WYVERN (7 page)

That startled her. Elsbeth had never viewed Angus's dragon armor as anything more than proof of bragging rights. She was proud of her grandfather. He was brave to face down an adversary superior to him in size and strength, but she didn't always understand the motivation to seek something out and kill it for trophy. Alaric's remark certainly humbled Angus's accomplishment.

"Those scales were from a young dragon?" The idea made her little sick.

"Aye. Probably no more than seventy-five or so in human years. No older than a hundred years."

Her eyes widened. "Young at seventy-five? How old are you?"

Alaric chuckled. "In human years? Six hundred and four."

Over six hundred years old! Elsbeth could hardly grasp such an age for any living being. She hesitated in asking her next question, not wanting to offend. "Are you old?"

The chuckle turned to an outright, booming laugh. "No. I'm considered in my prime, with full mating rights and offspring to carry my bloodline."

She ignored the small voice inside that warned her not to pry, that it was rude. But Elsbeth was far too fascinated by the details of wyvern culture to pay heed to the rules of courtesy. She cleared her throat. "Do you have a mate now? A wife?"

He snorted. "Mating is seasonal. Wyverns are like dragons in that we don't bond with our kind. Females choose their males amongst the fastest flyers, the best fighters. It ensures strong offspring. Beyond that, we are solitary creatures, barely tolerant of each other."

How sad, she thought. To come together only for the purpose of creating young, never for companionship. It seemed a lonely existence. "Do wyverns not love?"

Alaric's silver gaze turned pewter. Elsbeth paled, afraid she'd asked a question considered taboo amongst wyverns. He answered in a low, growling voice.

"We love, just not our own. Like dragons, we are most vulnerable to humans because we form bonds with them. We take human form and walk amongst you. You are a passionate, creative and sometimes colossally stupid race. You burn brief, but you burn bright. It's what draws us."

Elsbeth blinked, stunned by his revelations. "You live among us as people?" The idea gave her pause. How could one tell if a man was not truly a man, but a beast ensorcelled? Would he have a ravening appetite? An urge to set fire to things? Would one find him gnawing on a whole sheep? Raw?

Rumbling laughter snapped Elsbeth out of her musings. Alaric gently blew a stream of smoke at her.

"Humans are so expressive. Your faces give away your thoughts. Let me guess. You were listing off those farmers and merchants of Byderside who might be hiding draconus heritage right under your very noses."

She blushed and smiled ruefully. "Well, it crossed my mind."

"I can assure you, none are there. We would have clashed over territory by now if that were so." Alaric's humor faded. Elsbeth was sorry to see his eyes darken once more, a sure sign something troubled him. "Wyverns are nomadic. We assume the guise of wanderers, never staying in one place more than a month. We can only hide our true nature for so long. The magic used to change us is both powerful and draining."

"Have you ever..." Elsbeth paused, remembering something he said when they first met on the cliffs.

"I knew a woman once who played such an instrument as if the gods danced along the bow hairs."

At the time, she'd registered very little beyond his menacing size and her own fear at coming face to face with a notorious creature of legend. Now, safely entrusted to his care and comfortable in his presence, she recalled his voice. Melancholy and filled with yearning, he'd spoken of the human woman who played a fiddle as if he lost the most precious thing he'd ever had.

"Forgive me," she said. "I don't mean to pry."

Alaric's wings rose in a shrug. His eyes were almost completely black now. Elsbeth saw her reflection in the obsidian pools--red hair tangled about a thin face flushed with the heat of her embarrassment.

"You aren't," he said. "I took on human form years ago and met a village woman who played her fiddle. She enchanted me with her music and all else about her."

"You loved her," Elsbeth whispered. A small ache blossomed in her chest.

"I love her still." Alaric dark gaze never wavered.

The strangest sense of anticipation settled within her, a gladness she neither recognized nor could explain. Elsbeth reached out, skated her fingertips across smooth scales. "I'm so sorry, Alaric." She sighed. "For what little it's worth, I understand your sadness."

His eyes remained black, and the telltale shiver rippled his scales. He suddenly rose, towering over her. She scooted back, clutching her fiddle to her chest.

