A Shade of Dragon 3 (7 page)

“Nell?” Michelle shrilled, her eyes fixing onto me. Perfect. “What the hell are you doing? You’re supposed to be—”

“I know, yes, I know,” I said, hurrying to catch the couple and maintain their eyes. For different reasons entirely, neither of them had any difficulty watching me. “I dropped one of the pans—after I finished cleaning it—and there’s a huge mess in the washroom. I came to let you know, so I can get some help cleaning it up, because—”

“Ugh,” Michelle groaned. “It’s always something with you. I’ll fix it in a minute, okay? We have an important meeting right now.”

Lethe glanced sideways at Michelle. “
We
have an important meeting?
I
have an important meeting, and we were in the middle of a conversation when it was announced. You made it very obvious that you wished to attend the conversation.”

“Because I’m your queen,” Michelle reminded Lethe stiffly. “I should be present at important meetings!”

“It has nothing to do with you,” Lethe murmured.

It seemed as if they’d forgotten me entirely—and blazed past Theon in the alcove, as well—though I continued to tag along with them. I wanted to hear what the harpy had to say, too.

T
he throne room was empty
, with the exception of the large auburn and brown bird-woman I remembered from the cliff at the beach. Parnassia’s face was shrewd and humorless, and in spite of our agreement and our history together, the harpy mentioned nothing of it. I worried she would say something, but her eyes stayed on Lethe.

“King Lethe. When you were last seen by my sisters and myself, you were only a prince.” An icy smile formed on her lips. “Do you recall that meeting?” she asked.

Lethe glanced at me, nervous. “Er,” he said. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

I frowned.
Interesting.
I hadn’t known that Parnassia had struck a deal with the ice dragons.

“I’m Queen Michelle,” Michelle introduced herself, suddenly unsophisticated in her desperation to be recognized as an important figure at this meeting. She offered her hand, then awkwardly retracted it, noticing that Parnassia had nothing to offer but two withered, useless hands and a powerful set of wings folded over her back.

“We were very trusting in our acceptance of your offer,” Parnassia went on, ignoring Michelle. It gave me an odd sense of vindication. “You claimed that your mountaintops would be reserved for my sisters and myself. We would have free reign of the air, and no need to fear the ice dragons. And now, King Lethe, the harpies of Thundercliff would like to view the territory we have been promised, and begin to build.”

“And what territories of Maine will our people possess?” Michelle interjected.

Parnassia finally acknowledged Michelle. Her black eyes swung to behold the insolent queen. “Excuse me?” she snapped. “No territory of
our
land was ever discussed in the trade. King Lethe, I beg you to control your female, for she speaks out of turn.”

I was kind of amazed when Lethe turned to Michelle. “Control yourself, Michelle. You did not know the terms of my arrangement with the Thundercliff sisters. No territory of Maine was ever discussed. Parnassia is correct.”

But Michelle wouldn’t relent. She whirled to face Lethe, and her pout blossomed into a full, sullen lip. “If the harpies are getting a piece of Everwinter,” she argued, “which is partially mine, isn’t it?—then we should get a part of their land: Beggar’s Hole.”

“Beggar’s Hole is not ours to give, human,” Parnassia growled. “You must understand that.”

“I don’t see why not. You know, I came here from Maine by sheer… happenstance. And even though I had an alliance with the fire dragons, I helped the ice dragons. I gave them a piece of technology—no, you know what, Lethe? I gave
you
a piece of technology that you needed in order to win the war. I gave
you
a crucial piece of technology, and it solidified that crown on your head, didn’t it?” She poked his chest. It was almost too much to watch. She was such a hellion. “I was brought here for questioning following the destruction of the fire people’s shelter, and your father especially liked me. He saw that we would make a good match… and so did you, Lethe.” She crossed her arms over her bust and smirked at him knowingly. “I know you saw us together, too. You can’t hide anything from me. So I stayed. This isn’t my country. This isn’t my world. But I’ve stayed. I stayed for you, Lethe, and I stayed for the ice dragons, and I stayed for the Eraeus dynasty. You think about that!” She stomped one foot. “You think about how I gave up my entire life to you, and I asked for nothing in exchange. Don’t you think it’s time that I get a little something back? Huh? Don’t you think it’s time that I get—oh, I don’t know—a wedding present?”

Parnassia’s mouth turned down into a grimace. “Beggar’s Hole has several valuable assets to its name,” she said to Lethe, still not deigning to converse with Michelle. “It is not a mere wedding present, like the head of an enemy.”

“And isn’t the mountaintop of Everwinter worth something, then?” Michelle shrilled. “Lethe! Don’t let this bird-woman disparage our country like that!”

