Queen of Dragons

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The first child went missing that night.

Save the farms, most of the homes of the tribe were clustered in or at least near the village, which was the core of their commerce and community. It was large enough now almost to be called a town, but it had been known as the village since the beginning of their time, and no doubt would continue to be so, even if it ever rivaled London in size.

The girl's name was Honor Carlisle. Her father managed the silver mines that brought so much of the wealth to the shire. His name was Gervase; Kim had known him all his life. The Carlisles lived in a large, Elizabethan brick structure that used to be the gamekeeper's quarters, farther from the village than most. Honor was their only child.

According to everyone he spoke with, the girl was quiet, she was studious, she was obedient. She had few friends, but those she had swore they had not seen her. They also swore she had no special beaux, drakon or otherwise.

There had been a time when the notion of a maid of the shire linked in any romantic sense to a human male would have been almost unthinkable. But the way their traditions had been crumbling lately... he had to be certain.

Darkfrith had had no rain, but the dawn had come clouded, and the ground was dewed. The girl's footprints revealed she had left by the front door of her home, had crossed alone the long slope of the yard that ended at the road. The grass had grown brittle at its tips, slightly too long. It was easy to follow her trail that far.

The road led in one direction back to the village, and Chasen Manor beyond. The other direction led to the banks of the great River Fier, wide and flat and feeding fish and silt and swirling leaves all the way to the North Sea, miles distant.

Her scent said she walked to the river. And from there, she was gone.

She wasn't a child, really. She was almost fifteen, at the brink of the Turn, should the fates so choose to grace her. By the time Kimber had tracked her as far as he could, had convened and reconvened with the council and the elders and her panic-stricken parents, the sound of Maricara's relentless pounding against the door to the Dead Room hammered like a cold, hard knell throughout the mansion.

No one else had a key. There was but one, and Kim had put it on a ring, on a chain at his waist.

As he passed through the doors of his home, the longcase clock in the vestibule began its noontime chimes; it remained four seconds fast, no matter how it was wound. It was followed at once by all the other clocks in all the other chambers, forty at least, one after another. He'd wanted for years to put away at least some of them, but his sisters had protested. The servants were used to them; Chasen was the seat of a proud and noble family; all the best people had clocks. Better to keep up appearances, especially with the marquess and marchioness gone.

Their combined, jolly melodies going off every three hours made a mess of sound, rebounding off the marble floors and walls.

Maricara's fists striking her door nearly managed to drown them all out.

The majordomo hurried over to him across the black and white tiles, inclining his head.

"My lord, we attempted to contact you—"

"No doubt. I've been outside the shire."

"So we were told. I beg your pardon, Lord Chasen, no one was certain what to do about her. You did convey orders to leave her strictly alone, and without the means to open the door—"

"Yes, it's fine. Thank you."

Kimber did not rush to her. There were more servants watching, pale and observant, and he was Alpha, and so Kim did not rush. But he did make his way straight there, smoothing a hand over his hair as he walked, brushing an errant leaf from his coat.

He'd been dragged from his bed at daybreak. He'd thrown on clothes in the dark without waking his valet, and had been searching for the girl ever since. He was half-surprised to see he even wore boots of a matching color.

Closer to the Dead Room the noise evolved into something more like a muffled boom. There were no bulges in the door from her fists. It was four feet of iron, and even the strongest of drakon would have a hard time punching his way through that. But he could only imagine what the other side looked like.

Or, he didn't have to imagine. Kim hoisted the bar free, found the key on his chain, inserted it into its socket—the last boom echoed away—and pulled open the door.

She stood with her hair disheveled, two spots of pink high on her cheeks. Her eyes were glittering, her feet were braced apart—she wore a nightgown of sheer muslin; he could clearly see her figure beneath it, the colors of her dusky nipples, the dark triangle between her thighs, tantalizing curves—and in her hand was what had once been the smartly shaped cabriole leg of the chair, snapped clean at its base.

Maricara drew straight, her arm still cocked.

"Good morning," Kimber said. "Won't you join me for breakfast?"

She took a deep breath and spat something in that language he didn't understand, clipped and fluid, her chin rising.

"Kippers, I believe," he said. "And eggs, if you like. I'm sure there's some poached salmon as well." "Bastard!" That was in English. "I trusted you!" "It does seem to be a few minutes past morning—" "A few! I've been trying to get out of here for hours!"

He lifted his hands to her, palms out. "I apologize. Deeply. If you wish to Turn into a dragon and bite me, I won't stop you. I only request that you don't maim me first with the chair leg. It's been—a difficult morning."

He stepped back from the doorway. He made certain she could see she wasn't trapped, that the corridor was empty behind him, the faint tinge of daylight from the main hallway beyond lighting the minute cuts and grooves of the stone.

A shade of the hostility faded from her posture. Slowly her arm lowered, until the curved wood of the leg brushed the side of her calf.

