So much cleaner than the carrion reek of that dragon, a meat-eater who'd never heard of flossing. So much cleaner than the swamp where the beast laired, foul and tangled and sulfurous with rotting muck.
The other dragon hadn't stunk like that, the one Brian and the human killed. She remembered a damp whiff of vinegar the one time she'd talked to it, no more. But Dougal had liked to keep his guards hungry, keep them sharp. He'd fed short rations to his falcons and hunting cats and hounds, and none of his slaves were fat.
The female dragon probably hadn't eaten in weeks, maybe months if they had metabolisms like a snake's. Fiona's mind poked at this intellectual puzzle, planning some research as a diversion while she waited for her revenge to mature and bear fruit.
Perhaps the dragons secreted some enzymes in their saliva? Or maybe they harbored a strain of that "flesh-eating bacteria" that humans splashed across their tabloid covers -- something that digested the scraps of meat between those serrated dagger fangs? She could work with that, do some genetic engineering on the hawthorns and roses of her hedge. They already held venom, but this gave the possibility of an exquisite refinement.
She smiled at the thought of a trespasser brushing up against a thorn and then suffering as the scratch festered into stinking necrosis that spread and rotted his living flesh until he died after weeks of agony. Other Old Ones feared her cottage, feared her lands and her defenses. They had reason.
Or they had feared her. She'd lost a battle, lost to Maureen. News spread with the wind in the Summer Country. Fiona shook her head. Appearance meant more than reality in this land. Now she appeared weak. She had to prove her Power again, crush Maureen and the rest, spread fear close on the heels of the news of that defeat. In the Summer Country, the second-place trophy was a grave.
Then she smiled. She'd thought of the dragon as a tool -- planned to destroy that nest in a way that fanned his hatred of the old keep on the hill. Now she needed to twist her plan into collecting a specimen or two from the hatchlings. But she'd still have to lay the blame at Maureen's gate. That would be a challenge, almost entertaining. A successful plot could be a work of art.
The witch considered the grass under her boots. Hatred seethed back at her. A stem searched up towards her ankle, touched the smooth gray leather, and crumbled into dust. She walked on, leaving a blackened footprint where her field had attempted to rebel.
Really, she ought to thank little Maureen. The Summer Country had grown boring in the past few decades -- no challenges, no enemies worth noticing. Dougal had been beneath contempt. Now that redheaded bitch had made life interesting again. Fiona had almost forgotten the joys of plotting, planning, slyly seeking allies and pawns for a Byzantine revenge.
The grass turned away from pain and sought its own targets elsewhere. She'd woven enough intelligence into all her plants so that they served as guardians. Now their vibrations told her of other footfalls sneaking across the fields and into the hedge maze surrounding her cottage. Fiona smiled again, her eyes slitting like a cat drowsing with dreams of mice. Someone was making a big mistake.
Maureen had set the hedge free and turned it against its owner. Now Fiona held a tighter leash and the hawthorns and roses whimpered while they did exactly what she told them. That intruder would never reach her garden.
She walked on, feeling the pulse of her fields through the soles of her boots, beating the boundaries of her land. Dougal had been so predictable, sending his wildwood to push against the ancient dry-stone wall that separated his forest from her domain, sending his marsh to spread dark water across the lowland grasses.
He'd dealt in blunt force, wielding a mace in their battles. Maureen used a rapier, thrusting skillfully. She seduced plants like she'd seduced Brian from Fiona's binding spell. Expect the unexpected, Fiona had learned. Look for the trap. Fiona had studied her enemy's past and present, after first misjudging her. Maureen's damaged sexuality had been her weakest point. Who would have thought she'd turn to it for a weapon?
Fiona ran her fingers over the rough bark of a pasture oak, thick-trunked and tall and glossy green over grass studded with shamrocks, a landmark within a stone's throw of the no-man's-land and Maureen's forest. Fiona had never truly owned the tree, never bent it to her will. It had dominated this corner field for centuries before she claimed the cottage as her own, and its taproot bored deep beyond her reach into the water and power of the land. But she'd controlled it, limited its influence.
Now acorns sprouted in the turf, far beyond the spread of its branches as if it had flung them wide to free them from a struggle with long established roots, doubled leaves and doubled again as the wildwood leaped the stone wall to extend its power. They'd crammed years of growth into the space of the few days since she'd last walked this line.
Fiona rubbed her belly, over the baby growing there. She used the same twists of time, making days do the work of weeks while her power swelled as the child swelled within her. Even if Maureen learned what pregnancy meant to the Old Blood, she would never dream that danger rushed on her so fast.
But those tiny oaks had to go. Fiona squatted down in the grass and ran her fingers through the cool dampness of its weave. She summoned her Power and gathered the plants to her will. The turf heaved as if snakes wrestled underneath, and the seedling trees toppled. Leaves withered and crumbled before her eyes, their slow death compressed
