Dragon Soul

  Rowan caught me with one scaled arm, while his tail lashed out and knocked the second demon across the deck, where he slammed into the bridge.

  I turned to see the first demon bent over the railing… backward, in a position that told me the man’s back was broken.

  Rowan said gruffly, “Don’t look, love,” before turning to help the others. He ran toward Bael, and just as Bael lifted the knife high, about to plunge it into Mrs. P’s heart, there was a flash of white, and one of Osiris’s guards was there, dragging Mrs. P to safety at the same moment that Rowan threw himself on the demon lord.

  They went down in a tangle of arms and legs, some human and some scaly. The knife flashed, and blood spurted in a wide arc. Someone screamed, and it wasn’t until I had picked up the punchbowl and was bashing Bael on the head with it did I realize it was me.

  Things calmed down a bit after that.

  “Wow,” Bee told me when Constantine plucked me off of Bael. “I didn’t know you had that in you. You were positively scary. And you look so nice, too.”

  “I am nice,” I said, panting, adrenaline making me want to go bash Bael in the head a few more times. I caught sight of a gash on Rowan’s chest and pulled away from Constantine, running to the love of my life. “Not again! You’re all bloody. Medic!”

  Gabriel and Osiris had hold of Bael, whose hands were quickly tied behind his back. “So he can’t cast any more spells,” Osiris said to no one in particular.

  Bael spat invectives and was roughly shoved down onto a chair for his troubles.

  “It’s not bad,” Gabriel said, examining Rowan. Gabriel had switched back into human form, but Rowan was still a red dragon.

  And he suddenly must have realized that, because when he looked down at his chest to assess the wound, his eyes widened and his arms flailed wildly. “What the hell? WHAT THE EVER-LIVING HELL?”

  “It’s okay, pumpkin. You’re just a dragon, that’s all,” I said, feeling like an idiot, but doing my best to calm him down.

  His eyes were huge with emotion, his nostrils flaring, little puffs of smoke and fire coming with every breath. “How do I make it stop? I don’t want to be like this!”

  “Breathe, Rowan, breathe,” I said, stroking the non-hurty side of his chest. He was dangerously close to a panic attack, and I was clueless as to how to calm him down.

  “Like everything else, it’s a matter of control,” Gabriel said. “Take charge of your fire—you’re scorching the deck—and harness it to focus your mind. Once you have achieved that control, you will be able to shift at will.”

  “Breathe,” I repeated, stroking the long, curved dragon neck. I kept my eyes firmly on his, because that provided a connection that we both needed—him to keep from freaking out, and me to keep from realizing that the man I loved had a form that was frighteningly different from what I was used to. “Just keep breathing deep breaths, and make your fire do what you want.”

  Slowly, second by painful second, his eyes calmed and his breathing slowed. The fire he was puffing disappeared, and his body began to shimmer and wobble in and out of focus. It took a couple of tries, but at last he was back to human form.

  There was a smattering of polite applause, which I ignored, as I leaned my forehead against his. “You did it! You conquered your dragon self. I’m so proud of you, I could ride you like a rented mule.”

  He laughed and pulled me to him for a very quick, very fiery kiss.

  “Sorry,” he said into my mouth before releasing me. “I guess I don’t have as much control over my fire as you thought.”

  “Well done, champion,” Osiris said, then gestured toward Maat again. “Now that the dragon shape crisis is over, I believe you have a few more people to process.”

  “Hello,” Maat said, greeting us. “Would you like to start things off?”

  I realized with a start she was looking at me. “Um… all right.” I tucked my bow into the quiver on my back, and couldn’t help but muse that my life hadn’t been as blameless as I’d hoped.

  Maat stopped in front of me, pulling the feather from her riot of curls.

  “I should warn you that there are a few things I’ve done that perhaps don’t look too good on my record,” I said nervously. “But I had good reasons to do them—”

  She smiled and held out the feather. “Palm up, please.”

  I glanced at Rowan. He nodded, giving me a little smile that warmed me to the tips of my toes. If nothing else, I knew that my love for him was honest and true. I held out my hand.

