The Dragon Heir (The Heir Chronicles #3)

The Dragon Heir (The Heir Chronicles #3) Page 1

Prologue

Seven Years Prior

Fog clung to Booker Mountain like an old ragged coat. The pickup's chancy headlights poked frail tunnels through the mist. Although the road was narrow and treacherous, Madison didn't worry. Her grandmother Min could find her way blindfolded and sound asleep.

Min rammed the truck into low gear as the grade steepened. Her face was set in hard, angry lines, but Madison knew Min wasn't mad at her. She felt rescued, cocooned in the pickup with John Robert on her lap and Grace jammed between her and the door. Grace was sleeping, her head braced against the window, her hair hanging in knots around her face. Min hadn't taken the time to comb it.

“Won't Mama worry when she comes home and finds us gone?” Madison asked, speaking softly so as not to startle John Robert, who was sucking his thumb with that drunk-baby look on his face.

“Carlene could do with a little worrying, if you ask me,” Min said. “The idea, leaving a ten-year-old in charge of a baby and a toddler for two days.”

“Somebody probably called off,” Madison suggested. “Or maybe Harold Duane asked her to work late.”

“The tavern's only open till two. She had no business staying out all night.”

“I'm real grown up for my age, Mama says.”

Min snorted and rolled her eyes. “I know you are, honey. You're more grown up than your mama. You were born wise.”

They swept past the brick-and-stone wall and lighted gateposts that marked the Roper place. Min made a sign with her hand as they passed the broad driveway.

“What's that for?” Madison asked, knowing it was a hex.

Min didn't answer. Min always said good Christians didn't hex people.

“Why do you want to hex the Ropers?” Madison persisted. Brice Roper lived there. He was in her class at school. He had this glow around him like light through rain-smeared glass— the kind of glow rich people had, maybe. Brice had four Arabian horses, and he'd let you ride them if he liked you.

Madison had never been riding at the Ropers.

“The Ropers want our mountain,” Min said.

Madison blinked. Booker Mountain? What would they want with that? “But their place is much nicer,” she blurted out.

If you liked fancy stone houses with pillars and grassy lawns and miles of white fence. And Arabian horses.

“Coal,” Min said bluntly. “Bryson Roper can't get the rest of his coal out of the ground without going through Booker Mountain. And that belongs to me.”

They rounded the last curve, past the mailbox that said M. booker, reader and adviser. The pickup rattled to a stop at the foot of the porch steps.

Madison carried John Robert and Min carried Grace. Madison walked flat-footed across the weathered planks of the porch, so she wouldn't get splinters in her bare feet. By the time they'd climbed the steps and crossed the porch and carried the kids to the back bedrooms, Min was breathing hard, her face a funny gray color.

Madison felt the cold kiss of fear on the back of her neck. “Gramma? You all right?”

Min only waved her hand, too breathless to speak. She clawed open the neck of her blouse, revealing the opal necklace she always wore. The one she sometimes let Madison try on.

Once they had the young ones settled in bed, Madison built a fire in the stove and made coffee for both of them. Min didn't even complain about how she made it, which was worrisome.

“It's going to be a cold winter,” Min predicted, settling into the only chair with arms, and wrapping a shawl around her shoulders. Some of her color had come back. “More snow than we've had in a long time. A dying time.”

When Min predicted anything, it was best to listen. Still, Madison was old enough to wonder how a person who could foretell the future could run into so much bad luck.

Madison liked sitting at the table in the front room, drinking sweet coffee with Min. The stripey cat lay purring in front of the fire. Only one thing would make it better, if Min would only say yes.

“Read the cards for me, Gramma!” Madison begged. Reading the cards was a serious business, her grandmother always said, and not done for the entertainment of young girls.

But Min studied Madison a moment, her pale blue eyes glittering like moonstones, her capable hands wrapped around her mug of coffee, then nodded. “All right. It's time. Fetch the cards from on top of the mantel.”

“You mean it?” Madison scrambled down from her chair before Min could change her mind.

Min kept two decks of cards in a battered wooden box with a cross carved into the top. She called them “gypsy cards,” but they looked like regular playing cards to Madison, with a few extras. The box also held a leather pouch full of pebbles and little bones, but Madison had never seen Min use those.

Min handed her the thicker deck. Madison shuffled the cards awkwardly, cut them three times, and shuffled again.

“Lay them out in three rows of three,” Min said, and Madison did.

Her grandmother flipped them over, the cards slapping softly on the weathered wood of the table.

“Madison Moss.” Now her voice was a stranger's, the voice of the reader. “Would you hear the truth?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Madison answered, swallowing hard, hoping there wouldn't be anything scary.

