He managed to flag down a Purple messenger dragon named Happy. Once she politely asked for his destination, she lived up to her name, happily chattering at Arthur the entire ride.
Safely delivered to Leader's Ledge, he thanked her and tipped one of the larger blood garnets. Happy oohed and awed over it as if it were a rare shard before flitting away.
That done, Arthur found Brixaby and sprinted over to him. His dragon was perched on the tip of the ledge with his wings half-spread to take in the last light of the dying day. There was an unusually pensive look on his face—one that deepened when he saw Arthur's speed.
"Brix," Arthur said, skidding to a stop before him. "I figured it out! It's Rowantree Estate—it's always been there."
"What has always been there?" Brixaby rumbled.
"My uncle, and maybe the Mind Singer. It doesn't make sense otherwise. We saw how much effort they put into the defense of that place. Penn was set out as a trap for me, but a distraction as well. Don't you see?"
Brixaby looked like he very much did not see, but he was able to follow along with Arthur's babbling. "I have already used Call of the Heart to search for your uncle." His top lip curled into a sneer. "In fact, I have searched again for the Mind Singer, then for strong mind card artists—of which there are too many, and now my card is on cooldown again."
Arthur nodded, then paced back and forth, thinking. "We just need to search for something that hasn't already been blocked." He went through a range of possibilities in his head, discarding them all like an unwanted card, until he snapped his fingers. "You know what happens when scourglings gather together too long in one place?"
"The land dies, of course," Brixaby said.
"So if she or her minions hunker down in one spot, we'll see deadland. And yeah, I'm sure there are patches from eruptions gone wrong, but we can eliminate those on a map."
Brixaby let out a pensive growl in consideration. "I am on cooldown. You will have to do the search."
That was fine by Arthur. It was Brixaby's card, but he had access to it too—even though his dragon had a better native understanding of the ins and outs of it since it was in his core.
Excited—almost giddy even—Arthur accessed the card and queried it for patches of deadland.
However, he was flush with his own success, thoughts spinning out in all directions, and hadn't taken a moment to settle himself. His mind wandered wide even as he activated the card.
Instead of Rowantree Estate, the card showed him a mental map of the whole kingdom.
Arthur froze in place. "Brix, what is this?"
"You will have to tell me," Brixaby grumped. "You are the one who used the card. I just felt it activating."
"No, I mean..." He trailed off, jaw going slack as he stared inward at the map the card provided. A map with dozens upon dozens... no, hundreds of blinking points.
"Are there deadlands throughout the Rowantree estate?" Brixaby guessed, still unable to see what Arthur saw. "Is it more infested than we assumed?"
Arthur started to speak but found his mouth was dry. Swallowing, he tried again. "There are patches of deadland everywhere—all through the kingdom. But this can't be right." He rummaged around in his Personal Space before he brought out a map of the kingdom. Hastily unrolling it, he grabbed a handful of small pebbles that were lying on the ledge and started marking the same places the card was showing.
His map kept trying to roll up again, so Brixaby pinned the edges with his claws.
It only took a few pebbles to lay out a pattern.
"The deadlands are on cities and most of the larger towns. A lot of the smaller ones, too. But people would notice something like that!" he finished in exasperation, standing back and running a hand through his hair. "Crops would die and the water would be poisoned. What's going on?"
"Focus in on one," Brixaby suggested reasonably. "Perhaps these are the sites of ancient eruptions."
If that were the case, then there were a lot more eruptions than Arthur had thought.
The kingdom itself was roughly blob-shaped as the borders had been smoothed over by the give and take throughout the centuries. The middle of the kingdom was the safest, and that was where the major cities lay, with settlements becoming less and less populated as they spread out. Arthur picked one of the outer points at random, figuring it would be easier to spot deadland if there wasn't a large living population.
But as he looked closer, he realized the map was more involved than he'd thought. It had depth. And he saw that the deadlands—the collection of scourglings—were not in a long-forgotten eruption cone. They were deep underground.
With a sense of dread, he backed up and reasked the Call of the Heart. He asked where the scourgling egg clusters were within the kingdom.
When he saw it, he sat down, stunned.
"Arthur?" Brixaby asked. "What do you see? What is wrong?"
"Hatching grounds..." He shook his head, eyes scanning over the map. "They're building hatcheries everywhere there are populations of people."
