Chapter 35
HARBINGERS
MARY
On shuddering wings, Yuánchi carried us past London.
With Lizzy gone, I rode in front. That choice was practical—I was able to converse with Yuánchi—but even while my heart grieved for Mamma, my pulse quickened when I took my place.
We spend our lives plodding earthly paths of triviality and compromise.
What could be a more transcendent remembrance than tears in the limitless sky?
But when we rose through the sheeting wind, I felt self-conscious. I distrusted eminence in others and detested it for myself, yet I was the black-clad figurehead on a scarlet-and-onyx dragon, a braggart Nike with flapping, lank hair.
My damaged spectacles were unsteady; I used one hand to hold them against the gusts.
My lap belt was cinched tight, so my other hand rested lightly on the saddle’s pommel for balance.
Georgiana sat behind me, riding double in the front saddle and strapped in with an auxiliary belt.
Her arms hugged my waist, squeezing hard whenever we tipped.
Mr. Darcy rode in the back saddle, out of reach, out of hearing, and perhaps beyond caring.
After Lizzy pushed him off Fènnù, he had limped back to us dripping and unwilling to speak.
One passenger had no qualms about the flight. The song draca had protested when I coaxed him into my dress pocket, but he was delighted now, his sapphire-beaded head poking out to admire the view.
Georgiana pressed her chin to my neck and shouted, “Has Emma said anything more?”
I shook my head. Yuánchi had told me the wyfe of healing called us—that was why we attempted this flight—but nothing more.
Yuánchi’s launch had been ragged, and we flew low.
London’s packed roofs whipped barely beneath his tucked claws.
But even a struggling dragon is swift, and the landscape soon greened to woods and farmland.
Then in a blink, the greenery vanished, and we were crossing a funereal expanse of ice-ravaged, black-misted earth.
I had seen this destruction before—Fènnù’s breath had struck parts of London during her rampage—but this was a mile wide.
Were those splayed branches a flattened forest?
That level stretch, a road? Those still lumps, the bodies of soldiers?
Mary Bennet, Yuánchi thought, the words vibrating my brain like a clanged bell. This time, I managed not to wince.
“Yes?” I answered. It was hard to break the habit of speaking aloud. The wind whipped the sound from my lips and left a sour flavor of black rot and frost.
Fènnù, Yuánchi thought, but when conveyed through his mind, that mundane word, the Chinese for wrath or fury, was a simplistic title for an unthinkably ornate composition, one befouled by a grating discord.
One of the cream firedrakes veered, drawing a sight line to the left. I let go of the saddle and pointed so the others would see the black dragon rising, her wings spinning sable squalls from the frozen landscape.
I could just make out a woman’s form on her back. Lizzy.
With three huge strokes, Fènnù climbed over us. My neck craned as she soared higher. When birds fought, they attacked from above. Were we about to be blasted out of the air by my possessed sister?
The wyfe of healing says stay true, Yuánchi thought. The wyfe of war hears her. She will follow.
“Very well,” I said. What else does a figurehead say to a ship? The drakes resumed their heading toward Surrey, and Yuánchi followed, his great muscles trembling.
The devastated region ended, but the green hills and fields of Surrey were soiled with dark patches. They looked like spilled ink. Georgiana shouted, “The blight,” against the wind.
Yuánchi began to descend. I spotted people ahead and leaned to look, then Yuánchi’s next wingbeat hitched—an aerial stumble.
We rocked wildly. I braced myself against his muscular neck, my palm jammed into a patch of rough, blackened scales, and beneath his thudding pulse, I sensed the same discord I had heard in Fènnù’s name.
In the scarlet dragon it was a poison, a spreading corruption of the broken song.
Yuánchi’s right wing spasmed and folded.
The horizon tilted sideways, the lap belt yanking my hips while treetops rushed toward our right side.
Yuánchi writhed like a dropped cat, the sky whipped through a dizzying circle, and somehow we were upright by the time the trees struck, branches clattering and snapping harmlessly against Yuánchi’s armored chest and belly.
His wings fanned, scooping air to slow us—I plowed ignominiously into his neck—then we rammed the earth and skidded sideways across an expanse of grassy meadow.
Dazed, I clung while his stupendous lungs pumped breath through his body. My heart was rattling, my brow sheened with cold sweat. So much for the transcendence of flight. Something small squirmed from my pocket and flew away, the song draca deciding he preferred his own wings.
Are you hurt? Yuánchi thought.
No, I answered. We had landed in a meadow in a modest valley. There were scattered, untrimmed fruit trees and sprawling ruins from an ancient stone structure. What happened to your wing?
