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Authors: Joanne Bertin

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BOOK: Dragon and Phoenix
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Despite Morlen’s reassurance, Lleld waited until the smoke pouring from Aumalaean’s nostrils became mere wisps before she joined the truedragons in their circling. It would be humiliating in the extreme to return to the Keep with a scorched tail. She’d never hear the end of it.
Morlen said,
*That was a pretty piece of fiying, little cousin.*
His mindvoice was amused.
*And if thee are well

which thee seem to be—then we will continue our journey to our homes. We bear desperate news.*
There is a truedragon held captive in Jehanglan!
Lleld crowed to herself in triumph. To Morlen she said respectfully,
I am indeed well, my lord, and I thank you for the compliment
.
*Then we will be on our way. But I would ask thee to see to thy fellow Dragonlords, whom we left in the meadow. I think they are well enough now, but … *
Dragonlords? Not just Linden, then. And “well enough
now
?”
Lleld thought furiously. The only thing that would bring Linden in such haste was something threatening his soultwin. So Maurynna was down there, too; she must have ridden out. But what was the threat? Certainly not the truedragons, even if Aumalaean was a crabby sort of fellow. And how did Linden get hurt? She couldn’t wait to find out.
It will be my pleasure, my lord.
Was that a muffled laugh she felt in her mind? Before she could say anything, the five truedragons turned as one and flew north.
*My thanks, little cousin,*
came faintly into her mind. This time there was no mistaking the laugh. Lleld snorted; twin curls of smoke drifted up from her nostrils.
What was so funny?
she thought irritably. Then she remembered the charge laid upon her and brightened. This was going to be better than a bard’s tale.
There were no surprises this time when she crested the ridgeline. Just Linden, Maurynna, and Boreal in the meadow below. Lleld tucked her wings and dived. Her very scales itched with the need to
know
.
 
Distant bellows of rage reached their ears.
“What is it?” Maurynna asked. Her body tensed beneath Linden’s arm and one hand flew to her belt dagger.
“Something attacked the truedragons,” Linden said grimly. He moved away to give himself enough room to Change, cursing as his abused muscles protested.
“Don’t even think of it, you idiot!” Maurynna yelled. “You’re hurt.” She grabbed the front of his tunic and jerked him close until their noses nearly touched. “Whatever it is, there’s nothing one lame Dragonlord can do to help five truedragons, do you hear? We’ll mindcall all the others—”
Linden glowered at her, annoyed at the reminder of his injuries. It didn’t help that she was right, blast it all. But it irked him beyond belief to be helpless when—
A distant flicker of motion beyond Maurynna’s shoulder caught his eye. For a moment he couldn’t believe what he saw; then,
Idiot

who else would it be?
he said to himself. He began laughing.
Maurynna drew back a little as if she thought him mad and it was contagious. She did not, he noticed, let go of his tunic. “What,” she began, then looked over her shoulder.
“Trust Lleld,” Linden said with a grin, “to be the first to get the news.”
 
Maurynna watched, barely containing her burning anger as Linden awkwardly peeled off his tunic and presented his injured back for Lleld’s inspection.
She
should be the one doing this for him, not Lleld, not any other Dragonlord, not even any truedragon. Damn Kyrissaean for this latest insult.
She winced in sympathy at the painful slowness of his movements. Gods, but he must have wrenched every muscle in his back and shoulders to be moving like that. And how did he do it? That he wouldn’t tell her did nothing to mend her ill temper or ease her throbbing head.
Well and well, that must mean it was some pretty bit of idiocy he knew deserved a tongue-lashing. Or even a belaying pin to the side of the head, she thought sourly. Just as a reminder not to do whatever it was again.
Whatever he did, he did it for you
, part of her mind chided. She squirmed at the thought.
Morlen must have mindcalled him
.
Lleld finished her inspection of the deep scrape down Linden’s back.
That
, she said,
was stupid, Linden. You know better than to jump from there
.
So he’d told Lleld what he’d done and not her? Her sympathy took wings. Maurynna promised herself the pleasure of keelhauling Linden if she ever got him on board a ship.
“Just get on with it, will you?” Linden growled over his shoulder.
For the first time Maurynna heard a dragon laugh, a deep
houf, houf, houf
punctuated by tendrils of smoke from Lleld’s nostrils. Then Lleld opened her mouth; blue-green flames rushed over teeth like daggers and bathed Linden in their Healing fire.
When she was done, Linden stretched. From his look of relief Maurynna
knew that the Healing had taken; there was not even a mark showing where the scrape had gouged the fair skin.
I’m not a Dragonlord
, Maurynna thought, blinking back sudden tears.
Not really. All I have are the “little magics.” What good are heat spells and coldfire? So what if I can stick my hand in a roaring fire and not get burned? I can’t Change, I can’t fly, I can’t Heal my soultwin myself. If Lleld hadn’t come—
She pushed to her feet.
I’m nothing but a fraud.
Morlen’s words came back to her; she shook her head in bitter disbelief.
How could I, the least of the Dragonlords, the “little one,” be important to truedragons?
Desperation overcame her. She bowed her head and willed herself to Change.
 
Taren poured himself another goblet of the Pelnaran wine that Sirl had so thoughtfully left for him. If he’d known he’d have to face truedragons, he would have refused to leave Jehanglan! He gulped half the wine down.
Yet it seemed his fears that they could “see” into a man’s soul were without cause. They had believed him just as the Dragonlords had, just as that fool boy had.
Still, he’d best keep to his plan of isolating himself as much as possible. A blasted curse this illness might be, but exaggerating it gave him an excuse to play the hermit.
A fit of shivering took him and he grimaced. Not that it was it all a sham; his blood was too thin now for these mountains. He took another sip and swore.
What if the cursed truedragons
did
go to Jehanglan?
 
