Chapter 10 A Significant Meeting #2
I smoothed my own sleeves—either self-conscious or considerate, I was not sure which—and joined her.
“I said I would share the secret of Darcy’s and my binding,” I said. “Will you walk outside with me? It is cold, but the dark is better for privacy. And he must be let out for the night.” I smiled at that. It sounded like I was caring for a poodle.
“Will I be astonished?” she said seriously.
“You are meeting him, and he is meeting you,” I said. “I feel both are significant.”
I put on a coat and mittens. Lucy retrieved Emma’s long pelisse, ruby-red and fur-trimmed at the collar and cuffs. We went out the side entrance carrying a lantern.
The sky was the sullen black of thick cloud at night.
The air bit my nose and eyelids, and smelled of frozen leaves.
I closed my eyes, casting my mind toward the river and finding a brilliant but diffuse awareness.
“He is asleep. Perhaps that is good for a first glimpse. He is very large.” Emma did not reply.
I was not sure why I did not say “Come see a dragon,” but my tongue tied at the thought.
I gave an encouraging smile instead, and we walked side-by-side to the boathouse, sharing the light.
Emma’s steps slowed. Five paces short, she stopped and whispered, “I am afloat in a sea of scarlet.”
I lifted the lamp enough to see her face.
Her eyes were wide, her pupils huge in the dark.
“Should we go back?” I asked. She shook her head.
“Wait here.” I went and opened the door, repaired and level on new hinges, then held the lamp past the threshold to illuminate the interior. “This is Yuánchi. A dragon.”
Emma’s hand, gloved in red leather that matched her coat, grazed her cheek, her fingers spread in wonder. She walked through the door. I followed and set the lamp on a shelf.
Yuánchi’s breath was rumbling through an endless exhalation.
He lay on his side, blanketed by a folded scarlet wing that could have hidden a carriage, his ankles protruding and crossed so the higher foot dangled, relaxed as a cat’s paw—if that cat had ankles thick as tree trunks and ten-inch claws like ebony pickaxes.
We were facing his chest and the muscled trunk of his neck.
The rest of his neck curled away from us.
His head lay by his feet, and the tip of his tail was draped rather comically over his nose.
“Do you sense anything?” I whispered.
“Life,” she said slowly. “Vitality. Like a forest in a summer rain.”
“Our skills are certainly different. I sense his mind shining. An awareness.” Yuánchi’s chest began to fill, and his scales seemed to roll in the lamp’s reflection.
Emma took a step toward him. She was four or five feet away.
I took a breath to say “Do not touch him,” then stayed quiet.
I was not sure why I wanted to speak, or why I did not.
Yuánchi shuddered in his sleep. His claws snapped closed, grating across each other like crossed swords while muscles bulged in his calves. Impressive as draca teeth were, claws were the real weapons of flying draca, black scythes that struck from the sky. And their fire, of course.
Louder, I said, “Yuánchi.” He shuddered again. The coil of his tail rubbed the side of the boathouse. Wood groaned, and dust fell from the rafters, thin streams in the lamplight.
This was strange. He should have heard us and woken before we reached the door. It was like he was trapped in a dream.
I closed my eyes, concentrating, and reached through the silver thread of our binding. Yuánchi. We are here with you. Emma and I.
There was a thunderous snort. He scrambled and rolled onto his belly, his two massive legs crouched like gnarled stumps, his wings tensing until they brushed the walls. His head lifted to face Emma, their noses two feet apart.
Emma’s lips were open as if caught mid-gasp. Yuánchi was still as stone. Only his eyes seemed to move, their facets shining ruby, citrine, and topaz as the lamp’s flame flickered.
He had not answered. I thought again, This is Emma.
Slowly, as if mesmerized, Emma raised her gloved hand.
Yuánchi made a noise, high pitched and uncertain—he was whining.
Her hand moved an inch closer, and he exploded into motion, scrambling backward through the boathouse on his huge legs.
With a surprisingly inconsequential snap, the gate flew off its mountings, and he surged out into the night.
