Inside was a large nest, with access to the outside through another physical illusion.
Aside from that there was a large fireplace shared with the room next door, and several shelves with large books on them.
“I didn’t know dragons could read books.” Romana mumbled.
“Apparently so.” Kate replied. “The room next door is identical, you can probably walk through the fireplace to it the thing is so large. But I suppose for the hatching it will need to be.”
“According to the journal they will pretty much triple in size, and each of the baby dragons will be the size of a small dog.” Romana informed her. “I’ll need to be here for two days without fail. I’ll have to rely on you to bring me food, and the cold water they’ll need.”
“We already have the raw meat stored for them. I’ll bring it up on the second day along with the water, but for the first few hours after they open their eyes, no-one else will approach here.”
“Why?”
“In case it stops the bonding from happening.” Kate replied. “Each wytch receives her familiar at its birth. Sarah woke up one morning and there was a small shoot growing by her bed. Allie was at the birth of her familiars; Joanna was there when her hedgehog was born in her back yard. The hour after the realisation that you belong to the creatures that you’ve witnessed being born is called the bonding, if it’s disturbed by anyone then the consequences are sometimes dire.”
“Like what?”
“You could lose your familiar, and your magic could become so unstable that you die or you cannot leave the Isle. Regrettably, there are two wytches here with that problem.” She began to walk from the room. “Now, to where you will live.”
They walked out of the room and across the hall to the smaller door, and Romana opened it to find a living room in rich earthy shades of colour. Every detail had been attended to, from the beautiful scrollwork on her fireplace to the plush comfortable armchairs.
“Through there is your kitchen.” Kate informed her, pointing to a door on her left. “And through there,” She indicated a door to their right, “is a hall through which you can access your bedroom and the guest rooms. Your new clothes, which Joanna made for you are in the closet already.”
“And what’s through there?” Romana asked, pointing straight ahead.
“That is a surprise.” Kate informed her leading her over to the door and pulling it open, before pushing her through with a gentle shove.
Romana just gaped.
“Do you like it?” Kate asked, a hint of uncertainty ringing in her voice. “Sarah did it for you, and some of the others helped, the sky is a non-physical illusion by the way, I wouldn’t recommend trying to fly in here.”
“It’s perfect,” Romana breathed.
Kate had led her to a small internal garden, where an illusion of the night sky shone over a masterpiece of horticulture. There was a stone fountain in the centre, the trickling water soothing to Romana’s ears, while around it there were flowers and trees a plenty, the trees were hung with fruit and acorns.
“She did this herself?” Romana asked, seeing the sheer scale of the garden for the first time.
“All but the illusion.” Kate replied, “She was exhausted by the end of it.”
“But the only time I’ve seen her like that was weeks ago.” Romana replied. “Have you been working on this for that long?”
“Yes.” Kate replied. “From before you came to us.”
“Did she know she was going to be my mentor then?” Romana asked.
“No.” Kate replied. “How could she? The crystal required you to touch it before it would reveal your mentor to you. She did keep an eye on you through the trees though.” Romana nodded in stunned silence. “I’ll leave you now. But I would begin the hatching within an hour. We don’t know if the dragons will retaliate.”
That was the problem with the last rite, the vengeance often turned into a small scale war.
“Will you shield the island?”
“Yes.” Kate turned to walk towards the door they’d come through. “But even if they get through they shall not find this eyrie, it is masked by more than illusions.”
Chapter Six
FOOLISH MORTAL
Kate turned back to study Romana, surprise coating her expression. “Prince Marten is outside again. He’s demanding to see you or he’ll sleep outside.” She paused, thinking. “Obviously halflings can become too obsessive, just like their human side.”
“What are you telling him?”
“That you are hatching your familiars and that if you’re disturbed for the next two days then you’ll die.”
“Can you tell him that I’ll be out in five minutes and I haven’t got more than half an hour to spend on him?”
“I could. But I think I have a better idea. Turn invisible.” She instructed, and without hesitation, Romana obeyed. As soon as she did, Kate quickly teleported them straight back to the fountain room, but that quickly, Marten was standing right next to her. Kate had teleported him there as well.
“What the hell?” He asked, and then turned to face Kate. “Thanks for answering at last.” He said dryly.
“You were becoming mildly irritating.” Kate replied, walking over to her fountain and taking her customary place sitting in its waters. “Why do you wish to speak to Romana?”
“I can’t sense her here.” Marten informed her. “You’re wasting my time. I want to see her.”
“Foolish mortal.” Kate hissed. “Have you no care that she could die if you interrupt her while she bonds with her familiars? If you don’t, then go ahead; destroy your strongest ally in this coming war.”
“I want to know why she was flying outside this barrier when she could have died!” Marten replied. “I want to stop her from doing it again.”
“How do you plan to stop the air?” Kate asked, patiently. “There is nowhere she cannot escape from unless it is reinforced magically, and I can reassure you that sorceresses may become unavailable across the world should you try to do so.”
“Damn wytches.” Marten muttered.
