Tytiana

by Marc Secchia

  “You loved her?” she prompted.

  Please, Fra’anior, don’t let him spout some sleazy claptrap …

  “Once I understood what love was, aye, I believe I realised I loved her. But by then it was too late.”

  “So?”

  “So I stopped pestering. With Silver’s help, I started trying to become the man I wanted to be. Not that lost, confused, insecure wastrel I was before. His healing work was all very incomplete when I received word from a spy I had placed in House Cyraxana that Juzzakarr’s behaviour was becoming more and more erratic. This person feared for Ahlyaza’s life, her own, and that of Zihaeri. Against advice and my better judgement, I flew to Helyon to confront Juzzakarr. That was when we fought and he threatened to curse me – with a stone he kept?”

  “The Nestrakil,” Tytiana noted.

  “You say that as if there’s a story behind it?” Aranya questioned. “And … is that one of Flicker’s shell-daughters you have with you?”

  “Aye. This is Wink. She helped Jakani and me in mysterious ways.”

  The Immadian royal said, “I think she’s a Chrysolitic dragonet. Very rare. Beautiful! She is able to travel in mysterious ways, as if she passes into and out of existence, correct?”

  The Helyon pair stared at each other, perhaps thinking the same thing. That explained Wink’s ability to, well, wink about as if the boundaries of time and space were her personal playthings, but not her apparent ability to sense impending danger and leap to the aid of one or the other of them – how much had she helped? That day the carriage had slipped. The time Jakani had run to Tytiana’s help as the tower blazed around her. The way he had described leaping through the defending Merxxian Dragonwing to slap her egg against Juzzakarr’s chest, and what had she done with that strange jewel anyways?

  Wink was a mystery.

  Jakani said, “We understand from Flicker, o Queen, that the stone was an artefact containing some remnant of Dramagon’s foul power –”

  Just about everyone in the room said, ‘Ah!’ and Na’axion gasped, “He did curse me!”

  “Aye, maybe so,” the Onyx-Gold said quietly. “Having seen what he could do to Dragons, o Na’axion … well, let me put it this way. You have draconic magic in you, I understand, of a Chaotic nature that you inherited from noble Iridiana. Tytiana shares your heritage, clearly. But Ahlyaza also seemed to have magic, at least, that’s my conclusion from what little I know about her. And that means Juzzakarr could have corrupted both of you without you even knowing it. Dramagon is that powerful.”

  “I understand … about Dramagon,” Na’axion said levelly, but his knuckles whitened painfully upon his canes. “May I?”

  Tytiana indicated the bed. “Sit.”

  He sat heavily. “Well, this is instructive. I always wondered why Ahlyaza finally gave in to my demands, that one time. It was the eve of a Ball and Juzzakarr had just banished me from the House, and from Helyon too – together with his foulest curses. He said he would put a price on my head if the magic didn’t take me first. I arranged to meet Ahlyaza one last time –”

  “At midnight, beneath the jinsumo?” Tytiana guessed.

  “Aye! She kept that note?”

  “I found it hidden in her ball gown,” she said.

  Very softly, Na’axion said, “What I want you to know, Tytiana, is that what happened beneath the flowering jinsumo – that was the first and only time in my life that I have been with a woman where our desire was mutual and untainted by my meddling. I declared my love for her. She said, very gently and truthfully, that her duty was to her child and her House, and that she never wanted to see me again – but that in parting, she wanted to grant me the gift I had always prized above all others. I thought … I thought it was about the act itself, Tytiana. That is why I said you were conceived in love. A selfish view I see now, for I wonder –”

  She whispered, “Don’t say it. Whatever you’re about to say –”

  “I wonder if that gift wasn’t you.”

  Chapter 32: Healing Fire

  ROYAL WEDDINGS HAD a way of spouting imperatives like a certain Queen of Immadia, say, hustling matters into an order she preferred. Aunt Aranya was – well, daunting, Tytiana had decided, and wonderful and great-hearted and dazzling in ways that could only be ascribed to a Star Dragoness.

  She had to chuckle as Aranya wound up a tale of how she grew radiant at times of high emotion or grave danger – did that sound like anyone she could poke with a short stick, she teased, chucking Tytiana beneath the chin?

  When a star delighted themselves in a long-lost great-niece, the Island-World delighted with them.

