Elbe fell. She landed on the dragon’s back and bounced. She slid across a prismatic wash of feathers. He pitched his flight to keep her from falling off. Whatever he was doing with her, it was deliberate.
He rolled above a palace dome. Elbe dropped five feet onto the curved roof then began tumbling down. The Winged Flame whipped around, and the air current pushed her back to the pinnacle. She stood on wobbly legs, and the dragon left her there.
The action had been disturbingly whimsical. Even as relief gushed through Hiresha, her tongue retracted into her souring mouth. She could better predict the Winged Flame if he was one thing and of singular temperament.
“He is many,” Tethiel said from the shadows.
“It might do to rethink my plan,” she said. “Oh, fennec!”
The warbling cry of the fennec called out from the tower wreckage.
Hiresha clapped her gauntlet over her heart, and it clanked against her breastplate. The fox’s collar should’ve kept him from falling far, but a stone could’ve hurt him. It wouldn’t have taken much more than a pebble to break his petite bones.
She waved away the dust cloud. Her fox, her god of golden fortune, lay snuffling beside a spotted orange tail. The fennec hadn’t suffered anything worse than dust. The jaguar knight had been smashed against the tower.
The dragon rescued and killed whomever he wished.
No, Hiresha would nullify his will. The jaguar knight had kept his oath to her by fighting bravely. She flung the stone off him. He whimpered a mew. The great cat’s jaw had withstood a collision that had broken all his fangs. What fortune that she had already made him replacement teeth, though something would have to be done about his splintered ribs and punctured lungs. She couldn’t attend to it all. The Winged Flame was already arching back.
She cradled the cat’s head as she lifted him. Her power held his broken bones still. A leap took her to a teetering disk of stone, the last bit of the tower’s roof. Hiresha lowered the jaguar knight beside Alyla and moved her glowing hand onto his whiskered snout.
“Will you heal him?” Hiresha asked.
Alyla blinked with eyelashes crusted with tears. “I will, if the Lord of the Feast stops.”
“Agreed,” Hiresha said.
“My heart, I must—”
“I said, ‘Agreed.’” Hiresha found Tethiel by his dawnstone. She pulled him from shadow into her arms. Her red paragon circled around them. It brightened, second by second, from the nearing dragon.
Ix stepped away from her blue paragon. A yellowish grease coated its fractal sides. “It’s ready.”
Hiresha. Tethiel’s words pricked her mind. Lure the immortal away from the city or more will die.
“He’s not immortal.” Hiresha angled the tower top toward the streets. Her jewels reflected red.
The dragon dove with jaws open, revealing an impressive array of black fangs and white gums. Its violet tongue forked twice, ending in four points. Hiresha had to speculate on what it could taste: feelings, nearby magic, and perhaps even the flow of time.
The Winged Flame crashed his teeth together with the sound of terminality.
She sprang away with Tethiel and her jewels.
Hiresha’s purple cape was sheared off. The dragon didn’t even have the decency to gag on it.
He crisscrossed after Hiresha. She couldn’t outmaneuver him. She couldn’t outpace him. Hiresha only succeeded in drawing him away from the guests.
Tethiel duplicated himself and her every fraction of a second. The false reflections sprang off in other directions. Only their distraction kept the dragon from devouring, though he soon angled back to the true Hiresha and Tethiel.
She could fling her blue paragon back between his snapping fangs. No, that was too risky. His digestive juices might neutralize too much of the venom.
Bees pattered off her armor. She passed through the last of the swarms, over the final garden rooftops, and above the murky flow of the Gargantuan. Her circuitous flight had allowed her to observe the full length of the dragon. The miniscule but repeatable trembles in his body revealed much about internal anatomy, and she faced an undeniable problem.
The Winged Flame had three hearts.
She had but one envenomed diamond and one hope. If she punctured the heart at the center of the long torso then the last erratic beats might spread the destruction throughout the body. It needed to work. The dawn would come in seventeen seconds, and in all probability the balance of power would shift to the Winged Flame.
