Determination and the Dragon (Redwood Dragons Book 4)

by Sloane Meyers

  “Can’t you do that chameleon trick so they can’t see you?” Harlow asked.

  Myles frowned and shook his head no. “It’s really hard to maintain chameleon status when you’re flying. You’re moving too fast to keep up with every little change in the shade of the sky or the shape of a cloud. I’ve tried so many times, and no matter how hard I work at it, you can still see my outline against what should be empty sky.”

  “Just your outline? If you can mostly hide, and only show a dragon outline, perhaps they won’t notice it,” Harlow said hopefully.

  Myles chuckled. “Well, it’s hard to miss a dragon shape in the sky, even if it is a subtle one. But I guess it might be worth a shot. Our only other option is to search on foot, and that will take far too long. Plus, it will leave a trail in the snow, which we really don’t want to do.”

  “I think aerial reconnaissance is the best option,” Harlow said. “Sure, they might see you, but we’ve already discussed how they probably know we’re around here somewhere. They must know we’re searching for them, so they are probably worried about an imminent attack, regardless of whether they see your dragon form or not. I think flying around to find them does us more good than harm.”

  Myles considered her words carefully. “You’re probably right,” he said finally. “But there’s just one other thing. I hate the idea of leaving you here alone. What if they find our hiding spot, and I’m not here to help defend it.”

  Harlow rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Myles. What are the odds that they will find this place? We flew in, so we didn’t leave any trail on the ground for them to follow. And we didn’t see anyone ourselves on the flight, so it’s pretty unlikely that they saw us flying in. I’d say we’re pretty safe here. Besides, I do know how to fight. Of course, I would greatly appreciate your help if we are attacked, but it’s not like I’m some damsel in distress who will be completely helpless if you leave me here alone.”

  Myles sighed. She was right, even though he didn’t want to admit it. These caves were well off the beaten path, and quite well-hidden. Odds were good that Saul’s men didn’t even know they were there. Myles had only found them by very carefully studying a topographical map, and even on that map the caves weren’t marked well. He’d been careful not to leave a trail when they came in, too, so he doubted they’d be followed. And it was true that Harlow was a pretty good fighter. He’d seen her sparring with Peter before they left Falcon Cross. She had some serious skill as a fighter, especially for a wizard who spent most of her day sitting at a desk. The Advocates were generally known for their brains, not their brawn.

  “Alright,” Myles finally said. “I’ll go. But you have to promise me you won’t build any fires while I’m gone. Or do anything else that might draw attention to the hideout.”

  Harlow rolled her eyes at him. “I’m not as stupid as I look,” she said.

  Myles grinned at her. “Well, then, you must be a genius, because you actually look quite smart.” He leaned in to kiss her, and she playfully tried to swat him away. He laughed and pinned down her hands so he could steal a kiss, but only a short one. It was time to get to work.

  Less than an hour later, Myles was stripping naked in preparation to shift. He always took off his clothes before shifting when he could, because otherwise they’d be torn and ruined in the shift. He wasn’t looking forward to stepping out into the snow in bare feet, but, thankfully, he would not have to be naked in the cold for very long. The cave was toasty warm right now thanks to Harlow’s heat spell, and he would only have to be outside for a few seconds before he’d be in dragon form. Once his skin had shifted to dragon hide, he’d be plenty warm enough.

  He looked up at Harlow, who was watching him with a cheerful expression on her face. She was optimistic that his flight would go well, and that she would be perfectly safe while he was gone. But Myles wasn’t so sure. He had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach that he couldn’t quite shake. He did his best to brush it away as just general nerves, but still the anxiety lingered.

  He didn’t have much choice in the matter, though. Sooner or later, he’d have to leave Harlow alone if he wanted to do aerial reconnaissance. Taking her with him would make maintaining invisibility even harder. He couldn’t keep her invisible, so she’d have to attempt to hold an invisibility spell over herself while he flew. From what she told him, invisibility spells were extremely difficult to hold while flying. Between the two of them, they were bound to mess up their attempts at staying invisible, compromising their mission unnecessarily. No, Myles knew it was better to leave her behind. But that didn’t change the fact that he hated doing it.

