Dragons and Mages: A Limited Edition Anthology

by Pauline Creeden

Carmelo snorted, but in a friendly way. “Nobody cares if I talk to you. I’m bored.”

  Fia laced her fingers together to make her gloves fit more snugly, smiling slightly. At least he had a little humor.

  “I want to be allowed to fly my dragon after I’m married,” Fia said to her gloves.

  Carmelo swallowed. “It isn’t up to me,” he said gently. “You know that.”

  “I need you to speak to your father about this. Ryelleth and I are….”

  “I can’t,” Carmelo said, too quickly. “I can’t.”

  Fia couldn’t help but glare at him. “Do you know how long Ryelleth and I have worked together?” she hissed so their fathers couldn’t hear. “Do you know how good of a team we make together? I’m able to make enough florins to feed her and pay all city and church taxes on her, and still make a small profit. I watch my budgets like a hawk to make that profit. Believe me, those are not small financial matters.”

  Carmelo shrugged. “Finances are not a woman’s concern,” he said. “Come on, Fia. Let me take care of you. I can give you a better life. Then you don’t have to bow and scrape before a bunch of snobby people around who look down on you because of the work you do.”

  He was quoting, almost word for word, something Fia herself had said to her friends one morning after Mass.

  “I don’t care,” she shot back. “I have a business, a livelihood. I’ve built this up for years now.”

  “Look. You don’t need to do all that,” Carmelo said, gazing down into her face. “I can care for you. I want to care for you. Instead of toiling all day, you can sit at home at leisure.”

  Ugh. She could sit at home, bored out of her mind, instead of sailing high over the wide world on dragonback.

  She knew she was scowling. She didn’t mean to, because now Carmelo was stammering, almost pleading. “I have a good trade, good employment. There’s no reason for you to soil your reputation.”

  Fia’s head snapped up. “Reputation? My reputation is perfectly fine. If gossipmongers would speak about what they actually understood, they’d have nothing left to say.”

  “Fia, I did not mean it like that.”

  Fia snorted. “I don’t want a life of boredom. I want the life I’ve created. It is not an easy life. But I do not want an easy life. I want my life. You can’t just let your father take my dragon away from me like that.”

  Carmelo’s mouth came open, a blank look. He sent a helpless gaze toward his father, who was busy going through the marriage document with her papa.

  “But I guess you are,” Fia said bitterly. “That’s fine. A bridal price is pure robbery for the bride. Your family will live comfortably off my hard work.”

  Carmelo looked hurt. “Stop that. You are going to be my wife. That’s just what happens to a bride. You’re supposed to be good.” He shrugged. “Maybe if you’re good we’ll let you ride her sometimes.”

  In a heartbeat, Fia ripped off her smoky goatskin glove and smacked Carmelo across the face with it.

  Carmelo jerked back. Soot from her burned glove left a dusky mark on his cheek.

  Fia instantly regretted it. She clumsily pulled her glove back on, her hands shaking. She needed to apologize, but instead she said, voice quavering, “You are stealing my dragon, my most precious possession, but maybe I can ride her if I’m good.”

  “Your dragon,” he mocked. “See? There’s a reason why women aren’t allowed to own property. They get too emotional.” Sounding just like his father.

  Emotional. Ha. “I see you openly weep at every baptism at church. Don’t talk to me about getting emotional.”

  Fia instantly covered her mouth. In truth, she’d always thought it was sweet of him to weep happy tears when the priest blessed the babies with water and the Spirit, and then handed them back to their adoring parents to the jubilation of the church. But her words came out angry and cutting.

  Carmelo’s whole face blotched. He rolled his lips in, pressing them together in a thin line before he turned away.

  There was no apology that was going to fix this.

  Chapter 3

  A KISS UPON THE LIPS

  From her aerie in the tower, Ryelleth yawned, that old sweet sound that always made Fia laugh affectionately to herself whenever she heard it. Fia couldn’t see the top of the tower where her dragon sat, for she stood in the tower’s shadow. But at the sound of her dragon’s yawn, she had to turn aside, her eyes prickling.

