Master of Dragons (18 page)

“Yeah.” It was a lie, but she forced a smile anyway and strode into the chamber beyond. Kel and Soren followed, looming at her back like a pair of dragon bookends.

It was one of her better attempts at bravado, but she almost ruined it with a gasp as she got a good look at the chamber.

It was even vaster than she'd expected, an echoing egg-shaped space the size of a football stadium. Twelve dragons in shades of gold, red, blue, and green lay on a curving stone ledge that took up the other end of the chamber. Their eyes gleamed like cats'.

In the center of the ledge lay a huge, glowing egg. It radiated magic in waves that seemed to thrum against Nineva's senses. “What the hell is that?” she whispered to Kel.

“Cachamwri's Egg,” he whispered back.

“You mean it actually exists?” She gaped at him. “I thought it was a figure of speech!”

“Oh, it's a lot more than that. It's the embodiment of the Dragon God's power among us.”

While they'd been talking, Soren slipped forward and made a complicated snaking dip of his long neck in the Egg's direction. Then he turned and climbed the ledge to settle his great body into the one empty spot among his fellow Dragon Lords.

The dragon who sat closest to the Egg lifted his golden head. “Kel of the Bloodstone Clan would address the Dragon Lords?”

“Stay here,” Kel murmured to Nineva, then rustled over to repeat Soren's neck dip to the Egg before drawing himself to his full height. “I come accompanied by Nineva Morroc, Princess of the Morven Sidhe and Last Avatar of the Goddess Semira.” He looked back at her, and she hurried forward, her mouth dry.

Unsure what to do about the Egg—after all, Cachamwri wasn't
her
god—she dipped a full court curtsy, her armor clanking. “My thanks for your willingness to hear my petition, Dragon Lords.”

The golden dragon grunted, then turned to address Kel. “You claim Cachamwri instructed you to protect this creature?”

“Yes, Lord Piaras. He approached me wearing a guise of flame and told me to find the princess and the Sword of Semira.”

“Sword of…? I have never heard of this.” Piaras reared back, looking down his long nose at Kel in arrogant disbelief.

“There's no reason you should have,” Nineva said. “It's a holy object of the Morven Sidhe people that is inhabited by our goddess, Semira.”

“This is absurd,” a red dragon snapped. “Why should Cachamwri care about some foreign goddess? This is some plot of yours, Kel, intended to embarrass the Dragon Lords again. Like that business with the Dark Ones' spawn.”

“That was Tegid's plot, not mine,” Kel grated. “I make no plots. I only serve Cachamwri as my duty demands.”

“The sword has been stolen by rebels in league with the Dark Ones,” Nineva said hastily. “Along with Merlin's Grimoire. It's our belief the rebels intend to use the two objects to crack the planetary wards that keep the Dark Ones from invading. If that were to happen, all our people—Sidhe, Dragonkind, and human—would be at their mercy.”

“Lies,” the red dragon snarled. “The wards are just as they've always been. You are attempting to trick us into some involvement with your ape ways.”

A rumble of agreement rose from the other dragons, who stared at them with anger and suspicion.

“What would I gain from such a deception?” she demanded. “As to the wards being solid—that's because the rebels haven't broken them yet. If you wait until they're destroyed, it will be too late for us all.”

“The wards draw their power from the Earth itself,” another of the dragons said. “It would be impossible for a gang of Sidhe rebels to break them. And with such pitiful weapons—a sword and some alien book? Preposterous.”

“If Cachamwri indeed wished us to take some action, he would tell us so.” Piaras gestured at the Egg. “We have the very manifestation of his power right here. He would not send some ape with such a vital message.”

“Aye,” Draconian voices rumbled. “It's so!”

“The creature surely lies. Kel brought her here because he wishes to shame us again.”

Kel and Nineva exchanged a hooded glance. He'd been right, she realized. This was an utter waste of time.

An hour later, she and Kel walked from the chamber, leaving Soren to continue arguing their case.

