He moved toward the dummies. The sword grazed one of their straw necks and then he slashed back, one foot sliding backward, to cut another one across the chest, before dancing to the third dummy and bringing the sword down as if to cut him in two down the middle. There was control in every movement as he blunted his force before damaging the practice dummies. He must know the parameters of the room like the back of his hand, because I had never seen him move with so little hesitation. He turned to me and returned the sword to its sheath. “My lady.”
I clapped. “Aurek! That was marvelous!”
“I know,” he said. “I’m very good.”
“Ooh…I’m jealous. I want to do that!” I moved my blade around, trying to look even half as good as that. Of course, when I tried it, it didn’t look graceful at all. “Please, finish showing me something!”
He walked over to me, slipping a hand around the small of my back and pulling me against him. “You’re too cute. How does Oszin say no to you? Come on, then. Put that away and try to draw again… Yes.” He checked my hand position again. “Lower this top hand away from the guard a bit.”
“I was trying to keep them apart like you said.”
“Mm, but not that much.”
“This is better, right?”
“Yes.”
“Now you’re going to hold it out like this.” He put his hands over mine. “And to swing…you’re going for a cut. This is a chop, right, up and down? But you want to cut. So it starts like a chop, but then flows into a slash…” I could feel how strong his arms were in comparison to my aching little stick arms when he showed me how to lift and then bring down the blade.
“Over your head—high—so the blade is touching the sky—“ He hesitated for only a second when he realized how hard this was for me. “And then down, like a circle.”
“Aurek, you always seem like you know where you’re going and who’s around. If you’re that good—why can’t you fight?”
“I know Hemara castle,” he said. “And my own court. That’s all. I have fought, on occasion, when I have to. But in general, I’d just be someone for Seron to worry about.”
“Yes…that’s what Oszin says about me…”
“Well, we’re just practicing, so it’s neither of their business, is it?” He gestured at the wall. “Go try it on the dummy. I can tell you’re itching for it.”
“You’re right.”
I guess I just really wanted to hit something. I imagined the dummies were the soldiers who took me from my home after they killed my father. I shouted like Rin and Oszin always did when they practiced.
“Haah!” I swung the sword up and brought it down, the force rattling up to my shoulders as the wooden blade hit the armored straw. “Kyaaah!” My arms were shaking but it felt so good. And the last dummy, I thought, is Emperor Leonidas.
I could still see his face in my mind, although I tried to scrub it. He was old enough to be my father, but fit and tall with thick hair, unlike my balding father. At first I thought he was a little handsome.
Time cured me of that.
“How does it feel?” I cried, as I brought the sword down on the dummy. “Asshole!”
When the sword made contact, I was forced to drop it as an excruciating pain shot through my shoulder and I sank to my knees, clutching it, hissing through my teeth.
“Himika.” Aurekdel was on me immediately, following my arms to my clenched fingers. “Is it just your shoulder?”
“Just that. Yeah,” I spat as tears flooded my eyes.
“I’m going to touch it,” he said, probing my skin gently. “Hmm.”
“It hurts,” I choked, not feeling very badass anymore. “Gah! I just—damnit—“
“You might have pulled a muscle,” Aurek said. “Can you walk to the baths?”
I was in so much pain I wanted to retch. “Get a healer!”
He realized the severity of it now and ran to the door. “I’ll be right back,” he said. I curled up, clutching at the pain, trying to wait it out. My bones healed quickly. At least there was that. I just had to endure.
In another moment, Aurek returned with Seron, who immediately put his huge hand on my shoulder, pulling mine out of the way, all business. “I feel fragments of crystal separated from your shoulder joint,” he said. “And there’s a fracture, too. Hmm. Maybe more than one.”
My vision was dancing as Seron carefully repositioned me so my arm was down at my side.
“Dear gods,” Aurekdel murmured. “Can you fix it or is this beyond you?”
“I’ll try now, and if not, we’ll get someone.”
