Dishonourable, Grandion sniffed.
The Aquamarine Dragoness staggered him with a paw-strike, roaring,
And when this hollow honour wastes Dragon blood and lives, only death wins!
Aquamarine and Tourmaline, Hualiama thought, comparing the two Dragons–two ultra-rare gemstone colours, indicating their consummate magical abilities. Yukari’s colouration was like the blue of Gi’ishior Island’s terrace lakes, several shades darker than the luminous hues of Grandion’s scales, which hearkened to clear lake water beneath an enchanted gemstone sky.
After completing her Nuyallith exercises, Lia stripped and swam in the warm, alkaline waters, washing off the grime of travel. She sensed the feathery touch of Grandion’s magic, and knew that Yukari noted it. Did the male Dragon reflect upon her humanity and femininity? Suddenly conscious of a queer but not unpleasant burning in her belly, as though she boasted her own fire-stomach, Hualiama slipped behind a clump of ferns and squeezed the water out of her long hair, which when wet trailed to mid-thigh. Mercy. She must remember to braid it to keep from tangling her hair in the flowing Nuyallith forms. And she must remember that neither fern nor boulder could keep a Dragon-adept from sensing her with his magic.
Grandion and Yukari conversed long into the balmy night. Lia eventually found a warm hollow and curled up to listen. Of course, that was a prelude to drifting off to sleep. She enjoyed dreams of Flicker tugging her hair with his small paws and calling her straw-head. Hualiama stirred in the small hours. She checked the position of the Dragon’s Paw constellation. Three hours until dawn. Padding over to Grandion, she sleepily noted the renewed sheen of his scales. Had Yukari achieved that? How?
You’ve star-shine in your scales,
she yawned, pulling his paw over her torso.
Aye? Are you cold, Lia? Did you dream ill?
No.
But there had been a dream just before she awoke, a fragmentary memory of searching endlessly across the Island-World … Lia murmured,
You warm my fires.
To the tune of the Dragon’s purring, sleep enfolded her.
Lia often dreamed vividly, but the dreams that came upon her thereafter seemed to have a purpose about them, even a driving force, that she could not fathom. Many Dragons soared through the portals of her memory, great and small, and she joined them in a Dragonwing flying to the stars, but the stars changed into bellowing Dragons. White-fires rose within her, and in the flames strange and troubling images danced.
In an instant, a White Dragoness flicked by her sight, wild and agitated. Behind her came a storm–the most fearful storm Hualiama had ever seen, an Island-swallowing black vortex that pursued the Dragoness with deadly intent.
Mamafire,
she whispered, touching the scale which rested against the pulse in her throat.
Flee, Mamafire. I’ll protect you.
My eggling!
Go. Fly strong and true, Mamafire.
Somehow, her strength seemed to calm the Dragoness, to return sanity and reason to the churning eye-fires and terrified pulsating of her wings.
How are you able to do this, little one?
wondered the beautiful White Dragoness.
Why …
I am the balance,
she said.
The storm broke over them! Dragon-thunder shook Dragoness and eggling mercilessly.
ISTARIELA!
a mighty voice roared from the storm.
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
Mamafire!
She summoned her tiny magic, and thrust it like a sharp pin into the White Dragoness’ breast.
Nothing here but a spark. Be the spark shooting from his bonfire, lost in the night.
Taking the form of a tiny, gleaming mote of light as bidden, the White Dragoness shot away into the gathering dark as if a shooting star had briefly flared, and died. She was gone.
The little one turned. Seven black thunderheads reared out of the storm, titanic Dragons’ heads, as black as obsidian, writhing about the mote. Bolts of lightning surged out of the clouds. Smoke billowed, hot and acrid with the fury of an Ancient Dragon, and before he spoke, she knew his name.
I AM FRA’ANIOR, DRAGON-LORD OF THIS ISLAND-WORLD,
thundered the seven heads, his voice the Dragonsong of the tempest, at once spine-tingling and overpowering. Darkness and tempest mantled his majesty.
