Dragonlove (44 page)

“ENOUGH. TAKE HER ALIVE.”

An Island dropped on top of her head and burrowed inside. Lia could think of nothing but the pain screaming inside her skull, overwhelming all rational thought, all capacity to resist, all that she was.

Fists and boots battered her head, ribs and abdomen.

Only oblivion could win such a battle.

“B
y magic, she
broke a Dragon Enchanter’s command-hold.”

Fingernails tapped upon stone.
Tac-tac-tac.
An agitated rhythm.

“She was seated upon the Dragon’s back.” Hard as granite, the soldier’s voice nevertheless conveyed an edge of disbelief and dread. “She fought to rejoin the lizard.”

Distinctly, she heard the man gulp.

“Go on.” This voice was icy, as cold as the stone Lia lay upon.

“Her provisions were strapped upon the beast’s back. She slew four Royal Elites with ease before your grand intervention, Empress. And … she called …” The man faltered. Confined beneath a leather hood, Lia’s nostrils nevertheless flared at the stench of his terror. “She called the lizard b-b-by n-name, Highness. Mercifully cut out my blaspheming tongue, o Fire of the Dawn, I beg you.”

Silence greeted his words. Hualiama wished she could wake from this nightmare. No. She must take stock. That was what the Master of Shadows, the monk who had trained her in espionage, had always stressed. ‘Assess your situation, no matter how hopeless it appears. There will be a way out.’ Heavy metal fetters adorned her ankles and her legs above the knees, she judged from the chill against her flesh. Her wrists were chained to a belt encircling her waist. Someone had taken advantage of her dancer’s flexibility to shackle her elbows so tightly, they touched behind her back. A leather hood covered her head, while a leather harness forced a chunk of wood between her teeth. She was hurt but alive, resting on her side where she had apparently been thrown. Hope had long since fled. What had become of Grandion? Where was she now?

“Request denied,” came the woman’s voice. “Continue, soldier. What did she say?”

“Something like, ‘Grandion’,” the man blurted out. “But definitely, she claimed to be with the lizard, even shouting, ‘Leave my Dragon alone!’ ”

A low curse issued from the woman. Lia heard a sound like a stick striking flesh.

“May this pain cleanse my soul,” groaned the soldier. “I thank you, Empress, for deigning to–”

“You reported well, soldier. The fool Watchman from my Dragonship shall endure five hundred lashes, tomorrow at dawn, on the eastern outlook.” Lia stiffened. That had to be a death sentence. “Belay that. Have him await my displeasure. The Masters will cleanse you with ten lashes. Dismissed.”

Slippers whispered on the cold stone.

“What to do with this one, Highness?” asked a new voice. Aged. As cruel as a feral Dragoness. “Surely, no lizard of this Island-World would dare to commit an act of such profanity with a Human?”

“Aye, Feyzuria. Or one of our people, with a reptile. Abhorrent.” The Empress was the Enchantress of the overpowering voice, Hualiama realised. Of course. She struggled against a tightness clamping her chest and her heart’s leaden throbbing. “She is conscious. Guards! Raise this filth and uncover it, that I might spit upon its hideous, Dragon-worshipping visage.”

Rough hands grasped Lia’s chains, forcing her into a kneeling position. She felt a tugging at her neck as a soldier unclasped a buckle. Frigid air swirled beneath the hood, providing a small measure of relief to a face taut and swollen after the beating she had received. Her weapons had been taken, she realised. But these Dragon-Haters could not possibly imagine all the weapons which she possessed. The soldiers tore the hood off her head, yanking her head almost to the floor. Then, with a parting shove, they drew back.

Again, silence. This Enchantress was a master of using silence as a weapon of fear. Clenching her jaw in the manner Elki had always teased her was her ‘determined look’, Hualiama steeled herself, heart and mind. She would not cower before a Dragon-Hater. She was the bearer of Dragon fire.

The vision of her right eye was blurry and narrowed, probably due to a fine black eye. Had she the use of her arms, Lia could have reached out to touch the dainty pair of slippers that greeted her grim gaze. The woman wore a simple azure blue dress of expensive Helyon silk beneath a heavy velveteen robe of midnight blue. Before her gaze reached the woman’s knees, Hualiama sensed her formidable power. Enchantress. Commander. Absolute ruler. No need for guards to menace a prisoner’s back with swords. If the Enchantress could reach through the fabric of her realm from an unknowable distance to strike a person down with callous ease, what need for weapons? The chains must be for show. Like it or not, Lia felt intimidated. Healthy fear, anyone? Healthy fear in Dragonship-sized doses?

