Vixen

by Finley Aaron

  Except he couldn’t have. He doesn’t even know who those dragons were. And what would he have gained by killing Dad’s parents, but leaving Dad alive?

  I chew a bite thoughtfully. It’s one thing for me to believe Ion. It’s another thing entirely for me to convince my father of Ion’s innocence.

  “Even if you don’t care what happened to your grandparents,” Dad continues, “anyone in this village can tell you what Ion did to ruin my wedding to your mother. He flew in with Eudora and a horde of yagi. Tried to kill everyone. Very nearly did kill me.”

  “He wasn’t trying to kill you!” I set my meat down, unable to eat while Ion is being slandered. “It was self-defense. He didn’t mean—”

  “Self-defense?” Dad shouts me down. “It was my wedding day. He wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near here. I did not attack him. He attacked me.”

  I close my eyes and try to recall exactly what Ion told me about why he almost killed my father. I know Ion said he wasn’t trying to start a fight…but that under the circumstances…something. Whatever Ion said then is a blur to me now. I can’t defend him if I don’t know what happened.

  “I think you need to let Ion tell his side of the story.”

  My mom, who’s been quietly listening this whole time, gasps in protest.

  Dad and I both look at her.

  Since my parents are both apparently too shocked by my suggestion to even speak, I add, “Honestly, I think it’s past time for all of us to hear his side of things.”

  “Your father and Ion,” Mom stammers. “They’ll fight.”

  “I can control myself.” Dad stands. “Ion is chained, so he can’t attack me. Let’s go.”

  And just like that, Dad heads for the door.

  Knowing my father is a man of action, I’m not surprised by how quickly he made up his mind and then followed through. I dart to the kitchen, where my mom had placed the goats in roasting pans with handles. I toss a knife and fork into the pan with the most goat meat left, then grab it by the handles and hurry to follow my parents before they leave me behind.

  As it turns out, we have to go outside to get to the dungeon. I guess it makes sense that whoever built the dungeon wouldn’t want interior access, lest escaped prisoners make their way up through the house to the sleeping family. It also makes me wonder why Ion doesn’t just escape. Can’t he just teleport away, or turn into a dragon and burst his chains?

  He’s not sticking around on my account, is he?

  Or is he just too weak to escape at this point?

  We go through a stone hallway, past a member of the security force who’s apparently been left to stand guard. My dad takes a ring of keys from the guard and sends the man away, presumably because he doesn’t want the guard to overhear our conversation, and probably also because Dad figures Ion is too weak right now to pose a serious threat to us.

  My dad unlocks the heavy door with an ancient key that rattles on the key ring, and then we’re in this giant, lofty room, with tiny slits of light coming in through windows carved high off the floor. Ion is chained to the wall. They’ve at least provided him with a wrought iron bench so he can sit, even though his hands are chained at shoulder height to the wall, and his feet are secured via ankle shackles and short chains to large bolts in the floor.

  He looks so small and cold and weak, it frightens me.

  I hurry over and set the roasting pan of goat on the bench on one side of him, while I perch on the bench on his other side, pressing one hand to his forehead. To my relief, he feels okay. “How are you?”

  “Famished.” Even his voice sounds weak.

  “Can you unlock his wrists so he can eat?” I ask my dad. Surely one of the keys on the guard’s ring will open these shackles.

  Dad scowls. “Unlock him?”

  For a second, I’m sure my dad’s going to refuse even this simple request. After all, Mom was worried the two of them would fight, and Dad did say Ion couldn’t attack him solely because he’s chained.

  But Dad relents—halfway. “One wrist. That’s all he needs.”

  Mom takes the keys from Dad and unlocks Ion’s right shackle, while I use the knife and fork to slice meat for him.

  “Eat.” I extend a large piece of mutton toward him on the fork the moment his hand is free.

  “Thank you.” He devours it in one bite, swallowing several more as quickly as I can hand them over. His anchor-shaped goatee, which was so neatly trimmed when I visited his castle a week ago, has now grown out to a beard, with the goatee bits still longer than the parts that weren’t there before, so that it almost looks intentional, except for the hair on his neck. If it wasn’t for his weariness, he’d look fabulous.

