Swift Magic (The Swift Codex Book 2) (15 page)

“How?”

“It makes the sound of the ocean.”

“Okay, why do you want me to sleep?”

“So when you next wake up, all the waiting will be over and you won't have to worry about a thing.”

“You mean so I don't run away or cause trouble.”

Lilly intervened then. She took me by the arm and pulled me away. I washed up. The
Veridad
spell had worn off, and I did not want to waste my conscious moments before the shell's effect hit me.

“How do you think it went today?” I asked her.

“As well as it could have. They were very moved about the attack.”

“My throat feels swollen.”

She gave a pitying smile. “I'm sure.”

Seeing the bed she was drifting me towards, I balked. Something was bothering me. “Where's Mordon?”

Lilly gave a real grin and rolled her eyes. “Under arrest for assault, but I don't think they'll charge him, just hold him for a little.”

Concern jolted through me. “Assault? Who?”

“Don't you remember? He pulled the convict off of you. I thought he was going to kill him, but I guess not.”

I blinked. “Wait, what?”

“I said, Mordon straightened the man out. He went back to the dungeons for his poor behavior. I doubt he'll last a week in the dungeons now. Don't worry, Mordon will be by your side soon enough. No one is shedding any tears over that creep.”

“I guess.”

“Did you know that they rearranged
his
court appearance to match yours? No one thinks that was coincidence, but who can prove otherwise?”

“I think you can prove it if you can find trace of a price on my head.”

Lilly frowned. “Barnes tried. Nobody is talking. It's a dead end. We have to be happy you're alive, that's all.”

Lyall dropped his pack to the ground, crunching the shavings he'd made last night from whittling on a stick. He sat on his pack. “You look lost in shadows.”

“What?”

“I'm asking why you are distressed.”

I smiled. Couldn't help it, not with how suddenly he'd become all concerned about me. A whisper of honeysuckle tickled the back of my neck, warming me from the inside.

“You want me to tell you?”

He shrugged, but I could tell he did want to know.

Why not? It was hardly confidential information.

I repeated the story.

Lyall shook his head once I was finished.

“We take for granted how the Wildwoods protects us. You would never have been put in a room with a hitman.”

“I guess.”

“Mordon defended you, then, even knowing he may pay for it?”

“I don't think he cared. He saw what was happening and acted.”

Lyall's smile was smug and coldly approving. “Glad to know he follows the true rules of leadership.”

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “The true rules of leadership?”

“Protect life at every chance. Display kindness. Give when you see someone is in need.”

Those rules sounded familiar somehow, but I couldn't place where I knew them or how. “Is it an honor creed?”

“You could call it such.”

“Are the true rules of leadership a drake thing? Do you know a lot about drakes?”

“Not in particular. I know of the rules because they are part of an ancient Commandment of the Veil. The commandments are intended to govern anyone non-lamb. Once the human population outweighed the magical community, and this was quite some centuries ago, they began to hunt their magical counterparts. In order to survive, they built a Veil. Some parts are tactile and observable—the use of portals, the concealment of magical communities, the use of illusions to mask anything that might accidentally be discovered—but other aspects are social defenses.

“That is why we have certain rules when out of the magical areas. Don't go shooting spells in public lamb spaces, don't provide evidence of our survival. The honor creed, as you call it, was instated to help us help ourselves. As we could easily face extinction, we must remember not to let our own prejudices tear us apart.”

That was an important observation. I said, “I think we've forgotten that. The divide between sorcerers and lambs is so clear that I think sorcerers have forgotten about normal people as much as normal people have forgotten magic. Which leaves us to fight amongst ourselves. And do things like discriminate against fire drakes.”

“Hmm.” Lyall took out his pipe, filled it, and began to smoke.

I doubted that I had changed his mind in any way about Mordon. “Where is Mordon, anyway?”

“I sent him up a bunny trail until we were finished speaking.”

My jaw dropped in astonishment. “What?”

“No need to worry, he's not far. The Wildwoods will keep him close enough.”

“Why?”

Lyall pointed the stem of his pipe at me. “I thought you wanted him near.”

“No, I mean, why did you keep him away?”

“I did not want his interruption.”

Annoyance pinked my cheeks. I couldn't keep the irritation out of my tone. “Well, then, have you got all your answers?”

“Why did the courts use
Veridad
? It is hardly any more accurate than the other spells and its side effects are by far the worst of the truth spells.”

I sighed, resigned to responding. “I was told it's part of the court experience. The whole process is meant to be a deterrent in itself.”

“Would be a pity to put a perfectly innocent person through that,” Lyall said. He tapped on his pipe. A bird stopped on the branch above him, trilled out a whistle, and left. He climbed to his feet. “Very well, then, let's go find your fire drake.”

I frowned. “You said he was near.”

