24. There but Not There, Close but Still Far
24. THERE BUT NOT THERE, CLOSE BUT STILL FAR
ELOWYN
Zafi vanished from my side while Edsel drew a dagger and lurched toward my “attacker,” but by then, the figure with all its knobby, poking arms, legs, and claws was wrapped around me like it was a parasitic growth that would never leave me willingly.
“No!” I barked at Edsel as I hurried to clutch the dragonling to my chest and breathe him in. Smoldering embers and the faint tang of blood. “Don’t hurt him.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Edsel lower the dagger a moment before Hiroshi, Ryder, and West lumbered toward us. West held aloft a full-sized lumoon that illuminated the slim patch of flat ground we occupied between copses of trees.
The three men wore harried, pinched expressions I recognized. I’d worn a similar one many of my days in Nightguard, when the dragonlings in my care had done their best to disobey me at every turn, driving me nuts .
“I’m gonna kill ‘im,” West announced with a heaving exhale.
“You can’t kill him,” Hiroshi said. “He’s a dragon, and we swore to protect the dragons.”
“Un-unh. You and Rush did. Not me.”
“Plus…” Hiroshi said as I, wide-eyed with surprise, peered at them around Saffron’s big head, which was nestled into the crook of my shoulder. “…he led us to Elowyn, now didn’t he?” Hiroshi smiled amid a grimy face. “Hi, Elowyn.”
“Hi, guys,” I said. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Saffron whimpered and whined against my neck. I ran a soothing hand along his back, between his wings, despite the fact that everywhere he clutched me stung like a motherfucker.
“Shhhh,” I cooed at him. “It’s alright now. We’re together again.”
“Yeah, thanks to him,” Ryder added as he stepped forward. His light hair was adorned by a mess of broken twigs and leaves. Many of its braids were loose, the long strands a halo of frizz backlit by West’s lumoon.
“It’s like he caught your scent or something,” Ryder added.
“Or something,” West said, stepping up next to him. “I swear, it was like he could sense you.”
I pulled my face away just enough to gaze down at the little dragon, but Saffron wasn’t having any separation. He burrowed more tightly into my embrace as I murmured, “Did you lead them to me, huh? Such a good boy… ”
“Who are ye?” Edsel growled from behind me.
“Drakes Hiroshi Asher of Bendisantos,” Hiroshi began, “Ryder Link of Magiarantos, and West Renato of Encarantos. At your service.”
“Don’t go offering up our service,” West protested. “Not till we understand what the fireball’s going on and why he’s with Elowyn.”
Edsel grunted.
I asked, “Is Rush with you guys?”
They looked at each other. Whatever hope had bloomed brightly at their arrival withered.
“Sorry, Elowyn,” Ryder offered. “He’s not. He couldn’t leave ‘cause of the Nuptialis Probatio. But he asked us to come find you.”
“The Nuptialis Probatio’s over,” I said, too blandly considering the topic, wondering how or when I’d see my mate again. “The queen canceled the trials.”
As one unit, the brows of the three men arched up their foreheads as they exclaimed a unified, “ What? ”
I frowned. “Apparently she’s immortal now and so she doesn’t need heirs anymore. She plans to rule for-fucking-ever.”
With shocked expressions, the warriors gaped for a few seconds.
“That can’t be…” West eventually muttered.
“If only,” I said, petting a calming Saffron.
Several groaning creaks sliced through our communal lament. A small, soft squeak to my left signaled that an invisible Zafi was still here.
“It’s the arbosauruses,” she hissed too close to my ear.
Her breath tickled, and I pulled away, pressing Saffron more snugly to my chest as I joined my companions in examining our surroundings.
Nothing seemed any different. Towering trees wove above us to form canopies that would have blotted out the moonlight, had there been any worth noting. The trees’ branches dipped low, but nothing?—
With the lumoon in hand, West spun to illuminate behind him.
Several branches as thick as my arm were creeping toward him.
I gulped. “What the sunshine…?”
“It’s the arbosauruses,” Zafi whispered somewhat unnecessarily.
The branches stretched toward the men and kept coming.
Ryder drew a sword. “That’s not good.”
“No, it isn’t,” Hiroshi agreed, drawing his own blade.
“Yer metal ain’t gonna hurt ‘em,” Edsel said. “Not enough, anyhow.”
“Then what do you suggest?” Ryder asked over his shoulder without removing his attention from the encroaching trees that apparently had teeth.
