The Silent Dragon: Children of The Dragon Nimbus #1 (21 page)

CHAPTER 31

L
INDA SHOVED her shoulder beneath Glenndon’s arm and took his weight. She sagged a bit, finding him heavier and more dependent upon her than she expected.

Lucjemm had reappeared and he jumped to Glenndon’s other side, draping the uninjured arm over his shoulders and an arm around his friend’s waist. Together they helped each other half-carry a stumbling and wavering Glenndon out of the Council Chamber.

The distance to M’ma’s suite was thankfully short. Linda ran up and down the stairs a dozen times a day without a second thought. Now it seemed to take an hour or more to step up one riser, haul Glenndon level with them, then repeat the process. By the time they reached the top of the long formal staircase all three of them were gasping for breath and dripping sweat. Linda found her free arm bracing against Glenndon’s waist, just above where Lucjemm held him. His hand brushed Linda’s several times, unapologetically. Each time he smiled at her around Glenndon’s back, a bit hesitant and timid, but clearly taking advantage of their proximity to remind her of that first kiss in the archives. His eyes sparkled clearly with each reminder.

She blushed in memory. His name had been one of those put forth as a possible husband for her. The idea wasn’t totally repulsive. He certainly didn’t think so, judging by his grin in response to her reddened cheeks.

That only made her flush deeper.

Then at last they approached M’ma’s suite. Lady Anya threw open the door before they could knock. The handle slammed against the wall and bounced. The lady had to push it back to keep it from slamming into the beleaguered trio.

“There is more to that wound than just miner’s acid,” M’ma said from across the room. She reclined on her lounge, reading official-looking dispatches, as she did every afternoon while Linda and her sisters were sent off to lessons with specialized tutors.

Linda nodded and helped her brother slump onto a stool in front of the queen. Then Linda peered over her mother’s shoulder as the queen and Lady Anya applied poultice after poultice to the irregular red mark on Glenndon’s right hand.

Glenndon looked pale and a bit shaky, but seemed to distance himself from the pain.

“I can smell the addition, but can’t quite define it,” M’ma said quietly. Too quietly. Like no one but Linda should hear.

Who did she hide the truth from? They were all family and trusted retainers here in M’ma’s private sitting room.

Then Linda’s eyes lighted upon Lucjemm, where he stood aside from the feminine task of mixing and applying healing herbs.

“Magic,” Glenndon croaked. The effort of speaking cost him another shade or two of color in his face. His skin now rivaled the lace on Linda’s petticoat.

“But why? Why would a magician wish to assassinate the king? He’s pushing the Council to restore them to court!” Lucjemm protested, moving three paces closer, still out of the way of Lady Anya as she scurried back and forth to the stillroom for different combinations of healing potions.

Images and ideas flashed from Glenndon’s mind to Linda’s. At least he could still think clearly while he fought the pain. He just didn’t have enough energy left over to fight his throat for speech.

“Someone wishes to discredit the magicians and have them banned from Coronnan for all time,” Linda reported. “They meant for the poison to be discovered before P’pa drank it. The Coraurlia would have negated the magic . . . but left him vulnerable to the acid . . .”

Glenndon flashed her one of his rare smiles (though he smiled more now than when he first arrived). He was willing to allow her the credit for the idea.

M’ma nodded in agreement. “If there was magic in the cup that mixed with the acid, the Coraurlia would have negated it, glowing in the process to show it worked.”

“If he’d been wearing it!” Linda gasped. “Everyone on the Council knows how he hates wearing it. It’s heavy and gives him a headache.”

No more of a headache than dealing with the Council,
Glenndon reminded her.

“Anyone who has been at the Council with P’pa more than twice knows he’d more likely to leave the Coraurlia on the table and wear only the demi-crown,” she completed her thought. “He’d be dead from both the acid and the magic. If Glenndon hadn’t sensed it first.” Her knees weakened, and she had to sit on the edge of the lounge next to her mother. Until that moment she hadn’t realized how close she’d come to losing P’pa. How close they’d all come to losing their king.

“I’ll need more help than just herbs to put this to rights,” M’ma said, inspecting the wound, which seemed bigger, redder, angrier than just a few moments ago. Blisters had formed in the center of the red. Little white circles that grew as they watched.

