Chapter 22 The Dragons
For about twenty minutes, we just wait, Marton leaning against a tree while I pace the grass near the tree line. We don't speak much. There aren't any plans to make, without more information to go on.
Right now our course of action amounts to Wait to see what the dragons say and do. And as secondary steps: Try to get our friends back. Run if there's trouble. Fight if we can't run. Try to keep Marton alive.
The last is more my imperative than Marton's, but it's the most important one.
"The highest cell in the Trove," Marton says after a long stretch of silence.
That's where they're keeping Cherry, they said. "What about it?"
"The highest cell," Marton repeats. "That sounds a little...backwards, doesn't it? It's not what you expect of—of dungeons kept by supposedly evil—"
"The highest cell," I explain, envisioning it easily, "would be the hardest for a human to get out of." Or to get into. Wasn't that the same reason I chose the tower room as our home when Cherry and I first came to the ruins of the old castle?
Marton has nothing to say to that, and after a moment I begin to hear wingbeats on the air. My pacing halts, and I turn my head in the directions of the sound. Whether or not Marton can hear it too, he notices my attention comes to my side, looking in the same direction.
We're standing there at the edge of the woods when three large, green, winged shapes come banking around the mountain from the east.
The grayish and emerald dragons, Jeksu and Raku, come in for landings on either side of the clearing, and the new arrival chooses a spot in the middle, so that she—for I'm assuming this is Araine—forms the head of a triangle with the others flanking her.
Araine is close to the same size as the male dragons, maybe a little smaller, and her scales are a rich, dark green, the color deep as a twilit forest. For a heartbeat, I marvel at the beauty of her.
At all three of them, iridescent scales catching and refracting the afternoon light, heads large and regal, spines and tails wreathed with spikes.
They move with the grace of large predators at their leisure, and for the first time, I think I understand why Marton called me beautiful the first time he saw my dragon form.
There is fierce, wild beauty here. Sharp and deadly and awe-inspiring.
Is this what I look like?
It is a different kind of image of myself than I have ever had before. Not just a monster for hurting and killing, but something incredible and magic.
I may have had time to think the wyverns lovely if I hadn't been worried all the while that they were plotting something sinister. But my senses would not let me be comfortable around them.
Those same senses slumber within me now. They do not warn me that there is danger here. And after the dragons have looked on us for the barest moment, all three of them shift into their human forms.
They have brought clothes with them this time, apparently tied to the spines along their backs, and when they shift, the clothing falls to the ground around them. They pick it up and dress with the unconcerned dexterity of people used to switching from scales to flesh a dozen times a day.
The female turns a sharp gaze on us. She has deep brown skin, the green to her complexion all but undetectable in this form.
Her eyes are golden, hair black and thick with corkscrew ringlets.
She doesn't smile, which actually makes me trust her the more.
She strides forward several steps, her gaze climbing all over my face.
She stops about ten feet away, and after staring at me for a long moment, her eyes go wide with some emotion I do not understand. Marton tenses beside me, and it sounds like he sucks in a sharp breath, like a gasp of surprise.
I glance up at him and find him staring at the dragon girl before us with an expression similar to the way she is looking at me. I don't like that he looks at her with so much rapt attention, but his gaze is not exactly admiring. More...shocked.
"What?" asks Raku impatiently, approaching Ariane's side. "What is it?"
I'm glad he's asked, because I'm wondering too.
"You do not see?" Ariane speaks. I cannot tell who her words are for until she turns her head to look at Raku. Her eyes are wide with meaning, and they slowly track back to me, and then to Marton. "This one sees," she notes in a low, husky voice, nodding to Marton.
"Sees what?" I ask irritably.
"You—" Marton gasps. "She— You look—"
I'm scowling now. What? Is she prettier than me or something? What an accomplishment.
"They share the same features. Araine and this newcomer," Jeksu speaks up now as he, too, draws near. His voice is full of realization. "I did not see it, before."
My brow wrinkles at this. "No," I say slowly. I look from my olive complexion to her deep brown.
"Not the coloring," Jeksu explains, "but their faces. Same mouths and noses. Same eyes, a little bit. Hair."
Now I have to laugh, because Ariane's ringlets are smooth and shine silkily as oil while my own looser snarls of curls have not been brushed in days and days.
But Ariane's face is devoid of humor. "Who was your mother, girl?"