“Don’t tell Oszin about this!” I cried. “He’ll never let me forget this. I still want to practice. I won’t do anything like that again. I’ll be careful.”
“Man, I don’t know about all that,” Seron muttered. “What were you doing down here, Aur?”
“She was beating the shit out of the emperor, I believe,” Aurekdel said. “In a sense.”
Seron gave me a look of admiration even as he shook his head. “Well, the two of you sure deserve each other.”
I felt warmth and relief flood me as his hands shifted, healing me. I gripped his shirt, looking at him gratefully.
“Don’t get too excited,” Seron said. “I eased your pain and tried to put things back together, but only time will truly fix it. And whatever you did today…you’d better not do it again.”
“I understand.” I wrestled with more tears. “Oszin’s right. There’s no point in me fighting. I’ll only hurt myself.” I squeezed Aurekdel’s hand. I knew he understood.
The scales on his hands melted away before he cupped my face. When he felt a few tears, he wiped them away with his thumb. “I don’t want to give up on you,” he said. “Maybe we’ll find an answer when we move to Irandal, in the ancient halls of the old kings. Seron, has there been any sign of Morlis?”
“Oh, yeah, I know where Morlis is and I just decided not to tell you,” Seron said, narrowing his eyes. “I’m trying to get everyone ready to move. I’m just waiting for the scouts, same as you.”
“We’ll keep practicing,” Aurek said. “Very gently. If you should ever be healed, you’ll be ready.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Ezeru
The room was buzzing with the curious chatter of the normal rock dragons as they led the old man through the heavy doors of the throne room. For a crystal dragon, he was not especially pretty, not like Tiriana was. This was Morlis the crystal mage? Just a stooped old man?
“Be quiet!” the Mist King commanded the rock dragons. Some of the other mist dragons shushed them.
Queen Izeria walked up to Morlis and brushed her hand over his head. “To what do we owe this occasion?”
“Way to treat a guest, eh? I asked to accept your terms to come here and you still send your little monsters to drag me in? I want to see Tiriana, of course. That’s all.”
“It’s been twenty years, and you want to see her now? Forgive us for being suspicious. Now, that is love! Abandoning her to her enemies for two decades and paying us to keep her here!” The King Dvaro raised a glass to him. “That is no way to treat a beloved…”
“I did what she would have wanted. and I watched over the two children she raised. Now…I just want to see her.”
The queen frowned. “I wish you’d come when she was still well. He made me torture her.” She cast a look over the shoulder at the king. He gave her a wink back.
“I am trusting you to keep your word and not torture me,” Morlis said. “Just allow me to share her prison.”
The mist dragons of the court hovered around the fringes, staring at him through a haze of smoke in the room. The rock dragons were trying very hard to be good. I could see their minds straining under the effort. They weren’t good at staying still. My eyes shot to the little ones, hardly bigger than lizards.
Damn it.
Taz had turned into his humanoid form and darted toward the stranger. The damned nurse, a young mis
t dragon who was turning into more of a flirt by the day, never paid that much attention. His little hand flexed. “Man. Shiny man,” he said, loudly enough for the king and queen to hear.
Taz’s attention seemed to be caught by a string of crystals that the old mage wore dangling from his sash. Before he could touch them, the queen smacked him back.
“Riza!” she snapped at the nurse.
The young woman gasped with horror, grabbed the child’s arm, and struck his face hard three times. He immediately started sobbing. “Be quiet!” She jerked him back and handed him to a mist dragon guard, who removed him from the room.
The mage lifted his crystals, blinking, like he’d just realized what had happened. “He could have touched them. It wouldn’t hurt.”
“He’s a boy. He needs to learn,” King Dvaro said. “You’ll see. You’ll be surprised at how civilized rock dragons can be with some training in childhood.”
No one even looked at me anymore when these things happened. I didn’t make stupid, rebellious moves anymore. I would give King Dvaro no reason to cut out my tongue.
“Ah, yes, I’ve seen what you call ‘civilized’,” Morlis said.
