The Draykon Series (1-3)

Lokant: Chapter Eight

'I used you,' Pensould interrupted. He sounded faintly abashed. 'Your energy. I needed it, to come back. It hurt, yes?'

Llandry frowned at him. 'Hurt? Yes, it hurt. A lot.' She didn't like to remember that experience. As she had felt Pensould's essence roar into life under her hands, she had been struck by incapacitating pain, unable to prevent herself being dragged through the boundaries between the worlds and deposited in the Lower Realms where Pensould in his draykon form was stirring into life.

'I suppose it was you who pulled me through,' Llandry said darkly.

'Yes,' Pensould admitted without remorse. 'You were too far away.'

Ynara groaned, and Llandry looked with quick alarm at her mother. 'Ma? Are you well?'

'Yes,' she replied faintly. 'I'm told my daughter is not a human but a draykon - a creature that, until recently, was not thought to exist at all; I learn that she has become the "minchu" of another draykon and that she has recently been made to suffer extreme pain and discomfort by her self-elected spouse; and after weeks of absence she suddenly reappears and now she sits in my living room, chattering with astonishing comfort about her new form, as if such things were no sort of surprise to her at all. Of course, I am quite well.'

Llandry was silent. It was true that it had taken her precious little time to adjust to her draykon form; instead of feeling uncomfortable in the new shape she felt rather as though her human body was the wrong one. As a draykon she was a different person: no longer shy, afraid, out of step with her own peers, but strong and comfortable in her skin. The experience had been a revelation. She knew in her heart that Pensould spoke the truth, but it was hard to admit such things to her mother.

For now, she elected to change the subject. 'I have more to tell you, Mamma, and Pa as well. Will he be home soon?'

'Your father,' Ynara said slowly, 'is in the Uppers, looking for you.'

Llandry was speechless. She would never have imagined that Aysun, with his lifelong fear of the Uppers so deeply ingrained, might go so far as to go after her.

'How long has he been gone?' She felt a stab of fear as she spoke, imagining the dangers that could have befallen him.

'You returned Dev to us,' Ynara replied. 'He left six days after that.'

Llandry nodded briskly. 'I must find him,' she said, coming to her feet. 'I'll bring him home to you, Ma.'

'How are you going to find him, Llan?' Ynara looked so weary and confused that Llandry's heart sank. She pulled her mother to her feet and caught her in an embrace.

'Same way I found Devary,' she answered. 'Is he... did he recover?'

Ynara hesitated before she replied. 'He did not die.'

Llandry frowned. That answer was cagey and incomplete, but there was no time to pursue it, not while her father wandered Iskyr on a fruitless hunt for her. 'Send him my love,' she said. Pensould frowned at that, but she ignored him. 'I must find Papa at once. We'll return soon.'

'I - Llan, wait-'

Llandry was already running back out to the balcony with Pensould behind her. She jumped and soared, climbing above the glissenwol canopy. Once she was above the level of the trees, she changed. In an instant she was draykon once more, arrowing through the air; in the blink of an eye she flashed through the barrier between the worlds into the Upper Realm of Iskyr.

***

Aysun had gone no more than three steps before his father's next words froze him where he stood.