Chapter Thirty-Seven

Loralie went outside briefly to check on the dragons and see if there was anything she could do to help Det. He said he had everything under control, so she picked up as many of the saddlebags as she could carry and went back into the house. The first stop was the kitchen, where she set about organizing their supplies and putting things in the empty cupboards. She checked the sink and found that water still flowed from the magically-powered cistern located somewhere above the house.

After she had the kitchen organized, she checked the rest of the rooms. The lavatory was in good working order, and her bedroom was just as she remembered it. The bed wasn't big enough for her and Det to share it, so they'd have to find a place for him to sleep. There was a long couch in the library that might work.

Det came in a little bit later, and she gave him a little tour of where everything was. By the time he'd decided to set up his bedroll in the library for the night, Connie was up and walking on steady feet. Loralie set to work making some food for them all, and they ate a meal together at the kitchen table.

For the first time in years, Loralie felt normal. Eating a meal with her mother, in her childhood home. As if the intervening years and all their trials had been nothing. The only thing different from when she'd been a child was that she was older, and Det was here. Her mother was just the same, having not really aged at all since she'd been frozen. Loralie wondered if her grandmother would be the same.

She got the chance to find out the next day. Led by Connie, Loralie and Det went into another part of the maze that was the Citadel, to a section Loralie had never been allowed to explore when she was little. Now, of course, it made sense that her mother hadn't wanted her to see her grandmother's pale face pressed up against the ice, caught forever in a running posture.

"In her letter, she said she was going to try to outrun the ice and thought she had calculated a way to do so, but obviously, she was wrong," Connie said, touching the surface of the blue-green ice that encased her mother. "She'd prepared everything just in case, but I got the impression she really thought she could beat it." A tear ran down Connie's face.

"The quality of the ice here is different than the stuff that held you in the library," Det observed, breaking the melancholy mood as he surveyed the ice in the light that filtered in from a high clerestory window, far above.

"It's less blue and more greenish-tinted. The way the ice should be," Loralie agreed with him.

"It's the yellow patterns that bind the mind," Connie said, surprising Loralie into looking at her.

She had not known her mother understood so much about the magical ice. There was, clearly, still a great deal to learn. At least now there was a chance she'd have the time to learn it all from her mother—and possibly, her grandmother too.

When it came time to do the spell to release Loralie's grandmother, it was much simpler than she'd expected. Her mother led the work, but the power was mostly Loralie's, since her mother was still feeling a little weak after being frozen for so long.

Det was there to catch the woman as she fell into his arms, still running. He carried her to the reclining chair they'd brought with them, and Connie bundled her into the blankets they'd brought while Loralie used her warming spell to pre-heat the blankets.

Within a few minutes, the woman began to wake, and Connie took the lead this time, explaining all that had happened and introducing Loralie and Det. Loralie's grandmother, who asked Det to call her Bev, seemed in better shape than Connie had been and looked almost as young as Connie as well.

"The ice that held her was closer to what it should have been," Connie explained when Det remarked upon Bev's quick recovery from a much longer stay in the ice. "It held her suspended between this world and the next, as it holds the prisoner wizards. It maintains them. The inferior ice that started to degrade so quickly in the library was not as good, which allowed me to feed Loralie information in the dream-state."

"Which is what Skir is doing," Loralie reminded them all.

"Not for much longer," Bev and Connie said together, then smiled at each other.

"Just give me a day to recover, and I will show you what needs to be done, Granddaughter," Bev said, sipping slowly on the cup of water Det had given her. She smiled through her fatigue. "I can't believe I have a granddaughter."

"And a great-granddaughter, and great-grandson as well," Det said, grinning at the woman. It was clear he was charmed by the women of Loralie's family, which was just as well, since she hoped—and prayed—he would be seeing them often after this business with Skir was finally settled.

"You had a boy?" Bev said in wonder as she looked at Loralie.

"Twins," Loralie said, nodding as she smiled. "One of each."

"Amazing. We don't ever have boys. Not that I know of. He must be very special," Bev said, filling in a part of Loralie's family history that she had suspected but didn't know for certain until now.

"They both are," Loralie confirmed. "If, and when, we fix things here, I would like for you both to meet them."

"I look forward to it," Bev said, then leaned her head back against the chair. "I'm sorry I'm so tired. Sleeping for a couple of centuries should have allowed me to wake invigorated, but I'm afraid the opposite is true." She smiled softly as she closed her eyes.

The next day, all three women went to the area where Skir was housed. The ice in his chamber, as they had suspected, was distinctly blue. Bev shook her head as she examined the chamber as closely as she could.

"Not good," she finally pronounced. "It will take some power to fix this."

"Loralie has more innate magic than I do, Mother," Connie admitted. "If anyone can do this, it's her."

Bev, who was able to stand but was leaning heavily on a cane Det had fashioned for her overnight, peered at Loralie. "Was her father fey? She is much fairer of hair and skin than either of us—or than my mother was, for that matter. And I know my grandmother was a brunette. It was her husband who introduced the blond hair into our line. My grandfather was half-fey," Bev told them, surprising them all yet again.

