Page 57 of Magick and Lead (Dragons and Aces #2)

ESSA

I had spent hours upon hours studying maps of Admar for my Skrathan training, so it was simple for me to navigate across the channel, follow the sandy coastline south, and find McNally Air Base, even in the pre-dawn dark.

Below, dots of electric lights ran in long, straight lines, delineating runways.

Dozens of perfectly rectangular buildings lay arranged in rows, and a square, glass-windowed lookout tower stood watch over it all.

The architecture was utilitarian and rigid, a stark contrast to the ancient, rambling, whimsical structures back home like Charcain or the Hatchery.

But despite the orderly construction, the place was chaos.

Golenae rampaged. Soldiers ran to and fro, the sparks from their necromancer weapons flashing in the dark.

And some of the buildings were burning. The sight of them evoked the dark vision in the scrying bowl. Charlie! I felt suddenly like my heart was twisting inside my chest. Othura must’ve felt it too, because she pumped her wings twice, picking up speed, then dove.

As we approached, the scene below revealed itself more and more.

Human warriors fought pitched battles against the misshapen, shambling golenae.

Desperate shouts and the crackle of gunfire rose on the wind, along with the wail of some sort of electric siren.

Its dolorous, hair-raising sound reminded me of the Theyrune horn back home, which summoned Skrathan to battle.

And what a battle this was. The golenae were as numerous as ants spilling from an ant hill; the scale of the assault was incredible.

It was like seeing the fall of Issastar all over again.

Though they were my enemies, my heart ached for everyone suffering down there, everyone fighting against terrible creatures that must have seemed to come from nowhere.

They were all in terrible danger, but there was only one of them I’d come to save.

Charlie?

I probed for him using the simnal, opening my mind as much as I could.

No response came back. I shut my eyes and tried harder, not just opening myself but straining towards Charlie, groping for his presence.

I felt Othura with me, too, using her considerable dragon simnal to search and receive. But she, too, came up empty.

Head for those fires , I told her, but she was already banking that way.

We descended, dodging among winged golenae, jogging away from a knot of soldiers and their thundering guns.

Several buildings were burning, but Othura made for one in particular, a low, beige structure near the runways that was completely engulfed in flames.

It was the building my dragon intuition drew me to as well.

I unsheathed my sword, and the instant Othura’s talons touched the ground, I was sliding down her wing, then sprinting toward the building.

A wave of heat stopped me in my tracks, its intensity so powerful that it struck me like a fist.

No. Gods, no.

If Charlie was in there…

Move! Othura told me, and I turned to find her drawing a massive breath.

I jumped aside just as she released a blast of wind so powerful it shivered the entire building.

The flames nearest us wisped out, leaving nothing but charred beams. Othura leapt forward, drew another breath, stuck her head through the burned-out wall of the building, and blew.

More flames snuffed out. She continued that way, advancing through the structure, until nearly all the flames were extinguished.

The last remaining area was a rear corner of the building.

There, flames still licked and gyrated, and I saw, in their midst, a door made of steel bars.

The walls around it had burned away, leaving the door alone like some strange, surreal monolith.

I couldn’t see what lay beyond it; the flames and smoke were too much.

Still, my heart stuttered in my chest as I strode up beside Othura.

She took one more great breath and exhaled.

The whirlwind she breathed blasted the fire to nothing, whisked away the smoke, sent up a swirling plume of ember and ash.

I strode through it, past the bars, into the burned-out room.

There, at its center, lay Charlie.

Given the state of the building around him, he should have been burned to ash. Instead, he was intact, and hope bloomed in my belly as I rushed to him, dropping my sword and kneeling beside him.

The skin on his face and the back of his hands looked red, as if he’d fallen asleep on a beach and gotten sunburned. As if he were merely napping and not—not?—

I couldn’t even think the word.

“Charlie…?”

Right away, I saw how he was intact. His hand still clutched his dragon stone. It was well known that the stone of a fire-breathing dragon could protect its rider from fire. My heart leaped at the realization and I leaned in, brushing his hair from his forehead.

“Charlie?” I whispered.

But even amidst all this lingering heat, his forehead was cold.

No.

“Charlie!” I said louder. I took his shoulder, giving him a gentle shake, then a harder one. “Charlie!”

No response. No movement. No breath.

Essa , Othura’s voice came gently in my mind.

I ignored her, leaning in to Charlie, my ear against his lips, my eyes on his chest. No breath. No movement.

No.

I pressed my mouth to his cold lips, breathed into him. Once, twice, three times.

His lips tasted of woodsmoke. They were cold. Lifeless. I pulled back and watched him. Nothing. Nothing.

Essa, Othura nuzzled me with her nose.

“Get off me!” I screamed, shoving her away.

He’s gone, Dear Heart.

“No!” I snarled.

Charlie’s words came back to me. I’ll die for you, if I have to. Would that be enough?

I shook my head, buried my face in my hand.

“Well,” a voice behind me said.

Alarm prickled through me. There was danger in that voice. In a blink, I was on my feet, sword in hand.

A man in a black suit approached me. Five other identically dressed men followed in his wake, along with someone I recognized, a pretty woman with short blonde hair.

Kitty.

Seven or eight armed soldiers came behind them, making a semicircle around us. Othura crouched, a low, warning growl in her throat.

