Chapter 26 Lysa #2
“I believe I do,” she interrupted, her mouth softening into a smile that took ten years off her face. “I promised Lord Stormgarde’s parents I would protect this house until its heart was restored. You’ve relieved me of a long watch.”
Briony made a delighted little noise from the foot of the bed, snatching a scone from Maren’s abandoned tray. “See? Even Mrs. Crane is on the wedding planning committee.”
“I am on the ‘keep the mistress alive’ committee,” Mrs. Crane said dryly, ladling soup into a bowl. “The wedding committee meets on Tuesday.”
Laughter bubbled up in my chest, but it cut short when a shadow fell across the open doorway. The cheerful clatter of spoons and chatter died.
Councilman Pembroke stood there, twisting his tricorn hat. Behind him, Councilwoman Holt looked as though she’d swallowed a lemon whole. They hovered on the threshold, unsure if the wards would incinerate them for crossing the line.
Fenrik didn’t shift from his spot beside me on the mattress. He leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest, his expression sharpening. “Well. The welcoming committee has arrived. Don’t crowd the door, Pembroke. You’re blocking the light.”
Pembroke shuffled forward, his boots squeaking on the stone. “Lord Stormgarde. We... er. We heard the noise. Or rather, the cessation of noise.”
“The silence,” Holt clarified, her voice tight. She couldn’t stop looking at my hands, at the white lightning-scars mapping my skin. “The valley... it’s stopped shaking. The glass in the Town Hall windows hasn’t rattled in three days.”
“Standard structural integrity,” Fenrik drawled, sounding bored.
“Amazing what happens when you don’t try to banish the only person preventing a magical apocalypse.
Speaking of which...” He tilted his head, eyes flashing with a hint of that old silver.
“I seem to recall a quarantine order? Something about ‘unnatural practices’ and ‘public safety’?”
Pembroke flushed a darker shade of crimson than I thought humanly possible. “We were... misinformed. The panic... the creatures dying...”
“And naturally, your solution was to isolate the cure,” Fenrik said.
He reached out, casually adjusting the blanket over my legs, a gesture of intimacy that made Holt look away.
“Tell me, Pembroke, in your vast administrative wisdom, what is the fine for unlawful interference with a sanctioned Stormgarde Magi? I believe the 1642 statutes are quite specific.”
“We came to apologize,” Holt blurted out, stepping past Pembroke. She looked at me, her pragmatic face crumbled. “We were afraid, Miss Emberlin. We thought you were the cause. We see now... we see everything now.”
“That’s ‘Lady Stormgarde’ to you,” Mrs. Crane said from the corner.
Holt flinched, then nodded deeply. “My Lady. The town... we owe you a debt we cannot pay. The silence is yours.”
“It wasn’t just me,” I said, my voice rough. I looked at Fenrik. “We did it together.”
“Yes, yes, a beautiful partnership,” Fenrik agreed, his gaze fixed on the council members. “But back to the debt. Since you cannot pay it, perhaps we can discuss the tax rates for the upcoming harvest? I feel a sudden need for civic restructuring. Call it an ‘apology tax deduction’.”
Pembroke looked like he might faint. “My Lord?”
“And a public apology,” Fenrik added, ticking points off on his fingers. “Written, posted in the square, preferably framed. And perhaps a permanent endowment for the Emberlin Infirmary? To ensure no further... misunderstandings... regarding competent arcane medicine.”
My father let out a choked sound that might have been a laugh.
“Done,” Holt said. “Whatever you ask.”
Fenrik smirked, a wicked, beautiful expression that made my heart hammer against my ribs. “Careful, Beatrice. My wife has expensive tastes. She likes her tea hot, her books rare, and her council members thoroughly humbled.”
“Coming through. Mind your toes, Councilman. Those boots look expensive, and I’ve been wading through dragon dung.”
The room, already bursting at the seams with the sudden influx of well-wishers and bureaucratic penitents, somehow found space for Thorven.
The groundskeeper squeezed past Pembroke.
He was missing a chunk of his ear and had a smudge of soot across his forehead, but he looked happier than I’d ever seen him.
“Thorven,” Fenrik said, his tone sharpening. “The Sanctuary?”
“Quiet as a library on a Sunday,” Thorven said, nodding to me.
“Sanctuary’s clear, Sir. Those nasty black threads?
