by Domino Finn
"We're no friends of Celestials," insisted Tyson. "We merely return one lost fragment of your honor. A token your kind has often accepted. And we ask but a simple favor in return. Smuggle us into the capital city of Maqad where we can properly strike a blow against our enemy, leaving you to yours."
Prince Edric grinned and rapped his fingers on the hilt of his sword playfully. "We will have the truth," he said firmly. "Where did you acquire the coin?"
Tyson shook his head. "No questions asked. It's the word of your people."
The Mother hissed. She knew her people's word. It was the same as hers. It was plain on her face: she didn't like it, but she wouldn't rightly murder anyone who returned a dragon to High Valley. Otherwise no more coins would ever see their way here.
"See them to the dinner chamber," she rasped as she stomped toward a rear exit. The two passive men followed her.
The prince sucked his teeth into a sneer. Same expression as when he'd first seen us. Word of his people or not, he didn't like it. And if history was any judge, the dragons were oath breakers.
That's when I realized the philosophy of angels and demons—good and evil—was an academic privilege I couldn't afford in High Valley. Like fire and water, danger was danger, no matter which way you sliced it.
Chapter 20
We were whisked to private quarters to rest. Invited to the baths too, but I declined. I wasn't much into the mountaintop spa treatment at the moment. There was something anxiety-inducing about a masseuse with razor-sharp claws.
Even though Tyson and I were alone, I wasn't confident of our privacy. We didn't discuss our predicament. That suited him fine. His usual stoicism played across his rock face, searing magma underneath. Tyson Roderick was all business, staring ahead and minding his own. I had burning questions but they waited.
I spent the time on the ground on my back, eyes closed and thinking. For all their impressive cave-dwelling, the dragons weren't a luxurious people. Their environs were grand without being lavish, and best I could tell they slept on the uncushioned floor. Either that or they weren't overly concerned with our comfort.
After what seemed like hours, they led us to a dinner hall. A relatively small room compared to the rest of this place. Edric and Lilliane were in attendance, as were another man and woman. The Mother was noticeably absent.
We sat at an oval table with benches carved out of stone. Most things in the palace were. The difference was that the table was a smooth dark material, like onyx. Running down the center was a line of food, sitting directly on the surface in overlapping piles. A bed of squashes and bushy purple things. Long, ridged grains. Roasted fowl, bones wrenched apart.
There were no plates or utensils. Everyone just reached into the mass and pulled food toward them, ripping the portions apart with their hands and teeth. My description notwithstanding, it was a surprisingly civilized affair. Not at all like wild animals feeding. It simply lacked the pretense of etiquette I was used to.
"Will the Mother be joining us?" asked Tyson.
"She no longer wishes to be burdened by you," said Edric. "Apparently, my wishes do not matter."
Lilliane shook her head. "This is a war room," she explained. "The Mother trusts us to smuggle you into the capital without her oversight. It is a trivial thing."
I put my giant chicken leg down. "You'll help us?"
"It is our word," she said.
"Meet Jax and Tena," continued Edric. "Along with myself and the High Justice, we make up your smuggling team. We leave in an hour."
"So soon?" asked Tyson.
"Like my sister said, sneaking you into the capital is a trivial matter. Unless you'd prefer more long-term lodgings in High Valley?"
"No thanks," I said quickly. "What's the plan?"
"The plan is to let me enjoy my dinner," he said. "I'm unusually hungry tonight. And hungry dragons are... distracted."
Point taken. I buttoned my lips and looked over the team. Tena was a young girl. She looked fragile but I suspected that to be deceiving. Jax was quite her opposite. Built like a Mack truck, he and Tyson were a good match for an arm wrestling contest. Neither concerned themselves with questions or our personal details. They were soldiers under orders.
Eventually I tried some small talk to lighten the mood. The High Sword and the High Justice deflected anything personal and the soldiers kept to their meals. Even my questions about the food were answered with more snark than information. I settled into silent eating for a while until my questions turned to the mission.