Min studied the cards, pushed her glasses down on her nose, and studied them some more. Madison leaned forward, squinting down at them. The center card in each row was a dragon with snaky eyes and a long, twisting tail, brilliant with color, glittering with gilt.

Abruptly, Min scooped them up and handed them back to Madison. “Shuffle again.”

Mystified, Madison shuffled and spread them. Dragons again. Min frowned at them. Moved them about with the tips of her fingers. Pulling the leather pouch from the box, she emptied it into her palm. Tossed the pebbles and bones down onto the table. Raked them up and threw them down, muttering to herself.

“What's the matter?” Madison asked, disappointed. “Aren't they working?”

“Oh, child,” Min said, shaking her head. The color had left her face again. She extended her trembly hand toward Madison, then drew it back as if afraid to touch her. “Never mind. Let's try something else.” Min handed her the smaller, thirty-two-card deck, sevens and up.

Madison shuffled the cards again and set them out in the familiar gypsy spread, three rows of seven cards in pairs. Past, present, and future.

No dragons.

Personally, Madison wasn't all that interested in the past or the present. But she had hopes for the future. She leaned forward eagerly as Min flipped the cards over one by one. Min whispered her reading, as if unsure of herself.

“A squabble over money,” she said, turning over the seven of diamonds. In the next pair, the nine of spades lay over the queen of clubs. “The death of a wise woman.” A three of diamonds placed over the other two. “A legal letter and a bequest.”

Madison was bored by the notion of squabbles about money and legal letters. “Will I ever have a boyfriend?” she demanded. She was already old enough to know she didn't care much for the boys of Coal Grove.

Min turned the face cards up. Two kings. King of clubs and king of spades. Jack of diamonds. She flipped up the modifiers, stared at them a moment. Seemed like she didn't like what she was seeing. Min gripped both of Madison's hands, leaning in close, her blue eyes like windows to a younger Min enclosed in wrinkly skin.

“Maddie, honey, listen. Beware the magical guilds,” she whispered. “Especially wizards.”

“Gramma, I don't know any magical gills,” Madison said, floundering for understanding.

“Brice Roper,” Min said. “He's a bad one. Ain't nothing good about him.”

Madison blinked at her. “Old Brice or young Brice?” she asked.

“Young Brice,” Min said, which surprised her, because old Brice was scary and mean, and everybody said young Brice had a way about him. People buzzed around young Brice like yellow jackets around lemonade.

“Do not mingle with the gifted, Madison. Do not mess with magic. It's meant nothing but trouble for our family. Swear you won't truck with them.”

Min sounded almost like the preacher in the Quonset hut church Madison went to once, who talked about those who trafficked with the devil. “But, Gramma. Aren't the cards magic?” Madison ventured.

“Swear it!” Min squeezed her hands so hard that tears sprang to Madison's eyes.

“All right, I swear!” she said, blinking fast to keep the tears from escaping her eyes and running down her face. She didn't think the Ropers wanted to truck with her, anyway.

Min released Madison's hands. “My wisdom is wasted on you, child.” She looked more sad than mad.

Her gramma looked back at the cards. “I see four pretty witch boys coming. Two will claim your heart in different ways. Two are deceivers who'll come to your door, one dark, one fair. All of them have magic…”

By then, Madison had kind of lost track of who was who. Still, this was a wonderful fortune, with four pretty boys to dream on.

Min caressed the tiny portraits of the kings with the tips of her fingers. “But, remember this, Madison Moss: they have no power that you don't give away.”

Chapter One Raven's Ghyll

The wind shrieked down out of Scotland, over Solway Firth, and bullied its way between the peaks and fells of the Cumbrian lakes, driving snow before it. Jason Haley hunched his shoulders against the sleet that needled his face and hands.

Raven's Ghyll spread before him, alternately hidden, then revealed by swirls of cloud and ice. A treacherous sheep path, pricked by cairns of stone, descended toward the valley floor.

His wizard stone thrummed within him, responding to the proximity of the Weirstone. The massive crystalline stone gleamed like a sapphire against the flank of the mountain known as Ravenshead. Blinking snow from his eyelashes, Jason peered up at it. Also known as the Dragon's Tooth, the Weirstone was the source of power for all of the magical Weirguilds.

It had been six hours by car from London to Keswick, over increasingly hazardous roads, fighting the weather and the weird British custom of driving on the left side of the road. By the time he reached Keswick, Jason's eyes were twitchy from peering through the swirling flakes and his arms and shoulders ached from gripping the steering wheel.