If so, what good was some Wildfire wench who didn’t know their ways? He didn’t need her and he didn’t want her.
It took Corban nearly half an hour to climb all the way to the top, and even though he was dragonborn, the most powerful magic in Xandakar coursing through his veins, he was nearly out of breath. The morning’s hunt had been invigorating, but it had also worn him out.
The chamber at the top of the tower was dark, the way Wygard liked it. The circular floor was bare of furniture, bookshelves lining the walls. Corban peered up into the dark rafters, searching for a sign of his advisor.
“Wygard,” he said loudly. “Are you there?” He knew the owl was. Where else would he be? The owl-mage was always either roosting in the dark shadows above, reading, or hunting rats here in his chamber. Villagers came to the gates of the keep every week with a haul of fresh rats. Corban’s guards paid in silver, then let the rats loose for Wygard to hunt. The keep was too cold for the vermin to want to naturally make it home, so Corban had to pay the lowborn to catch and bring them here.
He heard the sound of wings, not the heavy, leathery beat of a dragon, but the light flutter of feathers. The outline of a bird appeared in the shadows above, then descended. The old white owl flew down to the center of the floor. It landed, then looked up at him with those alarming yellow eyes.
“I have something for you to look at,” Corban said.
The owl ruffled its wings, bristled its feathers, and blinked. Then it closed its eyes, bowed its head, and began to grow. The white feathers on its head became slender strands of long white hair. The feathers across its body merged together into a heavy white robe. Within a few seconds, a man stood where an owl once sat.
He was shorter than Corban, an old man with wide, curious eyes, white hair, and a slightly hooked nose.
“You look well, my King,” Wygard said.
Corban ignored the pleasantries. That was another thing he hated about ruling the clan. Ceremony and ritual. So many speeches and formalities. He preferred to just get on with things.
He reached into his vest and took out the vial, holding it out to Wygard, who cupped both palms to receive it. The owl-mage squinted down at the sample of black snow.
“Where did you get this?” he asked.
“They left a fresh set of tracks this time,” Corban said. “Near the rift.”
Wygard pinched the vial between two fingers and shook it in front of his eyes. There was already less of the black snow than Corban had collected. Perhaps half of the sample remained.
“Interesting,” Wygard said, tapping the base of the vial. The old mage had been the most receptive to the idea that Corban’s father wasn’t dead, that something else had happened to him. He didn’t encourage Corban’s theories. But unlike Astra, he didn’t try to dissuade him either.
“Do you know what it is?” Corban asked.
“What?” Wygard said, looking up from the vial. “Yes. I mean, not exactly. I’ve seen something like this before, long ago. I need to analyze it, look up a few things. Leave it with me, and I will try to find you some answers.”
“Tomorrow, then?”
Wygard had turned his attention back to the snow. “Oh, yes,” he said. “It may be all gone by then, but I should be able to tell you something.”
“Very well,” Corban said. “Meet me in the Great Hall tomorrow morning.” The thought of climbing those stairs again made his legs ache. He turned to leave.
“Wait a moment,” Wygard said. “Do you not wish to learn about your new bride?”
Corban looked over his shoulder. “Not especially.” He didn’t care who she was, what she was like, or what she wanted. Right now she was merely a nuisance, a political necessity. Magda the Wise had coughed up a puddle of rat bones and decided his fate. He was bound by tradition and prophecy. But he didn’t have to like it, and he certainly didn’t want to dwell on it.
“I met her once,” Wygard said, ignoring the rebuff of his King. “Before The War of the Flaming Night, before they sent her to another world for hiding. She was a beautiful little girl, and they said even as a whelp she was one of the most powerful in the clan. They said her breath could melt a mountain.”
“She sounds lovely,” Corban said.
“Very droll, my King,” Wygard said. “But you will be bound together for the rest of your lives. You would do well to learn about her. And when she arrives, you would do well to welcome her into our home.”
