The Broken Dragon: Children of the Dragon Nimbus #2

by Irene Radford

  “He . . . he never arrived,” Glenndon said, surprised his voice rang true without a trace of cracking or croaking.

  Darville raised a single eyebrow in question. “His letter says he was turned away at the palace doors, under your orders.”

  “He lies.”

  Again that single raised eyebrow. Waves of orange distrust roiled through his gold and green aura. General Marcelle reached for his ever-present sword pommel, ready to defend his king and rid him of those he could not trust implicitly.

  Distrust of Glenndon, the king’s son and heir, or distrust of an unknown ambassador from far away?

  Glenndon’s natural defenses suspected the distrust was aimed at him. Why should his father be any different from his tutors and masters? They trusted words more than they trusted him.

  He reminded himself that an adult would trust another adult before believing Glenndon, not quite eighteen and new to court and politics. Had he earned trust from a father he’d known only a few months?

  He thought he’d earned General Marcelle’s trust through countless hours of arms practice and steed training. If he had, he also knew the general would not speak to the king until Glenndon left the room.

  “Keerkin, my clerk, brought the apology the ambassador wrote. The hastily scrawled message said the ambassador’s presence was required to supervise the unloading of a rare wine.” Glenndon stood tall and defiant, eyes steady on the king. His father!

  Darville stilled a moment. He returned Glenndon’s steady gaze, then broke contact, looking around his private office for something . . . probably a cup of betta arrack, the distilled liquor from Rossemeyer, the queen’s homeland.

  But he’d given up the bracing alcohol sometime ago after it dulled his senses enough for a juvenile Krackatrice to attack him and infect him with deadly venom. If the black snake had been more than a year old, the king would not have survived the speed or the strength of the venom.

  Even now he gave in to bouts of physical weakness unknown in him before. He’d lost a lot of blood in removing the toxin from his system. The queen had made sure all of the poison flowed out before it paralyzed his heart and lungs.

  But he had not resorted to drink to dull the ongoing pain.

  “I want to believe you, son. But such an unimportant errand . . . a cask of wine more important than presenting his credentials to the palace? It sounds contrived by a boy inexperienced in the ways of politics.” Darville returned his gaze to Glenndon, holding it, begging to read the truth.

  “I swear to you that I tell the truth. I was so angry I tore the letter in half and told Keerkin to scrape the parchment clean and reuse it. Now I have no chance to analyze it for forgery or magical manipulation.” Glenndon leaned forward, hands braced on the desktop, putting him at eye level with his father.

  “What did you glean from first glance, Glenndon. Your Da, my best friend, taught me long ago to trust first instincts.”

  “An elegant hand, University trained in language and script,” Glenndon blurted out without thinking.

  “Keerkin is University trained. As are you.”

  This time Glenndon stilled. Disappointment and disbelief thickened in his throat, making it hard to swallow. He’d thought, perhaps he and the clerk could become friends, having shared bits and pieces of their lives in apprentice classes. He had more in common with the barely talented Keerkin than anyone else in the palace.

  “Frank, my bodyguard, Fred’s son, was there, he will bear witness.”

  “I have never known Fred, my bodyguard, to lie to me. I expect he raised his son to the same standard. Call Frank and Keerkin. I will question them, one after the other, one hour after noon. Perhaps the queen can raise the ink back into the torn pieces of the letter.” Darville pulled a different letter atop the diplomatic complaint and bent his head to study it, clearly dismissing Glenndon. Still not fully trusting him.

  “I could raise the ink . . .”

  The king did not look up.

  General Marcelle jerked his head toward the door. Good advice to retreat and gather his resources. Evidence. The truth, obvious and hidden.

  CHAPTER 12

  FROM HIS WARM nest within the thatch of the cabin’s roof near the central chimney, Lukan checked the wheel of stars overhead. Another hour before dawn dimmed the blazing points of light. A waning moon sank toward the tree line. He couldn’t call the circle of everblue tops a horizon. They were too close, enclosing only about five acres of land around his home.

