Light My Fire

by G. A. Aiken

  “You do not scare me. None of you scare me. I am scared for you. Times are changing and . . . well, people always fear that which they do not understand. At one time, you never would have existed as you are. The daughters of a dragon and a human. But here you are. Beautiful and healthy—”

  “And different,” Seva finished for her.

  “And different. And many do not like different.”

  “Do you want us to change?”

  “Not on your lives,” she said adamantly. “Do you know why?” The five girls shook their golden heads, eyes just like their father’s staring back at Dagmar, waiting for what she was going to say next. “Because I never changed. I refused to. It wasn’t easy. Some among my family were quite mean about it. But I never changed, and do you know what happened? I met your father and Auntie Annwyl and Auntie Morfyd and all your uncles . . . and everything was wonderful. So how can I ask you to change when I never did?”

  “We don’t want to go anywhere,” Seva told her, as always speaking for all five of them. “We like it here.”

  “You’re not going anywhere. I won’t allow it. But, more importantly,” Dagmar added, “your father will never allow it. As far as that dragon is concerned, the suns rise and set on his girls. So you don’t need to hide in my study, worried that we’ll be sending you away.”

  “That’s not why we come in here. We come to your study because if you don’t notice us, we get to hear all sorts of interesting stuff between you and the generals.”

  Dagmar stood and pointed at the door.

  As her daughters marched by, Dagmar noted, “You five are unbelievably sneaky.”

  “We are, but Daddy says we get that from you.”

  Dagmar followed her daughters into the hallway, turned, and locked her study door, but when she looked back, her daughters had already disappeared.

  All right. Maybe her five youngest daughters made her a little nervous, but that was natural, wasn’t it?

  As Dagmar headed down the hall, she saw Annwyl walking toward her, going out for her daily training, no doubt. Although she didn’t usually come this way.

  “Where are you off to?” Dagmar asked.

  “To check on the tower before I head to the training field.”

  “Huh.” Dagmar caught the queen’s arm and stopped her. “Mind explaining to me what that is you’re building out there?”

  Annwyl shrugged, her face frowning in confusion. “It’s a tower.”

  “Yes, but—”

  A loud crash from outside cut off Dagmar’s next words, and Annwyl stormed off down the hall while yelling at the stonemason who might or might not be able to hear her from this far inside the castle walls.

  “I will not be paying for whatever just happened!” she yelled.

  Shaking her head, Dagmar headed off for her first meal before the Rebel King and his distrustful sister arrived.

  Elina landed on her hands and knees, everything she’d eaten or drunk in the last twenty-four hours pouring out of her in great bouts of vomit.

  A few feet away was Kachka, going through the same thing. And Celyn was nearly lighting the forest on fire as his vomit came out like lava, spraying the trees and decimating the spongy undergrowth.

  “Oh, dear,” Brigida’s voice rasped, “I completely forgot to mention not to drink too much before we travel. The body just expels it.”

  Kachka, the first to stop retching, fell back against a tree stump. She pointed an accusing finger at Brigida. “You hag,” she snarled. “You handed us four more bottles last night before you went to bed.”

  “Did I?” Brigida asked. “How the mind fades with old age.”

  “You did this on purpose!”

  “Watch your tone, orphan of the Steppes. I’d hate to tear your tongue out by the root.”

  Brigida quickly turned her head as the right side of her fur cape was sprayed with vomit-flecked lava.

  Celyn stumbled toward the old She-dragon. “Don’t you threaten—” His words abruptly ended as he fell face-first onto the ground and stopped moving.

  Brigida shook her head. “This is what you get for spending your life under your mummy’s tail, boy.”

  She shook off the lava and began to walk away.

  “Wait,” Elina called out as she pulled herself to her feet by holding onto the low-lying limb of a nearby tree. “Where do you go, old hag?”

  “I long to see my homeland again. It’s been much too long. You lot can get back on your own from here. Garbhán Isle is just over that ridge.”

