by Lisa Daniels
“Until the next time it appears,” Meridas said in a rather ominous tone.
“Fantastic,” Janus snapped at them. “Now can we go and heal the people on my island?”
“Of course.” Meridas strode over to tell Rukia to launch them off. Janus teetered on the edge, eager to get the cure to Ruthen Island, and Evelyn held his hand all the way back home.
The Dragon's Storm Witch
Six Isles’ Witches & Dragons
Book 3
By: Lisa Daniels
Prologue: Fall of Serpent’s Isle
Although no one expected the island to fall, it did. Perran’s parents had lied to him for ages about how nothing would happen, that people talking about their home collapsing were just trying to make him worry. Maybe they were convincing themselves that everything was fine. Right up until the point where it wasn’t.
He held his sister Emilie’s hand, and they leaned over the railing of the skyship evacuating them from Serpent Isle, watching their home plummet into darkness. His best friend, Lissa, watched with wet eyes.
“My parents will help you,” Perran said to Lissa, as she shook and shook. “We won’t let you be alone.”
The older girl wiped her nose, saying nothing, just staring beyond the wind and rain, as if hoping, somehow, the island would rise again. Other kids and adults watched from the dark, wooden decks, most silent, some whispering, crying, or conversing with each other in low tones. The cold night bit into Perran, and he wanted to retreat below. Lissa had other plans, though, and he didn’t intend to leave her alone on the deck.
“Why did our parents lie?” Emilie whispered, hugging her brother tight.
“I don’t know,” Perran replied. He stared down at his sister’s head, smelling her wet hair, feeling her shiver against him. Seeing her cry, nestled up against him, made him wish she’d stop. He didn’t want his little sister to be so sad.
Whatever happened in the future, he knew he’d protect her. Even if their home had vanished, and people they loved and knew had been lost, at least they still had each other. Him and Emilie against the world. Oh, and Lissa, too.
Chapter One – Kelsey
She opened the door to a stranger in her master’s house. She tried not to look at him as she’d been trained, since any failure to comply on her part resulted in punishment—but something about his manner made her glance up. From the red, carpeted floor to his kind face, with deep brown eyes and curly, black hair, he had a certain pull about him. Only lords and wealthy men held that kind of authority. She knew her mistake the moment she did it, and one of the main house servants spotted it with a gleeful grin.
Why did it have to be Charlotte, of all people?
“I have business with Lord Feylen,” the man said. “Can you lead me to him?”
Gaze now firmly fixed on the floor, Kelsey gave a polite curtsy. “Yes, m’lord. Right this way.” She inwardly prayed that Charlotte wouldn’t go scuttling to Master Feylen before his guest was introduced, but it was a forlorn hope, to say the least.
“I’m no lord, but thank you,” the man said, his light voice gentle in comparison to Feylen’s brittle, smoke-filled tones. “Not unless one of my many siblings drops dead, but we can’t have everything.”
She didn’t answer, didn’t want to provoke a discussion which might get her punished for fraternizing. Sweat beaded on her forehead. Why had she allowed herself to look up at him? Stupid, stupid—how many times did they have to beat her before she stopped? She thought about the marks on her back from the latest whipping. The worst mark was etched across her buttocks, where Feylen meticulously landed his whip on the same spot each time. Turning it from bad to worse to agonizing. Sweet skies, if they punished her today, she’d be bleeding everywhere. Slower in her duties. No—she’d find a way. Swipe some extra bandages from the apothecary with her wages. She was almost out of coin—Feylen didn’t like to pay bad workers much—but at least she was here, right?
Here in the Six Isles, instead of down in the scummy, disgusting Undercity. She shivered, remembering Feylen telling her that if she didn’t work hard enough, he’d send her right back down there, lottery ticket winner or not. Outside Master Feylen’s study at last, Kelsey curtsied again, staring firmly at his shiny brown shoes.
“Thank you. Now… are you all right? You seem… stressed,” the man said. To Kelsey’s horror, he crouched down, clearly looking at her face. Get away!
