanimate object. She wasn’t absorbing it; she was reflecting it.

  He closed his eyes and pressed his chin to his chest.

  “If you want the witch to live, I can tell you how to save her, but for a price, of course.”

  Joarr’s head shot up. Standing on his son’s dead body was the Collector, dripping wet, his peacock feather drooping down to his chest. In his hand was his crossbow and it was pointed at Joarr.

  “Nice of you to skewer him like that. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get out.” The dwarf gestured at his son’s chest. The ice shard was melting, but Joarr could see that something had increased the size of the original wound, making it into a tear that practically gutted the wyrm. “It’s true, you know—dwarf metal can cut anything.” The Collector pointed at a dagger hanging from his belt. “But you providing the starting point was quite useful.”

  “Tell me how to save her.” Joarr took a step forward. Amma’s hair swung as he moved, but she made no sound. If she was breathing it was too shallow for Joarr to see or hear.

  The Collector wiggled his crossbow. “Dwarf metal on the ends of these arrows, too. Don’t be tempting me to use them.”

  “I can survive your arrows,” Joarr replied.

  The Collector smiled. “But can she?”

  Joarr froze.

  “Silly girl. She gave the boy her blood.” The Collector shook his head. “Why would she go and do that?”

  “Because you lied to her?” Joarr asked. “When she came to you with the chalice, you told her her father was an elf. He wasn’t though, was he? There’s only one being as hard to destroy as the elves found Amma to be.”

  The Collector sighed. “Yes. It’s true. Your pretty little witch is half-dragon. It’s why she was left to be raised by her mother. Unfortunately like your father, her mother didn’t live to do the job. She got left with those two hags of sisters she has.”

  “And you didn’t tell her because of the chalice.”

  “Couldn’t be expecting a dragon to give up the dragons’ most valuable artifact, now, could I? Sure, she had no loyalty to your kind, but she had some mixed-up feelings about family. I didn’t want to risk it. Besides, what was the harm? Wasn’t like the dragons were going to accept her into the bosom of their family. Dragons have no bosom of their families.”

  It was true. Amma would have been turned away, just like the elves had turned her away. But while the elves had no idea how to destroy her when she rebelled, the dragons would have. She wouldn’t have been trapped in Gunngar, but she wouldn’t have survived, either.

  “So, what do you want?” Joarr asked.

  The Collector smiled. “Treasure, dragon treasure. All of it. You get me and my dwarves inside the stronghold. No one has to be hurt. No one will be hurt if you do it right.”

  Joarr’s temper flared. “You want me to betray the dragons?”

  The dwarf shook his head; he seemed amused by Joarr’s question. “You forget who I am. I’m the Collector. It isn’t just things I gather. I gather information, too. You never know when some little tidbit will be useful. For example, I know you are the Chalice Keeper, the Chalice Keeper who lost the chalice.” He made a tsking sound. “How did the Ormar handle that when they found out?”

  At Joarr’s raised brow, the Collector chuckled. “You aren’t listening, are you? I know everything. I knew my disappointment of a son had stolen the chalice. I knew what he was doing with it, and I knew he sent a note to the Ormar. So, how’d they take it?”

  Joarr bit the inside of his cheek and pulled Amma a little closer to his chest.

  The Collector’s eyes glittered with mockery. “Did they understand? Offer to help you retrieve it? Or did they threaten you, make it completely clear what would happen to you if it wasn’t returned?” He tilted his head. “You aren’t the first dragon I’ve dealt with, you know. I understand your kind—I am your kind.”

  Joarr lifted his brows and the Collector shook his head. “No, no dragon in me. But I understand the need to own, to hoard, to keep others from getting what is yours. We, dragon, are kindred souls.”

  Joarr doubted if the Collector had ever been more wrong about anything, but he played along because he needed the information the dwarf offered, needed to know how to save Amma.

  “You know what happens to dragons who lose everything?” Joarr asked. He looked past the brightly clothed dwarf to his son’s wyrm body.

  The dwarf waited for Joarr to look back at him. “I’ve heard the tales.” He held his gaze steady. “But I have no control over what will happen after I get my treasure, what the dragons allow to happen. I’m not evil. I don’t choose to hurt anyone. I just want my treasure.”

  Joarr nodded. “I can understand that. I guess it is time to talk.” He nodded to the side, asking the Collector for permission to set Amma down. At the dwarf’s short nod, he carried Amma a few feet away. He took a moment to arrange her hair around her face, to run his fingers down her face. When he knew he couldn’t stall any longer, he turned back to face the Collector, positioning himself so in his larger size he would block any shot the Collector had at hitting Amma with one of his arrows.

  “Unfortunately, I don’t think we have much to talk about.” And as the words were still leaving Joarr’s throat, he shifted. He loved Amma, knew he couldn’t live without her, but he also knew he couldn’t trust the Collector, and no matter how they had treated him, he couldn’t condemn even a single dragon to life as a wyrm. He would save Amma; he would just have to figure out how on his own.

  The Collector fired his first arrow. It lodged in Joarr’s chest, less than a foot from his heart. But Joarr wasn’t afraid. He’d seen inside the Collector when reading his thoughts. He knew the dwarf was far from a hero. Without the power of the chalice working for him, neither Fafnir nor the Collector could have downed the tiniest of dragons, much less one of the largest.

  The chalice. Joarr glanced to where it had rolled across the floor.

  The chalice was the cause of all of this. It wasn’t the lucky talisman the dragons thought it to be. No, the reason the cup was important was that the chalice itself could be used to destroy the dragons. It was their Achilles’ heel, not their salvation.