Chapter 10 #2
Catori cocked her head to the side, listening to something I could not hear. “Your grandsire once found the journal of an alpha and stored it in his hoard. Perhaps that will prove useful.”
I lowered my fork, schooling my expression to keep from showing my frustration. “The manor has informed you of this?”
“Yes.” She sipped from her teacup and nodded. “I asked.”
The insinuation that I had not chaffed. I had asked my home many questions since the attack, and it had yet to answer for its treasonous behavior. “Well, Manor, would you care to explain why you allowed a thief to enter and steal from my hoard?”
Unsurprisingly, I received no reply.
“Is there any other information you have kept from me that is pertinent to capturing the thief and returning my property?” I asked.
Still no answer.
I had never felt fully connected to my home the way Mother had. She was earth and stone; my sire was sky and wind, a creature who bore no scales and claimed no home. Perhaps his blood was the source of the disconnect that had plagued me since childhood.
Whatever the reason, it did not matter. I had a duty to fulfill. Finished with the stew, I grabbed a hunk of bread to mop up the last of the broth and focused on the plans I needed to put into place.
When I emerged from the manor, the midday sky looked no different without the sheen of my sire’s ward, yet nothing about it felt the same.
We were exposed.
I hurried my steps with renewed purpose.
The garden sprawled before me, wild yet deliberate in ways only Mother understood.
Despite the chill of early spring, roses climbed trellises without strangling the jasmine vines.
Lavender bloomed in manicured bunches near a majestic lilac tree, its branches heavy with blooms. Purple wisteria and honeysuckle draped over stone archways, petals littering cobblestone paths in violet drifts. The air hung thick with their perfume.
I could nearly see my mother as she walked these paths barefoot, her laughter echoing off the garden walls as she taught me which blooms were safe to touch. Twenty-five years gone, and the garden still bloomed without her.
Magic wove through every branch and root, her ultimate gift ensuring the space would never decay. The manor maintained it with stubborn devotion, as if she might return at any moment to tend the herbs she’d planted for healing potions.
I found Clymene precisely where I knew she would be, standing between the fountain where Mother had shown me how to cup water in my palms and the bench where we used to share pastries she had filched from the kitchen.
As I closed the distance to the centaur, each step twisted something in my chest that had nothing to do with my wounds.
Like her sisters, the centaur’s coat was a rich cinnamon color, but that was where their similarities ended.
Clymene was the smallest of the triplets by far, her frame petite and almost frail.
Still, her mental strength and physical resilience belied her size.
She turned at my approach, and the colorful beads adorning her leather vest made a soft tinkling sound.
Milky white eyes seemed to stare through me for a moment too long before she inclined her head in respect.
“Hello, Lord Dragon.”
“Good afternoon, Clymene.”
Head still partially bowed, she froze. Her eyes glazed over.
A recently plucked rose fell from her hand as her expression went lax.
I had only witnessed a handful of the centaur’s trances, but none had resulted in a positive message.
A familiar sense of dread crept up my spine as I waited to discover exactly what fresh calamity fate had in store.
“I see a city,” she finally said, her expression oddly anxious. “A city poisoned by man’s technology.”
The artifact pulled me toward the north, no further away than it had been last night. I assumed the thief had taken it to Olympia or Seattle, neither of which, to my knowledge, had been poisoned by technology. Unless, of course, the fracture was considered a poison.
“That is where you will find your second chance,” Clymene continued. Her mouth and eyes snapped shut, and she turned her head to the side, staring at something I could not see.
Second chance at what?
My concern mounted. I had no time for riddles and side quests. Several minutes ticked by before her milky white eyes focused back on me, and a single word passed over her lips with a shudder.
“Pripyat.”
Clymene’s fretful expression shifted into an easy smile. “Hello, Lord Dragon. What can I do for you?”
“What is Pripyat?” I asked.
Her face went blank, and she shook her head. “Pripyat?”
I should have known she would not remember the vision. She rarely did.
Her talent as a seer was indisputable. Even her most obscure visions had a way of proving themselves true, vindicating her gift time and again.
Yet she had failed to predict my mother’s murder.
Personally, I had no interest in her visions, so I moved on to the reason for my appearance. “The dream connection you forged between the thief and me… is there any way to keep her from breaking it?”
The centaur’s brow furrowed. “The thief?”
Had she forgotten the spell she had cast on me just last night? “Yes. I need to reinforce the dream connection between us.”
“That is inadvisable.”
“Why?”
She cleared her throat with a whinny. “The connection would be irreversible. And bilateral.”
It would be permanent. “Bilateral?” I asked. “Meaning she could potentially follow the thread back to my dreams?”
Clymene nodded. “Precisely.”
“Even a wolf?”
“Be wary of underestimating your adversary, Lord Dragon. She might surprise you.”
“And the warning you gave me last night would still hold true?”
Another nod. “Any injuries inflicted during the dream are real and will remain after you wake.”
“Until they heal,” I corrected.
She inclined her head in agreement.
I could kill Ziara in the dream world, but that would be cowardly and would not return my treasure to me. No, I would stare into the little thief’s eyes when she took her final breath.
“Will the permanent link prevent her from casting me out of her dreams?”
Rather than answering, the centaur pawed at the ground with a hoof, drawing a circle and filling it with shapes until she completed the rune of protection.
Other such marks surrounded her. Catori had once explained that Clymene’s mind often visited other planes of existence, and the runes kept evil from following her back.
“Clymene?” I asked.
“The owner of the dream holds the advantage. She will always be able to cast you out, but if the link is permanent, she cannot keep you from returning.”
I could badger her until I discovered the defenses of her people and the location of the bloodstone, and then the binding would perish with her. Still… “Are there no other options?”
“None that I am aware of. This is the price you must pay for a deeper dream connection.”
A permanent link was not ideal, but I had no choice. If a dragon could not protect what was his, was he even a dragon at all?
“What do you need for the spell?”