Souska couldn’t look away from him. Our home. Did that mean he welcomed her as well as the dragon? Offered to let her stay?
“Magic,” Stanil whispered as he stroked the silky coat on the dragon. “I can feel the tingle of magic in her fur.”
“Yes, the magic of friendship,” Souska agreed.
Lily laughed again. Her entire being seemed to have brightened as she and Linder shared memories and gossip about mutual acquaintances. They’d grown up together, had much in common. Linder passed along a message from Lily’s twin. They didn’t seem to notice or need Souska.
But Stanil did. And Krystaal did. They needed her. No one at the University did.
CHAPTER 37
“THIS CASTLE NO longer welcomes me,” I mutter to my captain as we patrol the curtain wall after moonset. “Something has changed.”
“I agree,” he replies. His eyes shift nervously as he counts the guards on watch. “Twenty-five. As I scheduled. We always have twenty-five on the walls. At all times.”
“Why do you question their presence?” I too grow alarmed. Something is very wrong with these guards. They each turn and salute as we pass. Yet . . . yet they keep their faces lowered. Is it respect that they will not meet their leader’s gaze directly? Or is it fear?
Neither. I cannot smell fear in them.
“I know every man in the palace guard. I selected each one for this duty. So why will they not meet my eye?” He has spent too much time with me of late rather than seeing to his duties. I needed to force the bond between us, so that he looked to me rather than his king or his comrades-in-arms. Temporary, I thought. But to what detriment?
I look ahead, behind, and across the forecourt. Every uniform is the same. They are all tall and broad shouldered. They all carry their weapons with easy familiarity.
My heart skips a beat in recognition.
“They do not look to you as leader,” I whisper, seeking an exit. Any exit. This place is no longer safe.
“They must . . .”
“They are not your men. They are Lady Maria’s women,” I hiss, dragging him toward a tower door that should lead to the interior of the castle, or at least down to the forecourt.
My captain gasps in recognition. Finally he realizes the danger of these women turning on him in the name of their lady. Their dwarf!
How can they take oaths of loyalty to a misshapen crone of no beauty and no authority?
They should fear us. I am beautiful and dangerous. My captain is strong and handsome, a proven leader.
They have no fear of us. Only disdain.
We could order them directly into the Krakatrice pens.
Or could we? Have they replaced all of the men here?
I must flee. I have misjudged this place and these people. They cannot help me. They cannot feed me power. And I cannot find Geon and Bette anywhere. They have deserted me! I will punish them when I find them. But I have not the time to search. I must flee. Now.
My gaze drifts to the port. There are ships there. Many of them. They all display different flags, different designs. I point them out to my captain.
“I agree. We leave now.”
“And what of your king, my fiancé?”
“A useless fool who no longer listens to anyone but his poisonous pets in the dungeon. How safe will anyone be when he turns them loose? That last ship in line flies the flag of Venez. We buy passage on it within the hour and sail on the morning tide.”
Bette and Geon can rot in this foul place. I must save myself and my captain.
Lily looked across the evening fire toward the crest of the hill. Sparks popped and normal green flames licked the wood merrily. The villagers talked to each other. The listless meal preparation and the silent but hasty gulping of thin, bland stews had given way to thoughtful additions of herbs and enthusiastic chatter while each person savored their food.
“I’m no longer needed here, Linder,” she said quietly to the journeyman. He’d brought the requested supplies, sent the poisonous pot back to Maigret and . . . and lingered beside her.
“Then come back to the University with me,” he said succinctly, gaze circling the villagers and not meeting hers.
She felt his slight embarrassment and attraction. Her own emotions stayed bland, welcoming his friendship but not needing to explore a deeper relationship with him. Her heart belonged to Skeller.
She acknowledged it and held it close within her, cherishing the tiny flame of love.
And now that Death had touched her and left her living she considered the possibility of living. More than that. She needed to embrace life and love, while accepting death as part of the natural cycle.
“The time is not right for that either,” she replied. “There are other villages suffering from this plague. They need me now.”
“Mistress Maigret has dispatched every healer and herbalist she can to seek out those afflicted villages and aid them with your cure and fresh supplies.”
“Not my cure. Souska is the one who knew how to mix it and use it properly.”
“But you were the one to ask for the ingredients. Yours is the name whispered among the Healing Halls.”
“Then take Souska back with you. She’s the one who should get credit.”
“If she wants it.” Linder tilted his head toward where the girl sat a little distant from the companionable group around the fire, talking quietly to Stanil.
Lily didn’t need to hear their words or search for an aura to know that their life energies reached toward each other. “I’m not certain I like that. He’s twenty-two, she but fifteen.”
“So? Age means little when hearts and minds align.”
So it did. Skeller looked at the backside of twenty-four, while her seventeenth name day was still many moons distant.
“I heard that Lady Graciella wanted to join the healers in seeking out afflicted villages, but she is too close to her term—big as a hut and waddling more than walking. Her mother sent her back to the University. Seems only her husband wants her, but he’s not been heard from since the flood.” Linder shifted subjects as he shifted himself a little closer to Lily.
