8. Risking a Few Lives for the Perfect Dessert
Risking a Few Lives for the Perfect Dessert
SAPPHIRA
S apphira can’t believe her eyes. In the weeks she has been in Cielo, she has seen many crazy things, but this is the most unbelievable.
“When did this happen?” she gasps, her eyes not leaving the giant creature before her, its tail swishing back and forth.
Isabel lays a hand on Sapphira’s arm, and she jumps. “You’re okay,” Isabel whispers.
Sapphira straightens her spine, her eyes darting back toward the creature moving closer. She takes a step back.
“Kaelen’s a takops,” Isabel explains. “He’s been that way since birth.
Same as me with the—” she gestures to her horns and fur-tipped ears.
“Takops are shape-shifters of the draeɡ?n or Draconia class. There are many names for them. Takops differ from their more well-known cousins because they are Dracomammalia, not Dracoreptilia. Easy mistake, but you can tell the difference by the shell. Kaelen has fur rather than scales, and a more triangular head.”
“Wait, so he could do that this whole time?” Sapphira hisses. “That lying little—”
Kaelen roars, swiping his tail toward Sapphira, who shrieks at him as she jumps out of the way.
“He tried to kill me!” she tells Isabel.
“He’s harmless. It’s the serpere you need to worry about, not Kaelen.”
“Serpere?”
Isabel giggles, covering her mouth. She holds out a hand, and Kaelen bends his neck. Isabel runs her fingers through the milky fur tipped with red. Moving Kaelen’s large head, she points at the long, furry ears that fold back along his head.
“Don’t worry,” she says to Sapphira. “You’re fine.
A serpere is a reptilian draek?n type. See these ears?
Serpere have large slits behind the eyes instead, and their bodies are fortified for battle.
The takops is mostly of a gentle class. As long as you stay out of the wasteland and the far northern isles, you should be fine.
Now, I’ll show you how to get on his back. ”
“No way,” Sapphira says, shaking her head. “I do not feel like falling to my death today.”
Isabel halts her ascent and turns to Sapphira. “I promise you’ll be fine. He wouldn’t do anything to put you or me in danger, regardless of what his attitude might suggest.”
Warm hands close over Sapphira’s, and the princess shivers as she looks down into the chimera’s warm eyes.
“Please, Sapphira. I know he gets on your nerves, but Kaelen really is a good guy. And you two are so similar. I’m sure you’ll get along great once you get to know each other better.”
“You really want this turtle rose, don’t you?” Sapphira mumbles. Not wanting to be the reason Isabel’s trip is ruined, she nods. “But if he tries any funny business, you let me down immediately.”
“Promise!” Isabel says, making a motion with her hands that she taught Sapphira means the sun and the moon. Her heart-shaped face is framed with curls, and Sapphira just can’t resist her.
She follows Isabel toward the takops, its head dropping low toward the ground. Isabel grabs the golden harness and places her foot in the placket, using her arms alone to pull herself upward.
Attempting to do the same, Sapphira realizes how strong Isabel is to make it look so easy. The woman helps her up, positioning her at the front of Kaelen’s back. Sapphira stutters a gasp at the warmth behind her as Isabel wraps short arms around her torso.
“Is the harness a part of the takops’s body?” Sapphira asks, her voice warbling. The question is meant to distract herself from how high up she is, but she is curious too.
“No,” Isabel answers. “But whatever Kaelen is wearing while he shifts reverts back with him when he returns to human form.
Sapphira nods, though most of it goes over her head. She’s shaking in the circle of the chimera’s arms as Kaelen begins to move. He goes into a trot before speeding up.
“It’s okay,” Isabel whispers. Sapphira shivers at the sudden jump of warmth blowing over the side of her neck.
Taking a deep breath, she relaxes into the woman’s hold, trusting Isabel as Kaelen lifts off the ground.
His wings are long, with thick muscles rippling under soft fur.
The sound is booming, the initial jump like a thunderclap, the flap of wings and rush of air fizzing in Sapphira’s ears as they soar through the air.
WHAP-WHAP-WHAP,
FWOOOSH.
WHAP-WHAP-WHAP,
FWOOOSH. WHEEEOOO.
Sapphira can’t hear a thing over it, but the sound becomes comforting as they soar higher, racing upward toward the peak of Mount Solarion.
When Kaelen touches down on the ground, Sapphira’s head spins with vertigo, and she would slide off the takops’s back if it weren’t for Isabel’s steadying hands around her waist.
“Take your time,” the chimera says.
