“You know you need to tell me what I want to know.” She smiled. “We’ll start with …” She waited for the Jinn to look at her. “Why are you here? Why attack Elm Court?”
Silkkie squealed. This time the sound was not angry or snarky, but joyful. The change made Hazel hesitate as she reached for the Dr’gon’s Fang. She dug Gaelyn’s crystal ball out of her pouch. The Jinn-cat’s face was plastered to the ball’s side. Louder than Silkkie’s usual purrs, an eerie rumbling throbbed out of the ball. It sounded as if a lion was caged inside.
The Jinn’s eyes were fixed on the Fang. Watching those hungry eyes sparked the tickle of an idea. A few years back, Hazel and Gaelyn had taken a class on magickal creatures other than Dr’gons and wizards. Among those creatures had been a tiny bit of information about Jinn. Hazel hadn’t paid much attention. Gaelyn as her Wizard Partner was the one who usually took all the upper level Magicks classes. But there had been something in that class that Hazel couldn’t quite remember now. Something that could be important.
A dollop of drool fell off Silkkie’s chin; her little pink tongue whipped out and scooped it back up. “It’s real! And we have it! Let me out.” Her voice faded, but her eyes never wavered from the Dr’gon’s Fang.
Obviously Silkkie wanted the Fang for herself. Why? Could Silkkie have agreed to help Hazel when she really meant to steal the Fang? To test her theory, Hazel ran a claw along the unicorn tapestry that lay under the tooth. She snagged an edge and shook it. Silkkie’s eyes followed the bounce of the Dr’gon’s Fang as it jerked around, caught in the weaving. It was as if for Silkkie nothing else in the room existed, just the tooth.
Since Jinn were no danger to Dr’gons, Hazel had not bothered to pay close attention in that class, but she remembered now. It was simple. Like a magpie, Jinn were attracted to bright shining objects. It was almost funny until Gaelyn had explained.
A bracelet that Gaelyn had loved had gone missing, and after a good shaking, Silkkie had pushed it out of her glass ball. Gaelyn had not punished Silkkie but had explained to Hazel that loving sparkling objects came from the Jinn history. Long ago they had been locked in boxes and vases and anything dark and hard to break open. So much darkness had made the Jinn crave anything that caught light.
Not so long ago the Jinn had expanded their magick enough to demand better accommodations from those who they served. But the darkness was an old fear for Jinn. They still sought anything that shined.
Gaelyn knew her Jinn; surely, she would know if Silkkie would try and steal the Fang. Is that why she let Silkkie come? To get her paws on the Fang? Hazel would bet a month of desserts that Silkkie was planning that right now. Summer and Winter Queens were known for stealing entire Fae Courts. Would being the Elm Queen turn Gaelyn into someone like them? Fighting the attackers who had killed Elm Fae could turn any leader into someone desperate for as much power as she could get. And the Fang was supposed to mean a whole new kind of power. Had Gaelyn sent her Jinn to steal the Fang so she could use it to defend Elm?
But that didn’t make sense, because a royal Dr’gon and Wizard Partner were required to enable the Fang to release its power. Hazel was sure she had deciphered that much. So Cl’rnce needed to live or no one got anything.
When she first found the Dr’gon’s Fang, Hazel only thought of how she needed to teach Cl’rnce to use it. He was half the Primus, and he had to know. Since she had picked it up and it had burst into colors, she was sure that was a sign that she was part of the Fang’s power. Not that she was the Dr’gon it needed, but that she was the twin of the Primus, and that she played a part. A big sister part, surely. Like always, she was supposed to lead and teach Cl’rnce.
But when she’d lifted it again and tried connecting to it by finding the deep part of her brain where this Magickal item could communicate with her, in the same way Dr’gons normally did Magick, it had been a spectacular failure. The tooth had sparkled briefly like it was waking, but no matter how she called on it, no matter how she tried to connect, it wouldn’t answer. It gave her no instructions on how she was supposed to train or help Cl’rnce. Had wakening it been any part of making it poisonous to Cl’rnce? Being his twin, could that have corrupted the Fang making it poisonous to Cl’rnce?
She could fix this, she knew it, and the first step was to bring the Fang to Cl’rnce and Great and Mighty. Once it was near both Cl’rnce and Great and Mighty, surely it would recognize The Primus. And that had to lead to curing Cl’rnce.