I shuddered and scooted backward with Saffron in my arms.
“Well?” Ryder snapped when Edsel didn’t reply.
“I’m thinking! ”
“Seriously?” West grumbled, drawing his own blade despite Edsel’s warning.
“Maybe I could, uh, cast an illusion so they think we’re all gone?” Ryder said in a hurry.
“Do it,” West urged immediately.
“No, don’t do it,” Edsel said while he edged closer to me. Rush’s friends formed a protective half circle around Saffron and me—and Zafi too, I supposed.
“It’ll just make ‘em angry,” Edsel finished. “They’ll be able to see through any illusion and they won’t like being tricked.”
“So then what?” West asked.
The branches closest to him lurched forward, fast as a striking snake. Shaped like a giant, bony, gnarled hand, the branches wrapped around West’s torso. They shook him hard to dislodge his blade, and when he didn’t drop it, they shook him harder.
I winced at the sight of him flailing around as if he were a boneless ragdoll.
“Drop it, West,” Ryder said urgently.
West didn’t. The branches shook him more. The lumoon bobbed above his head, illuminating how violently it swung to each side.
Cringing, I worried his neck might snap.
“West!” Ryder bellowed. “Drop it.”
Metal clanged to the ground that I couldn’t much see now that Zafi’s little light was invisible like her and West’s was so far above us.
“Let him go,” Hiroshi yelled at the tree-ish creature .
The arm-like branch raised West up, up, upward with a moaning groan of creaking wood.
Shit, up was probably where the arbosaurus’ teeth were.
Despite my beaten body, I found myself on my feet, already guiding the dragonling onto my battered back, just as I’d done so many times before when a fight was inevitable. I had no idea how to defeat this tree beast. But when the others fought to save West, so would I.
A startled wail swept swiftly upward as the spot Edsel had only just occupied emptied. Another tree arm was lifting him up into the dense tree canopies.
“Let them go!” I cried as the others called out similar pleas.
Shocker— the arbosauruses did not obey. Edsel and West disappeared from sight.
West’s lumoon vanished behind the tree line.
“By the Ethers,” Ryder swore as he sheathed his sword and marched in their direction.
“Where are you going?” Hiroshi asked.
“To get them back. I’m going up.”
Hiroshi flicked a glance at me, then his friend. “I’m going with you. Elowyn, you stay put. Rush will kill us if we let anything happen to youuuuuuuuuu…”
Hiroshi was swept away in a blur of wood and shadows, a rustling of leaves and a groaning creak.
“Fuck,” Ryder cursed as he backed up toward me, as if meaning to protect me with his body.
“Ach,” came a gruff snarl from too far off in the forest to be one of us. “Put ‘em down already, ye daft tree stumps.”
“Roan?” I asked, shock lacing the one word. What was he doing here? And why was he insulting teeth-wielding, murderous tree-like monsters? Did he not know better? Jeez.
“Where are ya, lassie?” he asked.
“Over here,” I called, and not all that helpfully. But I wasn’t about to wave my arms about with motion-triggered arbo-fuckers!
The sounds of plodding footsteps crunched closer, and then so many things happened at once, I couldn’t decide which way to look.
Roan and Pru entered the sliver of clearing. Reed came after. Next, Xeno, leading a scarred but very-much-alive Bolt.
“Put ‘em down, I told ya,” Roan repeated, this time in a stern command. “Now.”
With Saffron clinging to my back, I found myself in Xeno’s embrace, so firmly I could barely draw breath.
Edsel, West, and Hiroshi were deposited unceremoniously back on land—dropped from at least ten, maybe fifteen, feet up. They landed with groans, grunts, and crackling crunches.
A humongous figure crashed through the trees, sending branches and even trunks to the ground with loud, echoing craaa-aaaa-aaaacks .
Take that, arbosauruses!
My breath stuck in my throat as a full-grown adult dragon materialized from the shadows .
Xeno clutched me harder, whispering, “Wyn. Wyn. Wyn,” over and again into my hair, as if his nickname for me were a desperate mantra.
Then … oh then, before I could make sense of everything that was happening, register that so many of my friends were unbelievably with me again, a voice sliced through the creaks and crunches and relieved whispers, overtaking the night.
“How quaint.”
Xeno stiffened against me. I sensed everyone else cease whatever they were doing as the awful realization hit us all at once.
