Page 82 of Triumph at Pemberley

“Yes, three of them from India. I only know Cerridwen and Juniper there. I wish Gentiane or Quickthorn would return.”

How had that happened? The Indian dragons and their companions must have set sail long before Rana Akshaya decided to start the new Nest. What had they planned to do in England? And how had they known to find the Pemberley Nest?

He knew better than to ask questions about dragon affairs, though, so instead he just rubbed her shoulder.

That night, Darcy woke to Elizabeth shaking him. “Did you feel that?” she demanded.

“Feel what?” he asked blearily.

“A huge surge of magic. It woke me from a sound sleep. It is fading now.”

Indeed, he could sense it now, the power in the air. And then it stopped abruptly. “What caused it?”

“That is the question,” Elizabeth said. “It was too strong to be mortal Talent. Fae or draconic, perhaps.”

The wards. Had something broken through? He jumped to his feet and felt his way to the windows, where he opened the curtains to let in enough moonlight to see by. He found his robe and wrapped it around himself. “I will see what I can find out.”

Elizabeth followed suit. “I must check on Jenny. Who knows how this might have affected her?”

He nodded. “Good idea.”

The landing was completely dark, forcing him to keep one hand on the wall as he searched for the staircase railing. Even so, he bumped his knuckles into it painfully. No time for that, though. Somehow he made it to the servants’ stair and headed for the kitchen. The first servants should be awake by now, so he could light a candle there.

A woman’s excited voice came as he approached. “I couldn’t believe it! Right up there in the sky, like another sun!”

“A fireball,” another said. “It must be a sign. Or the fae.”

“Or soldiers. Could they be so close now?”

Darcy entered, which stopped the conversation in midstream. “Where was this fireball?” he asked.

“Over there, sir.” One of the scullery maids pointed a trembling finger towards the West.

Then Elizabeth’s voice came in his head. Agate says it came from the Nest. Something bad enough to leave him shaking, but he will not say more.

Darcy nodded. “A candle, if you please.”

The other woman hurried to light one and put it in a simple chamberstick, one more suited for a servant than for upstairs, but he was not inclined to complain.

Then the screaming started. He clapped his hands over his ears before he realized it was a sending, not a true noise. Something had happened to Coquelicot. He grabbed the chamberstick and ran upstairs to the ballroom. He could feel Coquelicot was still there.

He burst into the room. “What is wrong?” he cried.

“Hornbeam is gone,” she keened.

Puzzled, he asked, “He left the Nest?”

“He flew from the Nest and used the final weapon. He is gone.”

This made no sense. “What is the final weapon?”

“The Wicked King, may his evil deeds fester and burn his liver, built it in us when he created the first dragons. As a last resort, if we were captured, we can turn our fire inward, and the explosion would kill our captors. And us, of course.” She snuffled.

A dragon self-immolating? In a distant memory, he recalled the very first time Cerridwen had voiced one of her foresights in front of him. A vision of the Battle of Salamanca, the dragon attack, and one of the dragons going up in flames at the end. Had he ended his life rather than be enslaved by the Wicked King?

Hornbeam had never killed, at least not to Darcy’s knowledge, but he had betrayed his Nest. Had they exiled him, knowing he could not survive away from the Nest? He could not imagine the dragons doing that. “Does this happen often?”

“Almost never in this world. It is more common in Faerie, where it is the only way to escape servitude to the Wicked King. Some dragons prefer it to being forced to slaughter innocents.” She added bitterly, “It is why the Wicked King needs more dragons to manage his conquests.”