  “Still, newly-minted royals require baths,” Aranya said, wrinkling her nose humorously. “It’s no great surprise, Tytiana, that your hair smells of smoke after all you’ve been through today. And, I’ve asked the servants to prepare the bathing pool with a herbal concoction of my own devising. I think you’ll feel greatly refreshed afterward – if you feel able?”

  “I’d like that,” Tytiana smiled. She had been smiling so much, the muscles around her mouth hurt.

  In short order, there was a friendly sisterly squabble over who got to throw the chaotic flame-shifter into the bath, which Iridiana won, and then she was whisked away to a fragrant-smelling, arched chamber which housed a bath half of Jakani’s village could have used for a swimming pool. The columns supporting the domed ceiling were green marble, and the ceiling was one single, seamless artwork depicting stargazing Dragons. And the bath itself … bubble mountains! Tytiana had never seen quite so many –

  “Bubbles the colours of Aranya’s hair?” she inquired of her grandmother.

  Iridiana’s mouth quirked upward at the edges. “You’re observant, my sweet flame. I’d wager half of Fra’anior’s riches to a rusty dral, there’s magic in this water.”

  “Must be to create that much foam,” said Tytiana, waving toward the two-foot tall billows of kaleidoscopic bubbles that filled the pool, which had to measure twenty feet across. “What’s with the size – was this built for Dragons?”

  The Chaos Shifter laughed merrily. “No, just a smidgen of the fabled Fra’aniorian wealth on display.”

  After wobbling one-legged down into the warm water, Tytiana chatted at length with her grandmother while she swam about very slowly, learning much about her heritage in the Kingdom of Kaolili in faraway Wyldaroon, and the extraordinary story of her birth and upbringing. The warmth of the slowly-effervescing water lulled her into a state of sleepiness. Iridiana showed her a floating harness for her head and shoulders, which promised to keep a sleeper’s head above the waterline should they do what every iota of her body yearned to, and then left her for an urgent meeting, she said.

  Perhaps this is the whole point. A healing sleep is just what the Star Dragoness ordered … Tytiana drifted off into a dreamless slumber.

  She awoke to a very slight change in motion. Someone had just gently pushed her away from the edge, she realised after a disoriented second, shifting carefully in the floating harness for fear of upsetting herself in the water.

  “Uh, are you a servant?” she asked, failing to spy the person over the shimmering billows. “Could you kindly bring me a towel?”

  “Of course.”

  Feet pattered on the mosaic tiles that surrounded the bath. Bare feet. Tytiana’s brain stirred sluggishly. Ooh, she felt as if she had been punched by a hundred-foot Dragon made of pure velvet. Her muscles were all loose and unsteady.

  “Uh, on second thoughts, girl, could you kindly help me rinse out my hair with clean water, minus all the lovely bubbles and soaps?”

  Laughter like a bird’s trilling echoed from the vaulted ceiling.

  Tytiana put her foot down, balanced herself carefully, and raised her head above the bubble-line. There was a girl holding out a white, fluffy towel to her – a child? A petite person of gleaming mahogany skin, huge dark eyes, elfin chin, and curly black hair braided into a close, intricate style she had never seen before. I
n fact, she had never seen skin so dark it had a sheen like obsidian, and black hair that where it escaped formed unmanageably dense curls.

  “Oh,” she said. “Where are you … so gorgeous?”

  “Careful,” said the dark girl, in her delightfully exotic voice. “Do you need a hand?”

  “I can manage,” said Tytiana. “I’ve just one leg – um, I meant to ask – where are you from?” Turning rosier by the moment, she added, “I’m confused. Do you work here at the Palace?”

  “Thank you for the compliment,” trilled the mite, holding out her hand.

  Hopping over to the side of the bath, Tytiana accepted the girl’s help in working the flotation harness free of her shoulders. She pressed the proffered towel to her face mostly to give herself space to think. Something did not feel right. Despite her diminutive size, that girl looked and acted older than her apparent age. Indeed, there was an innate sense of power about her that was starting to wake parts of her which had clearly been very much asleep.

  “Uh … you don’t actually work here, do you?”

  The other bowed fluidly. “Sorry, I should have introduced myself. I’m Pip of the Crescent Isles. The Pygmy Dragoness, if the title helps.”