His dragon blinked. In fact, he blinked both sets of eyelids. "Surely the kingdom's seers would see such a thing."
"Not if they were blocked by a Master of Spells," Arthur said, feeling sick. "Besides, I don't think this has been a long time coming." Because somewhere, sometime, someone would have stumbled upon this. Just as he had.
Once they were ready, would this result in new eruptions? Or would the earth split open just like the crack eruption and disgorge scourglings in almost every town and city throughout the kingdom? Would it happen at the same time?
Within the space of three minutes, Arthur had gone from elation to horror. It was too much, too fast. Desperately, like a man trying not to drown, he went back to the familiar. He focused on the Rowantree estate. There was also a patch of eggs there, but not under the main estate. It seemed to be located in the southwestern corner.
"I need to talk to Penn and... and we need to deal with this," he said, rolling up the map.
"Arthur," Brixaby said, and his tone made Arthur glance up. The pensive look was back on his dragon's face. "You remember I invited other dragons who thought themselves worthy enough to join us? I have received messages from those who are interested." He stepped to the side and showed Arthur message tube deliveries from courier Purples. "That is what I was involved with when you came to me. In light of this, what should I tell them?"
Arthur breathed out, then nodded. He wasn't sure, logistically, how many more his hive could handle. Did it matter, though? "They can join," Arthur said. "But only if they're ready to fight."
****
It took some asking around to find where Cressida had put Penn. Finally, Sams directed Arthur to a suite around the tenth level. Cressida had been clever enough to put a wide physical distance between the cousins, one with guarded checkpoints above and below.
Arthur walked into a large room that was furnished with couches and rugs. Penn sat in the middle of the floor, eyes closed and breathing deeply. He now wore clean clothes and looked like he'd taken the opportunity to wash.
Cressida and Marion stood to the side. The healer looked haggard, but at least steady on his feet.
Arthur joined them. "What's going on?" he asked lowly.
"Penn is preparing to remove his cards," Marion said. "They're being more difficult than anticipated."
If not for that trap card, Arthur would have just taken them out for him. Somehow, though, he doubted Penn would have welcomed his help.
"How are you holding up?" Arthur asked Marion. "I thought you were going to rest."
"Do as I say, not as I do," Marion said wryly, his lips ticking up at the corners. "Cinderwood provided me with some boosts that will keep me going for a little bit. I can at least monitor Penn and maybe provide partial healing to his heart deck."
Arthur would have preferred Marion to rest and recover, but he was dedicated to healing. Nodding, Arthur fell silent again and watched his cousin. As he did, he reached out to take Cressida's hand in his own. He gave her a squeeze, and she squeezed back, smiling.
"I don't like you being here within his aura," Arthur murmured.
She shook her head, then gestured down to the ground. Someone had marked a line with a bit of charcoal. "We're standing right outside of it."
"I have a sense for these things," Marion added. "That's also why Penn is sitting in place over there."
Arthur relaxed. That was one worry taken care of.
Penn hadn't reacted to their quiet conversation at all. He sat on the other side of the room, taking slow, controlled breaths. He seemed to be in a meditative state. Finally, in one smooth movement, Penn reached to his heart to try to remove a card.
Gasping, he lowered his hand again to breathe deeply a few times. Then, screwing up his face, he gave it another try. This time a corner of a card appeared. He let out a grunt, teeth grit, but didn't let go of the card. It looked agonizing.
Arthur had never seen anything like it. There were sticky tendrils of webbing attached to the card as if something were trying to pull it back in. The process took a long, full minute for something that should have been simple and easy. That was one nasty card.
Finally, though, Penn pulled it free from his heart and threw it violently to the other side of the room. Then he bent, breathing in deep whoops of air.
"One down," he gasped.
"Which one was that?" Arthur asked.
"Trap card," Penn said. "The one that made it deadly to remove the others."
Arthur had more than half expected the pain card to go first. His estimation of the man lifted a tiny notch.
Cressida, however, looked at Arthur with expectation. He knew what she wanted.
"Do you... do you want me to remove the rest of those cards?" he asked quickly, hating every word. "I could, now that the trap card's out."
Penn turned to give him a long look. Arthur was certain he was going to decline—and part of him was happy about that. But then Penn nodded. "It'll take me days to get rid of these otherwise," he muttered. "And I just want to get this over with."
With a nod, Arthur stepped over the line and into his cousin's death aura.