Hazel stuffed the crystal ball back in her pouch. Silkkie was safely locked inside. At least there was no way the cat-Jinn was going to get her hands on the Dr’gon’s Fang.
“You don’t know how to use the Fang,” Silkkie yowled. “I do. You have to let me out. I can help.”
“Don’t bother me.” Without thinking, Hazel said what she always said when she needed help. “Gaelyn will help me.” But that wasn’t right. She was sure the Fang required a Heart Oath Bound Wizard Partner and Dr’gon Partner, and Gaelyn was not Heart Oath Bound to Hazel, so it wasn’t even a “maybe this could work” kind of situation.
Hazel stretched out a talon and tapped the tooth. It wiggled a little on the tapestry. Using the tips of her claws, she flicked at the Fang. Caught in the threads illustrating the unicorn, it wouldn’t move, but it rocked. She pushed harder, and it rolled off the tapestry as easily as it had been impossible to budge a second before. As if it had decided to cooperate, it fell into her palm.
It flashed rainbows of color. Holding it, Hazel sat on a huge stone bench made big enough for a Dr’gon. Yet the massive bench squeaked as if something twice as heavy as Hazel was on it. Odd. The Fang was a lot heavier than she’d thought. Was it getting brighter? And was it getting heavier?
She set the Fang on the bench and rotated her paw. It was stiff from the weight of the Fang. Hazel was pretty sure it had been light as a feather when she separated it from the woven unicorn’s horn.
She blinked. Did it just dim? She looked harder but had to rub her eyes. They were blurry and itched like she needed a nap. Which was silly. She was not her lazy, nap-loving brother. Which reminded her why she wanted the Fang.
“Oh, Cl’rnce. I’d nearly forgotten what I was doing.” She dug Silkkie’s ball out of her pouch again and set it on the bench between her and the Fang. She didn’t trust the Jinn, but she felt as if she was falling under some kind of fuzziness spell. Maybe part of the wards Gaelyn had set? Hazel needed help.
“I must speak to Gaelyn. Now!” She used her Big Sister, Ruler-of-the-Dr’gons-in-the-Place-of-My-Hopeless-Brother-the-Primus voice.
Silkkie cocked her head and looked up at her. “Are you my Master?”
Hazel perked up. This was interesting. The cat had always been Gaelyn’s and no doubt about it. But if the snarly Silkkie was offering to let Hazel become Master, that could make all the difference. “Yes. I am your Master. Until Gaelyn returns.” Controlling the Jinn long enough to make the Dr’gon’s Fang work to help Cl’rnce was all she needed. The part of her that still believed in Gaelyn felt Gaelyn needed the Jinn to fight the attackers, so Silkkie would return to Gaelyn.
“If.” Silkkie’s voice was wormy soft.
“What do you mean, if?” Hazel grabbed the ball and shook it.
Silkkie bounced in the crystal but landed on her feet when Hazel put the ball down again. “If Gaelyn returns. Of course, we all want Gaelyn to come back. But you left her in a dangerous place and under attack.” A snarl slid through Silkkie’s words. “If we hurried and cured Cl’rnce, we could get back to Gaelyn and help her. Are you the same kind of Master as Gaelyn?”
This was exactly what Hazel wanted, but she thought on how Silkkie liked to play word games, to use words to fool others into saying things they didn’t quite mean. Hazel tried but couldn’t see the trap. “Sure. Show me Gaelyn. Now!”
“Yes. Master! I’ll show you now,” Silkkie said softly. The space around her in the ball clouded over, and Gaelyn and the Fae guards popped into view. Gaelyn stoo
d stone still, her eyes glued on a tall someone. The someone was held by five of the Fae guards. Hazel was about to tell Silkkie she was wrong; Gaelyn was fine, when the someone shook the Fae off and stepped toward Gaelyn. The arm he held out straight, jerked, and a golden dagger slipped out of his tunic’s sleeve and down his arm into his hand. He swung it inches from Gaelyn’s face.
Forgetting any anger with Gaelyn, Hazel yelled, “Stop! Gaelyn!” But her Wizard Partner didn’t move. The scene had frozen. No one so much as twitched.
“Sorry,” Silkkie said. “That was the best I can do. Freeze time. You’re my Master now, so I can’t actually help Gaelyn.”
