Web Of Bones: Book II of the Dragon Mage Series (5 page)

Melly stood close enough to feel the heat coming off the big general and wondered at the satisfaction behind that one word.
She would think he would be annoyed at having to go with her on this journey but maybe he did not understand what it entailed.

She turned her head enough to catch his eye.
“It will not be a simple or quick journey.” The wind whispered across her senses even as it ruffled her hair. “I believe we could be gone for quite some time.”

“
The wind tells you this?”

She shrugged.
“I follow where the wind leads. If the wind is feeling playful, or wants me to see something, we could be lead about a bit before we get where we are going.”

“
And where is that?” Morgan asked, still clearly upset. “Can you ... “ Her voice lowered. “Feel him?”

“
No.” Melly swallowed hard and was grateful for the support of the General at her back, because this next part was enough to make her week at the knees. “I believe there is dragon magic blocking my memory, and his mark.” She licked her lips and met her sister’s eyes. “It’s time to remember what I have forgotten.”

This time when Morgan pushed to leave her mates
arms, he allowed it. She went to Melly and took her hands. “You know about that?”

“
I do.”

“
How long?”

“
Since I woke up healed with blank pages in my mind ... and then the nightmares came.”

Morgan stepped forward and pulled her into her arms.
“We did it to protect you.”

“
I know that.” She hugged her sister back, hard. She was aware of losing the heat that was general Solan when he stepped back, and wishing he had not. “But now I need to remember. As much as I would like to go on pretending, if I am going to fight this, I have to remember ... and I am hoping his mark, when not blocked by dragon magic, will lead me right to him, before he hurts anyone else with his madness.”

“
I will call the healer,” Eben said quietly. “Shehar blocked your memories; she must have also been the one who blocked the mark.”

Ladon stepped forward
. He was rarely serious with her or the children, prone to laughing and teasing where Eben was stoic; now, his face looked carved of granite. “Are you sure about this, Melly? We can find another way.”

She smiled a tired smile.
“I need to face this. It is past time I remember what he did to me.”

He curved his hand around her cheek.
“I don’t know why I am always surprised by the bravery of our tiny mages. You would think living in this house I would know by now how remarkable you are.”

Solan stepped forward until he was once more against her back
, and it had her shoulder loosening just a smidgen. “It’s not bravery. It’s just that wondering seems worse than knowing will be. At least I hope that’s the case.”

“
It will kill us to stay here and send you to danger,” he said quietly.

“
You will have your hands full.” She smiled, trying to lighten the mood. “Remember I am leaving you here ... with Rhune.”

Ladon chuckl
ed, though it did not reach his eyes. “When you look at it like that, it seems we may be the ones in true danger.” Then his eyes fired dragon gold as he looked over her head at the General. “I expect you will be safe enough and return to us ...” He seemed to search for words. “Pristine and untouched.”

“
She will not be harmed while in my care.” The General rumbled out behind her, before she could say anything to his odd phrasing.

“
And untouched,” Ladon growled back. His face lost all boyish charm, leaving the predator barely contained in his skin.

Seeing
it, Melly stilled utterly. Behind her, she could feel the power from General Solan rise at the challenge and wrap around her. He placed his big hands around her waist, lifted her gently, and placed her behind him, all before Melly could protest. She was just suddenly blinking at a broad back in leather, with a sword sheathed across it. She had no idea what had set them off, but from the feel of power swelling in the room, they were in deadly earnest.

“
She will be safe in my care,” he repeated. His voice lowered in warning. “To suggest otherwise is an insult.”

Dragon pride was a tricky thing, and she already knew how seriously they took their perceived responsibilities.
Melly sighed. Perhaps this was not about her as much as dragon posturing.
This day had started out so well, too.

Lucky for her
, there was a commotion on the balcony that had everybody turning to face the view just as two dragons entered. Both Melly had met before.

The dragon Ryall
entered, one of the warriors under the general’s command, and the cold golden beauty beside him—the healer Shehar.

And as quick as that
, Melisande felt as if all the blood had left her body. To say she was not looking forward to this was an understatement of grand proportions.

