He’d never truly been cursed. If Qeturah hadn’t hobbled him with the talisman, he likely would have learned to control his dragon nature long ago.
They started walking again, hand in hand, sticking to what shade they could find to make it easier for Gideon to remain a boy.
“Where should we go?” Gideon asked. “We can’t return to the Aerie.”
“No.” Taking a deep breath, Leah told him about the message from the duke. “I need you to fly me to Grumbling Man, to rescue my mother.”
Gideon swore.
Leah winced. “I know you don’t like to take dragon form, but if I don’t return soon, he’ll kill her.”
Gideon shook his head. “That’s not it. I just remembered something the dragon did on my mother’s orders.” Apprehension filled his eyes. “You’re not the Jehannah Duke Ruben wants back.”
…
A short flight and two transformations later, they stood twenty yards from another needlelike rock formation that had been hollowed out for human use. Once hot springs would have made it a pleasant place to live, but the water had dried into two cracked mudpots that bubbled with grayish-white mud.
From the air, the tower had looked uninhabited by all but firewasps, but Gideon said this was the place, so…Leah walked along a crumbling path toward it. Gideon hovered at her elbow, ready to catch her if she misstepped. The mudpot on the right was only a few yards wide, but the left-hand one could have swallowed a castle.
Steam dampened her clothing and flushed her face before she reached the tower’s doorway and poked her head inside. The interior consisted of a single room with a table, chair—and a bed with a slender girl lying on it.
“Jehannah? It’s Leah—” Did Jehannah even know her real name? “Your sister,” she finished uncertainly.
Jehannah sat up, brushing her light brown hair out of her eyes. Iron links rattled from the chains at her wrist.
Rage surged through Leah when she saw the welts on Jehannah’s arms and legs from firewasp stings.
“You!” Jehannah’s eyes flared. “I saw you flying on the dragon.”
Leah didn’t deny it. “We’ve come to rescue you,” she said firmly. “Do you know where the key to your manacle is?” She waved away several firewasps.
“No,” Jehannah said sullenly. “The guard takes it with him.”
“Let me see,” Gideon said from the doorway.
“Who’s he?” Jehannah demanded, yanking the blanket higher over her modest blue wool dress.
“He’s helping us,” Leah evaded. She still had some frail hope of keeping Gideon’s identity a secret. If it became known that Qeturah’s son was the dragon, he would be hunted down.
Gideon knelt on the floor and tugged at the chain. The dragon could tear it out in a trice, but—
Jehannah cried out, clutching her stomach.
“What’s that?” Gideon asked, a strange expression on his face. “I can feel—” He yanked away the blanket, revealing a fist-sized bump in the younger girl’s belly.
Leah’s mouth dropped open. “You’re pregnant!”
“I am not,” Jehannah said through clenched teeth. “I just have a cramp. You have to lie with a boy to get pregnant, and I never!”
Leah’s heartbeat picked up. She came closer, ignoring Jehannah’s scowl and the buzzing cloud of firewasps. “What do you feel?” she asked Gideon. “The baby’s hot blood?”
“Yes. It knows I’m here.” Gideon paused, then added quietly, “I think it’s a changeling, like me.”
A dragon changeling.
Jehannah stared in incomprehension. For her own part, Leah felt sick. What had the duke said when he told Leah she must go in Jehannah’s place? I have plans for Jehannah.
Leah had assumed he’d meant a dynastic marriage, but now she remembered the diamond on his desk that he’d unconsciously kept picking up and putting down, as if weighing a decision.
He must have decided to create his own dragon, from Isaiah’s dragonseed.
Had Jehannah already been pregnant when Leah left Grumbling Man, or did changeling pregnancies develop faster than the norm? Jehannah was so slender, even the small bump stood out.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Jehannah asked.
Horror and pity touched Leah. To think she’d believed herself treated badly by their father. “I—” She blinked back tears. “We’re going to take you to Duke Ruben.” Dubious as his care might be, he still held Beulah.
“I hear somebody.” Gideon pushed past her out the door.
A moment later, Emman, the bandit leader, came into view on the path between the mudpots.
Tellingly, Jehannah hid behind Leah.
