When the Ashlover burned bones and flesh, Alaythia felt the fire leave her mouth, and it felt sweet in her throat, like ambrosia, like chocolate, like rainwater after a desert journey. The flames gave her visions and a sense of giddy joy, every time a different taste than the last.
The memories were a clash of events, a jumble. Alaythia would see one thing happen, then another, without knowing when they happened, but among all these events she could hear a calling, a cry, a memory of a sound in the serpent’s head.
The Ashlover Serpent had been drawn to New England, called there, pulled there, by a humming in its ears, by a force, a need, and it had followed the source all the way through South America, north through Mexico, and up the ragged North American coast to Ebony Hollow. The serpent had been plagued with terrible dreams. It had needed to stop these nightmarish visions. And so it had gone to the source: the castle home of the St Georges …”and to Alaythia.
Alaythia’s love for Aldric had sent a sound and a light and a tremor into the world that she could not control; it was true of all magicians who fell in love with a Dragonhunter. All magicians were women, and from the Old Ages it was always a terrible risk for them to fall in love with the knights they protected. The dragons could feel this power emanating from the magician and could track it. It was as simple as following a beacon of light.
The Ashlover Dragon had come for Alaythia.
More would come now.
Alaythia knew she would have to leave this house.
CHAPTER SEVEN Hunting a Master of Dragons
There is no other way, Alaythia’s note read. The serpents can find us wherever we go; they can catch the scent of our emotions the way blood in the water draws a shark. I cannot hide my feelings for you, Aldric, or, for that matter, for Simon. I don’t know how to bury them. I cannot stop feeling
Simon sat at the table in the dim early light as Aldric paced the ruined kitchen.
“Dreamer,” Aldric muttered. An insult judging by his tone.
Barely awake, Simon ran a hand through his hair and stared at the letter again. He’d seen it first, but he still couldn’t quite believe it and he found himself reading aloud in a whisper, If there is a magic I can learn that will disguise my feelings, a way to hide so no serpent can find us, I do not know what it is. The hope I have is that I can find the Chinese Black Dragon and bargain with him for help of some kind. He is no ordinary dragon and if he helped us once, perhaps he will again. Forgive me for leaving. With all of my love …”Alaythia.
“We’ve tried that, Alaythia,” grumbled Aldric, speaking to the letter as if she could hear him. “We weren’t able to find him, what’s different now?”
“Maybe she saw something in her dream,” said Simon quietly, remembering her expression in the trance. “Something from the dead serpent that gave her a clue about where the Black Dragon went.”
“Then why didn’t she tell us? We could’ve helped her.”
“Well, I guess she doesn’t think so. I mean, anywhere she goes with us, the dragons sense exactly where she is,” Simon protested.
“You’re being pretty bloody reasonable, aren’t you?”
“You think I like this?”
“Why didn’t you see this coming?”
“If you didn’t see it, how am I supposed to know what’s going on in her head?”
“You’re closer to her,” griped Aldric, and Simon felt himself turning red.
“Everything was going fine, we had it all set right, didn’t we?” Aldric muttered on. “It was all working. We could’ve got our minds round this together …”
“What’re you talking about?” said Simon, getting angry now. “Everything’s back the way it used to be. You get to yell and scream at me, and there’s no one to tell you you’re wrong. There’s nobody here on my side.”
“I’m on your side.”
“Yeah, right.”
“You want to have a row right now? Fine. But you can’t blame everything on me. You’d like to, wouldn’t you?”
I’d like you to shut up, Simon was thinking, burning to say it.
“You’re a loner, Simon, you like being alone. You don’t have friends and you want it that way. Stop blaming me for every little thing in your life, for your own good.”
Aldric’s eyes hardened and Simon cowered inside as his father went on. “I know what you’re thinking. Why don’t you say it outright? I drove her away, is that it?”
Simon stared back. “Not on purpose, but I think, yeah, you wanted her out of here. Everything was just getting way too normal for you to stand it.”
“That’s a bunch of rot. Tell me where the note says anything like that,” Aldric retorted. “She was happy. I gave her a good place to hone her talents. I was always here for her.”
“You’re so here for her, she’s not here.”
“Well, I’m going to get her back.”
Silence. It took Simon a second to react. “We’re going to go after her?”
Aldric was tapping his pipe on his teeth the way he did when he was deep in thought, a habit that always annoyed Simon. “But figuring out where to start won’t be easy,” Aldric said, fumbling for a plan. “She could be anywhere. The Black Dragon hasn’t been seen since London. And Alaythia has a head start on us.”
“A big head start,” said Simon, looking at the clock on the wall. It had a small cut-out for the date in its face and if the clock was right, Alaythia had left a bit of spellchant behind. “We’ve been asleep for three days.”
“What?” Aldric followed Simon’s gaze to the clock. Alaythia had put a spell on them that kept them out of commission long enough for her to get anywhere in the world.
“I thought I felt stiff when I woke up,” said Simon. “I thought it was ‘cause the bedframe burned and I had to sleep on the floor.”
Aldric made a sound in the pit of his throat like some kind of angry animal. “That deceptive little genius.”
The Ship with No Name set sail as quickly as possible, loaded with every possible weapon, device, scroll and book they could salvage from the castle. Simon had ridden to Emily’s house for a fast goodbye, but she had acted strangely, seeming not to trust him, and he feared the rumour that he was the fire-starter might have reached her.
But when he looked back, he could see her in the doorway watching him go and he could not read her expression.
So he had that to worry about, on top of everything.
Once
