Page 56 of Time's Fool

Stop drinking and start talking; we need answers, Mircea chided him.

Bite me, Kit thought, and asked Gillian to dance.

Chapter Sixteen

“That’s enough for me,” Gillian told him, perhaps half an hour later, when her face was flushed from exertion and her cap had fallen off.

She’d tried to put it back on, but the mass of curly, bright red hair was too exuberant, and refused to be confined without the pins she’d used to hold it, which she’d mostly lost. She had tucked the small item into her belt, where it had stayed as they danced and drank and avoided the mob of indefatigable children, chasing the latest leafy creature across the landscape. Kit added a posy of wildflowers beside the cap that he picked by the path, as they walked away from the revelry. They were hardy, weed-like things that had survived the autumn’s chill, and added a bright splash of yellow against the brown of her gown.

“You know what they say,” he reminded her. “Kissing’s out of season when gorse is out of flower.”

“That isn’t gorse,” she said, her gray eyes sparkling. “And even if it were, gorse is never out of flower.”

“That’s the point,” he said, and kissed her.

He wasn’t usually so bold, knowing that she needed time, and respecting that she had yet to completely mourn for her husband. But today was a special day, her color was high, and he was only human. Or close enough.

He was prepared to release her quickly if the embrace was unwanted, but she melted into his arms. So, he deepened it, Kit Marlowe being no fool, and discovered that her passion matched his own. She smelled like wildflowers and strange, fey wine, and tasted like distilled sweetness. Even better, the months of longing he had felt appeared to have been echoed on her side, something he’d suspected but not known for sure.

It was becoming much clearer now.

But so was something else.

They had walked past the clump of trees where they’d had their repast, but the impromptu party wasn’t far away and the little band of thieves was even closer. Kit could see them as he and Gillian broke apart, peering through the foliage and not even pretending to disguise their interest. And whilst he tended to be considered somewhat . . . adventurous . . . in certain matters, he did not like an audience.

And neither, it seemed, did his lady.

“This way,” Gillian told him, a little out of breath, which made him smile. And take her hand as she pulled him up a hill and through a patch of woods.

He was hoping for a house in the trees, or even a peasant shack. Something Rilda might have had made for herself, with a bed and a door to close after them. He would take care of the rest.

But if there was such a thing, he did not see it.

Instead, she led him through the woods and out the other side, where a brief plateau merged with a steep, rocky incline going up. And up and up, until Gillian was panting with exertion as they picked their way among large, pockmarked, gray stones and yellowing scrub, and he was wondering where, exactly, they were going. They already seemed to be at the top of the world, with nothing but pale blue skies and increasing wind around them.

Then suddenly, without warning, that world dropped away. And instead of the towering bones of the mountain, Kit saw a vista like nothing that had ever met his eyes. Or would again, he thought, gripping a sharp-edged piece of rock for balance and not caring that it sliced his palm.

He probably wouldn’t have noticed if it had shredded it, being too busy staring at the magnificent valley below them, cut through by a silver river that reflected the sky. And hedged by mountains so distant and yet so high, that they made him dizzy just to look at them. But the vastness of the view was not even half of the story, or what had him freezing in place and then ducking quickly down behind a stone, caught between wonder and terror.

No, that would be the dragons, he thought, as he peered through a gap in the rock at scores of them, racing each other across the huge vault of the heavens. And if Kit had doubted the witch’s characterization of the one by the portal as a “baby”, he did so no longer. Because these were huge beyond imagining.

Most were distant smears of color, flickering in and out of clouds on the horizon. But one was closer—much closer. Kit felt the mountainside tremble beneath his feet, sending rocks bouncing and causing him to grab Gillian around the waist and tighten his grip on the rock. But it wasn’t an earthquake.

A giant of a creature appeared below them, a good way down the cliffside and yet so huge that the top of its head was only perhaps four stories away. There must have been a cave or fissure in the rocks that it was peering out of, but Kit couldn’t see it. He couldn’t see anything but a fraction of the great body, the gigantic neck and the massive, bronze-colored horns on the impossibly-sized head.

And the quickly unfurling wings that were as big as ship’s sails and rose so tall as to shed a shadow over he and Gillian both.

He swallowed, feeling uncharacteristically puny, and with his muscles tensed and ready to run. But he wasn’t sure that even vampire speed could help them if this creature noticed them. So, he stayed utterly still instead as it launched itself into the skies.

It took off in a smooth, sinuous ripple, which was followed by a thick, elongated, double barbed tail that seemed to go on forever. The latter thrashed back and forth when the creature was free of the mountain, cutting great gouges in the rock below. Each surge was in time to the beating of the vast wings, propelling it upward, almost as if it was swimming through the skies instead of flying.

But that wasn’t the most amazing thing about it. Nor was the size, which was like a small mountain all on its own. Instead, it was the scales that had Kit catching his breath, for in the place of the dull pewter ones that the baby had had, which had reminded him of a knight encased in armor, this one . . .

Looked to be carved out of solid emerald.

He swallowed and moved slightly for a better look, sure that his eyes were playing tricks on him, but the flash of dark green fire did not change. A raised ridge of what looked exactly like precious stone ran down the creature’s back, flashing in the sunlight in a river of dark green magnificence. It was solid in hue, except for where the light turned parts of it translucent, but the smooth scales below were less so, being mottled in lighter and darker shades, with speckles and inclusions of what looked like bronze.

They were the same color as the wings, which were bronze instead of black, and were stirring up the air like a great gale. And also matched the talons on the ends of the hands and feet, which were as long as Kit’s arm. The sword-like appendages had sent boulders cascading into the valley as the creature took off, as casually as his boot had dislodged pebbles on the path up here.

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