Seraphina (47 page)

He’d spotted Abdo and did not wish to harm him. The humanity of it took my breath away; the colossal stupidity of it filled me with despair.

Abdo, clamped onto Imlann’s neck, would deprive Orma not only of the use of fire but also of the ability to bite Imlann’s head off easily. Orma’s only hope would be to successfully drop his father out of the sky, but his father was longer by a quarter. It was not going to be easy, and Abdo might still die.

From the city, something else huge and dark rose into the sky and approached the fighting pair at speed. It was another dragon, but I couldn’t tell who. He circled the snarling pair at a safe distance, not engaging either of them, but watching and waiting.

Behind me, Kiggs spoke quietly to Glisselda. “Are you hurt?”

“I believe I may have a cracked rib, Lucian. But—is the Ardmagar really dead?”

“It was all a bluff. I’ve seen her do it before. It’s her particular talent.”

“Well, go fetch her, would you? She’s standing in the snow in her ball slippers, and she’s going to freeze.”

I had not realized until that moment how cold I was. I didn’t even have a cloak. Kiggs approached me, but I would not tear my eyes away from the sky battle. Imlann flew a little further east with each pass; soon they were going to be fighting above the city. If Orma was unwilling to risk the life of one little boy, was he really going to drop Imlann onto buildings full of people? My heart sank still lower.

The cathedral bells began to toll, a pattern not heard in forty years: the ard-call.
Dragons! Take cover!

“Phina,” said Kiggs. “Come inside.”

I wouldn’t be able to see the dragons from the cave mouth, the way they were positioned now. I stepped away from him, into even deeper snow. Kiggs came after me and put a hand on my arm, as if he’d drag me back, but his eyes were on the lightening sky as well. “Who is that third dragon?”

I suspected I knew, but I did not have the energy to explain.

“It’s hovering uselessly,” said Kiggs. “If it were an embassy dragon, I’d expect it to side with your teacher.”

That last word jarred me. I’d expected him to say “uncle,” truly. I had told the truth right in front of him, and he could not, or would not, believe it. He was offering me an easy way back to normal, and I was sorely tempted. It would have been so simple not to correct him, to let it go. It would have been effortless.

But I had kissed him, and I had told the truth, and I was changed.

“He’s my uncle,” I said, loudly enough to ensure Glisselda heard it also.

Kiggs did not let go of my arm, although his hand seemed to turn to wood. He looked to Glisselda; I did not see what expression she wore. He said, “Phina, don’t joke. You saved us. It’s over.”

I stared at him until he met my eye. “If you’re going to demand the truth from me, you could at least have the courtesy to believe it.”

“It can’t be true. That doesn’t happen.” His voice caught; he’d gone pink to his ears. “That is, what Aunt Dionne might have been planning … I’ll allow that
that
happens. Maybe, sometimes.”

It had been about to happen at Lady Corongi’s suggestion, too, I suddenly realized.

“But interbreeding is surely impossible,” Kiggs continued stubbornly. “Cats and dogs, as they say.”

“Horses and donkeys,” I said. The cold wind made my eyes water. “It happens.”

“What did you say about my mother, Lucian?” asked Glisselda, her voice tremulous.

Kiggs didn’t answer. He released my arm but didn’t walk away. His eyes widened. I followed his gaze in time to see Orma pull out of a drop barely in time, shearing off a chimney and a tavern roof with his tail. The sound of the crash reached our ears a moment later along with the screaming of panicked citizens.

“Saints in Heaven!” cried Glisselda, who had come closer behind us without my hearing, clutching her side. “Why won’t that one help him?”

In fact, “that one” was gliding lazily back toward us. He grew larger and larger, finally landing just downhill from us; a gust of brimstone wind forced us back a step. He stretched his snaky neck, and then proceeded to do the opposite of what Imlann had done, collapsing in upon himself, cooling and condensing into a man. Basind stood stark naked in the snow, rubbing his hands together.

“Saar Basind!” I cried, even though I knew how futile it was to be furious with him. “You’re leaving Orma to be killed. Change back at once!”

Basind’s eyes swiveled toward me, and I stopped short. His gaze was sharp; his motions were smooth and coordinated as he picked his way toward me through the snow. He flicked his lank hair out of his eyes and said, “This fight has nothing to do with me, Seraphina. I’ve gathered the pertinent data on your uncle, and now I get to go home.”