  She dropped the feather onto it. I waited, braced for something profound to happen.

  Nothing did. It just sat there, being a feather. “You may move on as you like,” she told me, picking up the feather.

  “I can?” I blinked a couple of times. “I passed?”

  “You passed.” She nodded to May, who handed her sword to Gabriel, and came forward with her hand outstretched. “You may move on as you like,” Maat repeated. May gave her a tight smile, murmured her thanks, and retrieved her sword.

  In quick succession, Maat went through Gabriel, Ken (who was sulking in the background), and Constantine, who insisted on having a try even though he hadn’t been on the cruise.

  “I just want to see if I’d pass muster if the First Dragon insists on repeatedly summoning us here,” he told Bee as Maat laid the feather on his hand, and told him that he would pass the challenge.

  Bee gave him a tolerant, but fond, look in return.

  I swear the First Dragon gave a little snort of amusement, but when I looked at him, his expression was as placid—and otherworldly—as ever.

  At last the only three people to remain were Rowan, Bael, and Mrs. P. Maat approached Rowan, and I felt the dragons hold their collective breaths.

  It was time for the Dragon Breaker to have his soul judged.

  Nineteen

  “Hand,” Maat said, holding her feather.

  Rowan hesitated a second, then, with an unreadable look at me, held out his hand for her.

  She placed the feather on it. It seemed to ruffle in the wind, bouncing ever so slightly on his hand.

  My stomach dropped with fear. Dear goddess, what would I do if he couldn’t leave Duat?

  Stay with him, of course, my inner voice answered. As if there were a choice.

  My panic quelled a bit at that. Although I would prefer not to live in the Underworld, so long as I had Rowan in my life, then we’d make it work.

  Maat tipped her head to the side as she watched the feather. She picked it up off his hand, examined it, and then put it back on his palm.

  It repeated the little fluttering motion.

  Her eyebrows rose as she reclaimed the feather. The silence was so thick you could have heard a molecule hit the deck. “You may move on as you like.”

  I released a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Rowan’s shoulders sagged for a few seconds before he straightened them and tried to look as if he wasn’t worried to death.

  Gary cheered. “Wooties! Now we can have that wedding in the fall. I’ve always wanted to plan a wedding, and I just know this one is going to be fabulous. I’ll have to call Jim. He wants to help plan.”

  “Now then,” Osiris said, gesturing at his guards, who had been flanking Bael. They promptly returned to their master’s side. “Since Aset is recovering from her mistreatment, I believe you should attend to this demon lord first.”

  “Oh, he can’t possibly pass her test,” I said aloud, alternating between batting my eyelashes at Rowan in an attempt to tell him how much I loved and admired and was proud of him and keeping an eye on Bael. “The man is pure evil. His soul has to be one giant mass of sins.”

  Bael snarled something at me that had Rowan taking a step forward. Constantine caught his arm and kept him from proceeding.

  “Do not pay his words any heed. He speaks lies.”

  “I have no need for lies,” Bael said, the black aura of power around him snapping and crackling, but despite that effect, he
looked remarkably calm. In fact, he appeared calmer and more placid as each second slipped past us.

  “I must have his hand,” Maat told Osiris. He nodded, and one of the guards moved behind Bael.

  “Something’s up,” I said softly to Rowan, watching the guard free Bael’s hand.

  Rowan had his gaze firmly affixed on the demon lord, his eyes glittering with little bits of gold set against the dark peaty brown. “He’s done something.”

  “What?”

  “I have no idea, but whatever it is, he believes it will allow him to pass the challenge. Hold up!” he said that louder, stopping Maat as she was about to place the feather on Bael’s hand. “Something is not right here. I suggest you examine Bael to ascertain whether he has his Ka or not.”

  “Can you see a Ka?” I asked aloud.

  “Oh yes, if you like. It resembles a little spark of light,” Maat said, tipping her head as she considered Bael.

  I swear the man smiled.

  “Would you mind showing us your Ka?” Maat asked.

  Bael shrugged, and with his free hand, reached into his jacket. When he opened his hand, a little spot of purplish pink light pulsated, like a bizarre firefly on a late July night. “As per the requirements, you can see that I have my Ka with me. Conduct the challenge.”

