Page 12 of Magick and Lead
“The same Skrathan who were already routed by the Lacunae and the golenae when they were at the height of their power?” Ollie asked.
“Routed by trickery,” Dagar said, his voice rising. “A deceityourmaster was in on. And that you were in on, too, it seems.”
“Dagar,” I warned, but he stood and slammed his fist down on the table.
“No, Essa!” he shouted. “We’re not going to let you go back to the people who killed your mother, who killed our dragons, so you can be killed yourself. Or enslaved. Or—” tears shone in his eyes as his throat closed up. His hand was on the hilt of his sword. It was the most un-Dagar-like outburst I’d seen in my life.
“They killed my dragon,” he said, pleading, tears filling his eyes.
“Dagar,” I said gently. “You’re dismissed.”
His jaw worked, his eyes fixed upon Ollie, full of fury. His fist clenched the hilt of his sword so hard his knuckles were turning white.
“I said you’re dismissed,” I repeated.
With a snarl, he turned and strode from the room. The door slammed shut behind him.
In his wake, everyone seemed to exhale at once.
“He lost his dragon when Charcain fell,” Pocha explained.
“Which doesn’t make him wrong,” I eyed Ollie sharply.
He frowned. “Clearly, he isn’t well. We’d best get him bonded with a new dragon, and quickly.”
“The countryside isn’t exactly crawling with hatchlings,” Lure said. “Not after the Gray Brothers slaughtered them all.”
“There is the one we just captured,” Pocha said.
“He’s still bonded to the foreigner traitor,” Lure said. “Rebonding him probably won’t work, depending on how strong the original bond was.”
“We must try, if we value Dagar’s sanity,” Ollie said.
When he saw the pain on my face, he leaned over the table and took my hand. “Much has been lost, Essa. But not all. We can rebuild. We can defeat our enemies. We can bring the Skrathan back in glory. But not from here, not from some little backwater village. Not from the shadows. From the throne. You must go back, Essa.”
For a flash, I imagined it, myself arrayed in splendor, ruling from a new throne, wearing a new crown, standing in a rebuilt Charcain… surrounded by the vipers who’d betrayed my mother.
My friends waited for my answer. I felt Othura in the back of my mind, holding her breath.
Ollie watched me, smoke hanging over him like a shadow.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
6
CHARLIE
The motorcycle thundered beneath me, the smell of sea air filling me with each breath, the wind in my hair. The ride from the farm to McNally Air Base was thirty minutes down a strip of fresh asphalt bounded by nothing but farm fields and, closer to the base, the dark, choppy waters of Stanley Bay, glinting with morning sun.
The motorcycle had been a gift from Cousin Bo, one of several wrecks he’d picked up from a junkyard and rebuilt, intending to sell it. And he had sold it—to me. I loved the thing. It gave me the same sensation as flying, a feeling like I just wanted to keep on going forever.
I especially felt that way today, given my destination. What were the pricks in the front office going to have to say to me, I wondered? Would they decide I was a traitor and clap me in the brig, or send me back to the barracks to get suited up for another sortie over Dorhane? Either way, two months of freedom at the farm was coming to an end. And my most important goal—finding Essa again—would be further away than ever.
But there was no escaping the inevitable. All too soon, I was motoring up to the gate of the airbase, then stepping into a low-ceilinged room with the words Military Justice stenciled onthe door. Walking in, it had the feeling of an ambush. Several officers sat behind a long table in their stiff uniforms, still as statues. General Peckham wasn’t here, and none of the faces were familiar. I didn’t even recognize the secretary who sat at a table to one side, her fingers poised over the typewriter.
Several rows of chairs stood before the tribunal table, all of them empty. I walked down the central aisle and saluted. “Good morning, gentlemen,” I said, trying to sound snappy despite the nerves roiling my stomach.
“At ease, Major,” the presiding officer, a colonel, said, gesturing to a small table opposite them. “Sit.”
