* * * *
The following morning, with Yolathion recovered enough to travel and all preparations completed, the Immadian Dragonships negotiated the amazing sinkhole and rose above Ur-Yagga. Most of Kylara’s women had never travelled by Dragonship. They lined the external gantries to watch as their home receded.
Ardan wondered if they realised what King Beran wanted to gift them–freedom from tyranny. Freedom from the empire which had razed his homeland.
They would fly over Naphtha Cluster on their route back east. His heart wept already.
There was Aranya, taking to the forward gantry, wearing just a cloak, her unbound hair swirling in the wind to wreathe her tall, slender figure in kaleidoscopic colours. Ardan chewed his lip as his eyes followed her involuntarily to the corner. She slipped out of sight. She said she was alright. But that perfect-Princess exterior could not disguise the fiery inner turmoil that his developing Dragon senses had picked up. He should know. It matched his feelings in every detail.
He jumped as a pair of arms encircled his waist. “Pretty, isn’t she?”
“Not like this ugly beast, you mean?”
“You … like her?”
“She says I’m an old fledgling. I was just wishing I could jump off a gantry so easily. But my Human brain is having none of it.”
Kylara rested her head against his shoulder. “You heard her story, Ardan. You know the intelligence we received. She and a Remoyan Princess smashed an entire Sylakian Dragonship command. Do you think she just woke up one morning and said, ‘Today I’m going to change the Island-World’?”
“Aye, I like her,” said Ardan, drawing Kylara into his embrace. “She’s brave, loyal and attractive–as far as a white slug goes. But I
love
a Western Isles warrior.”
Who had not breathed fire with him, nor exchanged words he recognised as vows.
Thou, my soul’s eternal fire.
Did his choice to pursue Kylara make him an oath-breaker? Or merely the Island-World’s greatest fool? Who was Ardan, Island-less warrior, Shapeshifter Dragon, and a man who dallied with innocent Princesses, if not a fool?
Perhaps a Dragon who had destroyed the Northern Dragonship fleet and killed Garthion was less innocent than he supposed. One thing was for certain, he liked the man he seemed to be around Aranya. Her fire filled his dreams.
“Mine were idiotic, jealous words,” said Kylara. Her eyes followed Aranya’s flight as she powered skyward ahead of the Dragonships, scouting. “I wish I were a Dragon. She’s … magnificent.”
“Would you settle for kissing a Dragon?”
“Sounds like a dangerous job for a Warlord.” After a short interlude, Kylara put her hands on his chest to press them apart. “Ardan, do you truly forgive me for how I mistreated you?”
“I could be persuaded.”
But even as he spoke, from above, Aranya’s Dragon-voice floated down to his awareness.
I see
Naphtha Cluster. I grieve with you, Ardan.
The playfulness in his spirit evaporated.
* * * *
A one-moon darkness mercifully shrouded Naphtha Cluster as the three Dragonships hurried to catch up with King Beran’s forces, who by agreement, were already taking up position to make the long crossing to Mejia Island, south of Jeradia. Many years before, Mejia had been an ally of Immadia. Beran expected a fond reunion there.
Unable to sleep because of nightmares about the Black Dragon, Aranya padded up to the forward navigation cabin in the early hours. She untied her headscarf and shook out her braids. Dragon-Aranya hated to feel restricted in any way, but Yolathion’s eyebrows crawled toward his hairline every time he saw her ‘naked’–by which he meant wearing her hair unbound. Fussy, toothless old rajal, Aranya thought uncharitably. He acted so morose and jealous over the time she spent training and briefing Ardan. She wished she had the courage discuss these things with him, rather than acting like the sharp end of a crossbow bolt without rhyme or reason.
She soothed Sapphire with a touch.
Don’t mind my moods, little one.
Ar-ar,
chirped Sapphire, in the cute baby-dragonet voice she was developing. She curled her tail around Aranya’s neck and nibbled her earlobe, pouring forth a stream of Dragonish nonsense. The dragonet was growing in understanding, Aranya thought. She had clearly been displeased to be left behind when Aranya and Yolathion left to scout Yanga Island. How much could dragonets truly know? Nak had told her a legend about Hualiama and the dragonet Flicker, who had established a famous friendship after the dragonet saved her life. The tale was over five hundred years old and had at least seven distinct and conflicting versions Nak could recite. But those legends often contained more than a grain of truth, the old Dragon Rider had assured her.