The Enchantress held a sceptre crosswise across her body, fresh blood smeared on its bulbous, jewel-encrusted tip. Panic twisted Hualiama’s gut. How hard had she struck that soldier? The woman’s arms were bare, her skin as golden as Dragon blood. Unnatural? Magical? A braid of perfectly white hair threaded with fine golden chains hung down to the sceptre, hair as unusually long as Lia’s …

This had to stop.

Raising her chin, Hualiama looked at the woman full in the face.

She gasped.

Had she always known? Eyes as hard and brilliant as sapphires assessed her, eyes so lambent with power they made the rest of the Empress’ face seem to retreat into shadow. Her features were flawless, like a statue cast in pure gold. Lia wondered briefly if she wore makeup to achieve that brilliant golden effect. A fractional narrowing of the Enchantress’ gaze was all that alerted her. The woman slammed her sceptre into Lia’s stomach, right beneath her sternum. She tried to roll with the blow. Still, the pain was as though a Dragon had run her through with its talon. Hualiama collapsed with a whimper, falling heavily upon her shoulder.

Then the Enchantress seemed to fold inward, the mask of that face cracking and melting like gold cast into the crucible of a furnace. One hand flew to her lips, trying to stifle a gagging, gasping sob.

“Highness?” Feyzuria’s creaky tones cut in, alarmed.

Lia bit the wood in her mouth so hard, she felt it splinter. The Enchantress stumbled backward, falling into the cushioned lap of a wide, low throne.

All else was immaterial. Forcing garbled speech past the gag, Lia said, “Islands’ greetings–mother.”

Soft words; their shockwave a Dragon’s battle-challenge.

Had the woman been able, she surmised, Azziala would have turned as pale as her hair. Her lips moved in shock, but no sound issued forth. Lia became aware of a low murmur rising from behind her in the chamber. Rich tapestries, majoring on the blue theme, provided both insulation and adornment to the walls. Large braziers in the corners provided heat and lighting against the pervasive cold, and a hint of incense not vastly different to a Dragon’s scent–cinnamon, hints of sulphur and agarwood, and other exotic spices Lia could not place. A quick glance about her revealed the presence of soldiers posted at intervals around the circular chamber, and an array of female Enchanters wearing apparel even richer than Azziala’s, perhaps an inner circle of councillors. Most of them stared at her as though she had grown spine-spikes and a tail. Lia lay on a stone dais, hurting, but where the councillors stood, the floor was covered in thick rush matting, presumably against the cold.

“Empress, did this wretch just call you–”

“No … it’s impossible. W-W-Who …”

Time seemed to stretch unbearably thin. All within the chamber knew something had to snap.

“Whelp of a windroc!” Azziala sprang from her seat with the grace of a startled rajal. The sceptre whistled down to shatter on the stone beside Lia’s head. “No!”

Shocked, Hualiama realised that several jewel shards had become embedded in her scalp. Pushing with her tongue, she found she had cracked the tough wood gag right through. She stared at Azziala, speechless. Had she not rolled aside, her mother would have summarily finished the job her father had failed to complete. As Azziala shrieked something about taking her away, Lia rolled over several more times, thumping her abused body down the steps and bumped up against one of the soldiers’ bootlaces.

Azziala stormed after her, her golden face a mask of insane fury. Vile curse-words, many of which Lia did not understand, flooded from her mouth. “You lying paw-licker, I’ll have you–”

“No.” Another woman, kicking Lia’s head casually on the way past, stepped between them. “I, for one, am very interested to learn about this unknown heir, o Empress.” Scornful, her words stopped Azziala in her tracks. “Wasn’t there a babe who died?”

“That lizard-lover is no child of mine!”

“Truly?” The tall woman swooped unexpectedly, plucking Lia off the ground with draconic strength. “Can any person present deny this is Azziala’s whelp? Look past the scourge of holy pain. Look into the eyes.”

“Aye,” someone whispered.

As she dangled from the woman’s hand, the song of Lia’s soul revolved around the grief of finally meeting her mother. None of the hoped-for joy would materialise. She understood that now. Her sweetest, most cherished dreams would never flower to supplant the reality surrounding her very existence in the Island-World–she had parents spawned in the pit of some nameless volcanic hell. This was a barren place, a place where hope came to be tortured and broken by a dungeon-master’s cruellest implements. This was a place that reeked of pain, of vaulting ambitions and unholy secrets. This was the realm of hate.

