Dancer Dragon: Bodyguard Shifters #6

by Chant, Zoe

  "If you want something to eat, there are always snacks around," Heikon said. "Or we could cook something."

  "Not really. But it's nice to know it's an option." As they left the kitchens and climbed more stairs, she added, "I'm starting to feel that the thing I'm going to need most isn't your genealogy chart, it's a map. Or do you have those too?"

  "Not really as such. Too much of a security risk. I'll be happy to show you around, though. And of course ..."

  He paused by an open balcony. The mountain had many of those, she'd noticed, open to the air with folding wooden shutters that could be pulled across to shut out the winter cold. Some of them were boarded up now, some of the windows made smaller for defense, but there were still many places to leap off and take wing.

  "... if you want to fly," Heikon said quietly, "you can fly whenever you want."

  This was a place built by and for dragons. It had never really hit her before, not in quite this way. She'd lived for so long among the humans that it was a strange and wonderful feeling to think that she could just be herself here. The ceilings were high enough to shift whenever she wanted. She could step off the balcony and fly at any time if she felt like it, not having to worry about waiting for darkness or foggy weather and making sure humans didn't see her.

  "I think I'll save that for later," she said, slipping her hand into his. "Right now I'm more interested in bed."

  "Yes. Indeed." His voice went low, shivering pleasantly through her. "There'll be a room made up for you on the guest level, and you're welcome to it. But if you'd prefer something else, my bed is large, and I'd be honored if you'd share it."

  She tightened her grip on his hand. "I'd love to."

  Esme

  Esme woke, blissful and lazy with sleep, to the sun streaming across her face. She turned her head to the side—had she forgotten to close the blinds? No ... there were no blinds, only windows standing open to the sky. A breeze brushed her face. And then she remembered where she was.

  She sat up, naked, and looked to the bed beside her. It was empty.

  "Heikon?"

  She got out of bed and reached for the robe draped over a chair in convenient reach. Heikon's chambers were enormous. A dozen dragons could have shifted in here—could have, and probably had. A balcony ran the entire length of the room, with wide doors standing open to let the fresh air in.

  The robe was a silken kimono in her colors, gold and green. Esme belted it around her waist and wandered out onto the balcony. The view was stunning. Heikon's quarters were near the top of the mountain, and it seemed as if the entire world lay before her, spread out in a patchwork of greens and browns and hazy, distant blues. There were few signs of human occupation, just a few distantly visible traceries of roads, hair-fine from here, and perhaps the odd blocky square of what might be far-off farm fields or pastures. But other than that, everything she saw was wild land and the modifications that Heikon had made to it.

  Which were extensive. She'd forgotten how much of the mountain was occupied. It was really a little town, with terraced gardens and fields marching down the side of the mountain. Heikon's personal gardens were at the top of the terracing, and below those, farm fields and sheep pastures. She vaguely remembered all of this from when she was here before, but now she looked at it with new eyes, thinking about how much work it must take to live here. She could see some of Heikon's clan below her; someone was running a tractor, and several of the teenage kids were tending the sheep.

  More than anything else, Heikon's clan was like a big farm family. Her own clan enjoyed the understated luxury of their mountain chalets, and Darius, as she recalled, had gone for opulence all the way, building himself an enormous mansion with a staff of servants. But Heikon, it seemed, had gone for isolation and independence over wealth and luxury. Even though they could easily fly to nearby towns in just an hour or two, it must be a life of hard work out here, with occasional deprivation; all their supplies aside from what they made themselves must be brought in from nearby towns.

  "Esme?" Heikon called from within the room.

  "Out here!"

  A moment later, he appeared with a breakfast tray. "There you are. Feel like a morning flight?"

  "I'm more curious what you have there. Is that coffee I smell?"

  It was indeed, a fine-quality roast, and there were also breakfast rolls and omelets. Heikon set the tray down on one of several wooden tables on the balcony, and they ate. It was simple fare, but filling and good, and there was plenty of it.

