Kindle the Flame (Heart of a Dragon Book 1)

by Tamara Shoemaker

  Kinna had often teased Julian about his Pixie's crush—not that he would ever act on it. Sovereign decree forbade human-creature relationships, and the decree had been ratified several times over by the Elder Councils of each Clan. Still, whenever Kinna had poked fun at Sage's crush, Julian's face had pinked. “She can't help it, Kinna. Just leave her alone.”

  “She can't help it, oh irresistible Julian?” Kinna had laughed. “Just like Hazel can't help it either?” It was no secret to anyone in the Clan that Hazel also nurtured a fanciful preference for the tall, tan Pixiedimn.

  “Not everyone can choose who they love. It just happens sometimes.” He'd refused to say anything more after that; he'd just shaken his head and changed the subject.

  Kinna glanced sideways at Hazel. The Pixie glared at Sage, ignoring the congestion across the busy cobblestone square. Her frown marred her perfect face splashed with soft freckles that contrasted with her brilliant hair. If looks could cause harm, Sage would be a pile of steaming Troll muck.

  Kinna had given Hazel an outfit she'd carefully sewn under Joanna's watchful eye. It was a gown that mirrored Kinna's own: deep blue with a tapered waist, a wide neckline that showed the fine collarbones. The Pixie hated it, preferring instead to wear breeches, a long tunic, and a belt, but the Clan Elders had a dress code for the annual Ceremony. If she does well, I'll give her a whole wardrobe full of new breeches and tunics, Kinna decided. Maybe she'll take it as an olive branch, perhaps see that I'm not the enemy.

  “Identification, please.”

  Kinna stopped short at the gate, tugging the neckline of her gown toward her shoulder, allowing the guard to view her newly-inked Pixie symbol.

  When her father had done the re-inking the night before, he'd shaken his head with a tsk. “I don't know why your ink never stays on, Kinna,” he'd murmured as he concentrated on pushing the ink into the skin with the needle.

  Kinna's jaw had hurt from clamping it shut. “It'd be a lot less painful if it would stay put. Must I wear the mark, Father?”

  Tristan had speared her with his gaze. “Everyone needs a mark, Kinna. It's a symbol of your status in the Pixie Clan and of your citizenship in West Ashwynd. It is your security in this country ruled by a mad—”

  “Tristan!” Joanna's sharp rejoinder had sealed Tristan's lips, though his dark glance over Kinna's head had spoken volumes.

  A shiver had needled Kinna's spine. No one else's Clan mark constantly faded. Kinna thought it must have to do with her nightmares, but her mother had told her those were only bad dreams. They didn't feel like dreams though. They felt like memories.

  The recurring nightmares cast a shade of doubt over her security. In her darkest dreams she always felt herself jouncing hard against the saddle of a horse, the animal's lather spritzing across her face, and thundering hoof beats behind, just behind. The mists never parted; there was only darkness and the harsh pants of horses, hoof beats, and panic.

  The lodge guard cast a cursory glance at her symbol. “Go on in, Miss.”

  “Come on, Hazel.”

  The Pixie grudgingly allowed herself to be led to the line of other Pixies and their Dimn, who stood before a side door to the banquet hall.

  Julian nudged Kinna with his shoulder. “At least you got her here.”

  “I rather wish I hadn't.” Kinna glanced at the others. “Do you think the Elders would banish me if I refused to parade Hazel before them?” She peeked at Sage. “It doesn't look like you had any trouble with Sage.”

  Sage ignored her, her attention fastened on her master's face, worship in her eyes.

  A steward hurried around the corner. “I was told everyone had arrived,” he puffed. “Please, follow me.”

  Kinna touched Hazel's shoulder, and the Pixie jerked violently. “I'm coming, mistress. No need to tell me.”

  Kinna sighed. “As you wish.”

  Julian looked grave as he watched Kinna. She met his gaze and shrugged. What am I supposed to do? she mouthed.

  He shook his head and followed the line after the steward. Kinna and Hazel brought up the rear.

  Inside the lodge Kinna could hear the music of celebration and laughter, the cacophony of a full-course dinner where drinks were served in abundance. The steward led the Dimn and their Pixies to the back of the banquet hall and motioned them to stay put. “We'll call you up, one at a time. Please wait here.”

