Blood Magic (34 page)

FORTY

ON
August eleventh at shortly after one in the morning, Pacific Daylight Time, in cities around the world—in Seattle, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Tokyo, and Beijing, and twenty more—dragons flew. As they flew, they sang. In every city in the world that had a dragon, people for the first time heard dragonsong.

Not everyone heard it, of course. Those who did stopped their cars or their feet, stopped whatever they were doing, and listened. Just listened. Many of them wept, but later couldn’t say why.

No one recorded it. No one who heard it even thought of trying. They didn’t know the why of that, either.

In the U.S. the TV talking heads speculated madly about the reason for this unprecedented behavior—of dragons and people both. Oprah had three of those who’d heard it on her show. In China and Canada, the governments politely inquired of their dragons what was up. In Hollywood, agents tried frantically to contact the dragons to offer contracts.

The dragons didn’t care to discuss it. Neither did those few humans—and lupi—who knew why the dragons sang.

The most innately sovereign species in existence was free of a binding that had been passed down, through blood and magic, for more than three thousand years. The last of the un-surrendered Chimei was dead. The treaty was no more.

August 13th at 10:09 P.M.

RULE
knelt in front of his Rho and shuddered with relief.

Nokolai’s mantle—the heir’s portion—rested in him once more. He looked at his brother, kneeling beside him. “Benedict,” he began . . . and ran out of words.

Benedict’s mouth kicked up at one corner. “Still can’t quite believe I’m happier without it, can you?”

Rule looked at him helplessly. “It’s not that I doubt your word.”

Benedict regarded him a moment. “When you were seven or so, you found a puppy. Brought it home. Cute little thing, about half grown. A basset, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” Rule’s smile started as he saw where this was going.

“You didn’t know about collars and tags. You thought you could keep it, so you were sad for a full week after Dad found the owners and they took him home. If you’d known about collars and tags, you wouldn’t have counted on keeping that little dog. You’d have had a good time with it while it was there, and been fine when it left.”

Now Rule’s smile was easy. “You understand about tags and collars.”

Benedict nodded. “I do. The mantle itself—yeah, that felt good. But I don’t want the stuff that goes with it, so while we had a good time together, I’m glad to let it go back to its owner.”

He rose, gave their father a nod and a smile, then said to Rule, “I’m still not talking to you.”

With that, he left.

Rule stood, too, watching his big brother leave. “Sometimes I don’t understand him at all.”

“Just because he loves you doesn’t mean he wants to talk to you.”

Isen’s eyes were twinkling in his uncannily naked face. With his beard burned half off, he’d had to shave the other half—and complained about that way more than he had the burns on his arms and chest. But then, the burned skin would heal a lot faster than he could regrow his beard. Hair growth wasn’t affected by healing.

Rule thought he knew what his father meant. Benedict did love him, hadn’t wanted Rule to worry about him, and hadn’t gotten over his anger at Rule’s decision to marry. But he sighed. “Sometimes I get tired of my family’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy.”

Isen’s eyebrows climbed. “Now I’m mystified.”

“We don’t say things straight out.” Or ask things straight out, and why not? Why not just ask? “What are you planning to do about my marriage?”

“Ah.” Isen started to rub his beard, found bare face, and scowled. “All right. Straight out, then. You remember what I told you to do when you’re Rho and you’ve got a messy situation and you don’t have a clue what to do about it?”

Everything clicked in place. “Look mysterious and knowing and stall until I figure something out.”

“That’s right. I’ll tell you that I personally think it’s a mistake, you marrying. Any of us marrying. But you’ve said you think the Lady wants change.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. She hasn’t whispered in my ear—that’s for damned sure. But it’s possible. So I’m waiting to see how things shake out.”

Rule was suddenly awash with emotion. For a little while, he’d thought his father was dead. Isen’s heart had stopped for so long . . . but it had started again. “I’d like to take my father to dinner,” he said. “But he hardly ever leaves his place.”