  Even still, he looks good, and I’d kiss him if that wasn’t guaranteed to make my father fly into a fury.

  My dad clears his throat behind us. “My daughter tells me you did not intend to kill me on the day of my wedding. I don’t believe her. Nonetheless, I would like to hear your story.”

  Ion has a mouthful of mutton. As he struggles to swallow so he can speak, my dad adds, “Don’t be tempted to lie. Ilsa and I were both there. We know what happened.”

  There’s a small sink in the corner of the room. While Dad’s been talking, my mom went over the sink, rinsed out the tin cup which was lying there (the previous uses of which I don’t even want to imagine) and filled it with water. I cringe when she hands it to Ion, but he drinks hastily before wiping his mouth with the back of his one free hand.

  Still, his voice sounds weak when he speaks. “Call me naive, but I had no idea Eudora had followed me that day. I was making one final effort to save Ilsa from a life I did not believe she had chosen.”

  “Save Ilsa?” Dad sputters incredulously. “How could you—what? That’s absurd!”

  Ion takes Dad’s interruption as an opportunity to eat another bite. “It is a complicated tale, perhaps best understood if I back up and provide some context.”

  Dad eyes him warily, as though Ion’s suggestion somehow increases the odds that he’s going to lie.

  I’m pretty sure the opposite is true. “The more background he gives to the story, the lower the likelihood he’s going to be able to work a lie into any of it,” I point out to my glowering father.

  Dad’s eyes narrow even more, like maybe he doesn’t even agree with me. But rather than argue, he grunts impatiently. “Fine. Just get on with it.”

  “I didn’t know about the egg until Ilsa was fifteen years old,” Ion begins, and I’m tempted to cut in and ask him to clarify, because I have no idea what egg he’s talking about, but he’s only just getting going, and I hate to stop him so soon into the tale. Besides, I trust he’ll get there.

  “I was living in Elmir’s village at the time, as you may recall. It had occurred to me there might be possible offspring, which was part of what motivated me to move into the village in the first place.”

  While Ion’s talking, I slice more mutton. But as I hand him another piece, I scowl. Since he’s got to chew anyway, I ask, “What egg? Whose offspring?”

  Ion swallows. “Perhaps I ought to back up the story a bit more?”

  My father frowns, but my mother looks intrigued.

  “I’d love to hear it. Whose egg?”

  Ion looks at my mom. “Yours.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “As you all know, my fortress is not far from Eudora’s,” Ion continues. “Many years ago—I suppose it’s been well over four decades by now—I smelled something. It was a scent that muddled my thoughts in a way they’d never been muddled before. I thought perhaps I was going mad. But at the same time, the scent drew me. I followed it to Eudora’s castle and discovered she’d imprisoned a female dragon.”

  “My mother?” Mom gasps.

  “Your mother. Faye Goodwin,” Ion confirms.

  “Wait,” Dad interrupts. “The scent—what scent? Surely you didn’t smell—”

  “The mate scent.” Ion finished my father’s sentence, then explains
, “I had never smelled such a thing before. Granted, I’d heard of it. My parents and older sisters had discussed it in my presence before, but I really didn’t understand until I smelled it myself. Even then, it was fainter.” Ion stops talking suddenly, takes the mutton I’ve been holding out to him, and shoves it in his mouth.

  My mother, picking up on the same unfinished comparison that’s bothering me, clarifies, “It was fainter than what?”

  Ion looks guilty. My father probably thinks he’s plotting something, but I know this look. This is the look Ion wears when he’s said more than he intended to say, and now he knows he’s put himself on the spot.

  With noticeable reluctance, Ion answers my mother’s question. “Fainter than what I smelled last summer. Less compelling than the scent I followed to Xalil’s cabin a year ago. When I saw your three daughters inside, I rushed home immediately and began playing my piano as loudly as I could in an attempt to drown out the siren song of the scent, because I knew I did not dare follow it. After many hours—I lost track of the passing of time—an explosion rocked the lake. Shortly thereafter, the smell disappeared.”

