The Dragon Queens (The Mystique Trilogy)

by Traci Harding

  I savoured his cheeky grin a moment, then said, ‘I hardly think so. Dismissed, dismissed…’

  ‘Ah,’ he appealed, disappointed. ‘The harem was much more fun.’

  ‘Dismissed,’ I said a third time, and the knight vanished from my presence.

  Alone at last, I turned my attention to the scented bath and shed my clothes with haste.

  I do believe that this was the longest bath I’d ever had on my own. I just couldn’t seem to drag my aching body from its warm, watery repose. Only when my belly ached for sustenance and my skin was as shrivelled as a prune could I bring myself to emerge.

  I slipped on the cotton shift that had been supplied by my hostess and took a seat at the table to satisfy my hunger.

  Soon afterwards, Denera returned.

  ‘You appear much refreshed,’ she commented as she breezed in quietly, carrying a bowl of liquid that she placed beside Raineath’s bed.

  There was something very familiar about this woman; I felt I knew her, although we had never met before today.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘I feel infinitely better.’

  I was about to broach the subject of her seeming so familiar to me, when she reached down to lift the veil from Raineath’s face.

  ‘Raineath does not wish for anyone to see her injuries,’ I warned.

  ‘I understand,’ said Denera, ‘but this salve will aid the healing process.’ She drew aside the veil and gave a heavy sigh. ‘She will heal on the outside, but on the inside…’ Denera shook her head ‘…I am not so sure.’

  I had averted my eyes, wishing to keep the vow I had made to Raineath. ‘I fear that her suffering has been long-term, but she has survived,’ I said. ‘Perhaps the freedom she has fought so hard to secure will also help to heal her.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Denerea agreed. ‘It is a momentous achievement.’

  As Denera treated Raineath’s wounds, I wondered about our hostess. It was unusual for the mistress of the house to tend to her guests personally, or to answer the door for that matter. I was about to make a polite query regarding all this when Denera began to hum a tune that was completely mesmerising. I found myself nodding off in my chair and, not wanting to waste a perfectly good bed, managed to raise my weary form. I crawled onto the bed’s soft silky surface and was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

  When I awoke it was still night, or perhaps I had slept through until the following evening? One thing was certain: I felt like a new woman, having enjoyed the best slumber of my life.

  Raineath was awake and seated at the table, still wearing her head cover, conveying food to her mouth beneath it.

  ‘How are you?’ I inquired, trying not to sound as chipper as I felt, for I knew Raineath would still be ailing.

  ‘Much better, thank you.’

  But her hunched form and her reluctance to unveil, or even look at me, told me different.

  ‘Have you inspected your wounds?’ I asked.

  She shook her head. ‘I left my face in that prison cell,’ she replied. ‘It will be the veil for me from now on.’

  ‘You will need air and light to heal, so the process will be much faster without the veil,’ I said, trying the sensible approach. ‘And as you are among friends, surely it would be wiser—’

  ‘I do not want him to see me like this.’ Raineath finally looked at me.

  ‘Cingar?’ I assumed, and she gave a nod and lowered her eyes once more.

  ‘I understand that Cingar admires you greatly. He will not care—’

  ‘Yes, he will! All men do!’ Raineath retorted with a spite that was not really aimed at me. ‘I was so beautiful…he will never really see me now.’

  Her words made it clear that what she felt for Cingar was more than just a crush on the legend that he’d once been. I wondered if Raineath was aware that her love was in vain.

  ‘Do you know that Cingar recently lost his wife of twenty years?’ I asked her.

  ‘No.’ She looked to me, sounding hopeful, and I held up my hands to stop her from jumping to the wrong conclusion.

  ‘My friend believes he will never love again, and so you see, even as beautiful as you were, Cingar would not have seen you—at least, not the way you desire him to.’

  Raineath gave a heavy sigh. ‘He sees you.’ She sounded envious. ‘His saviour from the dungeons of the Duc de Guise.’

  ‘And now you know how I managed that legendary feat.’ I held up my hand to show her the ringstone dangling on its wrist-chain once more.

  ‘Does Captain Choron know about Albray?’

