CHAPTER 24

I think the chief problem in being a silent passenger in someone else’s skull is how easy it makes it for you to disappear into your own thoughts, especially dark ones involving guilt and self-pity. For the past year or so, those latter ones had been a specialty of mine. Might-have-beens and self-recriminations can be even more addictive when you can’t actually do anything physical.

I lost track of the conversation, huddling back in Lucille’s skull and thinking quiet thoughts of my own uselessness. I tried to sulk in silence, because even long after the influence of the tea, Lucille still seemed to hear me. I didn’t want her interrupting my depression telling me how she had come to terms with her life as a dragon, or how without me Grünwald would have conquered Lendowyn long before now. I’d heard her arguments before, and at better moments I could find them compelling.

But right now I couldn’t help thinking of Sebastian the Dragon loosing his fury on an unsuspecting ballroom full of innocent people. Yes, I know, a bunch of nobles and diplomats, so they were really far from innocent. But they were innocent of the crime that fired Sebastian’s wrath. Only one person in that room could claim credit for that. I didn’t think Lucille could come up with a counter for my complicity in that.

Worse, now Sebastian was attacking villages with actual innocent people, pushing everything toward open war where even more would die. For all we knew, that war may have started already, the massed armies from my dream-vision marching for Lendowyn based on actions I had provoked.

I know Lucille would argue the point, and I didn’t want to force her to. She had more important things to think about than inventing reasons to absolve me.

I should tell you that, at this point, it is perfectly acceptable to want to slap me. I share the sentiment. I know it’s not all about me, but, then again, this is my story I’m telling, so, in a sense, it is, isn’t it?

•   •   •

After Lucille’s conversation with Elhared, there was a lot more back and forth as Lucille tried to form our group into something that might work as a team, and tried to craft something that might work as a plan. Too much time had been lost already, and they needed Sebastian the Dragon to fulfill the elf-king’s ultimatum.

Elhared’s rationale for working with us was, knowing what we did of where the scroll came from, that Sebastian would suffice as the one at root bearing responsibility for the death of the prince. Thanks to Elhared, we also had some clue to where he might have gone. Sebastian wasn’t native to Lendowyn, and Elhared knew the mountain pass that his one-time coconspirator called home. It was back where we had come, a straight-line route that passed through the Northern Palace and kept going to the mountains beyond.

A few days ride at best. Given the state of the hourglass, we had little more than one mortal day left.

Fortunately we had alternate transportation now.

•   •   •

If there was any consolation to my status as an invisible rider in Lucille’s skull, it was in that flight back to the Northern Palace. I had ridden via dragon before, and it would not be on any list I’d ever draft of fun things to do. Enough so that if it was a choice between escaping in the clutches of a friendly dragon and being immolated by an approaching forest fire, it would require at least a moment or two of thought on my part.

I had also, in my one prior episode in a dragon’s skull, been used as a mount by a half-dozen teenage girls. That had been disconcerting in its own way. From a dragon’s perspective, humans seem so tiny and fragile I couldn’t help feeling that any wrong move would reduce them to a thin smear on my scaled backside.

Lucille being in control of the dragon freed me from both concerns.

Rabbit and Krys managed to quickly return to Fell Green and, in less than half an hour, trade the now-superfluous horses and return with a considerable amount of rope and leather. They used the supplies to knot together a rope harness around Lucille’s chest and neck, giving the four humans something with which to anchor themselves.

Elhared was the only one to express any reluctance, but Robin said something to him and laughed. After that Robin sprang up to straddle the dragon’s neck. A grim-faced Elhared followed.

Krys and Rabbit sat forward, Rabbit in front.

Lucille launched herself into the moonlit night.

She was fast. I do not know what image that word conjures in your mind, but whatever it is, I can attest it is inadequate to convey the sheer velocity of her movement.

Wind tore by us as our passengers screamed.

Passenger, actually. I think it was Elhared. I’m not entirely sure, since Lucille did not move her head from the wire-straight path she followed. The ground blurred by below us, the hills and forest passing by so quickly that it almost seemed the earth undulated with our passage.

It must have been close to midnight when she’d launched from the island of Fell Green, the moon high in the sky. It was still night when we reached the Northern Palace, the moon low on the horizon and the dawn still hours away.

She circled the building, high up, and saw the guardsmen rallying.

“Krys, I’m going to land outside of longbow range. Run up and announce us.”

“Yes, Your Highness!” Krys’s shouted response was nearly inaudible over the rushing wind.

Less than a handful of minutes after we’d landed, Krys had returned with most of the Lysean guard; Mary, along with Laya and Thea, who had successfully made it away from Lendowyn Castle after our abrupt departure. Grace was evidently still hobbled by the injuries she had received during the banquet.

Krys had obviously filled them in, but it was clear they didn’t know exactly what to make of Lucille.

“It is you?” Laya said nervously as she approached Lucille’s crimson form.

