Verdant Magic: A Standalone Dragon Shifter Adventure (Dragon Mage Chronicles Book 1) Page 8

  And what about Charlie and Jasmine? She vaguely remembered drifting through a short burst of consciousness as her apprentice healed the slash across her throbbing wrist. Thought she might have also heard her best friend yelling in pain as the roof collapsed above all of their heads. Which begged the question—were her friends already prisoners in the ship currently tethered atop Greenwich proper? Or were they dead in the rubble of cave-in beneath her feet?

  Amber wasn’t sure which option would be worse.

  Before she could wrap her worn-out mind around a solid conclusion, though, she lost the struggle to maintain consciousness. Drifting back into darkness, she dreamed about fire.

  ***

  The next time she woke, it was to a cool hand pressed against her brow, a spoonful of broth insinuating its way between chapped lips. “Just drink a little bit,” a female voice admonished.

  “You’re going to choke her, Sarah.” That was Zane, his voice hushed but intense. Then fiery hands leveraged beneath her sore back and tipped Amber into a seated position, her shoulder sliding up against his side until she wedged erect in a cavity that felt like it had been made just for her. “Now try.”

  The broth tasted like salty ambrosia as it slipped down Amber’s parched throat and she wanted to beg for more. Unfortunately, she couldn’t quite manage to open her uncooperative eyes, let alone move her tongue to shape the words. Her entire body was wrung out, empty, not a drop of earth magic remaining in her rag-doll limbs.

  Which wasn’t all that unusual. Amber often pushed the limits of her talents, content in the knowledge that all she’d need was one long nap snuggled into the sun-warmed earth to top up her inner stores. Unfortunately, there was nothing but air beneath her now. The absence of her usual connection to the Green was like an excised limb that continued to tingle long after it was cut away and buried deep beneath the loamy earth.

  “Does it really take two people to feed one prisoner?” This voice was male and unfamiliar, but Amber sensed a hint of rising heat in the air as he entered her chamber. Dragon, she realized as the newcomer continued to speak. “Someone needs to do something about that goat, and it’s not gonna be me.”

  In the distance, Thea bleated and Jasmine laughed. Ah, good. Two safe and accounted for. Not that Amber could really say any of them were out of danger, not when she and her friends were stranded on what might be a pirate ship with what appeared to be more than one dragon shifter. Plus, by the sound of it, the second shifter was far less accommodating than the first.

  “Do you have to be so loud?” Zane complained in a whisper, exacerbating the contrast between himself and the other dragon. Amber’s back subsided into the comfort of the feather-soft mattress as her own dragon’s voice retreated into the distance. “And no, Nicholas, I can’t do a thing about the goat.”

  “That’s fair. Apparently, nobody can do a thing about the goat.” The second shifter laughed with apparent good humor as he exited, his words only slightly muffled by the recently closed door. Then, changing the subject: “Have you looked at the map yet? Phoenix said the scientists’ laboratory was outside Washington, DC. But I’m not even certain we can find the city itself under all those trees, let alone pinpoint a single building. Perhaps if your pet earth witch could be roped into helping....”

  “She’s not a pet.”

  Amber should have been heartened by Zane’s curt words. But she was more interested in the disappearance of her sustenance. Stomach and throat promised that she could have drunk a gallon of precious broth, so one tablespoon didn’t go very far toward easing the gnawing ache in her hollowed-out belly. Too bad she still couldn’t manage to so much as twitch a finger in a request for more.

  Then Sarah was humming by her ear once again, the metal spoon dribbling warm liquid between parted lips. Despite Zane’s protestations to the contrary, Amber found she could drink just fine while lying flat on her back as long as the cascade of broth fell into her mouth slowly enough for her to swallow each mouthful around the lump in her throat. Gradually, even without the Green’s assistance, she could feel the first thread of returning strength sprout like a tiny carrot seed deep within her chest.

  “What is she then?” Nicholas countered, shaking Zane’s comment like a dog worrying a bone and returning Amber’s attention to the outside world in the process. “And why won’t you explain what you were doing stuck in a hole with two witches, a goat, and one very unpleasant human? All with a fire-quenching ring around your neck?”

