Queen of Dragons

CHAPTER ELEVEN

It was going to rain. She could feel it in her bones, most particularly the smallest finger of her right hand. It had been broken when she was ten, and had healed before the human physician could even make the trip up to the castle from his hamlet three days away. It had healed straight, of course. There was hardly a bump at all from the fracture. But it still ached occasionally, a phantom pain to remind her of what it had once been like to be ten, a newlywed alone in an echoing palace, in a chamber leafed with gold and studded with diamonds, and a husband who chided her for trying to lock the door to her room against him.

The dark English clouds were seething over the dark English sea. The moisture saturating the air was enough to feel like slime clinging to her hair and skin. Maricara was a creature of the cool, arid alps. Rain was not her element.

"You should stay here tonight," she said to the earl. He had followed her nearly into the hotel bedchamber, was standing silently near the doorway with his arms folded across his chest. Sconces of candles behind cut glass adorned the walls, their flames burning dim but steady.

Kimber's position kept him from the light. She wondered if he did it deliberately, if he had begun to realize how much she could fathom from his eyes.

She crossed to the nightstand, holding on to a corner as she removed her heels. She could hear Rhys and the sisters in the parlor beyond, the three of them caught in an unspeaking circle, everyone waiting, it seemed, for the rainclouds to rupture, for the weight of the water to fall.

"You're most generous," said Kimber. He spoke his native language exactly the same way he had spoken French: with effortless elegance, as if the words themselves were made just to be shaped by his lips, to resonate with his low, agreeable voice.

"The roads will be too muddy tonight to return, in any case." Mari stripped off the right pump, balancing a moment with her arm out, then the left. "The bed is large and comfortable. If you try, the four of you might fit."

His brows lifted. "That's not quite how I envisioned it."

"Well, I suppose a gentleman would offer it first to his sisters, but they seem hardy enough." The looking glass on the nightstand caught her face in a square of pewter; she began to remove the diamonds from her hair. "Frankly, were it a matter between me and the brown-eyed one—"

"Audrey."

"Yes. She'd be on the floor."

The glass was small. She couldn't see his face in it, so she couldn't see if he smiled. She felt him though, felt him as clearly as ever, even through the stifling humidity.

He was anticipating a thousand outcomes to this moment. The rainstorm boiling off the sea only heightened his awareness; he would be like her in that way. They could not help but feed off the energy of the air.

The sconcelight, the shape of the room, the downy bed. The bright, heavy stones she'd used for adornment: all factors into this instant, into what she might do next.

Without her heels, the hem of the cocoa gown rumpled against her feet, an accidental train bunched at her ankles. She turned around and walked carefully back to Kimber, holding out her hand. He accepted the diamond clips she poured into his palm without comment, a baron's fortune singing and sparkling against his cupped fingers.

Thunder began a long, distant rumble. She removed her bracelets, one by one, never looking away from his face.

"And where," asked the earl, "are you planning to sleep, Your Grace?"

She smiled. She tilted her head and dropped the bracelets into his other palm. "You feel where I hid the key to the safe, don't you? It's a fairly simple lock. I have faith you'll manage it."

"Pray do not delude yourself," he said courteously, "into thinking that you're leaving this hotel alone."

"Try sleeping head to foot. That's how we did it in the mountains when I was a girl. You can fit more people on the mattress that way."

"Charming. I'll bear it in mind the next time I actually cannot afford to acquire my own hotel room. My dear child, you do realize the second you Turn, I'll be after you."

"But I rather think you won't catch me, Lord Chasen. You haven't yet."

Now he smiled, a half smile, a predator's smile, cold and gleaming; it turned his gaze to flint. "Maricara. You don't want to goad me into action tonight."

"Yes, that's true. What I want is for you to take my belongings back with you to Darkfrith tomorrow. I'll join you there. Really," she added, when his smile never changed. "Do you think I'd let you abscond with all my best jewelry?"

"It's not actually absconding if you give it to me."

"And I'm not. I'm merely handing it to you with the conviction that I'll get it back soon."

Without another word, the earl spread his fingers. Sapphires and diamonds tumbled in a shower of light to his feet.

"There are monsters out there," he said quietly. "And I don't want to have to fight them yet. Stay here, Princess. Stay here, where it's safe."

"I wish I could," she said, and Turned before he could add anything else, before he could finish reaching for her waist with his hands, and she wouldn't have to feel the urge to close her eyes and lean into him, to believe in words like stay and safe, no matter how beautifully he said them.