Anger crackled in Leah’s veins. “If he hurt you, Gideon will throw him in the mudpot.”
“He said he hoped I’d try to escape, because then Qeturah would give me to him to ‘play with.’” Jehannah shuddered. “I hate him.”
“You’re safe now.” Leah patted her back.
Jehannah shook her head, puzzled. “Why do you care?”
“Because you’re my sister.” How could she make Jehannah understand? Leah had always known who Jehannah was and felt protective of her. “Do you remember the time you ripped your skirt, and the visiting duke’s son laughed? When I served the chicken that evening, I spilled soup on his lap.”
“I remember that.” Jehannah’s eyes widened.
Leah hurried outside, arriving just in time to hear Emman hail Gideon.
“Gideon, my friend! What are you doing here?” Under his mustache, Emman’s mouth moved in a stiff smile. “Your mother is looking for you.”
“I’m here for the girl.” Gideon blocked the path. He stood in shadow.
“How strange! I, too, have come to fetch the girl.” Emman jingled a key on a ring, confidently advancing down the path. “The lookouts report that her father has brought an army to rescue her. She must join the other hostages in the Tower.”
An army! Leah reeled. Would Duke Ruben risk Thunderhead’s wrath by taking an army into his territory just for a daughter? Except the dragon changeling in Jehannah’s womb made her priceless. Her thoughts ran ahead. The sacrifice of the goat this morning had probably been the duke’s doing, an attempt to placate Thunderhead. And Thunderhead had been pleased, but…
They had to return Jehannah to Duke Ruben quickly. Before Thunderhead lost his temper.
Emman smiled at Gideon, showing white teeth, but his hand lay on the hilt of his knife. “Shall we travel to the Tower together? The girl is feisty. I could use your help.”
“No.” Gideon took up a fighting stance.
Leah stared in disbelief. What was he thinking? He didn’t have a weapon!
“Go home, boy,” Emman said, drawing his blade. “The girl is no business of yours.”
“We’ll see about that.” Gideon edged toward a fist-sized rock, but Emman flicked out his wrist. Gideon danced back from the point of the knife.
“Emman!” Leah called. Neither man spared her more than a glance, still feinting.
“You brought a girl?” Emman raised one mocking eyebrow. “Why are we fighting then? We can have one apiece.”
Gideon growled and darted forward. Emman slashed at him, laughing when Gideon jumped back, his foot slipping off the path. If he fell into the boiling mud— She had to stop them.
“Look at his eyes!” Leah yelled.
Emman faltered. The tip of his knife wavered, and Gideon snatched up a rock. “How can this be?” Emman demanded. “Your eyes have always been brown.”
“Qeturah used illusion magic to make them look brown,” Leah told him. “He has diamond eyes like the dragon. Gideon, show him.”
Expressionless, Gideon extended one foot into the sunlight. His toenails swelled and turned black, curling into talons. Black scales chased their way up his leg before he drew it back into the shade.
“Ashes.” Emman retreated. Earth crumbled underfoot; he fell to one knee and dropped both the key and his knife in his scr
amble to stand again. He fled, eyes wild.
Leah and Gideon were left staring at each other with hollow expressions. Armies marching. War on the way.
“You free Jehannah.” Gideon tossed her the key ring. “There’s no time to lose.” He jogged across the path to the sunny clearing where he’d landed earlier. Leah checked, but Jehannah’s window faced a different direction; she wouldn’t be able to see his transformation. Leah would tell her Gideon had left with Emman.
Gideon turned his back and stripped off his trousers. Head tipped back, arms spread in the sunlight, he let the change take him.
…
Leah waited, nervous and alone, on the desolate, rocky plain, holding a flag of parley she’d fashioned from Jehannah’s bedsheet and a stick. An emissary from the army rode toward her.
Only weeds grew on the plain, which was covered in black basalt from an old lava flow, but chunks of larger rock dotted the field like toys strewn by a giant.
From dragonback, the vast plain had swallowed up the army, rendering it insignificant. The view was different from the ground. Dismayed, Leah estimated over a thousand soldiers had entered Thunderhead’s valley. Not one army, in truth, but three from different duchies. Grumbling Man’s green-on-black pennant led the advance.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she identified the gray-haired man riding toward her as Captain Brahim.
