Aranya (Shapeshifter Dragons) (7 page)

The hard point of Zip’s staff thumped her chest. “Ready?”

She was so irritating!

The two girls
circled, testing each other with sharp blows. As Aranya had suspected, Zip was fast–very fast–and capable. She handled her ironwood staff with ease, whirling it from attack to attack with hypnotising suppleness and speed. Aranya received a clout on her thumb and a thump on the bone atop her left shoulder. She speared Zuziana in the ribs in riposte. The staves fell into a click-clack rhythm, faster and faster, whirling through the cool, motionless air of the fighting arena to fall upon each other in thrust and parry. Aranya wondered if Sylakian warriors had once trained here, or if it had been a gladiator-pit. The Sylakians were ridiculously proud of their gladiators. There was one tournament where fights were to the death.

Her inattention earned her a bruising blow on her knee
cap.

“Awake now?” Zip taunted her. “Warmed up? Ready for the real battle to commence?”

Aranya rested her staff in the sand for a moment, renewing her grip on the wood. The staff was as tall as she was. She could keep Zip at bay with her longer reach, but the wretched girl buzzed around her like a pesky wasp on a hot summer’s day.

Without further ado, Zuziana dove into the attack.
No jest. That really had been the warm-up, for her. A scowl creased the petite little face as Zip’s staff picked up speed, blurring around her head and shoulders. Her own staff jerked this way and that, trapping the blows, skittering and rasping as she pushed Zuziana away, only to have her fingers thoroughly mashed for her trouble.
Smack!
Her knee collapsed and Aranya went down.

Zip stepped back. “Enough, your lady-ship?”

The pun was blatant; Zip comparing her to a Dragonship. Fire smouldered dangerously within her. Again, the torches around the room flickered as though a sudden breeze had entered that dead, forgotten chamber.

She leaped to her feet. “I thought you were th
rough with the talking, sparrow?”

They clashed furiously, driving in hard, swinging the ironwood staves with intent to break fingers and snap ribs. Around and around they battled. Their breaths started to come in gasps. Aranya’s longer arms kept Zip ineffective for periods of time, but the smaller girl was a ferocious fighter and simply would not give up. Aranya launched a powerful overhead attack, beating Zuziana to her knees with a flurry of blows, but she wriggled free and riposted, deflecting Aranya’s staff into the sand before kicking her in the stomach.

“Oof!”

Zip leaped in; Aranya swept horizontally with her staff as she rolled head-over-heels across the sand. All she collected was a mouthful of dust. Zuziana thrashed her three times on the back of her legs. Aranya broke away quickly, coughing and spitting.

“Like … your spanking?” panted the smaller girl.

Aranya flung a handful of sand into her face.

“Hey!”

She pounded Zuziana in the ribs, but her follow-up blow missed. Aranya tripped her up by trapping her toes with the point of her staff, before throwing herself on her opponent, sinking her knee into her stomach, and forcing her staff downward, trying to stifle Zuziana’s counterattack. But the crafty girl punched her right in the eye.

They fell apart, groaning.

Aranya was the first to clamber to her feet. She wiped her eye. There was blood trickling
from a cut. She blinked to clear her vision. She smelled smoke in her nostrils. There was so much anger in her, so much hurt and pain at having been exiled, that she was finding it almost impossible not to pour it out on her tormentor. But she knew somehow that that decision, once made, would change everything. She had to choose a better way.

Instead, lifting her staff, she chose to channel her anger into the wood. With that as a focus, she would not be tempted to kill the girl.

Maybe.

“
Yeeeeaaah!
” screamed Aranya.

The strength of her assault staggered Zuziana. Aranya tried to overpower her, to beat the staff out of her hands, to break the resistance of her arms with an overwhelming attack. Her breath hissed through her teeth like a hungry fire licking around dry wood. In quick succession she scored hits on her
opponent’s elbow and right thigh, followed by a skull-rattling connection with the back of her head. Zip retreated, showing real concern for the first time. But she did not give up. Suddenly she rolled in underneath Aranya’s defence and tangled with her legs. Aranya howled as Zip bit her calf muscle.

“You wretch!”

She kicked Zip away. Aranya channelled her utmost fury into the ironwood grasped in her hands. Her staff whistled down, smoking through the air. It cracked Zuziana’s staff in twain.

Both girls stared. Ironwood, broken? Impossible
.

With an animalistic growl, Aranya sprang atop of her opponent. Using her superior weight and strength, she forced her staff down across Zuziana’s throat. The girl writhed and fought like a crazed rajal, but Aranya ignored the blows to her face and chest. This was for her humiliation. This was for Immadia
. This was for her dead mother.

