Cadell stood at Carys’s shoulder in human form. “What is she doing?”
“I suspect she’s trying to connect with the magic here.”
Laura held the stones in one hand and dug her hands into the earth with the other.
Cadell frowned. “She is Brightkin.”
“She is.” Carys nodded. “But she has a formal role in Pauwau Aki, which means she has trained in magic. It’s not as powerful as her Shadowkin’s magic, but she can connect.”
“Maybe that’s part of your magic as well,” Cadell said. “You were raised in a place where the border between the two worlds is more permeable.”
Carys nodded. “Maybe. I hadn’t thought of that.”
Laura’s voice rose, and her face lit with a bright smile. She leaned down and spoke to the ground she was sitting on, pressing her forehead to the earth.
“She’s a striking woman,” Cadell said.
You can say she’s beautiful.Carys spoke to his mind.She’s my best friend, but you’re my dragon.
“Beautifulis far too common a word to use for her.” Cadell kept his eyes on Laura.
Laura gently tossed the stones on the ground, then took the bowl where her herbs were burning and blew gently, coaxingmore smoke from them as she murmured over her stones and the earth.
Carys saw the stones begin to move slowly, rolling over the ground and rearranging themselves in a distinct pattern. Laura watched them and glanced between the stones and the smoke.
After a few moments, she stood and looked at Carys and Cadell. “We need to follow the smoke.”
Laura left her stones on the ground and picked up the earthen bowl, carrying it in front of her and singing under her breath.
The smoke rose and lifted into the air, seemingly impervious to the gusts of wind that moved the trees as they walked through the back garden, through the kitchen garden, and around the side of the house.
Carys tried not to wince as she watched Laura’s bare feet sink into the cold, sticky mud on the edge of the garden.
“Her feet must be freezing,” Cadell said. “I will make sure warming blankets are gathered after her ritual.”
They walked toward the courtyard where soldiers were drilling and dragons rested in beast form like a fleet of fighter jets waiting for orders.
Cadell and Carys followed at a short distance, and Carys kept her eyes on Laura, whose eyes were locked on the smoke that traveled through the wind.
As they entered the courtyard, Cadell barked something in Cymric and the soldiers who’d been drilling scattered.
There was a low thrumming sound as the dragons surrounding the house tuned into the energy floating through the air. Carys had heard the sound a few times before, most notably when Cadell was greeted by the dragons from the Chahta nation who had come to help train her in California.
Dragon vocalizations weren’t often the roar they emitted when they were angry or belching fire. There was a deepvibrating noise they made when they recognized each other that nearly sounded like a large feline purr.
If your cat was a terrifying aerial raptor with a wingspan nearly as large as a jumbo jet.
Cadell was in human form, but clearly the dragons in the courtyard understood what he was saying because they rose on their back legs and spread their wings, blocking some of the wind as their keen golden eyes detected the magic and the smoke.
The air around Carys grew still and the smoke curled upward, spinning in the familiar glyph of an intricate spiral as it gathered over the fae mound where Naida had taken Dru to heal. The smoke spun and twisted, circling and circling until it broke into the familiar Celtic triple spiral that Carys had seen on megalithic structures as old as any in Briton.
The glyph formed over the mound, glowing in the fading, pearlescent light and circling gently over the fairy hill that grew thick with grass before her eyes.
The thrumming sound from the dragons grew louder, and beyond the courtyard, Carys saw Duncan and Lachlan run out of the stables, jolting to a dead stop when they saw the triple spiral hanging over the fae mound.
Laura lowered the bowl with the burning herbs and walked toward Carys and Cadell. “I asked the magic in this place to show me the key to bringing things back into balance.” She lifted an open hand. “And this is where the smoke led.”
Cadell nodded. “Then the earth has answered.”