Twiceborn (21 page)

She was supermodel good-looking and made the most of it in a clingy black dress slit up the side to show off shapely tanned legs. Long hair foamed over her shoulders in a dark cloud. Her aura blazed red, far brighter than Jason’s had been. This must be Alicia, dragon queen-in-waiting. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, and I hated her on sight.

She paused inside the door and surveyed the room, one hip tipped forward, leg jutting out the slit in her dress.
How to Make an Entrance 101:
be sure to stand in a way that shows off your assets.
Check
.

Were all dragons this full of themselves? She and Jason would make a pretty pair—though there might be a fight for the mirror.

When I finally dragged my gaze up as far as her face, I found something strange lurking in her expression. Nerves? A touch of fear, even?

She stared at Luce. From the intensity of her expression she probably hadn’t even noticed Ben and I were in the room.

“Is everything prepared?” The question was clearly directed at someone else, but she didn’t take her eyes off Luce. The man with the tray stepped forward.

“Ready when you are, my lady,” Adam said, coming to his side. I wondered about Adam’s job description. Butler? Bouncer? Bed toy?

Alicia glided further into the room and took the knife from the tray. The blade was only short, but it looked sharp. Strange symbols were carved into the hilt, but I only caught a glimpse as Alicia’s long fingers closed around it.

“Come, Lucinda,” she said.

Luce stepped forward, her body relaxed now, despite her earlier doubts. She’d made her decision.

A fierce protectiveness welled up inside me. She looked so small standing in front of the willowy Alicia. I knew she was stubborn and strong-willed, but even for her this was a drastic step. I hoped she knew what she was doing.

Alicia drew the blade across her own forearm. For a moment it seemed nothing had happened and the room held its breath. Then blood began to well from the cut, and Adam caught the drops in the ugly little bowl.

It looked like some blind potter’s first attempt, and I wondered why the elegant Alicia suffered such a deformed piece in her house, until it began to glow softly. Right. It must have some magical significance.

“My blood for you,” said Alicia.

No one moved as Adam set the bowl back on the tray and picked up the cloth. The sound of tearing was loud in the silence as he ripped it in two and used one piece to bind Alicia’s arm.

With her blood still coating the knife Alicia took Luce’s hand and sliced a deep cut across Luce’s arm in the same place.

“My blood for you.” Luce’s voice was calm and strong as she watched her blood drip into the bowl to join Alicia’s. The glow about the bowl intensified.

Adam bound her arm with the other half of the cloth then offered the bowl to Alicia, who raised it to her lips and drank.

Eww
. Gross. Luce drank next, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, leaving a smear of blood across her face. Nobody else moved, eyes locked on the two in the centre of the circle.

Alicia watched Luce, hunger in her eyes. The glowing bowl lit their faces from below, casting weird shadows. The atmosphere was so tense you could have heard a pin drop. What were they all waiting for?

Then the light from the bowl died and Luce’s blue aura shivered and flashed bright red, the exact colour of Alicia’s. I drew in a shocked breath and Alicia glanced my way, as if noticing me for the first time. A millisecond later Luce’s aura shone its usual soft blue hue. I would have thought I’d imagined that flash of red except for the smug smile now plastered on Alicia’s face. Clearly she’d been waiting for it.

She sank into an overstuffed armchair and crossed her fabulous long legs as the leshy with the tray disappeared. The bodyguards took up positions on either side of her chair as she inspected each of us in turn, settling on Luce with a sneer that still held more than a trace of smugness.

“The famous Lucinda Chan,” she said. “My sister’s vaunted security chief. Perhaps I was lucky after all, that you resisted all my offers to tempt you away from Leandra’s entourage.
I
could have been the one killed on my own grounds.”

Luce’s jaw moved, as if she was clenching her teeth, but her voice remained calm. “That could still easily happen.”

The bodyguards moved as one, their hands reaching into their jackets for the guns holstered there.

“Are you threatening me?” Alicia asked, her tone amused. She waved one elegant hand and the bodyguards relaxed their ready stance. “You know you’re physically incapable of harming me now.”

“Not at all. Merely pointing out you’re in grave danger. Valeria has this property surrounded and cut off. We believe she means to burn you out.”

