Seraph of Sorrow (8 page)

His wife took a sip. “I didn’t tell her to say anything. She’s perfectly capable of seeing through your illogical whining without my help. You’re just a sore loser.”

“I already told him that,” Jennifer pointed out with a grin.

“You’re right, honey.” Elizabeth turned back to her husband. “That ‘sore loser’ thing? She told me to say that.”

Jonathan ground his teeth. “Why are you so cheery? This wasn’t the way the simulation was supposed to go! We failed!”

“We learned,” Xavier corrected him from the chaise lounge across the library. “I thought that was the point.” The elder kept his long dragon form, forcing his great-nephew to find sprawling room on an oriental rug. Jonathan could have sworn he caught a faint smile around those yellowed teeth. As Xavier shifted on the chaise lounge, a small red and green shape crawled up his spine and settled on top of his flat, black head. This was Geddy, a gecko Jennifer once had for a pet. She had given the gecko to Xavier as a gift, after an extraordinary adventure together in another universe. Despite Jonathan’s lingering misgivings about the prickly dasher’s attitude, the gecko symbolized a strengthening link between his family and theirs.

“Where are Wendy and Eddie?” he asked his wife.

“Making nice with the newolves, I suppose.”

“Without a dragon there?”

“Best way to learn, dear.”

Jonathan turned to Xavier for support. The dasher gave him nothing more than a shrug.

“Fine. If we find their remains in the forest, I’ll pass on condolences to Hank.”

“I don’t imagine Hank cares one way or the other what happens to them in the forest,” Elizabeth reminded him. This was true: Since the recent ruin of the heirloom Blacktooth Blade, Hank had kicked his family out of the house—first Eddie, and then Wendy after she’d left her bed at the hospital. They were staying with the Scales until they could find a better solution.

“When do you think you’ll be able to hold some talks in Winoka?” Susan asked. Jonathan noticed the girl’s habit of twisting her black curls around her fingers. “If Jennifer’s and Eddie’s moms are already beaststalkers, isn’t that a good start?”

Elizabeth put her hand on Susan’s knee. “There are about five hundred beaststalkers in Winoka. The vast majority of them are blindly loyal to Glorianna Seabright. She despises diplomacy, and she doesn’t tolerate disagreement.”

“Then aren’t you and Ms. Blacktooth in danger?”

“Ms. Blacktooth and I are”—Jonathan caught Elizabeth’s pause—“special cases. The problem won’t be getting our family into town for diplomacy. The problem will be with other dragons, like the Longtails. More and more dragons will want to come to Winoka before long.”

“Like Catherine Brandfire and her grandmother were going to do?”

Jonathan winced. This was true—Winona Brandfire, the Eldest of the Blaze, and her granddaughter, Catherine, had been poised to move from their Northwater home to Winoka, in an effort to ease diplomatic efforts. The revelation that Jonathan was responsible for the death of Catherine’s parents had damaged that relationship, perhaps forever. There were dragons, Jonathan knew, who now despised him as much as Glorianna’s most loyal beaststalkers did.

“I still don’t get why you have to practice tonight,” Susan continued. “If you all have access to the silver moon elm, and you can shift shape by touching or not touching its leaves, then why do you have to fly in at all? Why not go in as
people
, and mingle however you like?”

Xavier’s black head lifted off the chaise lounge. “Let me ask you a question, Susan Elmsmith. Why should any of us have to hide who we are, to go into any town we like? If you were banned from Winoka because you
weren’t
a dragon, would you feel it necessary to dress up as one so you could go outside and buy your groceries?”

Susan’s ears reddened, and she bowed her head. “Sorry. I was just asking.”

Jonathan held his hand up to Xavier. “Don’t apologize, Susan. It was a legitimate question. Not everybody is an expert in how to make Elder Longtail happy.”

“And not everyone is as comfortable as Elder Scales pretending to be someone he isn’t.”

“My father doesn’t pretend—”

“Jennifer.” Now the raised hand was directed at his daughter. Temples burning with irritation, he got up from his chair and walked over to the chaise lounge. He felt all the eyes in the room—those of his family, Susan, and the Longtails—follow him. With a set jaw, he pointed right at Xavier Longtail’s snout.

