Chapter Twelve
The massive crystal spell that Victoria cast nearly wrenched out Nadia’s insides. She’d never been transported in dragon form and she had no idea how Victoria had done it.
They emerged from the magic in a deep, rocky crater, cliffs rising sharply around them. It appeared to be, based on the fact that the rock was wildly colored flowstone, a defunct volcano. Strange firefly creatures blinked all around the moss-covered magma chamber, and the glowing fungus Nadia had noticed in the ancient ruins clung to some of the walls.
Barnabas held a gun pointed at Victoria. “Where are we?”
“Welcome to my thinking place,” Victoria said. Blood seeped from her stump, though she’d wrapped a tourniquet around it. Then she toppled over, unconscious.
“I’m going to be sick now.” Nadia swerved her face away from Barnabas and spit out Victoria’s blood. If she were a human, she’d vomit. Her wing had been mangled by an iron dragon, her body had been jabbed and burned, and every one of her bones felt like rock. “Do you have any mouthwash? Cookies? Beer?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t.” Barnabas’s warm hand on her shoulder and the soothing sensation of healing magic eased Nadia’s aches but not her fears. He consumed two amulets before her wing was repaired. She flapped experimentally, confident she could fly them out of this volcano.
Except she wouldn’t be able to desert Victoria. Damn and blast! With the governor unconscious, the thrall crystal in Nadia’s body wasn’t as persuasive, but it still linked them. It would soon take hold and instate the governor’s authority over her.
Unless…
“Let her die,” she told Barnabas, curling her tail around herself like a cat. That was one way to thwart the crystal. At least until some other wizard latched onto it. She wished she could remember where they’d implanted it, but Kinjo had jabbed her with that poker so many times.
“I cannot. She saved your life, and thus I am in her debt.” Barnabas plucked a green jade figurine from his clever bandolier of talismans. He knelt beside Victoria’s prone form and began the healing process.
Soft, green light danced over the other woman’s arm and body until she jerked into a sitting position with a harsh gasp. Dragon magic—there was nothing like it in the universe. As soon as Victoria woke, Barnabas cut off the flow and stepped back.
He pointed the gun at her with one hand and a fire amulet with the other.
“I figured you’d let me die,” she observed, accurately in Nadia’s case.
“And yet you saved us anyway when you might have transported yourself to a healer,” Barnabas observed. His gun, however, didn’t waver, though Victoria didn’t seem concerned about it. “Why?”
“I care for my people. It’s my job to protect them, even when they’re ten ton dragons.” She rose shakily, adjusting her battle armor, and regarded her stump with disgust. “Well, too bad for your soft hearts. Nadia, your man can live, but you’re going to have to come home with me. We have work to do. A traitor to punish. A province to maintain.”
Nadia bowed her head. This was the end. But at least she and Barnabas had survived. “I know.”
“You will not take her.” Barnabas’s deep voice brooked no argument. All this time, he’d managed to keep on his hat. It didn’t even show any of the soot and ash that covered the rest of his clothing. “I will kill you.”
“But you just healed me,” Victoria said, throwing up her good hand. “That’s utter nonsense.”
Barnabas inclined his head in that regal fashion of his. “Not exactly. I need you to tell me where the thrall crystal is so I can remove it.”
“I’m not going to do that.” Victoria offered him the stump. “I’m pretty drained of magic, I can barely stand, and the only amulet I’ve got on me is transportation. I think. Want to torture me?”
He huffed out a sigh. “I do not.”
“I kind of do,” Nadia grumbled. But she recognized, already, that the thrall had injected itself too deeply. She couldn’t hurt Victoria, though she could step aside if Barnabas wanted to hurt her. Probably.
“Of course you do, dear,” Victoria told her. “It’s one of the things I find so charming about you.”
Barnabas angled his wrist and shot the pistol into the ground at Victoria’s feet. Rock splattered everywhere, and she yelped and lurched back. “Where is the thrall crystal?”
“I honestly don’t even know.”
“Don’t lie to me. I know you can sense it.”
