The Dragon's Secret (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 2) (8 page)

BOOK: The Dragon's Secret (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 2)
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The butterfly landed on the gray river stone lightly, and then dissolved into long strands of hair that wrapped around the stone. The relic rose up in the air, and then hurtled toward the Red Dragon.

The dragon cried out harsh and swift syllables as the relic zoomed upward and into his fiery mouth.

White lightning sparked everywhere. A loud popping hit my ears.

Screams. And then a pure silence. Utter darkness.

 

 

 

 

 

15

Embers

The dragon lit the dark room with embers that dropped from his mouth. In the orange and shadowed light, I heard yells coming from the other side of the door. Y Ddraig Goch raised one talon, and silence washed across the room.

Y Ddraig Goch’s great yellow eyes looked to me, and then to Merlin. “You have saved me again, Morgan,” he said with his great and hissing voice.

I nodded, scarcely daring to breathe. “I hope that is worth something.” The pentacle above us held no power now that the relic was gone, and I walked with long strides across the room to stand beside Merlin. The wizard, my wizard, stood with his hands stuffed in his pocket, his face unreadable. “I gave you the same relic which had enslaved your mother. It is yours now, to do with as you wish. I advise you to burn it, or drop it in the ocean, or fly it to the moon, but it is not mine to command, it is yours, great dragon.”

More embers dropped from his mouth and turned the room warmer and brighter. “I sense it was not done with a purity of heart.”

“Is it ever?” I asked lightly. “I claim Merlin, Y Ddraig Goch. I claim him and ask that you will not hurt him. Ever.”

“It is not a small request,” he said. The dragon breathed out a long sigh of smoke and yellow flames. His bristling magic filled the room, angry and huge. It pulsed with his breath, in and out.

I nodded and waited.

Merlin stood beside me, head bowed and waiting for whatever fate the dragon chose.

The air in the room began to move, as the dragon’s leathery wings stretched across the expanse of the warehouse. They beat hard as the dragon took to the air. He flew up toward the ceiling, dissolving it a moment before he would have hit it. Those great wings beat faster as he flew upward and higher, toward his own freedom, and I wished him well with all my heart. I wished that I might never see him again.

Merlin turned to me with eyes as unreadable as glass. “Your arm, love.” He ran a finger down the broken bone.

It healed with a blinding pain that was over so quickly I didn’t even have time to gasp for breath.

I heard yells and pounding come from the closed door.

A moment later it opened and the five knights ran in, brandishing their various magical objects.

“Shall we?” I asked Merlin, raising one eyebrow.

A smile came slowly to his face as he took my hand and we faced the knights.

 

 

 

 

 

16

The End

I unlocked the door to Morgan’s Ephemera, and Lila and I walked in. The place reeked of burnt paper. There was a row of blackened books near where I had placed the statue of the dragon girl. She was gone, and had left a broken window behind. I counted myself lucky that she had not burned my store down.

“Guess I won’t be reading any more of your books anytime soon,” Lila said.

“I’ll order more immediately,” I countered.

“Speaking of reading, have you seen the headlines?” Lila asked innocently. She handed me the Seattle Times.

I took it from her and looked her over, just as I had a dozen times last night. She was fine. Unharmed except for a bruise around her wrist where they had tied her hands too tight. I skimmed the headlines as I drank my morning coffee.

Yesterday, after those damn knights had thrown magical objects our way and attempted, to fight us, Merlin and I had argued about what we should do with them. First, we set spells on them that would keep them from any more quest mischief. Second, Merlin, ever the gentlemen, gave me three of the billionaire knights to do with as I wished. He claimed the other two.

I’d placed a wealth-dispersal spell to place on each of their heads. The knight’s money would disperse equitably to those most in need across the world, whenever they felt anger, greed, or, in a nasty bit of spellwork, pleasure.

The paper reported that people waking in the slums of Dar Es Salaam had found money floating through the air. The reporter guessed it must have fallen out of a cargo plane. Another story said that the Jamuna River in Bangladesh was full of thousands of small wooden boats filled with coins, but who the mysterious benefactor was, nobody knew. I sipped my coffee, knowing there would be many more such stories after the men checked their bank accounts today.

Merlin’s spell, it seemed, was in the same vein as mine. Two of the world’s richest men had declared themselves monks yesterday, and taken a vow of silence right after they’d given all their vast wealth to various charities. I looked over the list of the charities and nodded in approval.

Lila and I worked on making my store presentable. Somewhere near noon, a sparrow landed outside my broken window, holding a rolled piece of paper in her beak. When I noticed her, she dropped the paper and flew off. Flashes of memory came back to me that Merlin had contacted me this way, centuries before the era of cell phones. The memory was slight enough that I didn’t faint, but my head throbbed hard a couple of times as I unrolled the paper and read the short message.

I told Lila to tend the shop while I went out.

I walked down through the layers of the market, and then toward the pier where the scent of salt and fish lay heavy on the air. I wore my long wool coat, but left the buttons open. The day was crisp and cold—one of those rare sunny days in April that every Seattleite savors. I thought about what I would say to Merlin when I saw him, and how I would convince him to do what I wanted. Soon enough, I entered a small coffee shop at the north end of the waterfront.

“Is anyone sitting there?” I asked, pointing at an empty chair.

“It’s saved for someone. Tall, angry, a wee bit beautiful,” Merlin said. “Sit, good witch.”

“How are you?” I asked. I loved looking at his face. Perhaps all the more so because I knew this was ending. It had to.

“I’m alive. Because of you,” Merlin said.

“Yes.”

