Cerulean Magic
A Dragon Mage Novel
by Aimee Easterling
Copyright © 2017 by Aimee Easterling.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Read more about my books at www.aimeeeasterling.com.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Epilogue
Chapter 1
“A moment of your time, Miss Fairweather.”
The familiar male voice chilled Sabrina’s blood, but she continued walking through the shadows of what had once been New York City without flinching. After all, her brother was ambling across the pavement alongside her...and Zach’s tender ears deserved protection.
Sabrina only realized she was humming a quiet defensive melody when air currents began swirling through her numerous ebony braids, clacking the weighted ends together like chattering teeth. In response, Zach glanced sideways in question before craning his head backwards to assess the proximity of the following footsteps.
Then Sabrina lost her breath—and the breeze—all at once as a fast-growing vine took advantage of her brother’s lapse of attention. Wrapping around the teenager’s knee, the ferocious plant jerked Zach down into the bitter ash left behind by burners in preparation for the week’s festivities.
“Watch where you’re walking,” Sabrina said evenly, her stride not even hitching as her sword slashed through succulent vegetation and freed her brother’s leg.
If they’d been traveling through the Green proper, half a dozen additional vines would have joined in the battle. But the combination of recent fire plus late winter chill had beaten back humanity’s enemy this time around. As a result, Zach was able to simply shake off the snake-like assailant and pick up his pace in order to converge upon the sister who had pulled an arm’s length ahead.
In the end, both siblings rounded the corner onto the festival’s main drag together despite the stumble. Unfortunately, their follower hadn’t been shaken off as easily as the near-dormant Green. Thumping boot steps still trailed behind, reminding Sabrina that she needed to find a way to get her absent-minded brother out of the picture before Gleason caught up.
She’d intended to hurry her sibling along until they reached a shop tempting enough to draw him inside, in fact, but Zach slowed as soon as they stepped out onto Central Avenue proper. The sights and sounds of the annual trader’s festival widened the teenager’s eyes, and soon he was spinning in an awestruck circle.
Sabrina couldn’t really blame her kid brother for being amazed either. Brightly powered street lamps were a rarity on the ground where the Green usually sought out every flow of electricity and retaliated by ripping wires to smithereens. And while the scene lacked the bustle of New York City in the Before, there were more humans gathered together in one place than Zach had likely ever seen before in his life.
Temporary booths lined the sidewalks and buskers called from every street corner. Sabrina had attended trader’s festivals many times before, but even she found the colors, sights, and sounds overwhelming.
She only allowed thirty seconds for wide-eyed wonder, though, before grabbing the back of Zach’s shirt and pulling him out of his awestruck daze. Together, they continued walking, ignoring head nods from passing strangers and calls of greeting from across the crowd. After all, Gleason had nearly caught up and Sabrina still hadn’t found a destination sufficiently enticing to draw her brother’s attention away from whatever unpleasantness her pursuer planned to unveil.
Ah, here we go.
The abandoned building they paused in front of probably hadn’t looked like much the day before. Its plate-glass window was still grimy in the upper quadrant where the temporary proprietor hadn’t bothered to scrub away thirty years of accumulated dirt. And steps leading to the front door were split and twisted where tree roots had dug underneath and pushed concrete awry.
But the bottles of every shape, size, and color lined up inside were all her brother noticed. His mouth gaped open ever so slightly and greed filled his youthful face. To a budding scientist like Zach, an apothecary’s shop trumped any more ordinary establishment selling candy, games, or even pets.
Unfortunately, the boy didn’t speak. Just bit his lip before turning questioning eyes in his older sister’s direction.
“Here,” Sabrina answered the unspoken query, dropping coins from the Before into Zach’s waiting hand. The money wasn’t worth much, but it should be sufficient to buy a little time given her brother’s obsession.
He paused, though, rather than heading directly into the coveted shop. Glancing first at the rapidly approaching figure whose boot steps had slowed only slightly now that his prey had come to a halt, Zach then turned to look once again through the apothecary’s slightly grubby window pane.
Bad blood, but a kind heart, Sabrina thought wryly. The teenager was clearly torn between protecting his big sister and hunting down whatever unpronounceable ingredients he needed to further his experiments. A far cry from the narcissistic Frank Fairweather who had given both siblings their blue eyes and tall builds...along with a shady past that Sabrina hoped her little brother would never learn about.
And was Frank also responsible for that other remnant of the youth’s heritage—an adamant refusal to speak—that hovered like a dark shadow behind Zach’s sky blue eyes? Sabrina didn’t know the provenance of the trauma, and usually she would have tried to tempt the teenager into pushing past the blockage and voicing his question aloud.
She didn’t want her brother to be privy to whatever bile Gleason would soon spew in her direction though. So she let him off the hook. “You don’t have to worry about me, Zach. I’m not a damsel in distress.”
