The Sand Prince (11 page)

Aelle's smile vanished as soon as the woman was out of sight. "Liked it? When you called him a beast I thought he was going to pull your arms off."

"Unlikely! Anyway, if we called him Tiny or Lumpy or Slim or something, that would be insulting. Beast, though. That's a proper name to strike fear in an enemy's heart."

She hesitated, then said, "Father will be pleased that you like him."

"Father will be pleased when you take the High Seat."

She pulled him to a halt. "Don't say that," she hissed. "Someone might hear you. That Lady or one of her maids might have heard you. Maybe
you
want an audience with the queen...."

"She
is
amazing."

"
Rushta
!" she swore, "Shut up! This is just what Father is talking about."

"You know it, I know it, Father invented it, your big friend back in the books certainly knows it. Does he think you're spending all your time with him because he's so pretty? He may be a beast but he's hardly stupid. What do you think he tells himself? '
Oh, Aelle, she can't resist me'
...."

Aelle opened and shut her mouth a few times. Finally she looked at the ground and said, "I like him.
Really
. A lot." She fixed her brother with a burning look. "If you say something clever you're dead where you stand."

He crossed his arms and put his chin in his hand. "Just tell me how I can help."

She let out a huge sigh of relief. "Thank you for turning down your...'you-ness' for me."

"You really
do
think he's the rain! Oh no, how embarrassing for you!"

"And it’s back."

The boy laughed and took her arm as they continued towards the kitchens. "Just because it’s what Father wants doesn't mean we can't make it into something for ourselves. Let's get some
sarave
that won't kill us all and go read some books."

––––––––

"All these dresses and no one to wear them—honestly, darling, people are starting to talk. One mad woman shouldn’t put you off an entire gender." Cybelle dos Shaddoch popped a chocolate in her mouth and shut the wardrobe.

The Duke glared at her from the doorway. "When I want your opinion... never mind," he said. "It’ll never happen."

She laughed. "You depend on me and you know it. And I’m of the opinion you need someone other than your horse to talk to."

-The Claiming of the Duke, pg 12

Malloy Dos Capeheart, Little Gorda Press (out of print)

––––––––

M
istra

80 years after the War of the Door, Mistran Calendar

16 years later, Eriisai calendar

Va’Everly Residence

"... and they got red eyes, see?" The little girl looked up from the floor and held out the book she’d been drawing in for her older sister’s inspection.

"What? Who has red eyes?" Lelet va’Everly was more interested in rooting through their oldest sister May’s jewelry box than what Scilla was working on. She found a pearl earring and held it up. "Wonder where the other one is."

"Lelly! Look. I drew this for you. It’s demons." Scilla pushed the book in front of her sister’s face.

"What are you doing with my journal? Are you writing in it?" Lelet snatched it out of her sister’s hands. "Oh, Scil. You drew all over it. Did you go in my room?"

"Rane gave it to me, he said you’d like it," said the girl. "He made me." She paused. "Am I in trouble?"

Lelet slammed the little notebook shut, remembering not to swear in front of her sister. A child of seven should be spared the kind of language she wanted to use, and as she was frequently reminded, she was a lady of thirteen and might consider acting like one. She took a deep breath. "Rane is not allowed in my room. And you are not allowed to draw all over my journal! Scil, you should know better, you’re not a baby." She opened the book again to assess the damage. A long, narrow face dominated by glowing red eyes and sharp teeth looked back at her. "Is this supposed to be me?" she asked.

"No, it’s demons," answered Scilla. "I know all about ‘em."

Lelet pushed a hairband decorated with dainty pink silk roses aside and found the matching pearl. She put the pair in the pocket of her dress. "Are you going to have nightmares now?" She picked up the rose band and held it up to her hair—which she wore cut just below her chin and dyed pale blue. She thought the pink roses suited her and they joined the earrings in her pocket.

"I don’t have nightmares," said Scilla indignantly. She picked up her red pen and began to draw eyes on her hand. "Red eyes and they can make themselves turn into fire."

