Page 108 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
Lizzy, though, pushed him toward Yuánchi. “Rig the saddle for four. We are bringing Mary.”
“Where are we going?” he called back.
“The French think I am dead. But thereisa famous Bennet sister, the first wyfe in centuries to bind a golden wyvern…”
“Jane,” I whispered.
32
THE REFUGE
LIZZY
The sheatheddagger weighed on my thigh as we flew to Netherfield, Jane and Charles’s estate and their home with young Jemma. Yuánchi’s strength flagged and the wind howled as we returned to Hertfordshire, where this all began. Here, Jane was stung, Lydia corrupted. Here, Jane, Mary and I had pored over the Loch bairn journal, that so-called family history which neatly excised an ancient Bennet betraying the great wyves.
Hundreds of yards below, a passing wheat field caught my eye. Half the field was the vibrant chartreuse of young grain. The rest was foul black, like it was smothered in crow feathers. Then a mile farther, a stand of majestic, old poplars appeared soaked in oily soot. It looked like the tainted gardens and forest at Pemberley, but Fènnù was behind us, following at the edge of my perception, not in front to spread her blight.
I spotted the town of Meryton. Beyond, a column of dirty smoke hung—but in the direction of Longbourn, not Netherfield.There, I thought, and Yuánchi swerved. The violence stewing in me, the fury that had saturated me when I saw Mary’s bloodied body lying so still, boiled hotter.
Traveling the mile from Meryton to Longbourn took a few tens of seconds at this speed.Be ready, I thought to Yuánchi, and sun-like heat kindled in his breast.Down. He folded a wing and plunged sideways. Behind me, Georgiana gave an abbreviated shriek. This had been an unpleasant introduction to flight.
The cream firedrakes broke left and right, flying opposite directions around Longbourn. They circled it a hundred yards distant, their remarkable vision flicking through esoteric color schemes as they worked to peer through the smoky haze. The house was not burning, not seriously, not flames in the interior, but it was charred and damaged, fire licking from a hanging shutter, the front door wide open, a fence fallen in cinders, swathes of ground and garden smoldering.
Everything was deadly still. Fear and fury battled within me. What had happened?
The drakes tuned their vision to see lesser heat. That bloated the fires to featureless glares, but subtler details emerged. There were no living persons outside, nor any bodies—a body still shone warm an hour after death. But this perspective was a window to the past. The ground was painted in thirty-foot-long stripes of latent heat. Crisped, dead creatures filled them, some kind of crawler with glossy shells that reflected the heat. There were fires farther away, in a stand of trees and a meadow, all fueling the dingy pall.
We settled in front of the house. My feet hit the earth before Yuánchi had folded his wings. On Longbourn’s front walk, I closed my eyes and reached out with my mind, reachedhard, pressing my awareness to Netherfield and beyond, another mile, another five miles…
Nothing. “I cannot find Jane’s wyvern.”
I opened my eyes and saw Darcy running into the house, pistol in hand. Fool. I shouted at Georgiana and Mary, “Stay with Yuánchi,” then summoned the drakes and ran after him.
Darcy had stopped inside the door, silent and listening. Not so foolish after all. I whispered, “I will check the top floor.”
“How?” he whispered back.
Distantly, glass smashed. “One of the drakes,” I said, my vision splitting as I saw through the drake’s eyes. She had simply thrown herself through the window to Jane’s and my old bedroom; glass was no threat to her scales. The floor was sprayed with transparent fragments and shattered frame.
Wordlessly, Darcy headed to the kitchen. I went the other way, checking the parlors and Papa’s old library. I found Darcy again as he emerged from the pantry.
“Nobody,” he said. “The kitchen door is standing open. The servants may have run that way.”
His gaze settled on my hand, where Gramr’s serrated blade gleamed. I didnot remember drawing it, but Darcy held a cocked pistol, so he could hardly criticize.
“The house is empty,” I agreed as the drake finished surveying the top floor. She floated down the stairway to us, the outer halves of her wings folded so tight to fit that their tips met under her claws.
Outside, Mary shouted, “Lizzy!” We sprinted out the front door. She pointed down the road where two riders galloped toward us. “I think that is Jane.”
They were coming from town, not from Netherfield, but it was Jane. I had never seen her gallop a horse, but I recognized her riding form. Charles was with her, and he held up his arm to wave. Relief spilled into me, disarming the quivering violence in my muscles and nerves. Mary sighed softly and slumped, wincing, on Georgiana’s arm. Darcy seemed the only one driven to action. He grabbed the well bucket and splashed water over the smoldering shutter.
Charles reached us a few horse lengths before Jane, and he reined his frothing mount to a skidding stop. “You have Jemma?” he shouted to Darcy as he leaped down.
Darcy froze, the bucket dripping in one hand. Charles spun to me, the question hot in his eyes as Jane arrived and dismounted, her face streaked with tears.
“Nobody is here,” I told them both.
“Jemma is!” Jane screamed. “Sheis here!” I had never seen her like this, storming and desperate.
