8. Magical In-Fucking-Deed
8. MAGICAL IN-FUCKING-DEED
ELOWYN
I have been expecting you.
I started at hearing the black dragon speak into my mind. Even though it was precisely what I’d been hoping for, the connection between us felt too immediate, too overpowering. My surroundings fell away. Though Saffron surely still clung to my back, and Rush and Xeno would be nearby, I sensed only the dragon—him and his impossibly powerful voice, as deep and substantial as bedrock, as smooth as the stone of a riverbed worn by the eons.
Huuuuh. Huuuuh. Huuuuh. Huuuuh .
It took me a moment to comprehend that the thunderous rumbles were the dragon … laughing ?
If I were anything other than what I am, I would be a mountain: tall, strong, and immovable. I would outlive anyone who ever stepped foot on my peaks.
Um … uh, I could see that. Surely you can do better than that! For fuck’s sake, Elowyn .
You should not speak to yourself that way, the dragon chided.
I felt my cheeks flush despite the chill of the gargantuan cavern. Uh, yeah, sorry, I said, doing no better than before. Fuuuck .
If you owe anyone an apology, it is yourself, the black dragon said. You are a sacred essence come to life for a time in your body.
Careful not to separate my forehead from his, I peered up at him. My vision blurred; all I could make out was the patch of inky blackness between his eyes, wider than my entire head.
I’m only just beginning to learn about my true nature, I offered, pleased to not sound like a moron.
I expected the dragon to answer. When it became clear he wasn’t going to, I nudged with a, We have little time.
Another rumble boomed through my mind. This time it was disapproval.
People. Always in such a hurry.
Well, to be fair, you live much longer than we do. And there is a crazy, bloodthirsty queen on our tails, hunting us as we speak.
Mmmmmmmm-mmmmmmmm. It was, I thought, a growl, and a discontented one at that. The shadow. She comes for all of us.
That’s right. We need to get out of here. Now. Before she arrives.
Then let us go. I have been anticipating you since our first meeting.
In the Sorumbra, he must mean, when my intuition led me to take the most dangerous chance conceivable for someone raised around dragons, who’d heard all the warnings about their violent natures—the same thing I was doing now: bowing my head to the magnificent creature, showing him honor through my vulnerability.
No, since before then, he said, responding to what I’d assumed were my private thoughts— dandy . When we fuerin first sensed the shift in your essence. You will help to save all fuerin.
The slow, unhurried speech of the dragon made me want to settle into this conversation, to discover everything he might know about me, what I was meant to do, and how we could bring down the queen. But that same urgency he’d referred to as being very people-y pressed down along my exposed nape, telling me to hurry the fuck up before the queen arrived to sever my head from my neck.
We’ll have the chance to talk more later, but now?—
Mayhap yes, mayhap no. Not even we fuerin know exactly what the future will bring.
Again, I tried to peer up at him; again, all I saw was more of that shiny, scaled blackness—more evidence of how remarkably different we were, how unevenly matched.
But you just said I’ll help save all fuerin, I pointed out. That indicates knowledge of the future.
No, it does not. The denial was firm, and I clamped down hard on my thoughts to keep a quip from unfolding.
Despite my efforts, a retort slipped free: Nothing like some contradictions to make a conversation go more smoothly .
The dragon stiffened against my forehead. I pinched my lips shut though the act would do nothing to censor my thoughts. How the hell was I supposed to keep myself from thinking ?
A single path will lead into the future, the dragon said. That does not mean the path we fuerin have seen will be the one that comes to pass, only that it is most likely to do so. Paths can diverge, little one.
Kinda like this conversation? Shiiiit.
I would be honored to have the opportunity to speak with you more at length later, I said diplomatically. But now we need to go. Do you have a way to connect to the other fuerin?
I do. Mayhap you do as well.
There’s no time for me to?—
There is always time.
Not if we’re all to get out of here alive.
If we do not, then there will be the next return of our essences, the dragon said.