“Ezeru,” the king said. “Escort the willing captive into the hands of Perina, and tell him what he needs to know.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” I bowed to the king and queen and then nodded at Morlis. “Come with me.”
I could feel the mist dragon ladies turning away. They tried so very hard not to look at me.
Once, when I was about eighteen, one of the queen’s handmaidens whispered to me, “I don’t think it’s right, what they did.” She was blushing. “I don’t think you’re an abomination.” Later, she was beaten and dismissed from her position for looking at me the wrong way.
I was glad Dvaro had allowed me to escort the mage. The dungeons were my second home; I used to help distribute food to the prisoners, the ones who were captured forever with no hope of freedom, often with their minds tainted by mists. Tiriana was one such prisoner, and I knew her story. She was the nurse of the blind king as well as his champion, who was her own son. She saved their lives and was like a mother to them both after the queen’s death, but she also liked to fight, ignoring the guard assigned to her. Perina said she must have been very brave, but such a woman was an easy target when the court moved to the northern castle. After she was captured, her clothes were placed on another woman’s corpse. By the time the court would pass by again, the animals would have cleaned the bones, leaving scraps of clothing behind for identification.
The dragons of the court thought she had died fighting, when in fact, she was a prisoner. Queen Izeria tortured her, trying to get her to spill some sort of state secrets, but she gave her too strong a dose of a very strong, rare mist and the woman lost her mind. I wasn’t sure why she was never offered for ransom. But now I know…Morlis was paying Dvaro to keep her in prison?
As I knew Tiriana, she was always singing for Perina. No one knew so many songs as a nursemaid did.
We were halfway down the stairs when Morlis suddenly noticed me.
“You’re—the rock dragon,” he said. “The one the court’s talking about.”
I didn’t reply.
“You’re tall,” he said. “But not as big as Lord Seron.”
“Magic matters more than size in this world,” I said.
“You’re a little gaunt. Maybe they don’t have enough to eat here.”
Idle chatter was a bad idea. Someone was always listening. “Do you know what state Tiriana is in?” I asked, my voice a threatening rasp.
“No…,” Morlis said. “But…I believe I will still be happy to see her again.”
“She probably won’t remember you.”
“That’s…fine,” Morlis said, with an odd pause.
He followed me down the stairs, looking all around as if fascinated. Peri was stoking the fire in the little cookstove down in the guard room. She rose, shutting the door.
Considering she was old enough to be a grandmother and had been through so much, Peri still somehow gave off a sense of youth. She was of medium-height, reed-thin and very nimble, with long fingers and dark eyes that caught everything. She was dressed very simply in a short dress and boots with wide cuffs and steel toes. She had a knife, a club, and a ring of keys at her belt, as always.
“This is Peri,” I said. “She is the jailer of this castle.”
“Oh, is this a castle? I thought it was more of a cave.”
“This is Gemuru castle. It’s older than Hemara, built into the cave.”
Peri smiled in that way no one could read. She was the one who taught me how to survive, because she had obviously learned it long before me.
“Peri has no tongue,” I said. “Which is the fate of everyone who angers the great King Dvaro of the Mist and Rock clans, and will someday be the fate of the blind king.”
“Oh, that’s all right, you don’t have to say all that big talk. I’m not going to report back to Aurekdel. I’m not leaving this place again.”
Peri’s eyes hooded and she waved us forward. She looked at me pointedly. We had a lot to discuss.
I told Morlis the rules. “The king has permitted you to share the cell with Tiriana, but you have to obey the following: no speaking after the sixteenth king’s hour when the lights will be put out. Never speak to your jailers or other superiors unless they speak to you. On the resting day, you will be given new clothes. Put the old clothes in the sack and hang it on the door. If you spill food on the floor or defecate or urinate outside of the bucket you will be beaten.”
“Oh, you’ll be pleased with me. I always defecate in the bucket,” Morlis said.
I had encountered men who covered up terror with humor before, but I didn’t sense any of that with Morlis. He seemed in some way resigned. It was hard to believe he would really turn himself over to the enemy to be with the woman he loved, only to be completely unconcerned that she might not remember him.