His countenance soured when he recognized her in turn, and he reined in his black horse.
“The dragon’s watching,” she warned, since he looked as if he wanted to violate the flag of parley and shake her.
The dragon and Jehannah were waiting on a rocky promontory about five hundred yards away. Gideon had agreed to let Leah do the negotiating, but the dragon hadn’t wanted her to leave his side.
“What do you want?” Captain Brahim growled.
“Tell Duke Ruben that I received his message and accept his terms,” Leah said coldly. “I am willing to exchange Jehannah for my mother, Beulah.” Facing the dragon, Leah dipped the parley flag into a circle.
The dragon lifted his taloned hand, showing Jehannah sitting on the rock, before caging her again.
“Please. Is my mother with you?” Her greatest fear was that the duke had left her at the castle.
Captain Brahim’s iron-hard expression didn’t change. “I will speak to the duke.” He wheeled his horse around and rode back to the army.
Leah bit her lip and waited.
Wind scoured the plain, whipping her hair and raising gooseflesh on her arms. Under the hot sun, the plain would become a crucible, but the patchy morning sunlight failed to warm her.
The army marched closer, lining up in ragged ranks with archers in the front only three hundred yards away. The dragon didn’t like it, mantling his wings and stretching his neck, but at Leah’s frantic signals, he stayed put as Captain Brahim and several men opened a path for Duke Ruben.
Leah strained to see behind him, then released the breath she’d been holding at a glimpse of a beloved face. “Mother!”
“Leah?” Suppressed panic twanged in Beulah’s voice.
Captain Brahim blocked Beulah from reaching Leah, but not before Leah saw the bandage on her mother’s right hand. Guilt slashed through her. She wanted to scream, to cry, to rip the duke’s face off. Somewhere deep inside, she’d cherished the hope that the bones he’d sent through the hypocaust hadn’t been her mother’s. But the duke had cut off her thumb, and he wouldn’t hesitate to order her death now.
“So you do care for her after all,” the duke said, nudging his horse forward. Clad in his customary black, his eyes fierce below heavy brows, he looked down on Leah from his lofty perch. “Given your past actions, I wondered.”
Leah clenched her fists. She couldn’t lose her temper until he’d freed her mother.
“Where’s Jehannah?” Duke Ruben demanded.
Resisting the urge to say, “I’m right here,” Leah signaled with the parley flag again. The dragon lifted his talons, briefly showing Jehannah before caging her again.
“She’s in good health,” Leah said, carefully not mentioning her sister’s pregnancy. “Once my mother and I start toward the dragon, Jehannah will walk out to meet us halfway.”
“No,” Duke Ruben said flatly. “The dragon can move much faster than my men. The exchange will be made when Jehannah has covered two-thirds of the distance, not halfway.”
“Agreed.”
Still the duke didn’t release her mother, watching Leah. “Qeturah hasn’t sanctioned this little exchange, has she?”
Leah shook her head.
“How are you controlling the dragon?” he demanded.
I’m not. He’s doing this because he loves me. “We don’t have much time,” she evaded. “The dragon grows restless.” It was no lie. The dragon flexed his wings, as if about to launch skyward. If Gideon thought she was in danger, he would attack.
“Very well.” The duke nodded to Captain Brahim, who moved aside.
“Mother!” Leah flung herself at Beulah, choked by emotion.
Her mother’s arms closed slowly around her. “Leah,” she whispered.
“I’m so sorry,” Leah said into her mother’s shoulder. She waited for Beulah to say it wasn’t her fault, but her mother pushed her away, her expression distant.
“We’d best get going.”
“Of course.” Leah tried to ignore the lump in her throat. What had she expected? That an apology would make the loss of Beulah’s thumb and livelihood tolerable? Nothing could make that better.
Nor was this the time for tearful reunions. Leah twirled the parley flag in a figure-eight pattern, then strode toward the promontory.
The dragon uncaged Jehannah, and she broke into a run.
Leah tried to pick up the pace, but her mother lagged.