I’m looking to get us all out alive this time around. I can get the fuerin in the cells out of here, but they need to be linked to me. Like how we did at the house where we found the women. Can you get them to touch each other?
I cannot ‘get them’ to do anything. We fuerin are creatures of free will.
Surely none of them are choosing to be held captive here under these awful conditions.
I felt rather than saw his muscles clench. Smoke wafted from his nostrils, rising up to engulf me. For the first time since he touched his forehead to mine, I felt Rush close by. Undoubtedly, he was worried the dragon would torch me.
I will not hurt you, the dragon said.
I hadn’t even realized how tense I was until I relaxed in response.
Not unless you give me reason to do so, he added, ever so helpfully.
The tension returned sharply. Oh, thanks. No pressure, then.
A low, deep rumble rolled through our connection. Was it discontent? Amusement? Or perhaps curiosity? I had no fucking clue. He was a dragon . I was still learning that I wasn’t at all the half-human girl I’d been led to believe I was, but a fae with powers.
Will you please offer the imprisoned fuerin the chance to come along with us? I asked. They can choose whether to escape or not, but if we’re going to do it, we must move now.
Very well.
Several seconds passed in silence, during which my heart pounded rapidly. My body hadn’t gotten the message that I wasn’t about to be incinerated or eaten whole by the creature that was so many times my size .
When the passing seconds drew out and became like the scrape of a blade against my sensitive skin, I asked, Have you already started or…?
He ignored me, so I waited some more.
Thirty seconds later, I followed up, We really must hurry?—
You people and your time, the dragon scolded. I have already told you.
What precisely he might be referring to, I wasn’t certain, and I wasn’t about to ask. I held my tongue and waited while the seconds eked out so violently that it was as if the second hand of a clock lashed me with its every tick.
Finally— fuck, finally —the dragon announced, They are ready.
I jerked in surprise. Completely ready to go? They understand what they need to do? That they need to touch each other, and then someone links to me, so that…? I trailed off.
The dragon’s eyes were too far apart for me to make out, and yet I was sure he was glowering at me. I could practically hear him saying, in that incredibly deep voice that might be soothing if not for the way it vibrated with danger, Are you actually questioning my abilities—or theirs? Do you presume that fuerin are stupid?
I hurried to tell him, Thank you. Then I’ll proceed. Is it safe for us to disconnect now?
We do not need to touch to connect.
My eyes widened though they registered nothing beyond the satiny black of his face. We don’t?
You will learn. Or mayhap you will not. Your essence must be strong.
I swallowed. Right. Okay, then. I began to pull away but stopped. The sapphire-blue dragon hadn’t responded particularly nicely to my asking for her name…
Is there a name that I might call you by? When he didn’t respond right away, I added, My name’s Elowyn.
Huuuuh . It is not.
My brow furrowed. Was my name yet another lie I’d been fed? What is it, then?
It will depend on whom you become. As did mine.
So I wasn’t going to get his name.
You may call me Einar. He pronounced it I-nar . It is only part of my true name, but it is enough.
Thank you, Einar. I’m honored.
As you should be.
Indeed. Now, shall we save some fuerin?
There is no time like the present.
I thought you said there was no such thing as time… But the dragon had already pulled his forehead from mine, breaking the point of contact. If he heard what I said afterward, he didn’t let on as he straightened his long neck upward, where his head vanished into the darkness of the dungeon .
Reeling, I discovered myself vibrating. The next instant, Rush’s hands were on me, seemingly trying to touch me everywhere at once while being mindful of my many visible scabs and the dragonling still curled around my back.
“You okay?” he asked roughly. “Are you hurt?”
I allowed the steadiness of Rush— finally at my side—to ground me. I exhaled evenly. “I’m fine. But we’ve got to hurry. I?—”
When I halted mid-sentence, Rush asked urgently, “What is it?”
Xeno drew next to us. My friend’s brow was pinched with concern, his eyes darting in all directions as he searched for possible threats.
“I … shit . I think I feel the queen!”
