Sorcha's Heart (9 page)

Drysta looked shocked. “Well! How odd. Trust me; every unbonded female in the aerie
would consider it an honor to help with your clutch. Keeva will be envied.”

“
Oh, goddess,” Sorcha breathed as the sixth and final egg slid into Drysta’s protective embrace. “I’m finished. I didn’t realize I’d be able to tell!” Euphoria swept her body and she settled full length on the ice, a pleasant lethargy enfolding her mind.
Congratulations, Mother,
she thought.
You’ll soon have six grandchildren, and I’m going to make sure you know it.

“
Well done, Sorcha. Six eggs is an excellent first clutch. May you produce many more.”

“
Thank you.” She arranged her strangely empty body around her eggs and, satisfied that no one could approach her clutch without treading on her, she allowed herself to slip into blissful slumber. A dim recess of her mind acknowledged Caedyrn as he entered their lair, inspected his mate and their eggs, and then curled himself protectively around his family.

The next few weeks melted away in happy contentment. Drysta explained that the clutch would hatch approximately two months after being laid. Keeva spent a good portion of each day helping Sorcha care for the clutch. The dragons bathed the eggs in fiery breath every few hours before turning each one, carefully exposing a different section of shell to the cooling ice.

Fire and ice. Even before hatching, dragons lived in the precarious balance between those extremes. Occasionally Sorcha worried about that other knife-edge her children would face. Just how much would her human essence affect these soon-to-be hatchlings?

Time would tell, but she knew that she and Caedyrn would protect these precious lives with their own if necessary. Each night, just before falling into their own much-needed slumber, Caedyrn and Sorcha lovingly fired their eggs, turned them tenderly, and then curled around them to maintain their balance through the midnight hours.

Chapter Seven

Destiny

That same delicate balance between extremes ruled the lives of the adult dragons. Living in the frozen wastes allowed the dragons to control their magical fires, which in turn allowed them to feed infrequently. Their energy reserves amazed Sorcha, and the glacial cold reduced their need to slake their power in blood.

But, inevitably, the need to feed drew Sorcha from the comfort of the aerie and the care of her clutch. Not her own need, but Keeva’s. Her nursemaid, unwilling to leave the clutch, had nearly depleted her energy reserves. Because she’d waited too long, desperation had driven Keeva to take an unwise risk. She had attempted to snatch a ewe from a flock sheltered securely near the village that nestled at the base of their mountain.

Sorcha raced to the aerie entrance and leapt to the sky when she heard Keeva’s scream of pain and terror. She arrowed toward the land of men, with Caedyrn bellowing in her wake.

“
Sorcha,” he screamed, both vocally and through their private link. “Wait. The flight will deal with this. You can’t save her alone!”

“
I can,” she said without a pause in her furious wing strokes. “I must! If I can’t, why did the Heart of Fire force this transformation upon me? Ask the Rex to let me try before his warriors interfere.”

“
You’ll die with Keeva,” he whispered into her mind, “and my life will end as well. Who, then, will care for our offspring?”

The entire flight saw the scene through Keeva’s eyes, and Sorcha felt the Rex’s reluctant restraint upon his dragons. The villagers had been ready for the young female. While she sat on the ground, claws slicing the ewe’s white wool, men had catapulted a huge fishing net over her. She’d twisted at the mechanism’s sound and the net had missed her head, but her wings were fouled and she couldn’t get off the ground. While she fumbled against the restraints, armored knights staked the net into the ground. Keeva lay in her captor’s power; unable to escape, unable to feed. The mauve female was doomed, whether the men knew how to slay her or not.

Sorcha sang soothing words into Keeva’s link. “Rest, my friend,” she crooned. “Don’t let fear steal the last of your energy. Caedyrn and I will deal with the men. You shall have your feast. Close your eyes. Conserve your energy.”

The pair of bond-mates cast a deep shadow over the glade when they arrived. Sorcha watched the villagers scatter and fought her desire to flame their homes out of existence. She reached deep within and found her human soul cowering behind her dragon indignation.
Remember, she thought. Remember their fear, the terror of dragons on the wing. Remember what it is to be small and unscaled, with only your wits to save you.

“
Stay aloft,” she commanded Caedyrn as she landed beside Keeva and yanked stakes from the net. When the young female was free, Sorcha ordered her to take her ewe and escape. “Live well, my sister,” she called to the mauve. “Guard my eggs.”

Keeva obeyed, and Sorcha turned her bulky body toward the pair of knights on horseback who rode at her with lances set. Caedyrn screamed his rage and frustration from the air above, but Sorcha gave a small downbeat of wings and hopped over the mounted men. While they turned, she cried in a voice rusty with disuse, “Bring me Elspeth. I would treat with the King’s Wizard.”

The knights pulled up and kept their prancing horses at a safe distance. The one on the bay horse lifted his faceplate and asked, “How do you know that name?”

Sorcha’s eyelids lifted closed as she remembered her mother—the warmth of her love, the smell of herbs that clung to her robes and hair, the joy in her smile when Sorcha succeeded in a simple charm. Elspeth. A woman of such intelligence and determination that she had risen to King’s Wizard despite all the stigma and prejudice arrayed against her. Grief that Elspeth would never understand her mate or their offspring assailed Sorcha as she replied, “She is my mother.”

