MEG CLOSED HER EYES, TRYING VERY hard to remember that she loved her little sister and that she did not truly want to throttle her. No matter how irritating she might be.
“But why?” Maurel asked again.
“Because it doesn’t work that way,” Meg said. Again.
“But I want to talk to him!”
“So go ahead. He’s right there.”
Maurel sighed with theatrical exaggeration. “Not that way. In my head. Like you do.”
Meg let out a sigh of her own. She opened her eyes and propped herself up on her elbows. Her sister was standing above her, glaring down, her hands curled into little fists and planted fiercely on her hips. Maurel was lucky she was so cute when she was mad, or it would have been a lot harder for Meg to control her temper. Especially now, when her temper seemed so much shorter than usual. It was just because she hadn’t been sleeping well — she was sure that was it . . . but it still worried her. She had come out here to spend a little time alone with Jakl, to recharge her emotions a bit. And to sneak in a nap if she could. The nightmares only seemed to trouble her sleep at night. So far.
Her dragon was sprawled around her on the grass, already feigning sleep. He often did that when Maurel was around, Meg had noticed. Maybe he was on to something.
“Maurel,” Meg said wearily, “I have explained this to you. Several times. For one thing, we don’t ‘talk’ to each other in our heads. It’s more like we can feel things about each other. And for another, the link is only between Jakl and me. I couldn’t share it with you even if I wanted to.”
“But —”
“Maurel!” And for a second, the whole world disappeared in a bright-red burst of rage.
No, Meg thought, no, no, no! She had no reason to be so angry, but she was filled with it, burning with it, suddenly having to fight against the urge to throw herself at Maurel and make her be quiet. To grab the infuriating girl and — No! she thought at herself with everything she had. Stop it! Just barely, Meg managed to speak her next words in a kind of whispery growl instead of a scream.
“Maurel. If you ask me why one more time, you will be very sorry.” We both will.
Maurel hesitated, and then, to Meg’s immense relief, seemed to decide that her big sister might not be teasing. She sat down in a huff at Meg’s feet. “It’s not fair,” she muttered, pulling at the grass.
No, Meg thought, breathing slowly and deliberately, waiting for that latest frightening flash of anger to finish draining away. Jakl’s head had come up in alarm in response to it, but she could already feel him starting to relax again. Her current situation was many things, but fair wasn’t one of them. She looked down to see she had dug a pattern of tiny crescent moons into her palms with her fingernails.
She loved her dragon. Sometimes she loved him so much that it scared her. And she loved having him as part of her life. Especially now that he no longer had to be a secret part. But there was no denying that Jakl had made everything very . . . complicated. Better, in some ways. Lots of ways. He made her stronger; he made her feel powerful and alive and not alone. Never alone. And she got to fly. She couldn’t help grinning at that as the final vestiges of anger dropped away as though they had never existed. She felt Jakl shift interestedly in her head, and she grinned even more. The flying part was phenomenal.
But the link made a lot of things harder, too.
Meg gave herself a little mental shake. That doesn’t bear thinking about, and you know it. She couldn’t change it now, even if she wanted to.
“Maybe I’ll find my own dragon,” Maurel said. “Then we’ll have our own link and I won’t let you talk to him, either.”
“Okay,” said Meg amiably. That was certainly too unlikely to worry about.
“Or maybe I’ll have a link with Lyrimon,” Maurel went on. “He likes me. He hardly ever hides from me anymore.”
“Other animals can’t —” Meg stopped herself. Let Maurel pretend if she wanted to. Especially if it would help keep her from pestering Meg about Jakl all the time. Although why she’d even want to pretend to have a connection with the mage’s grumpy gyrcat was beyond Meg entirely. But Maurel had always had her own ideas about what was fun.
Meg poked Maurel with her foot. “Well, just be careful. He’s not like a regular cat, you know. And he can hurt you if you annoy him too much. He’s always scratching Calen.”