  His stomach growled, reminding him why he lay wakeful at this hour when all, even night hunting predators, drowsed. Sounds inside the cabin had drifted to silence hours ago. His father no longer whimpered in pain from the lashing magical storm. For a time he did not cry in his sleep for the loss of his precious eyesight.

  A rustling disturbance of the ivy growing on the south wall of the house made him stiffen.

  Who? He sent out a subtle query.

  “Just me,” Master Marcus said quietly. He sounded weary and out of breath. “Ooof,” he grunted as he transitioned from the wall to the roof.

  “Master?” Lukan sat up, trying to untangle his blanket—stolen from the University cupboard.

  “Rest easy, boy. I’m not here to scold you. We need to talk and this is about as private as it gets around here.”

  “Yes, sir.” Lukan continued sitting, bracing his back against the warm chimney.

  “Nice view of the stars. I can see why you like this place rather than your snug bed that is sheltered from the rain.”

  Lukan shrugged rather than reply. That kind of response always worked for Glenndon.

  “You had the right idea for the spell tonight,” Marcus said, easing down to sit beside Lukan, careful not to slide down the slope of the roof. He wore casual tunic and trews, like any other prosperous farmer. Not a trace of magician robes or even blue journey leathers.

  “It should have worked,” Lukan admitted. “I don’t know what went wrong. I researched everything . . .”

  “The plan was right. But something went wrong with the working. I wonder if it was too simple when we expected complicated and did something extra that twisted . . .”

  “It wasn’t the working,” Lukan said quietly. Almost hoping his master didn’t hear him.

  “Then what?”

  S’murghit, Marcus had heard him.

  “What went wrong? You shouted something about ‘Get out of my head.’ I’m wondering if the same thing went wrong with the transport spell that Robb and his boys never emerged from. Someone got into his head and diverted him elsewhere.”

  “Um . . .”

  “Talk to me, Lukan. I can’t promote you until I know what happened.”

  “Promote?”

  “We’ll talk about that later. Right now we talk about who is talking to you, listening to every word and thought you have.”

  “It’s my dreams mostly. Someone seems to listen in and then add ideas.”

  “Like?”

  “Like . . .” Anger began to boil along with frustration. Lukan clamped down on it. This was Marcus who had sought him out, not Da demanding he attend him in his office and then lecture and pronounce rather than listen. “Like I should give up trying to find Master Robb. Like I should abandon the University. Like Da is a traitor to all magicians.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “What does that mean?” Lukan demanded sharply.

  “It means I need to think a bit. I have an idea about what is happening to you. And to Vareena.” He mentioned his wife. She didn’t have much talent other than being able to see and talk to the dead. Her job was presiding over the transition from life to death and making sure the spirit of the passing moved on to whatever came after life.

  “Why would someone try to twist Mistress Vareena’s dreams?” Lukan blurted out.

  “That I cannot tell you. Only that someone is working from within, manipulating those who have not yet mastered all their skills, or are vulnerable, weaker magicians. I think I know who, but
I can’t confront them or even protect against them until I have proof.”

  Guilt stabbed Lukan’s gut, banishing his hunger. If he’d held on a little longer . . . If he’d studied harder and been a stronger magician and banished the lurking presence left over from his dreams . . . If he hadn’t had a bright idea that might find his missing master . . .

  “We’ll talk more in a day or two,” Marcus said and placed a reassuring hand on Lukan’s shoulder. “Think hard about who invades your thoughts and ways to build walls to keep him out, or banish him if he breaks through.” Slowly the master magician eased to the eaves and swung his legs over the edge. He twisted around to face Lukan as he sought footholds in the greenery. “I can remember doing this many years ago. I think I’m getting too old for climbing trees and walls.” With a sigh he lowered himself and disappeared.

  Failure kept pushing toward the surface of Lukan’s emotions. “Enough,” he whispered to the uncaring stars. “I can’t change all the what ifs in the world.”