  "This is mostly local," Heikon said. "Eggs from our chickens, peppers and tomatoes from the greenhouses—we keep them running all winter long for fresh salad greens. Even the nuts in the rolls are locally harvested. The flour comes in from outside, though in theory we could grow it here—we have a mill, down on the lower levels of the mountain, water-powered. We operated it sometimes to grind barley. Some things are much easier to import, like flour and sugar, tea and coffee ... but I try to keep an eye on the possibility of growing them ourselves if our supply lines got cut and we needed to."

  She wasn't sure if he was trying to impress her or simply waxing enthusiastic, but, well, it was impressive, what they'd built here. "Do you think it's likely that you'd be cut off like that?"

  "Not really, but what if we were? There are almost two hundred people who live here, most of them descended from me or from my parents' relatives, as well as their mates and occasionally their mates' relatives who came along."

  "That's a lot," Esme said, surprised. "I didn't know your clan was that big."

  "We're bigger than most clans because we're careful. We keep to ourselves, and we provide most of what we need. And we maintain our ties to other clans carefully, trying not to antagonize them."

  "Like when you sent an assassin to kill Darius's daughter-in-law?" Esme asked archly.

  "That was an exception," Heikon said with great dignity. "I didn't know she was mated to his son, and I thought she was involved with the coup against me."

  "Yes. That." Esme looked down at the view again, the peaceful serenity of the landscape. "It's hard to believe there was fighting going on here so recently. Everything seems so calm."

  "I hope never to see fighting on my clan lands again," Heikon said. He refreshed his coffee cup from the steaming pot on the tray. His face looked troubled. "Esme ... would you care to take a flight with me a little later? There's someone I would very much like you to meet."

  "From what I can tell, there are a lot of people around here to meet. I'd better have that great-niece of yours print out your family tree."

  She smiled, and Heikon returned it, but in a distant kind of way. "No, they're not local. I do want you to meet my clan, but most importantly, I'd like you to meet my mother."

  His mother. The one who'd known he wasn't dead, when even Esme didn't. "All right," she said, guarded. "Tell me something. If your mother is still alive, how are you the clanlord, rather than her?"

  "Mother wasn't interested. She lives alone, well, except for ..." Uncharacteristically, he hesitated, seeming unsure. "There's something I'd like to share with you. Something I haven't told anyone else. But I need to take you to Mother's place first."

  "Yes, of course." She looked down at herself, realizing that she was wearing a borrowed kimono, had no clean clothes, and hadn't even brushed her hair. "Uh, first I should clean up a bit. I didn't come here prepared to meet your parents, Heikon!"

  "Calmly," he soothed. "I'm sure Mother will like you."

  "That's hardly the point. How would you enjoy being whisked overseas with no preparation to meet my parents?"

  "Hmm. I see your point. I could perhaps borrow some things from Anjelica for you? I think she's about your height."

  "That would be great," she said. "And point me to the shower, if you don't mind."

  One thing the mountain had was hot water and plenty of it. Shortly she joined Heikon on the balcony, feeling a bit awkward in Anjelica's black and violet flight leathers.

 
"Doesn't this woman own any normal clothes?"

  "We both thought you'd prefer something a bit more formal than the jeans she wears for gardening," Heikon said dryly. "And she doesn't own anything with a skirt." He gave her a long, appreciative look. "Trust me, this is an extremely flattering look on you."

  Esme looked down at herself. She had twisted her hair into a thick braid, coiled on top of her head, and examining herself earlier in the bedroom mirrors, she had to admit that the effect combined with Anjelica's leather body armor was a very striking one. She looked like some kind of warrior maiden, prepared to head into battle.

  Hopefully it would have an equally impressive effect on Heikon's mother. Esme could only imagine what the woman was like. She had met very few truly old dragons; they mostly kept to themselves. Her own parents were both still alive, but neither of them was much older than Heikon.

  "Ready?" Heikon asked, and she nodded.

  He leaped from the balcony, shifting in midair. His dragon uncoiled, enormous and blue-gray, gleaming in the sun like polished metal.

