"I'm not beautiful." I pulled my hand free. "Nor ferocious. Nor strong."
"Oh, my dear." She leaned in, pressed a quick kiss to my cheek. "One day you're going to look into a mirror and see someone you won't even recognize. I do hope I'm there for that. Just to catch the expression on your face."
"You're about to Turn," I said. "Right here. Aren't you?"
Her smile returned.
"But it's bright out," I protested, instantly nervous. "All those stars. And there are Others. Right there, just down there! Packs of them. What if they look up?"
"They will see a pretty young woman alone on a rooftop, watching the heavens. This is Spain. I'm sure they'll think you're terribly romantic."
"But I'm not! And you can't!"
"Watch," she said. "Remember. Everything I do is connected to you, and you to me. I'll be the dragon in the sky, and you'll be the dragon on the roof. Either way, we're both ..."
She did it, she went to smoke, still smiling at me, dissolving into wisps. Her gown fell in a slow, sideways drift—and then the wind took it, flipping it about, a gentle blue ripple floating down to the street.
I watched the smoke. I watched it rise and rise until I couldn't see it any longer. I rubbed my eyes and when I searched again, I saw the dragon high above me, whipping her way from star to star.
Chapter Five
The Castle of Zaharen Yce, Carpathian Alps Early Autumn, 1788
The prince sat back in his chair, frowning, stroking the stiff paper folds of the letter in his hand. The single page was stained and somewhat weathered, but no more so than might be expected of a missive sent halfway across the Continent. Stamps gummed with glue, crimson wax seal, a wide smudge near the bottom redolent of coffee and dirt. With a tilt of his fingers he was able to glimpse the watermark imprinted in the center, faint by the slanted sunlight that cut through his library window, but still one he recognized very well.
A scrolled D. The suggestion of a winged beast entwined around the curve. It was the crest of Darkfrith. Of England. Yet the letter had been posted from Spain.
The ink from her quill was deeply blue, nearly purple. He'd already memorized the few English words penned there so carefully.
Dear Prince Sandu of the Zaharen,
No doubt this letter will come as something of a surprise to you. We have not yet formally met, although I've seen you a few times before.
I will not trouble you long. I wanted only to say I look forward, very much, to seeing you again soon.
Yours humbly,
Mlle. Honor Carlisle
(of the English drakon )
That was what had been written, and it was what anyone else in the world who was not him would read. But it wasn't what the letter actually said. Because whether or not Sandu left the paper on the polished gleam of his desk or let it fall to rest on his thigh, the true message inscribed there burned between those purple-blue letters, brighter than the sinking sun. The true message shone clear, no matter what angle he tried:l love you. I will always love you. I'm going to be with you again. I will discover a way.
He raked a hand through his hair, sighing, then placed the letter back upon his desk. He reached now for the other one, the one he'd hidden in the back secret drawer that no one else knew about, folded small and much more worn.
Alexandru smoothed out the page, bending over the thin, spidery writing that had always been his sister Maricara's distinctive hand. It was the last communication he'd received from her, over four years past.
A.,
Ill news. English restless, eager for you/clan/invasion. Putting them off long as I can. Langford's younger brother recovered after Sanf Inimicus kidnapping. Returned to the shire with strange news of an Englishwoman who is also a young girclass="underline" Honor Carlisle. She is drakon and Sanf Inimicus. Know her? He said she knows you .
Idea that you are aligning with the Sanf sending the English into a frenzy, no matter how I placate.
What are you about?
—M.
What, indeed?
Although Maricara was no longer one of his tribe, she'd always communicated with him in the language of the mountains. Every missive she'd sent had been stamped from England.
He missed her sometimes still. He missed her sharp-edged clarity. She had decided to wed the Darkfrith Alpha, Kimber Langford, for love or just love of rule, Sandu never knew. She had been leader here for a while, a pseudo-Alpha herself; her loyalties tended to vacillate with the whistling of the wind. Yet she was his blood, his last living family member. It could not be an easy thing, he supposed, to realize your husband planned a war against your brother.
For unfathomable riches, which the Zaharen no longer had.
For miraculous power, which the Zaharen no longer had.
For glory—which, Sandu had to admit, was the one thing that still thrived up here in the thin, frost-riven air of his home. The glory of the drakon past. The potential glory of enslaving any drakon present.
Four years ago he'd answered his sister's letter with a single, pointed sentence My oath that I do not know her .
But now . by the heavens, he was very much afraid that he did.
The English drakon were allies once, or he thought they had been. It wasn't so very long ago that he'd hunted the sanf inimicus with one of their own in Paris, helped free the very Langford brother Mari mentioned from a certain death by the sanf . He'd been sixteen then, feverish with adolescent passions and the need to prove himself. He'd believed in those weeks abroad he'd forged a bond between the tribes; now he knew better.
The English were never interested in alliances. They desired one thing only, and that was control.
He'd helped rescue the English lordling, departed Paris warm with the knowledge that he'd made friends, saved a life, made a difference.
He'd truly known nothing about this Honor Carlisle. He'd known nothing of what had come after he himself had left France, save his sister's wedding, which he was wise enough not to attend.
Prince Alexandru had instead sent Maricara and her mate a pear tree and a cloisonne box of diamonds he'd pried from the walls of the castle in honor of their union, accompanied by a note of particularly florid wishes for their good health and long lives.
Maricara's equally florid written response expressing their gratitude had arrived a scant three months after.
Her secret missives, however, had reached the castle more sporadically than that. He presumed she'd taken the precaution of writing in Romanian just in case her new English family discovered she was smuggling him news, but Mari was the only one who might have ever guessed the truth about his unique talent. She could have just as easily written,Sunny day, fine place, do wish you were here, in the King's most proper English and the hidden message of her words would have shone the same Beware. Beware. Beware.
Because that was what Maricara's final note to him actually said.
It was a peculiar Gift, this ability to read between lettering. In all the bound books of his kind he'd pulled from the castle libraries and cellars, in all the spoken folklore, he'd never discovered any mention of anyone else with this skill. Perhaps it had seemed too inconsequential to mention, compared to all the other amazing feats the drakon could commit. Perhaps it had surfaced once or twice in generations past, but only among the peasants—who couldn't read anyway.