Iris's Guardian

by Lisa Daniels

  Instead, the thoughts made her heart shrink like a coward and her eyes prick with tears. She allowed the wyrm to yank her to the manor estate. The building itself was larger than the entire human village here. It could house every single one of the mine workers and still have room left over. But the wyrms didn’t like to share anything with humans. The only thing they disliked more was going into the mines and extracting the ores themselves.

  The wyrm guards at the entrance of the mansion smirked ominously when they saw Elise being hauled along, body shaking in fear. They liked the fear. Sometimes Elise believed they preyed on it.

  Now inside the mansion, the opulence of the place made her more invisible. She was a stain upon the lush silver carpets, the intricately carved statues dotting the corridor, and upon the paintings of powerful wyrms standing proud, usually in their beast forms. Horrible creatures. All glowing yellow eyes, stumpy, clawed legs and sinuous, barrel bodies that could reach as tall as buildings. They’d likely want to use those forms all the time, but human faces were to them practical. Smaller living spaces. Less desire to eat. Less rage.

  If that was even possible. To Elise, somehow all wyrms had a demonic taint to their faces. A cruelty permanently stamped upon them.

  Elise found herself dragged into a library, where a robust, richly dressed wyrm sat hunched over some books. One younger wyrm kept flicking her attention over to the book reader, body awkward and stiff in her chair. She had a certain pinched appearance to her features, and a drake scribbled words with a quill in the corner. Elise knew the difference between drakes and wyrms because first, the eye colors were different – gray drake eyes to yellow wyrm. Second, when the teenager met Elise's gaze, loathing burned in her eyes. Wyrms always had that kind of expression, along with upturned noses.

  Elise had only seen a few drakes in her lifetime, since they rarely dropped nearby the mining colony. She examined the drake now, noting the lean, rugged features and powerful tendons flexing in his writing arm.

  “Why do you interrupt us with this creature?” the elder wyrm hissed. The master of the house, most likely. Not someone to ever want to go near in a thousand years. Never. Sweat formed in uncomfortable places. She'd never seen the master. His features took on a nightmarish visage. The sneer upon his lips became twisted and evil.

  “I thought, sir,” her captor said, with an oily, ingratiating voice, “this creature might be good for your entertainment evenings.”

  Now the drake from the corner looked up, and a bolt of shock went through Elise’s body when she saw the ugly scar stretching from the left cheek to his neck. As if someone had hacked away at him with a knife, or he had collided face-first into a wall of spikes. Red hair tufted out of his head, different from the dark of the wyrms. His nose must have been broken at least two times, because from here, Elise saw it as crooked, wrong at the bridge somehow. Even with these two gaping flaws, something about him held attention. Commanded it, even. Maybe the beard had something to do with it. The beard cut off at the scar, which made the injury stand out all the more.

  What fascinated Elise more, however, was the fact that his gray steel eyes held none of the familiar hatred she was used to witnessing from shifters.

  The head wyrm stood up, his eyes becoming slits. “And how do you suppose this will be useful for our entertainment evening, unless I give it out to the fighters?”

  “She can sing,” Elise's captor replied. For the first time, Elise saw something crack in the captor's façade. “It’s... very good for a human. You should hear it.”

  “Singing?” the younger female wyrm scoffed. Yes. Definitely one of those flinty-eyed females with a cruel arrogance about her. She was likely Karris, the master’s daughter. “Anyone can sing. I can sing.” She had dark yellow eyes and curly black hair topping her head. She looked by far the better dressed, wearing a delicate cotton top puffed out with frills and a long hoop skirt. The high heels upon her feet suggested an obsession with court. No human would ever be seen in those things.

  Elise might not go to balls, but she did know enough about her enemy to understand what they did when they weren’t whipping her to work faster. Sometimes as well, she’d seen the procession of nobleman trundling near the village in their carriages, preferring not to stomp through in their wyrm forms. The higher up a wyrm was, the less time they spent in their beast form.

  Isera told her that, once. And Elise found the information intriguing, simply because it sounded like they revered the human form, rather than hated it. Surely it should have been the other way around, with the state of how her species got treated.