  Esme followed suit, feeling the wind catch her.

  Finally! her dragon trumpeted inside her head. We hunt! We fly!

  Heikon flew in a lazy circle, and she settled into formation with him, flying just below his wingtip so he could show her where they were going. It felt so easy and natural that they might have done it a thousand times before.

  As if they were meant to fly together, she thought as they straightened out and soared together toward distant blue peaks.

  * * *

  The last time Esme had flown this far had been ... hmm, the last time she was at the Aerie, probably, on their ill-fated hunt. Hopefully today would have a better ending.

  It felt wonderful to stretch her wings like this, with little fear of anyone seeing them. The sun was warm on her back, the breeze delightfully cool. They circled above a small herd of elk, but flew on without hunting. It would slow them down and burden them needlessly. They could always do it on the way back, if they felt like it.

  The land beneath them grew even rougher and wilder. She'd thought Heikon's mountain was remote, but this was true wilderness, unbroken by anything but an scattered hunter's cabin here, a winding dirt road there.

  "This part is all national forest," Heikon told her. His dragon's voice thrummed like a symphony. "Humans come here, but rarely. And large tracts of land are privately owned by my family. It will never be developed."

  It made her miss her native Alps, and as they flew she told him about her adventures in the mountains as a young dragon, hunting ibex and chamois in wildflower-decked meadows.

  She had forgotten how delightful it was to fly with someone when you were so much in sync.

  They flew through a steep-walled canyon, so narrow they had to twist their wings sideways to avoid hitting the cliffsides, and came out in a broad valley. The change was abrupt, from absolute wilderness to a place that had clearly been cultivated for some time. Even the trees had been thinned and cultivated in pleasing symmetry. Gardens unrolled below them in great, colorful banks of flowers. Esme looked around for signs of habitation, but other than the gardens, she saw none until Heikon changed course and winged toward the top of the cliffs surrounding the valley. And then she saw it, a tidy stone house perched on the clifftop.

  Just in front of the house was an enormous patio made of native stone, placed in appealing, abstract patterns. Esme guessed this was intended as a sort of dragon landing pad; it was right on the edge of the cliff, making it easy to depart by diving off and catching an updraft. And, indeed, Heikon landed on the patio and shifted as soon as his feet touched down. Esme followed suit.

  The woman who came to greet them from the house was tiny and shockingly old. Esme wasn't sure if she'd ever seen a dragon with such visible signs of age, and it made her think of the humans she'd come to think of as "her" old people. Despite her age, Heikon's mother held herself ramrod-straight. Her hair, pulled back in a neat bun and secured with a jeweled clasp, was snow white.

  "Esme, this is Okiko, my mother," Heikon said, taking his mother's hands. "Mother, this is Esmerelda of the Lavigna clan."

  "Ma'am," Esme greeted her politely, with a bow.

  "You must be special, for my son to bring you here." Okiko turned to her son. "Don't tell me—is she your mate?"

  Heikon started to answer, then hesitated—looking toward Esme, letting her choose how to explain their unusual situation.

  "No," Esme said, and she saw him deflate a little. But it was true. She wasn't going to lie about it. "But I care very much for your son," she went on, and hope ignited in Heikon's face. "I would like to become closer."

  "Hmm," was Okiko's response to this. "Have you eaten?"

  Since they weren't particularly hungry after their full breakfast, she served them tea and small, colorful cookies in the garden. It was even more peaceful and idyllic than Heikon's mountain, and she was hyper-aware of Heikon's presence, the brush of his hand as he passed the cookie plate to her.

  But there was also something else. As they sipped tea and made polite conversation, Esme kept sensing undercurrents passing between mother and son. It was not telepathy exactly, but there was some kind of conversation going on between them, conveyed in frowns and meaningful glances.

  When Okiko went into the house to refresh their tea, brushing off their offers to help her, Esme leaned close and murmured, "Okay, something's going on here. You didn't just bring me out here to have tea with your mother, did you?"

  Heikon's smile was more like a grimace. "You are perceptive."