  I shook my head. ‘I am sure he suspects something, but I believe Cingar likes the legend the way it is.’

  ‘I will not tell,’ she assured me. ‘I owe you so much—’

  ‘Nonsense! All I did was lend you my stone for a while.’ I approached the table to pick at the food.

  ‘That is not true. I stole it. Although I fully intended to find you and return it,’ Raineath said. ‘I could hardly believe that you had raised my case with the Shah.’

  ‘I did so upon Cingar’s request,’ I explained. ‘Although, as it was my suggestion that the Shah consider you for Cingar’s tuition, I did feel partly responsible for your plight.’

  ‘I just so needed to be seen…and when the legend I had idolised all my life was brought to me despite my isolation, I thought that surely our meeting was fated by the Goddess.’ She burst into tears. ‘I did not consider how he would be affected by my actions, or you! I was wasting away…my talent, beauty and identity fading. I know it was selfish, but I just had to do something!’

  I wrapped my arms around the young woman and allowed her to sob out her hurt, fear and guilt.

  ‘I would have done the same thing in your place,’ I assured her when her outburst had subsided. Then I stepped back to look her in the eye. ‘But once I was free, I would not hide myself away for anyone else’s benefit. You have earned the right to be seen.’

  ‘But now I am an offence on the eye,’ she said.

  ‘You, my friend, are a warrior, and any scars you may have are testimony to victory.’

  With a sniffle, Raineath nodded at my alternative view. ‘Battle scars…I think I can live with that.’

  She lifted the veil from her head.

  To my great shock, Raineath looked exactly as she had when I first met her.

  ‘Is it very bad?’ she asked, fearful from my reaction.

  ‘No…not at all.’

  I recalled seeing a mirror by my bed and I ran to fetch it.

  Meanwhile, Raineath found the courage to touch her face; feeling her smooth, unscathed skin she hesitated to smile. ‘Am I dreaming?’ She urged me to hurry with the mirror, which I held up before her. Upon sighting herself reborn, Raineath’s tears welled anew, this time with joy. ‘How could this be possible?’

  ‘Denera.’ I could only think of one explanation. ‘She bathed you with some healing salve last night. Though I cannot imagine what was in it for it to have worked so swiftly!’

  Not entirely true, as there was one substance I had encountered that would heal like this, but it seemed unlikely that Denera, or anyone in this day and age, would have access to Star-Fire—bar the Melchi who guarded the last known vial of it.

  Raineath was a little disconcerted. ‘You promised you would not lift my veil,’ she said.

  ‘I did not lift it…nor did I look when Denera did,’ I assured her with a smile, and Raineath smiled also as she looked back to her reflection and admired it.

  ‘Now he will see me,’ she fancied.

  Yes, Cingar would see her, I thought, but whether he was ready for love again was quite another matter. Although, as Raineath had pointed out several times, Cingar had yet to lay eyes on her and I had to confess that the young woman was not unlike his beloved Jessenia in many regards.

  A knock on the door heralded Denera’s entrance.

  ‘Greetings again, ladies. Zalman has asked me to advise that he and Mr Choron await you in the foyer. As soon
as you join them, your journey will resume.’

  ‘We will be travelling by night?’ I queried.

  ‘It is near dawn.’ Denera placed a bundle of clothes on each of our beds. ‘Is there anything else you require?’

  I looked to Raineath, who moved swiftly towards our hostess. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and took hold of our hostess’s hands and kissed them.

  Derena lifted the young woman’s face to look her in the eye, and stroked her smooth dark hair. ‘No need to thank me, little one…healing is my vocation.’ Denera leaned forward and kissed Raineath on the forehead.

  I had been too weary to observe the light-body of our hostess when first I met her, but now I saw that here was another soul with a perfectly clear subtle body. As she held Raineath in her arms, I perceived Denera’s light-body expanding to envelop the other woman. Her energy reinforced her patient’s lightbody with great surges of cosmic light, which rushed through Raineath’s seven light centres, dispersing the cloudy blockages that had built up in the course of her traumatic past.

  ‘You are very accomplished in your chosen field, my lady,’ Raineath granted as she was released from the long embrace. ‘I have never felt so well or elated.’

