A Play of Shadow (79 page)

Though everything in her screamed to struggle, and fight the net, Jenn held herself still, knowing she couldn’t, not alone.

“That’s a good girl,” Crumlin told her. He might not have had hands to rub together gleefully, like a story villain, but he managed with his voice. “Such a good girl. Stay—”

Stay? She was in his net already.

As a woman. Even as she thought it, Jenn felt it. A draining, a loss. She stared down at herself as if it could be seen, but it couldn’t, this theft. And it wasn’t of the magic she possessed as turn-born or sei—

Magic, as she kept thinking, Crumlin hadn’t dared take, or couldn’t.

He feasted on the magic of small things. Ylings. Efflet and nyphrit. Of—of real things, like this shape she remembered for him. This flesh.

Making it Melusine’s gift being taken by this sneak! Her mother’s magic. Hers! That was how he could use her.

“I don’t think so,” Jenn Nalynn said, and wasn’t a “girl” anymore.

Her hands opened.

Out flew moths. The first few stuck to the net, but those behind pushed at it, stretched it, twisted it. As more and more pushed, stretched, and twisted, parts of the net came free from the ground.

To wither, like the tops of uprooted carrots. That was it! Jenn thought. Crumlin lived in the ground, hid there. His power was there.

Her moths, untold, fluttered to where the nets began, pushing with delicate legs and wing beats against what should have been too strong, but wasn’t.

Because they wouldn’t stop. She wouldn’t stop. And now she knew he couldn’t steal magic from what of her was sei.

Crumlin took a step back, eyes blinking. “What are you doing?”

Jenn thought it obvious, but she didn’t waste her breath. Not that she breathed, at the moment, but something she did used the same feeling and effort, so she wouldn’t spend a bit of it on him.

She didn’t notice the moment she was freed, too intent on freeing the ylings as well.

“NO!”

More nets around her, thicker, darker. Those around the ylings fell away as Crumlin turned his remaining might against her, nets adding to those sticking to her hair and clothes. Smothering, the nets, and they pulled at her, even as the ground softened so she sank. To her knees.

To her waist!

~Elder sister!!~ The toad crept toward her, as if swimming.

Even as the ground took her deeper—

And she heard Crumlin laugh—

Then.

A roar!

Wisp roared again, for the sheer joy of it. How clever of the girl to draw out their enemy! Under the ground, Crumlin laid his traps, used the earth itself. But above? Exposed?

~ELDER BROTHER!~

The dragon veered, wing joints straining, in time to save himself.

Ylings!? He roared again, this time in fury. Their threads, studded with poison darts, formed a glittering fence between him and his prey!

Between him and the girl!

Had the toad not warned him—

No matter. Wisp flew frantically this way and that, seeking a way through. The moth who’d led him had no such problem, joining what seemed a blanket of their kind around where Jenn struggled.

~Wait!~

For what? Disaster? The dragon roared again, rock shattering.

Then, to his astonishment, ylings flew to their webbing and began to cut.

Homes splashed into the mimrol, but still they cut, destroying their city.

To let death through.

T
HE NETS BOUND
her arms and Jenn lifted her chin to keep from sinking below the surface. She could see Wisp above, trying to reach her. Hold on, she told herself. Just hold on.

Crumlin walked up to her face, giving her much too clear a view of his distorted body. “Don’t hope for the dragon, Lovely Jenn,” he told her. “Or for yourself. I must go home.”

It wasn’t her nature to be cruel, angry as she was at the foul being, but she wouldn’t—couldn’t—allow anything made of these—these loathsome pieces back into Marrowdell. “You can’t,” she told him. “You don’t belong there anymore. Not as you are.”

Yellow eyes blinked.
Rustlerustle.
“I won’t be, Lovely Jenn,” as if she’d missed the point.

She must have. What she didn’t miss was that as he talked to her, she’d stopped sinking. Keep talking, Jenn decided. “Why go back? You’ve power here.”

“I’m old,” the tiny not-a-man reminded her. “And Rhothan. I must bring my bones back into our world.” Wasted arms formed a caricature of a shrug. “How else will I live forever?”

The freed ylings flew up and away, but Crumlin hadn’t noticed. Keep him talking, Jenn told herself. “You want to become a Blessed Ancestor?” Heart’s Blood. She could, she supposed, understand that.

Crumlin laughed, spittle on his lips. “Silly girl. I haven’t spent a lifetime here to die there. My bones are all of me I’ve left.” He tapped a yellowed claw to the side of his head. “But I’ve learned what I need to restore my true self. To live forever!”

Jenn ignored him, as silver threads broke and fell.

The ylings had cut down their city!

The dragon followed.