“They're not going to listen to him, either.” Nineva scraped her hair back from her face, feeling battered with discouragement. The three of them had tried every argument they could think of, but the Dragon Lords greeted each one with ridicule.

“No.” Kel sounded as exhausted as she felt. “They're too afraid of looking weak or stupid to the clans they lead. Among the Dragonkind, that sort of thing can get you killed, since a weak leader will soon find himself challenged by someone younger and more ambitious.”

“I gather we're not talking about an electoral challenge?” Nineva asked drily.

“More like a battle to the death. In fact,
I
could have taken Tegid's seat on the Lords after I killed him.”

“Why didn't you? No taste for Draconian politics?”

“That, and no desire whatsoever to live among the Dragonkind.”

Nineva snorted. “After what I've seen the last couple of hours, I can understand that.”

Kel boosted her astride his back, walked to the cave mouth, and leaped out into a long, swooping dive. Nineva was too dispirited to flinch, despite the sickening drop.

The cliffs were lined with dragons, watching them with hostility and suspicion. Some of them hurled catcalls. She fought to ignore them. “For the first time, I'm glad my father's dead.”

Kel glanced back at her, a Draconian frown on his muzzle. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

“The only thing I was born to do, and I keep fucking it up.” She knotted her hands into frustrated fists and beat them against one of his spines. “I lost the sword, I can't power the goddess, I can't even
find
either of them. Now Merlin's Grimoire is gone, too, and
the fucking Dragonkind won't listen to us.
” That last was a snarl of raw rage. “Nothing I do is working, Kel.”

“So what you're saying is,
I'm
a fuckup.”

“What—you? No, I meant—”

“But we're partners, right? Cachamwri told me to protect you and recover the sword. I haven't, so by your reasoning…”

“You and I both know Arthur Pendragon would not make a fuckup a Knight of the Round Table.”

“And I assure you, a Knight of the Round Table would not let himself be partnered with one, either.” He aimed a glare at a male dragon who darted too close. The other immediately lost his courage and veered off. Kel continued, “If I thought you were that kind of liability, I would pat you on your little head and leave you back at Avalon with lots of my friends to keep an eye on you. Then I'd go off to find your goddess. Since I have not done that, you are obviously not a liability.”

He spread his wings and came in for a landing in Soren's cave, his muscled legs bending to absorb the impact. Nineva was already scrambling down from his neck. “Then why the hell do we keep failing?”

“A lack of instant success does not make you a failure, Nineva. Quitting makes you a failure, and I know you too well to think you're going to quit.”

“Fine. It's not over till it's over. Insert stirring speech here, rah rah.” She stalked into the cave. “But that still doesn't answer the question of what the hell do we do now? The Dragon Lords don't believe us, they're not going to help us, and the Dark Ones are going to invade. We have to do something.”

He followed, his expression thoughtful. “Maybe not.”

“What, we wait to become Purina Demon Chow?”

Kel sighed and sat back on his haunches, flipping his tail around his feet. “Sweet, I've been at this a long time, and I've found that when you've done all you can and it doesn't work, it's because your timing is bad. Sometimes when you wait and try again, the opportunity you need falls into your hands.”

“But what if it doesn't, Kel?”

“It will.” He shrugged. “Or we're screwed. At this point, those are our only two options.”

Nineva still looked
so unconvinced—and thoroughly miserable with it—that he was about to try comforting her in human form when a soft voice interrupted. “Kel? Are you in there?”

He grimaced. Just what he didn't need with Nineva in meltdown—an amorous young dragon honing her skills at flirtation. Unfortunately, females in season were prone toward flights of melodrama, and he knew trying to get rid of Eithne would probably just set her off. “Yes, we're here, Eithne.”

She came in for a featherlight landing that spoke of both youth and agility. Her large blue eyes scanned the cave anxiously as her tail lashed like an agitated cat's. “Are we alone?”