  ‘And you have every reason to feel so,’ Denera told her with a sincere smile. ‘You have a very promising future ahead.’

  The lady of the house made for the door. ‘Now I must leave you to prepare.’

  We thanked our hostess and, as I partook of some breakfast, Raineath moved to dress herself. She sorted through the fresh attire Denera had left and exposed a beautiful polished wooden box hidden beneath the clothes. When Raineath opened the case to find a violin inside, I was moved to tears.

  Raineath gasped as she took the instrument in hand. The young woman was so overwhelmed with happiness all she could do was weep. ‘I must be dead, for I have passed into the Land of Bliss,’ she said.

  I shook my head to reassure her. ‘We are not dead. And even if we were, I would still beg the honour of hearing you play.’

  Raineath collected herself and, tossing her long, dark, straight hair behind her slender shoulders, she raised the instrument to her chin. ‘The honour will be all mine, my Lady du Lac.’

  She played the composition Cingar had taught her, and performed it skilfully, with all the seduction, passion and precision of the legendary master himself.

  When the last note sounded, I applauded her most sincerely. ‘Denera is absolutely right—you have a very bright future ahead.’

  The beaming smile on Raineath’s face conveyed that she was daring to believe that prediction.

  I felt considerably more prepared for a desert trek wearing the long white cotton robes and sensible walking boots that Denera had supplied, and I believed Raineath was happy to have shed her harem attire too.

  It was a lovely moment when Cingar and Raineath finally met face to face in the foyer. ‘Could this be my young student?’ the gypsy asked, surprised that she appeared unscathed from her ordeal.

  I took it upon myself to do the formal honours and ease the awkwardness of the moment. ‘Cingar Choron, allow me to present to you Miss Raineath Saray.’

  Raineath curtsied as Cingar took her hand, and was hard pressed to smother her delight when her idol kissed it.

  ‘It is my greatest pleasure to make your acquaintance at last,’ he said. ‘You are a woman equalled in bravery and heart only by my own lady patron.’

  ‘That is a compliment indeed,’ Raineath said, smiling shyly.

  I believed it was so long since she’d flirted with a man that she had forgotten how. Or perhaps Raineath was wiser in the game of love than I gave her credit for, and had decided to conceal her feelings for the man until she had figured out how best to win his heart.

  Underlying Cingar’s friendly address, I sensed much guilt that he desperately needed to purge himself of. He began to speak, but was interrupted by Zalman.

  ‘I am sorry, but we must get moving before sunrise. There will be ample time to talk on the way.’

  Aware of Cingar’s need to speak with Raineath alone, I decided to keep pace with Zalman, who had walked on ahead. It was wonderful striding across the open desert towards the sunrise, with just a breath of warm wind caressing my face. Respectful of Zalman’s love of silence, I refrained from asking any of the many questions I had about our journey. For in truth I already knew that there was only one answer to all of my queries: wait and see.

  I had many questions about our brief stopover too, and now that the sun had cast its light over the landscape, I turned back to view the oasis—to find nothing behind us but the same bare, flat horizon that lay in front. I stopped in my tracks, dumbfounded.

  ‘I did not think we had walked so far,’ I said.

  Cingar and Raineath also looked back. ‘We have not,’ Cingar agreed, looking to Zalman, who had stopped and turned back to face us. ‘What is going on, Zalman? Where are you taking us?’

  ‘You will know by sunset,’ Zalman replied.

  ‘Sunset!’ Cingar looked concerned.

  Zalman walked on. ‘I know where we can find water and shade. Trust me one more day.’

  ‘I do not like this,’ Cingar said, but we had no choice but to follow our mysterious guide.

  I noted the wind getting stronger as we walked, but Zalman did not break his stride, even though he was leading us towards a great wall of dust that stretched across the horizon, seemingly without end.

  ‘Are you mad?’ Cingar yelled to him.

  ‘We cannot go around it,’ our guide pointed out, without looking back.

  I turned a full circle and, seeing no shelter anywhere, had to agree that there was no choice but to push on.

  ‘We could try and make it back to Denera’s house,’ Cingar suggested.