WHERE IS THAT TRAITORESS?
Gone where you can never find her.
A squeak of a reply.
Far away across time and space, Hualiama groaned in the clawed grip of her dream.
Mamafire! Help me …
The Black Dragon’s heads surrounded her with all the devastating power at his command, as if seven storms had joined forces to obliterate an unwanted Island. Fra’anior roared,
WHO ARE YOU?
She whispered,
I am the future.
With a mind-shattering roar, the seven Dragon heads vented their wrath upon the little one who defied the mightiest of the Ancient Dragons. Chaos enveloped her. She was tossed away, helpless, but a flicker of maternal consciousness clasped her in paws of love.
I will never leave you, precious one. I’m always inside you. My knowledge is yours.
Knowledge flowed into the eggling. She folded the fabric of her world about herself, and vanished.
The Black Dragon’s rage obliterated nothingness.
Lia blinked. Awake, or asleep? She could not tell, but her heart lurched in her chest for an entirely new reason, for she found herself lying in the arms of the young man of the brilliant blue eyes. A hand, warm upon her cheek. His lips, so close that his breath caressed the upturned corner of her mouth. His scent, beautiful cinnamon and sweet musk, a melody of draconic intoxication playing upon her senses. Concern registered upon his expression. Had he sensed her chaotic dreams, and come to her?
The contrast between her nightmare of the Black Dragon and this sweet awakening could not have been starker. She feared to breathe lest the intense connection be broken. All she knew was his smiling eyes. Lia did not move a muscle, yet it seemed that every element of her being had been ignited by an unknown, overwhelming force, and that upon the swelling tide of its power, her soul could indeed take wing, and fly. Every heartbeat detonated against her eardrums. There was a taut ache in her chest, as though the fullness of her feelings stretched her ribcage almost unbearably, and that within the comfort he offered lay a peril so delicious that no woman could resist–and Hualiama did not know whether she was strong or fragile, for the way he held her made her feel both at once.
Her eyes lidded.
Only the slightest shift of her head would bring her lips to his, but a fingertip stroking the tiny whorls of hair beside her ear rendered her helpless. Hualiama’s fires coursed through her being, radiant. Had she ever imagined a lover such as this? Now, she must take courage. Riding the inner tempest with the audacity of one who dared to ride the mighty Dragons of the Island-World, Lia melded her body against his. Questing. Hungering.
Only the cool night air greeted her burning kiss.
Lia sat upright with a desolate cry.
Grandion? Where … oh.
Had she dreamed?
The Dragon slept.
* * * *
Grandion heard sobbing, muffled against his paw. His third heart melted. Comfort her, would he? He had only succeeded in hurting Lia again. A Dragon should rather tear off his own wings.
When the girl’s breathing eased into the rhythm of sleep, the Tourmaline Dragon’s breathing eased too. Close. The exhilaration of lava-like heat running through his veins gentled, and Grandion allowed a soundless exhalation to impel a jumble of draconic emotions into the pre-dawn stillness. Ever since the first time he had pounced upon this girl intending to slay her for her trespass upon the holy Dragon-Isle, Lia continued to confound him. Then, he had been suffused with righteous indignation. Any other Dragon would have smeared her life upon the rocks. Now, his fires sang a different Dragonsong.
Hualiama, thou art …
what? What was she, this girl? Power. Flame. White-fires. The Enchantress of a Dragon’s soul. Wielder of
ruzal
. A girl who possessed a fate beyond his comprehension or Yukari’s power of Seeing. How could he trust her, when all was veiled? How could he not? He could not tear away. That was the path of dark-fires, of oath-breaking insanity. He had no choice. He must fly the maelstrom.
Grandion shook his muzzle slightly.
Then, he froze.
Aye, I’m awake,
Yukari growled.
And you–
Don’t say it,
said Grandion.
I will say this, shell-son of Sapphurion. I never thought you a wingless, witless fool, until just now.
The Tourmaline Dragon willed his fires to still, although heat erupted in his belly, and the sphincter valves controlling the egress of his Storm and Ice powers clenched painfully.