She watched Ryall acknowledge his commander with a head nod, then he looked to Eben Kinkaid, who stood with Morgan.
It was clear that Morgan had no liking for the healer and made no secret of it, treating her with a cold politeness whenever she should encounter her. As for Melly, she had seen the healer briefly, when she had been recovering from her trauma. She had seemed nice enough to her, though a trifle standoffish. It was no secret that she did not care to treat humans, even mages. It was whispered on the wind with every stiff move she made, but she did her job, and did it well. That had to count for more than attitude.

“
Thank you for coming, Shehar.” Eben said smoothly into the loaded silence. “We have need of your services once again.”

Shehar looked around.
“I see no one in need.” Then the blood seemed to leave her already pale as snow face. “Not one of the children?”

The fact that she was so concerned that children, even mage children
, might be damaged made Melly like her a little more. She stepped out from behind Solan’s back, aware as she did so that he was moving with her so that she stayed within his blanket of power. “The children are fine. I am the one in need.” She took a deep breath. “I appreciate that you tried to help me when I was wounded. But, I must ask you to remove the blocks you put on my memory, and the mage mark. It is time I faced what was done to me.”

Shehar regarded her for a long
moment, her eyes examining her face as if she could see more than the rest. Melly hoped not; she wanted no one to know how much of a coward she really was.

Finally Shehar spoke.
“I would speak with you privately.”

There was a chorus of responses
that had Melisande sighing again.

“No.”

“
Why?”

“
Absolutely not.”

Even Ryall was against it for some reason, shaking his head at his mate.
Melly raised her arms and flicked a hand, sending wind bursting through the room. All eyes turned her way, except the two new dragons, that were looking around in curiosity.

“
Everyone, please,” she said. “What could possibly be your argument against us talking alone?”

Nobody spoke, probably because no one had a logical reason.
Melly turned back to the healer with a huff. Then softened her voice. “I would appreciate privacy for this.” Silence. She might have smiled except for what was to come. She turned to Eben. “Perhaps we could use the conservatory?”

He bowed his head her way.
“I will see that you are undisturbed for as long as you need.”

She smiled at him in relief.
“Thank you, Eben.”

Melly led the healer away, aware as she did that every eye in that room was trained on her.
They were so worried, and she hated being the cause of it.

Shehar said not a word until they
traversed the great halls and were inside the conservatory, the doors closed behind them.

This was by far Melly
’s favorite room in the whole of Forsaken Mountain. While every room was spectacular in its natural beauty , this room was a sanctuary, a grotto of green plants and flowers, and the lapping of water over rocks, as if someone had found the most beautiful natural garden in the world and transported it here. She knew Eben had created it from dragon dreams, but it surpassed the scope of the imagination with its beauty.

Sh
e breathed in the scents of flowers, reveling in the thick, weighted feel of the humid air and the brush of fern and foliage along the rock path. Some of the tension left her body. The waterfall that fed the grotto was farther in, hidden among the trees and flowers. It was there that she headed. The sound of the water increased in volume while everything else faded behind her.

At the waterfall itself,
a rock bench faced the swirling hot spring beneath the falls. Here the smell of earth and growing things and the sounds of water beating time always soothed her.

She led the healer right to her special spot and sat with a sigh, this one of relief.
“No offense to you dragons, but a few of you in a room can be daunting.”

Shehar was looking around in appreciation.
Melly’s words had her turning and smiling, as much as she ever did, anyway. “Yes. Especially for one such as you.”

Melly blinked.
“What do you mean?”

“
I am a healer, which allows me to see what others cannot.” Shehar sat beside her on the bench. Took her hands in both of hers; unexpectedly, her hands were warm. She closed her eyes. “You are not at all like a dragon, or what I expected a human mage to be like. There is no malice in you, save what the blood mage put there. I do not know if you are ready to face what you will find.”

“
You think I am weak.”

“
I think you are soft. It is not the same thing.”

“
No, I know I am not like the rest of my family, and definitely not like a dragon.” Melly took a deep breath. “I don’t want to know what he did; the possibilities alone frighten me so much I just want to find a warm place to hide ... But I have to do this anyway.”

“
Why?”

“
Because he is still out there. He is determined to do such evil. I am not willing for someone else to pay the price for my cowardice. That I could not live with.”

