The faint radiance of moons-light from the air hole in the cavern’s roof touched the Tourmaline Dragon’s scales, hinting at their former beauty. The scales beside his eyes were relatively tiny, Hualiama saw, peering at him in the gloom–just the size of her thumbnail. Before, their pattern had suggested delicate veins of minerals cutting through the underground glory of Ha’athior’s abundant gemstone geodes. Now the scales seemed wrinkled, like the prunes King Chalcion had once procured from a trader from Somax in the Southern Archipelago and proudly displayed at a feast–one made memorable, Lia recalled with a pang of shame, for the King becoming drunk, ranting at a guest, and then punching Kalli in the mouth when his son tried to calm him.
“Your eyes still gleam slightly,” she realised aloud.
Grandion rumbled, “Such afflictions are due to disease. It’s hopeless. My retinae are ruined.”
Lia bristled at his low, irate growl. “Don’t lose hope, Grandion. I found you halfway across the Island-World, after all.”
“Well done. You beat up both of our fathers and found a blind Dragon.”
Her teeth ground together so hard, Hualiama was afraid she had chipped a tooth. Rage blinded her as surely as the insulting, scabrous serpent was blind. Lia stormed off across the cage, afraid she might shout something she’d regret forever. For a long time, she struggled against the desire to lash out punish him. Words could sear like acid, twist and torment and pry … yet she withheld. She had her pride, too–whole Dragonships full of ralti-stupid, worthless pride no royal ward should have a right to claim. Lia was no curling night-pansy. She was the Dragonfriend, and the holder of Dragon fire.
Softly, he rumbled, “You may not know this, but in our culture, it is anathema to raise a paw to one’s shell-parents. Despite all he did to me, I never raised a paw against my shell-father.”
“Yet you wished him dead.”
“Aye, there’s a limit on paws, but not upon hot-tempered idiocy.”
No. As his snarl echoed around the fully dark chamber, the Human Princess knew his words for the truth–and for an apology. Dragons. She rolled her eyes in the dark, knowing it was safe as he could not see. Or could Grandion hear her eyeballs swilling about like liquid in a goblet? That was a tasteless image, but not beyond the capabilities of a Dragon. Yet he had been greatly moved by Sapphurion’s apology. He was not made only of fire. Grandion had changed. She heard little of the youthful arrogance which had driven him to clash with his shell-parents. Perhaps this signalled a more temperate beast? Or perhaps it was just depressing.
Lia’s feet tapped around the cave, bringing her full circle to where the Dragon lay. Lying down with his chin on the ground, the top of his nose stood taller than her head. She said, “Grandion, will you allow me to rest this night beneath your paw, as before?”
The Tourmaline Dragon let smoke sigh between his fangs. “Need you ask?”
“I must.”
“You may, if you wish.”
“I do so wish.”
She wished for many things. Did he? Lia snuggled into the space between Grandion’s neck and his forepaw, and wondered what the Tourmaline Dragon made of her boldness. Then, way down in the depths of his body, she heard and felt his belly-fires rumbling away soothingly. Aye. Not quite the rebellious reptile he pretended to be.
“Those are long leagues you travelled by Dragonship,” said the Dragon.
“Aye. Can I borrow a talon for a pillow?”
Grandion adjusted his paw as requested, providing her the outermost and smallest talon of his paw to rest her head upon. Comforts fit for royalty, she chortled inwardly. Creature comforts.
Unexpectedly echoing her thoughts, he said, “Creature comforts? By my wings, you’ve changed little.”
“You mean, I remain little.”
“The quality of a gemstone is hardly reflected in its size,” averred the Dragon. “It lies in the beauty of the facets and the inner structures, in the way great heat and pressure forged the mineral and the skill of the jeweller to craft that hidden beauty into life. Why did you seek me across the Isles, Hualiama?”
She wiped her eyes. “To hear you speak like that.”
“I could speak of the way that life shapes us. Sometimes the jeweller must take his courage into his paw, and make an irrevocable cut.” Hualiama wondered where his oblique draconic logic might be leading. “We were rough jewels, six years ago. We’ve been cut and ground and polished. Neither of us is flawless. I ask again, why did you seek me?”
