“Hang on, let me clear some of this away,” I said, kneeling to brush away a layer of leaf mold, hand-sized sticks, and small rocks. “I think the ground is sufficiently clumpy to keep your circle from closing properly. Try it now.”
She slid me a quick look from the corner of her eye, but obediently bent over the now cleared ground. As she had said, the dirt did not hold the chalk itself, but an outline of the circle was now visible as she drew it.
“It’s not quite closed,” I pointed out when she reached for the ash.
“I’m pretty sure it is,” she said, sprinkling ash.
I smiled and took the chalk up from where she had set it down, making a tiny little adjustment to her circle. “There. Now it’s closed.”
“Please do not handle my equipment,” she said sternly, snatching the chalk from my hand.
“Sorry. I just really want this to succeed.”
“I assure you that I do as well, which is why I suggested going back to the hotel to get the fresher ash.”
I gave her an encouraging smile. She heaved a tiny little sigh and spoke the words of summoning again.
This time there was an immediate difference. Hope rose within me as the air within the circle did an odd sort of shimmer, as if the individual atoms of light were forming together. The shimmer began to grow and elongate, coalescing into the figure of a man.
A familiar man.
I rose slowly, the hairs on my arms standing on end as Constantine Norka stared at me with shock and surprise chased by some emotion I couldn’t identify. He opened his mouth to speak, his hands gesticulating wildly as he did so, but his voice had no sound.
“You did it!” I gasped, staring with wonder at Constantine’s spirit. “That really is amazing. But why can’t we hear him?”
“He’s not grounded,” she said with an edge that had me wondering. With a little sigh, she made a few gestures that looked like backward wards, causing the translucent ghost to slowly solidify.
“Constantine?” I asked him.
“Ysolde!” He held up his hands, still clad in leather gauntlets, looking in wonder at them. “I was dead. I know I was dead. But now I’m not? You have had me resurrected? This woman does not look like a necromancer.”
“I’m not,” she told him, gathering up her things. “I’ve summoned your shade, not your physical self.”
“A shade?” He looked down at his chest, touching his stomach. “I feel real.”
“That’s because you’re in corporeal form right now. When you grow low on energy, you will fade into an insubstantial form.” Maura turned to me, her expression tight. I didn’t understand why she seemed so resigned when her mission had been a success. “I can’t bind him to you, I’m afraid. That’s the trouble with dragon spirits—they come back as shades, which can’t be bound without a whole lot of trouble. He’s more or less going to be able to do as he likes. I can release him, though, if he is willing.”
“I’m not dead?” He pulled out his sword, still strapped to his hip. He made a few jabs at a nearby fern. “I’m not. I’m alive.”
“No, you’re a shade,” Maura repeated. “Why don’t we go back to the hotel, and I can explain the ins and outs of shadedom to you both.”
He beheaded the fern, sliding the sword back into its sheath with a look of satisfaction. Constantine was a handsome man in his own right, a little taller than me, with a muscular build, golden brown hair, and eyes just a shade darker. “You saved me, my beloved one. You truly are my mate. The Summoner is wrong—I am bound to you, Ysolde. I am bound to you until the end of time.”
Chapter Seventeen
“I have to ask you some questions, Constantine. Will you please stop doing that?”
He ceased kissing my hand, but retained hold of it. “You saved me,” he said again.
“Yes. About that . . .” I glanced at Maura.
“I have an idea,” she said brightly. “Why don’t we all go back to the hotel, and you two can sort everything out there, where it’s comfortable and there are no mosquitoes to eat you alive!”
“I always knew you would save me,” Constantine told me.
“You did? That’s . . . uh . . . OK.” I debated asking him why he killed me in the first place if he felt that way, but decided there were more important things to discuss. Baltic’s patience was pushed about as far as it would go without snapping, and I had to get to the bottom of restoring Constantine’s honor before I could convince him to go on to his reward. “So, about this sin against the innocent that you committed . . . What exactly do you need me to do to restore your honor?”
