Reflection- Dragon's Bane

by Rachel R. Smith

  The view out the front windows of the house, on the other hand, would have been something quite different altogether. There, the snow was lined with carriage tracks and crushed to slush where it had been trodden beneath an untold number of feet during Echidna and Ladon’s arrival that morning. Well, not Echidna’s feet, of course. The queen’s shoes—even her traveling slippers—weren’t made for contact with the elements. That’s what carpets were for.

  Speaking of carpets, why ever isn’t there one in this hallway? Echidna wondered when her heel slipped for the second time on the polished marble. Once she had regained her composure and ensured that no one had been around to witness her wobble, she added the need for a carpet to the ever-growing mental list of things to be done to make this place suitably habitable. While its current state might have been acceptable for short visits in the past, if this was going to be her residence for the indeterminate future, changes had to be made.

  Echidna let out a long-suffering sigh as she climbed the grand staircase. The hours since their arrival this morning had been hectic, but now that Ladon was settled into the nursery and she had assured that her orchids—which had been sent ahead with the rest of their belongings—were properly ensconced in the greenhouse, she finally had the opportunity to retire to her rooms for a brief respite.

  Upon entering her private suite, she was pleased to discover that, unlike the hallways, the rooms were comfortably warm. As much as Echidna wished she could take a bath to fully revive herself from the journey, there was no time to do so. Her lady’s maid was due at any minute to give her a manicure. She spread her fingers in front of her to examine the current state of her nails and wrinkled her nose at an unsightly chip in the polish of her index finger. Such a thing was probably to be expected after two days spent in a carriage. Still, even travel was no excuse for a queen to look anything less than impeccable.

  Echidna shrugged off her stole and stood for a moment, suddenly uncertain of what to do with it. Normally, one of the maidservants would have been waiting to silently spirit it away, but only half the household staff had made the journey north with her. She settled for draping the fur over the armrest of a chair for her lady’s maid to deal with later.

  No sooner had she laid it down than there came a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” Echidna answered, expecting to see the maid carrying a kit of nail supplies. But it was not one of the maids that entered.

  The servant kept his eyes on the floor as he approached, then he dipped into a low bow and extended toward her a dainty pillow bearing an envelope. “From the King, My Queen.”

  Echidna plucked the envelope from the pillow and waved the man away, mindful not to expose the chipped nail to his view. He scuttled backward out of the room, still bent in half, though Echidna did not see him do so. She had already turned her back to fetch the gem-encrusted letter opener from a drawer.

  Ordinarily, she wouldn’t have known where the opener was kept, except this was not the only letter she had received today. There had already been a letter from Casimer awaiting her when she arrived. Despite her fierce insistence on accompanying Ladon, Echidna had not been happy about leaving her husband behind. Casimer had likewise been reluctant to part ways with them—even temporarily—but he had promised to write often.

  Receiving two letters in a single day was more often than Echidna had expected, however. For the first time that day, a genuine smile graced her lips. While she hadn’t expected him to write quite that often, it was like him to do so.

  The contents of this letter were brief. A lament at being unable to celebrate the Festival of Flames as a family this year. A complaint at having to burn the splendid fan she had given him earlier in the year. And a promise to visit soon. Judging by the hastily formed letters, Casimer must have scribbled it out in a stolen moment between meetings. She wondered if he had actually burned the fan. It wouldn’t have been the first time she caught him squirreling away mementos, though she had never revealed that knowledge to him.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by another knock on the door, and this time it was the expected lady’s maid. Echidna returned the letter to its envelope and then took a seat in one of the high-backed chairs.

  “I think I’ll remain with my usual shade of red this time,” she said when the maid pulled over a small table and set an array of nail polish colors in front of her. She pushed the bottles containing the other colors aside and laid down the letter in their place. “And make sure to buff them so that they look extra glossy. I don’t want to give any bad impressions by having my color look dull.”

  The maid responded with a knowing smile. “I suppose it’s just as important to keep up appearances here in the country as it is in the city, isn’t it, My Queen? Once word spread that you and the prince were coming here to avoid exposure to that strange illness, scores of other nobles followed you.”

  Echidna tittered behind the back of one hand. “I suppose that is one advantage this ancient estate has. It’s belonged to the Royal Family for so long that all the surrounding lands were long ago snatched up by nobility as well.”

  “I, for one, am not complaining about the opportunity to come to a place that remains untouched by the sickness,” the maid said as she scrubbed the old polish from Echidna’s nails.

  “Of course, but there will be no rest for me here. Even this far from the city, it’s impossible for me to get away from my duties,” Echidna said. She made it sound like the social obligations were a burden, yet in truth, she was glad for them. Without them, her stay at this rustic hovel would have been insufferable.

  “I heard that My Queen has been invited to no less than three dinners tonight.”

  Echidna laughed lightly again. “You heard correctly. Unfortunately, I cannot attend all three of them and no matter which one I choose, the other two will feel scorned at not having the favor of entertaining me during my first evening here.”

  The woman rolled the bottle of red polish between her hands to mix the color. “How will you choose which one to favor, My Queen?”

