The duke nodded in approval.
“With my luggage is a large mirror of obsidian,” Qeturah continued. “Have it brought up—”
“Why?” the duke asked.
“I need it to raise the illusion. Obviously.”
Duke Ruben’s lips tightened at her condescending tone, but he refrained from tearing a strip off her. “Need you use that particular mirror? There’s a block of obsidian on the roof. My grandfather had it put there so the castle would have a source of arrowheads during a siege.”
Qeturah’s eyebrows lifted. “That will do very well.”
The duke offered her his arm, and they strolled toward the stairs as if oblivious to the commotion above. Leah followed on their heels.
The staircase opened onto a warm but windy dusk. Clouds shrouded the moon, and torches burned at intervals along the wall.
The duke gestured over his captain of the guard. “Captain Brahim is at your disposal. Pray excuse me while I speak with my Volcano Lord.” He strode briskly away but did not run. Nor did he ask for Leah’s help. He must be hoping this attack wouldn’t last as long and he could calm Isaiah without assistance. He wouldn’t want to show weakness in front of Qeturah.
Leah could hear the dragon wheeling far overhead, out of reach of the men-at-arms’ crossbows. She shuddered, remembering the speed of its dive.
Isaiah roared and shot lava two hundred feet into the air. It splashed down his sides in a spectacular display that didn’t even come close to the dragon. Worry pinched Leah. What if he grew frustrated and lashed out with a bigger eruption?
“This way,” Captain Brahim said, after Qeturah told him what she required. Four guards escorted them along the east wall to a five-by-five-foot block of obsidian.
Qeturah ran her fingers over the black stone, frowning. “It’s dirty. We need to be able to capture the dragon’s reflection in it.”
Captain Brahim directed one of his men to fetch water from the cistern that collected rainwater. Before he returned, the dragon’s eerie, low roar assaulted their ears.
“Get down!” Captain Brahim yelled.
Leah dropped flat, and the shadow of the dragon engulfed her. She covered her head with her hands, expecting to be crisped, but the dragon sped by in a flash of wings. Was he looking for something? Someone?
“Fire!” Captain Brahim yelled at his archers. The shuunk of crossbow bolts filled the air. The dragon wiggled its wings in midair, and most of the bolts passed by. The others bounced off.
Qeturah frowned, irritated. “Captain, you and your men must cease provoking the dragon.”
“I’m not trying to provoke it. I’m trying to kill it,” Captain Brahim growled.
“The dragon is armored. All you’re doing is annoying it. I need its full attention if I’m to drive it away.”
“I take my orders from the duke, not you, Lady Qeturah,” Captain Brahim said, stone-faced.
“Then let’s speak to the duke and settle this.” Qeturah stalked off. The captain followed.
Uncertain whether or not she should follow, Leah hesitated too long and was left behind. When the man-at-arms returned with a pail of water and stood about uncertainly, looking for his captain, she took it from him. She might not know what to say at fancy dinners, but she knew how to clean. Leah poured a little water over the obsidian slab, washing away the ashy grime.
Halfway through the process, she set the pail down and looked around. Qeturah was still speaking to the duke. Good. Leah had time then to try to raise an illusion of her own, to prove her worth to the duke and not be sent away.
She’d seen mirror magic done at a summer fair once, a small vaporish thing. The man had waved his hand over the mirror and said some nonsense words.
She leaned over the blackly gleaming obsidian and repeated what words she remembered. She held her breath, but nothing happened. Anger and despair twisted inside her. What had she expected? Qeturah was a sorceress, and Leah was just a scullery maid.
She grabbed the pail again, but instead of resuming washing, she stared down at her reflection in the water, trying to see a duke’s daughter. She saw only her usual pointy-chinned face. Change, she willed.
Her reflection wavered then sharpened into the image of a girl who was both herself and not herself. They shared the same features, the same eyes, but her otherself’s hair was blacker, shorter, and straighter, with one lock of—pink? She also seemed to be wearing only strangely colorful underclothes.
