Benedictions: three for a half-coin. Add bath for a penny.
~ At the dawn well temple in Maru Deep
WITH A DISGRUNTLED HARRUMPH, I scooted off the bench to start rummaging. He might be too much the prince to take the tarnished treasure I offered him, but I would never be accused of such pointless standards.
Under the braziers were various cubbies supplied with clothing, bandages, and a satchel of—as it turned out upon judicious testing—very good red wine. I helped myself, less judiciously, as I scrounged for anything that was even close to fitting me. Everything was mostly sized to a Dragon Prince, but one of the flowing tunics was more than enough to cover me, and the under-armor leggings served as trousers once I rolled the cuffs. For all the poor fit, it was finer garb than any I’d had before, better even than the clothing provided by the palace for the Chosen One’s attendants.
I dallied a bit, annoyed with him even though I’d told myself his rejection meant nothing. But as the wine ran low, I reluctantly rang the bell.
The prince’s odd little retainer, Nenzo, popped seemingly out of nowhere, his appearance proceeded by the jangle of beads in his beard.
I looked at him a moment, waiting for him to indicate…anything, and he looked at me.
Neh, it wasn’t like the wine would refill itself. With a sigh, I flicked my fingers. “Will you take me to him, please?”
Turning away, Nenzo gestured for me to follow.
Which I did, still clutching the wineskin.
“The bathing chamber is beautiful,” I said. “Your work, I presume?”
He glanced back at me through inscrutable eyes, then gave a short nod that sent the beads clattering.
“Prince Aric is fortunate to have such a lovely place to come home to after battle.”
Nenzo looked at me again, arching one bushy eyebrow.
“Yes, I suppose you’re right. Perhaps I’m overstating the case a bit.”
His only reply was an impatient hurry-up gesture. And since there might be food, I followed.
I should’ve known of course, from the silence and the beard, but in my defense Sevaare didn’t have the mountainous mining regions that would attract the Rokynd clan, although we did trade readily for their renowned stone and metal works. The Rokynd was known throughout the Living Lands for their stunning craft in objects of beauty—and of killing.
“Maybe I could beg you a favor to look at my great-great-grandfather’s knife,” I said. “It refuses to hold an edge.” As usual, I had the blade in my boot, which I’d donned again despite their sorry state since of course none of the prince’s footwear was even close to fitting me.
I took a hopping step to retrieve it and show it to Nenzo, so the knife was in my hand when he abruptly turned a corner into another large cavernous chamber.
“Sheathe that blade.” The prince’s command lashed out at me.
I blinked. “I was just—”
The prince closed the distance between us, reaching out to grab my wrist. He forced the blade high—not to my throat, but his own.
The point nestled under his jaw, like it was coming home, and though I’d just complained to Nenzo that the blade wouldn’t sharpen, somehow a bright red line traced itself on the prince’s skin
I swore and tried to pull back but his grip was too strong.
His cold eyes blazed. “I told you not to flash the animdao blade at me.”
“I don’t know what that means: animdao.” I couldn’t fight his hold, but I furtively angled my fingers so the tip pointed more outward. If either of us slipped, the knife might slice into his chin but not his throat. “I just wanted to ask Nenzo if he might sharpen it for me.”
“An animdao blade doesn’t need an edge, just enough blood to feed its aura.”
I blinked. “It’s a knife, not a person or a demon. It doesn’t have an aura.”
“Everything has an aura.”
That wasn’t what I’d been told all my life. With another delicate twitch of my fingers, I aimed the knife farther away from him. “Be that as it may, this knife doesn’t need yours.”
His icy eyes bored into me. Then abruptly he blinked and shoved me away. “Sheathe it.”
When he turned away, Nenzo gestured at him, his thick-knuckled hands flickering like Lady Dyania’s when she prayed.
The prince scowled at him. “I don’t care. But not where it can taunt me.”
The little valet snapped his fingers at me and held out his hand. His meaning was clear enough, but I suddenly found myself reluctant to surrender the knife. “It’s the last remnant I have from my great-great-grandfather, from my family at all, really. They were traveling peddlers, but they left me in Sevaare. My memories of them are almost as dull as the blade, but still precious. Will you…?” I bit my lip.
Nenzo looked at me another moment, then slowly he laid his other hand, palm up, atop the first. He gave me a little bow.
With a sigh, I proffered the blade, hilt first. “Thank you.” I handed over the much-depleted wineskin too. “This also needs your attention.”
Though he shook his head, the corner of his mouth quirked, visible even though his beard.