“Not yet. But if I get close enough to touch her…”
Barnabas cocked the gun again. “If you touch her, you’ll probably have her sit on me.” The control of a wizard over a dragon increased with touch. Victoria couldn’t milk any magic out of Nadia right now, but thrall crystals expanded beyond that.
“I hear it’s effective on green wizards.” Victoria clasped her wounded arm to her chest. “Can we please cease this monkeying about? Either kill me or give me my dragon, sir. I am very tired and I need to find my arm before one of the kitchen dogs runs across it.”
Nadia’s stomach lurched. “Don’t remind me of either of those things. Ever again.”
“Dragon, I’ll remind of you whatever I wish,” Victoria said. “Such as how much you owe me.”
“And you owe me,” Barnabas reminded her. “It would seem that we cancel out, wouldn’t you say?”
He was the valiant one, not Victoria. She wished she could say goodbye to him in her human form, but she hadn’t built up enough power. As soon as she did, no doubt Victoria would slurp it up, predict the easiest way to vanquish her enemies, and give Nadia the ague as punishment. But knowing Barnabas was alive, knowing he loved her so much he’d faced certain death to rescue her, would hopefully comfort her when she was trapped in the Valiant stable.
Nadia heaved a sigh so huge that it tumbled small pebbles across the ground.
“No, it doesn’t cancel out.” Victoria’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing, wizard?”
Barnabas placed the fire amulet in its slot in his bandolier and let his fingers trail down the row of enchanted charms. He finally plucked one out, a dried twig. “Do stay put, Your Grace.”
Magic streamed from him and vines erupted from the rocky soil, wrapping themselves around Victoria. She cursed and immediately began struggling. When the vines reached her neck, he tucked the twig into the bandolier.
Next he located a scrappy, shabby thing near the bottom of the strap. If she hadn’t known any better, she would have thought it was a hairball coughed up by a cat. “Do you remember what I said about that experimental amulet? I never had a chance to recalibrate it to the blood tracker. I, well, this might sting a bit.”
“What?” Nadia asked. “How can that be a talisman?”
Barnabas pulled a string from the wad and laid it across her snout. “Hold…very…still.”
The reason why soon became clear when the magical thread burrowed beneath her skin. The pin-prickling sensation, followed by a squiggle through her lattice, set Nadia’s nerve endings on fire.
How could this be effective magic? It was torture. “This is terrible!”
“Don’t hurt her,” Victoria warned. “I won’t have it.”
“You let Kinjo hurt me,” Nadia spat at her before yelping with pain.
Barnabas placed more threads on her, and they drilled into her body, or their magic did. She was covered by itching, stinging, squiggling, demonic needles that zipped through her like Kinjo’s thrall spell. They converged in a painful lump—at the base of her tail.
She tried to swivel her neck and see what Barnabas was doing, but she was too itchy to focus. She rubbed the spines along her neck against her shoulder, scratching ecstatically. “Make it stop, Barnabas. Hurry.”
“There it is.” Barnabas’s fingers, which felt like icepicks, probed her. “I can feel it.”
“What?” Nadia managed through gritted teeth. The itch just wouldn’t go away. She lifted a paw and went to work on her breast.
“You can’t possibly have done what I think you just did,” Victoria called out. “That could have killed her. How dare you? She might be the only silver dragon in the world, sirrah, and you—”
Barnabas pointed the twig at Victoria, and the vines whipped around her head until they gagged her. “Shut. Up.”
He returned to the sore spot on Nadia’s hide. “Darling, remember when you removed that thrall crystal from your body? I’m going to remove the new one, and I’ve got just enough juice in this healing crystal to prevent any bleeding.” He glared across at Victoria, who was kicking and wriggling against the vines. “We won’t be leaving any blood behind.”
“I trust you,” Nadia said, pausing her scratches, right before icy misery plunged into her skin. “Eeeeeeee!”
The healing crystal didn’t dissipate the pain, but Barnabas was finished quickly. “Got it.”
The minute he was done, she sensed the absence of itching and the removal of Victoria’s domination. Freedom healed her soul, for the second time in two weeks. She whirled on Victoria.
“I should bite you in half,” she snarled.
