35. One more bottle
35
ONE MORE BOTTLE
The dragonriders were the last to arrive. Anahrod wasn’t sure they would’ve shown at all if she hadn’t reached out to Peralon and demanded it. Ris looked exhausted, her normal seashell delicacy threatening to crack at any moment. Anahrod bit back on the urge to wrap the woman in a blanket and make her tea.
Jaemeh was even worse: he had an arm in a sling and bandages on the right side of his face and down one leg.
“Damn, Jaemeh,” Claw said. “You okay?”
He waved her off. “I’ll be fine. Just some burns.”
Ris noticed Gwydinion. An enormous look of relief came over the dragonrider, suggesting that Peralon had told his rider about Anahrod’s survival, but hadn’t known about his. Ris pulled a chair from the table where all the maps were spread out, flipped it around, and sat on it backward. “What happened?”
“Well,” Anahrod said, “I have it on good authority that we’re fucked.” She gestured at Claw.
Claw nodded grimly. “Blacksmith’s shop melted.”
Jaemeh swore and slammed his fist—the one not in a sling—on the table.
Ris grimaced. “And the blacksmith?”
“Melted,” said Naeron.
“You can kiss the duplicate sword goodbye,” Claw elaborated. “We’re back to zero.”
“It’s worse than that,” Sicaryon said.
Everyone paused and stared at the new guy.
“How?” Ris asked, squinting.
“Were you watching when Neveranimas killed—” Sicaryon looked at Anahrod.
“Modelakast,” she said.
“Right. If you watched that fight—”
“I didn’t watch it,” Ris said. “I was in it.”
“ My point, ” Sicaryon pressed, “is that Neveranimas teleports . How long will it take her to get from the council chambers to her vault? I’d guess seconds.”
“Great,” Claw said. “That’s just great.”
Jaemeh sighed. “So that’s one and two. Let me share three.”
“What do you mean?” Anahrod asked.
“Peralon just pissed off Neveranimas,” Jaemeh said, throwing Ris a dirty look, “so he’s gone from ‘visiting dragon who can go where he likes as long as he doesn’t cause trouble’ to ‘being watched.’ Guess who shouldn’t be anywhere near Neveranimas’s estate, let alone flying everyone into the entry shaft?”
“Tiendremos—” Naeron began.
“Too big,” Ris said, sighing. “And has an injured wing.”
In Anahrod’s mind’s eye, a giant yawning chasm opened. A giant yawning chasm that they now had no way to safely lower themselves into. She shuddered. “All right. Is that it?”
“Nope,” Claw said. “Last but not least.” She tilted her head at Ris. “Want to share with the other kids in class why we can’t just walk into Brauge’s parlor and make the sword swap while she’s off at book club?”
Ris groaned and scrubbed a hand over her face.
Anahrod rubbed her temples. “Did they cancel book club?” She dimly recalled Varriguhl saying something about dragonrider procedures after a rampant dragon attack.
“They canceled everything, ” Jaemeh said. “Sometimes a dragon going rampant will trigger other dragons. So, no parties, no absences, none of that. Every dragonrider is expected to stay at home and sing mantras or snort sky amber or do whatever is necessary to keep our dragons sane.” He waved at Claw. “You’re right. We’re screwed. Even if we had a substitute sword, Brauge won’t be leaving the house for long enough for us to steal it.”
No one said anything for several long, awkward seconds.
Ris stood up. “I’m calling it for today. None of these problems are insurmountable, but we’re not figuring them out tonight. Personally, I’m going to get very drunk, and I encourage you all to join me if you’re that way inclined.” She pointed a finger at Gwydinion. “Except you. You get juice.”
Gwydinion gave her a strained smile, too out of sorts to manage the mandatory teenage protest.
Ris immediately turned to Jaemeh. “You’re welcome to stay.”
He looked seriously tempted for a moment, and then the dragonrider shook his head. “No,” he said. “Tiendremos wouldn’t…” He smiled tightly. “I can’t stay.”
“Of course,” Ris said. “I understand.”
Anahrod wished like hell that she didn’t. She thought about saying something complimentary to pass along—he had been one of the only dragons with enough guts to fight the rampant dragon, after all—but she was very certain Tiendremos didn’t give a damn what she thought about him. He couldn’t be thrilled with the idea that Peralon and Neveranimas had both done what he couldn’t. No, Anahrod imagined that hadn’t helped his ego at all.
She was also very certain that those burns Jaemeh was sporting were specifically acid burns, because if Jaemeh had been riding on Tiendremos’s back during that fight, she honestly didn’t know how much of an effort the blue dragon would’ve made to protect him.