Jenn made herself glass and pearl just in time for Wisp to seize her in his claws and pull her from the ground. She came free with a horrible sucking sound, as if leaving a mouth, even as netting snapped all around.

Wisp set her down, as gently as a rose petal.

Then
SNAPPED
up something tiny before it could dig itself away.

Crumlin.

“Wait!” Jenn cried.

The dragon hesitated, Crumlin neatly between his jaws. Wild violet eyes regarded her with understandable disbelief. ~Why?~

Because bright yellow eyes peered at her between fangs like old bone, and seemed not the least afraid.

Dragons, Jenn thought suddenly, being magic. She shuddered to think of Crumlin and his nets, growing within Wisp’s body. “I don’t believe he’d be good for you,” she cautioned as she thought what else to do and quickly.

~Elder sister?~

The toad. It hadn’t been much help, to be truthful, but then again, neither had she. “What is—” She blinked. “What are you doing?”

For it was, to her surprise, more square than round, with sharp little corners protruding behind its eyes.

“Why?” Wisp asked again, the little breeze snapping with impatience. “Is it your good heart?” With a tinge of despair.

“It’s not,” Jenn replied absently. “Don’t let him get away, please.” She crouched by the toad. “I think the little cousin is making something.”

An incredulous silence.

But she was right. The toad opened its mouth, wider and wider, and she could see it, now. Some sort of—“It’s a box!” Jenn exclaimed, as indeed one popped out of the toad.

Who settled back, pride in every wart.

Not any box, she realized, picking it up. This was made of an all-too-familiar metal, bound like a tiny chest with leather straps. The outline of two eyes shone dully on the top, blood red, for hadn’t a traitor’s blood gone into this and a brave man’s tunic, as well as the shackle and chain she’d worn, cleansed by dragonsfire? Not to mention whatever else the toad might have fancied while out of sight. To make this.

A cage.

Jenn undid the straps and opened the lid. Inside was larger, which it couldn’t be. Larger, and she found she didn’t like to look there.

The little cousin watched her, something ruthless in its gaze. Ylings hovered, those not bent or broken by Crumlin’s nets, weapons in hands.

She could imagine the eyes of efflet, cold and grim, and knew what all of them asked of her.

Justice.

“I will take you to Rhoth, Crumlin,” Jenn Nalynn said and showed the open box to Wisp’s prisoner. “In this. It’s your choice,” she added, for it should be.

The dragon snarled, offering his.

Crumlin considered the box, then stared at the toad. “You can’t hold me. I am magic’s master!”

The toad stared back.

Like a dare.

And Jenn wondered for the first time about Crumlin and the toads, and why he’d never harmed them, but now was not the time for questions.

“I must go back.” A mutter. Claws wrapped around a fang, Crumlin peered out at her. “You must promise to take me with you, Lovely Jenn. I insist on your promise. You wouldn’t lie.” He made it sound a flaw.

“If you are in this box,” Jenn stated with the greatest care, not trusting him at all. “I promise to take you to Marrowdell.”

He looked back to the toad and frowned, his face a contortion of wrinkles, as if trying to spot the trick in it. “Toads. Useless things. She trusts you?”

Jenn waited, for she did.

Crumlin laughed. Climbing from between the dragon’s fangs, he jumped neatly into the box.

Jenn shut the lid and fastened the straps. Answering to impulse, she held it up.

Two ylings flew down, to weave a thread of silver over and around every side. When they were done, the thread became bands of silver that sank into the iron and gripped. Overhead, the rest of ylings began to dance, trilling their joy.

Jenn brought down the box. It was no heavier, but she knew beyond doubt what it held.

For where the toad had made eyes from dried blood, now a pair, bright yellow and pupiled in darkness, stared out. They didn’t blink or move. They might have been of paint.

Save they held horror.

Finding her sack, Jenn hastily shoved the box inside. “That should do it,” she said shakily, brushing at her clothes. What should have been soil avoided her fingers, slipping away to drop on the ground. The toad glared at it, but didn’t, this time, eat anything.

Being done. The small ones had triumphed and were safe from Crumlin.

Jenn didn’t feel triumphant. She felt a little sick, truth be told. And tired. “Take us home, Wisp,” she asked.

“Now? We can’t go now. Where is Bannan, Dearest Heart?” Wisp said. His wings jerked open and closed. Worry, that was. “You said stay in Marrowdell, but the young truthseer needs his help and you were not back. You were not there.” With a chill nip. Frantic, now. “Did you lose him again?” Breezes whirled and breezes fretted.

Ancestors Witness, she’d thought toads fussed.

To be fair, Wisp had every reason and right. “Bannan’s home,” she said quickly, though it was more hope than surety.

She’d done all she could, and must trust the kruar.