“Xavier. I want you to understand this perfectly. I know who I am. And so does the mayor of Winoka. If she wanted to show up at our door with a dozen of her best, she would. You might want to consider why she doesn’t. It isn’t entirely because of my wife.

“If you think so little of me, perhaps you want to go find Winona Brandfire and a dozen of
her
best. See if you can find that many who want to come knock on
that
door, right there.” He moved his finger so that it pointed at the porch door.

Xavier was chuckling, but it was not a cruel or disrespectful laugh. “No, Elder Scales. I don’t think so little of you. I hope you and the girl”—he motioned to Susan with a wing claw—“will forgive my bad temper. I’ve been fielding questions like hers for far too long. I’m sitting with you here tonight because I respect self-knowledge. You know who you are. So does your wife, and your daughter. This knowledge lends you a certain . . . integrity. There are dragons in the Blaze who don’t have it. Given a choice, I prefer your company.”

Jonathan relaxed. He lowered his finger and smiled. “I’m glad you do, Xavier. And Gautierre, I’m sure you agree with your great-uncle. It’s good to have you here.”

The young dasher didn’t respond. He was busy staring at the couch where Jennifer sat, whispering something to Susan. The fascination on his face made Jonathan lose his smile.

Xavier wasn’t amused, either. He smacked his great-nephew on the head with a wing claw. “Boy, where’s your head? An elder’s talking to you.”

“Sorry, Uncle X. I was . . .” The kid trailed off, because he plainly had no ready lie, and the truth would not do at all.

The truth is,
Jonathan told himself,
he’s infatuated with Jennifer.
He couldn’t blame the youngster—in his humble opinion, his daughter
was
the most perfect person to grace this earth—but this was getting tiring. Eddie Blacktooth, for years, had demonstrated an obvious crush on his childhood friend. Then last year, as Eddie faded a bit, Skip Wilson, the son of ex-wife Dianna Wilson and murderous thug Otto Saltin, arrived on the scene. The two boys seemed to take turns in irritating and attracting Jennifer. Given their parentage, Jonathan found this whole romantic seesaw to be an exercise in heightened blood pressure.

And now, on top of it all, came this Gautierre lad. Who didn’t come from a long line of Jonathan Scales fans, either. How could a father who came equipped with a built-in flamethrower have so much trouble keeping these young bucks off his daughter? And what would Gautierre’s mother, Ember, think of the idea of Jennifer dating this boy?

Probably some of the same things you think,
he answered himself.
And worse.

“Have you heard from your niece?” he asked Xavier, holding his breath.

Xavier shook his head. “Since Gautierre told his mother his intention to learn from the Ancient Furnace, she has not spoken to either of us. She rarely comes out of Crescent Valley, so I don’t expect there will be any confrontation here at the cabin. I would recommend caution for any and all of you should you cross through the moonlit water into that refuge.”

Gautierre scowled at the mention of his mother. “Mom’s being a twit. She thinks she knows everything that’s good for me. I can make these decisions for myself.”

“Your mother is not a twit,” Elizabeth snapped, making them all sit up straight. “Your mother is an orphan. When you lose family, you look for any reason to lash out. In her case, she doesn’t have to look far.”

“It is possible,” Xavier added with a courteous nod to Elizabeth, “that we will have to practice a great deal more than how to evade paint guns, before our efforts can succeed. There could be dragons standing in the way of diplomacy. Some of them have considerable power.”

Jonathan shook his head. “I’m not worried about individual dragons. With the possible exception of Winona, not one of them can do anything Jennifer can’t.” He watched his daughter swell with pride at his words.

Xavier looked skeptical. “You’ve already taught her the elder creeper skill?”

Here, Jonathan’s blood went cold. “No.”

The dasher’s head tilted to one side. “It might help. You think she’s too young?”

“Not at all. I just can’t do it myself.”

“You can’t? Why not? Surely Crawford taught it to you years ago?”

An unwanted memory washed over Jonathan’s skull: his mother coughing blood all over the bedsheets, and her golden irises rolling back. A funeral pyre at the stone plateau, and his father’s harsh words to him:
I will never teach you another damned thing about being a dragon.

“He didn’t” was all he could say.

Xavier glared at him, and Jonathan was certain the old geezer could piece it together. “This is bad news. Crawford was the last elder with memory of the skill.”

“There aren’t any others?” Jennifer’s brow furrowed. “How can that be? I’ve seen some elder creepers on the Blaze. Don’t they know it?”