Just then Indigo sauntered in, walking a mazelike path toward Glenndon, making sure he rubbed his face against every piece of furniture and leg he passed.

Lucjemm jumped out of the way at the cat’s slightest touch. His eyes took on a strange cast as he hugged the wall by the door. Lady Anya bent and scratched Indigo’s ears. He purred loudly in response. But he didn’t linger. He aimed for Glenndon.

“Who is this?” M’ma asked, her voice full of caution. She held herself rigid, leaning away from the cat.

“Indigo. He’s special,” Linda replied.

“Aside from being big, what makes him so special?” M’ma continued, not touching the cat. She never allowed a cat into her suite and barely tolerated any in the palace. She allowed a few in the storerooms to keep the rodent population in check, but never, ever above stairs.
Ever.

A bit of a wing poked out from beneath the extra flap of skin.

Linda noted that the wing was on the side away from Lucjemm’s line of sight.

M’ma hid her quick intake of breath with a flurry of hand movements over the cat.

“Master Lucjemm, will you inform His Grace that we will be some time in figuring out what to do?” Lady Anya asked sweetly.

“May I inform his Grace and the Council of your surmise about the wound?”

“Yes,” M’ma replied. “Tell them everything, including our suspicions about the reason for the attack.”

Lucjemm bowed and backed out of the room. His gaze lingered on Linda a moment longer than accepted protocol.

When he’d closed the door firmly behind him and his footsteps retreated some distance, Linda remembered to breathe again.

“Now that we have privacy, we can do something about the wound,” M’ma said, shifting her position so that she could hold Glenndon’s arm with one hand and keep the other on the flywacket’s head.

Indigo had indeed become a flywacket now, a creature of magic, mystery, and legend, with black feathered wings fully extended and raised, as if ready to catch the next breeze and launch into the skies.

Or the ceiling.

“Linda.” M’ma gestured for her to kneel beside Glenndon. “You are closer to him in blood than I. Therefore you must take the lead in this, use your strength for I have not enough. You must do everything I say, precisely when I say it, without question or hesitation. I cannot do this without making myself ill again, but I know how to do it. Can you follow me without thinking?”

Linda nodded, swallowing any trace of uncertainty.

“We have not much time. Within minutes a crowd of people will burst through that door and demand explanations. Anya, stand in the hallway and stall them. Latch the door on your way out.” M’ma paused to close her eyes and breathe deeply.

Linda noted that Glenndon did the same. She took a deep breath and forced the air downward until calm blossomed outward from her middle. Another breath and her limbs went lax. A third and her ears and eyes seemed to open fully for the first time.

She heard her own heartbeat, distinguished it from her mother’s and her brother’s. Without thinking she urged her own pulse to match Glenndon’s. A moment later her mother’s came into synchronization.

Linda, you need to place your left hand on Indigo and your right upon Glenndon’s arm,
M’ma said directly into her mind.

As she spoke, M’ma placed both her hands on Indigo’s extended wing.

Linda looked to her brother. He nodded. She complied. Left hand on the flywacket’s other wing, dominant right on Glenndon. Was there a reason for that? M’ma had been most specific.

A bubble of pale blue light shading into lavender and darkening around the outer edges seemed to engulf them in a protective barrier from the outside world. As details in the room dimmed, those within the bubble brightened, took on sharper definition. She saw every stitch in every seam of Glenndon’s tunic and trews. The fine embroidery and lace on her mother’s gown became equally distinct, as did the pores in their skin, and the way each hair lay upon their heads.

Indigo purred louder, the rhythm taking on the same cadence as a heartbeat, their joined heartbeats. The bubble of purply-blue light emanated from him.

Linda admired the silky texture of the feathers, seeing how each tiny fluff joined another and another along the spine. Really just extremely fine fur patterned in branching arrays along a thicker spine of cartilage instead of individual hairs attached to the skin.

“Now that you have made the connection to Glenndon, place your right hand above his wound. Do not touch the red, but let your spread fingertips rest on his skin around the burn.”

Sharp tingles rose up her arm when she touched his bare skin. She looked closer, seeing their common blood flowing back and forth from her body to his.

