| |
Daegan hurried toward the castle great hall where guides had been grouping their tour guests.
The closer he and Tristan came, the more voices lifted excitedly with the word “dragon” being spoken constantly.
He paused to take in the crowd, but Tristan pushed into the room and joined a group as if he’d been part of their pack. He asked in an upbeat tone, “Hey, what’s all the excitement?”
“There’s a video of that dragon again. The one they saw in Ukraine,” a young woman in jeans and a frilly blouse replied breathlessly. “I can’t believe this.”
Daegan couldn’t decide if she sounded afraid or anxious to meet a dragon.
Someone next to her scoffed, “I’ll bet it’s just CGI, all a bunch of hype for some new movie with dragons.”
Another man nearby called out, “No way. Look at this. It’s being filmed live on social networks. You can’t fake that.”
Daegan caught up to Tristan who had moved next to a twenty-something man in shorts and a button-down shirt, staring at his phone.
Tristan asked, “You sure it’s not some high-tech mechanical dragon?”
The guy flipped his phone around. “You tell me.”
Daegan leaned around Tristan. A red dragon flying beneath an airplane was being filmed from above. It’s muscular movements appeared natural. The wing movement, everything about that dragon seemed genuine.
All but the red coloration, which could not be mistaken for his.
Good luck explaining that to terrified humans.
Daegan’s jaw tightened to keep from cursing.
Who the hell was out there imitating Ruadh? Daegan could tell more of the dragon if it did not wear a glamour, which it clearly used.
“Oh, no,” a young woman cried. “They’re going to blow it up.”
Angling his head away from the crowd, Tristan led Daegan to the side of the room and pulled out the phone he’d brought when they teleported.
He slid his finger across quickly then stopped and angled the phone to Daegan. “Look, boss.”
The video on his phone had the word “LIVE” flashing. The image showed a pair of fierce-looking aircraft taking off as if they’d been shot out of a giant catapult.
“Those are smaller than the airplanes in Atlanta,” Daegan commented.
Speaking low in spite of the crowd noise shielding their words, Tristan explained, “That's because these are the fighter jets Evalle and I were warning you about. If they get to the dragon before it vanishes again, they'll shoot it. I have no doubt. They’re loaded with weapons that can disintegrate a dragon.”
“Why? I can understand the fear of a giant beast torching the land, but I have not heard the dragon has killed anyone.”
“True, but humans are in panic mode. Although, some will not be happy, because our books and movies have romanticized dragons as a mythological wonder. As long as a dragon is on the big screen, humans fall in love with them, but now that they’re finding out supernaturals live among them and, oh, dragons exist? It’s going to be dangerous for our kind.”
“Dragons should be feared, but ... ”
“What, boss?”
With a heavy heart, he admitted, “I understand humans fearing a monster they believe can burn them to ashes or eat them, but ... that one is another of my kind. I am furious the dragon causing destruction is pretending to be my Ruadh, but I do not wish to kill it. I would save it just as I did the stubborn one in my dungeon.”
“Ruadh? That’s your dragon’s name?” Tristan’s eyebrows shot up. “You’ve never mentioned it.”
“And I need you to not. I never speak his name to prevent some powerful being from using it to cast a spell or worse. But yes, that is his name.”
“No one will learn that name from me.”
Daegan would never doubt Tristan. His second-in-command would go to his death before he would betray Daegan.
Tristan spoke softly as he glanced around. “First, we have to keep you alive for you to save another dragon. That means we need our Beladors everywhere to be safe so they can support us.”
“True. Before any of that, we must free the ones the Imortiks hold captive before they drain our people. That is my top priority,” Daegan made clear.
Tristan frowned and turned the phone display back to look at then showed it to Daegan again. “You sure that red dragon is not another one like yours?”
Daegan watched the dragon burn a strip of land, then fly high again. He shook his head. “That is no fire dragon.”
Tristan lifted a shoulder. “Seems like fire to me, boss.”
“Yes, fire is burning the trees, but it does not come from inside the dragon.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because the flame shoots straight down as if sent in a pipe. If you recall the times you’ve seen my fire, mine spreads as it flows out, allowing for the most damage.”
“Ah. So what do you think is making the fake dragon’s fire?”