  “How, indeed,” Echidna said, her crimson lips curving up at the corners. “I can’t possibly favor one at the expense of the others. So, what else could I do but invite them all to join me instead?”

  “What a wise choice. It’s no wonder you are so well loved by all the court,” the maid replied. She glanced at the window over Echidna’s shoulder. “I trust your journey here was uneventful? We came several days ago—before the snowfall—to prepare for your arrival, so I don’t know what the road conditions were like today.”

  Echidna closed her eyes and tilted her head to the side, sighing. “Completely dreadful. Nothing but bouncing, jostling, and swaying.”

  “My Queen has endured great hardships to come here,” the woman said as she brushed on the first coat of color.

  “When you take the flattery that far, it’s not believable anymore,” Echidna warned.

  The maid responded with a wry smile. “I did not mean to sound insincere. Actually, I was genuinely concerned for your safety. Although the snow outside is pretty to look at, even a light dusting can make the routes up the coastline treacherous. After all, it was on those very roads, and on a day much like this, that Queen Marianna and the infant prince had their unfortunate accident so many years ago.”

  Echidna winced internally at the mention of Marianna’s name. Twenty some years have passed, and I still can’t completely escape the memory of Casimer’s first wife, she thought. Out loud she said solemnly, “The loss of Queen Marianna was a great tragedy to us all, my husband especially. I’m surprised you mentioned that terrible tragedy. There’s no way you are old enough to remember when it happened.”

  “Now you flatter me, My Queen,” the maid replied. “I was quite young when I entered into Queen Marianna’s service—at a time when the king was a prince himself —but I am plenty old enough to remember mourning her loss.”

  “Speaking of the King,” Echidna said, intentionally steering the
conversation away from the beloved Marianna. The woman had been universally adored in life and seemed to have taken on a form of sainthood as a ghost. “I have received two letters from him today.”

  The maid’s eyes flicked toward the envelope Echidna had placed beside the bottles on the table. “I suppose that is one of them?”

  “Yes,” Echidna said with a tight smile. “He regrets not being able to celebrate the Festival of Flames as a family this year and says that he plans to visit soon.”

  “The King is no safer from the sickness than any of us. I hope that he does come here before the roads get worse.”

  “I hope so, too,” Echidna said, yet in the back of her mind, she had a strange feeling that she wouldn’t be seeing him anytime soon.

  Chapter 14

  Sand Through the Hourglass

  Nerissa

  Nerissa watched with mounting frustration as fine, white powder flowed out of the top bulb of the hourglass in an unbroken stream. She had been staring at the instrument for so long, and in such fixed concentration, that its afterimage was burned onto the backs of her eyelids. But the timepiece, loaned to them by Amon, was proving to be quite a stubborn test subject. It was not that the hourglass possessed some special resistance to the effects of the suspension technique—there was nothing special about it at all. And yet, no matter how hard Nerissa stared, or how hard she concentrated on stopping the sand’s movement, nothing changed.

  Every grain that trickled through the neck of the hourglass represented another second that passed by without being able to halt the sand’s flow. It was one more second, in a seemingly unending series of seconds, that had slipped by without Nerissa growing any closer to unraveling the mystery behind the suspension technique.

  Sadly, the lack of progress was not the sole factor contributing to her consternation. There was something else that weighed on her mind, regardless of how hard she tried to push it away.

  Ever since her conversation with Rian at the inn a week ago, when she had pulled him aside from the group and hastily told him her true identity, he had become strangely reserved toward her. Although he didn’t treat her unkindly, their interactions were strictly perfunctory and only as frequent as necessary.

  Not once since her confession had he spoken her name. He had not called her Nerissa, or My Phoenix, or even Caeneus—it was like he could no longer bring himself to address her at all. The vast majority of his time was spent alone in the room next door, practicing his sword skills with redoubled passion.

  As the Heiress, she had grown used to people changing their attitude toward her once they learned who she was. Too often, her title attracted those interested merely in her social status. Never had someone been repelled by the knowledge of her title. Until now. How ironic that just when she found someone who undoubtedly liked her for who she was, her title drove him away.

  Perhaps she’d chosen the wrong time and place to tell him. Maybe blindsiding him by blurting out the truth had been the wrong way to go about it. Nerissa knew her decision had been abrupt, but it had felt like the right thing to do. Both Raysel and Amon were aware of who she truly was, so once it was decided that Rian would be staying to confront Casimer with them, he would have been the only one involved who didn’t know the truth. She could hardly justify keeping it from him any longer when everyone else was already “in on” her secret.

  And deep down, her heart had been aching to tell him, anyway. After all, she’d almost confessed it to him at the festival. Looking back, it was a good thing she hadn’t.

  It could be that he was angry she had been deceiving him for so long. He might be distancing himself because of the rule prohibiting relationships between the Ohanzee guardians and the Royal Family. Even though he wasn’t one of her personal guardians, she knew he aspired to be. Her mind had invented a million reasons to explain why he’d reacted the way he did, but she didn’t know the real reason.

