The Dragon Heir (38 page)

Maybe the old man was losing
it. Madison glanced at Seph, then back at Nick, receiving no guidance from
either. “Okay, then. I guess I'll just see.”

Cautiously, she approached the
niche. Who knew what the rules were here? Slitting her eyes against the light,
she stepped inside.

The stone was brighter, more
alive than when she'd last seen it. Flame and color swirled beneath its
crystalline surface, casting moving shadows on the walls, so she had the
feeling of floating underwater. It was very much like standing next to a hot
coal stove. Only, there was something else, something beyond heat, some other
challenge to be met. It brushed her consciousness like a feather, a certain …
skepticism. She extended her hand, then jerked it back when someone spoke.

“Careful,” Seph said
from the doorway. “It blistered my hand when I tried to touch it.”

Madison swallowed hard. She
wrapped her jacket around her hand and extended it again, gritting her teeth,
half expecting to be flamed alive. A weapon, they called it, more powerful than
any ever seen before. She dropped the jacket over the stone, slid her hands
underneath, wrapped the cloth around it, and lifted it from its stand like it
was an egg that might break.

Nothing happened, except she
felt dizzy and overheated, confused and conflicted. A voice whispered in her
head, but it was too faint to make out the words. At least the stone didn't
explode.

She turned toward Seph, who
stood watching her, a puzzled frown on his face. “So?” he said.
“Anything?”

“Maybe,” she said,
swaying a little. Somehow, she needed to get the stone out of the church.
“Only…I'm a little woozy. I need to get out into the air.”

Madison pushed past him,
protecting the stone with her body. As she emerged from the niche, Nick looked
up from his seat on the floor. “Unwrap the stone, Madison,” he said
sharply. “Take it in your hands.”

“Y'all just wait here.
I'll be back in a minute.” She stumbled for the stairs, thrusting the
jacket with the Dragonheart into her backpack.

“Madison!” She was
nearly at the top of the stairs when she heard Seph's quick footsteps behind
her; she put on speed. To the landing, through the door, and out into the
sanctuary. Past the side chapel where Will and Fitch hovered in the entryway,
their pale, startled faces turned toward her. She heard Seph behind her and
broke into a flat-out run up the aisle. There was no way she'd outrun those
long legs from dead even, but his confusion had given her a head start.

She clutched the backpack close,
worried about jostling it, and reached the double doors at the front thirty
feet ahead of Seph. Then ran smack into Jack Swift, which was a lot like
running into a brick wall.

“Hey!” He took hold
of her shoulders to keep her from bouncing back onto her rear. “Madison?
What happened? Where're you going in such a hurry?”

She tried to twist free and
slip past him, but Seph shouted, “Grab her, Jack!” and then it should
have been hopeless, but she kneed Jack hard, like Carlene had taught her, and
he was so startled he let go. But he was still blocking the door.

She ran down the side aisle.
It dead-ended into a small chapel. But there were stairs leading up, so she
climbed them, knowing she was probably heading into another blind alley. They
let out onto the balcony, and she ran across, hoping to slip down the other
side. She met Seph coming up, and Jack was behind her, so she ran to the
railing and dangled the backpack over the stone floor of the sanctuary far
below.

Seph came from the right, Jack
from the left.

“You get back or I'll
drop it,” she warned, giving the backpack a shake.

“Madison?” Seph
halted a few feet away, his dark brows drawn together. “What's going on?
What are you doing?”

“I need the
Dragonheart,” she said. “Go away and leave me be.”

“Don't drop it,”
Seph said soothingly. “It might break. Or explode.” He resumed his
careful approach.

Madison seized the top rail
and climbed over, clinging to the outside. “You come near me, I'll jump. I
mean it. I don't care what happens to me.”

Jack and Seph both halted
again. “Does this have to do with the Roses?” Seph asked, reaching
for some explanation for her bizarre behavior. “Do you think you can buy
them off with the Dragonheart?”

“You can't give it to
them,” Jack put in. “You can't trust them. They'll kill us.”

“It's not about the
Roses.” She couldn't seem to control her breathing. It came in great,
shuddering gasps.

“Then what's this all
about?” Seph asked, clearly clueless.

“It's…it's about Grace
and John Robert. Warren Barber has them. He'll kill them if I don't bring him
the Dragonheart.”