“I’mfinethankyousir, Ihavetogo,” she babbled, backing away from him, desperately keeping her eyes fixed on the ground. Fear and anxiety welled up inside her until it choked her from within, and curses, she could even feel the prick of tears attacking.
“So, the rumors are true, then.” Now the stranger’s voice turned from syrupy nice to hard, unamused. “Get back here.”
No! If I’ve upset the guest… Wretchedly, Kelsey stopped her scuttle away, and drew nearer. “I’m sorry, sir—please don’t think bad of me.”
“I don’t think badly of you at all. Look at me. Come on.” The man’s voice turned kind again.
“No!” Kelsey barked the word, then clapped her hands over her mouth in horror. “No, sir, lord, I can’t. I’m not supposed to look at the guests, it’s bad manners.”
“Bad manners…? It’s considered good manners to look someone in the eyes when speaking to them.”
“Will be...” She barely managed to squeak out the next word, “punished.”
“Punished.” His voice came out flat. “For the mere crime of looking at someone. Sounds like you live with a monster, little one.”
“Forget I said anything, sir. I’m sorry. I’m speaking out of place.”
He moved towards her. “Be still.” One finger touched her chin, forcing her to lift her face up, though she still looked anywhere but at him. “The state of this,” he muttered. “And I detect bruising upon your neck.” His hand tugged at her servant’s robe, revealing more of her body, more of the bruises. “Whip marks.”
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Her back already throbbed in the fearful knowledge of getting beaten.
“It’s disgusting. Truly disgusting.” His words sounded like an insult, but the tone didn’t fit with one.
“W-what do you mean?” He must mean her. What else would he mean?
He halted his examination of her bruises. “Oh, just that I prefer my servants significantly less abused. Come. Follow me inside.”
Stomach sinking, she had no choice but to obey, in case the guest had cause to complain. She opened her eyes at last when he knocked upon the door of Master Feylen’s study.
“Enter!”
The stranger went through, and she slinked after him, just in time to spot Charlotte walking off through the door to the kitchens, pleased with herself.
She’s told the master. I’d hoped she wouldn’t.
“Ah, Sir Rus, I’ve been expecting you.”
With Kelsey’s view of the wooden, lacquered floor, she saw her master getting up to shake Rus’ hand. Was it a name or surname? Because Rus sounded awfully like a person who came from Azarus Isle, and that was the king’s place. The king with all his many children, all far more significant then she’d ever be.
“Get out, girl,” Feylen said then, clearly fixing on her. “You will be required later.”
“Oh, I asked her to stay,” Rus said, forestalling Kelsey’s sudden hope of escaping this nightmare. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“I do,” Feylen growled. “I would rather not have a servant listening to our business.”
“It won’t take long. All right, so, I know we were considering doing a trading deal together, regarding obtaining commerce from Zamorka. You’re offering a fair sum of money, and I very much appreciate that. However… there’s a little snag.”
“What?”
Kelsey continued to make herself as small as possible in the corner of Feylen’s grand study, imagining dirt pouring out from her and contaminating the floor because of her unworthy presence. She imagined Charlot
te and some of the other servants peeking when Feylen finally got to punishing her. They didn’t get punished as much, because they were natural born citizens, and never needed to rely on luck to get them out of there. Kelsey, in the meanwhile, had been paying for a ticket every week ever since she’d been drawing pay in her family’s business. Her mother and father were clockmakers, which didn’t earn a lot of money, but certainly enough to make them comfortable in comparison to the others in the Undercity. And she’d been fortunate enough to have her own parents be able to afford to pay her.
Winning the lottery had once felt like such a beautiful dream. Going up to the Six Isles, being placed to work in a master’s house, having a home up there… taking the ferry to Feylok Isle had been so exciting.