“I have no idea, but I intend to find out. Someone emulated my dragon in the same way right before Queen Maeve captured me and the Dragani War ignited, bringing death to my father’s door.” Daegan fisted his hands, angry that once again his people were under attack.
“No kidding, boss? Do you think this is the same person? Maybe Queen Maeve?”
“I do not know, but I will find out. I cannot expect warriors to fight for me unless they know I will fight for them.” But how could he save his people today when he couldn't even shift into his powerful dragon?
Ruadh’s deep voice spoke to him telepathically. We cannot hide and win a war.
I agree, my friend. But we must take care to not leave our people at an enemy’s mercy again. I miscalculated the danger once when I arrogantly entered TÅμr Medb to check on Lesley, thinking no one would dare attack me. I will not make that mistake twice and force you to endure a lifetime of being imprisoned again either.
With a huff of discontent, Ruadh silenced, willing to wait for Daegan to call him up.
That conversation made Daegan whisper, “We could be talking telepathically.”
Tristan explained, “Yeah, but speaking like this is more natural and allows us to blend in with humans. This will help us wherever we go to search for that book or ... the Luigsechs.”
“Good point, Tristan. With so much going on among the humans out here, I suggest we bypass the meal for the moment and find a quiet place we can talk to Adrianna.”
“Copy that, boss. You got a place in mind?”
“Yes.” Daegan wove his way through the still-excited humans then back to the hallway. While the humans were distracted, he should be able to use the chapel if Tristan’s phone would function there. The closer he came to that location, the fewer people meandered the halls. When any lingered, Tristan informed them everyone in the large hall were looking at a real-life dragon.
That sent them running.
Daegan slowed at the doorway to the chapel and stood to sweep a look over the room. “This is where my father told me Jennyver had come to pray for his recovery the last day I saw him. I had expected to see her at his bed when I returned from checking on my other sister, Lesley, who lived with Queen Maeve.”
“Whoa. What?” Tristan asked.
Looking over his shoulder, Daegan said, “I have much to tell you and the others about my family.”
“But the one with Maeve was not the sister whose body you were hunting for on Treoir?”
“No. Jennyver lived with Macha.” Daegan had not been happy when Tristan figured out that he’d been flying his red dragon across Treoir hunting Jennyver’s body the same day Adrianna had broken the curse over his dragon. That had been before he’d given Tristan his full trust. “I was actually hoping to find Jennyver’s dragon ring. But if she had been buried with it, I would have actually had to be walking close to her grave to have sensed the power in her ring.”
When Daegan tasted his first moment of freedom, his thoughts had gone to locating any remnant of his family.
Tristan kept pace with Daegan as he led them deeper into a fifty-by-thirty-foot room with ceilings that arched high to a point.
“The chapel.” Daegan smelled candle wax, but it had been burned too recently to have lingered for centuries. His fingers began tingling. He fisted that hand then stretched it out and the tingling remained.
Tristan followed, continuing the conversation. “But you’re not sure Jennyver’s dead, are you?”
“A part of me wants to believe she lives, because I have no one from those times and Garwyli badgers me about not opening my mind to the possibility that others could also exist today as I do. That’s all well and good, but my sisters were not immortal. Even if Jennyver had returned to Macha before my father died, which I would doubt, she would have had to request my father perform a ritual in Treoir, using the river of immortality that flows beneath Treoir Castle to grant her that request. It was assumed that my sisters would do so since that had been one reason for creating the Treoir realm. But Queen Maeve would not trust Macha to allow Lesley to visit, and Jennyver once told me she would not be happy immortal.”
“Why not?”
Stopping next to a series of beautiful wood structures holding more display boxes at an angle for viewing, Daegan tried to shake the tingling from his hand.
Both hands now.
He no longer had the headache he’d suffered for a bit, which had raised his concerns about the venom in his body. Had that Imortik done something to him?
“Boss?”
“What?” He turned to Tristan.
“Why didn’t Jennyver want to be immortal?”
“She said she couldn’t face outliving her children and all of her family.”
Tristan grimaced. “That would suck.”
“It does,” Daegan murmured then shook off the sad thought. “Let’s get the information to Adrianna while the humans are busy.”
Lifting his phone, Tristan tapped. “I’ve opened a text to type in the names unless you want to talk to her?”
