Page 39 of The Magic of Pemberley (Fitzwilliam Darcy, Mage #2)

In the morning, Darcy emerged from the cottage, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep while at the same time floating on a cloud of joy. Little Jenny was in Elizabeth’s arms, both sleeping peacefully.

He almost stumbled across Roderick, who rose from a stool by the tent outside. “Good to see you back, Darcy. How are they doing?” He tipped his head towards the cottage.

Darcy beamed. “Both are well. And my deepest thanks, both for sending word to the Nest that I was needed here, and for getting my horse out to meet me.”

The Welshman laughed. “Easily done. Dragons do not understand why we make such a fuss about childbirth. When it is their time, they simply lay their eggs and then go on with their day.” He seemed more light-hearted than Darcy remembered. “I am glad you made it in time.”

“No one could be happier than I about that,” Darcy said fervently.

“Rowan heard from Cerridwen that you plan to do the land bonding, and I wondered if you would like any assistance with the preparations,” Roderick said. “I know the ritual, at least as we perform it in Wales.”

A year ago Darcy would have refused, but he had learned hard lessons since then. “I would be glad of it. My right hand is still not strong, which will make it a challenge to dig. ”

Roderick nodded. “So I have heard. Dragons are terrible gossips, you know.” There was something about the off-hand way he said it that raised an inkling of suspicion in Darcy.

“You and Rowan…” he prompted.

He grinned. “Yes, we bonded while you were gone. I hope you do not mind that your house is overrun with dragon companions. Soon enough I will be returning to Wales, though, once the Nest here can spare Rowan.” A fleeting shadow crossed his face.

“Congratulations,” Darcy said, and to his surprise, he meant it.

“He says you took on a lesser bond, too. An interesting experience, is it not?”

Darcy stiffened. In the chaos of childbirth and the aftermath, he had forgotten completely about the potion he was supposed to drink each day. “Excuse me a moment.” He tiptoed back into the cottage, hardly daring to breathe lest he wake Elizabeth and Jenny, and fetched his worn satchel.

Once outside, he plucked out a vial and downed the contents. The sweet taste, redolent of wildflowers and slightly spicy, warmed him deep inside. Suddenly it felt as if the great red healer dragon was standing beside him, beaming down at him with pride. He let out a long breath as a feeling of peace grew within him.

Roderick stared at him in shock. “What is that? I can feel the power of it from here.”

“The dragon I bonded to made it for me. I am supposed to drink it every day for a fortnight.”

The Welshman frowned. “I have never heard of such a thing for the lesser bond. Well, no doubt they do many things differently in France. If it brought you home, that is the most important thing.”

The tincture had cleared Darcy’s thoughts, too. “The Nest here seems to have had a sudden change of heart about taking companions.”

Roderick glanced to each side, as if making certain they were not overheard, and then he said in a low voice, “It is because of what has happened. If a Nest is attacked, a dragon with a companion can escape and find a new Nest. Suddenly it is a great advantage to bond to a mortal. ”

Darcy nodded slowly. It fit with what Coquelicot had said, about the young dragons in the French Nest trying to take on companions quickly.

They were all preparing for war, humans and dragons alike.

Darcy chose a spot in the center of the oak grove. His own afterbirth had been buried near the house, like his father’s before him, but it seemed correct to do the rites here, in the heart of Pemberley. It would be easier for Elizabeth, too.

With Roderick behind him, Darcy placed the spade in the ground, right in the center of the oak grove, and began to dig. The shovel slid in easily as the land cooperated with him, opening itself and separating out the roots to make way for his spade. He sank into his knowledge of the earth, sensing the earthworms and the insects, the burrowing dormice preparing for winter, the squirrels with their nests almost full of nuts. The powerful roots of the majestic oaks supported it all.

How he had missed this connection when he was in France!

To think that a year ago he had also been without his land Talent at Netherfield, preparing to wed Elizabeth! How different his life was now – yet the world beneath the surface was unchanged, full of the cycle of life. Birth, death, and rebirth in the spring.

After the first two shovelfuls, he surrendered the spade to Roderick, who made short work of the rest.

Then Darcy returned to the cottage, where Elizabeth was now sitting in a rocking chair nursing little Jenny – and three dragon nestlings clustered around her. Little ones, the largest the size of a roe deer, but they were all bigger than the puppy-sized hatchlings he had helped through the Gate in the Vosges Nest. Together they crowded the small room.

“What is this?” Darcy asked .

Elizabeth turned a rueful gaze on him. “Apparently little Jenny is going to have a dragon brother or sister, at least for a time. The Eldest insists, because of her exposure to dragon magic.”

