The Kingdoms of Sky and Shadow Box Set

by Foxglove, Lidiya

  It was worse because I could tell Oszin didn’t want me to fight.

  But I also didn’t want to spend a single day moping over my fate. Aurek said we had to accept what we couldn’t change, and if he could do it, well, I wasn’t about to let him set a better example than I was.

  “He gave me a garden. You know a lot about growing plants, don’t you?”

  “I ain’t a farm boy for nothing.”

  “Maybe you could teach me that. He said some of the plants are magic.”

  I grabbed Kajira, because she loved flying around up there, and made my way to the tower garden. Just as before, all the flowers were blooming and the fragrance was lush, sweet, and strange.

  “I don’t recognize any of these,” he said. “I wonder if the library has a guide.”

  “All the plants are supposed to be good for making tea.”

  “This one smells lemony. Here.” He crumbled a leaf between his fingers and put it up to my nose.

  “Oh wow! That’s so good. It’s almost more orangey, I think.”

  “Kind of like yuzu. I bet it’s really sweet in tea.”

  “What about these flowers?” I plucked a very tiny white bud off of a sprig. We sniffed. “They’re so good and sweet. I bet it would make a nice tea to combine them.” I picked some of each. Maybe I could see why the queen liked her tea garden.

  “I wouldn’t have thought any flowers grew without the sun,” he said.

  “There must be something about the crystal light…” I looked up at the ‘sky’ of the dragon’s cave, with all of its pinpricks and thin veins of light in different colors like lightning had frozen to the sky. It was dark, but also very beautiful, as stunning as the best starry nights. Maybe even better. Stars never came in so many vivid colors. Some of the crystals had a faint pulse that looked like twinkling from a distance. The light was similar to a night sky, although there was no moon. The crystals put out enough light, between the sky and the reflection on the misty lake surrounding the fortress, that I could see Oszin and the flowers.

  “It’s pretty up here…,” I murmured, walking to the edge. The tower was surrounded on all sides with a stone wall that came up to my chest.

  “You mean, down here?”

  “We’re in the tower, so this is our ‘up’ now.”

  He came up behind me and shared the view. “It’s still strange to me. I miss the smell of the ocean.”

  “Well, you always did have a taste for the seafaring life.”

  “It’s in my blood.”

  “Your ancestors might have been pirates, huh?” There were old tales of the dastardly Kamiri pirates who used to rule the seas around the islands.

  “So say your history books. You give me such a bad reputation.” He looked down at me. His eyes were getting that soft look and he started to lean down.

  I wanted to kiss him as much as ever, if not more. I yearned for this man who was home to me, who was so easy to be around. But I was also thinking of the genuine glimpses of kindness and empathy that Aurekdel displayed at times, and the awareness that he was my husband now weighed heavily on me.

  “I’m not going to let you forget what my kisses taste like,” he said.

  “I won’t forget. But…”

  “I’m so worried over you. Aurekdel and Seron? That’s not what you were promised.”

  “I think I’m glad Seron was there. I t’s better if they’re together. Aurek is gentler when he’s with Seron.”

  “Has he not been gentle?” Oszin asked sharply.

  “I mean…he is…”

  I didn’t know how to talk about last night with him. I wished my brother was here. Rin had learned a lot from being with Gilbert and Phoebe at the same time, but of course, I’d been so mad at him for forcing me into this marriage that we didn’t talk about it much. How could I possibly convince Oszin that he had my heart if I gave myself to other men and enjoyed it?

  “Damnit. I know I shouldn’t ask. But it’s eating at me, Moth. You understand.”

  “I want to kiss you so badly, Oszin. I wish you could see into my heart.”

  “We’re alone up here.”

  “I’m not sure. Look at the boats out there. Some of the dragons have good eyes.”

