Chapter 51 A Choice of Destiny
A CHOICE OF DESTINY
Why does a draca bind?
The men marched us uphill. When Lord Wellington’s steps faltered, a man struck him with the butt of a musket, then half-dragged him.
We entered a meadow. A brook splashed through the tufted grass. At least forty armed men were scattered in disorderly clumps. Two wagons waited, the grass heavily rutted by their wheels.
I saw Pemberley House in the blueish distance, although the lake was hidden by the hills. Breaks in the clouds cast pillars of sun that lit patches of forest and field.
Mr. Darcy and Miss Darcy sat by the brook, guarded by four desultory men in ill-fitting uniforms, muskets at the ready.
Our escorts threw us to the ground. Mr. Darcy gave me one tortured look, then deliberately looked away. He did not wish to reveal our relationship. I trusted he had a reason and swallowed the words pressing my lips.
The French wyfe huddled on the grass a few steps from me, her arms hugging her knees. She was modestly pretty and about my age, tanned and fit. A farm girl. Her eyes were fixed on the dirt, her face streaked with dried tears and exhausted by grief.
She wore a wedding ring. There was no sign of her husband. He was likely dead by the lake. Had she witnessed that massacre?
Curled beside her was a lithe, bronze firedrake. Her scales were a shade more coppery than the Longbourn drake had been, and the delicate ribs in her wings curved into elegant, upswept tips.
So, French women could bind. Why could they not bind in France? There must be no draca.
I gave the drake a mental nudge. Her head turned to me, tilting inquisitively.
“Be careful,” whispered Miss Darcy, on the ground to my right. “Mrs. Wickham is powerful.”
“I know,” I said softly. “I have felt her power before. And been overwhelmed.”
Mr. Darcy heard. I saw his concerned glance. He sat on the far side of Miss Darcy.
To my left, Lord Wellington slumped, panting. His left hand fumbled at the cravat that held his collars. He pulled it free, then wrapped his right forearm above the discolored punctures from the crawler sting.
He slid his arm near me and whispered, “Tie it. As tight as you can.”
Trying not to attract attention, I took an end in each hand and pulled hard.
The cloth sank into his swollen flesh. It must have hurt, but he gave no sign.
I knotted it, feeling the heat in his skin.
His collar had fallen open, and yellow streaks crossed his right shoulder.
Even if this slowed the remainder of the poison, he would die without the Britons’ remedy.
Or we would be killed before that. But Wickham and his men had kept us alive so far. There was no reason for that other than mercy. Maybe they would tie us up and leave. That would be sensible.
Images of the massacre by the lake danced in my mind, mocking me.
Lydia and Wickham had been in conference with two men when we arrived. They finished, and men were sent to laboriously unload one chest of gold. They hauled it to the smaller cart and set off in the direction of Lambton.
Lydia and Wickham came to stand over us, their hands on their hips while they surveyed their prisoners. Lydia’s ferretworm slunk on the grass behind her like a beaten dog.
Wickham’s expression was an unreadable flicker—gloating, thoughtful, worried—as his attention shifted. Then his gaze settled on Mr. Darcy, and his emotion became clear. Hatred.
“How the manor-born have fallen,” Wickham said.
“This is between you and me,” Mr. Darcy said. “Free these others. They have done you no harm.”
Lydia squatted before the French wyfe. “Not this one. I need her.” She laughed. “You can all see my trick.”
“Our trick,” Wickham said, with an edge to his voice. “I discovered it. I waded through those tiresome, self-congratulatory histories of Pemberley. But I found it. The secret to break a draca’s bond.”
Wickham crouched in front of me, and his finger pulled my chin toward him. I stared back. I heard Mr. Darcy move and a guard threaten him, but I did not look away from Wickham’s eyes.
“I hunted foul crawlers,” Wickham said, his voice lower. “Lured them with rotting carcasses. Harvested their venom. Then I experimented. The odd draca here and there. But they all died. Even that pathetic tunnelworm of the Lucases, hiding in its bucket.”
He leaned closer.
Lydia snapped, “Wickie!” For once, I sympathized with her. I would be annoyed if my husband stared at another woman.
Wickham ignored her. “But I was missing something. I needed a wyfe. A strong wyfe.” His thumb caressed my chin, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “A Bennet. And I found one.” He shoved my face hard with his palm, breaking our staring match.
He stood and stretched, oozing arrogant calm. From a pouch on his belt, he took a glass vial filled with a thick, oily substance.
“Not yet,” Lydia said, squatting by the Frenchwoman. “I must be strong for this to work.”
