Ursula stood. “Then what are we waiting for?”
Chapter 31
Ursula wrapped her legs tightly around the dragon’s neck, while her hands each gripped a bony horn. In her dragon form, Grisial was a massive beast, at least the size of the Drake. Her scales were as white as ermine fur and camouflaged perfectly with the mountain snow. It was obvious, now, why she hadn’t been seen in hundreds of years.
With a scream, Grisial launched herself into the air. Ursula clung on for dear life until she adjusted to the massive beats of the dragon’s wings. They flew out over the snowfields, and Ursula recognized the cliff she’d huddled against the night before, trying to warm herself. Grisial had given her new gloves and a jacket, and the soft wool warmed her body even as the wind whipped at her hair.
Grisial dove, and Ursula gripped tightly as they plummeted toward a snowfield. The dragon’s wings billowed out as they landed, blowing clouds of snow into the air. When the snow cleared, Ursula glimpsed Bael standing fifty yards from them. He glared at the dragon, his dark magic slicing the air sharply around him.
Ursula waved to him, laughing as his eyes widened when he saw her perched on Grisial’s spine. Then Grisial’s neck lurched awkwardly, and Ursula fell to the snow. By her side, Grisial transformed into her human form.
Ursula rose, brushing the snow off herself as Bael charged toward her. When he reached her, he swept her into his arms.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion.
“Sorry to disappoint you.” Ursula smiled, but she immediately regretted the comment when she saw the tears in Bael’s eyes. “Oh, I’m sorry. You must have been so worried.”
She pressed her face into his neck. Bael didn’t speak as he held her tightly, but she could feel his chest heaving. At last, he cupped her chin with a calloused palm. “I am so glad to see you,” he said, before kissing her on the lips.
“Are you two quite done?” asked Grisial.
Bael’s grip on Ursula slackened as he turned to look at the dragon shifter.
Ursula gestured between them. “Grisial, this is Bael. Bael, this is Grisial.”
The demon and the dragon eyed each other warily.
“Grisial saved my life. I would have frozen to death if she hadn’t found me. She has agreed to help us negotiate with Lucius.”
Bael frowned. “Negotiate? Not fight?”
Grisial shook her head. “Without a legion of demons behind you, he’d defeat you in seconds if he’s in his dragon form, with Excalibur. I can at least guarantee your safety while you negotiate. I can fly us to Calidore Castle. You two must convince Lucius to help. If he gives you trouble, I will help you escape.”
Bael’s eyes glinted in the sunlight as he nodded. “Let’s go.”
While the ride in Frank’s carriage had taken them most of a night, the flight to Calidore Castle lasted less than an hour on Grisial’s neck. Ursula sat in front, with Bael behind her, his muscular arms gripping the dragon’s horns while keeping her from falling off. In the cold air above Mount Acidale, his embrace kept her warm.
Urusula stared wide-eyed at the view as the sun set, bathing the trees in buttery yellow light, washing the rural towns in amber and pink. It was only as they reached the city of Mount Acidale and its haze of smog that the beauty of the land began to fade.
Grisial dove into the smog, aiming straight for the broken towers of Calidore Castle. With the sixth sense of a homing pigeon, Grisial burst from the dirty sky directly above the castle.
As the White Dragon landed in a courtyard, the king’s guard charged toward them. Grisial spun, and with a draconic scream, breathed a stream of icy water at the men. As the water contacted the ground, the walls, and the guards themselves, it instantly froze into solid ice.
As rifles began to fire from the roofs above them, Bael pulled Ursula behind a bronze statue of King Midac. He covered her with his body, but most of the bullets were aimed at Grisial. They zinged off the dragon’s scales like hail.
Grisial turned, breathing more ice at the attacking guards. As the men began to freeze, a captain yelled for them to retreat.
“Block the doors,” shouted Bael to the dragon.
Grisial directed her icy breath so that it froze all but one of the entrances to the courtyard. With all the guards either frozen or blocked from entering, Grisial morphed back into her human form.
“This way.” With her one blue eye flashing, she beckoned them toward the remaining door.