“Because I suffer from double vision.”
His laughter shook her, and the second and third digits of his paw, lying across her upper torso like a hot blanket, squeezed with care. “You confound me. What does this mean?”
The Princess nuzzled his paw as she imagined a Dragoness might. Deliberately switching to Dragonish in the hope that the language would better express her feelings–although draconic telepathic speech was more deeply communicative by far, Island Standard was still her heart-language–Lia replied,
My physical eyes see thee struck down by circumstance, Grandion. Though the fates have wounded and sorely tested thee, thou art a Dragon most majestic.
And now she spoke with the resonance of an Ancient Dragon? She shook herself mentally.
The eyes of mine heart see thee twice. Once for the flaws, aye–but are we not all flawed, and our esteem swells despite those flaws, or even, because of them? No being upon this Island-World may claim perfection. Courage is only called courage because of our weaknesses–it is the greater for them, and nothing without them. And secondly, mine heart has the power to see thee as flawless.
Unexpectedly, Grandion sighed,
Ah, by the Spirits of the Ancient Dragons!
When he said no more, the girl continued, unable to prevent the ancient speech-patterns from rising to the foremost position in her mind,
Aye, Dragon thou art, and Human I am. Were one to look upon outward appearances, impossibilities and conundrums and insurmountable differences abound. But we two are living souls. Thy shell-parents saw this. I only relate that which the finest of Dragons taught me. The power of the third heart, Dragons say, lies in the art of tasting the soul-fires of another. I cannot claim to understand these mysteries. So I call this ‘double-vision.’ I see thee twice. Thrice. Perhaps I miscount …
His muzzle shook slightly against her, and the tenor of his fire-rumblings changed.
Is this a Human power, Lia?
Which power?
The Tourmaline Dragon lay still for so long that Hualiama found herself having to fight the delicious warmth that spread lassitude throughout her body. Something within her had uncurled, she realised. Tensions fell away. Perhaps it was that as she sighed, her spirit sighed too. Grandion was imperfect. The royal ward he held was worse. The blunders she had made! The idiocies she had perpetrated, becoming his Rider, foolishly and unthinkingly condemning her Dragon to this fate.
On one side, the law. Unchanged for thousands of years. On the other, a magical vow apparently condoned by an Ancient Dragon, and a scandalous, exuberant rapport …
Grandion said,
The fabled Star Dragons had a power they called the ‘Word of Command’. Once spoken, these words remained immutable. They could bellow commands of such suns-dimming, Island-shivering power–
They could knock Dragons from the sky?
Lia bit her knuckles in fear.
Even Grandion’s voice caught in awe.
Aye. No Star Dragon graces our Island-World now. They have passed into legend.
You speak of Istariela, the soul-mate of Fra’anior?
Aye, Dragonfriend,
he agreed. But she was catapulted back to an old dream. Lia touched the White Dragoness’ scale beneath her clothes, warm against her chest. What had become of the eggs the Dragoness had hidden? A Dragoness, frantic to hide her young from a searching Black Dragon–had that been Istariela?
The
Tourmaline added.
I would speak of another power. For your words reach into a Dragon’s third heart. You sharpen me. You ignite my fires, yet I am dull-witted, and slow. I remember reading such a thing of Star Dragons. They were Dragons set apart for a task of maintaining the balance of our Island-World–
The balance of the harmonies
. Exactly what Amaryllion had said!
Great Dragon fires!
Grandion’s flame spurted from his nostrils, lighting the cavern briefly.
The knowledge stuffed into that tiny brain of yours, I’m surprised it doesn’t frazzle and spit sparks all the time.
Was this her task? Suddenly, Hualiama wondered at this hitherto unidentified melody she sensed in her life. No. It was too great, too grand, for a mere Human to contemplate. But if the Ancient Dragons had departed for the eternal Dragon fires, surely they had thought to leave a Star Dragon to protect the balance? Her mother Shyana loved esoteric speculations. Her daughter? Not so much. Yet a tiny flame of hope flickered in her breast. Someone must find the Star Dragons, mustn’t they?