"Come," he said. "And bring your fiddle. There is a place within the heart of the cliffs open to the sky. You may play there and remind me of better days."

They traveled swiftly through the labyrinth of tunnels that cut deep into the cliffs. Elsbeth carried a small torch by which to see as she followed Alaric into the blackness. For one so massive, he moved incredibly fast, and she had to maintain a steady jog just to keep up. Passageways that seemed too small for him to fit offered no obstacle. The warping feel of magic passed over her each time they moved through one, a sign that Alaric either altered the corridor or himself to get through. The ability to wield such spells left all of Maldoza's interior open to him. Elsbeth understood more than ever why no knight had yet been successful in confronting and killing Alaric.

Five turns and a double-back later, and she was completely lost. Alaric looked at her over one wing. "It's not much farther, Elsbeth. Do you wish to ride?"

"No," she panted. Elsbeth was no delicate flower or some aristo woman used to being carried everywhere. And for reasons she chose not to delve into, she didn't want Alaric to think her weak.

The tunnel in which they passed grew lighter, and she heard the sounds of bird calls and rushing water. Elsbeth no longer needed the torch as they drew near an archway. She walked up next to Alaric and gasped. The corridor opened onto a massive, roofless cave. Sunlight streamed down in wavering stripes of gold and pale yellow, illuminating thousands of birds nests crowded in the layered rock. An underground spring bubbled up from the floor, spilling water in meandering rivers. Unlike the lair she shared with Alaric, this one was cooler, misty with the flow of water and a gentle breeze that swirled inside and ruffled her hair.

"This is part of Maldoza?" She stared around her in wonder. "No one would guess from the outside this place exists."

"It is well-hidden and only visible from above. I chose Maldoza as my temporary home specifically for this cave. It is safe from intruders, easily guarded."

Alaric's rumbling voice sent nesting birds into flight. They flew skyward in a protesting din of screeches and chirps. Only their echoes remained and the underground spring's quiet burbling.

"Come," Alaric said, and led her down an easy path to the cave floor.

Elsbeth leapt nimbly from rock to rock, holding her fiddle case tightly in one hand and the torch in the other. They rested at the cave's perimeter, and the wyvern indicated a flat rock for her to perch.

"Here is a good spot." He didn't settle next to her but rested on his haunches and watched as she doused her torch and opened her fiddle case.

Elsbeth quickly finished tuning the fiddle and ran the bow across the strings in a few experimental passes. The cries of the strings filled the cavern, but they were muted, softer. She frowned at Alaric. "This is a beautiful place, but my music won't sound as good. Are you sure you want me to play here?"

At his nod, she rose and began to play. A lively wedding reel--it had always been Angus's favorite. Muffled by the cave's mist, the tune filled the chamber with a softer cadence, as if she played the reel in a dream.

Alaric had not moved during the song, neither to stretch out beside her nor tap a claw in rhythm to the music. Elsbeth was dismayed to see his eyes were still black, and he watched her, unblinking.

She cleared her throat. "Forgive me," she said. "Does my playing displease you now?" A slow dread rose within her when his scales bristled. What if he no longer enjoyed her fiddle? She still had a week remaining. Would he abandon their bargain and start terrorizing the countryside once more? "Is there another tune you'd like to hear?"

"Do you have a husband?"

Elsbeth almost dropped the fiddle. "What?"

"When I found you at Maldoza, you played your fiddle as if you mourned a friend and serenaded a lover. You've not played that way since." The scarlet scales expanded more, stretching from behind Alaric's head to the tip of his tail. "What lover inspired you to weave your soul into your music? That's what I want to hear, not some melody you've performed at every harvest dance."

She stared at the wyvern, shocked by his words. What was she supposed to say? His admonishment had nothing to do with her skill and everything to do with the heart of her playing. Those spiking scales were a sure sign he was displeased with her. Elsbeth gave everything to her performances, no matter how mundane the celebration or how removed she was from the people celebrating. She played for strangers with the same enthusiasm she played for friends.

"I don't understand what you're asking," she said.

"Play as if your lover stands before you and waits to hear the songs you created for him."

His request was making her uncomfortable, as was the intensity of his gaze. "I have no husband, and only the memory of a lover."

