Tressa's Treasures (The King's Jewel Book 1) (33 page)

I released my grip on the sword hilt but remained crouched; stunned into motionlessness as I assessed the animal in front of me. He stood about seven feet tall, though from head to tail he measured about three times that. His wingspan was even longer. His huge claws and teeth proclaimed him as a formidable adversary—or ally—in a fight.

I finally stood and gawked as she caressed the beast. Apparently, the huge animal was an ally then. "Tressa?"

"Alexander, meet Henry."

The dragon is her bodyguard.
I let that sink in, readjusting the image I’d had in my mind of a burly warrior.

"His name is Henry?" I asked, incredulous. The name didn't suit the creature.

"Well his real name is unpronounceable, so we just call him Henry."

"He's a dragon, right?"

"Aye, of course. What else would he be?"

"Don't dragons breathe fire?" I asked, astonished by her lack of fear with the enormous animal. She cooed and petted it as if it were a dog or a horse, yet it was big enough to swallow us whole.

"Henry has been my bodyguard since... well, since I was born. He’s very careful about his fire breathing when he's around me." She rubbed the dragon's scaly neck. "Aren't you, boy?"

She looked at the dragon as if she were listening to it. "This is Xander. We're Handfast."

The dragon stretched his long neck toward me and sniffed then he turned his big head back to look at Tressa.

"Aye, Henry, that's right. He's human."

"You can talk to him?" I asked incredulously.

"Now stop that. Don't be rude," Tressa said sharply.

"I was just asking."

"Oh sorry, I wasn't talking to you. Dragons communicate telepathically. But I don't know if it works with humans." She glanced at Henry. "Okay, so no, it doesn't work with humans.

"Henry, what does the court know about the happenings at Pine Ridge these past few weeks?" Tressa asked.

Silence stretched on while she listened to Henry's answer. I shifted from foot to foot as I waited.

"Well, what's he saying?" I asked, impatience winning out.

She held up a silencing finger. After another minute, she turned to relay the conversation.

"It sounds like Shamus has done a good job of describing what happened until the point he told Gil to go see Mamó. She sent him back to court with a message that Gil had fallen and that I was in danger. She planned to bring everyone here as soon as she was able."

Tressa turned back to address the dragon.

"Henry, Gil killed Mamó." The raw grief in her voice prompted me to move closer to her. "I don't understand it either, really. She was going to expose him, and I guess he thought she had bequeathed the Aura Sight to him."

"No, she gave it to me, which seemed to make him even angrier. Henry," her voice cracked, "he's kidnapped a child. Xander's daughter."

The dragon snorted hot smoke from his nostrils. Tressa so trusted the dragon that she merely flinched.

"Well, Xander, you and Henry have something in common," she said. "You both think Gil should die."

I was growing impatient with this inactivity. My hands itched to do something. My daughter was in dangerous hands; I had to get her back before any harm could come to her.

"So what's the plan?" I asked, hoping to get things moving.

"There's been no word of Gil coming through a threshold yet. All the guards are on the lookout for him. They know that the human child with him is not his to take," she said, relaying what Henry had told her. She then turned back to the dragon.

"The Niagara Falls threshold is the closest to Pine Ridge, so it makes sense that he would go there. I think we should go that way to head him off."

The dragon evidently had a lot to say about that. He snorted and scratched at the ground with his huge claws, communicating his dissatisfaction with this plan.

"What's going on?" I demanded, having a hard time keeping my tone civil.

"He doesn't want us—well, especially me—to get involved in this. It's too dangerous," she translated reluctantly.

I addressed the dragon directly. "Henry, I'm going after my daughter. Believe me, nothing will convince me otherwise."

Henry snorted a black cloud of smoke, causing Tressa to step away from him.

"But the risk for Tressa is unacceptably high," I continued. "If you agree to help me find Sophia, we can take Tressa to a safe place to wait for us."

Henry seemed to approve of this idea.

"You're not going without me," Tressa said indignantly.

Henry and I both turned on her.

"Tressa, be reasonable," I said. "Gil knows you’ll come after Sophia. This whole thing is a trap to get you to Mór. If Henry is willing to help me, there's no point in putting you at risk."

I felt certain Henry was telling her pretty much the same thing; still, she shook her head stubbornly.

"I will not sit at the castle with nothing to do but worry. I'd go insane. Besides, you need me to communicate with Henry, and if Sophia is hurt, I'll be able to help her more than either of you."

It was irrefutable that if Sophia were hurt, we would need Tressa. Although I despised putting her at risk, we had no other option.

"You might as well give in," Tressa said, "because I
will
have my way with this."

"Okay, fine, I give up. How do we get to the threshold?"

"We ride Henry, of course."

"Of course," I muttered.

The dragon lay down to allow us to climb onto his back. Tressa sat in front of me, holding onto a leather strap around Henry's neck. I put my arms around her and held onto the strap as well. The dragon leapt into the air with surprising grace. His expansive wings flapped with a strength that sped us through the air.

I looked down at the topography below and knew in an instant that we were going the wrong way. "They aren't coming in through Niagara Falls," I shouted to Tressa. "They're coming through somewhere in Alaska."

"You're sure?" Tressa asked.

"I'm sure."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

TRESSA

I was grateful for the Leprechaun’s cape once we were in the air. Flying with a dragon tended to be cold anyway because of the height and speed they flew. With the land completely frozen in grief, that day it was absolutely glacial.

We flew over villages with smoke curling out of chimney tops, over the city of Findias, carved into the mountainside, over a large frozen lake that glistened in the sunlight.