The daylight didn't reach far into the Dead Room. Everything behind her was charcoal dark, the bed, the tapestries, the floor. In her gown of floating white, her tumbled hair, her porcelain skin, she gathered the light, became nearly incandescent.

"Or," he went on, because she wasn't speaking and wasn't moving, and he had to do something to distract himself from going over to her, from pulling her into his arms, "if you really must hit me with that thing, I suppose I can take it. Please not the face."

Her lips twitched. She actually seemed to be considering it. He chanced a quick glance at the back of the door; there was definitely a series of fresh dimples across the surface.

But after a moment she only said, calmer than before, "I didn't see the point of ruining my hands."

"I'm glad. They're lovely hands."

"Where have you been?"

Kim shook his head, looking down at his boots. Blades of grass still smeared across the leather. "Will you come eat with me? I could use your counsel. King to king."

At least a half minute passed. When he angled his gaze back up to her Maricara met it, shrugged, then dropped the wooden leg with a clatter. "All right." She turned around to walk back into the chamber, going to where her open valise had been placed against the wall, yanking free a frock in a sudden flash of vermilion.

"No fish," she said, from over her shoulder. "Agreed. I'm a beef and gravy man, myself." "Remain in the hallway. Do not close the door."

He complied. He leaned his back against the wall and then his head, closing his eyes, listening to the quiet, quick sounds of the princess dressing, seeing in his mind's eye the ravaged faces of the parents of Honor Carlisle, begging him for her safe return.

How Gervase's hands shook when he spoke her name. How his wife stared straight at Kim with intensely blue eyes, fierce with unshed tears.

He'd tried his best. He'd made promises he shouldn't have, of course she's fine, don't worry, we'll have her soon, he'd rallied his people; he'd searched and searched. He would search again.

He wasn't Christoff, legendary Christoff, or even bold Rue. He was just their son, doing his damnedest to hold back the swift, black edge of the oblivion that had risen to rush toward his tribe.

Bastard, hissed the dragon inside him. Do not fail them.

She had asked where he'd been, but she already knew. Everything about him whispered to her of the outdoors, the silken curls that escaped from the ribbon that tied his hair, the fresh air that lingered on his cheeks and clothing like a lover's last glance. The boots, clearly. The loosened cravat. He looked as roguish as a story-book corsair, and just as reputable.

But something was wrong. There were lines around his mouth that had not been there yesterday. There were shadows in his eyes.

It had hooked her heart in some silent, poignant way, and like a trout on the line she didn't know how to thrash free. She'd seen him kind, and she'd seen him arrogant. She had yet to see him truly troubled.

Maricara felt an odd, instant empathy. She knew troubled, all too well.

The hallways down here were more narrow than the rest of the mansion; the earl walked ahead of her a few paces. From time to time he'd glance back as if to make certain she was still there, even though she had not the slightest doubt he could sense her in every single way.

She was vivid enough in her red silk gown. She was sick of dark, sick of deadened air. She needed color like she needed that taste of brisk morning that clung to him, and so when they passed a set of garden doors she merely turned to them, opened them, and stepped out into the day.

It wasn't sunny. It was cloudy, the sky a lovely jumble of blue and purple and slate. A fine, thin haze misted the air, not strong enough yet to be rain or drizzle.

"We should break our fast here," Mari said, lifting her arms to the mist.

"Yes," agreed the earl, not even sounding surprised. "Good idea."

There was a Greek pavilion set atop a very gentle hill nearby, the woods spreading dense and mysterious beyond. It had tall marble columns stained with green lichen, and benches beneath a wide, vaulted roof. When she looked up she saw the ceiling had been set with tiny glass tiles, thousands of them. As she tilted her head, light glistened along the concave curves, revealing colors undimmed by time or weather. It was a mosaic to represent the four seasons.

She took her seat under Autumn. It had the best view of the forest.

Kimber was still standing on the grass below, speaking to one of the footmen who had followed them out. When he was done he ascended the stone steps to the pavilion and found his own seat. Winter, just next to hers.

For a while they did not speak. Mari was concentrating on absorbing the day, on unlocking that small, evil knot in her chest that had budded as soon as she'd opened her eyes to a black morning. That had grown with every hour that passed while she'd remained alone, her voice unheard, her calls unanswered.

But it was better now. She could uncurl her fingers. She could relax her shoulders. She'd returned to the light.

No crickets chirped today, no birds, no dragons watched from overhead. It was more than peaceable. It was carefully, unnaturally calm.

The earl sat with his arms crossed, his profile sharp against the green and gray and marble day. He kept his gaze fixed on some distant point of the horizon, his brows drawn flat and his mouth faintly grim. Only his hair moved, rebellious still, stirring with the mild coming rush of an afternoon rain. He seemed both part of this moment and alien to it; a fixed force within a man, beautiful in the way that some men were, without embellishment, without kohl or padded coats or jewels. He was solid as the carved pillars, scintillating as the glass tiles. And Mari knew, deep down, that he was also as dark and deep as the forest that tangled over his land. In his heart, just as untamed. Beyond this manicured place, beyond the sun or moon or any confines of civilization, dwelled the true creature inside him. A hidden shard of some secret core of her seemed to throb to life every time she looked at him.

