Chapter Twenty-Three
We passed some doors along the castle wall, then took stairs leading out onto a walkway on top of castle walls. I walked to the side and leaned over the wall, staring out to the valley below. A large creek cut through green fields where white sheep, colored goats, and a variety of cattle grazed around the occasional thatched-roof cottage nestled under trees.
“Who lives out there?” I asked.
“Those who are a bit more independent,” Mordon said then added, “You might want to be a little careful who you talk to. It's been some time since a human was here, and there are still some hard feelings lingering from the days when humans were on an anti-dragon spree.”
I nodded, thinking that I should be mindful of my words and try to be as friendly as possible. I couldn't blame them if they were wary of me.
“Should I claim to be fey?” I asked.
He shook his head, but his eyes lingered on me, as though seeing me for the first time.“You don't look much like one.”
I giggled. “That's half of the deception.”
His brows shot up in surprise, and he gave me a half smile. Mordon placed my voice now. “I thought you laughed too shrilly.”
I giggled harder.
“Stop, stop,” he said, “You're going to give me nightmares.”
Stopping wasn't easy, especially when I had somewhat forced it to begin with. When this became obvious, Mordon grabbed me about my waist and hoisted me onto the wall's edge. I shrieked and seized his shirt between my fingers. He laughed and set me back down. I watched as people came out of their houses to herd the livestock into barns.
“It will take them a little bit to get everything sorted out,” Mordon said, frowning. “We have people who will set to getting things back to order, often without so much as a blade of grass out of place. It makes the dragons frustrated to see how easily their handiwork is undone.”
We entered a larger tower and descended to a mead hall where several men and women sat around a rectangular table engulfed in loud conversation. They spoke in gravelly accents so thick I had to mentally replay their words before they made sense, piecing it together by their hand gestures and expressions.
When I hesitated at the top of the stairs, Mordon paused and smiled. I took the stairs slowly, growing accustomed to the ebb and flow of the hall's conversation. No one paid us much heed until Mordon took a mug off the table and drank from it.
At the head of the table was a beefy man with a muscled jaw and broad shoulders. He had the same hair and eyes as Mordon. The man bolted up, knocking his chair over backwards. “Mordon!”
All heads turned to face us; some studied me, some frowned at Mordon, some smiled broadly. Mordon's face was taut and he had a strained smile.
“I am pleased to see you home, boy!” thundered his father, striding to embrace Mordon. Mordon hugged him back timidly. His father turned to face me. “And whose chicklet did you bring with you?”
“She's my ward,” said Mordon.
His father waved his hands in the air, setting one hand across my shoulders and making my knees buckle under the weight. His father smelled of pipe tobacco and a touch of women's perfume. He said, “Names, names, as my son is not forthcoming. I am Aeron. That woman with the black hair and delightful scowl is my mate, Enaid.”
Aeron made a round of introductions up then down the table. Eyes examined me from head to toe. Most were not impressed, though one or two of the younger men were admiring. I nodded in each turn, obliged to smile when I was introduced yet again to Agnes, this time under the name Nest.
Unannounced, a swarm of children rushed past my knees and I ducked as a pony-sized dragon careening for my face. Mordon caught the child and it morphed into a laughing boy.
“Inside form, children!” scolded Nest, her hair pointing straight up from her head.
“Mordon's here!” They yelled, as though they expected everyone to be eager to see him. Their eager clamor reached the far buttresses of the great hall's ceiling and drew my attention to a crystal chandelier featuring dragon figurines in a downward spiral, catching candlelight and spinning as though real. I saw the speckled dots of a broken rainbow upon the walls, now that I looked for them.
“Can we have another story?” one begged, then the sentiment was echoed through the ranks of the children. “Yes! Yes! Please, Mordon? Please?”
There were one or two dissenters, the older children trying to act grown-up, leaning against light gray marble pillars which provided contrast to dark granite walls and floor. The younger children ignored their elders and continued to prod Mordon.