  Elina tried to go after Brigida, but as soon as she stepped away from the tree, she was forced to drop to her hands and knees again so she could continue vomiting.

  Once her system cleared out, she crawled over to her sister, dropping down beside her.

  “She is so mean,” Elina said to Kachka.

  “I know.” She nodded at their mounts. “At least the horses are doing well. Even that big cow.”

  “I call him travel-cow.”

  “Fitting.”

  “It is not!” Celyn screamed into the ground, still unable, it seemed, to get up.

  “We cannot face the fancy Southland queen like this,” Kachka said, ignoring Celyn. “We may not be able to ever go home again, but I will not represent the Steppes as poorly as this.”

  Elina listened for a bit, then pointed to the west. “There is stream or creek over there. We can wash up and change.”

  Kachka nodded, and together the sisters slowly got to their feet. Once they were steady, they both walked over to Celyn. Each took an arm and they proceeded to drag the dragon in his human form toward the water.

  “He weighs as much as that travel-cow,” Kachka complained.

  “It could be worse, sister. He could be dragon. Then we would be dragging him for hours.”

  After they finished cleaning up and changing their clothes, the trio mounted their horses and rode to Garbhán Isle.

  Once they were in the courtyard, Celyn quickly dismounted and moved to Elina’s side. He reached up to help her and she immediately slapped his hands away.

  “I am not invalid, Dolt.”

  “I’m trying to help you.”

  “I do not need help. I have been dismounting horses since birth. This I can do.”

  Celyn stepped back as Elina’s leg swung over the saddle. He barely missed being kicked in the head. She jumped down and landed just fine, but when she tried to take a step she walked into him. Spatially, she was still a bit off.

  He stopped her from falling, but that only got him a little snarl.

  “I am fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Do not question me!” she bellowed, shoving him back.

  “Gods, woman! I am just trying to help!”

  “I do not need your help. I am missing eye. Not head.”

  “Elina—”

  “Why must we debate everything?” she snapped.

  Celyn glanced at Kachka and she gave a little jerk of her head. He understood. Space. Elina needed space. He understood that. He didn’t want to give it, but he understood. Besides, he needed to track down Annwyl before she saw Elina. Around this time of day, she would be training.

  “Go inside,” he said. “I’ll catch up.”

  “What about old hag?” Kachka asked.

  All Celyn could do was shrug. “I’ll warn the family she’s back and . . . somewhere. That’s all we can do.”

  Kachka nodded and together they watched Elina, who’d already walked off toward the stairs that would lead into the Great Hall, her gait still a little cautious as she moved.

  “Give her time,” Kachka said to him, her voice low. “You tend to push.”

  “I know. I try not to, but . . . I’m not good at not pushing. I’m Cadwaladr. . . . We push.”

  Kachka smiled, patted his shoulder, which sent him stumbling a bit.

  “You are good dragon. And my sister will be fine. She is . . . what is word . . . ?” She thought a moment. “Resilient. She will not
let this hold her back for long.”

  He knew Kachka was right.

  With a nod, he went off in search of Annwyl, but he found Brannie first.

  His sister blinked in surprise. “You’re back already?”

  “It’s a long story. Where’s Annwyl?”

  “Well—”

  “Why are you here?” Briec asked as he came around the corner of a building, with Éibhear and Gwenvael a few hundred feet behind him.

  “And good tidings to you as well, cousin.”

  “I asked you a question.”

  “Oh, back off, Briec,” Brannie snapped. “We don’t report to you.”

  Focusing on his sister, Celyn asked her, “Annwyl? Where is she?”

  “Haven’t seen her this morning. Problems at that death tower she’s building. But she’s probably at the training field by now. You know how cranky she gets when she doesn’t get in some kind of workout. Why do you ask?”

  “Because we need to track her down before she sees Elina. Maybe we could all split up and look for her.”

  Brannie frowned in confusion as Briec stiffened. “Why? Celyn, what’s going on?”

  Celyn sighed. “Like I said . . . it’s a long story.”

