Page 134 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
“What are you waiting for?” Georgiana asked.
Gingerly, I touched it—
I sawthree great wyves crowned in shining auras of gold. Rhythmic thunder hastened the surf. Blackness shrouded the sun.
The wyfe of healing reached up, drawing forth from the black dragon a blackbinding, but the binding was fouled with corruption, and blackness drowned them all…
“Mary!”Georgiana insisted.
“I am…” My fingers shook, feeling that icy death. “Yes, this is it.”
I pried the ring out of the steaming earth and held it on my palm between us—the invulnerable annulet that had joined the halves of the flute. Stripped of gold, it was obviously dragon claw, an iridescent shade less black than their teeth, closer to stained, aged pewter.
And scratched inside the circle was notation.
“It is so small,” Georgiana said, squinting. “Can you make it out?”
I settled my damaged spectacles, thankful I had not lost them in the flying and crashing and running. “Yes.” This was the part I had seen on the burned flute. I rotated it a half turn. “I see the start of the song.” I ticked through the symbols, the mysterious notation now as legible as browsing a printed score at Hatchards.
The last symbol locked into memory. “I have it.” I held the ring out to Georgiana.
She did not take it.
I moved it closer. “It is powerful. Wear it. You will need it to wake the dragon.”
Carefully, she picked it up from my palm. She turned it wonderingly, then took my left hand in hers. “I was foolish to doubt us.” She slipped the ring onto my fourth finger. “Mary Bennet, great wyfe of song, the ring is yours. It wedded your sister to my brother, your father to your mother, and wedded all the Bennets before them. Now it weds us, wyfe to wyfe.” Then she laughed because the ring hung very loosely on my finger. “But it will be safer to wear it like this.” She slipped it on my thumb instead.
Rhythmic thunder quickened to a gale, rippling our hair over our faces, and blackness shrouded the sun.
38
HARMONY
MARY
Fènnù hung above us,a mountain suspended, rising and falling with the strokes of her wings. Dark cloud boiled outward, and black spray struck the earth.
Lizzy cried out as Fènnù’s triumphant thoughts hammered us:My queen is free.
Georgiana stared up at the huge shape shadowing us. “I hear her music, but it is wrong…”
Mr. Darcy yelled at me, “Sing, dammit! Raise the third dragon.” He turned to Lizzy. “Do not let her bind you. She will carry you away. You are the strongest wyfe of war.Fight. Resist her.”
Lizzy, eyes raw from losing Yuánchi, took a step toward the black dragon. She lifted a hand, and I braced for the crush of her command, but instead she called to the dragon, “Your great queen is dead.” Fènnù bellowed in the air, and Lizzy shouted, “Remember her. I grieve with you. But I am not your queen.”
Fènnù’s black wings slammed down a freezing blast that tore mist from my breath, then she settled fifty yards away with a savage grace that belied her size. The wind died into stagnant, bitter cold. Grass stalks bent under prickling hoarfrost. The sky stayed inky black, and dusky smoke clung to poisoned patches of moss and turf.
Fènnù’s huge head peered forward, her faceted eyes studyingLizzy.
“Hurry,” Lizzy advised quietly.
Mr. Knightley had helped Emma to her feet. He half-carried her to Yuánchi, and she collapsed against his huge shoulder. I saw her lips move, then Mr. Knightley shouted, “We must wake Yuánchi. The draca must choose to bind.”
“She needs the amulet’s song,” Georgiana said.
We ran to them, and I sang the first note of Yuánchi’s song. I had never heard it, but the first symbol had a single interpretation: the opening note. After that it was an exercise in composition, using the notation’s rules to choose notes for our oversimplified human rendition while, in my mind, an elaborate polyphonic song grew, the complexity rising, the constraints on harmonic choice tightening with every measure.
Georgiana listened, her eyes narrow with concentration but unintimidated. Melody was her domain, and draca as well; I felt her power wake. After two measures, she joined, her brilliant soprano singing a harmonic line perfectly fitted to the framework I was building. A bar later, Mr. Knightley joined by doubling my melody, his face jubilant as the song surrounded us. This was more than the mysterious influence of draca; it was musicians improvising in perfect rapport. He smiled and sang to his wyfe, drawing her in, and Emma joined him with a light, untutored, naturally gifted soprano.
