Season of the Dragon, page 31
Aldewin flinched away.
“This is what you brought to the sacred door of Val’Enara, Kensai Aldewin.” Prelate Hrabke flung another icy shard at Quen’s feet. It sizzled and evaporated instantly from the heat emanating from her. “My next shard will slice it open so you can see the true nature of this Nixan seductress.”
To her surprise, Aldewin rose and again stood between Hrabke and Quen. “My head swims with unanswered questions, my Prelate. But I know this to be true. The Archon tasked me with bringing this woman to Val’Enara. Why? It is not my place to know. The Pillar’s Guardian opened the Path of a Thousand Waters for her.”
Hrabke relaxed his stance slightly, folded his arms, and stroked his long white beard. “Is this true?”
Both Aldewin and Quen nodded.
“You can banish me or kill me if you must. I broke vows, and I deserve punishment. The Archon wanted Quen for a reason.”
Prelate Hrabke stroked his chin and appeared to be considering Aldewin’s plea. “Though the Archon is virtually all-seeing, who is to say if the Shadow’s dark magic obscured her vision on this matter? Or perhaps she underestimated its strength. That no longer matters. As she cannot perform her duties, it falls to me to take up the mantle of Archon. And I cannot allow this shadow-spawn to darken the Pillar’s halls.” He took up a wide-legged stance and raised his arms. As he did, a wall of snowy ice rose around him and soon towered over them. “I will carry out Hooxaura’s will and protect the Pillar from Vay’Nada’s chaos.”
The heat emanating from Quen melted the ice and snow in a perfect circle around her. Vatra fires roiled within, though Quen doubted her Nixan heat could protect them from the avalanche of ice and snow Hrabke intended to send upon them. Quen didn’t understand how she’d created the door to Oblivion, and she wasn’t sure what would happen to her if she kept pulling on Vay’Nada’s dark power. Now she saw no alternative. Aldewin may have given up, but I will not. She snatched Aldewin in her talons. “Nivi, with me.” She towed Aldewin into the now-familiar Void. She hoped Nivi would follow and not get separated from her in the unfamiliar Shadow’s land.
They emerged by the river’s edge, Aldewin alive but shaking in her arms, Nivi at her side. Both looked dazedly at their surroundings. Aldewin looked despondent, and even Nivi wore a melancholy expression. Quen hoped their sadness wasn’t permanent.
Though Quen accessed the Void to bypass the ledge, Hrabke had his own method. He transformed the snow wall into an icy slide and slid down. “Sucking power from the Void. You are the Shadow’s spawn, all right.”
Quen pushed in front of Aldewin, feet planted squarely. “I am Nixan and no longer afraid to admit it. Kine is as well. Did you know that?”
Hrabke’s expression changed from ire to wariness. “You speak with the Shadow’s tongue, too.” He wound his arms, readying for a volley, and hissed, “Lies.”
“A darmanitong, in fact.” Quen allowed the rage that had welled in her since the day Vahgrin attacked her village to spill out, no longer tamping it down with the Still Waters mantra. “Your Archon was a Nixan, and you never knew.”
Hrabke’s eyes were far off. The icy energy he’d gathered dissipated into frosty mist.
“You didn’t know of her plans to bring another Nixan into Val’Enara’s walls, did you?”
Hrabke’s eyes narrowed, his mouth twisted into a sneer. “How can I trust the word of Vay’Nada’s agent?”
Aldewin pushed Quen aside. “Trust me, then. Archon Kine called upon me three Lumine cycles ago. She ordered me to embed with a rogue Jagaru pod. She knew the Dynasty had recently exiled Druvna, the pod’s leader, and forbidden him from Jagaru service. So Kine gave Druvna the job of escorting me to the Sulmére village of Solia. There, Archon Kine said, I’d find a woman who was Doj’Anira. This ‘Twice Blessed’ would have one blue eye and one yellow. Kine tasked me with escorting the Doj’Anira to Val’Enara. ‘No matter the cost,’ Kine said. I swear this is the truth by Lumine’s grace, the light of the Brothers, and the life-giving bosom of Doj’Madi, Prelate Hrabke.”
Hrabke crossed his arms and stood defiantly on his icy pillar, towering over them. “Assuming this is true, Kensai, did Archon Kine tell you this woman was Nixan?”
Aldewin shook his head. “The Archon withheld this, and her plans for Quen, from me. But during our journey, I figured it out.”
