WYVERN (12 page)

The events of the past hour struck her then, and she shuddered in delayed shock. "Don't worry. I'm not very good at playing the valiant. You're on your own the next time." She was only half teasing him.

They embraced in the dim lair, surrounded by the scatter of gold and gems Malcolm and his companions had died for. Elsbeth savored Alaric's warmth, his scent of winter cedar, the feel of him against her. She couldn't stay, and he couldn't leave. Not yet.

A series of whistles and anxious chirps drifted toward them. Alaric stiffened, alert to his offspring's call. Elsbeth stepped away and gave him a small push back toward the roofless cavern.

"You best go back. I know nothing of wyvern young, but she sounds frightened at being alone." At his hesitation, she nudged him again. "I'll be fine, Alaric."

His handsome features tightened. "Tell your villagers those men are dead, killed by me. Others will be reluctant to challenge. If you tell them otherwise, some might come and search. I've no longer the patience, nor the time, to fend off greedy humans lurking where they shouldn't."

Elsbeth nodded. "Go. She needs you. And Angus needs me."

Alaric lifted her in his arms. He made love to her mouth, tongue sweeping in to lay claim, to imprint, to enforce his memory on her. "Wait for me, Beth," he said against her lips. "I'll return by next summer."

"I'll wait."

"Swear it."

"I swear."

He set her down and strode toward the tunnel's darkness. He didn't look back.

Spring in Byderside was a busy season. There were the fields to attend and the sowing to do. And there were always weddings and the infant blessings after the long winter. On this particular April day, Elsbeth sat on a bench in the village square and tuned her fiddle in preparation for a performance that night. Ireni sat next to her, puffing on the curved stem of her favorite pipe and calling out pointers to those who decorated the square for the ceremony.

"Old Angus would have had plenty to say about this union, my girl. The widow Aelis, marrying that young pup from Hallowfaire." Ireni chewed the pipe stem. I can hear him now." She lowered her voice in a fairly accurate imitation of Angus's. "What's that woman doin' marrying a lad still wet behind the ears? Can't find herself a real man?"

Elsbeth laughed. "That's jealousy talking. He never admitted it, but I think he was sweet on Dame Aelis. Besides, Duncan Pharr is only two years younger than Aelis, hardly a stripling."

"That, and he's rich and handsome. Aelis improved her lot the second time around."

"He's also kind. I've watched him. He dotes on her." Elsbeth played a few experimental notes, satisfied with the tone. "He's asked me to play Gundrig's Ballad for her tonight. Very romantic."

Ireni sighed around the pipe. "I do like that one. Could once sing it to make angelis spirits weep."

"And seduce dragons and drakes?"

She looked askance at Elsbeth. "I never thought of myself as a legend. Maybe your wyvern lover exaggerated."

Elsbeth chuckled. "Not likely. Alaric was quick to tell me that dragons, not wyverns, embellished their tales. But about themselves, not others. Irenya Firekiller is much admired among the draconus."

She smiled when Ireni chewed harder on her pipe stem and muttered a short, "Hmpf."

They remained on the bench another half hour, chatting while Elsbeth rosined her bow and checked her fiddle one last time. The square gradually filled with people, dressed in their finery and eager to celebrate Aelis and Duncan's union with dance, song and plenty of good ale.

Elsbeth rose. "I'm off. I need to change and dress. I'll see you later. Do you need anything before I go?"

"No. Get along. We can't start the dance without the fiddle and the flute. Ewan will come searching for you if you're late."

Back home, Elsbeth rifled through her small chest of clothes, deciding what to wear. She paused and lifted a length of amber silk from the chest. Alaric's gift to her, along with a priceless emerald. She'd found both nestled in her pack when she returned to Byderside.

The silk, a long tunic dress, belted with an embroidered kirtle, flowed across her palm soft as warm butter. It caught the light of her candles in a burnished sheen reminiscent of Alaric's gold.

In nine months she'd heard nothing of him. No whispers of a wyvern or dragon returning to the county, no admiring comments of a skilled bard visiting the nearby towns. Elsbeth tried not to fear that silence. Nine months was a small passage of time compared to eight years. But it was so much harder now, with Angus gone and her only company the vibrant memories of her fortnight with Alaric at Maldoza.

She took the tunic and kirtle from the chest and brought it to Angus's room, now hers since his passing. It had taken her weeks to adjust to sleeping in the room, and there were days when she walked in, fully expecting to see him reclined in the bed, sipping his medicinal tea or softly snoring.

Elsbeth missed him as much as she missed Alaric. Angus had died three days following her return from Maldoza. He'd held her hand and slipped away with a sigh just after dawn. She had mourned him and still did, but his death had been a blessing--a rest from the draining sickness that left him crippled and bedridden.

She touched the tunic with reverent fingers. Angus would have been ecstatic to see Alaric again. He'd always been fond of him and had not bothered to hide his disappointment when Alaric left Ney-by-the Water almost nine years earlier.

Voices from outside, chattering and cheerful, floated to her. Elsbeth hurried with dressing. She plaited her hair, weaving a beaded black ribbon through the plait to dress it up. There was no mirror for her to check her appearance, but the admiring looks from some of the men and the envious ones from the women told her the tunic suited her.

"Well, lass, aren't you a fine sight this evening?" Donal Grayson took her hand and bowed over it in a courtly gesture. "You'll outshine the bride I think."

He'd exchanged his tattered farmer's clothes for colorful coat and trews, and Elsbeth returned his compliment. "I think you'll outshine the groom." She eyed his garb. "And here I thought you only owned clothes in shades of brown and...brown."

