Page 51 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
“Fitz!” she exclaimed and ran to embrace me. “How did you arrive without an uproar?” She drew back, frightened. “Is Lizzy not with you?”
“She is,” I reassured her. “She is in the stables with Mary. She did not want a crowd. She fears that her presence endangers those around her.” In a few words, I explained Yuánchi’s illness, and Lizzy’s plan to fly north to escape Fènnù and search for the flute.
“What of the war?” Georgiana asked, after a moment.
“It is like a poison to her, and to Yuánchi.”
“It is a poison to us all. The blightisthe war—it is a darkness corrupting minds and morals, affecting life itself. Have you read of the horrors in the occupied south?” Her finger touched a reading table stacked with rumpled newspapers.
“We can do nothing without the flute.”
“Yuánchi could turn the tide of battle in a day.”
“And Fènnù would claim Elizabeth.” I smiled to reassure her. “Others can fight the war.”
“Others,” she echoed, disbelieving. “That does not sound like my bold brother.”
The passion on her face, the challenge, filled me with unexpected wonder. We had a rare relationship: two parentless siblings who, due to age and circumstance, were almost like father and daughter. A year ago, Georgiana had seemed girlish and cloistered to me. Now I saw, or finally recognized, that she had been transformed by our trials.
“Elizabeth needs me,” I said, “and I am faithful to her. Until we return, you must be the bold Darcy.”
I rodeEscalus while Elizabeth and Mary followed in the pony cart. In the forested vale two miles from the house, I packed supplies into Yuánchi’s cavernous saddlebags: clothes, both mine and Elizabeth’s; spare shoes and weatherproof outerwear; rye bread with a chunk of cheddar—I, at least, was hungry. To prove we were civilized, I wrapped up a bottle of whiskey from an upstart but promising distillery in Oban. In my coat pocket, I carried every guinea and half-guinea from Pemberley’s coffers. English banknotes were worthless in Scotland, but gold was valued everywhere.
Elizabeth handed me a pair of the flying goggles she had commissioned. She fastened hers, tightening the strap that drew the leather frames snug to her temples. Looking like a caricature of a woman in spectacles, she said, “Now we can fly fast.”
I suppose that meant we had been flying slowly.
“Thank you for helping,” I said to Mary. “And for staying with Georgiana. For being with her.”
She seemed unsure how to respond. Finally, she said, “You look much better.”
A snort issued from Elizabeth’s direction. My valet had greeted me with a rueful shake of his head, then worked wonders while Mrs. Reynolds gathered the supplies.
“You still have Gramr?” Mary said, resuming her customary brisk delivery, and Elizabeth nodded. “The French seek for it and for the amulet, but they approachedmeabout the flute. They think it is connected to the Bennets—”
“What?” Elizabeth said, so sharply I wondered if she had remembered something, but her tone was normal when she asked, “Why?”
“I do not know, but the journal calls the flute the ‘hollow relic of music.’ Itwill be inscribed with the third song.” Mary snatched a breath. “It is strange that our family journal mentions it. Ask about Bennets—”
Elizabeth stopped her with a touch on her shoulder. “I will. But we must go. It is time to move the horses back.”
Mary led the mare with the pony cart twenty paces distant. Escalus, his lead tied to the cart, followed, looking reproachfully at me and challengingly at towering, saddled Yuánchi.
Elizabeth turned to me and removed her gloves. “Fènnù is west of us, a half hour’s flight. She stays close to track my binding to Yuánchi. I must hide us so she cannot follow.” She offered her bare hands. “Hidebothof us. Yuánchi bound you, too.”
I removed my gloves. She crossed her wrists to take mine, her left hand in my left. The pose felt formal, and memories of our Beltane handfasting whispered. Her fede ring of knotted gold gleamed, a sight so familiar that I only now noticed she still wore it. Was that significant, or was her request that I travel north simply practical? Desired or not, Yuánchi’s binding linked him to us both.
Elizabeth closed her eyes. Escalus shivered and neighed. Yuánchi drew straight, his wings rustling, and his scythe-like claws cut into the forest loam.
I felt… a coiled heat in my breast, spooling like a ship’s line.
“It is done,” Elizabeth said and opened her eyes. “It will not last long. Fènnù will feel the absence. We must be far away before she arrives to search.” She called to her sister, “Hurry on your trip back. Stay at Pemberley. It is safe.”
Elizabeth climbed the stirrup-like footholds to the saddle. I settled in the rear seat and followed her example, fastening the leather belt over my lap.
She pointed to the northern sky. “Tianshu. The pivot star. We will fly like the wind and leave the war for those in the south.”
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