by Marc Secchia
Trust the brash Remoyan to dive right in.
“All mine,” Nyahi said wryly.
“Azure is my Dragoness’ colour,” Zuziana added covetously.
“It’s an effect of the iridium, may I conclude?” said Aranya, drawing a diffident nod from Iridiana as she uncovered the mirror from its sackcloth. “Here. We brought supplies – food, pillows –”
“For their love nest? Sweet of you, Immadia.”
“Remoy!”
“Aye, your Celestial Highness?”
“May I have my mouth back, please?”
“Not if it’s going to kiss that tasty dark warrior like you did for an hour this morning. Ew. Some things, even best friends shouldn’t share. Here he comes. I’m off. I’ll just talk to my other self in here.”
Ardan swaggered forth, wearing nothing more than his familiar dark leather trousers and a smirk meant to rile Aranya just a little more. A challenge-come-flirtation, Dragon style. She responded by throwing a shirt at his head, calling, “Honestly?”
“Blush away, Immadia,” he chuckled, moving forward to clasp hands with the Azingloriax warrior. Holy Fra’anior, that girl’s legs were phenomenal! He wrenched his gaze away a fraction of a second after he had betrayed his thoughts, causing the other warrior’s hand clamp upon his. A friendly warning between men. A manly squeeze that returned strength for strength. Together, their grips might have powdered granite.
The Shapeshifter Dragon belted Asturbar on the shoulder, which was to say, he felt as if he had just clouted a boulder. “I dug my Dragoness up in a cave. Where’d you scare yours up?”
“Seven hundred leagues from civilization, out in the Doldrums. She was lonely.”
Ardan grinned at Iridiana, who startled as if he had just bared a hundred fangs at her. He drawled, “Oh, the poor little man was lonely, was he? How’s the stomach doing there, my friend?”
“Sore,” said Asturbar.
“And how was your birthing experience?”
There, have a taste of blunt Western Isles humour, big man! Everyone was laughing now, even Zip inside Aranya, as Asturbar barked, “Good! Fine. Aranya, can you check Leandrial with your healing power, please?”
Leandrial said, “Did I ask for help? More importantly, how fared your summit meeting with Yiisuriel-ap-Yuron, noble Aranya?”
“Frustrating.” The Immadian knelt uneasily, focussing on her hands rather than Asturbar and Iridiana as she summarised rapidly, “We learned much and achieved nothing. She is adamant, unapologetic and as stubborn as you’d expect from several million tonnes of rock. You are not welcome to return, Iridiana, and allegedly, I am a naïve dupe in your vile schemes to – I don’t know what! Desecrate the Island-World with your Chaos powers?” Aranya shook her head furiously. “Apparently, in my boundless ignorance I thought the Thoralians were the malevolent power of the age, but no, apparently you represent some ancient lineage of illimitable evil banished beyond the mountains by Fra’anior himself. What did you want this mirror for, anyways? If you’re planning to shred Thoralian’s gullet with its shards, I’m in. Oh, Leandrial, you should have spoken up sooner! You’ve a nasty fracture right across your upper jawbone.”
Queer. It was unlike Aranya to gush like that.
Reaching down to clasp her shoulder, Ardan almost startled back into his Dragon form as she suddenly shouted, “She questions my authority! Mine! Not – not that I have much, really. Just my lineage and the whole Star … thing. I’m sorry, Iridiana. This is meant to be about you, not me.”
Drawing Aranya to her feet, Ardan squeezed her knotted shoulders. So much tension! He massaged with care, mindful of her lesions. After a silence so awkward it threatened to slink out of Leandrial’s mouth of its own accord, she sighed heavily and rested her forehead upon his left shoulder and said privately:
Oh Sha’aldior, something … I’m so … disquieted, around her. Is it her power of Chaos? I’m – look at me, I’m trembling like a reed! Can’t even look at the poor thing. What’s wrong with me?
Ardan replied, I am here for you, Aranya. Be of good courage. We shall puzzle this out. Aloud, for everyone, he said, “Suggestion, my beloved. Heal Leandrial first, and then let’s work on the easy parts.”
Aranya said, “Did somebody spy an ‘easy’ somewhere around Herimor?”