Isen’s eyes twinkled. “Bit of a stick-in-the mud, is he? Maybe an agora—what’s that word? Agoraphobic.”

Rule nodded solemnly. “Something like that. If you should happen to see him—”

Isen hooted with laughter and grabbed Rule, hugging hard.

Rule hugged back, his eyes damp. “I love you, Dad.”

“Love you back.” And Isen slapped him on the back to prove it.

LILY’S
mother had graciously granted a two-day reprieve on their lunch, but Wednesday rolled around—as it has a habit of doing—right on schedule. Resigned, Lily sat at a red-draped table in her uncle Chen’s restaurant with a menu, a glass of water, and—to the waiter’s clear disapproval—a cup of coffee.

It was five minutes after noon. Her mother was late. Her mother was never late. The atomic clock could be set by Julia Yu’s punctuality. Lily couldn’t decide whether to be worried or annoyed.

Maybe she’d had trouble finding parking. The place was packed. If . . . Oh, my.

A slim, upright figure escorted by a deferential hostess was making her way through the crowded tables toward Lily. She wore pristine white silk trousers and a tunic with a Mandarin collar. The tunic was the color-soaked red a 1940s movie star might have worn on her lips and nails. “I am joining you,” Grandmother announced as the hostess held the chair for her. “Your mother is delayed. She will be here soon.”

A dozen impulses and questions whirled through Lily. Did her mother even know Grandmother was joining them? Or was her mother late because Grandmother told her to be? Or had Grandmother persuaded her the actual time was twelve thirty, or . . . .

In the end, Lily smiled helplessly. “It’s good to see you, Grandmother. You look fantastic.”

“Red is a good color for me.” Grandmother waved the hostess away. “We will not order yet. You may bring me some tea. You are drinking coffee,” she informed Lily.

“Yes, I am.”

“Hmph. Li Qin sends her love. She is very glad to be home again. She wonders why you have not yet been to see her.”

Lily’s eyebrows rose. “
She
wonders that, Grandmother?”

“I assume she does. I do not wonder. I know. You feel shy with me.”

Lily’s mouth opened to deny that—and closed again. Because suddenly, unaccountably, she did feel shy, or something very like that.

Grandmother patted her hand and spoke softly. “You have just woken to your name. You do not understand it, but you know it. I am the only one you might ask, but you do not know what to ask.”

Wordless, Lily nodded.

The server set a small china pot on the table. Grandmother inspected it, sniffing the steam. “You have prepared it correctly, I think. Loose tea, no bags? Yes. Thank you. I will let it steep.”

Grandmother folded her hands on the table as the slightly flustered server departed. “I will tell you the secret of true names. We know them when we understand the secret about death—which is, of course, the secret about life. Which is not a secret at all.”

“But I—I don’t understand death. I remember it happening. I don’t understand it.”

“You mean you do not understand what comes after death. No more do I. This does not matter. A baby reaching for her mother’s breast does not know what comes after not-baby. She sees not-baby around her, but she does not truly see until she becomes not-baby herself.”

“You mean that death is a transition.”

“Silly word,
transition
. All words are silly when we speak of this, so mostly we do not, or we let silly people do the speaking. I like the Buddhists, who do not mind being silly. They speak of the fallacy of duality, the confusion of either-or thinking. These words are as close as any to what you and I know.”

Lily shook her head. “They aren’t my words. They don’t . . . they don’t touch what I know.”

“Lily. You know now that having been, you can never not-be. Just as I, having been dragon, can never not-be dragon. And while I was wholly dragon, I was also human, for I could not undo having been human. Living does not undo life. Death does not, either. Life and death are not either-or.”

Words that would have been gibberish to her last week unlocked everything now. “You mean it’s all real. It’s all true. Cullen said a true name comes from the part of us that doesn’t change, but he was wrong. Mostly wrong, anyway, because it’s all change, and it’s all true.”

