Yuánchi’s head stretched closer to Emma, studying her from several yards above the dried rose that topped her bonnet. She stared back, enthralled and guileless as a child, clothed in red from head to hems except for a froth of yellow ringlets shining in the lantern’s light.
Yuánchi took a long step back, then laid delicately onto the earth, his neck unspooling until his nose settled by my feet. That pose was new, proprietary and subservient at once, like a hound relaxing by a beloved master. He blew a windy breath, and my skirts fluttered against my knees.
Another wyfe of healing. So soon. The three wyves have come.
“Well, that proves that,” I said to Emma. “You are a great wyfe. He would know.”
“But what does itmean?” Emma said. “To be a wyfe of healing. If I could heal anyone, it would have been Papa—” Her bright tone abruptlycaught.
We touch a feather to the scale of life. Those who will die, die. But you are not yet bound. You must bind to find your strength and know your limits.
Emma became intensely still, as motionless as the frozen trees. I watched her breaths plume in the lantern’s light. Finally, her chin lifted. “That is like Georgiana. She said her powers would change if she bound.” Her lips and brow pursed. “Do you mean I could bind a dragon?”
You cannot bind a dragon, Yuánchi answered.
“I thought not,” she said sadly. She seemed both disappointed and unsurprised, as if a shop had refused her order for roses in the midst of a bleak January. Still, her quiet acceptance felt peculiar. This was a woman accustomed to privilege.
“There is only one dragon,” I pointed out. But Yuánchi gave an anxious, chesty groan, and his head dragged back across the ground until it was a reddish shadow at the fringe of the lantern’s light. I eyed him suspiciously. “Arethere more dragons?”
You cannot bind a dragon because your dragon—the dragon who shares your purpose—is already bound.
Emma’s eyes went round. Her cheeks paled to snow. “You were to be mine,” she whispered.
I tried not to smile. “That isnotwhat he means.” Another groan heaved from Yuánchi’s chest, and a gleaming shiver whispered over his scales. An unpleasant, unwelcome realization crawled into my belly. “That cannot be.”
Yuánchi turned his gleaming gaze to me.When the wyfe of healing died, I despaired. I had waited an age of your world. Her death was the start of another thousand-year night. Then, you swept your fingers through my lake, and I felt your passion. I reveled in your love. When you called, it was the most powerful call of any wyfe…
“What are you saying?” My hand was in the air between us, pushing back against absurdity. “You bound thewrong wyfe? It was… what? A mistake? An infatuation?”
A binding is no mistake. It is inviolate. It is for life.
“You mean it is irrevocable. Inescapable. Like a despised marriage in some pathetic comedy!”
“Lizzy,” Emma said. “That is not what he said.”
“Do not speak for him!” I cried. “You have no right.”
Elizabeth Darcy Bennet. Yuánchi’s voice flooded me like a torrent, mymaiden name ringing—draca prized female ancestry.You and I are bound. It is for life. Nothing else matters.
A spark of distrust survived that onslaught and kindled to fury. “Nothing else? Then let her touch you. Show me that nothing else matters.”
Yuánchi drew back a step, his body bunched and anxious.
Emma said hesitantly, “Lizzy, let us go inside. We are both very surprised. I have seen a dragon, after all.”
She gave a shaky laugh, but what I heard was artifice, cleverly disarming and overly harmless. No, that was ridiculous. She did nothing to cause this. Other than not visiting Pemberley before me.
“You go,” I said, and the words tasted bitter. “I wish a moment with Yuánchi.” I held the lantern out for her. “Take it. It is a short walk. I can find my way without it.”
“Are you certain? I can send a servant. Or are they not allowed to see…”
“Mrs. Reynolds will tell you. Ask her who knows, and who does not. I do not need the lantern. Emma, please go.”
She took the lantern. “He is wonderful, Lizzy. You are blessed.” I nodded, not trusting my tongue, and she followed the path back to the house, stopping once to look back.
The door closed behind her. Yuánchi became a shadow barely revealed by the glow of the house windows.
I breathed the icy air, trying to calm a storm of emotions. Finally, one held long enough to understand. “You said my call was ‘the most powerful call of any wyfe.’ Is that because I am the wyfe of war?” The winter cold chilled my words.