The Aquamarine Dragoness said,
I see that the Dragons of Fra’anior have developed the power of projection to a greater degree than even Dramagon thought possible. How is it used–to spy on Human slaves by assuming Human form? Seamlessly?
Aye.
The great secret of Gi’ishior,
she snorted, richly scornful.
You fear the Humans so greatly, you swear death-oaths upon your mother’s egg never to reveal this Dragon power–whereupon you slither and skive like worms among the Human masses, debasing the Dragonkind into common thieves.
Grandion kept his silence only with the utmost difficulty. How dare she? He could point to wars averted, intelligence that saved Dragon eggs from thieves, the delicate balance of politics, economics and social order … yet he sensed it was not these concerns which had roused her wrath. Projection was an art. It could only be sustained by powerful Dragons for a matter of hours at a time–was it Hualiama’s fear she referred to, that Ra’aba was a projection of Razzior’s? Was her father a Dragon’s magic enwrapped in Human form to such an unimaginable degree that procreation had become possible?
No,
said Yukari, reading his thoughts.
Life transcends the mimicry of magic. Life-bearing Human seed is a mystery, just as the commingling of father-fire and mother-fire produces an eternal mystery, a new triplet of living soul-fires. She suspects this much? You’ll plunge into the Cloudlands, young Grandion.
What harm do you fear?
he scoffed, goaded at last into a heated response.
Harm?
Beside him, the huge bulk of Yukari’s body writhed in an expression of her fury.
Aye!
Grandion spat.
Is it not possible one creature can roost-love another? You gave up on your Human and live here, alone, growing old and embittered–
INSOLENT HATCHLING!
Both Dragons caught their breath as Hualiama stirred. However, she only wriggled against Grandion’s paw before sighing and slumbering on. Humans. They’d sleep through an earthquake.
Yukari whispered,
But there’s something fey in her nature, o Tourmaline, is there not? Destiny burbles in delight when she laughs. The miraculous seems but a claw’s touch away, and the numinous, to flutter upon the breath of her lungs. Listen well, o Grandion, and set aside these concerns about your physical beings. Still your doubts. You are one intelligent creature, she is another.
Two souls,
Grandion agreed, doubtfully.
I know this. Of course I’ve been a fool–
A fool who makes fate-defying oaths? To honour a life-debt?
Suddenly, the great Dragoness seemed to soften, and her maternal bulk pressed against his flank as Qualiana’s bulk had once overshadowed her hatchling.
Grandion, you’re stronger than you think, but you are misguided. You err if you think I disparage your feelings for this Hualiama. Roost-love? Why not? Soul-bonded love? Youngling, that fire-promise is already spoken.
Grandion gasped,
No!
You showed me your memories. You did not speak the ancient formulae, but the mien of your hearts is clear. Even against her desires, a Seer must See truly.
She laughed, at once softly deprecating and a trill of Dragonsong.
You’re a pair of beautiful, wilful, courageous spirits. Who knows what will be?
I’m … confused,
he admitted.
You called me a wingless, witless fool. I know I am reckless, but these feelings are just so … I burn, o mighty Yukari. How I burn!
What you don’t understand is the way of true-to-your-wings-love,
she replied, using the Dragonish in a way Grandion had never before heard, but nevertheless made sense to him. A Dragon must be true to his wings. He must be authentic. He must be …
Oh, Yukari! You mean–I cause her to love a phantasm?
The Dragoness’ fiery breath washed over his neck.
Aye, now your fires burn unadulterated. Grandion, love can take many forms, but above all, it must be real. You can construct your phantasms of magic–beautiful blue eyes, black hair, so masculine in a Human way. You can be all you imagine she might desire.
Yukari’s wings shivered.
To speak this truth is hard. I do not understand every facet of your regard for Hualiama, Grandion. What should a Dragon desire in the soft hide and fireless eyes of a flightless creature? Humans are blood and bone. Dragons are fire and magic. Never the twain should–