Kel managed not to sigh. “Nineva's here.” Maybe Eithne would display a little sensitivity.

She made a dismissive gesture. “As long as Soren's not, I don't care.”

Standing by his side, Nineva rolled her eyes. “Just pretend I'm not here.”

Kel gave the toe of her boot a brush with his tail tip, a gesture meant to comfort.
Patience, darling.
“What do you want, Eithne?”

She moved toward him, her white scales almost glowing in the light of the cave. “I want to go with you, Kel. To Avalon.” Seeing him open his mouth to explain just how impossible that was, she stretched out a foreleg in a pleading gesture. “I can't bear it here any longer. I feel as if I'm suffocating under endless layers of expectation and tradition.”

“Eithne, you know I wouldn't be allowed to take you with me, even if I thought it was a good idea. Your clan is just not going to permit it.”

“But all the females talk about is their eggs and their young and trying to teach their young to fly and hunt and cast spells.” Passion lit her great blue eyes. “I don't care about any of that! I want to see Avalon. I want to meet humans and have adventures!”

“Yeah, well, sometimes adventures suck,” Nineva muttered.

Eithne looked down at her. Hostility flared in that pretty blue gaze before she returned her attention to Kel. “They say you mate with her. Is it true?”

“And you think this is your business why?” Nineva growled, glowering.

Eithne just growled, apparently reading her answer in his face. “It
is
true.” She wheeled away with an angry flick of her tail. “I cannot believe this! I am one of your own kind. I'm in season! And you reject me for this…ape!”

Nineva's eyes narrowed. “In season? As in…”

“Hormones,” Kel snapped. To the dragon he added, “I'm not rejecting you, Eithne. I simply know it won't work. Your clan…”

“And mating with this creature
would
work? She's not even our kind!”

Nineva folded her arms and looked up at Kel. “You know, for somebody so enlightened when it comes to interspecies relationships, her bigoted streak is awfully close to the surface.”

Eithne curled her lip and took a menacing step toward her small rival. “It's not bigoted to know when something's unnatural!”

Kel decided he'd had enough. “Eithne, get out.”

“Kel…”

“Now!” It was a full-throated roar.

Eithne gave him a wounded look, then whirled to fling herself from the cave. Kel and Nineva stood silent, listening to the angry beat of her wings.

“You think she's got a point?” Nineva's voice was very quiet.

Kel snorted. “She's full of shit.”

“But look at us!” She turned to face him. “I barely come to your elbow.”

“At the moment. I could change that in five seconds flat.”

“But that's just magic.”

“No, it's reality. And we're damn lucky we can change it to accommodate how we feel.” He made a hissing sound of pure frustration. “Look, you said you loved me. Did you mean it?”

She spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Of course, but it's not that easy. For one thing, we've only known each other for one high-pressure week, which we spent either fighting for our lives or fucking like bunnies. How do we know this is real?”

“Nineva, I'm almost two thousand years old. I know how I feel. And I know that this”—he thrust out a scaled claw—“doesn't mean shit. Most of my life, I was a piece of metal, but I was still me. I'm me when I'm a dragon, and I'm me when I'm human. And I know exactly what I want. You're it. Now the only real question is—what do
you
want?”

 

Nineva stared up
into his magnificent, alien face. And realized he was right. It didn't really matter what form he wore. “I want you.”

“Good. Remember that.”

“Kel? Nineva?” The question sounded over the heavy thump of a big body landing. Soren walked in, looking dispirited and shaking his head.

Nineva wasn't even surprised. “So what now?”

“I keep working on them. Maybe sheer persistence will wear them down.” The big dragon flung himself down on his back and extended his wings as though trying to rid them of a cramp. They stretched from one cave wall to the other. “It would probably be best if you and Kel headed back to Avalon and continued…whatever it is your goddess needs you to do.”

