Antebellum Awakening (The Network Series #2)(69)

I preferred my bowels where they were.

The red dragon threw his head back and let out a scream, setting the leaves above us on fire. I ducked behind Sanna’s hunched form, feeling like a coward for putting a blind old woman between myself and danger.

“Are they planning on eating us?”

“Nah. They wouldn’t eat me. They’d eat you, yes. But not me. Not a bad way to go, though. You wouldn’t feel a thing.”

“Oh,” I muttered, staring at the long fangs dripping from the red dragon’s mouth. “I think I’d feel something.”

Sanna bellowed in a language I didn’t recognize. It sent the dragons into a stomping rage, and she chuckled. “They hate it when I say that.”

The emerald dragon snapped at the mauve one, her teeth dripping with pearly saliva. The mauve dragon was not amused, and screamed in response. I stumbled, but Sanna didn’t waver. She shouted something else, and the other dragons screeched.

“Can I transport out of here?”

“Sure,” she called. “Go to my house. I want to stay and see what happens. It’s been a while since I’ve seen this many in one spot.”

“Are you mad?” I cried. “They’ll trample you.”

She waved a hand through the air. “I’ll be fine.”

“But Sanna, you’re blind.”

She smirked, tapping her finger against the side of her head. “Not to everything. Go on. They’ll get pretty rough here soon.”

Grateful to escape, I transported away. The spell dropped me onto a familiar patch of forest near her gurgling stream. I rolled off a rock with a grimace, thinking that I really needed to work on my transportation skills, and slowly made my way up the path. Sanna appeared on her porch just as I arrived.

“That red one is fierce," she said with a little tutting sound. “Fierce, fierce. Those teeth? Jikes! One hell of a set, if you ask me. Well, come on already. No sense waiting out here.”

Sanna turned into the house, waving me in after her.

Despite the massive dragon talon on the wall, the rest of Sanna’s house was nondescript and tidy. She had a small table, a narrow bed, a fireplace, and a few pots hanging on the wall. She motioned for me to sit in a chair at her rickety table and I obeyed.

“Thank you for saving me from the dragons,” I said. She gave me a toothy smile, seeming quite pleased with herself. Tucked away in her little cottage, and more comfortable with monsters than with witches, I doubted she got into society much. “Can you explain what’s going on? Why are the dragons following me?”

“Your power,” she said, reaching for a teapot. I marveled that she didn’t just use magic to call all the things that she needed to her. “The dragons are drawn to it.”

“To my power? Why?”

Sanna poured a cup of tea into a nearby glass and took a sip.

“It’s really quite simple, Bianca,” she said in a long suffering tone. “Forest dragons love power. It calls to them.”

My hand covered my heart, which had begun galloping. “How do you know about my power?”

She scoffed with a gruff, scraping sound. “It doesn’t take a witch like Isadora to recognize strong magic. I’ve been around for a long time too. I sense it, and so do they.”

My eyebrows lifted halfway to my hairline.

“All these dragons coming out of Letum Wood are my fault?”

“Blessed be, no. Kind of an arrogant child, aren’t you?” she muttered. “One little girl like you couldn’t make the dragons this nervous. But the old powers are awakening. That’s what draws them out near the city. But once they’re closer to you, the power, which is quite strong, calls to them. It’s lucky for them that you’re also a lovely little snack. At least I think you are. I can’t see whether your face is lovely or not. You could be quite ugly.”

I brushed aside her snarky tone to pry at something that concerned me far more.

“What do you mean by the old powers are awakening?”

“The old powers, you know!” Sanna cried with a surly wave of her hand. “The dark magic is in Antebellum again. It’s all just beginning."

She reached up and rubbed one of the scales on her necklace and a tattoo on her wrist was visible for just a moment. It wasn’t a circlus like mine; Sanna’s wrist boasted the furled wing of a dragon, the sign of the Dragonmaster. It stretched across her wrist in a black, swooping design.

“Why is dark magic bringing them from the deep forest?” I asked, peeling my eyes away from her tattoo. “What part do they play besides protecting the castle?”

Sanna smiled. “Let me tell you a story,” she said, as she settled into a chair with her teacup floating beside her.

“It starts back in the days of the Mortal Wars, when the Almorran priests banished the humans from Antebellum and sent them across the ocean. Most of the forest dragons were allied with the Almorran priests in what is now the Western Network. Once we destroyed the Almorran race, and separated from each other into the Network system, each Network murdered the forest dragons living in their lands, just to be sure the evil was really gone. Each Network, that is, except for ours.”

A little twinkle appeared in her eye: she must appreciate the underhanded, rebellious spirit. She took another sip.