Shehar studied her a moment longer.
“Very well. Close your eyes. I will try to make this as easy for you as I can. I will remove the block, but try to soften the memories for you. It should be like something from a dream, or more accurately, a nightmare.”

That made Melly laugh with something besides humor.
“Nightmares,” she said, closing her eyes. “Those I know well.”

Shehar sent a pulsing warmth up through her hands.
“Not like this. Whatever came before, I fear these will have a more poisonous bite.” Her sad words were the last thing Melly heard before drifting away.

The dream started as many of the others
did. Inside the walls of a black fortress. This time, though, the black walls were upright, and people clothed in black and misery walked the halls. The gates were open, as the wagons filled with mages for the blood rites and slaves for the selling came and went. At least, the slaves came and went. The mages came in; they never left.

Melisande, Rhune and Clare had been captured soon after they had set off after Morgan.
Melly knew she should have listened to the wind, but once she knew Morgan was captured, she was too intent on getting to her and had failed to heed the warnings.

By the time she heeded the warning
, they were almost upon them. She had managed to block the children from detection by hiding their powers, even from themselves, so that when the magnulls had shown they had been mistaken for human. Because they were with her, they had taken them anyway, but at least they were not bound for the blood rights, and hopefully, once they were sold off as slaves they would be far enough from the magnulls to recover their powers and escape. They would be safe. Even if their older sisters never made it out of their alive.

Without her
power, she was blind to the fate Morgan had suffered. She could be in this fortress and Melly would never know it. Or she could already be dead, drained of her power and her life to feed the blood mages’ blood rites. As far as she knew, no one had ever escaped a blood mage stronghold, unless they left as a slave. But they had other uses for those with power in their blood.

“
Get going, witch.” The magnull who pushed her seemed interchangeable with the others she had encountered. Dirty, smelly and ugly. The little men had the ability to null a mages power with a touch. No one knew why the blood mages were immune, but then, the magnulls were their creation. “Shame this one is a mage,” he said in an aside to his companion magnull. “We could have some fun.”

“
If he hears you talking like that, he will flay the skin from your bones. He don’t want the mages messed with. Unless he’s the one doing the messing, that is.”

“
Did you see that pretty little girl that came in with this one?”

“
Wouldn’t mind a taste of that sweet flesh. Too bad she’s marked for the Lord’s Fair.”

The words had Melisande hesitating, her stomach heaving at the thought of Clare at the mercy of these men.

“
Move.” The magnull shoved again, causing her to bounce painfully off the black wall and nearly fall.

“
Hey now!” his companion warned loudly. “You hurt her and he’ll know. You want to feed his beasts?”

The magnull spit his frustration at that to the wall.
“Can’t touch the pretty mages and the prime humans that come go to The Lord’s Fair, and can’t be touched either. High falutin’, think they are better than anyone else, and always get the good ’uns.”

“
They got the clink, they get the goods.”

“
Ain’t a fair world. That’s for sure. We bring ’em in and everyone else gets the spoils.”

“
Better than being dead. No female is worth dying for.”

The two
magnulls fell silent as soon as they turned the corner and saw the man walking towards them. Melisande did not notice him right away, intent on thinking of some way to get out. She came up painfully short against the chain at her throat. Her bound hands flew to her neck when her air was abruptly cut off. Then when the chain length was released and she could breathe again, she was too busy choking.

“
Careful imbeciles. Damage her and I’ll take it out of your hides. She’s of little use dead.”

When Melisande was finally able to, she looked up into the unmistakable eyes of a blood mage.
Her own widened as fear closed her throat for the second time in as many minutes.

He looked like every description she had ever heard of a blood mage.
Cloaked in black, and rail thin, he was taller than the magnulls, probably just under six feet. It was said the blood mages lived on nothing but the magic blood they coveted , and that they were skin and bones beneath their cloaks, like skeletons that walked and talked.

He was thin
, true, but not cadaver thin as she expected. The bones of his face stood out, sharply defined under his white skin. Yet there was a beauty in the lines of his face—too defined in sharp angles and planes, but handsome in a macabre way. Or, he would have been, but for the stench of dark power that surrounded him.

