by Elise Kova
An unnatural scream tore through the sky, followed by a fast zip. Wind rushed through the alleyways and fluttered the mostly folded paper in her hands. Ari scowled at the rainbow trail glittering through the pale morning clouds.
Bloody Dragon Rider. What in the Five Guilds was going on to get a Rider involved? Ari felt in her bag for the three tubes she’d swiped from the refinery. It was a capital offense to engage in the illegal transport or harvesting of reagents, but that shouldn’t merit the King’s Riders.
A second time, the heavens themselves sounded like they were being torn apart as a Dragon descended from the sky world of Nova. The Dragon’s mechanical gliders swept arcs of magic across the impenetrable clouds that separated Loom and Nova as they darted over the city. Ari pressed the wanted poster into her breast pocket. She’d stick to the original plan. Now was not the time for panic or over-calculation.
The sewer systems of New Dortam funneled together into the older, original system in Old Dortam. Ari headed in a straight line, sticking to alleyways and hastening across the slowly crowding streets she couldn’t avoid. Eventually, she knew she’d hit a main line access, or she’d run into Old Dortam. She’d lost the Revo grunts from the refineries. So long as she moved quickly and confidently, people wouldn’t notice the unorthodox clockwork gearbox and chest harness she wore. People only ever saw what they expected, rarely what was actually there.
Ari rounded the corner of a back alley near her expected sewer entry, and came to a dead stop.
Shingles littered the ground, scattered underneath a prone Dragon. Ari’s breathing quickened, her goggles flaring brightly with the Dragon’s magical presence. Slowly, she reached for the sharper of her daggers.
The Dragon’s steel blue flesh was covered in the shining glow of a corona. It looked like the scales of a sea serpent, sparkling with its own unnatural brightness, and would render even her sharpest golden dagger useless no matter how much magic she put behind it. Ari inched around the opposite wall, her eyes tracking the Dragon the entire time.
He didn’t move. She couldn’t even tell if he was breathing despite being only a short peca away. Ari dared to creep forward, and luck rewarded her.
Exhausted, the Dragon’s corona flashed and disappeared as the golden bracers that sustained the protective magic cracked and fell from around his wrists. Still, the Dragon did not stir. His head and heart were intact, so no matter what state he appeared to be in, he was certainly going to wake soon. His Dragon blood was quickly pulsing through his body, healing him. When his mind caught up from the blackness his fall had created, he would be as well as if nothing had ever happened.
Ari passed the dagger hand to hand.
She didn’t have time to harvest the body properly of all its useful parts. She had to be prepared for the Dragon to wake the second she began trying—if she tried at all. Ari slid her feet over until she was standing next to him. She’d have to cut out his heart in one motion.
It was reckless to the point of idiocy. Ari’s mouth curled into a sinister smile. Florence would scold her for it later. But perhaps the tidy sum a Dragon heart could fetch would be enough to sway the girl.
Kneeling down beside the rainbow-colored eyesore, Ari raised her golden dagger. It was refined steel, and tempered to her magic and her will. It’d slow him if he woke. Ari could only imagine what a fresh Dragon heart was going to fetch in the seedy underground market of Old Dortam.
She plunged her weapon down.
In the same instant, the Dragon’s hand shot up and caught her wrist, stopping her just short of his chest. He stared at her in surprise.
Ari snarled and bore her teeth in rage. She’d been set up. It was certainly too good to be true. A prone Dragon without his corona? Never.
Ari pulled one hand from the dagger and reached for her other. She sliced at the Dragon’s wrist, cutting deep, but the blade was the duller of the two and it stuck in his hardened bones, turning into a spigot for golden blood to pour onto her knees.
The Dragon didn’t move. He held her in place and stared through her attacks and her snarls. The black slit of his yellow eyes roved over her face.
Was this a ploy by the Riders to find out what she looked like?