Hiresha would need the perfect angulation and the perfect timing. She needed to bypass both heads, and she needed to do so now.
Then fly. Tethiel dissolved from her sight. He was no longer there to hold onto, though his dawnstone necklace was above the water level. He must’ve dropped. Hiresha reassured herself that the enchantment in his armor would keep him floating. A god may yet learn mortal fear.
The river exploded with teeth. The Lord of the Feast reared up. He breathed green nightmare fire. He gnawed. He swallowed one of the dragon’s heads whole. They grappled, sending waves crashing over the Gargantuan.
And Hiresha faded into transparency. Tethiel had made her invisible, at least until the dawn. She had her opportunity.
She skipped unseen across the whitewater. She leaped over skewing dragon coils. Beneath his center heart she threw her blue paragon. The oil of its venom rippled over facets as it spun. Its point aimed up at the belly of the Winged Flame, following Hiresha’s hand.
Her red paragon positioned her over the dragon’s spine. The heart now thudded between her and the envenomed diamond. This was her moment. She lashed the blue paragon toward her with all the strength of lifelong dreams.
The jewel lanced through feathers, hide, and muscle. It bore into the heart. There Hiresha left it spinning, shredding, and corrupting.
She had done all she could do. It would have to be enough. If this succeeded and eradicated a god, no one would question her again. Her future would gleam.
Steam hissed out from the dragon’s belly, along with a stench that might’ve been from the venom. An hypothesis sparked in Hiresha. It might not be that wounding turned his blood into vapor. Perhaps only gas pumped through his veins. If such a thing could be possible, it would explain his lightness and agility. Killing such a unique creature had to be regretted. Hiresha would have to pay her respects by dissecting his corpse for full study.
The Winged Flame stiffened. Both his heads curled upward, and his spine arched. His wings folded against his sides and stilled. His shriek had all the notes of thousands of birds dying in a burning jungle. He plunged into the river. The waters lit green and sparkled with every color seen in an opal.
Hiresha settled beside Tethiel. His three-headed form had melted away with the beginning of the sunrise, and now he was merely a man in a cape and plate armor standing on the river. His plate boots sank half a foot but didn’t break the water tension. Waves bobbed him up and down then calmed. The Winged Flame had stopped writhing.
On the riverbank, people crept out onto the city docks. They watched the emerald shimmer in the water. The Talon pushed to the front. At the sight of the river he fell to his knees.
“Some will hate us for this,” Tethiel said. “Some will love us then come to hate. And those who hate may someday love. We can depend only on their fear.”
“I concede your Feasting may have been necessary, yet only in the case of dragon attack.”
“Your attacking the god had murmurs of good sense, in hindsight.” He peered upriver. “I am terribly sorry to tell you, Celaise drank your wild magic. Jerani stole it from me.”
Then Tethiel would not have the power to purge himself of his magic. He would stay a Feaster. “What makes you think, Tethiel, that I expected you to keep your word?”
“I hope you’ve come to trust my undependability.”
“No one hungry for souls can be trusted with the lives of nations. What I appreciated was your plan, to balance desire of Feasting with fea
r of death. The lord of nightmare needs a counterweight.” She tapped her breastplate then pointed to the dawnstone on his chest. “You will obey my judgment. I never would’ve trusted your protégée to fill your role.”
“Exquisite! We’ve both been deceiving each other, to the benefit of all.”
“It would seem so,” she said.
“Then, you don’t care Celaise stole your wild magic and deserted us?”
“Only the latter. Yet one treachery is enough. I suppose we must execute her.”
“Can you kill her from here?” Tethiel asked.
Hiresha waved her hand. Her connection to the enchanted onyx teeth was only the sensation of a tap on her palm. “Not yet. She’s too far.”
“Leave her and Jerani to me then. I’ll relish the task far more than you.” His tongue flicked over his face too fast for most to see, yet it had been over a foot long.
“They saved my life,” Hiresha said. “Kill them mercifully.”
“As you wish, my wife.”