Looking up into those blood red eyes, Melly had to remind herself to breathe, because she had never been so frightened in her life.
Even without her magic, she could feel the evil washing off him in waves, and she knew that this was what death looked like.

Frozen like a rabbit, Melisande refused to show any more fear than that.
She breathed, raised her chin and looked her death in the eye.

He smirked.
“What is your name?”

“
Does it matter? My blood will taste the same regardless.” She wished her voice had more strength behind it; instead, her disdain came in a soft whisper no one would fear, let alone this man.

He smirked, grabbing her chin in a bruising grip and pulling her face up until she was standing on
tiptoes. She winced, doing her best not to make any noise despite the way he tried to grind the bones in her chin. She wasn’t sure what was more uncomfortable—the pain in her jaw, or the pull of the chain around her neck.

“
I suppose you are right. There is only one important answer I want from you, mouse.” He leaned down until he was within kissing distance. She could see the blood swirling in his eyes from this close. His hand was ice leaching the heat from the skin where he gripped her. “What pathetic power can I squeeze from your blood before you die?”

Like a snake he stuck his teeth digging into her neck
, so that she screamed from the suddenness of it. Then the pain truly began as he pulled power through the bite. Just as suddenly, she was released with a hiss , his eyes glowing from stolen power. It was hardly a moment, over that fast, and still she felt violated, as if he had stolen some part of her away with the power and blood.

“
Not such a mouse after all,” he said, licking the blood from his lips as if he could not get enough of her taste. She tried to back away and hit the broad smelly chest of the magnull behind her. The man pushed her away with a grunt, back towards the magnull who turned on him, striking him with a dark power so that he flew down the hall and crashed into the wall. He didn’t get up again. “No one touches this one but me,” he said. His pulsing eyes fell on the magnull left standing.

“
Yes, sir,” the magnull said, dropping the chain he held and backing away with his hands raised in surrender. “I’m not touchin’ her.”

Melly stood frozen, as the weight of the full chain fell on her neck.
Her hand covered the still bleeding tear where her neck met her shoulder. She was breathing hard, the adrenaline in her blood making everything blessedly numb. She kept her eyes on the monster before her, waiting for the next strike. Instead, he held out his hand and motioned for her to take it.

“
Come,” he said. The hiss was still in his voice, despite an obvious attempt to soften it.

Melly shook her head, as if she had a choice.
She could feel the blood draining into the low collar of her dirty shift. His eyes fired, he growled and grabbed her arm in a bruising grip right above her wrist. He yanked her against his chest.

“
You do not say no to me.” He gritted out, his teeth looked sharper this close to him, as if he was part animal, or more likely, demon. His free hand went to the back of her head and yanked her hair painfully. Melly heard herself whimper pathetically before she could hold it back.

“
You are in my house now, pet. You will learn your place.” He tilted his head, studying her as she tried to keep the fear out of her face, though she could do nothing about the tears rolling down her cheeks. His hand loosened in her hair and his voice became almost tender while his hand ran down her face to cup her cheek. “If you are very good pet you might even survive what I want from you.”

He looked back to the magnull. His eyes narrowed.
“Spread the word to the men that she is not to be touched. I will deal with her myself.”

The magnull bowed so low he swept the floor.
“Yes, my lord. No one will touch her.”

“
Have a bath prepared in my chamber, and find some clothes fit for a woman, rather than chattel.” The blood mage turned back to Melisande. “I would see what you look like under the dirt.” He wiped away the tears on her cheeks. “If you are half the beauty you promise to be, I may have more use for you than merely a blood sacrifice.”

Melly unfroze her voice enough to speak
, though it was barely a whisper. “I think I would rather fall under your knife than endure what I see in your eyes, blood mage.”

He threw back his head and laughed, sending shivers of dead down her spine.
Then he pulled her closer and smiled cruelly into her scared eyes. “My name is Lotare, pet. I look forward to hearing it fall sweetly from your lips.”

B
efore she could scream her utter rejection of him and what he wanted, he dragged her behind him down the hall. Melly fought the need to abandon her false bravado and scream her terror to the black walls. The only thing that stopped her was the wish to never hear that laugh again.