Season of the Dragon, page 34
Screeching rang from the courtyard. Flapping wings.
“Suda!” Without further consideration of the consequences, Quen leaped from the caldera’s ledge, her legs straight down, her arms tucked at her sides. On the way down, she murmured prayers to Lumine. Faced with death, I’m as devout as a monk in a Pillar.
She’d expected the waters to be icy cold. Instead, it was like landing in a warm bath. Her lips tasted of salt. She kicked wildly and stroked her arms as Liodhan had taught her. Quen never enjoyed having her face in the water. She sucked in a deep breath and forced herself to put her head into the warm lake. Stroking evenly, she plowed the water.
Breathing every three to four arm strokes, her ear momentarily out of the water, birds shrieking. Getting closer. Quen put her head down and paddled, propelling herself across the caldera channel.
Her foot caught on something. A plant, perhaps, or the top of a reef below. Quen ignored it and pressed on. Hiyadi’s first light chased away the gloom of total darkness. She’d never been happier to see Hiyadi rise from his rest. An outline now of the rocky shore on the other side. An even steeper mountain to scale. She would have welcomed dragon wings sprouting from her shoulder blades. Then she could have effortlessly cleared the intimidating cliff ahead.
Again, something clutched her foot. She shook it off, kicking with all her remaining force. Scraping at her ankles. The heat of an open wound. Claws clutching. Wings tearing the air. Shrill birds’ cries and guttural croaks. Aggressive clacks of their bills and piercing alarm calls.
Wings flapping, churning up waves around her. Talons grasping, tearing at her flesh. Around her, a circle of oversized birds of prey. Eagles, hawks, and Corvus the raven, Nevara’s Nixan soul. Their outstretched talons like a gauntlet of knives ahead and behind, answering her question. No, they’re not opposed to harming me.
Despite the gauntlet, Quen pressed forward, the shore now visible. The promise of survival. Of being Quen Tomo Santu, at least for a while longer. Her arms were leaden, tired of the fight to remain afloat. Her legs were like two dead thukna strapped to her, threatening to sink her to the bottom of the black abyss. Salty tears met briny sea.
The battle is over. It had just begun.
Talons gently grabbed at her upper arms. They lifted her sodden body from the dark waters.
Her head hanging, her body bloody. Dripping saltwater stung the open gashes. The pain was inconsequential compared to the despair of defeat.
Once again, she stood on the dais. No longer showing deference to her as their honored Doj’Anira, the elderly Rajani Drago’Sorceri, who’d restrained herself before, stepped forward. Her withered hand, small and gnarled, palm open and connecting with the tender flesh of Quen’s cheek, already smarting from saltwater in scratches. Her voice was a low hiss of condemnation. “To release Ishna, I will shred the flesh from your bones. Pick you to bits and share your liver with my Sisters.” The woman spat at Quen.
Corvus landed, shook the water from its feathers, and immediately morphed into Nevara. Dripping wet, she stormed toward them. “Calm yourself, Sister Tilvani. This Nixan has not yet had her first Promena. The dragon within may die if you stress the host too harshly.”
Tilvani eased back. Her eyes were less wild, though she still sneered at Quen.
Another Rajani, a Dragomancer not wearing the red dress of the higher-ranking Drago’Sorceri, came forward. “Set it to the pyre, Sisters. Ishna will not allow herself to die. She’ll press this human trash to the side.” Her eyes were alight with the fervor of a zealot.
Nevara shook her head and stepped forward, placing herself between Quen and the advancing throng. “What does Vatra fire do to ice or water?” Her eyes blazed with anger as she looked around the circle of women. “The pyre will sear the flesh of the Doj’Anira and destroy the Winter Dragon’s heart. I—We—have worked too hard for too long. We cannot obliterate our progress because we lack patience.”
Nevara’s actions confused Quen. The woman bounced back and forth between wanting to kill Quen and protecting her. If Nevara kept her off the pyre, still smoking from the night’s sacrifice, that bought Quen time. Time is my only ally.
Another Drago’Sorceri pressed forward. “What then, Nevara, do you suggest?”
“You are right, young Dragomancer. The dragon will not allow herself to be killed. Not if the host remains alive. The ancient rites speak of coaxing the Nixan soul.”
“But if not on the pyre, then how?”
Nevara clasped a handful of Quen’s hair and yanked her head backward. “Pain.”