Understanding flooded into
Seph's face. “Maddie. I'm so sorry.”

“Well, sorry won't do any
good. I am not going to lose them, do you hear me?”

“You can't give Barber
the Dragonheart. You must know that.”

“I'm going to do whatever
it takes to get them back.”

“That won't get them
back. Please, Maddie. Let us try to help.”

“You have a whole town to
save. And all the underguilds. Grace and J.R. can't be your priorities. But
they're mine.”

And, somehow, Jack leaped
across the space between them and tried to grab hold of her backpack. She let
go of the railing and clutched the backpack to her, and she was falling, and
then Seph's hot hands grabbed her wrists and yanked her up over the railing
with inhuman strength, and they were all three rolling on the floor, fighting
for the backpack. Jack or Seph or someone nearly wrestled it away, but she got
the backpack half unzipped and plunged her hand inside, groping for the stone,
knowing it was now or never.

The jacket slid away, and she
felt its smooth surface under her fingers. She pulled it out, clutched it to
her chest, and backed away, vaguely aware of the staircase behind her.
“I'm warning you. Stay away.”

They came at her from two
directions, the sound of their breathing competing with the drumbeat of her
heart. Something exploded just outside. The building shuddered, plaster
cracking and sifting down from the ceiling, the great chandeliers swaying
uneasily.

She turned and leaped down the
stairs, rammed into the wall at the turning, and fell down the last few steps.
She sprawled out onto the floor of the sanctuary, curling herself around the
stone to protect it. She lay on her back unable to move. The stone
between her hands flared and pulsed, the light penetrating skin and flesh,
revealing the bones beneath like the Visible Woman in the science lab back
home.

She blinked and squinted
against a brilliance that flooded the nave, driving the shadows from the
uppermost vaults. From far away, someone was shouting, Madison! A name that
seemed familiar. The stone under her fingers became more malleable, the hard
surface dissolving like spun sugar. Power slammed into her like Min's medicinal
apple brandy, rendering her drunk and helpless, the room spinning until she
thought she might be sick. An unquenchable flame burned at her center and
rippled under her skin, threatening to split it open. Someone was screaming,
and she realized it was her.

The stone was a flame between
her hands. And then it was gone, wicked into her body until she was lit from
within.

She remembered something
Hastings had said.

Elicitors draw all kinds of
magic.

From somewhere close at hand,
the sounds of battle intruded. The Roses must be inside the walls. There was no
getting away now.

She'd destroyed her only hope
of saving Grace and J.R. She wished the flame at her core would just burn her
up so that nothing remained but ashes.

Pressing her hot palms against
the cool floor, Madison sat up, scooting back until she leaned against the
wooden pew. She illuminated the entire sanctuary, driving out shadows like the
rising sun. “It's gone,” she said, hopelessly. Tears sizzled on her
cheeks, evaporating as soon as they emerged.

“Not gone,” someone
said.

Madison raised her head.
Snowbeard shuffled up the aisle, gripping the pews on either side, a smaller
man than she remembered, his lined face brutally revealed in the bright nave.
The heat within her fractured and split. She retreated without a fight, shoved
aside by another presence under her skin.

“Madison,” Seph whispered.
Jack came up behind him, and they walked toward her, as one might approach an
explosive device or a demon. Will and Fitch followed at a discreet distance, no
doubt drawn by the noise of the chase. Mercedes stood frozen in the doorway of
the side chapel, unwilling to leave her patient.

The stranger within her
stirred, seizing control of her body. Madison gracefully levered herself to her
feet, seeming to extend herself as she did so, until she towered over them all.
Her arms trailed light, resembling wings. Her skin reflected light like
glittering scales, and her eyes changed, her pupils becoming vertical slits.
She was beautiful and dreadful, and somehow no longer Madison Moss.

“No,” Seph looked up
at her, eyes wide and horrified. “Please. Maddie…”

A powerful intellect pressed
against her. A rush of memory and emotion, sorrow and pain overwhelmed her,
punching into her mind like a sword through paper. She was with the Lady, she was
the Lady. She reverberated from one to the other.

She was a dragon, armored in
shimmering plates of ruby, emerald, and gold, her long, narrow head questing
toward Seph and the others, her glittering wings folded tight against her body
to avoid colliding with the walls of the church. Another shift, and she was
Madison again. Sort of.

