Page 13 of Magick and Lead (Dragons and Aces #2)

CHARLIE

I sat in the mission briefing room, one hand on a cup of terrible coffee, the other absently touching Parthar’s dragon stone necklace through my shirt, while General Peckham droned on about the upcoming mission.

I was to lead a sortie over the front lines, a warren of perilous trenches which ran like a zipper down the middle of the Isle of Dorhane.

For a moment, when the words had first left Peckham’s lips, I’d felt a sensation of falling.

I shouldn’t have been surprised that they were sending me right back into the thick of things, now that I was cleared to fly again.

In the wake of the fall of Charcain, our troops had made more progress than they had in over twenty years, pushing the Maethalian forces back more than thirty miles in some places.

If we could keep the momentum going, we’d soon push them into the sea.

They’d be forced to evacuate the island or die—either of which was fine with Peckham and the brass.

“Isn’t that right, Major?” Peckham said, snapping me out of my thoughts. Though I hadn’t heard a damned word he said, I took my cue from his look of red-faced enthusiasm, mirrored his smile, and nodded.

“Absolutely, sir.”

I breathed a sigh of relief as the briefing continued.

Still, this wasn’t good. I was in no headspace to fly.

I was hungover for one thing. And tired.

Rather than riding back to the farm, I’d spent the night at my apartment in Ironberg for the first time in over a month.

I couldn’t stand the place. After my time in Maethalia, where every room of the palace was filled with rich wood trim, tapestries, paintings and gorgeous artifacts of elven empires long passed, being in my apartment, with its plain white walls and sparse furniture, felt like a sort of purgatory.

Out on the streets, cars beeped their horns all night and girls on their way back from the dance halls sent peals of laughter echoing between the buildings at all hours.

I took another swig of bitter black coffee and forced myself to swallow it down.

I’m just tired, that’s all, I told myself. I’m Charlie Inman. I’m the goddamned Silver Wraith. Flying is like breathing for me. This mission will be a cakewalk.

And yet, I couldn’t deny the knot in my stomach or the feeling of foreboding in my bones.

“We clear? Any questions?” Peckham boomed. “Alright then. Dismissed!”

The pilots filed down the hall and into the men’s and women’s locker rooms. Lockers clicked and slammed as pilots placed personal items in them for safekeeping or took out items they wanted to bring with them on the mission.

I opened my locker. Taped to the inside of the door, I found a picture of Kitty in a sun hat, giving the camera a coquettish smile. For an instant, I was transported back to the day of my last mission.

I’d killed the Irska Paemalla, the head dragon rider and Essa’s sister. And I’d gone down myself. I’d washed up on the shore of Maethalia. And I’d met Essa.

I’m the same man who flew out of here that day, I told myself. Nothing has changed.

But the lie of those words burned like bile in my throat even though I didn’t speak them out loud.

I plucked Kitty’s picture from its place on the locker door and crinkled it up. Suddenly, hands were on my shoulders. I felt myself spun around and shoved, my back banging roughly into the lockers.

Carter Blaize grabbed the front of my shirt in one balled-up fist and wagged a finger in my face.

“You may have got the brass fooled, Inman. But I know what happened out there over Maethalia. You tried to kill me. You’re a goddamned traitor.”

Blaize was a fellow ace, three or four inches taller than me, with movie-star looks and slicked-back dark hair. He loomed over me now, and I felt the rest of the squadron watching us.

The hell of it was, he was right. I had attacked him—to protect Essa and save her mother. By rights, I should be in the brig, not leading a mission. But I couldn’t let him bully me in front of my squadron.

I spoke in a low deadpan. “If I tried to kill you, Blaize, you’d be dead.”

At the menace in my voice, he recoiled a little. I knocked his fist loose from my shirtfront and shoved him back a step. We both stood glaring at one another, his eyes burning with hatred.

Then the general’s voice sounded over the intercoms. “Blue squadron and white squadron, report to your planes. Repeat, blue squadron and white squadron, to your planes.”

“This isn’t over,” Blaize snarled, and he turned and stalked away.

Thirty minutes later, I was roaring through the air over the Bormish Channel.

