Read Online The Dragon Heir by Cinda Williams Chima - Free Book Online

you seen? Were you
recognized?” Hastings waved away the smoke, making no effort to hide his
disapproval of Jason in general and his smoking in particular.
    Jason hesitated. “I was
seen,” he admitted. “I don't think I was recognized.”
    “If you were seen, you
will be identified. You made quite an impression at Second Sister.”
Hastings slammed his hand down on the table. “Despite your unrelenting
thirst for confrontation, going after D'Orsay doesn't really help us. At least
he diverts the Roses' attention. We need to get hold of the Covenant and
destroy it before someone tries to ram it down our throats.”
    “What if D'Orsay has the
Covenant?” Jason countered stubbornly. After all, the former Master of
Games had disappeared from the ill-fated meeting on the island of Second Sister
along with the document the guilds had signed under duress.
    “Maybe he does,”
Hastings growled. “But I don't think so. Else he'd have called in his
allies and held a big ceremony in the ghyll consecrating the document and
declaring himself ruler over all of us.”
    “I didn't find the
Covenant, all right? But there's this.” Jason lifted the backpack from
between his feet, unzipped it, and dumped the contents onto the table—everything except the opal and its stand, which were
hidden in the side pocket. He hadn't exactly decided whether to share that with
Hastings.
    Hastings looked down at the
loot on the table and up at Jason, raising an eyebrow in inquiry.
    “I found this stuff in a
cave behind the Weirstone.”
    Hastings raked through the
mixture of gems and jewelry and magical artifacts on the battered wooden table,
held some of them up to the light so he could read their inscriptions, looked
up more than once as if to make sure the door remained secure.
    It seemed that, for once,
Jason had impressed the unimpressible Leander Hastings.
    Finally, Hastings spoke.
“Is this all of it?”
    Jason shook his head. “It
was all I could carry out. The mountain was still unstable. The entrance caved
in around me as I was leaving,” he added. Why did he always feel like he
had to defend himself?
    “Do you think D'Orsay
knew about these things?”
    “Nah.” Jason shook
his head. “It looked like nothing had been touched in centuries. Plus, I
mean, wouldn't he have used this already, what with the fix he's in?”
    “How did you decide? What
to take, that is.”
    Jason shrugged. “My mom
taught me a lot about amulets and talismans. So I chose the pieces that seemed
most powerful, either by their inscriptions or the—you know—the vibes. I took mostly magical pieces.
Plus a sword,” he added.
    The wizard's head came up.
“A sword?”
    “I left it back in my
room. I didn't think I should cart it through the streets of London. It was
hard enough smuggling it down here on the train.” He'd used a golf bag.
Come to think of it, a ski bag would have been more in keeping with the season.
    “Right,” Hastings
said, taking natural command. “Let's pack these things up.” He
reached for the backpack.
    Jason held on to it. “Oh,
yeah. I almost forgot. There's this other thing.” Jason fumbled in the
front pocket, pulled out the opal and handed it to Hastings.
    The wizard weighed the bag in
his hand, then undid the drawstring and dumped the opal out onto the tabletop,
corralling it with his arms. The faint glow from the stone threw the wizard's
planed face into high relief.
    “What is this?”
Hastings whispered.
    “It's a sefa, I
guess,” Jason replied. “I thought maybe you could teach me how to use
it.”
    Now that it was free of its
velvet covering, the stone seemed to yank at his insides. Images of a broken
landscape brushed his consciousness, like wings. A seductive voice whispered in
his ear, but he couldn't make out the words.
    Hastings quickly put the stone
back in its bag, drawing tight the cord. “We've got to get this … all of
this … to a safe place. And that's nowhere in Britain.”
    Jason was pleased