Murmurs rose from the circle of women surrounding her. Quen jerked away from Nevara, but the woman clenched her in a firm grip.
“Bit by bloody bit, we break it down.” Nevara’s claw-tipped finger stroked across Quen’s forehead. “Lost in a desert of privation, her mind will do the work for us. Illusion. Reality. Will you be able to tell the difference, Doj’Anira?”
Whispers of approval and beaks clacking from the Rajani who remained in Nixan form. Their body heat warmed her back.
“Patience, Sisters. Bring the Doj’Anira to within an inch of death, and I promise you, Ishna will rise. She remains. Oh yes, I feel her.” Nevara’s silver-claw-tipped fingers pressed into Quen’s chest. Her eyes closed, an odd, nearly orgasmic smile on her lips. “It is not our failure, Sisters, but the strength of the Winter Dragon seeping into this Doj’Anira’s soul, fueling her defiance.”
Shouts of “Praise Dragos’Madi” rang out.
“With reverence to Ishna, we will chip away at the will of this human until she hangs on but by a single breath. Then we will have our Winter Dragon.”
Quen licked her lips, her throat tight and dry, and her voice croaked. “I will die before allowing you to control Ishna or me.”
Nevara gripped Quen’s head even more tightly and laughed. “Oh, I promise you will die. One way or another, the Dragos Sol’iberi will have control of the Winter Dragon.”
The Rajani didn’t bother using a sleep spell. They dragged Quen from the Volenex courtyard, kicking and screaming.
Chapter 25
Obdurate
Obdurate to the end, Quen preferred a slow, painful death to obedient submission to the Dragos Sol’iberi. She begged Ishna, the dragon within, to lend her power. The dragon’s strength might have allowed her to break free of the Rajani talons, but Ishna couldn’t risk coming to the fore. These dragomancers had a method of controlling dragons. Quen didn’t understand how it worked, but Ishna feared their power over her. It took a half-dozen Rajani handlers to subdue Quen, but they dragged her to a cave dug into Volenex’s rocky foundation.
Nevara had promised to break Quen, but many hours passed, and Quen remained alone in the dark. They had dressed her in a black silken gown. Hardly clothing at all. But now the thin dress hung on her like rags. Despite the blazing heat of the southern suns outside, the walls of her cell were dank and moist with seeping seawater. Wet when they tossed her in the room, she was still damp and shivering. Extreme thirst had cracked her lips, and her hunger made a painful hollow in her belly. Do they plan to starve me into submission?
Hour after hour, Quen passed the time on a knife edge of fear, worried the iron gate would open and torture would begin. Sleep was the only respite from hunger and angst about her demise. But every time she drifted off, the sharp agony of starvation jerked her awake.
On the cusp of her twentieth year, Quen hadn’t thought about her death. Now accepting she’d never leave Volenex, Quen wanted to weep. She was so dehydrated, though. Tears wouldn’t come. She wound into a tight ball to preserve what little warmth remained. Hunger and thirst kept her from forming a coherent train of thought. Instead, memories flitted into her consciousness like golden leaves falling from a kukiri tree in late autumn.
Sitting on Pahpi’s knee as he sang the old children’s song, “To Bed, To Bed,” while clapping her hands. Giggling. His arms were solid and warm.
Liodhan teaching her how to pull a scraper across a hide, shearing off every fiber of hair, making it smooth. “That’s it, Quen. Smooth as a newborn babe’s bottom that skin’ll be, and you can sell it yourself in the spring.” He beamed with pride. She drank it in like spring’s first rain.
Watching Dini light sage and lift it to the sky, eyes closed, mouth open, performing O’Dishi chants over a sick child. What was that girl’s name? Why I can’t remember it? She’d made fun of the girl behind her back, telling Rhoji the girl smelled like a thukna’s arse. The O’Dishi chants weren’t enough. The girl died two days later. Guilt was like the layers of silt lining the Lakmi River basin. Each year the roiling waters brought a new deposit of soil. Pray Lumine forgive me.
When she played Ligos with Rhoji, he won every time. A strategy game involving cards and runed stones, Ligos required patience Quen didn’t have. He’d always gloated when he won, even though he knew she was no match for him. Yet. Once, he found her alone in the meat cellar, curled in a ball and crying. He’d held her in his arms and sang a song to soothe her.
