Aranya (Shapeshifter Dragons) (8 page)

Ignoring the dangerous glint in Beri’s eye, Aranya accepted
his invitation with glee, even though she felt unwell.

Yolathion seemed to know his way around the Tower of Sylakia. Shortly, they exited the building just south of the Last Walk. Aranya had never been so grateful for
crisp air upon her cheek. The morning had that unmatched freshness of a storm’s aftermath. The rajals growled and purred in their stone moat. Bald vultures picked busily at a carcass almost beneath the rajals’ noses. Cheeky hummingbirds darted around the massive, shallow stone planters that housed thousands of the red Sylakian fireflowers, which bloomed all year round.

Yolathion led her solicitously around the shattered roof tiles scattering the granite flagstones
. He seemed concerned she might slip on a damp patch of rock. Telling herself it was only a pretence of need, Aranya leaned on his strong arm–too good an opportunity to miss. She could barely have kept on her feet otherwise.

“You seem recovered from last night,” he said, after they had chatted in inconsequentialities for a half-circuit of the Tower.

“Actually, I’m dosed up to the eyeballs with feverbane–and feeling faint,” said Aranya.

“Shall we sit awhile?”

Aranya eyed the walkway, which seemed to sway uneasily. She felt airsick–and she had never been airsick in her life. Whatever was the matter with her? She let Yolathion lead her to a stone bench. Aranya settled on the stone thinking she should simply lie down to try to absorb some of its coolness. His hand touched her brow.

“By the Islands!” he gasped. “Aranya … Princess!”

“Can I lay my head on your lap?”

She did not care if it was an unthinkable breach of protocol. Yolathion shifted to accommodate her. Lowering her head, Aranya’s stomach heaved. She lurched forward, vomiting her breakfast down his leg and all over his boots.

“Oh … oh, sorry.” Aranya moaned as her stomach clenched. More flooded out of her mouth. “Oh, Yolathion …”

“You’re ill. You’ve a raging fever,” he said, holding her gently. “Come. Back to your chambers, now, Immadia.”

“I don’t think–”

Her world lurched. “No problem.” Aranya realised he had lifted her with
no apparent effort. She put her arms around his neck. Resting her head on his shoulder, she concentrated on not throwing up all over him again.

Halfway back around the outside of the Tower, Aranya groaned. Yolathion had the presence of mind to aim her at a nearby bush.

After an interminable time of bobbing against his shoulder, her nostrils filled with the redolence of a warrior’s leather and metal body armour, she heard knocking at a door.

“
We’ve not said the promise banns yet,” she sighed.

Yolathion chuckled. “I’m not depositing you outside of your doorway, Princess. Straight
into bed with you. We shall wink at tradition.”

“Oh. You
’re a dreadful seducer …”

Beri said, “The Princess?”

“She’s ill. Delirious,” said Yolathion. “A high fever. Best get more feverwort into her. I’ll have ice fetched from the kitchens. They’ll have had nets out for the hail last night.”

“And several buckets,” said Beri.

Buckets? Buckets of water for the fires she might spark? Or for her rebellious stomach?

Aranya sighed as her head touched the
cool pillow-roll. For a moment her fingers clung to the nape of Yolathion’s neck, before her hand flopped onto the bed.

She wept at the loss.

* * * *

By the evening of the third day after being taken ill, Aranya felt greatly improved.
Anything was better than hanging wretchedly over a bucket while her intestines tried to turn themselves inside-out. She had even managed a little painting that afternoon.

As she walked down to the dining hall with Beri, she asked
, for the tenth time, “Zip hasn’t been … she hasn’t called by?”

“No,” said Beri. “That little scrap’s probably just busy with her other friends. You know how fickle she is.”

But when everyone at dinner claimed not to have seen her for days, Aranya knew something was wrong. Badly wrong.

She ran.

“Get help!” she yelled over her shoulder, exiting the hall.

