Iris's Guardian

by Lisa Daniels

  Tarken had also ordered Elise to take music lessons alongside Karris, which made the daughter whine and protest. She didn't want anything to do with Elise, and Tarken needed to request his daughter to respect his decision. If anything happened to the human, her punishment would hit her like a sledgehammer.

  “As much as I appreciate your zeal for human hatred, I have plans for her. I wish to become closer with the lords of the city. And having a collection of fine art is the start of it. What better way to display art than to show the unique human I have with her songbird voice? She will stand out like a polished diamond.”

  The lessons with Karris, however, bordered on excruciating. As soon as Tarken had left, they needed to wait for the tutor to come in for her first music lesson. Out of her father's earshot, Karris rounded on Elise.

  “I don’t want to train with a beast like you! It’s beneath me!” Her yellow eyes glinted in rage. Her lower lip trembled, chest heaving up and down. She looked beautiful, Elise thought, with her yellow dress and tied-back dark hair, showing the perfect shape of an oval face. Just a shame she was so ugly inside. No amount of outward beauty hid that rotten core.

  Futile as it was, Elise attempted defending herself. “I'm sorry, miss. Your father ordered me to do this. I can’t disobey his orders… miss,” Elise added, trying to soothe the situation. Trying to nail it into the younger wyrm’s brain that Elise didn't stand here exclusively to piss her off. Karris didn’t take the hint.

  “I don’t care. I’d rather you die instead of you being here.” Karris’s left hand curled into a ball.

  Some statement there. Elise didn't perceive it as an empty threat, either. Karris might risk her father's wrath just to dispose of Elise.

  “Are you jealous, Karris?” Elise said suddenly.

  Karris blinked, nostrils flaring. Then she forced out a scornful laugh, along with a flicker of indignation. “I’m not jealous! How absurd for you to suggest that!” Her eyes were just that little bit too wide, her denial too strong.

  I suppose it's obvious, really. But maybe it's not obvious to her.

  “If you’re not jealous, then you have no reason to be angry. You can just see me as a voice, nothing else. Yet your anger suggests that you're jealous.” Elise’s mouth dried as she talked, and her blood pounded in her neck, her ears. It came as a relentless roar, and it took everything inside to not let her knees wobble and cave in underneath. “You think I didn’t notice how you looked at me when I needed to sing for the first time? None of the other wyrms acted like that. Just you. You're the only one who cares that I'm here.”

  “Oh, you witch!” Karris raised her hand, stepped forward and went to slap Elise. Elise caught the blow, seizing her around the wrist.

  One useful thing about working in the mines. It did train up some muscle. Something else Elise noticed in comparison to the estate staff. Her muscles were more defined, and ill-fitting in her servant clothes.

  “I won’t let you hurt me. Your dad wouldn’t approve.”

  “You witch! How dare you touch me! How dare you speak to me like this! I’ll have your eyes out! I’ll have your tongue pulled out and fed to the fishes. I’ll…” Karris wavered, hand now shaking in Elise’s grip. She looked over Elise’s shoulder.

  The sound of a door closing made Elise shiver. Elise let go, and Karris turned to face the music tutor who just walked in. The drake from the arena. The one who improvised to the singers. Both his eyebrows were raised up. Drakes always had gray eyes, didn't they? It gave him a deep, wise expression. He also had snow-white hair and glasses upon his pointed nose.

  “I see my new student is already displaying suicidal tendencies,” the drake said. He made a clop sound in his mouth. “Children. Break apart. Don’t be so pugnacious.”

  Elise sprang away from Karris, not wanting to breathe her air for a second longer.

  “Good. I’m Jorus. And you are…?”

  “Elise.”

  “Very good. Okay, give me a taste of your pipes. I want to see what I’m working with. Low to high to low – hold the highest note and the lowest.”

  Elise hesitated at the rapid assault of instructions. The drake watched her impatiently, and she decided not to keep him waiting longer. She rolled her voice through the pitches. The highest she went sounded like a flute, and she held it with relative ease.