Ari pushed off the ground with her feet, rotating in place. The Dragon was strong and could hold the sharp point of her dagger off its mark even with all her weight above it. But it took two hands for him to do so, which meant when Ari twisted, she was able to bring her feet down, hard, onto his unprotected face.
He finally let her go and she flipped backward, landing on the balls of her feet, a dagger in each hand. The Dragon stood, contemplating the wound on his arm. It was as though he’d never been cut by anything other than unrefined steel. His broken nose was already resetting itself and would be healed well in advance of the gash in his wrist.
She had a choice. On one shoulder, there was a very sensible little version of herself reminding her that this was not her prey or her job. She’d done what she came into the land of Dragon dogs to do. She should leave and collect her handsome pay. In short, she should stick to the plan.
On the other shoulder was a different tiny version of herself. This version was screaming bloody murder. Cut out his heart! It demanded over and over. It cried for her to do what she was made to do: slay Dragons.
It wasn’t hard to pick which one to listen to. Ari darted forward. First stepping with her right foot, she drew his attention in one direction before jumping onto her left and bringing her right heel across his face.
The Dragon half-dodged, reaching out his foot to hook behind the heel of Ari’s supporting leg. She bent backwards, releasing the duller of her two daggers to tumble with one unarmed hand.
“I don’t want to fight you.” The Dragon held up his palms as though any gesture of his could be nonthreatening. Despite his words, his claws were out—wicked sharp and extending past the end of his fingers in points.
“So don’t, and let me cut out your heart.” Ari set in for another string of attacks. The Dragon dodged about half of them.
“Fenthri—” He side-stepped, narrowly missing a dagger point in his throat. “Listen to me!”
“Not a chance!” she almost sang, pushing him against the wall. His head hit hard and he was dazed a moment. “I have a very strong ‘no negotiating with the enemy’ policy.”
Ari rotated her grip on the knife to an icepick hold and pulled back. His eyes regained clarity as she once more attempted to plunge the dagger into his chest. He grabbed her wrist again, but still didn’t attack. His claws had retracted.
The magical zing of a Dragon Rider flying overhead piqued both their attentions. Fenthri and Dragon alike looked up as the Rider slowed not far from where they’d been brawling.
“I can give you something better than my heart.” The Dragon’s voice had taken on a thrumming intensity that burned with a fire Ari hadn’t heard there previously. But if her feverish attacks hadn’t inspired the change…what had?
“Something better than the satisfaction of killing a Dragon and the reward of a fresh heart?” She hummed. “I doubt it.”
“I’ll give you a boon.”
Ari paused, considering this. She’d heard of boons before, but oh, they were rare. A Dragon rarely lowered himself to the point of giving a boon, and especially not to a Fenthri. Dragons saw the Fenthri as the servant, not the other way around. A boon would make him hers.
“Any one wish of me.” The Dragon’s eyes kept darting skyward. “You can demand anything of me as the terms of the boon.”
“For letting you keep your heart?”
“For taking me to the Alchemists’ Guild.”
It really didn’t matter to Ari what she had to do for the boon. A wish. There were so many things she could wish for. So many old wrongs she could right with the unquestioned help of a Dragon and his magic. It could be a chance for redemption—for vengeance.
Or, at the very least, she could always wish for him to cut out his own heart
and give it to her. Then she’d get the satisfaction of watching him do it.
“Fine, Dragon.” The agreement was an ugly smear of magic across her tongue as the boon was formed. It tasted of disgust peppered with loathing. “You have your deal.”
2. CVAREH
“We’re not going in there, are we?” Cvareh made a scene of squinting into the dark manhole. He could actually see perfectly fine.
The woman shot him a dull look and pointed into the hole. “Go.”
“It smells rancid.” He scrunched his nose. He’d known he’d need a Fenthri’s knowledge of Loom to escape the King’s Riders, but he’d hoped for something or someone a little more…elegant.
“So don’t breathe.”
