“Is there a tone of rebuke in your voice?” Max asked. “I told you, over and over, I don’t know why the dragon won’t let you in. You’ve been in and now he doesn’t want you to. I don’t have control over that.”
“Don’t, Max. One second you’re professing your love and the next your dragon won’t let me help the lot of you. I don’t know what’s going on, so just drop it. I want to see if it’s just your dragon, or it’s all of them. Because if it’s all of them, I have to get Betsy involved in this. I’d rather not remind her about the freedom she doesn’t have right now.”
“Well, that’s noble.”
“Fuck you, Max,” Amy said softly.
“Fine,” he said, sitting back.
Amy lay down on the bed and took a few deep breaths. She was so angry at him, it took her close to ten breaths to finally drop—
Into sleep. She sat up and saw the faint impression of Max in the chair in the room. She gave his ghost the middle finger and climbed off the bed. Her clothes were more appropriate a second later and she moved herself to Niko’s front hall.
“Nikomedes?”
She heard a snore from upstairs and snorted herself. Heading up, she heard his sleep sounds in the bedroom just a little way down the hall and found the door ajar.
His bedroom was huge, and there was another faint outline, this one of Betsy next to him on the bed. Amy walked over and whispered in her friend’s ear.
“Go to your bed, Bets. I need to take Niko to his hoard.”
She grunted, “Our hoard.”
“Relax. I don’t want anything from it. I just need to see if there’s something there.”
A grunt again, and then, she faded from the bed. She stood next to Niko and touched his head. “Come on. Join me here.”
His eyes popped open and he sat straight up. Naked.
“Oh, come on!” Amy waved a hand at his crotch and a pair of pants appeared. “What is it with you guys and naked in dreams?”
“Damn. Sorry. I was kind of dreaming that Betsy was here.”
“She was, but I sent her back to bed. We have to go to the vault, remember?”
Nodding, Niko stretched and looked around. “This is your dream, yes?”
“Yes. Hold on.”
She reached over to his dream and flipped them into it. Everything became tones of blue and gold and silver, and there were rushes and licks of harmless flame dancing randomly throughout the room.
“Damn, Nikomedes. Isn’t this fancy?”
“Wait, what?”
“This is how your subconscious sees your world. You and your dragon apparently like blue and fire.”
He smiled. “There is no ‘me and my dragon’ anymore. Ever since Betsy and I mated, he’s me and I’m him. He has no opinion or thought that isn’t also mine. You have no idea how nice it was to give up that dichotomy.”
Amy nodded. “Well, Let’s see if we can find anything in the vault that doesn’t belong, shall we?”
“Right.” He nodded and reached for his shoes.
Amy laughed and moved them to the vault. Niko fell back from his sitting position to the cold vault. Even the vault was tinged in fire and gold. Amy moved toward the vault and smiled at Niko as he stood.
“Well, my subconscious has some interesting ideas.” Niko looked around the cavern.
“That it does.” Amy motioned to the vault. “Shall we?”
Niko walked to the vault and punched in his code. Pulling the door open, Niko peered in and froze. He looked at Amy, and back into the vault, and the back at her one more time. He closed the door and stood in front of it.
“Niko?”
Shaking his head, he held out his hand to hold her there. “Don’t…don’t come closer. I can’t do it.”
“What?”
“I can’t let you in.”
“That’s the whole point of me being here.” Amy took a step forward.
Niko pressed his back to the door. “Amy, don’t. Don’t come closer. I can’t let you see. I can’t.”
Amy took another step, and Niko’s dragon suddenly stood there, instead of him. She backed off and looked up at the huge, overwhelming creature. “Holy shit.”
Do not come closer.
“Niko, please. Someone died tonight. We have to find out—”
No closer. Stay back.
“Why! Why won’t you let me in? I don’t want your hoard. I just want you to show me if there’s anything in your vault that might be causing these power outages! Please!”