“Most of them lost their parents long ago, at Pinegrove,” Xavier explained. “Creepers tended to cluster in the outskirts of the town, and these families were the first to die. Since the attack came outside of a crescent moon, and we did not have the benefit of the silver moon elm at that time, the newolves were the only thin line of defense we had. It was enough to save some families. But we lost the town.”

“And an enormous part of our heritage,” Jonathan added. “Dad told me there were only a few elder creepers that survived. Most of those died shortly afterward, in subsequent ‘revenge’ raids. Before long, Dad was the only one left. He probably thought he had more time than he did to pass it on.”

“Even with him gone, can’t today’s elder creepers experiment?” Jennifer asked. “If I knew that elder dashers could cause explosions, or elder tramplers could summon huge swarms of fire hornets, I’d tinker until I figured it out.”

“We could do that,” Xavier agreed, “if we knew what exactly the elder creeper skill
was
.”

“What?”

“Nobody knows what it was—not even the oldest children of Pinegrove.”

“How is that possible? They must have
seen
it.”

“If I knew how it was possible,” Xavier explained with barely restrained impatience, “then I would know the skill, wouldn’t I?”

“
You’re
old enough to remember seeing it, aren’t you?” Susan asked.

Jonathan could see Xavier’s reptilian head snap about, then pause as the elder tried to collect himself. “For a girl who supposedly has no extraordinary talents, you do seem to have a gift for asking annoying questions.”

Susan leaned up against Jennifer with a wry smile, fingers tangled in her own hair. She caught Gautierre staring at them about the same time Jonathan did. She gave Jennifer a wink as the boy quickly bowed his head. “Thanks.”

“I know for a fact that I’ve seen it,” Xavier told them. “In the same way that I know I saw the world for the first time when I was born. I cannot remember one any better than I can remember the other. I can’t explain how this is possible.”

“Any written record of the skill in beaststalker lore?” he asked Elizabeth.

She shook her head. “None that I know of. Glory and her followers are more interested in wiping out dragon heritage than studying it. There’s someone we might ask . . .”

“Who?”

Wendy and Eddie Blacktooth appeared on the porch. Jonathan was struck by a revelation: Whereas he’d always thought of Eddie as a carbon copy of his heavier, angrier father, seeing the two come in together from the cold reminded Jonathan how much the boy’s sparrowlike features and sharp eyes (though brown, instead of blue) had more in common with his mother . . .

“Wendy,” Elizabeth said on cue, as the porch door slid open with a blast of snow and air.

“What?” The woman’s voice was pleasant but cool, as if it had glided over an ice-coated throat. She stomped her boots and motioned to Eddie to do the same, as they found a spot to put their guns. “Hey, a paint store threw up on the lawn. Is everyone okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” Jonathan assured her. “Liz was just talking about you. She suggested you might know something about a special skill elder creepers might have.”

“Here, Eddie, I’ll take that. Special skill—you mean beyond the obvious, like fire-breathing and camouflage? Wouldn’t you be the expert on that, Jon?”

“Not really. Lots of elders who used it died long ago. I wouldn’t ask, but Liz said—”

“Oh, right. Hank. Yeah, Lizzy’s right. Hank had a run-in with it. Back in high school. He always said we ended up together because I was impressed by his coming-of-age ritual, but it was . . . something else.” Her face soured at an untold memory. The fingers of her left hand worked around each other.

Elizabeth twitched. “Did his ritual have to do with an elder creeper?”

Wendy shrugged off her coat. “So he said. He never gave more details than that, though. Said it was a ‘top-secret’ mission for Mother herself.”

“Mother?” Xavier asked.

“Glory,” Jonathan explained. Liz and Wendy both insisted on that term of endearment, for reasons Jonathan knew were too complicated to explain here.

Wendy continued. “All I could get from him was how he learned a lot of dragons’ secrets—how they fight and plan and such. When I’d press him for details, he’d clam up. I always figured he was full of shit, so eventually I got bored and stopped asking.”

Jennifer chewed her tongue. “I think I’m going to go with Ms. Blacktooth’s ‘full-of-shit’ theory here, Mom. It sounds promising.”

“Hush, honey. So nothing, Wendy?”

Wendy shrugged apologetically. “Sorry. I could try to ask him—”