They all watched the dragonrider leave, and then Ris turned toward the others and said, “We do have alcohol here, right?”
They did.
“Before we start.” Ris had wagged a finger at Gwydinion. “You should not come away from this with the impression that this is a suitable method of dealing with emotional pain and grief. It’s terrible and unhealthy. Also: exceedingly bad for your liver.”
Gwydinion had narrowed his eyes, sensing an adult inside joke. “But you’re going to do it anyway.”
“Oh yes,” Ris said. “You’re old enough by now to understand that age is no bulwark against foolishness. If you had any illusions about the dignity of your elders, you’re about to be very disappointed.”
And then she’d cracked open the first bottle.
Not everyone drank. Gwydinion wasn’t allowed and Naeron didn’t by choice. Kaibren might’ve under certain circumstances but chose to stay sober and quote entire stage plays to an audience comprised of Claw and Gwydinion.
Anahrod frowned as she considered the scene, and said to Ris: “I won’t have a problem with him, will I?”
Kaibren’s rings declared he was not interested in sex at all, flowers, leaves, or anything in between, but people lied about their rings, particularly if polite society frowned on their true preferences. The inscriptionist had always struck Anahrod as an exceptionally eccentric uncle, but she’d never been the trusting sort.
“Kaibren?” Ris had just refilled a glass of wine, which she examined critically before returning her attention to her oldest team member. “Just the opposite, really. He’s an excellent guard dog against that sort of thing.”
Anahrod gave her a questioning look, and Ris shrugged. “He was a dragonrider candidate himself once, you know.”
Anahrod startled. She hadn’t known.
“Unpicked, of course,” Ris murmured. “So, he was sent to the Church and…” Her smile turned bitter. Anahrod’s stomach tightened in response, knowing she would loathe the next words Ris spoke. “The Church is well-intentioned enough, but it’s an institution that gathers children who cannot leave on pain of death, who have no recourse. They’re vulnerable, and the vulnerable always attract predators.”
“Is that why—” Anahrod glanced at Claw, who was well on her way to proving herself to be the happy sort of drunk instead of any other kind. The young woman was near bent over double, laughing at Kaibren’s recital.
She never finished the sentence or even properly asked, but Ris seemed to understand her meaning, regardless. “Claw? Yes. It wasn’t sexual, but she was being abused, mentally and physically. Kaibren put a stop to it.”
Which went a long way to explaining why Claw would fight her way through flights of dragons to protect the man.
“Why do intelligent beings always take having power over another as an excuse to do their worst?” Sicaryon’s rhetorical question was equal parts angry, sad, and resigned. He held up a bottle to the two women, offering to refresh their drinks.
“Yes, please.” Anahrod held out her glass.
“How do you stop that?” Sicaryon asked, and this time the question did not seem rhetorical at all.
She knew it wasn’t. Anahrod had spent too much time during the hottest, most miserable parts of the day hidden in a cave or up in a tree, debating such matters with Sicaryon because there was nothing else to do but sleep, fuck, or talk, and it’d been too hot for the first two.
Ris downed her glass in one long, elegant swallow, tipping her head back so the movement of her throat was a carnal shudder. Anahrod knew Sicaryon was looking. So was she.
“You don’t.” Ris held out her glass for Sicaryon to fill. “You can’t. All you can do is make it unacceptable and inexcusable.” She wasn’t watching Kaibren anymore, but she wasn’t watching much of anything.
Sicaryon stared at her like he was still trying to comprehend the puzzle in front of him. How someone like Ris could exist. “Even dragons?” Sicaryon murmured as he refilled her glass.
“Especially dragons,” Ris agreed.
Sicaryon drained the last wine into his own glass and set the dead soldier over on the table. He turned to Anahrod. “I meant to say thank you.”
She raised an eyebrow. “For what?”
He scoffed. “Saving my life. This morning, remember?”
“Did she?” Ris looked intrigued.
“You’d have saved yourself,” Anahrod replied, hoping her face wasn’t flushed. She wasn’t good with compliments. “You already were. You and Gwydinion both.”
“That wasn’t—” Sicaryon frowned. “I need to find out the name of that dragon.” He said the words quietly and to himself, a mental note for something to do later.
Anahrod squinted. Which dragon—? Ah. “You mean the white one?”