Quen’s two hearts thumped their asynchronous beat. “How long did you know?”
Aldewin sighed. “Does it matter?”
“It matters to me.”
“And it matters to me as well. Answer her, Kensai.”
Aldewin closed his eyes and took a breath, steeling himself. “I suspected it that night in Juinar. The way you moved. It was—unnatural.”
Visions of that night flooded her mind. “Is that the true reason you spurned me? Not because of vows, but because—”
“No. It was my vows.”
Prelate Hrabke wasn’t about to give Aldewin any benefit of the doubt. “Though you later broke them.”
Aldewin nodded. “Yes.” He turned to Quen. “And when I broke my vows, I knew you carried a shadow soul within you. Doj’Madi and the Three help me, but I love you anyway.”
It should have been a touching moment ending in a kiss, but the air crackled with sky-fire and carried the odor of a thunderstorm. Quen’s hackles rose. A thunderous boom shook the mountain valley as if cleaving the air. Juka’s breath sucked at Quen’s back, and Menauld rumbled beneath them. Quen had experienced this enough times now to know Vahgrin would soon emerge from the Void, a Rajani dragomancer on his back.
Hot wind warmed her back, but it was not Juka’s breath. The air smelled as it did in the heart of summer when Juka’s winds came from the southeast, blowing the odor of the Phisma tar pits all the way to Solia.
The strange bird that had sat like a statue atop the stone outcropping finally moved. Quen followed its path with her eyes as it landed on Vahgrin’s giant black-haired head.
The beast knelt, and Nevara, the woman she’d first met on that fateful day in Solia, slid off Vahgrin’s back. She wore a finely hammered light steel helmet with a faceplate shaped like a bird’s head. Though helmeted, Quen recognized Nevara.
Gone were Nevara’s black Kentaro robes, a ruse she’d worn to assuage fear. She’d traded the monk’s robes for a form-fitting black leather corset, segmented so she could ride a dragon and cast spells. Atop the leather was a dress of deep red, barely covering her breasts before flaring to a split skirt. A golden girdle adorned her hips, linked chains joined in the front by a dragon-head clasp. Her shoulders bore pauldrons emblazoned with golden dragon heads against a background of Hiyadi’s rays of light.
Nevara approached, removed the helmet, and shook out her long, sleek black hair. She flicked a steel-vambrace-covered wrist, sending a tight fiery projectile at Hrabke’s ice wall. That single zinging ball of Vatra energy sizzled and spread across Hrabke’s snowy wall, disintegrating it in mere seconds. “This Doj’Anira is not yours to destroy, Hrabke. Her madi promised her to me before she was even born.”
Vahgrin tilted his head to the skies, and from his throat came a sound that began low and rumbling, then crescendoed to a pained cry. As if egged on by the dragon’s lament, Nivi roared and began pacing while he chirped and flared his nostrils in displeasure.
Nevara held out a hand at Vahgrin, her face stern. “Zhijnatu, Vahgrin.” She flicked a wrist, and the giant dragon bowed his head. Beneath bushy black brows, Vahgrin’s amber-yellow eyes glared at the Rajani sorceress.
She has power over him. It was like how Pelagia had controlled Nivi and Quen, though there were no ear cuffs or other adornments on Vahgrin. How does she do it? Nevara both repulsed Quen and stoked her curiosity. I want to learn this power she has over Vahgrin. If I allow my Rajani soul its Promena, will I then learn how to control dragons?
Yet again, there was another person claiming they ‘owned’ Quen. Though she wanted to understand Nevara’s power, she hadn’t come this far to submit like a pet to the Dragos Sol’iberi. “I belong to no one, Nevara. Not the Exalted, not Val’Enara. And not you. I am a free person of the Sulmére, and I will not submit myself to you or anyone else.”
Quen wanted the Nixan to show itself, at least a little. The shadow spirit gave her strength. Drawing on its power likely meant she was siphoning dark energy from Vay’Nada, but at this moment, she would welcome it. But her neck ridge didn’t tingle or grow hot. No phantom whispers plagued her mind, or painful joints as the Nixan strained to usurp her very skin. She was utterly alone, and that thought frightened her more than she would admit.
Nevara laughed, the cold, shrill sound echoing off the basalt rock. “This freedom you squawk about….” She shook her head. “Such freedom never existed. We are all bound by something, Quen Tomo Santu. Bound to another, or to a cause. To an Order. And some, like you, are created to be bound. I made you, child.”