Right up until she found out just what kind of people lived in Feylen’s manse. People who mocked her lack of manners, people who laughed and called her stupid and useless because she couldn’t do the things they did. As for Feylen…
He had made it clear that he loathed those who had made it up here by luck, rather than effort. She was only here because the bureaucrats were required to find space for Kelsey to live and draw pay, not because he wanted her.
Yet every time her parents wrote to her, she told them what a wonderful time she was having. She didn’t want to crush their dreams, to lose the little money she sent them, and to keep them firmly lodged in that shop for the rest of their lives.
“You see,” Rus said, now raising his chin in an impressive manner, “I don’t appreciate the kind of service you’re running here with your servants. This one here is terrified even to be addressed. She has bruises. I’ve heard some rumors about how you treat people, but I have to say, you’ve really worked your magic on this one, haven’t you?”
“It’s none of your business,” Feylen snarled, bristling. “Either talk about business or get out of my house. I did not invite you here to insult me.”
Rus continued to smile amiably, until he pulled out a small, glittering brass badge from his pocket. “Skytown Police.”
Kelsey glanced upward to see her master’s face, despite knowing the trouble it’d get her in, to see his features contort with rage. “Police?” he sputtered, almost apoplectic. “You mean you tricked me?”
“I’m required to search your premises, with reasonable suspicion that you abuse the people you hire and who work in your place. If I am found correct in my assumption, you will be stripped of your right to employee subsidies, lose your current crop of servants, and pay a hefty fine.” Rus continued wearing his easy smile. “My men are searching your premises as I speak.”
“You—you can’t do this! How dare you—my home—my servants—” Feylen struggled to express his indignation, and for the first time, a faint glimmer of hope flickered in Kelsey.
“We have received a number of complaints about your conduct. And at least three sexual abuse cases, too, which should make you look just great in front of a grand jury.”
Feylen continued to sputter, before he seemed to remember that Kelsey was in the room. “I bet she told you lies, didn’t she? You lied, didn’t you, you little witch!” He got up, fingers twitching as if they wanted to wrap around her throat, and began to stalk across the length of the room, bearing down upon Kelsey.
Before Feylen completed his advance, Rus’ form undulated, shifting from a well-dressed, straight-backed figure to a dark gray, snarling serpent, with ominous dagger-shaped teeth and dark lizard eyes. The dragon’s wings expanded outwards, knocking Feylen onto the floor, and his anger dissolved into sudden terror. “No… you can’t do this!”
The dragon snapped those wicked teeth inches away from Feylen’s face, and he let out a scream of terror. Meanwhile, Kelsey watched in both horror and fascination, both fearful for her master, and elated that someone at last was punishing him, which then led to guilt.
Rus neatly folded back into his human body, still wearing clothes. “Always takes some concentration to keep the clothes on just right,” he said, brushing off imaginary dust from his suited sleeves. “You will relinquish control of your servants within the hour. We will be looking into your house and searching for any other evidence of abuse or potential tax fraud. I do hope we won’t meet again.”
He patted Kelsey on the back, before giving her a brisk, one-armed hug. “There. You’ll be out and free. No more abuse.”
“Won’t… won’t I be sent back to the Undercity?”
“Of course not. Unless that’s what you want, of course.”
She shook her head furiously, falling mute as he steered her out of the room, unable to shrug off the feeling that she’d done something terribly wrong. That she shouldn’t dare hope that life under the thumb of Lord Feylen was over.
She didn’t dare say anything else to him. And kept her gaze once more affixed to the floor.
Chapter Two – Perran
Perran Rus hated weak, passive people. He hated the ones who turned them into shadows of human beings, and hated how they perpetrated their own misery afterwards. Humans were predators, after all. If they sensed weakness, no matter how nice they might have been, it was just too easy to take advantage of the weak. So when he saw them, he was simultaneously aware of the abuse inflicted upon them, and furious at them for not standing up for themselves at the same time.
He’d seen too many cases of abuse during his time at Skytown Police services. They were mostly the cases he got sent on. Abusive husbands and wives, exploitation of lottery winners, the poor who thought their luck had finally changed with a winning ticket, and the poisonous, tax-avoiding rich ones who thought they could get away with everything.