Constantine blinked at me. “What sin against the innocent?”
“My death. At least, I assume that was the sin. Do you need me to formally forgive you for my death in the presence of a witness? I’m sure Maura would be happy to act in that capacity.”
“I’d be delighted, but if we could do it back at the hotel—”
“You’re speaking in riddles, Ysolde. Why would you forgive me for your death?”
“The First Dragon told me I have to restore your honor to you.”
“He did?” Constantine looked startled. “Why—”
An explosion of words sounded behind me, a flurry of oaths as a large body burst through the dense wall of shrubs that had grown between two tall elms. “I knew it! I knew I would find you here with him!”
“Oh, this is all I need,” I said to myself as I grabbed Baltic’s arm. He was shirtless, his arms and one side of his chest smudged with dirt. I picked off a leaf and brushed a bit of soil from his shoulder. “Where’s your shirt? What on earth have you been doing?”
“Excavating my lair. Why is he alive? Why have you resurrected him? Why did you tell me you had no interest in him, and yet here you are skulking around with the man responsible for all the ills we have suffered?”
“Baltic!” Constantine’s eyes narrowed as he pulled out his sword. “Long have I wished I could end the suffering of the weyr, and now I shall do so!”
Baltic reached for his sword, but he was clad in a pair of jeans, completely sans lethal weapons, airport security being what it is these days. He swore profanely, then yanked a branch off the elm tree and wielded it like a leafy staff. “There is no suffering to compare with what you have already put me through!”
“Boys, really—”
Baltic lunged just as Constantine, with a battle yell that had the birds flying from nearby trees, leaped forward . . . only to melt into nothingness.
“What trickery is this?” Baltic bellowed, flinging his branch around with abandon.
“That is what I’d like to know!” Constantine’s voice answered. “What magic have you cast upon me?”
“It’s no magic—I told you, you’re only corporeal so long as you have the energy to maintain that state. You’ve obviously come to the end of that, and will have to recharge your spirit batteries, so to speak,” Maura said wearily. “I don’t suppose anyone would like a drink? I sure could use one. I noticed the hotel had a bar.”
“You didn’t resurrect him?” Baltic asked me, lowering his branch.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you love me,” the disembodied voice said.
“I do not,” I told the air. “I never loved you, Constantine. I was fond of you, yes, but my heart has always belonged to Baltic.”
“Bah. You were just confused,” he answered, his voice now on my far side.
“This is really disconcerting. Can you make some sort of an image so we can see where you are?”
“No.” He sounded surly.
“Fine. Pout if you like, but it’s not going to impress me. He’s not resurrected,” I said, turning back Baltic. “Maura is a Summoner. She raised his shade so I could talk to him about restoring his honor.”
Baltic rolled his eyes. “I told you that was a folly, mate.”
“A folly? A folly? Restoring my honor is not a folly, you ignorant coxcomb!”
We both ignored the uns
een Constantine.
“It’s not foolish if it gets the First Dragon off my back.”
“Really, people, if I get any more mosquito bites, I’m going to be one giant welt,” Maura interrupted, slapping at her arm. “Ysolde, can you give me a lift back to town?”
“Talking to that monstrosity will not do anything but waste your time,” Baltic said, gesturing at nothing with his branch.
“You bastard!” Constantine snarled. “I am not the monstrous one here!”
“Right, if I have to separate you two, I will,” I said in my best mom voice. “Constantine, just tell me, please, what I have to do to restore your honor.”
“My honor has no need of your attention. That one who calls himself your mate is another matter, although he never had any honor to begin with.”
Baltic growled.
“Of course your honor needs help. Your father said you lost it.”
“Mate—”
“My father?” Constantine may have been invisible to our sight, but the incredulity in his voice was clearly audible. “What does my father have to do with anything?”
“He asked me to restore your honor.”
“My father is dead. He has been dead for . . . what century is this?”
“Twenty-first,” Maura said, tugging on my sleeve. “Shall we go?”