As I watched him go, I glanced around the chamber. Like the pool cavern, we were obviously still deep in the mountain with its rough stone walls veined with obsidian, but other than that, the refinements were more like the rest of the palace, with thick tapestries disguising some of the rock and heavy, ornate furnishings filling the space.
There was only one chair though.
Prince Aric sank onto the oversized seat, sprawled with his elbow propped on the chair arm, his chin on his fist. While he stared at me, behind the scarred wall of his knuckles, his thumb stroked restlessly at the wound in his throat from the animdao blade.
My blade.
I swallowed. “I’m sorry I frightened you.”
His thumb curled out of sight. “The blade could take me, but only if I willingly surrendered to it.”
He’d seemed on the brink of exactly that, even if the blade didn’t really have an edge itself. “I didn’t mean my knife,” I said. “My kiss.”
His fist fell to the wooden arm with a thud as he straightened, indignation tightening his features. “I was not frightened by a kiss.”
“Horrified?” I suggested instead. “Or merely revolted? Maybe appalled. Regardless, I shouldn’t have shocked you so. Perhaps you were saving yourself for—”
“Sheathe it.”
“I gave Nenzo the blade.”
“Your tongue. It assails my ears even more than my mouth.”
I grinned. “You could kiss me again to stop the words.”
A low sound came from him. A growl, probably, but maybe with a hint of reluctant amusement. “How have you survived this long?’
I shrugged. “Luck, maybe, loath though I am to say it. And being more trouble to kill than just forget.”
The glimmer of humor faded. “You said you wanted to forget.”
With a sigh, I wandered toward the nearest brazier and extended my empty hands to its light and heat. “Forget our troubles for a while.”
“With one kiss?”
I glanced back at him with eyebrows arched suggestively. “P’raps it would’ve taken just a bit more than one kiss.”
The fingers that had wrapped around my throat drummed across on the heavy old chair. The sound, though muted, betrayed a foreboding I suspected even the horde had never roused in him.
How delightful to discover my touch had done that.
“If I let myself forget, even for a moment, I might not…” He broke off, but the words he didn’t say echoed even more hollow. “There is not enough left of me to give beyond this damnation.”
“It would not be a taking or a giving,” I said. “But a sharing.”
“If I was holding you, I could not hold the dragon.”
Was that true? Did the truth matter if that was what he believed?
Before I could ask, he added, “Or maybe I just wouldn’t want to.”
Wouldn’t want to hold the dragon? Or me?
My brashness failing at last, I focused instead on the fire. As if fleeing my presence, a chunk of charcoal fell, sending up a tiny geyser of sparks. I tipped my head back, my eyes a little dazzled by the dance of embers. “Where does the smoke go?” When I glanced back at the prince, he was just a brooding darkness to my eyes.
“Away.” He shrugged, much as I had. “Cracks in the mountain siphon the smoke like unwanted memories.”
There was another edge to his voice. Had I hurt him with my remark about wanting to forget in his arms? I’d meant it as a compliment. Or at least an excuse.
A footstool was angled haphazardly near the brazier. It was intricately carved, as if whatever slippers had rested upon it needed such veneration. I dragged it around to face him and settled myself.
“Tell me of this animdao. You said my knife has an aura, everything does.” My gaze strayed to the crimson mark on his neck. “And here I thought only people—and demons who steal from people—have auras.”
“That is indeed what the haloria teaches.” The corner of his mouth twisted, not quite a sneer. “Harder to declare authority over a tangled maze that exists everywhere. And that is what I see with the dragon’s eye.”
I half-closed my own eyes, trying to imagine. “But a…a chook or a tuber or a handful of gravel doesn’t have the same pure power as a…a king.”
“An aura doesn’t have power as you mean it. I see it spooling from things, lacing between everything, a thread to be woven or knotted—or cut. And not a one is faultlessly pure.”
The cadence of his low voice lulled me a moment despite the contradiction he claimed. “But then why—?”
“Whether a thread joins or strangles depends not on the weave but on the wielding hands.” His hand on the chair clenched into a fist, the scars blanching. “The animdao is something else. It is the result of auras entwining, sometimes over years or even centuries, becoming something…more.”
This was all beyond me and honestly quite exhausting, especially considering the day I’d had. Or was it night again? Shimmering embers and obscuring smoke seemed to dance before me though I sat unmoving. “So now what?”
He sank back into that sulking stance. “What do you mean?”
I gestured to take in the cavern, the mountain, and myself. “What am I doing here?”
