Feral Magic

by Nicolette Jinks

  I flushed, too tongue-tied to admit who the gray rose was, equal parts terrified and giddy. My mind seemed to float with the tingling in my fingers, the sudden loss of breath. For an instant, I felt like I was floating over my body, expecting my skin to shift into scales. Then that instant was gone, and Mordon’s fingers were on my cheek, snagging my soft peach fuzz with calloused skin. He ran his knuckles gingerly over my cheekbones, held my ear lobe with searching fingers, curled then under my jaw and pulled my face closer to his.

  My heart thumped, not in a wild manner, but in a strong tandem, seeming to beat in rhythm with his. Heat rolled off his skin, cold air tickled my back and down my throat, and I gazed into his lion eyes, swallowing when I saw love radiating from him deeper than the passion of the moment. I was chilled to the bone with the realization that I felt the same. When had I fallen in love? Who was he, really? Did I know him well enough? I hadn’t come anywhere near understanding what to do with my life—how could I share it with another?

  I need not have worried. Mordon pulled away and looked to the ground.

  Swallowing, I shifted away from him again. I’d been seeing things. I’d been foolish to let myself get caught up in a fairy tale, and now I needed to come back to reality.

  We sat in uncomfortable silence for some time.

  I caught sight of an ember burning in the air above us, a paper forming in the reverse burn of a letter being delivered. It landed in his hair, still burning, and I plucked it before it could catch fire to his hair.

  He smelled the smoke, settled back and sighed. “Who?”

  “Barnes,” I said, judging from the handwriting. “I have a feeling it isn’t good.”

  Mordon held out his hand. I gave him the letter.

  “We should go,” he said.

  As we hiked back up the hill, the cool air devoid of spiced honeysuckle brought some senses back into me. Focusing on the twists and turns of the colony’s castle helped keep my mind distracted from lavishing attention on his powerful chest, his thick arms, his lean waist. And how they weren’t going to be mine. I shouldn’t be upset.

  I wasn’t upset. I was determined to not be upset when he showed me to my door and then stalked away, leaving me in the night alone with my thoughts.

  The rooms here had no doors in case a child became stuck in their dragon form. Instead, curtains instead hung in the arches, appropriate to the individual’s taste and style. My room had a garden tapestry hanging in the doorway, and I contemplated the embroidery in silence.

  A noise came down the hall. Scratchy, gnarly voices that rang in my distant memory. Gremlins. I held still, moving only my hand up to the narrow chain about my neck, slipping the invisibility ring on my finger.

  The knee-tall troupe passed by. They pulled aside a curtain, peered inside, and grumbled about if the occupant “could work” or not. They were overwhelmed about their options. Gremlins were possibly the only creature popular artwork did justice—large ears, large eyes, angular faces, dumpy frames, gangly arms and legs. I’d had only a few encounters with them in the past, and always when I was around my parents during an active mission. They were rumored to have been bred by a dark overlord of times long gone, suited for fodder and only the most basic of missions, though their nasty teeth and claws made up for their lack of mental capacity.

  I undid my shoes and followed after them in my socks, not in the least bit tired after everything Mordon had given me to think about. To my disappointment, most of the time I spent following them was relatively uneventful and I had too much time to ponder on my relationship with Mordon.

  What was I doing slobbering over him like...like some lamb swoons over a vampire reeking with glamour magic, then to become gloomy and moody when my affections were not returned after all? I had my own future to tend to, and I needed to do it right. One way or another, it included him—I couldn’t, I wouldn’t abandon Leif and Lilly. I wished I’d gotten to know Barnes better. Still time for that. In every walk of life, there was always that one person who you think that you should get to know more, but never do. The difference was, I still had the chance. Mordon, I reminded myself, stop switching subjects. I could be professional and get over this, and in a hurry. I would have to.

  I wanted to pull out my hair, fed up with my own issues.

  I almost ran into the gremlin trailing the rest, stopping and leaning comically over him, my arms outstretched for balance. He squinted and looked up into my face. I held my breath. He took one gnarled finger and swished it under his nose in an exaggerated itch, then stuck his nail up one nostril and pulled out a orange string of mucus. He looked at it, frowning and making a “hmmm” sound. Then, he ate it, smacking his lips with a toothy smile.

  He walked away, and I took a minute holding my hand up to my mouth, just breathing and focusing on not gagging. Had it meant that I would not have been subjected to seeing that, I would have gladly been caught eavesdropping.

  I followed at a greater distance now, coming within hearing range just in time to witness a gremlin spat.

  “Master wants one fast!” a green one said and shoved a brownish one into a wall.

  “Master needs a right one! One chance only, he said!” defended the brown. The others hissed and cheered on the fight.

  “Chak missed one chance with children running away,” the green one accused. They apparently needed a drake who could shift forms, and a child was the easiest prey to get.