He did follow, of course. As far as she could tell, he didn't even take the time to alert his siblings; he just Turned to smoke, exactly as she had. But she knew the town in a way that he didn't; she knew the crooks and crannies of the rooftops; where the wind held a constant upsweep; which alleys were longest and darkest; which garrets would be empty.

She also knew that he'd be able to feel her—but she was willing to take risks he wouldn't. So she raced to the town square, where cobblestones echoed with horses' hooves, and carriages could be found at nearly any hour, jingling as they struck the bumps and holes. A foursome of oil lamps stuck atop poles threw light upon a statue of Poseidon in the center. She wound around his trident and then his beard, and all the horses trotting nearby began to shudder—then to veer. Coachmen, hauling at their reins, started to shout.

The earl remained a sheet of gray above. She'd been right; he would not descend.

So she did. There was a gutter at the foot of the statue that led to a tunnel that led to the sea. It was black and filthy and clogged with trash. She darted through it as quickly as she could—rotting vegetables; oyster shells; excrement; a living rat, which turned, red-eyed, and shrieked at her approach—and emerged like a bullet into the tide, shooting up through the spray and into the very first raindrops that were beginning to fall.

She kept going. Kimber was no longer near, and neither was her priory. She punched through the bottom of a fat, salty cloud and used it as her cover, letting herself blow with the gathering storm back to land.

"They're gone," said Joan, lifting her head. She'd been lazing in a chair by the fire, her feet out with her ankles crossed, a fist supporting her cheek. She sat up abruptly, looking around the room. "They Turned, just now. Did you feel it?"

"Yes," said Audrey, in the opposite chair, then muttered, "Lackwits."

Rhys had been pretending to be asleep on the floor by the hearth, a pillow stuffed under his neck. He'd unbuttoned his waistcoat and kept on his boots, his fingers laced over his stomach.

He'd felt them Turn. He'd felt Maricara's intention before it even happened, her eagerness to become smoke; it had washed over him in waves of lovely deep power, like strong spirits, like laudanum. It had kept him locked in his motionless state; he'd wanted nothing to interrupt the sensation of her, even the sensation of her departure.

Joan tugged a hand through her wig, disgruntled. "Well, bugger. What are we supposed to do now?"

Audrey came to her feet. "I don't know about you two, but I'm taking the bed."

She stepped over his boots and walked to the bedchamber on a yawn, her tinseled skirts sweeping the floor behind her.

She went inland. Kim could tell that much. He caught the faint lure of her to the south, and so that was where he drifted, trying not to panic, to succumb to anger, or the fear for her that buzzed through him like atoms charged with the storm.

The rain began gently. It was a mist, and then a sprinkling, and it was no great difficulty to maneuver through it. Rain this sheer was more like a caress than a hindrance, especially when he did not fight it. He could be flat or deep, might or persuasion; the rain would let him know what he needed to do.

He blew past the last yellow-lit streets of the town, over darker cottages and orchards, steaming fields melting into moors of wildflowers and peat.

The rain picked up. It began to feel less like a caress and more like a great many tiny needles, but still Kimber stayed smoke.

That's what Maricara was doing. He could perceive it.

The thunder increased. Lightning forked the amethyst sky. The wind burned with electricity and traces of her, telling him, yes, there, or no, you've gone too far, she circled back.

There were farms below him. He sensed those too, the scant vibrations of humans in slumber, of cows and bulls and goats huddled in barns, or against tall trees.

He did not detect that sly, slight sense of dragon again. Not here. Not yet.

And then he lost her.

Just like that; lightning flashed, the wind slammed from the other direction, and all awareness of her was just—obliterated.

He pulled thick. He fought the storm and hovered in place, seeking new clues. But all he got was rainfall and grass and dirt and leaves being washed clean of their daily dust. The last farmer's cottage he'd passed had a chimney that leaked the aroma of scorched peat—he still smelled that, for God's sake, and it was at least fifteen miles back.

Where had she gone?

The wind blew harder, ruffling his edges. He fought it a minute longer and then Turned to dragon, maddened, soaked instantly, straining against the blunt rage of the storm.

He dipped lower to the earth. Water sluiced off his scales and the dagger tips of his wings, down his claws. It stung his eyes and he narrowed them into slits; long, gilded lashes shielded him from the worst of it.

He skimmed a slow loop above the moor. Had there been anyone about it would have been suicidal; he was vividly colored, easily within the range of a flintlock. But there were no Others, no drakon.and no Maricara.