Hazel snatched up the crystal ball in one paw and, using her pouch to gently pick up the tooth, grabbed it. She didn’t know why a tooth she’d handled seconds before now made her uneasy, but she decided not to touch it again with her hide. “Right now, take me back to my brother!”
“Not to Gaelyn?” Silkkie asked in alarm. Her tone surprised Hazel. It sounded like the little Jinn really wanted to go help Gaelyn. Not what Hazel had expected if Silkkie was up to something like stealing the Fang.
“You stopped time. I will get to Gaelyn after we save my brother.”
“At your command.” The Jinn’s voice wasn’t happy, but Hazel was certain this was the right thing to do. She had to get to Cl’rnce, then to Gaelyn. “First take me back to Gaelyn’s chamber.”
Gaelyn stared down at the Jinn face-planted on the iron stone. “I know you can answer me.” He did not even twitch. “You will tell me why you have killed my Fae.”
It finally occurred to her what was different about these attacking Jinn. Not one of them had worn the collars of Masters. When Jinn served someone, they wore something that identified the Master, often a collar with the Master’s house sign, sometimes an armband or ring. Not one of these Jinn had anything like that. So, the Jinn had truly formed their own army and were working together. They weren’t being commanded by someone else.
The violence was also different. Gaelyn tried to remember if she had ever heard of Jinn being killers, much less involved in violence, without the direct orders of a Master. She could not. Jinn were known for finding ingenious and often devious solutions to problems their Masters set them to solve. So, violence was more than rare; it was a last resort. It was certainly not something they usually instigated on their own.
”Did the Jinn pick up any of our army’s swords or anything else?” she asked Ian.
The Fae standing behind him nodded before Ian could answer.
“Do you think this carnage is about stealing our weapons?” Ian asked, his voice high with outrage.
“Yes.” Gaelyn hesitated. “No.” Usually, Jinn could trick Fae, humans, whomever, into giving them whatever they needed. Brute force was not their style. Why would they want weapons anyway? They’d successfully attacked Elm Fae without them. Or at least she’d not seen any.
“You, get up!” Gaelyn said in her Hazel voice, the one no one argued with, least of all a weakened Jinn.
The Jinn turned his head; his eyes blazed. “I cannot,” he said.
Ian pushed his sword’s tip into the Jinn’s broad back. “Do as our Queen instructs.” Blood did not leak out, because Jinn had no blood. They didn’t leak magick. But the middle of Ian’s sword blade was worked with iron glyphs. If he pierced the Jinn far enough, he could permanently cripple the Jinn.
“Ian, stand down.” She used the Hazel voice again.
He backed away from the Jinn, but she felt the waves of anger rolling off her friend. Killing Elm Fae was something Ian, and all other Elm Fae, would not forgive. The Jinn had to know they were starting a war. Why?
Gaelyn sat on the ground next to the Jinn’s head. “I will ask each question only once. If you answer, fine. If you do not, or if I know your answer is a lie, then I will destroy one of your friends.”
The Jinn snorted.
“You don’t believe me? Clearly you needed them, or you would have come alone.” She kept her eyes on him. “Ian, for each untruth place one of the pouches over there in a pile. We will take the pile to the Dr’gons for destruction. While I question the Jinn, scrape the magickal ashes of the burned Jinn into a pile. Do not touch it. Until the Dr’gons deal with them, they can still be revived.”
The Jinn flashed a scorching look at Gaelyn. Good. It was time to question him. “I know many Jinn value and collect magick powers, and I will see to it that you, and you alone, get a fine power, if I am satisfied with your answers.”
He twitched, and some thought she couldn’t quite catch nagged for Gaelyn to stop. But she couldn’t. She needed to end these attacks and go back and help Cl’rnce.
“First.” Gaelyn held up a finger. “Again I ask: Why have you attacked and killed my people?”
“Power,” the Jinn said, but his eyes slid to the side.
“Lie,” Gaelyn said. She pointed to the Fae closest to Ian. “Put your pouch with the ashes.”
“It is not a lie,” the Jinn said. Oddly his voice was a bit panicky, but still it felt like a lie.
“Some part of what you said was a lie. Since you only used one word, you obviously left off a lot.” Gaelyn always had to be super specific with the troublesome Silkkie just to get her to show events in the crystal ball. This Jinn was no easier. Gaelyn was certain something about the word power wasn’t specific enough. “What kind of power?” she asked.
