Chapter 3 #2
Talon snorted twin puffs of smoke. “She is yer one, brother. The others did not affect ye. Not like she has.” He gently tapped a claw on the scale’s rosewood frame.
“And never has our blood magic enabled us to speak to a denizen still in their home plane. The Highland Veil always blocks anything more than visions.” He waggled his ridge of short brow horns.
“Or it used to. Perhaps this time, there is a reason it grants ye such access.”
“Aye. A reason.” Magnus circled the room like an agitated beast searching for a place to shite. By the blood of the mighty Draig and all the other original dragonkind ancestors, what would it take to ease her out of her world and into his—willingly?
Hellys’s bone-chilling roar yanked him from his frustrated wonderings. A volley of flames shot past the windows to the west. He crossed over to them, scanning the skies. “Who is she after? I see nothing.”
“Ye know Hellys sees that which we cannot.” Talon joined Magnus at the window in the search for whatever had triggered the unrest. “That is why she leads our guard.” He took a step back from the ledge, disappeared, then reappeared outside of it, hovering with his powerful, outstretched wings billowing with updrafts. “Shall we join her?”
“Most certainly.” Magnus unsheathed his sword, stepped onto the ledge, then leapt onto his dragon brother’s back. “She is headed south. Toward Thornpitch. She must not get too close. Those clouds will poison her.”
“Aye, she knows that, but still insists on dancing with that vile devil.” Talon unleashed a deafening roar, then shot a wall of blue-white flames around her.
The great crimson dragon slowed, tilting her broad wings to turn her massive form and face them.
“One of Kcirred’s minions struck down Ipsillian with the sickness.
I saw the demon infect my mate with a spell dart!
” She filled the skies with an unholy roar.
“I shall end this madness today! No more waiting for some savior promised by an ancient who was long overdue for his never-ending sleep. I’ll not rest until the stench of Kcirred's spilled blood and his screams for mercy fill my senses.”
“Ye canna pass through the poisons of the shield clouds. Ye know that, Hellys.” Sorrow and rage filled Magnus in equal measure.
Ipsillian was not only Hellys’s mate but also a well-respected and valued member of the elite guard.
“Yer mate needs ye alive and strong at his side. We will find a way to avenge him—and heal him.”
Hellys curled back her leathery lips and bared her long, sharply pointed teeth.
“No disrespect, my chief, but I tire of empty promises. Tell them to the mourners at our overflowing tombs.” She cast an enraged look back at the boiling wall of black clouds and released another long-lasting stream of flames.
The vile bank of mist sizzled and spewed but remained strong and impenetrable.
Kcirred's creation guarded his dark lands well.
Chest heaving, she roared again, her pain and frustration echoing across the realm.
Magnus sheathed his sword. “Come, Hellys. Take me to Ipsillian. I would have him know his chief values him greatly.”
“More than his mate values him?” she growled.
“More than his children will value him once they hatch and lay eyes upon him?” She threw back her head and swept the skies with another streaming blaze of orange-red fury.
“Our first clutch of young ones, and he may not be among us to celebrate his precious hatchlings.”
“He is valued by us all.” Magnus understood her pain and refused to diminish her right to it.
“Allow us to show him. To show ye how we value him…and value yerself. Ye are not alone in this, and as long as Ipsillian draws breath, there is hope. Dinna let go of it. Fight for it as bravely as ye would fight Kcirred if the cowardly bastard ever showed himself. Ye are strong and mighty, Hellys. Ipsillian needs that strength and might. Come. Let us go to him.”
She fixed her golden-eyed gaze upon him. “I canna lose him, my chief. I canna bear it and neither can his kindred brother nor our children.”
Magnus wouldn’t attempt to placate her with the hope that this new possibility the Weavers had found would be the healer, the savior, the prophecy had promised.
But Lady Lyla Ibrams…Lyla…had filled him with more hope than he had felt in a very long while.
He motioned for her to come away, to change course so they might visit Ipsillian before he slipped into the never-ending sleep. “Come.”
After a long moment of staring at the barrier keeping her from Thornpitch, she reeled away, spinning to the right and diving.
Magnus exhaled in relief. She was headed to the guard’s mountain. To her lair. To her beloved Ipsillian. They would follow and offer this mighty warrior the honor and respect he deserved.