“It saved our lives,” Sicaryon explained. “Not just… not just because we used the body to hide, later. It saved us from the start. That stupid acid dragon tried to throw up right on top of us, except the white dragon blocked it.” He shook his head, made a small, shocked sound. “It could’ve flown away. Plenty of the other dragons did. Instead, it sacrificed its own life to save a bunch of humans.” He looked appalled. “And you—” He pointed a finger at Ris. “You and Peralon. You didn’t have to do that either.”
“No, you’re wrong,” Ris gently corrected. “We did.”
Anahrod wanted to kiss her so badly at that moment the only thing that stopped her was the awkwardness of Sicaryon’s presence.
Also, that she wanted to kiss him just as much.
“I think I’ll grab another bottle of wine,” Ris said. “We’re going to be here a while.”
Anahrod woke up the next day in her bed, with a hammering headache and the uncomfortable knowledge that she’d made all the bad choices she’d expected of herself. She confirmed that by raising her head enough to see that the naked, pale legs next to her in the bed were attached to a body with a shock of red hair at the other end.
Sicaryon grumbled behind her as he tightened his arm around her waist, nuzzling at her neck. He pressed up against her back, warm and solid. A little less muscular than she remembered, since the day-to-day life of an average Skylander was less demanding than a Deeper’s, but not by much. His body was still a pleasurable map of smooth planes and curves.
A laugh escaped her, doing nothing to help her hangover. Who had she been kidding? This had been inevitable.
She groaned and rubbed a finger into her eye. Why make a single bad decision, she supposed, when she could make two at the same time. Much more efficient. Ris and Sicaryon both. Why not?
The previous night’s memories were a pleasant blur, such that despite the hangover Anahrod fought off the temptation to do it all over again, this time sober.
If she were smart, she’d get out of bed, dress, and get the hell out. Leave Ris and Sicaryon to work out the awkward morning after.
She couldn’t make herself move.
Sicaryon’s hand shifted, his breathing quickening as he woke. His hand wandered up her arm, ended on her shoulder. His breath tickled the fine hairs around her ear as he whispered, “Shall we keep her?”
The spell broke.
A red flash of anger warmed her skin as she pushed away the blankets and rolled off the bed. The fast, violent movements woke Ris, who made adorable mewling noises at the injustice of being forced to wake.
Anahrod glared at Sicaryon as she grabbed her clothing. He had an anguished expression on his face: the look of a man who knew he must’ve messed up but didn’t quite understand how. He’d misplaced his wig somewhere, so he appeared the way she’d known him most of her life: bald except for a braid of blond hair down one side.
Ris blinked again and pushed herself up on her elbows. The spill of red hair over her shoulders just barely covered her breasts, the sort of too-convenient conceit Anahrod had always assumed was an artistic device to convey nudity without offending delicate sensibilities.
“Wait,” Ris said. “Are we fighting? Why are we fighting?”
“Anahrod—” Sicaryon’s mouth twisted in frustration.
“No,” she told him. Having this conversation while tugging on her trousers took the righteous superiority out of the situation, but a retreat followed by a slamming door also lost its drama if she were naked while doing so. “I need time. I can’t just go back to—” She swallowed. “You interpret me sleeping with either of you after the day we had yesterday as anything other than—”
“No,” Sicaryon said. “No lies. We both know it means something. You don’t like that it means something, but that’s not the same thing.”
“Ah,” Ris said. “That’s why we’re fighting. Only, could we fight at a softer volume? My head feels like a split melon.”
Anahrod grabbed her breast wraps. “Fine,” she said. “You want honesty?”
“Wait,” Ris said. “No.”
“Let start with the forty spouses.”
“I told you I don’t have forty spouses.” Sicaryon tugged hard on his lock of hair. “I don’t have any—”
Anahrod paused in the middle of adjusting her breast wraps, thought the matter over for a second. “I don’t believe you,” she said, and continued dressing.
“Damn it!” Sicaryon threw off what blankets they hadn’t yet tossed to the floor and rolled out of bed. “I’m telling the truth. I don’t—” His expression turned thoughtful. “Forty…? Wait… just stop for a minute.” He sighed. “Do you mean the Assembly?” When she didn’t reply immediately, he rubbed his chin and sighed again. “Every time we add new communities, I make them elect a representative and send them to us. Maybe… maybe to an outsider that looks like I’m demanding brides or some such. I suppose that’s possible…”
Anahrod blinked. “Representatives?”
Sicaryon gestured broadly. “Sure. This every-person-gets-a-vote thing is great if you’re a densely packed city, but in the Deep? It’s not practical. So, elective representatives, who all go to the capital and debate each other endlessly. Nothing gets done.”