“Not me,” Asturbar grunted. Then, with what struck Ardan as forced jocundity, he added, “So, a mirror? Nyahi, was this your idea? Some unsuspected vanity wriggling about in there that I’ve never detected?” The shy girl squealed and protested as he prodded her ribs. “You are beautiful, ma’am! Yes you are!”
“If you say so, sah!” she retorted, saluting rather haphazardly.
“I do say so! Shall I hold the mirror like this?”
“Yes, sah!” Turning, Nyahi seized Aranya’s left hand from behind. “I’ve a very impertinent request I wish to make of you, Princess. Possibly a hurtful one.”
Ardan’s jaw sagged as he finally divined their intent with the mirror. No! What was she thinking? Did she understand nothing of the anguish of a blemished woman, that she must … oh, Aranyi! Please …
I … oh help me, Sha’aldior, I cannot, but I must, I MUST!
Aloud, Aranya said, “I … see.”
“I hope you will,” Iridiana said gently. “After all, I haven’t much looked in mirrors for seven years. I sincerely hope my intuition is right. Otherwise …”
Intuition? That’s rich! Ardan seethed. I’ll have her head for this – that disrespectful, insensitive carrad-nadik!
Only he could have understood what it cost his Princess to push through, to summon the spark of courage which had always served her well, and fan it into flame. The emotions thundering through their oath connection were choking, miserable and frightened, but he soothed her instinctively, taking what he could upon himself, meantime thinking: That brazen girl would pay! If she made the slightest move to disrespect Aranya, he’d teach her what it meant to earn the wrath of a Shadow Dragon!
Even Asturbar seemed horror-struck. How tentatively he raised the tall, brass-framed mirror! Had Iridiana not forewarned him?
Fra’anior grant me strength, Aranya whispered.
She raised her hands to push back her hood and unknot her headscarf.
Chapter 16: Of Fates most Fearful
Of ALL THE fates she had ever feared, Aranya knew that a direct comparison to this exotic beauty must rank among the most pernicious. She could not imagine why Iridiana wished to make this gesture, but the only consolation in her mind was that if she could face such a moment down, then perhaps she might also be freed of the soul shadows cast by her blighted form; freed to become more.
Handling the fabric was a struggle. Untying first the headscarf and then the face veil, she became acutely conscious of how poorly her cramped fingers performed what should have been straightforward tasks. At last, the material whispered away from the roughened nodules upon her cheeks and jaw. Now, she yielded to Nyahi’s tender touch as she bade Aranya, without words, to turn and regard their images in the tall mirror that her man held.
The Princess’ eyes brimmed helplessly as she blinked twice, thrice, trying to find a way to see without descending into a puddle of tears. Why was this kind of courage the hardest of all?
Oddly, the first image she focussed upon was that of Ardan peering over her left shoulder.
Thunderstruck.
Next came Asturbar’s shocked inhalation and a reflexive, revealing tightening of Iridiana’s fingers in hers. A sidelong glance fixated upon the descent of a single teardrop to the perfect silvery-blue plane of her left cheekbone, betraying the other girl’s high emotions. She wept!
Dragoness or none, the Immadian Princess very nearly spilled over into outright panic as her own feelings threatened to overwhelm her. Why was everyone acting so bizarrely? She did not understand. Did Iridiana grieve her disfigurement? Impressions cascaded through her awareness with impossible languor, while the thundering drumbeat of her heart made her head feel a
s if it wished to lift off her shoulders. The realisation that she and the other girl were matched of height. The rich pulse of Shapeshifter life within Iridiana’s being, counterpart to her own. The precise contours of that moisture-streaked cheekbone. The oh-so-familiar slant of her eyes, frosted blue to her own amethyst; the way Iridiana’s answering smile also quirked upward at the corners as though they shared a private joke – and now Aranya could no longer tell which image was her own and which was Iridiana’s, for she seemed to have sunk into that shimmering mirrored surface merely to return as herself. Only the warmth of slim fingers clasping her own kept her grounded in reality, occluded as it was.
For a breathless second of terrible wonder, Aranya no longer knew which image was her.
Impossible!