  “Wait!” I said, hurrying forward. Mrs. P was sitting with May, who had dabbed up the blood that dripped down her front. “His soul couldn’t possibly pass muster.”

  “That is for the feather to decide,” Maat said primly.

  “Yes, but that’s not what I mean.” I glanced at Rowan, who looked a bit confused. Evidently he hadn’t seen what I had. “I meant that for him to be wanting to have the challenge conducted, for him to be clearly anticipating it is a sign that the Ka he’s holding isn’t his. It’s just that simple.”

  Silence filled the night air. Everyone looked from me to Bael.

  “If it’s not his, then whose is it?” May asked.

  The pieces clicked together in my head. “It’s Mrs. P’s,” I said, going over to where she was taking a sip of water. “I saw him doing something to her with the knife. When the demons jumped me, that is. He was making some motion over her heart, and I just bet you he’s taken her Ka.”

  Mrs. P lifted her head, but said nothing, her eyes on Osiris.

  “Priestess, are you up to the challenge now?” Maat asked her.

  “If you like.” Rowan helped her to her feet. She held out her hand, saying tiredly, “I just want this day to be over so that my beau and I might start our life together.”

  I bit my lip as Maat approached her, the feather in her hand. My stomach roiled, and I tried desperately to think of a way to stop her, but my mind was a mass of worry and fear and dread, and offered no helpful suggestions on a way I could change what was about to happen.

  The feather floated down to her hand. Maat smiled, and gently plucked the feather from Mrs. P’s palm. “You may move on as you like.”

  “What?” roared Bael.

  “Oh, did you not notice?” Mrs. P smiled sweetly. “I was told to switch my Ka with yours when I took the ring. You’ve had mine all along, and a few minutes ago when you took what you thought was mine, you simply exchanged it for yours.”

  He lunged forward, his face a terrible sight to behold. He took the chair with him, and with his free hand, slammed it into one of Osiris’s guards. Rowan leaped forward at the same time Constantine and Gabriel did the same, but Bael wasn’t lying when he said he had enough power to do as he wanted in the Underworld—with a shouted word, there was a loud percussive noise, and all three men flew backward a few yards.

  Bael headed straight for Mrs. P and me. I snatched my bow from my back and hurriedly fit an arrow to it, but before I could let it fly, he was on us. I stabbed the arrow into his hand when he reached for Mrs. P, kicking out at the same time and hearing the satisfying crunch of his knee taking the brunt of my attack. Rowan reached us first, with Gabriel and Constantine immediately behind him, and all three men, with the aid of Osiris’s two guards, pulled Bael off and rebound him to the chair. This time they tied one of his hands to his leg, palm upward.

  He started chanting in a singsong voice, causing a horrible pressure to build up inside me (and I gathered everyone else, since Mrs. P and May both clutched their heads), but Osiris stopped that by simply marching over to Bael and whacking him upside the head with the same punchbowl I had used on him earlier.

  “None of that, now!” Osiris said. “I will not have you casting curses in the Duat. If I want people cursed here, then I shall do it.” He turned to Maat. “Finish the challenge.”

  Bael spat at her, literally spat at her, which just caused Osiris to snap his fingers. One of the guards brought a napkin from the overturned banquet table, which he used to gag Bael.

  Maat approached Bael, who struggled against his bonds, but it was no good. She dropped the feather into his hand. It curled up onto itself, rolling up tight, then fell off his hand to the ground with a thunk.

  Bael’s eyes locked on first Mrs. P, then on me, and finally, Rowan. The sight of them was so horrible, I had to look away. Even Rowan looked pale after receiving Bael’s full attention.

  “You may not go as you please,” Maat said quietly. “You are henceforth bound to Duat.”

  I thought Bael’s head might explode, so furious was he, but he had to content himself with trying to take more years off our lives with his deadly glare.

  Mrs. P shook off my supportive hand and turned to where Osiris was standing. Her face lit with an inner joy that was wonderful to see. “At last, my beau, I am here before you. And I have brought you an offering to our love, that which will allow us to live together in peace.”