  Tytiana gasped in horror. “Oh … oh, suffering caroli, can I just sink back beneath these bubbles and never be seen again? Your – uh, Majesty, I didn’t – the insult –”

  First Jakani, now her? Would they ever stop insulting legends?

  Pip’s mobile mouth cracked into the broadest of grins. “Most people mistake me for ten or so, so you’re in good company. Besides, I was up to mischief sneaking in on you – Iridiana asked me to check up on you, and frankly, I was curious to meet this newcomer who has Fra’anior Cluster abuzz, almost upstaging a royal wedding!” She wagged her forefinger sternly. “No sinking away beneath bubbles allowed. Don’t look so terrified, petal. It is not generally considered polite for Shapeshifter Dragonesses to eat relatives. Mostly. How are you with nudity taboos, Tytiana? Given as you are completely clothed in fetching bubbles?”

  “Oh, somebody pinch me – ouch! That wasn’t an invitation.”

  “What are you going to do –” Pip reached out to punch Tytiana’s shoulder lightly “– throw a few bubbles at me?”

  Perhaps the Pygmy Dragoness had forgotten her own strength, to which Jakani’s uncanny strength had been compared. Perhaps Tytiana forgot for a half-second that she was missing half a leg. Whatever the case, as she lost her balance she flung out an arm, which Pip gamely grabbed onto. However, the surge of water onto the tiling played them both false – or was it a tiny, answering streak of mischief that might have tightened her grip at the crucial second, causing Pip’s bare feet to slip?

  Kersplash!

  Surfacing, Tytiana spluttered, “Sorry! I’m just a clumsy –”

  “No, you aren’t – on both counts,” said Pip, who now wore a helmet of bubbles upon her intricate braids. Apparently, ending up in the pool was no problem at all. “I could do with washing off a bit of the travel dust and pollen. Thanks for the subtle hint.”

  Tytiana reddened again. “It wasn’t.”

  “Bah. I can see I’m going to have to beat some mischief into you, like I’ve been doing to Aranya and Iridiana for years.”

  Discomfited. Discombobulated. Drenched and desperate to impress – Tytiana found herself looking at her reactions from what seemed to be slightly afar, as she did sometimes, and wondering at herself. Maybe she could learn a lesson or two from Jakani. He seemed to roll so easily with the unexpected. She wished she could do the same.

  Puffing a few bubbles off her arm toward the Pygmy Dragoness, she said, “So, Great-Aunt Aranya promised to explain, but I suppose I should simply extort the information out of you now that we’re both in this bubble soup together.”

  “Extort?” Pip’s eyebrows peaked. “I like the sound of that!”

  “So, take an Immadian from the far North, a Crescent Islander and Pygmy from the middle reaches and a blue-skinned lady from Herimor – can you explain to me exactly how we are all related?”

  “That’s quite a tale.”

  Finding herself beaming at Pip, Tytiana said, “If I were Iridiana I could literally become ‘all ears’, but for my part, I’ll simply say I’m burning to know. Apparently you three saved the Island-World from certain extinction. Shall we start there?”

  Pip answered, “I can see that you’re following in family tradition, o Tytiana the Radiant.”

  Glancing down at her glowing arms, she sighed. “I just feel so ignorant. Can you start by explaining what this … inner radiance … is all about?”

  “Aye, I can. It’s simple. You see, Tytiana, when a star shines, she shines with what we call a beautiful fury. That’s what lives within you. That’s who you were born to be. You are a creature of fire and fury, of magic and mystery – and when you are truest to yourself, when you place yourself squarely in the epicentre of your destiny and pursue it with all the integrity, love and honour you can muster, that’s when all the beautiful fury within you will ignite. Then, you will illuminate everyone and everything.”

  * * * *

  Jakani found a surprisingly radiant Tytiana atop the Palace that evening, gazing at the spectacular colours of a Fra’aniorian suns-set – but what was astonishing to him, was the smile with which she assaulted the constitution of his knees. Sure, the volcanic atmosphere continued to do magic with the suns’ golden radiance, the gardens were vibrant and the dragonet song trilling over the city even more so. The backdrop to Miss Radiant was only the most spectacular scene in the Island-World. She wore a formal, high-necked Fra’aniorian lace gown in pristine white that framed her slender figure like an icicle of pure fire, as if that image made any sense at all … Wink slept curled up in a hank of her hair, right there in the crook of her neck, her tiny white muzzle pressed against Tytiana’s pulse.