The night was black and so still, it lured her toward the concave crysglass panels. Aranya shivered delicately, half-expecting to see Fra’anior’s gigantic, multi-headed form peering back at her from the depthless darkness. She stiffened, hugging herself. Fra’anior had commanded her to seek the Dragon of the Western Isles. Had he orchestrated the whole encounter?
Magic trickled into her awareness. Aranya whirled. “Who’s there … Ardan!”
“It’s me.”
“What’re you–why–you’re far too good at lurking in shadows. Stop it.”
He shifted toward her with draconic poise, saying nothing. The curve of his lips multiplied the tumult in her heart.
Aranya blurted out, “I dreamed of the Black Dragon.”
Inanities! A foil against the storm stirred by his appearance. Storms broke and crashed in her mind, mingled with a faraway roaring of the Black Dragon. In the faint moonlight, Ardan’s eyes were pools of night, with an evasive glint of magic in their depths.
He said, “I wasn’t dreaming of a
Black
Dragon.”
Aranya clutched at the frayed threads of her composure. Unsteadily, she said, “Maybe you’re a Dragon of Shadow. That’s right–not black, but shadow.”
“A Dragon of the absence of colour?” he frowned, joining her at the forward-facing crysglass window. “What are you trying to say, amethyst eyes? That I have no Dragon powers?”
Were words swords or scimitars, Aranya imagined, they would be sparring, circling, clashing over the truths that hung unspoken between them. She said, “Of course you have powers, Ardan. There’s your Dragon fire, at least, and much magic besides. And tell me, this strap you wear on your wrist–what is it? Because I’ve noticed it stays with you when you transform. That’s impossible.”
“Shadows must be cast by light,” he said.
A delicious warmth flared in her belly. Magic imbued his words with myriad shades of meaning. He was the shadow to her light? Shadow could be good? Aranya had been entirely unprepared for this response. Dreamily, she reached out to touch just the leather upon his wrist, not the skin. She dared not touch his skin. There was far too much magic coursing through her veins to take that risk.
I wear the ur-makka of a Western Isles warrior
, he said, switching to Dragonish to answer her previous question.
It names me threefold, for family, person and spirit, but symbolises much more. In Western Isles culture, each family name has a guardian spirit–it’s just a chip of wood encased in leather, Aranya, but–
He broke off at her low gasp. Her hair! What now? Aranya stumbled against the cool crysglass.
As he stretched out his hand toward her, automatically, Aranya’s multi-coloured tresses stirred again, yearning toward him, animated by the magic gently gleaming in every strand. Her hair had grown long during her political exile in the Tower of Sylakia, reaching to her waist, and was becoming almost impossible to wrangle into braids fit for hiding beneath a proper headscarf. The tugging sensation was surprisingly forceful. Aranya balked, fighting back as Ardan’s hand froze mid-gesture. Her hair strained sideways as though electrified.
“I’m not terribly intuitive, but I sense you might still desire me,” he smiled, pausing just inches from the waving tendrils.
Aranya tried to slap her errant hair down, but her struggles only served to encourage the magic. The Black Dragon’s roaring battered her mind–he wanted this, not her! She would keep her promise. She was Aranya, Princess of Immadia, not some puppet to an Ancient Dragon bully who wanted to tear her morals asunder. Had she not just shared an agreeable dinner with Yolathion in his cabin? Was he not her chosen one?
Sapphire launched off her shoulder, mewling in fright, her tiny claws pricking sharply through the thin fabric of her nightclothes. The dragonet perched on the back of King Beran’s desk chair.
You breathed the soul-fire!
Fra’anior bellowed in her mind.
Aranya pressed her palms against her temples, as if that futile gesture would shut him out.
No. You can’t make me.
Obey your destiny!
No!