  As their presence registered with the Elders and their guests, the noise level lessened in expectation. The steward hurried toward the center of the room.

  He bowed low, projecting his voice to the rafters. “Elders and honored guests, we bring the winners of this year's lottery before you, prepared to showcase their training. May you feast upon their talents as you feast upon the sumptuous meals on your trenchers. For your entertainment, the selections of the Clan.” He waved toward the line where Kinna stood with nervousness strangling her stomach.

  The girl on the end went first, leading her Pixie into the middle of the room. She nodded to her purple-haired Fey, gesturing toward the head table.

  The Pixie turned and bowed to the Elders. “Good evening, gents. It'll be my pleasure to pleasure you this evening, in whatever way you desire. A song? Poetry? Perhaps a visit to your chambers after your libations?” Shocked silence descended over the hall as the Elders glanced at each other. The Dimn flushed deep red as she touched her Pixie's shoulder and shook her head.

  The Pixie pivoted and strode to the side table. She perched cheerfully on it and crossed one knee over the other, her leg swinging merrily.

  “If all the world were split in half,

  And half were whole again,

  What would you gain from half of that,

  But two parts of the main?”

  At this riddle whispers spread across the room. Kinna glanced quickly at the Elders' table. Several of them were deliberating; two sat silent with arms folded. A third nodded at the purple-haired Pixie and then at the mistress.

  “It's our country, is it not? You're referring to the entire country? When Sebastian broke from Lismaria after Nicholas Erlane defeated him in battle, he set up rule in West Ashwynd. Since then, Nicholas Erlane of the Lismarian throne has attempted to reunite the two countries under his own banner, but King Sebastian refuses.” He glanced to the wall where armored soldiers stood, wearing King Sebastian’s royal crest on their mantles. He cleared his throat. “So we stand to gain nothing but two countries forced into hostility together.”

  A moment of silence followed, interrupted by a loud cheer. The audience raised goblets, sloshing them as the Pixie bowed and the Dimn pulled her back toward the line.

  “She executed a good recovery,” Julian muttered to Kinna, “but her beginning was awful. Dangerous stuff, mocking Sebastian's government.” He, too, turned his attention to the royal sentries. “Let's hope there's no trouble.”

  Kinna nodded, but all rational thought fled in the path of her panic. Hazel would fail. All her efforts to win over her Pixie would amount to nothing tonight. Her father and mother would be thoroughly embarrassed, and they would end up in the poorhouse because of her deplorable lack of success.

  Joanna and Tristan sat near the wall, watching the proceedings soberly, taking little part in the revelry. Their gazes drifted back and forth between Kinna and Hazel. Kinna could read the nervous ridges of their jawlines.

  The next boy was putting his Pixie through his paces. This one had blue hair swirled with white that arrived at a point a span above his head. He was a brash little fellow, standing with fists on his hips, rocking forward on his toes as he teased his audience with satire and wit, ridiculing Sebastian’s kingdom of West Ashwynd in one breath, and then mocking Nicolas Erlane’s Lismarian government in the next. King Sebastian's disregard for every responsibility that bored him was pitted against Erlane’s overly careful attentiveness to his people's complaints. As the banter went on, Sebastian sounded more and more maniacal, a pompous egotist sitting on the thr
one of West Ashwynd, blissfully unaware of the plight of his people. The Pixie used abrasive humor, but so much skill webbed his words that they couldn't offend, though perhaps they should have. During the delivery, Kinna cast nervous glances at the royal guards. They sternly watched the proceedings, but none made a move to stop the flow of words from the Pixie's mouth.

  As each Pixie stepped onto the performing stage, Kinna got lost in the rise and fall of the applause, reading approval in the boisterous shouts and disapproval in the quiet clapping for those who may have performed less amiably.

  She rested her hand on Hazel's shoulder, but the Pixie shrugged off her touch. Kinna could feel the waves of dislike coming from her charge, and she wondered yet again at the bad fate that had caused her name to be drawn from the vast pool of other Pixiedimn.

