Page 120 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
Down, I thought, and she pressed her body flat. I trod a few steps along her angled wing until the drop was safe, then jumped, damp skirts flapping.
Traces of Fènnù’s black breath surrounded us, remnants from her exhalations and sharp, pungent spurts from the diseased drops falling from her wings. It formed a thin, waist-high fog that looked like swirling coal dust and pooled in the deep wheel ruts from cannon carts.
A large, plain tent was erected ahead of us, clearly the general headquarters. Several officers stood outside in extravagant uniforms with plumed hats and gilded coats. They watched Fènnù with expressions ranging from disciplined unease to raw horror.
In front of them, commanding and calm, a man in his mid-forties stood in a plain green infantry uniform and rumpled, unbuttoned gray redingote. He wore a black felt bicorn hat, famously turneden bataille, the points aligned with his shoulders instead of front-to-back.
I walked to the emperor Napoleon, the black fog parting around my skirts and merging behind me in a rising wake, a mimicry of the sky-blotting destruction that darkened the horizon behind us.
He gave a courteous nod. In a heavy French accent, he said, “Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy.”
He seemed quite certain of that, given I was supposed to be dead.
“Have we met?” I said.
“Non.I have had not the pleasure. But I suspectedla dame de guerre, the wyfe of war, she must be you.Ah.” He smiled, belatedly understanding my question, and fished in his coat pocket. “I have this…”
He unfolded a sheet of notepaper, a charcoal drawing of myself. I did not recognize the hand. It was not Darcy’s or Mary’s, and certainly not Georgiana’s; her likenesses were astonishing. It was a romantic rendering, my eyes bold, mycheekbones excessively sharp. It did not show the blemish from Fènnù’s frozen breath, the one scar not erased by my slumber in the lake.
“Drawn by Mr. Wickham,” the emperor explained. “Your sister’s husband, but a great admirer of you.”
My last sight of Wickham had been his severed boot after he encountered Yuánchi’s claws. “An admiration that was not returned.”
The emperor made acomme ci, comme çanoise. “An unimportant man. I meant no insult. The fault is my English. I have studied your language only two years, since I understood that England’smonopolesur les dracawould decide this war.”
Fènnù, impatient, shifted her wings. The wind stirred my hair and flapped the walls of the tent. The officers steadied their plumed hats and retreated a step.
“Elle est magnifique,” Napoleon said, admiring Fènnù’s towering mass with no sign of unease. “La dragonne noire de l’apocalypse.La porteuse du désespoir. The poisoned winter that has killed a dozen kingdoms.Et voilà.” He nudged his boot into one of the ruts in the ground. It was filled with dense, black fog. A tiny crawler scurried out.
“Are you not afraid I will kill you?” I asked.
He scoffed, a swift exhalation through pursed lips. “The wyfe of war does not assassinate generals and kings. Least of all, emperors. She destroys armies. Cities. Countries.” He considered me, and, unwillingly, I felt the intensity of his persona. There was a candid aspect to him—confidence of course, which was commonplace in powerful men whether justified or not, but also a transparency, a sincerity that was rare.
“You remind me of Lord Wellington,” I said, and remembered what I had glimpsed from the air before landing.
Napoleon nodded, “A good general,” but he seemed distracted. His gaze surveyed my clothes and lingered on the dagger at my thigh before his eyes met mine again.
Fènnù’s impatience was building, a steepening slope toward violence. Privately, I cradled my binding to Yuánchi, a lodestone for my inner self.
Yuánchi’s binding was in motion. Flying. Then, through that link:
Lizzy. Where—
I heard it in my mind, like a draca’s speech, but the words were English, not the abstract comprehension that flowed from a draca’s thoughts.
“What?” I said. The voice had a woman’s timbre but was exceedingly faint, fading too soon for me to identify.
The emperor cocked his head. He seemed relieved by my outburst. He tucked a hand in his pocket and asked, “Do you know why you will not kill me?”
I licked chapped lips. “I am all attention.” Who had spoken?
“It would end this cycle too soon. The black dragon is sated for now, but her appetite for destruction will return. She needs it. You need it. She will spread the blight, and you will aid her.” When I said nothing, his relief faded. His gaze returned to Gramr. “Vous êtes trop calme. You carry the dagger. You bound the black dragon. Where is your fury?”
It was difficult to focus on the conversation while resisting Fènnù’s influence. For an instant, my control slipped, and anger swept through me, thudded into my pulse, but with it came memories—the insight of past wyves.This man wants you to be angry, they warned, then they were silenced, locked out by Fènnù.
Manipulations all around me. Fènnù pressed her vengeance and fury into my mind while hiding the counsel of my past selves. This emperor teased me toward some unspoken goal.
Deliberately, I opened myself to the past.What does this man want from me?A dozen past selves answered.Slaughter. Annihilation.