His neck and blind head settled painfully into the grass. I am weak. I have grown weaker since I bound the wyfe of war. Now the black dragon is close, and the broken song presses deep.
Mr. Darcy was already on the ground, and Georgiana was descending gingerly. I followed her, then ran alongside Yuánchi’s neck to where his head rested, tilted to one side, his jaws cracked to ease his slow, heavy wheezes.
“Can I help you somehow?” I asked. He did not respond.
Emma was running toward us through the grass. Now Yuánchi stirred, lifting his muzzle to greet her. I had never seen him reach out to anyone other than Lizzy, and a needle of jealousy pricked my heart in defense of my sister.
Where was Lizzy? The sky was empty.
Mr. Darcy had run to the center of the meadow.
He spun, a hand shading his eyes. I called, “Do you see her?” and he shook his head.
Anger from the frightening flight and Yuánchi’s illness filled me, and I yanked Emma’s arm to pull her away from Lizzy’s dragon.
“You called us. You said Lizzy would follow! Where is she?”
“She answered through Yuánchi,” Emma said helplessly. Her hazel eyes pinched with worry as she scanned the scattered clouds.
Her dismay undercut my frustration, and I noticed her state: ungloved, fingernails torn, her unfailingly pristine clothes wrecked with mud, her face soot-smeared.
Flakes of ash were caught in the feathers of her gray bonnet and in her hair.
The effect was unsettling. Her appearance had always been so perfect.
“What happened to you?” I asked as Georgiana joined us and gasped, “You found it!”
An amulet hung on Emma’s breast. It was muddied too, but jade peeped through, and the scarlet was unmistakable.
Mr. Darcy, slump-shouldered, had rejoined us. He observed tiredly, “The amulet.”
“It is how I spoke with Yuánchi.” Emma lifted it slightly, a lady’s demure display. “Through him, I heard Lizzy. I do not sense her now.” She rubbed her eyes. “Yuánchi is terribly unwell. I did not know when I asked you to fly.”
Emma’s usually animated speech was flat with exhaustion. The soot on her cheeks was tracked by dried tears, and foreboding filled me.
“Where is Mr. Knightley?” I asked.
She smiled with some of her old confidence.
“He is fetching Harriet. It is too dangerous for her to stay in Surrey. Papa gave her the amulet! It took us ages to sort that out. She has loaned it to me.” To Mr. Darcy, she said, “Lizzy will come. She told me so, and I was right about the lake, was I not?”
He nodded, in acknowledgement or thanks, and adjusted his shoulders closer to his usual commanding posture.
“The blight is everywhere,” Georgiana said.
Emma sighed at the splotched hills. “We had to run from crawlers bursting out of the Coles’ turnip patch. We must heal the song quickly. The amulet showed me the vision again. The great wyves were better prepared than we thought. One was unbound because a wyfe must bind Fènnù to heal the song.”
That left an uneasy silence. “Who must do that?” I asked finally.
“A great wyfe,” Emma said. She adjusted the amulet and said firmly, “The artifacts are powerful. They will help.”
Mr. Darcy was knocking dried mud off his coattails with precise whacks. His hand stopped midair. “You found the flute?”
Her confidence faltered. “I thought you would bring it.”
A man’s voice hailed us, and Mr. Knightley emerged with Harriet from a patch of birch trees. We ran to meet them. A babble of greetings rose, then halted when Mr. Knightley and Emma embraced with astonishing intimacy.
Harriet was bent, her hands on her knees and winded from running, but she waved dismissively. “Do not be foolish. They are married.”
Even so, it was a bold display, but Mr. Darcy shook Mr. Knightley’s hand ferociously while Georgiana happily congratulated Emma. I muttered something as well. Having watched Mr. Knightley dote over Emma for months, I supposed it was inevitable.
Mr. Knightley brushed away our attention, his gaze on Yuánchi. Even the most inexpert eye could tell the scarlet dragon was desperately ill. “I had hoped you flew here to rescue us. Or rescue the ladies, at least.”
“I am done with flying,” Georgiana said decidedly.
“Yuánchi will not be flying us anywhere,” I said. He had not moved since his weak greeting for Emma. His breathing had slowed, but it was strained, not relaxed in healthy rest. How bad was he?
Mr. Darcy said bluntly, “The blight will consume England. We must heal the song. That is our sole rescue.” With a touch of his old, dry humor, he added, “I expect that requires the ladies.” Then his brow furrowed, and his gaze returned to hunting among the clouds.
“Is the enemy near?” Georgiana asked, and I realized we were exposed in a meadow with a very visible dragon.