Page 14 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
Mr. Darcy thought fixation was preordained, an ironic yoke for any great wyfe of healing. That seemed too simple to me.
The sun had moved while I thought. Deep in the folded shadows of my creased gloves, silver glistened. That would be the satin shining. It began to puddle, transparent and threatening…
Hastily, I shook out the gloves and pulled them on, fastening the pearl button on each inner wrist with trembling fingers.
Perhaps Mr. Darcy was right. How and why did not matter. But as tests went, that had been no disaster. Particularly considering I had not touched Mr. Darcy for nine days. The last strength I borrowed, that scarlet surge of Yuánchi’s binding I absorbed through him, had faded and vanished days ago.
I could survive without Mr. Darcy. Survive without Pemberley.
I could go home.
The thought of the simple routines of Hartfield caught hold of me, a giddy tug under my breastbone.
Nessy was hiking up the path from the lake, her growing limbs coltish, her school dress the color of bluebells. She saw me and waved, then ran through the gardens, her book bag flopping as she rounded hedges and flower beds.
She arrived happy and puffing. “Aunt Emma!”
“You are back early,” I said, smiling. Her health was a gift from Lady Anne Darcy. Or from the ghost of her wyvern.
Nessy announced in one excited breath, “The school has too many children! They canceled my afternoon lessons! Will you do some magic for me?”
Very properly, I said, “I cannot imagine what you mean.” Nessy crossed her arms and scowled, so I made a show of relenting. “You must not tell anyone.”
“I never tell! Besides, everyone knows you can.”
“It is not magic. Not really,” I said, looking around the garden until I spotted a pair of black eyes gleaming beneath a hedge. I lowered my gloved fingertips by the lawn and smiled invitingly, and a roseworm emerged and scurried over, stopping slightly short of my hand. She wriggled with skittish curiosity. Like all roseworms, she was rabbit-sized and very quick, with finely wrought scales like a sheet of beads.
“Have it do a trick!” Nessy demanded.
“She,” I corrected. “Draca do not do tricks. But I have seen her chase squirrels…” I put my hands on my knees, leaned close, and said with huge enthusiasm, “Go get the squirrel!” The roseworm cocked her head, mystified, and I laughed. “When I was a child, we had a dog that would search every bush if I said that. I suppose a draca has no way to learn the word.”
Nessy gave me the long-suffering look that children reserve for simpleminded grownups. “Usemagic!”
Could I? I sensed the roseworm’s binding—that was my talent. Her binding matched the delicate pink of her belly scales. It wound around her rather than leading to a wyfe; she was feral, not bound. But other than sensing bindings and generally intriguing draca, my great wyfe status provided no special affinity. I could not command them like Lizzy or do whatever Georgiana did—calming them or communing with them. She described it as musical collaboration.
I peered into the draca’s eyes and tried to… touch her binding or… do something a great wyfe would do. And something did happen. My sense of her binding brightened and sharpened.
Then it was overshadowed by another presence, huge and old. I looked up.
The inky silhouette of a dragon cruised above us, level with the lowest clouds. Fènnù. When Lizzy was first lost in the lake, Fènnù came every day, skimming the waves and searching for her wyfe of war. But in the last few weeks, her visits had become irregular and remote.
Today, she passed high over Pemberley House, then stroked her great wings to pass higher yet over the lake. She banked and vanished into the cotton tufts and skeins decorating the eastern sky.
As if angry, another force shuddered—the force always present here, quiescent and massive. Lizzy and Yuánchi’s binding rippled in scarlet sheets of immense power. If anything, it had strengthened in the last month. It suffused all of Pemberley. But it was different today, streaked with black. The yearning attraction I felt for it, the pull of the wyfe of healing to her fated dragon, Yuánchi, had also diminished. Was that good or bad?
Nessy sighed impatiently. I had forgotten my assignment.
Perhaps a direct approach would work. I caught the roseworm’s gaze and said firmly, “Pay attention.” She took a step closer.
In my mind, I pictured a squirrel lounging on the lawn. The draca’s little rose-tone legs tensed. That was promising.
I tried imagining the visceral hatred our little terrier puppy had harbored for squirrels. They were scruffy interlopers. Fluffy invaders hiding in every tree—
The roseworm tore off, running crazily around the garden, circling the shrubs and snapping at the air. She looked very silly, and Nessy clapped her hands in delight.
The roseworm skidded to a stop at a particularly suspicious hazel bush. She crept closer, each little foot placed with such drama that Nessy laughed. Then the draca’s little chest swelled, and hissing blue flame shot out, burning a round, six-inch hole clear through the bush.
She sat back on her haunches, pleased. The bush, fortunately, was plump and green, and the flames subsided to steam and smoke. It looked like a charred attempt at hedge sculpture.
