Chapter 13 Lysa
thirteen
Lysa
Two days of silence passed. I’d been avoiding the library myself for the past two days, but he’d also been avoiding the dining hall, and I’d been also passing fast through any corridor that smelled remotely of him.
I had spent forty-eight hours rearranging my ceramic dragons my sister had sent to keep me company, and trying to read a bawdy novel about a pirate queen, but the words kept restructuring themselves into the shape of Fenrik’s plea. I’ve wanted—since you arrived.
My body was a coiled spring, wound tight by rejection and a frustration so potent it felt like a fever. I needed to hit something. Or kiss something. Or perhaps both, simultaneously.
A high-pitched scream shattered my morning frustrations, echoing from the glass-domed conservatory.
The heavy doors of the manor flew open before I even reached for the handle, the house, helpful as ever, seemingly eager to usher me toward danger. I tore across the wet grass, my boots slipping on the mulch, and burst into the humid, cloying heat of the greenhouse.
Chaos reigned inside. Pots of flutter-ferns lay smashed on the stone floor. Soil was flung across the glass panes, and in the center of the carnage, cowering behind a frantic, shouting man—Olin, the head gardener—was young Tessaly. Her hands were over her head, her small shoulders shaking.
Above them, perched on a hanging iron rafter, was a ruby-scaled Garden Drake. He was small, perhaps the size of a hawk, but he was posturing like a mythical beast of legend, its wings flared, throat swelling with fire.
“What is happening?” I shouted, stepping over a decapitated begonia.
Olin whirled, wielding a rake like a pike. “He’s mad, miss! Rusty—he’s never hurt a fly!”
“He’s usually so posh,” Tessaly squeaked from behind her father’s legs. “He only likes the expensive orchids!”
Rusty the drake hissed, a sound like steam escaping a kettle. His gem-bright eyes were clouded with that sickening silver film.
“Tell me about it,” I said, keeping my eyes on the beast. “Has he been acting strange?”
“Not until a few days ago,” Olin stammered, sweat dripping off his nose.
“Used to be, these drakes were useful. Kept the aphids off, warmed the soil in winter. A proper partnership, like the old days in the valley. But since the corruption... since the shadows came to the manor... acts like he don’t know us. ”
“They say it’s a curse on the blood,” Tessaly piped up, her fear momentarily forgotten in favor of gossip. “Or quiet healers. Old Nan says healers who silence magic steal the souls of beasts.”
“Hush, Tess,” Olin snapped. “Don’t be rude.”
“It’s true!” she insisted. “Nan says if a Quieter touches a beast, it forgets its name!”
“Superstitious rot, and that’s not how Nan used to say it, anyway,” Olin said. “She used to warn about forgetting faces. Or was it places?” Olin muttered to me, while he gripped his rake tighter. “But something’s broke in him, miss. It’s like …”
The drake screeched, a sound of uncharacteristic ferocity for such a tiny beast, and dropped from the rafter with speed.
He wasn’t aiming for the orchids, he was aiming for Tessaly’s face.
“Down!” I roared.
I threw myself forward, a reckless tackle that sent me sliding across the wet stone floor. I shoved Olin and Tessaly aside and twisted my body, putting myself between the child and the descending streak of red scales.
I caught him mid-air. It was madness, and it was stupid.
It was exactly the kind of violent, physical contact I had been craving, god help me.
Rusty slammed into my chest, talons raking wildly.
Pain flared across my forearms as his claws tore through my linen shelves, drawing lines of blood.
I grunted, rolling with the impact, pinning the thrashing creature to the ground with my own weight.
The burn of his claws cut through the haze of confused lust that had been suffocating me for the last two days.
You want to be devoured, a dark voice whispered in my ear.
“Easy,” I said, ignoring the sting in my arms. My hands found the pulses of magic beneath the drake’s wings. “I’ve got you, you dramatic little tyrant.”
I pushed my power into him. Sleep. The silver light fared in my vision. Rusty froze. The frantic scrabbling of his claws against my skin ceased. His body went limp, the fade in his eyes clearing to a sleepy garnet. He let out a small chirrup that sounded like a hiccup.
I collapsed back onto the peaty floor, the sleeping drake sprawling across my chest. My sleeves were shredded, my arms were bleeding, and I was covered in potting soil.
“Right,” I panted. “Note to self: dragon-wrangling is not a substitute for therapy.”
Tessaly peeked over the potting bench, eyes wide. “Did you steal his soul, miss?”
“No,” I said, peeling a damp leaf off my forehead. “Just his nap time.”
I didn’t pull my magic back immediately.