“Speaking again of trouble,” he muttered.
“Heyo,” I said protested, annoyed. “Because of you.”
“Who swallowed Ormonde’s bone?”
“Who sits on his throne?”
The prince let out an inscrutable snort. “What makes you think that?”
“I recognize it from the paintings in the library.” I blinked. “Is it a secret?”
“No. Just forgotten.” He traced a fingertip over the carved wood. “No one else has been here in…a very long time.”
“Do you want them to come?”
“No.” His answer was just as quick as before, but I wasn’t entirely sure I believed him, at least until he added, “It’s too dangerous.”
I nodded. “The dragon.”
“Not just her.”
Himself, he meant. Which was why he kept himself apart, alone on that throne.
“Ormonde didn’t stay in this tower,” I mused. “He ruled the Living Lands too.”
The prince shuddered. “The only thing worse than her.”
“I’m here now,” I pointed out, even as I steeled myself for another of his biting comments. Maybe something like ugh, the only thing worse than ruling the Living Lands, the very bottom of a long line of worse.
To my surprise, he just shook his head. “Without the threat of Ormonde’s relic hanging over her, I thought she might struggle. But she went to her aerie and let the chains bind her again.” He sagged back in the old seat that didn’t quite fit him. “The next attack will reveal whether she will fly—and fight.”
“But you will,” I said. “Or you can, if you want. Not fly, of course, but fight.”
“Alone I am nothing.”
Nothing…
Like an obsidian shard, some hard truths couldn’t be softened by any amount of soaking or wrapping in silkha or warm fur, and, if shattered, would only be the sharper for it.
When Nenzo reappeared, I slanted a worried glance at the prince, but the little retainer handed me a sleek pouch through which I felt the familiar heft of my knife. He turned to gesture at the prince.
“He says the blade chooses not to take an edge.” The prince watched Nenzo through half-lidded eyes. “But he found a silkha sheath for it, enough to silence its whispers but fine enough to fit your boot.”
I bowed a solemn thank you to Nenzo, stroking my finger over the delicate cloth. “I’ve never had a piece of silkha for myself.”
“It’s just a different weave.”
“Which people like me aren’t supposed to have. If I’m caught with it, there will be questions.”
“I think anyone who would question you will have greater distractions.” He glanced at his valet. “Nenzo says no one will recognize it as silkha.” He huffed out a breath. “And I suspect you are clever enough to make sure no one even thinks to ask.”
Finally, someone who appreciated my cleverness. Tucking the knife away, I looked up at Nenzo from my low seat. “Thank you for looking at the knife. Maybe it’s too old to sharpen, but it’s precious to me.”
His hands signaled again, and the prince translated, “It’s not Rokynd crafted, but the knife was intended for a heart-charm.” The prince paused while Nenzo kept signaling. “He says this knife’s charm might’ve been broken or lost, or maybe never placed at all.”
I straightened. “A heart-charm? But those are so rare, I thought they were just a story. Maybe my grandmother wasn’t lying about our family once being distinguished.” Heart-charms might be gemstone or metal, or maybe something as ephemeral as a plucked flower, but always the charm signified a sentiment deep and true, however long it lasted. Learning that the knife held a place for such a talisman, either in the past or the future, made me beam at Nenzo. “Us Vaifaire had as many stories as we did missing fortunes, so I never knew what to believe.” As I’d once believed we’d always be together? Resolutely I held onto my gratitude like I’d held onto the knife all these years. “Thank you, Sir Nenzo, from my heart.”
A hint of dusky color brightened his cheeks behind the beard, and he looked away with a shrug, fingers flashing at the prince.
“He says it was nothing more than the blade told him.”
“But I couldn’t hear it and I’m grateful he could. If I can somehow repay this gift he has given me…” I flashed my fingers into the ‘promise’ signal.
Nenzo tucked his chin back in surprise.
“You speak Rokynd?” The prince frowned at me.
But I shook my head. “Just a few signals.” My face heated. “Some of my fellows back in Sevaare use the signs when speaking aloud might be troublesome.”
He lifted an eyebrow and drawled, “Yes, I’m sure it’s the talking that’s the trouble.”
For the first time, Nenzo grinned at me, thick white teeth flashing through his beard before he stumped away, glancing back at me to signal ‘promise’.
I returned the gesture.
The prince was watching me when I sat back. “Since when do thieves offer to repay a gift?”
“He gave me something of value to no one else and worth more than anything in the High Keep vaults to me. Whatever he asks will be a fair price.”