I gaped at him. “You’re—you’re from the—”

“The Board of Censors, yes. We test your uncle regularly, but he’s been tough to catch. He usually notices and spoils the test. This time he was experiencing excessive emotionality on several fronts at once; he could not keep up his vigilance. The Ardmagar has already ordered Orma’s excision, of course, saving me the trouble of having to argue the case.”

“What has Orma done?” asked Glisselda, behind me. I turned; she stood on a stony outcrop, looking surprisingly regal as the sky turned pink and gold behind her.

“He put his half-human niece before his own people multiple times,” said Basind, sounding bored. “He showed several emotions in quantities exceeding permissible limits, including love, hatred, and grief. He is, even now, losing a battle he could easily win, out of concern for a human boy he doesn’t even know.”

Orma was thrown against the bell tower of the cathedral while Basind spoke, crushing the belfry roof with his back. Slate and wood hit the bells, adding cacophony to the ard-call, which still pealed forth from churches all over the city.

“I offer him asylum,” said Glisselda, crossing her arms over her chest.

Basind lifted an eyebrow. “He’s ruining your city.”

“He’s fighting a traitor to his own kind. Imlann tried to kill the Ardmagar!”

Basind shrugged his bony shoulders. “Truly, that concerns me not a bit.”

“You don’t care whether the peace fails?”

“We Censors predate the peace; we will be here long after it has crumbled.” He looked down at himself, seeming to notice for the first time that he was naked. He made for the mouth of the cave. Kiggs attempted to block his way; Basind rolled his eyes. “This silly body is cold. There is clothing on the floor. Hand it to me.”

Kiggs did as he was told without complaint. I was astonished by his alacrity until I saw with my own eyes what he had remembered: it was Lady Corongi’s gown. Basind put it on, grumbling that it was too tight but noticing nothing else wrong with it. He turned and sauntered away up the sally port, unchallenged.

“Lucian!” cried Glisselda. “Don’t let him go. I’m not convinced he’s friendly.”

“The tunnels are all blocked. He’ll be apprehended before he can do any harm.”

If only that were true. The harm was done. I turned back to the sky, where my uncle was still getting the worst of it. Even if he survived, he’d be sent back to the Tanamoot to have his brain pruned. I couldn’t bear it.

Imlann got the drop on him again, and this time Orma could not recover soon enough. He was on fire; he streaked through the sky and landed hard in the river, taking out the Wolfstoot Bridge. A cloud of steam billowed up where he had fallen.

I clamped a hand over my mouth. Imlann swirled the sky, screaming and flaming triumphantly, the newly risen sun glimmering upon his skin.

Treaty Eve was over. Usually we Goreddis toasted the new light and cried, “The dragon wars are done for good!” This year, however, everyone had run out into the streets to watch the dragons warring each other overhead.

I could still hear screams, but it was not the townspeople; it was the wrong pitch. Suddenly I realized the dark dots in the southern sky, which I had taken for a flock of birds, were flying too swiftly and growing far too large to be birds.

Eskar and the petit ard were returning.

The dragon Imlann, my maternal grandfather, did not attempt to flee and did not bite his own tail and surrender. He flew headlong at the approaching dragons, flaming and bellowing and utterly doomed.

As Lady Corongi, he had been devious, ruthless, and calculating. He had tried to kill the entire royal family and his Ardmagar; he might have succeeded in killing his own son. His final charge was nothing short of suicide. And yet, as I watched him in full battle fury, slashing and snapping as if he would rip the sky itself apart, I felt a terrible sorrow rising in me. He was my mother’s father. She had ruined his life as surely as her own by marrying my father, but had her stubbornness been so different from his doomed charge, in the end? Hadn’t she too gone up against unbeatable odds?

Eskar alone could not drop him. Three dragons together finally set him on fire, and even then he stayed airborne longer than I could have imagined possible. When Eskar finally decapitated him, it was more mercy killing than victory. I watched my grandfather’s body spiral down, bright as a comet, and I wept.

The church bells changed their pattern to the fire alarm as smoke began to billow up in the south part of town. Even dead, Imlann did a lot of damage.