This girl didn’t look like a duke’s daughter, either, but she was oddly fascinating. Leah leaned forward, her gaze connecting with her reflection’s—
And then, abruptly, she found herself falling headfirst into a pit of water. The impact stung. Something tore free from around her arm, and water drenched her from head to foot, covering her face. She closed her eyes and held her breath from instinct.
Shock gave way to panic. Where was she? Leah floundered, unable to find her footing. There was no place to stand, only water everywhere.
It felt wrong. Water was limited, something to be collected in cisterns and hauled in buckets. Before beginning her pose as Jehannah, Leah had never had a bath, merely washing off with a damp cloth every night.
And now suddenly water surrounded her, touching every part of her skin, stinging her eyes, soaking her clothes and hair.
The need to breathe raged inside her like a beast. She moved her arms, trying to climb out of the water.
This couldn’t be real. She must be dreaming. Believing that she was still standing on the roof, Leah inhaled.
She choked. Gasped. Clawed at the water as her body spasmed. Help me! She didn’t want to die—
Abruptly, Leah found herself slumped over the stone block, gasping. She could breathe again. Lovely ash-tinged air filled her lungs.
What had just happened? Had the illusion magic gone wrong somehow?
Think about it later. Looking up, Leah saw that Qeturah and Captain Brahim were almost upon her—Qeturah smiling, victorious. Hastily, Leah sloshed the rest of the water onto the dusty stone, rinsing it off. She spit on the last fleck and used her sleeve to wipe it clean.
Qeturah regarded both the gleaming obsidian and Leah with some surprise but said only, “Very good. Captain, I need torchbearers.”
He shook his head in disgust but ordered his men to hold torches at the corners of the obsidian block.
The blazing lights made Leah feel like a target, but she stayed close. Whatever had just happened hadn’t been anything like an illusion. She needed to find out how Qeturah’s magic worked.
“Now we only need attract the dragon,” Qeturah said.
Attract it? “Don’t we want to drive it away?” Leah blurted.
Captain Brahim looked like he agreed with her.
Qeturah smiled condescendingly. “Don’t be afraid, child. I know what I’m doing. I’m going to use an illusion of a larger dragon to chase this one away. But in order to raise the illusion, I must first capture the dragon’s image in the mirror.”
Ah. So that’s where she’d gone wrong, by using her own image. Relief trickled through Leah.
Qeturah turned to the men-at-arms. “The torchlight will attract the dragon. You must hold steady when it flies over.”
The men shifted uneasily.
Leah strained to see the dragon against the dark sky. Up close, the veins in its black wings burned orange, but at a distance, it became all but invisible. She scanned north and south before a pulse of heat made her look directly up, just in time to see the dragon arrow down toward them. “It’s coming!”
“Steady!” Qeturah yelled.
The dragon filled Leah’s vision: the wedge-shaped head, the smoking nostrils, and huge black wings. Its crystal gaze locked on to Leah’s, and it gave a cry of triumph.
Mesmerized, she waited while it dived closer, claws outstretched, ready to pluck her off the roof—
With a yelp, one of the men dropped his torch and ran into the sheltering darkness.
Leah
wrenched her eyes away from the dragon and scooped up the torch, taking the man’s place. The dragon screamed in fury and wheeled by, making the flame sputter.
Vapor wafted up off the surface of the obsidian mirror. Tendrils of steam coalesced into the shape of a huge dragon, identical to the one that had just attacked, except silver in color.
Qeturah gestured, and the illusory dragon flapped its wings and soared into the air, away from the mirror.
Leah watched openmouthed as the black dragon called out—in question? In joy?—and circled the other dragon. They both flew clockwise, the silver dragon mirroring the black one’s motions so that it never caught up.
Abruptly, the black dragon streaked straight toward the silver dragon. The silver dragon did the same.
Leah cringed, waiting for the black to fly right through the silver illusion, but at the last moment the black dragon swerved left. The silver dragon mirrored its motion to the right, as if performing a dance.