  What she’d accomplished meant nothing to these men.

  All those mornings when she’d climb to the aerie and Ryelleth would yawn like that and stretch out her wings like enormous sails, the sun burning through their emerald membranes. Riding out to her family’s fortress to let Ryelleth catch a goat for her breakfast. All those quiet times when they flew high over the earth, with all the great mountains and vineyards and pines so small below them and quiet. All those times that Ryelleth rubbed her head against Fia’s body like a gigantic cat – a gigantic, flame-hot cat.

  No more would Fia enjoy the roar of wind in her ears and the wild flight of a dragon in the middle air between earth and heaven. No more would the freezing, thin air rush over her face. No more would she share in the delight of her dragon as they spiraled down toward the ground.

  Instead, Fia would sit in Carmelo’s house and bear children and pray to the Virgin Mary that she wouldn’t die in childbirth before she was 30, the way so many young mothers did.

  What was she going to do?

  Just then, the marriage broker said something to make her papa and Carmelo’s father laugh.

  “Now both fathers have signed,” boomed the marriage broker to Fia and Carmelo. “Congratulations. You two lucky children will be wed next year in May.”

  Everybody but Fia applauded.

  “Seal the bargain with a kiss upon her lips,” Carmelo’s father demanded.

  Papa frowned but said, “It is tradition.” He met Fia’s eyes.

  One final indignity and she’d be finished. “Fine,” she said.

  Carmelo’s father lined Carmelo up in front of Fia, though Carmelo reddened and moved his father’s hands out of his way. “I can do this on my own,” he muttered.

  “Kiss her, son, kiss her.” His father was getting far more out of the experience than Carmelo was.

  Fia couldn’t meet Carmelo’s eyes, and she felt the color rising in her face – anger, disgust.

  Carmelo, on the other hand, gazed fixedly down at her, brows lowered, his face reddening too.

  Fia was torn between the urge to apologize profusely, and the urge, just as strong, to rip off her gloves and repeat that slap hard enough to purple his eye.

  He leaned down and kissed her on the lips.

  She stood there with eyes open like a block of wood.

  They pulled apart, Carmelo’s face blotching again. He would have looked almost brokenhearted if he weren’t so angry. Their fathers applauded anyway. She turned away, wrapping her traveling cloak around her, breathing in that smell of smoke and cinders that always clung to her. Soon to be hers no more.

  Both fathers shook hands warmly. “I’m pleased to ally my family with yours,” her father said.

  “And I’m pleased to ally with your house,” Carmelo’s father said. “If the exiles return, I should be glad to defend the city with you at my side.”

  “I pray it should not come to that,” Papa said. “In fact, that is where Fia will be taking me next, to peace talks between the city’s factions. If we can keep this city at peace, then we do a great service to our families and our children’s families.”

  “All the same,” said Carmelo’s father, pulling out a sword, “My sword cries out for the blood of its foes. I am prepared to fight and shed much blood in the name of peace.”

  Does he not understand how he sounds, to have those words coming out of his mouth? Fia wondered.

  “It’s time to go.” Fia’s papa laid his pen into its small wooden case and shut it, then sliding it inside his red robes of state, whe
re he had a pocket. “These peace negotiations have been going on for so long, I admit that I sometimes despair of ever seeing their end.”

  “Or the end of war in the city,” said Carmelo’s father. “In my day, the Lambs deserved their exile, richly deserved it. But now it seems that there is always a new faction that wants to take the place of the old, a new faction that rises to strike at the foundation of our government and law.”

  The marriage broker gathered the papers and slowly rolled them up. “In my day, the rule of law meant something,” he said in his sonorous voice.

  “Amen,” said Papa.

  Fia, who was pointedly glaring off at a high window across the street so she wouldn’t be seen scowling, saw her father glance at her from the corner of her eye. “Gentlemen, I bid you good morning.”

  Finally. Fia began to stalk away.