“I’m happy that she thrives. We never did grow close while traveling together. She has a wall around her, protecting her from emotional involvement—even with her baby.”
“Wouldn’t know about that. But Lady Ariiell and your sister seem to have reached friendship.”
Is that true, Val? Lily reached out with her mind toward her twin, something she’d avoided for too long. A gentle warmth of love filled Lily. She and Val didn’t need words, just the knowledge that the other lived and thrived.
The death of Samlan by Lily’s hand was something she did not want to share with Val, did not want to taint her with guilt and despair and losing a bit of her soul to . . . Death.
But Death had given it back to her, or taken away her guilt with that burning cold touch.
“Why is there a glowing spot on your forehead, Lily?” Linder asked, taking back that little bit of space between them.
Automatically Lily touched the cold spot. She found the skin slightly rippled, like a frostbite scar. That little circle of skin had died but lingered rather than sloughing off and letting new, healthy tissue grow over it. As she lowered her exploring fingertip she caught a glimpse of color through the flames. Narrowing her eyes and peering closer, Souska’s green aura leaped into view. It blended and mingled nicely with Stanil’s paler green and brown.
Lily leaned back so that the flames no longer interrupted her view. The auras vanished. She leaned forward again and watched others, knowing each surviving villager by name and where they belonged in the community. Again the flames allowed her to see more—Barbo had conceived and didn’t like the idea, she’d lost two children to the disease and still felt guilty for surviving. Stanil worried about the health of the doe goat that was bloating from improperly chewed food. Another man wondered if he dared plow up another field to plant winter wheat. And Souska . . . Souska excha
nged her previous anger and fear for contentment.
A smile crept across Lily’s face and brightened her vision a tiny bit.
“This is a gift,” she said quietly. “And a curse. I need a longer journey to discover its purpose.”
“Don’t stay away too long.”
“As long as I need to. That’s the purpose of a journey.”
“Lukan here. Verdii?” Lukan called into the distance with his voice, his mind, and his heart. “Please, Verdii, if you are anywhere near, answer me,” he pleaded.
His head still felt vacant between his ears, and his wound sent fiery darts outward in all directions. He’d like nothing more than to sit here for a long, long time, but knew he couldn’t.
He had to finish this.
(Verdii here,) the dragon said. He sounded a bit subdued, no longer finding mirth in every situation. Yesterday’s business had been hard and grim for all of them.
“My friend, I cannot walk to the ruins to make sure there are no more Krakatrice and no more eggs, or men to gather them from the wild. Can you show the place to me, through your eyes?”
(Yes.) Short. Curt. Reluctant.
“Please, Verdii. I have to know before I can return to the city and find a way to eliminate your ancient enemy once and for all.” Anxiety itched along his spine. It nearly propelled him to his feet. He needed to pace, he needed to see what was happening.
He needed up. Up in the top of the tree or the roof of the corner building that looked almost intact. From up he could breathe cleanly. Up he could think. Up he could remove himself from the details of life that constricted him.
But the pain in his leg kept him immobile.
“Please, Verdii, help me do what I cannot do alone.”
A huge weight seemed to lift from his chest. He couldn’t do everything alone. He shouldn’t do everything alone.
If only Da had learned that earlier, he might not have become a victim of his own strength, lost his sight and his life to the draining forces of the massive magic he insisted upon controlling by himself.
“I am not my Da. Nor am I my brother Glenndon. I need only live up to my potential, not their expectations, and I need help. Chess, can you give me a hand and help me stand?”
“Gladly,” the boy said and lent him a strong arm and broad shoulder.
Lukan’s head tried to spin away into darkness. He held on until it settled. A better perspective on the ruins. Not good enough.
(Close your eyes and join your mind to mine,) Verdii whispered.
Chess complied quite readily. Lukan followed suit. He breathed deeply and allowed his thoughts to drift until Verdii caught them.
Together, the three of them (Lukan sensed Chess’ tight reddish brown aura unfolding into a mellow rust) rose up and up and up as the dragon soared toward the cloud layer and scanned the desert landscape that shaded into green from the new moisture.
Lukan saw the square created by the wood and mud-brick buildings and newly swollen creeks. He saw red clay roof tiles scattered and broken. He smelled the almost sweet charred wood beneath the acrid stench of rotten magic. Death and destruction.
His heart ached.
Something moved.
“Closer, Verdii. I need to see more details.”
“I don’t think we want to, Lukan. It’s awful,” Chess gulped.
“I have to know what we have wrought. I have to know that we succeeded completely, no matter how awful, before we continue on to the next chore.”
(For that lesson I will give you what you need.)
A vertigo-inducing dive. The ground grew closer and closer. Wind pressed tightly against his face, biting his cheeks with a moist chill. Making his eyes burn with churned dust and ash.
His stomach flopped at the instant change in perspective.
Then he saw it. A slender tendril of black slithering out from under a much larger snake body. An infant. A baby.
A baby that would feed on the carcass of its dead relatives and grow large and strong on death.
Another Krakatrice that would grow into a monster that fed on human blood and poisoned the land.