“That’s because he doesn’t like Calen. But he likes me. He hasn’t scratched me at all in over a week!” Maurel smiled so proudly at this that Meg had to laugh.
Maurel laughed, too, always ready to put an argument behind her. “What’s Jakl feeling now?”
“He’s feeling sleepy. Leave him alone.”
That wasn’t strictly true, of course. Jakl’s tail twitched at the mention of his name, but he went on pretending to sleep. He couldn’t seem to decide how he felt about Maurel. He picked up on Meg’s affection, but also on her not-infrequent irritation. And Maurel seemed to confuse him sometimes. Perhaps because she was the only person other than Meg who showed absolutely no fear of him. Meg thought people around the castle were learning to tolerate the dragon’s enormous presence — some more easily than others — but even those who had begun to adjust were still clearly uneasy about having him around. Even Calen, who had spent more time with Meg and Jakl than anyone, maintained a respectful sort of nervousness. Then again, Calen was nervous about a lot of things. She was going to have to work on that with him.
Thinking of Calen reminded her how much she missed him. She wished he and Serek would get back from the Magistratum already. Calen had promised to send a letter by bird when they started the journey home, but she hadn’t heard from him yet. She knew there was a lot they had to do there, but how long could it really take to tell the other mages about what had happened with Sen Eva and give Calen a new tattoo to mark his progress? She bet they were having all kinds of unnecessary meetings and performing time-consuming ceremonies instead of just getting down to business. Adults were always doing things like that. It drove her crazy.
“How about now? What’s he feeling now?”
Speaking of things that drove her crazy . . . Meg gave up. She sent a private apology to Jakl and said, “He’s feeling a deep, unshakable desire to take you for a ride. Want to go flying?”
Maurel was on her feet instantly. “Yes! Yes, yes, yes!” she shouted. “Let’s go, let’s go!”
Jakl opened his eyes and shot Meg a betrayed glance as he shifted upright, but he couldn’t fool her. He was always excited to fly, even if Maurel was coming, too.
Maurel had already climbed up and was straddling the base of Jakl’s supple neck. Meg followed and sat close behind her, wrapping one arm tightly around her sister’s waist and gripping one of Jakl’s smaller crests with her free hand. When they went up alone, she rarely held on at all anymore, but she didn’t want to give Maurel any ideas.
“Ready?”
“Yes!”
“Let’s go, then,” Meg said. She didn’t actually need to speak out loud for Jakl’s benefit; he could feel her readiness and knew when she was ready to go. And she was ready — she could hardly stand to wait another second. It was always like this. Once the prospect of flight entered her mind, being on the ground began to feel intolerable. Every part of her longed to be aloft, away, free, flying, right now, right now, right now, right now.
She took a deep, shuddering breath as her dragon unfurled his long, lovely wings. She could almost feel them as though they were her own, strong and beautiful and ready to stretch and soar. With a powerful backward sweeping of his wings, he leaped up, dipping back down for half a second before he caught the wind, and then they were off, launching forward and up into the sky.
&nb
sp; Oh, it was so hard not to let go, to slide into that place in her mind where she could lose herself in the feeling of flight and the link. Meg tightened her arm around Maurel, forcing herself to focus. Jakl wouldn’t let Maurel fall — he’d be able to feel if she were slipping — but this was her little sister. Even at her most irritating, Meg still loved Maurel beyond words. She couldn’t take even the slightest chance.
Jakl banked to curve around the castle, and Maurel squealed with delight, staring down and around at everything they passed. Meg felt herself grinning again. The good thing about flying with Maurel was that she had absolutely no fear. Calen was always terrified of falling off, but as far as Meg could tell, that possibility never even occurred to her sister. So at least Meg didn’t need to rein Jakl in too much. He could soar and spin and loop, and Maurel would love every second of it.
Meg closed her eyes and let herself go just enough to feel Jakl’s pure joy in the act of flying, the rush of the wind and the feel of the air beneath his wings and the speed and the power and the colors of the world swirling above and below and around them. This was their element, where they belonged. Together. Always. She felt her heart would burst with the absolute perfectness of it.