Concentrate on the burn. See the edges, feel the depth of it in the skin. Now in your mind confine the burn into one solid mass.
It resisted, shooting out tendrils.

She firmed her image of control, enveloping the mass, much as the bubble of light isolated the four of them. Linda felt the damaged tissue gather itself tighter, its urge to spread fading.

Now lift the mass free of your brother’s hand.

Linda yanked at the blob, expecting resistance. A great tearing sound filled her mind where her mother’s gentle voice had been.

Glenndon screamed. Physically and psychically. The sharp burning stab in his hand repeated itself through her blood bond with him. Fire raced from her fingertips to her shoulder and over the top of her head into her eyes. A blackness full of steel knives jabbed in and out of her mind.

She hadn’t the strength to utter more than a whimpering moan.

Gently, Little Lindy. Gently. Think of snow. Think of winter chill invading every crevice in the stone wall of the inner keep. Think of the icy wind ripping across the hills as you ride Belle.

Linda obeyed her mother, as she’d promised.

The sharpness of Glenndon’s pain receded inside her to a numbing ache.

There is a root in that burn. Imagine the deep, probing taproot of the great oak at Last Bridge that toppled last winter in the windstorm. See it in your mind. Now transfer that image to the burn. See the root escaping your envelope of magic. Do you see it?

“Yes,” Linda murmured. And she could. A nasty black thing that had broken through the wall she’d encircled the burn with.

Pull it back.

Pain, sharp and intense flared up to her eyes and down into her legs.

Breathe with it. Synchronize your breath and heartbeat to the pulse of the root.
Glenndon’s mental voice came through, weak but firm. Each syllable found the rhythm of the pain. Like a good swordsman, he’d found the magic’s weak point, flowed with it, understood it, and . . . and mastered it with a neat undercut and long lunge.

The root withdrew.

Linda pulled some more, found a misshapen lump further up and pulled that too. She didn’t know what it was, only that it didn’t belong inside her brother. Then she slapped a mental patch on the magical envelope containing the burn and its root. Her pain eased. Glenndon breathed easier. His facial muscles relaxed.

Breathe deeply, Linda,
M’ma coaxed.
In, two, three, hold two, three, out two, three.

Linda obeyed, finding her lungs eager to work again.

Again. Breathe on my count. Find your center. Breathe again, anchor yourself to the Kardia. Breathe.

Glenndon matched the count. His chest moved in and out in time with hers. Their hearts beat as one. His mind opened to her. Hers to him.

In a flash she shared all his memories, his fears, his loneliness, all his knowledge, the books he’d read, the trails he’d explored, his bond of love with his family, his friendship with Indigo. And for this brief time out of time she shared his talent.

Linda knew what to do. Gently, slowly, she inserted her mind around the encapsulated burn. It fought her. She eased back and came at it from a new angle, wiggling here, pushing there, like a worm finding its way through rocky soil.

She felt Glenndon’s mental shout of triumph when she finally got underneath the thing. Together they eased it upward, sliding it free of his body.

Don’t touch it!
M’ma warned as the blob burst free of Glenndon’s skin.

Glenndon sent her a new thought. She lifted her hand from his, still keeping her fingers cupped.

The blob followed her until it hovered several finger widths above the back of Glenndon’s hand.

Quickly he snatched his hand away, cradling it beneath his opposite arm, pressing on the bleeding wound.

The blob started to drop. Linda’s skirts lay in its path. She knew it would burn through the thick fabric and petticoat to her thigh. She tried to jerk free.

Indigo’s long black tongue darted out and in, like a giant lizard snapping at a fly. He chomped on the magical blob and licked his lips.

“Indigo!” Linda squealed in concern.

“He’s a dragon at his core, Linda. A creature of magic. It won’t hurt him like it would us mere humans,” M’ma said. Her face paled. Deep lines drew her mouth down. She sagged wearily.

“Cut the circle,” Glenndon ordered. “You have to cut the circle so we can get her help. We’ve exhausted her beyond her physical strength, even though you did most of the work, Linda.” The most he’d spoken in his entire life.

“Circle?” Linda asked. Her bond with her brother remained, though it faded in intensity. “Oh, the bubble of light.”