Pinned to the sand by her neck,
by the wild strength coursing through her opponent, Zuziana began to choke.

“Give up? Give up?”

“Never.”

“Ladies!”

Hands, rough hands, reached in and tore them apart. Three warriors wrenched Aranya off Zuziana; another two prevented the smaller girl, who was frothing and bleeding at the mouth, from throwing herself at Aranya again. Panting, bloodied and hurting, they faced each other.

Aranya shook off the warriors’ hands. The lamps were ablaze, so much so that several had cracked with the additional heat, but as her fury cooled, so did the l
ighting until Nelthion, Zuziana and all the warriors glanced about them in puzzlement. She said nothing. The thought of revealing her powers snuffed out her heatedness; it scared the living pith out of her.

“Ladies. Taking a little morning exercise?” Nelthion’s tone was scathing. “Duels are expressly forbidden in my Tower. Don’t want daddies descending on this place
in full battle array demanding to know what happened to their precious little Princesses.”

Aranya uncurled her fingers from the ironwood staff. The wood was charred where she had gripped it. Charred!

“Now, my men will escort you back to your rooms. You two will patch each other up. You will report to my office in one hour, together, where I will assign your punishment. Don’t ever let me see stupidity of this magnitude again.”

A warrior scooped up the two halves of Zuziana’s staff and handed them to her. “How do you break ironwood, lady?”

“Ask the monster from Immadia,” sulked Zip.

Nelthion bellowed, “Enough!”

* * * *

Zip had a broken forefinger and a swollen, split lip.
She had two lumps on her forehead that made her look surprised–or like she was growing horns–and a magnificent purpling bruise across her neck. Aranya sported a black eye that by evening had swelled completely shut, despite the generous application of cool cloths. She had a generous collection of bruises in a range of colours similar to her hair. Neither of them could walk properly for a week.

The punishment Nelthion determined was for the two Princesses to serve their compatriots dinner every evening for a month, and to wash dishes in the kitchen for the same period of time. The servants loved it.
Aranya was convinced the dirty dishes multiplied by themselves overnight. Their fellow-exiles missed no opportunity to take advantage of them; the torment was merciless. Dinners were suddenly well attended and lasted twice as long as before. Aranya could cheerfully have throttled any of them–and Beri, too. She, even more than Nelthion, made it clear what she thought of the Princess’ behaviour.

Aranya and Zip formed a grudging partnership–not quite a friendship, though.

When the period of punishment had run its course, Aranya disappeared into a frenzy of windroc-painting. Nelthion’s brother had placed ten orders from prospective clients.

“Your teardrop sold for five hundred gold drals,” he said.

Aranya’s mouth hung open.

“Shut the gaping rabbit-hole, petal,” said Beri.

Nelthion inquired, “What shall I do with the money?”

“Put it to my supplies?”

Beri patted her arm in a way that made Aranya growl. “Let old Beri take care of it, alright? Before we all fall off an Island laughing at your ignorance of the real world.”

She was painting up a storm late that evening when Zuziana stopped by. One moment she was delicately finishing a cruel beak, the next, a face po
pped out from behind her easel. “Surprise!”

Aranya clucked crossly. “
Look what you made me do.”

Zip cocked her head cheekily to one side. “Maybe he’s holding a leaf in his beak.”

“My friend, if you’d ever met one of these–and I have–you’d know that beak isn’t meant for anything but tearing strips off–”

“Your favourite War-Hammer of the Sylakian hordes?”

Aranya waved her paintbrush at Zip. “Shall I paint a beard on you? Ignathion is not my favourite … anything!”

“Oh, but you’re on first-name terms with him. I’m not.” Zip added archly, “There’s a rumour circulating in Sylakia Town that you saved him from a windroc.
Smooth, Immadia. Very smooth.”

“If you’re just here to cause trouble …”

“Trouble? Me?” Zuziana plucked a message scroll out of her sleeve with a flourish. “I brought you a letter from King Your-Daddy–you know, leads an Island somewhere north of, well, anywhere? You’ve been ignoring your post, never mind everyone else. People will talk.”

Aranya sighed. “Alright, what’re they saying?”

“I received ten scrolls to your one. Just look at this mountain. Advantages of having a large family. Jealous?”

“No … yes.”
She cracked the Sylakian wax seal on her scroll, which would have been placed by the censor, and unfurled it. “What was it, sixteen brothers and–”

“Seventeen, as of two weeks ago. There’s a new girl in the family,
unnamed as yet. Look, they sent a little drawing of her. Isn’t she just too cute?”

