He reached for it with both hands. He stretched for it, pinwheeling, and finally connected at a full run.
Clots of dirt spewed around him. Moss and grass kicked up, great ropy furrows ripped through the green, because he was no longer Lord Rhys Langford, a brown-haired boy unseen and unheard.
He was Rhys the full-blooded drakon, and his talons were sharp and long, and his wings unfolded in bright canopies against his back, slowing his fall, then tumbling him into a roll until his head struck a rock that blanked everything into white.
That was how he came to be a dragon the first time. That was his Turn. And when he'd come groggily awake, naked in that field, it was to spend the rest of the night putting human hands upon black and rotting bones, digging and digging and spitting the taste of mold from his mouth until his tongue swelled to dry leather and his lips chapped.
It had taken hours to rebury the dead.
So there had been no kisses from fair maidens. No envy from his brother. He'd never told a soul about going to the Field; he did not dare. When his mother had inquired, he said he'd gotten the gash on his head by leaping from the dock into Fire Lake, which everyone believed. Or pretended to.
He'd always been the one who pushed his limits as far as he could; no one ever seemed to question that.
Still, he'd sobered a bit after that night. Perhaps it was the notion of rubbing so closely against a vast Nothing. Perhaps it was the secret wonder at his own inner will, the unexpected ability to scrape his hide back together when so many others—boys he knew, boys he named friends—had not.
Perhaps it was just plain fear. Twelve was damned young to be slapped in the face with the prospect of sudden annihilation. Whatever it was, from that night on Rhys found himself tempered. Not in a bad way. After all, tempered iron was strong steel, and the dragon in him appreciated the power of steel.
He began to see his life in the shire in a new light. He began to take better note of all the rules, all the regulations, not so he could trick his way around them but so that he could understand the forces that had shaped his history, his tribe. He began to appreciate the beauty and natural order surrounding him, his family, their society, the sprawling village and shady cobblestone lanes and the sparkling manor house itself. Trees and grass- swept knolls, farms and orchards and the tribe's single flock of sheep moving from hill to hill with the seasons, bunched like cotton puffs along the dales.
It was, without question, a golden world. And by and large, Rhys Langford was determined to do his part to keep it that way.
He kept only a single secret still. Save for one pretty girl he was trying to impress, his first true love, he kept the secret of his Turn—because being tempered didn't mean there weren't nights when the need to fly rolled through him in waves of sharp, throbbing desire, and he was still young enough to laugh at the thought of soaring sly and out of bounds. The girl never told, and he never told; Rhys kept that secret until he was fifteen, and it became too cumbersome a thing to carry any longer.
A golden life, aye. A charmed life.
He tried to be grateful for every minute of it.
It was a lovely condition, to be rich and lucky both. He enjoyed the luxuries of his world; he enjoyed the savage splendor of his animal self, of becoming one with the heavens. And he enjoyed the more human elements too: fine food and wine, art and conversation, boxing and fencing. Ladies.
Music.
Oh, the music. Somehow, lately, he'd learned to appreciate all the music around him so much more than he ever had. Not just the celestial melodies of the moon and sun and stars, those electric vibrations that reflected off dragon scales, that sent ripples of harmony back through the skies. Nor just the silent, delicate songs of all the jewels and stones and metals that blessed the earth. Even human music held a sudden new appeal.
Handel, Haydn, Mozart. Italian opera, romantic ballads, street girls crooning verses about lovers across flowing rivers ... it was all so ... engrossing.
Why, the concert he was at right now, for instance, was certainly one of the finest he'd ever experienced. He never used to enjoy the symphony so much, but frankly, the entire affair was sublime. It was almost ridiculously better than any of his previous
The performance chamber was baroque, heavily elaborate plaster friezes done up in shades of mauve and rose and rich buttery cream. He sat not in the middle of the audience but just off to the left, in a satinwood chair far more comfortable than what he remembered. Because Rhys knew this place, knew it right down to the oiled planks of the dais the orchestra played upon. He was in the Von Zonnenburg assembly hall in Soho Square. In London. He'd been here countless times— well, perhaps not countless. A dozen times. It was a venue that suited very well his parents' notion of proper aristocratic entertainment. The Marquess and Marchioness of Langford played their human roles with expert skill, and they'd insisted that each of their children learn to do the same.
Rhys had dozed off on all the other occasions he'd come. He was fairly certain of that. But now—
Every candle in the six dangling crystal chandeliers was lit. There were at least two hundred of them, two hundred tiny sweet flames magnified, their light chopped into prisms that cast chips of color all across the chamber. They managed a luminance he'd never discerned before, perfect white candles dripping perfect little tears into their crystal cups. Their brass polished chains shimmered like molten gold with the rising heat.
The candlelight lent a soft-shadowed clarity to the musicians before him. He admired their satin jackets and old-fashioned rolled wigs, their hands moving over bows and valves and strings in effortless agreement. Rhys didn't know the piece they were performing, but it illumed his surroundings as much as the chandeliers did. It was light and loud and complex and simple and . blissful. He could lounge in the satinwood chair all night, hearing it.
It wasn't particularly bothersome that he seemed to be the only member of the audience in attendance. He thought that perhaps this might be a final rehearsal, something of that sort. He was, after all, a lord; rules were bent all the time for the
He leaned back, a half smile on his lips, tapping his fingers against the arm of his chair. The music thrilled on and on, and he thought he'd never been so content in his life.
Just then a movement to his right caught his eye. Rhys glanced over. A woman was taking her seat three chairs down, skirts and petticoats rustling.
Her attention was fixed upon the musicians, just as his had been. She was gentry at least, dressed in a frock of rose damask and cream ruffles to match the hall, a wrap of stiff white gauze framing her shoulders. Light pooled around her; her ringleted hair was very pale, her powdered skin was very pale; compared to the rest of the chamber she was alabaster and shimmer, actually a little too bright to behold. His eyes began to tear.
She opened her fan; he was dazzled by the flash of pink rubies on lace. She lifted it to her face and turned her head, meeting his gaze from beneath kohled lashes.
He thought she might be beautiful. It was damned hard to tell, what with all the candlelight, but of course she was beautiful. On this stupendous night, in this soaringly exquisite place, how could she be anything but?
She murmured his name. He sat up straighter and offered her a civil nod. She was young, and she was fair, and if she knew him, the last thing he'd want to do was ignore her, because who knew what the night would bring after the music ended—
Her fan lowered. She studied him with eyes of velvety black.
'It's not real,' she whispered. 'You do know that. It's not real. None of it.'
His mouth opened. He wanted to speak and could not; no sound emerged. His hands gripped the chair but that was all he could do. He couldn't move, he couldn't breathe. For one long, horrible moment the entire world went dark. The music played on, but it was different now, it was sly and terrible and crept in tendrils through him, eating away at him like a cancer.
The woman stood. She turned to face him; the wrap slipped down her arms.
'Is this the best of you, then?' she asked in her cultured voice, cool and sensual, a blade of light surrounded by that darkness. 'Is this the best I can expect of you? You lazy bastard. I'm not going to risk my neck helping you if you don't even try.'
Lazy bastard. Lazy bastard—
He knew her. Her realized it just then. Her name escaped him—he'd loved her once, and he knew her—