“Home?” Wisp echoed, head rising in surprise. “How? Why? When?” With dark suspicion. “Did he lose you again?”

“He went to save Werfol.” Jenn picked up the toad, Marrowdell’s yling settling in her hair with a patpatpat. “Let’s go home, Wisp. I’ll tell you the rest on the way.”

Then, because her heart was full, she put her arm around his cold, scaled neck and pressed her cheek to his, close to that wild violet eye. “Thank you, for coming here to look for him and find me.” An escape whose closeness and result she refused to consider until safe in Bannan’s arms.

When she’d know everyone was safe.

Though first? Jenn wished the air warm and dry, only here, only now, and there was no
disagreement.
And Wisp used his breezes to pull threads and homes from the lake in case, as he told her, other dragons thought to take advantage.

The delighted ylings trilled and danced, some bold enough to caress his wings, and Jenn had to laugh at the dragon’s dismay.

Then she didn’t laugh, but stood still in amazement, for something moved within the lake of mimrol as if disturbed by their antics, or curious, something larger than barge or dragon, and beneath that silver surface, Jenn thought she saw red eyes, ancient and wise, and glimpsed a yellowed beak, and was that a hint of shell?

The lake stilled, reflecting the many colors of the sky and the glittering sparks of ylings, and surely she was mistaken.

Jenn curtsied, nonetheless.

The table was set with plates from Weken and cups from Marrowdell. Tea from Vorkoun filled those cups and eggs from toads would be on those plates, once Tir finished whatever he did at the stove.

The stove being from Weken and Tir being from some village in Upper Rhoth whose name he didn’t recall but should. Why didn’t he? Hadn’t he ridden across the bloody whole of Rhoth! Bannan scrubbed at his eyes. Ancestors Lost and Abandoned.

Jenn had sent them. Known what she was doing.

But how could she? The Verge—it wasn’t her home, this was.

She’d known what she was doing, Bannan repeated to himself. Known if they took the kruar, she’d have no guide, no means to travel quickly or safely. Jenn had saved Werfol.

Could she save herself?

“It’s ready,” Tir called. The boys rushed to the table, Lila coming from her seat by the fire to join them.

Bannan made himself smile, fooling no one. Nodded thanks to Tir, who scowled back, just as worried, no doubt, but kind enough not to say what they all were thinking.

Where was Jenn?

Scourge had crossed in search, Dauntless and Spirit as yet unable. He’d hope yet.

“The Beholding, brother. Unless you want Tir to say it?” Lila didn’t smile, though it was a private joke the former guard shouldn’t be given that particular task before a meal they planned to enjoy while hot, and she looked at Bannan with sorrow in her eyes, though her heart was whole again.

As his was not.

When he hesitated, Semyn looked at him, then said, very earnestly. “Wisp isn’t back either, Uncle.”

Tir nodded. “Aie. Missing a good meal too.” A hint that was, not to let the eggs cool on their plates.

So Bannan roused himself to really smile this time, for Semyn was right and Tir. Though in his heart he knew the dragon stayed in the Verge for only one reason. Wisp hadn’t found Jenn.

Yet. Heart’s Blood, they’d been through worse. He circled his fingers over his heart and began, “Hearts of our Ancestors, we are Beholden for the food on this table, and that Tir didn’t burn the eggs—” to make Semyn hide a smile and Weed giggle, “—for it will give us the strength to improve ourselves in your eyes. We are Beholden for—” so much, his voice stuck in his throat.

“We are Beholden,” Lila said then, “for the strength and courage of our new friends, Spirit and Dauntless, and for the bravery of our old one,” a nod to Tir, who blushed bright red, “for bringing us together to share this meal. We are Beholden my dear husband vowed to clean house before we get home,” this with a grim finality that sparked golden fire in Werfol’s eyes. “We are Beholden for the gifts that both saved us and healed us,” her voice grew husky now. “Hearts of our Ancestors, above all we are Beholden for this time we’ve spent together, as family. However far we are apart, Keep Us Close.”

“‘Keep Us Close,’” echoed the boys and Tir.

About to say the words, Bannan felt a burning on his neck!

He surged to his feet, his stool clattering to the floor. As the others looked to him, Tir with pity, he shook his head, starting to smile. “‘Keep Us Close!’” He kissed Lila, rubbed the boys’ hair, and slapped Tir on the shoulder. “‘Keep Us Close!’”

“Sir?”

“Can’t you feel it?” Bannan cried. “‘Keep Us Close!’”

“Gone mad, have you?” But Tir was on his feet now, and the boys and Lila, their faces filled with the same hope.

“What is it, Uncle?” Semyn asked, because he needed to be sure.

Bannan, already at the door, looked back at his family. “It’s the turn.”