“Well,” the man in the front said again, his eyes moving between me and Charlie. “It appears the mighty ace has fallen at last. And just when the battle was getting interesting.”

Careful, Othura said in my mind. He’s a blooddrinker. All the ones in suits are.

But careful wasn’t something I was remotely interested in being. Rage and grief welled up in me like a geyser, and there was nothing I would have loved more than to take those feelings out on someone. But the blooddrinker—vampyre—as we humans called them—didn’t come any closer.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

“Langford, of the Special Intelligence Bureau,” he said, showing me a badge.

“Are you responsible for this?” I demanded, pointing to Charlie.

The man’s expression didn’t change. “The Lords of the Void control all things. All of us are merely their puppets. Even you.”

“I’m no one’s puppet,” I spat. “And Charlie was?—”

Was. I’d said the word was . My throat closed up; I could say no more.

“The Lords of the Void wish to congratulate you,” the blooddrinker went on.

“You accomplished what you came here for. You came to kill Charlie Inman. He’s dead.

They say it is a great accomplishment. It shows resolve far beyond what anyone thought you were capable of. It shows you will be a great queen.”

I’ll send you to the void, I wanted to shout. I’ll send you to the lowest pit where the screams of the Thousand Terrors will echo in your ears for eternity. But my mouth would not move. My face seemed frozen, along with my heart, my mind, my soul.

“Now go. The Lords of the Void bid you return to Maethalia,” the vampyre said. “You’re free to go. Your people need you.”

He was right, my people did need me. I knew it. I should take this mercy and run. But how could I go? My eyes drifted back to Charlie. He couldn’t be gone, couldn’t be dead. Our story couldn’t end this way. It was impossible.

And yet… a dragon stone might protect a rider from flames, but it did not give life to a person with no breath, nor quicken one whose heart no longer beat. It could not bring a person back to life. And no living person could be as cold and still as this…

I approached Charlie, my boots whispering through the ash, and knelt again.

This would be the time to cry. That’s what a normal girl would have done, a girl who wasn’t completely broken.

But my eyes felt as dry and hot as the embers raining down around us.

My face, as frozen and still as Charlie’s—Gods, that handsome, beautiful face…

He's not dead, I thought again. He can’t be.

But he was. There was no denying the truth that lay right in front of me. He was dead. And I’d let him die.

From what seemed a million miles away came sounds. Shouts. Monstrous shrieks. The boom of a cannon. The tat-tat-tat of gunfire—coming closer.

Essa, we have to go. Othura said in my mind. There’s nothing more we can do here…

But there was something. There was one last thing. I could say the words I’d should have spoken to Charlie a thousand times. The truth I’d been afraid to admit these past few days, even to myself. I owed him that, at least. So, I bent slowly and placed my lips to his cold forehead.

“I love you, Charlie,” I said.

Some little girl part of me believed for half an instant that the words would work magick—that, as in a fairy tale, my confession, my kiss, would bring him back. That he’d stir. That his deep blue eyes would flutter open. That he’d give me a crooked grin and make some wisecrack.

Took you long enough, Princess.

But as I pulled back to look at him once more, the only movement was the ash, blown by the wind. Brushing his cheeks. Catching in his eyelashes. It scattered across his face, as if eager for him to be buried already.

“The wind is ours,” I whispered. But how different the meaning of those words felt now.

We had the wind, and that was all. Something that came and kissed you and was gone.

We had the wind, and it had brought us together like two floating embers, then whisked us apart again, with no reason, no hope, no meaning.

We had the wind, a summer breeze that slipped through your fingers even as you tried to catch hold of it.

That turned cold when winter came and chilled you to the bone.

We had the wind. We had nothing.

I should cry. Sob. Scream.

But that part of me was dead now.

Essa the girl in love was dead. Now there was only Essa the ruthless. Essa the Irska. Essa the queen.

I felt only emptiness, a hollow so vast it could swallow the seas and mountains and stars—everything.

I wished I could cry, could let this pain screaming inside me out. But I couldn’t, even as I felt it building from a breeze into a whirlwind.

My fingers wrapped around the grip of my sword, and I slowly rose and turned back to the vampyres and soldiers arrayed around me.

Something, maybe the expression on my face, made most of them step back, brandishing their weapons.

Only the one called Langford stood his ground, and Kitty, who watched the scene with a stricken, frozen expression.

Essa, Othura prompted again, and I felt her nudge me with her snout. To my left, I saw a half-dozen golenae rampaging toward us, along with a score of infantrymen. She nudged me again, harder.

Then I was moving, planting a foot on Othura’s knee, boosting myself onto her back and into the saddle. I felt utterly empty as she spread her wings, pumped them, and took flight…

…As the sounds of mayhem and death diminished below, as I left my lover behind, as I left behind the girl I was for the woman I was destined to be, as we passed from the land of automobiles and street cars and jazz music into a gauzy veil of cloud. Gods, I felt numb as a ghost, numb as a phantom.

Numb as a silver wraith.

Othura aimed us for Maethalia. I clutched onto her, the cold wind stinging my eyes, my heart dead in my chest. Oh, Charlie. But I did not turn back. I didn’t so much as look over my shoulder. No queen could afford the luxury of a backward glance. Or feelings. Or love. I should have known better.

Instead, I kept my eyes upon the horizon as Mother and Auntie Dreya had always taught me. I flew on until pallid dawn burned upon the edges of the east. And I left Charlie behind.