Normally, Quieting felt like sinking into a frozen lake.
But this time, beneath the familiar chill, my senses snagged on something else.
Hovering around Rusty’s scaled head was a faint, oscillating distortion.
It looked like the oily sheen on a puddle in the rain, trembling with a frequency that didn’t match the drake’s frantic heartbeat.
It felt disgusting, cloying and artificial, like cheap perfume masking something rotten. It wasn’t part of him.
“Get off him,” I said, not to the drake, but to the distortion.
I shoved a spike of my own power straight into that shimmering grease. Pop.
The sensation was visceral, like bursting a blister.
The heat-haze distortion shattered into nothingness.
Immediately, the tension drained out of Rusty’s body.
He blinked his third eyelid rapidly, shook his head with a rattle of his crest, and looked up at me with clear, bright intelligence.
He let out a querying mrrp? and began to enthusiastically clean his eye with a purple tongue, unbothered by the fact that he was crushing my ribcage.
“Well,” a gruff voice rumbled from the doorway. “That’s one way to aerate the soil, I suppose.”
Thorven stood framed by the shattered entrance, shaking dirt from his heavy leather coat. He took in the devastation, the smashed pots, the cowering gardener, and me, flat on my back with a ruby drake cleaning itself on my chest—without so much as a blink.
“Thorven,” I wheezed, shoving Rusty gently aside so I could sit up. “Timely as ever.”
“I heard the screaming. Assumed it was Olin.” Thorven stepped over a pile of mulch, his boots crunching on pottery shards. He offered me a hand, his palm rough as bark, scarred and warm. “You alright, lady Stormgarde? You’re bleeding.”
I took his hand and hauled myself up, wincing as my shredded sleeves pulled against the scratches. “Rusty wasn’t himself. Literally. Something was... riding him.”
Olin peeked out from behind a large fern, looking sheepish. “Is he... is he gone? The soulless thing?”
“He’s not soulless, you daft turnip,” Thorven grunted, crouching to inspect the drake. Rusty nudged Thorven’s knee, looking for treats. “Look at him. He’s just woke up from a bad dream, haven’t you, mate?”
Tessaly crept forward, her eyes huge. “But Nan says—“
“Your Nan says a lot of things after her third sherry,” Thorven interrupted, though he reached into his pocket and produced a small, wooden frog, tossing it to the girl.
She caught it, smiling widely. “People in the valley... they like their magic domestic, lady Stormgarde. Teapots that pour themselves, sweeping brooms, self-darning socks. Tidy stuff.”
“And I am none of those things,” I said, brushing potting soil off my trousers.
“Your magic is messy,” Thorven agreed. “Abberwyn folks remember the history books better than they let on. They remember the Great Silence—fifty years back, when the mines collapsed?”
I paused. “I thought that was a structural failure.”
“That’s the official story.” Thorven’s green eyes narrowed, scanning the hazy glass roof of the conservatory.
“Truth is, a group of mages tried to Silence the mountain’s groaning.
Tried to hush the earth instead of listening to the warning.
” He looked at me, his expression unreadable.
“When you stop a scream, sometimes you trap the pressure inside until it blows. That’s what they’re afraid of.
You bottling things up until there’s an explosion. ”
A chill walked up my spine.
“But you didn’t bottle him up,” Olin noted, pointing a trembling finger at Rusty, who was now happily chewing on a begonia leaf. “He looks... lighter.”
“Because I didn’t silence him,” I said softly, staring at the spot where the oily shimmer had been. “I think I just broke the muzzle.”
Thorven grunted, a sound that might have been approval. “Whatever you did, keep doing it. But keep your eyes open. This rot in the manor, it’s got a flavor to it now.” He turned to Olin. “Get a broom, man. The place looks like a wyrm’s breakfast.”
As Olin scrambled to obey, Thorven cast one last look at me, his voice dropping low. “And maybe get those arms bandaged before the Lord sees you. He’s in a mood today. I think I’ve heard the piano at dawn, and the bloody house is locking doors just for the fun of it.”
“Stay close to the wall, little one.” I ushered Tessaly past the looming alcoves of the corridor leading back to the main hall, my body a shield between her and the shadows.
Beside me, Thorven walked with his hand hovering near the heavy iron key-ring at his belt, his eyes darting to the stone plinths.
We passed the Serpent sentinel, its stone scales glistening with an unnatural sheen of moisture, coiled tight. It didn’t move, though I could have sworn its eyes tracked the mud I trailed on the pristine floor.
“I don’t like the big cat,” Tessaly whispered, pressing a dirt-smudged fist into her mouth.
“Neither do I,” Thorven grunted.