Lelet shoved May’s bureau shut and turned to see what her sister was doing. "Quit drawing on yourself, May will have a fit."

"I wish I could turn myself into fire," Scilla added.

Lelet sighed and shook her head. Her little sister was always going on about something bizarre. Fire, demons; where did she come up with these things? She supposed it was for the best that in just a few years Scilla would leave for her new school, The Guardhouse, out near the coast. From what Lelet could tell, all they did was sit around all day and talk about things that didn’t even exist. Scil and her new classmates would probably get along famously.

May, the owner of the bureau, earrings, hairband, and room, walked in and found them in their usual positions: Scilla sitting on the floor gazing at Lelet, who was ignoring her in favor of whatever May left unlocked. She stood behind Lelet at her dresser.

"Hand it over," she said.

Lelet rolled her eyes and fished the earrings out of her pocket.

"And what else?" May asked.

"She took your hairband with the pink roses," Scilla said.

Lelet glared at the girl and tossed the headband on the dresser. "Rane was snooping in my room. He
stole
my journal." She folded her arms. "And Scilla’s talking like a crazy person again. Honestly, I am the only normal one in this family." She picked the band back up and began to fasten it in her short hair. "Can I borrow this? I’m going to dinner at Althee’s."

"Can I come?" asked Scilla.

"No," replied Lelet. "Only normal people allowed."

"Take that back at once," said May. "Scilla, I know it’s a considerable step down from dining with Miss Lelly, but please consider having dinner with Rane and me. We can talk about how boring it is to be so normal." She made a dreadful face behind Lelet’s back and Scilla giggled.

"Fine, sorry I said you weren’t normal." She picked up her journal and opened it so May could see Scilla’s artwork. "All little girls draw things like this."

May glanced at the drawing and said, "Good use of negative space, Scil. Would you make me one?"

"Ugh!" Lelet headed for the door. "I won’t be out late."

She left her sisters and headed out the door and down the drive towards the boulevard. It was a cool late spring evening and the walk to her friend’s house would give her time to rewrite the scene, making Scilla even more strange and May more calming and motherly. All the blame of course would fall on her evil, depraved, wicked brother Rane. (She didn’t know exactly what ‘depraved’ meant but it sounded dramatic.) How one family could produce someone as perfect and kind as May and as hideous as Rane—plus a big freak like Scilla—well, it didn’t bear contemplation. Of course there was the eldest, Pol, but he was already a grownup and hardly ever around, he didn’t count.

Lelet’s private worry was that she was going to turn out like her little sister, or worse, her mother. She could hardly remember her face, but what she could recall wasn’t good, or kind, or motherly at all. No, remaining normal, that was the most important thing.

By the time she got to Althee’s, the story had grown into a saga of theft, injustice, and destruction. "Red eyes," she told her friend. "Red eyes and fire! Where does she come up with this stuff?"

––––––––

E
riis City

15 years after the War of the Door, Eriisai calendar

75 years later, Mistran calendar

Royal Library

"If I'm going to teach you how to fight back," said Ilaan, "we need a place to practice. I gather that going out onto the play field is not on the table?"

Rhuun had at first been deeply offended by the offer. He'd never asked for help, nor did he want it. Mother Jaa had given him everything he needed. He was just fine. And anyway, Ilaan was barely fledged! He threw his scarf over his head and stormed out. But after a long walk through the fine, grey grit outside the city wall, he finally had to admit that Ilaan was not only unusually gifted, he was also the only one who was willing to show Rhuun how to defend himself, rather than simply use him as a target.

"Anyway," Ilaan had said. "You'll be doing me a favor. Because when you pull Niico out of the sky, and you will, who'll be there to nurse him back to health?" Aelle and Rhuun shared an eye roll. "I always have a plan, Beast, remember that."

They moved the battered couch, the sprung, shedding armchairs, and a few near empty bookcases away from the center of the back room in the library. Rhuun said it had to be the back room—he had insisted, and he rarely insisted on anything—that it was the only room he would consider as a practice area. He didn't tell Aelle or Ilaan he was afraid someone might wander in and see his efforts, which in his mind were already comical. But he paid attention, and despite his lack of flame or flight, he began to be able to do more than merely crouch into a ball and protect his head.