He laughed at her teasing and offered to escort her back to the square. The wedding was a success, with only a minor mishap when Duncan spilled a little of the union wine on his new wife's bodice. Aelis, ever good-natured, only laughed and joked he'd have to lick it off when they were alone.

The celebration after was a merry affair. Lanterns, strung on ropes and hung from low tree branches, lit the square. Tables, mounded with rich foods cooked by some of Byderside's finest cooks, were flanked by barrels of wine and crocks of warm ale. Guests from Byderside, Durnsdale, and Hallowfaire feasted and drank and finally called for the fiddler and the flutist to play.

Elsbeth took her place next to Ewan at the edge of the dance area. Ewan looked to her for guidance. "What do we play first?"

She tucked the fiddle beneath her chin. "Gundrig's Ballad, then Merry Alice. After that, we'll play whatever the spirit wills us to play."

Guests began dancing as the first chord was struck. Elsbeth played with gusto, as lost to the music as the people who moved to its rhythms. She and Ewan played eight tunes straight before taking a break.

He gave her a sheepish look. "I have to relieve myself, Elsbeth."

She swatted him lightly on the arm. "Well don't just sit there telling me about it, Ewan. Get going. I can play a tune or two without you."

Ewan dashed off, leaving his flute in her keeping. Elsbeth gazed at the crowd surrounding her, laughing, drinking and celebrating the marriage of Aelis to Duncan. A tall, imposing figure caught her eye. Elsbeth sucked in a breath at the brief glimpse of broad shoulders. She rose, her heart fluttering in her chest. The crowd parted, revealing a blond stranger, from either Durnsdale or Hallowfaire. Her sudden exhilaration died a quick death.

Elsbeth returned to her seat. The dull despair she had fought off for months seeped into her soul with an insidious chill. Alaric had promised he'd return, and she believed him. But sometimes it was difficult, especially now in the middle of a wedding celebration.

She smiled weakly when Ireni caught her eye. A few of the guests called out to her, requesting a lively reel or a more sedate cotillion. Elsbeth took up her fiddle. The tune she chose was not a favorite of Angus's, nor one she'd written for Alaric. She'd composed this one for herself and her memory of a past summer day when she'd flown on a wyvern's back, breathed in the wind and saw the green lands stretched out below her.

A hush fell over the crowd as she played. Many who'd come from the nearby towns whispered their admiration of her skill, the way her music captured some indefinable wish or emotion or memory. Those of Byderside were quick to boast it was she who'd saved the village by bewitching a wyvern with her fiddle.

Elsbeth remained oblivious to them. She wakened from the haze of her memories to enthusiastic applause and a voice that made her knees weak. Had she not been sitting, she would have fallen.

"The gods still dance upon your bow, Elsbeth Weaver."

She looked up, and this time another tall, broad-shouldered man stood before her. Not a blond farmer, but a dark haired bard with the summer storms trapped in his gray eyes and wyvern blood in his veins. He wasn't of Hallowfaire or Durnsdale, but a far country where mythical beasts roamed rolling plains, and ancient kings, descended of gods, built temples to their dead.

The first question to her lips was not one she expected to ask. "What did they name her?"

Alaric laughed, a joyful sound that turned a few heads their way in curiosity. "She is Peregrine, out of Damoshin by Alaric."

He plucked the bow and fiddle out of her hands and set them on her chair. Elsbeth threw her arms around him when he lifted her, uncaring of the neighbors who stared at her in open-mouth amazement.

"You came back," she whispered.

He crushed her to him and brushed a delicate kiss across her lips. His features were more somber, his shoulders tense. "Wyverns may mate with women and bond with them. But they cannot breed with them. I can't give you children, Beth."

Elsbeth stroked the line of his nose with one finger. "I can't give you six hundred years, Alaric."

He rested his forehead against hers, his relief palpable. "I will love you until the end of both our days, Beth. That will be enough."

She thought of her most recent tune. "Will you take me flying again? Far from here. To the great oceans and the land of your birth."

"You're not afraid?"

"Only if you let me fall. Only if you stop loving me."

Alaric tightened his embrace. "The world itself will fall before that ever comes to pass, Beth."

Grace Draven is a Louisiana native, living in Texas, and is a financial analyst by trade. She is the member of a large on-line network of writers, as well as a member of a site that archives fiction works. In the spare moments between working a full-time job and caring for three small children she writes romantic fiction. Grace has lived in Spain, honeymooned in Scotland, hiked through the Teton Mountains, ridden in competition rodeo and is the great, great-granddaughter of a Nicaraguan president. She is an avid fan of medieval history, Renaissance faires, Russian culture and the culinary arts.

If you would like to contact Ms. Draven, please e-mail her at [email protected].

Castil il Veras, a dowerless scribe born of lesser boyars, attends the wedding of her best friend to the notorious cursed king of Helenrisia. It is at the prenuptial celebrations that she becomes bewitched by the mysterious magus king, even as she recognizes that he is forbidden to her.

Doranis of Helenrisia travels south to Caskadan, bound by duty to secure trade agreements by marrying a woman who loathes the sight of him. Marked by the ancient magic of the Waste, he is surprised to discover one who finds him fascinating instead of repellant. But Castil is beyond his reach, cut off from him by birth, circumstance and distance.

But Fate would have it otherwise, and a beseeching letter from a dying queen will bring them together again in a land rife with an ageless power.