Save for a few spots illuminated by lumoons, the dungeon’s darkness concealed the dragons and many of my friends. I felt them all go still at my comment.
“What do you mean, you ‘feel’ her?” Rush asked.
I jerked my attention from the dark recesses of this awful place to look at him. “By dragon’s blood, Rush … I think she’s almost here.” Panic surged inside me like acid reflux.
Now everyone’s eyes were definitely on me, Rush’s and Xeno’s the most intently. Several alarmed squeaks and cries reached me. I didn’t bother wasting effort trying to identify their sources. I brought a hand to each of Saffron’s arms to keep him calm and ran toward the others, the little dragon bouncing against my back. Most were clustered around the four fae we’d found with Ramana. They remained “asleep” while Roan hovered them a foot above the debris.
My boot snagged on bones but I caught myself. The vivid reminder of the queen’s cruelty caused the alarm inside me to pulse as if it had a heartbeat all its own. I slid to a stop in front of Reed.
Immediately he asked, “What do you need us to do?”
“Link up. The black dragon will connect with the others.” I hoped he would anyway. It wasn’t as if I’d gotten the chance to confirm this vital detail. But Einar was certainly competent and large enough to reach them, and if they knew to connect with each other, it would be a simple matter of reaching through the bars with a tail to link down the line of cells.
“Someone needs to touch the green dragon chained over there.” I pointed toward the dragon who was so badly injured. Fuck the queen for hurting him like that . He huddled in the shadows, though his eyes gleaned with a glimmer of reflected light, his attention plainly pinned on us.
When no one offered to connect to the tortured dragon who was possibly unaware we were trying to help him, and who might kill anyone who approached him, Rush announced, “I’ll do it,” and began stalking toward him.
“Rush, no,” I uttered—but what? Did I expect someone else to risk themselves in a way I wasn’t willing for my mate to do? Tangled in that question was a truth I had neither the time nor desire to examine.
My gaze lingered on Rush for a few moments we didn’t have to spare—as if it might be the last time I ever saw him in one piece—but suddenly I sensed the queen all the more strongly—far too close.
“By blistering sunshine, we’re out of time,” I cried out loudly. “Everyone, now. Run. Move. Connect.”
I remained right where I was, allowing everyone else to do their part to link every creature and person to me. My eyes were already closing. I was reaching for my bond to Rush. With him here with me, it was easy. Instantly, I felt him respond to my unspoken request. His energy melded with mine.
My skin warmed with a flash of pinpricks as the map prepared to trail along my skin?—
Faint shouts and thudding footfalls snaked down the stairwell.
“Fuck,” Rush grunted. “The guards. They got through the wall.”
“We’ll be gone before they reach us,” I said. “Is everyone touching?”
“Not yet,” Rush said. “The green dragon’s an ornery one.” The green dragon growled. Rush quickly added, “Understandably so. I’d be pissed too.”
A quick glance revealed Rush approaching the green dragon slowly—too damn slowly—with his hands in the air. But what else was Rush to do? The dragon was hissing and snarling.
“We gotta leave ‘im,” Roan said, and when I opened my mouth to protest, he shook his head, his long beard shaking with the movement. “Don’t bother. I know everythin’ ya might say, lass. But it’s either all of us or him at this point. If we can, we’ll come back for ‘im.”
I stared at Roan, then at Rush and the green dragon. Rush was going as fast as he could. Any faster, and the dragon would take a chunk out of him, if not char him to the bone.
Testing Einar’s assessment that he and I were connected even when we weren’t touching, I projected with my thoughts, Einar, can you speak to the fuerin? Tell him to allow Rush to touch him? That Rush won’t hurt him?
Moments passed. I prepared to move on when Einar finally answered.
I cannot reach him. The shadow has provoked too much damage to his mind.
In hushed tones intended not to spook the hunkering dragon, Rush spoke to me over his shoulder. “I didn’t mention it, but his chains are like the ones Ivar put on us in the throne room.”
