Soul of Fire
Authors: Sarah A. Hoyt
Tags: #Magic, #Fantasy Fiction, #Dragons, #India, #General, #Fantasy, #Fiction
CONTENTS
In the Halls of the Monkey King
A Jewel Beyond Price; the Cost of a Child; Tiger!
Saving the Jewel; the Dragons and the Tigers; Decisions
China Tea and Hunting Hounds; the Unconcern of the Gentlemen
The Dragon Wakes; Worship and Panic; Where the Earl of St. Maur Realizes He’s Lost His Mind
Clothes and Food; Sympathy and Comfort; Miss Warington’s Very Puzzling Episodes
The Princess, the Monkey and the Ruby
Fakirs and Bodies; Safety and Daring; Tigers
An Unreliable Reflection; Fire and Blood; Mirrored Face
The Monkeys of Durga; A Sudden Alarm
The Pilgrim Lodging; Middle of the Night Alarm; Finding Sofie
Tigers; Maiden and Dragon; a Strange Knight
Sahib and Sepoy; Superiors and Subordinates; Legends and Rumors
Confusion; the Rooftops of Benares; a Hint at Last
Among Beasts; the Dragon’s Fury; Beast and Man
Tiger, Tiger; the Code of Hunters; the Most Precious of Goods
Monkeys on a Flying Rug; Dragons and Tigers and English Misses
Knowing Oneself; Old Crimes and New; the Best of Choices
A Bellicose Bolt of Lightning; a Service Done in Humility
A Rude Wakening; Dragons and Men; the Eye of the Dragon
An Eye for Seeing; the Obligations of a Rescuer; the Many Uses of a Broken Heart
Fallen From the Garden; an Unlikely Meeting; the Kingdom of the Tigers
The Princess’s Mind and the Maiden’s Heart; Rivals Ally
Shades of Madness; Whom to Suspect; the Most Daring of Solutions
Duplicitous Intentions; the Inner Man
Wake Not the Beast; the Path of the Dragon
Hoping for Wings; the Ruby; Saving It All
A General’s Morning Routine; Where the Whole Story Is Better Than Part; Entirely the Wrong Decision
A Terrible Wakening; the Regrets of Hindsight; a Panicked Dragon
The Advantages of Assiduous Personal Hygiene; Perfidy and Suspicion; a Disaster in the Making
The Tigers’ Fury; All Lost; Wings at Last
Elephants on Parade Grounds; Mayhem and Loss
Strange Events and Strange Reasons; Where Lalita Asks for Hanuman’s Help
The Cave Above the World; the Inadequacy of Desire
A Fool’s Errand; Across Cultures and Time
Towers of Silence; Two Bad Choices
Love and Madness; When a Heart Breaks; the Last Possible Choice
Summons; When Everything Goes Mad
To Dave Freer, a good friend
and one of the best writers at work today
A NARROW ESCAPE
Sofie heard roars in the house, roars up the stairs. She stooped and grabbed the bags and hurried to the balcony, where St. Maur leapt into space even as he was shifting shapes.
He leapt from the balcony railing and, for a second, she thought they’d both imagined it. That he wasn’t going to change shapes, couldn’t change shapes. That he was, in fact, just a man like other men. That he would now dash his brains out on that neat cobbled path they’d passed while entering the house.
It was easier to believe that she’d imagined his previous transformation than to see what was taking place before her very eyes—that smooth golden body twisting and writhing in midair; a sound like a strangled scream escaping his lips; a tail, wings, paws, scales extruding themselves from that mass that seemed much too small to contain them. And then the wings spreading . . .
The beast took to the air with a grace that denoted this was its natural environment. The wings of fire spread between her and the sky, and the dragon described a broad circle over the gardens before coming back to her.
Sofie resumed breathing, not aware she’d stopped for a moment. And then she realized that the loud roar behind her was closer, just a tiger’s leap away. She looked over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of a tawny, sleek hide, and the vague impression of lifted hindquarters and lowered front as the creature prepared to jump.
There was a sound from the other side of the balcony that might have been a sneeze or a dragon-size exclamation of alarm. Forcing herself not to panic, she turned to see the dragon just by the balcony. Dropping the bags, she jumped onto the broad green back.
The dragon grabbed all the bags at the same time she saw the tiger leap. But it had come too late and could only roar in frustration as the dragon took wing. . . .
SOUL OF FIRE
MAIDEN IN PERIL
“Mama, don’t make me marry him,” Miss Sofie
Warington said.
Seventeen years old, clad in a white dressing gown and clutching a blue muslin dress to her ample bosom—with her hair quite untamed and her expression wild—Miss Warington should not have looked ravishing. But the way her dark hair fell in tumultuous waves to the bottom of her spine, the way tears trembled at the end of the long eyelashes surrounding her dark blue eyes, the way her lips opened to let through her impetuous words would have brought strong men to their knees.
They had less effect on her mother, Lavinia Warington. “Don’t be foolish, girl,” she said, her voice severe. “What are you doing out of your room? And why are you not dressed?” As she spoke, she skillfully shepherded her daughter up the spacious stairs, carpeted in expensive red velvet that showed wear in discolored, threadbare patches.
Sofie resisted, but it was useless. She felt out of step and like a stranger in this house. She’d been born into it seventeen years ago, and she’d spent her first ten years in its vast, resounding, sun-washed rooms, attended by a native ayah and adored and indulged by her parents’ various servants. But at ten, she’d been put aboard a carpetship to London, where for seven years she’d been a pupil in Lady Lodkin’s Academy for Young Lady Magic Users.
The summons to return home two weeks ago had overjoyed her. London had never felt like home to her. Too dark, too dank, and people were too ready to sneer at her honey-colored skin—the result of one of her ancestresses’ being the Indian mistress of an English officer. She’d felt like a wayfarer in London. And yet, now home proved no home at all.
She’d found her mother and father to be far from the mythical, godlike figures who had watched over her childhood with pride and care. Her mother had grown bitter and her father . . . Her father didn’t bear thinking about. She knew nothing of magical maladies, but she knew enough to guess when someone had been using dark magic, and using it far too extensively. And she knew it was an illness that could hardly be cured.
And then there was the reason they’d summoned her back home a year before her education was completed. It wasn’t a longing for her company, as she’d hoped. And it wasn’t even that they’d missed her. “Lalita told me that the man visiting tonight is a rich native raj from a distant kingdom,” she accused her mother. “That he offered for me several months ago, and you . . . you accepted! Before I even returned.”
“And how would she know this, since she has been in London as your attendant till just two weeks ago?”
“She says the kitchen servants talked about it. They said that’s why you sent for me.”
Sofie’s mother’s lips closed tightly, until they seemed to be but a single red line. “Lalita talks too much.”
Sofie turned around fully, still clutching her dress, anxious fingers digging deeply into the folds of the material. “But is it true, Mama? Did she tell me the truth? How can you agree to give me away to a man I haven’t even met? A man who . . .” Oh, if it was true, she had to run—somewhere, somehow—and find or make her own fortune.
“Child, you’re being foolish. We are not giving you away to anyone. We found you a most advantageous marriage, one that most women in your position would give their eyeteeth for. The Raj Ajith is a powerful man, the ruler of a vast kingdom as native domains go, and he’s agreed to make you his only wife. You will live covered in jewels and surrounded by servants. Trust me, Sofie, your lot could be worse.”