  Silence and broth. More silence and more broth. Amber was half asleep, the warmth of much-needed nourishment easing the pain that had brought her out of her doze in the first place. But despite all that, she still knew Zane’s next words were of utmost importance.

  Because this was the moment when her dragon would spill the beans about Greenwich’s cadre of earth witches to the world at large, the moment when their settlement would transition from a refuge into a death trap. This was when she would have fully failed in her job as Watcher, when she would have to admit that she hadn’t been up to filling her parents’ extra-large shoes.

  But Zane said nothing and Nicholas eventually spoke again rather than vainly wait for a reply that seemed an eternity in coming. “So you expect me to believe that you just stumbled upon these witches as they wandered together out in the middle of nowhere?”

  “Yes.”

  “And, what, a sinkhole opened up and swallowed the lot of you in the midst of a companionable tea party?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I’m sure there were unicorns and fairies involved too.”

  The frustration in Nicholas’s voice was so evident that Amber struggled to open her eyes at last. Two brown orbs peered back at her from the middle of a face so wrinkled she wasn’t entirely sure that Sarah was even human. In books from the Before, people had lived to be old and gnarled. But now, both well-calibrated drugs and general medical assistance were hard to come by. As a result, most died young...or at least younger than this crone whose face was as leathery as a dragon’s foot.

  “Shh,” Sarah whispered, holding one finger to her mouth. “You’ll want to hear this next bit.”

  The older woman was right. Amber did very much want to hear this next bit. So she lay still and waited for Zane’s monosyllabic reply.

  Only it wasn’t monosyllabic this time around. That rich, deep voice seemed to embrace her as it slipped beneath the cabin’s door and drifted over to the audience waiting inside. “I need you to drop this, brother,” Zane said quietly. “Where I was and who I was with is on a need-to-know basis. And you don’t need to know.”

  A leaden pause, then footsteps rang away across metal decking. One set of footsteps.

  Amber could imagine the other shifter leaning against the solid door that divided them, wondering if he’d made the wrong decision in refusing his brother’s request for the sake of a woman he knew so little about. She wished she could prove that he’d chosen right. She ached to be brave and decisive like her dragon, to answer Sarah’s unspoken question loudly enough for the man outside to hear.

  Yes, her heart wanted Amber to throw in her lot with this dragon shifter. She wanted to help him find whatever scientist’s laboratory he and his brother were seeking, purpose of the quest be damned.

  But even though she and her people had recently parted ways, Amber remained the Watcher. As such, she couldn’t risk Greenwich’s safety by signing up for something she knew nothing about.

  So, instead, she took the cowardly way out. Closing her eyes, she pretended to be sleeping until, finally...she was.

  Chapter 13

  Guilt and gratitude. Which is worse? Amber pondered as she walked on wobbly legs out into brilliant sunlight the next morning. Both emotions stemmed directly from the apple she’d found waiting on her bedside table when she finally woke rested if not completely rejuvenated a few moments earlier. Unfortunately, neither sentiment sat on her tongue nearly as sweetly as the fruit’s juicy flesh.

  At first, th
e ability to stay upright long enough to consume solid food had triggered a flood of deep-rooted satisfaction...but then Amber reached the core of that tasty morsel. At the fibrous center, one chestnut-hued seed lay waiting, calling her name. In response, she’d paused, not wanting to consider betraying the trust of a dragon shifter who had thus far showed her nothing except kindness.

  But her fingers disobeyed before her mind could beg them to toss the core aside. Seed by seed, she pried all five kernels loose and placed them carefully in the bottom of one dirt-embedded pocket. Just in case, she told herself, refusing to answer her guilty rejoinder—Just in case what?

  Despite the ensuing guilty conscience, Amber’s snack gave her the strength necessary to finally try the door. Remarkably, it boasted neither lock nor guard. So she drifted through the gently swaying ship, following the sound of voices, until a short flight of stairs led onto an open deck drenched with sunlight.