Kaelen seems to disagree, the dust stirring from his breath as he huffs and his body shakes beneath Sapphira.
“I’m good,” Sapphira groans, her stomach churning. “Get me off, please.”
Isabel slides gracefully down Kaelen’s back and motions Sapphira to do the same.
“No way,” Sapphira says, looking at the long drop down. She turns onto her belly and grabs the harness tightly, going down the way she went up. When her feet hit the ground, Kaelen shakes out his fur, and she has to cover her face from the spray of dust and bugs.
“You dumb draec?n!” she calls out in poor pronunciation, the word thick on her tongue.
Kaelen shrinks, shifting back to his human form with a smirk firmly on his lips as he says, mockingly, “You okay, Sapphira? You look quite scared.”
“I’m not scared,” she snaps back, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’m bored. You took so long getting us up here, and I just want to find this damn turtle rose so we can get back before sunset.”
As they trek through the trees, Isabel passes snacks to Sapphira and Kaelen from the woven bag strapped across her chest.
“Dinner will be late tonight,” Isabel says, squinting up at the sun peeking through the trees. “And we’ve been out all day. I don’t want you to faint.”
“Thanks,” Sapphira says, her stomach choosing that moment to remind her of its presence with a loud snarl.
She takes the food—taro sticky rice wrapped in a banana leaf.
It has a fragrant, sweet vanilla-coconut flavor and melts on her tongue.
Her eyes close in ecstasy. It reminds me of the food back in Dansui.
All of Isabel’s cooking is like that, like a peice of home, back when her parents were still alive.
Sapphira keeps a close watch on Kaelen as she chews, stewing over this new information she’s learned about Kaelen.
She notices how pink-tipped wings flutter under his kaftan.
She never noticed them before and wonders how that is.
Can he hide them somehow? I’m not sure, but I’m not going to ask either, lest he think I care.
The revelation that he could hold such a huge secret about himself is unsettling though. Never mind the secrets I keep myself, it only reminds me that Isabel and Kaelen are still strangers in a strange land. I don’t truly know them, therefore, they can’t be trusted.
They walk through the jungle under towering trees, and the elevation leaves Sapphira breathless. The birds grow quiet as the sun sinks low, cutting through the foliage at their chest as the sky turns a deep copper-red.
When they reach the location Isabel is seeking, the chimera lights up at the sight of the mouth of a cave.
Sapphira tilts her head to study it, wondering what could be so special about this thing that they came all this way for it.
Shining in the sparse sunlight sits the turtle rose plant Isabel was searching for.
An egg-ish patch of the plants, with hard blue shells and soft spikes along the neck.
The plants are pretty, but Sapphira doesn’t understand the excitement.
Isabel, though, is boiling over with glee and bouncing on her toes.
That dimpled smile makes Sapphira giddy.
Maybe it’s exhaustion and gnawing hunger, but her stomach bubbles.
I would scale any mountain to see Isabel’s face light up over and over again , she thinks.
This revelation is interrupted when Isabel hands Sapphira and Kaelen containers with little holes along their tops.
“This will mimic the rain,” she says, her smile not wavering.
“Hold the turtle rose under the neck on this short stem when the flower opens. Make sure to come from under, never over. Wrap your whole fist tightly and pinch your thumb and pointer finger at the hinges on the side of its jaw to hold it open.”
Bending, Isabel grabs a pair of twigs from the ground, her dress shaping itself around her soft curves at the movement. She holds out her hand, and Kaelen snags the longer one.
“Flick the fruit out with this. If the flower clamps shut, it could take your fingers.”
Sapphira’s eyes bulge wider with each of Isabel’s instructions. “All of that for some fruit?” she asks.
Kaelen sings, “You scared?”
Sapphira snaps her mouth shut. She is the best sword fighter in her kingdom. She isn’t afraid of a flower.
Kaelen takes the right side, so Sapphira wanders far off to the left, where there is a smaller patch of flowers. She clutches her water container as she kneels on the hard ground. The flowers are quite pretty, their blue-green colors shifting in the fading sunlight.
It takes a while, and the water comes slowly from the small holes. When the shell finally begins to open, shuddering as it blooms under the water, Sapphira is stunned by the beauty of the fruit inside. It’s a breathtaking red that almost glows, and there is so much detail in the folds of the flesh.
As Isabel instructed, she pinches the neck to hold the flower open and flicks the fruit off with the end of her stick.
She has to let out a deep sigh of relief when she stuffs the fruit into the pocket of her kaftan, stretching out the tense muscles in her hand. The shell snaps closed, and Sapphira gives a quiet cheer of triumph.