Dragons Lost (16 page)

Domi gave a little
gurgle. She stared at the young man—his high cheekbones, his strange blue eyes,
the white hair that grew from the right side of his head. She could not
understand this paladin, second born of the High Priestess. Sometimes he beat
her, shouted at her, called her worthless, yet at other times he seemed to love
her as a man loves a pet—even as a man loves a woman. She was tempted to snap
her jaws and rip him apart, confused by his cruelty and tenderness.

"Brother!" Mercy's cry
rose nearby. Domi turned to see the heiress marching forward, face suffused
with rage. "This miserable beast has outlived her usefulness. I'll be taking
Felesar to be my new mount. I want Pyre put down."

Gemini straightened and
bared his teeth at his older sister. "Like the Abyss! Pyre is the smartest
firedrake we have. I'll put you down instead."

Domi had thought Mercy
had looked mad before. Now the paladin's face twisted into a rabid, monstrous
mask of rage, her lips peeling back to reveal teeth and gums. She seemed almost
inhuman, almost as if she herself were becoming a dragon. With a howl, Mercy
swung her arm, backhanding Gemini. The younger paladin yelped.

"You will put her down,
Gemini! But not before you hurt her. You will whip her to death, slowly, over
days, as I sail to find the weredragons. I expect a coat of her scales when I
return. If I learn from the soldiers that you gave Pyre a merciful death, I
will have you tortured."

With that, Mercy spun
on her heel, marched toward a rowboat, and entered the vessel with a dozen
soldiers. They rowed toward a warship, and soon the great brigantines were
raising their anchors, many men and firedrakes upon them, and
sailing east.

Domi turned her head
back toward Gemini. He stared at her, his cheek red and lip bloodied, and
sighed. He attached a chain to her collar, turned, and tugged her.

"Come along, you poor
beast."

As the ships
sailed away, they walked along the boardwalk. He led her down to the beach, and
once they stood in the sand, he drew his sword.

Domi stared at
him as he contemplated the blade, and she tensed. If he tried to stab her, she
would fight back. She could easily slay him. Her heart beat rapidly, and smoke
burst out from her nostrils in short blasts.

I can kill
him. I can flee. I can—

Gemini heaved a
deep sigh. "You understand, don't you?" He stroked her snout. "You know what
Mercy wants, and yet you followed me willingly to the beach. I think that if I
did try to put you down, you would rather die than disobey me. My sister calls
you worthless, and perhaps you are recalcitrant around her. But I've tamed you.
With lash and spur, I made you mine." He clenched his fist, sudden rage
twisting his face. "And I will not give you up." He sheathed his sword and
climbed onto her back. "Fly, Pyre! Let us fly together—if only for one last
time."

The sun began
to set and the stars to emerge. Domi was exhausted after the long flight over
the sea, but she beat her wings and rose into the air. They flew. Gemini did
not lash her, and his spurs barely brushed her tenderspots, and he gently
directed her along the beach. They flew several miles south, leaving the city
behind, before he allowed her to descend. They landed in the sand. The sun
vanished behind the horizon as he dismounted, and the stars shone overhead. The
black waves whispered, capped with foam.

Gemini
dismounted and stood beside her. The sounds of the city had faded, and in the
distance, Domi saw the lights of the warships sailing east—sailing to kill
Cade, to kill her father and sister.

"I never wanted
this, you know," Gemini said softly. "To be the son of the High Priestess. To
be the brother of Mercy." He sighed. "Both those women terrify me. They're
strong, proud, intelligent, ruthless, and . . ." He sighed. "Neither one thinks
much of me. I had a brother once, did you know? Vanished as a babe; my father
stole him away. So of course my mother caught the old man. And she killed him."
His jaw clenched, and tears shone in his eyes. "That's what they do to men in
my family. Kill us. Abandon us. Or just emasculate us. When I was a child, Mother
would threaten to lock me in the palace dungeon, to leave me to rot. She'd take
me to that dungeon sometimes, show me the tortured prisoners, threaten to leave
me there."

Sudden pity
filled Domi, and she gurgled softly and nestled him with her snout. She hated
Gemini. She hated him with a passion. Yet now she pitied him too, for he seemed
pathetic to her.