  Her father had a place as an Advisor to the Council; he had tried to plead her case, she knew. After her name had been drawn, he had explained that Kinna had particular difficulty with her Pixie, but the Elders had overruled his plea. And so here she was, about to embarrass herself, her Pixie, and her family.

  Hazel's white face could have been carved from granite. Pity stirred in Kinna. The King forced these Ceremonies year after year; surely the people could stand up under the rule and decide that enough was enough. Too many of them agree with Julian, though. Not enough see that the creatures should be free.

  A royal guard shifted behind her, and Kinna stiffened, nervousness curbing her treasonous thoughts.

  Julian stepped forward with Sage, and Kinna sucked in a deep breath. She would be next. And last. The last impression on the Elders. She had a momentary urge to sprint for the exit.

  Julian motioned Sage to the center of the room. He stood to the side, rotating his hand in deft gestures to show her what he wanted her to do. She moved toward the Elders' table. Bowing low before the Head Elder, she spoke in a rich, husky voice: “May it please my lord, I would enjoy a dance with you.”

  The Elder's eyebrows rose. He cleared his throat, though when he spoke, it still sounded rusty. “I appreciate the gesture, my dear, but I can hardly walk.” He motioned to his staff that leaned against the wall behind him.

  “I see that, my lord. But are you not aware of the power of a Pixie's song?” She reached forward, bold and decisive, allowing her hand to rest on his for a moment before pulling him to his feet. Her fingers linked with his, and she led him along his side of the table to the end where she tugged him onto the floor, a lovely low melody humming from her throat.

  Gently, she pulled the elderly man close, clasping his hand and his shoulder. Then she broke into song. It was a haunting melody, beautiful and simple and tear-inducing. Kinna dashed the back of one hand against her eye, angry that she allowed herself to be pulled in by the Pixie's power.

  “In the stillness of time, at the end of sleep and the start of wake,

  In that haunted moment when the world ceases to breathe,

  In that sacred session where dreams and yearnings throb and ache,

  Let my hand touch you, pull you, heal you; I won't leave.”

  A strange power undergirded Sage’s voice, and even stranger still, the Elder glided on his feet as though he had never been a cripple in his life.

  Kinna blinked. That was it then. Julian had sealed the deal. There was no following that. She glanced at her parents, who watched the proceedings with grave faces. There was still second or third place. If she could manage to gain one of those, she could keep the extra taxes at bay.

  When at last Sage handed the Elder back to his place at the table, everyone stood, applause thundering around the room. Julian and Sage both bowed. Hazel let out a snort of disgust. If green were truly the color of envy, Hazel would be puce right now.

  She was about to lead Hazel forward, but a chant began to sweep the room. “Psuche, psuche, psuche.”

  Julian paused mid-bow. The noise quieted as the Head Elder raised his hands for silence. “Young man, have you and your Pixie achieved psuche yet?”

  All eyes turned to Julian, who flushed beneath the attention. “Not yet, my lord. I know it will be soon, but it has yet to happen.”

  The Elder's kind smile wrinkled his cheeks. “Will you allow us the great privilege of witnessing this momentous occasion?”

  Julian inclined his head. “If it so please my lord.” He turned to Sage, grasping her hands, holding her at arm's length in front of him.

  Hazel's shoulders stiffened. Kinna tried to calm her once again, but Hazel jerked away.

  Julian inhaled and then released a long flow of breath into the air above them. On her side, Sage did the same, and in the expanse over their heads, their breaths intermingled and took on all different shades of the rainbow, flushing with reds, blues, greens, yellows, and purples. This magical moment was the first psuche Kinna had seen, though she'd heard about it all her life.

  “Psuche, Kinna, is that moment when the soul connects with the creature,” Kinna's father had explained to her. “It happens in three stages. Conflict, usually when you first meet, then Coordination—what we like to term as 'the dance,' and lastly, the psuche itself, the intermingling of breaths. It is symbolic of complete trust in each other. You must get close enough to put yourself fully in the hands of the other, giving yourself completely to that other being, and they to you. And then, ah, Kinna, the connection. It's beautiful.”