She clutched at straws of detail – Iridiana had sable locks, not her rainbow-hued uniqueness. Aye, those black strands belonged to another. To her. Echo-Aranya. A twin even closer than her Shapeshifter Dragoness had ever produced. One glowed. One did not. Just … her gaze leaped about, taking in the salient descriptors with spasmodic illogic. She knew. It was impossible, but she knew.
Aranya could not breathe. She dared not!
Exhilaration seared her breast from within. Untameable hope mingled with the terror that she might, somehow, be mistaken. Her heart thrashed her ribcage fit to bruise her very bones, while her ears filled with an all-encompassing wuthering akin to that first time she experienced the purity of Dragonflight, and had known the inexpressible transformation of her universe.
A single gargantuan peal of thunder shook the Land Dragoness from without as her reaction manifested itself.
Every detail of Iridiana was perfectly … Aranya. Here was her being reproduced in loving, lavish detail, yet with those slight variations that conversely made her more certain rather than less. Aranya’s frame was woefully skinny after all her deprivations, but Iridiana was a filled-out version of her. Just look at their tremulous smiles in the mirror, like identical lovebirds perched upon a branch. Paint her own skin a silvery-teal hue, and they could be twins, couldn’t they? And if she had the slightest doubt left in her mind, she had only to note Asturbar, Ardan and Zuziana’s confirmatory reactions.
No-one could have made this up.
Nyahi choked out, “I was sort of … wondering … how this might have come to be?”
“Oh! By the mountains – it’s impossible …”
Wonder imploded in her breast. A song of stars breathed new life into her soul, and Aranya knew nothing would ever be the same again.
* * * *
A girl sobbed by her mother’s bedside. Huge, hot tears shook free of her lashes to splash unheeded about her bare toes. Sleep, dashed away. Heat rolled up her neck as Aranya watched her father drawing a covering over her mother’s disfigured face. The skull bulged strangely, as though horns pressed from beneath skin and bone. Her outflung arm dimpled the covering, which obscured what seemed to be the beginnings of a bird’s wing.
“Daddy! Oh daddy, why?”
King Beran turned desolate eyes upon her. “It was a poison, Sparky. A rare one. I … I don’t … understand either. What did my Izariela ever do to anyone?”
“I want my mommy! Come back! She has to come back!”
“She can’t, my sweet –”
“Mommy! I want – noooo!”
Aranya buried her screams against her father’s uniformed stomach. She knew nothing would ever be the same again.
* * * *
Aranya pleaded, “How does a person fly? Why does the fire burn? Why am I not dead? Tell me in words of one syllable, so that I can understand! Please … Oyda, Nak, please. I’m scared.”
The two old people regarded her with such a depth of understanding that Aranya began to cry. She hated showing weakness, but it was all too overwhelming.
Nak spoke first. “People don’t fly,” he said. “Dragons do. You can fly because you’re a Dragon.”
The old man’s raw sincerity shattered her unbelief. Aranya searched his eyes, and saw only truth writ within. Were the legends true?
In that interminable sliver of time, she knew nothing would ever be the same again.
* * * *
All about them, Leandrial sang a new song of delight, filled with spine-shivering notes of exultation, yearning and white fires worship. She had carried them so far. Loved them so well. Her way was to cherish her ‘little ones’ on a prodigious scale, as if all the mothering of ten thousand were concentrated into a single being – a terrible foe when roused, but a friend true to the very end of all fires.
She was all the mother Aranya had enjoyed for so little of her life.
I slighted you, Silha. I’m so sorry, she said, as if speaking to Beran’s second wife. She had never allowed Silha close.
Izariela, we will return for thee. This, I vow.
Leandrial’s song assuaged her brokenness. For the first time, Aranya allowed the healing to soak deep, like a refreshing rain of the soul.
* * * *
Memories and impressions flashed through her mind with the power and impact of Fra’anior’s own storms, yet beyond these flashes, she beheld a shy, complementary presence – and invited her in to partake. Deep and mighty were the bulwarks of that mind, as if through the forge of tribulation and deprivation Iridiana had learned to guard herself in ways Aranya had never encountered before. Such a bastion! Such shimmering splendour surrounding a core of chaotic fury, yet despite their dissimilarities, the fundamental sense of kinship only grew deeper the more narrowly she considered the person behind the image.