“Only,” said Mordon, leaning down. “If you go straight back to your nanny and listen well to her.”
He received a round of knee-hugs and then a bedraggled woman came to collect the children. The child Mordon had caught gaped at me and tugged on Mordon's sleeve.
“Who's she?” he asked, pointing at me.
“My name is Feraline.”
“That's a strange name.”
I chuckled. “You can call me Fera.”
“Come now,” said the nanny and ushered the children away. Mordon's eyes lingered after the children as they filed back out of the room in a much more orderly fashion than they'd entered.
The joy left with them. Enaid became grim, sitting heavily. Aeron went to her.
“You came at a convenient time, but I do wonder why,” Aeron said.
“Fera has taken up residence in the old fire watching station, and I couldn't keep her from exploring any longer,” Mordon said, crossing his arms.
“And she's taken full advantage of your soft heart. Truly Mordon, I wish you'd take a liking to an independent female.” Enaid shook her head and frowned. My skin prickled when she examined me. I clasped my hands together and tried not to glare at the small-framed woman with hair a brown version of Nest's.
In the rows of faces, a few were amused, several looked like they'd heard this discussion before, and the rest sank back into their chairs, resigned. While I thought this would be a private conversation, clearly everyone else expected it to be public.
“What makes you say that?” I asked, more intrigued by what brought his mother to her conclusion than offended by the implications.
“I am the colony's skill seeker,” Enaid said. “It does not take much talent to see that you inherited fey magic, even if you appear strong.”
“Then you know foremost of my skills is to deceive,” I said, then shook myself from petty squabbling. “Does this matter?”
“No,” Aeron said.
“Yes,” Enaid said, giving her husband a slanted-eyes glare. She continued, “If we gain one guardian and one dependent, then we haven't gained a thing.”
Mordon and Aeron began to argue with her and soon the entire table was divided in the debate. Apparently whatever was an issue for Mordon was an issue for everyone. If someone would quiet down, I would explain that they didn't need to even consider me. I frowned, noticing that Nest alone watched me, her keen eyes seeming to say something.
Words drew my attention back to the table.
“—what when you decide to marry her, our shifting will be a recessive in the offspring.”
Words I definitely did not want to hear from his mother, much less anyone else.
Alarmed at where this conversation was going, I reached out to the railing on the staircase and asked the castle to amplify my voice.
“Enough,” my voice boomed, seeming to come from all the walls. The people at the table jolted and stared at me. I let the castle go from my will, but it kept my voice loud, fading as I spoke.
“What happens or does not happen between Mordon and me is between Mordon and me, and I will not tolerate speculation.” I locked eyes with Enaid's green and yellow ones. “I rely on Mordon for teaching, not as a bodyguard.”
Enaid narrowed her gaze. She said, “You're a brave one, aren't you? I don't think you understand what it means to be Lady of Kragdomen. We aren't part of any nation bu
t our own. My word is law. I could order you imprisoned and charged with disrespect. What do you have to say to that?”
Aeron knitted his brows at her in an expression I often saw on Mordon's face when he disapproved.
I lifted my chin. “Lady Meadows, you seem to be under the impression that the laws of the living govern me. You see, I died. My heart pulses so I can hunt those who break Death's laws. I have only broken magic and scattered memories and four friends to call my allies in all of this world. Nothing you can say or do compares to what I face when I close my eyes every night. If you approve or disapprove of me is entirely your own affair.”
Enaid's face was drawn tight, and she looked at Mordon. “Mordon?”
He shrugged. “We are still working out the details.”
“How did you entangle with her?” Enaid said, her eyes fixated on me.
I crossed my arms. “The only thing I did today was walk in the hall with Mordon. I have not claimed Mordon as a mate or even as a potential mate, and this display is certainly appalling no matter the circumstances. I am a Swift, a potion maker of no small talent, and I find the insinuation that I am begging for a mate to be very condescending and undervaluing. Since I have neither been offered drink nor a space at the table, I will take the hint and continue on. Find me when you are done, Mordon.”