Tyson decided that, even if everyone else knew what they were doing, I at least needed a primer on the area. He spoke between infrequent bites, eating more for company than sustenance. "Maqad is the seat of power to all the Aether." He glanced at the prince but there was no open objection. "The satrapies rule much of the outer lands."
"Wherever they can reach," corrected Lilliane. "High Valley is but one area they stay out of."
"The skags?" I asked.
"That is another," said Tyson. "The skags are nomadic, living in clusters and constantly roving. It makes pinning them down hard, whether they live on jinn land or not. They don't represent a central opposing authority like the dragons."
"They're weak and scattered," interrupted Edric.
"Their weakness is their strength."
The High Sword scoffed. "Weakness is strength now. Only a jinn aspect would say as much."
I ignored him and followed the line of logic. "So the jinns and, by association, the elementals police the land."
"Where they can," agreed Tyson.
"And how it suits them," added Lilliane.
The elemental nodded. "And the capital, most of all, is guarded well. Officiates police the borders and the streets. Aspects of sand and air. All-seeing dust storms that be anywhere at any time."
"Anywhere at any time," I repeated. "Sounds like sneaking in will be tough."
"To anyone but the dragons," said Edric, finishing the last of his scraps. The soldiers had been waiting for him, and when the prince stood, they did too. "Let us show you what strength means."
I wiped greasy fingers on my shirt, eager to get moving. Everyone left the table and followed Edric out. Lilliane waited and brought up the rear. The troops wound in and out of increasingly narrow hallways, away from the understated opulence of the palace. We descended into catacombs. The walls became rough, the footing unsteady. Ceremonial crypts dotted the walls, each adorned by a skull with large canine teeth. A few had personal trinkets like swords and boxes.
A chill air rushed through the passage and made me shiver. In minutes, I found out why. The soldiers walked outside onto a makeshift balcony. Really it was nothing more than a stone outcropping and a precipitous edge. A small hidden cave opening in the side of the mountain, with nothing but rocky death hundreds of feet below.
The wind battered us violently. I widened my stance to steady my balance. None of the others seemed to notice. Maybe that's 'cause most of them had wings.
It was night now. No sun in the sky. No moon, either. Just a perpetual gloom of clouds and gray sky. For the first time in hours, I let the shadow slip from my eyes. Despite being night, it was light enough out here to see.
"This is it," said Edric with a smile. "The moment of truth. Jax, carry Tyson. Tena—"
"Actually," interrupted Lilliane with a glimmer in her violet eyes. "I'll take Cisco with me." She strolled toward me with the same seductive gait as when we'd first met and stopped with her face close to mine. "Put your arms around me," she said and turned around.
I hesitantly hooked my arms over her shoulders.
"You trying to choke me?" she asked with a smirk. Then she unclasped my hands and lowered them under her arms. She yanked my body into hers and hooked my arms over her chest without shame. Her skin was deathly cold. "Now the most important thing," she said with a halfway turn of her head and a grin, "is not to let go."
Then she hurtled off the edge of the cliff with me in tow.
Chapter 21
Air buffeted my face. Butterflies scrambled in my stomach like on a rollercoaster gone bad. I assumed we were rocketing toward the ground but my eyes were shut so it was just a guess. I clung to Lilliane tightly, losing all pretense of modesty. When we swooped I felt the pull of g-forces. I opened my eyes.
Lilliane still looked human, but she didn't. Her body was longer. Large wings stretched from her shoulder blades and caught the air in massive sails of flesh. Her skin was covered in glittering scales now. It still felt the same, somehow, as if it hadn't transformed at all.
We swooped upward and caught the wind. Three more flyers fell in line with us. The scene was even more surreal from a distance. I saw the dragons in their true form. Covered in scales, long black claws, fangs peeking out of faces both human and reptilian. They craned their necks gracefully and stretched with the breeze, looking completely at home in the skies except for the two riders clinging to their backs.