“I’m becoming less and less likely to help you by the moment.” Kate told him.
“What exactly were you planning to do?” Marten asked.
“I was going to let you talk to Romana, but from what I can see you’ve made three mistakes since being invited here.”
“What?” He asked.
“One: you haven’t said ‘please’ once, insisting upon demanding things by saying ‘I want’. Two: you’re presuming to tell Romana what to do, refusing to treat her as an equal, even though, technically she is more powerful than you at the moment and she could decimate your armies in seconds. Three: you haven’t asked after her wellbeing, considering that her mentor died on the day that you left.” Kate shifted to look at the fish behind her. “That was why we left the safety of the isle, to give our sister her revenge. Romana was protected the entire time. But if you treat her like you’re treating me I’m not sure you deserve to know this.”
“The dragons killed Sarah?”
“The dragon queen herself dealt Sarah’s death blow.”
“Why?”
“Because Romana’s familiars are her sons, the red diamond and moonstone dragons she was forced to give to me in payment of a favour.”
“Moonstone dragons are extinct.”
“They weren’t a millennia ago.” Kate replied smoothly, as if the time meant nothing to her. Romana knew that it probably didn’t.
“So you just happened to have these two dragons on hand.” Marten commented sarcastically.
“No, I knew they would be needed.” Kate replied. “I am all-knowing after all.” They stayed silent for a while, caught in an uneasy truce. But Marten was the one who spoke next.
“I have to see her.” He paused. “I know you managed to persuade my cousin and I to leave earlier, but I can’t not see her. Please.”
At that final word Kate smiled.
“You need to u
nderstand some things about us first, before we allow you to continue to see Romana.” Kate informed him.
“You’ll allow me?” He asked, appalled. “Surely it’s Romana’s choice whether or not I see her.”
“No. We need to know that you are going to treat her right. That’s why we’re going to the temple, so you can be educated.” She waved a hand across the water, causing an image to form before she stepped from the fountain and took his hand.
“Educated?” He asked, before Kate and he disappeared.
Romana, concerned as to what her sisters might be waiting to do to him at the temple, turned herself corporeal as she moved towards the door. A shockwave of power pushed her back. Kate.
Knowing that if the Ancient did not want her to leave this room then she probably wouldn’t be able to manage it, she walked to the projection that Kate had conjured in the water. It showed the empty temple as it was at that moment, she realised. She watched as Marten and Kate appeared there, along with what must have been every wytch on the isle standing in a ring around him, each of their glowing wands pointing at him.
He crumpled to the ground, even as her sisters began chanting in a language that was completely unfamiliar to her. Marten’s eyes shot open as the chant ended, and even as he coughed, writhed, spluttered and moaned. Suddenly his bloodshot eyes shot to Kate, who was in the centre with him.
“I understand.” He choked, even as he passed out.
As soon as he’d said it she felt the barrier around the room disperse. The entire ordeal had been minutes long, but the time spent watching him writhe in pain was endless.
She rushed from the room, and then flew to the temple as fast as she could, to find only Kate there.
“What did you do?” She asked, even as she checked Marten’s pulse.
“He’s fine.” Kate replied. “We just gave him a rundown of how he should treat you right or we’ll help you kill him.”
“Kate, he’s just a friend, he has no need to ‘treat me right’.” Romana replied, clinging to her last defence, even as she lifted him up into her arms, having to use elvenstrength so that she didn’t buckle under his weight.
“That mark doesn’t say that.” Kate replied, and then silencing her when she would have objected. “You know that the mark is a sign that you are important to the male elf that marked you, but what you don’t know is that there are different types of mark; different ones for friend, family and lover. Guess which one yours is.”
“Kate, I can’t be with him like that.” Romana reasoned, even as she flew them all to her eyrie. “He was ruled by an animal part of him that doesn’t care about my acceptance when he marked me, but now he knows that I won’t be more than his friend.”
“No he doesn’t.”
“You read his mind didn’t you!” Romana figured, even as she strode through the halls and into her guest room. “Kate. That’s unethical.”
“And I’m not going to tell anyone anything I saw!” Kate insisted. “Besides, we needed to do some digging to find out what he plans for you so we could change his mind.”
“What did he plan for me?” She asked, pulling off Marten’s shoes, socks and coat before tucking him into the lavish king sized bed.
“Oh, he was only planning to wrap you up in cotton wool, and keep you with him forever. Oh, and did I mention his highness knows Katelyn approves of his plan?”
“Seriously.” Romana asked, half sure that she was joking. She sat on the edge of the bed and wiped the rebelliously long strands of hair from Martens face.
“Seriously.” Kate replied. “Are you blind? He’s been dropping hints for like forever.”
“I don’t want that for us though!” Romana replied. “You said I’m not an elf, what does that mean for my lifespan? Hundreds of years less than he has? Will I only live five decades? Ten? One of us will end up outliving the other, and that’s only the beginning of our problems. I’m a wytch, someone shunned by normal society, never mind what the aristocracy would do if they found out that I was one! I’d be burnt at the stake for enchanting the royal heir to the throne.”