Kel nodded. “We've certainly done all we can do here.” He cut a wary glance toward the cave entrance. Three or four dragons circled just beyond it, peering inside with obvious hostility. “And frankly, I think we've pushed our welcome just about as far as we can. We need to get the hell out of here before one of those idiots starts something I have to finish.”

So they thanked Soren for his efforts, mounted up, and flew off, both trying to ignore the cold, hostile dragon eyes that watched them leave.

Nineva was glad of her armor.

 

Some time later,
Kel's voice broke the silence that had fallen dismally between them. “We're through the Dragon Lands' wards now. I could gate the rest of the way back to Avalon, but I'd like to fly a little longer. Burn off some frustration. Unless you'd rather?”

“No, that's fine. It feels good up here.” And it did, with the afternoon sun just warm enough on her armored shoulders. Far below them, the ground spread out in a rollingquilt of winter-bare trees and half-frozen rivers, looking like a Christmas miniature at this altitude.

It was pleasant having nothing to do, particularly given that she knew the moment they arrived home, they'd be plunged back into the frantic race to find Grim, Semira, and the sword.

And Nineva was so damned tired. She'd adjusted to Avalon's vampire hours, and her body insisted she should have been in bed long ago. “I'm wrecked,” she groaned.

“So get some sleep.”

“I'll fall.”

Kel snorted. “Give me a break.”

Nineva smiled slightly, knowing what he meant: he'd never
let
her fall. So she slumped in her sun-warmed armor and let her eyes drift shut. A moment later, she felt the ghostly touch of a spell taking hold, holding her upright in the harness he'd earlier conjured for her. Comforted, she allowed herself to drift down into sleep.

Her dreams were jumbled, chaotic with images of angry dragons and Dark Ones rampaging through Times Square. She woke barely half an hour later with a pounding heart and palms gone sweat-damp inside her gauntlets.

Peering around as they flew, she gradually began to relax. Everything looked at peace. Below them was a majestic canyon cut by the snaking silver blade of a river. The water foamed white in rapids as it crashed over great boulders, sending up sprays of droplets that glinted in the sunlight. Trees crowded the river edge or jutted from the canyon walls at strange angles.

A bald eagle cut slow circles in an updraft, scanning for its next meal. Without warning, it stooped, shooting downward like an arrow, then arcing skyward again. Silver scales flashed as a fish lashed helplessly in its talons.

A smile of pure pleasure curled Nineva's mouth. “Kel, did you see—”

“Traitor!” The blast of malevolent satisfaction brought her jerking around so fast, she'd have fallen if not for her harness. The blue dragon appeared out of thin air, his jaws opening, a plume of magical flame shooting right at her face.

Nineva's shield popped into place without conscious thought. The deadly blast boiled over it, only to roll off like water. Kel twisted beneath her, his wings spreading wide as he braked and spun away.

“Irial!” Rage rumbled in his voice. “I told you what I'd do if you tried to hurt her again!”

“You should have thought of that before you stole the Egg!” Irial shot after him, his jaws snapping a fraction from the tip of Kel's tail. “You've done it now, brother! You'll be hunted down like the blasphemer you are. I'll be only the first to spill your blood…”

“What the hell is he talking about?” Nineva clung dizzily to her harness as Kel twisted and bit at Irial as he sped by. The other dragon roared in pain.

“Looks like I'm the one who spilled the blood.” Kel lunged for his brother's throat.

A sensation of massing power dragged Nineva's eyes skyward just in time to see six more dragons appear. They'd apparently worn some kind of invisibility spell. “Kel! There are more of them!” She conjured a fireball and sent it shooting at the newcomers, but it went wide as Kel closed with Irial for another raking pass.

Blood splashed across Nineva's face, blinding and sticky. She scrubbed it from her eyes. “Kel, dammit,
look up!
”

“Shit!” Kel snarled, finally spotting their attackers. He folded his wings and fell toward the river below, stooping just as the eagle had.

