Page 161 of Miss Bennet's Dragon
“Lizzy,” she whispered. Her hand caught mine. She sank to her knees, then fell on her side, her clenched grip pulling me to my knees beside her.
A sword protruded from her back. The hilt jammed against the dirt, propping her at an awkward, splayed angle.
Mr. Darcy was on his knees, bruised and bleeding. His hand was still outstretched.
“I swore I would not hesitate.” His voice shook. “Not when those I love are threatened.”
Lydia’s fingers still held mine. Her grip relaxed.
A memory returned—the last time I sat with Papa in his library. While we talked, his finger had stroked the paper that entrusted Longbourn to me. As if it comforted him.
“I promised Papa,” I said. “I promised to care for our family.”
“She was calling the dragon!” Mr. Darcy’s voice was strained. “Yousaidshe was stronger. I heard you.”
“We are bound. She could never break that.” But he would not know that.
The dragon’s glide, so graceful in the distance, became a storm as scarlet wings a hundred feet wide screamed over our heads. Heat roared behind me, painful on my bare neck and lighting the meadow brighter than sun. Mr. Darcy threw an arm up to shield his eyes. Thunder shook my clothes and rumbled in the depths of my chest, then rolled back from the hills around us.
Mr. Darcy opened his eyes. “My God.”
Still kneeling, I turned my head. A swath of meadow ten yards wide and fifty long had become a burning hell. The huge foul crawlers were writhing carcasses in the flames. Smaller ashen humps lay still. Men.
Please stop, I thought.We are safe.
“I failed you.” Mr. Darcy’s fingertips touched my wrist. They were trembling. “I have betrayed your promise.”
Although my body was still, a hidden part of me was screaming. But I was a wyfe. I was stronger than this.
I forced my fingers open. Lydia’s hand fell lifelessly. I fumbled for Mr. Darcy’s hand, and our fingers knotted. I felt his warmth. His life pulsed in mine. My silent cries quieted to a shroud of grief.
“You betrayed nothing,” I said. “My sister was already gone. She died long before this.”
Miss Darcy was helping Lord Wellington, her arm around his waist while she explained the Britons’ draca essence. Good. She would ensure he was dosed.
Lord Wellington turned as the dragon swept over a ridge. His eyes narrowed. Analyzing. Strategizing.
Gently—uncertainly—Mr. Darcy’s arm circled my waist. He helped me to my feet. I pressed into his side, and his hesitancy ended. He pulled me close. Already, we fit together so well. Branches grown together.
“She would have killed us all,” I whispered. Tears were wet on my cheeks. “She would have thrown down England.” Lydia would have gifted an army of monstrous crawlers to Napoleon. If she survived the horrible sacrifice of her draca.
Air lifted my hair then whooshed down, billowing my skirts and blowing leaves and stones across the ground.
The dragon landed twenty paces from us, his wings hiding the sky before they closed. This close, his size was unimaginable. His body was twice the length of a carriage, his tail and neck long and sinuous. He balanced on two crouched legs, the muscles bunched like knotted oak. Fastidious, he adjusted his wings until they were neat, then he sat, raising his chest and shoulders high like a dog. His neck, glistening in a sheath of scarlet diamonds, twined until his head was a few yards from me. Inhuman eyes shifted through prisms of color. The border of my mind blurred as I stared into them.
Child of the Lake. I am called Yuánchi.
The reflex of introduction was automatic. “I am Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy.”
“I hear him,” my husband breathed. Miss Darcy and Lord Wellington had backed away. They looked at us in confusion. They had not heard.
You are the wyfe of war. The wyfe of war may not call me.
His claws, like edged ebony pickaxes, cut into the earth. The soles of my feet trembled as bedrock shattered.
I have slain your enemies. But you grieve. The wyfe of war does not grieve. Who are you?
“I grieve for my sister,” I said. “I have killed her.” My husband’s arm stiffened around my waist.