But her shout of denial came out as an elongated, terrible rasp, a sound much closer to a Dragon’s roar than any Human throat should have been able to produce.
Ardan, clearly concerned for her state of mind, asked, “What’s the matter, Aranya? Who’re you talking to?”
But he could utter no more, because at that moment, Aranya’s hair brushed against his fingertips. A discharge of magic struck like lightning in the navigation cabin. Before she could stop it, her thick tresses wrapped around his hand. Her hair slithered up his arm to the elbow. Aranya stumbled into his ambit, drawn headfirst by an irresistible, painful tugging on her scalp.
“No, no,” she repeated, trying to ward him off with her hands, but her hair seethed and coiled around his shoulders and torso, crushing her against his chest. “No, I won’t … stop me, Ardan. Help me stop.”
Ardan’s fingers clasped the back of her neck. He said, ragged of breath, “Woman, you bring out the Dragon in me.”
There was a savage bent to his lips and a dangerous, fey light in his eyes. Aranya tried to bury her face against his shoulder, but the compulsion was visceral, and the magic flooding her being so sweetly intense, that resistance became a torment past bearing. Her chin tilted upward. Instead of meeting his ready lips, she inhaled the breath of his lungs in greedy gasps, perhaps seeking the soul-fire they had shared before.
Thunder! Storm clouds roiling without or within her being, she no longer knew which. Dragon fire flared about them. Aranya panted, “No, I promised. I will not!”
“To a Cloudlands volcano with those promises,” he hissed. “This is–”
“Ardan?” A sleepy voice echoed up the corridor.
Ardan and Aranya sprang apart as though a catapult mechanism had snapped when fully wound. Her fires around the room quenched instantly, but the pervading inner magic barely subsided, searing her body and spirit, throbbing with a tempo that echoed the vast, faraway storms of the endless Cloudlands.
Quick as lightning, Ardan whipped the
ur-makka
off his wrist and laid it on the table between them. He began to peel apart the thin layers of leather.
Kylara stood in the doorway, barefoot, yawning. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“Aranya had a dream of the Black Dragon,” said Ardan, as if all was well. “She asked about the
ur-makka
–why it comes through transformations with me.”
“Among my people, the elders would tell you that the
ur-makka
is an extension of the spirit-world,” said Kylara, drawing close to him. Aranya’s fingers clawed at her sides. “They would say that name-runes like yours are given by the Ancient Dragons, Ardan.”
The Warlord’s dark gaze rested on Aranya, standing tongue-tied beside her father’s desk. Nothing was singed, not a paper curled into ash at its edges. Had she imagined it all? Her hair rippled once against her back, and then lay as tranquil as if to assert its innocence. She took a mental snap at Fra’anior. How dare he, Ancient or none, try to force her to submit to his bidding? What perverted power of magic was this, that it should drive her into another’s arms, against her will?
Did he mean her harm?
“It’s a shadow power,” Aranya heard herself say. “A type of Dragon magic unique to you, Ardan. That’s how you slipped through those manacles. Somehow, you manipulate the physical world.”
Kylara slipped her arm into the crook of his. “Why don’t you manipulate me back to my cabin, o mighty Dragon?”
And Ardan departed without a backward glance, leaving Aranya to swallow the bitter sting of the Warlord’s words–Kylara’s tone made their target abundantly clear. Worst of all, she was right, and well within her rights. Aranya wished she had something handy to sink her fangs into.
Her thoughts were embittered.
And you, Fra’anior? How can I trust you now?
The night was mute.
Aranya’s gaze fell on Ardan’s wrist-pouch, lying forgotten on the desk. As if reading her thoughts, Sapphire picked it up with her forepaws and leaped deftly over to her shoulder, this time sheathing her claws on landing.
Ippich?
chirped the dragonet, presenting it to her.
Ur-makka,
said Aranya. Had the Western Isles warrior left it for her? Should she take it? Might it appease Fra’anior? Not that she wanted to appease anybody or any Dragon. In her mood, she would rather have kicked the Black Dragon right in his ridiculously enormous fangs–however futile that act might prove. She pictured herself attacking one head, while another bit her tail off from behind. No. That was not the way.