  “Kek spent too long in field waiting for perfect time that never came,” the brown one, Chak, reprimanded, “must be a shifter! Kek never going to catch shifting drake in the field. Let’s take one from the bed. Then Morgana be Master.”

  But Kek had had enough of tolerating Chak, and with one pounce and shredding claws, Chak was left as a bloodless heap upon the ground, nothing more than a shredded rag with no face, no heart, no dead eyes to glaze over as the life left the body. Just a brownish, tattered pile of decomposing burlap, a puppet with its strings snipped.

  I started the morning brew in the kitchens off the end of the mead hall, waking up even the notoriously early-rising Nest. Wiping sleepers from her eyes, she took the cup I offered her without comment. I was on my second cup, my mind spinning between my new heart flutter and the image of the damp burlap laying at the foot of the castle walls.

  “Nest?” I said, then stopped. Then tried again and failed.

  “A drake does not learn to fly with slow wing beats. It dives off the wall and lets the wind fill its wings. Even if it only glides, it has soared farther than the one too frightened to jump off a table,” Nest said, sipping at her drink steaming in the morning chill.

  “I wasn’t asking about flying.”

  “Weren’t you?”

  “Why did he—” I started, then stopped, realizing she was either giving advice to me or to Mordon.

  “How can I—” I stopped again. She’d answered that question, too.

  “Jump off the wall, little one. Then you’ll fly.”

  It hardly seemed like good literal advice to give to the wingless variety of creatures, but I considered its value.

  “How do you know?” I finally asked a question her cryptic answer hadn’t already answered.

  “I know all my colony does,” Nest said, then raised her head, regarding me proudly, “And so will you, future Lady of the Kragdomen Colony.”

  My heart stopped, and I shook my head, “I don’t know.”

  “Over time. Over time, the lady will grow in you and I will train it. You have time, so long as I have time.” Her cup set down on the table with a thump, “You already have your first task as lady. You saw the gremlins that have been here. It is up to the Lord and the Lady to tend to such trifles. Go, go bring him his breakfast now. I will tend to the others.”

  I wasn’t positive which curtain was Mordon’s and it took a bit of walking around asking questions to early risers to find him. I didn’t mind, despite the curious glances, knowing smiles, and the occasional wink. I was too busy thinking of th
is morning to ponder on their actions. While my relationship with Mordon was an option, Nest had taken me as her successor and would not let me loose from my duties with her—at least not for any extended period of time. I considered these turns in my life. How Death hadn’t given me an option of getting my magic back or not. How Railey had just been snatched away. How Lilly had assumed I would rejoin her circle. Had I agreed to everything all along? I could have refused to meet Death. Railey had. I could have easily turned away from Lilly. I hadn’t. Perhaps part of life was accepting change, making the most of it, and being amiable when it changed yet again.

  I stared out the window at a sky with pink and orange clouds. Every dawn was the same routine, but with minor changes that never repeated themselves. I looked down at the morning brew that had stopped steaming, then ducked into what I hoped was the right curtain.

  Mordon had an easterly facing window in his room, and smiled upon seeing me. He was out of bed wearing pants, holding up a shirt and poking his finger though a ripped hole. The rush from the morning brew now hit me thickly with heat racing across my body.

  “Brought you...brew to drink,” I said, putting the cup down on a small chest, the only furniture in the room aside from the bed.

  When I looked at him, I’d found his chest to be muscles and big ribs, which he was. I hadn’t expected to see his front and back crosshatched with fine white scars from what could only have been a fight he hadn’t fared too well in. Encouraged by Nest and possibly the brew, I stepped forward and ran my fingers over the scars. Mordon offered no explanation for the scars.

  “I came to bring you breakfast.”

  “That’s what I thought,” he said, getting over his initial, blank-faced surprise. A smile crooked lopsided over his face as he met my eyes. “You have no idea what that means, do you?”

  “No, why? Does it mean something?” I said, then watched as he nodded to the bed. My face boiled, “Nest.”

  He laughed his rich velvet laugh and let me go, reaching for his drink. Mordon may have found this funny, but I certainly did not. “I should have expected, my apologies. It isn’t the first time she’s done this to someone, though she’s never done it to me before.”

  I stared, trying to not think about our situation. I needed to stop letting my emotion get the better of me. “Isn’t there some ceremony you drakes have before...you know...or is it a socially accepted free-for-all?”

  I realized I also needed to get a reign on my mouth, particularly when I was trying to avoid one subject by racing right into a freight train.

  He choked on his drink, coughed, and laughed. Annoyance shot through me, staying up all night had cut my tolerance short. I pushed past him and thundered my way to the mead hall, intending to...what, give Nest a piece of my mind? Ask her my question instead?

  I ended up sitting in the morning light. Nest brought me out a bloody , seared steak and eggs just as runny. I accepted the apology and ate them, nursing an achy ego.

  Enaid too causally paused by my table. “I heard you brought my son breakfast this morning.”

  “Nest suggested it. Mordon enlightened me on the hidden meaning.”

  “Ah,” Enaid said, casting a look half way between a question and a glare at Nest, “And how well did that go over?”

  “I escaped.”

  Enaid snickered and hid her smile behind a fist, then said, “Nest...is Nest, and I’m afraid she never explains to anyone what she does nor why. Are you well?”

  “Fine. Aside from being laughed at.”

  “It means he likes you,” Enaid muttered, then said brightly, “Oh, yes, I packed you two some meat and supplies in that bag by the door.”

  Enaid left at the first sign of trouble, two men bickering over a chicken that looked like age had maimed it more than the dog cowering behind the other man’s legs.

  Mordon entered the main hall, fully dressed and positively preening over my morning visit to him, too jovially accepting the verbal calls, jabs, whistles, and growls that were directed at him. Not able to pinpoint a specific anger issue I had with him, I instead ignored him. I ignored the crack of the letter as he opened it. I ignored the sag of the bench as he sat beside me. I stuck out my lip and ignored him. Sitting in the yellow glow of the sunlight through a stained glass window, he bore a calm smile, eyes too intent on reading and rereading the letter before him. The jig was up when his lion eyes darted up from the letter to meet mine.

  “Leif wants us to physically retrieve them. Apparently Barnes removed all portals when the delegation members started to either leave or kidnap other members. The griffons won’t use their magic in front of humans, and the sphinx won’t let humans construct portals without going through the proper zoning and permit regulations, and all three of them being representatives of the law, they can’t claim ignorance.”

  For some reason, this sort of thing tended to happen to Leif. I pointed to the bag by the door, “Your parents gave us meat and who knows what else. Also, you should have all the children kept indoors today.”

  “Why?”

  I pulled the small chain from under my shirt to show him the invisibility ring. He recognized it.

  “What if someone saw you?” his face darkened, his furrow appeared heavy between his brows, “How are you supposed to stay safe if you look for trouble?”

  “How can I resist when it walks by my door?”

  “You aren’t on your own anymore. You have m—you have a circle who relies on you.”

  “Didn’t stop me before, won’t now,” I said, knowing full well he meant that he relied on me. I pushed on before he could correct me. “I think they’re planning to resurrect Morgana.”

  “Morgana?” he repeated, looking around. It was a leap, but I’d been around resurrections with my parents before, and this just stank of the ritual.

  “Unless there’s a living Morgana running around, but I thought it was on the ‘banned’ names list.”

  Mordon’s circle flared to life around us, burning hotter than necessary to keep eavesdroppers away.

  “If you’re going to talk like this,” he said, jabbing his thumb at the flames around us, “Circle. Always.”

  “Noted,” I said, then added, “I think they’ve been seeking out components for bringing her back. It’s the only thing that makes sense—don’t give me that look, I helped my parents on a case of demon resurrection and it was just like this, except we didn’t know until Father was in the sacrifice circle. I think we can trap these guys, but we have to do it before they take anyone here.”

  Mordon had his hand up to stop me. “They want one of us?”

  “A ‘shifter’. So, I was thinking—”

  “Who did you hear this from?”

  “Drakes aren’t the only creatures here,” I said airily, but at his raised brows, I added, “Gremlins.”

  “And they said all this at your door?”

  “There was following involved. So, as I was saying—”

  “Did you get any sleep at all last night?”

  “No, and even if I had gone to bed, I wouldn’t have slept.”

  “What are you talking ab—”

  “The short version is that not once have I had dating turn out well. Can we get back to planning?” I snipped.

  “For someone with poor experiences, you’re terribly keen on me,” he said dryly.

  “You’re...you’re...” I dug around for a word, any word that would describe how I lost my senses around him, “I don’t know.”

  My cheeks were hot, my stomach roiled, and I felt a sheen of nervous sweat break out on my back. Mordon was looking at me. I couldn’t look back. Forget what Nest said about taking a leap, looking over the edge was too mortifying to imagine actually taking the plunge.

  I jerked a little when Mordon cupped my chin in his hand. Reluctantly, I met his gaze.

  “I promise I would never cause you harm. I have made few other promises in my lifetime.”

  I don’t know why I said what I did next, but I sp
at out at him like cold water skitters over a hot pan, “And what of your gray dream dragon? Will I be so quickly dismissed?”

  His brow furrowed, and I realized with a chilling stab that my words had cut deep. His grip on my chin tightened just a little and each word he spoke fell neatly into the air between us.

  “I scoured the earth and the heavens for her. She’s dead or gone, and I do not care which at this point. Were she here, I would not cast a glance her way.” His words did not soften, but grew more intense, “You have my brood ring—that is the ceremony you asked about, the ceremony before consummation... You have my future, and I ask you not take that lightly.”