Not daring to speak another word, I left. Mordon half-reached to me, but sighed and sat at the table instead. The silence following my departure was broken by my footsteps as they rounded a corner and went down the hall.
The calm of empty corridors soothed me, and I was suddenly shocked by my own rashness. What was I doing, speaking like that in front of strangers? What good would come from it? I wasn't even certain that Death's letter to me had been real and not some figment of mandrake root or exhaustion.
I took a corner, and found myself curving even deeper into the keep's hallways. There were a few hallways tall and wide enough to allow access for a dragon form, but most of them were on the human side of things. All the openings to other rooms were not shut off by a door, but by a wall hanging. I checked behind several of these wall hangings until I realized I was walking into bedrooms.
For several minutes I wandered onward before stopping in my tracks and admitting it: I was lost, and I was being followed.
When I next stopped, as though to admire the needlework on a tapestry, I relaxed into my magic and waited until I felt movement.
Spinning around, I used the wind to push a hanging aside.
A girl of about eleven stood in the doorway behind me. She waved a sheepish hand. “Hi.”
I motioned her forward. “I don't think we have met yet.”
“I'm Denise.” She advanced. “You're Fera. The whole keep is talking about you.”
“That doesn't surprise me,” I said, then motioned down the hall. “Care to show me out to the fresh air?”
Denise nodded. She had light brown eyes and thick brown hair which tried to hide her freckles even though she always pulled it back from her face.
Denise asked, “Don't you want to know what they're saying?”
I raised a brow at her. “Is there anything I should know?”
Her step faltered. “Wait, you mean are they planning to imprison you or anything like that?”
“Are they?”
Denise shook her head, too hard, and nearly bumped into an arch. She said, “But, aren't you curious?”
“As a fox.”
It was all the encouragement Denise needed. “It's been ages since a strange female showed up here. Ages. But we aren't supposed to talk about the one before…see, she was from another colony. When there were other colonies.”
I caught the scent of fresh earth on the air and felt my muscles relax a fraction as Denise continued.
“She was obsessed with Mordon. She said it was their destiny to start a new colony together.” Denise paused at a tower, as though uncertain if we should go up or down. She went up and spoke at the same rate as she walked. “But Lord Mordon, see, he was already in love with his doppelganger.”
“Doppelganger?” I repeated, as much confused by the way she used the word as by the way she was so freely blurting out information. I ducked a low-hanging beam.
She paused on the step. “Ummm…I think the best word is 'invisible friend'.”
“Imaginary? Ghost?”
Her brown eyes flitted to me. “The friend is real, it's someone's spirit. Not everyone gets doppelgangers, just a few people every now and then, so it's real special when it happens. Mordon was seventeen when he first met her, he said he saw her as a dragon, but he swore he would never forget her laugh. A few years later, she was in trouble and he couldn't help her.”
Denise's eyes were glazed over, remembering the tale she'd told over and over.
“And?”
She was waiting for the prompt. “And he never saw her again, though he swore to never give up on searching for her.”
Something clicked about my chilly greeting. “Enaid and Aeron, they didn't much like me because they thought I was there to make him stop looking.”
“Are you?”
“I didn't know about any of this,” I said, considering what she had told me.
“True,” said Denise, “but now that you do, are you going to leave him be?”
I rubbed my face with one cold hand, realizing that this was the reason she had been telling me what she had. In any case, Mordon's choices were his own to make as he would.
“Dreams must be seen through,” I said, wondering about what she'd said about doppelgangers. I held back a laugh and it came out as a snort.
“What?” Denise asked.
“I had an invisible friend.”
“Oh?”
“His name was Thessen.”
Denise giggled. “I hope imagination was all he was. Was he a dragon?”