The black dragon breathed fire while backwinging—but the fire didn’t seem to be aimed at the silver dragon. Instead it traced an orange wave pattern in the sky, echoed once again by the illusion dragon.
“Do they always do this?” Leah asked, awed.
“No.” Qeturah sounded unsettled. “And it shouldn’t be silver, either. No matter.” She raised her hands over her head. “Time for the chase.”
The silver dragon wheeled and flew west, the black dragon in close pursuit. Soon, the black dragon became impossible to see, but Leah watched the silver dragon dwindle to a little dot.
She didn’t notice the duke had joined them until he spoke. “Will it come back?” Grime and sweat streaked his forehead, but Isaiah’s grumbles had subsided.
“No, he’ll follow the illusion into the mountains,” Qeturah said. “He’ll hunt for his rival for at least a fortnight.”
Rival? The dragon’s behavior had reminded Leah more of a bird’s mating dance, but she kept her opinion to herself. Never contradict a noble, her mother had always advised.
“And after a fortnight, he’ll be back to trouble us again, no doubt.” The duke scowled.
Qeturah shrugged. “I never claimed to be able to kill the dragon. If it returns, you can send Jehannah a message through the hypocaust.”
“Yes,” the duke said, his dark eyes falling on Leah. “I’m sure Jehannah will prove very useful.”
Reading the threat behind his words—if she wasn’t a good spy, her mother would suffer—Leah shivered.
Chapter Three
The Pitiless Blue
Holly jolted awake underwater, already choking.
How had she—? Where—?
Her spasming lungs sucked in more liquid. Seawater burned her throat as her body jackknifed. She couldn’t breathe.
Desperately, she tipped her head back. Her mouth broke the surface, but her constricted throat only let in a trickle of air before she slipped back under. Water rushed down her windpipe.
Holly clawed her way back to the surface. She gasped in one mouthful of air before her body revolted, hacking and coughing so violently it was all she could do to keep her head above water. Her sinuses burned like acid.
Her blurred vision had just cleared when another wave rolled over her.
She swallowed water before kicking her way back to the surface then paddled frantically to stay abreast of the next swell.
Where was her father’s rented yacht? Greenish-blue walls of water filled her vision.
“Help!” she called, but the seawater had scraped her throat raw, and the ocean swallowed up the weak sound.
She let the next wave move her as it willed while she got her bearings. Her heart stuttered when she saw how far away the yacht had traveled—the length of several swimming pools, at least.
“Help!” Holly screamed the word, but no one heard.
She swam after the boat, but her trembling body didn’t want to cooperate. Every movement felt clumsy, arms slapping the water, feet jerky and uncoordinated, but she counted off twenty strokes before raising her dripping head. Panic flash fried her nerves when she saw that the thirty-foot yacht had dwindled to the size of a tiny model.
She twisted in a circle, trying to spot another ship or a nearby island—and failing. Where were the whale-watching boats when she needed one?
“It’s okay,” she said hoarsely. “Dad will come back for me. He’ll call the Coast Guard.”
Except he didn’t know she was gone.
An hour out of port, Holly had told him she had a headache and lain down on the narrow bunk in the tiny cabin belowdecks. She’d needed an excuse to get away from her dad and his latest bimbo—excuse me, fiancée.
Joseph Beecher might be a brilliant, Academy Award–winning director, but he was an idiot when it came to women. Since her parents’ split when she was five, her father had married—and divorced—three times. Lately, he seemed to lose interest during the engagement period.
So why, why, why did he insist on introducing them to Holly?
Despite Dorrie’s skimpy clothes and too-breathy voice, Holly could admit her dad’s latest fiancée wasn’t awful. But the fact that Dorrie seemed to be genuinely in love only made being around them more wince-worthy.
So Holly had hidden in the miniature cabin until she got bored. When she’d climbed back on deck, she’d circled toward the stern, avoiding the helm, where her father was teaching Dorrie how to steer.
She had a bad feeling they still thought she was in the cabin.
