Shadow Dragon

by Marc Secchia

  Thinking about her parents led Aranya to fluff her lines, albeit with great force. She threatened to claw the Prince’s eyes out. He took it perfectly in his stride.

  Two of his soldiers drew Aranya aside while Lyriela, chained under such a heap of metal she would surely not have been able to run more than a foot in any direction without falling over, was led though her vows by Prince Ta’armion. She wept and trembled and managed to look convincingly distressed by the whole process. Regular whiffs of the onion, concealed beneath a ridiculously flowery table-cloth of a handkerchief, kept Aranya’s tears flowing.

  Her mind wandered as Ta’armion and Lyriela stood for the three hours it took for every guest to file past them, kneel, kiss Lyriela’s right hand seven times, and proclaim Fra’anior’s manifold blessings upon the forthcoming union. Could she help the sickly jealousy clenching her stomach as she considered her cousin, marrying the man she loved? Not even the power of ancient soul-fire magic had turned Ardan to her. The winds of fate continued to sweep her from the volcanic mountain peaks of hope to the fiery calderas of despair–and, Islands’ sakes, what could Kylara possibly offer him that Aranya could not? She had offered her very soul! Not good enough, obviously. Was she too Northern? Too skinny for Ardan’s taste? Too haughty? Did Princess-Dragons not merit love in times of war?

  Now, she had no need of red onion to express the state of her heart.

  Aranya stared unseeing across the happy throng. Their laughter hurt. She must wrench her mind away from magic and fates, and focus on Sylakia’s destruction. That was the only goal, the worthy goal, which could make all of this meaningful.

  She could not picture Thoralian’s grand plan. Her father’s forces were now within striking distance of Sylakia. Thoralian had to be holding something back. What could it be–more Dragons? Better technology? Why was he cowering in his lair and sending First War-Hammer Ignathion, capable as he was, abroad to carry out his plans for war? Beran would have told her to put herself in Thoralian’s boots. If she did, it made no sense, unless his very purpose was to wait. For what? For King Beran to turn up on his doorstep with three Dragons and a hundred Dragonships, and frazzle his beard?

  That scenario was about as likely as Nak taking vows of celibacy.

  Her father should arrive at Fra’anior within two or three days. She needed to work out how exactly to apologise to him, and to Yolathion …

  Aranya, Lyriela called. Help me. I can’t move.

  Offering her arm to Lyriela, Aranya helped her cousin walk through to the dining hall for the nuptial feast. Her entire village was already gathered in the hall and having a merry time, from the oldest spinster to the youngest child. They had been airlifted by the Prince’s Dragonships that afternoon. Lyriela’s friends made a huge fuss over her. They made a symbolic petition to Prince Ta’armion to release his wife-to-be. With great ceremony, he removed most but not all of her chains, while Lyriela blushed and glanced coyly at him from beneath her lashes.

  Aranya sniggered privately. Just wait until Prince Ta’armion found a Dragoness glancing coyly at him from his pillow-roll.

  Ardan! Dark, delectable fire filled her memory. She swayed on her feet. Oh please, no, she must fight the frantic urge to transform and flee from the Island, following the alluring scent of him, the dark, predatory wings, the possessive clasp of his paw!

  Watch this, Aranya! Lyriela cried, shooting into the air. Her Ha’athiorian friends threw her on a blanket, holding it ten to a side, snapping the cloth to launch her toward a ceiling engraved with scenes of Island life, which apparently, in times past, had included many close interactions with Dragons. Aranya’s eyes crawled across the panoramic paintings. Dragons holding Human babies, Dragons partaking in councils, a Dragon teaching what could only be a class of students …

  Aranya? Aranya? Lyriela called.

  Aranya glanced over to her. What is it?

  There’s a man waving at you–down at the end of the hall. He’s very tall.

  She stared over the heads of the crowd. Yolathion? What–already? Had he flown to Fra’anior on a windroc’s wings?

  But Yolathion’s expression was grave. He beckoned her with uncharacteristic agitation, mouthing, ‘Hurry!’

  Aranya picked up her skirts and ran.

  As she approached, he called, “Aranya, hurry. It’s your father … we were ambushed.”

  “How did you arrive so quickly? What happened?”