Nevara’s odor assaulted Quen. It was a combination of tar, feathers, and a scent reminiscent of her family’s meat cellar in Solia. Quen backed away. “Why can’t everyone let me be? Allow Aldewin and me to live in peace?” Vatra’s fires roiled in her belly, and a sheen of sweat covered her neck and arms. Heat rose in her throat, and anger brought hot tears.
The ground rumbled again, but it wasn’t Vahgrin or his Rajani that shook the world. Quen’s white-hot anger shook Menauld’s foundation.
Hrabke’s voice boomed over the rumble of Menauld’s quaking. “You say you stake a claim to this Nixan, but no law of man, Menaris, or Vaya di Solis allows you to bind the soul of the unborn.”
Quen carped. “Moments ago, you tried to bury me beneath an ice avalanche. Now you argue on my behalf?”
Quen’s retreat from Nevara’s stench pressed her against Aldewin. He was now backed up to the riverbank’s precipice. His voice was soft but clear. “‘The undercurrent of emotion must not breach the dam of the Pillar’s principles.’ A core tenet of Vaya d’Enara. Etched in stone just inside the Moon Gate.”
The current of emotion kept in check? The more Quen learned of Val’Enara, the more convinced she became that she didn’t fit there. Pahpi had trained her to suppress feelings. To tamp them down and shunt them away with the Still Waters mantra.
But Quen didn’t want to dampen her emotions. She released the dam on her emotions, and her anger quaked the ground. I want to own what’s inside me, good and bad. To shout it to the Three. Even to Vay’Nada and back again so all can hear. What are laws, if not proclamations by rulers far removed from the people who toil to keep everyone alive? Xa’Vatra, in her elegant palace, perched precariously over a poisonous pit. Archon Kine and her like, cloistered in a lofty tower, secluded and protected from the nasty business of everyday life. What do these ‘lawmakers’ know of the real world?
The more Quen seethed, the more Menauld trembled.
Aldewin put a hand on her arm. “Calm yourself, sol’dishi.”
His use of the Sulmére term of endearment caught at her heartstrings and pulled until it stretched nearly to breaking. When she faced him, the look of utter sadness he wore almost broke her. I’m not meant to study scrolls in a tower. She’d expressed this doubt to Pahpi, but he’d ignored her. You were right about many things, Pahpi, but not this. Her doubt had been born of reason, and now she knew it wholly to be true. And Aldewin now understands it too.
Hrabke might have been an eminent scholar on the laws of men and Menaris, but he was overlooking one crucial fact. Quen wasn’t human. As far as I’ve seen, the ‘laws’ meant to protect people never apply to creatures like me. Or Nivi or yindrils.
Quen was something other than human, and as the power within her grew unchecked and untrained, she became a danger. Instead of hunting the dragon to protect the ones she loved, she was becoming the thing most likely to put them in harm’s way.
Nevara claimed she ‘made’ Quen. Whatever that means. Quen sighed. Damn my human soul to Vay’Nada. I know what must be done.
“These weeks riding with you…” Her voice broke, and she wiped at a tear. “I didn't believe I could know love like this.” She kissed Aldewin, and to her surprise, he returned the affection. “Even if I sprout hairy legs or a raven’s wings, I will never forget the love you gave me.” She released him and backed away, putting cold distance between them. “I will love you all my days.” Quen hugged Nivi and whispered into his furry ear, “Take care of Aldewin for me, my friend.”
Tears welled in Aldewin’s red-rimmed eyes. “You can’t go with her. She’ll use you, Quen. You’ll be a slave to these Rajani for the rest of your life.”
Hrabke shot a giant ice shard from above, missing Quen only because she heard it slice the air before a normal human would have registered a flying object. She sprang, feet over head, mere seconds before the ice crashed on the ground.
Nevara flicked a purple-white projectile of sky-fire at Hrabke. He leaped from his buttress of ice, escaping the jolt of Nevara’s blow.
“Old man, if you hope to see your precious Night Sister again, stay out of Rajani business.” With haste, she flung another sky-fire bolt. Hrabke, still recovering from his jump from the ice tower, didn’t deflect. The flesh on his thigh sizzled, and his burnt hair and skin smelled foul. Hrabke yowled in pain and grabbed at his leg.