  This is my limit, she thought. I can't hit above this. He encouraged her to go one step higher anyway, and her voice finally cracked. He nodded and gestured for her to roll back down. She went from high to low. Again, jealousy simmered in Karris’s eyes. Why was she so angry? She really didn’t have a reason to be – unless she believed Elise was taking her father’s attention away from her.

  Could that be it? She tucked the insight away for later. She might need it at some point. Any information was better than none.

  When Karris sang, her voice was decent, hitting a lower octave than Elise reached. Not a good voice for a melody, Elise thought. Good with something of power. A good choice for a song like Warrior.

  Still, although Elise liked Jorus, she certainly didn’t learn to like Karris, who exaggerated huffs and sighs whenever Elise even dared to speak.

  If she didn’t get control of the situation soon, Karris might be a real thorn in her side.

  She might even be Elise's death.

  Brann, on the other hand, found Karris’s reaction amusing when Elise explained what happened later on. She promised beforehand to tell him how the lessons progressed.

  He handed Elise wooden shin guards and elbow guards, inviting her to practise with him in the basement.

  “I don't get why she has to be such a bitch about it. We're there for the same purpose. She acts like I've turned her mother into a frog and killed her father.”

  “Karris has been seeking approval from her father for most of her life,” he explained. “Unfortunately, he much prefers his older, absent son to her, but she believes if she excels in something, he’ll have no choice but to acknowledge and love her. And then there’s you, a human who spends more time with her father than she does. A human with an incredible talent that dwarfs Karris's own ability.”

  “Does it not occur to her that because she’s incredibly whiny and annoying, her father doesn’t want to listen to it?”

  Brann shrugged. “Love, or lack of it, does strange things to people. I do suggest always trying to remain calm around her. She’s spiteful enough to do something harmful. You need to somehow show her you’re not a threat.”

  Good luck to me, Elise thought. Somehow, she didn’t see the younger Karris accepting any of Elise’s attempts to smooth things over. Only being in the presence of Tarken, Jorus or Brann would keep her safe, and she knew it.

  Elise did terribly in the sparring with Brann. She had no idea how to guard at all, and Brann, with an amused smile, helped correct her stance, improve her footwork. He told her he didn’t expect miracles, but it would also give her another legitimate reason to be here if anyone came to look.

  “Why put so much effort into me?” Elise stumbled, badly dodging a punch, falling flat on her ass. She panted, winded and exhausted.

  Brann offered her a warm hand. She clasped it, felt the flex of his muscles as he hauled her up, saw the hint of something else in the depths of his irises.

  “A gift like yours is too beautiful to be laid to waste. I don’t want to see you come to harm. Not when your music stirs the soul. You helped me in my fight. You helped all the fighters do their best. You made us feel powerful, determined.”

  Elise flushed at his words.

  “You've got a fair set of muscles on you as well. Be a shame to let them go to waste.”

  She didn’t reject the training, or his reasons. And she certainly didn't mind additional excuses to be close to him. He invoked a sense of security in her, something she never experienced back in the mines.

  Maybe it was the effect of returning Ratty to her. When she asked him about that, he gave her a mysterious smile.

&nb
sp; “Perhaps Ratty missed you a lot, and wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  The life of the mines seemed to slowly diminish from her mind when she got wrapped up in the throes of her new schedule. All it took to remind her, though, was one glance over to the rock face in the distance, and the faint glow from the village she could barely see. That was how close misery lingered next to this rich, opulent country lifestyle.

  Hidden in the ground. Hidden in mud.

  People feasted on roasted pheasants, goats and boars, whilst the serfs of the mines starved and slurped from cobbled together ingredients, and grubby little children played in the halls. The alcohol here tasted prodigious compared to the matured hops and malt they gathered from the fields, the ones the usual pickers were obliged to reject.

  She wondered if Tarken was fully aware of how self-functioning the humans truly were and allowed it, or whether he knew nothing of it, and would demand more luxuries to be taken away if he ever found out. From what she saw of him, he likely encouraged it. He had that sly cunning, that acumen that suggested that he could look beyond his prejudice to understand how his subjects behaved.