  “Storm winds,” Yolathion said. “I escaped by Dragonship, but Thoralian, he had Dragons, and the Black Dragon fell …”

  Terror shredded her heart. “Ardan, no!” And her father! She should never have left him. She had been an idiot, so selfish. Now Thoralian had sprung his trap, the very thing she had feared. Had he been waiting for the moment Beran was unprotected?

  “We have to help him. Take me Dragonback, Aranya.” As he spoke, he was urging her out of the hall. “Quickly, please. There’s no time. It’s the only way.”

  “I have to unlace this stupid dress,” she gasped. “Yoli, please–”

  “I’ll fill you in on the way. And we’ll tell Ta’armion’s men outside. Hurry, Aranya.”

  Stepping out of the dress, Aranya took Yolathion’s hand and sprinted down the palace corridors, seeking fresh air, a space where she could spread her wings. They dashed outside into a walled garden just outside the palace. Half a dozen of Prince Ta’armion’s men stood guard there. “Give me space,” she gasped, and transformed, ripping through the material of her under-shift. “Mount up.”

  Yolathion strode to her shoulder. He placed his hand flat upon the base of her neck.

  “Do you need a paw-up?” asked Aranya. His broken leg might prevent him from climbing well. She scanned the sky above them. The day was clear, good for flying.

  A flash of light caught her eye. Movement, quick as a snake. A needle-sharp pain pierced her chest.

  Aranya had a moment to gasp, “Yolathion?” before her brain registered what he had done. He had stabbed her? A paralysing chill spread from the place where she had been struck, close to the arteries feeding the second heart. Winter made its abode in her soul. “Yoli?”

  He turned an exotic dagger over in his fingers. A glistening liquid dripped from its tip, while a beastly smile curled her boyfriend’s lips.

  “Yol–oh.” Her forelegs collapsed. She had no strength. The chill pervaded her muscles, numbing everything it touched, dulling her Dragon magic, stealing it away as it spread into her stomach, along her neck and out into her wings.

  As if in a dream, her muzzle struck the cobblestones. She felt nothing. Nothing at all.

  Yolathion’s laughter beat against her ears.

  Chapter 19: O Treacherous Jeradia

  Yolathion of Jeradia leaned over Aranya, smiling contentedly as the contagion seeped into her body. Aranya tried to bite his legs off, but her head refused to move.

  He strode up to her muzzle. Gazing into her eyes, he said, “Transform, Aranya, before you end up like your mother. You must transform. You’ve five seconds, no more.”

  His threat took forever to process in her mind. Like Izariela? Half-transformed; for all intents and purposes, dead. Preserved like a specimen in a jar. In the face of this thought, Aranya could do nothing else. She tore the magic from her deepest, most secret places. She transformed.

  “Take her, men,” ordered Yolathion.

  His voice came from a league away, dull words on duller senses. Manacles clamped upon her wrists, the metal warm in comparison to the ice slurry filling her veins. Poisoned, Aranya thought. It had to be poison. This was what must have happened to her mother. Izariela must have known this hoarfrost inside her lungs, her tongue frozen to the top of her mouth, the stark terror of betrayal. And these were not Ta’armion’s men. The beards gave them away. They were Sylakians.

  The last word she was able to choke out was, “Why?”

  Yolathion ignored her.

  Hands bundled her into a cloak. Clouds bobbed above her as the men moved
rapidly through a narrow archway at the rear of the garden. The clouds turned into thick flotillas of amethyst-coloured butterflies flitting between trees. She heard a sharp clash of metal upon metal. Her captors paused before breaking into a sharp run. They tossed her bodily into the back of a cart. She sensed her skin tearing, but there was no pain. Rough sackcloth fell over her face. It stank of rotten prekki-fruit.

  Aranya realised what she was missing. Her magic.

  Hopelessness choked her. Ri’arion had warned her about poisons which acted specially on Shapeshifters and their magic. South of the Rift, in Herimor, they made an art-form out of concocting such poisons, such as the one which had brought even a Star Dragon to her unpleasant end. Clarity began to emerge from her foggy thoughts. This was a calculated attack. Thoralian’s work, undoubtedly, for his Island cast a long shadow. Could Yolathion have been serving the Sylakians all along? Was he traitor twice over? If so, King Beran was probably dead right now.