“Wait.” Bael ran to the nearest frozen guard, and with a crack, ripped the man’s cutlass from an icy grip.
Ursula gagged at the sound. There was no question that Bael had snapped the man’s wrist. He was already reaching for the guard’s rifle when Ursula shouted for him to stop.
She rushed to the guard. Beneath the ice, she could see the man was still alive. His eyes rolled in their sockets, and he grunted in fear, unable to speak with his jaw frozen in place. Quickly, she began channeling Emerazel’s fire into her hands.
“What are you doing?” said Bael.
“These are my grandfather’s men. You can’t go about snapping their limbs off.” With a quick burst of heat, she melted the rifle from his grip.
“Here.” She handed the rifle to Bael. “You wanted this.”
She turned to thaw a second cutlass from another guard. Feels good to have a real blade again. “I’m ready.”
Already, shouts penetrated the stone walls—soldiers readying for an attack. They had to move quickly.
Bael used his shoulder to ram into the wooden door, splintering the wood with his enormous body. Ursula followed close behind him, and the three of them sprinted through the outer gate, then through a series of halls. Shouts rang out nearby, but they managed to avoid the guards, moving quickly down a stone corridor and up the steps into King Midac’s great hall.
Ursula froze in the hall. It was the same one she’d seen in Bael’s memory. Rows of columns lined the hall, supporting a three-story ceiling. Where banquet tables had stood during the armistice, she now found a stone floor and a red rug leading up to two thrones. She swallowed as the memory flashed through her mind. She’d watched her mother die here. She’d watched her own dreams bleed out on the floor.
Guards clustered around the thrones, blocking the king from view and raising their rifles. But Grisial was already shifting, the massive girth of her reptilian form shielding Bael and Ursula in a barricade of white scales.
Ursula lifted up a hand. “We aren’t here to hurt you.”
But the guards ignored her, firing their rifles. Grisial screamed. Like ten thousand claws drawn simultaneously along a granite wall, the sound pierced Ursula’s marrow, and she instinctively pressed her hands to her ears, dropping her cutlass to the ground. Above her, windows shattered, glass spraying into the air in a million tiny fragments. Even the marble columns vibrated. After what seemed like an eternity, Grisial quieted, and a deathly silence fell over the room.
Her ears ringing, Ursula peeked around Grisial’s side. Like Ursula, the guards had dropped their rifles. As they bent to retrieve them, Bael shouted, “Put down your rifles. We wish only to speak with Lucius.”
“A shadow demon!” hissed one of the guards.
“Why have you attacked my men?” said another voice. Softer than the guard’s, but filled with confidence. Unquestionably King Midac.
“The Darkling is building an army,” Ursula called out. “He plans to conquer everything. We need to speak to Lucius.”
“Lucius isn’t here,” said Midac.
Before Ursula could reply, a tremendous crash trembled the hall as the ceiling was punctured by the bulk of a massive red dragon. The beast tore through oak beams like they were matchsticks. There was no mistaking Lucius, the Drake, as he slid through the ceiling into the great hall.
Still in his dragon form, Lucius turned to face Grisial. With a piercing scream, he charged. He was bigger than the White Dragon, and she dodged to the side, leaving Ursul
a and Bael exposed. The Drake could have devoured them then, but his eyes were fixed on Grisial. She spun, breathing frigid water at Lucius. Ice solidified on his chest and forelegs, and for a moment, he was frozen in place. Then, he wrenched one of his legs upward, and the ice shattered. He stalked toward Grisial.
The Drake inhaled, and his chest began to glow with fire. Ursula could see the shape of Excalibur, the outline of the blade embossed on his breast—a part of him. With a shriek, he unleashed a gout of flame at the White Dragon. It raced across the room, a horizontal geyser of fire. It would have immolated Grisial had she not simultaneously breathed an icy stream of water. Ice and fire collided with a tremendous cracking sound.
Ursula and Bael dove behind one of the marble columns. The king was bellowing something about dragons fighting in his castle, but the noise from the dragons practically drowned him out.