Henry started his descent after passing over an ancient stone cathedral that lay in ruins. As we drew closer to the threshold, the sounds of a battle floated up to us. Henry pulled up and circled around instead of landing.

He telegraphed his intentions, and I shouted them back to Alexander. "He's going to fly over so we can get a view of what's happening down there."

We flew over a battlefield several hundred yards from the cathedral ruins. I easily picked Gilleagán out of the squad of a dozen or so dark-clothed Unseelie Rebels; his golden hair blazed in the sun.

The rebels fought against three dragons, throwing their spears high into the air. They held shields that blocked the dragons' flames, evaporating the firestorm into the air.

They had taken down a young female, judging by her size, with a dragon net. She struggled fiercely to get free. Her fiery breath melted the snow and ice all around her, but the netting remained impervious to the flames. It held her captive and incapacitated.

Henry made a second pass over the fighting below, but there was no sign of Sophia.

"Henry, let's drop Tressa off by the ruins. She can wait there while we help your friends. We need to get to Gil so he can tell us where he's hiding Sophia."

Henry didn't give me time to argue. He swooped down, landing in the churchyard. I slid off him and he flew away, Alexander still on his back.

I went inside the cathedral to find shelter from the ice and cold. Most of the roof and half of the walls had collapsed long ago. I made my way to a section capable of providing shelter from the elements, a corner where the roof and walls had survived intact.

I caught the broad sounds of the fight in the distance, but not in enough detail to know what was happening. While straining to listen to the battle, I heard the crunching noise of something coming through the woods. I crouched inside the corner, feeling exposed in the crumbling building.

I froze when footsteps came my way, not wanting to draw attention to myself. When the sound of movement stopped directly outside where I hid, I held my breath.

There was a half-inch gap in the stones of the wall a bit above my head. Unable to keep still any longer, I stretched to peek through. A deer stood on the other side of the wall. She had stopped to eat a tuft of grass protruding from the ice. The poor thing was probably having trouble finding food with everything frozen.

I came out of the corner to stand by a window opening and watch the deer. A giant fireball rose into the air in the direction of the fighting. I took several deep breaths to calm myself when I thought I heard my name whispered.

"Tressa."

I looked around, but no one was there. I listened again, wondering if the sound had been traveling on the wind. A few seconds later, there it was again—louder this time.

"Tressa, over here."

Cautiously, taking cover behind the stone walls, I went toward the sound of the voice. When I reached the opposite corner of the cathedral, a shadow moved behind a large tree trunk. I hesitated, wondering if it was safe to investigate further, when the lightest aura I had ever seen stepped out from behind it.

The small bundle of light ran toward me. By the time it had reached me, I realized that the voiced calling my name belonged to Sophia. She ran head long into me, hugging my legs.

In one sweeping motion, I leaned down, swooped her up, and rushed with her into the relative protection of the far corner of the cathedral. I crouched down and hugged her against me.

The child wasn't crying or otherwise showing distress, but she shivered with the cold. Her arms wrapped around my neck with no hint of letting go.

"Are you okay? Did they hurt you?" I tried to pull her away from me so I could see her, but she wouldn't release my neck. I felt her shake her head.

"Mr. Gil said we were going on a fun trip and Daddy said it was okay. But he was being naughty, taking me away."

She spoke rapidly. Her voice held a mixture of fear and excitement. I hugged her closer, distressed that she should have spent even a second afraid.

"How did you know he was being naughty?"

"He kept saying my name—all my name and being bossy. Miss Órlaith told me that when someone who sparkles does that it means they are trying to boss you around."

Had my grandmother thought of everything? I remembered telling her that I hadn't been able to hold
Dominion
over Sophia. It must have meant something to her. I wondered if Sophia's aura had told my grandmother something. She was the only child I had seen since receiving the gift, so I couldn't say if her aura was unusual.

"What did you do when he bossed you?"

"I did just what Miss Órlaith told me to do." She relaxed her grip on my neck and sat on my lap. I wrapped my cloak around both of us. "I waited until I saw a big animal with scales and wings. She said the animal would be scary looking, but not to be afraid because they were my friend."

How had Mamó known that someone would try to bring her to the Otherworld? Or was she just being cautious with all the strange fae activity going on?

"When I saw the dragon I yelled, 'I'm a lost child and I belong to Princess Tressa,' just like she told me." Her voice wobbled as she continued. "Do I belong to you, Tressa?"

I gave her a squeeze. "Yes, my dear. You belong to me, and I belong to you."

She nodded, evidently content with this.

"Mr. Gil's friends started fighting the dragons, and I didn't know what to do so I ran as fast as I could to get away. And then I got really scared 'cause I didn't know where I was, and this place is so strange and cold, and I didn't know what to do..."

"Oh honey, you did great. What a good girl you were to do just what Miss Órlaith told you."

We sat quietly for a minute while I thought about our next move. Into the silence Sophia said, "I took a ride on the wind."

Her comment startled me out of my thoughts.

"You did? How did that happen?" Could this be true? Humans weren't supposed to be able to flit.

"Mr. Gil grabbed me and started running. Then there was a whooshing sound like the wind was blowing real hard, and we were floating on it. When he stopped we were at a lake."

The sound of an explosion much closer than any previous ones brought my attention back to our current predicament. The fact that Sophia could flit was actually helpful. If we moved out into the open, I could flit with her to the grounds of the palace. Once on safe ground I could shout to Henry on the wind where we were. I hated the idea of leaving Alexander behind, but I felt confident he would want me to get Sophia to safety.