The Lady's memories claimed
her, and she looked through dragon eyes. The church retreated, was replaced by
a rugged green landscape studded with rocky outcroppings. Nicodemus Snowbeard
had changed, morphed into a much younger man, handsome, beardless, with black
raptor eyes and hair Jack's redgold color. Seph and the others stood in a
circle, frozen like standing stones, hemmed in and overwhelmed by the Lady's
will.

Madison looked down at them
from a great height. She extended her long neck toward them, and they shrank
back, afraid.

“Demus!” The Lady
spoke through Madison. “Nicodemus Hawk.” Her voice rang out among the
peaks, so startlingly loud that birds exploded from the trees.

This younger Nick fell to one
knee, bowing his head. He was dressed expensively, in fine leather and silk,
the cut of his clothes revealing a soldier's build. “My Lady Aidan
Ladhra.”

“Nick,” Jack said,
his hand on the hilt of his sword. But Nicodemus Hawk Snowbeard raised his hand
and shook his head. There was something in Demus's face that might have been
hope.

The Lady's memories rolled
through Madison's mind like bright pebbles in a stream while Madison cowered in
the corner.

“You betrayed me,”
the Lady Aidan said.

Demus's forehead touched the
ground. “Yes, my Lady.” He changed again, reverted to the familiar
old man with the white beard. But the eyes—they
were the same.

“I've slept away the
years,” she said, sounding slightly amazed. “While you've grown
old.”

He did not flinch. “Yes,
my Lady. It's been over a thousand years. They call me Snowbeard now.”

“That's fitting, old
man,” she said sardonically. “Have you grown wiser as well as
older?”

Demus flinched. “One
hopes, my Lady.”

“Why did you dig me out
of the mountain?”

“You promised to
intervene if we broke the Covenant.”

“I promised nothing. The
Covenant was your creation, not mine. Your lies, not mine.”

Nick raised his hands, palms
up, a supplication. “The Covenant stopped the wizard wars. For a
time.”

Madison/Lady Aidan yawned,
spewing flames all the way to the end of the valley. “Kill each other off,
for all I care. The world will be better for it.”

“We need your help,”
Nick persisted.

“Then be creative. Use my
name, if you want. You have been, for years. I'm going back to sleep. I've had
the most wonderful dreams.” She closed her eyes, as if meaning to retreat
to that place of dreams and leave Madison behind.

“I've made
mistakes.”

The eyes came open. She
studied him dispassionately. “Perhaps you are wiser. You were
arrogant, before. But, really. Was it at all fair to use an elicitor to draw me
out?”

“It's a good match, my
Lady. She's a painter, a lover of art. And shiny things. Like you.”

“No one is a good match
for a dragon. We are, apparently, meant for solitude.” She paused, closed
her eyes, and Madison felt the intensity of her scrutiny. “Madison Moss.
What a peculiar name. She's hungry in the way of dragons, full of desire.
She has more pictures in her mind than she can paint in three mortal
lifetimes.” She opened her eyes. “She loves the boy,” the Lady
Aidan said abruptly, glaring at Seph.

Nick nodded. “Yes.”

“He'll betray her,”
the Lady said, flaring up dangerously, reaching for Seph with her taloned hand.
Seph stood frozen and closed his eyes.

No! Leave him alone! Madison
struggled clumsily with the Lady within her, trying to wrest control away from
her.

“No!” Nick said
quickly, morphing once again into the young Demus. “He loves her, too. He
is, I believe, wiser than I was.” He paused. “I know you are tired of
life. But there is hope in the young. I think they'll find their way to
peace.”

The Lady Aidan looked them
over, her gaze shifting from Jack to Seph—who
still shivered under her glittering scrutiny. “The boy is damaged,”
she said, curling her lip back to reveal razor teeth. “He's using
flame.”

“He is desperate to save
the ones he loves. He would trade his life for theirs.”

“Hmmm.” Shifting
back into Madison form, she reached out her hand and touched Seph in the center
of his forehead. His entire body relaxed, his hands unclenched, and the pain
and exhaustion and need in his face fell away. Seph dropped to his knees on the
turf, head bowed. “M … my Lady,” he whispered, his voice catching in
his throat. “Madison—is she—all
right? Please. She never wanted any of this to happen. Don't take her. Take me
instead.”