  Although she dearly wanted to ask Rian why his feelings toward her had changed, her fear of his answer was greater than her need to know. The current circumstances were uncomfortable, yet tolerable. Considering they were going to be confined here together for a while, it seemed best to leave things as they were. Besides, with the future of her country—and potentially all of Renatus—hanging in the balance, this was no time for the Heiress of Chiyo to be distracted by matters of the heart.

  Curling her fingers tighter around the three spirit crystals in her palm, Nerissa renewed her concentration on the task at hand. After several more minutes passed with the sands giving no sign of altering, she moved her gaze past the hourglass to Raysel. Hunched forward with his elbows propped on his knees, he, too, stared ahead in unblinking concentration.

  And then, the flow through the hourglass stopped. Despite there being ample powder in the top globe, not a single granule slipped through the neck. Still, the sight did not make Nerissa’s heart leap. This was far from the first time the device had given a false alarm. She reached out and gave the glass an apathetic flick, and the grains began to flow freely once more.

  Raysel grunted and sat up. “Stuck again?”

  “Stuck again,” Nerissa answered flatly. “Let’s take a break. We’re not getting anywhere, and it’s almost dinner time.”

  Sighing, Raysel opened his fist and rolled the three crystals back and forth across his palm. “I’ve kept these with me day in and day out since we arrived here, and yet we are no closer to figuring out the suspension technique now than we were a week ago.”

  Nerissa looked down at her own three crystals as she spoke. “When we were first trying to learn how to use the fire-fire pendant, it wasn’t a matter of concentrating hard enough on what we wanted the crystal to do. It was a matter of focusing our intention in the right way. Now that we know the key, it takes little effort to produce a flame using the fire-fire crystal. Maintaining a phantom image takes more focus, but even that doesn’t approach this level of concentration.”

  “I agree with you that the suspension shouldn’t be this hard to carry out. Nevertheless, for some reason, these crystals aren’t behaving the same way our pendants do.”

  “The situation reminds me of one Tao and I once encountered,” Nerissa said. “There is a stone in her collection that embodies all five elements in a single crystal. Because of its rarity, we suspected it might have particularly interesting properties if we twinned it with other crystals. However, no matter what we attempted to twin it with, the stone remained as unreactive as an ordinary rock.”

  “Did you ever find a pairing that worked?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that doesn’t inspire hope,” Raysel murmured. An absent expression crept over his face, as if he had become lost in thought.

  Not wanting to distract him, Nerissa went over to the small stool that she used for a bedside table and laid down the three slender crystals.

  Any minute now, Thea would arrive with dinner, so it was time to become Caeneus again—temporarily, at least. She picked up her choker and ran a finger over the cluster of twinned crystals attached to it. While these stones did nothing individually, once they were twinned with one another, they worked as a single unit to produce the voice-altering effect of the necklace.

  Is that what we are missing? Is there a difference between using one crystal at a time versus using multiple crystals at the same time? Do the six crystals need to be twinned before they will work together? Nerissa wondered, and a gentle warmth sprung up from the fire-fire pendant.

  “Your mention of trying to twin Tao’s rare crystal gave me the same idea, but Barr told us twinned crystals couldn’t be used actively,” Raysel said.

  “Then there must be a different twinning process,” Nerissa replied automatically. Suddenly, it occurred to her—he had just answered a question that she hadn’t spoken out loud. She slowly turned to face him, her lips parted in astonishment. “How did you know I was thinking about twinning crystals in the first place?”

  Raysel cocked his head to one s
ide, confused. “You asked if the crystals might need to be twinned before they’ll work together.”

  “No,” Nerissa said emphatically. “I thought that. I didn’t say it out loud.”

  “Are you sure? I heard you say it.”

  Nerissa gave him a withering look. “I think I would know whether or not I said something out loud. I did feel my pendant react at the same time though.” She pressed her hand against her chest. “My shirt still feels warm, so it wasn’t my imagination.”

  They stared at each other in silence while they each processed what had just transpired. It was the very same occurrence that had happened on the night they got separated.

  Curious, Nerissa decided to see if she could repeat the phenomenon. Can you tell what I’m thinking now?

  “You’re wondering if I can tell what you’re thinking,” Raysel answered.

  “Yes!” she exclaimed. “It actually worked?”

  “No, I didn’t need a crystal’s help to figure that out. I could tell by the weird face you were making.”

  Nerissa grabbed the pillow off her bed and flung it at him.

  He caught it and laughed, then tossed it back to her. “All kidding aside, if your crystal reacted at the same time I heard your thoughts, then it must have been involved. That means the fire-fire pendant can be used to do something other than produce flames. But how? And why has this happened twice in recent days when it’s never happened before?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe something about the crystal itself has changed?” She pulled the pendant out from beneath her shirt and held it close to her face to get a better look at it.

  “Possibly. I think it’s worth investigating more thoroughly. Being able to communicate without speaking—or even necessarily being near one another—would be an invaluable tool to have at our disposal. And it might provide a clue toward how the suspension technique works, too.”