“He’s been dead for seven centuries. He could not have asked you to do anything, unless you raised his shade as well.”
“Well, he’s not really a shade so much as he is kind of a . . . er . . . I don’t know quite what he is. God, maybe?”
“Mate, I insist that you leave this murdering bastard and come with me to Dauva,” Baltic said, pulling me up against his side.
“I like that! You murdered far more dragons than I ever did!” Constantine exclaimed.
“Like hell I did! You wiped out the entire black sept!”
“Not alone! The red dragons helped quite a bit, so Chuan Ren has to share the body count. Besides, it was kill or be killed. We were only protecting ourselves from your madness.”
“I was not mad.” Baltic ground the words out through his teeth, the muscles of his arms and chest tense and tight. “I was trying to keep you from killing my mate. Which you did anyway.”
“Me?” Once again Constantine’s voice was filled with surprise. “I did not kill Ysolde!”
“We saw you,” I said sadly, leaning into Baltic for support against the horrible memories.
“Right, that’s it. Patience at an end.” Maura pulled a very real-looking gun from her backpack. “We’re going to the hotel. Right now.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t kill us,” I told her, startled nonetheless by the sight of the weapon. “How did you get that through customs?”
“I didn’t. My chieftain had it delivered to me.”
“Your chieftain? I thought you were the chieftain of your tribe.”
“You thought wrong.”
“Why is this woman holding a gun on us?” Baltic demanded to know. “Who is she?”
“Maura Lo, this is my mate, Baltic. Baltic, this is Dr. Kostich’s granddaughter, the one I promised to help so that he would lift the interdict from me.”
“Enchanté,” Constantine said politely.
“I told you to leave the ouroboros dragons alone,” Baltic said, bending a stern eye on me.
“Yes, and you know how much I love it when you order me around.”
Constantine snorted.
“Come along, no more chitchat,” Maura said, waving the gun. “I don’t want to have to shoot anyone, but I will if I have to.”
“Do you honestly think we’re going to let you hustle us out of here? Do we look that—”
Baltic didn’t wait for me to finish speaking. He simply jumped Maura, knocking her to the ground and snatching the gun from her hand.
“You are so going to regret that,” she snarled as she leaped to her feet, brushing dirt and leaves from her hair.
“Yeah? You and what army?” I said, letting my inner child have the pleasure of a few words of taunting.
As the last syllable left my lips, a swarm of three men charged down the path, all brandishing large and lethal-looking firearms.
Maura smiled.
“Dammit, I hate it when my rhetorical questions go bad.”
“If you would be so good as to accompany us back to the hotel, we can see about your ransoms,” Maura said, gesturing toward the three guys, whom I mentally dubbed Larry, Curly, and Moe. “We hadn’t anticipated taking both of you, but the more the merrier where a ransom is concerned, right?”
“I’m so going to be filing a complaint about you to the Akashic League,” I told Maura.
She rolled her eyes, and started to speak, but Moe shoved her out of the way and without further ado shot Baltic in the chest.
“Interesting. I wonder if I could gather enough strength to hold a gun,” Constantine’s disembodied voice said with much speculation. “I wouldn’t mind taking a few shots at you myself.”
I stared at the small black hole on the side of Baltic’s chest as it began to seep blood, then turned to glare at Moe. “Oh, that was brilliant. Now you’ve pissed him off.”
Baltic, who had likewise been examining the bullet hole, roared with anger, shifted into dragon form, and leaped onto Moe.
The three dragons all shifted as well. Moe was a red dragon, while the other two were blue. Maura, who had stared in stunned disbelief when Moe shot Baltic, quickly hurried forward, yapping about the dragons not following the plan.
I yanked hard on Baltic’s dragon fire and set the ground under them ablaze.
“We are following orders,” the dragon I dubbed Curly snarled at her, slamming her aside with his tail. “Just not yours.”
“I will protect you, my beloved one,” Constantine’s voice declared right next to my ear.
“You’re a damned ghost,” Baltic snarled as his fire lit up a circle around us.
