by Chant, Zoe
But of course she did. After two hundred years of hoarding music, there wasn't a lot of it that Esme wasn't somewhat familiar with. Particularly an opera in her native Italian.
Heikon's bass voice thrummed through the cave. Esme's mellow alto lifted the higher notes, rising up into the soprano range once she really got going.
The music filled the cave, their voices twining together, supporting each other. She was right; there was something magical about the cave's acoustics. It was hard to believe they didn't have a full orchestra and backup singers supporting them.
Heikon sang until he ran out of the part he was sure of and slipped into humming. Esme continued to sing for a few moments longer, until ending on a high, quavering note that seemed to linger impossibly in the cave's clear air.
For a minute or two after that, neither of them could speak. Magic, Heikon thought. It was like magic. But it wasn't. The only magic here was that of sound waves and octaves.
Esme turned to him. Her eyes, huge and bright, glistened with tears. "I've never experienced anything like that before."
"Neither have I."
She put her arms around him, and he just held her, until the clamminess of his underwear got too distracting.
"This has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life," he said. "And now what do you say to swimming out to the beach and drying off a bit?"
Esme laughed. The cave caught it, reflected it, turned it to music. "I'd love to."
She shifted and slipped back into the water. He followed. This time when she dove, he went down without hesitation, swimming without fear on her tail until they emerged into warm, clear water and sunlight once again.
It was a short swim from there to the end of the beach, where the cliffs came down to the water's edge. Around the curve of the horseshoe-shaped beach, Heikon glimpsed the rest of their family splashing in the water, too far away to make out individuals. He and Esme both shifted in the shallows, so wet by now that it made no difference, and splashed ashore and fell laughing in the warm sand.
He felt ... young. They rolled over and over, kissing and laughing, with sand plastered to their wet clothing, and he felt as if the years and the centuries had fallen away. The world seemed wide-open and new, full of possibilities.
Esme rolled off him and sprawled in the sand. Her hand sought his, and their fingers entwined.
"Thank you for taking me there." He took a breath: trust shared was trust doubled. "The Heart of my hoard—"
He stopped as a shadow fell over them. They both sat up as Kana dropped to the sand, flying in the twisting way of wingless dragons. She shifted as she touched down. "There you are! I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find you."
Kana looked utterly panicked. Heikon was on his feet in an instant. "What's wrong? Is it the children?"
She shook her head, but accepted his steadying hands when he reached for her. "No. It's not that. We—" She stopped and took a steadying breath. "We just got a call at the house. They've been trying to reach us since yesterday."
"Who?" Heikon asked. All his protective instincts were already bristling.
"The Aerie. Grandfather ..." She sucked in a deep breath. Her eyes were huge. "He's back. Your brother. Uncle Braun."
Esme
By the time they got to the villa, flying as fast as possible, everyone else had gathered inside. The children were fussy and fretful, picking up on the adults' anxious mood.
"Mother," Melody said, hugging her as soon as she came in, then let go just as quickly. "You're wet!"
"I'll change in a minute," Esme said, swiping uselessly at her sodden hair. "What happened?"
"Reive heard the phone ring." Melody turned to the other young dragon.
Reive nodded. "I flew up to see what they wanted, and it was Aunt Anjelica back home. They've been calling and texting, but of course, no one's phones work out here. They finally managed to get through to the villa landline." His voice was calm enough, but he curled his hands on the edge of the table, tendons flexing in the backs. "Your mother is at the Aerie now. Great-Grandma. She was ... apparently hiding my grandfather at her den. I don't understand why she would do such a thing—"
"Because I asked her to," Heikon said.
He spoke quietly, but his voice carried through the room. Esme turned. He stood with his shoulders back, facing the others with the dignity of a dragon clanlord wrapped around him.
Somehow he managed to pull it off despite his soaked clothes and the wet hair straggling down his forehead.
Esme had never been more proud of him than she was in that moment.
"Uncle ..." Reive said helplessly. "Why?"
"Because I made a choice. I could have killed my brother in cold blood. I should have killed him, I know, for the good of the clan and for my own revenge. But I couldn't do it, and I stand by that. Instead, I took him to my mother."
"Well, something clearly went wrong." Reive's voice was tight. "Great-Grandmother said that she believes the gargoyles helped your father escape."
The gargoyles. Esme's chest tightened. The gargoyle-dragon war had raged, on and off, for untold centuries. They had wiped out Darius's clan, and she had personally fought them. The old conflict had finally been laid to rest, she'd thought, after the last battle at the Aerie. But there could easily still be factions among the gargoyles who chafed at the peace and yearned to restart the war.
And who else to feed those old hatreds but a deposed dragon clanlord with a grudge against his own clan?
Even within this room, tension was strung tighter than piano wire. Reive bristled, looking one step away from shifting and challenging Heikon.
"This decision affects the entire clan, but you made it without consulting us."
"I am your clanlord, boy." Heikon's dragon rumbled in melodic undertones to his deep voice. "I hope, for your sake, that you never have to make a decision like that. Do not second-guess me."
"You didn't tell us!"