  Kachka found her sister standing next to a large table in the middle of a big hall. She had her hands against the wood and was leaning on it.

  “You need to get some sleep,” she told Elina in their own language, now that they were alone.

  “I’m fine.”

  “After what that old witch did to us? And you’re still healing. You need to rest.”

  “Stop babying me, Kachka.”

  “Caring for you is babying you? And have you not done the same for me when I was wounded? Why should you be so different?” Her sister didn’t answer, so Kachka put her arm around Elina’s shoulders and leaned in close. “What is it, Elina? You weren’t this worried when we were back at the old hag’s cave. But now—”

  Before Elina could answer—and it did seem she was about to—a voice coming from the back of the hall boomed, “Elina! You’ve returned! And so quickly!”

  The sisters turned and Kachka watched a woman walk toward them. She was tall like Kachka and wore a sleeveless chain-mail shirt that revealed big shoulders, lots of scars, and strange markings etched into the skin of her forearms. A warrior, but the likes of which Kachka had never seen before. Perhaps another Cadwaladr like Celyn.

  “I’m so glad you’re back,” the woman went on, her gaze focused on a leather thong she was attempting to tie around her wrist with only one hand. “How did it go with . . . ?”

  The woman’s words trailed off and her footsteps slowed when she saw Elina’s bandaged face.

  “My gods, what happened?”

  “Queen Ann—”

  “Don’t call me queen.” The woman took a breath. “I don’t need titles. Just tell me what happened.”

  “I have failed you,” Elina said flatly.

  “Elina—” Kachka started to step in, to protect her as she’d always tried to do, but Elina wouldn’t have it.

  Elina slashed her hand through the air. “No, Kachka. Let me do this.” She faced the woman who, Kachka now realized, was the infamous Annwyl the Bloody. “I have failed you,” Elina said again. “I did not get to see the Anne Atli. Glebovicha stopped me.”

  “Is this bandage because of her?” the royal asked, reaching out to touch the cloth wrapped around Elina’s head, but Elina jerked back. When she got like this, she didn’t like to be touched by anyone.

  “She did do this to you,” the queen quickly surmised.

  “There was a fight,” Kachka explained for her sister. “And Glebovicha took her eye.”

  The queen lowered her hand and blinked several times. “She . . . she took Elina’s eye? Because Elina wanted to talk to Anne Atli?”

  “The ways of our people,” Kachka tried to explain to the Southland leader, “are complicated.”

  “Well, what about your people? Did they not try to protect her?”

  Kachka shrugged. “Some might have wanted to, but . . . well . . . no one gets between mother and daughter in the Outerplains.”

  The queen’s body jerked as if she’d been struck. “Mo . . . mother? Glebovicha is your mother, Elina?”

  Elina nodded.

  “If you will let me explain—” Kachka began.

  “No,” the queen said quickly. “I can’t. I have to . . .” She pointed, but Kachka felt the gesture was meaningless. “To go. I have to go.”

  Then the queen stalked off.

  Elina’s head dropped forward and she again faced the table. “I am pathetic,” she snarled in their language.

  “Stop it, Elina.”

  “Did you see her face? I failed her. I failed them all. Me with my grand promises, and instead I come back even more useless than when I left.”

  “Stop it.”

  A tear rolled down Elina’s face from the one eye she had left. “Our mother was right. She’s always been right about me.”

  Arms crossed over her chest, Kachka turned away from her sister, resting her butt against the table. She hated when Elina got like this. Insisting on believing the lies their mother had told them all these years. But Kachka also knew there was no point arguing with her until Elina had gotten it out of her system.

  A tall, silver-haired male ran into the hall from the courtyard steps. He stopped, turned in a circle, then looked at Kachka. She assumed he was looking for the queen, so she motioned to the stairs leading up to another floor with a tilt of her chin. He ran off, and Kachka continued to hear her sister going on and on about how pathetic and weak she was and how she’d failed the great Queen Annwyl.