“No. I don’t care for speaking into a tiny box.”
“Okay, boss. Give me the spellings for each name.”
Once Daegan did that and Tristan sent the text, Daegan strolled over to observe the display boxes. A few of the crumbling artifacts were familiar.
Something irritated his energy.
He swung around to find Tristan walking across the room toward the altar. “What are you looking for?”
“Nothing. Just walking around looking at stuff,” Tristan murmured.
Daegan joined him in front of the altar, curious if Tristan noticed anything. “Do you feel an unusual sensation?”
Sighing hard, Tristan said, “Actually, yes. But it seems to be all over the room. Was this used for something other than a chapel? Could it be Nightstalkers like we have in Atlanta trying to get our attention?”
Daegan had met some of the ghoul informants who exchanged a handshake with a powerful being for ten minutes of corporeal form. “No, this is not like that and the chapel was used for worship. Our family had loads of energy just by being born of dragon blood. My sisters both came here often as they grew up.” The closer Daegan got to Tristan, the more he felt energy buzzing over his skin.
He went on high alert and whispered, “This could be a trap.”
Tristan became very still then started searching the walls and behind them. “What should I look for?”
“I don’t know. Just watch my back as I search. The energy pulling at me is stronger by the altar.”
“Should we leave?”
Daegan considered it. “Not yet. The energy does not feel hostile.” The energy poked and brushed at him as if trying to touch him, but not in an aggressive way. No, it felt ... familiar. His heart pounded at realizing the energy seemed to recognize his.
Tristan took a step back. “I’ve got your back. Since you seem to be the divining rod, so to say, I’ll stay out of the way.”
That sounded like a good idea, especially if Daegan was wrong and this energy came from a trap. Someone from the supernatural world could have placed it once word of Daegan’s escape trickled out.
He closed his eyes and opened his senses.
The energy tugged at his left hand.
He dropped to his knees to look more closely at the heavy stone altar where the candles burned slowly. Not those from his da’s time, but a nice representation.
As he knelt on the right side of the altar, his left hand jerked hard to the left.
He caught his balance before he tumbled over.
“Boss?”
“Stay put.” Daegan shuffled over and allowed his left hand to move more freely. His fingers stopped at the center of the stacked-stone altar a foot tall and ten feet wide.
What now?
Lowering his head, he peered more closely at an empty spot between two stones. He recalled being ten and watching a mouse push its head out of that hole during a service. Mortar had continued to crumble, leaving room for a fat mouse. He pushed his index finger into the hole and made it only to his first knuckle. The end of his finger moved across a smooth and narrow surface.
Pulling his finger out, he concentrated using kinetics with his finger and thumb to draw whatever he’d touched out.
It didn’t budge at first. Was it wedged tightly?
He dug out additional mortar and tried again.
Tristan’s phone dinged. He said, “Isak is bad to the bone when it comes to searching human files. He has a lead for us on a Luigsech woman.”
Daegan struggled to leave this and get back on track, but he couldn’t walk away. The energy continued to beat at him as hard as he tried to find the source.
“Boss? You want to stick around or head out?”
Driving all the kinetic power he could into that small opening, Daegan said, “Give me a ... ”
Fissures in the surrounding stones cracked.
A ring rolled out.
He stared at the circle of twisted silver in the shape of a dragon’s head with emerald eyes, unable to breathe. Then he lifted the ring in his trembling fingers.
Tristan squatted down. “That’s not the ring you’ve been looking for, is it?”
“Yes and no. This is half of a ring created with da’s power poured into it for Jennyver. Lesley had one as well, but hers had cobalt eyes on the dragon. The ring was created in two halves to be worn as one.”
“Well, damn. I know you were hoping your sister would still be alive. Sorry, boss.”
Daegan struggled not to shout and bring in the humans. His emotions tangled with logic. Jennyver was not immortal, but she left this half of the ring for a reason.
Could she have survived?
Daegan needed time to think and maybe, just maybe, consider what Garwyli had been trying to beat into him. That Daegan had no idea what had happened while he’d been imprisoned.
Not ready to declare Jennyver alive, or dead, Daegan explained to Tristan, “This ring does not confirm her death or that she lives.”
“Why not?”