Her head throbbed as she tried to understand what he was saying. “I thought you were king?” she finally spat out.
“I was, yes,” he agreed. “For three years. And I hated every second of it. So, I asked each village to send me a representative and I threw them a very nice feast in my largest banquet hall and told them they had three days to figure out a new government. Then I locked the door.”
Ris had frozen in the middle of retrieving her shirt. “Did that work?”
“No,” Sicaryon admitted. “They came out after three days and told me that the wisest people in the realm had decided I was the best person to lead them.” He shrugged. “They’d decided it was a test of loyalty. So, I sent them back and told them that whatever they came up with had better work without me, because the moment they figured it out, I was gone.” He chuckled darkly. “Fourth time was the charm.”
“And that worked?” Anahrod might’ve squeaked a little.
It’s not that she didn’t think a democracy would work. Exactly the opposite. She just hadn’t thought the Deepers would ever…
Sicaryon had just…
Sicaryon shrugged. “I wasn’t exaggerating when I said they spend all their time arguing. But weirdly, that seems to be working. Or at least, I’ll take a bunch of people shouting at each other in a big room over the endless wars and raids.”
“Are you or are you not king?” Anahrod asked again.
“It’s in a transitional state,” he said. “Technically, I run the army. I estimate it will take five years until I can comfortably call myself nothing but a figurehead.”
Anahrod sat down on the edge of the bed. “You gave up power? Why?” She’d grown up in a house obsessed with power, which was part of the reason she’d rebelled so hard the other way. And even though she’d known her father had done the same thing, this felt different. Her father hadn’t had a choice. Sicaryon had.
“Did I not mention that I hated it? Because it’s a lot of work. Not fun work, either. And um—” He pressed his lips together for a moment. “All that power couldn’t get me what I really wanted.”
She just stared.
“I’m going to kiss you,” Anahrod told him. “But I want you to know that if I find out you were lying about any of this—”
“Sword to the gut,” Sicaryon said. “I know the rules.”
She started to kiss him.
“Isn’t that sweet?” Ris’s voice was darker than night, colder than winter.
Sicaryon kissed Anahrod’s forehead instead and let her go. “You make a good point,” he said. “We should talk about what happened yesterday.” There was something resigned and unhappy to his expression that made Anahrod uncomfortable. Like he was preparing to do a deeply unpleasant but necessary task.
“You mean the rampant dragon?” Ris raised an eyebrow as she slid on her trousers.
“Sure. Mostly the people who died because of you.”
Ris froze.
“Cary, what are you saying? She had nothing to do with that dragon going rampant.”
Ris’s skin flushed and her eyes widened. “How dare you. I did not—You’re accusing me—”
Anahrod glanced around nervously. Some of the smaller knickknacks in the room started to vibrate.
“Why did that dragon go rampant?” Sicaryon asked.
“Why does any dragon go rampant?” Ris snapped back. “Corrupt magic. I had nothing to do with that!”
“No, that’s a how. I asked why.” Sicaryon’s gray eyes looked sharp enough to cut. “Let’s not pretend that yesterday was an accident. Yesterday was an assassination attempt.”
Anahrod couldn’t breathe. An assassination? But who—
Sicaryon was right. Somehow, Neveranimas had orchestrated the entire debacle. It was just too much coincidence that the only time a dragon went rampant was when Gwydinion was most vulnerable.
And Gwydinion was only in Yagra’hai at all because Ris insisted.
Anahrod saw the moment when Ris realized that, too, when she followed that trail to its logical conclusion.
The dragonrider fell to her knees.
“I—” Her eyes were glassy bright.
“Oh, I’ve been there,” Sicaryon said, his voice both harsh and so, so gentle. “You thought that because you didn’t attack anyone this time, because you didn’t personally kill everyone you saw and bathe in their blood, that your hands would be clean.”
She put her face in her hands and sobbed.
“Sicaryon, I think that’s enough,” Anahrod said.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “She has to understand.” He said to Ris, “You knew Gwydinion was bait. You knew she was after him. Well, congratulations—she took the bait.”
Ris raised her head from her hands, her eyes red and tear-streaked. She glared at him hatefully.
Then her eyes glowed.
“No,” Anahrod snapped. “Don’t you dare, Peralon. I know you love her, and I know you don’t want to see her in pain, but don’t let her run.”
Peralon stared at Anahrod for an interminably long second, and then Anahrod was looking at Ris’s green eyes once more.
The dragonrider drew in a shuddery, phlegm-soaked breath.
