Page 110 of Triumph at Pemberley

Were there not enough risks already? “In theory, perhaps. But there is no reason to put yourself in such danger, not when there are enough Gates already.”

Her lips quirked. “Unfortunately, Cerridwen’s visions say otherwise. Apparently Napoleon cannot be stopped unless I open a Gate.”

His mouth went dry. “You do not even know if it is possible.”

She took a breath. “I am going to try to tell you something, but I may run up against a binding. Cerridwen did her best to remove it so I could speak to you, but it is apparently a tricky thing to lift only part of a binding. And if I tell you, you will also be bound against repeating it.”

Another damned binding! But if it meant Elizabeth could tell him about her secret training, it would be worth it.

Then it struck him. Her secret training. “Have you been opening Gates?” he breathed. And risking her life.

“Until today, I was only trying. The best I managed lasted only minutes. I could not keep them open. Today, with the Artifact, I succeeded.” She gazed up at him, her eyes shining in the candlelight.

Astonishment warred with fear for her and transmuted into anger. “This is what you have not been telling me?”

“I feared you would insist on stopping me. Then, once I managed to open a Gate for a few seconds, Rana Akshaya bound me against speaking of it.” Then her expression brightened. “Just think of it! I have actually breathed air from India!”

“Good God.” Had she truly done such a dangerous thing? “India?”

Her gaze grew distant. “To Rana Akshaya’s former Nest. It must be somewhere I can picture very vividly or a vision someone puts in my head.”

It made him sick to think of her taking such a risk, on only the say-so of dragons. “Elizabeth, what of Jenny? She needs you. If you died in these attempts…” He could not even finish the sentence.

And it was not only Jenny who needed her desperately. He did, too.

She looked up at him steadily. “Jenny needs a world without Napoleon if she is to survive. This is the way I can get it for her. I have been as careful as possible, doing it far away, with Rana Akshaya watching carefully so I do not shake the foundations. The only evidence we have about opening Gates being dangerous is the time when Iorweth tried to do it without his Artifact.”

“But that was very dangerous indeed.” Something tickled at the back of his mind. “Is this where the new Indian dragons came from? When you opened a Gate to their Nest?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

He could only stare at her. People had traveled halfway around the world in an instant through her Talent. Yes, he had been through a Gate himself, but that was a centuries-old one, not a miraculous gateway made by his beloved wife. The one whose other mage powers were modest at best.

She lifted her chin. “I know you do not like it, but I cannot see another choice. How is this any different from when you risked your life to go to France, even though it could have left Jenny fatherless?”

She was right, even if he did not like it. And she had performed a miracle, one that might give them hope when all seemed lost. “No different at all, except that this time I am the one who must watch you take the risk, and I am not any happier about it than you must have been. But I am also in awe. You opened a Gate half-way across the world.”

“It is no more than Iorweth the Bold did hundreds of years ago, though he would have barely known India existed. But it is an astonishing thing.” She touched her side, over the lump in her stays. “That is how I got the ruby, too. Someone threw it through, and it accidentally cut me. Apparently that made it mine, much to Rana Akshaya’s displeasure.”

He shook his head slowly. “Two years ago, I knew for a fact there were only a handful of Artifacts in Britain and dragons were extinct. I had never heard of Gates. If I were any other man, I would still believe that. You have opened an astounding new world for me. And you may yet save us all.”

Carefully reaching his arms past the world-changing Artifact, he leaned forward to kiss his beloved, remarkable wife.

Elizabeth paused near the entrance of the Dark Peak Nest. The illusions covering it were back, though they had disappeared after she had been accepted as part of the Nest. This was not a good sign.

As if it had not been warning enough she had been summoned to meet the Eldest of the Dark Peak with the specific instruction not to inform Cerridwen. Only a day after she had successfully opened the Gate.

She was in trouble, no question about it. And justifiably so; the senior dragons of the Dark Peak had been emphatic in teaching her never to use her Forbidden Talent of Gate-opening, and she had ignored them all.

It was time to pay the piper.

But first she had to get inside the Nest, and without asking Cerridwen for help. Unfortunately, that only left waiting for one of the dragons guarding the Nest to notice her.

Finally a falcon swooped down, not one she recognized. “This way, Companion Elizabeth,” it squawked. The illusion parted, revealing the path through the rocky slope to a cleft in the cliff face.

Once inside, the bird transformed into its dragon form and led her straight to the Eldest’s chamber. No conversation, not even a friendly greeting. It hurt, since the elaborate dragon-made artwork around her only reminded her of how excited she had been to be here on her past visits, and how generous and kind the Eldest had been. How the Eldest had given Darcy the tools allowing him to survive his journey to France and later helped Elizabeth follow him there.

At least she need not worry about her physical safety among the peaceful dragons. The worst that could happen would be a tongue-lashing and a binding, though that would be bad enough. Could the Eldest stop her from using her Gate-opening abilities?