Before the knights could react or Caedyrn recognize her peril, the transformation began. Pain wracked Sorcha’s immense body. She burned from the tip of her pearly pink snout to the point of her thrashing tail. Her claws gouged the soft earth as she fought to keep from turning inside out. Waves of agony forced her to the ground. More intense than any sensation she’d ever endured, the pain twisted her gut, leaving her writhing and misshapen. The musty, moist smell of fresh- turned dirt assaulted her nostrils, and she knew she dug her own grave.

Through a tunnel, far away, she felt Caedyrn land, heard him bellow for men to bring blankets, hot drinks, and the King’s Wizard. In her mind, through their private link, his voice cascaded over the fires searing her soul. “Be strong, my Sorcha. Don’t let go, my love. You must live. I need you. Our clutch needs you. You are the hope of the world.”

She didn’t feel like the hope of the world. She didn’t feel like anyone’s hope. She succumbed to excruciating pain and consciousness fled.

*~*~*

Cold. Why was the lair so cold? Were her eggs safe? Sorcha couldn’t remember ever being this cold. The ice aerie felt refreshing, but never cold. She tried to open her eyes, to check on the safety of her clutch, but her muscles refused to respond. She lay still and fought to assess her ills. Grass tickled her body and the loamy scent of tilled earth tugged at her memory. A scratchy, rough wool blanket weighed on her limbs, but did nothing to ease the bone-chilling cold. She searched her mind for the bright, pulsing thread that connected her to the flight, and panicked when she couldn’t catch it.

“
No!” Sorcha screamed and threw her body upright against her muscles’ protests. Her eyes flew open and she fought to focus her eyes.

The massive black dragon lowered his head and stared into her eyes. Caedyrn had inflated monstrously. They had been nearly of a size. Now he dwarfed her. She clutched the blanket to her breasts and stared in disbelief.

“
Be at ease, my love,” he said. His words lit the darkness in her mind and tamed the elusive connecting thread. “You are human once more.” She felt as well as heard the overtone of misery in his words. “But our bond remains strong. You will always be my bond-mate.”

Careless of modesty, Sorcha struggled to her feet and threw herself at Caedyrn’s neck. She clung to the black dragon and sobbed, stricken by their loss.

Caedyrn wrapped a wing around her, sheltering her from the villagers’ curious stares. The whole community stood at the edge of the field and whispered over the spectacle of a dragon shielding a human woman.

“
Sorcha?”

Elspeth called her daughter’s name, and Caedyrn withdrew his curtaining wing. Elspeth stepped forward and offered a robe for Sorcha’s use. Sorcha accepted the covering and collapsed in her mother’s arms.

“
I don’t understand what’s happening,” Elspeth said to Caedyrn, “but I thank you for protecting my daughter.” She hugged Sorcha tightly, inclining her head to the massive beast.

“
Your daughter will explain all,” Caedyrn growled. “I will return when she calls.” The mighty dragon lifted from the earth and circled the soft blue sky.

Sorcha raised her head and watched with swollen eyes as her heart and soul streaked toward the ice aerie — and home.

*~*~*

Elspeth stroked Sorcha’s hair as they sat in the village elder’s cottage. The townsfolk had retreated; allowing mother and daughter a measure of privacy, but Sorcha could hear their excited chatter just outside the thin wooden walls.

“
Drink your tea, my love,” Elspeth said.

Even without a mind link, Sorcha could hear the fear and concern in her mother’s voice, but grief and loss clogged her throat and kept her silent. She took a tentative sip of tea and immediately spat it out. She’d forgotten that humans had to think about trivial things like the temperature of liquids. Rueful laughter followed the tea from her lips. She, who had expelled fire from her maw, couldn’t deal with a mouthful of hot tea.

“
Tell me, Sorcha,” Elspeth murmured. “Tell me what happened. What did that dragon do to you?”

The cup clattered to the floor as Sorcha jumped to her feet and began to pace the kitchen. The elder’s wife’s best dress tangled around her legs, adding to Sorcha’s agitation. She stopped abruptly as she caught sight of herself in an ancient mirror that hung beside the elder’s desk. Between her rigid posture, blazing eyes and richly embroidered dress, she looked like a noblewoman. The thought grounded her. Time to put aside her disorientation and take up the destiny laid on her by the amulet, which weighed more heavily upon her psyche than its double- looped chain did upon her neck.

“
Caedyrn did nothing to me that I did not wish. This was my doing. Mine...and the Heart of Fire’s.” She yanked the medallion from around her neck and slammed it onto the table. “I found it. I summoned it from the lagoon, and yes, you were right about the cost. It transformed me into a dragon. It thrust me from one life into another, with no warning and no way to turn back.”

As suddenly as it had begun, Sorcha’s indignation deserted her and she crumpled onto the hard wooden bench beside her mother. “And now it has pulled me back, and I don’t want to be here.”

“
What do you mean? Why don’t you want to be here?”

“
Because...” She drew a shuddering breath and lifted tear-filled eyes to meet her mother’s. “I found my soul-mate. I bonded with Caedyrn. He is my life.” She buried her head in her hands and sobbed with soul-deep misery.

“
Sorcha, darling, think! You’re confused. You don’t know what you’re saying. That was a dragon, our mortal enemy. He has bewitched you.”

Sorcha dried her eyes and stared at her mother with all the glacial ice of her distant home. Fear bloomed in Elspeth’s eyes.

Illumination seared Sorcha’s soul, and she plucked the Heart of Fire from the table’s solid surface. Her ambassadorship had never been the flight’s to grant. The Heart of Fire intended her to represent humanity, but from a perspective of never-before-possible understanding.