The prince lounged back on the old throne. “You are a thief from a long-lost family who carries an animdao blade forged for a heart-charm, who somehow swallowed the last relic of an ancient king protecting the Living Lands, who dabbles with Chosen Ones and lors…” He studied me. “Who lays her hands on the Dragon Prince.”
I tilted my head. “They’ve warned me not to accept any gifts from you. But I don’t think the kiss counts, do you?”
His lashes dropped across his icy eyes. “No, I think no one has ever characterized my kiss is a gift. Quite the opposite.”
I bit my lip, not quite at the memory, but considering what had happened between him and the Chosen Ones for so long.
“Must it be so savage?” I whispered. “Is there truly no other way to fight the demons?”
Both his hands dropped to the carved arms of the throne. There were divots in the tight-grained wood, not unlike my empty knife, and I realized that once the throne had been inlaid with gemstones, probably in all the hues of the spectrum since Ormonde had been a master of the diamonde light. I wondered where the jewels had gone—and when. Had the demon-bound king returned from his battles, weary and aura-worn, dropped into this seat and pried out the reminder of brighter days, one by one?
“War is savage,” the prince said in a voice not much louder than mine. “And maybe that’s for the best or we’d have even more of it.”
I let out a shuddering breath. “But if there is another path—”
“When you find it, let me know.” The prince shoved upward to his feet. “I will tell Nenzo to feed you and then take you back to your lady’s chambers. Your friends will return soon, and no doubt they’ll wonder where you are.”
“Most likely they think me dead or run away,” I said blithely. “Won’t they be surprised.”
“No more so than you and I, I suspect.” He spun away from me. “Don’t seek anything else from me, Feinan no’Sevaare. Whatever those others have warned you, I’ve nothing to give.”
He had a lovely bathing pool and a watchful attendant and a source of very good wine, but I didn’t suppose that was enough for a dragon prince, not balanced against all the rest.
I also wasn’t going to remind him again—mostly because he’d just abandoned me—that it was his fault I was here at all.
When Nenzo returned with a platter as wide as he was tall heavily laden with food and a bottle of wine, he glanced around with an eyebrow raised.
“I didn’t kill him or anything,” I said quickly. “He ran away faster than I ever have, and running away is my preferred means of dealing with problems.”
Nenzo’s beads rattled with his head shake.
I shrugged. “This looks wonderful though. Will you join me?”
While we ate, he taught me more of the Rokynd signal language, and by the bottom of the wine bottle, he told me I had potential.
I grinned. “I’ve always been quick with my hands.”
He smiled back. ‘And tongue.’
I boggled at him. “Did the prince tell you I kissed him? How loose-lipped of him!”
Nenzo boggled back at me. ‘Kiss?’
At least that was how I translated the unfamiliar gesture, but the pad of the thumb to puckered lips seemed clear enough.
And now that I thought about it, I realized ‘tongue’ was actually ‘talk’. Neh, my mistake.
I waved my hand airily. “Turns out, he is too tight-lipped for me.”
Nenzo laughed soundlessly.
As I helped him clean up the meal, I had a chance to peek at his domain within the obsidian tower. Everything was separate from the rest of the palace, which explained the forsaken black-maw entrance where I’d fallen at the prince’s feet while wondering which servants would trudge up that steep slope. None of them did, because Nenzo was by himself here.
Alone except, of course, for the Dragon Prince.
Together, we walked down the empty corridor that led to the palace, and I found myself at the top of that tiled slope. There would be no prince to catch me if I fell now.
I glanced at Nenzo when he waved me down. “Again, thank you. When I can give back, please tell me.”
He signaled but too quickly for me to follow.
“Friends?” I frowned my confusion. “Yes, I’ll go to them. Or if you mean you and I might be friends, I would like that too.”
He signaled yes and no in quick succession then added another gesture, another I didn’t know, forefinger crooked like a serpent then spreading his thumb and little finger wide like wings with the back of his hand pressed to his heart.
Ah, the Dragon Prince.
“Friends with the prince?” I gave him a wary look, and the dark, slick, downward slope behind me felt like it had shifted directly below my feet. “I don’t think he’d want that, probably not with anyone, and definitely not from me.”
Again, Nenzo gestured faster than I could follow though he slowed and repeated when I shook my head. ‘Promise Dragon Prince heart.’
I understood the signals but I didn’t get the meaning.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
So I just shook my head again and started down the long, dark, treacherous path to the palace.