“Yuánchi!” I cried. I grabbed the lantern and ran after him, then turned back to Emma, not wanting to abandon her in the dark. “Come!” She blinked as if dazed, then ran toward me.
The last few feet of the boathouse floor descended to ice, but each wall had a walkway over the water. I trod carefully along the foot-wide ledge, then clutched the wall while stepping to shore. Emma followed me.
“Where has he gone?” she said, sounding disappointed and quite unastonished.
“In the air.” I could sense him high above and hear his wings, the slow strokes like storm gusts. “There is some effect between you and him. On the ice, when you touched Darcy, I felt it through my binding.”
I thought, Yuánchi.
I am here. I see you. Both of you.
I spoke aloud so Emma could hear. “We wish to understand what disturbed you. Will you come down?”
In answer, the wing beats ceased. I sensed him descending in a wide arc. “Do not be alarmed when he lands. He can see us perfectly in the dark. But it will be windy.”
The first hint of his coming was a spreading void, darker even than the black sky.
Then the lantern caught sheets of ruby as his wings cupped a storm of wind, driving us to the side of the boathouse until his claws grasped the earth.
No longer crouched, his head, neck, and chest were higher than our heads and barely lit by the lantern, darkening his color to the red of old coals.
“I should have woken you before we approached,” I said. “I am sorry.”
I dreamed of you. Yuánchi’s rumbled thought filled my mind.
Emma gasped, her hands flying to cover her mouth.
“Do you hear him?” I asked, and she nodded frantically into her gloves. “That is a discovery. He is able to speak to Darcy through my binding, but even Georgiana cannot…” I trailed off.
Yuánchi’s attention was fixed on Emma. He had dreamed of her.
His voice resumed. I slept in the deep. The world aged, and I was alone. When the wyfe of healing rose, it was a sun rising. I felt you laugh, and love, and bind. I waited to be called. But you died!
The last thought was thick with hurt and accusation.
“Yuánchi, you are not making sense,” I said. “Emma is standing in front of you.”
I felt your death.
“I was in Highbury,” Emma said in a confused voice. Her tone firmed. “I have always been in Highbury. I am sorry I did not find you. I was caring for my papa.”
“He means Lady Anne Darcy,” I realized. “Yuánchi, you are remembering Darcy’s mother. She was at Pemberley, near where you slept. She was the wyfe of healing you felt die.”
Yuánchi’s head stretched closer to Emma, studying her from several yards above the dried rose that topped her bonnet. She stared back, enthralled and guileless as a child, clothed in red from head to hems except for a froth of yellow ringlets shining in the lantern’s light.
Yuánchi took a long step back, then laid delicately onto the earth, his neck unspooling until his nose settled by my feet. That pose was new, proprietary and subservient at once, like a hound relaxing by a beloved master. He blew a windy breath, and my skirts fluttered against my knees.
Another wyfe of healing. So soon. The three wyves have come.
“Well, that proves that,” I said to Emma. “You are a great wyfe. He would know.”
“But what does it mean?” Emma said. “To be a wyfe of healing. If I could heal anyone, it would have been Papa—” Her bright tone abruptly caught.
We touch a feather to the scale of life. Those who will die, die. But you are not yet bound. You must bind to find your strength and know your limits.
Emma became intensely still, as motionless as the frozen trees. I watched her breaths plume in the lantern’s light. Finally, her chin lifted. “That is like Georgiana. She said her powers would change if she bound.” Her lips and brow pursed. “Do you mean I could bind a dragon?”
You cannot bind a dragon, Yuánchi answered.
“I thought not,” she said sadly. She seemed both disappointed and unsurprised, as if a shop had refused her order for roses in the midst of a bleak January. Still, her quiet acceptance felt peculiar. This was a woman accustomed to privilege.
“There is only one dragon,” I pointed out. But Yuánchi gave an anxious, chesty groan, and his head dragged back across the ground until it was a reddish shadow at the fringe of the lantern’s light. I eyed him suspiciously. “Are there more dragons?”
You cannot bind a dragon because your dragon—the dragon who shares your purpose—is already bound.
Emma’s eyes went round. Her cheeks paled to snow. “You were to be mine,” she whispered.