She shivered, and her teeth chattered. Why didn’t I stay with Rhoji? With shaky fingers, she touched the ridge on her neck. It was cool to the touch now, not hot and tingling. It reminded her why she’d left Rhoji and the rest of the pod. Did I have a choice? They ousted me, but I cannot blame them. She’d fought the gnawing beast within her entire life. But was my battle for naught? It was—had always been—inevitable that the dragon soul she’d carried would force her into oblivion. They'd all be in danger if she’d remained with Rhoji and the pod—or with Liodhan, Zarate, and little Lumina. I am the danger.
A rustling sound. Her vision was bleary, a figure before her. “Rhoji?” Her voice strained, her throat tight from unwept emotion.
A hand on her forehead. Claw-tipped fingers, but the touch gentle. Warmth.
The smell of water. Fresh, not dank, and salty. Cool moisture at her lips.
Drinking. Sweet relief!
“Easy.”
She blinked, trying to clear the cobwebs from her mind, the haze from her eyes. A halo of golden light shone behind a figure, its head a round silhouette against the darkness. “Lumine?” The Watcher of the Night has answered my prayers.
Pressure, a gentle touch, on her forehead. Words whispered in the ancient Rajani tongue, unintelligible.
She’d hoped it was Lumine guiding her to the Great River to reunite with Pahpi and her mother, Suliam. Hope gone, memory morphed into visions. Past, present, and future as one. Fires raged. The odor of burnt hair and flesh. Screams. A child cries for its mother. Charred corpses, yellow smoke curling to Juka’s æther.
And among the rubble and burnt debris of a ruined village, a child’s toy. A small stuffed drey made of the smoothest white leather, soft as a newborn’s skin. It was familiar. Quen recognized this toy because she had made it—and given it to Lumina the day she left Solia with the Jagaru. The last day she’d seen Liodhan and his young family.
She screamed out, “No! Murderers.” Quen slashed at the woman with her hand on Quen’s forehead. Vatra’s fires roiled in her belly. “I will kill you all.”
“Yes, that’s it.” The woman’s voice was a low hiss. “Allow Vatra’s fires to kindle your power.”
A single tear welled, her voice a strangled cry. “You killed my family. She was a child. Innocent.”
“’Tis only a vision of what may be, Doj’Anira. You can prevent this. Step aside. You know Ishna is more powerful than you. Her Promena is inevitable. You hold the key to end your own suffering, Quen.”
This Rajani’s words echoed the thoughts she’d been having. That her thinking agreed with the Rajani harrowed her.
More cool water at her lips. Quen pulled the skin to her lips and guzzled, unable to deny herself Enara’s gift. The Waters of Life.
A passage from her favorite story, The Saga of Ilkay, came to mind. “Fear not the beast’s fire, Ilkay, for Lumine blessed you with the Waters of Life. Carry them in your heart always, for the Shadow feeds on chaos and fears nothing more than the glassy stillness of calm waters.”
She’d treasured that book, not only because it had been her mother’s, but because Ilkay faced the beast with calm assurance. I’ve tried to be like Ilkay. It was also how she’d imagined her mother might have been.
Pahpi had a way of sensing when her gut roiled with Vatra’s fires of anger or jealousy. “Still Waters, Quen,” he’d say. Pahpi’s mantra, repeated so often, it became like a well-trodden path. Knowledge of how to achieve a tranquil heart. Her vitality sapped, Quen doubted she could keep Ishna locked away, but if she was going to die, she wasn’t about to leave Menauld with her mind in chaos. She didn’t want to end up lost in Vay’Nada for all eternity.
Quen called on the loving light of Lumine, the Sister, to aid her. I’ll answer Rajani chaos with the glassy stillness of an untroubled soul. Her eyes closed, her breaths shallow but calm. She imagined a pool of tranquil water, still as glass. The second heart was quiet, adding to the peaceful feeling.
Claws scratched at her, dashing the calm. Her cheeks were ablaze with pain, wet and trickling with blood.
The Rajani screamed at Quen. “Stop it, you wretched creature. You’re killing our god.”
A second voice. “Do not get hysterical, Tilvani.”
Quen recognized the slippery quality of the woman’s voice. One minute filled with the warmth of Lumine’s light, the next cold as the hissing hollowness of Vay’Nada.
Nevara.
“Ishna is with us still, Sister, but barely. Do not fret. I know how to coax this Doj’Anira to Promena.”
