Love in the Time of Dragons ld-1

by Katie MacAlister

  “I think what Kaawa is trying to say is that until you know why you’re having these… er… events, you should probably stay with us,” May suggested.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ve left Brom alone long enough. I must go home.” “What if—” She slid a glance toward Gabriel, who nodded. “What if your son joined you here?” “I don’t know,” I said slowly. “I think it would probably be better to be with my family. Gareth may not be any great shakes as a husband, but he has looked after me this long.” “How long would that be?” Kaawa said, pouncing on my words.

  “A long time,” I said finally, not finding any answers in my brain.

  “Would he have any reason for wanting you to be without your memory?” Gabriel asked.

  I opened my mouth to deny such a thing, but remembered the manifestations. “He might. There is… when I have a normal fugue, I manifest… that’s not the right word, really, but it’s how I think of it… I make…” They all watched me with an avidity that made my skin itch. I took a deep breath and said the word. “Gold.” The two male dragons sat up straighter.

  “You make gold?” May asked, her expression puzzled.

  “Ahh,” Kaawa said, sitting back, as if that explained everything.

  “Yes. Gareth — my husband — says that I’m a natural alchemist. That’s someone who can transmute base metals without a need for apparatus or any special elixirs or potions. Every year, when I have the fugues, he brings me lead. Lots and lots of lead, great huge wads of it, and leaves it in the room with me. When the fugue has passed, the lead has been changed into gold. I don’t know how it’s done, but he assures me that it’s some process that happens when I’m asleep.” “That must be very handy,” May said, somewhat skeptically, I felt.

  I made a face. Whether or not she believed me wasn’t the problem at hand. I was more concerned about this sudden loss of memory. Maybe it was me who was going insane, not them, as I’d first thought. “To be honest, I’d much rather do without the fugues. Especially if they’re doing something to my brain.” “I imagine you would.”

  “I admit that’s a curious talent to be given, and one that leaves me wishing I had some lead to place in your room,” Gabriel said with a rueful smile, “but I don’t follow the reasoning between that and why your memory would be wiped.” I made a noncommittal gesture, and for a second, a scene flashed in my mind’s eye — Ruth, lying on a cot in a dimly lit hut, covered in boils, sweating and trembling with an illness while Gareth shook her, telling her I was awake, and demanding that she rise and take care of me. I tried to push the fragment of a memory, tried to see more, but there was nothing there, just a black abyss.

  “I don’t know,” I said finally, sadly aware that I couldn’t trust the images my brain suggested. There was no way to know if it was an actual memory, or a fabrication of a mind that more and more I was beginning to fear was not normal.

  “I can think of any number of reasons why her husband might prefer her without memories,” Kaawa said calmly. “For one, he might not wish for her to know what sept he’s from.” “Sept?” I shook my head. “Gareth isn’t a dragon. I would know if he was.” “Just as you would know if you were one?” Gabriel asked lightly.

  “Yes, exactly.” He raised his eyebrow and I hurried on. “Besides, Gareth is an oracle, and I’ve never heard of a dragon being an oracle.” “Just because no dragon has ever sought the position of oracle does not preclude the possibility of doing so,” he pointed out.

  “He’s not a dragon,” I insisted. “I would know. I’ve been married to him for…” I slid a quick glance at Kaawa. “However long it’s been, I would know.” “I agree,” she said, taking me by surprise again.

  “You do?” I asked.

  “Yes, child. You would know if your Gareth was a dragon.” She laid her hand on mine, the gesture one that would normally leave me recoiling — as a rule, I do not like to be touched other than by Brom — but the gesture was a kind one, and offered an odd sort of comfort. “But there are other reasons he might like you to be without memories of what you do during these fugues of yours.” “What do you mean, what I do? I sleep,” I told her.

  She raised her eyebrows just as Gabriel did, giving her the same disbelieving expression. “How do you know?” “I know. I mean, I must sleep. Otherwise, I would not have dreamed—” I stopped, not wanting to go into the oddly vivid dream I was having when I woke up.