She opened her hand, and her ferretworm crawled into her grasp. She pinned him between her knees, then dug in her reticule and removed a short-bladed heavy knife, the kind used to shuck oysters. She grabbed her ferretworm’s muzzle and bent his head back, exposing the underside of his neck.
The ferretworm’s neck was injured, a handful of small, crusty cuts. Lydia pressed the point of the knife into one, twisting and prying. The ferretworm squealed. For the first time, the French wyfe looked up. My own fingers tautened until the bones grated. Beside me, Miss Darcy moaned in disgust.
The tip of the knife caught. Blood beaded. This was not the clear gold I had seen when I took a few drops for Jane. The swell was thick and reluctant, a murky, jaundiced yellow. I remembered the Scottish maid saying draca blood must be given willingly.
Lydia giggled in an obscene, wanton crescendo. She dropped the knife and wiped her fingertips through the blood then thrust them deep in her mouth like they held a delicious sweet. Her back arched. Her face, caked with cracking white paint, stretched in a rictus of gasping delight.
There were disgusted exclamations from her audience. Wickham made no sound, but his lips twisted in distaste. Miss Darcy was still moaning. Even her distress sounded melodious.
Lydia stood and spun, her arms outstretched. It was the pose of a little girl rejoicing on a spring day, but she looked strong and cruel. “Do it!” she shouted.
Even without opening my awareness, I felt power rolling off her, icy and foul on the back of my neck.
Wickham pulled the cork from the vial. The scent of sour orange and bitter almond burned the air. Both the ferretworm and the firedrake reared, hissing. Wickham waved the vial near the drake’s nose. The drake fell on her side, convulsing and shaking.
The French wyfe screamed and reached for her drake, but Lydia cried, “Keep her back!” One of the guards dragged her away.
I had to stop this obscenity. I closed my eyes, and the power grinding at the back of my skull became visible, a black hurricane around the tenuous silver thread between the drake and the French wyfe. The drake’s awareness was a dimmed, frantic spark, fluttering and shaking from the venom.
I pressed at the blackness and was thrown back. When I helped the Longbourn drake repel Lydia’s attack, I had held Mamma’s hand, and her bond had given me a path to channel power. Here, I was too far from the Frenchwoman to touch her.
But the storm was weakening. The atmosphere warmed. Vile blackness washed away like mud in a mountain stream. The drake’s awareness settled, powerful and golden, even brighter than was usual.
Beside me, Miss Darcy’s moan was a hum—a tune dancing through flickers of melody.
The song filled my mind, each note a shimmering sheet of color that nurtured the drake, and me as well.
The purity was glorious, art and mathematical precision merged.
My thoughts became exact, a fugue where each note was the inevitable product of what has come before.
The bond between the drake and the Frenchwoman was singing like a plucked string, resonating with memories and emotions. And with crystal clarity, I saw something new. The bond reached from the drake to the wyfe. Its strength was from the drake. It was part of the drake.
And, I understood.
“It is not working!” Lydia shouted. Her tone was furious.
I was unnecessary—Miss Darcy was blocking Lydia without me—so I opened my eyes. The glow of Miss Darcy’s power still filled me. I sensed Lydia’s dark strength fluttering, trying to survive in the colorful radiance.
Lydia’s jabbing finger accused the Frenchwoman. “I cannot break the bond. She is doing something. Make her stop!” The guard shook the Frenchwoman’s shoulders. Her head snapped back and forth, and she began crying. Lydia screamed, “Wickie! I need this drake!”
Wickham swore. An atrophied, lady-ish part of me stiffened, preparing to admonish him for improper language, even as he drew his pistol and fired.
The blast blew a palm-sized hole in the cloth of the Frenchwoman’s dress. I saw the curved inner sides of her small breasts, and a ragged red tunnel punched in her bare skin. Then it was blood.
The horror vanished as the silver crack of the broken bond overwhelmed my senses. Miss Darcy screamed, and her song stopped. Flaring silver fragmented into sparks that were swallowed by the blackness of Lydia’s power.
Darkness swirled into a whip and struck like a serpent. The firedrake gave one abbreviated cry.
Lord Wellington and Mr. Darcy were shouting. My vision cleared. The guard holding the Frenchwoman pushed her lifeless body to the ground, then cursed and wiped at the blood spattered on his legs.
But Lydia was smiling. She crooked a finger at the drake. Whining piteously, the creature crawled toward her, pushing across the ground with the elbows of her wings.
I sensed what Lydia had done. The whip had become a writhing linkage between her and the drake. It radiated fear, like a chain fashioned of cruelty and threats.