Then he noticed the six nubs, three on each side of the spine, that would grow into the huge leathery wings of a matriarch. The potential mother of a new crop of destruction. A matriarch to guide all the males.
“Flame her, Verdii.”
The dragon released a long tongue of bright green flame. The baby snake shriveled and screamed, tried to retreat to the safety of the dead carcass.
Verdii was relentless and sent more flame that ignited the fats within the snake flesh, offering an inferno instead of shelter to the baby.
It died with a last screech that made Lukan’s ears ring.
Another screech, longer, louder, farther away, much, much farther away. The grieving protest of all the male Krakatrice in the city reverberated around his brain and across the whole land.
He didn’t think he’d ever leave that sound behind, no matter how far he fled.
CHAPTER 38
ROBB STUMPED ABOUT his room, leaning heavily upon his staff for support. He healed. But his heart still beat arrhythmically when he did anything other than lie still. He didn’t have time to be an invalid. Things happened too quickly in other parts of the castle. Some sort of storm or war was moving rapidly among the people of Amazonia.
“The fever has left you completely,” Maria said with approval. A frowning female nearly as tall and broad as Robb hovered at the doorway of his cell.
“You were with my boys when they came to me in the dungeon,” he said bluntly, facing Gerta. She reminded him a lot of Maigret in their youth, before the boys were born. Before maturity and responsibility gave her an excuse to trade in her trews and weapons for matronly skirts and a stillroom with enough herbs and potions to kill or heal a continent. Many of those exotic herbs and recipes came from Mabastion, the Big Continent. Much of it still unexplored.
“I would hardly call Lukan or His Highness a boy,” the woman snorted.
“Maybe not. But I trained Lukan, and Chess. They will always be boys to me. I do not know your prince.”
“Aunt Maria!” Said prince skidded to a halt on the landing outside. “Aunt Maria, you’ve got to stop them.” He looked harried and drawn. Toskellar, the prince who had forsaken his heritage to become a bard. Now he was back, with a heart aching for one of Jaylor’s daughters.
Robb thought he could do something about that, but not from here. He took three more awkward steps, determined to build up his strength as quickly as possible. The young prince’s anxiety told him he didn’t have a lot of time before the castle erupted in a major crisis.
“Slow down and breathe, Toskellar,” Maria ordered. There was a new firmness in the set of her chin and the angle of her back.
“You have to stop Princess Rejiia and Captain . . . Captain Stavro. They are preparing to flee the city.”
“Rejiia!” Robb roared rather louder than he thought wise. “When did that conniving bitch become a princess? She’s barely a lady, daughter of an outlawed and exiled lord.”
The prince dismissed his protest with a wave. “Don’t you see, Aunt Maria, they are fleeing like rats off a sinking ship. They know something . . .”
“They know my women have replaced many of Stavro’s men. They know that Lokeen’s days as king are numbered,” the grim female said, as if reciting a routine report of what she’d seen on patrol.
“Where will they go?” Maria asked. “If they leave, then the king has two less allies to fight for him.”
Robb caught the prince’s eye. “Are there other city-states with a grudge against Lokeen, or even just a lust for power?”
The young man nodded.
“The captain of the guard and a strong rogue magician could sway them to attack while you are vulnerable,” Robb said quietly.
“What can I do? I have no authority. I have no strength . . .” Maria wailed, wringing her hands. All traces of her earlier pride and determination evaporated.
“You have us, my lady,” Gerta said. She toyed with the grips of both her knives, one long, one short. He bet she had other weapons hidden on her person.
She wasn’t like Maigret at all. She was much more ruthless.
Suddenly Robb didn’t want to be on the receiving end of that woman’s wrath.
Toskellar cringed a bit too as he took another step into the room, away from the Amazon. She was one of the legendary warriors for whom this city had been named. Robb wondered that Lokeen had dared depose them.
Only he hadn’t deposed them. Just shifted them aside for a while with the power of his snakes to back him up.
He prayed that Lukan had succeeded in wiping out the farm.
But they still had a full nest of the monsters in the dungeons.
“Lady Maria,” he said gently. “Have Gerta and her warriors capture the captain and the witch and put them in separate cells in the dungeon, near the snake pen. There is a bubble of magic around the snakes that drains a magician of power. Let them wallow in the stench and the evaporation of their strength.”
“Can I do that?” The lady turned bleak eyes up to him. Ordering meals and laundry and the cleaning were easy for her. Taking charge of politics was quite another thing.
“You have to. There is no one else who can. This is the first step to stopping Lokeen’s tyranny,” he replied gently. “Your nephew and your warriors will back you up. There is no one else with the authority of heritage to do it. You must.”
She looked around the room, out the window, into every face, seeking another solution, trying to defer to others. Her moment of decision came as a visible straightening of her neck and a clearer gaze. “Very well. What must I do?”
“Put it in writing, and sign it. That way Lokeen can’t countermand the order,” Robb said.
The prince nodded vigorously in agreement.
Gerta, or should he say Captain Gerta, dipped her chin once, decisively.
The Wandering Dragon (Children of the Dragon Nimbus) Page 29