Between by Kerry Schafer

Author:Kerry Schafer [Schafer, Kerry]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781101619230
Publisher: Ace
Published: 2013-01-28T23:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

Get up.”

The voice is relentless. Isobel touches the ring for courage. They have not gone so very far, not this time. Landon will find her, surely, and Jehenna will grow tired of tormenting them, soon or late.

They stand together in a circular, cavernous space, lit by a ring of flaming torches. The ceiling is high and lost in shadows. A stone, bloodred in the flickering light, thrusts upward through the darkness—

through this cavern and into the dungeons above

through the dungeons and into the field where the maidens and the dragon meet—

Time slips, and she is a small child here. A dragon looms but she is not afraid of her, not of Mellisande. The creature is sad and angry, but not at Isobel. Fear beats at them both, child and dragon, bonded by mutual captivity. Something evil happens here, something dark. Isobel is a part of it, but again time fractures and she doesn’t know if it is happening, has happened, or is yet to come. A thousand warnings clamoring inside her head and no way to silence them, no way to shut them out. No way to change what will have always been…

Isobel shudders and closes that door in her mind, tries to focus on the now and not the then. Her bare feet and legs are cold. The power from the stone thrums through her body in a constant vibration. If she listens to it, tunes herself to its rhythm, the voices fade and the fear ebbs.

Power.

A man comes running, tripping over the hem of his long scarlet robes and almost falling. He smells of fear and his face is the color of curdled milk as he throws himself onto his knees, forehead pressed against the black stone.

“My Queen.”

“You know me, then.”

“We have waited your return, My Queen.” His hands are shaking, and he twists them in the robe. “Gant always said you would someday return.”

“And where is Gant?”

“He died, My Queen.”

“You are High Priest, then?”

“Yes, My Queen.”

“Has he passed on to you what must be done?”

“Yes, My Queen. Every word of the ritual has been preserved.”

“Bring her.”

“Yes, My Queen. At once, My Queen—”

He scurries off through a stone door.

A shuffling, scraping sound vibrates through the soles of Isobel’s feet. Metal screeches against stone and the dragon is coming and this has happened before, and before, and before, only this time something is different.

Mellisande is old. Always there has been a smothered rage, a longing for the sky, but now Isobel feels a deathly weariness when the dragon enters the chamber. A web of silver mesh wraps the girth of the great belly and traps the folded wings against the creature’s back. The once-fiery eyes are faded to dark amber; the heavy head hangs low.

Jehenna staggers as though she has been struck, her face bloodless. “What have you done to her?” she gasps.

The priest cowers, looking from the Sorceress to the dragon in confusion. “Idiot!” Jehenna shrieks, slapping him on one cheek and then the other. “You have let her grow old!”

He cowers onto his knees, his voice shaking.

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