P. C. Cast - Dragon's Oath

Four of the six fledglings who were finishing their turn at kitchen duty hesitated at their work. Camellia looked at Anna, Anya, and Beatrice and said:

“ I am too smart

to believe Dragon would ever give me his heart.”

Anna gasped and dropped the porcelain cup she was holding. It shattered into the stunned silence.

“I would believe I found love in his bed,

but he would use and discard me instead.”

Then Anya spoke, bending to help Anna clean up the shattered cup:

“His sword is his life;

I care not for such strife.”

Next, Beatrice’s face lost all of its color as she whispered:

“A human consort is my fate.

With a vampyre I will never find my true mate.”

In the sumptuous living quarters of the Tower Grove House of Night’s High Priestess, Pandeia was welcoming her mate into their bed when Diana’s beautiful face registered surprise and she said:

“The Lankford fledgling’s fate will be

beyond what you or I could possibly see.”

“Diana? Are you well?” Pandeia touched her mate’s cheek and looked deep within her eyes.

Diana shook her head like a cat ridding itself of water. “I am. I–that was odd. Those words were not mine.”

“What were you thinking of before you spoke?”

She shrugged. “I suppose I was wondering if all the Warriors had returned from the games yet, and was thinking that Dragon has done our House proud.”

The High Priestess nodded, suddenly understanding. “It is Anastasia’s spell. It has drawn the truth about Dragon to those who were thinking of him at its casting.”

Diana snorted. “I am hardly a besotted fledgling.”

Pandeia smiled. “Of course you are not, my love. This demonstrates the strength of young Anastasia’s spell. We can rest assured there will be no obsessed fledglings trailing about after him tomorrow.”

“I almost feel sorry for the boy.”

“Do not. If any of the fledglings were meant to love him, a splash of reality wouldn’t wash true love away. And anyway, what was revealed to you shows that Dragon does, indeed, have a bright future.”

Diana returned her mate’s embrace, saying, “Or, at the very least, he’ll have an interesting one.”

At the Chicago House of Night, where the Vampyre Games had recently concluded, Aurora, a beautiful young vampyre, paused mid-word in the letter she was composing to the fledgling who had warmed her bed and her heart after he had defeated every swordsman who came against him. Dragon Lankford had claimed the title of Sword Master, along with Aurora’s affection. Yet now she found herself putting aside her quill and lifting the thin paper sheet to touch the flame of the closest candle to her as she realized the truthfulness of the words that flitted through her mind whispering:

It was but a fling.

Another vampyre will truly make my heart sing .

What had she been thinking? Dragon had been a lovely diversion and no more.

And, finally, inside the forbidding brick building that served as jailhouse for St. Louis, Missouri, the whispers on the wind drifted down … down … down … to the bowels of the place and the hidden room in which Sherriff Jesse Biddle paced back and forth in front of the creature he held his captive in a cage of silver. He didn’t actually talk to it so much as talk at it. “I have to learn how to use more of your power. I need to be able to stand against the vampyres. They’re too blatant. It’s like they think they’re normal—that they have a right to be here!” he shouted. “I hate ’em. I hate ’em all! Especially that snot-nosed brat of a fledgling. You shoulda seen him get off the boat tonight. All big chested with his victory. Do you know what he calls himself? Dragon Lankford! He ain’t no dragon. He’s the same little bastard who’s been struttin’ round here for three years with that bright, shiny sword actin’ like he’s better then everyone—every human. What an arrogant little son-of-a—”

The keening from the creature was eerie. It made Biddle’s skin crawl.

“Shut up or I’ll throw some of that salt water on you again. That’ll burn you up good like the proper chicken you are!”

Eyes that looked disturbingly human in the face of the enormous raven met his. Though the creature was only semi-substantial, its eyes glowed a strong, steady red.

“Through your obsesssssion with Dragon Lankford hissss future I ssssee.

He will change hisssstory.”

Biddle looked at the thing with disgust. “Why would I care about that?”

“His love issss the key

to defeat the likessss of you and me.”

“What are you talking ’bout, foul beast?”

“If Dragon is allowed to burn bright

he will extinguish the Dark light.”

That caused Biddle to pause. He’d trapped this semi-substantial manbeast as it absorbed the last bits of strength from a dying Indian Shaman. The old redskin had managed to throw this strange cage of silver around the creature, but the Shaman had been too weak—too near death—to recover from the creature’s attack when Biddle had happened by the old man’s shack. The old man’s last words had been: “Burn sweetgrass to ward it off. Weight the cage with turquoise stones. Throw it in a barrel of salt water so that it can never take another’s power…”

Biddle had quickly decided he’d be damned if he’d waste his time following an old, dead Injun’s orders. He started to go, leaving the body and the thing in the cage for the next passerby to clean up.

Then the creature had turned its red eyes on him.

Human eyes.

Almost as repulsed as he was fascinated, Biddle had moved closer to try to see exactly what the thing was.

It was then that Biddle saw them. The moving darkness within the shadows surrounding the thing.

He’d come closer to the cage.

It was then that Biddle felt it. The power that slithered from the creature, through the cage, and along the floor to the dead man, and there it paused and hovered and then descended into the blood that had pooled on the ground around his mouth.

Something about that wriggling, shadowy darkness had goaded Biddle to move, to get closer, to touch. Acting on an impulse from the basest part of his mind, Biddle stepped between the cage and the dead man, wading into the strands of darkness.

Remembering, Sherriff Biddle closed his eyes in ecstasy. The pain had been cold and sharp and immediate, but so had been the power and pleasure that had swelled though him as some of the darkness had been absorbed through his skin and into his soul.

Biddle hadn’t destroyed the creature.

He’d kept it trapped and fed it blood, but only occasionally. Because what if by feeding the thing got stronger—just like Biddle did. What if it managed to break through the cage of silver?

And now Biddle stared at the semi-formed creature of shadow and tried to convince himself he was not held as captive as his prey.

Then the thing, moving restlessly, spoke in a strange singsong with more animation than it had shown in the fortnight he’d had it, repeating:

“Hear the truth this night:

If Dragon is allowed to burn bright

he will extinguish the Dark light.”

Biddle moved closer to the cage. “The Dark light. You mean the stuff you’re made of—the stuff that surrounds you.” The stuff I can sometimes siphon from you, he thought but didn’t say.

The creature’s red gaze met his, and Biddle knew it hadn’t mattered whether he’d said it aloud. The thing knew.