Page 23 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
Her head was lowered, her eyes veiled by a curtain of curls coated with syrupy beads. She was still short, at least.
“Lizzy,” I said.
She dragged her wet hair aside with her left hand. I saw my sister’s dark eyes, and at last my heart believed. I hugged her tight. She was warm despite rising from the cold lake. She did not resist my touch, but there was no reciprocation. No recognition. I stepped back, and her gaze met mine, unperturbed, distant, and foreign.
When I last saw her, her eyesight had entered the final deterioration of her illness. Her pupils had been unresponsive, her tracking unsteady. Those symptoms were gone. I lifted my hands to palpate the sides of her neck. Her lymph, which had been a mass of hard tubercles, was soft and healthy.
Miraculous as that was, it seemed proper. Her body radiated preternatural health. A self-satisfied voice within me thought: See? There was no need to wait.
She had one blemish: a jagged blush on her cheek, like a birthmark. I brushed my thumb over it. The skin was as soft and smooth as a child’s.
Gently, she moved my hand away.
“Lizzy.” I tasted tears on that word. “I am Mary. Your sister.”
“I heard you call,” she said absently. The first syllables were a croak; her voice was harsh from disuse. More clearly, she resumed, “I have many sisters.” Her tone implied far more than our family’s quite respectable count of five.
Her gaze left me, ticked once on each staring man, once more on Thomas sprawled on the ground, then ended on Lucy, crouched holding Thomas’shand, her cheeks wet. It was a tableau of violence and threat. One by one, her slack fingers wrapped the dagger in a firm grip.
“Mrs. Darcy?” Lucy said uncertainly.
“Who?” This time, her voice was an uncertain whisper.
The leader of the Blackcoats broke from his stupor. He shook himself, frowned at his frightened friends, then spat and blustered forward, shoving me aside to gawk at Lizzy. “Fish got your clothes?” He barked a false guffaw. “Guess I’ll call you Jonah.”
Despite his foulness, I shouted a warning, “Do not touch her!” but he grabbed a handful of her sopping hair, lifting it to expose a slim breast.
She drove the dagger into the underside of his jaw, so hard it sank to the hilt, a blow that pierced tongue, shattered hard palate, and sliced brain. His limbs locked in seizure. She pulled the dagger loose, and he fell at her feet.
Horror knocked me back a step. It doubled when she gave the dagger a nonchalant flick, spraying red drops that left the impermeable black blade pristine.
Her gaze turned to the other two men.
“Sweet Mother of God,” one of them whispered. He backed a step, then they both broke and ran down the shore.
Lizzy watched them go, then raised her empty hand high, a fist in the sky. Unseen power hammered my senses, squeezing my lungs and purging my breath. For the first time, I sensed what Georgiana and Emma had described: the incredible command of the wyfe of war.
The ground stirred fitfully, trembled, then slammed sideways. I staggered. The forests swayed. Tumbling rocks fell down the slopes, spinning trails of gray dust.
The water’s edge shrank like an undersea god drew breath. A rumble climbed my ankles and spine, blurring my vision. For a pent moment it stilled, then the lake’s center surged and exploded as a huge, winged form broke free. Yuánchi, the scarlet dragon, had risen. His wings snapped wide, launching water that lit a rainbow, and he twirled in a joyous climbing spiral before soaring in an effortless glide toward Lizzy.
His landing was an awkward mess. One clawed foot smacked the ground too soon. He half spun, hopping and flapping to regain his balance.
His scarlet hide had transformed. He was unlike any draca I had seen, mottled in wide streaks, half his old color, half ebony black. As black as the blade of Gramr. As black as the black dragon, Fènnù, fated steed of the wyfe ofwar. His wings were healed—the rips mended, the broken bones sound—but when he bent his head to Lizzy, his muzzle hunted aimlessly. The horrible wounds on his face had closed, but his glorious eyes had not regrown. There were depressions where they had been, covered with weeping black scales, and my vindication from seeing Lizzy’s health slunk away.
Lizzy caressed his muzzle. “I am sorry.”
With an airy whoosh, a cream-colored firedrake flashed past me. She flew a wide oval around Yuánchi, then landed at Lizzy’s feet. A second, matched female landed beside her. The two draca examined each other, their necks craning with curiosity.
Lizzy stroked each drake’s chisel head and swan neck. “Be his eyes,” she said, and the firedrakes flew off in the direction the two Blackcoats had run.
She walked toward Yuánchi’s shoulder.
“Lizzy!” I cried. “You cannotleave.”
She looked back. “Why did you wake me, if not for this?”
Of my hundred churning thoughts, I said the most childish. “You do not hurt people.”