Now he had a whole host of servants in his possession who needed rehoming. He bundled them all up on his skyship now, noting how some appeared disgruntled, others lost. Kelsey slunk aboard as if she was some beaten animal, and the other servants eyed her like predators. Yes… people always sensed the weak ones in a group and picked on them. Human nature to do so. The more he observed Kelsey, the more he became convinced that if she was thrown into another unknown household, she’d have a miserable time.
His parents said that the weak couldn’t be cured of their weakness. There had to be predators, there had to be prey. The natural world demanded this.
Prey like his sister. Who married a man and refused to admit she needed help or that he was terrorizing her. Who didn’t even transform into her dragon self to defend herself from assault, and ended up dead.
She could have defended herself. She could have stood up for herself. She had the power within her to do so. But she didn’t.
Perran glared at Kelsey for longer. By the time the ship was loaded, and the lord tucked away in prison, his mind had been made up.
Kelsey would be his new pet project. That cringing pile of weak would be transformed, one way or another, under his care. He’d need to bring other people into this little project, too.
“Sir,” Officer Haut said, appearing slightly flustered. He saluted as Perran’s attention settled on him. “The lord is detained, though he’s threatening to bring down charges upon our department for humiliating him.”
“Let him do so. If he wasn’t such a bastard, then he would never have found himself in such a position to begin with.” Perran walked past Haut, asking for them to lift off and touch base on Azarus Isle. The island of the royals, and the one with the most traffic in and out, which meant the sooner they got moving, the better. No more cases for him to attend today, at least. Lord Feylen was a special case the precinct wanted to crack down on for a while—people like him stopped those below wanting to come to the isles, and the lottery did help fund the islands, so… it made sense from a pure business perspective.
The air witch, Luan, didn’t like talking much. Her face was heavily tattooed, and she made no gestures with her hands at all when she lurched the ship forwards, manipulating the winds to carry them to greater heights towards Azarus. Most people disappeared below, but Kelsey remained on the top deck, clinging to
the side railings, the breeze whipping her dark hair into a frenzy. He didn’t want to talk to her, really, not when he knew the kind of responses to expect. Still, she should probably know he intended to adopt her into his household. Might be nice.
He made his footsteps deliberately loud, so she wouldn’t startle, and she turned around to face him as he approached on the starboard side.
“Hello,” he said, lips spreading into a smile. “How are you feeling?”
As expected, she flushed and looked down at the ground. Which made him internally scream and want to shake her like a doll. “I’m o-okay. Still can’t really believe that I’m not in the master’s house.”
“He’s not your master anymore. All his servants will be going to new places.” He really wished she’d stop shrinking into herself, as if expecting to be beaten.
“And… me?”
“You’ll be with me,” Perran said, forcing a smile. “And I’ll be teaching you to grow a spine.”
Her eyebrows puckered slightly. “Excuse me?”
“Look at me. There’s no punishment awaiting you if you do.” He coaxed her gently, and soon her dark brown eyes were fixed upon his. “That’s it. I don’t want you constantly looking away or down every time someone speaks to you. I’ll consider it impolite.”
With her cheeks going a deep, ugly red, she nodded. “Okay.”
He contemplated her for a moment. “Why did you let yourself be treated the way you were?”
“I don’t...” she hesitated, now appearing confused. “I’m a servant. It’s my duty to do my work. And to be punished if I don’t do it… correctly.”
“Perhaps,” Perran said. “But it also depends on what can be classified as good work and bad work. The punishment must be just. So must the definition of good and bad work. For example… if you steal from me, I would consider that exceptionally bad work.” His voice dipped to a hiss, and she shivered. “But if you look me in the eyes, that’s nothing. It’s just normal human interaction. That’s not a crime. And I’m… let’s just say I’m not the most impressed with your master for treating you like a pile of dirt.”