I’d been assigned to the latest version of the Silver Wraith, a brand new Sackman Comet with a healthy, roaring one-hundred and fifty horsepower Prattz rotary engine—a far cry from that sorry bucket of bolts we called Ruby.

Sunlight glinted off her wings. The sea below me flashed and sparkled. The sky above unfurled like a banner of cloudless blue. The cold air tasted fresh, and the feeling of speed awakened me the way only flying could.

I was back. I was home.

My squadron consisted of seventeen aircraft and I flew at their head, in the “Mother Goose” position, as the guys called it.

A half mile away, at about the five o’clock position, flew a second squadron, this one led by Carter Blaize.

Would the bastard be gunning for me, thinking he could take me down in the heat of battle without anyone noticing?

Hell if I knew. But I certainly didn’t trust him.

I’d just have to keep an eye on him as well as on the enemy.

Ahead, smoke rose in the distance. A dark shape emerged on the surface of the water. It was the Isle of Dorhane. Or, as sardonic infantrymen liked to call it, the Boneyard. Generations of soldiers had gone to this place to die.

It was the primary source of the petrol that fueled our planes and automobiles.

And since travelling to Maethalia, I’d learned it was a sacred land for them, too, one of the only places in the world where dragons went to roost. The island was crucial to the power of both nations.

And so, the brutal war over the rocky, barren stretch of land had persisted year upon weary year, taking countless lives in the process.

Once, I had imagined being the one to end the long war with some incredibly heroic act of killing. The older and more cynical I became, the more likely it seemed that I’d die there instead, one more pilot brought down in flames, one more corpse clapped in the Boneyard’s eternal embrace.

Now, all of it seemed foolish. Ludicrous, even. Why should I die here? Why should anyone, when there were so many good things in life to be enjoyed?

I thought of Essa… just a flash, before pushing her out of my mind again.

Instead, I forced my mind to the young men and women down there in the muddy trenches.

One of them was my little brother, Joey, whom I hadn’t seen in over two years.

They were the reason I couldn’t just turn wing and head back to base.

Because their lives were on the line—and they were counting on help from the skies to keep them alive today.

But there was no more time for deep thoughts. Dorhane was coming up fast.

Our mission had two parts. First, we were to split off to the north of the island and do some reconnaissance.

Supposedly, there had been unusual naval activity off Rograd Point.

Then, we were to loop back and approach the island from the east, where we would rendezvous with Blaize’s squadron to provide air support for a planned offensive along the front.

“Here we go,” I muttered, dropping altitude for approach. Already, I could see activity on the rocky point, light glinting in unusual colors. Dragon scales.

Shit.

I’d anticipated we might face golenae today, but not dragons.

Perhaps I could skirt the northern edge of the peninsula from a distance and avoid being spotted…

But no. Already the dragons were launching, their wings beating as they lifted one by one into the air. At least two dozen of them. I cursed under my breath.

Just a few months ago, I’d have been grinning ear-to-ear at the chance to take on these dragons and their riders.

But now, as they winged toward us, all I could think of were Parthar’s big, fiery orange eyes.

Perhaps because of the proximity of these dragons, I could feel Parthar better than I had in weeks. I could almost hear him.

I’m here, Charlie. Come find me .

The connection with him swelled in my chest, like the rising of some powerful emotion, and I set my teeth on edge, trying to keep it at bay.

I couldn’t fight these dragons. Not like this.

Not with Parthar inside me, watching through my eyes.

Not when these were probably Essa’s friends and comrades, sent to guard the sacred hatching grounds.

Maybe she was even among them, I thought, hoping and dreading it all at once.

But though there were dragons of many hues winging toward us, I saw at a glance that none wore Othura’s silvery gray scales. Still, Pocha, Dagar, and Lure might be there. Or other riders who were allies with Essa and were necessary to keeping the golenae at bay.

No… I couldn’t fight them. Couldn’t risk harming them. Instead, I banked right, toward the southern end of the island, and the planes following me all banked, too—though I could imagine their grumbling as I deviated from the plan.

We’d just meet up with Blaize’s squadron. Mow down some Lacunae and golenae, head back to base, and call it a day.

Except when I looked back, the dragons were following us—and gaining.

“Come on, dammit. We’re leaving the hatching grounds alone,” I muttered. “We don’t want to fight you.”