Standing up straight was proving to be the biggest challenge. Ilaan had instituted a system by which every time he caught Rhuun crouching, slouching or hunching his shoulders, he had to take one walk unescorted across the play yard. That served as an excellent motivator.

The inside stuff wasn't so bad, though. Once Rhuun realized he could move pretty quickly and even with some grace, the rest started to follow more easily. And there were weapons other than flame, and attacks other than from above.

And if everything really turned to sand he could show his True Face, although that would be like setting your house on fire because your chair was broken. Anyway, the only benefit changing his form to his True Face would gain him, was disabling his opponents through their falling down laughing.

He could do it, despite his inability to do practically everything else. He'd practiced in front of his mirror turning from one ugly thing into another. One second, his normal face—smooth golden skin, along with a few faint scars here and there, and those unfortunately shaped red-amber eyes—the next, an unrecognizable charcoal colored thing roiling with smoke and ash. Only the eyes were the same. When first manifesting, the children dared each other to show their True Faces, and he'd seen a few of them himself. They became slender flames that had only the barest resemblance to their normal forms—a suggestion of arms and hands, graceful sweeping flares for legs. They'd all wanted to see his True Face but he'd lied and said he couldn't change, maybe one day. He was so distressed by the sight of his own True Face that he vowed to never show anyone, ever.

Thinking about that day was when he'd agreed to allow Ilaan 'show him a few things,' as the younger boy put it.

Momentum, now that was an interesting thing. And fulcrums.

Ilaan, for all his practiced boredom, had spent some time studying the books in the library. He showed Rhuun a particular human move called punching. "Something like this might be useful to you, if you can get close enough."

"It looks like it hurts," he observed, squinting at the line drawing in the old book.

"I believe that is the general idea of punching."

"Can I try it now?" Rhuun made his version of a fist, but Ilaan had vanished and reappeared in one heartbeat behind him.

"You can try," he laughed, "but I think you'll have better luck punching the wall, or a chair. Now, we were talking about defense...."

***

I
laan took what was clearly a perverse pleasure in knocking Rhuun's feet out from under him.

"Your feet are very far away from the rest of you," he'd observed. "One might say unnaturally. That's what I'd aim at, if it were me."

"It
is
you," Rhuun muttered. He'd tripped and fallen hard against a remaining bookcase, and made it worse by angrily kicking it as hard as he could.

"Instead of beating it to death," drawled Ilaan, "you could move it out of the way."

Being the only one of them really suited for physical labor, the siblings stood and watched as he shoved the heavy case out of the way. The last few books, softened by age, fell out and onto the floor. Something landed on his foot. It was a bright fabric package. The three of them spent a moment just taking in the reds and blues of the fabric. It was so bright!

Rhuun opened the silk bag and inside was a little paper-bound book. As he looked at the cover, he had the strangest feeling he'd seen it before, although he knew that couldn't be the case.

Aelle and Ilaan leaned over his shoulder to see what he was looking at.

"Humans," said Aelle with distaste.

"How interesting!" said Ilaan. "It must be really old."

The cover was a painting of a man and woman, that much was clear. But they were unlike any Rhuun had ever seen. The woman's skin was very white, and her hair was bright red. Even though she appeared to be an adult, her hair was worn loose. And if that wasn't strange enough, her eyes were green. At least the man had proper black hair, although he wore it tied back, almost like a woman. His eyes appeared to be dark. Also, the way he loomed over the lady, he looked to be some sort of giant.

Ilaan asked, "What's he doing to her?"

The woman in the picture had a hand up as if to defend herself but also had her head tipped back and her lips parted. Her other hand was pulling on the lace drawstring of her gown. The man had a billowy white shirt half-open and was reaching for her with a very determined look.

"I think he wants to kiss her," said Rhuun, "but there also seems to be an element of battle."

"Well, she'd better raise a flame if she intends to ward him off," said Aelle.