“Even the boys in your family are cute, Zip.”

“If you say so,” she simpered. “To me they’re just irritating brothers. Say, did I tell you that Ignathion’s son is visiting tomorrow? His name is Yolathion. Eighteen summers old.” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively at Aranya. “Apparently, he’s over
seven
feet tall.”

Aranya snorted, “What are you hint
ing at, ever so subtly?”

Zip’s eyes danced in a way that made her feel decidedly hot under the collar. “Maybe you should wear heels?”
She parodied looking up at the ceiling. “Oh, Yolathion, at last I’ve met a man who it would hurt my neck to kiss.”

“Zuziana of Remoy!”

“I’d have him, but I’d have to drag up a ladder every time I wanted to kiss–”

“You’re preposterous.”

But Zuziana’s face grew sterner. “He’s bringing the Supreme Commander’s son on an official visit–Garthion. Have you met him?”

“No.”

“Slime. I’ve met him twice.” Zip looked as though she wanted to spit. “Thinks he owns the Island-World. Definitely has an eye for the ladies. It’s open knowledge he ordered the massacre of Jeradia Island. Now, what news from faraway Immadia?”

Aranya scanned the rest of the text quickly. “Ugh, look, the censor’s been busy. Father thanks me for giving some relief from the tax burden, that’s nice. The twins got their first daggers
. My Mom’s pregnancy is progressing well.”

“Aranya, how do you break ironwood?”

“Huh?” Zip’s changes of conversational direction were the thing that would give her a neck ache, Aranya thought crossly, not some overgrown–oh, Ignathion’s son. Was this the unfolding of a strategy he had hinted at during their journey together?

“Ironwood. It’s unbreakable.”

Aranya muttered, “With the power of my little finger?”

No way was Zuziana going to surprise that secret out of her.

A
s the three
Dragonships of the official delegation manoeuvred over the Tower of Sylakia’s landing field, Aranya found herself thinking back to Zuziana’s words about Garthion, the son of Sylakia’s Supreme Commander, and therefore one of the most powerful men in the world. His moniker was the ‘Butcher of Jeradia’. During the invasion of Jeradia, the mechanism of the town gates had broken down, leaving Garthion and his troops waiting outside for three hours before they could make their triumphal entry to accept Jeradia’s surrender.

Garthion had the entire town lined up before him. He ordered his troops to slay ever
y second person as a punishment.

Aranya wore her Immadian forked daggers openly on her belt. Perhaps the story about the windroc would deter his attention. Her stomach
churned. Aranya tried to tell herself that the sense that something unpleasant was about to happen, was just a bad feeling. Her inner fires stirred fitfully, troubled and capricious.

Zuziana ginned impishly up at her. “Are we wearing heels, o Princess of Tree?”

“Do you ever stop fomenting trouble?”

“Rarely. Keep your door locked tonight.”

Two of the Dragonships descended to disgorge a bevy of richly-dressed passengers and two troops of Crimson Hammers–one hundred picked warriors, members of Sylakia’s elite regiment. The third Dragonship hovered overhead. Aranya noted the war crossbows were drawn. A row of archers kept a beady eye on proceedings.

Clearly, where Garthion moved, his Hammers moved in force.

Zip elbowed Aranya excitedly. “Oh, eyes left! He’s
leopard
. Isn’t that just leopard?”

“Leopard? Where?”

“Him, you silly … as in, I’d like a chunky fillet of that, lightly grilled? As in, he floats my Dragonship around the twin suns?”

“I know that one,” said Aranya, smiling at Zip’s chattering.

As she smiled, the uniformed young giant who was the object of her attention happened to notice her regard. His fellow-officers, obviously perplexed by his distraction, whirled and stared at the two Princesses. One of them punched the tall one on the arm.

“Leopard,” Zip breathed, fanning herself discreetly. “Lean, lithe, luscious … leopard.” Aranya resisted an urge to slap her. “Oh mercy, he’s coming this way.”

He had to be Ignathion’s son. The likeness was unmistakable; he was a younger, slimmer version of his father, but broad-shouldered and muscular enough to be beyond the first growth of manhood. As he approached them, Yolathion removed his helm. He was clean-shaven and angular of cheek and jowl. His eyes smouldered darkly beneath a flip of black hair.

Aranya’s smile widened.

Intending to tuck his helmet beneath his arm, Yolathion dropped it instead, stumbled in scooping it up and came to a skidding halt before the two Princesses. His tan face flushed. “Your smile made me drop my … uh, Aranya? You must be Aranya of Immadia?”