They stood staring into each others’ eyes for one long second—noses at precisely the same elevation and irises precisely the same shade of blue. Then, shrugging, Zach descended back into boyhood. Taking the broken stairs two at a time, he flinched as the bell above the door startled habitual fear back into wary eyes. Then, shaking off the momentary terror as quickly as it had come, he settled down to browse seemingly endless rows of powders and pellets and potions.
It was hell to stand in as parent for a kid whose past left him scarred and broken in ways Sabrina didn’t know how to understand, let alone fix. Hell...but also heaven.
Sighing, she shook off concern for her new-found brother and returned her attention to a man who was not accustomed to being made to wait.
***
“Miss Fairweather.” Gleason’s vo
ice had descended from chilly to arctic, annoyance dripping off every syllable. And when Sabrina turned to face him, she could see why—the merchant was out of breath from attempting to catch up with a woman who possessed legs considerably longer than his own. Nothing like a reminder of his lack of height to put the holder of her debt in a poor humor.
Despite having already gotten off to a bad start, though, Sabrina couldn’t resist adding to the slight by correcting his wording. “Captain Fairweather.”
Only when a wintry zephyr stroked icy tendrils against her fingertips did Sabrina realize that a nearly inaudible hum was rising along the back of her throat and calling her breezes back to heel. Well, what the heck. It’s not as if he doesn’t already know what I am, she thought, changing the pitch of her tune in order to waft the current away to settle clammily against her opponent’s exposed skin.
Gleason shivered, but an abrupt chill to the air wasn’t enough to topple him from his high horse. Instead, his rebuttal came out as a sneer. “Captain of a ship to which I rightfully own the title.”
“What title?” Sabrina countered. Because Gleason was right and Gleason was wrong. Yes, her inherited airship came with a long-term debt that she’d need another decade to pay off. But this wasn’t the Before. There was no piece of paper to convey ownership and no court to award damages should she fail to settle in a timely manner.
If Sabrina wanted, she could take her dirigible and her independence and start over somewhere else entirely. Maybe fly to the western reaches and see what opportunities existed in that no man’s land or develop new routes in the opposite direction by supplying raft colonies out at sea.
And yet, despite possessing numerous options to evade Gleason’s unpleasant presence, Sabrina hadn’t missed a single payment. So why was this trumped-up banker dogging her heels and impinging upon her enjoyment of a festival that came around only once a year?
“I can see those clever little wheels turning in your head,” Gleason said after a moment. “But you’d best not forget your place. I’m respected along the airways. When I said you’d deliver, everyone knew you’d deliver. I vouched for you once...but it wouldn’t take much for me to change my tune.”
And that part’s true. As much as she might kick herself for the mistake, seven years ago Sabrina had indeed played into this blackmailer’s grubby little hands. After being orphaned at the age of twenty, she’d signed papers she shouldn’t have signed, had borrowed money she shouldn’t have borrowed, and had given Gleason far too much control over her in the process.
But Sabrina wasn’t desperate any longer. She had friends in high places, gigs galore due to befriending an earth witch then being accepted as a courier by that witch’s dragon-shifter mate. No matter what Gleason wanted her to believe now, the airship captain wasn’t dependent upon the merchant’s good graces any longer.
So Sabrina took a step closer and peered down her straight nose at her opponent’s battered countenance. Like a gamecock, Gleason had yet to see a fight that didn’t look like a good time. And even though he often won those dockside contests, he still boasted a jointed nose and two cauliflower ears from one too many fists to the head.
Perhaps that frequent pummeling would also explain away his surly nature?
“Get to the point,” she growled once the merchant’s eyes had slid to the side in a subtle but real indication that he was willing to back down.
And even though Gleason clearly didn’t want to admit he’d been cowed, he obeyed. “I have a job for you,” he said at last.
Great. It wouldn’t just be a job, of course. If it had been an ordinary gig, Gleason would have sent her a message the usual way—mechanical pigeon—then taken his exorbitant cut of the proceeds. No, the holder of her debt had run into trouble and he planned to use Sabrina’s bond to extricate himself from the quagmire.
“Not interested,” she said, knowing even as she spoke that Gleason wouldn’t let her off the hook so easily.
Sure enough, the vertically challenged merchant took one step closer, and this time he gazed not at her but at Zach’s gawky form browsing through shelves of bottles and canisters within the glass-fronted shop. Sabrina’s breath caught, and it took an effort not to shift her weight and shield her sibling from view with her own tall frame.
“I heard through the grapevine that you’d been saddled with a half-brother this winter,” Gleason said, his smile ingratiating but his words loaded with deeper meaning. “He looks old enough to man up and take on Intrepid’s debt if you’re no longer interested....”