  “Young lady.” Carmelo’s father’s gruff voice made her turn back when she’d just about gained her freedom.

  He was glaring at her, a look that made her stomach drop. “If you strike my son again, even in jest, I would not hesitate to send one of my servants to tie you to a whipping post and give you the lash.”

  Every drop of blood left Fia’s face. She felt them.

  Her hand dropped to where she kept a dagger hidden at her hip. “If you try that, I will cut you down like a dog in the street. I am a scion of the Famiglia Portinari, and you will not lay a hand on me.”

  His face went blotchy, just as Carmelo’s often did, but he laughed scornfully. “You’d die if you tried.”

  “I would die with great satisfaction,” Fia said.

  Her father clapped a hand, hard, on her shoulder. “Not another word out of you. Not one more. You will not destroy what we are building here.”

  Chapter 4

  APOLOGIES AND REGRETS

  Fia stormed up the narrow, dark staircase to the aerie, wishing she could have left both of her gloves in Carmelo’s father’s face.

  She burst through the door to the roof, and it banged against the wall.

  “Fia!” her father scolded behind her.

  She was striding across the roof to her dragon. Ryelleth had startled at the loud bang, her wings half open, her teeth beginning to show, her eyes wide.

  “Ryelleth, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Fia grabbed up her soft sheepskin and flung it over the dragon’s back so hard that she flinched.

  “You apologize to a dragon? You need to apologize to me,” Papa said behind her, his voice vibrant with anger.

  “What for?” Fia snapped. “For giving up my best friend as my bridal-price? For being threatened with a rawhide strap by some dirty, stinking—”

  “I have four other daughters I need to marry off,” her father said, his face turning red. “Must I use all my money to marry off the first two and then send the rest to the nunnery because I can’t afford to marry all of you to honest men?”

  “Hey, here’s an idea,” Fia snapped, kneeling at her dragon’s side to tighten the girth. “Maybe I shouldn’t marry at all. Then I could use my dragon-work to pay for all of my sisters’ dowries. This is not hard.”

  “This is not how things are done.”

  “That’s how they’ve been done, up to now! You’ve let me raise a dragon, you let me use her to ferry your friends, you let me go into business for myself! And all of a sudden you’ve decided that’s not the way things are done?”

  Fia yanked a girth strap hard. Ryelleth made a whining sound, turning her ponderous head around to look at Fia.

  Fia exhaled gustily, loosening the strap. There under the strap was a bent scale, still attached to the dragon, of course. She smoothed the scale back, and this time buckled the girth more carefully.

  She could see her father’s frown from the corner of her eye. “I’d always considered you to be the sensible one, despite the fact that you essentially do the type of work a commoner does.”

  Fia, still kneeling at her work, swept an open hand at Ryelleth. “You were the one who gave me this dragon.”

  “I didn’t expect you to keep her. Only rehabilitate her.”

  “I found a way to keep her, and I keep her honestly, and have never had to ask you for money,” Fia said. “I thought that might be something you could be proud of.”

  “I live in a city that’s been torn by warfare since I was a child. It’s not the way I want the world. But it’s the world I’m forced to live in.”

  Fia rolled her eyes. “The world you’re forced to live in. Yeah, yeah. You can work in any profession you want,” she said, standing up and dusting off her gloves. “If I were a man as you are, I could keep my profession and my dragon. But because I’m a woman, I’m about to lose both, and also get whipped by my future father-in-law, because how dare I feel angry about this!”

  Papa’s voice grew steely. “I did my level best to find a match that is congenial for you, while being of advantage to both our families.”

  “Oh, that fixes everything. My being whipped by some pus-licking hog sounds really advantageous—”

  “That’s enough!” Her father’s roar stunned her into silence. “It’s not all about you. It’s about making certain that our family has allies and can survive this city’s infighting!”

  Ryelleth, Eater of All – Fia named her this when she was eating two whole goats every day during a growth spurt a few years ago – leaned her head down at Fia’s side, now concerned, and began boldly sniffing her father all over his robes.