  ‘If we knew where it was, you mean? No, we should stick together.’ I waved the gypsies forth, and together we headed off in pursuit of Zalman.

  It wasn’t long before the windstorm was upon us. The dirt in my eyes made vision impossible, but with little fear of encountering any obstacles I just kept my head down and kept putting one foot in front of the other. I felt that I was weathering the situation rather well, when someone unexpectedly collided with me and I was sent off-balance and onto all fours.

  ‘I am so very sorry.’ The English gentleman aided me back to my feet.

  His face was wrapped against the weather as mine was and yet I knew him at once.

  ‘My Lord Suffolk, fancy meeting you here.’

  As his beautiful blue eyes opened wide with surprise and delight, the storm seemed to ebb a little and I heard him utter my name. He embraced me and I him, the relief washing the dirt from our sights.

  ‘Thank God. When I heard we’d lost the Shah’s favour, I feared the worst,’ he said.

  ‘Never.’ I held my wrist high to expose the ringstone and my husband rolled his eyes.

  ‘I should have known.’ He held me tight under one of his arms as we pushed on forward. ‘You two make quite a team.’

  ‘Not as good a team as we do.’ I hugged him tighter. ‘You would not have landed us in so much trouble with the Shah in the first place, I fear.’

  Lord Devere nodded, amused. ‘The Shah is probably the least of our problems just now,’ he went on. ‘A representative of the Holy See just ordered Taylor, Miss Koriche and myself buried alive in our dig site.’

  ‘What!’ I recalled the party I had seen exiting the Shah’s court before my own audience. ‘So that is what they were discussing with the Shah.’

  ‘My murder?’ jested my husband.

  ‘Burying the find,’ I clarified, knowing he understood my meaning well enough.

  ‘When did you encounter the cardinal’s party?’

  ‘I saw them yesterday. And you?’

  My husband was perplexed. ‘It was only a few days ago that I had the displeasure of meeting them at the site, so they cannot have been in Baghdad yesterday.’

  I agreed that it seemed very unlikely th
ere would be two such parties in Persia at once.

  My husband’s confusion doubled. ‘And I would have expected you to have seen the Shah over a week ago. Were you delayed somewhere?’

  ‘No,’ I answered, until I considered last night’s blissful slumber—it had felt like I had slept for a week. ‘No, that is impossible,’ I mused. ‘I would be dead.’

  ‘What is not possible?’ My lord had lost my train of thought.

  ‘What is the date today?’

  Lord Devere’s reply shocked me; by his reckoning I had indeed lost a week somewhere. ‘You are sure?’

  ‘Positive,’ my husband confirmed, ‘for I have been counting the days until your return.’

  All these years of marriage and he could still make my heart flutter. His kiss made me forget my curiosity, and when we came back to reality the storm had completely died away.

  ‘If you are quite finished, Devere,’ Taylor yelled back at us, ‘we are losing our guide.’ He pointed towards Zalman, who was leagues ahead.

  Had I heard Taylor wrong? ‘Zalman is your guide?’

  ‘Yes, he showed up yesterday claiming that he had been sent to lead me to safety,’ my husband explained, and then wondered at my mystified expression. ‘What did I say?’

  ‘Pardon me, folks.’ Cingar directed us to Zalman once more. ‘Is it just my eyes or is our friend disappearing?’

  We all looked ahead to see Zalman sinking into the horizon.

  ‘There must be an incline ahead,’ I deduced.

  ‘We should catch up.’ Lord Devere clutched my hand tight as we ran to see if I was right.

  ‘Oh my Goddess!’ Cingar yelled, supporting his head with both hands as he beheld what lay over the rise, for he and Raineath had won the dash. Lord Devere and I passed the limping Mr Taylor and our pregnant daughter-in-law to come to a halt on the rim of a huge maze of deep chasms recessed into the ground before us.

  ‘Where on Earth are we?’ Lord Devere said.

  ‘There is no such place in Persia, I assure you.’ Taylor was an authority on the geography of the country where he had been posted for some years now.

  ‘Nowhere you will find on any map,’ I said, repeating Albray’s prediction.