Maurynna rode back down the mountain, sick and shaking. Instead of Changing, she’d only succeeded in enraging Kyrissaean further; her draconic half had lashed out in fury. The pain had been too much; Maurynna had fainted.
Now she clung to the saddle, certain that only the care Boreal took of her kept her from falling off. Boreal insisted on frequent rests; how he knew each time she felt ready to faint, she didn’t understand. She was just glad he did.
Linden,
watching over her from the air, landed, Changed, and helped her down yet again. She sprawled on the grass, gasping. “How does Boreal know?”
Linden said, “He feels it in the way you sit him. Even from above I can see you slump just before he stops. Are you certain you don’t want me to walk beside you?”
She shook her head and wished she hadn’t. Suddenly the world doubled in front of her eyes; she shut them. “Don’t be silly; not with those boots. Your feet would be a mass of blisters by the time we got back. Besides, Lleld should have gotten home by now and sent Shan on his way.”
“Then why don’t we stay here until he does reach us? You’re dead white, love.” He knelt beside her and gently stroked her forehead. “I could try to ease you by taking some of this onto myself. But I don’t dare; I don’t know what Kyrissaean would do at my interference.” His voice was a tangle of frustration and worry. “But promise me that you won’t try Changing again. Not until we know why Kyrissaean behaves as she does.”
Damn Kyrissaean anyway, Maurynna thought. Linden waited so long and look what he gets as a soultwin: a sorry excuse for a Dragonlord no matter what Morlen says
. “I promise.” The words were bitter and hard in her mouth.
If she thought about it any more she’d cry. “I hope Shan gets here soon,” she said to change the subject.
Nor was it long before the big black stallion cantered up the trail. He stopped before them, snorting, and snuffled Maurynna. Next he touched noses with Boreal; a moment passed and Shan snorted once more, seemingly satisfied with whatever had passed between them.
“Ready?” Linden asked.
“Ready enough,” Maurynna said. “The rest helped, but by all the gods, I just want to lie down in my own bed.”
Linden helped her into the saddle and vaulted onto Shan’s bare back. The sight of him seated comfortably atop the big stallion brought back memories of riding behind him in Cassori barely more than two months ago; it seemed like another lifetime. A time before she knew she was Linden’s soultwin, before she knew she was a Dragonlord.
Shan danced up beside her. Linden smiled, and she knew he was remembering that ride as well. “If you get too dizzy,” he said, “we can ride double on Shan again.”
“I can do it,” Maurynna said. Silently she vowed she would ride into Dragonskeep without help.
 
“Where are they?” Raven snapped. “Haven’t you heard anything yet?”
“No,” Otter said. “Not yet.” And that worried him.
Raven swore and slammed a fist into his other palm. “You can mindspeak Linden Rathan, can’t you? So why don’t you?”
“Because, first, I can’t really mindspeak him. The most I can do is concentrate very hard if I wish to speak mind-to-mind with him and hope he ‘feels’ it; and I can only do that much because we’ve been friends for so long. I also have to be relatively close to him,” Otter said in exasperation. “And secondly, have you considered that distracting him might prove dangerous? We don’t know what’s happening, after all.”
“Just so,” Raven said. There was a note in his voice that Otter didn’t like. “We don’t know.”
 
 
It took all the willpower Maurynna had to keep her vow. More than once she nearly gave in, but the thought of the Lady’s reaction kept her in the saddle. It was bad enough being confined to the Keep like some delicate hothouse flower; let word reach the Lady that she was too ill to ride—and why—and the Lady would no doubt order her to their rooms. And that, Maurynna knew, she could not stand.
Still, when they finally reached the Keep, Maurynna’s head ached so badly she could not open her eyes; the light hurt, sounds were much too loud and hammered at her skull, and her sense of smell was far too acute, even for a Dragonlord.
Linden helped her down. She sagged against him, unable to protest when he picked her up and carried her off, leaving the Llysanyins to the grooms. She closed her eyes and clutched the neck of his tunic to anchor herself as the world spun around her.
Sudden coolness and a dimness she could sense even through closed eyelids told Maurynna they were inside the castle of Dragonskeep. She counted the stairways as Linden climbed them: one, two—she sighed with relief as they reached the third. Almost there. Then—
“Rynna!”
The call was desperate—and far too loud. Maurynna was certain Raven’s voice had shattered her skull. She couldn’t stop a whimper of pain.
“Rynna—what’s wrong?”
Linden growled, “Get out of the way, boy. Can’t you see she’s ill?”
Raven snapped back, “Of course I see that. But what’s wrong with her? I have a right to know. You never said before you threw yourself out of my window.”
The words took a moment to penetrate the shroud of pain in her head. Linden had done
what?
He could have died! No wonder he wouldn’t tell her before.
She opened her eyes. She caught a glimpse of Raven’s salt white face glaring at Linden, heard Linden’s wordless snarl of anger; then the world danced before her and she was certain she would be sick.
“Raven—go away,” she managed to say. All she wanted was her bed. All else had to wait—even explaining to Linden in no uncertain terms that he was never to do anything like that again or she’d kill him herself. She swallowed hard, eyes squeezed shut once more, and her stomach, thank all the gods, stayed in its proper place.
A gasp, then retreating footsteps. Once more Linden strode upward, then down the hall to their rooms. He laid her on the bed. When she tried to sit up, groping blindly at her boots, he said, “Let me do that.”
Maurynna fell back against the pillows as he tugged her boots off. “Windows,” she whispered, covering her eyes with her hands.
“The light hurts?”
“Yes.” She heard him pull the window hangings into place; the sudden darkness was blessed relief. “Thank you.”
BOOK: Dragon and Phoenix
10.59Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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