The other girl hung back, watching from the heart of her own internal Chaos storm, as the Immadian rode the tidal surge of emotions. Myriad colours! She was reality’s antithesis; yet no, that descriptor could never suffice. A contradictory reality? Indwelling that amazing psychic existence she beheld a hypnotic, highly intelligent ferocity that she recognised as clearly as the soul of her own draconic being. Dragoness!
Starlight love does burn, Aranya whispered impulsively. Know me.
Oh … Iridiana blossomed before her eyes. Psychedelic offshoots of flame surrounded her, as if Aranya stared into the endlessly mutable depths of infinity’s own flower. I never imagined – this! I … have no words, Aranya, kin-soul most enigmatic.
She meant that starlight itself, in its verimost essence, seemed strangely chaotic. Light was a seething phenomenon of energy or matter, Aranya knew not which; perhaps a particle or a beam moving at unimaginable speed, so that like Iridiana’s reality-bending chaotic transformations it no sooner seemed to have departed here than it was already there, having traversed the gulf in defiance of any attempt at perception. Was life itself innately chaotic, transcending natural boundaries and orders to create something wholly new?
Aranya smiled, By those memories, I meant to show you –
– our mother?
Could it be? A heart’s pang most tender!
Wildly, Aranya cried, Aye, but that which you must grasp, what grips my heart so sorely –
– the sense of ultimate, paradigmatic change –
– is that nothing, nothing, nothing can ever be the same again! That all I chased after, and desired, and dreamed of; all the revenge I lusted for till it corrupted my very soul, must crumble to dust before this realisation –
– as stardust returns to the cosmos –
They spoke in mental heartbeats, each completing the other’s thoughts. Aranya pulled up with an inward gasp. Shocked. Moved. Terrified of a power that could rout her like this.
She had faced battle. Monsters. Fra’anior. Dramagon himself!
Nothing compared.
Softly, Nyahi said, No-one understands your fears better than one who has lived all her life in fear’s own shadow, dearest –
– petal. O petal, I am so petrified, but jubilant, if only you could see –
– a soul ignited, as the Star Dragoness alone can be! Oddly, they were both mentally wheezing as if their brains had sprinted a tho
usand leagues.
All that was Aranya burst forth in a cry of woe-tinged exultation, O long-lost sister soul, thou art!
Mutual marvelling. Paradoxically alike.
Iridiana chortled, Indeed, and myriad times indeed! Oh, I have an idea …
Reaching up, she gently tugged back Aranya’s long tresses. Then her own. They tilted their heads simultaneously, checking the ears. Pointy, thanks to her mother’s Ha’athiorian heritage. Their mother? “As I suspected,” the girl said. “Every detail – no-one else I know has these ears. Are you real?”
The Immadian just pinched her own arm. Tangible, but dreaming. Surely!
Ever so drolly, Zip murmured, “Those are Fra’aniorian ears, girlie, real as they come! And if you superimposed the two of you – well, that’s freaky. Umm … good, but freaky. Freakishly amazing! Aranya, you don’t have a sister, do you? A half-sister? Has King Beran been naughty, do you think?”
“Zip-Zap, you take that back!”
Her friend insisted, “I mean, he could be a King in the Remoyan sense of –”
“What’s this about my ears?” Iridiana interjected, her eyes liquid with wonder. “Fra’anior’s ears, did you say?”
“He’s not! My father’s a good man … I think,” Aranya spluttered at last, holding her throat as if to deny the thundering of her heart within. “Not that Remoyans are bad. Iridiana, I’ve no words. Uh, Remoyans practise polygamy, just to clarify – one man, many wives. Big families. Immadians are usually monogamous … holy Fra’anior! This is a shock. Quite incredible.”
How her thoughts failed to articulate a coherent response!
Asturbar quipped, “If you do indeed trace your lineage from Fra’anior, then has he been naughty?”
All four of them shouted with laughter; a release of pent-up tension that had Asturbar cradling his poor, abused stomach and Iridiana huddling over him, crying with joy, while Ardan swept Aranya into a rib-bending hug and spun her around several times. He chortled, rubbing his eyes as he kept glancing between the two girls, disbelieving. Then the men were back-slapping and guffawing uproariously, while Iridiana clasped Aranya to her bosom, murmuring over and over: