by Lisa Daniels
He appeared slightly mollified by that, and his grizzled features smiled briefly, before he bowed himself out.
“Is all the food you eat spicy?” she asked then, picking carefully through the sauce and rice, taking the time to savor the textures. He didn’t bother so much with that anymore. Scarfing the food down allowed him more time to do other things. Now he tried to do the same.
“A lot of it is spicier than normal. Spices are a luxury, though I allow my servants to have some if they want. They prefer blander food, it seems.”
“How… how expensive are these spices?” Alex looked as if she’d be frightened of the answer. Maybe she would.
“It can be five golden circs for a small bottle,” he said, and the color drained out of her face.
“So much money,” she whispered. She stared at her food, appetite dwindling. “You know, five golden circs are enough to feed a family for a long time. You can… you can get a basic stew for two copper circs. That can serve maybe two, three people. It…” she frowned, “this meal costs more than what some people make in a year. What I made in a year.”
Not my fault, Meridas thought. But the gap between their worlds seemed to get wider in an instant, until it became a gulf. Yes… perhaps courting someone from the Undercity was a bad idea. She’d likely put on a pale face like that every time she realized just how much money was being exchanged in the Six Isles. Before the fall, the Seven Isles, he thought with a stab of sadness.
The cost of living was vastly different for them. Maybe her stomach now churned with envy.
Could he blame her? If he could only spend two copper circs for a meal?
“I can’t imagine being you,” he said. “I mean, I was born into a wealthy family. We watch our money a different way, through the taxes we pay, making sure we have enough for those, but obviously it’s a lot more than what you’re used to.”
She nodded, though still looked a little green. “I’m sorry. It’s just… hard to shake off the memory. You know. Being happy because I managed to collect four whole copper circs in one day, because I could have my favorite meal with it. Saving the odd copper here and there in a little jar, until at one point I had eight silver circs’ worth, and that felt like a fortune. Not that it lasted so long,” she said, a bitter smile twisting her mouth. “One of the kids stole it. All of them swore blind they had nothing to do with it, but then one of them turned up with a very nice jacket. Claimed he stole it, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out he likely bought it from some fancy tailor.”
“That seems… short-sighted,” Meridas said delicately. “Eight silver is enough to get you accommodation and other things, right?” He wasn’t sure, but if meals really cost two copper circs, then it stood to reason that other costs wouldn’t be too far off.
“You can rent out some of the smaller houses, fifty copper a month. They’re not anything special. No. I wanted to save up to eventually get my own home. I heard that—you can go to the bank, when you have enough. Get a mortgage. And you can start living in your own home. I wanted… something of my own.”
She fell into silence then, and Meridas understood that sentiment. Even if he didn’t understand the others. “Did you dream of winning the lottery and coming up here?”
“I never put my money in the lottery,” she said. “I heard someone say you have more chance of being struck by lightning several times in a row than getting your numbers and heading to the skies. Thought about it, but it was better to save up my money. I couldn’t afford the lottery if I wanted to do other things.” She picked at her food like a bird. “Bet someone down in the house has found my new secret stash by now. Sixty coppers. Probably bought themselves a new suit.”
“It sounds… every bit as horrible down there as I’d imagine. But even more poor,” Meridas said, after chewing his food some more. It was almost cleaned from his plate, and his appetite had dwindled enough for him not to go for second helpings as he usually did. He wasn’t sure he liked this topic of conversation. It made him uncomfortable, somehow, with his wealth, and he hated feeling ashamed of something that was just normal. “Aren’t there other ways to rise up? Can you marry into a wealthier family?” Of course, he hated the fact that one of his divorcees was particularly grabby.
A rather unladylike snort left Alex in response. “Don’t think anyone would want a woman like me. A lot of us end up getting married before we’re eighteen. Past that, we start being shamefully old. And I’m, what, twenty-four? Uneducated. Come from an area heavy for thieves…”
Meridas didn’t like how she talked about her portion of the Undercity as if she was still there. “That will soon change,” he said curtly, now pushing his empty plate aside. “You have opportunities here that never existed for you before. You are getting educated. And your power—people won’t execute you for it up here. They’ll love you for it. And I intend to make full use of it. And pay you,” he said. He hadn’t actually been giving her a payroll like the other servants. Because he’d whisked her from prison, from lying in a filthy cell to heal his sister. If anything, he’d been paying for her education. But perhaps she needed to feel more like she belonged.
Her eyes glimmered in interest at the mention of payment. “How much would you pay?”
“How does one gold a week sound, for your continued services in healing, and education?”
“That…” Alex said, eyes widening, “is an insane amount of money to me.”
“If you are going to heal,” he said, taking the time to look into those strange green-lit eyes of hers, “you need to cover yourself up. Wear a cloak like those soothsayers you see on the Undercity streets. People must not know it’s you under there.”
“Bit late for that, isn’t it? The doctor saw me in the hospital.”
“He’s one of my doctors. Don’t worry about him. But yes… maybe people will make the association between you going in, and my sister going out.” Hopefully not. “But it’s a little too late for that, now. I—” he hesitated when a knock came to his dining room door. He wanted to snarl at the intruder, because he was sitting here, actually enjoying his conversation with someone and the company offered, and finding the mix of slight guilt and knowledge about her life interesting. “Come in.”