  Right. Let’s try remembering to breathe, here, Dirt Picker.

  Not easy.

  “You look nice,” he offered casually.

  Her smile widened.

  “Uh, and it’s a nice suns-set, too. Everything’s very … nice.”

  Oh? I can read your mind, Mister Nice.

  No, you … can you? Please tell me you can’t read all my nasty little thoughts.

  You were being very sweet, Jakani So-Handsome Sakazi, and you look rather nice yourself. She giggled sweetly, and added, But aye, I’m a bit confused – alright, a lot confused – by everything I’m reading from people around me. Even my grandmother, Iridiana. And Na’axion – which ranged between ‘ugh’ and ‘he’s actually alright.’ Sort of. How do I ever forgive him for all that he did?

  Do you need to? I mean, it all happened before you were born. Jakani paused.

  You mean, that’s between him and his conscience. The furrows eased from Tytiana’s brow without her fury erupting as it ordinarily would have. That in itself was a shock. He had been braced for it. You were thinking that the chaotic fire-degradation manifest in his person might as much stem from Dramagon’s accursed magic as Fra’anior’s punishment, and you felt cruel for entertaining such thoughts. He felt his jaw drop, and it stayed that way, but the tall heiress merely extended her hand to invite him into her embrace. Twining her arms about him as she gazed deep into his eyes, she said, O Jakani, thou art noble indeed. I’ll tell you who is a gift – you are, to me.

  Suffering spiders, you are reading my thoughts!

  I think I am. I’ll try not to. Only the sweet ones. Not, for example, what you’re contemplating doing with your hands right now.

  Tytiana!

  Alright, that was a teensy lie – but now you are.

  Jakani burst out laughing. Guilty as charged. You made me. He caressed the small of her back with both hands. Was I thinking about this?

  Close, but not quite. I believe your moral standards are somewhat lower. Say, about five inches or so?

  A few minutes later, when they had not quite managed to detonate each other’s po
wers with a lengthy and ardent kiss, he murmured, Mmm, and slipping further into dissipation by the moment. Great leaping Islands, Tytiana, I’m going to have to use a bench if you insist upon growing so tall. Sore neck.

  I’m cheating. Heels, she chortled, lifting her hemline a couple of inches to show him her very pretty three-inch red heels.

  Rainbows! Those are gorgeous shoes, sweet pea. Tell me, however, don’t you just clip on a longer leg? Between you, your grandmother and great-aunt, I’m overshadowed by all the women around here. Me and Asturbar both, actually.

  But never over-handsomed, are you, my –

  “Kids,” said Asturbar, very drily indeed.

  “Kids,” Iridiana agreed.

  Tytiana and Jakani jumped apart with identical yelps.

  “We kissed like that, once,” said the huge Azingloriax warrior, drawing Iridiana against his side.

  “Still do. He has a terrible case of wandering hands, too,” Iridiana admitted, which was probably a little more information than Jakani felt he strictly needed to know about his flame’s grandparents.

  “Decades in the making,” Asturbar agreed readily. “Runs in the family, I see? Anyways, when you’re done turning her into Tytiana the Roseate – say, Jakani, there’s a family kidnapping starting tomorrow. Why not make it a double?”

  “Ever tried to kidnap a living flame?” he shot back.

  “Easy,” he said. “Look, I got stuck on a desert Island with a girl of pure chaos. Married her quick as a wink.”

  Wink glanced up as if someone had just mentioned her name. When she realised no-one was paying her the slightest attention, she gave a disgruntled little chirrup and blinked out of existence.

  Jakani nodded.

  Asturbar added, “We can talk, son, but I can tell you from experience that when a girl kisses you like that, I suggest you had better hitch up your armour and do what is right by her.”

  “Uh … aye, sir.”

  Iridiana ribbed her husband about embarrassing the grandchildren, whereupon he attempted to whisk her off her feet and provide even more embarrassment. Asturbar ended up kissing a small thornbush. “Ooh,” he chuckled, rubbing his bleeding upper lip. “That hasn’t happened in a while.”