"Do you truly fail to understand why I didn't want it getting out that I'd let my enemy live? You don't see how I'd be opening myself up to endless challenges that way? Then it's a good thing I'm in charge and you're not."
Reive growled.
"Stop!" Esme snapped. She let her dragon rise enough to snarl, until all heads turned to her. "We have bigger problems right now than each other. Braun could be anywhere in the world right now. He could be preparing an attack on the Aerie."
"He could be coming here," Kana said softly, putting her arms around her children.
Heikon set his jaw and turned to Esme. "How defensible is this place?"
"Not very," she admitted, turning to look at the wide-open archways leading out to the patio, letting in the ocean breeze. The house was designed for comfort, not for keeping out enemies. "The most defensible parts are probably downstairs, where the wine cellar and the kitchens are." She hissed softly. "Someone needs to warn the Panagapolouses. If there's fighting here, they could be targets. They should temporarily relocate to the town."
"I'll go," Melody said, heaving her heavy body out of her chair.
"Gunnar, go with her," Esme told him. He nodded and followed her out.
"The rest of you," Heikon said, "start moving food and bedding to the wine cellar. We're going to den up down there."
"This isn't over, Uncle," Reive said softly. His dragon flashed in his eyes.
"I expect not." There was both anger and resignation in Heikon's tone. He jerked his head at Esme. "Come with me. I want to talk to you."
They both went into the master bedroom they'd been sharing. Like the rest of the villa, it was open and airy, with curtains fluttering in the windows and a huge bed covered with blankets in seafoam colors. Esme began pulling her spare clothes out of the chest at the foot of the bed. At the very least, she needed to get into something dry.
Heikon rummaged in the nightstand. "You're going to be in charge of the domestic defenses. I absolutely cannot risk Braun getting his hands on anyone he can use as a hostage.
You can hole up in the wine cellar—"
He was still talking, but Esme stopped hearing it past the angry humming in her ears. She straightened up with her hands full of underwear. "You had better not be thinking about leaving me." Again! screamed a voice in the back of her mind. It might have been her dragon; it might only have been an echo of memory, the ghost of all those lonely nights when she'd been so lost in her grief that she could see no way forward, no future without him that wasn't endlessly long and empty.
"I don't have a choice," Heikon said. "I have to get back to the Aerie."
"Oh, and how are you planning to do that? Fly across the ocean until your dragon falls into the sea from exhaustion? Spend the next ten hours on a jet, out of touch exactly when we need you the most?"
"Well, what am I supposed to do?" he snapped. "My clan is back there. My home is back there. Braun took it from me once—"
"And this time you know he's coming! Give them instructions to batten down the mountain and wait it out. You already withstood one gargoyle siege. You can handle another."
"He could still have sympathizers inside the Aerie."
She'd forgotten about that. "So how is it better if you're there than here? What can you do there?"
"I can lead them!" Heikon roared. "I can show them I'm the lord they followed for hundreds of years! Not some hatchling huddled on a resort island across the sea."
"Protecting his mate and his family," she shot back. The word mate dropped out of her mouth without her conscious intention; she saw his startled look, but she couldn't call it back, so she blazed forward instead. "They need you there, but we also need you here. Instead of running off on your own, let's sit down and deal with this like a family. Maybe we'll all decide to wait it out here, maybe you'll take us back with us and we'll deal with things at the mountain, but the point is, Heikon—" She was shocked to find tears in her eyes. "The point is, you left me for twenty years, and you're not doing it again! Show me you've changed, and for once in your life, think things through before running off into danger by yourself again."
For a moment, he just stared at her across the bed; then he shook his head, and the defensive anger faded away. "I don't think I've ever been accused of not thinking things through," he murmured. "If anything, I've spent too much time in my life holding back and trying not to be an impatient whelp who flings himself into a decision without considering all sides. In a way, that's what got us into this mess in the first place."
"So take some advice once in a while." She tried to stop her voice from cracking in the middle, and didn't quite succeed.
Heikon came around the bed and took her into his arms, wet clothes and all. "As always, you offer wise counsel, my love ... my mate."
"I don't think I've ever been accused of that." Her voice shook. "And I'm not your mate."
"Aren't you? Are you not my love and my partner, the other half of my heart? What else is a mate but that?"
"The mate bond's still missing," she said to his chest.
"I don't know about yours," he murmured into her hair, "but my dragon's been known to be wrong once or twice. Sometimes I'm the one who has to straighten that stubborn reptile out."
Esme managed to huff out a small laugh. "Mine too, but don't let her hear you say that."
Too late, her dragon sulked. But other than that, it didn't seem to have any objections to Esme staying in Heikon's arms as long as she wanted.
All too soon, however, he let her go. "Time grows short," he said regretfully. "We must regroup in the wine cellar—and I need to give you this."
He placed something in her palm. It was cool on her skin, heavy for its size. A chain followed, coiling smoothing between her fingers.
It looked like a large gold pendant or locket. There was a complex, abstract design embossed on the front, surrounded by inlaid green stones.
"You bought me jewelry?" It did look like something she'd wear. It also looked old.