He kept on. Woods. Meadows. Ponds whipped to whitecaps, reeds bent in half along their shores. Alders and oaks with their leaves all pointing the direction of the gale. There came a moment when Kimber realized he was no longer entirely certain where he was: thirty miles inland? Forty-five? But if he turned his head, he could still taste the salt in certain raindrops. The sea would be behind them. So that was all right.

He kept on. And on. He wasn't going to give up, but he was starting to rethink his situation. What if she'd landed long ago, holed up in a barn or an empty silo? What if she'd doubled back to Seaham or some other town, if she had another hotel, another bed? What if—

Then he felt her. His body realized it before his mind did; he was already banking right, zooming in a long, straight line to minimize his friction against the headwind. His wings took the force of his turn with a straining hurt. His eyes shed tears into the wind.

A tingle like warmth along his spine. Gunpowder and flowers, a kiss of her perfume filling his muzzle.

She was there. He felt her like he felt the earth, like he felt the common elements of copper or wood, clay and quartz. She was there before him, essential and wild, a zigzag of sensation that washed over him, that bounced against his senses and led him east, where she flew. Where she dove and rose like a dolphin in the surf.

He first saw her in a burst of blazing light: a tiny dragon silhouetted against massive clouds, slicing through the rain in a frozen coil. The light died; his vision dissolved, but it didn't matter, because he knew where she was now, high above him, ripping through vapor with fangs and talons.

He used instinct to guide him. The rain intensified, striking hard against him, but she was still there ahead. Broken lightning revealed her like sketches in a picture book, wings open, wings closed, up, up, a long ripple down. She rode the wind like no one he had ever seen, diving headfirst into it, tearing against it, letting it flip her around and around. When he was close enough he could see the water shearing off her body, drumming the fine skin of her wings with a brutal, relentless rhythm.

He soared nearer. She didn't even seem to notice, caught in her loops and turns. Her eyes—almond-shaped, vivid silver—met his without blinking. She didn't try to flee, or Turn, or end her ballet with the storm. She only glided a moment, then tilted to her right into a slow, slow fall, one wing tucked in.

Kimber followed.

It was ruddy difficult. She made it look easy, every inch of her taut, only the mane down her neck flipping wildly with the velocity of her descent. As she drew ahead of him the pale, metallic tipping of her wings became the most visible part of her, silver tracings marking the points and bones of her grace.

His own wing began to ache. The ground was rushing nearer. Still she held her form; together they corkscrewed in wide, flat circles, until a new gust of wind shoved him violently aside, forcing him to tuck and roll, to flap frantically to regain control. When he found his bearings again she was back above him, shooting upward in a curve. Kimber exhaled rain and air and once more began to follow.

She vanished into a cloud. He was right behind her, engulfed in the clogging vapor. Clouds were not meant for respiration. With every mouthful he felt his throat closing, his lungs shrinking, struggling for dry air.

He'd already lost sight of Maricara, who was pulling too far ahead. If he Turned to smoke, he wouldn't have to breathe—but dragons were swifter than smoke. And the wind would shred him to tatters.

He would not lose her again. Kim closed his eyes and let the animal in him take command, letting his dragon side have full rein.

Ah, yes. His teeth snapped closed, his claws clenched. The dragon knew what to do, how to slow his heart and strain the air, how to move through the thunderhead with its warmer jets and channels, let them push him higher, faster, to where she flew.

Mate.

She wasn't far, female and slight. He didn't need to open his eyes again to see her. She was a clear vision in his mind, a very dark goal. And he was closing in.

The air began to charge, an unpleasant, electric itch crawling under his scales. It became pressure, and then pain: the lightning erupted as a shock, a column of power splintering feet behind him that singed his tail and jolted fire through his heart. Thunder swallowed him with it, grabbed down into the marrow of his bones and ripped him inside out.

It knocked him senseless. It sent him into free fall. He came awake with the clouds now a wall above him and the wind howling in his ears, his body trembling as he plummeted to his death.

No.

Kimber stiffened. He flipped upright, swerving drunkenly—black earth, black sky, fresh lightning to show him how close he'd come to annihilation—the flowers on the moor were visibly mauve and pink—

Rain hammered his face. He swooped upward, gritting his teeth and letting pain in his blood become an ally, become muscle and nerve. He was not going to fail.

He stabbed through the belly of the clouds. He tore a tunnel through the murk, gathering speed, gathering momentum, feeling that dangerous buildup of lightning again, prickling down to his claws....

Kimber pushed harder. If he could have made noise, he would have been screaming, but there was only the cacophony of storm and thunder and the coming clap of fire—

He speared through the top of the cloud bank, breaking free to sudden silence: to heaven. To stars. To a placid ocean of air cooled with the night. His ears rang with the quiet.