“Kensai Aldewin, you still want to be an acolyte of the Pillar. If so, prove your worth. Seize the Nixan. You must destroy her for the good of the Pillar—and the world.”
Aldewin pulled the staff from behind his back, arms shaking. He looked into Quen’s eyes and dropped his weapon. His arms at his sides, palms facing out, Aldewin was utterly defenseless. He closed his eyes, bowed his head, and shook it. “The Pillar asks too much of me.”
Quen imagined herself and Aldewin mounting Nivi and galloping away. To the North, across the Straits of Minea, to Aldewin’s homeland. We could disappear there.
Quen gazed at her hands, now covered in scaly blue-white skin. Black talons protruded from her fingers. I no longer pass for human. No return to that life now. I don’t know where it leads, but there remains only one path available to me.
“Take Nivi, Aldewin. Run from this place. Across the pass to Vindaô Province. Find Rhoji and our Jagaru pod. Take refuge with our friends.”
She didn’t wait for arguments, pleas, or more icy shards. Quen thrust her chin up and her chest out. It was important to feel it was her decision—to not allow Nevara to believe she’d won. “Take me to Volenex.”
PART III
DRAGOS TEPLO
Once, the Queen soared over Menauld’s sea, forest, and sands. Then Kovan danced upon the wave’s crest as it kissed Indrasi’s bloody shore. With influence as frothy as the sea’s foam, Kovan ushered in Nomo Teplo—Age of Man.
But be patient, fair sisters, for every tide turns. The Dragos Primeri will rise and we, the Rajani, will rejoice. Oh, how fervently we long to see the Queen’s shadow upon the dunes! Raise your voices and sing praise for the coming of a new Dragos Teplo. Until that glorious day, we endure at Volenex and hold vigil over the venerable Queen’s sacred sacrament.
—from the Sitta of the Dragos Sol’iberi, held in the Dragos Archives at Volenex
Chapter 23
Aldewin
Aldewin leaned on his staff, head bowed, shoulders slumped. He looks defeated. Quen’s human heart ached with bitter anguish for the turmoil she’d brought to him. Oh, Aldewin. This is the only way I can protect you from the Dragos Sol’iberi and Vahgrin. The lingering ache in her newly emerged claws reminded her how dangerous she’d become to him as well. You must understand, my love.
Quen hadn’t imagined ascending into Vay’Nada’s realm on the back of the dragon she’d vowed to destroy, yet it didn’t feel as strange as it should have. To my Rajani soul, this feels familiar. Since the fateful day Nevara visited Solia, Quen had feared she’d end up in Nevara’s clutches. She stared down at her taloned hands. Volenex is where I belong now. The only consolation was that she’d finally have answers to the questions that had plagued her.
Below, Hrabke launched upward on a cone of ice then took the stairs of the Path of a Thousand Waters by twos, agile for an elder with an injured leg.
Vahgrin’s scales were smooth beneath her, and Nevara’s heat seeped into Quen’s backside. She hadn’t allowed herself to feel the cold air of the mountain, but now, as warmth returned, she shivered.
“Soon, you will know cold no more.” Nevara’s voice was low and warm. “Deep within Menauld beats the heart of a fiery dragon. Did you know that?”
Quen didn’t. In fact, it sounded wrong to her, but Nevara didn’t wait for Quen to answer.
“We travel to the place where Menauld’s Vatra core shows itself to Hiyadi. There you will find the answers you seek. Now grip tightly with your thighs. Volenex awaits.” She spoke in the language the Rajanis used when talking to Vahgrin. “Ashtanga Volenex, Vahgrin.”
The dragon lowered his head. Vahgrin’s body rumbled with vibration beneath Quen’s thighs. Quen’s second heart thumped faintly, signaling that her Nixan soul, which had been uncustomarily quiet, remained.
The air shimmered ahead, and a doorway dark as a cave on a starless night opened. Quen steeled herself for the dread feeling she’d soon encounter.
As if expecting Quen’s trepidation, Nevara said, “Fear not the knowing touch of the Shadow. Vay’Nada reveals truth. It is difficult for some to face. But you are strong, Doj’Anira, and your journey has prepared you well for the honesty of….”
The Void pilfered Nevara’s last words and her warmth. As before when Quen entered Vay’Nada’s realm, all sensation faded. Vay’Nada deprived her of everything but her most dreadful thoughts.