Shadow magic of some sort, then, the kind that interfered with our powers.
“Will he still come with us with the chains on?” Rush continued. “‘Cause I don’t know how to get them off him.”
Feeling the queen so close it was as if she were breathing down my neck, I asked of the group at large, “Can anyone undo shadow chains? ”
Several no s arrived at once. No aye s.
Roan’s voice was gentler this time. “We must leave ‘im for now, lass. It’s the only way.”
I exhaled loudly and rubbed a soothing hand along Saffron’s arm. The dragonling was shaking yet again, responding to my own nerves.
The guards’ footsteps grew louder.
“Okay. Then we go,” I said. “Come back for him when we can.”
As Rush advanced, his lumoon illuminated more of the green dragon. He was so badly hurt, leaving him behind amounted to a death sentence. But Roan was right.
Screw the queen for this impossible decision!
“We can try,” Rush said. “I’ll touch him. There’s at least a chance he’ll come with us.”
There was, even if a small one.
The green dragon only hissed louder as Rush picked up the pace, now so close to the dragon that he wouldn’t be able to escape his fiery breath. There was no taking cover anymore.
“Rush,” West called. “Don’t.”
“I only need a few more seconds,” Rush answered.
“If not for you, then for Elowyn and Larissa and Ramana.”
At that, Rush’s step hitched, but then he continued. “I’m almost there.”
So were the guards.
And so was the queen, I feared.
The green dragon drew in a deep breath? —
“Rush,” I shouted.
“Rush!” Ryder, Hiroshi, and West yelled at once.
“Rush,” Roan bellowed a beat later.
But my mate ducked under the dragon’s head, some-fucking-how evading his awfully sharp teeth as they snapped at his torso, and slapped a palm to one of the creature’s forelegs—between deep, open gashes that looked horribly painful.
The dragon yelped and snaked his head toward Rush?—
An awful reality settled upon me. “Rush, you’re not touching anyone that’s touching me!” How could we have been so stupid? How could I have been so blind in my panic to get everyone else out of here? How?—
“Will rope work, Mistress?”
Pru was at my side. I hadn’t noticed her approach. I blinked down at her. “Rope? You have some?”
“Yes.” Already she was pulling her handy little sewing kit, which I’d learned was a treasure trove of useful emergency items, from her ruined frock. “It’s imbued with goblin power,” she was saying as her nimble, knobby fingers unrolled the kit, allowing its magically expanding end to unfurl atop the bones at her feet. “So it should work with your power, Mistress.” She glanced up at me with those big, dark eyes and corrected herself. “Elowyn.”
“Yes. Yes, it’ll work!” I bent down and pressed a loud smack of a kiss to her ashen cheek.
Edsel gasped in surprise, but Pru only flushed—and bless her, she didn’t so much as pause in her endeavor. An instant later she was pulling a rope from her enchanted kit that extended and extended and extended—magical in-fucking-deed. Its length glowed a soft orange.
Reed launched the end of the rope toward Rush. He caught it just as the guards flooded into the cavern.
“Stop where you are!” yelled the guard in front in a singsongy lilt.
“Where the hell are we?” whispered another guard to the one beside him, but his voice carried.
“Is that a … fuck me, is that a dragon ?” another practically shouted.
“Remain focused,” singsonged their leader. “Rush, do not move.” The lead guard pointed two swords in Rush’s direction. But even as stalwart and intent on fulfilling his purpose as he appeared, I caught how his stare flicked to and from the green dragon, well enough illuminated by Rush’s and the guards’ lumoons now to reveal the extent of his size—and injuries.
“What is this place?” asked another of the guards. There were a dozen or so of them.
I reached for my bond with Rush, experienced immense relief to feel it still strong, and began to wish us out of there to reveal my map.
Braque stumbled into the cavern. His jowls were so pink and his chest heaving so alarmingly, there was a real chance the queen’s alchemist would drop dead on the spot. He attempted to speak but was panting too heavily.
“Now, Elowyn,” Edsel urged .