  The look she gave me was shrewd, but she said nothing about the dream, merely commented, “You wake without a memory. You may think you sleep, but what if you don’t? What if your husband has you performing acts that he knows would be repugnant to you? Would he not want your memory wiped of them to protect himself? What if your son knows what he does—” I bolted for the door, alarmed by the pictures she painted in my mind. “I have to go. Now!” “Calm yourself, Ysolde,” Kaawa said soothingly. Tipene had somehow gotten in front of the door before me and stood blocking the exit, his arms crossed over his chest.

  “My name is Tully,” I said through clenched teeth.

  “I do not say that your husband is doing anything heinous,” she continued. “I merely offered that as a possible reason why he might want you in a perpetual state of unawareness.” “Please let me leave,” I said, turning to May. Of all the people in the room, she seemed the most sympathetic, the most familiar. “I must go back to my family.” She looked uncomfortable as Gabriel said, “We are your family, Ysolde. You were born a silver dragon. You need our help. You will stay here while we give you that help.” “I don’t want your damned help!” I said, losing my temper, while at the same time I wanted to sob in frustration.

  “You need assistance recovering your memory,” Kaawa pointed out. “Even if you are not who we believe you to be, you cannot wish to live your life without any memories.” That stopped me, as did a thought that struck me as important. “Why didn’t I notice before this that I can’t remember things like Brom’s birth?” She was silent for a moment, searching my face before answering. “I suspect that whoever expunged your memory applied a compulsion that would keep you from being troubled by the lack. It is only a guess, of course, but you did not become distraught about it until I drove home just how peculiar your circumstances are.” I slumped down on the chair nearest the door, exhausted, mentally bruised and battered. “I just want my son.” “And you will have him. He will come here as soon as possible,” Gabriel said.

  Hope flared within the dullness of pain inside. “He’s only nine,” I said.

  “May and I will fetch him ourselves,” he answered smoothly. May smiled and twined her fingers through his. “We will let no harm come to him, of that I swear.” I watched him for a minute, not sure whether I should trust him or not. A worried little voice warned that I knew little about these people, but they had taken very good care of me for the last five weeks, and I felt an odd bond with May, almost as if I had known her for a very long time. She seemed comfortable to me, trustworthy, and after giving it some thought, reluctantly I agreed. “All right. If you bring Brom to me today, I will stay. For a little bit. Just until you help me discover my memories, so I can prove to you that I’m not a dragon.” Two dimples showed deep on either cheek as he smiled at me. I was unmoved by them. I didn’t actually distrust Gabriel, but he didn’t seem as familiar and comfortable to me as May, and the sense of power around him made me wary and left me feeling vaguely unsettled.

  Brom, unfortunately, could not be whisked to me at a moment’s notice. After a lengthy conversation with Penny, the American friend who had taken Brom and me to her heart, she promised to hand him over to Gabriel and May when they arrived in Spain later that afternoon.

  “I’ve never been to England,” Brom said when I told him he was to join me. “Not that I remember. Have I, Sullivan?” I panicked. “Brom, you remember last Christmas, don’t you?” “Last Christmas? When you got upset because I asked for a dissection kit and you wanted to give me a Game Boy, you mean?” I relaxed, the sudden
fear that my memory issues were hereditary — or that someone had been abusing his mind — fading into nothing. “Er… yes. That’s right.” “What about it?”

  “Just remember that sometimes, you may not understand why things are happening, but they turn out for the best,” I said in my “vague but wise” mom manner. “I want you to behave yourself with May and Gabriel when they get there, but if anything happens to them, you call me, all right?” “Yeah, OK. Penny says I have to go pack now. Bye.” I hung up the phone feeling relieved, but at the same time I was worried. Could I trust Gabriel and May? Where was Gareth, and why had he left Brom for so long? And what was going on with my brain? Was I insane, or just the victim of some horrible plot?

  “I need some serious therapy,” I said aloud, thinking of the small garden plot that I shared with the other residents of our apartment house. It was my haven against daily trials and tribulations, providing me with boundless peace.