  “I’ll try to be back by nightfall,” he said, trying to act as cheerful as Harlow looked. No sense in letting his worries seep over and bother her, too. “Don’t worry too much if I’m not, though. If I’m worried someone has seen me, I might need to lay low and sit still for a while until they’ve given up watching. Whatever you do, don’t try to come after me alone. If for some reason it’s been several days and I haven’t come back, get in contact with the military in Falcon Cross and ask them for assistance.”

  Harlow opened her mouth to protest at this, but Myles held up his hand. “If the enemy was able to take me down alone, odds are they’ll be able to do the same for you. Promise me you’ll get backup help if that happens.”

  Harlow frowned at him, but eventually nodded. “Okay. Fine,” she said. “But please stay out of trouble.”

  “I intend to,” Myles said, then winked at her. “You try to do the same.”

  Harlow rolled her eyes dramatically, but Myles could see the worry behind the silly front she was putting up.

  “Hey,” he said, drawing her into his arms. “Everything’s going to be just fine, okay? Just relax and maybe go over some more of the maps while I’m gone. I’ll be back before you know it.”

  “Okay,” she said, burying her face in his bare chest. He took a moment to enjoy the feeling of her skin against his skin, and then he reached down to guide her chin up so that she was looking at him. Her eyes were deep pools of violet, shimmering with too much moisture as she tried bravely to resist the urge to cry. Myles could not help but be overcome by the depth of his feelings for her as he looked down at her beauty, and at the concern that she so clearly held for him. Before he could think too much about it, he found himself speaking out words he’d been holding back out of some sense of not wanting to rush things.

  “I love you, Harlow,” he said. And he did. Why shouldn’t he tell her? He’d already told her that he wanted to spend his life with her. Surely, she must know that this meant he loved her?

  The tears in her eyes did spill over then. Two tiny droplets, one from each eye, fought their way past her eyelid and left a wet, salty trail down her cheek. And then, her lips turned up in a small smile.

  “I love you, too,” she said. “So very much.”

  Myles smiled too, and then he planted a quick kiss on her forehead before turning to leave the cave. He stepped out into the snow, wincing as the cold hit his toes. But moments later, a rush of energy reverberated back into the cave as his body began to transform once more into a dragon. The feeling of cold fell away as his dragon body, with its thick hide and fiery center, overtook his weaker human flesh. He turned his giant dragon head to look back at Harlow one more time, admiring her beauty before turning his head toward the sky. He pumped his wings a few times, rising quickly into the air, and then did his best to turn his scales into chameleon form.

  He must have looked strange, a blurry, gray outline of a dragon slicing through the sky. He wasn’t perfectly blended into the gray clouds, but he hoped he was blended well enough to avoid the notice of too many people. He could only hope for the best. He turned his eyes toward the ground now, sweeping his gaze back and forth as he began searching for anything that might give away a base camp of some sort. If he found another camp out here, it was almost certain to be Saul’s men.

  Ready or not, here I come, Myles thou
ght as a small smile turned up his dragon lips.

  With any luck, their enemy would not, in fact, be ready.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Harlow threw the large map across the room in frustration. She’d been staring at it without really seeing it for the last twenty minutes, at least. Focusing on anything other than her worry about Myles was proving to be nearly impossible. She knew that he was capable of taking care of himself. She’d seen him fight before, during the Falcon Cross battles, and she knew he could hold his own against angry shifters and wizards. His razor claws, sharp teeth, and fire-breathing abilities made him a fearsome foe to meet.

  And still, she worried. How could she not? If Saul’s men somehow did find him and chase him down in the sky, they would almost certainly use dark magic on him. And even a dragon would struggle to stand his ground against the horrors of dark magic spells.

