Season of the Dragon, page 33
“In a dragon, their primal life-force rests—” Nevara touched the space between her eyes. “Here. My Dragos Sol’iberi sisters of ancient times preserved Ishna’s. My sisters of yore didn’t know what to do with the vital essence, but over the years since, we perfected our magic. And we used Ishna’s primal essence to create—you.”
Between the blood rushing in her ears and her brain not wanting to accept this news, Quen heard only a portion of what Nevara said. The scroll didn’t answer one crucial question. “Did Pahpi… Did my father know you planted a dragon soul inside me to be harvested in the future?”
“He did not sign the scroll, if that is what you mean.”
Quen shook her head. “No, I mean after I was born.” Her breaths were shallow. “All my life—‘Still Waters, Quen’—did he know?” It was a question as much to Nevara as to the aether.
“I don’t see how this matters.” Nevara’s eyes grew stormy again. “You are Dragonborn, and the time has come for the vessel to bear fruit.”
The ground beneath them shook with a tremor. Quen screamed, “It matters to me!” She wiped at a tear, careful not to poke her eye with her talons. “It’s the only thing that matters to me.”
Nevara sighed. “Of course he knew.”
“How do you know for sure?”
A dark shadow of intense anger lit Nevara’s eyes like smoldering coals. “He knew because I told him. A foolish thing to do. Prideful. A mistake I have had to atone for all these years. I had expected him to hand you to me, grateful the Rajani would take you away, a burden to him no longer. How could I have known he would steal you away in the night, sneaking across borders like a cut-purse thief? Who knew he would renounce his position as Consular, his financial estate, and subject his family to shame? A human father protecting his Dragonborn child? No, I did not expect that.”
What Nevara and the Dragos Sol’iberi had done to her and her entire family was abject horror. Yet within the cruel deed was a kernel of goodness that swelled her heart. Pahpi knew. He’d always known my truth—a truth I’ve only recently understood. He knew, and he loved me anyway. All those years of drilling lessons about Lumine, Enara, and Still Waters—love drove him, not fear. He didn’t want to lose me. Oh, Pahpi.
She didn’t want Pahpi’s sacrifice for her to be for naught. But the barking-mad Rajani kept referring to her as a ‘vessel’ and talking about harvesting her shadow soul. Quen wished she could still believe she was merely Rajani, destined to a life in a crater, soaring the night skies as a winged beast of prey. But the words on the scroll made the band of knowing tighten around her middle. The soul within her—the one she’d shared her life with—was Ishna. As much as she’d wanted to deny it, the shadow soul tainted her. So long as it remains within me, I’m a creature of Vay’Nada.
Truth is one thing. Rolling over, belly up, and vulnerable is another. Perhaps Nevara and her order of curd-brained sisters expected Quen to be honored that she’d carried Vay’Nada’s spawn inside her. Maybe if she’d lived in a hollowed-out crater her whole life like they had, she’d be more up for the task.
But Quen had lived and, more importantly, loved. From Pahpi’s wisdom and persistent conviction that he could help still her turbulent waters to Rhoji’s brotherly ribbing mixed with friendship. Liodhan would surely recoil from her, devout as he was to Vaya di Solis. He would sooner face death than embrace anything tainted by Vay’Nada. Though Liodhan’s feelings for her would likely change, her feelings about him were unaltered. She’d die to protect Lio, Zarate, and wee Lumina from dying by dragon fire. Though she’d known them less time, the Jagaru pod and even Nivi were family.
And what of Aldewin? Her feelings for and about him were complicated, but she couldn’t deny her love for him. He was a mystery still awaiting the unraveling. Aldewin might be the love of her life or only the first. She couldn’t yet know because her life had only recently truly begun. I will not slip aside peacefully so these dragon-obsessed sisters can throw a dragomancer party over my corpse.
“You expect good ole Quen to what? Step aside and let this—thing—take over?” She pulled her hands from Nevara’s and kicked the chair behind her. “Well, the joke is on you, Vay’Nada spawn. The Nixan soul in me is fast asleep. Has been for some time now. Whatever dark magic you used on my mother didn’t work. I may be Nixan, but I’m no dragon-born. And even if I am, the dragon has decided it doesn’t want to come out to play with you.”
Nevara rose too, and though Quen towered over her in height, the Drago’Sorceri loomed like a late-day shadow. “Doj’Anira, you speak as though you have a choice—as though you ever had a choice—in any of this.”