“Mmmf mrrrrrrrrrr.” Only the governor’s eyes glistened through the vines. Nadia craned forward, closer, closer, until Victoria’s eyes bulged. Then she delicately bit the vines off Victoria’s face.
Nadia lowered her voice to a dragon whisper, which was still loud for human ears. “You will never rule me again. Oh, and do not go near the Earth portal under pain of death.”
“The Earth portal?” Victoria spat out a leaf. “Why would I care about that?”
“It seemed like a fairly ominous pronouncement. I could still work up the stomach to kill you, you know.” Nadia rose, sitting on her haunches, and inspected the hole in her tail. Barnabas set the thrall crystal on a volcanic rock and smashed it with the butt of the pistol. “But seriously. Don’t go to Earth. It’s a terrible place. Very polluted, and their wizards don’t need dragons to do magic.” She smiled a very toothy dragon smile, and Victoria winced. “They would outclass you instantly.”
This time when Victoria wriggled and struggled, the vines lost their magical cohesion and untangled from her body. She shook them off, pushed her hair out of her face, and lifted her chin.
“You’re making a mistake. You don’t realize how many lives you saved, Nadia. How many people you helped.”
“I realize how many territories you conquered. How much power you gained. How many cities you ransacked. How many dragons you hold captive and continue to enslave.” She stretched her front legs, her back legs. Could this truly be happening? Was she free?
And where would she go, what would she do, with her very own wizard? What would she do with the rest of her life?
What she had always wanted. She would be whatever struck her fancy…and soon, she hoped, so would others like her.
“For their own good,” Victoria insisted. “It is always for their own good.”
“Well, you can do this hypothetical good without me. Go back to Valiant Province, if you can wrest it back from Shula. When we left, it seemed she’d defeated you.”
“I can rout her treacherous ass with one hand…” Victoria’s frown brightened, and she let out a raucous laugh. “I’d best be able to rout her with one hand, hadn’t I? Either way, I’m sure Fliss has already trounced her.” She rubbed her fist against the small of her back, a gesture Nadia had seen her make more and more often of late.
And would hopefully never see her make again.
“Perhaps we can come to an agreement,” Victoria said. “I do…contract with free dragons on occasion. Even if you’re not to be my dragon, perhaps if the two of you see something in the future I need to manage, you’ll let me know, eh? I will pay well. Just send me word if you see downtrodden women and children? Starving peasants? Forest fires in my province that threaten whole villages? That sort of thing?”
“We aren’t going to use my magic. It corrupts,” Nadia told her. Barnabas, at her side, made a little noise that could have been agreement and could have been something else. She wasn’t about to tell Victoria she intended to join the Dragon Liberation Front and do everything in her prophetic power to end the subjugation of her kind.
Satisfied Victoria wouldn’t—couldn’t—pursue them, she snatched a surprised Barnabas in her talons and vaulted into the air, her strong, healed wings arrowing through the sky like dragons were meant to do.
# # #
Incognito, Barnabas and Nadia checked in with the DLF to report Nadia’s status. According to the sympathizers in place, Victoria had handily beaten back Shula’s red warriors. After certain agreements were made, they flew back to Valiant City on a free brown dragon who allowed Barnabas to absorb enough magic for a concealment talisman that should get them safely back to Earth. While Valiant Province would continue to be ruled by Victoria, it remained to be seen how she would fare without Nadia in her stable.
Once in the city walls, they wasted no time returning to the Earth portal, where they had a very unexpected encounter. A man Barnabas did not recognize was inside the portal room, chipping away at the phosphorescent mold on the surrounding stones.
“Aiden!” Nadia exclaimed, dropped her pack, and flung herself at the large blond human.
Not human. Dragon. The moment he noticed Nadia, his face, neck, and hands lit up with bright tracery.
They embraced with a flash of happy silver. That was before Aiden held Nadia at arm’s length and said, “What in the hells are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Magic where it’s safe.”
Nadia arched an eyebrow at her brother, who failed to yield. Clearly he didn’t recognize the signal Barnabas already knew all too well. But then, brother and sister had not been allowed to be together for nearly twenty years.