Fingers at her wrist. “Her heart is weak. She’ll last only a day.” Tilvani slammed Quen’s hand down. “We did as you said before, Nevara. Still, this greedy creature keeps Ishna from us.” Tilvani’s voice rose into a shrill note of panic.
“Leave it to Vahgrin and me. We will return soon with the key.”
A cool breeze as they vacated the tiny space of Quen’s cell. As awful as they were, she missed them when they were gone. Life tethers life. Without others to anchor her, Quen feared she wouldn’t last the day they’d predicted.
• • •
Wet trickled at her temples. Horns had sprouted from her head. She thought it had been a dream. Was it? Hand to her face. Wet. Cool. Water, not blood. No horns. Yet.
A splash coupled with high-pitched keening. The sound, irritating beyond measure, brought queasiness.
Nevara’s voice grated on her nerves as much as the Rajani keening. “Wake, Doj’Anira. I brought you a gift.”
A gasp.
It wasn’t from her.
A low growl.
It wasn’t the dragon.
Through bleary vision, two figures were beyond, outside the narrow doorway of her cell. Firelight dancing, chasing away the shadows. That stance is familiar. Tall. Broad shoulders. Hands held in front, bound in chains, as were his ankles. An aura of brackish green surrounded Aldewin, wrapped in the fabric of Vay’Nada.
Her throat was tight, parched, and exhausted. Quen’s voice was like the sound of wind sweeping sand. “Aldewin.”
Beside him, bound in a similar cage of brackish green, Nivi yowled. He didn’t appear injured, but his pained cry rent her heart.
The only word she could manage. “No.”
Claw-tipped hands removed her bindings. Strong arms bore her and carried her, slack-legged, from her cell.
“Come, Doj’Anira. I am not heartless. We cannot deny our sacred vessel the opportunity to make peace with this world before eternal sleep. Say goodbye to your lover and pet.” Her lips against Quen’s ear. “And know if you kill Ishna, so do you kill them.”
Quen shivered not just from the bone-chilling cold of the damp dungeon, but with anger and fear for her loved ones. She was powerless to help them. She was ready to give in—to allow Ishna to rise. But the dragon soul was quiet and didn’t come to her defense. “It is as I’ve told you. Ishna doesn’t answer my call.” Her voice trembling, desperate. “You can kill them. Destroy me. Suda, Nevara, you can murder every soul in Indrasi. You cannot make the Winter Dragon bow to you. She’d rather we all die than submit to your control.”
Nevara’s claws, savage and angry, swiped at her face. Fresh blood trickled, the wound raw. Nevara dug her claws into Quen’s chest, gouging and ripping at the surface flesh. Her face nearly touched Quen’s. “You lie.” Nevara stood still. Listening. “There,” she whispered. “I feel it, as do you.” Her eyes grew wide, dark orbs twinkling with delight. “Ishna lives. It is you, vile human, that keeps her from us.”
“She was never yours to command.”
“We control Vahgrin. Ishna will also submit, and together, dragons and Rajani, side by side, we will rule.”
“Rule what?” Quen forced a wry laugh. “Rubble and death? Your plan is madness. You know it is.”
Nevara twisted her claws and then released her hold. Blood dripped down Quen’s nearly naked stomach. “No, humans built a mad world. A usurper queen exulting herself, acting as though she is a god.” Spittle shone on Nevara’s lower lip. “To fuel their paltry Menaris, humans put the yoke of bondage on any magical creature they can.” Nevara’s eyes were black as a raven’s feather, wide and wild. “And when they can’t control a creature like us—oh yes, Quen, do not exempt yourself. You belong to our caste whether or not you like it.” She leaned closer, her putrid stench making Quen gag. “Humans hunt creatures like us. Torture us. Kill us. They hate anything unlike themselves. Violence marks Nomo Teplo—the Age of Man.” She cackled. “And you call us mad? For wanting to burn it to the foundation and start anew.”
“Chaos is not the answer.” Quen sighed. “Besides, Ishna hasn’t answered me. You spat at humans and complained about their control of magical creatures. Yet listen to yourself, Nevara. Isn’t that what you do to Vahgrin? And what you seek to do to Ishna as well.” She gave a wry laugh.
Nevara scowled at Quen. “We are nothing like humans,” she hissed. Nevara placed her forefinger on Quen’s forehead, between her eyes.
