“Yes, but whatever your answer, the gift is yours, and the light in it, yours.”
“What is the question?”
“While we bring light to the world, there’s still dark. And there’s one who seeks, above all, to serve the source of the dark, which she does with human sacrifice. Children.”
“Mes dieux. Any and all who prey on children are the evil, the deepest and darkest of the evil, whatever form they take.”
“We’re of one mind on that. This woman is my cousin, blood of my blood.”
“Je suis désolée. You have my true sympathy. We have no choice in our blood relations, n’est-ce pas?”
“No, we don’t. Above New York, at the moment of our victory, this cousin, this evil, struck down a friend, a brother of my heart.”
Vivienne reached over, laid a hand over Fallon’s. “I know of this. The young elf, so handsome, who was with you the first time I came to visit you. Je suis profondément désolée, mon amie. I know you sought solitude in your grief. I hope you have found comfort.”
“I found it, and renewed purpose, and even stronger faith. I’ve seen her, in visions and dreams, in Scotland, at the shield. She rides a black dragon.”
“This I’ve heard, of course.” She trailed a finger over the carved ruby. “Some can turn even beauty into evil.”
“To end the dark, to seal the shield once again, I have to destroy the source. To destroy the source, I must destroy my cousin. To destroy my cousin, I must destroy the dragon.”
Fallon waited a beat. “How do I kill it?”
Vivienne lifted an eyebrow, sipped wine. “You would ask me?”
“I’ve seen, in these dreams, in the fire, in the glass, arrows, even bespelled, fail to penetrate the dragon. Aimed true at the heart, they break and fall. Magicks fall away as well. It feeds from the source. Yes, I would ask you. How do I kill it?”
“You would ask me?” Vivienne repeated, in a voice gone cold. “You would ask me to give you the means to destroy myself? You offer cake and wine, offer a symbol of what I am, then ask me to reveal how you might kill me should you want what I have?”
“I’ve given you my oath. What’s yours is yours. Why would I wish to harm so valued a friend and ally?”
“There are others who might covet.”
“You are and always will be under my shield, as will and always will be your people. Help me end this, so your people and mine, so all people can have peace. The gods brought you to me, I believe that, so we could prove ourselves to each other. And having proven, I could ask you this question. You would search your heart and give me the answer.”
On a huff, Vivienne stood, stalked around the patio with her emerald gown swirling. “You ask me to put my life into your hands.”
“She lures children, young girls most usually, out of their beds, takes them into a wood where only death and dark remain. She rends them there, on an altar, to feed the beast. The dragon protects her, kills for her, burns for her. Should I show you?”
Vivienne threw out a hand. “No. I’ve seen enough of what this evil can do.”
“The last she disemboweled on that altar was just sixteen. Her name was Aileen.”
“Mes dieux, merde, ça pute!” When she ran out of curses—that took awhile—Vivienne turned to stare hard into Fallon’s eyes. “Who will you tell?”
“Duncan and Tonia, also my blood.”
“Like your whore of a cousin?”
“Nothing like her. You know that without me telling you. I’ll tell the man I’m pledged to, and his twin, who’s a sister to me. These two who, with me, wrapped Aileen’s body in a blanket and took her to her family. The two who will go with me to finish it so together we can destroy the one who turned the glory of his spirit animal to the dark.”
Vivienne sat again, poured more wine into her glass. She drank it all. “We are so few,” she murmured. “I had hoped there would be a way to turn this one back to the light. At least to the shadows, yes? But children, young girls, sacrificed? There is no forgiveness for this.”
She added more wine while Fallon waited, this time took only a sip. “In the stories, it’s often a sword through the heart of a dragon. Or perhaps used to cut off its great head. Mais non. It may be the dragons of old could be killed in such ways, but not those of us who shift. I hope there are more of us. I must hope. Perhaps they hide, perhaps they still sleep.”
On a long sigh, she took another sip of wine. “There is only one way to kill the dragon. It must be struck in the eye, pierced through. The left eye only,” she added, tapping beneath her own. “Only then will it fall, will its flame gutter out. Only then will a sword cleave through its armor to take the head. You must burn the head to destroy it. These three things you must do, or it will not die.”
“Thank you.”
“Kill him, end this. I will have another glass of wine. And will take the whole of the cake home.”
Fallon had to smile. “And welcome.” Then she gripped Vivienne’s hand, let the truth inside her flow. “When I kill it—him—I’ll do it in part for you, the flame from the north, to strike that blow for the beauty of what you are, and what he refused to be.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
She felt it moving on the air, stirring in her blood, whispering in her mind. In the weeks since she’d met with Vivienne, she and Duncan and Tonia had trained with the specific purpose of destroying a shifter dragon and its rider.
And still, she’d found no answers to when.
Yet she knew a storm gathered, dreamed of the lightning and the circle of stones. Of the spill of blood, and the throbbing heart of what waited in the murdered wood.
That throbbing heart whispered, too. She heard its alluring promises, its silky lies, saw the mask it wore that was handsome, seductive when it crept into her dreams.
It broke her sleep as she shoved her way out of fitful dreams to restlessness. Every night, she lit the candle Mallick had given her as a baby, to keep that spark of light constant, to keep the dark at bay.
When the fractured sleep and strain began to show, Lana made up charms and potions for rest, but Fallon didn’t use them. Though it lied and lied, there might be something said or thought she could use to end it.
But when?
Come now, it murmured. Come to me through the crystal. I wait to embrace you. We’re meant to be as one, meant to know all pleasure, all power. Your blood released me. Come drink of the freedom you unlocked. Take it, taste it, know it.
She woke, found herself standing, staring into the crystal that swirled with shadows. Had she been reaching for it? She couldn’t be sure, but it had through nights and nights of stalking, found some weakness.
Shaken, she held her hand over the candle flame so that small light brightened, brightened and cleared the shadows.
She needed to take action, to try again.
She dressed, gathered all she needed, and went out into the night. Though summer held gamely on past the equinox, she scented the first hints of fall. Before long the harvest, the gathering, the sweep of color over the trees.
Thinking of it brought a deep yearning for the farm, the rambling house, the fields, the garden, the woods that had once held every adventure she could have wanted.