“Stop the posturing, Shazziya,” Feyzuria hissed. “We all know your purposes here.”

“Then, by the Sixteenth Protocol, I invoke a council of–”

“Let it speak.” Like a whetted razor drawn delicately across skin, Azziala’s voice stilled them. “First it must speak, lest the Protocols be contravened. You. Remove the gag. As if her magic could override this Council!”

Politics. Hualiama’s brain raced feverishly as she considered the import of this encounter. Azziala’s position had been weakened by her arrival, perhaps fatally. Now she fought to re-establish control. Shazziya had ambitions for the crown. Her eyes glittered as she dumped Lia ungently on the rush mats. Feyzuria sought to play the mediator, but the clasp of her clawed fingers upon the handle of her cane suggested that she might switch sides should it prove convenient. To a woman, Azziala’s councillors displayed the strangely golden skin and plain white hair, so different to that of the soldiers–an insignia of their magic, she concluded, wondering what could produce such an effect. She must speak wisely, and conceal her true abilities. Aye, bury her secrets deep. If she could not stand against Azziala’s power, then the power of the thirteen gathered here would destroy her in a heartbeat.

Could an Ancient Dragon’s fire ever be destroyed?

Shazziya towered over her compatriots. “You read her mind while she lay unconscious, Feyzuria?”

“A natural shield,” the old woman sniffed.

Ha. So Grandion’s Juyhallith training had proved successful. One of his tricks was a shield which protected the mind when unconscious or asleep, which appeared to be an innocuous natural resistance to psychic probing. Forewarned, Lia buttressed her shields and silently constructed a fake shield behind the first, should that be breached, and a third, far deeper layer to conceal her magic,
ruzal
and Dragon fire, disguising it as a latent capacity for magic. Mercy. The mental tricks Dragons dreamed up. Subterfuge layered upon deceit wrapped in guileful innocence.

As she watched, Azziala’s face reassumed the planes of confidence and indifference, as if she were a statue cast in cold metal. “Who are you, girl? And what do you seek here, in the Lost Islands?”

With her mouth free, Lia waggled her jaw before saying, “I’m Hualiama of Fra’anior.”

The sceptre tapped against Azziala’s open palm; her face masked every secret. “A full answer,” she grated, making her meaning abundantly clear.

“I am Hualiama, Princess of Fra’anior,” she said, “royal ward of the court of King Chalcion and Queen Shyana. Daughter of Ra’aba, former Captain of the Royal Guard, and Azziala of the Lost Islands.”

Azziala’s response was icy. “Continue.”

When Lia mentioned that she had been brought to Gi’ishior as a babe by the Maroon Dragoness, Shazziya exclaimed, “A plot with a lizard, Azziala? Or did you think to take a lizard at her word while speaking out of the other cheek to your sisters here?”

“The babe died,” Feyzuria growled.

Another of the councillors snorted, in a high, reedy voice, “Are you accusing Azziala’s daughter of flying here on a lizard?”

“That’s immaterial,” said Azziala. “Do you believe you’re my daughter?”

Hualiama pushed up to her knees. Speaking from the floor was too demeaning. “The Tourmaline Dragon is Grandion, the shell-son of Sapphurion, Dragon Elder of Gi’ishior–a Dragon I believe you’ve met, Azziala.” She pounded her words into the frozen silence that gripped the women. “He is my Dragon and I am his Rider, bound by mutual oaths. If you cause any harm to come to him, I swear, it will start raining Dragons around these Isles! And as for your question, mother–I don’t just believe it. I know it. I know the bargain you struck with Ianthine–”

“You know nothing!” Azziala snapped.

“Nothing?” Lia exploded. “I know you hated your baby. You peddled me to that Dragoness in a vile exchange for
ruzal!
Look at me! Look at–”

Furious sobs burst out of her, uncontainable.

Raising her hands, Azziala clapped them together in a thunderclap of sound which ignited her sceptre and stilled the angry shouts of her councillors. With great deliberation, she said, “What I did was for my people. One life sacrificed that the many may live, no longer subject to the claw of draconic tyranny. Child, if you truly are that whelp of my flesh, know this–your life is nothing, and worth nothing, to me. I would do it again in a heartbeat.”