Wicked As You Wish (A Hundred Names for Magic #1) - Rin Chupeco Page 0,84
in the first place. We’ll wait till all the horses grow accustomed to your presence before riding out.”
Cole shrugged.
“How about a compromise?” Ken handed Cole a small vial. “Here. Add a few drops of these to your clothes. It’s a calming spell with some chamomile mixed in. It calms horses down quickly.”
“It smells like flowers.”
“You can either stink of daisies, or learn to run faster than a stallion, mate. Your choice.” Ken trotted back to the rest of the group. “We could have gotten rid of some very unwanted baggage if you’d just set him loose, you know,” he said quietly as he prepared to mount his own horse, a dappled gray stallion.
“I’d rather keep a close eye on him here than have him stir up trouble once he’s out of sight.”
“I knew you’d say that.” Ken sighed. “The horses aren’t going to like it.”
“They’ll get used to it in time. Have them stay upwind of him.”
“If he seriously thinks he can outrun us on foot, I’ll eat my horse,” Ken muttered, swinging up on his mount with practiced ease.
The stallion nickered, looking offended.
“It’s just a figure of speech. You haven’t been hanging around Loki, by any chance?”
“Thanks,” Loki said, droll, from atop their own horse.
“No charge.”
The stallion neighed.
Lass was docile enough, but it would take Tala a while to get used to the saddle before they could even start cantering. Like Cole, the firebird made the other horses skittish, though to a lesser degree. It took some more coaxing from Kensington to finally calm the mounts, and a little longer for Alex to convince the firebird to stay inside his saddlebag, safely hidden from view.
The firebird disapproved of these new arrangements and sulked inside the large burlap sack, making small noises of discontent every now and then to let Alex know just what it thought about the whole matter. “We don’t want people running around screaming about firebirds coming to burn their villages and kidnap their virgins,” Ken told the bulging saddlebag, which was quivering with indignation.
“Firebirds don’t burn villages and kidnap virgins, Ken,” Zoe said. “That’s a dragon. The stereotype of a dragon.”
“You know what I mean. To the average villager, firebirds are just dragons with feathers and better-smelling breath.”
The firebird snorted.
“If there are any surviving villages left,” Loki corrected soberly. “It doesn’t look good.”
“Did that happen a lot?” Tala asked. “Dragons attacking people, I mean.”
Zoe nodded. “Hundreds of years ago. Though I’d say they have more reasons to attack us than we have to attack them. Dragons are lonely creatures, and they avoid human settlements whenever they can. It’s people who keep wanting to hunt them down. Avalon tried to start dragon sanctuaries in later years, but by then it was too late.”
“My ancestors used to offer handsome rewards for dragon bone,” Alex added. “Usually in exchange for their daughters’ hands in marriage. Their fangs and teeth would be grounded down to powder and sold for their medicinal value, and for a while it was prized more than gold. By the time laws were instituted to protect dragons, most had already been hunted down to extinction. The British even started a war with Avalon, trying to get them to lift those restrictions.”
“We kicked their buttholes,” West affirmed.
Alex smiled briefly. “They were fresh off the success of their second opium war, but unlike China, we had certain advantages. We haven’t always done the right thing in the past. We were good at protecting Avalonian magic from outsiders, but not always the creatures we were supposed to care for.”
“I blame us,” Ken said. “Wanna be known far and wide as a great warrior? Slay a dragon! Wanna impress the princess two kingdoms down from yours? Slay a dragon! Wanna show you’ve got better claims to the crown than the despot in power? Slay a flipping dragon! Genocide, all packaged up as feats of bravery—sometimes people can be pretty hateful, you know? No one’s seen any of them since the Burn.”
“The Burn?”
“Huge fight, between Peter Pan and Hook, a long time ago. Twelfth century or something. No one’s really sure what happened, but it caused a magical explosion that killed them both and left a desert that separated Esopia from all the other regions of Avalon. It’s why the Scourge was able to destroy Neverlaaaa…” Ken sputtered and coughed, looking ashamed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean…”
“That’s okay,” Tala said, despite flinching herself. “What happened next?”
“Well, most dragons used to reside in Neverland. They went missing after that. The fires are still