"You do understand,
don't you?" Gemini said. "They treat you the same way. We're both only animals
to my mother and sister. Do you think they ever invite me to their councils?
Ever discuss the Falling with me, or the military strategy against the Horde,
or plan the hunts of the weredragons? No. They stick me in a bedroom, and they
send women in, and they stud me. That's all I am to them—a stud, an animal to
breed other animals, no better than a firedrake. All because I was born
naturally pure."

Domi imagined
that most men would envy this life—to live in a palace, bedding one woman after
another—but she only grunted and puffed out a little smoke.

"And the one
woman I actually loved," Gemini continued, voice torn with pain. "The one woman
I ever chose for myself, ever dared to truly love . . . they . . . oh Spirit,
they grabbed her, and . . ."

He fell silent
and lowered his head, too overcome to speak.

Domi nuzzled
him, cooing softly. Gemini—loving a woman? It seemed impossible to Domi. What
woman had caused the paladin such pain?

For long moments
Gemini seemed unable to speak. He stood silently, clenching his fists. Tears
streamed down his cheeks. Finally he raised his head and looked back at Domi.

"And now Mercy
wants me to put you down," he said. "You're not like the other firedrakes. It's
as if . . . as if you understand me. You've become my only friend, Pyre. My
true pet." He stared into her eyes. "You are the only woman that I love now."

Domi narrowed
her eyes, and her heart quickened. Did he know? Did he know that deep within
her dragon body there lurked the soul of a true woman?

He kissed the
tip of her snout. "Let's sleep here tonight. Together on the beach. I have to
obey my sister. I have to put you down. If I let you go, she'll know. She
always knows." His tears flowed. "But let's spend one more night together."

He curled up in
the sand beside her, laid his head against her, and closed his eyes. She draped
a wing over him, and he slept, pressed against her. His sleep was restless, and
he kicked, mumbling of dungeons, desperate to escape the prison in his mind.

Do it, Domi,
she told herself.
Do it now. Kill him. Bury his body in the sand. Then flee.

She stared down
at him, wanting to see the cruel master who had lashed her bloody, who had all
but starved her, who had dug his spurs into her mercilessly. She wanted to see
the sadistic son of the High Priestess, the hunter of weredragons.

But she saw
only a scared, confused boy—a wretched soul to pity.

And Domi cursed
that pity within her.

Suddenly she
missed her family. She wanted her father to be here, to tell her what to do; he
would tell her to kill Gemini, she thought. She wanted her older sister here,
to hear Fidelity's wisdom; perhaps the librarian would urge mercy. Domi even
wanted to see Cade, that foolish, headstrong boy with his wide hazel eyes and
ridiculously messy hair.

But I'm
alone, and I must choose.

She knew that
Gemini had made his own choice; he had chosen to slay her in the morning, despite
his love for her. He had chosen to obey his sister. He had chosen to do what he
always did: be a tool for his family, to hate himself for his actions, to be a breeder,
a killer, or whatever else they wanted him to be, and Domi knew that the pain
would forever fill him.

He's already
dead.

Watching him
sleep, Domi released her dragon magic.

Her claws
retracted. Her scales melted into her body. She resumed human form—a girl
wearing rags, her skin covered in sand and dirt, her eyes peering between
strands of red hair.

Sensing the
loss of the dragon's warm body, Gemini mumbled and his eyes opened to slits. He
gazed at her, confused, still half asleep.

"Goodbye,
Gemini," Domi whispered. She touched his cheek. "I give you the gift of life,
or perhaps its curse."

She turned and
began walking south along the dark beach. The waves reached out to kiss her
feet, and the stars shone above. She looked over her shoulder once, and she saw
Gemini standing in the moonlight, gaping at her, silent. He did not follow,
perhaps thinking this all a dream, perhaps simply too shocked to move.

She turned her
head back forward, and she walked on, leaving her old life behind.

 
 
GEMINI

"Wait."

His voice was only a
hoarse whisper, and his legs trembled. The woman kept walking away, vanishing
into the darkness. Gemini took three steps forward in the sand, but he was too
dizzy to keep walking, too shocked. He fell to his knees, and the waves
splashed around him. He reached out to the young woman.