I tried not to smile. “That is not what he means.” Another groan heaved from Yuánchi’s chest, and a gleaming shiver whispered over his scales. An unpleasant, unwelcome realization crawled into my belly. “That cannot be.”
Yuánchi turned his gleaming gaze to me. When the wyfe of healing died, I despaired.
I had waited an age of your world. Her death was the start of another thousand-year night.
Then, you swept your fingers through my lake, and I felt your passion.
I reveled in your love. When you called, it was the most powerful call of any wyfe…
“What are you saying?” My hand was in the air between us, pushing back against absurdity. “You bound the wrong wyfe? It was… what? A mistake? An infatuation?”
A binding is no mistake. It is inviolate. It is for life.
“You mean it is irrevocable. Inescapable. Like a despised marriage in some pathetic comedy!”
“Lizzy,” Emma said. “That is not what he said.”
“Do not speak for him!” I cried. “You have no right.”
Elizabeth Darcy Bennet. Yuánchi’s voice flooded me like a torrent, my maiden name ringing—draca prized female ancestry. You and I are bound. It is for life. Nothing else matters.
A spark of distrust survived that onslaught and kindled to fury. “Nothing else? Then let her touch you. Show me that nothing else matters.”
Yuánchi drew back a step, his body bunched and anxious.
Emma said hesitantly, “Lizzy, let us go inside. We are both very surprised. I have seen a dragon, after all.”
She gave a shaky laugh, but what I heard was artifice, cleverly disarming and overly harmless. No, that was ridiculous. She did nothing to cause this. Other than not visiting Pemberley before me.
“You go,” I said, and the words tasted bitter. “I wish a moment with Yuánchi.” I held the lantern out for her. “Take it. It is a short walk. I can find my way without it.”
“Are you certain? I can send a servant. Or are they not allowed to see…”
“Mrs. Reynolds will tell you. Ask her who knows, and who does not. I do not need the lantern. Emma, please go.”
She took the lantern. “He is wonderful, Lizzy. You are blessed.” I nodded, not trusting my tongue, and she followed the path back to the house, stopping once to look back.
The door closed behind her. Yuánchi became a shadow barely revealed by the glow of the house windows.
I breathed the icy air, trying to calm a storm of emotions. Finally, one held long enough to understand. “You said my call was ‘the most powerful call of any wyfe.’ Is that because I am the wyfe of war?” The winter cold chilled my words.
The wyves of war have the strongest call. Among those wyves, you are the most powerful I have known.
“So this is a dalliance? To escape boredom, you bound a novelty wyfe? Is this a habit?”
No dragon before has bound outside their purpose. Yuánchi’s muzzle emerged from the night. Elizabeth Darcy Bennet. Child of the Lake. You burn with anger. You reek of shame. None of these are just feelings.
“They feel just to me!” I cried. “You have peered inside my head and given an excellent summary.”
Nothing has changed. You are a great wyfe and bound to a dragon. The love of your marriage is strong.
“That is what this means to you. A way to spy on my human passions!” An icy tear scraped down my cheek.
Stabbing with words will not infuriate me, or shame me, or drive me away. Draca minds are not like yours. We see what is, not what we wish. I have no curtains you can tear away to reveal painful truths.
I blew a wordless syllable, half gasp, half unarticulated curse. “That makes you most unsatisfying for arguing.”
I have been told that. His head tilted, eyes shining. Do you recall these words: ‘No archaic verse rules me. My destiny is my own.’
“I said that to you. When we bound, and you asked if I was the wyfe of war.”
The Child of the Lake is old and wise. Your destiny is your own. But you choose for more than yourself. Your choices bind me.
The wild swings of my feelings diminished like an exhausted pendulum. Finally, I hmphed. “I am irritated that I am no longer angry.” I rethought that. “Less angry.” Yuánchi huffed his laughter. “What does this mean for Emma?”
She will marry, and bind, and become whole, and be the wyfe of healing. More than that, no one can know.
“She does not need to bind with you to be a great wyfe?”
All great wyves bind. Few bind dragons.
“So, there are more dragons?”
Would it not be stranger if there were only one?