  Harlow chewed her lower lip anxiously as she stood and made her way to the entrance of their little cave hideout. It was far too early for Myles to be on his way back yet, but she couldn’t keep herself from staring up at the sky, straining to see whether the outline of a dragon was visible anywhere. She looked for several minutes, but there was nothing to see but the gray clouds, which were starting to thicken again. Another snowstorm was brewing, and Harlow hoped it wouldn’t be as intense as the last one. They needed at least halfway decent weather if they were going to be able to track down Saul’s men and sneak up on them.

  Harlow let out a long sigh, and then turned to walk back into the cave. She needed to do something useful, but map-reading wasn’t going so well for her. Perhaps she should try to review the transcripts of the conversations she had recorded. She’d been over them several times before, but there were still things being said in the conversations that didn’t make sense to Harlow. Perhaps it was some sort of code language, meant to confuse anyone listening in. Harlow was determined to discover its meaning. She started walking toward the backpack, which held most of the transcripts. But she never made it there.

  In an instant, she found herself sprawled out face-first on the cold, hard floor of the cave. A searing pain shot through her back, and she yelped as something hard rammed into one of her shins.

  “Magicae obstupefio,” a voice called out. It was the most sinister-sounding voice Harlow had ever heard, and she felt a chill run up and down her spine at the same time that she felt an invisible, tightening pressure pushing against all of her limbs. The stunning spell left her unable to move anything below her neck, and she felt panic setting in as rough hands pushed her over onto her back.

  She was looking up into the ugliest face she had ever seen. A dark-haired wizard with beady dark eyes was staring down at her. His long nose ended in a sharp point, and his face was twisted with lines that deepened whenever he let out one of his evil laughs—which he was doing right now. He was accompanied by several other wizards, all of whom had similar expressions of wicked triumph on their faces.

  Harlow knew there was no way she would be able to break out of the binding spell. It was too strong for even the best of spellcasters to combat. It was difficult to cast a strong counterspell when you didn’t have free use to move your ringed hand.

  Her ring! Harlow realized with a start that the first thing her captors were likely to do once they finished laughing was to steal her magic ring. Without it, Harlow’s magic would be weak and unfocused—virtually useless. She felt fury rising within her as she thought of their grubby, evil hands touching her beautiful magic ring. But then, she remembered a spell she had learned a long time ago, during the first years of Advocacy school. It was an invisibility spell that only affected a very small area—an area about the size of most magic rings. The spell was generally used in situations where you wanted to fool other wizards into thinking you were not a wizard. If you acted like a normal human, and hid your magic ring, it was possible to sneak into wizard territory and perform magic spells before the other wizards knew what had happened. Harlow had never heard of anyone using it while immobilized by a binding spell, but she figured it was worth a shot. The upside of the ring invisibility spell was that you didn’t have to move your ringed hand to perform it properly. In fact, it worked best when your hand was held perfectly steady.

  Was it possible that she could hide her ring from her captors? Would they realize she had performed the ring invisibility spell, and take her ring off anyway, or would they just think they’d caught her in a moment where she wasn’t wearing her ring? Harlow took a deep breath as she looked up at the men around her, who were still laughing loudly at her expense. It was now or never. She had to successfully perform the spell before they got around to looking for a ring on her hand. If they noticed it before she made it invisible, they would know for sure that something was going on.

  “Magicae abscondo,” Harlow said. She spoke as loudly as she dared, which was not very loud. She hoped her voice had enough force in it to make the spell effective, but she could not take a chance that the men would hear her over the sound of their laughs. If they knew she was performing spells, they would get suspicious, and the game would be over.

  Thankfully, the men were still laughing too hard to notice that any words were coming out of Harlow’s mouth. Harlow did not feel any sort of energy as she said the words of the spell, and she thought with a sinking heart that perhaps the spell wouldn’t work when she was immobile. She lifted her neck as high as she could, trying to find an angle where she could see her right hand. It took quite a bit of strain, but she finally got her eyes high enough, and she looked at her paralyzed right hand, which was frozen against the side of her right leg. And what she saw sent a rush of joy and relief through her whole body.

