Seraphina(112)

“Not at all,” said Kiggs gently. “Instinct did not fail you. They’d have learned of the half-dragons eventually and accused us of duplicity. They’ll get over it.”

I stared at the back of the prince’s neck as if it could reveal whether he himself was used to the idea yet. If his refusal to look at me was any indication, the answer was no. I tore myself away and left them to their planning.

My father waited for me in the corridor, his arms crossed and his eyes anxious. He held out a hand when he saw me. I took it, and we stood in silence.

“I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I have lived in this prison so long, I … I suddenly found I couldn’t do it anymore.”

I squeezed his hand and let go. “You only did what I was about to. What now? There must be repercussions within the lawyers’ guild for lawyers who break the law.” He had a wife and four other children to support; I could not bring myself to point that out.

He smiled mirthlessly. “I’ve been preparing my case for sixteen years.”

“Excuse me,” said a voice to my left, and we turned to see Comonot standing there. He cleared his throat and ran a jeweled hand over his jowls. “You are—were—the human involved with the nameless … that is, with Linn, daughter of Imlann?”

Papa bowed stiffly.

Comonot stepped closer, cautious as a cat. “She left her home, her people, her studies, everything. For you.” He touched my father’s face with his thick fingers: the left cheek, the right, the nose and chin. My father endured it stonily.

“What are you?” said the Ardmagar, an unexpected roughness in his voice. “Not a depraved maniac. You are known in the north as a dispassionate interpreter of the treaty—you realize that? You’ve defended dragons in court when no one else would do it; don’t imagine we haven’t noticed. And yet it was you who lured our daughter away.”

“I did not know,” said my father hoarsely.

“No, but she knew.” Comonot laid a hand atop my father’s balding head, mystified. “What did she see? And why can’t I see it?”

Papa extricated himself, bowed, and set off down the hall. For a fleeting instant, in the sad curve of his shoulders, I saw what Comonot could not: the core of decency; the weight he had carried so long; the endless struggle to do right in the wake of this irreversible wrong; the grieving husband and frightened father; the author of all those love songs. For the first time, I understood.

Comonot seemed unfazed by my father’s hasty retreat. He took my arm and whispered in my ear breathily, like a small child: “Your uncle is at the seminary infirmary.”

I goggled at him. “He transformed?”

The Ardmagar shrugged. “He was adamant that no saar physician come near him; he seems to believe they’d excise him on the spot. He’ll be gone tomorrow in any case.”

I pulled away from him. “Because Basind will take him away to have his brain pruned?”

Comonot licked his thick lips, as if he needed to taste my bitterness to understand it. “Not at all. I’m pardoning Orma—not that the Censors will obey the edicts of an exiled Ardmagar. At midnight Eskar squirrels him away, and even I don’t know where. It may be a very long time before you see him again.”

“Don’t tell me you’re indulging emotional deviants!”

His pointed gaze held an intelligence I had not appreciated before. He said, “Indulging, no, but perhaps comprehending the hidden complexities better. I thought I knew which things we dragons should learn and which were unnecessary, but I see now that my opinions had calcified. I was as set in my thinking as the crusty old generals who’ve stolen my country.”

He reached for my hand, lifted it, and clapped it to the side of his neck. I tried to pull away, but he held firm and said: “Let this signify my submission to your tutelage, since I doubt you would agree to bite the back of my neck. You are my teacher. I will listen, and I will try to learn.”

“I will try to be worthy of your reverence,” I said, my mother’s words coming to me from the depths of the memory box. I felt compelled to add my own: “And I will try to sympathize with your efforts, even when you fail.”

“Well put,” he said, releasing me. “Now go. Tell your uncle you love him. You do love him, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said, suddenly hoarse.

“Go. And Seraphina,” he called after me, “I’m sorry about your mother. I believe I am.” He gestured toward his stomach. “There, yes? That’s where one feels it?”

I gave him full courtesy and hurried away.





An aged monk led me to the infirmary. “He’s got the place to himself. Once the other invalids learned there was a dragon coming, they miraculously got well! The lame could walk and the blind decided they didn’t really need to see. He’s a panacea.”

I thanked the man and entered quietly in case my uncle was sleeping. At the far end of the ward, beside the only window, he lay propped up by pillows, talking to Eskar. I drew closer and realized they weren’t talking, exactly. Each raised a hand toward the other, touching just the fingertips together; they took turns running their fingertips down the other’s palm.

I cleared my throat. Eskar rose, stone-faced and dignified. “Sorry!” I said, unsure why I was apologizing. It wasn’t as though I’d caught them doing something naughty.