  “All silver dragons like plants,” Kaawa said from behind me. “May hasn’t had time yet to take the garden in hand, but I’m sure she’d be happy if you wanted to tidy things up out there.” I whirled around to pin her back with a look. “How did you know I was talking about a garden?” She just smiled and gestured toward the French windows. Gabriel’s house, although in the middle of London, had a minuscule garden guarded by a tall redbrick wall. My heart lightened at the sight of tangled and overrun flower beds, and before I knew it, I was on my knees, my eyes shut as I sank my hands into the sun-warmed earth.

  “I’ll leave you here. It will be four hours before Gabriel will reach your son,” she said, watching with amusement as I flexed my fingers in the soil, plucking out the weeds that choked a chrysanthemum.

  “I know. The garden is as good a place as any to wait,” I said, looking about to see how bad it was. There were only three beds. One appeared to have suffered some calamity, since the wild lilac bush in it was crumpled to the ground, and wild grass filled the rest of the bed. The second contained miniature rhododendrons run amok, tangled up with irises and what looked to be phlox. The bed I knelt before contained autumn plants, all of which were threatened by the rampant weeds and wild grass.

  Kaawa left, and I spent a pleasant hour clearing out the chrysanthemum, amaryllis, and saffron sprouts, worrying all the while about what had become of my life.

  Chapter Three

  “Where is she?” The roar reached me, even hidden from view as I was in the farthest corner of the stable, behind the broken wagon that Dew, the smith, was supposed to have mended months ago.

  The doors to the stable slammed shut with a force that I felt in the timbers behind my back. The horses inside with me protested with startled snorts and whinnies. Hastily, I set down the two kittens I had been nuzzling for comfort, returning them to their anxious mother before dusting off my knees and picking my way through the gloom of the stable. The man’s voice was deep, and he spoke in French, not the English of the serfs, but there was an accent to his voice that I had never heard.

  “Where are you hiding her?”

  Anger was rich in that voice, anger and something else, something I couldn’t define. I patted Abelard, my mother’s gelding, and slipped beside him to peek out through a rotten bit of wood next to his manger, watching as the warrior-mage stomped across the bailey, my father and mother trailing behind him.

  “We are not hiding anyone, my lord,” Papa said, his tone apologetic.

  My mouth dropped open in surprise. Papa never apologized to anyone! He was a famous mage, one of so much renown that other mages travelled for months just to consult with him. And yet here he was, following the warrior around, bleating like a sheep that had lost its dam.

  “Kostya saw her,” the warrior snarled, spinning around to glare at Papa, the tall guards moving in a semicircle behind him. “Do you call us liars?” “No, my lord, never that!” Papa wrung his hands, my mother next him looking pale and frightened. “If you will just come back inside the hall, I will explain to you—” “Explain what? That you are holding a dragon prisoner, a female dragon of tender years?” “She is not a prisoner—” Papa started to say, but I stopped listening for a moment. A dragon? Here? I had heard tales of such beings, but had never seen one. Margaret told me they did not really exist, that it was just a bit of foolishness spoken by men who had too much wine, but once I had overheard my mother talking to her maid about a female dragon she had befriended in her youth. Perhaps Mama had hidden her here all these years. Who could it be? Leah, the nurse who tended both Margaret and me? One of my mother’s serving women? The flatulent Lady Susan?

  “I just wager you it’s her,” I told Abelard. “She is very dragonlike.” “Bring her forth!” the warrior demanded, and I pushed Abelard’s head aside in order to get a better view of the bailey, watching with bated breath to see the dragon.

  “My lord, there are circumstances that you are not aware of. Ysolde has no knowledge of her ancestry. We have sheltered her as best we could, indeed, raised her as our own daughter—” My skin crawled. My blood curdled. My brain exploded inside my head. I stared at Papa, my papa, the papa I had known for my entire life, unable to believe my ears.