Alaric's scales subsided slightly. "Alaric the man, beloved and not forgotten?"

Elsbeth gave a tentative laugh at his reminder of their earlier conversation. "Yes."

His scales smoothed back into place. Alaric lowered his head until he was almost nose to nose with Elsbeth. "You played for him that first night on the cliffs. I could hear it on the wind, feel it in my blood. All the passion you carried for a man now lost to you." His long tail curled around her feet. "That is what I want to hear again, Mistress Weaver--your soul in the bow."

The knot in her throat threatened to choke her. Elsbeth breathed on a shudder and blinked away tears. It took two swallows before she could speak. "You ask more of me than you know."

His faint huff of laughter was devoid of humor. "Oh, believe me, I know of what I ask."

Elsbeth suffered a brief moment of anger--anger at being forced to bare an unrelenting pain to the wyvern. He was no longer a stranger to her, but even Angus only guessed at how badly Alaric the Bard's departure had hurt her. She'd indulged in a moment's maudlin nostalgia on the cliffs when she played with him in mind. She'd been lonely and frightened. She never imagined the reviled creature haunting Maldoza and terrorizing Byderside might be so sensitive to her music.

Wyvern and woman faced off in silence. Elsbeth almost refused, then remembered Alaric's own confession, one given willingly and without hesitation. Like her, he'd loved and lost.

"One song, Master Wyvern, and then something else." Her voice turned pleading. "I beg you."

"One song, Mistress Weaver. And then you may play your harvest tunes."

She nodded, placed the fiddle under her chin and closed her eyes. An image of her Alaric rose in her mind. His dark hair, silvered by moonlight, was soft against her fingers. He twirled her around the solstice fire, gray eyes hot and promising all manner of seduction once he whisked her into the shadows. Elsbeth held that image and put bow to fiddle.

Her surroundings faded, buried by the power of her music and the emotion fueling its fire. She played as she had on the cliffs, pouring nearly a decade of love and memory into her song. She'd composed it shortly after Alaric left, a tribute not to the sorrow of his leaving, but to the joy he'd given her in the time he'd lived among them and made her his lover. The strings thrummed beneath her fingers, alive with a magic even wyverns could not create. When she played the last note and opened her eyes, she was stunned to see the cave once more and the wyvern watching her.

"Beth," he said, voice reverent and deep, "had you played that at Ney-by-the-Water, I would have never given you the choice to stay."

Elsbeth gaped, unable to believe what she just heard. The blood rushed to her head. "Who are you?"

Pinpoints of light glimmered along Alaric's scales, coalescing until they covered his body in a ruby nimbus. The light pulsed twice, flashing off the cavern walls and the flow of water beneath his feet. Elsbeth turned away, raising her hand to shield her eyes from the brightness.

A voice, still deep but quieter than the wyvern's, spoke. "Look at me, Beth. You know who I am."

She didn't want to turn, didn't want to look upon the reality of a man who, for eight bleak years, had been no more substantial than her most treasured dreams.

"Beth."

Where Alaric the wyvern once stood, Alaric the man now faced her. Her stomach flipped; her heart thundered in her chest. Dressed in nothing more than the sun-burnished skin that made her palms ache to touch him, he stood within a haze of sunlight, unchanged since she'd last seen him walk the roads leading away from her village.

His next words were not those of a poet romancing his love, nor those of a bard coaxing a reluctant maid to his arms. They were the words of a warrior, a conqueror returning to reclaim what was his and no one else's.

"'Tis a good thing you have no husband, Beth, or I'd have to kill him."

Elsbeth, who'd faced down an angry mob and bargained with a wyvern at the haunted cliffs of Maldoza without turning a hair, fainted.

She awakened to a subtle warmth seeping through her clothing along her right side and the familiar scent of spruce and snow. The cavern's spring no longer bubbled in the background, and she lay on the pallet she'd brought with her. She was again in the wyvern's lair.

Afraid to open her eyes, she lay still, basking in that heady warmth. She didn't want her dream of meeting Alaric again to fade, didn't want to find herself alone with only a puzzled wyvern wondering why she'd fallen asleep on him.