  Now Elise’s captor appeared at a loss. As if he’d forgotten about this little fact. “Yes, well. I felt… compelled to bring this one, Lord Tarken. May I exact a demonstration?”

  “You may.” Lord Tarken flicked his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Get it over with, then, so we can go back to our activities in peace.” His cold, yellow eyes showed impatience. Irritation at being interrupted.

  For some reason, that made Elise boil in anger. Part of her dimly registered the fact that she wasn’t going to be slaughtered on the spot, and that this wyrm wanted her to sing.

  She also knew that if she fucked up now, the wyrm would be punished, and she’d be executed.

  Singing was her only route to survival.

  “Well then, wench. Go and sing to your master.” Elise's captor nudged her, his eyes wide, his mouth tugged down.

  Karris pursed her lips and wrinkled her nose as if smelling something bad. What a haughty expression. She radiated such disapproval, as though Elise's biggest crime in life was to exist.

  Oh, that sent so much rage. It boiled away the fear enough to make her stand up straight, step forward, and bathe in a shock of adrenaline.

  Then she breathed calmly, deciding to do the same melody she’d sung earlier. Better to stick with something she knew. Something sad. And not any of the songs that suggested her hatred for wyrms. Not if she wanted to be spared a tortuous death.

  The words slipped out of her mouth. She didn’t mess up the starting notes this time. As it had been with the humans, even the wyrms fell into attentive silence, along with the scarred drake and his bushy red hair.

  Listen to me, Elise thought. Feel my sadness. Feel it dig into you. Let it sink you to the ground and make it impossible to breathe.

  Let her world become a part of theirs. She enjoyed witnessing the transformation. Here came surprise and shock, along with that glazed listening, that perceptible dampening of moods. As if the music cast a blanket over their souls. As if for a moment, it had breached the impossible barrier of hate and brought them all together to share in something. Like a spell that broke upon the last note, though the note would remain in their consciousness for a good time after.

  That was what she wanted her music to do. She wanted to make people see and live her life.

  Energy coursed through her veins from the melody, and her voice-box warmed to the beat, connected to every organ in her body. Her lungs expanded and deflated in an aching, satisfying way, pushing against her ribcage, shrinking back.

  When the last note filled the air, the silence remained like before.

  The captor seemed to be on the verge of tears, which surprised Elise. He’d shown no indication before of having heard her song, but he must have, if he felt that need to drag her over here. So wyrms did show emotions other than hate and rage. Interesting.

  How easy would it be then to take him by surprise, and yank the dagger from his belt and stab him in the neck? Her mind played this violent impulse through, until Tarken cleared his throat.

  “Not bad. I suppose your find is a worthy one, guard. We will take the human off you and compensate you for your discovery. Well done.”

  “Thank you. Thank you, sir!”

  “She’s not even that good,” Karris said, a pout upon her lips. “I can sing way better than that.” How old did Karris seem? Fifteen? Sixteen? If she wasn’t a wyrm, Elise might even find her ador
able to look at. But since Karris was such a creature, Elise knew the burning hate they harbored. She’d seen people die simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And it didn’t make sense, that anger. It really didn’t.

  It was as if a switch went off in a wyrm’s brain when they looked at humans.

  “I’m sure no one can sing as well as you, petal,” Tarken soothed, giving his daughter a winsome smile, “but daddy doesn’t want you singing in the arena. Lots of rough types there. Not people you want to associate with.”

  “Oh.” Karris sucked at her thumb for a moment. “But you let me go there.” She looked so absurdly childish, even though Elise knew humans who had given birth by that age. Karris also had that privileged, snobbish set to her face. As if she had a right to be superior, just because she was born in the right place at the right time.

  Elise’s lips faintly curled in disgust. Give these foul creatures a few weeks mining, not allowed to shift to their wyrm forms. See how privileged they felt then.

  “Yes. But you're under my protection, sweetling. You won't be if you choose to sing.”

  Karris frowned, but seemed to accept her father's request. Lord Tarken turned to the guard.