  “It’s beautiful,” she breathed, taking in the fine brass fittings and well-tended ropes that filled the utilitarian space. The sky was more blue than she’d ever imagined possible, puffy white clouds dotting the distant horizon while the gargantuan balloon above their heads bobbed in respectful harmony. Despite the light-headedness that resulted from recuperating in midair, Amber would have been hard-pressed to find any fault with her current location at all.

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  Turning, Amber saw what she’d at first failed to notice. A woman about her age leaned against the bulkhead and watched men scurry through rigging while doing who knew what to keep the ship moving forward. Despite her companion’s slouched posture, though, there was something about her that reeked of pride and power. Guessing, Amber offered, “Your ship?”

  The woman raised an eyebrow as if surprised by Amber’s perspicuity. But then she straightened and offered a hand. “Captain Sabrina Fairweather. And this beast holding us all aloft is the Intrepid.”

  “Amber Gardner,” the Watcher responded. Then, feeling like she owed the captain a little more, she added, “Thanks for letting me aboard.”

  The women assessed each other, and Amber knew that she at least liked what she saw. Which only made her that much guiltier for considering growing apple seeds into flexible saplings that could rip the airship’s deck in half as their roots reached down toward distant soil.

  For a moment, in fact, she thought Sabrina might take her to task for such mutinous thoughts. But instead, the captain jerked her chin out into the pounding sunlight. “That your goat?”

  When Amber had first stepped away from the dim interior, spots of darkness and a nearly overwhelming flare of white had created a vision every bit as vague as it was whimsical. Now, though, she could see that Thea had recovered more quickly than her mistress had, reverting to her usual rascally self while Amber lay sleeping. The doe currently danced along a raised wooden walkway before tripping two sailors then making a beeline for a cluster of bodies half hanging over a distant rail.

  “She’s probably hungry,” Amber apologized, taking a step away from the captain and toward her pet as the peril of the latter’s location fully sunk in. Thea was clever and sure-footed, but the goat had no more experience with airships than her mistress did. If she fell....

  By the time she reached the animal’s side, Amber’s legs were beginning to feel a bit less like sun-wilted seedlings and a bit more like flesh and bone. The buzzing in her ears had gradually faded as well, allowing her to catch the tail-end of one of the sailors’ comments. “...Don’t see how we’re going to get it to cling on,” the man complained, his entire torso hanging out over open air as he peered down at something beyond Amber’s view.

  Thea had responded to her mistress’s approach by requesting an extensive head rub, but no one else seemed to have noticed the Watcher standing on tiptoe behind their backs. She, on the other hand, was close enough to pick out several familiar faces in the crowd. In fact, everyone she’d been concerned about was now gathered close enough together to be gathered into one heart-felt group hug.

  Not that they looked particularly huggable. Charlie was glowering at all and sundry from the edge of the cluster while Zane and Jasmine resembled sparring partners gearing up for mortal combat. The shifter in question stood by the ship’s rounded rail, a rope looped across one broad palm. And when Amber sidestepped the masses and poked her own toes out over the void, she saw an anchor bumping across distant treetops far below.

  Was that how airships were moored in place? Amber hadn’t thought as much, but she knew enough to know what she didn’t know.

  And that thought is almost enough to send me back to bed.

  “If you’d just let me ask.” Jasmine’s voice was clipped and a little pained, making Amber wish she could see her apprentice’s young face rather than being forced to make an assessment by peering at the back of her towhead. Had the child injured herself while healing her teacher’s wound? Had she, like Amber, overdosed on magic use and been unable to refresh her stores while stuck up here amidst the clouds?

  But even as the Watcher turned that worry over in her mind, she finally figured out what this strange combination of people was up to. It was the proud tilt of Thea’s neck that lit the metaphorical light bulb, that plus the resemblance of Zane’s trawling line to a fisherman’s baited hook.

  Yes, as counterintuitive as it seemed, her dragon really was trying to attract what he must consider repulsive kudzu for the sake of her goat’s rumbling belly.