“Who else would I be?”

Laya looked back at the Northern Palace nervously.

“There have been a lot of dragon attacks,” Mary said.

“Sebastian is still attacking villages?”

“Who’s Sebastian?”

Lucille explained and got more of the story from Mary.

Sebastian had been a busy dragon. He’d been torching farms and villages in a widening arc across Lendowyn’s northern border and beyond. Places had been attacked three kingdoms away. It was obvious he was doing his best to incite as many nations against Lendowyn as he could.

“It’s to the point that rumor has taken over,” Mary said.

“Meaning?”

“It’s impossible that one dragon could accomplish all the attacks we’re hearing about. Three farms leveled at all points of the compass within a single day? Someone’s making this stuff up.”

It turned out that the Northern Palace was a garrison now, fortified with a hundred extra troops that Lendowyn couldn’t afford. The only reason that no one had tried to shoot Lucille out of the sky was because none of the dragon attacks had so far focused on Lendowyn, and King Alfred had standing orders not to summarily attack the dragon that, as far as he knew, could still be his daughter.

Oh . . .

Lucille?

I never thought of . . . Letting Father think I was still the dragon, what if someone got killed because he ordered them not to attack?

No one has.

Yet. That we know of.

We’ll stop Sebastian before it comes to that.

Yes. She didn’t sound convinced.

Other news was predictable, but not reassuring. King Alfred was angry and conscripting every able-bodied man in the kingdom. Rumors of an anti-Lendowyn alliance had already reached the Northern Palace. And everyone seemed to realize that something was not quite right with the fae. No mortal had seen an elf for days, anywhere.

“We don’t have any time,” Lucille told them. “We need to go after Sebastian immediately. We may have less than a day. Did you bring Dracheslayer?”

“And the Tear of Nâtlac!” Thea said enthusiastically.

Oh great, I thought unenthusiastically.

“Back at the palace,” Laya said.

“Fetch the sword. We’ll head out at dawn.”

Elhared looked up at Lucille. “Your Highness? What exactly is your plan here?”

“We take the dragon and return him to the elf-king, and hope that’s enough for him to call off a war.”

“Uh-huh. Do you have any specific ideas on how you’re going to do this?”

“We have the sword and our own dragon. We’ll bring him back.”

Elhared nodded. “I thought not. You expect to coerce an unwilling dragon?”

“If necessary, we will kill him!” Lucile snapped. Everyone but Elhared stepped back from her.

“Might I make a suggestion?” I recognized the glint in his eye, and I didn’t much like it.

Don’t trust him, I thought at Lucille.

I know, Lucille thought back at me.

“What?”

“If I heard correctly, you have a Tear of Nâtlac?”

I didn’t like where this was going. Using that artifact the last time ended in a disaster nearly as severe as the one we were embroiled in right now.

“So?”

“Your task would be considerably easier if Sebastian was easily restrained and the dragon had a more willing disposition.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“The spells that placed you in Sebastian’s skin, and returned him to it. They can swap him with a more . . . cooperative identity.”

“You can do that without your spellbook, or that scroll?”

“Not usually. But with the Tear of Nâtlac as a focus, it would be trivial. That jewel is nothing but a solid manifestation of the same magics, distilled to their purest essence.”

“Exchange Sebastian for an ally?”

“And return him when the elves have their dragon again.”

I did not like the way Elhared smiled when he said that.

•   •   •

As the girls took our two guests back to the palace to equip for the trek into the mountains, I mentally yelled at Lucille, You can’t be thinking of going along with Elhared?

Frank, he’s right. We’re on a deadline.

She spread her wings and lifted off to fly in the direction of the palace. You can’t trust him.

Of course not. But I remember that dragon—even with Dracheslayer backing me up, I want every advantage available.

I don’t feel good using Nâtlac’s little trinket for anything. Not after last time.

She swooped around the top of the palace. The few guards gave us a salute as we passed. Better than an arrow in the eye, I guess.

You won’t be using it.

But that kind of magical “gift” always has unintended—

I felt a queasy half-familiar sensation in Lucille’s gut. Our gut. From the corner of our eye I saw that the moon was completely below the horizon. Everything fell into place as I had an instantaneous flash of perfect understanding.

“LAND!”

My panicked mental scream carried with such force that the word left Lucille’s mouth in a small burst of sulfurous fire.

What?

Land now! Land now! Landnowlandnowlandnow . . .

We were too high up, way too high, and I could feel the cramps in our stomach radiating out to every part of our body. Lucille’s flight became less controlled and we started tumbling down.

This wasn’t going to be good.

I should have realized the risk much earlier, but I’d been distracted by Elhared’s presence. Lothan had promised us each our own body, and he was, among other things, the patron of transformation. The potion he had provided was imbibed by moonlight, and the moon had been over our heads until this moment.

The full moon.

The Wizard Crumley had said that having dual personas in a single body would result in some sort of merging of our identities—except in certain cases of lycanthropy.