Lethe sighed and rolled his eyes. “If you really want to try to procure some space in Beggar’s Hole…” He winced. “I guess we could try to work something out.”

Michelle simpered. “I would so love to be able to see my family during the winter there,” she purred.

Parnassia scoffed. “These were not the terms of our arrangement,” she sneered. “I have yet to see the section of your land staked for my sisters and myself. And I have yet to be reassured that we will not be made the target of any dragon attacks.”

Lethe’s mouth opened, but no words came out. “Uh,” he stammered again. “When we made that deal, I was only a prince, and now I am a king… but a new king. Things are uncertain. The city is just beginning to settle now that the fire dragons have been fully driven from the territory. Parnassia… Miss Thundercliff… we will need more time to figure out this arrangement. I’m just not sure—”

“These are your people!” Parnassia screeched. “They obey you, or they don’t! My sisters and I completed our portion of the bargain! And now it is your turn! But the words mean nothing! Nothing!”

With that, her powerful wings beat at her side, carrying her into the air, and she wheeled out of the throne room, tearing through the palace and out of sight.

“Wow,” I murmured. If this meeting was any indication, the kingdom which lay sprawled before this king and queen was a dysfunctional one. After all, the queen was sullen and heavy-handed, imagining herself as more a prize than she truly was, just because a man who was losing his mind took a shine to her. And poor Lethe… he didn’t have the spine to say no to her demands. He didn’t have the spine, and he didn’t even like her that much.

“Who asked you?” Michelle snarled, whirling on me. “Didn’t you say there was some mess in the washroom that you needed to clean up? And that’s why you weren’t working when we found you?”

“Yes,” I agreed, not wishing to incur her wrath.

“God,” she sighed. “Lethe? Who would be good to send with Nell, to help her figure out how to sweep up some broken porcelain?”

“None of them,” Lethe answered. He didn’t smile or laugh. He wasn’t joking. “They’re ice dragonesses. They’re all as mean as… Oh! No! You know who’s actually quite nice?”

Michelle rolled her eyes. “No,” she muttered. “Who is actually quite nice?”

“That Merulina girl.”

Merulina… Where have I heard that name before?

“Let’s pair her with Merulina. Merulina will be fair. Yes? Nell, go to the servant wing and ask the head maid to pair you with Merulina. Tell her this was by the king’s command. She’ll reassign whatever Merulina’s task is, and we can get that floor cleaned up.”

“How sweet and considerate you are.” Michelle slid her hands over his arm, perhaps incited to show affection by some stab of jealousy. “What a wonderful king I have.”

As I strode from the door, heading to the servant wing, Lethe’s voice drifted up behind me, directed at Michelle. “I’m not just your king,” he reminded her. “I’m your husband.”

I
was creeping closer
to the western tower when the sound of wings beating brought me to a standstill. My eyes scanned the hallway. My blood ran cold. Had someone shifted into dragon form in the palace itself?

“Theon!” a harsh female voice called to me. I glared at the approaching figure of the harpy. The meeting must have gone very poorly. “Come with me,” she commanded, “and let us talk of further arrangements regarding these dragons. Place your satchel around my neck.”

“I can’t just leave,” I hissed. “I’m finally here. My wife is here. And the astrolabe is here. It’s the last hope of my people.”

“You can come back soon enough. Trust that the astrolabe is not the only hope of your people. You also have an alliance with a nest of harpies located at the pinnacle of Thundercliff.”

I shook my head, uncertain. “How can the harpies—”

“Come with me, I said,” Parnassia repeated. “We will discuss this at length in a safer location.”

I was hesitant, particularly about leaving Nell… but she was safe here for now. She was safe in the role of a servant girl, however humiliating it might have been, and as much as I hated to say it, I believed that Lethe would secretly go to great lengths to ensure her continued safety. If anyone was placing her in danger right then, it was me, simply by being here, and I did believe that the harpy would form an alliance with the fire dragons if I went with her. Her hot emotions had flared, and it might have brought about a sudden change of heart.

And the astrolabe, besides, was certainly guarded. I might be able to procure it, but not without significant losses. It was possible that I myself would die, and Nell would pay the price along with me.

So I climbed into the satchel, and the harpy’s wings beat, carrying us through the palace halls, out its gates, and back into the frigid nighttime air, back to the shores of one of our beaches.

I
t was only
when the temperature changed from icy to balmy that I knew Parnassia had borne me across the waves and to the ogres’ beach, where my people made camp. When she landed, it was amid cries of surprise and alarm from the fire dragons, whose suspicions were rightly roused by the sight of such a beast in their camp. The appearance of a harpy was never an omen of good tidings.

