Vixen

by Finley Aaron

  “Fire?” I echo.

  Ion swallows repeatedly, as if trying to force the story up from its grave. “The stone fortress that is your family home. One entire wing was on fire. When we saw the smoke, your father wanted to change into dragon form and fly back. I cautioned him that we must be prudent, and we raced back to town on foot. I don’t know if it would have made any difference if we’d have flown in and arrived sooner. They were gone.”

  Again, Ion falls silent. I squeeze his hand, questions spilling over, though I hate to prod at his painful past. “Who was gone? My grandparents?”

  Ion nods. With the motion, a silent tear spills down his cheek. “Your grandparents, and their attackers. The villagers explained to us what they knew of what had happened. Dragons had come from the north—dragons we did not know. They asked to speak to your grandparents in private. They went into the assembly hall—it’s a wing of the house that is no longer there. It burned. Whatever was left, your father had torn down.” Ion pulls in a shaky breath.

  My father has spoken little of my grandparents. I know I’m named after my grandmother, and I know she died when he was young. I have also seen the old footings of the assembly hall wing, which now make up the trellis bases of a beautiful memory garden, where climbing flowers create the walls and ceiling of a fragrant sanctuary.

  My father rarely goes there.

  I’m starting to understand why he might avoid it.

  “The villagers weren’t sure what happened inside that room. All they could tell us was that they heard raised voices, and then fighting. They debated whether they should interfere, but it wasn’t until they saw the three visiting dragons flying away, that they pushed the door in and found the hall ablaze.”

  “And my grandparents?”

  Ion shakes his head sadly. “You know that dragons burn when they die?”

  “Yes.”

  “There was only fire. Nothing left of them.”

  “So, they died? Both of them died?”

  “What other explanation is there? The three attacking dragons flew away.”

  “Empty handed?”

  “Now that you ask, no. The attacking dragons were seen fleeing with large bundles clenched in their claws. The villagers supposed they’d come to ransack the valuables of your grandparents’ kingdom. Because of the fire, they were never able to identify precisely what was missing, so we don’t know what they took. They were gone before your father and I were close enough to see them—we arrived just as the villagers were finally getting the fire put out.”

  My thoughts swirl. Why did the dragons come? What were they after that was so valuable to them, they’d kill my grandparents to get it? Who were the dragons, and where are they now? “Any chance they might have been the same dragons who helped with the Romanov execution?”

  Ion sucks in a deep breath. “It’s possible. I couldn’t see much of the dragons that summer night in 1918. And of course, I didn’t see the dragons that killed your grandparents. But based on the descriptions the villagers provided, yes. They may possibly have been the same dragons, or some of the same dragons.” He shrugs. “Or completely different dragons. I simply don’t know.”

  I close my eyes, picturing the peaceful garden as an assembly hall. I imagine strange dragons visiting. I see black smoke and fire. I can accept that these things happened, but one point sticks in my mind. “The bundles they carried away—” I swallow, cutting off my own question. Do I really want to know the answer?

  If I don’t ask now, I’ll have to bring up the subject again. I don’t want to put Ion through that, so I ask quickly. “Is there any chance my grandparents were in those bundles?”

  “In dragon form, no. They’d be far too large to carry.” Ion shakes his head conclusively. “And there’s no way they would change back into human form. The villagers said they heard raised voices only briefly before the talking ceased and the room was filled with the sounds of a violent struggle that lasted for many minutes. Since dragons can only speak in human form, we must assume they, as well as their attackers, changed into dragon form and fought. Your grandparents would not have been foolish enough to change back into humans in the midst of a fight. To do so would be to lose—to invite death or capture. No, they could not have been carried away as plunder.”

  Ion squeezes my hand. His face radiates apology. I squeeze back. He understands. Since dragons can live indefinitely—hundreds, maybe even thousands of years—if my grandparents had been carried off, they might still be alive somewhere.