With the sensation of Rush’s touch across my skin, and an overwhelming desire to get my friends and I the hell out of there, a subtle red glow began to creep along my skin.
A crunch as several heavy somethings landed suddenly on bone, and Zafi’s high-pitched squeak as she went invisible, were my first signs that the queen had arrived. The next was her wickedness coating the air like a stink.
Holding tightly to the connection to Rush and the burgeoning map, I turned to find her. She was astride Azariah. Ivar, atop his scaled horse, was beside her. If the unisus had been defeated before, it was nothing to the current brokenness of his expression. His large, dark eyes were wells of sorrow that had no apparent end.
Was there a way to liberate him? Not only would we save an ally, but he was the entire reason the queen kept finding us. He was a weapon she used against us. Ending her control over him would buy us freedom to prioritize our defense, perhaps even to organize an actual attack. We couldn’t keep running.
“My queen,” Braque wheezed, and the queen’s attention jerked toward her alchemist.
Though it was a challenge while keeping the map active, I worked to contain its glow so she wouldn’t realize how close we all were to disappearing beneath her very nose again. For someone as unskilled in her powers as I was, it wasn’t easy to pull back on the reins of my magic .
My friends held hands, arms, feet, legs, whatever appendages they could reach. They weren’t letting go. Good .
“I’m so relieved Her Majesty is here,” Braque called out loudly from just beside the stairwell as he pressed both hands to his waist around his potions satchel and started picking his way toward his precious queen. His dainty pointed shoes crunched on bone shards, and he cringed as he walked. Perhaps a hundred feet separated him from the queen.
Her glare, however, shortened the distance to nothing. “What are you doing here?”
And by scorching sunshine, holy shit … she dismounted in a swirl of skirts, her heel catching on Azariah’s wing. He gasped in pain. Her boobs nearly popped out of a gown that wasn’t made for riding, or for much beyond looking like a wicked seductress atop a throne, for that matter, but then she was on her feet, smoothing the skirts of her dress. The gold of her crown was warm in the glow of the lumoons. As usual, it was affixed perfectly in place.
While his queen was distracted, Ivar’s stare zeroed in on me. Fabulous .
Her eyes narrowed, the queen stalked evenly toward Braque, as if she walked atop the polished floor of her Hall of Mirrors instead of dirt and stone littered with carcasses—magic, undoubtedly. The hem of her dress didn’t so much as hitch as it skimmed above the detritus. Braque’s own approach slowed. His cheek twitched as if he were suddenly unsure of his precious monarch. Nervous, even.
“Why did you bring guards down here?” she barked. “You know this place is a secret. Now I’ll have to”—she skirted a glance at the men—“deal with them.”
Coming from her lips, painted in a hue that appeared nearly black in this light, deal with them sounded exactly like kill them .
Several of the guards took a step back toward the stairwell.
Pru was still standing next to me. So softly that I prayed Ivar wouldn’t hear, I murmured to her, “Link with Azariah.”
Her eyes widened as she looked up at me. Then she nodded. When I next blinked, she was gone. As a goblin, if she didn’t want anyone to notice where she was, they wouldn’t. I prayed her ability to vanish amid her surroundings would be enough to protect her.
Ivar’s eyes narrowed in blatant suspicion. He commanded his horse toward us.
I clamped down on a sense of Rush . My map flared to a bright crimson beneath my fighting leathers so that a glow slipped from beneath them. Red lines of light traced along the backs of my hands, likely my neck too.
I slid my hand beneath the top of my leathers to a point at my sternum I recalled from Rush’s diagram. Sunshine willing, the map hadn’t altered since then. My palm was already pressing to the spot along my solar plexus—a new one to which we hadn’t yet traveled—when several things happened at once :
The queen clapped. The rope that linked me to Rush burned at its center in a flare of red magic, severing completely.
Ivar’s eyes widened in realization. He leaned over his mount to grab onto Azariah’s tail.
And the putrid dungeon that held so many dragons captive vanished.