“What brings you here, snatcher?” my own mother’s muffled voice demanded.

The leather satchel lost its tension and collapsed into the sand with me, splitting open. I came rolling out, and found that a wall of fire dragons stared down at me, awaiting an explanation.

“Theon,” my mother exclaimed. “There you are! We were worried.” Her eyes were warm with relief. She’d already lost one boy, and her husband. Neither she nor Nell could stand to lose me now.

“Your son, the dethroned prince and future king of your land,” Parnassia explained, “intercepted me this evening as I had lost my way in search of the portal between the island and Earth. He learned of a deal I had struck with his wife, but our commerce did not end there. In exchange for a valued item from his satchel, I snuck him onto the property of the palace—”

A murmur of confusion rose from the crowd.

“What barter have you made with those devils?” my mother demanded, eyes flashing between myself and the harpy.

“It is no concern of yours what past the harpies and the ice dragons may have once shared,” Parnassia sneered. She must have felt awfully secure to speak in that way to a fire dragon, particularly to the queen. “The concern of yours is that the deal between us has soured. The new queen, a human, oversteps her bounds. And the king, a man of no guts or spine, will not rein her in, nor will he deliver on his own claims. This has made me… vengeful. And it will bring my sisters to the same desire of vengeance. We will retaliate for this deceit… and you will want our aid in this battle.”

Mother smirked. “What aid can a harpy be to a fire dragon? You are only a quarter of our size in battle.”

“But in the snow? In the storm? Are we so much weaker?” It was a solid point. While we became stiff and slow in the cold, harpies, like ice dragons, flourished. “They do not trust you. They would kill a fire dragon in an instant. But we harpies have forged an alliance with them. They do not realize their misstep by allowing the new queen to speak so boldly of her demands.”

Mother grimaced. She knew that these points were true.

I dusted the sand from my breeches and said, “What do you expect from us in return for this supposed alliance? I will be the first to admit that I don’t know you very well; the ways of the harpies remain mysterious, even to the other winged peoples who traverse these portals. But the most obvious trait you all share is your—forgive me, my lady, for saying—cutthroat and self-serving nature. The only creatures about whom you seem to care are, at best, other harpies. One of your kind, or so I’ve been led to believe, would never strike a deal in which there was no gain for the self or the nest.”

“You’re right,” Parnassia replied. “You don’t know us very well. We are not just, I prefer to say, excellent brokers. We are also… wrathful. And a deal broken with a harpy is not only a deal broken. A deal broken with a harpy is a new deal struck. But in this new deal, the harpy will ensure the destruction of the dishonorable party.”

I nodded, satisfied, and even managed a smile… but the smile did not quite reach my eyes. I was thinking about Nell. She too had struck a deal with this harpy. And I knew now that it was a deal she could only ever break.

T
he head
of the bustling servant quarters in the Everwinter palace—Dorid—was a gaunt older woman with pure white hair.

“Ah, the new girl,” she greeted me. “What have you dirtied?”

“I didn’t dirty anything,” I stammered, small beneath her wintry gaze. She must have been an ice dragoness.

“Lost?” she snapped.

“Nothing,” I said again.

“Broken?”

My cheeks flushed. “Yes,” I whispered.

Dorid rolled her eyes. “All right,” she said. “I’ll send Misty and Ronquil—”

“His Highness Lethe instructed me to request to be paired with Merulina,” I interjected.

Dorid glared. “Merulina?” The name twisted and rolled off her tongue as if it was an item of zero worth, but then the woman did a little shudder, as if to shake the exchange from her thin shoulders, and forged on. “Very well. Merulina is in the scullery. I’ll call her. What have you broken, child?”

I wanted to correct her usage of the word “child,” but I didn’t suppose it would do any good. Her lined face dictated that, to her, many adults were in fact children.

“A porcelain bed pan—”

I would have gone on, but Dorid’s guffaws cut me off. Apparently there was something which could break the stoic witch from her stony stare, and it was the image of me covered in dragon feces.

“Go on, go on,” she begged, rubbing at the corner of her tearful eyes.

“In the wash room,” I finished, cheeks still blushing with embarrassment. You would think that being removed from my homeland, and thrust into this war, and separated from my husband, not to mention discovering my infertility, might have hardened me to such trivial assaults on my dignity. But it hadn’t. I was still lamentably human.

“Well,” Dorid said, clapping her leathery hands together, “I will guide you to the scullery and we shall fetch Merulina together. She’ll go with you the rest of the way to the wash room and help clean up”—Dorid giggled and cleared her throat—“everything.”