She
rebuked herself for an idiot. All those feelings. All that uneasiness–it was as clear as crysglass to her, now. She sprinted upstairs and along the corridors. Her slippers smacked the floor, helter-skelter. She cannoned off a corner. Sobbing. Panting. Pumping her arms and legs as she flew along those endless, dingy corridors. Wildfire burned in her throat. Aranya sprinted on the wings of a conflagration. A curtained alcove ignited with a soft
whomp!
She sprinted by.

Selfish, Aranya, she screamed inwardly. The illness. All things Yolathion. Stupid, prekki-fruit mush-brain, what had she been thinking? An open threat about Remoy’s taxes. Garthion was the key.
He had done something to her friend. Aranya’s gut twisted and knotted at her anguish. She careened around the final corner.

She skidded to a halt outside Zip’s door.
It had been guarded that night. What had happened? Why had nobody else noticed?

Her han
d hesitated on the door handle.

Pressing open the door, Aranya saw Zuziana lying abed. She lay terribly still.
A stench pervaded the room. Death. All around Zip, the sheets were soaked with blood. There was so much blood, it had dripped through the mattress and marked a trail toward the doorway. Bloody boot-prints stamped the floor and rugs. She bit her knuckles. Her senses took in the details, but her mind was too numbed to process them. A man lay beside the bathroom door–a Tower guard, his head skewed at an impossible angle. Rats scattered at her approach. Zuziana lying so crumpled, so torn, her dress shredded across her torso, the crusted mess of blood-sodden cloth …

The girl moved. A moan issued from her lips.

Aranya gasped.

This was Garthion’s doing. It had to be.
Garthion and his perverted palm-licking. Garthion’s vile whispers. Aranya knew she had to help Zuziana, but horror rooted her feet to the stone. She could not move. Zip must have lain here for three days. Much of the blood was dry; darkened. How could she still be alive? Poor, broken Zip.

Abruptly, as though tugged by an unseen leash, she jerked her legs into motion.

Leaning over the bed, Aranya laid her hand on Zuziana’s brow and gave what she had. It was little. Just strength, just a stirring of healing. She spoke to her, words she could not recall afterward. Suddenly Beri rushed into the room. Moments later, Nelthion arrived with a physician in tow, who took one look at the Princess’ condition and shook his head.

“It’ll take a miracle,” he said. But he bent to his work.

That evening, Aranya force-fed herself on sweet fruits and cake and then tried to heal Zuziana again. She was stronger, this time. But the effort drained her more. She wished she knew something, anything, about what she was doing, or even how. After Beri showed her how to work pulped fruit down Zuziana’s throat, she whiled away the hours–eleven hours of daylight and sixteen of night in this season–feeding her friend and encouraging her to fight. She tried to heal her whenever she had the strength. Was it helping? She despaired.

They arranged to move
Zip into Aranya’s room to better take care of her.

Looking down at Zip’s ruined, bandaged body, Beri whispered, “A whipping like that, Aranya?
I don’t know if she’ll make it. But the physician said–the only blessing, if any can be found in this–that there was no other abuse, only the whip.”

“He aimed to disfigure,” said Aranya, shaking. “
I saw ribs through her skin, Beri! What kind of man, what evil …”

Her maidservant shook her head. “May he fall into a Cloud
lands volcano and burn to ashes.”

“
What about those nightmares Zip’s been having?” Aranya rubbed her eyes. Using so much healing power had made her so tired, she wobbled on her feet and had to hold the bedpost for support. “She’ll give me nightmares–screaming about burning red eyes–Beri, is it me? Is she afraid of me? My fire?”

“Could be, petal.” But Beri’s blunt honesty came tempered with a
gentle hand on Aranya’s arm. “Don’t blame yourself. It’s more likely the torture.”

One person dreaming about Dragons and fire was enough. Aranya
hoped she had not infected her friend, too.

The following day, when Aranya asked the physician why he had not stitched
Zip’s wounds, he told her that there was not enough skin left to stitch together. Later, when Aranya laid her hands on Zuziana, she concentrated very hard on thinking about how the skin should regrow and heal over the trenches criss-crossing her chest and stomach.

