Chapter 346: The Wooden Dragon

He lifted his head.

For an instant, his gaze rested on Elara’s chest. Not on her face. Not on her hands. On the narrow place beneath her collarbone, where the green wool lay flat and thin. He looked at it the way a man looks at a thing he had hoped not to find.

"Draeven?" said Morgana.

"It is nothing."

"You’ve gone pale."

"I am tired."

"You’re lying."

"Yes," said Draeven, very quietly.

He turned, and carried the bowls to the basin, and set them down.

She watched him. She watched the line of his back, and the stillness of his hands, and the careful, deliberate way he did not look at her. Something cold crept up the back of her neck. She felt it through the bond, a thin, hard, controlled thread of alarm, wound tight as wire.

What did you feel?

Later, said his silence. Not here.

She turned back to her mother.

Elara was watching them both. Her eyes were shrewd, and quiet, and very tired. She did not say anything. But she lifted one thin hand, and pressed it flat against her chest, just under the collarbone, as if to hold something in. Then she dropped it, and smiled, and the smile did not reach her eyes.

"It’s a bad winter," she said again.

"Ma."

"I know."

"What’s wrong with you?"

"I don’t know, love." Her voice was very gentle. "I’ve never known. It started two years ago. A little cough. It went away. It came back. It was worse. The apothecary says it’s the lungs. Another says it’s something in the blood." She shrugged, thin shoulders lifting and falling. "I’m old. I’ve had a good run."

"You haven’t."

"I’ve had a very good run."

"You’ve been poisoned...."

"Morgana."

It was Draeven.

He had turned from the basin. His face was grave, and calm, and perfectly composed, and his eyes held hers across the little room.

"Not yet," he said. "We do not know that."

"But you felt...."

"I felt something." His voice was very quiet. "I do not yet know what. I will find out. I swear it to you. But we will not frighten your mother with guesses."

"I’m not frightened," said Elara.

"No," said Draeven. "I do not think you are."

"I’ve been frightened for eighteen years. I got used to it." Her mouth twisted. "Sit down, the lot of you. Before I do something undignified."

They sat.

The fire crackled. The goat sighed in her sleep. Morgana took the stool by the hearth, and Kaelen shifted over, without a word, to make room, and slid an arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him. She did not say anything. She didn’t trust her voice.

"Right," said Elara.

She folded her hands on her knee.

"You’ve read it."

"Yes."

"All of it."

"Yes."

"The part about your father."

Morgana’s heart gave a great slow thump.

"Yes."

"Then you know I lied."

The word fell into the quiet.

Nobody moved.

"I know," said Morgana.

"I’m sorry."

"I know that, too."

"You’ve every right to hate me."

"I don’t."

"You might. Later." Elara’s voice was perfectly steady. "When you’ve read the rest. I’ve left it where I said. Morgana. Everything I couldn’t say." She drew a long breath. "I thought I’d be dead before you came to read it. I’m rather glad I’m not. It will be easier, saying it to your face."

"Ma...."

"Not tonight."

"But...."

"Not tonight, love." Her voice cracked, just slightly, on the last word. "There’s a man at the inn."

Silence.

"You know about him?" said Draeven, softly.

"I’ve known for three days." Elara’s grey-green eyes lifted, and met his. "I knew the moment the carriage came through the gate. I felt it. Here." She tapped her chest. "It’s been burning like a coal ever since."

"The sickness?"

"Aye."

"It reacts to him?"

"It knows him." A faint, bitter smile. "I always thought it did. I thought it was a thing I’d carried with me. But it wakes when he’s near. It’s his, you see. It’s his, and it’s been calling him, like a dog to a whistle, all this week."

Nobody spoke.

The fire spat. A log shifted in the grate, and sent up a shower of sparks.

"Elara," said Draeven, very carefully. "What do you know about the man at the inn?"

She looked at him for a long moment.

"Enough," she said. "More than I want to." She turned, and bent, and slid open the drawer of the low dresser beside the hearth. She felt for something. Her thin hand came out holding a small dark shape, wrapped in a scrap of cloth. "But first. Morgana."

"Yes?"

"Come here."

She came.

She knelt, in front of her mother’s chair, on the warm worn flagstones. The firelight lay across Elara’s face, and made it very young. She unwrapped the cloth, slowly, with trembling fingers, and held out her palm.

It was a dragon.

It was no longer than a thumb. It was carved from a pale warm wood, pearwood, she thought, smooth as silk, and it lay curled on the cloth with its tail wrapped around its feet and its head lifted, and its tiny wings half unfurled. Every scale was cut. Each one was no bigger than a grain of rice, and each was perfect. Its eyes were two tiny hollows, and in the firelight they seemed to glow.

"Oh," breathed Morgana.

"I said I’d give it to you."

"Ma...."

"It’s yours." Elara’s voice was thick. "It was always yours. He made it for you."

Morgana put out her hand.

She took it as one takes a bird. It was warm. It was lighter than she’d expected. It sat in her palm like something alive, and she felt, quite distinctly, a faint pulse in it, a slow soft thrum, like a sleeping heart.

"It’s warm," she whispered.

"Aye."

"Why is it...."

"I don’t know." Elara’s voice was very low. "It’s always been warm. I used to think I’d imagined it. I put it in the drawer, and it was warm in the dark. I’d come in, in the evening, and the whole room would smell of pear."

Morgana closed her fingers around it.