After a while — seconds, hours, she could never hold on to her sense of time while flying — Jakl nudged her back to herself and began to slow, spiraling back down toward the ground. Meg opened her eyes again and watched the world come up to meet them. The world with all its complications and problems and troubles.
And speaking of trouble, their mother was standing in the courtyard, looking none too pleased.
“Uh-oh,” Maurel said as Jakl landed lightly on the grass.
Meg felt Jakl consider taking off again, but she pushed that suggestion away. One did not simply fly away from Queen Merilyn.
“Meglynne!” her mother shouted, striding up to meet them. “What did I tell you?”
“It’s my fault, Mother,” Maurel said, slipping down from Jakl’s back. “I made her take me. Don’t be mad. It was fun!”
“Oh, it was fun?” the queen took hold of Maurel by shoulders and looked as though she would never let her go. “Fun to scare your mother out of her wits, watching you hang above the earth that way, waiting to see you fall to your death. . . .”
“Meg and Jakl wouldn’t let me fall. You shouldn’t be so worried.” Maurel’s expression brightened suddenly. “Maybe you should try it! Then you’ll see how fun it is, and you won’t get so mad every time I go up.”
Meg bit her lip to keep from smiling at the way the color drained from her mother’s face at Maurel’s suggestion.
“She’s right, Mother,” Meg said. At her mother’s startled glance, she added, “No, not about you coming up for a ride, but that we wouldn’t let her fall. Really. It’s perfectly safe.”
“Meg, I . . .” The queen took a breath and hugged Maurel against her. Maurel squirmed around to face Meg but couldn’t quite extricate herself from their mother’s firm embrace. “I know it seems that way to you, but to the rest of us, it’s — it’s not — we’re trying to adjust, but I can’t have you whisking your sister up into the air like that, putting her in danger.”
“But she’s not —”
“Please, Meg.” Her mother shook her head wearily. “Just respect my wishes on this. Do not take Maurel flying again without permission.”
Maurel stared up at the queen indignantly. “But Mother! That’s —”
“That’s enough, Maurel. Come inside now.”
Maurel rolled her eyes at Meg and then let herself be dragged off toward the castle. Meg watched them go. Her mother just needed more time. It was a big adjustment, having a dragon around. Of course she was still a little nervous.
Jakl was the first dragon anyone in the kingdom had seen in at least thirty years. Maybe longer. Meg’s father claimed to have seen one flying overhead one night when he was a little boy, but that was a long time ago. And when pressed, he admitted it was at least slightly possible that it had only been a large bat and a dark sky and a boy’s imagination. Before Jakl came, people had assumed that the remaining dragons of the world were keeping to themselves in the mountains, or that maybe they had flown away across the sea or gone to any number of other places.
And they were glad of it, too. When there had been dragons, much effort had been directed at keeping them away. But there had never seemed to be very many of them. Even history books from before Meg’s great-grandfather’s time referred to them as creatures rarely encountered, even if it was not unheard of to see one flying around in the distance. Even longer ago, in the times Calen had told her about, when people actually sometimes sought out dragons for linking, instead of stumbling into linking accidentally, as she had — even then, it wasn’t like there were dragons everywhere you looked. And for most of Meg’s life, she, like everyone else she knew, had only vaguely suspected that dragons were still out there, somewhere, but nothing you might expect to actually see.
Until the one day when she did. And everything, everything changed.
“It will be okay,” Meg whispered. She lay her upper body down against Jakl’s scaly neck, warm from the sun, feeling his comforting presence beneath and within her. She closed her eyes, soaking him in. He was a part of her now. Her mother would come to accept that in time. Everyone would. Meg just had to be patient.
The tower bell sounded, reminding Meg that it was time to go in for afternoon lessons. Her lessons had practically doubled once Maerlie had married Prince Ryant of Kragnir, thus putting Meg next in line for the throne. Meg wouldn’t officially become the princess-heir until the ceremony at Autumn Turning, but her parents had already begun increasing her tutoring sessions and responsibilities in preparation.