“I thought, in the small moments when I could think, that there was no way out of that place. That there was no getting away from that rock once it grabbed hold of me. I understood the true desperation of the dragons I had once found in an underground cavern. I thought it was poetic destiny that the same relic would be my end. But you did it. You overcame that hunger.” He shook his head. “You are twice the magician I will ever be.”

“Witch,” I said, and let him think his words were true. I had no intention of explaining how I had done it. I had no intention of ever telling him what I had learned, or what I planned to do next. Change was coming, and he must not be around when it did. I took a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking. You don’t need to stay here and protect me any longer.”

He looked away. “Because I’d just get in your way?”

I nodded, not trusting my voice to tell him to go, even if that’s what needed doing.

He nodded as well. “Aye. I told myself I was staying in Seattle to watch after you. Because no matter what you think of me, and no matter how much you don’t need protecting, I will always want to help you. But,” he shook his head. “It’s clear now that was just a story I was telling myself. You were in great danger yesterday because of me.”

“It was good of you to stay. I will miss you,” I said, trying to not sound like I was breaking. This was necessary. I had to let him go.

“No. You will not miss me,” he said. He looked up from his cup of tea. He held my gaze, and I saw all of his brightness. All of his strength. “I am going nowhere.”

“But there is no need for your help. As you said, I can take care of myself and—”

“Oh, I’m done protecting you. But I’m far from done with you. When I left you in my suite, I told you that being near you only makes me ache with the fact of how soon you will be gone again.”

“Yes, another reason why—”

“While I was trapped with the relic, when I could think, all I could think of was how foolish I had been.” Merlin smiled and leaned toward me.

“Foolish?” I leaned toward him, despite myself. This wouldn’t do. I couldn’t let this happen, and yet, part of me wanted him, despite the huge risks. Despite the knowledge of what I would have to hide, if he stayed. I swallowed hard. “It is foolish for you to stay. When I remember every part of my history,” I said, trying to keep my gaze away from his, “When I remember why I banished you from my mind, I will likely wish you gone. You should leave now, Merlin, before you get hurt again.”

Merlin nodded and moved closer. I could smell him. I could feel his heat. “Perhaps I will get hurt again,” he murmured. “But this time I vow I won’t give up so easily. I will do everything in my power to ensure we will stay together for the rest of our lives. But if I’m wrong, and you do send me away again?” He licked his lips and said the words slowly, like he was uttering a spell that had the power to conjure something new in the world. “Then I will spend every moment until then with you, my love.”

I knew I should tell him no. “Yes,” I murmured.

Yes, and yes, and yes.

Merlin was mine, and I was his.

The end.

Except

.

 

 

 

 

 

17

The Water

I left Merlin sleeping in the wide bed of his messy penthouse suite, made all the more messy by our energetic coupling. The valet brought my car around. I activated a cloaking spell around my Mini, and drove much too fast to Pike Place Market. I have always loved the market late at night, when the drunken have drank themselves into stupors, the radicals have left the Alibi room in twos and threes, and the theater types stumble down the cobblestone road drinking red wine and singing showtunes.

I let myself into the cold stillness of Morgan’s Ephemera. Alone, but not really alone ever again, not with Merlin, and not with

the thing I’d found in the white room inside of myself.

The quiet room I’d made to hold the hidden thing.

I licked my lips and felt my heart quicken as I double-checked the locks on the door, making sure no wayward Morgan le Fay seeker might stumble in. What I was going to do, no one must disturb me, and no one must know about. Ever. The thought felt jagged within me, dangerous, and I chose not to think about its ramifications.

The door to my shop was locked and spelled, of course. I turned and walked to the back of the store, to another, smaller door that most people would never notice, and if they did have the magic to see it? There was no way they would ever get in. My hands trembled like a schoolgirl’s as I undid the powerful spells that kept it locked to everyone but me.

The door swung open into a small and plain room, filled with shelves that sat cluttered from the spells and objects I’d stockpiled over all of my centuries.

Just like the last time I was here, I noticed a small pool of water on the ground. A shiver of anticipation moved through me. I closed my eyes and savored the moment before I searched the shelves to see if it was truly there.

I found the plain tin cup that I had forgotten about for all the many years I’d worn a forgetting spell. It was the exact same as the Holy Grail I’d seen in the white room inside of me: in that place where I could hide powerful things and end their effect on me. When I’d spied the Grail there, I’d guessed that it would be here. But I hadn’t known, not for sure, until now. It sat inches away from me: the most sought after object in all the world. I swallowed hard. I licked my lips.

It was full of water. Grail water.

My hand shook as I reached for it. Every atom and dancing electron within me filled with thirst. Thirst was too weak a word for the years of drought I’d endured, unknowing what I was missing. But now it was here. I forced myself to breathe and steady my hands, that I might not spill even one drop of the precious water. With a deep inhalation, I reached for the cup and brought it to my lips.

I drank and drank the Grail’s water, wanting to slow down and savor it, but I couldn’t. It was life. The purest life. And everything else was a shallow and pale mockery of this moment. This now. The water was magic, and nothing else I’d ever known was magic. I drank and I drank until my throat clenched, suddenly empty and how could the water be gone so soon?

Without pause, I dropped to my knees and licked the puddle of water on the stone floor of the room. That water was stale in comparison, yet still it trumped everything and anything else on this vast and green earth. The water made me whole and I was buzzing and huge, yet small and perfect. I heard the echoes of wild laughter and recognized it as my own as I licked up the last of the water and collapsed on the floor and into myself. I would do anything to stay here. To keep it safe.

I laid there most the night in pure ecstasy with no thought beyond the limitless joy the water brought me and then, when that began to die down, I felt the first tendrils of wanting more, of the pain of returning to the gray of normal life.

BOOK: The Dragon's Secret (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 2)
3.02Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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