  “Eh?” Osiris said, looking somewhat startled. “What’s that about living together? My wife wouldn’t like—”

  “My beau, oh my beau,” Mrs. P said, pulling the ring out from her belly button. She ran with it to Osiris… and then passed him by and threw herself into the arms of the taller of the two guards. She kissed his face and his neck and his ears, and he picked her up and spun her around, kissing her in return.

  “What the…” I stared at them, shaking my head before turning to Rowan. “Do you see that?”

  “Interesting,” he said slowly, watching Mrs. P and the guard murmur sweet nothings to each other. “I believe we have been mistaken in our assumptions.”

  “Well, you can say that again. Mrs. P!” I marched over to her and tapped her on the shoulder, feeling that the situation allowed for me to do a little interrupting. “What the hell?”

  “What is your problem?” she asked, glancing quickly at me before returning to coo at her boyfriend.

  “My problem is that all along you’ve been talking about being with Osiris. You know, your beau.”

  “Silly gel,” she said with a tinkly little laugh, clinging to her guard. “His name is Bo. And he’s mine, all mine, and now that he has the offering, he shall use it to leave Duat, and we shall be together forever.”

  “That was a close thing,” Osiris told the First Dragon. “I thought she was going to demand I leave with her. My wife would never condone such a thing. Just the other day she was ranting about one of her priestesses who had given me a deep tissue massage some seven hundred years before. The woman has the memory of an elephant, I tell you. And the temper of a devil. She’s always claiming my guards are lusting after her.”

  “I told you not to wed our sister,” the First Dragon said mildly. “Such things can never end well.”

  “Come, dragon,” Mrs. P said as she gave the ring to the guard named Bo. “You wish to preserve the essence of the ring? Be ready to catch it.”

  The guard released Mrs. P long enough to bow to Osiris. “My lord, have I your permission to make a life elsewhere?”

  Osiris sighed. “It’s always the way—I train up a guard just the way I like it and he finds a way to leave. Yes, yes, be gone with you. There’s nothing I dislike more than a moping
guard.”

  Rowan’s face clouded. He moved forward hesitantly. “I want the essence, but I don’t know what I can use to bestow it upon.”

  The First Dragon drifted over to us, shaking his head sadly. “I had such high hopes for you, too.”

  Rowan frowned. “You made me a dragon, and I have embraced it. In what way have I disappointed you?”

  “I gave you the means to make whole the sept, to provide for my children, and yet when faced with the opportunity to do both, you refuse.”

  “I’m not refusing to do anyth—oh.” Rowan thought for a few seconds, then hurriedly searched his canvas bag until he pulled out the three pieces of the broken glass. “This has importance to you? To… dragons?”

  “It is a shard of the dragon heart,” the First Dragon said in a carefully neutral voice. I heard the intake of breath from May when Rowan held up the broken pieces. “Guard it well, wyvern.”

  “There you go, then,” Mrs. P said, and gestured for Rowan. He stood next to them as Bo the guard took the ring, and with an arm around her, held the ring aloft. There was a flash of blue-white light that made my eyes water, and then they were gone.

  As was the First Dragon.

  “She didn’t even say good-bye.” I blinked and wiped my eyes, moving to Rowan’s side to add, “Did it work? Did you get it?”

  Rowan had his back to me, his shoulders slumped in a way that made my stomach tighten painfully. Then he turned around and held up the shard for me to see—made whole and glowing with a deep ruby light.

  “Welcome to the weyr, Rowan,” Gabriel said with a genuine smile. “You bear a shard of the dragon heart. There can be no more valuable artifact for your sept.”

  “Wrong,” Rowan said, smiling at me. “It’s the second most valuable item. The first is standing before me, looking like she has a hundred questions that need answering.”

  “Just two, actually,” I said, blushing at the compliment, and thinking to myself of the many and varied ways I was going to thank him that night.

  “What’s the first?” he asked.

  “It concerns them,” I said, nodding toward where Bael was sitting still bound and gagged. Next to him, Osiris, Maat, and two of her men were listening while Ken pled for sanctuary. “What will happen to them?”