“I thought I’d have a go at knocking Victoria down a peg or two, brother. And you?” She stuck her hands on her hips. “Why is this portal still open? You caused me a great deal of trouble, dragging your heels.”
Aiden seemed taken aback, rising to his full, impressive height. “I’m working on it. I’m not a wizard, you know.” His deep voice had lost nearly all its Tarakonan accent with the time he’d spent on Earth.
Barnabas cleared his throat and inclined his head. “I should introduce myself, Master Silver. My name is Barnabas Courtier and—”
“And he’s my wizard.” Nadia whirled toward him, her skirts flaring, and grabbed him by the arm. She dragged him to her brother. Aiden’s eyes narrowed. “Barnabas, can you do something about this portal?”
“I regret that I am not a crystal wizard,” he confessed. “But it is something I would be willing to learn, should the DLF manage to free a willing crystal dragon.” Barnabas had never actually heard of a permanent portal being sealed, but there were non-magical means to control them.
“You’re DLF?” Aiden’s eyes went from narrow—to narrower. “What are you doing with my sister?”
“Pretty much everything I ask him to,” Nadia said with a smirk.
“Well.” Barnabas cleared his throat again, remembering what she’d suggested they try in their bedroll last night. “Not everything.”
“I am actually glad you’re here,” Nadia told her brother, shouldering her pack once again. “I’ve enlisted with the Dragon Liberation Front. I’m going to free all the dragons, Aiden. I’ve just got to fetch some terribly clever science books I think might help us.”
Aiden glanced between them, and his face practically turned to stone. “We’ll discuss this later. When we’re alone.”
“Pish posh.” Nadia bounced, adjusting her pack, and stomped toward the portal. “Come along, both of you.”
Without another word, the love of Barnabas’s life traipsed through the swirling portal and across dimensions. Aiden glowered at him, and Barnabas raised an eyebrow, Nadia-style. “You wish to bluster at me a bit, I presume?”
“Bluster? My sister recently escaped literal captivity, and you’ve no right to be taking advantage of her like this,” Aiden said.
Barnabas would have clasped his hands behind his back to out-wait Aiden’s rant, but his backpack was too large. Plus, Nadia was expecting him, and he did so hate to disappoint her. “Your sister is a force of nature. There will be no more taking advantage of that woman, trust me on this.”
“Sure, asshole.” Aiden began roughly jamming his accoutrements into a backpack. “You probably think you can use our silver magic to—”
“Your sister sets those rules, not I. Tis her magic.” Barnabas sighed and adjusted his concealment amulet, tucking it back beneath his greatcoat. “You might want to make it a touch more difficult to find the portal, Master Silver. I believe human incursions into the labyrinth have increased of late.” He and Nadia had encountered definite traces of occupation in the tunnels, deeper in, though he did not know if it was Mistress Harcourt’s bunch or if Victoria’s assault on the portal had attracted notice. Either way, they should be wary. “But nobody knows about you. Not the DLF, not anyone. Nadia and I saw to that.”
“I…thank you for that,” Aiden said gruffly. “I have been alone a very long time, Courtier. And to get my sister back, only to learn she’s going to stay in Tarakona?”
“Difficult,” Barnabas agreed. “But beware. She will not change her mind.”
Not that he’d tried to change it. Nadia Silver would be the spark the DLF needed to catch this archaic, evil system of dragon abuse on fire. With her at his side, he was getting so much more than he ever dreamed, and all of it was waiting for him in the hot, sandy desert of Magic, New Mexico, probably getting damned impatient by now.
“But…” Aiden began.
“I was raised not to keep a lady waiting,” Barnabas said. “Shall we?” He tipped his hat and stepped through the portal.
# # #
To the silent, swirling portal, Aiden Silver growled, “No. No, we shall not.”
He continued taking samples of the glowing moss, scraping and busting the rocks apart in his frustration. His sister. Finally home. Home on Earth, not this fucking violent, horrific dimension where no dragon would ever be safe. The muffled clanks of his industry covered up the quiet hush of retreating feet in the tunnel that led to the portal room.
FINIS