Seraphina(69)

“I have such mixed feelings about her. I mean, I loved her, she was my mother, but … sometimes I’m angry with her.”

“Why?” I asked, but I knew. I’d felt exactly that. I could barely believe he was about to utter it aloud.

“Angry with her for leaving me so young—you may have felt that too, about your mother—but also, to my mortification, angry with her for falling in love so recklessly.”

“I know,” I whispered into the icy air, hoping and fearing that he would hear me.

“What kind of villain begrudges his own mother the love of her life?” He gave a self-deprecating laugh, but his eyes were all sadness.

I could have reached right across and touched him. I wanted to. I gripped the reins tighter and stared at the track ahead.

“You’re not a villain,” I said. Or else we were two villains in a pod.

“Mm. I rather suspect I am,” he said lightly. He went silent; for some moments there was only the crunch of hooves in snow and the squeaking of cold saddle leather. I looked over at him. The frosty air had reddened his cheeks; he blew into his hands to warm them. He gazed back at me, his eyes deep and sorrowful.

“I didn’t understand,” he said quietly. “I judged her, but I didn’t understand.”

He averted his eyes, tried to smile, broke the moment of strangeness. “I won’t fall prey to the same destructive impulsiveness, of course. I’m on my guard against it.”

“And you’re engaged, anyway,” I added, trying to sound flippant because I feared he might hear my heart beating, it was pounding so violently.

“Yes, that’s a nice assurance against the unexpected,” he said, his voice rough with some emotion. “That, and faith. St. Clare keeps me to my rightful course.”

Of course she did. Thanks for nothing, St. Clare.

We rode on in silence. I closed my eyes; snow blew against my cheeks, stinging like sand. For a moment I let myself imagine that I had no dragon scales and he was unfettered by promises already made. There in the freezing darkness, under the endless open sky, it might well have been true. No one could see us; we might have been anyone.

It turned out someone did see us, however, someone with an ability to see warm objects in darkness.

I felt a hot blast against my skin, smelled sulfur, and opened my eyes to see my grandfather in all his hideous reptilian hugeness land on the snowy road ahead.





My horse reared, and I was on the ground, flat on my back in the snow, not a whisper of breath left in me.

Kiggs was off his horse in an instant, sword drawn, making himself a wall between me and the brimstone blackness, the muscular furl of wing against sky. He reached back left-handed to help me to my feet, groping around in the air; I forced myself to sit up, put my hand in his, pull breath back into my lungs. He heaved me to my feet and we stood there, hand in hand, and faced the dread behemoth, my grandfather.

To my utter shock I recognized Imlann, even as darkness rapidly descended. It wasn’t Orma’s nonsensical description; it came from my mother, from the memory box, which had given a smoky belch inside my mind. I knew the contours of his spiny head; the arch of his snaky neck resembled Orma’s.…

Orma. Neck. Right. I fumbled at my neck, left-handed because Kiggs still had my right, seeking the cord to Orma’s earring. Kiggs stepped forward a little, shielding me again, and said, “You are in violation of Comonot’s Treaty—unless you have the documents to prove otherwise!”

I grimaced. It was easy to think of dragons as feral file clerks when there wasn’t an enormous, choleric specimen snorting sulfur in your face. I found the earring, flipped its tiny switch, and tucked it back into my clothes.

Orma was going to kill me; I hoped he’d help me first.

The dragon screamed, “You smell of saar!”

He meant me. I cringed. Kiggs, who didn’t understand Mootya, cried, “Stand down! Return to your saarantras immediately!”

Imlann ignored that, fixing his beady black eyes on me and screeching, “Who are you? Which side are you on? Have you been spying on me?”

I didn’t answer; I didn’t know what to do. Imlann thought I was a saarantras. Would Kiggs assume the same if he learned that I knew Mootya? I kept my eyes on the snow.

Kiggs waved his sword. A lot of good that was going to do.

“You feign deafness,” cried my grandfather. “What can I do to make you hear? Shall I kill this irritating little princeling?”

I flinched, and the saar laughed, or what would have been a laugh from a human. It was more like crowing, a horrid hoot of victory. “I bit a nerve! Surely you can’t be so attached to a mere human? Perhaps I will not kill you after all. I still have a friend on the Board of Censors; maybe I’ll let him turn you inside out.”

I had to do something; I could think of only one thing to try. I stepped forward and said, “It’s you the Censors should be after.”

Imlann recoiled, rippling his serpentine neck sideways and emitting a blast of acrid smoke from his nostrils. Kiggs pulled my arm and cried, “What are you doing?”

I couldn’t reassure him. A saarantras wouldn’t have, and that’s what I had to appear to be if we were to bluff Imlann long enough for Orma to get here.

If Orma was even coming. How far was it? How fast could he fly?