Quen stood her ground. “And that’s another thing. Stop calling me that. I am Quen Tomo Santu di Sulmére, daughter of Santu Inzo Dakon di Sulmére. You cannot cast me aside like a corn husk.”
Nevara’s face softened. She put her palm on Quen’s forehead, between her eyes, and said, “I am sorry, Doj’Anira, but your time is done. The human in you will die. It is all part of Vay’Nada’s plan, and we will not disappoint our Lord and Master again.” She mumbled an incantation in the ancient Rajani language. She put her other hand to the small of Quen’s back to catch her as Quen fell into a magically induced sleep.
Chapter 24
Grotesque
Grotesque keening woke Quen from a deep, dreamless sleep. Disoriented, legs unsteady. Aching hunger, empty yet queasy gut. Voices, squawking and high-pitched. Menauld beneath her thrumming. The deep rumble of drums. Or am I the one quaking the ground?
Blink eyes open, the world swaying. Black figures. Fire and heat. The odor of burnt flesh. Is it mine? Vision fading. A tunnel of darkness threatened to pull her under. I won’t let them take me. Quen gulped air, forced eyes open. Aware. Listening. Patient. Only one beat in my chest and one voice in my head. Why are you silent, Ishna?
Sensing her stir, the Rajanis’ melancholy and discordant song grew louder. Hands buttressed her. She wasn’t in Vay’Nada, but her legs were as numb and useless as she’d experienced in the Shadow’s realm.
Despite fiery columns spewing heat into the already-warm night, Quen shivered. The Dragos Sol’iberi had stripped off her road clothes, garments the Jagaru had cobbled together when they’d escaped Qülla. While under Nevara’s sleep spell, the Rajani had clothed her in a form-fitting gown of black silk, as gauzy as the white linen robes worn by the Atyro. Unlike the Atyro, though, she wore no gold-chain girdle or face covering. It was as if a spider’s web ensnared her, cocooned like an insect to be devoured.
Hands at her elbows pushed her toward a dais of stone. The sky above was visible but nearly black as Niyadi sought rest below the horizon. She was in the large entry courtyard of Volenex. Her senses returning, her nose wrinkled from the horrid smell of rotten fish, burned flesh, tar, and wet feathers.
A pyre in the center of the courtyard, raging fire. A figure slumped and aflame. Once a woman. She will sing no more.
It is better to be numb than a witness to this madness. Calling to the Nixan within. Pleading. Begging it to come forth at least a little to lend her strength. No second thump in her chest. Like a distant song, the once-incessant hum, now barely heard. Silent and still. Alone.
The pyre turbulent, flames licking, embers swirling to the Three above. The woman’s ashes, taken by Juka’s breath, mixed with the sand, salt, and sea. Will my flesh fuel the pyre next?
A woman’s voice, large and round and loud, intoning and droning, not unlike Dini’s at her Pahpi’s nilva. Vahgrin’s call rumbled in her chest.
Hairs on end, neck ridge hot. Pulsing. There, deep within. Tharump. Tharump. Faint as the whisper of a butterfly’s flapping wings. The dragon lives.
It still didn’t heed her silent call, but to know it was alive brought unlikely hope. Her Nixan soul. Hated—suppressed—reviled. It was, nonetheless, a part of her. Am I a part of it?
Hundreds of figures surround her at the center of the stone platform. The outermost ring of Atyro hovering at the edges like specters, faces upturned beneath gauzy wisps of whisper-thin cloth. In front of them and closer still, row upon row of dark-haired women in black robes trimmed in red. Their hands in the air, ruby-red lips open, chanting. Their voices a low, insistent thrum.
A dozen women surrounded her. Their red outer dresses shone like silk in the firelight, their red-rouged mouths like deep gashes.
Quen scanned the faces and recognized Nevara among the Drago’Sorceri. Amidst others of her kind, Nevara didn’t stand out. She was just another Rajani zealot, a cog in the Dragos Sol’iberi’s plan to sow chaos by ushering forth Quen’s shadow soul. To welcome it like a newborn babe into its parents’ loving arms. To cast me aside like last night’s refuse pot. Her stomach coiled tightly, and bile rose in her throat. By Lumine’s holy light, these crazy Nixan plan to sacrifice me.