Again, his eyes slid in that snaky way as he said, “Hers.”
“Not good enough.” Gaelyn snapped her fingers at the Fae to the left of Ian and pointed. The Elm Fae dropped her pouch on top of the first.
Gaelyn swept her eyes over the Jinn. She thought she saw the shadow of something bigger than the Jinn wavering around the edges of him. But with the next blink it was gone. Was she just tired? Did this Jinn have a magick she hadn’t sensed? What was wrong? As she studied him harder, she realized he was too big to be so incapacitated by the iron boulder. Or at least this docile. She’d seen Silkkie recover from near death in only an hour. Sure enough, just as she opened her mouth to ask the next question, she saw the Jinn’s fingers twitch. She paused and read power around him. It was low, but there was a soft vibration that a disabled Jinn should not have.
For another minute she stared at him and felt the vibration grow more powerful. She only had one more idea on how to get him to answer, but she needed answers before she used it. “Her? Who?” she asked.
His eyes slit almost closed. She’d struck the question that was truly important.
When he didn’t answer, she nodded at the Elm Fae on Ian’s right. “Drop your pouch in the pile.” She pointed at the Fae sweeping ashes to the pile with a handful of long grasses. “Add yours as well.” She held up four fingers, looked at them, and smiled what she hoped was a frightening smile. “All the pouches onto the pile. This is the last question.”
She squinted at the Jinn. “Last chance. Whose power do you seek?”
“Not yours,” he spit out. “You, kidnapper.”
What he said did not make sense, but she was sure he would never cooperate. She had one last idea.
“Fine.” She turned to Ian. “Bring half your guard with us. We are taking our enemies to the Dr’gons.” She swept her hands in a rolling ball, one fist passing over the other until the ashes and pouches whirled in a sphere hovering in the air. She swept her hand to include their prisoner and began moving him into the rolling ball.
As she did, he jumped to his feet. Pausing with his hand out, the jinn jerked his wrist exposing a dagger, and plunged toward her, but then everything slowed to a stop. All around her nothing moved, not even her whirling ball. She wiggled a finger and confirmed she was not paralyzed like the rest. But she was certain this was the time to pretend she was until she knew who had frozen them all and why.
Hazel blinked at the frozen scene. She looked from a sphere with faces peering out, floating in front of Gaelyn, to Gaelyn, to a Jinn standing on the other side of the orb. This Jinn held a dagg
er poised to stab Gaelyn. Hazel took a breath. When Silkie froze everybody, had she stopped Gaelyn’s murder? She had to do something before the scene unfroze. She had to save her Wizard Partner. There was time, because Cl’rnce was frozen here in the Dr’gon Plane, so he couldn’t get any worse. But Gaelyn and the threatening Jinn were not held by Fae magick, but instead by Silkkie’s Jinn magick across the planes to Elm Court. How long would the little cat’s magick last?
Gaelyn needed Hazel, now! “Bring Gaelyn to me, and bring that Jinn,” Hazel started to order Silkkie. Immediately she changed her mind and threw up a hand to stop Silkkie. Hazel peered again at the scene in the crystal ball. “Wait. Silkkie, bring Gaelyn and that ball here to me.”
Silkkie purred. Hazel kept her eyes on the scene in the crystal. Gaelyn and the orb of something shining stood in Silkkie’s crystal, and the next second they were gone. A clunk behind Hazel made her whirl around.
Gaelyn’s usual cheeks-wide smile was missing, but she nodded and said, “I am so glad it’s you.”
Overwhelmed by relief that Gaelyn was safe, Hazel started to step forward to hug her best friend, but then she remembered her anger and hung back. “I take it from this spinning ball that you’ve been busy. I can’t say the same. I haven’t gotten a cure for Cl’rnce yet.”
Holding up a hand, Gaelyn pointed at the shining orb and directed it to float above Silkkie and the crystal ball. Her eyes jerked from the sphere back to Hazel. “Not that I’m not grateful, but why did you bring me here?”
“Well, to start, Silkkie says I saved you from a Jinn who was about to stab you.”
Gaelyn nodded. “Thank you, but …”
Hazel fished the Dr’gon Fang out of her pouch and pointed to it, cupped in the bit of tapestry in the palm of her paw. “The Fang is behaving weirdly. And so is Silkkie.”
Dragon Bonded: A Bumblespells Novel Page 10