M
erulina was hunched
over a sink which appeared to be filled solely with bubbles when we approached her. She was a tall girl, willowy, with kinky auburn hair which spilled down her back, unkempt, from out of a stained bonnet. Her skin, like the skin of all ice people, was an ivory that looked like it had never been touched by the sun. She was scrubbing a large, flat pan, and amid the clatter and clank of all the dishware, didn’t notice either of us entering the room.

“Merulina,” Dorid snapped, breaking the girl from her daydream and causing her to spin around.

She had a heart-shaped face, unusually soft for her lineage of ice, with deep olive eyes. It was only the eyes that betrayed her to be an ice dragon, for they, much like Lethe’s, seemed to bluster and howl with the elements of a savage storm. A blush rose to her cheek, and just as quickly drained away. She dried her hands on her apron and curtsied.

It was noting her beauty which gave me the epiphany about where I had heard that name, Merulina, before. This was the “imprisoned” girl Altair spoke of.

Of course.
The meaning of the imprisoned fire dragon’s words dawned on me. Merulina had been no prisoner. She was a servant… and the reason their love was impossible: they were from two different sides of the warring world.

Dorid swept forward and placed an arm over Merulina’s shoulders. “This is the new girl, Penelope,” she informed Merulina. “She’s a human, and she is an old acquaintance of the new queen.” The way Dorid spoke made clear her distaste for Michelle, which did not surprise me. “It garnered her a position amongst the staff, though she once knew the manacles of the dungeon quite well.” Dorid winked at me, as though we were old girlfriends and my history with torture was an amusement to us both. I didn’t let my face show how unbelievably rude Dorid was being. “Today is her second day, and she’s broken a”—Dorid had to pause to straighten her facial expression yet again—“a bed pan,” she finished. “It’s in the wash room. Go with her and help the poor thing get the place in working order again. We can’t have the castle looking like an outhouse.”

A
s we walked
, Merulina continually glanced at me from the corner of her eyes. I knew she had something on her mind, and finally it came out. “How… how is everyone in the dungeon?” she broached. “Is everyone all right down there?”

“You mean Altair?”

At this, Merulina whirled on me and brandished a trembling finger. “Don’t you dare,” she hissed. Then, looking right and left down the corridor, she straightened her shoulders and withdrew the offending finger. “I don’t understand—or appreciate—your implications.”

“You’re an interesting sort of ice dragoness,” I commented. “You seem quite hard—but you must not be, really. Not if you’ve attracted the affections of a fire dragon.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Merulina insisted again. Her pace quickened as we approached the wash room. “But if I did, would you say that Altair was faring well enough without me—I mean, not me specifically—but without any additional help? From anyone? In general?”

I smirked. Poor Merulina. It must have been hard for her. She couldn’t openly care about Altair’s fate, but there it was. “Altair was doing well last I saw him. Even without ‘additional help’ from ‘anyone in general.’”

“What are you doing with your fingers?”

“They’re called air-quotes. On Earth, people make them whenever they don’t really believe the words they’re saying.”

Merulina glared at me, her porcelain complexion easily betraying a blush creeping over her cheeks. We ducked into the wash room with our brooms and pans, but none of these tools were put to work. The instant that the door clapped shut behind us, Merulina thrust the dust pan and broom to the tile, gripped my neck and sent me floundering into the wall. “Do not speak so flippantly of the fire prince. Explain these air-quotes to me at once! Do you or do you not believe that Altair Aena fares well in the dungeon? Do not be coy, human! I have not seen him in days! You do not want to tempt me—”

“Excuse me?” I spluttered around the grip of her hand. “Did you say… Altair Aena? The fire prince?”

Her frigid fingers squeezed my wind pipe and I gurgled.

“I said do not be coy!”

I shook my head frantically and she released me; I collapsed onto the tile, still sprayed with shards of porcelain, coughing and cringing at the stinging sensation in my palms and knees. “I’m not being coy,” I cried. “He was safe last I saw him—and I had no idea that he was a member of the royal family.”

Merulina scoffed. “How could you be so uneducated toward the land on which your feet rest?”

I pursed my lips. “You know I am human,” I reminded her, “like the ice queen. We both came from Earth at the same time. There is still much I do not know regarding the ways of your people. Especially…”
Especially the fire dragons.
In all truth, I knew more about the ice dragons than the fire. I had spent more time here than with Theon and his family. I hadn’t even known he’d had a brother. How could he have never mentioned something like that? But, as I scoured my memory, I turned up just as little about his mother and father. I truly had no idea what his childhood had been like. “Especially the fire dragons.” I was Theon’s wife—and I hadn’t even known he had a brother. One imprisoned in this castle, no less.

