Her heart skipped a few beats; her head grew dizzy. Without thinking about sharks or Callista or Varia or Lord Bight, she jumped in the water and swam to his side. Without a word, he lifted a front leg so she could climb up his shoulder and wrap her arms around his neck. She pressed her face against his wet scales and felt her gratitude, hot and intoxicating, surge through her soul. He was alive and he had come for her.
“Crucible, I can hardly believe it,” Linsha said, stunned by the effort he had made. “How did you find us?”
“Varia said you had been taken to the Tarmak’s homeland,” he explained. “She told me where to go. Fortunately my dolphins found you first.”
“Thank Kiri-Jolith they did. We weren’t going to last much longer.”
“Who is this?” Crucible asked, nodding to Sirenfal’s corpse.
Linsha realized he was veering away from any discussion of their parting or of his human identity or anything that might mar the moment of their reunion. She did not care.
She was so happy to see him and be back in his company that she did not want to talk about any of that either. In time they would have to, but not now, not while the joy of the rescue was so strong in her heart.
“Her name was Sirenfal. Lanther had her trapped on Ithin’carthia. He killed her eggs and experimented on her.”
Crucible swam slowly around the remains of the brass while the dolphins frolicked and leaped around him. “Did she get you off the island? How did she die?”
“Ah,” a small voice called from the back of the floating corpse. “That’s a really long story. Do you think you could get me off before Linsha starts it?”
“Who are you?” the dragon asked.
Varia swooped low and hooted with pleasure. “Callista! You’re here!”
“And I would not be here without her,” Linsha said with a grin. “Please get her off. She can’t swim.”
“With pleasure,” replied Crucible. He swam close to the dead dragon and extended his powerful front leg for the courtesan to climb over. Callista tossed the leather bag holding the stolen text to Linsha and stepped gingerly onto Crucible’s leg. As soon as she was sitting safely on his shoulders behind Linsha, he veered away.
“Crucible, please do something for her,” said Linsha, indicating the dead brass. “She doesn’t deserve to be left to the sharks.”
He made a sharp squealing noise that made the dolphins back away then took a deep breath and closed his eyes to concentrate. A brilliant bolt of fiery white light exploded from his mouth and played over the dead dragon.
The light was so intense that it forced Linsha to shield her eyes. She did not see the eruption of steam and bubbles as the bronze’s breath hit the cool water and the corpse. She heard an odd noise as the body disintegrated in the beam of sizzling light. When she opened her eyes and looked at the place where Sirenfal had been, there was nothing but clouds of steam.
“Thank you,” she said. She and Callista exchanged glances of mingled relief and wearied sadness.
Then Linsha raised her arm in an invitation to her long-lost friend, and Varia came swooping down to accept. She landed on the Rose Knight’s wrist and sidestepped carefully up her arm to sit happily on her shoulder. Linsha buried her face in Varia’s warm feathers and inhaled the owl’s familiar scent.
“Thank you to you, too. I was not ignoring you.”
“I know,” the owl replied. “I can bide my time.” She gently nibbled Linsha’s ear. “It’s just so good to see you alive.”
“I think we all have stories to tell.”
“And lots of time to tell them,” said Varia dryly.
Followed by his pods of delighted dolphins, the bronze dragon turned in the water. Using his powerful tail, he began the long swim for the Plains and the Missing City.
16
At Linsha’s plea, Crucible swam directly to the nearest island, a large mountainous chunk of land called Karthay, the northernmost island of the Blood Sea chain. Linsha was dismayed to learn it was only half a day’s swim from where they had landed in the ocean. If Sirenfal had lasted a mere half-day longer, they would have made landfall. Not that it would have helped prolong the dragon’s life, but at least she would not have died thinking she had failed Linsha and Callista.
They found a small cove where a stream poured down from the mountains into the sea, and they made camp that night in the shelter of a rock outcropping.
The women bathed in the fresh water, drank their fill, and filled the water bag while Varia went hunting. For dinner that night they ate roast duck and wild berries and finished the last of the Tarmak bread. It was, Linsha decided, one of the best meals she had ever had.
Late into the night they sat by a large fire and talked, telling their stories of escape and rescue and friends. In a small place behind her pleasure in the evening, Linsha wished Crucible would change into his human form so she could see Lord Bight. But he did not. He crouched by the fire beside her, his large body acting as a windbreak for the wind that swept in from the sea. Perhaps he did not want to chance her ire this night, or perhaps he did not have the strength.
“I still do not fly well,” he told her. “Danian healed my wounds and repaired my wings, but he said it would be months before I could fly long distances, and even then there has been too much damage to expect a complete return to my normal flights.”
“Then how did you come so far?” Callista asked, marveling at his journey.
“I swam most of it. I can fly short distances, then I have to swim.”
“Have you had any ill effects from the barb?” Linsha asked. The death of Sirenfal rode heavily in her mind that night, and the thought that there might be splinters left in Crucible made her queasy with dread.
He shook his head. “None that I know of, besides an ache between my shoulders once in a while. Danian said you must have removed the entire thing. How did you know how to do it?”
Linsha’s eyes fell to her hands in her lap and the scars that still discolored her palms and fingers. “Iyesta came to me in a vision at the Grandfather Tree. She gave me two leaves from the tree and told me I could help you.”
The dragon dipped his head in thanks and gently nudged her. “But tell me what happened to you? I thought you were with the other centaur and he would bring you.”
Once again Linsha told her tale from the battle on the Red Rose to the death of Sirenfal. She told him and Varia about the Tarmaks, Malawaitha, the Akeelawasee, and Afec. She thought for a moment about skimming over Lanther and their marriage, but she knew Crucible had to know that it happened and why, so she told about that too, as well as the death of the dragon embryo and the experiments done on Sirenfal. Crucible sat quietly through the entire telling without interrupting, and when she was finished he continued to sit and contemplate the fire.
Varia, on the other hand, could not contain her anger at Lanther or her joy that Linsha was free of him.
Linsha cast a worried glance at the enigmatic dragon and gently ruffled Varia’s feathers. “What happened to you?” she asked. “How did you get away from the Tarmaks?”
“That was easy,” the owl said disdainfully. “They kept me in a cage in the headquarters and put a warrior in charge of me who was being punished for something.”
“One of the dog warriors?” Linsha asked curiously.
“Yes. I just waited until late one night when he was not paying strict attention as he fed me and I removed part of his finger. When he pulled his hand out, he didn’t close the cage door fast enough and I flew out. Once I made it out of the city, I went to find Crucible.”
“How did you know where to find me?”
“I listened to the Tarmaks. They talked about the Drathkin’kela going to Ithin’carthia to marry the Akkad-Dar