“You must be—” Cvareh never finished his statement. Her legs felt dense as lead and the sharp kick to his lower back had him pin-wheeling his arms to avoid falling forward.
He landed nearly headfirst, choosing to crack a few bones in his wrists over taking yet another assault on his face. The ground was covered in a thin, cold film that had him frantically rubbing his hands over the walls—no cleaner—the moment he stood. Filthy, filthy, filthy.
The woman pulled the manhole cover back into place and slowly descended the metal ladder cemented into the portal wall.
“Do you have a light?” he asked, massaging the newly knitted bones in each of his wrists.
“Afraid of the dark?” she called over her shoulder. She’d begun walking confidently along the narrow path that was the only thing keeping them from the flowing sludge of the sewer.
“Ah, my darling—”
“I am not your darling.” She wheeled and the dagger point pressed into his neck, attempting to pop the words from his throat.
“Will you ever talk to me without brandishing a weapon?” Cvareh sighed. They both knew the dagger would do nothing more than annoy him, even refined. Pointing it at his chest was at least threatening. The only way his neck would be a cause for worry was if she somehow planned to cut his head clean off.
“I’d rather not talk to you at all,” she ground out through her flat teeth.
“Where are you from?” He tried a different question, trying to ease the ever-increasing tensions between them. She had no guild mark on her face. An illegal.
The woman twirled the dagger in her hand, slicing up his mouth. He licked his lips, tasting his blood and then the flavor of the magic on her blade. He didn’t recognize it; whatever Dragon had given parts of their body to refine that steel was one Cvareh didn’t know personally.
But the weapon wasn’t just refined; it was tempered. There was a layer of her power embedded above the original Dragon’s magic that told him the weapon would only respond to her will. He wouldn’t be able to command it no matter how much magic he exhausted.
And that wasn’t all he learned. Cvareh pulled his lower lip between his teeth, his sharper canines nearly drawing blood, and ran his tongue over it. He tasted her, and wasn’t that the most interesting of flavors…
“What did you do that for?” He narrowed his eyes.
“A threat.”
“Of what sort?” Dragons smeared blood as warnings. They communicated through trace amounts of magic left behind. Had she been intentionally communicating with him as a Dragon would?
“That I will cut you every time you show idiocy.”
“You wouldn—”
He didn’t finish before she had him slammed against the wall again, her dagger half into his mouth. He’d have to cut through his cheek to move, or cut his tongue to speak. This woman was really starting to annoy him.
“Listen, Dragon, I will not repeat myself.” Her words were level and calm, but they had a wild timbre at their edges, like chaos was trying to pull them apart into raw cries of rage. “You set the terms of the boon. I didn’t ask why you need me to take you to the Alchemists’ Guild because I don’t give a bloody cog about who you are or why you want to go there. I won’t pretend to enjoy this. So do us both a favor and don’t make this something it’s not.”
He stared through the darkness at the Fenthri’s face. It was round, like a loaf of bread, or a pork rump. The goggles pressed over her eyes, leaving small indents on her ashen-colored cheeks at their edges. Scraggly-cut white hair fell over her ears in messy parts. Fenthri were hideous creatures, really.
Finally, she withdrew her blade, wiping it on her covered leg before sheathing it and starting forward again. Cvareh followed in her steps through the winding sewer passages. The path became even narrower, and the walls changed from stone and steel to red clay bricks.
“Where are we headed now?” He decided his options were to go crazy from silence or risk her stabbing him again.
She didn’t answer.
“Have we left New Dortam?”
“We’re headed for the Alchemists’ Guild.”
Whoever this woman was, she certainly harbored a deep hatred for Dragons. Cvareh knew he’d never come across her before, so it wasn’t as though she could resent him personally. In fact, she was the first Fenthri he’d ever met in person, and what an impression she was making for her entire race.
“Yes but—”
“Dragon, how was I unclear?” she sighed.
“Cvareh Xin’Ryu Soh,” he persisted. “If we’re going to be traveling together we should at least know each other’s names, don’t you think?”