  Slowly he unwound the rough blanket and folded it neatly. A quick rearrangement of some loose thatch hid the blanket from casual view. Of course that loose thatch meant he’d need to patch the roof before the autumnal rains began.

  He eased himself toward the gutter, reached up toward an overhanging branch. From there he scrambled into the tree and slid down the thick trunk to the ground. He wondered that the ivy had supported Marcus. Lukan hadn’t trusted it for months now. But the tree had always offered him easy access. He preferred trees. Even Glenndon the magnificent didn’t think to look upward when they played games of hide and seek.

  Or if he did, he granted Lukan the illusion of success in the game.

  His brother was like that.

  For the first time in months, Lukan felt no jealousy of his brother. “I miss you, G. Terribly. But we’ve grown up and our lives are different now.”

  He stood for a moment staring north, toward the city and his brother, his closest companion and friend. “If you’d stayed here, maybe you could help me banish the slithering eavesdropper. I haven’t allowed myself to sleep much of late. I’m afraid, G. I’m afraid of what he might learn from me. What he might make me do while I think I’m dreaming but I’m not.”

  Lukan knew the person on the other end of his dreams was male. He wasn’t sure how he knew, just that no female he knew would have the thrust, the power, the viciousness to break down sleep shields to invade his dreams.

  That kind of power came from combined dragon magic, not solitary ley line magic, and women couldn’t gather dragon magic.

  No answer came to his mind from his brother. Of course not. If Glenndon was awake he had more important things on his mind than answering his very lonely little brother.

  Lukan shrugged off his loneliness and slipped silently into the cabin. Mama had left him bread and cheese and a slice of yampion pie. It was cold, but tasted just as good as hot right out of the hearth pot.

  “Thank you, Mama,” he whispered to the only person he knew loved him. Then he retreated to another hiding place overlooking the University courtyard. If he dozed, the noise of his fellow students waking and preparing for the day would rouse him with plenty of time to get to class.

  The boy is smarter than I thought. He has shut me out of his dreams. His guilt and anger combined to make him an easy participant in my plans. He hates his father almost as much as I do.

  But now he is useless to me. He sleeps little and fights his dreams. The barriers he has erected against me are strong because they are instinctive instead of deliberate.

  I must find another willing mind to merge with.

  Hmm. One of the ladies or their companions, I think. Ariiell is vulnerable because of The Forget imposed upon her mind by the healers. She does not remember her dreams, only that they are troublesome. She is in a position to inflict damage upon the daughters Jaylor loves.

  But the weaker twin? Perhaps my revenge will be to turn one of those daughters against her father.

  Oh what joy I will find when my enemy discovers his own child bringing about his downfall, possibly even his death.

  “Do you ail, my lady?” Valeria asked Ariiell, watching how the woman sat upon a folding stool, hunched over, elbows on knees, peering away from the morning campfires. She looked west, away from the dawn light, into gray upon gray dimness.

  “Hush, they are out there. Watching me. Waiting for a moment of inattention.”

  “Who, my lady?” Valeria shifted her feet until the thin soles of her shoes throbbed with the power of the Kardia. She brought her hands up level with her heart, palms outward, fingers curved slightly to catch whatever information the wind might part with in passing.

  “The black cat with one white ear and the weasel the color of weathered tin with flaking gilt paint,” Ariiell whispered, never taking her eyes off the shrubs and grasses of the open plains.

  That old imaginary danger.

  Still, just in case the lady could be right (stranger things had happened when sorcery was fueled by pain and fear), Valeria focused her senses on the nearest clump of miggenberry bushes, their round fruit still shiny green in the growing light. By late summer they’d turn a rich blue-black, each as large as her thumb. Good eating for people, livestock, and browsing creatures of the wild. They stained hands and clothes a deep purple-blue, her favorite color. The same color as Indigo, the juvenile dragon she’d grown up with and shared . . . much.

  The long, narrow leaves with barbs in the notches rustled in the light breeze.

  “There, see that!” Ariiell proclaimed in triumph, her words still hushed.

  “I see all of the bushes and grasses moving in the breeze rising from the creek that feeds the lake,” Valeria said soothingly.