On the way to Tiriana’s cell, I passed the temporary holding cells that usually kept disobedient rock dragons. I saw Taz there in one of the child cells, with the small chains on his feet and a muzzle on his face, the punishment for speaking in the court. He was in his dragon form now, curled up in the corner with his head lowered. I stalked by, avoiding looking at him too closely, and even then I heard his chains stir. A plaintive whimper came from his throat.
It was strange how minds worked. Despite all this, by the time he was an adult, he would be completely loyal to the man and woman who put him there.
Peri’s steps were brisk. She unlooped the keys from her sash and unlocked the door, where Tiriana was sitting on the bed, her legs tucked under her, doing beadwork while humming under her breath. I had a hard time imagining she’d ever been a warrior.
She looked up and her eyes locked on Morlis.
Her face drained of life.
“Tiriana…” He shrugged at her. “You recognize me, don’t you?”
“Morlis.” She choked out his name. “Morlis.” She threw down the beadwork and went to him slowly. “Where are the children?”
Children? Peri signed to me. Tiriana never seemed to even remember the children. She never seemed to connect that the hated King Aurekdel was the boy she had once sheltered.
He made her remember, I suggested in return, behind the backs of Morlis and Tiriana.
Or had she known more than she let on, all this time?
“It’s only me,” Morlis said. “But the children are well. King and champion, and the closest of companions. I suppose you were right. Aurekdel has made a wonderful king.”
She reached for his hand, sobbing freely. “I knew he would. I knew he would…”
Peri glanced at me. This was very strange. Tiriana’s feeble memory rarely made mention of King Aurekdel and Lord Seron and now she almost seemed in her right mind. It was also strange to hear a grown woman sob.
“Hush,” I said. “You know the guards will beat you if they hear you
crying.”
“I don’t care.” She shut her eyes, pressed against his chest. “Didn’t you used to look younger?”
“That is how time works. Especially when you’ve seen this much death and destruction.” He kissed her hair. “What have they done to you?”
“My head is fuzzy now. It’s nice. It doesn’t hurt so much. I just miss the children…” She clutched her head. “You’re sure they are well.”
“Yes.”
“Aurekdel is still blind.”
“He manages.”
“Manages? Oh, gods, the poor boy.”
“Don’t cry. He’s fine. I shouldn’t say it like that. He still wishes he could fight, that’s all, but wishing won’t kill him.”
“You…kept him…safe?”
“I did.” He paused. “The princess who swallowed the dragon’s tear has finally come, but the curse wasn’t broken.”
She gripped his robes, looking sideways at the ground. She started laughing and sobbing at once. “I see…so that’s why you’re here!”
He took a deep breath. “I thought it was time.”
Something was going on. Tiriana never spoke of this. If the mist king could hear this, he would want to question them both. ‘Question’…and torture, like he did before. The queen might well break Morlis’ mind as well.
Peri put a hand on my arm, a signal to leave them alone.
As if she didn’t want us to be implicated.
Yes. Better to pretend we hadn’t heard a word out of Tirian’s mouth.
“Dinner will be put through this wall slot around the thirteenth hour,” I said. “Remember the rules. Good day.”
Peri locked the door behind them and then signed furiously, Where did he come from? Why? After so much time?
I shook my head. I could only guess.
Something is moving with the true king, she said. Soon we may have to move also.
Dvaro will want to attack when the court moves, I responded. Our sign for Dvaro was a slithering tunnel weasel. But there is nowhere to go.
We need to speak to a mist dragon in Aurekdel’s court. She made the frustrated face that meant her signs were failing her. I don’t know if he is there or when he will come. He is from the sky. His name is S-I-L-L-U. He is a G-U-A-R-D-I-A-N. She followed ‘guardian’ with a motion like hands cupping something—protection—that bled into her sign for a person, indicating this was worth making a new sign.
The Kingdoms of Sky and Shadow Box Set: A Fantasy Romance Page 21
