He stared back at her in confusion.
“Do you remember the first time we ever did magic together?”
“Of course I do. We transformed a dove into a narwit.”
“I’d never seen you happier. Nathaniel, you were never designed for the pits like the rest of them. You weren’t a warrior destined to brandish a sword or flex his muscles. No, you were my boy. You were a creator, an engineer of the arcane. From the very beginning, you could see the magic in everything, take it apart and put it back together. What is that but playing God?”
He scoffed and shook his head. “You have it all wrong. Yes, magic involves rearranging the power around us, but not to play God. Its purpose is to bring balance. The power requires balance or it will corrupt. It will kill. And the rot will eat you from the inside out. You know that. You taught me about balance.”
“I was wrong. Balance is unnecessary.” She spread her hands. “Here I am, Empress of Paragon, breaking all the old laws. Nothing has happened to me.” She paused, a feral smile stretching across her thin lips. “No, that’s not true. Something has happened. I am now more powerful than ever.”
He frowned. “So that’s why you stopped looking for us. You have no intention of relinquishing the throne to Gabriel or Tobias. You intend to rule forever.”
“For the good of Paragon!” she proclaimed. “I am the only ruler who can keep this kingdom safe. I’m the only one who can keep this world safe. I will unite the kingdoms and be their single, benevolent goddess. Who else could rule in my place? I am the only dragon with magic.”
Nathaniel raised his pipe to his lips and blew a smoke ring toward her. It turned into a pentagram and widened, forming a shield between them. Her lips parted on a sneer.
“Not the only one,” he murmured. He backed toward the door.
“Stay, Nathaniel. We can rule together. I can show you a new kind of magic.” She raised her ring and shattered his shield as if it were nothing.
“No. Using the blood of children? You’re an abomination!” he yelled.
“Traitor!”
Yellow lightning zapped from her fingers. Nathaniel sidestepped it but the blast left him shaken. That was new. He blew another shield.
“Traitor? I’m not the one forcibly holding onto a crown that isn’t mine. You’ve been deceived by dark magic, Mother. Your mind is poisoned by it. Can’t you see what it’s done to you? To us? Don’t you remember what we used to have?”
The electricity crackled around her ring once again, this time coiling into a whip. “I do remember. You were a part of all this once.”
“Then pocket your magic and let’s talk.”
She bared her teeth, and for a moment he thought he saw memory flare in her eyes, but it was only a flash, a glimmer, and then they turned hard and cold once more. “Never. You’re the most dangerous of my children, Nathaniel, and your blood will make me more powerful than I could imagine.”
He held up a hand. “Mother, think about what you’re doing!”
Her eyes narrowed and her next words came through her teeth. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”
She swung the electric magic above her head and snapped it out, shattering his shield. How was she doing that without symbol or spell? He blinked out of sight, but she kept coming, the air around him crackling with her power. He blocked her magic and puffed confusion charms at her as fast as he could, but she seemed immune to his smoke. She was too strong. Too fast.
He could breathe fire or shift into his dragon form, but neither would be any use against her. Eleanor was as fireproof as he was, and older dragons were stronger in their beastly form.
Breath short, he could only produce one last puff with his pipe before it sputtered and burned out. Eleanor’s magic whip cracked, the lightning wrapping around his body and sending a sizzle of pain through his skin. Dragons couldn’t burn, but this magic had teeth. He flopped to the stone, muscles trembling uncontrollably.
She pried the pipe from his grip and looked at it more closely. “Ingenious to use your breath this way. If only you had learned to use your blood.”
She adjusted the ring on her finger, and he could see her hand was bleeding under the band. A rune glowed between her thumb and forefinger and then faded. That’s how she did it. Eleanor was walking blood magic. She’d likely taken a page from Aborella’s book and tattooed herself with magical symbols, then affixed a blade to the inside of the ring to instantly add blood to the mix when she needed it.
