He bent down to touch Roderick’s cheeks, his expression – if he had one – unreadable. But his aura shone with sorrow and fear.
“What did you do to him?” Frederica burst out.
Quickthorn replied in his stead. “They tried to form the companion bond – against the wishes of the Eldest. Now your friend is paying the price.”
Rowan did not move his gaze from Roderick. “The Eldest only refused in order to keep me here in the Dark Peak. She knew Roderick must return to Wales.”
As if Frederica needed any reminders of that.
“And you want to leave?” snapped Quickthorn.
“I want a companion. This companion. If that means I must leave, then yes.” Now his pain was apparent. “Roderick promised we could come back to visit often.”
“You risked his life by sneaking off here, pretending to work on the wards, to create the bond behind the Nest’s back.”
“We did work on the wards. I knew we could not lie to you or to Companion Frederica.”
But Roderick had lied to her by omission. It should not hurt, but it did.
“There is a reason we do bondings at the Nest, where our healers are nearby,” Quickthorn muttered.
Rowan retorted, “It was so easy when you bonded to Companion Frederica! I thought he might be a little ill, but not like this.”
And it had been easy for her. For all the warnings that she might be sick for weeks, she had only suffered a mild fever and a day in bed. It had been no worse than a summer cold. “Why is it so different for him?” she asked.
“No one knows why some mortals take the bond easily and some fight it. I would have thought Roderick a likely candidate, with a history of many dragon companions in his family,” said Quickthorn.
Finally Rowan looked up at his nestmate. “Have you any advice to offer? Useful advice, that is?”
“What is done is done. I will ask the healers.” Quickthorn switched back to the starling form and took wing out the window.
Frederica missed her already.
Then her hand, the one entwined with Roderick’s, began to tingle. “Are you using magic on him?” she asked Rowan suspiciously.
“I am giving him strength. You may be more comfortable if you do not touch him right now,” he said apologetically. “Though he seems to be taking some comfort from you.”
She tightened her fingers. If this was helping, she would not let go. “I suppose he wanted the companion bond.” How many times had Roderick admitted to envy of dragon companions? He would have jumped at the chance, despite the risks. Just as she had.
Rowan bowed his head. “He did. He was worried about how his family would react, but then he laughed and said they would think it was fate. Because of my coloration.”
How could the color of a dragon possibly matter? Admittedly, Frederica was secretly proud of Quickthorn’s shimmering sea-green scales, but it would not make any difference to her if her dragon was not beautiful. Then it struck her.
A red dragon was the emblem of Wales, and Roderick was one of its disinherited princes.
It would be a potent symbol – if Roderick lived through the bonding, which seemed increasingly unlikely.
Chapter 31
Darcy let out aslow breath, one that had been trapped in his lungs for five endless days of separation, of long hours in the carriage with Mme. Hartung and the children, of worry about what might be befalling Elizabeth as she journeyed on her own half-way across France through unknown county. Even when Cerridwen had come to him that morning and told him how to find Elizabeth, he had not fully believed she was alive and unharmed. But there she was, exactly where the dragon had said, sitting beside a vineyard at the edge of the bustling town of Vieux-Thann on the eastern flank of the Vosges mountains.
Elizabeth’s face lit up when she spotted him, and she hurried to his side. There were others on the road, though, so she greeted him as a stranger. “Good sir, are you walking this way? I am headed for my uncle’s house in Wildenstein and would be glad to have company along the way.”
He inclined his head. “Madame, I have only one strong arm, but I would be happy to offer you its defense.” He had dropped his Prussian accent along with his uniform; too many people in this region spoke German and could catch him out easily.
“I thank you, and I will do my best not to slow you down.” Her eyes moved from the sling he wore to past his shoulder, where a boy was leading a goat to market.
He nodded, forcing down all the words he wished to say, and they began to walk towards the cloud-shrouded mountains. Green foothills already rose on each side of the road which wound along the riverbank.