And there she was, floating. Peaceful. As if she'd only been waiting here for him, silent as the moon. As if the planet below wasn't still a writhing hell, flickering with veins of purple light.

She did not glance at him. He soared nearer and she didn't pull away. Her eyes shone half-lidded and luminous; the light this high held a clarity that never reached the earth, undimmed with coal fumes or precipitation. Starlight defined each perfect scale along her body, each brilliant thread of her ruff, every eyelash. Her breathing slowed, and then slowed more; with every respiration she glimmered, ebony and silver, a flawless complement to the night.

He could hear her heartbeat. He could hear thunder below them and her heartbeat, strong and steady, and Kimber realized he had never heard anything so compelling in his life.

Mate.

All his worry, all his rage and pain seemed to soften, to melt. Maricara lifted her head to test the wind and then flipped into a languid roll. He had a glimpse of her stomach, of shining black talons, and then she was right-side up again, still holding her sleepy, half-lidded look.

He edged closer. He came as near as he could without touching her, willing her to turn her head, to look at him again, but she didn't. So Kim opened his wings to lift above her, an easy thing, coming back down to touch his claws lightly against her back.

She accepted the pressure of him. She adjusted to it, maintaining her height, but that was all. They flew on, their movements now matched.

He'd never flown like this with anyone before, certainly not with any female. When the men of the tribe scoured the skies they tended toward isolation, unless on patrol. Younger drakon especially might game in the air, they might mock-fight, but there was never anything like this.this delicate and exquisite maneuvering, aligning his skills to hers.

She was warm. She was beautiful. She had abilities that he couldn't yet even understand, but the one thing Kimber absolutely understood was this: Maricara was his.

And in this star-crystalled moment, that was enough.

He wanted to descend with her and he didn't; they were alone here, alone in a way they would never be back in the human world. Kim was selfish enough to imagine what it would be like simply to keep flying with her, to let her guide him to the moon, or to cherry-tinted tropical clouds, to a place where there was no tempest or hunters at all. They didn't have to give this up just yet.

But Maricara dropped free of his touch. He let her go, keeping a few feet above her. When they hit the storm bank again he remained just as close, but she didn't attempt to lose him. She only kept going, steady now, and it wasn't long before they had sunk out of the haze and returned to the rain, ferocious water hissing off their backs.

She seemed to have a destination in mind, although there wasn't much below them but fields and what might have once been a grove of fruit trees, now spreading unchecked. When the next bout of lightning struck, he saw where they were headed, a ruin of some sort, an abbey perhaps, with half the stone roof sloughed away and high, crumbling walls enclosing chambers of weeds and stained glass.

Maricara Turned to smoke. Kim did the same, and the relief was nearly dizzying: The deluge slid through him; he didn't have to struggle to fill his lungs. She sifted down to one of the open chambers, through an archway of a loggia that still had its stone columns and a tall, peaked ceiling. Near its end she found a new room, also still with its ceiling, with a limestone floor, and blankets, a dark lantern and a pillow.

She became woman. Kim hesitated, lingering as smoke near a window of colored glass. And Maricara still didn't look at him, or even act as if she knew he was there. She walked to the blankets, drew them around her and sank to the floor. She picked up what he'd thought was part of another blanket—perhaps it was—but it was small, long and thin.

Like a blindfold.

She lifted it to her face. She used it to cover her eyes, tied the ends behind her head in a knot. Then she rolled to her side with her head on the pillow and let out a long, deep sigh, her shoulders at once going lax.

She was asleep.

It came to him gradually: She was asleep. Kimber materialized into his human shape, standing soundless in that corner. She didn't stir. Her respiration didn't change. Her lips were parted and her hair pinned with the cloth, fanning out in a dark glossy spill behind her. She'd cupped both hands beneath her chin.

He squatted to his heels, watching her. When the night finally gave him chills he crossed to her, easing down carefully at her back. He lifted the blankets, inching close, sliding an arm under her neck, letting the other rest over her waist, until her back was pressed against his chest and her legs lifted to tuck against his. She sighed again but didn't try to move away. To Kimber her bare skin felt like silk, like welcome.

She said something a few minutes later, a drowsy mumble:

"This doesn't change anything."

"No," Kim lied, very soft. He turned his face to her hair. "I know." And she relaxed back into slumber.

He stayed awake, listening to the rainfall pattering against dirt and stone, his body alight, attuned to her every breath.