The door creaked open, revealing Elicia. “We got trouble,” Elicia said, her mouth tugged down into a scowl. “Seems your ex has turned up in the storm, demanding entrance. And we’ve had to let her in, as it’d be improper to leave a lady shivering in the dark. Goodness knows what she wants, though.”
“Keraline’s here?” Their court battle had only been five months ago. He assumed she was still avoiding him, or maybe gathering her own lawyers to try and launch a counter-case.
“Not that ex. The other one. Natalie.”
Alex stared between the two of them, eyebrows raised.
“Great,” Meridas said, holding one hand over his face. “Just great.”
Chapter Five – Alex
Glancing to the side, Alex saw the winds somehow seem to pick up. The rain became bigger splotches on the windows, and lightning flashed at more common intervals. As if the sky gods themselves were rebelling against something. Storms somehow seemed scarier up above. On the ground, they had hills and buildings which helped shelter from most of the effects, but up here, even though there was protection, it felt more… exposed, somehow. Like any moment the winds would strike and whip the island away into oblivion. How did it even stay afloat and so stable like this? Shouldn’t there be some big anchor chains attached to them, to stop them drifting away? That made sense, right? She simply didn’t understand.
Even less understood now was the fact that this woman, Natalie, had turned up in the middle of a great thumping storm, practically in tears. Didn’t she have any other shoulder to cry on? They were supposed to be divorced. But now she had to wait as Natalie conferred with Meridas in a separate room. For some reason, jealously ate up the emotions inside her, and created a horrible, pit-like sensation in her stomach.
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I have no right to be jealous. I’m just a servant. But she didn’t feel like “just” a servant when enjoying a meal with Meridas. She’d enjoyed his attention upon her, being able to talk, even if perhaps the conversation didn’t cover the best of topics. She liked feeling like someone actually wanted to listen to her and understand. And now, this woman? The mood persisted.
The hallways of the bungalow seemed more haunted and forlorn in the storm, and the orbs filled with light flickered at intermittent intervals. What had Elicia said about those lights? Filled by a witch. Capturing the light of a storm and storing them inside a perfect sphere, so that they never had to worry about mundane light sources such as candles and gas-lit fires. Very few, if any, of these types of light orbs were seen in the Undercity. Likely because if they weren’t nailed down, they’d be stolen. But up here, the amount of them illuminating the bungalow alone felt decadent.
“Won’t be good news,” Elicia said all of a sudden. Alex resisted the yelp of surprise springing to her lips. She still flinched, however. She’d thought Elicia had stormed off somewhere else after smashing Meridas and his ex together.
“I didn’t hear you standing there.”
The matronly woman folded her arms under her chest, lips pruning. “Perhaps you simply weren’t paying attention.” She lapsed into silence for a moment, before continuing with her earlier statement. “Natalie being here isn’t a good sign. She only approaches people if there’s a serious problem she can’t fix.”
“You liked her?” Alex tried to keep the envy out of her voice, wondering why she felt it in the first place.
“Not terrible. But badly suited. Meridas likes to be in control, to organize things. She doesn’t much like listening to people or being controlled. You could call her conceited, I suppose. But she absolutely hates going to people for help.”
“And yet,” Alex said, now standing with Elicia in the main hallway before the kitchen, “here she is.”
“Here she is,” Elicia echoed. “With a problem so desperate that she likely flew in the storm for it.”
Flew in the storm…? “She’s a dragon?”
“Yes.” Elicia picked at a piece of skin under her dark brown hairline. “From a different Island family. Hers is one of the smaller sky towns. Her father had hoped for her to marry up with Meridas. Same with that nightmare of a woman, Keraline.” Elicia’s dark eyes became distant. Alex found herself wondering about the master servant. If she’d been born into this, if she enjoyed serving Meridas more than his father. The lives of those above seemed on one level vastly different… and yet… they still seemed to have petty problems. Seemed the problems didn’t change just because of the location.
“What in skies does she need to go and visit him for?” Company, in the storm. Catching up on old times.
“I can’t be sure, but…” Elicia hesitated, as if unsure whether or not she should divulge the knowledge she had to spare. “Perhaps your ears are good for this. After all, you did cure the young master’s sister. What do you know of the island that fell a couple of decades before?”
“Serpent,” Alex said, the name leaping to mind. What had Narl said? “It was the last island to fall out of the sky for many years. Making the Seven Isles the Six Isles.”
“The version Narl gave you, I see.”
“What other version would he give me?”
Elicia snorted, the wrinkles becoming less pronounced. “Right you are. What’s probably obvious was that the Serpent Isle used to be the main island where the dragon families lived. I’d very recently come into the employment of master Ethan, and I remember when the island suddenly just… tipped.” Her gaze became distant, lost in memory, and Alex listened, eager to pick up details of a past she didn’t yet know.
Of history. Seven weeks ago, she wouldn’t have cared. But now… maybe she was starting to fit in better than she previously thought. She also now picked out the details of aging in Elicia’s features. A woman in her fifties, yet still bustling around, strong. Talking about Meridas’ father, who she used to serve.