The sun cleared the horizon. A golden sheen covered the river, except for where the dragon had sunk. There the waters still reflected a green luster.
Then they changed to blue.
Hiresha choked, and molten misery seared through her.
The river burst. It exploded. The waters tore apart, and the Winged Flame spiraled into the sky in a torrent of radiance. Crowds along the riverbank screamed and cheered as the dragon looped in blinding rings.
Inconceivable! Hiresha couldn’t understand how the venom could have had zero effect, unless the gaseous blood had stopped the toxins from diffusing as they should. All the dragon’s wounds had closed. The eye she had gouged had regenerated. His broken wings had straightened.
“You harmed him out of revenge.” The quiet voice sounded like Guile’s, though the masked divinity was nowhere near. “And thus you healed him.”
The Winged Flame was the god of vengeance. Now he rivaled the sun with brightness and power. He circled closer to Tethiel and Hiresha.
She turned to him.
He offered her his hand.
Hiresha took it. Their gauntlet claws closed together.
The dawn call of the Winged Flame brought Celaise back to life. She stopped her trudging. The god shimmered and looped in the east. It hurt her eyes to look, but Celaise couldn’t stop grinning. The god’s warbling laugh made her stand two feet taller. She whooped back. Jerani clapped his hand into hers, and they jumped together.
“Do you think they’re dead now?” Jerani asked.
She knew he meant the lord father and the lady. The god’s cry had sounded like a victory shriek. The Winged Flame dropped from view around a river bend. Celaise lifted onto tiptoes as if that would help her see over the trees. How amazing if all her problems were over.
No, the lord father couldn’t have died. Her black wine would’ve writhed in her. Except she wasn’t a Feaster anymore. Maybe she wouldn’t feel anything. Her veins still thumped with wild magic. Her chest thudded like she had two hearts.
The double drumbeat within her slowed. All the tension in her began to melt. “Maybe they are gone. After all that long wedding, the Winged Flame could’ve gulped them away.”
She made a snapping motion with her hand and pinched Jerani. He fought back, swinging his arms up and down like jaws. She fell down on the riverbank giggling. It was too much. Last night, she had been horrified the Winged Flame would curse her again. Now all her hopes flew with him. Then she had been a Feaster. Today she was only herself.
And she was tired. She eased herself back into the sandy mud. The river flowed over her toes. She should get up, put in a few more miles between them and the city, like it would matter. The lord father was still alive or he wasn’t. He would track her to the highest peak or deepest cave.
She pushed herself up. She slumped back down into the beach’s softness. Never had a dirt bed within snapping range of caimans felt so comfortable. How many days had she been awake?
“Just going to close my eyes for a breath,” Celaise said.
Jerani was yawning too. “A wedding takes more out of you than battle.”
“If they come for us, don’t wake me.”
Celaise sank into the cool wetness of the riverbank. Dreams washed over her, of climbing trees and sailing across the seas, always with Jerani. Brightness filled her along with the clearness of mountain air.
The heat of the Winged Flame woke her. It wasn’t in her skull like last night but across her body in basking ripples of warmth. She pulled a wax leaf from her face. Jerani must’ve put it there to keep the light out of her eyes.
He had fallen to sleep beside her.
She fanned the flies from him with the leaf then woke him with a kiss. “Sorry we left behind the sleep mask you made me.”
“We’ve left a lot of things behind.”
“Could find some of them again.”
Jerani squinted up at the sky. “Is it really noon?”
The Winged Flame flew high above them as he did every day. It didn’t seem like Celaise had napped for more than a few blinks, but she must have. The llamas had stopped nipping ferns and settled in for their midday rest. Their bells tinkled against each other as they rubbed necks. Another pair pressed their lips together. Celaise had been told those weren’t real kisses, but they looked alike.
Celaise lay close to Jerani. He lounged near her. There must’ve always been something separating them. Now it was gone. Like a cliff edge without a railing, the kind you had to peer down. How far Celaise could plunge. A touch, a kiss, a word, that’s all it would take.
Jerani was a sleekness of skin, a reassurance, a guiding hand, a quiet comfort. When he stretched, the muscles in his chest and thighs went taut. His hair burst with red, and only a little of the loam had dripped onto his shoulder and clothes. A few tugs would pull off his short robes. Their eyes met. His lips parted as if to speak, but he didn’t.
Celaise’s chest tightened. “We should be going, shouldn’t we? The lord, the lady, they might not be dead.”
Only, she didn’t stir. She settled a bit further into the wet ground, and a sweet relaxation spread through her. She answered herself.
“No, the lady would be sleeping, maybe in the god’s belly.” Celaise’s words came faster and faster. “The lord wouldn’t hunt now. We can rest. I mean, for a while. We don’t have to worry until tonight.”
Jerani nodded. He looked down the length of her legs. He took her right foot and coaxed it up. She wondered if he would kiss her sole. Tingles rippled up her thigh.
His fingers closed on a leech. A few dangled from her legs in black slimy bulges.
“Yuck! Let me pull those off,” she said.
“No, I need to do it.”
She slapped his hand away. “You don’t.”
The muscles between his shoulder blades firmed. Would he fight her on this? She worried he might not ever be happy unless she was crippled again and needed him for every little thing. Maybe they would have to go their own ways, after all they had been through.
His eyes met hers, and there was laughter in them. “You’re right. And maybe leeches aren’t something we need to share.”
“Now you’ve got it.” Celaise plucked them off and flicked one at him.
He swatted it into the river.
She spat on her thumbs and pressed until the bleeding stopped. All the hum had gone out of the air. It was just fly buzz. The warmth had turned to sticky heat. Now Jerani was too close.
What if he kissed her and she still went cold? He could take her in his arms, he could try to love her, and she would hate it and have to push him away. She had boiled away all the black wine in her, but she didn’t know if that was enough. The deadness could still be in her. Some wounds were too deep even for magic to heal.
Her stomach gurgled.
“I’ll get you something.” Jerani hopped up then dropped back to a crouch. “If you want.”
“You get yourself something.” Celaise went
to a llama sprawled on her side. With a cup from a pack, Celaise milked the llama and drank. Her mouth filled with white richness and warmth.
Jerani ran to her side. “What is it?”
She must’ve groaned or screamed with her mouth full. She swallowed and licked her lips. “I can taste again.”
“It’s good?”
“Like childhood.” All the peace she’d had on those cold mountains had been with the llamas. Celaise buried her nose in llama fur. Memories flowed back to her of clear skies, of green terraces carved into the peaks, of skipping down narrow trails after llamas and laughing. How beautiful just to live, to be.
She didn’t care how silly she looked, she rubbed each llama and breathed in their shaggy smell. They groused at her with their sleepy baas.
“You’re limping,” Jerani said. He had been watching her.
“Oh, I might’ve fallen down some stairs last night.” Her skirt had been torn. New scars ran along her knee and shoulder. Her dress was splotched dark from blood, but her wounds had closed. She wasn’t even bruised.
The small bottle Jerani had given her had been no small magic. She saw it had mended most everything but her dress. The dirty tatters scraped against her skin. She would never again feel the smoothness of moonlight lace flowing over her. Her gown wouldn’t ever be alive with feathers. Sky ribbons wouldn’t flutter and breeze around her. Celaise would never strut with a train of fire. She had lost the safety of her True Dress.
Unless she Feasted again.
She pulled at the rags strapped to her. “This dress is worse than nothing.”
“It does look dead.”
“How do you bear the sight of me? You’ve seen me in all my gowns. I’ll never be that beautiful again.”
“Celaise, I see those dresses even when you’re not wearing any.”
Jerani would remember her in her True Dresses. She could trust him to. She didn’t need them every night. Celaise swallowed the saliva that had been flooding her mouth. “Jerani, you have more of those little bottles?”
He pulled out a handful. They pinged against each other.
“I think I’ll need another tonight,” Celaise said. “For now, getting this dress off me will be enough. Hand me a knife.”
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