Lyla tried not to think about the voice as she tucked her notes and sheet music into the folder she always carried whenever traveling.
It had to have been the alcohol. Or maybe someone at the microbrewery playing a prank.
They all knew her there, and she wouldn’t put it past any of those jokesters to do their best imitation of a deep-voiced Scot because they had all been quite taken with Keeva and frustrated when Keeva wasn’t nearly as taken with them.
“Tis a shame ye canna take yer piano.” Keeva circled the small, boxy spinet Lyla had gotten for an amazingly low bid at an estate auction.
“I’m not sure the poor thing could survive being shipped all the way to Scotland.
It’s got quite a few years on it.” Lyla gave it a loving pat.
“And then I’d have to ship it back whenever I returned.
Does Seven Cairns not have one?” She found it rather odd that a place touting music therapy and specifically mentioning a piano on its website might not have one.
“Or did you mean there’s just not a spinet there? ”
Keeva squeaked with one of her nervous little laughs that Lyla had noticed a lot more lately. “Och, that’s what I meant. Of course, we have a piano in our music room, but ’tis a monstrous thing. Much bigger than this wee lass.”
“Well, then, it probably has a richer sound.” Lyla swept her hand across the top of the wooden instrument; its veneer faded and patchy.
She should’ve dusted it before having Keeva over.
“This little baby sounds great here in my apartment, but she’d be lost in a bigger room, especially if that room has high ceilings. ”
Still meandering around the area, Keeva halted in front of the corner rack and shelves that housed the rest of Lyla's musical instruments she’d collected over the years. “Do ye play all of these?”
Lyla couldn’t help but laugh. Everyone always seemed surprised that she’d amassed and mastered such a collection.
Violin, cello, guitar, flute, clarinet, oboe, even a trombone, harmonica, and an accordion.
If it made music, and she spent a little time with it, she could play it.
“I seem to have a knack for coaxing a song out of everything.”
Clearly impressed, Keeva reverently nodded while bending to examine the collection of items on the bottom shelf.
“I’d be calling that a magical gift, not a knack.
’Tis quite amazing, actually.” She straightened and gave Lyla a knowing smile.
“Maybe that’s why the other evening both the tarot cards and the psychic encouraged ye to embrace a long journey across the water.
They knew someone as magical as yerself belongs in mystical Scotland. ”
“Yeah, I’m magical all right.” Lyla relived the deep, reassuring resonance of the voice that no one had heard except her.
Of course, she hadn’t asked Keeva if she’d heard a fellow countryman that night in the pub.
Maybe she’d heard him, too, and just not said anything.
“You didn’t happen to hear another Scot the other night, did you?
At the bar? Before Jana staggered off to pass out in the restroom? ”
Keeva eyed her, her expression unreadable. “Another Scot, ye say?”
Tossing the folder of music on the couch with the other items she intended to pack for her visit to Seven Cairns, Lyla waved off the questions as if trying to erase them. “You know what? Never mind. It was crowded. No way to tell who was there.”
Keeva eased toward her with interest, creeping like a kitten sneaking up on a new toy. “Did ye hear another Scot that evening in the bar?” She tipped her head to one side, leaning closer as if to improve her hearing. “What did they say? Was it a man or a woman? What did ye hear?”
“Forget I asked. Not only does it not matter, but it was probably just the alcohol making me hear things.”
“Ye had two glasses of that beer that was little more than watered-down piss.” Keeva folded her arms like a pouting child and shook her head.
“I canna believe they dared to warn that stuff might impair yer judgment. The only thing that impaired was the room in yer belly for a glass of heartier spirits.” She tapped her toe, reminding Lyla of her old mechanical metronome perched on top of the piano.
“Now, what did ye hear? Or better yet, who do ye think ye heard?”
“They said I would like it there—wherever there was—and they called me Lady Lyla.” Lyla tossed up her hands. “There. See? Alcohol-induced hallucinations. I don’t drink very often. Even though the beer was weak, it could still affect me.”
Keeva frowned. “And they were Scottish?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes narrowed. “A man or a lass?”
Wishing she’d never broached the subject, Lyla groaned as she leaned her head back and stared up at the ceiling. “A man with a really deep, booming voice. But he didn’t shout. It was more of a whisper.” She shivered. It had been a very seductive whisper that had touched her like a lover’s caress.
“I see.”