She wasn’t just powerful. She was terrifying. He’d underestimated her descent into madness. The places she’d taken her magic had corrupted her to her marrow. Darkness and death were now her lovers.
Two guards hustled to her side at the snap of her fingers.
“Lock him up with the others, then search the grounds. Sylas is free. I can smell him all over this room.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
One of the guards lifted his boot and brought it down upon Nathaniel’s head, and everything went black.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Mistwood
“Tell me again exactly what the oracle said.” Warwick wrinkled his pointed nose and stared at the hair she’d given him.
“I asked how to get my power back, and Grindylow said, ‘Rebind thee to thy sisters.’ That’s it.”
“And you believe this hair belongs to the third sister. You two, I assume, are the other two?” He glanced between Avery and Clarissa.
“Yes!” Clarissa tossed up her hands in agitation. This was taking too long. It had taken Warwick thirty minutes to get here and then she’d had to explain everything. Now they were in Nathaniel’s study and he was staring at the hair like he hadn’t a clue what to do with it. “Nathaniel said to use your blood.”
“My blood?” Warwick placed a stubby-fingered hand on his chest. “Why on earth would we do that? My blood holds no power.”
Clarissa held her head. “Nathaniel knows what he’s talking about, Warwick. There is a reason he wanted me to bring this to you. I have reason to believe it was a piece of my hair that was used to unbind us, so this hair must be able to be used to bind us, right?”
Warwick stroked his round chin, his bushy gray brows low over his eyes. “In theory. I would think if we braided the three strands, performed a binding spell, and added an activation agent, we could redo whatever was undone between you. But what agent? Why, if Nathaniel was here, I’d suggest his blood, but…” Warwick’s squat face twisted in concentration. He began to laugh a deep belly laugh.
“What is so funny?” Clarissa asked in frustration.
“He doesn’t mean my blood. He means his blood in my possession. I keep a vial of Nathaniel’s blood to use to prepare his tobacco and certain other spells. Sometimes I have to test things.” He circled his hand. “You understand.”
“Yes, yes,” Clarissa said hastily. “Do you have any of the blood left?”
“Oh, of course I do. In fact, I have it with me.” He patted his pocket. “I always keep it with me. There is no safe place to store dragon blood.”
Avery spread her hands excitedly. “So can we do the spell? If we reignite this bond and give Clarissa and my sister back their power, maybe Raven can come home.”
Warwick nodded. “Worth a try! I can call in the coven tonight.”
“No. No!” Clarissa said. “We have to do this now.”
“We can’t. We need more power to raise the circle, even with Nathaniel’s blood. You currently have none.”
“What does raise the circle mean?” Avery asked.
Clarissa cleared her throat. “There has to be enough mystical energy to activate a magic spell. The blood has it, but that’s our catalyst. Warwick has it, but he’s only one person. Normally, three or more are required to raise a circle.”
“What about me?” Sabrina said. Clarissa had forgotten she was there, pacing at the back of the room.
“You are?” Warwick inquired.
“Sabrina the vampire.” She dropped her f
angs, and Warwick’s eyes grew large. “Perhaps. Vampires are magical creatures. That’s two. Is there a third?”
Nick waved two fingers in the air in a kind of casual salute. “I’ve swallowed a dragon’s tooth. I’m human, but I’m tied to Rowan.”
“Hmm. Might be enough,” Warwick mumbled.
Maiara lifted her chin. “I was raised from the dead.”
Warwick blinked at her. “I have no idea if we can draw on that power, but your participation is welcome.”
“We could use the egg,” Clarissa said. “It’s very powerful. Avery could hold it.”
Avery tucked her hair behind her ears. “I don’t know. Could this hurt it? I can’t put Li’l Puff in any danger.”
“Oh no, of course not,” Warwick said. “I wouldn’t lead a circle that would put a child at risk. It’s completely harmless.”
Avery nodded. “Okay then. Yes. I know my little niece or nephew has power. Enough to knock a grown dragon on his ass.”