Dissolved into sludge about ten minutes ago.
The Sentinel Beasts stopped trying to eat the stonework and went back to their plinths.
Even the Garden Drakes are back in the greenhouse, roosting in the rafters like nothing happened.
Though they have stripped the prize begonias. ”
“I hated those begonias,” Fenrik said.
Beatrice Holt cleared her throat, trying to salvage some dignity. “Well. That is... reassuring. To know the containment measures held.”
Thorven actually chuckled. “That’s the funny bit, ma’am. I was down there checking the ‘containment’ on the Shadow Wyrm’s pen. You know, the big scary one everyone thinks is a maneater?” He looked at Fenrik. “You spent a fortune on those suppression wards, Lord Stormgarde.”
“It seemed prudent,” Fenrik said defensively. “Given that he breathes necrotic fire.”
There was no Shadow Wyrm, I was sure of that, and what on earth was necrotic fire? Were Thorven and Fenrik actually making fun of the council members?
“Right. Well, here’s the thing about the Sanctuary architecture I figured out,” Thorven said, leaning against the doorframe and crossing his thick arms. “The locking mechanism on the high-security pens? I got a look at the rune-work now that the slime is gone. They aren’t designed to keep beasts in. ”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“The polarity is reversed,” Thorven said, grinning.
“Those cages are designed to keep the world out. They’re safe rooms, Miss—er, My Lady.
Panic rooms. When the curse flared, the beasts didn’t get trapped by the House.
They triggered the invisible locks. They sealed themselves in to keep from hurting anyone while they were maddened.
The only reason they were thrashing was because the parasite was trying to force them out, and they were fighting to stay inside. ”
“While Lysa here was unconscious, you wanted to hunt these creatures, to exterminate them as threats, and look a that! All this time, the ‘monsters’ had been securely locking their own doors to protect the town,” said Fenrik.
A silence settled over the room. I looked at the Council members. Pembroke’s mouth was slightly open.
“So,” Briony broke the silence, popping the last bit of scone into her mouth. “Basically, the scary monsters were socially responsible introverts having a panic attack?”
“Brilliant,” Fenrik said, running a hand through his hair. “I’ve been paying for ‘maximum security’ upgrades for a decade, and I was essentially funding a blanket fort.”
“A very secure blanket fort,” Thorven said.
A soft, trilling chirp cut through the laughter. I went still. At the foot of the bed, in a square of warm sunlight that had been empty a moment before, the pile of blankets shifted. A sleek, wedge-shaped head poked out, followed by oversized ears that twitched toward my voice.
Kirion hauled himself up. The dull scales that had covered him for weeks were gone, shed like dry skin.
In their place, he was a lustrous, iridescent midnight-blue, dark as the space between stars.
Running from the base of his skull to the tip of his tail were jagged, branching streaks of pure silver-white.
I looked down at my hands. The lightning-strike scars from the Dragonheart extract.
.. they were identical. The pattern on his scales mirrored the pattern burned into my skin.
Kirion let out a bright, healthy yip, hopped awkwardly over Fenrik’s legs, and flopped down across my ankles.
He wiggled forward until he could rest his chin on my shin, letting out a puff of smoke.
“Oh,” Briony said, leaning over the footboard. “You too have the same markings now. That is adorable.”
“It’s a bond mark,” my father said, stepping closer, his researcher’s curiosity warring with his awe. “A permanent resonance. You rewrote his magical signature while healing him, Lysa. I’ve heard that to be possible, but it’s extremely rare.”
Fenrik reached out, tentatively touching the wyrmling’s head. Kirion leaned into the touch, purring like a buzzsaw, but his amber eyes remained fixed on me.
“Matching scars,” Fenrik said, his eyes lifting to meet mine. “I suppose that settles the debate on who his favorite person is.”
“He’s just grateful,” I deflected, though I couldn’t stop my fingers from reaching out to stroke the velvet-soft scales between the silver marks.
“He’s branded,” Fenrik said softly, a wicked glint returning to his grey eyes as he glanced at the flustered Council members. “And frankly, considering what you did to the ley-line, I imagine the rest of us will be sporting similar loyalty marks soon enough. I certainly plan to.”
Councilman Pembroke choked on air. “My Lord?”
“Metaphorically, Pembroke,” Fenrik drawled, though he winked at me. “Mostly.”