  That Annwyl didn’t seem so great to Kachka. To blame Elina for any of this was beyond ridiculous. Who would do that?

  Kachka looked up to see the queen, now dressed for travel, with a travel pack on her back and weapons around her waist, heading toward the stairs. The silver-haired male was right beside her, and they were clearly arguing.

  When the queen reached the top of the stairs, the man grabbed her arm to halt her, and Kachka wondered if this was the king of these lands. Who else would put their hands on a royal? And something about him screamed haughty.

  But then that queen turned and kicked the silver-haired man in the knee. It was a hard kick, meant to shatter, but the male merely hissed in pain and released her. She made it down the stairs, but the man caught up with her again. He grabbed her around the waist and she brought her elbow back, hitting him right in the face. Blood immediately poured from his nose, but this time he kept his grip.

  He lifted the queen off the ground and started to take her back toward the steps, but she pulled out a dagger she had sheathed at her side and rammed it into his thigh.

  He dropped her then and stumbled back.

  Readjusting her travel pack, she started for the hall doors. But two more males rushed in from the courtyard. One was big like a bear and had blue hair. Wait. Blue hair? The other was like a golden god, and Kachka knew he would be in great demand among the worthy warriors in need of husbands.

  The two men stopped in front of the queen, hands up.

  “Annwyl,” the golden one warned, “don’t make us hurt you.”

  In reply, the queen cracked her neck, lowered her head, and snarled—like an animal. The golden one immediately stepped back. “Nope. I’m much too pretty for this. You handle her,” he told the bear.

  “Why do I have to do it?” the enormous man asked, panic in his low voice. “I’m pretty, too!”

  “Well, where the hell is Fearghus?”

  “Not as close as we’d like.”

  “Move!” the queen bellowed, startling Elina out of her self-pity.

  She spun around. “What’s happening?” she asked Kachka.

  “I have no idea. But it’s fascinating.”

  “Annwyl . . .” the golden one tried. “Be reasonable.”

  The queen unsheathed the sword at her side, and th
e golden one immediately turned away, hands up to cover his head. “Not the face!” he begged. “Not the face!”

  “I have to agree with him,” Kachka said low to her sister. “Not that face. It is beautiful.”

  “He’s a dragon, too.”

  Kachka scratched her head. “By the horse gods, they’re everywhere.”

  The bear—another dragon, Kachka would guess—stepped in front of Annwyl, his big hands on her shoulders, his face turned away, his eyes closed tight.

  “Please, Annwyl!” the bear begged. “Please just calm down!”

  “Look!” the queen yelled, her arm swinging out toward Kachka and Elina. “Look what that bitch did to her!”

  The two males and Annwyl looked over at Elina, and Kachka and her sister glanced at each other, then behind them. They didn’t see anyone back there so Kachka quickly realized Annwyl was talking about Elina.

  “Me?” Elina said, pointing at her chest.

  “I will not let this go unanswered!” the queen raged.

  “I know you’re upset, Annwyl,” the bear went on, “but let’s wait until Dagmar or Bram gets here. Then we can all sit down and discuss the best course of—”

  The queen, clearly not liking what she was hearing, grabbed the bear by his blue hair and yanked him down and around.

  “Owwwwwwwwwwwwww!”

  She stepped past the bear and out the doors.

  Kachka turned to Elina, about to say something, when she heard the unmistakable sound of flesh hitting flesh. The queen stumbled back into the hall and a tall, brown-skinned woman followed her in. The queen was stunned by the first hit, and before she could take a swing of her own, the brown-skinned woman punched her in the face again, then once more. The third hit landed the queen on her back, and the brown-skinned woman shook out her hand. “Her bloody jaw is like granite!”

  Celyn rushed in with another woman who resembled him greatly but who had shorter black hair. He stopped right in the doorway and looked down at the queen.

  “Tell me I did that for a good reason,” the brown-skinned woman growled.

  “You probably prevented a war. So . . . good job, Iz!”