  “Last summer,” Mom repeats, looking at my father.

  Dad is glaring at Ion. “Which daughter did you smell?”

  “At the time, I did not know,” Ion answers evasively, plucking my proffered mutton and munching it down.

  “Which daughter?” Dad steps closer to Ion and speaks with an undercurrent of warning in his voice.

  Ion looks at me. “It has since become quite clear to me which daughter I smelled. Zilpha.”

  Dad roars a huge blast of fire toward the stone ceiling high above us. Then he stomps back and forth, pacing angrily.

  “Explain to me the mate scent,” I whisper to Ion while my dad is pacing.

  “I’m not sure I completely understand it myself,” Ion admits. “I can’t even say whether it is a scent, properly told. It is something perceived through the senses. It’s not rational. In many ways, it overrides reason—which is why I tried to drown it out last summer by playing the piano.”

  “But males don’t smell it for every female?”

  “No. I certainly never caught a whiff of it around my mother or any of my sisters, or Eudora.”

  My mother has been listening to our conversation, and leans close. “Your brothers were talking about this in regard to Nia last summer. Ram smelled it. Felix didn’t. That’s part of why they both agreed Ram should marry Nia.”

  “So the mate scent tells you, what? Who your soul mate is?” I feel terribly self-conscious discussing the matter, especially after Ion confessed he smelled the mate scent around me. But it’s precisely because of that fact that I feel I need to understand the nature of this odd phenomenon, which I don’t believe I’ve ever experienced.

  “I don’t know that it’s quite that specific.” My mother frowns and watches my father pace and rage. He’s not blowing fire any more, but he still looks plenty angry. “For example, my dad—your grandfather, Elmir—told me when he became engaged to Zhi, that he hadn’t smelled the mate scent since your grandmother died. In other words, he smelled it with both of them. Could both of them be his soulmate? I don’t know.”

  “And I smelled it with Faye, too,” Ion notes. “The scent is, perhaps, a biological function—a way of perceiving an optimum mate. Your grandfather and I both smelled it with Faye. She would have been a good match for either of us, but perhaps, better for him. Presumably, the stronger the scent, the better the match.”

  If I’m looking in his eyes like a giddy schoolgirl, who can blame me? “And you smell it with me?”

  “Stronger than anything. When you arrived at my house with Jala, I knew I should not let you in. I knew it would only lead to trouble, but the scent compelled me. It overpowered my rational thought.”

  “I caught you off-guard. It really wasn’t fair of me.” I might be fluttering my eyelashes just a bit, even now.

  But Ion shakes his head. “I saw you in the woods the evening before—your scent drew me to the window and I stepped out in time to meet your eyes for an instant before you ducked away. And I knew. I knew it was the same scent I’d smelled the summer before. I knew, therefore, that you were Ram and Ilsa’s daughter—that I should flee and have nothing to do with you. But I couldn’t go. I couldn’t run when every cell in my body told me to draw closer.”

  As Ion’s speaking, I lean in toward him. He is the one for me. Even my scent confirms it.

  “Enough!” Dad stomps over and crosses his arms in his angry Dad pose (which I am sort of getting sick of, not that I would say anything to him about it, directly, especially not when he’s already upset). “You’re telling the story. You smelled Faye Goodwin?”

  “I flew to investigate.” Ion picks up the story again, where he left it off forty years before. “At that time, my relationship with Eudora was not as strained as it is today. We were never what I would call friends. We were, each of us, the last remnant of two kingdoms who shared a border, and we chose to live in the fortresses along that border, not for one another’s company, but because it was the safest place for us to be. And I’ll admit, I kept an eye on her, as one keeps an eye on any neighbor, I suppose.

  “To my surprise, when I arrived at her castle that day, Eudora was glad to see me. She wanted my help. I agreed to help her, not knowing the project, because I was following the scent. She led me into her dungeon where she kept Faye prisoner. Eudora wanted to experiment with a serum designed to turn a dragon into a mere human.