“Are not all children of dragon companions exposed to it?”

She smiled, then looked down at their baby with a bewitchingly adoring expression. “She more than most. She was part of me when I made the blood bond to Pemberley with Cerridwen, when I took my final vows, and when I came through the Gate. Add in Rana Akshaya’s healing, and that is a great deal of dragon magic for a very tiny mortal baby.”

His stomach churned. “Do they think it may have hurt her?”

She shook her head. “More that it might cause her Talent to be unpredictable, or even to erupt very early. Hence the desire to have a dragon watching her, for her own safety.”

He frowned. “No. I will not agree to a blood bond.” Jenny was far too tiny, and he would not permit even the slightest danger to touch her.

“As I understand it, the bond would be only on the nestling’s side. That is why they are trying to decide who is best suited for her.”

“I thought a dragon cannot be away from the Nest without a companion.”

The largest of the nestlings looked up. “That is only for grown dragons. We are young enough to go anywhere.” He said it as if it were obvious, and Darcy a poor pupil not to have known it.

Yet another dragon in his household, which was apparently quite full of them at present. Cerridwen in Elizabeth’s bedroom, Rana Akshaya in the state parlor, Frederica’s dragon in the ballroom, Rowan somewhere with Roderick, and now another for the nursery.

But he no longer doubted their motives, and if it helped keep Jenny safe, that was all that mattered.

The baby seemed to be done with nursing. Elizabeth lifted her to her shoulder and tentatively patted her back.

“Mine.” It was the mid-sized dragon, the one no larger than a fawn. “She is mine, I think. I can feel her.” He sounded awed. Or was it a she? If there was a way to tell with a dragon too young to have developed the head crest that marked the adult males, he had not learned it. Darcy almost envied the creature; how he would love to be able to feel his daughter’s presence! Perhaps this would turn out to be a good thing.

Darcy aimed a bow at the nestling. “May I have the honor of knowing your name?”

The tiny dragon did not take his eyes from Jenny, watching her as if she were the most fascinating thing in the universe, a sentiment with which Darcy wholly concurred. “I am Agate.”

“You are welcome to our home, Agate.” Darcy turned to Elizabeth and added, “I am about to complete Jenny’s land bond. Do you wish to join me, since you have your own bond to Pemberley? But only if you feel able to walk that far, of course.”

“I would not miss it, and I am eager to get my legs under me after all this time in bed,” she said firmly. She stood up, handing the baby to Chandrika, and then winced at her first step.

Alarmed, Darcy said, “Perhaps you should stay here, if it hurts you.”

She gave an amused, if weary, laugh, music to his ears. “It is normal to have pain after pushing a baby out, even a very small one! But walking will help me heal.” That was his Elizabeth, always ready to press onward.

Now he was particularly glad that he had chosen a nearby spot for the ritual.

He collected the package Mrs. Sanford had prepared for him. His half-sister, another new beginning.

A different dragon was waiting outside the cottage, an unfamiliar one, with wings glinting in blue and bronze like Cerridwen’s. Darcy stopped abruptly and stared. It was Cerridwen, doubled in size, if not more. No longer the size of a small stag, but an imposing figure larger than a stallion. He had not seen her in dragon form since before he had gone to France, but still, that was an astonishing rate of growth.

Cerridwen said nothing, only lowered her head in acknowledgement of the importance of the ceremony about to take place, but under his feet, her familiar dragon power swirled through the earth .

Darcy nodded back and led Elizabeth into the grove. There he gently laid the wool-wrapped afterbirth in the prepared hole. Letting his power sink deeply into the land, he covered it with the earth of Pemberley. At last all the soil he and Roderick had removed was back in place, heaped up slightly over the surrounding ground.

Darcy caught Elizabeth’s gaze and held it. Then he spoke the ancient phrases his father had taught him, letting the ritual words roll off his tongue in each of the ancient languages the land had known, Celtic, Latin, Saxon, Norman French, and finally English. “Let my daughter, the flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, become part of the land which gives us life. Let the earth be one with her, that both may gain strength through their bond.”

A capricious breeze blew through the grove, lifting the curls by Elizabeth’s face as she echoed the ritual language. Somehow he had not expected that, but of course her father must have taught her as well. Now they were joining together their two bloodlines in one land bond, echoing the love that brought them together and had given them little Jenny.

As she finished, Darcy stepped forward to the pile of soil and leaves, a small knife in his hand. This was the one piece of blood magic that he had always been taught was good and right. He set the sharp knife to the inside of his elbow and twisted it.