“Then if you please.” He held out his hand.
Avery pulled a long black hair from her head and draped it over Warwick’s hand. Clarissa followed, laying her platinum hair with its dark roots next to Avery’s.
Clarissa stood. “I’ll show you to Nathaniel’s ritual room.”
Warwick scowled as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “He gave you access to it?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Yes indeed, he did.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Paragon
Nathaniel came awake surrounded by his siblings. His head throbbed. A wave of apprehension barreled into him and he reached into his pocket. Fuck! His pipe was gone.
“Are you okay?” Rowan asked. “You had quite a bloody gash in your head, but it’s already healing.”
He ran his fingers through his hair, flakes of dried blood sticking to them. “Fine. As fine as a dragon who just discovered that he and his siblings have all been captured by their megalomaniac mother can be.”
“Tobias is here too. And the others,” Rowan said. “Aborella and that tool Ransom caught us all.”
Alexander’s hand appeared before him and helped him into a seated position. They were in Gabriel’s old room. The place had changed remarkably little in the past three hundred plus years.
“Aborella rounded us up just before we reached the door and threw us in here with the rest of the family,” Rowan said. “Fucking fairy. My fingers are still twitching from the zap she gave me.”
Nathaniel rubbed his aching head and regarded the room. His eyes locked on Gabriel and Tobias. “Hello, brothers.”
They hurried forward and helped him to his feet, embracing him in a greeting worthy of centuries of absence.
“Alexander told us what you did for us,” Gabriel said. “Thank you for coming.”
“Wait to thank me until we find a way out of this,” Nathaniel said.
Tobias pinched the bridge of his nose. “If we find our way out of this. I’m fairly sure Eleanor wouldn’t have locked us in here together if we had any chance of walking out of this room alive.”
The two dragons moved aside when a woman who looked alarmingly like Clarissa and Avery sidled up to Gabriel. “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”
“You must be Raven,” Nathaniel said. “By the Mountain, you do look like them.” He took her hand in his.
“Them who?” she asked.
“Your sisters. Avery and Clarissa.”
Raven shook her head. “I don’t know anyone named Clarissa.”
He shot her a knowing smile. “You will.”
Raven’s eyes locked with his. “The day Aborella took my power, she braided my hair with one of Avery’s and another, blond…”
“That was Clarissa’s.” Nathaniel nodded. “Bleached platinum. She’s a musician. It suits her.”
“The third sister.” Raven glanced toward Gabriel, her blue eyes sparking with realization. “That’s how Aborella did it. She unbound us from our ancestry. She separated me from my source of magic.”
Gabriel growled. Now that Nathaniel had a chance to peruse the room, he noticed Sylas was not among them. With any luck, he’d escaped. Or perhaps that was why Aborella and his mother weren’t here. They were likely searching for him.
Rowan’s heels clicked on the floor. “I hate to interrupt the family reunion, but can we get the hell out of here? Nathaniel, can you do the smoky lock-and-key thing and break us from this room?”
He shook his head. “She took my pipe. I do have a bit of tobacco left if one of you has another at his disposal.”
One by one, they shook their heads.
“She hasn’t changed a thing in the room,” Nathaniel said.
“Some of my clothes are still in the drawers,” Gabriel grumbled.
“No chance you hid a smoke in here when you were a boy?”
“Sadly, no. Not a habit I was fond of.” The dragon scowled.
Alexander turned from the window and laughed. “It’s not exactly the same. The pattern on the bedspread is different. It used to have more blue. And she’s replaced the tapestries. They used to celebrate the Goddess of the Mountain; now there’s some other figure in them.”
“Leave it to an artist to notice the differences,” Nathaniel said.
Nathaniel shuffled to the closest tapestry. “Rowan, you recognize her, right? It’s not just me.”
Shrewd amber eyes focused on the wall hanging. “It’s Hera.”
“Same thing in the library,” Nathaniel said.
“You were in the library?” Tobias asked. “What were you doing in the library?”