“I am.”
Aranya offered her right hand; the giant warrior seized it as though his life depended on it, blew upon her fingers, made the sign of the peace twice, and kissed her palm as though he wished to imprint his kisses upon her heart. The fire within her sighed. This was no flare, but more like a bank of coals glowing red-hot, spreading molten heat throughout her being.

“You’re beautiful,” she sighed. The sharp end of Zip’s elbow rapped her ribcage. “Uh, I mean Yolathion, son of Ignathion? I’m … pleased to meet you, at last. I am Immadia. Aranya, I mean. Princess.”

“Eloquent,” Zip muttered next to her elbow.

“Yolathion,” he rumbled. With endearing earn
estness he added, “Princess, I’m eternally grateful to you for allowing the windroc to–ah–not rearrange more than my father’s hairstyle. Allow me to convey the appreciation of my family … my father’s consorts, my brothers, my sister and I. We thank you for your gift. It’s an extraordinary piece of artist. Art
work,
I mean.” He reddened. “My tongue is as graceless as you are graceful, o Princess of Immadia.”

She had the impression he had practised this speech. Yolathion’s fingers nervously traced the seating of the red plume on his helm.

“Aranya,” she said. “Call me Aranya.”

Zip cleared her throat.

“Oh–sorry. Yolathion, may I introduce my friend Zuziana, the Princess of Remoy?”

Her friend? Aranya was surprised at herself. When had that happened?

Zuziana looked as though she were about to faint as he kissed her palm. Aranya was on the point of saying something sarcastic and most likely regrettable when Yolathion straightened up. By the mountains of Immadia, he was tall! Aranya was grateful for every inch of her height. And his voice! That bass of his did something inexplicable deep in her belly. She could spend hours just listening to him speak … Aranya shook herself mentally. This was crazy. She had only just met the man.

“You’re tall,” he blurted out. “For a woman, I mean.”

“Heels,” said Aranya.

“Oh.”

“But you’re taller.”

Aranya desperately wanted to string a
few coherent sentences together. Why act like a dazed ralti sheep now? With her eyes, she begged Zip for help. Zuziana seemed to be bottling up a most enormous snort of laughter. Aranya’s cheeks coloured even further.

But before the awkward silence could develop further, Yolathion volunteered,
“You must tell me how you slew the windroc, Aranya. Are those Immadian forked daggers? May I see them?”

“Her story was true?” Zuziana interjected. “She really killed a windroc?”

“With these,” said Yolathion, rotating the twin-bladed daggers in his fingers. Strengthened and sharpened by a secret forging process, the daggers were renowned throughout the Island-World. “My father said to inform you, my lady, that the heart is lower in the body, more toward a windroc’s stomach, than at the level of the chest where you first stabbed it. Are your wounds all healed?”

“Yes, thank you. The crysglass cuts were clean and healed fast.”

“Very fast, according to the physician,” he said. “You must tell me all about Immadia, Princess. And Remoy,” he added, although it was clear which one he meant. “Ah, here comes Garthion. Allow me to introduce you.”

Aranya, grateful for the change of topic from her healing powers, was nonetheless displeased at this interruption.

Garthion was stocky and swarthy, her height without the high heels but thrice her girth. Every movement of his body bespoke absolute, arrogant authority. His gaze, seen over her proffered hand, came from eyes of a pale, watered-down blue, which seemed to contain crystals of ice to her fire. Instead of kissing her palm, he licked it.

Licked it!

Aranya started to wipe her hand on her skirts, before stopping herself cold with a shudder.

“I see they’re making women in your size now, Yolathion,” he commented. “You’ll have to tell me what that’s like. I am Garthion, First War-Hammer of Sylakia, firstborn of the Supreme Commander himself. Look kindly upon me, ladies, and it
shall go well with your kingdoms.”

He bowe
d slightly over Zuziana’s hand and repeated the vile palm-licking exercise. Aranya found herself wincing on Zip’s behalf. She could have slapped Garthion for his clumsy attempt at intimidation.

“Remoy,” he
sneered. “You and I need to talk about taxes. Your family has reneged on my share of late.” He turned to Aranya with an unctuous smile. “I wish to view these famous artworks of yours. I will visit you in your chambers after dinner. Perhaps I can persuade you to paint my portrait?”

Aranya inclined her head graciously. “As you wish, First War-Hammer.”

“See you at dinner.”

To his departing back, Aranya murmured, “I’d rather paint a slug …”

At exactly the same moment, Zip spat, “I think I’m going to puke.”

“Ladies,” said Yolathion. “You must excuse me, but I have duties to perform, settling in the firstborn scion of the realm in a manner fitting to his station.”