“You’re in league with the dragon, then.” Beulah gave a mirthless laugh. “Before the duke cut off my thumb, he told me that you’d been seen riding the dragon. I swore to him that you would never do such a thing, but I was wrong.” Her words hit like blows.
Leah bit her lip. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Then what was it like?” Beulah waited.
Leah hung her head. How could she explain without giving away Gideon’s secret?
“Why, Leah?” The pain in her mother’s expression sliced Leah’s heart. “I know you’ve always wanted more from life than what I could give, but what could Duchess Qeturah possibly offer you that would be worth allying yourself with her over your family?”
“I’m not allied with Qeturah.” But she couldn’t deny that she wanted more than to be a weaver.
Her mother lifted her brows in disbelief.
Before Leah could fumble out an explanation, two men on horses galloped up, cutting them off in a whirl of hooves and dust.
Four hundred yards away, the dragon screeched and mantled his wings, ready to attack. Leah frantically waved him back as she took in the faces of the mounted men, strangers all.
Expression murderous, Duke Ruben rode into the fray. “Get back!”
“What’s going on here, Ruben?” a fiftyish man demanded. He had dark skin and a jowly face. “Are you making some side deal?” From the familiar way he addressed Duke Ruben and the embroidered emblem on his rich red coat, Leah identified him as the Duke of Cinders, Zamara’s father.
“Isn’t that his daughter?” The second man pointed to Jehannah with one ringed finger. Another duke, Leah realized, wincing. This one was only in his thirties and handsome with blond hair and a tidy beard, but his eyes were hard, and he controlled his gray stallion with one hand.
“Yes,” Duke Ruben said testily, “and I’ll thank you not to bungle the hostage exchange. Ride away, now.”
“Where’s Zamara?” the Duke of Cinders demanded. “And my niece?”
“They weren’t part of the offer,” Duke Ruben said.
“Why not?” the Duke of Cinders demanded.
“Have you been negotiating behind our backs?”
the blond duke demanded.
“The offer came up suddenly; there was no time to send for you,” Duke Ruben defended himself.
“I’ll try to bring the other girls, too. Sabra, Zamara, and Niobe,” Leah said rashly. Beulah trod on her foot, a warning to keep quiet while in the presence of nobility. Leah ignored it. “But please let me go before the dragon attacks.”
Jehannah had slowed a little, panting, but had reached the halfway point. The dragon hopped down from the promontory and put himself within easy striking distance.
“And who are you to make such promises?” the bearded blond duke demanded.
“My spy,” Duke Ruben said, his gaze full of cold warning not to let the other dukes know she was his daughter. As if Leah still cared about that.
“I’m your best chance to see your daughters again,” Leah said to the dukes. “But only if you let us go now.”
“What’s your price?” the blond duke asked.
“My price?” Leah repeated, bewildered. “I don’t—I just want to stop all this. For you to take your armies home and for no one to get hurt.”
The blond duke sneered in disbelief, but the Duke of Cinders edged his horse forward. “She has a tender heart. Go, child. If you can bring Zamara and Niobe here, war may be averted.”
Gratefully, Leah pulled her mother into a run. They’d almost reached the exchange point when the dragon hopped to within fifty yards of Jehannah. Steam puffed from his nostrils, a sign that he could cough out a fireball at a moment’s notice.
Her face drawn with terror, Jehannah glanced back over her shoulder and tripped over her skirts. Leah hurried forward to help her up. “Are you hurt?” Had she injured the baby?
Her sister accepted her aid. Their eyes met briefly. Jehannah squeezed her fingers in thanks before running again. “Father!”
Glancing back, Leah saw that the dukes, Captain Brahim, and a number of men-at-arms had followed. They were far too close. She grabbed her mother’s hand. “Run!”
But Beulah pulled back. “No.”
Leah jerked to a halt. “The dragon won’t hurt you—”
“Stay with me,” her mother pleaded. “Come back with me to Grumbling Man.”
“After what the duke did to you? Never,” Leah vowed. She held up her mother’s maimed hand. “How can you want to return to being in his power?”
Through Fire & Sea Page 20