Page 26 of Guardian's Dilemma
“I’m strong,” he said.
I didn’t know why he suddenly wanted to fight, since he was a medic and not a warrior. Maybe his dragon had the same instinct mine did, deep down. I shook my head again. Lord Somerville had been very deliberate in his choice of who to send and, at least if Glenwise was at the castle, he could reach any area quickly if someone was hurt.
When he opened his mouth to argue, I screeched at him. My dragon was out, my clan was in danger and my mate was as vulnerable as a person could be, tied up in a dragon’s vault. My patience snapped.
I saw the answering flash of a dragon in Glenwise’s eyes but he wisely backed away.
With that, I took to the sky and headed straight for the boundary beside the vault.
It was layered up with protections, just like the rest of the boundary, and I knew that it was as strong as I could make it because I circled the territory every day and I checked each section closely in a random pattern. I even went to the trouble of using a digital randomiser to decide which section to check, since I knew that brains rarely did anything truly random and I didn’t want anyone to learn a pattern, especially one I wasn’t consciously aware of. The boundary was as well-protected as I could make it.
That didn’t stop me worrying.
The boundaries were not what they once were. I did my best but I was only one person and everyone knew that the strongest protections were many-layered. It was just that it had been years since Lord Somerville came out to the boundary; he layered his magic over the castle instead. And the armour-like shields that Seren had put down five years before had become weak and broken along with his spirit. The strongest protections I’d ever seen, hands down, were the ones laid by Lord Somerville’s eldest son, Alexander. Except they’d withered and faded when Alexander died.
That was why I always made my protections independent of me. It was harder, took significantly more effort, and far, far longer to make. However, it meant they would last, even if I was killed.
Even if I died protecting them, I’d still be keeping my family safe.
Those spells had always been strong enough. I’d been confident. But my mate had got in, somehow.
Would the otherridirehave the power to break our protections?
Chapter 12: Glimmer
They arrived in a line, all wearing the black armour that was carved from dragon’s skin. It made me feel sick to think it. The protections that had been worked into it were twice as strong because of what it was. Who had first discovered that, though? Who had thought to skin a dragon and try the scales on for size?
I saw them and waited, standing in the shadow of a nearby tree, using the boundary to my advantage. They didn’t see me.
They actually gathered in a little cluster and I felt the first push against my magic. For the first time, I realised that I hadn’t felt that when my mate broke in. I filed the information away but I had more pressing things to think about at that second.
There were sixridire, and I twitched uneasily. Could I take six?
My dragon’s instinct was to call for help, call my clan, because dragons were always more powerful together.
My deeper instinct won out. With the exception of Lord Somerville, and perhaps Alfie if he inherited the power he was meant to, I was the strongest of my clan. It was my duty to protect them.
I crept forward, blending into the afternoon shadows and listening to theridireplanning their attack.
“The signal came from half a mile away. Nobody else knows how to activate it, so it must have been him.”
“How do we know the dragons haven’t found him?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said the leader. “We’re going in to kill the dragons.”
The leader gave each of them a vial no bigger than a shot and they all drank quickly. Even with my eyesight, I couldn’t tell what the liquid was.
When they pushed at the boundary again, I actually stumbled back. That explained the liquid, then. It had been dragon’s blood.
The sheer strength of their spells was staggering. They’d easily tripled in power and I reminded myself thatridirehunted us for that reason: power. These humans wanted my skin and my blood and my organs, and they wanted the same from my clan.
Well, they couldn’t have any of it.
I sent my magic out to repair the damage they were doing to the boundary spells but the enhanced power they wielded stripped the spells away faster than I could make them.
At least I got to see the disconcerted look on their faces as they realised that somebody was nearby. They scanned the surroundings, wary, but they didn’t see me.
It was inevitable that, with that much power, they’d break into the territory. I added a few layers of protection, partly just to annoy them, because it wasn’t going to stop them.