It took two tries before his blood flowed into the earth, pooling briefly until he spoke the final words. “It is done.”

“It is done,” Elizabeth repeated.

And the land answered, too, with a rush of power and life rising up into him, a gift of acceptance and acknowledgement. From the stunned look on Elizabeth’s face, she must be feeling it, too.

His blood sank and disappeared. Then, unexpectedly, something green began to emerge from the same spot, a tiny seedling among the fallen autumn leaves. First just tendrils, then leaves, and finally a bud, growing before his very eyes. It opened into a scarlet poppy – a miniature one, only a few inches tall.

Elizabeth said shakily, “My father never mentioned this part. ”

“Nor mine,” said Darcy, his mouth dry. “And he would have told me.” Was it an omen? An illusion? Or something else entirely? He crouched down and brushed it cautiously with one fingertip. The leaves moved and bounced back against his touch. Apart from its size and being out of season, it was just an ordinary flower.

One that felt welcoming – and celebratory. The land seemed content with it, too.

Once he would have paid no attention to such unscientific notions, but he had learned better, and he was willing to hope. “I think it is a good sign. Perhaps the land recognizes all the magic that has gone into our Jenny.”

Elizabeth tilted her head. “Have you given blood to Pemberley before?”

“Not unless you count when my afterbirth was buried.” Darcy could not take his eyes off the bright flower.

“Before your bond to Georgiana and your lesser bond to the dragon in France, then,” she said thoughtfully.

“And before our connection.”

Then Cerridwen’s voice came from behind them, but something was different about it. Not her usual flute-like tones, but something sonorous and ringing that raised the hairs on the back of Darcy’s neck. “Just as your land has become a beacon of safety to many races, your child joins the blood of humans, royal fae, and dragons. She will become a bridge between the great powers, between the past and the future, between the mortal world and Faerie, supported by the redoubled power of Pemberley.” Her words echoed off the ancient oaks surrounding them.

Darcy turned to stare at her. The dragon stood at the edge of the grove as if frozen there. Then, as if something had awoken her, she shook out her wings and stretched. In her usual voice, she said, “How odd that was! Do you think it was a prophecy? They said that might happen to me.”

A prophecy. As soon as she said the word, Darcy knew deep in his bones that it was the truth. There were a few prophecies mentioned in the old dragon tales, always of deep significance. Now there was one about his daughter. A chill ran down his spine .

Elizabeth, though, seemed delighted, excitement sparkling through her fatigue. “You said she would be a bridge between the past and the future – and that means there will be a future, not merely a disaster!”

Cerridwen cocked her head. “Do you know, I think you may be right!”

Darcy said slowly, “You mentioned the redoubled magic of Pemberley. Since my return, I have felt that the land is stronger than it was before.”

The dragon’s chest rippled with amusement, and she made a sound that was a deeper version of her old kestrel’s kee-kee-kee. “Of course it is. Pemberley has always had powerful magic because of the Dragon Stones. When I gave it my blood to help Elizabeth bond to the land, it became something even greater. The lesser fae have added uncanny magic of their own, and the presence of so many dragons has an effect, too.”

Pemberley was his rock, the firm foundation he had always stood on. How could it have been altered? He himself had been transformed, both from marrying Elizabeth and his experiences in France, but at some deep level he wanted Pemberley to always be the same. But of course the land changed all the time, from season to season, with new crops or grazing animals, with cold snaps and storms. It had provided a home for ancient tribes as well as modern civilization, taking in new generations of Darcy heirs every few decades. The roots of Pemberley were solid, and they could adapt to a new age of magic, too.

Elizabeth nodded slowly, as if this explained something she had wondered about. “And your prophecy. What could it mean?”

Cerridwen sat back on her haunches. “It is a very odd feeling to have said something I do not understand,” she said plaintively. “But there it is.”

Just then the little nestling from the cottage waddled into the clearing. “Chandrika asked me to tell you Jenny needs to feed again.”

Elizabeth smiled down at him. “I see you will be a helpful member of our household.”

Agate seemed to swell with pride. “I will do what I can.”

She gave Darcy a ruefully amused look. “And I have a task that cannot wait, despite prophecies, miraculous flowers, and magic redoubled. Our little Jenny may change the world someday, but for now she is a hungry baby who needs her mother.” She held out her hand to Darcy. “Will you come with me, my love?”

He took it with alacrity and raised it to his lips. Whatever the future might bring, he would meet it with his beloved Elizabeth beside him.