Lucius and Grisial continued to spew their elemental flames in a storm of ice, fire, and steam. Still exhaling fire, Lucius dug his claws into the marble floor and began advancing toward Grisial. She breathed ice at him, but began to falter, her massive sides heaving as she expelled the last of her frozen reserves.
“Stop, Lucius!” shouted Ursula. “Your fight is not with Grisial. We only wish to speak with you.”
One of Lucius’s golden eyes rolled in her direction. Ursula stepped from behind the column, her heart beating a wild rhythm in her chest.
“We have met before, Lucius, here in Mount Acidale, but also in your warren in New York. You saw Abrax abduct me. He’s the Darkling. If we don’t stop him, he will bend mankind to his will. Mount Acidale will fall to his armies. You will have failed in your duties to protect the realm.”
Lucius stopped breathing fire. He growled, a deep rumbling sound that shook the room, trembling over Ursula’s skin. Across the hall, the guards trained their guns on her.
“I come in peace. Grisial, if you transformed into your human form, it might help to show them that we mean them no harm.”
Grisial’s icy blue eye studied her for a moment, then the dragon shook her head. Before Ursula could say anything more, she reared back, but instead of attacking leapt into the air. With a single beat of her wings, she disappeared through the hole in the roof.
“Bollocks,” said Ursula under her breath. There goes our ride.
Across from her, Lucius was already transforming. Red hair sprouted from his head as his legs and arms shifted into their human form. Then he was striding toward her, pointing Excalibur at her throat.
“Bring them to me,” commanded King Midac from across the room.
Lucius’s gaze slid to Bael, who still held a cutlass and rifle. “Drop your weapons, or the girl dies.”
Slowly, Bael lowered the sword and rifle to the flagstones.
“Now follow me,” said Lucius.
Ursula followed Lucius across the shattered stones of the hall toward the king’s throne, their footfalls echoing off the flagstone floor. Around her, beams from the roof burned among steaming puddles of water. King Midac sat in his golden throne, staring at them. Dust whitened his hair, and the guards encircling him trained their rifles on Ursula and Bael with extreme intensity.
“Are you the ones who attacked Lucius?” said the king, his voice hard.
“Do you mean just now, or when he was at the brothel?” said Ursula, as confidently as she could manage.
“Do not speak of such filth in my presence.” The king’s gaze swiveled to Lucius. “Is that true? You were dining with strumpets when they attacked you?”
Lucius flushed, his cheeks turning a surprisingly bright shade of pink. “It was my leisure time, Your Majesty.”
The king glared, leaning forward in his throne. “Your job is to protect Mount Acidale. Not to consort with harlots and whores.”
The Drake’s cheeks reddened further.
“Look, I realize that appearances are important, but Mount Acidale is in danger,” Ursula interjected.
King Midac’s anger turned to her. “Mount Acidale is not in danger. Despite his caddish ways, Lucius and his dragons are excellent protectors.”
Ursula’s jaw clenched. “Abrax is seizing power in the Shadow Realm. He plans to topple the gods, then seize the kingdom of men. You saw him in New York—”
“What happens in the Shadow Realm is of no consequence here.”
“Abrax is the Darkling,” said Ursula, desperate to emphasize the enormity of the situation. “He’s coming for all the gods, because he wants to rule the earth and the magical realms.”
King Midac pointed a finger at her. “The Darkling is only a story made up by a conniving wizard, created to keep the simple-minded afraid, and in his control.”
“Lady Viviane gave me Excalibur for the specific purpose of fighting the Darkling.”
“You lie.”
“I do not.”
“Then why does Lucius have possession of the blade? If the Darkling were real, you would never have allowed him to steal it from you.”
Ursula stared at the king, dumbfounded. He was willfully ignoring her. Abrax was readying an army of demons and golems to enslave mankind, including those in Mount Acidale, and no one believed her. Her fingers clenched.
King Midac’s eyes narrowed. “The girl wants to harm me. Seize her,” he shouted.
Before she could move, Lucius threw her face-first onto the flagstones. While he pressed the blade of Excalibur to her jugular, a pair of guards clasped her hands with a set of golden manacles.