  “Tell her to stop that,” he said, taking several steps back.

  “She’s assessing if you’re a threat to me.” Fia laid a loving hand on Ryelleth’s side, her heart about to break. “Maybe you are, if you’re just fine with that pus-licker threatening me with the lash.”

  Her father drew himself up, eyes dark. “Maybe if my sensible daughter would deport herself in a way according to her station, she wouldn’t have to face the lash at all. This is a choice well within your control, Fia. I suggest you choose well. For the sake of your family, I advise you to choose well.”

  Fia grunted as she climbed aboard her dragon’s back and buckled the straps around her. She’d already made her choice, but apparently her choice did not matter. Scratch that: Her choice used to matter – but now her father had changed the rules, and that felt like a betrayal.

  “We need to leave,” her father replied, curt. He climbed into the saddle behind her, and his belts clicked as he tightened the straps that kept the passengers from falling off during the ride. “We can’t be late.”

  I can’t wait for you to have to rely on some other dragoneer, she thought bitterly. You’ll get no more of that convenient from-home flight service after you rip my dragon from me.

  “Ryelleth, sweetie. Are you ready?”

  The dragon jumped to attention like a dog when you show her a treat.

  “Let’s get ready to fly, sweetheart.”

  Out came Ryelleth’s wings, deep green as emeralds. Her body heated, and the fiery sheen under Ryelleth’s scales intensified so that golden sparks gleamed under her emerald scales. She breathed out red sparks that floated around her mouth. A shiver passed over Ryelleth as she stared into the sky.

  Fia’s heart broke again. Ryelleth was the best dragon. “Up! Up!”

  Her wings flashed, and Ryelleth sprang into the air, enormous wings beating.

  Slowly, they rose over the city, the old familiar houses growing smaller, the terracotta orange tiles of the houses gathering close. Merchants in their outdoor shops gazed up as she flew overhead, the shadow of the dragon flashing across the dark, narrow streets. Children came running down these streets, shouting and waving at Fia, screaming as they tried to run as fast as her dragon. They made her smile, even now, despite herself.

  She met the wide eyes of a little girl staring out a casement at her, and in those wide eyes Fia read her longing. “Could that be me someday?”

  Fia’s heart broke for the girl.

  The orange-tiled roofs of the houses crowded over the
top of the streets, so from this height, it seemed that parts of the city were crowded as if under a turtle’s shell. But the houses were broken by tiny squares of gardens, or orchards, bits of green flourishing between the buildings. Ryelleth flew over a stable and some horses whinnied and complained. Here was a wide market plaza where merchants sold fish, meat, flowers, bread, tunics, hats, shoes.

  And here was a great empty hole in the city, the stones and rubble where her best friend’s house used to stand until the day her family was driven from the city into exile and her house torn down to the very foundations.

  Fia’s face darkened. The endless fights of the city.

  Fia had been a toddling girl when the Lambs faction had first been exiled. She didn’t remember that day, though she’d heard many stories about the fighting in the streets and the blood spilled. Her mama said that they had been barricaded in their room all day and through the night, but Fia had played quietly with her doll, then took a long nap. She had been very good that day, her mother said.

  But the day the Lambs came back with the Sienese army – the day that Neva’s family had been driven from town – the day that her grandfather was killed before her eyes in the street, and her grandmother had repaid the murderers in blood – she’d never forget that day for as long as she lived.

  Ever since then, her father had been involved in the peace talks between Fiorenza and Siena, as he would be again today, trying to stop a third war from happening.

  Fia knew this weighed heavily on him, and now she felt a little sorry that she was being so harsh to him.

  I should apologize, she thought, leaning to the left, and Ryelleth banked gently in that direction. I should tell him. I was rough on him, and he really does have so much on his mind ….

  Her reflections were interrupted by her father’s sigh behind her.

  “I see now that I was wrong,” her father said.

  Stunned, Fia turned slightly in her seat to look at him. Her apology sprang to her lips, and she leaned back to tell him.

  But then he continued.