  He scoffed. “Not that good. Up here, this is mine.” He kissed me, slowly…but deeply. His hands curled around my waist, strong and sure. He smelled like Kamiri spices, earthy and sweet. I bet he’d brought a pouch of them from home to sprinkle on the strange dragon food. I’d been doing the same thing, with my favorite blend of flaked seaweed, powdered peanuts and a tiny dash of sugar.

  No, I would not forget the taste of him. I wanted more. So much more.

  “Maybe we should take these flowers downstairs and try the tea,” I said, trying to collect myself.

  “Do they have honey? Everything they eat down here tastes like rocks and brackish water.”

  “Ooh, you’re picky for a peasant. There was honey in the bridal caravan! Let’s ask the kitchen. Kajira!”

  “I’ll be shocked if that cat knows her name already.”

  I was so relieved that he was still treating me normally most of the time, and it wasn’t all yearning looks and kisses now that we’d opened the door.

  Still, I was well aware that the door had opened. And I was also well aware of why he didn’t push it farther than he had. One stolen kiss on the tower when he knew other men could have everything? It must be killing him even more than it was tormenting me. Oszin knew he had to stay within those bounds. But there was something boiling under the surface of him that wasn’t there before. He was still young. What kind of man will he become?

  Will he really want to stay with me?

  It was like I could already feel him slipping away, because I had to push him away. I was desperate to stop that from happening.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Himika

  The tea was delicious, and seemed to give us both a burst of energy, which drove us to the library to see if they had a guide to the plants. I got to meet Erimon the librarian, a metal dragon with silvery hair in a long braid and pale skin that almost looked silvery too.

  “Oh, you’re the one who taught the king how to read!” I said.

  “Yes, my lady!” He nodded. “I’ll teach you too.” He took a personal interest, showing us old plates of various flowers. “Your handmaiden probably knows more about that garden than I do,” he said. “Her mother used to tend to it in the queen’s absence. Raia would be up there weeding and digging with her little spade.”

  All I really knew about Raia so far was that she was a very good fighter, had way more sexual experience than I could imagine, and almost no experience being a handmaiden.

  Later, I brought the book of plates to my room and asked if she could help me.

  I thought she’d love the idea, but instead grief passed over her face. “Aurek gave you the tea garden…of course. I’m glad.”

  “I’m sorry. Too many memories of your mother?”

  “I’m still…kind of raw,” she said.

  “I completely understand. It really hasn’t been that long since my father was killed, either. But so much happened that I didn’t even have time to think about it. Well…just so you know, if you feel up to it later, I love flowers but I don’t know the first thing about getting dirty.”

  Raia wiped her tears. “No. Mother would want me to get dirty too. She loved that garden, she just didn’t have much time for it.”

  The next day, Raia took my hand as we climbed the tower. She dragged out a variety of tools in a bucket.

  “Before anything else, we’d better weed. Then…” She ruffled and inspected leaves and flowers. “We need to pluck the purple beetle larva off the calm berries! Look at all of these!” She pulled off some little green wriggly things.

  “Uhh…”

  “Don’t tell me you’re that kind of princess. You had a twin brother. Didn’t he capture lizards and eat worms and things boys do?”

  I screeched w
ith laughter. “No. Not Rin. He was a pain in the ass, but I was more gross than he was. Oszin might do that, though.”

  She handed me a small spade. “Well, you can work on the weeds and I’ll work on larva. The worst are these, with the big half-circle leaves.”

  I looked at the metal tool with uncertainty. “Do you think I could hurt myself?”

  “It’s just digging. I wouldn’t think so. You can’t be that useless.”

  “It’s just that at home I was never allowed to try things like this.”

  “If you can handle Aurek, I bet you can handle that,” Raia said blithely.

  The dragon kingdom was definitely going to be a different sort of place, even if I was never healed. I had guards, family members and courtiers all over me the second I tried to exert myself back home. Father used to lose his mind if he caught me running or skipping or jumping. My short childhood dresses were exchanged for ladies’ gowns years before most girls lowered their hems, in the hope it would discourage me from wild motion.