  She suspected, though, that he needed to inform each of his wyrm staff to not kill too many humans, since they would need them to harvest, after all. Deaths slipped by all the same.

  Elise didn’t know how to react to the new life, but she soon discovered the dangers to avoid.

  Which was basically all the wyrms. Even if they were under strict orders to not harm the songbird, that didn’t stop them from being resentful or cruel. She wanted to test that notion picking at the back of her mind, that perhaps if they heard her singing, maybe they'd be less cruel.

  Elise doubted the training she received from Brann would be enough to protect her. Didn't matter how physically strong she was if her enemy just shifted into a massive wyrm. The lessons with Jorus as well were always saturated with hate-laden stares from Karris.

  About three weeks into her new lifestyle, and three performances in the basement on Lastday to a captive audience, Elise found herself in the kitchen, hungry and ready to try out the delicious meat and kidney pie, the kitchen's dish of the day. She had finished a rather vigorous work out with Brann, one that left the tops of her shoulders bruised and her knees scraped. Practising breakfalls wasn't fun. It involved a lot of pain and face-planting on the floor.

  She finally had servants clothes that fit her appropriately, opting for knee-length shorts, a sturdy beige blouse and a linen waistcoat that buttoned up to her neck, giving her a more refined look than her miner's outfit. It didn't look particularly feminine, but the wyrms weren't concerned with sexualizing their staff. Or spending money on different designs. So they all got the same uniform.

  It served a good purpose in training against Brann, at least. He didn't see enough of her to get aroused in any shape or form, and she deliberately downplayed her attraction by tying up her blonde hair and buttoning up her uniform so that her breasts didn't stick out.

  Part of her wanted to be provocative, however. He might be a good lover in bed. He might be kind.

  She just didn't want to risk changing the relationship from what it was now, since they both loitered in a good spot, with a great arrangement between them.

  The pie's heady aroma permeated her nostrils, making her mouth water. It lay there in front of her now, enticing her with its crumbly, brown-yellow pastry, along with the gravy-covered meat inside.

  Just before she tucked into the meat and kidney pie, she saw something peculiar.

  The cook who had served it to her appeared sweaty and frightened, and kept looking over her way. When she caught his eyes, he glanced to the ground and pretended to be busy cleaning pots.

  She examined her food thoughtfully. Her growling stomach cooled its appetite. It looked so delicious. She imagined that gravy coating her tongue, the meat crumbling like a cloud inside.

  She let her fork and knife fall back onto the plate with a clatter. Then she got up and took the plate over to the cook under suspicion, a portly, black-bearded man with wide and vapid eyes.

  He almost jumped out of his skin when she set the full plate in front of him, in view of his assistant who helped scrub dry the dishes on the side.

  Best to cut straight to the heart of the matter. “Why were you looking so frightened when I was about to eat this?”

  The cook shook his head, double chins wobbling precariously. “I, um, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Elise sucked at her teeth, examining the meat pie she looked forward to eating with a forlorn expression. Oh no. Her suspicion really was correct. It gave her no sense of victory, no joy to have it confirmed. “Well, do you mind tasting this first?”

  Sweat erupted over his face. He opened and closed his mouth as if stuck for words, before forcing out, “No, I wouldn’t eat someone else’s meal, I cooked it especially.”

  So he wanted to do it the hard way, did he?

  “Let me be blunter. If you don’t eat the pie, I will assume it’s poisoned.”

  Light left the cook's eyes, giving a dead, despairing shadow to his face. He looked as if he badly wanted to escape. “I don’t… I don't know what you're talking about.” The words came out a mumble. He didn't believe in his own lies.

  “Who put you up to it? Because I don’t think you would deliberately poison me of your own free will. You don’t even have free will.” The words came out harsher than intended, and the cook shrank back from her fury. He appeared as if he’d been slapped in the face, and his whole body acted like he expected to suffer abuse. Instantly, Elise felt pity.

  Yes, someone paid him to poison her.