Behind her, Bael bellowed like an enraged bull, and when she glanced back, she found him surrounded by five guards, their swords trained on him.
“If you fight, demon, I won’t hesitate to kill your friend,” hissed Lucius.
Ursula’s eyes slid away from them, focusing on the flagstones. This was where her mother had died. Still, Ursula couldn’t quite connect to the memory, as if it weren’t her own. Emptiness—a dark oblivion—gnawed at her chest.
With a painful jerk, the guards lifted Ursula to her feet. Bael stood across from her, his hands also bound behind his back.
“Imprison them,” said the king. “I’ll decide their fates in the morning.”
Lucius led them from the hall, and Ursula had a strange sense of déjà vu as they were marched down a twisting staircase and into the bowels of the castle.
Chapter 32
In a dank antechamber, the guards peeled her clothes off, forcing her into what could best be described as a burlap tracksuit. It smelled of death, like it had once been stored in Pasqual’s basement. The guards blindfolded her, then led her over a cold, stone floor.
“Put her in with the other girl,” said a gruff voice.
The sounds of other prisoners rose around her—muffled, moaning, calling out. After a hundred yards, she heard a key scraping in a lock and the creaking of iron hinges. A guard pushed her forward, and the door slammed shut behind her.
In retrospect, we should have come up with a better plan.
Hands touched her shoulders as she clawed at the blindfold.
“Ursula, relax. I’ll get this off you.”
A moment later, Ursula was blinking at an emaciated woman in the dim light. Dressed in rags, with matted gray hair and yellow teeth, she looked like she could be the river hag’s sister. Light from an oil lamp wavered over her gaunt features.
“Do I know you?” asked Ursula, backing away.
“Oh sorry, I totally forgot about the glamour,” the old woman chirped. Her skin shimmered, then the illusion fell away to reveal a dirty—but much prettier—face. One that Ursula recognized immediately.
“Zee! What are you doing here?” She threw her arms around her friend, hugging her tightly.
“Oh, you know. It just seemed like a fun place to hang out. I really like talking to the walls and drinking my own urine when they forget to give me water. What are you doing here?”
“It’s a long story.”
Zee cocked her head. “We’ve got nothing but time here, sister.”
“I came here to try to get Excalibur, but King Midac didn’t seem to like me. How exactly did you end up in here?” asked Ursula.
“Same way you did. I tried to steal Excalibur, but Lucius caught me. That freaking sword is hard to hold. It’s like…heavy.” Zee stepped closer, her cheeks gaunt. “You don’t have any snacks on you, do you?”
A banging interrupted them, followed by a shout. “Ursula!”
“That sounds like Bael,” said Zee, raising her eyebrows in surprise.
“He came here with me.”
Ursula crossed to the door, peering out a window at eye level with a pair of iron bars through it. She could see into the grim corridor. Across from her stood a row of doors, each with a similar opening. Three down to the right, she could see Bael’s face looking through a window.
“Ursula,” he called out. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I could have done without the burlap clothing, but on the plus side, Zee’s in here with me.”
“Zee? Your fae friend?”
“Yeah, she’s stuck in here with me.”
Bael frowned slightly. “Well, she could be useful to us.”
“I’ll let her know.” Ursula pressed her hand against a bar, already missing him. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
Bael nodded. “Soon.”
Ursula turned back to Zee, who had a hint of a smile on her lips. “You both seem quite close. What’s going on there?”
Ursula crossed her arms. “Well, he is my fiancé.”
Zee’s eyebrows shot up. “Did you sleep with your own fiancé? I’m horrified.”
Ursula tried to smile innocently, but based on Zee’s expression, she had apparently failed.
“You had relations with a demon?” Zee whispered. “What was it like? I’ve heard Nyxobas endows his prized demons with more than physical strength—”
“Zee!”
“But of course Bael doesn’t have his wings, so it might not be quite as—”
“ZEE!”
“Okay,” said Zee, leaning back against the wall of the cell. “It’s just, you know, I’ve had no one to talk to in here except some woodlice, and they’re not wonderful conversationalists.”
Eternal Magic Page 17