  She searched in quiet despair for her fire, for her healing power, for her inner Dragon. She found nothing. All her vaunted power was lost, as if it had never been. Dormant, she could hope, but the feeling was not one of hollowness. It was absence.

  The sackcloth shifted. Yolathion lay down beside her. “So, let’s check these chains,” he said. Aranya wished he did not sound quite so jovial. “Aye, very good. And the ankles? Perfect.”

  Islands’ sakes, she’d kill him!

  “Plenty of time to annoy you later, Princess,” said the Jeradian. Drawing a crystal vial from his pocket, he removed the cork stopper and dripped something bitter onto her tongue. No exercise of will could move her jaw to prevent him. Next, Yolathion inserted a spout into the corner of her mouth and washed whatever he had administered, down her throat with the help of water from his hip flask. “This is a special gift, courtesy of Thoralian himself. Sleep well.”

  What gift could Thoralian possibly desire more than her cold corpse in exchange for the death of his son?

  He paused. “Of course, we shouldn’t allow you to bleed to death.”

  Something pressed against her unfeeling flesh, just above her left breast. She felt it as pressure, nothing more–the wound caused by his dagger, faithfully replicated in her Human form. Yolathion must have plugged it with a wad of cloth.

  The cart lurched.

  Soon, a monstrous lassitude washed through her body. She must not sleep, Aranya ordered herself. But the tide of darkness turned against her.

  * * * *

  King Beran slammed his fist on the desk. “What do you mean, gone?”

  Ignathion shrugged massively. “I’m as baffled as you are, Beran. My son’s Dragonship was last seen with our fleet halfway to Yaya Loop. Now, it is missing. Nobody saw anything–not even our Dragon.”

  “The Dragon was sleeping,” said Ardan, with a low growl of frustration. Nothing had been going well since Aranya abandoned them in the middle of the celebration. Beran’s decision to depart Jeradia while the winds were still fierce had been a calculated risk. They all knew it.

  Kylara nodded. “One of my warriors reported that she saw a Dragonship leaving the group during the storm.”

  “Intentionally?” chorused Ignathion and Beran.

  “She could not say.”

  “I could scout,” Ardan offered.

  “It’s too late,” said Beran, scratching at his beard as though he’d rather be tearing it out by the roots. “A day and a half? That Dragonship could be resting at the bottom of the Cloudlands by now. Or we might hope it made landing in Yaya, or the Spine, or Jeradia. Let’s send Dragonships to search. Ardan can scout, but plan to return to us before we reach Fra’anior Island.”

  “Agreed,” rumbled Ignathion. “You’d do all that for my prodigal son?”

  “Prodigal son, prodigal daughter, what’s the difference?”

  Ardan’s shrewd glance took in both fathers. He had expected a rajal’s catfight for the position of Commander, but Ignathion appeared content to concede that role to King Beran. From enemies to friends? It turned the stomach of a Western Isles warrior.

  “Our overriding goals are to liberate Fra’anior and to find Aranya,” said Ardan. “I hope I’m right. I’ve never much been one to trust blind instincts, but my Dragon yearns for that Island. It’s her mother’s birthplace. In my culture, the birthplace signifies home, help and healing. Beran, I hope her madness is only temporary.”

  “She’s a strong girl,” he replied, but his face was drawn.

  “Aye,” said Ignathion. “You raised her to emulate all of your worst attributes, Beran. Good job.”

  Ardan chuckled, if only to cover his fear for Aranya. He had dreamed of her again–as he did each and every night–and had woken crying out her name. Kylara had made her displeasure as clear as a shard of crysglass.

  Every time he saw so much as a strand of Aranya’s hair, he was transported back to that cave. He stalked her Amethyst Dragon form in his dreams, but often, the dream turned about and it was her chasing him, firebombing him, making him flee for his life. Ardan did not know what it meant. Was he confusing Aranya with Thoralian’s Dragon-kin, who must have razed Naphtha Cluster? Why–because of how her passion had scorched him?

  And now, he faced the loss of the girl who had confounded and beguiled his soul.

  Shortly, the Shadow Dragon and Kylara were aloft, climbing the winds, describing a widening spiral above Beran’s fleet. The storm had fled northward, the direction they concluded Aranya had taken. Her storm. Ardan’s scales tingled at the thought. Such power! Physically, he was two and a half times her size. But he would not want to enter a straight-up magical fight with her.