  But of course, that’s a crazy hope. I mean, they’re dragons. Where could anyone ever keep them that they wouldn’t escape?

  My brief hope that I might someday meet them, evaporates as quickly as it appeared.

  Ion glances to the sky, where the sun is dipping toward the west. It will be dark soon—dark enough that Ion can fly away with me, and probably not be seen.

  That is, assuming I can’t change into a dragon and fly out alongside him. Without saying a word to Ion, I pinch my eyes shut and try.

  First I try changing into a dragon. When that doesn’t work, I attempt a trick I used to practice with my sisters, changing different body parts by themselves. Normally, I can sprout talons with no effort at all. Seriously, it’s easier than grabbing a knife from the kitchen drawer. Normally.

  Today, though, it proves to be impossible.

  When I open my eyes, I see Ion watching me. His lips form a small frown. “You tried to change?” He whispers.

  Ashamed, I fight back tears and nod.

  I tried.

  And I failed.

  “It’s okay. I’ll fly you. Let’s make sure we have all our things, and then we can get going.”

  I nod, but I don’t make any move toward preparing to leave. It’s just too awful. I hate thinking about it, but the possibility looms like an endless wall, blocking off my future. “What if I can’t ever change again? Am I even still a dragon, if I can’t take dragon form? I’m useless.”

  “You are still a dragon. You will always be a dragon.” Ion’s fingers brush against my cheeks, and I realize I’m crying.

  “I’m supposed to bear dragon babies and propagate the species. How can I lay an egg if I—”

  “You’ll just have to give birth like a human.”

  “But what dragon would ever want me like this?”

  “I want you.”

  I freeze. Ion looked away the moment he spoke, as though the words escaped before he even realized he was going to say them. But now he looks up at me sheepishly.

  I gulp a breath that sounds like a hiccup. “I thought you wanted rid of me.”

  “For your own good, yes. You need to be with your family. You and I—you’re injured because of me. I live in a land thick with yagi. It’s not safe—especially not for raising dragon young. And I can’t be with you in your homeland, because your father wants to kill me. Even if we ran away together, and I abandoned my homeland, leaving Eudora as an unwatched menace, you would never see your family again. I’ve thought this through, these last four days. I’ve analyzed every angle and there isn’t one. You need to go to your home and I need to go to my home, but in all honestly, Zilpha—” he breaks off talking. He’s looking into my eyes as though the future is there, and all hope and every joy-yet-to-come.

  His voice cracks as he continues, “When you came to my door, I knew I should turn you away. I tried to. I thought, when I sent Jala away, that you would go to. When you stayed—I couldn’t ask you to leave. And the longer you were there, the more I felt…things. When I look at you, and I see the way you see me…I can’t explain it. For the first time in decades, someone is looking at me with something other than revulsion or disdain. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry?” I’m confused. Sorry is usually reserved for something bad. He hasn’t said anything bad.

  “It’s completely selfish of me to care for you, to even spend time with you. I cannot offer you anything good, only further risk of injury or death. Your parents
despise me. The longer you’re with me, the more you’re cut off from them. I will not ask you to be cut off from your family. Having lost mine, I know the sorrow of it. I’d give anything to have my family back. I won’t ask you to give up yours for me. I cannot love you as you deserve to be loved. But Zilpha, in my very selfish heart, I want you.”

  Can anyone blame me for what happens next? Really, I have no choice, not after a speech like that. And technically, I only intended first to hug him. But the way we were leaning against the boulder, with me standing higher up the hill so that our faces were on just the same level, it’s no wonder what happens.

  I kiss him.

  And he kisses me back.

  It lasts maybe one whole second, during which my every hope flashes before my eyes, all of it a future that, given the reality of our lives, could never possibly be.

  But oh, it’s beautiful.

  For that one second I feel like I’m soaring on a perfect gust of wind, even though my feet never left the earth.