Not a dragonmate.
Amy dropped to her knees. “No! I’m not. But I will be. Please…”
If you do not share blood, you are not a dragonmate.
“Please. Don’t do this. Just let me see.”
No. You are not allowed.
A powerful concussion tore through them, ripping Niko out of the dream. Amy realized it was a pulse that ripped away magic again, and she was the only one who could resist it. There was no way to trace it in the dreamworld because of the changeable nature of the plane. Niko was gone, leaving only his dragon standing there.
A dragon that had no natural inclination to try and control its instinct to destroy that which threatened its hoard.
She tried to wake up as the dragon approached her, its fire licking against its nostrils. The blue eyes were boring into her, cold as ice and freezing her in place.
Amy was trapped in Niko’s dream, with his dragon. And his rules in the dream.
“Oh, gods. Niko, please, it’s just me.” She scooted back on the cold stone. “Please, see me, Nikomedes. It’s Amy. I’m your mate’s best friend. I’m not here to harm you. Please.”
The massive steel door at the top swung shut. Amy shut her eyes and tried to wake herself again. Nothing. She tried to move to her bedroom. Nothing. She opened her eyes and saw the massive jaws of the dragon heading for her.
“Nikomedes Dracones! Stamatiste amesos!”
The massive blue dragon froze and started to back away. Amy watched as he slowly walked back to the doors there and sat down. He lowered his head, and she watched in fascination as Betsy scratched the end of his nose.
“How are you here…?” Amy didn’t dare move yet. “You’re not a dreamwalker.”
“You pulled me in.”
“I did? Oh, when I was screaming at him. Yes.”
“What the hell is going on out here, Aim? Why isn’t the rest of my husband in the dragon?”
Amy pursed her lips. “I don’t know. We’re trying to figure out what’s going on. Everyone in Pine Valley keeps losing their powers for a certain amount of time. It’s getting longer every time. I may well be trapped here for a half an hour or more.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me that was going on?” She rubbed the dragon’s snout again. “Walk back and sit on the stairs. Don’t come closer. I can’t even explain what going near the hoard is going to do to him.”
“Can you let me in?” There was a gout of flame over her head and Amy leapt up the steps backward. “Right, that’s a no.”
Betsy smirked. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Just like Niko, apparently. Now, why hasn’t anyone told me what was going on? Pine Valley is my home and I need to know what’s going on there.”
She sniffled. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to alarm you, or make you remember that there’s a free world out there.”
Betsy raised an eyebrow. “Do you think there’s an instant when I could forget that? Do you think that for a moment I don’t remember why I am where I am? Don’t hold back the real world from me, Amy. Not you, not Niko. Tell me. Pine Valley is my home. It’s where my husband and I will have a family and life when I am out of here.”
Amy slumped on the stairs. “So you’re really moving here?”
“Yes. You…didn’t think that I would move back to North Carolina? You did.” Betsy sat on the steps next to Amy, and the dragon settled next to her on the ground. “I am a locus, Amy. Magically, I am obligated to stay near the Omphalos until
it is settled and tethered to its new home. It has only just started to become untethered, and there are four more loci to appear.”
“But, Blowing Rock was home.”
Her best friend nodded. “That’s right. It was. But I can’t stay there anymore. Do you think anyone who knew me then remembers me? Wants to be associated with me, the felon? I have a prison record for thievery, Amy. No one but no one is going to give me a chance outside Pine Valley. I actually love the place anyway, and I want to raise a family there.”
“Max says I’m his mate.”
“Really?” Betsy was actually surprised. “You’re not sure about this, though, are you?”
“I love him. Stupid giant lizard. But mate? It’s a big thing, and…”
“And you’re afraid of what happened?”
Amy stared at the cold, gray steps. “I’ll never forgive her, and I’ll never know what I am capable of.”