“Now let’s talk about how yesterday wasn’t your fault,” Sicaryon said.
Ris let out a disbelieving scoff. Anahrod could hardly blame her.
Sicaryon shrugged. “You don’t control Neveranimas. You don’t control any dragon—although Peralon may or may not disagree—but what happened yesterday was a direct consequence of decisions that you do control. You knew it was a risk. We could’ve waited and found another way into the city.”
“No, if we lost that opportunity—”
“So maybe it would end up taking a couple of years. Aren’t you over a hundred years old? How are you this impatient? You didn’t want to wait; you didn’t want to find someone else. You thought the risk was worth it.” He paused a beat. “Was it?”
“I hate you,” she whispered.
He shrugged. “I get that a lot.”
All Anahrod could do was watch or… no. She wiped her eyes, because apparently, she was sympathy crying, and sat down next to Ris and pulled the woman into her arms. She petted her hair and let Ris sob, scowling at Sicaryon.
“I’m willing to be the villain, if I have to,” he said. “I know where this road leads.” He reached out and touched Ris’s back. “I know the toll, and you can pay it. I know you can pay it. It’s just the price will keep going up and you need to ask yourself if it’s worth it, because believe me, it can get worse.”
Ris wiped her eyes and tilted her head to the side to look at him. “Did you work long on that speech?”
He cleared his throat, looking more than a little surprised. “Not really?”
“Entire civilization based on flying and you try to comfort me with road metaphors. Genius.”
Anahrod laughed darkly.
“It’s almost like I come from a kingdom at sea level,” Sicaryon grumbled. “Looks like my job is done.” He grabbed his clothes and that wig off the floor. “I’ll leave you ladies to finish and make my retreat.”
He left.
He was still naked.
Anahrod and Ris paused, waiting. A few seconds later, they heard someone shout and then a loud cat whistle.
“The Scarsea don’t have a nudity taboo?” Ris asked quietly.
“Not really, no.”
Ris nodded, like that explained a few things. She started dressing herself, but her movements were slow and overly careful, like a terribly injured person trying not to reopen their wounds.
“What happens to us?” Ris asked.
Anahrod sighed. It was the very last question she wanted to answer just then.
“That depends on you,” Anahrod finally said.
Ris blinked back tears, staring. “After everything I’ve done, if you’re telling me that… Is this is an ultimatum…?”
“No,” Anahrod said, smiling sadly. “No, I’ve tried that. Doesn’t work.” She stood up from the bed and walked a pace, feeling the tension lurking in every bone and muscle. “I could go run away with Sicaryon. He’d be thrilled to take me back—” She sniffed, shook her head. “I guess I’m greedy as a dragon. I don’t want to choose. And I don’t claim to be a saint, Ris. I’m invested in this, too. I’m not asking you to walk away. I’m just… I’m asking you to trust me.”
She wasn’t prepared for the soft scoff that Ris made in response. “Trust,” the woman murmured. “As if you’re not every bit as allergic to it.”
“Ris, I—” Her throat closed on her.
“Hardest thing in the world, trust.” Her voice was bitter and dark. “People will tell you it’s love or forgiveness or saying you’re sorry, but no. None of that. It’s trust.”
Anahrod let her talk. She had nothing to say.
“That’s why you were all by yourself in the jungle, wasn’t it? You could’ve found a village, a holler. I bet so many people tried to recruit you,” Ris whispered. “But in the jungle, you don’t have to trust.”
“Oh, no. You can trust the jungle,” Anahrod disagreed. “You can have absolute faith that it always wants to kill you. It’s simple and honest and it never judges.”
Ris’s eyes flicked up at the last part. Anahrod nodded slowly. “That’s it. That’s the real issue, isn’t it? Not trust. Judgment. Knowing you’ve sinned and knowing that you’ve hurt the people you love and knowing that you will have to confess your crimes and you don’t know how they’ll judge you. It’s easier to lie.”
“It was easier,” Ris corrected, “when the only person I loved was a dragon.” Then she realized what she’d just said and sighed, closed her eyes, hung her head. “You’re both like damn jungle vines.”
Hopefully that was because they were growing on her, and not because she thought they both needed to be pruned with a sword.
Anahrod had finished dressing, or at least, as much as she felt capable of doing. Fixing her hair was out of the question. “I’m going to go… I’m going to go check on Gwydinion.”
Ris raised her head. “Tell the others I’m calling a meeting. We have work to do.”
Anahrod felt the edge of those words, sharp and prickling, but she nodded anyway.
They did indeed have work to do.