"Wait!"

His voice was louder
now, cracked.

She froze, her back
still toward him. The moonlight limned her form—the form of a young, slender
woman dressed in a ragged sack. For a long moment the only sound came from the
whispering waves.

Slowly, the woman
turned around to face him.

Gemini struggled to his
feet, his fingers still shaking.

Can it be . . .
He blinked.
No, it can't be, but . . .

He took another step
toward her. She seemed startled and took three steps backward; for a moment she
seemed torn between wanting to flee and wanting to hear him.

"I just want to talk."
Gemini held out his open hands. "No weapons. I just want to talk."

Who was she? He had
fallen asleep under Pyre's wing, his firedrake who was doomed to die. He could
have sworn he had dreamed of the firedrake shrinking, becoming a woman, gazing
at him softly, touching his cheek, then rising, walking away.

A dream. A dream, that
was all. It had to be.

Gemini took a few more
steps toward the woman on the beach, and finally he could see her clearly in
the moonlight.

She was a young woman, perhaps
a couple of years younger than him. Her body was slender. He thought her skin
was pale, but it was hard to tell; grime and sand covered it. She wore a
tattered burlap sack and long stockings full of holes. He could barely see her
face; matted strands of tangled red hair hung across it. He could make out only
a small, freckled nose and very large, very green eyes that peered at him.

Pyre's eyes.

"Who are you?" Gemini
whispered.

She glanced behind her,
then back at him. She stared into his eyes, and he nearly drowned in two green
pools.

"You know who I am,"
she whispered.

He reached out a
hesitant hand and parted the strands of her hair, revealing her face—a pale
face, strewn with freckles and coated with sand.

It's her.

"Pyre," he whispered.

She nodded. She parted
the tatters of her tunic, revealing cuts on her sides.

Tenderspots. The very
places where he had spurred her.

Once more, Gemini could
not stand. He fell to his knees before her, shaking. He reached out and grabbed
her hand.

"I'm sorry." His eyes
dampened. "Oh, Pyre, I'm sorry. I didn't know. I didn't know you . . . what are
you? A weredragon?"

She pulled her hand
free and took a step back. "I am Domi. That's all. Just Domi. And I must leave
now."

She turned and began
walking away again.

He leaped up, raced
after her, and grabbed her arm.

She spun back toward
him, and fire lit her eyes. Scales began to grow across her body, and her
fingernails began lengthening into claws.

Gemini gasped and
released her.

"Let me go," Domi
hissed, halfway into becoming a dragon. "I can slay you now. I can hurt you—the
way you hurt me. The way you hurt so many others." Her magic faded, but the
rage remained in her eyes. "Grab me again and my claws will dig into you."

Though his insides
roiled, Gemini refused to look away. He raised his chin. "You could have killed
me in my sleep. Why didn't you? You're a weredragon. My family hunts
weredragons. I myself beat you. I lashed you with my whip until your scales
cracked. I dug my spurs into you. I tamed you with pain and blood. Why did you
spare my life?"

Her chest deflated and
her eyes softened. "I don't know. Because . . . I pitied you. Because I saw
pain inside you. Because I know you hurt me to drive out that pain inside you.
I wanted to kill you on the beach. A voice inside me cried out: Slay him now!
Burn him! But . . . then you wept." She lowered her head. "You told me that you
loved me, that I'm the only one you love. And you confused me. It scared me."

"It confuses me and
scares me too," he whispered. "Whatever lurks inside me—it scares me. That you're
really her, really Pyre, speaking to me now—that scares me too. But I meant
what I said." He tasted tears on his lips. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry that I hurt
you, and I will never forgive myself for my cruelty, the cruelty my family bred
into me, that my faith demands, that—" He shook his head wildly. "No, I won't
even make excuses for what I did. The blame is mine. I'm not a good man, Pyre.
I mean—Domi. I've always known that, always known that malice lurks inside me,
a lust for cruelty, for pain, for hurting others. It scares me so much, and I'm
sorry. And I meant the other thing I said too." He could barely see her through
his tears. "That I love you. That you're the only woman I love."