Shadow Scale: A Companion to Seraphina(94)

“More exiles than this are willing to help, I hope,” I whispered to Kiggs.

“That’s part of what we’re here to find out,” he whispered back. “This is the ‘Futile Council,’ as Eskar calls it. Saarantrai have no voice in the Assembly, so they’ve created their own impotent ruling body, which occasionally sends petitions for the Agogoi to ignore.”

“Has the Ardmagar located Eskar yet?” I asked, and the prince shook his head.

The serving girl offered us honeyed almond cakes. Kiggs took one, muttering under his breath, “I’ll need you to translate if this meeting is held in Mootya.”

“Soft-mouth Mootya, you mean,” said the serving girl in Goreddi. Kiggs looked up at her. She had a pointy face reminiscent of a rat’s, and her twig-like brown arms were bare to the shoulder. She was full grown in height, but her stance suggested a petulant ten-year-old. She sneered down at the prince and said, “If you expect us to roar at each other, you’ll be disappointed. We’ve transposed Mootya into sounds our soft mouths can make, but it’s the same language.”

Kiggs was enough of a scholar to know this already, but he bowed his head politely. The girl stared at him, her eyes bulging. “That’s why you know our names for things, like Tanamoot or ard,” she continued unnecessarily, “whereas in hard-mouth Mootya, ard sounds like this.” She threw her head back and screamed.

The circle of saarantrai, who’d been chatting together, went silent. “You’re screaming at a prince of Goredd,” said Ikat, crossing the lawn and taking the girl by the shoulders as if to lead her away.

“It’s all right,” said Kiggs, trying to smile. “We were discussing linguistics.”

Ikat frowned slightly. “Prince, this is my daughter, Colibris.”

“Brisi,” the girl corrected, lifting her pointy chin defiantly.

It was a Porphyrian name, and she was dressed very differently from the other saarantrai. The adults wore plain tunics and trousers in noncommittal colors; they kept their hair short and practical, except for Lalo, with his long hair tied Ninysh-style.

Brisi, however, wore a diaphanous dress splashed with gaudy butterflies and birds; her hair was piled precariously on her head, in imitation of the towering coiffures fine ladies such as Camba wore. It wobbled when she moved. In fact, her screaming had sent a lock tumbling, but she seemed not to notice. It dangled, limp and forlorn, at her shoulder.

She finished serving the guests and disappeared into the shadows of the house.

Ikat began the meeting, saying (in soft-mouth Mootya), “Eskar hasn’t returned. Am I correct that no one knows where she’s gone?”

Around the circle, no one moved.

“You owe much to her indefatigable perseverance, Ardmagar,” said Ikat. “When she arrived last winter, only Lalo would even consider leaving. We’ve built lives here, and we were reluctant to trust you. Your administration was harder on deviants than the three that came before.”

“I regret it,” said Comonot, who sat on the bench beside Ikat. “Too much time has been wasted chasing the elusive ideal of incorruptible draconic purity. The Old Ard take it to extremes, but it was always untenable. Progress—or, more prosaically, our continued survival—will require a shift in the opposite direction, toward a broader definition of dragonhood.” One corner of his mouth dimpled, a strangely self-deprecating expression. “Of course, my previous attempt at dragging our people toward reform has resulted in civil war. I may not be the one to follow.”

When I translated that for Kiggs, he gave a low whistle and whispered back, “Don’t tell me he’s learned humility!” Around us, the saarantrai muttered solemnly together; Comonot, thick hands folded in his lap, watched them with a falcon’s eye.

“You’ve shown yourself remarkably flexible of mind, for a non-deviant,” said Ikat, and Comonot bowed his head. “So many of us had given up any hope of a return that we had hardened our hearts against the desire to see our homeland again, or dismissed it as impossible. We told ourselves we fit seamlessly into Porphyrian society, that the Porphyrians accepted us fully and without reservation—”

“They certainly don’t want you to leave,” Comonot interjected. “It’s not the Omiga Valley that’s the sticking point. They’re demanding near-impossible compensation for agreeing to let you go.”

Ikat sat up a little straighter and her eyes narrowed. “They’re not our jailers.”

“No,” said Comonot, “but they have an agreement with the Tanamoot, and a great reluctance to lose so many doctors, merchants, scholars—”

“To say nothing of our elevated non-citizen taxes,” muttered someone.

“Many of our merchants don’t wish to leave,” said Ikat. “They’ve found a new way to accumulate a hoard, and that’s enough for them, but the rest of us chafe against the restrictions. We can only transform four times a year, during the games. Bearing children is complicated, and raising them more difficult still.”

“Stop talking about me, Mother,” piped a shrill voice in Porphyrian, and there was Brisi, peeking out from behind a column.

Ikat ignored the interruption. “There’s no chance of laying an egg, not in the time we’re allowed, but human-style gestation still takes three years, by which point the baby is far too large. I had to cut Colibris out myself; she was walking within a day.”