  There was no magic ring visible on her finger. Harlow could steel feel the stiff metal of her ring’s band pushing against the skin of her finger, but when she looked at her hand all she saw were bare fingers. The spell had worked. Her ring was invisible.

  The leader of her group of captors saw her straining her neck upward, and mistook the purpose of the movement as an attempt to escape. He let out another long, obnoxious laugh.

  “Ain’t no good trying to get away from us, Missy. That binding spell is impossible to break. You might as well relax your neck, or you’ll be adding a stiff neck to your list of woes. And trust me, that list is going to get very long before we’re done with you. Now, first things first, let’s strip off your magic ring. I don’t want no funny business from you.”

  The man knelt down and grabbed Harlow’s hand with a rough jerk. Harlow held her breath, thinking that if his hand happened to brush against the ring while he was grabbing at her, then he would know that she had cast a spell to hide the ring. His laughter died down as he looked down at her hand, confusion etched in his face, and for one eternal, awful moment, Harlow thought that he had realized what was going on. But then, in the next moment, he dropped her hand, letting it fall limply beside her again. His guards looked at him in confusion, and he only added to their confusion by throwing back his head and starting to laugh again. He laughed so long and hard that Harlow began to wonder if he was actually a touch insane. Finally, he stood, wiping away tears of laughter from his eyes.

  “What an idiot you are,” he said, looking down at Harlow. “You hide out in the most obvious spot around, and, not only that, but you don’t even bother to wear your magic ring while lounging around in this cave by yourself. No wonder you were so easy to capture.”

  The man burst into a fresh wave of laughter, and his men, now that they understood what he was laughing at, joined in.

  What an idiot YOU are, Harlow thought as she glared up at the man. My ring is on my hand right now, you’re just too blind to see it. She also made a mental note to tell Myles, if she ever got out of this mess, that his supersecret hideout had not turned out to be so secret after all. Saul’s men were clearly familiar with this little clump of caves.

  Not only were they familiar with the caves, but they knew that Harlow wasn’t out here alone.
Once the leader had managed to stop laughing again, he gave Harlow’s right side a hard kick with one of his boots, and pointed his own ringed hand in her direction.

  “Now,” he said. “We’ll find your ring later. I’m sure you must have stowed it in one of the bags here. But first—I know you are not out here alone. Tell me where your accomplice is.”

  Harlow merely glared at him in response, which made him angry.

  “It’s no use trying to hide it,” he said. “We have eyes everywhere in town. They’re the ones who tipped us off that these caves were here, and they told us about you and your little boyfriend. I know he must be around here somewhere, and I mean to find him. You can either tell us willingly now, or I can torture the information out of you.”

  The man raised his ringed hand threateningly, but Harlow still did not open her mouth. She glared back at him, and he let out a long dramatic sigh.

  “Fine, I guess we’re going to do this the hard way,” he said. “Magicae pressura.”

  Harlow felt a horrible pressure fall suddenly over her entire body. It weighed down on her, heavier and heavier until she could barely breath. She gasped for breath, and was filled with an intense urge to try to wriggle and get herself out from under the pressure. But, of course, she could not move her body to actually wiggle. And besides, you could not simply wiggle away from this spell. It would follow you, crushing you until you were utterly suffocated. Harlow felt panic rising within her, and the man sneering down at her must have been able to tell, because a wicked smile crossed over his face as he suddenly lifted the spell.

  “Pressura terminantur,” he bellowed out. Instantly the spell ended and the pressure that had been weighing down on Harlow lifted. She gasped for breath as her captors all sneered and laughed at her.

  “Now,” the leader said, glaring down at her. “Are you going to talk? Or was that little taste of torture not enough for you? Believe me, that was amateur hour. I’ve got plenty of spells that would make that last spell look like child’s play.”