  “Of course, I did not want her to use the serum on Faye. At the same time, though, I needed her to think I was trying to help her. My goal was to somehow free Faye. Unfortunately, it soon became clear that I would not be able to accomplish that goal on my own. Furthermore, Faye was weakening. I realized then, if there was any chance she was going to be free, I would need help—and I would need it soon. Though I knew it meant risking that I would not then be the one to be her groom, I alerted Elmir’s spy to Faye’s presence, and encouraged him to send for both you,” Ion looks at my dad, “and Elmir to come as quickly as possible.”

  My dad narrows his eyes at Ion. “No one mentioned to me that you were involved. I never saw you there.”

  Ion returns my father’s glare without blinking. “Ask the spy.”

  “He’s dead. Died of old age several years ago, conveniently for you.”

  I can feel the two of them bristling at one another, so I press another portion of mutton into Ion’s hand. He eats it, but he’s still glaring at my father.

  In my opinion, it’s totally understandable why Ion would be upset. According to his story, he’s the one who first discovered my grandmother, and alerted Grandpa’s spy so she could be rescued. If it hadn’t been for Ion, my grandparents would never have met, and mother would never have been born.

  My dad should be on his knees thanking Ion for what he did.

  Instead, he’s essentially calling him a liar.

  Ion’s words from a few days ago echo through my thoughts.

  I am a liar and a failure. I cannot be trusted.

  I know Ion said that. I’m even convinced that he sees himself that way. But nonetheless, I do not believe his assessment to be true, not any more than it’s true of most average people. He’s less of a liar than I am, anyway. And isn’t there an old saying about how an honest enemy is better than a friend who lies?

  If there isn’t, there should be.

  My mom takes Dad’s arm and starts rubbing his shoulder in a soothing manner. “Let’s just move on. Whatever happened, however the spy learned of my mother’s presence, I don’t know. It’s not a question we can resolve right now. I want to hear the rest of Ion’s story.”

  “What does the rest of the story matter, if he’s lying to us?” My father growls.

  I drop the knife and fork into the roasting pan with a louder clatter than I’d intended. “It can’t all be lies, Dad. You can’t prove any of it has been lies. He said he smelled me last summer. How
would he have known we were there if it didn’t happen just as he said?”

  “Perhaps he was spying on us? Perhaps he was in the woods that whole time, watching us.”

  “I saw him playing the piano.” I glare at my dad, and cross my arms in a pose every bit as angry as his.

  “From the spy cabin?” My mother’s shocked tone says she doubts my veracity.

  “Jala and I snuck away. I wanted to see if I could catch a glimpse of him.”

  Mom squints at me. “Is that why you quizzed me about him last fall? I was wondering—”

  “I needed to know—”

  “Fine,” Dad interrupts us both in an exasperated voice that says he’d rather listen to something that might be lies, than hear any more about my feelings for Ion. “I’ll listen to what the prisoner has to say. But know this.” He leans in close to Ion. “I don’t trust you.”

  Ion shrugs, clearly not surprised. “You and Elmir arrived. Did you ever wonder why the back door or Eudora’s castle was propped open, the path lit only along the corridors that led to where Faye was chained? I did that for you. Although if you’d prefer, you can assume it was a serendipitous coincidence, and my knowledge of the fact a lucky guess. I don’t care which. I will tell you, I followed Elmir and Faye as they made their escape, and alerted his spy to their whereabouts once the yagi found them. I suppose the spy gave you the impression he learned of their location on his own?”

  “He did.” Dad’s eyebrows twitch. “If you knew where they were, why didn’t you do more to help? Faye died.”

  “I’m sorry. To be honest, I was surprised she made it as long as she did. I couldn’t risk being seen helping you. My only advantage at that point was that Eudora trusted me. The yagi know my scent and are trained not to attack me as long as I don’t attack them. If she ever changes their instructions, I’d be chased from my own home. More than that, I’d be cut off from keeping an eye on her.”