Edric and Tena darted and dove around us, unencumbered and leading the way. Lilliane and Jax settled into a steady beat of flapping wings. Adrenaline rushed through me. The ground sped past at alarming speed. Soon enough it gave way completely. We crossed the edge of the floating island to the endless roll of the drift, making a straight path to the clouds. We lost ourselves in the horizon.
Despite the dizzying speed and incomprehensible heights, what got to me most was the cold wind whipping against my skin. I was in jeans and a tank top, dressed for the Miami heat, and here we were higher than Mount Everest doing a hundred and sixty miles per hour. Sure, it wasn't snowing. There wasn't enough humidity for that, but it felt like it ought to have been.
Edric flanked his sister like a wingman and turned to her. "We'll take the lead," he screamed over the wind. She nodded in full understanding and the prince and Tena swept into a cloud below. After a handful of seconds, we followed.
The fog gave way. For the first time, I could see the capital city. It was blanketed in folding clouds, but still a mile away. We were high above it now, showing me a new perspective of the great metropolis. Instead of the rocky concentric rings of land, I focused on the structures built on top in mud and clay. Interlocking buildings with bridges and roadways. An intricate maze of city planning, the mapping of an irrational mind personified. Sprawl where very little real estate afforded it; the only way to expand was up up up.
Much closer to us (and our obvious destination) was an outpost of sorts. A single floating boulder the size of a house with a small tower growing out of it. Sparse inner quarters were sacrificed for a wide roof platform that dominated the surface. Two figures of sharpened icicles stood guard on top.
"Aspects," she yelled over her shoulder. "They stand watch outside the city."
Edric and Tena swooped down on them from above. The icicles raised their hands to react to the sudden threat but were bathed in sheets of flame spewed from above. The dragons weren't fire-breathing exactly. The heat seemed to come directly from their open palms. It engulfed the elementals and reduced them to water instantly. With precise timing, the six of us touched down on the tower.
"Woo!" exclaimed Tena. "Barely saw what hit 'em."
Edric crouched behind the short parapet and surveyed the capital city with a nod. "Excellent work," he agreed. Everyone else instinctively crouched with him. "And it appears we haven't been noticed by the capital."
I released a sigh of relief I hadn't known I was holding. I unclenched my arms around Lilliane and rubbed freezing palms together. I noticed the traces of water on the stone. "Are they...?"
"Dead?" asked Lilliane. "Aspects don't die. Not like you or me."
I turned to Tyson, wondering how he felt about it.
"We merely return to our inherent forms," he said without emotion. "Free but inanimate."
"Isn't that bad?" I asked.
"It's not good or bad. It just is."
I frowned, wondering about our mission, not fully taking in the ramifications until now. Would we be killing jinns? Strangers? Friends? What exactly did Tyson have planned?
"We need to wait for the next patrol to pass," said the prince.
I nodded with a shiver and rubbed my arms to get my blood moving. "How long will that be?"
"You should get inside," said Lilliane. She took my arm and led me down a hatch. A short stairway circled into a sheltered area devoid of personal effects. There was a small fire pit along one wall with a chimneyed exhaust. The High Justice waved her hand and flame roared to life within.
"Cool trick."
"Sit here," she said, plopping me right in front of the fire. Then she straddled behind me and hugged me from behind. I flinched as her cold skin pressed into my back. She ran her hands over my chest. "Are you freezing, Cisco?"
The magical heat I'd seen the dragons use seemed to emanate from her palms. They rubbed over me, massaging the feeling back into my flesh. Stirring other feelings as well.
"What do you think, when you look at us?" she asked, rubbing the length of my arm.
"What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean," she said. "You know what we are to your kind."
I gnawed my lip. "Demons, right? You want me to call you demons."