  She was magnificent.

  The huge dirigible balloons soon shrank to resemble floating seed-pods. The Island-World unfolded before his Dragon sight. To the south, the Islands of Yaya Loop made barely a smudge on the horizon. The northern sky was a deep, smoky gold, darkened by volcanic ash and detritus, he imagined. The waning suns buffed the particle-dense gases into a glistening column several leagues wide, as though the Cloudlands had broken open to reveal a glorious sunbeam radiating from the world’s core. Fra’anior. As one, all three Dragon hearts pinched in his chest. Ardan knew he had always been a forthright man, never one to pause in appreciation of a rare flower, or to remark upon a woman’s beauty. His Dragon had a radically different viewpoint. Dragon-Ardan feasted upon what entered his eyes. He breathed it as he breathed magic.

  Had he slept all the previous years of his life?

  Or was it the intersection of two lives, infused with Dragon fire, which had awakened his senses?

  Dragon and Rider searched for the remaining hours of daylight in wide sweeps east and west, but found neither trace of the missing Dragonship, nor sign of an Amethyst Dragon.

  At length, beneath the baleful gaze of the Jade and Mystic moons, Ardan winged rapidly northward, raising on the horizon the jaw-dropping spectacle that was Fra’anior. He and Kylara had been chatting and flirting to pass the hours, but now they fell silent. The volcanic behemoth heaved itself from the Cloudlands as though shunning the diabolical realm that lapped against its black flanks. In places, rivers of lava poured from the cracks in the rim like raw, bloody wounds. The caldera dwarfed anything either of them had ever imagined.

  “Beran’s Dragonships are just rising from that Island,” said Ardan.

  “Ha’athior,” said Kylara. “Can we assume Aranya’s not there?”

  Ardan quickened his wingbeat. “Let’s go ask.”

  After a short, shouted conversation across to Beran’s flagship, Ardan landed briefly to pick up the King. Beran’s relief was obvious. “She’s been here,” the King repeated, strapping himself into the second position in Ardan’s saddle. “Helped the Prince of Fra’anior kidnap himself a girl, the villagers said. She’s alright. Lucid.”

  “Your relative?” asked Kylara.

  “Lyriela. Apparently, my niece. The story’s all over Ha’athior, of course.”

  Kylara m
used, “Why initiate a royal wedding amidst a war, unless Fra’anior has thrown off the Sylakian yoke? This is good news.”

  “Aye,” said King Beran. “Now, let us pray that Yolathion has found his way here. That would be a perfect result. Set a course for Fra’anior, Ardan. Northeast, straight across the caldera. Did you know, this is my first flight Dragonback?”

  “Aranya never took you flying?” asked Kylara.

  “I used to threaten to sit on her if she was naughty,” Beran laughed wryly. “Now I hope she’ll never feel the urge to pay her father back. I can’t wait to see the expression on King Cha’arlla’s face when he sees me arrive on a huge Black Dragon.”

  “Shadow,” said Ardan, automatically.

  Kylara said, “Can you fly faster than a waddling duck, Ardan? We don’t want to hold up any weddings.”

  Gouts of flame burst from his nostrils. His surge of speed thrust his Riders against his spine-spikes.

  Unfortunately, King Cha’arlla’s chosen form of greeting was a withering blast of catapult-shot aimed at Ardan’s muzzle. Unable to avoid it all, he took several heavy blows to the chest rather than have his wings turned into large sieves. But once the misunderstanding was worked out and the Fra’aniorian King gave the order to allow them to land, Ardan realised that there were no smiles on the ground, only faces as long as their Island was tall.

  “Where’s Aranya? Do you see Aranya?” Beran asked anxiously.

  “There, the girl in blue,” said Kylara, pointing.

  No, not her.

  Ardan could not find words. Where was Aranya? That girl was not tall enough, and she wore chains. He rushed to a hard landing in the open field immediately behind the unmistakable palace building. He almost transformed before remembering he had Riders on his back. He had to help them dismount, especially King Beran, who slipped in his haste and would have taken a bad fall were it not for Ardan’s swift paw. Oh, great Islands, where was she? His hearts pounded in his chest, heart and belly. Dead? Mad? Flown away?