"We've had that in my family for a long time. It does look like it was made for you, though. Perhaps it was—or meant for you, at least." With a faint smile, he touched the side, and then guided her fingers to it. "The catch is here. Press like so—yes." There was a click, and the locket sprang open.
It was full of what she took at first to be small, wrinkled brown nuts. There was something vaguely familiar about them, but it wasn't until she noticed the dried flower petals nestled among them that she realized what she was looking at.
"Are these cherry seeds?"
"They're from my sakura grove." Heikon's hand closed around hers, pressing the locket shut again; she felt it snap closed as their combined fingers hid it from view. "I think you've already guessed what it is to me."
"It's your heart," she whispered. "The Heart of your hoard."
"Yes. And also no. You probably know, if you've talked to Darius about it at all, that for a long time the Heart of my hoard was kept by a human family. They were the gardeners who tended the grove."
"Tessa's family," she said quietly, thinking of Darius's cat-loving daughter-in-law.
"That's right. But, although I didn't know it at the time, it wasn't just them. It was them, and it was the trees they tended, and it was every seedling that was taken by a member of my far-flung family when they traveled, and brought back when they returned home."
His hand wrapped around hers, imprinting the smooth curve of the locket into her palm.
"Keep this for me, Esme. You must protect it, so no matter what happens to the rest of the trees, some of them will survive. Can I count on you?"
"Yes," she whispered. "I swear."
Heikon kissed her gently. Trapped between them, the locket, wrapped in their linked hands, pressed against her chest. Then he stepped back, and Esme turned so he could fasten the chain around her neck. It rested between her breasts, warmed by their hands so that she could barely feel it. The weight settled against her body as if she had been waiting all her life for it.
Heikon kissed her neck and resettled the damp mass of her hair against her skin.
"Wherever these seeds are, Esme, I'm there too, and as long as these seeds survive, I will live. Remember that."
She turned to look at him, but had no opportunity to say more, because just then, the screaming started.
It was coming from the wine cellar.
Heikon
Heikon raced down the stairs, with Esme a step behind him, fleet on her bare, sandy feet.
At the bottom of the stairs, they found chaos.
The first thing he noticed as he charged inside was a powerful reek of wine. Whole racks of bottles had tipped over and shattered on the floor.
Both Kana and Reive had shifted, their dragons twining around each other, blue and copper, barely able to fit in the small space. Melody was pressed against the wall, trying to hold onto the children, who had both shifted and were scrabbling all over her with their little claws. There was a roar and a flash of white fur, letting him know that Gunnar had shifted as well.
In the confined space, through the heaving masses of lurching dragon scales, he couldn't even figure out what they were fighting at first. His initial confused impression was that they were fighting the walls themselves. And then he realized that he wasn't entirely wrong.
There were gargoyles in the cellar.
They were coming out of the walls, tearing themselves free of the stone to lurch into the fight. These were even more crude and rough than the ones he'd fought at the Aerie; they looked like badly made statues, a lumpy assortment of half-carved limbs and claws and crudely made heads. None of them looked capable of independent existence. But all they had to do was attack, pounding on their opponents and ripping at them with crude claws and teeth. Reive and Kana were both bleeding, and the grinding and crashing was deafening: rock smashing into rock, claws screeching across stone.
"Upstairs!" Heikon bellowed. "Get away from the walls!"
Esme got her arms around Melody and the kids, hustling them up the stairs. There was no ro
om for Heikon to shift with the cellar full of other dragons. "Shift back!" he shouted. "Get upstairs!"
First Kana, then Reive shifted, leaving only Gunnar's polar bear, with blood glistening on its white fur as it snarled and snapped in a frenzy. Heikon surged past his retreating clanmates, shifting as he went. The cellar was suddenly too small to contain an enraged, full-grown alpha dragon. He butted his armored head into the gargoyle attacking Gunnar, smashing it against the wall. "Get upstairs!" he roared at Gunnar.
The polar bear shifted to a dazed, naked human, bleeding from a dozen cuts. Heikon used one great forepaw to thrust him toward the stairs, where Reive caught him and boosted him after the others.
"They're not clever, but they're tough!" Reive yelled over the grinding and crashing of stone as more gargoyles tore loose from the walls. "Hard to fight them down here!"
"Then we won't," Heikon retorted. He reared up and pressed his powerfully muscled shoulders against the ceiling. "Get upstairs. Make sure everyone's away from whatever is above this."
Sorry, Esme, he added inwardly as the wine cellar groaned around him. But the villa could be rebuilt. People couldn't.
He withdrew hastily as the ceiling began to collapse, the walls crumbling inward. Shifting at speed, he scrambled up the stairs and staggered out onto the main floor of the villa as the walls creaked and the floor sagged. A great crack ran through the middle of the kitchen, with the floor caved in on either side.
"Sorry about your house, my love," he gasped, stumbling into Esme at the top of the stairs.
"It's only a house ... my love. We can rebuild."
"Are you all right?"
"Don't worry about me!" She gripped at his arms. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine." He wiped blood from a shallow scrape on his neck. "But that won't hold them for long. Those gargoyles are smashed, but a dozen more could be made from the rubble. Where is everyone?"