“The times will change.” Kate replied, even as she made to leave the room.
“If they change so much that I become his bride then I think the times have not only changed, but distorted greatly.” Romana replied, gazing down at Marten even as she refuted everything that Kate had said. Ancients were supposed to be a little insane from watching all the years go by anyway. But, Romana admitted, Kate had no motive to lie to her. “Kate.” She called, just as she Ancient slipped out of the door.
She was back inside in an instant. “Yes.”
“Tell me you’re not lying to me.” It was her final attempt, the last thing standing between her and believing what Marten had been hinting at throughout their time together. “Vow it.” She was begging, but she was begging that Kate would tell her she’d lied. If she wasn’t, then everything would change.
“I vow as an Ancient that all I have told you is truth.” Kate replied. “He will only wake after you’ve bonded with your familiars. And time is running out, you must begin the process, for both his and your sake.” She nodded, and turned back to Marten expecting Kate to leave now. “Oh, and by the way,” Kate began in a tone that screamed she was about to drop another bomb on Romana, “he heard every word that you just said.”
Romana just gaped.
“He’s also thinking that he’s going to kill me for telling you all this. Silly halfling. Plus, he’s thinking that even though your reaction wasn’t great, it also wasn’t terrible, and you tucked him in so he has time to work at it.” Kate paused and then laughed. “He thinks that purposely thinking of a beach on the royal island of Grenov will deter me from reading his thoughts. What part of ‘I can rip your mind open in two seconds and leave grey matter leaking from your ears’ don’t you understand halfling? Oh, and he’s back into the visions again.”
“Kate. Please, give him a little privacy. What did you even do to him?”
“We gave him your life story in a nutshell. In other words, we downloaded everything in your life so far, excluding the parts about Silver. Plus, we gave him the briefing on your powers and on what we’d do to him if he even thought of hurting you, but it turns out he wouldn’t anyway so that bit was a little pointless. I even kind of regret putting in the little part that meant he’d have to feel everything we would do to him when he got to the torture part. But don’t worry! He’ll be fine, some mental scarring maybe, but physically he’ll be as gorgeous eyed and darkly striking as he was before.”
“Kate…” Romana growled in warning, and for the first time since coming to the isle she felt Silver stir in the back of her mind, although whether she was angry or interested about what was going on Romana couldn’t tell.
“I’m going, I’m going.” Kate replied, her hands up in mock surrender as she side stepped out of the room.
“I’m sorry about her.” Romana told the unconscious Marten. “You’d think an Ancient would be a little more godly and transcendent, but not Kate. Nope, we got the excitable Ancient on this world.”
She saw another lock of his hair had fallen out of place, and carefully swept it back into place with her hand, before she walked from the room.
She walked into one of the dragon’s rooms and began setting each egg gently in the fireplace on a nest of huge logs and soft grass.
When they were in place, she opened Sarah’s journal and flicked to the page where her friend had described the method to hatch them.
She breathed in deep, summoning her fire from the very core of herself. This was her fire in its purest form. White hot fire fed by the air currents as she wove it into a shimmering ribbon that wound around the room in an intricate pattern before she directed it onto the pile of logs, commanding it to burn them slowly but give off as much heat as possible.
She sat cross legged on the other side of the room, using air currents to shield herself from the immense heat. Eventually the temperature of the eggs
would reach close to that of lava, and then she would be in for a heat bath. She settled in for the day.
Chapter Seven
SPELLBOUND
Two days later when the eggs had swollen so large that they almost took up all the space in the fireplace, Romana finally noticed another change other than the slow growth. The eggs surface seemed to be melting, and rippling clinging to the surface before sliding down to the floor where the logs had long since burned to ash. Once the colour had drained away, boiling almost instantly in the heat the eggs were pure white and Romana knew from the book that this was the beginning of the hatching. She raised the temperature again as Sarah instructed, and increased the air currents around herself, keeping her cool before the cool stream wound around the large water trough that her sisters had given her…along with a pair of extra-heatproof oven gloves.
The room had been a furnace since she’d sat down two days ago, and she was sweating constantly, despite her air powers trying to keep her cool. Now, as the eggs began to wobble violently she knew that the hot part was nearly over.
The first crack appeared.
She stepped closer, even as both eggs splintered outwards from a central point in a cobweb pattern. Her ears picked up the sounds of the two babies heads butting their way out, and she knew that in the next few minutes they would be out. She added more heat. The cracks grew deeper.
She used currents of hot air to levitate a log towards the fire. It vaporised the moment it touched the flame. Good, she thought, Sarah had said this was the temperature needed until the first glimpse of the baby dragon was seen. After that, she would cool the fire slightly, and add logs and then cool the eggs further by turning the fire into embers while the egg fully hatched and their baby scales were formed in the heat.
The cracks grew deeper with every second that passed, until the thump of tiny heads against the shell was constant.
Kate's Legacy (Soul Merge Saga Book 2) Page 5