That voice, its chilling, punishing tone … it belonged to the very monster we were out here trying to evade.
A snap of fingers—the queen’s, presumably—and the night grew bright as twilight.
She sat astride Azariah, whose wings, mane, and tail drooped morosely, as if wet. Ivar was mounted atop his own steed, one of those horses with dragon scales instead of a fur coat.
She snapped her fingers again, and more trees flattened to the ground in an outward circle around her and us, as if caused by a blast.
Beside me, Zafi squeaked invisibly.
The queen dug her heels into Azariah’s side and he trotted forward at her command. Ivar followed.
Azariah peeked up at me from beneath those thick, luscious lashes. I’d seen the unisus nervous and frightened, and still frightened yet boldly courageous. But never had I seen him like this: ashamed, defeated, and downtrodden.
“How dare you?” the queen began in an imperious tone that demanded we all listen and obey.
Urgently, my thoughts racing, I tuned her out. I knew, with complete certainty, that I wouldn’t make it through the night with my life if I didn’t do something totally unanticipated—and quickly. Before the queen could suspect what I planned to do.
The idea arrived in a flash so sudden, so unexpected, that I dared hope it might be magically guided intuition instead of a futile act of desperation.
The queen shouted … something, and I took advantage of her apparent fury and volume to whisper, “Everyone, right now. Touch me if you’re close enough. If not, grab on to someone else, as long as that one’s touching me.”
Most of my friends’ heads swiveled toward me. Those who didn’t soon did when another relayed my message.
The queen’s volume pitched higher when we didn’t meet whatever she’d just demanded of us.
“Hurry, hurry,” I said urgently. “Everyone, link up with me. Zafi and Bertram too. Black dragon, you too.”
Would the towering dragon understand me? Would it deign to do as I asked and touch me? Would the ranucu arrive in time? I didn’t know, but if my plan had any chance at working, I had to act before the queen interfered.
“You’ll all submit to me now,” she roared, loudly enough to send creatures nesting in the treetops scattering into the no longer peaceful night.
I thought Zafi’s hand touched my neck around Saffron’s and Xeno’s arms, but I couldn’t be certain. Edsel, Pru, Reed, Roan, Hiroshi, Ryder, and West touched me directly or indirectly.
“Bolt,” I barked. “Him too.”
Ryder flung out a hand to clutch his mane.
“What are you doing?” the queen shouted. “Cease whatever it is immediately.”
I scanned the faces huddled around me. The black dragon craned his long neck downward, stretched a wingtip … and touched it to the crown of my head.
I shuddered as his magic seemed to settle inside me.
A “ waawaa ” told me Bertram was at least close.
“Where’s Finnian?” I asked, searching for the tall, lithe fae with the caramel skin and eyes.
“Dead,” Xeno said, one of his cheeks pressed against mine.
Dead . The lone word echoed through my thoughts.
A loud snap, snap— everyone surrounding me grew suddenly motionless.
The queen had them under her thrall. If they weren’t touching me already, then they’d be left behind.
There was nothing I could do to help that anymore.
The queen would believe her magic had overtaken my body too, controlled me, at least until I revealed that I’d been able to resist her power for a while now .
I clenched my eyes against the terror frozen on my friends’ faces … and reached for Rush. He was probably at the palace.
Rush, Rush, Rush , I chanted in my mind. My mate. My love .
I need you now .
I didn’t know if it might be frantic desperation or wishful imagining, but I believed I sensed him, suddenly there but not there, close but still far, in my heart … beneath the stab wound he scarred me with, and through the handprint he marked me with.
As if he heard me, as if he were reaching toward me too … linking with me from wherever he was.
The map , I urged. I need to use the map .
In response to that, I sensed Rush even more strongly, as if his breath were hot along my body, his touch blazing a trail along my skin.
“What in the Ethers…?” the queen exclaimed.
I yanked my eyes open but didn’t allow myself to tilt my head down to verify what the crimson glow rising off my body suggested.
I couldn’t reveal my agency until I was ready.
“Ivar,” the queen barked, and the clopping footfalls of a horse immediately drew close.
It was now or never.
Rush, stay with me , I pleaded silently.
Faster than the queen could decide to use some other power against me, I flung my one free hand— Pru and Edsel clutched the other—to my waist, slid it beneath the vest of my leathers?—
And pressed my palm to a brightly glowing crimson point along my abdomen.