  “And I was told you have a strong magical talent!” Ariiell snorted in disgust. She rose from her rock and sought her litter, anxious to be away from this place and her illusory fears.

  No one believed Ariiell’s fancies. She’d killed at least one cat, a gray tabby, and attacked the calico who called herself Grilka, thinking they were her old enemy Rejiia.

  Something fueled those fears. Valeria hoped Ariiell’s damaged mind, with that huge, ugly knot of memories and guilt, conjured her frequent visions of Rejiia, mistress of The Simeon and daughter of Krej. All of them members of the dreaded Coven. What horrors had the Coven inflicted upon Ariiell? She’d been an honored member as well as victim.

  Valeria knew the story well, having heard it told and sung on many a dark winter night. Near twenty years ago, Lord Krej threw a spell to enscorcel King Darville into a statue of his totem animal, a great golden wolf. The magic had backlashed from the Coraurlia, the magical glass dragon crown, and changed Krej himself into his own totem statue, the tin weasel with flaking gilt paint.

  Rejiia had carted the statue around the country for nigh on five years before another spell backlashed, animating Krej into a live weasel and transforming Rejiia into her own totem animal, the black cat with one white ear.

  Normally neither a cat nor a weasel would live fifteen years in the wild. Still, those two animals had begun as people. People with huge, if twisted, magical talents.

  On the off chance that Ariiell might perceive the truth through the veil of forgetfulness imposed on her, Valeria paused a moment, centered her mind and body with the Kardia, letting the rhythm of the land, the cool morning air, the fiery sun, and the rapidly disappearing dew, absorb her essence. She felt herself sinking into the elements. They sustained her, became one with her.

  When her skin became no different from crumbling dirt, her blood flowed with the timeless chuckle of the creek, her lungs moved air hither and thither, and the fire within her mind basked in the added heat from the sun, she sent her senses outward. A probe here, a quest there, all one, learning who trod nearby, who splashed water, who sang while stirring porridge, which branches burned to heat the cereal. She cast further afield.

  A mouse here, a bird there, an inchworm, a gray rabbit, and . . . and
a cat crouching as still as still could be, waiting for the mouse or bird to come closer. Was that a weasel waiting, equally patient, for the bird to forget the dangers all around in its need to grab and eat the worm?

  “Val!” Lillian called from the other end of the caravan. “Val, where are you? I can’t find you.”

  Valeria jerked back into her own body and solitary mind with a jolt that made her bones ache and stabbed pain behind her eyes. She blinked rapidly in the too-bright sunlight and fought her roiling stomach for control. Not quite solitary. Lillian was in her head, as she always was, just a thought away. Letting that presence grow soothed her aches and comforted her appetite. But a hunk of jerked meat would certainly taste wonderful right now.

  “Ah, there you are, Val.” Lillian bounced toward her, all smiles and bounding energy.

  “Lily, we have to talk. Alone. Where Lady Ariiell cannot listen in with either her ears or her mind,” Val said beneath her breath, knowing Lillian would hear no matter how far away.

  “Oh?” Lillian paused, hand to her mouth in surprise.

  “I need your help. I need you to observe what happens at your end of the caravan.”

  “Observe? Oh, observe.” She took Valeria’s arm and led her away from the wagons and shouting people who stacked boxes and trunks atop resting sledges preparing for the day’s journey. Their steps took them toward the line of steeds amiably grazing on the meadow grasses a quarter the way around the small lake.

  Val noted that the bard stroked the noses of two sledge steeds that listed on one foot, half dozing under his caresses. She checked over her shoulder for Ariiell’s presence. She’d moved her stool closer to the campfire, half turned to keep an eye on the miggenberry bushes. Her aura looked tightly closed, keeping stray magic out, and her own in. Lady Graciella stretched her legs, wandering aimlessly between her litter and the nearest fire while she spooned tiny bites of cereal toward her mouth. If she ate any of it, Val couldn’t tell, as she didn’t seem to swallow.