A Drago’Sorceri intoned about the dawn of the new age—of Dragos Teplo—and the renewed supremacy of the Dragos Sol’iberi with dragon-kin at their command. Hundreds of women hollered approval in unison, the volcanic shafts of the caldera echoing their shouts.
An elderly woman came forward, body bowed with age, but her hair a thick mane as black as a raven feather, free of silvery threads of age. The woman cried out to the gathered. “Tonight, sisters, we reunite the two most powerful Primals. Vahgrin, our Dragos’Badi, Keeper of the Flame, and son to Vay’Nada. And we welcome back to our fold Ishna, Dragos’Madi, bearer of the Waters of Life, Sister to us all, and Keeper of the Night.”
The women roared their approval, the Atyro in the outer edges of the circle rattling instruments and banging drums. Lumine, the Goddess, is the Watcher of the Night and Sister to us all. Not only had they co-opted Lumine’s holy name for their twisted purpose, but they falsely believed Ishna could be the bearer of the Waters of Life. They have it all so wrong. The words “Keeper of the Flame” and “son of Vay’Nada” echoed. What will happen to Rhoji, Liodhan, Zarate, and little Lumina if they succeed? Her face was wet with tears. And what of Aldewin?
Quen tried to scream out—to plead with them—but her throat was as dry as the day she’d followed Nevara into a sandstorm outside Solia. The day Vahgrin had taken Pahpi from her and turned her world upside down.
The elder Rajani raised a wrinkled arm to quiet them. “Soon, Sisters, with Ishna by his side, Vahgrin, our Lord Dragon, will raise the other Primeri.”
The uproar was nearly deafening. Vahgrin yowled so loudly Quen feared the black spires around them would topple.
Now the speaker raised both arms, urging quiet. It took a few minutes, but finally, she continued. “Oh, Sisters, rejoice! For once our gods have arisen, dragon-kin will sleep no more. Our beloved dragons will rise from every barrow and cave from deep slumber beneath sand and wave. And we, the Dragos Sol’iberi, will take our rightful place at their side. Together to rule over man and beast. We welcome the new Dragos Teplo.”
The gathered women screamed and shouted their agreement. Vahgrin bellowed, and the drums pounded.
The elder Rajani raised an arm again, and her voice rang out loud and determined. “Anyone who opposes the Dragos Sol’iberi shall know the cleansing fires of our Lord or the chill wind of our Lady’s breath.”
In answer to this last statement, Rajani danced and gyrated approval. Young Atyro swooned and were caught from falling by their Sisters.
“As for Xa’Vatra—”
The crowd sent up a hiss and murmured low curses, smiting Indrasi’s ruler and her family. Their drums pounded.
“The Kovan throne and all who sit on it bear the taint of Indrasian the Murderer. This Xa’Vatra, proclaiming herself to be the daughter of our Lord Vatra.” The speaker spat. “The vile usurper is a great pretender, heir to a bloody throne, and a keeper of lies. At long last, my Sisters, the usurper and all her kin will pay for the grievous sins of their forebears.”
Like the Dragos Sol’iberi, Quen despised Xa’Vatra for what the woman had put Quen, her brother, and Jagaru friends through. If the Exalted hadn’t ordered Kovatha mages to hunt them, Druvna would still be alive. Xa’Vatra deserves the justice of a Jagaru blade, but an entire city’s people shouldn’t perish to pay for one woman’s crimes.
The Rajani pressed closer together and moved toward the dais in a frenzy. Quen wanted to back away—to retreat from their lurid gazes and obvious bloodlust. But Rajani arms held her tightly where she stood, her legs still unsteady.
The elder Rajani ended her speech with one last and horrifying call to arms. “We, the Dragos Sol’iberi, Children of the Dragon, will have our time. We, Sisters, will reign over all Menauld!”
Dizziness still plagued Quen. The odor of the poor sacrificial Nixan woman, now ash, made bile rise. The smell reminded her of the day she found Pahpi. Her vision blurred. Fire raining from the sky. Ash and smoke obscured sight. Screams. A child’s whimper. A vision. But of the past or future, she didn’t know.
Not true.
It was the voice within.
The voice within. The dragon. Ishna? So you have not abandoned me completely.
What Ishna whispered into her mind was true. The vision was prophecy, not memory. It was the same vision she’d had when she first met Nevara.
Her eyes found Nevara. The woman was staring at her, her look knowing.
