Read Online In the Time of Dragon Moon by Janet Lee Carey - Free Book Online Page A

a little and wait for Jackrun and the key.
    Jackrun came to me in my dreams. Not breathing fire or riding his dragon. He had filled a bowl with seawater. I looked inside and saw a bright orange starfish. In the dream I asked how he’d found the power to pull a star down from the sky and he laughed.
    Thunderous pounding outside the tower door woke me hours later with a start. I raced across the room thinking it was Jackrun. Lady Olivia’s muffled voiced called, “Uma! For God’s sake, open up!”
    The heavy wardrobe scraped against the floor as I pushed it aside. Lady Olivia shivered in her long robe at the top of the stairs. “The queen!” she said. “She is in a bad way. Crying in her bed. Shouting at people who are not there.”
    â€œI’ll mix the calming cure.”
    â€œNo time. Bring what you need and make it in her bedchamber. Come on!”
    I unlocked the trunk. Jackrun hadn’t come with the room key. I might miss him if I left, but I couldn’t think of that now. I gathered the medicines, locked the trunk, and followed Lady Olivia to the queen’s bedchamber.
    The red curtains had been drawn back on Her Majesty’s bed. She was writhing as we entered; twisting the sheets and covers into thick cloth snakes. “Let me go, you filthy witches,” she was crying. “Untie me!”
    Lady Olivia approached the bed. “She relives the night the witches tormented her and put out her eye when she was a girl. I tried to wake her, but it is not a dream. It is more like some fit. Your Majesty,” she said, sitting by her, “your physician is here.”
    â€œMy eye!” she screamed, pushing Lady Olivia away. “Get away from me! Please don’t put out my eye!” Her scream sent ice up my spine. Lady Olivia forced a hand over Queen Adela’s mouth. However late it was, someone was bound to hear us if we couldn’t quiet her. I shook as I mixed the sleeping remedy and the bapeeta in honey. Mother had told me the story of how the queen lost her eye on All Hallows’ Eve, but it was one thing to know a tale, another thing to be drawn into the agony as if it were happening here and now, to hear the pitiful, frightened cries of the victim as she relived it.
    On the bed, Lady Olivia was doing her best to muffle the screams. “Ouch,” she cried, cradling her hand. “She bit me!”
    Someone pounded on the door. “Your Majesty? Are you all right?” Lady Olivia flew to answer the knock as I spooned the honeyed cure into the queen’s mouth.
    â€œNo,” the queen said, tears wetting the side of her face below her living eye. Still she swallowed the mixture.
    â€œA nightmare,” Lady Olivia was saying to the person on the far side of the door. “Her physician is attending her. We will call you if we need any assistance.”
    Queen Adela breathed fast as a frightened bird, but she took a second spoonful. I’d made sure to add extra honey to entice her. “Now we wait,” I said.
    Lady Olivia sat again and began a lullaby my mother used to sing to me. For a brief moment I thought I smelled the scent of my mother’s hair.
    I stepped back, overcome, as I watched this woman’s way of healing, a way to calm fears, ease pain with song. This was not Father’s way, and so not mine. Shaken by the childhood feelings the song unleashed, I told myself to do what the Adan would do and went about recapping the honey, cleaning the medicinal spoon as I waited for the cure to take effect.
    The queen rested her head on her companion’s shoulder, her face ashen under her wildly tangled hair. The room began to quiet.
Ona loneaih,
I thought in Euit,
be you well
. I heard Her Majesty whimper as a young child would do after a bout of crying. Then she let out a sudden, violent snort and pushed Lady Olivia off the bed onto the floor.
    I jumped back as Queen Adela leaped onto her feet with tremendous energy