  It didn’t take a wild guess who. Karris would be exactly the kind of person who would try to bump Elise off, then blame it on someone else. She might have even lied to the cook and said it was some special seasoning, though he probably wouldn’t be that stupid. Pretty much everyone knew that the lord's daughter hated Elise.

  “Don’t worry. Do you get punished if you fail?”

  The cook nodded, after a long time battling the urge to lie. “Yes.”

  “I’m going to talk to Brann about it. And see if I can talk to Lord Tarken as well. I think I know who put you up to this.” She didn’t want to give him reassurances such as he didn't need to worry, and it wasn’t his fault.

  He did need to worry. And some of it was his fault.

  Part of her felt disgusted he was prepared to harm her, just to stop himself being punished. He had been suppressed all his life. He must know what it felt like to be betrayed, to be hurt – and yet he did it anyway. All because of fear.

  Fear had a way of corrupting everyone.

  But no. Worse than this cook were the wyrms. People like Tarken and Karris, they were little more than rotting corpses wearing human masks and golden necklaces. Their outward beauty didn’t hide the ugliness within, the poison in their souls.

  The cook showed no signs of wanting to touch the pie. His pimply-faced assistant gaped at him in horror, and shrank away when Elise took a few steps forward.

  She seized the pie as evidence and stalked off with it, boiling in anger. Halfway down the corridor, she realized she might have condemned the cook just by living. If he reported to Karris before Elise reached Lord Tarken or Brann, for it must be Karris who arranged this, the spiteful teenage wyrm would likely have his head. Then there was the matter of them perhaps passing one another in the corridor, with Elise holding the pie. If she saw Elise still walking around, what kind of rage would burst a vein in her face? What kind of denial would be on her lips? Or perhaps she might think Elise planned to eat the pie elsewhere, and comment on how good it looked and smelled.

  Finally arriving in the basement, her stomach growling, Elise hesitated when she saw both Brann and Lord Tarken together, with Brann apparently showing Tarken how to use the elbow, hand and shin guards in a fight.

  Her rage and fear dissipated in amazement from this unexpected sight. Both her targets lay in
reach.

  The older wyrm appeared eager to learn the moves, though also irritated that he didn’t pick it up well. He didn't have that fighter's grace. She heard him cursing as she approached. She mentally steeled herself for the encounter, wondering how best to broach the subject with them.

  Brann noticed her first and stopped the sparring. “Hey, Elise. Is that pie for us?”

  “No,” she replied shortly. “I wanted to talk to you about it.” Her eyes slid to Tarken. “I didn’t trust anyone else.”

  “Oh? Do you mind if I take this, Lord Tarken?”

  “No, no, go ahead,” the wyrm said absently, squinting yellow eyes at her. “But you owe me a song later, little human.”

  Elise nodded. Better than being flayed alive. “The pie is poisoned. It was intended for me. I got the information out of the cook – though you could say he was reluctant to give it.”

  “Poisoned?” Brann’s nostrils flared. “Let me smell. My olfactory senses are better than yours.” He took it off her and sniffed at the lukewarm contents, trying to discern the poison. “Ah...” he grimaced. “There is something. I think I recognize it.”

  “I’ll have that accursed cook executed,” Tarken snarled, lips curling back. “I’ve told everyone to keep their hands off you! How dare they!”

  “With all respect, sir,” Elise said, wanting to give the cook a fighting chance, even though she wanted him to suffer as well, “I’m more concerned about the one who put him up to it. Humans only do what they are told, after all. You cannot blame the tool – just the one who wields it.”

  “Hmm. Hmm.” Tarken glared at Elise for a moment. His expression seemed to say, how dare you speak up to me like this? Like you're my equal? Then it turned into something calmer. To his credit, he believed the poisoning story straight off. “Yes, you’re right. But who would… no one would dare…”

  “It’s basilinth,” Brann said, coughing slightly. “That’s damn expensive. Definitely from a wyrm, not the servants.”

  “Basilinth?” Tarken blinked. “But I…” His face clouded over like a storm.