“Fire dragons are far and away beautiful,” Merulina allowed, “but none are quite as captivating as the men of the Aena lineage. Though I risk my head for saying as much, and you are never to repeat those words. That is how you can know Altair Aena. He… is… beautiful.”

“Um,” I said, my eyes finally lifting to meet hers, “I know exactly what you mean.”

Merulina smoldered. “Stand up,” she snapped. Ah, the ice dragons. Although they had moments of cruelty and kindness to varying degrees, much like actual humans, they seemed to be uniformly of the jealous sort. “That’s enough. I’m sure you two got quite cozy in your cells—”

“No, no,” I assured her, pulling myself to my feet. The layers of my servant gown had protected my knees, save an errant sliver or two, but my hands had not been so lucky. Beads of blood blossomed across both palms, and I went to the sink to disinfect the meager wounds. “He told me about you. He seemed to think that you would be coming. That I might have the chance to meet you, if I stayed.”

I saw Merulina’s face in the mirror. It softened. “That was sweet of him,” she whispered, “to keep hoping like that. But… Dorid suspected that I was developing feelings for Altair. She’s sharp. She had my shift exchanged with another servant. Now my route does not take me into the dungeons anymore. It’s been days since we’ve seen one another.”

I hesitated. Did I want to trust another of the ice people? Lethe had proven to be useless in that department, and the last thing I needed was another person who would be happy to take advantage of my friendship, and to cast me asunder in the event that I became a liability.

“Maybe I could help you,” I said tentatively. Call it my curse to be compelled to extend a helping hand, no matter how many times I found myself later bitten.

Merulina shook her head and busied herself with sweeping. “I doubt it,” she muttered. “No one can help me. No one can help either one of us.” Her eyes, still cold, turned up toward me as she centered a cluster of tinkling porcelain shards at her feet. “What are you going to do? End the war? Unite our peoples?”

I grimaced. “No, I’m probably not going to end the war and unite your peoples—though if I felt that I could, I would certainly try. No. I mean that I could help you, maybe, in the short term. I could keep lookout while you visit with Altair.”

Merulina’s eyes narrowed. “You might get caught,” she said.

“I know that.”

“There’s nothing in it for you.”

“Yes. That’s true.”

Merulina sighed, and her shoulders sagged. “Why would you do anything to help me? You don’t even know me. In fact—for the gods’ sake—if you turned me in to Dorid right now for all that I have said, you’d probably find your station in the servant quarters increased.”

“Obviously,” I agreed. “But again, I’m human.” I smiled and felt my own heart warm with the words. “And I guess we can’t help but believe in the triumph of love.”
Even my foolish mom and dad, and all the mistakes they made.
I suddenly wanted to see them, and to see Theon. But helping Merulina see Altair would have to suffice. “And besides,” I went on, “any friend of the Aena dynasty is a friend of mine.” I extended my hand and allowed her to see the simple golden band which adorned one finger. Upon close inspection, it bore the crest of Aena: a fireball.

Merulina inspected the piece of jewelry, and her eyes flew to mine.

“Are you…?”

I nodded, almost certain of the question.

“The wife of Theon Aena?” Merulina finished in a whisper so low it was almost inaudible.

I nodded again, and a deep red blush rushed to the servant girl’s cheeks. “Oh, gods, I had no idea!” she cried, bowing her head. “Forgive me for how brisk I’ve been—I didn’t realize…” Brisk was a gentle word for it. “I didn’t realize I was speaking with—with—”

“The future queen?” I suggested, strangely invigorated by the words. I didn’t think I had ever said them aloud before.

“My lover’s sister-in-law!” Merulina corrected me, smothering her face into the palms of her hands and shaking her head. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think—I didn’t know—”

I smiled at the girl. It wasn’t her fault. I understood that the ice dragons were a little more,
ahem
, guarded than the fire dragons. This was a quality which the fire dragons lacked. But she had every right to feel that way. If she was in love with a fire dragon—and not just any fire dragon, but Theon’s brother—then she was surrounded by enemies here.

“It doesn’t matter,” I assured her. “Let’s finish this up, find some bandages for my hand, and go down into the dungeons for a little while. I’ll be your lookout. I really don’t mind; I know how much it would’ve meant to me if anyone had been there to help me when I was trapped in this palace, pretending to be something I wasn’t.”

Merulina cocked her head at me. “When you were trapped in the palace, pretending to be something you weren’t? You mean… right now?”

We collected the porcelain piles into our dust pans and walked. “No,” I answered. “Before I married Theon, I was kidnapped by Lethe and kept in the palace. We almost got married.” I sighed and shook my head. “It’s a long story.”