  “Take the human to the servants’ quarters. In two hours, I want her down in the arena and ready to sing three songs.” Then he looked over Elise’s scrawny body. “And feed her something. She looks like a scarecrow.”

  Of course I do, Elise thought. Because we don’t get enough food to feed ourselves. His comment aggravated her, but she kept the feeling to herself.

  “I can do this,” the drake said suddenly, standing up. “It's about time I got out of here.” Tarken flapped his hand in that dismissive gesture again.

  “Yes, yes. Go ahead, Brann. But don’t damage the human in any way that might compromise her voice. Off with you.”

  Elise found herself hoisted off towards the intimidating drake. He nodded and seized her by the arm, gentler than her former captor, and she found herself jerked off to another place. Karris glared after them, though Elise didn’t know why.

  “You’re a good singer,” Brann said, once they turned past a silvery carpet corner and passed some metal suits of armor. His gray eyes seemed to regard her in faint appreciation. “But you're like a scarecrow. Let’s get you something to eat.”

  He attempted a kind of smile. It looked out of place on his features. He wasn’t a man who smiled much.

  How did you start conversation with the enemy? No, that thought was wrong. Drakes were not wyrms. Elise might not understand a whole lot, but she knew that much. Isera told her that drakes wanted to help humans in general. You always got the odd one who didn't care, but for the most part, they saw humans as natural allies. Elise didn't understand that part. Wouldn't dragon shifters be better allies than weak humans?

  “How did you get that scar?” Elise pointed at the raw pink patch of flesh that ran through his left jawline. She flushed slightly at her boldness. Part of her wanted to be bold and defiant, the other part knew that tended to result in pain. Wyrms didn't like their slaves getting above themselves. Still, she pressed ahead anyway. Like a fool. “It looks like something truly horrific happened to you.”

  Brann arched one eyebrow, gray eyes dark for a moment. They locked with hers, not flooded with hate, which was a strange sensation for Elise. She was used to the attitude of workers, who kept their heads down and banged their tools against the rock. Who came back with bleeding hands and damaged lungs. Who stared at her with empty eyes, though sometimes they welled up in pain and fear. Thinking about the toxins in the cave made Elise start coughing. Now Brann let out a sigh of irritation.

  “What’s your name? How long have you been working in the mines, human?”

  “M–my name’s Elise,” she spluttered, rubbing her throat, thumping her chest. “Eight years.”

  “Blood of my father,” Brann said. “Those mines are an unnecessary cruelty.” The exclamation made Elise blink in shock.

  “What?”

  “Looks like you’re pulled out of there in time. You wouldn’t even have a singing voice, otherwise.”

  The way he spoke... “You’ve been to the mines yourself?”

  “Yes.” Brann didn’t elaborate. He paused outside a door, which led into a gleaming, white-tiled room. “And in answer to your question, I got these scars in a fight that went wrong. My opponent decided he would rather cheat than lose.”

  “Opponent?” Elise pictured a battlefield of a sort, with Brann swinging a sword, clashing against his enemy. But that made no sense. He was a drake. He fought in drake form. Now her mind started picturing drake form. Wings and teeth and claws.

  “You’ll see.” He ushered Elise into the kitchen. Humans worked in the premises, stressed out and sweating, but clean and efficient at the same time. As if proud of their jobs. Elise sat at a table in the corner, and soon got handed milk and rounded cookies in a dark brown color.

  The servant handing this to Elise gave her a sympathetic smile. His reedy face had lips too wide for his gaunt cheeks. “Get some sugar and energy into that stick insect body of yours. You from the mines?”

  When Elise nodded mutely, he sighed.

  “Horrible place. I thank my lucky stars I was born in the mansion.”

  I’m sure you do, Elise thought, watching the servant sidle away. What the humans of the mines wouldn't give to work in such a fancy place. Brann smiled at him, and the servant bowed in return. None of the humans here appeared particularly afraid of Brann, and that intrigued Elise. Drakes were different, sure. On top of the whispers that they made natural human allies, they were also rumored to be kinder. Which begged one important question. What was a drake like Brann doing in a nobleman’s house, walking through it as if he had authority? It didn’t belong to him, after all. Yet the wyrms tolerated him. Yet the master of the estate regarded him with respect. Why?