Heat rushed to Sabrina’s cheeks, and despite herself she felt magic fluttering around her braids once again. It would be so easy to call up a gale, to push her own personal pain in the butt straight down the street and out into the wakening Green beyond the borders of the burn zone. If she was lucky, the plants might eat Gleason alive and put her out of her misery.
“...Or perhaps he’d like to know what his old man really got up to during those long tours?” the blackmailer continued slyly. “Perhaps everyone would like to know.”
And there it was, the real reason Sabrina continued to kowtow to this puny gamecock. She could start over somewhere else...but people in the trade had long memories. Sabrina’s crew didn’t deserve relegation to the periphery of what passed for civilization, and Zach didn’t deserve yet another source of shadows to darken his sky blue eyes.
No, Sabrina couldn’t afford to reject Gleason’s offered gig outright. Not when she had so many secrets she was bound and determined to keep...not when her banker held those same secrets tightly grasped in his pugilistic fists.
Instead, she gave in to her maternal instincts and angled her body so the blackmailer was forced to turn away from Zach’s innocent form in order to look her directly in the face. “Okay,” she said through gritted teeth. “I’ll do it. What’s the job?”
The cold certainty in Gleason’s eyes was worse than any smile. He’d known she’d cave and had planned the upcoming details to act as yet another slap in the face.
“Some colleagues of mine misplaced a female dragon,” her blackmailer answered after letting Sabrina stew for several long seconds. “They tracked her to the home of some acquaintances of yours, a very difficult place to breach if you’re not already welcome there....”
Knowing where her opponent was going before he even completed his thought, Sabrina began to swear with all the fluency of a lifelong sailor. Was she really being asked to betray her one true friend as the price for maintaining a long-hidden secret?
“Your job is simple,” Gleason continued, ignoring both vociferous complaints and angry breezes. “Just collect the dragon and bring her back to her family. Then your debt will be considered paid in full.”
Chapter 2
Two hours earlier...
Nicholas had sworn off secrets. Unfortunately, secrets didn’t feel the same way about him. Instead, they seemed bound and determined to waft their way out of his friends’ lips and into his ears whether he kept his nose stuck in a tablet or not. And, inevitably, those same secrets ended up with the people he cared about hurting or dead.
Well, not this time. The dragon shifter reached out and attempted to pull the heavy tray away from Charlotte’s burdened hands. “Here, let me take that.”
“Excuse me?” She turned on him with flashing eyes and furrowed brow. “In case you hadn’t noticed, carrying food around is my job. I’m a serving wench, remember?”
“Serving wench? What is this, the Dark Ages?” Nicholas closed his eyes and counted to two. It was meant to be ten, but Charlotte’s heavier-than-usual footsteps were receding rapidly, so he expedited the sub-process before trotting down the hallway in her wake.
His friend didn’t slow down, though. Instead, Nicholas ended up walking backwards in front of her hurried form in an effort to recapture the young woman’s attention. “Look, this isn’t appropriate work given your sensitive condition. You need to tell the baby’s father and let him provide the assistance you deser
ve. He...”
“Shush!” Now Charlotte did stop and glance in both directions down the empty corridor. “That was a secret. You said you wouldn’t tell anyone....”
“And I didn’t,” Nicholas countered.
Not that he had any choice in the matter. Like every dragon, Nicholas possessed a knack...but his came with a troublesome side effect. Step into his presence and man, woman, and child alike vomited up secrets at the drop of a hat. That aspect of his trait was straightforward enough. The tricky part emerged later, when Nicholas became physically incapable of discussing those secrets with anyone other than their originator.
It was maddening...especially when the secret keeper persisted in allowing pride to outweigh good sense. On at least one memorable occasion, a secret kept had resulted in a life lost. If Nicholas had any say about it, Charlotte wouldn’t fall into the same enticing trap.
“Well, that’s a relief,” his current companion started. But Nicholas cut her off before she could brush past him and return to work.
“I didn’t tell anyone, but you need to. You said you’re already beginning to show, which means you’re probably tired, nauseous, and generally not feeling your best....”
“What are you, a midwife?”
“I prefer the term Ob/Gyn,” Nicholas countered dryly. What he actually was was a data nerd who possessed a cached version of the internet from the Before. A quick image search had turned up a handy pregnancy chart...but then he’d gotten lost down a rabbit hole of terrifying forum posts.
Nicholas shivered. No, none of those nightmares were going to happen to Charlotte on his watch. She’d just have to stop saddling herself with unnecessary burdens and toe the line of good sense....
Then the elevator dinged and two new sets of footsteps turned into the corridor behind him. In response, Charlotte leapt five feet backwards so quickly she nearly spilled the contents of her far-too-heavy tray. Great. Rather than appearing to be a pair interrupted in the midst of a heated debate, they instead looked like lovers startled out of an intimate moment.
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