“She’s welcome to try. We’re completely bushfire-proof here.”

In the air-conditioned comfort of her house I couldn’t smell smoke any more. But that didn’t mean we were safe. The view out the window told me nothing. Floodlights showed fruit trees separated from the house by a wide expanse of grass, clipped short. A sensible precaution in a bushfire-prone area. There should be nothing the fire could latch on to close to the house. But beyond the lights loomed the bush: a dark, amorphous mass. No stars shone through the heavy cloud cover. Who knew what lurked out there?

“You may be bushfire-proof,” I said, “but are you dragon-proof?”

Alicia laughed, a mocking sound. “And you would be one of the supposed heralds?”

“There’s nothing supposed about it,” Ben said.

She eyed him as if he were a bug she’d like to step on. “Whoever heard of a herald delivering a verbal message? I’ll grant you the charms were real enough. Perhaps you stole them. I’m sure my mother will be thrilled to hear the whole story. She takes a rather dim view of people messing with her precious heralds.”

“That didn’t stop Valeria from kidnapping us,” I said.

She turned the bug-squishing look on me. “That’s a big hole you’re digging for yourself there, accusing a dragon of interfering with the heralds. Though I suppose it’s no more ridiculous than suggesting she would break the oldest taboo.”

Some of her leshies tittered dutifully, though Adam didn’t seem to share their amusement. His gaze kept straying to the window, a worried crease between his green eyebrows.

She directed a megawatt glare at Luce. “I don’t see what you hope to achieve by coming to me with this outrageous story.”

“Your ship is about to go down,” said Luce, “and you can’t even see the iceberg. Valeria is
winning
. Is that what you want?”

“According to your own story, my house is surrounded and cut off. What would you have me do?”

“Fight. The time for running and hiding is over. Valeria means to end it here, right now.”

Alicia tossed her hair over one magnificent shoulder. “Valeria is not the only one with plans. Don’t underestimate me, Lucinda.”

The door banged open. A leshy rushed in, bringing a whiff of smoke with him. “My lady, there’s fire sweeping up the north valley.”

Obviously this wasn’t the north side of the house—the view remained unchanged. But wait … those clouds hung awfully low over the trees.

Not clouds. Smoke.

“Start the pumps and get the men out with the hoses.” She stood up. “Everyone to your assigned positions.”

“Where do you want me?” Luce asked as the room emptied.

“Go with Adam. He’ll show you what to do.” She looked at Ben and me with calm indifference. “You can wait in the library. I’ve lived up here a long time. We’ve dealt with plenty of bushfires before. It’s quite the spectacle, but nothing to be afraid of.”

She waved a dismissal and we followed Luce and Adam out. Alicia acted as if she were offering us a treat—a ringside seat at a bushfire! Yeehaw. That was one spectacle I could have happily done without.

***

Most days, the library’s huge picture windows probably boasted a magnificent outlook across a valley carpeted in the dusty green of gum trees. Right now the view was lost in smoke and darkness. A great pall hung over the valley, lit from below by an ominous red glow.

“No sign of flames yet,” said Adam, watching his fellow leshies rush around outside. Someone had turned on a roof sprinkler system, which gave the bizarre impression of rain, as water trickled down the enormous pane of glass in front of us and droplets spattered the ground outside. A team of leshies stood ready with hoses and shovels, presumably to deal with any embers which flew in ahead of the fire front. Embers were usually the cause when a house went up, often landing on the roof out of sight and starting fires inside roof cavities.

I swallowed and inched closer to Ben. Despite Alicia’s confidence, Adam seemed uneasy. I was with him—this wasn’t something to treat so casually.

“We should get out there and help,” I said. I felt like a sitting duck behind that vast expanse of glass. “Don’t you have fire shutters for these windows?”

A huge white cloud of smoke billowed about halfway up the slope at the back of the house, ghostly pale against the night sky.

“The fire brigade has been summoned,” Adam said. “You’re much safer in here than out there, believe me.”

“The fire brigade won’t be coming.” Luce sounded as cool as ever. “I told you, the roads are blocked. Nothing will get through. If you’re relying on them you’re in big trouble.”

