Eileen Wilks - Blood Magic

Grandmother snorted again. “In this, Cullen Seabourne is right. I had a great deal of power. I was good with fire. But I did not see power, so when I called black fire down on my enemy, I could not see what I wrought. I killed the sorcerer.” No matter what she’d said about vengeance and a dark heart, after three centuries her voice still rang with satisfaction when she said that. “But I could not control the fire. It burned . . . too much. I called it back to me, but I knew . . . The black fire feeds on what it burns, you see, and so more power returned to me than I had spent. I burned. I was neither alive nor dead when Sam came to me, but with a foot in both. He sang . . .” Her voice drifted off into memory and wonder.

Softly Lily said, “Dragonsong. I remember it so well.”

“Yes. And you have heard Sam sing one of the Great Songs, I think, when he returned you and his people from Dis. You understand when I say it is worth dying to hear such song.” Her grin flashed, as sudden and unexpected as a rainbow. “Even better if one does not die.”

Lily surprised herself by laughing. “It is, isn’t it?”

“And now, if you have exhausted your curiosity—”

“Not quite. Grandmother . . .” It was harder than she’d expected to speak of this. “The Chimei said she was the last of her kind. Sam said there were other Chimei who might descend on Earth if the treaty were broken and overwhelm us.” Someone had lied. Lily wanted it to be the Chimei, but she couldn’t quite convince herself of it.

Grandmother said nothing for a long moment, then repeated what she’d said before. “Dragons do not constrain, but they manipulate.”

“In other words, he lied.”

“No. Sam did not know if other Chimei still lived outside their realm. It was possible she was the last, but until her death freed all dragons, he did not know.”

“And the Chimei who live in their home realm? The Surrendered, she called them.”

“When Chimei return to their realm, they are altered. They surrender immortality and no longer feed on the fear of others.”

“There was never much chance of a horde of Chimei turning our world into their feeding ground, was there?”

Grandmother shrugged. “The greater threat was that she would breed, but there was a chance of other Chimei coming here. It was not great, but with such consequences, do you wait until the odds are bad to throw the dice?”

Lily drummed her fingers on the table. “I am not a pair of dice, and I don’t like being treated like one.”

“Who would?” Grandmother’s voice held sympathy, but no apology. “And now, if you are out of questions—”

“Not quite. I still don’t know when you gained the trick of turning tiger. And about that lineage you spoke of—”

“Do not interrupt,” Grandmother said sternly. “I will not speak of that today. Do you wish for some advice?”

“Not particularly.”

Sternness melted into a chuckle. “Who would?” she said again. “Unsought advice is useless. Indulge me anyway. Living is very serious, very real. It is also always a game. If we are wise, it is very real, very terrible, and very lovely, and a good deal of fun.” She patted Lily’s hand once more—and rose. “I have changed my mind. I am not staying for lunch.”

Automatically Lily stood, too. “But . . .”

“I am not so fond of shopping, and you and your mother need time with only the two of you. You do not argue, but you wish to,” she observed. “Be kind to your mother, Lily. She does not know what we know, and her life is not always easy.” Humor lit those bright, dark eyes. “I am a remarkable person, but I am a very bad mother-in-law.”

Lily sat, dazed and vastly amused, as her grandmother made her exit. After a few moments, curious, she sipped from Grandmother’s tea. It was cold, but otherwise tasted fine.

“You are drinking both coffee and tea?” her mother asked from right beside her.

Lily jumped. “You startled me. I was, uh, thinking. The tea was Grandmother’s, but she had to leave. She wanted me to offer her apologies.” She hadn’t exactly said so, but her actions were an apology of sorts. Maybe.

Julia Yu sighed. She was a tall, slender, beautifully dressed woman with lovely eyes and a receding chin. On her, the lack of chin was somehow a feminine touch. “Your grandmother is a very odd woman sometimes. Don’t tell her I said that,” she added, seating herself.

“Of course not.”

“We have a great deal to discuss,” her mother said with satisfaction. “I brought a notebook so we will not lose track of our ideas. Have you ordered?”

“I was waiting for you. Mother . . .”

“Here.” Julia pulled a full-size spiral notebook out of her very large purse and slid it across to Lily, along with a pen. “You take notes. I’ve lost my reading glasses again, I’m afraid.”

They were probably right there in her purse, but her mother hated being seen wearing them. “Okay. Mother, I want to thank you. I’ve been difficult, I know, but I . . . You didn’t approve of my relationship with Rule at first, but you changed your mind. You’re throwing yourself into arranging our wedding. I want to thank you for that.”

“I still do not approve of you and Rule Turner. He is a good man, I suppose, but a poor choice for you. He isn’t even Chinese.”

Lily jerked as if she’d been slapped. “But—”

“Lily.” Her mother looked fond, but impatient. Pretty much the expression she’d worn when Lily was five and spilled her milk twice in a row. “I don’t have to agree with your choices to support you.”

“Oh. Then the wedding . . . You’re doing that to support me, even if you don’t agree with my choice of husband?”

“Really, Lily, what do you think a wedding is for?”

Since that was the question she’d been asking herself—and a few others—she was briefly speechless. “Tell me what you think marriage is for. No, really. I want to know.” Her parents had a good marriage. Lily didn’t understand it, but they truly did. “For raising children?” she hazarded.

“That’s important, of course, but women have raised children without marriage for thousands of years. Marriage,” she said firmly, “and especially the ceremony which announces it, the wedding . . . That is how we say to the world, ‘These two are now a family, and with this joining our families are joined, too. And you had damned well better respect that.’”

“You . . . That . . . You never say damn .” Warmth flowed over Lily. Yes. Yes, that was exactly why she was marrying Rule. All of the other reasons were true, too, but this was why the mate bond and living together weren’t the same as marriage. “Thank you, Mother,” she said, reaching across to squeeze her mother’s hand. “That makes perfect sense.”

Julia Yu looked surprised and gratified. “You haven’t said that to me often,” she observed dryly. “Now, in your situation . . . Ah, Sandra.” Julia Yu looked up at the server who’d just arrived, smiling. “Lily will have the orange chicken. I believe I want the moo shoo pork today.”

Lily opened her mouth to tell her mother not to order for her . . . and closed it again. Why fuss? She really did like the orange chicken.

“In your case,” Julia went on after the server departed, “with your marriage being so—so potentially controversial, it is extremely important that we put a good face on the ceremony. Everyone must see that your family is behind you completely in this marriage.”

Even if they weren’t, not completely. But for the first time, Lily saw that this mattered to her mother. What it meant to her.

Love. It was all about Julia Yu’s love and concern for her daughter—maybe not arriving in the form Lily kept looking for. And maybe it arrived with some overly controlling strings attached, too. But love just the same.