The six dragons shot after them, their wings beating the air in thunderous flaps, their eyes wild with fury. Almost at Kel's tail, Irial dove in pursuit, talons reaching. Nineva fired off another blast and had the satisfaction of seeing it hit him. Irial yelped, tossing his head at the pain. “Ape, you're going to pay for that!”

“
I'm not an ape!
” The Goddess Mark began to burn as Nineva's power rose. The fireball she conjured this time was so hot, she felt it even through her gauntlets. She shot it at him, forcing him to jerk aside. He lost control and tumbled.

But the rest of the dragons were gaining, growing ever closer to Kel's whipping tail. “Speed it up!” Nineva cried, conjuring another fireball and shooting it at the nearest pursuer. “We're about to get toasted!”

The leader, a big gold, opened his jaws. Something began to glow white hot down in the darkness of his maw. Nineva threw up a shield…

Suddenly she was hanging head-down in her harness. She swallowed a scream, realizing Kel had dived into a loop. The dragons shot past even as he came up behind them—and gave them a furious rolling blast of magical fire. Several cried out, startled, but they didn't burn. They didn't even look hurt.

“That was a warning shot,” Kel called in a battleground roar. “What maggot lie has my brother fed you to make you attack us?”

“It's no lie.” The leader banked and shot toward them again. “What have you done with the Egg, thief?”

“What egg?” Kel sounded as bewildered as Nineva felt.

“Don't bother playing innocent, Kel.” The gold's eyes narrowed as he and Kel circled each other. “Cachamwri's Egg. I don't feel it on you—you must have hidden it. Where? Tell us now, and perhaps we'll let you live.”

Nineva's jaw dropped in horror. “Oh, sweet Semira—the rebels must have stolen it!” Remembering the raw power she'd felt in the mystical object, she went cold. Between it, the sword, and the Grimoire, the rebels would have everything they'd need to break the planet's wards.

Kel shot her an equally horrified look. He snapped his head around and roared, “You idiots! The Egg goes missing, and you automatically chase me while the real thieves get away? How blind stupid can you be? If you don't sense the Egg,
it's because I don't have it!
”

The gold dragon looked taken aback, as if the very vehemence of Kel's protest had made him doubt.

“He's lying.” Irial whipped in close to the leader as the whole group swirled in a frenzy around Kel and Nineva. “He and the ape hid it somewhere. Let's kill them, and we'll hunt the Egg at our leisure.”

“Be silent,” the gold snapped. To Kel he added, “You'd better confess. All of Dragonkind is right behind us. If you tell us how to find the Egg, it will go easier for you.”

“We don't have the Egg!”
Kel flew in close to pace the leader. The snap of Irial's teeth forced him to twist away. “Think—why would we have hidden it, then gone sailing along where we could be easily caught? We'd have gated off with it, exactly as the true thief did!”

“The other ape must have it—that Gawain of his,” another dragon cried. “Kel and this one are decoys, assigned to trick us!”

A great roar dragged Nineva's attention away from the surrounding pack toward the mouth of the canyon. Her eyes widened. “Holy hell!”

Dragons. A huge writhing cloud of them, flooding along the canyon like a river of multicolored scales, growing larger with every beat of their wings.

Her heart climbed into her throat. They'd rip her and Kel apart. And if past attitudes were any indication, there was no way to talk sense into them. The mob would discover the truth only after the two of them were dead.

Automatically, Nineva started to cast a gate, only to hear one of the dragons howl in rage. “They're trying to escape!” The circling six darted in. Plumes of fire splashed against the magical shield Kel erected. Nineva ignored the flames and concentrated on creating the gate back to Avalon.

The familiar silver point of a doorway appeared—but failed to grow. Nineva swore in frustration. “They're blocking me!” She could feel it, the collective magic of the dragons pressing in against her own, smothering it.

Beginning to panic, she looked around at the six creatures circling them. They must have been a delaying force, young and fast enough to find her and Kel and slow them down until the rest of the mob could catch up.