I turned back toward the cave entrance, my eyes stinging, my hands and face bitterly cold, a dread emptiness in my chest. Kiggs and Glisselda stood together, both of them studying me anxiously but pretending not to. In the shadows behind them stood Lars, whom I’d all but forgotten. He clutched his pipes, white-knuckled.

“Phina,” he said when I met his eye, “what hes happendt to Abdo?”

The dragon Abdo clung to had been set aflame and decapitated. I saw little hope. “I can’t look for him, Lars,” I said. The idea of reaching for Abdo’s hand in my mind and coming up empty terrified me.

“Candt, or wondt?”

“I won’t!”

Lars glowered ferociously. “You will! You owe him thet! He gave everythink for you, gladtly! He foundt the way down the wall, he threw himself at thet dragon, he didt all you esked and more. Findt him.”

“What if he’s not there?”

“Then you will findt him in Heaven, but you will findt him.”

I nodded, picking my way through the snow toward Lars. Kiggs and Glisselda parted to let me pass, their eyes wide. “Keep me upright, will you?” I said to Lars, who silently put his bagpipe-free arm around me and let me lean my head against his chest. I closed my eyes and reached.

I found Abdo at once. Conscious, alert, almost unhurt, he was seated upon what at first appeared to be an island in the middle of the river. I swooped in with my vision-eye for a closer look. Abdo waved at me, smiling through tears, and only then did I realize what he was sitting on.

It was Orma.

Abdo, is that dragon alive or dead?
I cried, but Abdo didn’t answer. Maybe he didn’t know. I circled. Orma’s chest rose—was that a breath? Crowds of people lined the riverbanks, shouting and waving torches but too frightened to go any closer to him. A shadow crossed them, and they scattered, screaming. It was Eskar: she landed on the strand and arched her neck down to my uncle in the river.

With a tremendous effort, he lifted his head and touched her nose with his.

“Abdo lives,” I croaked, bringing myself back. “He’s in the river with Uncle Orma. He must have switched dragons in mid-flight.”

Lars squeezed me and kissed the top of my head, then checked his exuberance. “Your uncle?”

“Moving. Not well. Eskar’s there; she’ll see to his care.” I hoped she would. Was she really no longer with the Censors? She was the one who’d made my uncle look after Basind. Had she known who he was? I wept into Lars’s jerkin.

There was another hand on my shoulder. Princess Glisselda was giving me her handkerchief. “Are these your formidable mental powers?” she asked softly. “You can see your comrades in your mind? Is that how you found me?”

“She can see only other helf-dragons,” said Lars, glaring unnecessarily.

“There are more half-dragons?” whispered Glisselda, her blue eyes wide.

“Mise,”
said Lars. “I, myself.”

The princess nodded slowly, her brow furrowed in thought. “And that little Porphyrian boy. That’s who you’re talking about, isn’t it?”

Kiggs was shaking his head, pacing in a futile circle. “I might believe there was one in the world, but three?”

“Four, counting Dame Okra Carmine,” I said wearily. May as well out the whole bunch, although I had a feeling Dame Okra would be irked that I had done so. “There could be seventeen of us together, if I located the rest.” Eighteen, if I found Jannoula, or she found me.

Glisselda looked awed, but Kiggs set his jaw as if he wasn’t buying it.

“You heard Basind call Orma my uncle,” I told him. “Remember how you thought I loved him, how you were sick of guessing? Here’s your explanation at last.”

Kiggs was shaking his head stubbornly. “I just can’t … Your blood runs red. You laugh and cry the same as anyone—”

Lars seemed to grow taller, looming protectively over me. I put a reassuring hand on his arm and told him in my mind:
It’s time. I can do this
.

The prince and princess stared, mesmerized by how many sleeves and ties I had to undo. I held my bared arm toward them; sunlight flashed off the spiraling silver scales.

The icy wind blew. No one spoke.

Kiggs and Glisselda did not move. I did not look at their faces; I did not wish to read how many different words for disgust must be written there. I tugged my garments back into place, cleared the considerable lump out of my throat, and croaked, “We should get inside and see who else still lives.”

The royal cousins started, as if waking from some terrible dream, and hastened into the cave, ahead of and away from me. Lars put his arm around my shoulders. I leaned on him all the way into the castle, weeping half my tears for Orma and half for myself.