“We’re not relying on anybody. As Lady Alicia said, we’ve been through this before and we know what to do.” He gestured at the activity outside the window. “If the fire comes this way we will close the shutters, but in the meantime Lady Alicia would like you to observe.”

Outside one of the hose-wielding leshies went down in a tumble of long limbs. Probably not what Alicia had meant us to see. “What the—!”

Dark figures moved in the smoky tree line. Another leshy stumbled, hose spraying wildly as he clutched at his arm. Shouts of alarm filled the smoky air.

“We’re under attack!” Adam’s face paled. I had the feeling he’d believed us all along about Valeria, but loyalty to Alicia had kept him quiet. He met Luce’s eyes. “Come with me.”

He probably meant only Luce, but Ben and I tagged along. Hell, I wasn’t staying here on my own if Valeria’s forces had arrived. My heart pounded. But where was safe?

Not outside, but that was where we went, plunging down a set of steps and into a frightening world. Straight away I started to cough; the smoke was thick and the heat intense. The flames were close now, roaring up the slope with a noise like a jet engine, and stinging embers pelted us as we ran.

“Get behind the barn!” Adam shouted. “Try and stay out of trouble.”

I barely heard him over the noise of the fire front. Ben caught my hand and dragged me behind him into the lee of the barn, where at least we were protected from the embers. The wind drove them almost horizontally before the front, like sand in a sandstorm. My bare arms stung with a dozen welts that were already blistering.

The barn had its own sprinkler system, and we hugged the wet walls, letting the cooling spray soothe us. Ben ducked inside and returned with an axe and a shovel, which he passed to me.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” I shouted. Dig my way to freedom? “Where did Luce go? We have to help her!”

“Stay here,” he shouted back. “Remember we’re heralds, even if nobody else does. Self-defence only.”

He stepped protectively in front of me, axe at the ready. Self-defence only. Right. As if I would run out and attack someone with my trusty shovel.

I strained to see what was happening through the choking smoke. Visibility was down to only a few metres. I blinked tears away from my stinging eyes and searched for Luce as figures loomed out of the smoke then disappeared again.

The leshies gave as good as they got, now that Valeria’s forces had lost the initial advantage of surprise. Right in front of us, one dodged a knife thrust from a hard-eyed man. The knife scored his arm and green blood dripped. The leshy snarled, baring pointed teeth, then snapped his fingers. Strands of grass surged out of the ground in response and whipped around the knife-wielder like green tentacles. They dragged him down so fast the guy didn’t even have time to scream before he disappeared into the churning earth. I swallowed hard and shrank back against the barn wall, but the leshy took no notice of us. Sprouting thorns all over his body, he plunged back into the smoke in search of another opponent.

Another seemed to remember his race’s ancient affinity for bears. A grizzly appeared out of the haze, towering on its hind legs over the man who faced it. The man backed away, a look of desperation on his face, as he emptied his pistol into the snarling bear. The bullets may as well have been flea bites for all the notice the bear took of them. It swatted the gun away and seized him in its massive claws. The man screamed, and I turned away as the sound abruptly cut off. I didn’t want to see what happened next.

There were wolves among the attackers, and some on Alicia’s side too. Three ganged up on a leshy, snarling and growling as they dragged him down like an animal and tore into him. Two others rolled across the ground not far from us, biting and snapping at each other in a frenzy. One was black like Garth. Could it be him? I couldn’t tell. Luce had disappeared into the haze; I hoped she was safe.

Not that any of us were. I eyed the wall of flame headed our way, lighting up the night with an eerie orange glow. It flared the height of the gum trees, roiling and snapping in their crowns, spitting burning debris ahead of it.

I leaned closer to Ben and yelled in his ear. “They need to stop fighting each other and start fighting the damn fire!”

Could none of them see the danger?

I was soaked to the skin from the barn’s sprinkler system, my hair dripping in my eyes, but I knew that was scant protection. The heat was scalding; the air so hot and smoky I could hardly breathe. Maybe the fire would go around us. All it needed was a wind change to set it on another path.

But as I stared at the looming wall of flame I knew that was wishful thinking. Unless the leshies had some magic tricks up their sleeves we were in real trouble. Not even firefighters, with trucks and proper hoses, would stand a chance.