As far as Corban was concerned, if he could throw her in the frosty cells below the keep, he would. He didn’t care to welcome her, befriend her, or anything else. But he was mildly curious about when she was supposed to get here, if only to know when the nuisance was to begin.
“And when is she supposed to arrive?” Corban asked.
A goofy smile crossed Wygard’s face. He seemed delighted that his King had decided to show the slightest bit of interest. “Soon, from what I understand. Long ago, Magda herself aided in the forging of a talisman, a relic that allows travel between worlds. Upon divining the prophecy of your union, she whispered through the talisman, calling to Siccora, beckoning her to come. So it was said at the last gathering.”
“When all the owls sit around in a giant tree and hoot to one another?”
Wygard blinked his huge eyes. “Yes.”
“Soon?” Corban asked. “That’s very helpful, Wygard. Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome, my King,” the owl-mage said, ignoring the sarcasm.
“Just get to work on that,” Corban said, nodding at the vial. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
Wygard bowed low, then scurried off to a workbench embedded between two bookcases that Corban had never seemed to notice before. As he turned to go, he heard the mage transform, fluttering high up to one of the bookshelves.
At the top of the steps, he looked back to see the owl pulling a dusty book from its resting place with both claws.
He headed back down the stairs.
5: Miranda
She worked the next six hours with the necklace weighing down the front of her apron. She didn’t show it to anyone. She thought about telling Rhonda about it when she came on at six, but then decided against it. If it were real, she didn’t want anyone to know about it.
She had used her own money to cover the rich woman’s check, a measly investment if the necklace turned out to be worth anything at all. There’s no way it was worth anything, though. If it were, why would the woman leave it?
Miranda spent the entire shift double-checking that it was there, dreaming up possible scenarios about why the woman might have left it, and fantasizing about how her life would change if it were real.
Did you ever wonder if your life wasn’t meant for something else? The woman had asked her that. Maybe the necklace was a gift. Wasn’t there some old show about a guy who ran around and gave people a million dollars to try to change their lives? Or maybe the woman was just crazy. At the very least she was weird as hell.
Miranda still didn’t know what was up with the charred steak. Had the woman pulled one of those mini-blowtorches like chefs use out of her purse and cooked the thing herself?
“You all right?” Rhonda asked her half an hour after she got there.
“Yeah,” Miranda said. “I’m fine. Why?”
“I don’t know. You got some weird look in your eye.”
Miranda shook her head and shrugged while holding a short stack in one hand and a burger with onion rings in the other. She shook her head.
Rhonda squinted at her. “If I had to guess, I’d say you almost looked happy. Something going on?"
“Nope,” Miranda said, turning to deliver the food. She looked back over her shoulder. “Oh, I did get laid last night.”
“That’s not exactly news,” Rhonda said, clipping an order to the wheel. “If that is why you're happy, he must have been one hell of a lay.”
Miranda delivered the plates to an elderly biker couple in a booth. The man was wearing a cam
ouflage bandana on his head and had a long, curly moustache. He smiled, showing a gold tooth, and winked at her. “Thank you, darling,” he said. He flinched and winced a second later. The woman sitting across from him had a thick mane of bleached hair and wore a turquoise tank top. She must have kicked him under the table.
“Ya’ll enjoy,” Miranda said, heading back to Rhonda.
“Benny told me about the rich psycho that came in earlier,” Rhonda said. “Sounds like a trip.”
“Yeah, it was pretty strange,” Miranda said, almost adding: You have no idea. She pressed her arm across the top of her apron to keep the lip closed. She felt a little bad withholding the existence of the necklace to Rhonda, who was probably her best friend. Miranda just didn’t know that many people, so Rhonda pretty much won the distinction by default.
“You want to tell me about this epic lay?” Rhonda asked, smiling wide. She was no stranger to male company herself. Though as Miranda’s mom might say, she didn’t shit where she ate. Rhonda had little time for Benny’s clientele, even though she got hit on as much or more than Miranda. She was a beautiful girl, with high cheekbones, straightened black hair cut short around her ears, and one of the nicer asses Miranda had ever seen. She had a nice smile, too.
