“I’m not so sure about the figurative part. There have been times when I’d happily smack her.”
“Aye, well, ’tis a good thing ye didn’t.” Keeva gave her a knowing look. “I’m thinking that one would have just as happily sued ye if ye had done so.”
“No doubt.” Lyla was warming to the idea of escaping to Scotland. This could so be what she needed—as long as it was real. “Like I said, let me think about it, and let’s see what your partner says when you text her.”
The traffic magically thinned, allowing them on their way as if its task of delaying them until a deal was struck had come to a successful conclusion. Keeva winked. “Everything happens for a reason, lass.”
An eerie shiver swept across Lyla. “It would seem so.”
Chapter
Three
“At least they waited to fetch her until after they consulted ye.” Talon paced around the watchtower, his great, spiny tail subtly twitching like a feline on the hunt. He paused at each of the open arched windows to gaze upon the surrounding lands. “I have never seen old Mairwen so ill at ease.”
“She was ashamed.” Magnus stood in front of the massive gray dragon scale mounted in an oval rosewood frame atop a stone pedestal at the center of the room. The mighty Rurik, the unequaled seer of dragonkind, had left the scale behind before she crossed over into the final existence of the never-ending sleep. It had been a great loss when Rurik had left them, but it had been her time. As one of the original ancients of the Thirteenth Realm, the millennia of her existence had run their course. Sadly, none of her descendants came close to possessing her amazing ability to peer into the ether and pull forth visions. Only Magnus and Talon, by uniting their energies, could bring her mystical scale to life and view what needed to be seen for the good of the Realm. “The Weavers’ failures torment Mairwen,” Magnus said. “She seeks to redeem herself…and them.”
“And yet she failed to commit to yer lady’s passage.” Talon leaned on the window ledge, stretching his long neck through the open window and twisting to examine the slate roof above them. “Hellys was right. Kcirred's latest strike cracked several tiles. I will see that she orders them replaced before winter fully sets in.”
“The last storm cracked those old tiles. They’ve needed replacing for a while now. Ye know as well as I that Kcirred attacks with more subtlety.” Magnus crossed the flagstone floor of the circular room and studied the skies farther to the south. “The shield of clouds around Thornpitch is darker than usual. The vile druid must be displeased.”
Talon joined him and eyed the view, rumbling with a thoughtful growl. “A prosperous sign, indeed.”
“Why prosperous?”
“Perhaps this latest woman is indeed she of the prophecy.”
Magnus still harbored doubts about that, even though his heart had experienced a strangeness the moment he saw her, a not unpleasant strangeness that had stirred a dangerous hope. Dashed hopes caused pain, and the Weavers had brought nothing but disappointment twice before. “The prophecy promised us a healer. Song heals dragonkind, and when they heal, humankind heals as well. The lady they showed us could not sing. The beauty could barely speak in a voice louder than a raspy whisper.”
“But she coaxed music from that box, and Ifeltthe magic in that song—and the curse of silence held no power over it. That melody is the first we’ve heard in the Realm for many an age.”
That worried Magnus even more. Had Kcirred somehow infiltrated the Weavers’ world and caused even more chaos by slyly creating the perception of fated mates? He suspected that was what had happened with the two prospects before this one. He’d not mentioned it to Mairwen or her youngling, but believedit to be so. But a song whose magic had spoken to Talon? From a woman who had captured his attention as soon as he laid eyes on her? Surely, that bloody, soul-sucking druid hadn’t discovered a way to conjure that effect.
“We will know more once she arrives.” Magnus squinted harder at the boiling bank of poisonous black clouds that protected Thornpitch, Kcirred's stronghold, from those seeking to rid the realm of the druid once and for all. “If she possesses the power to stop the sickness…”
“Perhaps she can even stop Kcirred.” Talon clicked a claw atop the ledge of stone. “Let us see if Rurik’s scale will allow us to look upon her again.”
“Doubtful.” But Magnus couldn’t resist the pull of thewhat if,the seduction of the temptation.“Surely, the Highland Veil will prevent us from spying into the twenty-first century of the woman’s realm.”
“It will block us if ye keep referring to her asthe woman.Why do ye avoid saying her name?”
Still in his ceremonial armor, Magnus thumped his fist on the gleaming black breastplate. “Hope is a dangerous thing I try to avoid. It has not served me well of late.”
Talon tilted his mighty head, his leathery lips lifting at the corners, almost in a smile. “I never took ye to be a coward, brother. Dinna change my mind about that, ye ken?”
Magnus snorted, wishing he could spew smoke and fire like his kindred. “I am not a coward. Merely cautious.” He returned to the scale mounted in the center of the room, then turned to Talon. “Come along, then. Ye ken it’ll not answer to my blood magic alone.”
Talon took his place beside Magnus, extended his right foreclaw, and sliced open the thick scaliness of his palm with one of his claws.
Magnus extended his left hand, not flinching as Talon cut a line across it with the same claw. In unison, they pressed the bloodiness of their palms against the scale.
“Scale of Rurik, open thine eyes so I might see the one who might become my heart’s desire. Show me Lyla Ibrams of the twenty-first century reality.” Heat from the mirror-like surface of the massive gray scale sealed the wound on Magnus’s hand, a good sign that it had accepted his offering and would grant his request.
Talon nodded, but remained silent as the scale’s quicksilver surface exploded with rich, colorful swirls of deep purples, vibrant blues, and shimmering shades of gold.
Then the colors fell away, like droplets of rain rolling off the back of a goose. Misty images, soft and out of focus, sharpened and brightened. Magnus’s breath caught in his throat. It was her. Lyla. Sitting at a table with Mairwen’s youngling, that irritating assistant whom he’d never much cared for.
“The old witch said her apprentice would have to take great care in bringing yer Lyla through the portal,” Talon whispered. Spirals of smoke curled upward from his glistening blue-black nostrils. “She is comely. Have ye ever seen eyes as blue as those of yer lady?”