  The warm gooey feeling in Amber’s chest abruptly turned to ice, though, as Jasmine turned around to speak more directly to the shifter holding the line. The teenager appeared unharmed, which was a relief. But the glint of silver around her throat was anything but harmless.

  Amber had let down her guard earlier after seeing that both she and her apprentice were walking freely across the deck of the mighty airship. Now, though, she realized her initial decision had been a royal mistake. Amber herself might be free, but Jasmine was constrained in a way that was significantly worse than shackling the child in a windowless cabin down below deck.

  Because that magic-quenching collar had made another appearance. And this time around, it was firmly latched around her apprentice’s slender neck.

  ***

  “The Green is slow to anger and equally slow to forgive,” Poppa had told Amber once. The same observation could have been made about earth witches.

  Now, she could feel a grudge bubbling like swamp gas out of the sticky mud at the bottom of her chest. The sulfurous stench was so vivid in her memory that she could almost feel silty muck on her tongue as she opened her mouth to greet the shifter who—if her pain-hazed recollection was any indication—had recently saved her life. “Why is Jasmine collared?”

  The grouping went abruptly silent and three sailors remembered they were needed elsewhere as soon as the words left her lips. Not that she blamed them. Amber hadn’t found a hairbrush or washbasin before leaving her cabin, so she made no assumption that her morning face was pretty as a picture. Still, from the haste with which the men beat their retreat, she had to assume they were reacting to her earth magic and barely restrained anger rather than to her unconventional appearance.

  “I told you we should collar the most powerful witch first, bro,” a man said from behind Zane’s left shoulder, not bothering to look up from the pre-Change tablet he was prodding with one arrogant fingertip. Amber recognized his voice at once—this was Nicholas. Cropped dark hair, eyes that glinted like mahogany chestnut hulls. The shifter would have been handsome if he hadn’t been so annoyed at his brother’s refusal to spill Amber’s secrets the day before.

  At the memory, her rage quietened...until she caught another glimpse of her apprentice’s pinched lips. The child wasn’t handling the bottling-up of her energy well at all, and any halfway decent person would have removed the restraint in deference to the girl’s tender age.

  “Amber.” Ignoring his brother, Zane stepped obliquely toward her as i
f he were attempting to quieten a terrified dog. “Calm down.”

  “I’ll be calm once you answer my question.”

  For an instant, lights flared around Zane’s shoulders, the flames taking on the shape of incorporeal wings. Right. He’s not the one collared at the present moment, Amber thought, taking one long step backwards. The turmoil in her belly abruptly morphed into fear as she recalled that an unleashed dragon could easily burn her—and the ship they all stood upon—to cinders.

  For his part, Zane appeared to be stretched so tightly that he was close to breaking. “Walk with me,” he suggested, a thread of that slippery magic entering his voice. He took a step closer until his furnace-like heat warmed cheeks chilled by the wind, his magnetic presence pulling at her like playful honeysuckle vines.

  “No,” Amber countered, refusing to give in to the enticement. “I want that collar off Jasmine and I want an explanation for why it was on her in the first place.”

  Not that she had a leg to stand on. Somehow, Amber had gotten the impression that she and Zane possessed a wordless agreement after their time spent together in the spring room. But the dragon had never actually promised her anything. Had never overtly said he had her back, willingness to leave Charlie intact and later rescue aside. For all she knew, the shifter was planning to snap a second collar around her neck at any moment, cutting off her magic as thoroughly as she had cut off his own.

  “Then you get her to promise not to use earth powers against us.” Zane breathed out a frustrated sigh before running fingers through hair nearly as unruly as her own. “It’s not pleasant being stuck in the middle,” he murmured quietly.

  And that nearly inaudible admission cut through the puddle of swamp-muck anger. I hurt him with my disbelief, Amber realized. Immediately, her rage fizzled and she reached out to touch her companion’s hand lightly by way of apology. Too bad she hadn’t agreed to walk away from prying ears and eyes as Zane had suggested. Now, an avid audience measured each gesture that passed between them as carefully as ever she’d spaced out minuscule lettuce seeds.