“Not really.” She paused. “Cva.”
Cvareh curled and uncurled his long fingers one at a time, resisting the urge to unsheathe his claws. “Cvareh Xin’Ryu Soh.”
“You can’t possibly expect me to say the whole thing,” she drawled with an annoying little smirk. “It’s such a mouthful.”
“It’s actually quite important on Nova.” Patience, Cvareh reminded himself. The Fenthri had likely never left the ground of Loom. She didn’t know what was important above the clouds.
“Oh, I know it is.” She smiled, and he barely contained a cringe at how her flat teeth made a perfect line in her mouth. “Come now, Cva, we’re going to be late,” she chided.
“You may call me just Cvareh Soh,” he insisted.
“Mmm, Cva is easier.”
“I must insist—”
“Don’t push your luck, Dragon.” A hand curled around one of the crossed blades at the small of her back. He was getting rather tired of seeing that golden steel. “We could always go back to the heart-cutting.”
Cvareh looked her in the eyes, or, well, the goggles. She didn’t tense and didn’t shy away. Whoever this woman was, she certainly had no love for Dragons—and no fear of them either.
“I don’t think you will.” He took a step closer to her. “You want your boon.”
“Ah, yes, a boon.” Rather than shrinking away, the woman met his step with her own. She was almost as tall as he, and Cvareh was of average height for Dragon standards. He’d always been told the Fenthri were a smaller race. “They’re quite rare for Dragons to give out. What could you possibly want at the Alchemists’ Guild so badly that you’d surrender yourself to my whims?”
“You think I’ll tell you?” He took another step toward her. His blood rushed at the feeling of her magic: wild and varying, a blend of many Dragons’ powers combined into something all her own.
“I could make you.” Her chest, flat and strapped under what appeared to be a harness, touched his.
Cvareh paused. A harness. Why did his mind tell him that was important?
She clicked her tongue against her teeth then stepped away when he didn’t rise to her challenge. His failure to respond to her banter had disappointed her. So his options seemed to be allowing himself to be annoyed at her very apparent efforts, or pleasing her. Or swallowing his pride and letting her say what she wanted but not giving her the satisfaction of taking the bait.
He was growing to hate this hideous wench with every second.
Somehow, Cvareh managed silence. He followed her through the rank passage for what seemed like forever until the sewer vomi
ted its sludge into a slime-covered river. The woman paused, glancing outside and back at his hands.
“Dragon, can you make illusions?”
“Not a skill I possess.” Though he was glad she asked. The look of consideration she gave his clawed fingers let Cvareh know she was well aware of what Dragon parts held what magic. It further confirmed that, whoever she was, she truly knew about Dragons beyond the value of a heart.
“Of course you can’t. That would be far too easy.” She let out a sigh of utter disappointment. The woman thought for another long moment. “Very well, stay here.”
“Wait, where are you going?”
“If you walk around Old Dortam looking like—” Her head moved up and down as her eyes raked over him. “You, you’re going to cause a scene. Or someone else will harvest you. And then I’m out a Dragon heart as well as a boon.”
Cvareh would appreciate it if she’d stop discussing cutting out his heart, but he knew better than to say so. He also knew she was right. Cvareh adjusted the wide sash around his waist, heavy with the beads and embellishments of his station. His shirt was done in a dark navy that highlighted the color of his powder blue skin just so. Its capped sleeves showed the strength in his arms—his physical ability to assert dominance. Dragons took note of the feature, which had helped ward off challenges for years.
He looked back at the woman in her heavy leather coat and worker’s trousers. She was unfashionable and plain, a continued source of vexation for him. Certainly, she was poor and couldn’t afford more than basic clothing. But why would anyone choose to wear white in this industrial wasteland?
“I suppose you’re right,” he admitted.
“Of course I am,” she agreed confidently. “Now stay here like a good little Dragon and don’t move.”
Cvareh did as he was told.