“Not much to tell,” Miranda said. Actually, there was absolutely zero to tell. The guy had been okay, but he certainly wasn’t the reason for the strange look Rhonda had spotted in her eye.
“Not gonna kiss and tell,” Rhonda said. “I’m disappointed, but I can respect that.”
Benny hit the bell and yelled: “Order up!”
“You seeing Mister Not-Much-To-Tell again tonight?” Rhonda asked.
Miranda almost laughed. She hadn’t even gotten the guy’s name. He was long gone by now, and even if he weren’t, she really had no interest in him. She wished she’d pointed Rhonda in a different direction.
“Nah,” she said. “I’m just gonna pick up a bottle of wine on the way home and chill.”
“Uh huh,” Rhonda said, her smile saying she wasn’t sure she believed a thing Miranda was saying. Though for the first time in the conversation, Miranda was actually being truthful. She planned to get some wine after work, head back to her trailer, and get a little drunk. Then tomorrow she'd figure out what to do about the necklace.
Benny angrily smacked the top of the bell twice more and glared at his waitresses.
“Yeah, yeah,” Rhonda said. “I’m coming.”
Miranda finished her shift about an hour and a half later. She usually took off her apron and tossed it in the laundry bin in the back of the restaurant, but today she carefully rolled it up along with its contents and stuffed it into her purse.
On the way home, she stopped at the Speedy Mart just off the highway near her home. Just like she’d told Rhonda, she picked up a bottle of chilled white zinfandel.
When she got back home, the first thing she did was pour herself a Mason jar full of wine, take a long gulp, and roll the apron out on the table. She slid the necklace out and nearly gasped. The thing was heavy. It damn sure felt real. It was also warmer than it had a right to be, as if it had been sitting under the heat lamps at Benny's. That was weird. The beauty and elegance of the jewelry looked wildly incongruent against the backdrop of her shitty little trailer.
She thought about biting the chain. Wasn’t that how you tested to see if something was gold? Then she laughed, thinking she’d probably just end up with a broken tooth. And Benny’s damn sure didn’t provide dental insurance. No, she’d have to find someone who knew something about jewelry. There was probably someone in Oklahoma City that knew whether it was real or not, and what its value might be. Or maybe she’d just make the drive to Dallas. It was only a few hours away. Maybe she’d look up some jewelry dealers on the internet later and try to figure something out.
In the meantime, she polished off the jarful of wine and poured herself another. She went to the bathroom to pee, then looked at herself in the tacky full-length mirror she’d put up near the stand-up shower. She giggled, pulling off her uniform over her head, knocking her elbows against the bathroom wall.
She looked at herself, wearing only her pink bra and panties. Her looks were the one thing left she still figured she had going for her. Her long, dark hair fell around her bare shoulders. She looked into her own eyes, so dark they were nearly black.
Miranda reached around and unclasped the hook, shrugging out of her C-cup bra. She let it fall to the floor, looking at her large brown nipples. She sucked in her stomach and pushed up her breasts from underneath.
“Fuck it,” she said, hooking her thumbs in the sides of her panties and sliding them down as well. The hair down there probably needs a bit of a trim, she thought, looking at the tangled patch of dark hair. All-in-all she liked what she saw, but like her mother used to tell her, looks only got you so far.
If her life was meant for something else, she still didn’t know what the hell it was.
One thing she did know was that she wanted to see how she looked with that giant red stone hanging around her neck, fake or not.
Miranda went back to the tiny table and picked up the necklace from where it lay on the apron. She held it up and it almost seemed to drink in the light, a swirl of smoke moving deep within the gemstone. Was that her imagination? Was she already drunk?
She took the necklace back into the bathroom, and as she stood before the mirror, she unfastened the clasp and put it around her neck. The huge stone lay at the base of her throat, unnaturally warm against her skin.
