Page 118 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
Augusta stood, knocking her chair away. Her shackled arm yanked painfully as she dodged her husband’s grab. “No!” she screamed. “I will not let you hurt more women.”
With her free hand, she took the lamp off the cooking table and threw it. It soared across the room, sweeping shadows through arcs as it flew, and crashed on the cellar stairs. Flaming oil sprayed, framing the trapdoor in flickering orange.
There was no explosion; that must have been a bluff. Or, not quite a bluff. The flames puffed up in a green-tinged cloud, nothing like normal fire, sucked back into the cellar, then roared out, orange and angry. The wooden frame began to burn.
While Mr. Elton stared, transfixed, Mr. Knightley moved in a rush. The men collided with a meaty thud. The pistol fired harmlessly into the ceiling, loud in the enclosed room, then Mr. Elton was thrown to the ground, his tethered wrist half suspending him beside the oak table.
Mr. Knightley towered over him, legs apart, fists raised. Ready to do murder.
“No,” I cried. “Free Augusta! We must get out.” The fire had started smokeless, but the wood around the cellar door was catching and spilling fumes. Noxious black smoke billowed, filling the top of the room and shrouding the remaining lamp.
I fell on my knees in the corner where the key flew. There was dirt and splintered wood and dried clay. The light dimmed as the smoke swelled. The floorboard seams under me began to glow, parallel lines of fierce yellow that blew scalding air and haze. I held my breath and searched by feel, thankful my gloves were off. But there was nothing. The key could have bounced anywhere.
Mr. Knightley was trying to free the chain attached to Augusta’s wrist. He vaulted onto the table itself, heaving on the chain two-handed, trying to rip the bolt from the table. The table did not even wobble. It was a massive thing of old-fashioned split logs that dated to the house’s construction.
That view vanished in a cloud of smoke. My next breath was ashy grit. The floorboards under my fingers were too hot to touch.
Coughing, I ran in the direction Augusta had been. Instead, Mr. Elton’s head emerged. He was trying to stand, blood streaming from a gash in his nose. Two-handed, I pushed his chest; he reeled and vanished. The smoke was soheavy, I could barely see my outstretched arms. I ducked low, grabbing a breath where it was fresher.
A deep-throatedwumpshook the ground under my feet. Heat blasted from the cellar door; tips of my hair sparked. Fire erupted outside the half-open kitchen door, illuminating what had been our exit, now a furnace. The fire had broken through the floor.
I felt the pleats of a woman’s gown, then made out Augusta’s profile. “We will get you out,” I told her. Mr. Knightley reappeared. Somehow, he had found a heavy metal ladle. He jammed the handle into the shackle chain where it joined the bolt, cranked it around and strained with two hands, but the handle snapped.
“Go,” Augusta told me. “I am where I should be.” Mr. Elton’s soot-stained face reappeared like a disembodied wraith, gibbering with fear. Augusta’s shackled hand grasped his, and she smiled at her husband.
I recoiled as a sheaf of live flame curled past like a python, then I heard nails wrench and wood splinter. A rectangle of gray sunlight penetrated the smoke-saturated air. Something large flew past my shoulder, then hands seized my waist, and I was thrown after it. My ankles smacked the window sill; I flipped and landed hard in our cucumber patch. The impact knocked away what little breath I had. For a few seconds my body bucked and struggled to breathe, then air, sweet air, filled my lungs.
Above me, the smoke pouring through the missing kitchen window was so dense it looked solid. A chair lay in the garden, thrown before me to break the glass.
I scrambled up, trying to see inside, but it was a hellscape of soot and smoke and fire. Then a strong hand grasped the window sill. I grabbed Mr. Knightley’s other arm and helped drag him through.
We staggered back in each other’s arms.
“I could not—” he began and fell into coughing and retching. He tried again, “I could not—”
“I know,” I said, holding him, tears in my voice.
The smoke streaming through the window ignited with awhooshand turned to a jet of pure flame. The heat was unbearable, so we stumbled back farther. A deep note rumbled, then thumped. The front parlor windows blew outward, spraying shards of windowpanes.
Finally, fifty steps away, we stopped. The remaining glass popped in a series of rapid pings. Every gap shot fire. The beautiful Caen stone on the exteriorbegan to sheet off, the walls warping and charring behind it. A chunk of roof fell in—into Papa’s study, I thought—then with a crackling roar, the rest fell in rapid sections.
Ash drifted down, only a few flakes at first. It thickened until it dusted the ground white, swirling like winter snow while I watched Hartfield burn.
34
THE CORSICAN
LIZZY
I flew blindedby a kaleidoscope of history, of cultures lost to time. Slowly, the extraneous memories fell away, and I was a single life: an Egyptian queen. Around me swirled images of a great sea battle, and then of a Roman general, a lover, who lay in my arms, his garment rent and blood soaked.
Queen, crooned Fènnù.I honor your command. Together, we strike our enemy…
Below us, on the shores of the river Tiber, vast Rome lay…no. My twisted reality straightened with a snap. That was the Thames; the city was London.
A memory of Darcy returned. We were in the British Museum, his eyes intense as he said in a concerned baritone,Rome fell a thousand years ago.
Darcy falling away from me, his mouth wide with surprise and betrayal.