  Ion pulls back, cutting all those feelings short before they’ve hardly started. “We need to get going.” He strides over to the curtain and my clothes. “These are dry.” He tosses me my things.

  My blood is pounding through my veins, now, obliterating my exhaustion. I feel suddenly strong again, or perhaps just self-conscious, and dress quickly. Ion carries the curtain high above the jungle floor so it doesn’t get dirty. “Ready?”

  “Can’t we just teleport there?”

  “I might be able to. Long distances can be difficult. The distance you cover—it comes from your energy stores, whether flying or teleporting. As tired as I am already, to try to leap so far might sap all my strength.

  “Besides, it’s easiest if I can see the place where I’m headed, or at least, picture it clearly. It’s nearly impossible to teleport to somewhere you’ve never been before, not unless you’ve got a clear picture of the place and know its location. But taking things, especially living things, is another issue entirely.”

  “How?”

  “When I teleport, my clothes stay with me. Anything I’m holding in my hands usually stays with me, but the bigger it is, and the longer the distance, the greater the risk that I won’t be able to carry it from the start point to the end point. And living things—you recall that I flew the salmon home after my fishing trip? I didn’t attempt to teleport with them. Living things have a will of their own.”

  “But if I want to go with you—”

  “There. The spot where you lay for the last two days. Let me try to take you there.” Ion wraps his arms around me, and for one blissful moment I’m standing with my cheek pressed to his shoulder. I can feel his heart beating, but I try to think only of going to that spot not so many yards away, that level place in the jungle—

  He’s gone. No, he’s standing in the place where I lay earlier, and I’m standing here, next to the rock. I haven’t moved.

  Ion walks back to me shaking his head. “It’s a difficult trick to learn, even with all your dragon faculties intact. We don’t have time to practice. I need to take you home.”

  “And then what? You toss me on the balcony and fly on toward your home alone?”

  “I’m not tossing you anywhere. I will stay long enough to see that you are reunited with your parents, and to offer them my humblest apologies.” Ion holds out the yellow silk and starts wrapping me snugly.

  “But my dad has vowed to kill you on sight.”

  “Given the seriousness of your injuries, I can’t tolerate the idea of simply dumping you off and fleeing to save myself. I will explain to your parents what happened, so they understand it wasn’t your fault—”

  “But it was my fault. It was all my fault. You didn’t ask for me to show up, and you shouldn’t have to apologize for the results of my choice.” I’m completely wrapped up now, or I’d probably be gesturing emphatically, or shaking Ion, or something.

  Ion’s hands are steady as he tucks the silk securely into place so I won’t come unraveled in flight. “That is not the way your father will see it. I will apologize because it is the right thing to do. And if he kills me, I will die with a clear conscience. Or clearer than it would have been otherwise.”

  He finishes tucking and looks at me. “Ready to go?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Sure.” I could make a thousand protests about Ion’s plan, and how it’s stupid that he has to be so principled when his life is on the line. And how, for somebody who’s supposed to be so cunning and deceitful and self-serving, he isn’t at all what I was told to expect, now that I’ve gotten to know him.

  But we’re in a hurry. The sun has sunk, and those are complicated things to say, and I don’t know if I could find the words, anyway. And I’m tired.

  Ion changes into a dragon. He is a gorgeous dragon, just as he’s a gorgeous person, even if he is terribly scarred. And he plucks me gently into his taloned claws and lifts me into the night, where I promptly fall fast asleep.

  I awaken, disoriented, in the hot sand. Sand is flying in a high arched path twenty feet from me, shooting up from a hole underground and landing in a tall pile that’s far higher than my head, as I stand on wobbly feet and take a few tentative steps closer to the place where the shooting sand is coming from.

  After a moment, the sand stops flying upward and I look into the hole. Ion is down there, in dragon form, prodding at the bottom of the hole with his foot.

  “What are you doing?”

  Ion switches into human form long enough to answer my question. He looks utterly exhausted. “Digging for water. It’s getting damper. I’m almost there.”