  Well, the truth remained that I wasn’t strong at all, and soon my whole body was aching, but I dug up lots of weeds and then Raia ordered me a masseuse, so by the time dinner came along I felt much better. Then Aurek and Seron took me down to the baths afterward where the warm water relaxed me again.

  Maybe Raia wasn’t such a bad handmaiden after all.

  In my first few weeks in the fortress, the garden started working its way into my heart and mind as I realized that every plant really did have a different little magical spark or medicinal quality. Some of them helped with focus or increased happiness. Others enhanced elemental dragons’ different powers. A few of them were very strong and Raia told me not to try those unless I was careful. “I don’t know what some of them do at all, but then queen must have planted them for a reason.”

  “We’ll have to try them in very tiny doses,” I said.

  “We might die,” she mused.

  “I thought all of this was a tea garden! Would she plant something fatally poisonous?”

  “I’d better try them first. I’m more expendable.”

  “Don’t say that!”

  “You are not trying them first,” Raia said firmly.

  Aurekdel introduced me to his advisors and told me I could attend any meeting of the king’s council. In fact, some meetings he insisted I attend, about relations with my country and important turns of the war with the Traitor King. One day, we had word of villages being attacked in the north, and he had to send a force there to fight them back. There was a send off party for the departing soldiers where I got to sit on the balcony and watch the dragons dance, more jealous than entertained.

  I had been so excited to dance.

  The next morning, I gave a sachet of tea to the leader of the squadron, and Aurek gave them his official blessing. Incense burned smoky-sweet, and drums pounded. Their boats disappeared into the fog and shadows.

  Aurekdel and I watched them sail away from a balcony that looked out over the lake.

  “It’s always bittersweet,” he said.

  “I am used to this sort of life,” I said. “At least, I guess, I’m prepared for it.”

  “How long were the Gaermoni fighting the Emperor?”

  “Always, it seems to me. We assisted our allies for decades before he came for us. It started before I was born. I remember watching them go, just like this, but they were on horses, or in ships. The flags were flying, and bands were playing. I didn’t realize at first that it was sad. I didn’t know how many people died. You must have been aware of death a lot earlier in life than I was.”

  “That’s true. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t aware of death.” He shook his head. “You are a very solemn girl sometimes. I don’t talk about these things very much. At some point, you have to turn your back on death, knowing it’ll get you in the end, but at least you’re happy to the end if you don’t see her coming.”

  “Death is a lady?”

  “Death is a mist dragon, in the lore. And yes, a lady. Women bring you into the world, and women bring you out. It’s no wonder some men are afraid of them.” He grinned. “I have something to make everyone happy, especially you. The convoy from Capamere and Gaermon finally arrived, with food and fabric and letters and even a mage’s projection from your brother. Shall we go watch it? You can see it alone before I show it to everyone in Hemara.”

  “Oh yes!”

  Mage’s projections captured visual moments in time in a bubble of magic, which could be cast onto a wall or screen and shown to crowds. They didn’t have sound and only lasted a few minutes, so I knew I wouldn’t get much more than Rin’s face.

  Of course, projections were usually used for propaganda, so I was greeted with the image of Priestess-Empress Phoebe, six months pregnant, and her five guardians, at some sort of official event, standing under the flags of the empire and clasping the hands of excited citizens. Including my brother, the emperor.

  He’d never wanted the job. He didn’t want to be the king of Gaermon, much less emperor of the entire realm. But he looked happy and well, grinning and holding his head high. It must have put him at ease to share the burden with the guardians. He was well-dressed in Gaermoni formal attire, with loose sleeves and a trim waist and trousers, boots and a cloak. At one point he put his hand on Phoebe’s stomach and it looked his mouth was saying that he felt the baby, and the crowd waved their little flags.

  Seron was describing the visuals to Aurekdel, while I teared up.

