“She is here! She is here! The one the foretelling speaks of has come among us!” she screeched.
And pointed directly at me.
87
Kaitlyn
I sat there, stunned, not knowing what to say. Every eye in the Feasting Hall was suddenly fastened on me, which was the last thing I wanted. They were all looking at me like they expected me to turn into a dragon and fly up to the domed glass ceiling at once, which of course, was impossible.
“My dear—is it true?” the noble woman beside me—who hadn’t previously bothered to say a single word to me the whole meal—asked excitedly.
“Uh, no!” I shook my head rapidly. “I don’t know what she’s talking about.”
But the Blind Crone wasn’t done yet.
Still pointing directly at me, she began to recite in a strange, hollow voice that boomed and rolled through the Feasting hall:
“Marked by The Fire
Claimed by Desire.
With the heart of a Drake,
Dragon form she may Take.
Drake Flame cannot Harm her
Drake Fire will but warm her.
She cannot be Burned
When her Lesson is Learned
Though she comes from Abroad
And her visage is Scarred
If you look you will Find
She is one of our Kind!”
At the end of this startling speech, the Blind Crone raised both arms and spoke in the cracked and broken voice which was her usual tone.
“At last! I have lived so many long and weary years waiting to fulfill the onus placed upon me. But now she has come and my duty is done!”
Then she fell down and began having some kind of seizure, her head and heels drumming on the polished marble floor. The bard—who was closest to her—threw down his instrument and tried to help her. But almost before he touched her, the old woman went suddenly rigid and still…then collapsed in a heap.
I watched as he lifted her head and peered into her face, his own features a study in horror and shock.
“Well?” Ari’s mother demanded as the crowd waited breathlessly. “Speak, bard! What’s wrong with her?”
The bard looked up, his eyes stricken.
“Forgive me, my Queen,” he said, his voice breaking. “But…she’s dead.”
88
Ari
In the general confusion that followed, my Drake plucked Kaitlyn neatly from her seat at the table and brought her to the back exit of the Feasting Hall, where there were fewer people. There I changed back to my own form, grabbed a spare robe hanging from one of the many hooks, and led her quickly back to her room.
Poor Kaitlyn seemed to be in a daze. She followed me without protest as I pulled her down the back hallways of the palace until we reached our destination.
I got her seated on the round bed, draped in turquoise bedclothes and knelt before her, taking her hands in mine and looking up into her eyes.
“Kaitlyn,” I said anxiously. “L’lorna, please talk to me! Are you all right?”
Kaitlyn looked at me with a troubled expression.
“Why would she say that? I don’t understand,” she asked at last.
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “Please believe me—nothing like this has ever happened before.”
“Well, weird things just seem to happen around me,” she remarked and gave a bitter little laugh. “I mean—losing my family in The Fire, getting turned into a Nocturne, getting adopted by a chimeling…” She nodded at Mr. Seahorse who was sitting on her shoulder chiming anxiously. “But usually they only affect me. Now, though, everyone in your kingdom is caught up in the weirdness.”
“It’s not weirdness,” I said uneasily. “That was a prophecy, Kaitlyn.” A prophecy which had apparently killed the prophetess who delivered it—though I didn’t say that.
“A prophecy?” She stared into my eyes directly for the first time. “Ari, it was a lie. A promise I can’t live up to.” Pulling her hands out of mine, she got up from the bed and started pacing back and forth across the elegantly woven carpet in front of the bed.
“Kaitlyn—” I began but she cut me off.
“Ari, don’t you realize that everyone who heard her speak is going to expect me to be able to become a dragon—a Drake?” she demanded. “But I’m not and I can’t. I can’t just…just sprout wings and fly!” She gestured at her back distractedly with one hand. “I mean, what are we going to do about this?”
“Stall,” I said firmly. “We tell the people that your Drake can only come out during the full moon. Or we say that she’s shy and only appears when she’s alone with my Drake.”
“What?” Kaitlyn rounded on me. “What are you talking about? That’s a lie and you know it.”
“I know,” I said grimly. “And everything in me revolts against it. But the Blind Crone is believed by everyone—we cannot go against her word without risking the wrath of the people.”
“So they take everything she says as the gospel truth even if it’s crazy and we just have to go along with it?” She shook her head. “No, Ari—no, I want to go back and tell them the truth right now. They need to know that ‘prophecy’ she just laid down out there was a load of crap!”