  “Where are we?”

  “The desert of northeast Somalia. I didn’t dare land anywhere there might be people.”

  “And people live near water.” I conclude, understanding.

  “I’ll get you water. Stand back, I need to dig some more.”

  So I stand back and Ion returns to dragon form and starts digging again, almost like a dog, using his massive taloned hands like garden spades, flinging sand up from the hole. I can tell by the way the sand sticks together in larger and larger clumps, that he’s reaching a depth close to the water line. He’s going to hit water.

  Assuming he doesn’t pass out from thirst first.

  Soon I can’t see him at all, not even between bursts of flying sand. The hole is so deep, even in dragon form, it hides him. Then the sand stops flying and he calls up to me, “Toss me down that cup, can you?”

  I scramble back to the pile of silk curtain, which is now covered with a dusting of sand, never mind that it’s twenty feet from the path of the flying sand. I root among the yellow folds, past the clothes Ion tucked there for safekeeping, until I find the cup.

  When I reach the side of the hole, I see Ion, in human form again now. I drop the cup close to him and he catches it neatly.

  He presses it against the deepest indentation in the damp sand, a place where water has pooled a couple of inches deep. “I’d offer you the first cup, but I’m going to test it first. I hope we’re far enough inland that it’s not salty.” He raises the almost-full cup to his lips, sips, pauses, and then gulps it down. “Fresh and cool. Come on down.”

  The hole is quite deep, probably a couple of stories or more, but Ion, ever thoughtful, dug large terrace-like steps into one end, so I’m able to bound down gracefully to join him.

  He’s filled the cup again and hands it to me. I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was until the water hits my lips. Then the contents of the cup are not nearly enough. But when he bends to fill it again, I realize I must be patient. Ion’s hardly sweating—and I doubt that has anything to do with a lack of heat. More likely he’s on the verge of dehydration. The water seeps up from the sand, swirling into the cup as Ion presses it against the bottom of the hole.

  “You drink it,” I insist when he offers the cup to me.

  We take turns drinking, then Ion leaves me to fill the cup again. He returns with the silk and the re
st of our things. “We can sleep down here, in the hole. It’s cooler. Once the sun moves past midday, it will be shaded, too.”

  He settles in on the bottom terraced step, which is wide but not long, only half the length of a bed, but the wall of the hole slopes up gradually behind his back, allowing him to rest in a reclining position. He looks comfortable.

  I drain the cup, then fill it again and bring it to him as he billows the silk around him like a tent to block the sun. “Still thirsty?”

  “Thank you.” He drinks, then looks up at me.

  I’m not sure where I’m supposed to go. I mean, he said we’d sleep in the hole, but there’s only the steps or the soggy wet water basin, and I can’t imagine sleeping there.

  Ion eyes me almost warily. “You can join me, but you’ve got to promise not to kiss me again. I already have too much to apologize to your parents for. I’m exhausted and my self-control is weak.”

  “Okay,” I agree, lifting the yellow silk and joining him on the step. “But what is a promise between two self-confirmed liars?”

  He chuckles, then his laughter fades to a sigh. “Sleep. Or I will be so tempted, I will have to dig another hole to keep myself away from you.”

  Knowing Ion, he would do it. I’m still weak from my injury, so even though I slept most of the trip here, my eyelids still feel heavy.

  But Ion falls asleep first, his chest rising and falling beside me with every deep breath. It almost hurts, how much I care about him—how much I wish we could be together.

  Is there any way Ion and my father could ever reconcile their hatred for one another? But even if they did, if I can’t turn into a dragon ever again, would I even be a worthy mate for Ion?

  And what about Ion’s “promise” to return to Eudora in ten days? What day are we on now? At least five, maybe even six. Even if Ion didn’t intend to keep his end of the deal, I can’t imagine Eudora will just sit back and allow him to get away with cheating her on that life-for-life bargain she cackled so happily about.