“I was accessing Mother’s treasure room and retrieving Sylas’s ring.” Nathaniel brushed invisible lint from his sleeves as everyone turned inquiring eyes on him. He didn’t keep them in suspense. He explained about the dungeon, about Sylas being the head of the rebellion, about their mother stripping Sylas’s magic, the skull of the baby dragon, and her intentions to rule all five kingdoms.
When he was done, they all looked a little sick. But then, he felt sick too. His mother, a woman he’d once loved and respected as the inspiration behind his magical ability, had chosen a path of narcissism and murder. Even as he raged against her, a part of him was dying, curling in on itself. He had to reframe his entire childhood, and he didn’t like what remained.
“It was Sylas in the cell next to me!” Raven said to Gabriel, whose pupils burned with internal fire. “The reason Eleanor needed Gabriel and Tobias to endorse her reign was because she’d caught Sylas and learned there was a coordinated rebellion to overthrow her.”
“Yes.” Nathaniel nodded.
“Sylas tried to warn me. He tried to tell me she would use me to make Gabriel do what she wanted and then kill me when it suited her. I should have believed him and helped him find his ring.”
“You couldn’t have,” Nathaniel said. “She had it locked down in her treasure room. I used magic to disassemble her wards and return the ring to Sylas’s finger.”
Raven padded across the room. “So he’s out there somewhere?”
“They’re likely looking for him,” Nathaniel said.
Tobias darted a glance at Gabriel. “How convenient for Mother to have us all in one place. Who wants to place bets that when they find him, we are all going to be invited to a party that ends with our hearts on a platter just like Brynhoff’s?”
Gabriel growled. “She’ll say we tried to help Sylas escape. She’ll come up with some other lie, say we were traitors all along.”
Raven’s hand went to her mouth, and Gabriel took her into his arms. It was clear to Nathaniel that Raven was a strong woman, just like his Clarissa, but by the looks of her gaunt cheeks and pale skin, she hadn’t been treated well during her time here. He supposed she was exhausted and worn down.
He closed his eyes and prayed to the goddess that Clarissa had understood his message and what to do with the hair. Eleanor had taken his pipe. Had she taken the candle? He patted the secret pockets of his sui
t. The candle was there, but so was something even more powerful. His fingers dug for the square lump over his breast, and he pulled out his tarot cards from his inner pocket. This was why he loved this suit. She’d never even thought to look there.
As he shuffled the cards, one flipped out of the deck as if it couldn’t wait to give him its message. He watched it tumble to the floor and land face up. A dark, spontaneous laugh bubbled from Nathaniel’s chest.
Alexander squinted at the card. “Wheel of Fortune. What does that mean?”
“It means I’m going to need everyone to buck up and put your thinking caps on. That includes you, Raven. What would you do if you had your power back?”
“Tear the walls down,” she said through her teeth. “Blow through this palace like a dark wind just to slap your mother across the face so hard my child and her aunt a world away could hear it.”
“I suggest you and everyone else in this room think of something more practical to get us the hell out of here, because this card means we are about to experience a reversal of fortune, and if everything goes as I expect, Raven will be at the center of it.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Mistwood
No matter how hard she tried to forget about her last time in Nathaniel’s ritual room, Clarissa could still smell traces of her own vomit. It was all in her head of course. The oreads had made sure the room was cleaned to impeccable standards, and the dried herbs hanging from the ceiling ensured the only smell in the room was herbal and warm.
Sabrina kept rubbing her nose, probably sensitive to the strong scents. Eventually, she stopped breathing all together. Clarissa had no idea vampires could do that.
Beside her, Avery cradled the egg, which was strapped in a sling around her body. “Can we do this quickly? Li’l Puff can’t get cold.”
“Yes, please. Let’s get this over with,” Sabrina added. “There is an herb in here that burns my lungs when I breathe.”
The Dragon of Cecil Court (The Treasure of Paragon Book 5) Page 21