“My sisters were given the Gruffyn dragon rings to protect them, but if they died, each ring would insure their trip to a holy afterlife. They had only one reason to separate the ring into two parts—to send the dragon’s head half with someone to inform the king they had been taken by an enemy.” Daegan squeezed the ring in his fist, careful not to damage it. “I have not made it through all of my father’s chronicles to discover what my father believes happened to her nor did the Luigsech woman mention Jennyver or Lesley in her last writing.”
Tristan scratched his head. “If Jennyver did not go back to Treoir, Macha should have been hunting for her, right?”
“True.” Daegan paused at Tristan’s words. “Macha has dodged answering my questions about Jennyver.” He wanted answers badly, but he could not start a conflict with Macha when he had to still save his people. Much as he hated the idea, the supernatural world might require her help. Rising to stand next to Tristan, Daegan carefully slipped the ring now peacefully buzzing with energy into his pocket. “What did Isak have for us?”
Flipping his phone open, Tristan replied, “He traced that Luigsech squire family through each generation for all three sisters. Two of the lines died out completely before 1600. The one noted as the king’s squire had no future generations after your father’s time.”
“Nothing?” Daegan asked, surprised. “She had no children?”
“There is no history of her after what was considered a battle of the high kings. I guess that was sort of like wars between countries, huh?”
Daegan sighed at how the history of dragons had been turned into myths. “I suspect history has renamed powerful dragon kings to high kings. The Dragani War evidently destroyed the dragon houses, scattering them. That dragon in my dungeon was an ice dragon. They were the most powerful house with a clan of five dragons.”
“Five? Holy cow.” Tristan scratched his head. “Wait, but your red one was the most feared dragon, right?”
“Yes. I am not sure I could have defeated all five alone, which was one reason to hold them as allies. Someone destroyed that alliance by pretending to be my red dragon.”
Tristan lowered his hand and had a look of disbelief. “Sounds like the same thing that’s happening now.”
Daegan assumed nothing, but ... could the same person be after him again?
He would not be so easy to take out of action this time. He would not allow history to repeat itself. “When I find the one imitating my dragon, they will pay.” Anxious to move ahead with their search, he snapped, “Back to Luigsech. We have no lead then?”
“Here’s what we have.” Tristan lifted his phone to read as he gave Daegan what he’d received. “According to Adrianna, Isak searched all current-day Luigsechs, the majority of which trace back to people related to the squire family parents, but not to that specific family.”
“Still nothing,” Daegan mused irritably.
“Stay with me, boss. Not done.” Tristan swiped his thumb across his phone. “Isak found a Luigsech woman who he would call suspicious.”
“Why?”
“She has a vague history prior to being accepted into a prestigious university in England.” Tristan glanced up. “Says she was an orphan. There’s no DNA sample for them to use to trace her background. That’s the blood test they use today that can tell a person who their ancestors were.”
Today’s science amazed Daegan. “Why does he think it’s suspicious?”
“Isak said she had an anonymous benefactor who paid for her education, probably because he gave the institution a bunch of money. She now works at an archival research centre in County Galway. She has a reputation among historians for being able to locate rare books and read dead languages, regardless of the time period. Isak did more digging on her and says the probability of that skill is so tiny it isn’t believable.”
Daegan’s pulse stirred at the first hint of a connection to his past. “All squires were human for the simple reason they were no threat to a dragon family and would be loyal to the family who offered them protection. This person Isak speaks of has quite a gift to be human.”
“Probably why Isak considered this Luigsech descendant suspicious. Not to mention she’s working in an ancestral research centre. That’s a bit coincidental.”
Daegan stated, “I never believed in coincidences in my time, nor do I now.”
Tristan shoved his phone in his jeans pocket. “Me neither. Want to take a look at her?”
“What’s the woman’s name?”
“Casidhe Luigsech.”
Daegan had his doubts that she could be a squire carrying the Treoir history today, but he had nowhere else to look. Then something Tristan had said hit him. “Did you say she is known for locating rare books?”
Tristan’s eyes sharpened at understanding the direction of Daegan’s thinking. “Yeah, rare books, as in maybe ... a grimoire?”
“Possibly. We have no other place to search and need every minute to save Devon and Renata. We go to Galway to find out who this Luigsech female is and what she knows.”