“Yes, and you’ve been shot.”
“Even so, I’m more of a dragon than you ever were.” Baltic head-butted Moe, his claws slashing out at the same time, slicing deep into Moe’s chest. The other dragon screamed and shifted back into human form, scrabbling in the dirt for his gun.
“And you’re a backstabbing, lying degenerate,” Constantine yelled, a slightly visible image of him forming.
Dragon fire is a particularly ferocious sort of fire, and to my horror, I saw that the damp trees and moss didn’t slow it down in the least. The circle quickly spread outward, consuming several centuries-old trees as fingers of fire crept toward the forest edge.
“That’s better than being a two-timing traitorous bastard,” Baltic yelled back, ducking as I leaped over his head and kicked the gun out of Moe’s reach. “She’s my mate! I’ll protect her. Ysolde, come over here and be protected.”
“Resorting to name-calling isn’t helping, boys,” I shouted, stomping hard on Moe’s hand when he tried to grab my ankle. At the same time, I began to gather up arcane magic from the surrounding living things. “Besides, it’s probably not a good idea to call the First Dragon’s son by derogatory terms.”
“What?” both Baltic and Constantine asked at the same time.
“The First Dragon is bound to not like it, and frankly, I’ve had enough of being in his bad graces.”
“Now you will die!” Curly said with a dramatic flourish of his gun at me.
“Hi-ya!” My best Xena, Warrior Princess shout was the answer to that threat. I flung a huge ball of arcane power at Curly just as he was about to riddle me with bullets. He saw it coming, though, and ducked so it zoomed past him and hit Larry dead-on, causing a huge flash of light to temporarily blind everyone.
“What the—what was that?”
I shook the dazzle from my eyes and saw Maura stagger to her feet, rubbing her face.
As the dragon fire raged around us, now more or less a small forest fire, everyone stood stunned by the blast of arcane light, staring at the spot
where Larry had moments before stood. In his place was a two-foot-tall rock, an odd line of runes carved in a circle around the circumference.
With synchronization that would make Olympic swimmers envious, everyone turned to look at me.
“Er . . .” I said, eyeing the rock.
Curly screamed a profanity and jumped over Baltic toward me. Constantine shouted something about saving me, but his form shivered and faded to nothing, leaving him profaning the air with a litany of oaths. I tossed out a few quick attempts to dampen the dragon fire that was consuming the forest around us, but couldn’t risk losing my concentration. In a contest between Baltic and the forest, the forest was bound to lose.
Baltic grabbed Curly by the tail and with a massive effort flipped him over backward, sending him crashing into Larry the rock.
“No! Stop it, all of you!” Maura shouted, waving her hands in the air. “This isn’t what we’re supposed to do! We’re just going to hold you for ransom, that’s all. There’s no shooting! I distinctly said ‘no shooting’ at the planning meeting.”
Baltic flung himself on Curly, twisting his head with a bone-crunching noise that left me wanting to retch. Moe jumped onto his back, but Baltic knocked him backward, toward me.
Maura limped forward, her gun raised.
“You messed with the wrong wyvern’s mate, lady,” I snarled, gathering up another ball of arcane magic, but before I could fling it at her, Moe lunged sideways and kicked out with one leg, sending me flying into a rock. My head connected with an audible thunk that was almost as painful to hear as it was to feel.
Baltic screamed my name and shifted to human form in midleap as he ran to my side, pulling me up against his chest. “Ysolde! My love, are you hurt? Do not move. I will get a healer.”
“They’re getting away,” Constantine’s voice informed us. “You go after them, Baltic. I will stay and attend to Ysolde.”
“I’m sorry,” Maura said, gesturing with the gun. “This isn’t what was supposed to happen. We were going to kidnap you, Ysolde, that’s all. I had no idea she had other plans. I really am sorry.”
Baltic carefully felt my neck and the back of my head, his hands coming away red as I woozily tried to sit up. “Maura, you have to listen to me—”