  She thought about the humans back home who would still be in the hall, drinking. Likely draining their tankards at a cracking pace whilst someone entertained them. Some might go for an early night. And although it should be evening in the mansion, the wyrms for some reason appeared active. Elise thought only the humans bothered staying up so late. She considered what Tarken said about an arena. He wanted her to sing there. Was that why the wyrms stayed up so late on Lastday?

  “Don’t be shy about the food. It’s good,” Brann said, now sitting beside her. “And don’t worry about losing your way about the place. I’ll help you out.”

  Elise took a sip of the milk. The cold, sweet liquid slid down her throat. Thick and creamy and full of warmth. “Why?”

  Gray eyes met her blue ones. As if he thought he could scour the depths of her brain for the secrets that lay there.

  “Why not?” He smiled, taking one of the cookies from her. “But if you must know, something about you intrigues me. And I intend to stick around and see how you develop. Perhaps help you.”

  “Help me?” Now Elise stuffed a cookie in her mouth. The explosion of taste made her gasp and blink, eyes suddenly watery. She’d never indulged in anything like this before. “Oh. Wow. This is amazing.” She wiped the back of her hand against her mouth, before taking another great bite.

  One of the cooks loitering in the kitchen area gave a proud smile. “Blooming right they should be!”

  Elise held up a thumb to them.

  “Yes. Help you.” Brann's eyes flickered to the other humans. “The wyrms won’t do it. They just expect you to know things already. And you won’t. So I’ll teach you. And why? Because I have some debts to settle. Don’t look so concerned, Elise. It’ll be alright.”

  No. Nothing was alright. Elise had been singled out because of her voice. Others still toiled away in that awful place with little reward. Finally, some of her concerns slipped out. “I don’t feel comfortable, being here. I know people are dying as we speak, and I’m sitting here, eating cookies and milk. Just because I can sing a bit.”

  “Those words will go
ignored, I’m afraid, Elise,” Brann said. Such a grave expression on his face. He really did act sorrowful. Sorrow was a strange color to wear on someone other than a human. “You’re not going to get them to change their ways by thinking things are unfair. And I bet you know that.”

  Elise finished her food in silence. She didn’t want to keep talking to the drake. His motivations confused and unsettled her. He seemed to be friendly, even with the scar marring his features, and that coiled, muscular body that looked as if punching his chest would break all the bones in her hand. He likely knew how to take a hit or two.

  He led her to a tiny room – still bigger than her mud hut. A sudden sense of unhappiness washed over her when she saw the little bed and realized Ratty wasn’t there.

  When Brann asked what the issue was, she told him hesitantly. “I have a little toy in my old home. I’ve had it for as long as I can remember. And it’s not here.”

  “It’s just a toy,” Brann said. Elise’s bottom lip twitched, but she kept her composure.

  “Yes.” Her voice came out flat. “It is.”

  Brann pointed her towards a small bathtub by the bed. “You can get hot and cold water from the taps. Wash yourself with soap. Use the servant’s clothes which are in the wardrobe here. And practise singing. I’ll come and get you in just under two hours.”

  Elise’s eyes scoured over his beard again. Contemplating the drake as a character. He’d been kind to her, and the kindness felt off. Not being used to it, Elise merely nodded, a lump wedged in her throat. She didn't fancy staring into those hypnotic gray eyes. Or having to think or feel beyond what her lyrics conjured up, beyond what she thought of the world.

  Who exactly was this drake? And what did he see in her to jump to assist her so fast? Because she didn't think for a second that he volunteered because he felt like it. Something else drove him.

  When Brann quietly closed the door, Elise sat on the bed before slumping over on it. Curses, the exhaustion dug into her skin. The milk and cookies sat warmly in her stomach, adding a glow she’d never previously experienced. Maybe the “sugar” they mentioned had something to do with the fact that her heart thumped at a faster rate. Or did it come from nervousness? Confusion?