All too easily she could imagine Dorrie volunteering to check on Holly, and her dad saying, “No, if she wants to sulk, let her sulk.” Morbidly, she wondered how long it would take him to realize his daughter was no longer on board.
It didn’t matter. Help would come. She just had to stay alive until someone spotted the bright orange—
It hit her then that she had no life jacket. She’d removed it belowdecks and only slung it over one arm when she’d climbed back upstairs. How could she have been so stupid?
Oh God, oh God—she was going to die.
Stomach cramping with fear, Holly tried to remember the exact sequence of events. She’d still had the jacket when she’d stood at the vibrating stern rail and admired the deep blue ocean. The water directly below had roiled and frothed, but the wake created by their speed had formed two smooth-as-glass, diagonal planes of water. Holly had glimpsed her reflection in one of them.
Something about her mirror image had bothered her. She’d recognized her face, but her hair was its old boring brown instead of jet-black with a pink streak. Compelled, Holly had leaned farther out, trying to resolve the image of the stranger wearing her face. Their eyes had met, and—
What had happened next? She couldn’t remember. The yacht must have hit a wave and bumped her overboard.
Had she lost consciousness? She had no recollection of falling into the water.
Holly shoved away the troubling memory. The point was her life jacket had been hooked over her shoulder. Had it fallen in with her?
At the top of the next wave, she craned her neck around—and saw a blob of orange a hundred meters away.
Holly kicked toward it, but after ten minutes of fighting the waves, she’d made zero progress. A closer look made her want to howl. A lighter blue current in the water had caught the life jacket and was pulling it away.
She closed her eyes against rising despair. She’d done two stupid things to get into this mess, and now she would have to be very smart to get out of it.
She needed to conserve her energy. A week of August sunshine had warmed the top layer of ocean water, but it was still cooler than room temperature and would sap her strength.
No more swimming around randomly; time to commit to a direction. She’d lost sight of her dad’s yacht, but she could see land off in the distance.
She had only the faintest idea where she was: somewhere between Vancouver Island and the mainland. The land could be the coast of British Columbia or any number of small islands.
Her heart thudded hard. Whatever the blue landmass was, it was several daunting kilometers away. She’d never swum that far.
But she had no choice except to try. Once she’d regained her breath, she began a slow sidestroke, keeping her head out of the water.
She settled into a rhythm of stroke, kick, glide, rest, and prayed that her dad or Dorrie noticed her absence soon, before she drowned in the pitiless blue ocean.
…
Holly gagged on an accidental swallow of salt water. Over the past hour, the waves had grown larger, slowing her progress. The land remained maddeningly far away. Even with periodic breaks, her limbs trembled with fatigue. She craved rest so badly that the idea of just sinking down into the waves had taken on a seductive glow.
No. By now her dad had to have noticed her absence and called both the Coast Guard and her mom. The two of them would be worried sick.
Any moment now she would hear the throb of a motor, and she would be rescued. Her mom would wrap her in a blanket and offer her hot chocolate, sweet and rich…
Any moment now.
…
The cry of a gull made Holly lift her head. Her mind felt thick, and it took her a long moment to identify the noise. Just a bird.
Not someone calling her name. Not the Coast Guard or even the distant throb of a motor like she’d heard a couple of times. She remained alone in the ocean.
Dripping strands of hair hung in her eyes. Her arms and legs were so numb they seemed disconnected from her body.
She’d been in the water for hours.
The light was dimming, and she could no longer see land. When night fell her chances of rescue would be reduced to near zero. The thought ought to have brought panic, but she felt only dull surprise that she still lived.
Her world had shrunk until there existed only the water and the endless waves to climb.
…
Holly could hear a rhythmic crashing, had been hearing it, she realized, for a while. Waves breaking on the shore.
Did that mean…? Was she close to land?
She had difficulty conceiving of an end to her ordeal. It felt like she’d been swimming forever and would keep swimming until her arms stopped working and she slipped beneath the dark water.
Through Fire & Sea Page 3