“I did say, yes, but I am told that someone is looking for him and the Wildwoods so kindly chose to oblige their will over mine. Up we go.” He tossed on his pack and kicked dirt over the remains of the fire.

I hurried with my bedroll, tying it up and wearing the strap over my shoulder. “Who is looking for him?”

Lyall was moving quick, leaving a now non-smoking fire behind. “Someone with greater authority than me.”

A roar shook through the woods. Lyall froze, listening closely until he'd settled on a direction. He bolted into a jaunty jog.

I bustled after him. “Greater authority than you? Like the Captain of the Vanguard?”

“Yes.”

A branch swung at me in his wake. I stopped asking questions and just tried to keep up.

The next clearing bore a ring of defenders armed to the teeth with trinkets and weapons, a collection of prized blades and legendary guns. There were a few Hunters in their midst, but most of them were Vanguard. From my past conversations with my parents, I knew the fey battalion had found an intruder, and under the leadership of an earth drake, they were going to defeat or kill him.

Mordon braced himself in the center, his red scales raised in a hackle, releasing a musky warning scent from glands in his hide. I'd never thought of him as fine-boned, but he looked it compared to the ruddy green dragon facing him.

The green dragon had heavy ridges on his brow and down his back. His spikes grew thick and long, a telltale sign of advanced age and battle prowess. Scales lost their vibrancy past their prime in life; this beast still had a healthy sheen and rich tone. Mordon towered over him, however the green dragon had stock and stamina and a tail which terminated in a bony club.

Much as I had believed the stories told to my wondering ears, I was not prepared at all for the reality of the fey battalion. There were the weapons and the black sashes tied about their waists and the grim silence of an elven ancestor which showed through in the seriousness of the situation. But when I'd heard the tales, I'd always envisioned myself protected by the battalion, not facing them.

A soft wind made the aspens quake in the silence following the trumpeting challenges of the dragons. Bursts of the breeze teased the faces of the battalion before whirling around seed heads and whisking them in the space in between the two contestants. I wiped my eyes which had watered from my sprint and I searched for gaps in between the hunters standing ready to spring. Everything waited for a single word to break the peace.

I slipped my invisibility ring on my little finger and bolted through the ranks. The nearest woman wrenched her bow in my direction, saw nothing, and returned her aim back to Mordon. A sudden hammering of my heart rang out in my ears.

As quickly as I had passed through the front lines, I was between the dragons. The moon stared down, painting the ferns and trees in gray and silver shadows. I panted with my running. Both dragons swung their heads at me and their nostrils flared.

I withdrew from the ring hanging about my neck, in an instant becoming visible to everyone, surprising the battalion at a moment they were most alert. Arrows and spells cut through the air.

They say that a fey is at their strongest in their ancestral home. I had no way of knowing what that meant until the split-second when I felt the vibrations from the bowstring, the shout of sorcerers, and the penetration of projectiles plummeting straight towards me. Just after, I felt Mordon's wings unfurl, arcing to my defense. The earth dragon sucked at the air, his throat beginning the hum of a roar. I reached into the world around me and wrapped it in a bubble, enclosing the three of us.

Bursts of light struck the fey circle, sending veins of brilliance arching and zipping overhead. Arrows snapped and fell to the ground. Then red leathery wings blocked my vision and scooped me off my feet, ramming me against the hot scales of Mordon's belly. A roar rumbled through the startled cries of the battalion. The wall of red scales shoved me as Mordon lunged his neck in a quick jolt. I felt the force of his snapping teeth all the way down to his chest.

Our opponent spoke first, his voice so low that the very ground shook and groaned with effort.

“Fire drake! Take your feeble form and submit to our authority.”

That was insulting, to both of us. Mordon's muscles tensed beneath my hand; I silently pleaded for him to not rise to the bait, and wished we were back in the shop or even the drake's castle where I could ask the venue to mute my voice…then I drew my magic to me into a tight wad to muffle my voice. “Tell them you do not have a feeble form, but you will shift into a less frightening creature if they desire it.”

I felt him tense again, then a claw closed about my waist and drew me beneath his chest. Mordon said in a soft rumble that was almost the same purr he spoke to the smallest children with, “I haven't a feeble form, but if I frighten you so, then I will become less intimidating.”

With that, he folded his wings and waited for a reply. The battalion on the outside of the circle had stopped. I watched them as they put another plan into action. There had to be a way to get around the fey circle I'd put in place, and they were sure to know it. By putting up a barrier, I'd bought us time, nothing more. We needed to resolve the conflict with the earth drake, and quickly.

“Remain as you are, then, if you fear whispers in the wind,” the other drake said, and I felt the words and the way they echoed from the very earth itself, the vibrations of his voice carrying in the ground before transferring to the air.