So she looked away. She looked at the lawn, at the waves of shadow and shade that rippled across the grass with the racing clouds.

It occurred to her that although she had flown with him, and Turned with him, and slept at his side, she didn't know what he looked like in his animal form. Surely he knew how she looked, but all Mari could recall of Kimber Langford was man and smoke. She frowned to herself, struggling for an image, anything, but all she could summon were a pair of blinding green eyes—human or dragon, she could not tell.

"I wonder," he said suddenly, lifting a booted ankle across his knee, "Maricara, King of the Zaharen. Who do you feel right now in the shire?"

"Who?" She dragged her thoughts back with a guilty start, swiping at a lock of her own hair that had begun to tickle her neck. "What do you mean?"

"Can you feel everyone?"

"I could hardly know that. If someone was here whom I didn't sense—"

"Yes, yes, I understand." The earl flicked hard at some grass stuck to his boot. "I suppose what I'm asking is, is it possible for you to sense a drakon you've never met? To pick her out?"

"Her," said Maricara, feeling her heart hook again. "A girl. About fifteen. She disappeared last night."

"Oh." And then, more softly: "Don't you really mean to ask me if the sanf are here?"

"They're not. There are no human men in this shire. I'm damned certain of that."

She lifted her face to the air, closing her eyes. "Yes, I agree," she said. "No Others. No animals. Not even the thrush, not any longer."

"And no missing dragon-girl."

"Can you describe her to me?"

"Somewhat. I've met her, of course, but there are quite a few maidens in the tribe. Let me think. Strawberry-blond hair, pretty face. Roundish. Blue eyes, like her mother.mostly I know her scent. Here." Kim reached for the square of cloth he'd tucked into his coat pocket.

Mari accepted it. It was a buffon, ordinary in the way that most handkerchiefs for young ladies were, stiffened muslin edged with lace, lacking even her initials embroidered upon a corner. The edges were deeply wrinkled, as if she'd had it tucked into her dress just the day before.

"I've got men hunting up and down the shire," Kimber said. "I've got Rhys and the council spread out to the nearest towns. But I thought."

Mari raised the muslin to her nose and winced, looking back at him from over the wilting folds.

"She likes vanilla."

"I noticed."

Clouds, moisture, day: everything as it should be atop the surface, everything ordinary. The pulsing drakon of the shire, the sultry warmth of the unseen sun, the alloys and rocks of Chasen Manor and the ground beneath her feet. The sickly sweet extract of vanilla syrup flooded her senses; she had to work around it to discover the more subtle nuances. Young woman. Starch and innocence.

Maricara closed her eyes and once more lifted her chin. For an instant—the briefest flicker of a second—she almost caught something new.a hint of something both disturbing and known.a person? A stone? It swept over her in thin eldritch notes, a thorn in her memory. When she turned her head to hear it better it vanished as swiftly as it had come. Try as she might, she could not pinpoint it again.

She felt nothing of the maiden who had worn this modesty piece. Either she had managed to hide herself so completely that even her emanations were disguised, or she was well and truly gone.

Mari shook her head, lowering the cloth. "I'm sorry. I don't think she's anywhere nearby. Not for miles and miles."

Kimber nodded politely, rising to his feet. He stood motionless, gazing at the same far-off, cloudswept point, then bent down and picked up the heavy marble bench behind him with both hands and threw it against the nearest pillar.

It exploded into noise, taking out half the column, everything shattering into pieces, chalky dust, minuscule chips that ricocheted back and stung her chest and arms. She made no sound; she did not move except to save her face with her hands.

When it was over she lowered her fingers, glancing instinctively up at the roof, but nothing there toppled. No creaks or groans. There were seven more pillars still to go.

The dust settled around them like thin, glinting snow, sifting back into that unnatural silence.

"Imre had a temper." She spoke indifferently, shaking the grit from her hands, and then her skirts. "He very much enjoyed flogging the serfs whenever the notion took him."

Kimber gave a small savage laugh, his lips drawn back. "Charming fellow. I'm sure we'd have much in common."

"Only me."

He glanced back at her, his gaze still a little too green, a little too feral. The mist beyond his fine, darkened figure began to thicken into raindrops, silvery blue, just as a line of footmen emerged from Chasen, carrying a table and baskets and covered salvers, winding toward the two of them like determined, gray-powdered ants.

She said, "Perhaps the girl ran away on her own. She's young, fair, with all her shining years ahead of her. Who knows the story of her heart? Perhaps she fell in love, and ran away."

"Perhaps," he said.

But the rain wept down, and they both knew it wasn't true.