Lothan had an unfortunate sense of humor.

The potion hadn’t turned us into a dragon. It had turned us into a were-dragon. Though not the solution I would have chosen, I probably would have admired its twisted elegance if the realization—and the transformation—hadn’t hit me midflight.

Lucille did her best to retain some control over our flight as our body painfully shrank and twisted. Before our wings shrank to nothing, she managed to angle our decent away from a plummet straight down, toward the walls of the palace. As the massive window into the banquet hall rushed toward us, I noticed it had been boarded over since our departure.

Lucille closed our eyes.

We slammed into the boards midway into our transformation. That was probably for the best. The bone-breaking pain of impact was pretty much lost within the pain that already racked our body during the transition from dragon to princess. We still had mass and momentum on our side, so the boards gave way.

For a moment we tumbled in midair through the banquet hall. The sensation was almost as surreal as feeling our long neck withdraw into our torso, or our talons slide back into our shrinking fingers and toes.

Our back struck the flagstones and we bounced and rolled. I don’t know how much of the boneless flopping of our limbs was from impact damage, or from the long bones breaking and reknitting as our body shrank from giant lizard to shorter-than-average princess.

We came to rest on our side against the far wall of the banquet hall.

I groaned.

I-It wore off. I heard the dragon’s voice in my head, low and shaky.

“No,” I muttered, amazed that my jaw still worked. During our descent it felt as if it had been broken—shattered, really—a dozen times from the impact with wood and stone. I reached up slowly and touched our face, half expecting to feel a squishy slab of bloody meat. Instead I felt the familiar contour of Lucille’s face, skin and bones unbroken. “It didn’t ‘wear off.’”

But . . .

“The moon set.” I pushed myself to a sitting position against the cold stone wall and blinked our eyes open.

The moon, what does that . . . She trailed off, because she wasn’t stupid and had all the same information I did. Oh. This complicates things.

I got to my feet a little unsteadily. Part of that was due to the lingering strangeness I felt in limbs that my brain felt should be little more than ragged stumps after the punishment they’d just taken. The remainder of my clumsiness was due to the fact that I could not take my eyes off of the devastation.

An effort had been made to return the great hall to some semblance of order. Our arrival had undone most of that. The great window was again open to the night. What planks hadn’t exploded inward to shower debris on the hall were dangling, barely attached to the edges of the window. A trail of blood and splintered wood led from a point about ten feet in from the window all the way to where I stood. I hadn’t felt it at the time, but four long banquet tables had been broken or knocked aside by our entrance.

Next to me I heard a familiar, tentative voice ask, “Your Highness?”

I turned to face the voice, realizing that I was clothed only in a sticky sheen of blood and adhering wood splinters. That didn’t stop me from running forward and hugging as much of Brock as I could get my arms around. “You’re alive!” I shouted.

He grunted and said, “Brock still hurts.”

I backed off and looked up at him.

He was obviously badly injured, his left arm wrapped to the shoulder, and half his head and chest swathed in bandages, but color had returned to the visible parts of his skin.

Then I realized that, aside from the bandages and a sheet hastily tied around his middle, he wasn’t clothed any better than I was.

This is awkward.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” I asked him.

“Brock heard attack, and screams, and . . .” The sword he had held clumsily in his right hand clattered to the flagstone floor, and the exposed skin of his massive chest, neck, and face deepened its shade from healthy, to ruddy, to a half shade short of spontaneous combustion.

Then, showing more speed and dexterity than he had ever shown in combat, he tore off the sheet wrapped around his middle and wrapped it around my shoulders. Then it was my turn to flush.

Oh my, the dragon whispered in my skull before I had the presence of mind to turn away from the suddenly naked barbarian.

“What happened?” Brock asked.

“Unanticipated emergency landing.”

“Brock doesn’t understand.”

“Brock is probably happier that way.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m fine.” Despite all the blood, and the way my recent memory ached with broken bones, it was the truth. I had—we had—come through the whole episode apparently unscathed. I glanced over my shoulder at Brock, keeping my gaze focused above his chest. “But you’re still hurt. You should go back to bed and heal.”

“Brock is healed,” he protested. But now that the excitement had ended, I saw him sag, leaning against the wall. Other guardsmen ran up behind him now, and despite shaking his head in protest he didn’t object when I told a couple of the newcomers to escort him back to his sickbed.

One bright spot, at least.

I still want to take apart that dragon.

Sebastian.

And not just for the elf-king.

I watched the reaction of the remaining two guards. They looked at the wreckage in the hall, and back at me covered in Brock’s sheet.

“Gentlemen,” I addressed them. “I am going to return to my chambers now and clean up. Can you have the able-bodied members of my personal guard assemble in the courtyard in an hour, along with our two guests?”

I didn’t wait for their response before walking back to my rooms.

You were right.

About what?

About Elhared. We’re going to need all the help we can get.