My eyes narrow at being called girl by someone who cannot be that much older than me. I bite out each word of my reply. "My mother was a washerwoman. A peasant. An Ithymian. A human. Is one of those what you wanted to know?"
"How old are you?" she demands.
"How old are you?"
"I am five and twenty. My mother was a dragon named Gyandra who died over twenty years ago.
Upon her death, my father left me with the Trove and fled into the wild country in his grief.
He did not return for several years, and then would never say where he had been or what he had done.
And he never stayed any place for long after that.
It was not many years later that he passed, some said from grief, and some said from drink.
" A bitter laugh, her eyes sharp on my face.
"So tell me, stranger, who was your father? What did he look like?"
My body feels stiff as a board. "I never knew my father. Never met him, nor saw him, nor heard anything about him from my mother." After a moment, I add reluctantly, "I am one and twenty. What do you mean to make about it?" I fear I know, but don't want to guess.
Ariane's lips twist into a sardonic smile, devoid of pleasure.
"I believe you are my father's daughter.
" She touches her arm. "His skin was dark, but not like mine.
That came from my mother. My father was more like you.
" Her head tilts to one side, eyes studying my face.
"And those are his eyes you have. I remember them well, all yellowish green like dying autumn grass.
" Her voice is almost hushed, wistful in a way I cannot understand.
Am I supposed to feel some comradery with her, because she was born of a man I never knew? Because the others see some resemblance between us? Have I ever spent time studying myself in a looking glass, to know if they are correct?
This does not feel real to me. It cannot be.
"I am sure there is some other explanation..."
"Think what you will," Araine says quickly, crossly. Then she presses her lips together, as if regretting her hasty speech. When she speaks again her tone is softened. "What is your name?"
"I am Tarah. This is Marton." I touch his arm as I speak, and he steps closer to me. I am glad for that. It reminds me why we're here. "The girl in the tower. She is ours. And the manticore. We want them back."
Araine breathes deeply, nodding her head. "Raku and Jeksu said as much. I...am not sure how it may be accomplished."
"But you are not opposed to it?" Her words surprise me, her attitude.
Her mouth flattens into a line. "Having the Ithymian princess in the Trove can only bring trouble for our people.
Already, it has cause widespread bickering and squabbles over what to do with her.
About who should claim the reward for her return, if there is one to be had.
About whether or not we should kill her, and how it should be done.
About whether she belongs to the Trove, or to the wyverns, or to Besana's people only. It is not—"
I put up a hand to interrupt her here, my mind reeling. It is almost too much information to process, all at once. So the entire Trove knows that Cherry is the princess. And they are arguing about whether or not to kill her. Or to trade her back to the king for a reward. And...
"Besana's people?" I repeat, bewildered by this phrasing. "You mean...Inobar and Edythe?"
"I mean all of her poisoned followers." Araine's tone is bitter.
"Besana's followers?"
Araine pulls a face, and Raku and Jeksu chuckle darkly. "Don't tell me that you fell for the act? The demure glances at her husband. The sweet smiles. Besana is the mastermind behind most of the foul things that come in and out of the Trove."
Well.
Well. I can hardly get my head around it. Besana behind the decision to capture Cherry and hold her in the Trove. Besana manipulating us from the start.
There goes my plan to blame all the world's evils on men. Serves me right, I suppose, for underestimating a woman. And for thinking with my prejudice once more.
"But," Marton speaks up, in the tone I know means he is about to notice something I have missed, "why would you kill her? Inobar made it seem as if the plan was to use Cherry—Shireen—to barter for some universal good for the Dragomira. Dead, she's useless."
I cringe at the words, but Araine studies Marton anew. Flicks her gaze to me, brow furrowed. "They would kill her," she says, "to punish the king's line for what they did to our people hundreds of years ago."
I frown. "What the king's line did to your people? Our people," I correct. "But the king's line is dragonkind."
Araine's eyes go round as moons, and Raku and Jeksu mutter to each other. "The king," she says, tone disbelieving, "is descended of the basilisks, who betrayed our people into exile long ago, when the protectorkin and the humans first split ways with one another."
"But...No," I disagree. "That isn't..." Marton touches my waist, and I trail off. He looks thoughtful. He whispers to Araine. "We have not heard this. Can you tell us what you mean? Starting from the beginning. What do you mean about betrayal?"