Those eggs would be a thousand years old, perhaps more. Yet the original First Eggs of the Ancient Dragons had survived unknowable aeons and the blackest reaches of time and space, to arrive safely on their Island-World. Could a Star Dragon’s eggs do the same?
Grandion interrupted her thoughts with a low chuckle.
I thought a Tourmaline Dragon potent in magic. Now, I will have the tale of thy journey. Your brother stowed away on your Dragonship, you said?
* * * *
Hualiama’s voice was an invisible stoking of fires so long dormant, they had almost forgotten how to burn. The Tourmaline Dragon felt a lightness in his wings and belly as if he were flying. He could not help comparing Lia to Cerissae, the Red Dragoness of the Lost Islands who had brought him to the cusp of speaking the ascending fire-promises together, and then betrayed him with callous, stunning disregard.
There could be no fire-promises spoken with Hualiama. She was no Dragoness. But her fierce, understated pride as she told of rescuing her brother, and her service to the Dragoness and her hatchlings, was telling. She did not praise her own paws, whereas Cerissae’s boasts would have rung to the heavens in true Dragonish style. He told her Mizuki had the power of Shivers, a rare draconic power capable of powdering the stone of fortresses and, as Lia had seen, exploding the flesh of unprepared enemies. Grandion remembered the pretty Copper fledgling from his sojourn among the Dragons of Eali Island.
If Mizuki had grown as powerful as Lia described, perhaps she was the Dragoness to light his fires? Thinking this, he immediately felt unfaithful to the tiny Human.
Oh, how his bugle of pleasure at Razzior’s downfall made her chortle! Hers was the laughter of waterfalls, bubbling and pure. Cerissae had never made him feel like this. Lia had a gift.
When his companion was done with the telling, the Tourmaline Dragon was left shivering at the sensation crawling along his spine-spikes. He said, “Do you remember, Hualiama, how both the Nameless Man and Amaryllion called you ‘child of the Dragon’ and ‘child of Fra’anior’?”
“Um … what’s that got to do with the price of berry wine?”
Humans had the silliest sayings. Then again, the Dragonkind were obsessed with sayings about wings and talons and all things fiery. He growled, “I was just thinking that there may have been a Tourmaline Dragon who, with a dollop of acid worthy of a Green, told you that you did not in a million wingbeats merit such a title.”
“Aye.” She jabbed the surprisingly sharp point of her elbow into his jaw muscle. “Jealous, were you?”
“No.”
“Well, I certainly smell another back-handed–I mean, back-winged or whatever you Dragons say–non-apology being made right around now.”
“What I smell is the friction of Human effrontery sharpening draconic lethargy,” he retorted, but was displeased when Lia shook her head in clear confusion. Should he simplify? Grandion said, “I’m grateful for your abrasive wit to sharpen my own.”
In response, Hualiama sang:
Arise, thou prodigal son of dawn’s fires,
Enflame the Island-World with thy igneous breath,
Wing o’er the sky-fires in exalted majesty.
The Tourmaline Dragon purred with delight, for the magic of her voice hardly stopped at commanding words. But when he did not speak quickly enough, the Human girl said impatiently, “Explain yourself, lizard. What are you thinking about this ‘child of the Dragon’?”
“Only that your Nameless Man and our Amaryllion might have meant more by it than we can imagine,” said Grandion. “You’ve always dreamed of being a Dragon.”
She shifted restlessly in his paw. “Oh, Grandion. Little girls have to grow up and face reality.”
Always, she had seemed the one who slipped between the laws of reality like water grasped by a Dragon’s talons, that Dragons were bound by draconic law and Humans by the mores and principles of their kind, and Hualiama, Dragon Rider and Dragonfriend, somehow moved in a different plane of reality. He hated the note of despair that shaded her response. He hated that she was right. How could he respond? He yearned to hear again the birdlike trills of her laughter, to tell her sweet lies that aye, Humans could surely grow wings, and truly, they could soar like the Dragonkind.
All lies must, in the end, be shown to be hateful at their core. He could not bear to hurt Lia again. Yet her melancholy pained him, for the song of his third heart was joined to hers.