“Wait, what?” Alex stopped her brief pacing to stare at Elicia in astonishment. “Meridas came from the fallen island?”
“Yes. Not all the dragons did, but most originated there. They had to be evacuated rapidly to make sure we didn’t lose them all—the children can’t shapeshift, and riding a dragon can be rather… dangerous. Meridas’ mother—she was an air witch—went to the island’s core to try and fix the problem. In the short time I knew her, she was headstrong, determined to save people. Unfortunately, she crashed with the island, and was found dead within its ruins some days later. With green discoloring to her veins.”
Alex couldn’t quite relate to the pain of losing someone close, because she never actually had—but she could at least appreciate that an event like that would hurt for a child who loved. I imagine it would hurt, cut. I imagine if I was a child, and I saw… let’s say it was Mistress Sue who went and died…
Yes. She could conjure up some sympathy. “That thing that affected his sister… it’s the same thing that got his mother? The… same thing that destroyed whatever it was that made the island float?” Obviously, the island needed to float somehow. It was made of magic. So, perhaps the contagion had a way of destroying the thing that made the island float. Perhaps that was why all the islands that fell in the past had collapsed. “So… you think this Natalie came because it has something to do with the contagion?”
“Like I said, I can’t be sure...” Elicia frowned at the door sitting on the far end of the corridor. “But that would be my guess. She knows his sister was ill, and then recovered. He has something that cures it, somehow. She may or may not know of you, if not you personally. I think your life is about to get a lot busier.”
Curing that vile disease. Not something she looked forward to the prospect of doing. She barely managed the one within Vash. If multiple cases started cropping up…
As if on cue, the door at the end opened, and Meridas stepped out, scanning the corridor and seeing them both there. He gestured furiously, and Alex came speeding over, matched by Elicia in stride.
Inside the study, the woman slumped there in her chair, distraught. Her cheeks were puffy with tears, and she looked like a disheveled mess. Pretty, too, despite that, with dark, curly hair, coal-black eyes—her attention turned to Elicia and Alex immediately.
“This is her?” she croaked, looking at Alex.
“Yes,” Meridas said, striding over to Alex and placing a hand on her shoulder. Like he was showing her off as a possession. Alex clenched her jaw, but otherwise focused on Natalie, who looked so prim, so elegant in comparison. This was his former wife?
She couldn’t imagine for the life of her why he’d want to divorce that.
“It’s a vain hope,” she said, her voice trembling from emotion. “I mean, we know what happened the last time this awful thing struck. Our home gone, and people we loved dead. Now it’s coming for our island. It’s come for my mother, and there’s reports that the core is being eaten away by magic. We might need to evacuate. And watch the homes of thousands more fall.” Her expression went from distraught to haughty. “Yet you think this little one here can stop it.”
“I think so,” Meridas said, now squeezing Alex’s shoulder protectively. He met Alex’s gaze and attempted a smile, though it appeared strained. “People need your help, Alex. Will you do this once more?”
Stupid question to ask her. Sure, she hated healing, sure, she protested like a demon, but really, what choice did she have? She could heal. She liked healing. She liked the feeling of saving someone else, because in a way, it made her important. Something more than just a child abandoned by her parents.
Was that enough to die for?
Well, it got her in a jail once. It also sprung her right out of it again. It got her saddled with Meridas, with whom she felt she was just beginning to forge a more meaningful connection. They needed time together. She’d just found out something im
portant and personal to him.
“Of course I will. Just point me in the right way, and I’ll see what I can do.”
Alex’s confidence seemed to bolster Natalie. “Thank you. My mother’s in bed, now. She refuses to go to the hospital, and says it is pointless, anyway. She only allows the non-magical people to tend to her, and we have scribes watching the core, registering how the corruption is spreading. They think it will be several months yet before it falls, unless something changes. Do you think you can cure it?”
“I don’t know,” Alex replied, truthful. “Guess I’ll have to see when I get there.”
* * *
They had to wait until the storm lessened to a murmur and heavy rain before attempting the journey. It was the first time Alex ever got to see Meridas transform, in the gardens of his home. His body undulated from human form, turning a glowing white color, like the orb lights he used to decorate the bungalow, like what he’d carried with him when he first visited her in her cell around two months ago. The end result was a squat, thick dragon with huge, sail-like wings. The dark gray dragon stood on four sturdy legs and had a long, aerodynamic tail that swished like a cat’s. His neck was long, like a swan’s, though a rather deadly swan, it seemed, with razor-sharp teeth lining the inside of his elongated mouth. He must have been three times her height at least, and she finally understood why he never wanted to shift indoors.
Though he could have at least shown her at some point, right?
They always looked so small when she saw them. But of course, they were pretty far away…
He pushed her lightly with the front of his snout, steering her to his wing joint, as he settled down carefully. So… he expected her to just… hop on?
“I’ll ride as well,” Natalie said, now helping to shove Alex on. “I’m used to it. I’ll help you keep your balance.” The rain continued to drizzle on them, and some of it seeped down Alex’s neck, completely ignoring the protective layer of clothing she wore. Useless things.