Quen’s mind buzzed again with phrases in the ancient dragon language. Ishna spoke to her, and Quen began understanding what the shadow soul said. Cannot. No Rajani. No control.
On this, at least, the dragon soul and Quen agreed. Quen couldn’t fathom why Ishna would deny herself the opportunity to push Quen aside—to squash the human soul and re-enter the world as a living god. For most of Quen’s life, she’d battled this inner beast. It had tried to make itself known at the most unwanted times. Why remain hidden now?
What was it Ishna had said? “No Rajani. No control.” Was Ishna hiding from the Rajani? Is that why you’ve been silent?
Quen didn’t need to wait for an answer. She knew it was true as soon as she thought it.
And she knew she couldn’t allow herself to take part in whatever ritual this unhinged cult planned for her. The stakes were no longer simply about her or her dearest ones. Her head buzzed with the agonized screams of thousands of tortured souls. It echoed Ishna’s past, but it predicted Indrasi’s future.
Another wrinkled Rajani came forward and motioned for the women holding Quen to bring her forward. The woman opened a small compact filled with red powder. She smudged Quen’s forehead with it, then her cheeks and chin. “Praise to you, blessed Doj’Anira, for housing our Dragos’Madi in the temple of your body.”
The gathered women bowed low to Quen, a murmur of whispered praise filling the courtyard.
“We will forever honor your name in the halls of Volenex.”
Quen shook her head and gave a scornful laugh. “You expect me to go along with your sacrifice, so I get what? A plaque or a statue? A scroll with my story in your library cave?”
Quen’s words dampened their mood, like Yulina telling people she was out of ale.
The elder who’d been speaking glared at her, black eyes wide, her mouth twisted in an angry grimace. It looked as though she wanted to strike Quen. Maybe she’s used to smacking the Atyro around. But Quen was Doj’Anira, and her body was their god’s temple.
Are they forbidden from harming me? There was only one way to find out.
Quen studied the rocky outcropping above. Still feeling the lingering effects of the Rajani sleep spell, her legs were unsteady. And the rock ledge was at least thirty spans above, possibly forty, and unreachable. There was an exit, a doorway cut into the stone. But there were hundreds of Rajani between her and freedom. Despite long odds, giving in wasn’t an option. To die fighting—an honorable death for a Jagaru. Druvna would have approved, and the thought gave her courage.
Quen breathed deeply and searched for Still Waters. Lumine had gone to her rest several hours ago, and Quen wished the Sister was in the sky, a steadfast ally, a comfort in the dark. What was it that Pahpi always said? “Just because you cannot see her doesn’t mean she isn’t there. Lumine’s loving arms always bathe us in her light, even during the day. She will never abandon you.” Quen said a quick prayer to the Night Sister. Don’t abandon me now, Lumine. She leaped as high and far as she could.
She cleared the tight throng of Rajani pressed close to the platform. Shouts and alarmed screams rang out behind her. Quen didn’t stop to look back. Sprinting, her strides long, the activity awakening, clearing the Rajani webs from her mind. A commotion behind, but Quen pressed forward, coaxing the return of preternatural speed. She vaulted over the stone gate and leaped upon a rocky outcropping.
Boulders loomed, and craggy ledges paved her path. Though her legs had regained strength and solidity, the Brothers slept. It was nearly impossible to see where to land on black volcanic rock that melted into the night. Quen’s foot slipped, and her leg found a hole. Stuck, but only momentarily. Determined. I will not end like this. She pushed up, her talons stretching and gripping, pulling and scrabbling from the crevice. She bounded higher and higher until, at last, she was atop the inner caldera.
Below her, a nearly vertical wall, steep but inverted. She was on a ledge about forty spans above the moat’s lapping waves. In the dark, she couldn’t tell if the water would be only knee-high or deep and swimmable. From the sky, the outer caldera looked closer to the inner, and the moat narrow. But from this position on the ground, she couldn’t see the other side of the water ring where it met the far shore.
She wasn’t a strong swimmer, having only practiced it for a few weeks during the occasional spring when the Lakmi swelled deep enough for swimming. If she leaped, even if the water was deep enough to absorb her, she could drown before arriving at the other side.
Quen rubbed her fatigued eyes and concentrated on her surroundings, trying to find an alternative path. She stood on a craggy and inhospitable ring of rock. Unless one was atop a dragon, there was only one way out. Jump to the water.