  “—she has been protected from those who would ill use her, as sworn by my lady wife to the dragon who bore her here.” “Me?” I said, touching my throat when my voice came out no more than a feeble squeak. “I’m a dragon?” “That is none of my concern,” the warrior said now, his voice thick with menace. “She is a dragon, and evidently of age. She belongs with her own kind, not with humans.” My own kind? Scaly, long-tailed, fire-breathing monsters? A sob of denial caught in my throat, the noise almost inaudible, and yet as I stood there reeling from the verbal blows my father — the man I thought of as my father — dealt me, the warrior spun around, the gaze of his black eyes so piercing, I could swear he could see straight through the wood of the stable.

  Run, my mind told me as the man started forward toward the stable doors, and I knew at that moment that he was one of them. He was a monster the like of which I’d never seen. My brain didn’t wait for me to absorb that knowledge. Flee, it urged. Flee!

  I didn’t stop to question the wisdom of that command. I spun on my heels, racing down the narrow aisle of the stable to the far corner, where a small window had been cut in order to pass hay through from the fields. I wasn’t fast enough, however, not if the roar of fury that followed me was anything to go by.

  “Stop!” the warrior bellowed as I leaped through the window, not even pausing as I hit the ground hard before I was off again, racing around the pens holding the animals to be slaughtered, dashing between the small huts housing craftsmen and their families, dodging chickens, dogs, and occasionally serfs as I raced for the postern gate along the west curtain.

  “Lady Ysolde,” John, the man on guard at the gate, called in surprise as I rounded a cart loaded with wool destined for the market, not even slowing down as I flung myself past him and through the postern gate. “Are you off to the village — hey, now! Who are you, and what right do you have to be chasing Lady Ysol — oof!” I didn’t stop to see how John fared, although I sent up a small prayer that he hadn’t been hurt by the warrior. I ran along the rocky outcropping that led down into the village, the moat not coming around to this face of the castle since it would be impossible for anyone to scale the cliffs that hugged the west and south sides. Behind me I heard the noise of pursuit, but I had always been fast on my feet, and I dug deep for speed as I leaped down the last of the rocks and headed for the trees beyond the village. They marked the edge of the thick forest where I had spent many an hour, wandering pathways known to only a few. If I could just make it there, then I could hide from the warrior… and then what?

  I didn’t stop to answer that question. I just knew that I needed to be by myself, to absorb the strangeness that had suddenly gripped me. And I couldn’t do that with the intense, black-haired dragon storming around me.

  He was still behind me as I skirted a newly plowed fiel
d, ignoring the calls of greeting from the serfs as I raced by, intent on my goal, greeting the dappled shade of the outer fringes of the forest with relief. I’d made it, no doubt due to the extra weight the warrior wore in the form of his armor. I risked a quick look behind me as I sped around an ancient birch tree. The warrior was about thirty feet behind me, but just beyond him, his guards approached on horseback, leading his horse.

  “By the rood!” I swore to myself as I leaped over a downed tree trunk, heading for the densest part of the forest.

  The sounds of pursuit were muted in the calm of the forest. Birdsong rose high above me as the swallows dipped and spun in the sunlight, making elegant arcs in the air. Patches of sunlight shone here, and I slowed down, trying to control my breathing, picking through the muffled noises of the animals of the forest as they went about their business. Somewhere near, a badger was snuffling along the ground, disturbing earth and fallen leaves. A woodpecker drilled a few yards away, while farther afield, foliage rustled and snapped as a large animal, probably a stag or hind, grazed. In the distance, the jangling of horses’ harnesses was audible. I smiled to myself at that, pleased that the growth was too thick for the warrior’s men to ride through.

  I was just looking around for a suitable tree that I could climb and hide myself in when a man’s voice sounded, uncomfortably near. “Where are you, chérie? You do not need to be afraid of me. I will not hurt you.” I snorted to myself, trying to pinpoint the origin of the voice. Usually I had very good hearing, but the denseness of the trees and sounds of the forest combined to muffle the warrior’s voice, making it hard to judge where he was.

  “We want only to help you,” he continued. I moved around the tree, clutching the rough trunk as I peered into the depths in the direction I thought the voice came from. A branch moved, but before I had time to react, a wren popped out and gave me a curious look.