  “Why would you force psuche on a creature, though, Father?” Kinna had leaned forward across the table, eager to explain her passion on the subject. “They should be free, not bound in some deep connection from which they cannot ever disentangle themselves. Psuche is for life, is it not? How could you possibly say that this would be desirable for any creature or human?”

  Tristan had shaken his head. “It's not like that, Kinna. When psuche is achieved, it is only because the creature desires it and the human desires it. There is no holding back, no doubt in either mind that this connection is the way forward. The thoughts and ideas of each become so intertwined that the human knows what the creature is thinking and the creature knows what the human thinks.”

  Kinna had shifted uncomfortably. “I don't know that I would want anyone reading my mind all the time.”

  “It's not really like that. It's hard to explain, and I hope someday that you'll be able to experience it for yourself.” His glance had winged toward Joanna when he said this. “You simply won't mind when it happens. That's all.”

  “It'll never happen to me,” Kinna had decided aloud. “I'd never want to tie a creature to me that way.”

  But as Kinna watched Julian’s psuche taking place, she could see beauty in it, could see that neither Sage nor Julian felt forced into the connection. She briefly allowed herself to wonder if there would ever be a creature she could so wholeheartedly trust as Julian did Sage, but then shrugged off the thought.

  Hazel wouldn't fit the bill, and Kinna didn't want her to. The Pixie deserved freedom, the ability to choose the one or ones with whom she connected the most.

  In the midst of applause, Julian returned to her side and nudged Kinna forward. “You'll do great,” he whispered as she tugged Hazel away from the wall.

  If only that were true. With one last despairing glance at her parents in the corner, Kinna curtseyed low before the Elders and went to stand at the side, motioning Hazel to begin.

  Kinna's plan was to have Hazel engage with several of the Elders. The pink-haired Pixie could charm a Direwolf in his den should she so choose. She could carry on conversations that left the hearer's head spinning. Kinna intended Hazel to pick out one foible pertaining to each of the Elders, spin it out humorously, and then package it up so neatly, they wouldn't realize they had been the point of her satire until the whole scene was done. And then, hopefully, they would be awed by Hazel's mastery of subtle wit.

  Hazel had spit into the dirt when she'd first heard Kinna's idea. Kinna couldn't blame her. She fully felt the injustice of the system. Yet if they refused to
follow through, it meant prison for them both. The King's men infected the town like a plague.

  Just this once, Hazel, and then I'll give you all the freedom you want.

  When Hazel stepped to the table, Kinna breathed a sigh of relief. The Pixie would do it. She wouldn't embarrass Kinna or her parents after all.

  Kinna pointed discreetly to the Elder on the far left near her parents, and Hazel bowed low before the man.

  “Hail, Wise One.”

  The Elder looked surprised. “Hail, Pixie,” he returned politely.

  “Tell me, whose idea was it to begin the Pixie-human relationship? Was it yours? Was it the Council of Elders? Was it that evil rapscallion who sets himself up as King, parading his people and creatures before his throne in The Crossings, cruelly aware of the fate of all those he holds on his precious piece of land?”

  The lodge went silent. Panic clawed up Kinna's throat. She shot a horrified glance across the room at the royal sentries. Their black gazes pierced Hazel's back. Kinna felt the current of shock in the room, and despite her own underlying agreement with the Pixie’s sentiments, this would not end well for anyone if Hazel kept on as she'd begun. She made a circle with her finger. Turn it around.

  Hazel grandly ignored her. She strutted across the room. “I can understand the Trolls and the Goblins and even the Unicorns and Cerberuses, but honestly, we Pixies talk! We've got brains. We are not addlepated. And yet here you sit, a bunch of senile wastrels, washing down your guilt with libations as you stare at us like we're brainless creatures, to will or to not will according to your whim.”

  “Hazel.” Kinna's voice whipped across the room. The Pixie raked her glare over Kinna. Please, Kinna pleaded silently, this is for you. To keep you out of prison, to keep my parents and me from the same fate.

  The spoken word was a huge point deduction; she was supposed to be able to instruct her Pixie based only on hand motions. But Hazel had traveled far outside the boundaries in which Pixies were supposed to stay according to law. Now Kinna could think of nothing but silencing the Pixie, if only to keep her out of the King's dungeons.