Dark Lord's Wedding (72 page)

Steam hissed out from the dragon’s belly, along with a stench that might’ve been from the venom. An hypothesis sparked in Hiresha. It might not be that wounding turned his blood into vapor. Perhaps only gas pumped through his veins. If such a thing could be possible, it would explain his lightness and agility. Killing such a unique creature had to be regretted. Hiresha would have to pay her respects by dissecting his corpse for full study.

The Winged Flame stiffened. Both his heads curled upward, and his spine arched. His wings folded against his sides and stilled. His shriek had all the notes of thousands of birds dying in a burning jungle. He plunged into the river. The waters lit green and sparkled with every color seen in an opal.

Hiresha settled beside Tethiel. His three-headed form had melted away with the beginning of the sunrise, and now he was merely a man in a cape and plate armor standing on the river. His plate boots sank half a foot but didn’t break the water tension. Waves bobbed him up and down then calmed. The Winged Flame had stopped writhing.

On the riverbank, people crept out onto the city docks. They watched the emerald shimmer in the water. The Talon pushed to the front. At the sight of the river he fell to his knees.

“Some will hate us for this,” Tethiel said. “Some will love us then come to hate. And those who hate may someday love. We can depend only on their fear.”

“I concede your Feasting may have been necessary, yet only in the case of dragon attack.”

“Your attacking the god had murmurs of good sense, in hindsight.” He peered upriver. “I am terribly sorry to tell you, Celaise drank your wild magic. Jerani stole it from me.”

Then Tethiel would not have the power to purge himself of his magic. He would stay a Feaster. “What makes you think, Tethiel, that I expected you to keep your word?”

“I hope you’ve come to trust my undependability.”

“No one hungry for souls can be trusted with the lives of nations. What I appreciated was your plan, to balance desire of Feasting with fear of death. The lord of nightmare needs a counterweight.” She tapped her breastplate then pointed to the dawnstone on his chest. “You will obey my judgment. I never would’ve trusted your protégée to fill your role.”

“Exquisite! We’ve both been deceiving each other, to the benefit of all.”

“It would seem so,” she said.

“Then, you don’t care Celaise stole your wild magic and deserted us?”

“Only the latter. Yet one treachery is enough. I suppose we must execute her.”

“Can you kill her from here?” Tethiel asked.

Hiresha waved her hand. Her connection to the enchanted onyx teeth was only the sensation of a tap on her palm. “Not yet. She’s too far.”

“Leave her and Jerani to me then. I’ll relish the task far more than you.” His tongue flicked over his face too fast for most to see, yet it had been over a foot long.

“They saved my life,” Hiresha said. “Kill them mercifully.”

“As you wish, my wife.”

The sun cleared the horizon. A golden sheen covered the river, except for where the dragon had sunk. There the waters still reflected a green luster.

Then they changed to blue.

Hiresha choked, and molten misery seared through her.

The river burst. It exploded. The waters tore apart, and the Winged Flame spiraled into the sky in a torrent of radiance. Crowds along the riverbank screamed and cheered as the dragon looped in blinding rings.

Inconceivable! Hiresha couldn’t understand how the venom could have had zero effect, unless the gaseous blood had stopped the toxins from diffusing as they should. All the dragon’s wounds had closed. The eye she had gouged had regenerated. His broken wings had straightened.

“You harmed him out of revenge.” The quiet voice sounded like Guile’s, though the masked divinity was nowhere near. “And thus you healed him.”

The Winged Flame was the god of vengeance. Now he rivaled the sun with brightness and power. He circled closer to Tethiel and Hiresha.

She turned to him.

He offered her his hand.

Hiresha took it. Their gauntlet claws closed together.

The dawn call of the Winged Flame brought Celaise back to life. She stopped her trudging. The god shimmered and looped in the east. It hurt her eyes to look, but Celaise couldn’t stop grinning. The god’s warbling laugh made her stand two feet taller. She whooped back. Jerani clapped his hand into hers, and they jumped together.

“Do you think they’re dead now?” Jerani asked.

She knew he meant the lord father and the lady. The god’s cry had sounded like a victory shriek. The Winged Flame dropped from view around a river bend. Celaise lifted onto tiptoes as if that would help her see over the trees. How amazing if all her problems were over.

No, the lord father couldn’t have died. Her black wine would’ve writhed in her. Except she wasn’t a Feaster anymore. Maybe she wouldn’t feel anything. Her veins still thumped with wild magic. Her chest thudded like she had two hearts.

The double drumbeat within her slowed. All the tension in her began to melt. “Maybe they are gone. After all that long wedding, the Winged Flame could’ve gulped them away.”

She made a snapping motion with her hand and pinched Jerani. He fought back, swinging his arms up and down like jaws. She fell down on the riverbank giggling. It was too much. Last night, she had been horrified the Winged Flame would curse her again. Now all her hopes flew with him. Then she had been a Feaster. Today she was only herself.

And she was tired. She eased herself back into the sandy mud. The river flowed over her toes. She should get up, put in a few more miles between them and the city, like it would matter. The lord father was still alive or he wasn’t. He would track her to the highest peak or deepest cave.

She pushed herself up. She slumped back down into the beach’s softness. Never had a dirt bed within snapping range of caimans felt so comfortable. How many days had she been awake?

“Just going to close my eyes for a breath,” Celaise said.

Jerani was yawning too. “A wedding takes more out of you than battle.”

“If they come for us, don’t wake me.”