  I missed Rin so much, and I missed home, and I wanted to be whole and healthy. Seeing the guardians and Phoebe so joyous over the baby, I even felt the first pang of my life that I couldn’t have that either.

  “There are letters to read too,” Seron said. “Some are in the human language.”

  “Himika should read those to us, then,” Aurek said. “When you feel up to it.”

  “But I also have one from our ambassador there, and Guardian Niko has written to us directly,” Seron said.

  Aurek put his hand on my back. I felt tension. Some part of Aurek didn’t trust any mist dragon, not even one who was supposedly on his side. “All right, let’s hear that one.”

  The letter was short. Niko—wisely, I think—didn’t push any points. He wanted permission to look for his mother and use Hemara as the base for his search.

  “‘My mother wanted me to serve the priestess, knowing the priestess serves the king of the dragons’,” Seron read. “‘Despite the threat that she might now work for the Traitor King, I don’t believe it. I am on the brink of seeing the woman I love have a child of her own, and already I feel so protective of her and this unborn baby that I would bite the head off the man who looks at her wrong. I am sure my mother would never have sent me away into the unknown if she didn’t feel strongly. I believe it is worth asking if she might be an important key in fighting your wars. I request your aid, as one near-orphan to another.’”

  “Well…,” Aurek said.

  “You must allow him to come,” Seron said. “He’s one of the guardians.”

  “I’m pretty good at recognizing a manipulative bastard,” Aurek said.

  “Then, you know your own kind.” Seron shrugged one arm.

  As usual, Aurek and Seron tossed insults at each other freely, and neither of them seemed to care.

  “He isn’t going to be content with just looking for his mother. He’s going to ask questions and demand a place at the table for the mist dragons. I don’t have time for that right now. I’m fighting a war. I don’t need anyone to undermine it, or on the other hand, risk someone assassinating Niko because mist dragons killed their loved ones.”

  “But what could you possibly tell him?” Seron asked. “You won’t let him look for his own mother? We have to treat him as a guest. Not only is he one of the guardians, but they appointed him trade minister.”

  Aurek growled. “He’s a former smuggler.”

  “Well, who better?”

  “I know I sound like
the bad guy here.” Aurek seemed to be addressing me now. “But this war and the resentment with the mist dragons is no joke.”

  Seron stood up, his height making him immediately more intimidating. “I don’t think you have a choice, Aurek. We can’t snub any of the guardians.”

  Aurek stood up too. “I’ll do what’s best for my people.”

  “This is what’s best.”

  “The mist dragons might have killed your father, Seron. Does it bother you at all to make such a symbolic concession? Niko might not understand that, but everyone here will take it the wrong way!”

  Seron turned to the projection, which was cycling over and over. “He’s not my father if he was never willing to say so.”

  Aurek grabbed his shoulder. “Hey! Don’t turn away from this. How can you forgive them?”

  “I hate the Traitor King and everyone who works for him, but I don’t hate all mist dragons. I don’t hate Niko. That just isn’t…how I feel.”

  I had never seen them yell at each other like this. The air was bristling, Aurek’s hand still gripping Seron’s coat. My stomach plunged. I understood both of them—Seron had a noble heart, but I also knew what it was to feel a hatred that burned too hot to satisfy. I had been to enough meetings of the advisors’ council to realize the scope of the danger. I put myself between them, looking at Seron, giving Aurek a soothing touch.

  “Aurek…you said the court will soon have to move for the fog season, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Phoebe will have her child in three months. Put Niko off for now. Tell him it’s dangerous to welcome such a guest in the middle of the move, for his own safety. Suggest that this way, he can be there for his priestess.”

  They both seemed to come down a little.

  “That is…fair,” Aurek said, stroking my face. “It gives us time to prepare the court for the idea and plan for security. Yes. Quick thinking…my clever wife.” He took my hand and started to lead me back to his chair.