“Yes. Now, stop carving up what you know with words. The pieces left from that carving do not make sense.” She took a moment to pour her tea. She inhaled, frowned faintly, and sipped anyway. “Sandra learns, but she does not yet have the art.”

Lily grinned suddenly, thinking of a limousine. Black, not white, because Grandmother disliked the white ones. “And having been a child, we can’t not-be a child.”

Grandmother’s eyes twinkled. “I do not know what you mean.” She took a sip of tea, shook her head, and set the cup down.

Love and amusement mingled in Lily, making her next words softer than she wanted, more tentative. “I have some questions about things that
can
be chopped up into words.”

Grandmother snorted. “You wish to know about myself and Sam. Very well. You may ask. It is good for children to acquaint themselves with their ancestors.”

And that was the kernel, wasn’t it? “Most people don’t have an ancestor around to ask! I mean . . .” Lily gestured vaguely. “Over three hundred years, Grandmother! That’s . . . How is that possible?”

“I have been dragon. I cannot not-be dragon. Dragons live much longer than humans.” She shrugged. “I do not share in their longevity fully. My life will be longer than most, but not as long as a dragon’s. More than that I do not know.”

Lily’s heart beat faster. “Will my father live longer than most, too?”

“Ah.” Sadness clouded the old woman’s eyes. “I do not know, but . . . the magic did not go to him, did it? There is a property of my lineage, passed to me by my mother from her mother and back for many generations: our magic wakes only in the females of our line. It can be passed along through a son, but the son cannot touch it. The magic I passed down was not my original magic, of course, yet it still wakes only in the female, not the male.”

Lily grappled with a jostling crowd of questions, trying to order them. “What do you mean, it wasn’t your original magic?”

“When I was young, my magic took the shape of fire, but I burned out that Gift. When Sam transformed me, he breathed into me the magic of dragons. This is the magic I have passed on to you, though it takes a different shape in you than it has in me.”

“Did Sam turn you into a dragon to reward you for stopping the sorcerer?”

“Oh, no. He did it to save my life. Dragons possess great healing, but they cannot heal humans, and Sam did not wish me to die.” Her expression softened as her gaze focused on a memory only she could see. “Later, he said he had known my death was very likely, but he did not accept this. Dragons wish always to have their way.” She chuckled. “As do we all, but dragons wish this with great intricacy.”

“Is Sam precongitive?”

“This is a human word, a modern word. I do not use it. Sam knows certain things. Back in China, he knew the Chimei would come, and he prepared me without telling me what use he would make of me. The treaty restrained him from that, but he could warn his apprentice, and he did. He told me that one day a Chimei would come, and I was to persuade my family to leave their home. He said he would release me to flee, too, if I wished. Though he did not intend that I leave,” she added pragmatically. “That is the way of dragons. They do not constrain, but they manipulate. But Sam did not know the Chimei’s lover would murder my family. His planning did not include that.”

She sighed once, softly. “In the end, the choices were mine. Vengeance is the choice of a dark heart, and my heart was very dark. I had to be close to kill the sorcerer, so I became a servant in his palace. I guessed that I would have to use what the lovely Cullen calls mage fire.”

“You didn’t know?”

“Many things Sam did not speak of until I was dragon and entitled to such knowledge. But he had instructed me in the use of black fire—an oddly dangerous teaching for a new apprentice! When the sorcerer came, I understood why.”

“You did use mage fire, then? Cullen says that only a sorcerer can call it safely.”

Grandmother snorted again. “In this, Cullen Seabourne is right. I had a great deal of power. I was good with fire. But I did not see power, so when I called black fire down on my enemy, I could not see what I wrought. I killed the sorcerer.” No matter what she’d said about vengeance and a dark heart, after three centuries her voice still rang with satisfaction when she said that. “But I could not control the fire. It burned . . . too much. I called it back to me, but I knew . . . The black fire feeds on what it burns, you see, and so more power returned to me than I had spent. I burned. I was neither alive nor dead when Sam came to me, but with a foot in both. He sang . . .” Her voice drifted off into memory and wonder.