“We never do, Amy. Look at me. Did you ever think that I would end up in fucking prison because I was stealing? I was associated with a murdered. Me. Who rescued bunnies and wanted to keep an orphan fox kit.” She traced a few scales on the now nearly asleep dragon next to her. “Did Rijn have anything to say about this?”
“Oh, yeah. Spit out a whole little prophecy the one night.”
“Can you remember it?”
Amy twisted her lip. “Maybe?” She thought a moment. “Well, Niko would have a copy of it on his desk, and since I’m stuck in his dream…” A moment later the paper was in her hand, and she held it out to Betsy.
Accepting the sheet, Betsy read it over once.
The forest of the night breeds a future not nurture a past. The shadows hold the cruelest truth, a blood shared by two. One in light, a bright future. One in dark, the cruelty of no bounds. A dragon’s heart, a dreamer’s mind, twine in two to find the first clue. A dragon’s mind, a dreamer’s heart, two shall not be denied. A dragon’s dream, shattered on the ice of midwinter, a new life forged on Beltane. The summer mystic will rise, and the circle will be complete with the bonding of the blood.
“Wow, Rijn was really talkative that night. I’m impressed.” Studying the words, Betsy was quiet for a few minutes and finally spoke, “Anyone else have a take on this?”
“Not that really makes sense.”
“I’m going to go for the line that I think is yours. A dragon’s heart, a dreamer’s mind, twine in two to find the first clue. Pretty sure that’s yours. And it’s saying that you have to twine the two. I’m going to say that it means you have to be mated to get the answers you’re looking for.”
Shaking her head, Amy pursed her lips. “No. I’m not ready to be mated. I’m not ready for anything close to that.”
“Pretty sure that’s what it’s saying,” Betsy said.
The dragon next to her raised its head and shook its spines out, let out a flash of fire, and shrank back to Niko in the next moment. “Powers are back.”
Amy ripped herself out—
—of the dream. She sat up and glanced over to find Max asleep in his chair.
She grabbed her clothes and ran.
“What do you mean, she’s gone?” Keni asked.
“She wasn’t in the house. Her rental is gone. No one has seen her.” Max leaned back in the chair. “I fell asleep when she was in Niko’s dream, and when I came to… Nothing. Nowhere.”
“You’re not panicking?”
“How much more clear can she make it that she doesn’t want to be with me?”
“Max, she loves you. She’s just overwhelmed by everything,” Sia said, as Keni pulled out her phone and started texting away on it.
“I’ve been trying so fucking hard not to push her into any of this. My dragon has been an asshole since we realized she’s our mate. I’ve held him back as much as I could. I want her in this with her whole heart. And I’m willing to wait. But how many more times can I chase her and beg her to just come back and I’ll wait?”
“As many times as it takes,” Rijn said.
Sia cleared throat. “Is that a dig or prediction?”
“Both.”
Sia made an indistinct noise and turned to Niko. “He is right, though. You have to go after her. She’s the only one who—”
“You’re looking for something called a Deadening Stone.”
Everyone turned to find Carl standing at the door. He walked in holding a few sheets of paper and placed them on the table. “Forgive my unannounced arrival, but I got here as soon as I could.” He looked around. “Amy isn’t here?”
Max shook his head. “She disappeared last night after she woke from Niko’s dream.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. She freaked and ran.”
Keni cleared her throat and read off the screen of her phone. “Betsy tried to tell her that part of Rijn’s prediction was that she was supposed to mate with Max to solve this mystery.”
Max folded his arms. “I don’t want to push her into anything, but she’s not getting that.”
Carl took a deep breath. “Well. You’ll have to go after her and make her understand.” He gestured to the papers on the table. “Meanwhile, this is what you’re looking for. Amy was feeding me information through the week, and I started searching through our library. More and more it sounded like something that was supposed to be a legend, a myth.
“Those papers are all I found on the object.”
Max picked one off the table and skimmed it. He didn’t like what he skimmed. Passing that one along, he picked up another, and Carl started to talk.