She shrugged coyly. "It's a word many of us are known by." She traced her fingers up my arm and across my shoulders. Heat ran through my body.
"Well, you've got the whole temptation thing down. I'll give you that much."
"I'd be offended if you thought otherwise."
I grunted. "If you really wanna know, I don't buy into that whole moralistic grading scale. I mean, I got mixed up with a nasty vampire with metal fangs. Some called him a demon. I've run into spider witches and mermaids from the Nether. A stone gargoyle claimed to be from even below that realm, probably some underworld of some kind. Then there's Connor Hatch, a jinn who very much qualifies for the worst labels mankind has to offer." I twisted around to face her. "What did you do that was so bad?"
She paused, stuck somewhere between amused and offended. Did she really need to play the big scary monster? Maybe she wanted to see me tremble. Beg for my life. I couldn't figure what she wanted, but I wasn't gonna play into some antiquated notion of judgment.
"You surprise me," she finally said. "Maybe there's more to you than you think." She lifted my left arm and traced the tattoo along my forearm. Shaped like an arrow, more or less. A modified fragment of a Norse snowflake rune. Lilliane twined her legs around my waist and over mine. Her legs were fleshy white except for the scale tattoos. "Maybe you have black wings of your own."
I laughed. "We're both monsters. Is that your point?"
She ran her fingers through the hair on the back of my head. "Is that so bad?"
I shrugged. "It depends on what you've done, lady."
She tightened. Her legs snapped into place, pinning mine to the sides. Her hands clasped behind my head, locking my arms up. A small but intense pressure was placed on my neck, threatening to snap it at any moment. I winced in the firelight.
"Tell me," she said carefully. "Can the shadows save you from the fire?"
"In Connor's case," I squeezed out, "I mean to snuff it out completely."
"With an aspect that was once his? How do you know you're not being led to this jinn of yours? Led to the slaughter in a world you little understand."
I put opposite pressure against her headlock, not trying to escape, but showing I wasn't cowed. I craned my neck and looked her in the eye. "Better the enemy I know."
Her violet irises shimmered in the flickering light. Something flashed within. Beyond. Her thin lips parted and her tongue slid out seductively. It was a normal woman's tongue, not forked at all, but I couldn't help but think it was longer than usual. She ran it up my neck and jaw, tickling my lips.
Suddenly she snaked around me. It didn't seem physically possible, but she deftly slipped her arms and legs from mine, spun till she was planted in my lap, and wrapped her arms in mine over my head. She leaned into me. I fell backward off
the bench, crashing to the floor, her hard body on top of mine. Straddling me. Holding me down.
"How does it feel to be helpless?" she whispered in my ear.
"I'll let you know if it ever happens," I said.
Her lips twitched. She dragged her body over mine in a smooth wiggle, and then I noticed she was completely naked again. If she was trying to keep me warm, she was going above and beyond. But there was still a bit too much predator in her. Like maybe she wanted this. Maybe we'd splay out on the floor together and treat ourselves to unimaginable pleasures. But maybe afterward she'd break my neck and swallow me whole. The way she was moving, her hips swaying like a gentle current, I wondered if being eaten was a fair trade-off.
"Do you truly not stand in judgment of my kind?" she asked warmly. Her voice was heavy with breath, not as sharp and precise as usual.
"I'm forming a pretty strong opinion right now," I said.
"Yes. You are." She moaned softly and closed her eyes. I wondered if I should deck her.
Her grip loosened. Her movements slowed. She was savoring every last drop of friction, but it escaped her. One last controlled rock gave way to tremors in her hips. She fell onto me and clutched my chest, suddenly weak as a kitten. I wrapped my arms around her while she shivered, as if all my cold was now hers. Our skin traded warmth as we lay there, content with stillness and quiet.
The fire in the room seemed to die down even though it couldn't have been that long. I shifted my weight to check it and she moved, suddenly aware of our bearing.
"What is it like," she asked softly, "to be free?"