She finished Garthion’s portrait that evening. Beri’s hand flew to her heart when she saw it. “You’ve captured the spirit of his cruelty, Aranya,” she said. “I’m not sure it’s wise to show that to anyone.”

Aranya scowled at the wall as though her gaze would melt the stone. “Beri, I dreamed about the Black Dragon again last night. Where do you think powers like mine come from? Do you think there was a connection between that dream, my illness and what happened to Zuziana? Am I growing unstable?”

“So that’s why you were talking in your sleep.”

“You put out a fire, Beri. I smelled it this morning.”

“I did, petal. That I did.” Beri shook her head. “I
only wish your mother had told us more about herself, Aranyi. I’m afraid the guards here will start to talk. Nelthion runs a tight Dragonship, but all it takes is one word …”

Two days later, Zuziana opened her eyes for the first time. The physician, who was unwrapping the bandages from her chest, called Beri and Aranya over. Then he caught his breath.

“New skin,” he explained. “Look here, and here … amazing. I’ve never seen the like. But it’s good. Very good.”

“Where am I?” asked Zip.

“Here, in my room.”

She whispered something. Beri leaned in close to listen.

“What did she say?” asked Aranya.

“She asked if she still has breasts.” She stroked Zuziana’s cheek. “You’ll get better, petal. You’ll see.”

Tears spilled freely down Aranya’s cheeks.

From that day on, the Princess of Remoy began to re
cover–but the process was slow and painful, even though Aranya healed her repeatedly. The Zip who emerged was subdued and spoke little. She would say nothing about what she had endured. She did not weep, but there was a lingering sadness in her eyes that Aranya yearned to lift.

* * * *

“Ooh, Dragons,” said Zip, chewing thoughtfully on a chunk of dried haribol fruit as she peered at the painting Aranya was working on.

“Ooh, highly illegal,” said Aranya. “Don’t look.”

Zuziana started to snort, but a piece of the violently tart fruit–Aranya refused to eat haribol–stuck in her throat. Aranya swooped in and thwacked her on the back.

“Ouch! You’re stronger than you think, Immadia.”

“Sorry, Remoy,” Aranya wiped her brow, paintbrush in hand.

She wished the old fizz would return to Zuziana’s personality. Now, a month after her ordeal, the diminutive Princess just dropped her gaze and went back to chewing that gum-frazzling fruit with a blank expression on her face. Aranya wondered if she ate haribol to punish herself. How could she think that whipping was her fault? She had overheard Zip and Beri whispering one night after the Princess awoke, whimpering.

She had all sorts of nasty, creative thoughts about what she’d like to do to Garthion, given half a chance.

“Aranya,” Zuziana whispered. “Fire.”

Sighing, Aranya popped the paintbrush into her water-cup to put out the fire. It was ruined. Just one hot thought had ignited the brush. She tried to ignore how Zuziana shrank from her when the fire manifested.

Fire came to her all too easily, recently.

Zuziana said, “You’ll learn to control it, Aranya. I know you will. Maybe if you thought about Dragons less, the fire wouldn’t appear?”

She picked another paintbrush to chew
on. “Hmm.”

“You have a thing for Dragons.”

“I’ve a thing for an enemy officer. I threw up all over him last I saw him, Zip. Now he’s off campaigning against pirates. He’ll be gone for months.”

“Meantime, this Princess I know spends ten
hours getting a Dragon’s haunches exactly right. That, my friend, counts as a
thing
.”

Heat flared in Aranya’s cheeks. “You imp!” Reflexively, she dunked her paintbrush in the water. It sizzled. “I do not have a thing for Dragons. How’s your chest?”

“Not as fine as a Dragon’s mighty chest. But it’ll do–I’ve you to thank for that.”

“You don’t mind having a friend … a weird friend?”

Aranya thought she might make a joke, but Zip only said, very softly, “You were the one who came for me. That’s worth a million times weird.”