Connie stood there with her mouth open for a moment before she finally answered. "Yes, Mother, my husband is a seer of the fair folk."

"Well, where is he then?" Bev said, looking around as if she thought her daughter's husband should have been here for this.

"Probably already on his way, if I know my Loran," Connie said. "He foresaw all of this, I'm sure, but he won't arrive until the proper time. He's always been very careful about keeping to what his visions tell him to do, even if it is difficult for him."

Bev just shook her head. "All right, Loralie. You're up. Here's what you need to do, and listen carefully, because if Skir is as awake as I think he might be, he will put up resistance. You cannot fail, for if he succeeds in distracting you from this task, all will be lost, and we'll all be the first to die in the renewed tyranny of wizards."

Loralie gulped. She had hoped with her mother and grandmother here, the odds of their success had increased, but it didn't sound like the other two women could help, except with advice. And their knowledge, of course. They knew things Loralie didn't and hopefully would be able to guide her. Maybe that would be the deciding factor.

Loralie wasn't ready for this, and yet… She'd been building toward this task for years. If she wasn't ready right now, she never would be. And this was her task. Not her mother's or grandmother's. The magic and the willpower had to come from Loralie.

She squared her shoulders and walked closer to the ice chamber that held a single man of large proportions. The wizards had all been very tall by today's reckoning, and stronger both physically and magically than all others. They were also immortal, if the tales were true, and she had no reason to doubt them.

At the end of the wizard wars, the winners could not bring themselves to kill their brethren in cold blood—if that was possible at all, which Loralie doubted. So, they'd devised this prison and placed each one of the defeated wizards in their own chamber, on a bed of ice, to be covered by the same ice for as long as possible. The Guardian had been appointed to oversee it all, and the rest was history.

Loralie had never really looked at the sleeping wizards. Now, she saw that Skir had a very angular face and seemed to have a scowl on his face. He wasn't a handsome man. In fact, he had a sort of otherworldly look about him, and his size—even larger than tall, muscular, Detlif—was a bit off-putting. Freakish, almost.

The stories she had heard and the recorded history of this wizard in particular made her blood run cold. She'd never seen a skith in person, but they were reported to be horrid creatures whose single purpose was to kill. They were said to spit acid that burned through even dragon scale, and they would bite the heads of their prey, including any unsuspecting humans who sadly crossed their path.

The creatures lived mostly in the rocky sandhills that were on the eastern border that marked the line between Draconia and Skithdron, but they had occasionally been herded into Draconia to wreak havoc. Their only real enemy were dragons, and the hatred between skiths and dragons was very real and very deadly.

In fact, many historians claimed that Dranneth the Wise had created dragons with the idea of countering Skir's skiths. Only where Skir had made his skiths simple-minded killing machines, Dranneth had imbued his dragons with wisdom and intelligence as well as fearsome fighting abilities.

She felt Skir stir in the very back of her mind as she touched one fingertip to the wet ice that filled the chamber. She was standing at the doorway, the others arrayed behind her as she inspected her task. The place echoed with everyone's slightest movement. The entire place—all but the Guardian's home—had been built on a very large scale. Probably because the wizards were so much bigger than normal people, but even they didn't need the high vaulted ceilings, wide halls and giant doors of this place.

Loralie drew her hand back as if burned when she felt that malevolent presence. Skir was most definitely closer to full consciousness than she had expected. He was going to fight her when she started refreezing the ice. She just knew it.

Suddenly, she heard a sound from the dark hallway. The entire Citadel complex was lit during the day by high windows set every few yards along the halls and in every chamber. By night, if the Guardian needed to walk within the labyrinth, one had to provide their own light in the form of the simple mage lights Loralie had taught her children to make the other day.

Since it was daytime, Loralie turned, surprised to see Leasharra walking down the curving hallway toward them. She was followed by Grennulf…and another white snow dragon…and a man dressed in white robes, carrying a staff.

When Connie saw him, she cried out and ran to him. He caught her easily in his strong arms and twirled her before claiming her mouth in a firm kiss. This must be her father, Loralie realized. She looked away, allowing the reunited mates a moment to themselves.

"Leasharra? Why are you here?" she asked, somewhat confused, facing the dragon.

"First, you should meet your father's heartmate, Lady Nerilia," Leasharra said, indicating the lovely white dragon who had entered behind Grennulf and now stood on Leasharra's right. Gren was on Lea's left.

"It is my honor to meet you, Lady Nerilia," Loralie said respectfully, bowing toward Nerilia.

"Likewise," came the dragon's smooth voice into Loralie's mind. "I am only sorry it's taken so long for my heartmate's visions to come to pass. Had you had a normal childhood, you would have known me from birth, and I would have helped raise you. As it is, I hope we can become friends, given time."

Overwhelmed by the idea, Loralie nodded. "I would like that very much, milady." Emotion clogged her throat so that she couldn't say more.

"Now, as to why we have come here," Leasharra took over the conversation again. "It is all part of the dragons' prophecy and your sire's visions. Skir is more awake than he should be, and more aware of what you plan to do than is good. He will try to distract you from your purpose. We are here to distract him from his." If a dragon could sound smug, Lea did at that moment.