“Human—or so I thought. I guess, I got more of a feeling of who he was and I could talk to him, but I didn't really see him.”
“Imagination,” said Denise with a firm nod, then she came to a wooden door. She reached for the handle but it wouldn't move.
“Stop that!” Denise hit the wall, skinning her knuckles. “We are not going anywhere far, let us through.”
The door swung open of its own accord, revealing the top of the walls again. When we walked onto the rampart, I asked Denise, “What was with that?”
She rolled her eyes. “Ancestors. We bury them in the catacombs below. They think it's their sacred duty to occupy the keep and watch after us. They've taken a liking to you, but they're always trying to recruit fresh blood.”
“Is that why I couldn't find my way out?” I had thought it seemed odd that I would get lost in such a seemingly simple floor layout.
Denise held out her arms and breathed in the air. “Not sure. You can't be sure. But…I was wondering… Everyone else is getting apprenticeships, and I want to start up an apothecary but the only potions Nest knows are the ones meant for the Lady. I don't want those, and we don't need them since Nest and Enaid know how to make those kind anyways. If you know potions, can you teach me?”
Me, a teacher? Denise took my silence the wrong way.
She pressed, “Mordon can take me to and fro, or I can walk up to the old fire watch station if you'd let me in your house.”
“Why don't you have an apothecary?”
Denise motioned to a house in the distance. “Old Man Jerald and his apprentice both died in a pixie attack years ago. No one knew what to make of his book. We tried a couple of things in it, but…we got this blue slime that ate through copper instead.”
I smiled as I remembered. “I did that once when I was a kid. Made Mother so angry I ruined her pot.”
Denise's brows shot up, disappearing into her curls. “How old were you?”
“Six? Seven? Something like that.”
Denise's jaw dropped in an unvoiced 'wow'. “You've been making potions that long?”
I ran my hand along the wall, le
aning out and taking a deep breath scented with rain. “Mother wouldn't have it any other way. Even my brother can mangle a mandrake well enough to get a viable potion from it, and he has no interest in brewing whatsoever. He prefers swordplay and ballroom dancing.”
Denise likewise leaned on the wall, I noticed. She said, “Where did he learn that?”
“Father. I did some of it, too, but I haven't trained in ages.”
“You still haven't said you'll teach me potions.”
“I'll need to ask Nest and Enaid about it first. If they agree, then I'll see what I can teach you.”
Denise lifted her chin. “I'll learn it all,” she said and stared out over the valley, a smile on her lips. Denise was soon pointing out people and telling me who they were and what they did.
“—and that one is Svenro the Brave. He came with Aeron, and his son is Dagr, he's so nice, I….” Denise trailed off when she saw Mordon walking on the rampart towards us.
With a few skips, she greeted Mordon before he could reach us. “Fera says she'll teach me potions!”
“If Enaid and Nest agree,” I amended. “I don't want to step on any toes.”
Mordon raised a brow. “Think you can interpret Jerald's old book?”
“I've done so with Skills, and half the time the writers didn't know what they were doing, either. Plus, I do have my own potions,” I said with a shrug.
Mordon nodded. “I'll bring it up at the next meeting, then.”
Denise looked between us, seeing that Mordon had something to say to me, and he didn't want an audience. Denise rubbed her arms and said, “Well! I have to go do something important right now….so…bye!”
I smothered a laugh. Mordon watched her until she was gone, then he turned his attention to me. “Fera.”
I looked out over the valley, seeing where farmers were walking their alfalfa fields. “I'm not going to apologize for what I said.”
Mordon covered my hand with his. He said, “I'm not asking you to.”
Lightning bugs came out with the dusk. When the air grew cold, Mordon said, “But we both should go back to the coven. I have a feeling that we'll be needed. And you'll be missed.”
I began to turn away, but stopped when he grabbed my elbow. “Yes?”
“Nothing. Let's go.” Mordon dropped my arm and stepped away quickly. Frowning after him, I decided to simply follow.