Celaise sank into the cool wetness of the riverbank. Dreams washed over her, of climbing trees and sailing across the seas, always with Jerani. Brightness filled her along with the clearness of mountain air.

The heat of the Winged Flame woke her. It wasn’t in her skull like last night but across her body in basking ripples of warmth. She pulled a wax leaf from her face. Jerani must’ve put it there to keep the light out of her eyes.

He had fallen to sleep beside her.

She fanned the flies from him with the leaf then woke him with a kiss. “Sorry we left behind the sleep mask you made me.”

“We’ve left a lot of things behind.”

“Could find some of them again.”

Jerani squinted up at the sky. “Is it really noon?”

The Winged Flame flew high above them as he did every day. It didn’t seem like Celaise had napped for more than a few blinks, but she must have. The llamas had stopped nipping ferns and settled in for their midday rest. Their bells tinkled against each other as they rubbed necks. Another pair pressed their lips together. Celaise had been told those weren’t real kisses, but they looked alike.

Celaise lay close to Jerani. He lounged near her. There must’ve always been something separating them. Now it was gone. Like a cliff edge without a railing, the kind you had to peer down. How far Celaise could plunge. A touch, a kiss, a word, that’s all it would take.

Jerani was a sleekness of skin, a reassurance, a guiding hand, a quiet comfort. When he stretched, the muscles in his chest and thighs went taut. His hair burst with red, and only a little of the loam had dripped onto his shoulder and clothes. A few tugs would pull off his short robes. Their eyes met. His lips parted as if to speak, but he didn’t.

Celaise’s chest tightened. “We should be going, shouldn’t we? The lord, the lady, they might not be dead.”

Only, she didn’t stir. She settled a bit further into the wet ground, and a sweet relaxation spread through her. She answered herself.

“No, the lady would be sleeping, maybe in the god’s belly.” Celaise’s words came faster and faster. “The lord wouldn’t hunt now. We can rest. I mean, for a while. We don’t have to worry until tonight.”

Jerani nodded. He looked down the length of her legs. He took her right foot and coaxed it up. She wondered if he would kiss her sole. Tingles rippled up her thigh.

His fingers closed on a leech. A few dangled from her legs in black slimy bulges.

“Yuck! Let me pull those off,” she said.

“No, I need to do it.”

She slapped his hand away. “You don’t.”

The muscles between his shoulder blades firmed. Would he fight her on this? She worried he might not ever be happy unless she was crippled again and needed him for every little thing. Maybe they would have to go their own ways, after all they had been through.

His eyes met hers, and there was laughter in them. “You’re right. And maybe leeches aren’t something we need to share.”

“Now you’ve got it.” Celaise plucked them off and flicked one at him.

He swatted it into the river.

She spat on her thumbs and pressed until the bleeding stopped. All the hum had gone out of the air. It was just fly buzz. The warmth had turned to sticky heat. Now Jerani was too close.

What if he kissed her and she still went cold? He could take her in his arms, he could try to love her, and she would hate it and have to push him away. She had boiled away all the black wine in her, but she didn’t know if that was enough. The deadness could still be in her. Some wounds were too deep even for magic to heal.

Her stomach gurgled.

“I’ll get you something.” Jerani hopped up then dropped back to a crouch. “If you want.”

“You get yourself something.” Celaise went to a llama sprawled on her side. With a cup from a pack, Celaise milked the llama and drank. Her mouth filled with white richness and warmth.

Jerani ran to her side. “What is it?”

She must’ve groaned or screamed with her mouth full. She swallowed and licked her lips. “I can taste again.”

“It’s good?”

“Like childhood.” All the peace she’d had on those cold mountains had been with the llamas. Celaise buried her nose in llama fur. Memories flowed back to her of clear skies, of green terraces carved into the peaks, of skipping down narrow trails after llamas and laughing. How beautiful just to live, to be.

She didn’t care how silly she looked, she rubbed each llama and breathed in their shaggy smell. They groused at her with their sleepy
baas
.

“You’re limping,” Jerani said. He had been watching her.

“Oh, I might’ve fallen down some stairs last night.” Her skirt had been torn. New scars ran along her knee and shoulder. Her dress was splotched dark from blood, but her wounds had closed. She wasn’t even bruised.

The small bottle Jerani had given her had been no small magic. She saw it had mended most everything but her dress. The dirty tatters scraped against her skin. She would never again feel the smoothness of moonlight lace flowing over her. Her gown wouldn’t ever be alive with feathers. Sky ribbons wouldn’t flutter and breeze around her. Celaise would never strut with a train of fire. She had lost the safety of her True Dress.

Unless she Feasted again.

She pulled at the rags strapped to her. “This dress is worse than nothing.”

“It does look dead.”

“How do you bear the sight of me? You’ve seen me in all my gowns. I’ll never be that beautiful again.”

“Celaise, I see those dresses even when you’re not wearing any.”

Jerani would remember her in her True Dresses. She could trust him to. She didn’t need them every night. Celaise swallowed the saliva that had been flooding her mouth. “Jerani, you have more of those little bottles?”

He pulled out a handful. They pinged against each other.

“I think I’ll need another tonight,” Celaise said. “For now, getting this dress off me will be enough. Hand me a knife.”

Peeling the ruined cloth off let her skin breathe. Cutting out material for a loincloth only took a few moments. She tied it around her. Now she was free, ready for anything. Too bad her thread and needles were still at the safe house. She could’ve made a loincloth to envy.