Page 43 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
Her lips pursed. “I remember hugging Yuánchi’s neck, and his wings wrapping me. I heard us hit the surface—it was a tremendous crash, like breakingstone—then the water rushed in, cold as ice. We sank like an anvil until his wings opened and I floated free. I liked that. I wanted to see daylight one last time, but my eyes were ruined. There were only blurry gleams. Sun shattered by froth and waves. Then all the light vanished, and I was wrapped round and round in warmth.” She smiled, bemused. “It felt like a blanket.”
Her smile relieved my remembered despair. “Mary theorizes that draca wrap themselves in the finned form they use for water hibernation, then discard it afterward, like a chrysalis. Could Yuánchi have wrapped you somehow?”
She shrugged. “I cannot say. I only dreamed after that. Dreams from a hundred lives.”
“Was our life one of them?”
Her smile flattened. “Do not ask that.”
I had broken the rules. Still, I had heard no rule against bribery. “What about getting you boots? We could make a stop at Pemberley.” The familiarity of home might restore her.
She thought about it before shaking her head. “Too many people. And I cannot go until I decide about the Blackcoats. About the woman with them.”
The woman in their troop was all that had saved them.
“You can find them whenever you wish,” I pointed out. “You have draca watching them. How long would it take to collect boots?” She gave me a level stare—I already said no—so I changed topics. “Why do you hunt the Blackcoats?”
“They hurt Mary. They are why she called.”
“The men who hurt Mary are dead. You are not bound by some fairytale pact.” She eyed me. In truth, I had no idea what drove her, but I forged on. “You are Elizabeth Darcy… or call yourself Elizabeth Bennet, even. Whichever name, you always chose your own path.”
She hugged her knees and leaned nearer the fire. “Fènnù’s anger chews at me. Her fury… it is like jaws around me. I must rid myself of it. Spend it, so she does not take me.”
“The Blackcoats are vile enough, but they are mere thieves and bullies. War rages in the south. Why does that not interest the wyfe of war?”
That straightened her back. She looked flustered. “Are you suggesting I go to war?”
“I wish to understand what you want.”
“I waged war enough in my dreams.” Her words came quick and fierce. “I lived a hundred women’s lives, all shattered until, in fury or desperation, theychose to fight. But the wars all turned out the same: bloody, then forgotten, then a generation later, fought anew. Two thousand years only heightens the futility of it.”
That passion was Elizabeth’s. The words were uncanny, the speech of an angel. A god.
“Then why chase Blackcoats?” I said.
She blew a frustrated laugh. “Were you always so annoyingly persistent, or am I only noticing now?”
“I was. And I am certain you noticed before.”
She stood, restless in the dusk. “I was destined to bind a mad dragon. If Ihadbound her, I would have been overwhelmed long before this. Like the wyves of war before me.”
“If you were destined for the black dragon, then fate intervened. You bound Yuánchi instead.” I hesitated, wondering if this would violate a rule. “Webound Yuánchi.”
She did not notice my presumption. “And Fènnù’s poison corrupts that binding. That is why I must purge her fury. If I break—if she takes me—I will see war soon enough.”
“Fighting the French and the slavers?”
She shouted, “Destroying it all!” in a cracking cry, her hands clenched, knuckles white.
I was standing as well, so close I could have gathered her to my chest with the slightest reach. “You would not do that. I know you. You would never be overwhelmed by Fènnù’s madness.”
Her trembling shoulders calmed. She gave me a sardonic glance like when we bantered at breakfast, and I said something overly sentimental.
I ached to hold her. But I had concealed love for Elizabeth Bennet before, and I could do so again. I clenched my fists, knuckles aching.
Try something simpler. Bribery. “What about Longbourn? Did you leave boots there?”
She turned away, but it was to look up at the darkening sky. The circle of watching draca cowered, pressing their bellies to the earth.