She didn’t realize how small the chain was. It was almost more of a choker than a necklace, fitting snugly around her neck as she fastened the clasp. As it clicked into place, she felt something, almost like the piece of jewelry was holding on to her. But that was nuts, right?
Miranda looked at herself in the mirror, the bulbous red gem now fixed in the hollow of her throat. It shimmered, then began to glow a deep, dark red.
She watched in fascination and growing panic as the stone brightened. What the fuck is going on right now? she thought. Her first impulse was that the woman that afternoon had left her this thing as a kind of trap. All she wanted to do was get it off, and fast.
She reached up and fumbled for the clasp as the smoky red light filled the entire bathroom. She stumbled backwards out into the main room and the crimson light suffused everything.
Miranda caught her balance by grabbing the wall, but as she touched it she felt the surface begin to melt, as if it were turning to jelly beneath her fingers.
“What’s happening?” she yelled into the empty trailer filled with red light. The walls all around continued to melt. The faucet, the table, everything looked like it was now made of wax, sliding away into nothingness.
She crouched on the floor, her fingers still clawing at the back of her neck, trying to get the damned thing off. But it was too late.
The trailer was gone. Everything was gone. She was floating in a black void. She could see the tiny white pinpricks of stars all around her, and she thought she was going to throw up. She took her hands from her neck and curled them up around her knees, squeezing her eyes shut.
Her impression was that of moving, not as if she were being propelled, but as if some great force were pulling her across some vast distance at an unspeakable speed. But there was no feeling of air on her face. It was like some kind of surreal carnival ride. She almost hoped she would pass out. She also thought there was a good chance she was going to die.
She’d meant to talk to Rhonda tonight, to ask her about school. But then there was all the craziness with this goddamn necklace and she’d forgotten all about it.
“Please,” she whispered, unable to hear her own words. “Don’t let this be it.” More than ever she wanted to do something with her life, and she hoped this wasn’t the end of it.
Suddenly, mercifully, she slowed to a stop.
With her eyes still clenched shut, the first thing she felt was the cold. Goosebumps broke out a
cross her arms and thighs. She was crouching in a ball, her feet now on solid ground. With her eyes still closed, she tentatively reached out and felt cold stone.
She opened her eyes.
She was in some kind of massive hall. The walls looked like they were made of giant sheets of pale blue ice. Two men stood nearby. They had been talking, and now they turned to look at her.
The taller one was young, about her age. He was blond, with icy blue eyes and hair so blond it was almost white. He was wearing some weird kind of scaly wetsuit that clung to his body, accentuating his powerful, muscular body. He looked like some kind of superhero, but he was staring at her with a mixture of curiosity and confusion.
The other man looked less surprised than amused. He was old, a little hunched over and wearing a long white robe. His thick white hair was parted in the middle, and his huge, yellowish eyes regarded her with a look that seemed as if he’d been expecting her.
Just where the fuck was she? And who were these people? One looked like a god, the other like a wizard.
She’d never been so disoriented and self-conscious in her life, though the buzz from the cheap wine she’d been drinking was completely gone. She stood up, keeping one arm across her chest, her other hand covering the patch between her legs.
The old man smiled and took a step toward her. “Siccora Wildfire,” he said. “You are finally here.”
Siccora Wildfire? What the hell kind of name was that?
“We actually met once,” the old man went on. “At a feast in the Emerald Isles. You were just a little girl.” He looked her up and down, then smiled again. “You most certainly are not a little girl anymore.”
Oh shit, she thought. Just who in the hell did they think she was? And then it hit her. The woman in the restaurant. She and the woman both had dark hair and dark eyes. They were about the same age. Had the woman specifically chosen her to take her place, to be zipped through some kind of wormhole and plopped down here in some kind of Scandinavian fantasy world?
Dragon Blue: A Lie That's True (The Dragonlords of Xandakar, Book1) Page 3