“The Deadening Stone was a legend, as far as I knew. The story went that during the Saeculum obscurum, which was in the tenth century, the popes were influenced by a very powerful family, the Theophylacti. They were, staunchly, anti-magical because of the power you could wield. They sought out a powerful sorcerer and questioned him, tortured him, and finally made him create a stone that would slowly and surely destroy the magic anywhere it rested for more than just a few weeks.
“The Sectorum Esse was created, the story goes, to move the stone from place to place so that all magical creatures could be destroyed. It went under the guise of a missionary, and it was only in one place long enough to kill the magic.
“It was all legend,” Carl said, picking up one of the sheets, “until I found this. It’s a clue to where it was hidden.”
“And?” Raissa asked.
“I had a Sectorum member check out the location. It was clearly, very recently disturbed. As in, someone got there and dug it up.”
“Where was it?” Niko asked. “I mean, it’s not like there’s really a place on the planet that there is no magic.”
“It was on an island in the Russian Arctic. It’s only triggered to work when there is magic around it. The more magic, the stronger the results. So it was dormant on the island because there was no magic to trigger it.” He grabbed another sheet. “This is from the person who buried it there. They gave their account and went back to die at the island. There were bones in the extraction site.”
“Christ,” Raissa said. “Was it above the Arctic circle?”
“Well above. Far, far from your family’s home on the Caspian.”
“So how do we stop it?” Keni asked, examining the sheet in her hand.
“We have to destroy it,” Max said, putting his sheet down. He pointed to it. “There’s a passage here that says dragon fire can destroy it. So we find it and we melt it.”
“You don’t just do that. No one with magic can touch it. Ever. It will not only sever your magic from your body, but it will suck your life force out as well. You will age as you hold it.”
“Then how the hell did it get into the vault?” Henry asked.
“Are we even sure that it’s really in there?”
Aaron pointed to his head and the bruise there from when they were hit with the wave from the outage days before. “Yeah. Pretty sure.”
“How long after being exposed to magic will the stone st
art to work?” Sia asked.
“A few days, maybe a week.”
“Well, that narrows the when, but now we need where.” Max looked at the other dragons. “I haven’t really put anything in my vault in the past three months.”
“Me neither,” Henry said, with Niko and Raissa echoing him.
Keni shook her head. “I’ve been through all the leprechaun vaults. Nothing there.”
“We don’t have surveillance on the vault, and the new security system’s cameras weren’t up and running until two weeks ago,” Niko said.
“So we have to find Amy,” Keni concluded.
“Max has to find Amy,” Rijn said. “It’s Max’s destiny.”
“That’s exactly the kind of talk that scares her off.” Max pointed at Rijn. “I love her. But she’s not ready for this. She needs to make the choice herself.”
Keni stared at him. “You saw what happened at the diner. You saw Geoff die. And you’re telling me that you think this can wait? It’s exterminating us and your mate is the only one who retains her powers when this happens. She’s the only one who can stop this. And you want to wait.”
Max was furious. “How would you like to be forced into something? Something you were totally unprepared for? Pushed into a direction you didn’t know was a possibility? Oh, wait. My bad. You know exactly how it feels since you just keep pushing and pushing too, don’t you?”
“Where the fuck do you get off—”
“Right here, Kendra. Because you are no one to tell me what I need to do when it comes to my mate.” Max looked at the rest of the people in the room. “Make no mistake about this. I love Amy. I am going to go after her, but I am not going to run after her. She needs time. I know we are running short on it. I saw Geoff die in the car.
“But this is immortality, and I won’t force her to do anything.”
Keni stood and walked out of the kitchen and out of the house. “Fuck you, Maximillian,” she called back and slammed the door.
Carl put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re a good man, Max. You’re the kind of man her father would have wanted for her. We’ll do what we can to find this Deadening Stone, and you go get her back.”
Skydance Page 18