But Aranya saw a wry smile touch his lips. The nuances in his delivery told her exactly what he thought of Garthion’s behaviour.

He clicked his boots together and made to depart.

“Wait!” Aranya blurted out. “Will you escort me–us, rather–to dinner, Yolathion?”

She wished the Cloudlands would rise and wreath her to cover her chagrin. A desperate reach for the moons, Princess of Immadia!

But Yolathion executed a military about-turn. With an engaging grin, he said, “You just saved me too, Princess.”

And he almost fumbled his helm a second time.

“That went nicely,” Zuziana cooed at Aranya, making a silly face.

“Don’t you say a word!”

“Dazzle him again with your smile and he’ll walk slap into a wall for you.”

“Zip, you’re a pocket Dragon, I swear.”

But, for the first time since her incarceration, Aranya felt light-hearted. What Beri or King Beran would say to a romance with a Sylakian officer, she could easily imagine. But Sylakians couldn’t be all bad–he wasn’t even Sylakian. She remembered Ignathion talking about his family’s roots on Jeradia Island, the same Island where Garthion had carried out his butchery. They had moved from Jeradia the previous century when Ignathion’s ancestor relocated to Sylakia to find work as a stonemason.

He was the enemy.

Her heart winged away over the Cloudlands regardless.

* * * *

A massive storm roared in and crashed around the Tower of Sylakia that evening, drowning out even the efforts of the rajals, who seemed strangely agitated. Forked lightning struck the Tower over and over, making Aranya glance nervously up at the vaulted stained glass windows of the dining hall, half expecting the storm to explode through. She did not know if it was the presence of a hundred red-robed Crimson Hammers around the perimeter of the hall, or Garthion and his brooding glances, that made her feel so jittery.

Aranya jumped as the lamps and candles flared around the room. Nerves, girl
. Control the fire!

She apologised
five times to Yolathion.

She danced the traditional fourth-course interlude with him, but felt clumsy because neither of them knew the other’s style–they danced it differently in Immadia. She wished he would have taken a stronger lead. Did he notice the heat
radiating from her body? He kept looking at her a little askance. She picked half-heartedly at the different dishes. The food tasted like ash on her tongue. Her nerves and misgivings, combined with a sense of evil abroad and the feelings of her treacherous heart toward Yolathion, made a part of Aranya long for the evening to end soon.

Another part wished it would never end.
Once he conquered his nerves, Yolathion was charming and not nearly as stern as she had imagined–an altogether sunnier personality than his father, she realised, when he allowed his true self to peek out from behind that military exterior. He had her and Zuziana in stitches over his description of a prank he had played on his father involving a pot of glue and Ignathion’s combat boots.

Later, Garthion sat for a preliminary sketch in her chambers and made snide innuendoes in her direction for the duration of the most teeth-grinding half-
hour of her life. Aranya knew something was badly wrong when Beri pretended to trip to put out a fire brewing beneath the drapes with a pitcher of prekki-fruit juice.

“Clumsy fool
,” sniffed Garthion.

Aranya’s inner response crisped the corners of her sketch paper.

Afterward, she excused herself and went straight to bed.

She dreamed of standing on the highest tower of Immadia’s castle, confronting the storm, her fire raging against the lightning, her screams defying the thunderclaps, a rebellious inferno seething up into her throat and spilling out … and felt Beri’s hand upon her shoulder, urgency in her voice, warning her about a fire blazing in an empty corner of her chambers. She slept. The storm changed, the great thunderheads morphing into a many-headed Black Dra
gon, as vast and wide as the sky. Its roaring shook her world to its foundations, shattering the cliffs of her Island and battering her mind until it drove her into shrieking insanity.

Beri shook her again. Fire crackled in the corners of the room.

After that, Aranya could not sleep.

“You’re burning up, petal,” said Beri.

“Do you think I’m going crazy, Beri?”

“I think you might be sick. Let me mix you some feverbane.”

Aranya sat on her bed, holding her knees. She rocked back and forth. Maybe she was sick. Maybe the power wasn’t trying to consume her from within. How, if a person held so much fire within her, did she not simply burn up?

She pictured the Black Dragon from her dream. She could never paint
him. If she did, he might come alive off the canvas.

The feverbane helped. But Aranya forced herself to stay awake.

After breakfast, taken in her chambers, Yolathion appeared at her door to request that she accompany him for a morning stroll around the Tower. He wore his combat armour. The breastplate was immaculate and his boots polished to a spotless sheen. This time there was no incident with the helmet. He had left it behind.