Growing weaker by the moment, Linsha forced her legs to walk to Sirenfal’s sandy nest. She felt the heat of the brass dragon radiate outward like a warm oven, and gratefully she fell to her hands and knees and crawled until she could sit up against the dragon’s bent leg. In spite of the shouts of the Tarmaks and the beating of the drum, she was asleep before her head settled against the brass scales.
She came to a state of awareness in a chamber of pale shadows. Looking around, she thought perhaps she was still in the dragon’s cave. The air was damp and smelled of stone and saltwater; the spaces echoed around her. But if that was where she was, some time had passed, for the Tarmaks were gone and the cave was silent and empty. There was no sign of Sirenfal. Light filtered in from somewhere overhead and reflected on a pale mist that swirled in from an opening she sensed but could not see.
Who are you? The voice, light and feminine, spoke directly into her mind.
Linsha peered into the dim fog around her and saw only more shadows. “I told you. I am a friend.”
So you say. But you wear the paint of a Tarmak warrior and you attend their ceremonies.
Linsha studied her skin, which was indeed still blue. Only the pain, the tingling, the cuts, and the bruises were gone. “I am a Knight of the Rose of the Solamnic Order and a friend of Iyesta. I was captured and brought here because of a debt of honor.”
It must he an important debt.
“Iyesta asked me to protect a clutch of eggs.”
A sharp intake of breath somewhere close by cut across her words. She paused, staring harder into the mist.
“I have not been very successful so far,” she added.
Sirenfal’s thought came back heavy with sadness. If there is even one left, you have been more fortunate than I. The Tarmaks destroyed my entire clutch.
Linsha climbed slowly to her feet. Her pain and nausea were gone. In fact she felt nothing, not even the chill of the mist gently wafting around her. “How long have you been here?”
A lifetime. The answer came sighing back. About eight years, I think. Their priests and that dreadful man captured me with spells and stole my eggs. I think they killed my mate.
Linsha was horrified. “How could they keep you imprisoned?”
Because I am a dragon? There was a soft earthy chuckle, and a petite, delicate woman stepped out of the mist and stood in front of Linsha. Her light brown eyes bored into Linsha’s jewel green ones. Even dragons can be vulnerable.
“Sirenfal.”
The woman nodded. She was as beautiful as an elf maiden with honey-gold hair that swept around her shoulders and fine-boned features that looked like porcelain.
Linsha was not surprised. Some dragons could easily shapeshift and often did so for a variety of reasons. Bronzes in particular liked to shift their forms and many spent years disguised as humans—a fact Linsha knew all too well. She met Sirenfal’s sad gaze without judgment or fear, only curiosity. The dragon woman did not look well. Her gold hair hung limp around her thin face, and her skin was pale and drawn. She had none of the vivid life and vivacious quality of Iyesta in her human form. She seemed more of a wraith, a thin shadow of her younger self.
The man called Lanther has taught these Keena priests how to use spells created by the Dark Mystics. They in turn have taught him some of the secret potions of the Keena. They keep me sedated and under thrall while they experiment on me, harvest my scales, and leech my magic. They killed my eggs in those horrible ceremonies.
Linsha listened, appalled by the dragon’s misery. A terrible suspicion crept into her mind, prompted by the memory of the discolored wound on the dragon’s back. “Do you know of the Abyssal Lance?”
Sirenfal’s slender frame shuddered. “They experimented on me,” she whispered, using her own voice as though too afraid to share her thoughts.
“Linsha!” A voice harsh and loud boomed in the cavern. Sirenfal started in fear, took a step back from Linsha. Her form began to fade.
I must go. Must not let him know. The mist swirled around her.
Instinctively Linsha held out a hand in comfort and farewell, but she did not speak for fear of drawing the hated voice to the dragon.
“Linsha! Wake up! It’s time to go.” Lanther’s words cut through the gloom and shadows, and suddenly Linsha snapped awake.
She was back in the cavern at night with the Tarmak warriors, the torches, the smell of smoke and the stink of the potion. She was back with Lanther. Blinking in the torchlight, she looked up at his face hidden behind the golden mask and stifled a surge of loathing. The presence of the dragon was gone, but the intensity of her sadness and the injustice of her plight filled Linsha’s mind and heart, kindling a new hatred for Lanther. How could he have done something like that to a dragon? Any dragon? Is that what he had had in mind for Crucible? Experimentation. Study. Harvesting. Leeching. The words sat like curses in her thoughts. When he held out a hand to help her to her feet, all she could do was stare at it. She hadn’t really noticed before how scarred and blunted his hands had become from years of fighting, hostile weather, and incidents with thorns, knives, dragon scales, and the gods knew what else. These were the hands that tortured and killed dragons, murdered her friends, and wielded a magic she could not understand. It was all she could do to force her fingers to touch his and accept his aid to climb to her feet.
As soon as she was upright, she snatched her hand away and stepped back from him as if avoiding a plague carrier. She was still weak and unsteady on her feet, and the pain was back. But she felt a little stronger after her short nap, and the nausea was gone. With luck and determination, she should be able to make it back to the Akeelawasee without Lanther’s assistance.
She glanced back at the sleeping dragon and felt something stir in the back of her mind that she hadn’t felt in a while—compassion. For the first time in days the black depression that had oppressed her lifted slightly, like a pall of smoke stirred by a fresh wind. Although she realized she had been dreaming, she did not doubt for an instant the validity of her conversation with Sirenfal. She had dreamed with dragons before and found the results to be quite interesting. Like Crucible before her, Sirenfal had chosen this private way to communicate with her in the hope that she would understand.
Fortunately Linsha had. She had an affinity with dragons that she did not fully comprehend, an affinity that was stronger and more powerful than most humans possessed. Where it came from, she didn’t know, but for as long as she could remember she always felt comfortable in the presence of most dragons, and they responded to her in kind. Even Sara Dunstan’s aloof blue companion, Cobalt, had allowed her privileges he would have seared other children for if they had dared try. Sirenfal, Linsha knew, had taken a huge risk to communicate with someone who was still an unknown stranger, but perhaps she, too, sensed the sincerity of Linsha’s attempt to reach out to her. Linsha vowed to herself that Sirenfal’s trust would not go to waste. The dragon was wounded, ill, and in desperate need of help. Surely as the Drathkin’kela, Linsha could find some way to help a dragon.
She followed in Lanther’s footsteps up the long stairs ahead of the long line of Tarmak warriors. Several times while she trudged up the steps she wanted to stop and rest, to catch her breath and let her aching muscles relax. But the warriors pushed up behind her and she would not show any more weakness before them this night. She forced herself on until her legs burned and her lungs panted and the ache in her head felt like a blacksmith was forging implements on her skull.