  "More like I'm not a fool. Why are we really here, Heikon?"

  Rather than answering, he rose, and held out a courtly hand. Esme allowed him to help her up. Then he went to intercept his mother at the door. They spoke too quietly for Esme to hear, and by the time she got there, his mother had set down the tea things and picked up a pair of gardening shears.

  "Come find me afterwards," she said. "I must show you the new rose cultivar I've obtained. It is incredibly rare; only a few specimens exist in the world."

  Heikon kissed her cheek. "I look forward to it."

  Okiko went off into the garden, and Esme gave Heikon a look that was both curious and suspicious.

  "Come," he said. "What I am about to show you is known to none except me and my mother. It cannot be known or I risk losing everything I have. It is, perhaps, my greatest secret, certainly my greatest weakness. Will you swear to keep my secret?"

  "I swear," she said, meeting his eyes.

  He went not into the house, but to the edge of the cliff. Now wildly curious, Esme followed him. When he leaped off and shifted, she was a mere step behind him.

  Even so, she was shocked to lose sight of him. She'd expected to see him soar across the valley. Instead, he was—where? She swooped in a low circle in midair, trying to see where he'd gone. It wasn't like a dragon was an easy thing to hide!

  And then she glimpsed movement on the cliff. Heikon's long neck and spiked dragon's head poked out from what she would have sworn was sheer cliffside.

  "This way, my love."

  Love. He had never used that word before, and she sensed a sudden, startled pulling away; he hadn't meant to use it now. But the emotions were always closer to the surface when their dragons were dominant.

  Shaken, she flew toward him, and found a cleverly hidden entrance in the rocks. It was invisible from afar, and even up close, it hardly looked big enough for a dragon—but when she folded her wings and slithered after him, she just fit inside.

  Once they were through the hidden entrance, the passage narrowed still further, forcing her to shift. Heikon was waiting for her a little way along, with a flashlight in his hand.

  "How cozy," she said, looking around them. "What's down here? Is it—"

  She broke off as the most likely possibility occurred to her. Was this the Heart of his hoard, then? Perhaps she'd been wrong about the cherry-tree grove.

  And if he shared his w
ith her, did he expect her to share her own?

  It was not a terrible thought. Once she'd looked forward to showing him her secret sea cave in Greece. The mental image of having Heikon there made a strange thrill go through her. It was, in its own way, more intimate than sex.

  But then he answered with a strange bleakness in his voice.

  "I'm not sure if I can explain," he said. "You have to see."

  Now she was even more curious. They were under his mother's house. What could be here that would bring that tense edge into his tone?

  She followed him down the passageway. It seemed to be a natural crack in the rocks that had been enlarged—crudely and in haste, from what she could tell, putting it at odds with the meticulous planning that was evident in the house and garden above.

  Abruptly it widened out into a large chamber. There was a glassed-in skylight in the ceiling, shedding light. From down here she could see branches crowding over the skylight's glass dome. It must be hidden in the garden or woods.

  But she had little attention to spare the room's architecture, because in this room, there was a dragon.

  It was one of the biggest she'd ever seen, at least as big as Heikon, if not larger. The dragon filled the room, curled like a sleeping cat, tail hooked over its nose. Its eyes were closed. Asleep .... or dead? There was no sign of breathing, no rise and fall of the scaly sides. This dragon was black and green, a combination that created a slightly poisonous effect, as if the lurid green stripes might ooze something toxic.

  And then she noticed that both of the dragon's front ankles, as well as its neck, wore heavy iron cuffs. Enormous chains, each link as big as two of her fists together, went from the cuffs to iron rings pounded into the walls. Its back legs were hidden under its wings, but she could see another pair of chains coming from under the wings, so its back legs were cuffed too.

  These cuffs were evidently designed not only to hold the dragon but to stop it from shifting. The cuffs were obviously too large for a human neck or wrists, but it would take some extremely skilled shifting to keep from being pulled apart if someone tried to shift back while wearing them. It would be possible, she thought, but not easy.