The king and queen had always kept their daughters informed of the general news and goings-on in the kingdom, but now Meg was allowed to actively participate in many of the tasks she’d only heard about before. She assisted her father while he reviewed treaties and legal documents, helped her mother manage the daily planning and correspondence, and sat in with both parents when they received petitioners once a week in the throne room. That was her favorite part of all. People came in with their problems and disputes, and her parents made decisions to set things right. Not that the other things weren’t important, too, but documents and letters were only one step in a lengthy process. You had to wait so long to see any actual results. But when people were standing right before you, and you could make a decision right away, make a difference in their lives right then and there . . . that was wonderful.
King Tormon and Queen Merilyn were known for being fair and just, and you could see in the people’s eyes how much they trusted and respected their king and queen. Meg wanted people to look at her like that someday. Her eldest sister, Morgan, was already making a name for herself in her adopted kingdom, and Meg knew that Maerlie would win over the people of Kragnir in no time. As princess-heir, Meg would get to stay here, in Trelian, her future husband (whoever he might be) joining her instead of the other way around. And while being a trusted and respected queen of an allied country would be nice, being one here in the kingdom she knew and loved would be the best of all. Sometimes she visited the royal library and peeked at the books that chronicled the lives of previous rulers and pretended her own story was in there, too. She would be Queen Meglynne, part of Trelian’s own glorious story, essential, inextricable. She would do things that mattered, and be remembered for them.
She would be important, and her parents would be proud of her.
Meg left Jakl lounging in the field. The castle carpenters had made him a nice big enclosure down in the part of the outer ward past the stables (well past, so he wouldn’t terrify the horses), but while he seemed to like it well enough, he usually preferred the field just beyond the gardens. Meg thought the enclosure was at least partially for show, in any case — something to make it seem as if her dragon were contained and housebroken. She smiled, thinking how he did seem to appreciate the enc
losure whenever it rained. Perhaps he was just a little domesticated, at that.
She yawned, regretting her missed nap, and found herself walking more quickly. She was glad of her increased lessons for another reason as well: the busier she was, the less time she had to think about . . . other things. Less time to sit and worry and wish Calen were back, so she could talk to him and he could reassure her that everything would be all right.
She promised herself she would check in with the Master of Birds as soon as her lessons were done. Maybe there would be a letter from Calen, saying he was on his way home.
CALEN GOT HIS FIRST LOOK AT the needle and fought the urge to close his eyes.
This was important — his first real mage’s tattoo, his first mark beyond that of the initiate. The first one that he’d truly earned for himself. He wanted to remember every part of it. Even the slightly terrifying parts.
Master Su’lira was holding up a long, slender tool with a needle at the tip, examining the tiny blade in the light. The needle looked very, very sharp. Soon, Master Su’lira was going to stick Calen with that needle and use it to paint a delicate design under the surface of his skin.
It’s all right, Calen told himself firmly, refusing to look away. You’ve been through much worse than this.
It was true. He had been lost in an unknown land, desperate to get home. He had been viciously attacked by villains and monsters. He had been forced to climb to heights no sensible person should ever, ever have to experience. Some of those heights had been reached while flying through the air on the back of a dragon, ridiculous distances above the ground. He had almost died. More than once. Being stuck with a needle should be easy compared to all that.
Master Su’lira turned back to his workbench, making adjustments. Calen let out a shallow breath. Not quite time. Not yet.
The marking room was small and private. Serek had explained that the process could sometimes take a long while, depending on the level of achievement of the person being marked. The official ceremony was always held separately, so all the other mages wouldn’t have to sit there watching and waiting for what could be hours. Calen had felt himself go a little pale at the mention of hours, but Serek had dryly assured him that his mark would not take quite that long. Later, the official marking ceremony would formally acknowledge Calen’s progress along the mage’s path.
The Princess of Trelian Page 1
