Lady Dragon, Tela Du

by Kendra E. Ardnek

“Noraeto is a bright young man with some of the best traits of both his father and grandfather,” said Father, shaking his head, “and what Alphego approves, who am I to judge? What I ask is if you’re happy with him?”

  Ashna glanced down at her hands, tightly folded in her lap, as her cheeks grew warm. “I knew Marno as a child, and had Amber not come, I think I would have chosen him, and we would have been very happy together. I’ve lived across the street from Robert the last two years and found him to be a nice young man as well, though I was in awe because he was human and the son of King David and Queen Michelle. Noraeto … I’ve only known a few weeks, scarcely an hour when Alphego declared our role together … but I quite agree with your assessment. He’s the only other half-human in existence … well, except maybe my brothers, now that Mother and Rintaya are the same person.”

  “Yes, your mother and I were just discussing that,” mused Father, “and we’ll be discussing it with them in a few minutes. So, you approve of Noraeto as your husband?”

  “We’ve spent much time getting to know each other these last few weeks,” Ashna answered. “Alphego knows that neither of us would want to be alone in our new positions. It’s been hard to not think of Noraeto as a replacement for Marno, but I’d be lying if I said that I’m not glad that he’s Marno’s grandson. Yes, given all the strangeness of the situation, how much is so very different from what I had wanted, I think I will be happy with Noraeto.”

  “Good, I’ll have a chat with him later to remind him what a precious treasure you are,” said Father. “Now, as soon as your mother joins us, we’ll go in search of your brothers … Ashna?”

  At that moment, the strange burning that Ashna had come to recognize as a Speech spread through her. She gasped, blinking rapidly as it passed. Her father stared wide-eyed.

  “What did I say?” she asked, fighting down panic.

  His gaze softened into a smile, and he put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I don’t think we have to worry about this prophecy at this moment,” he said. “And I think it’d be best if you didn’t know. There is a reason that Bookdaughters aren’t granted the ability to hear themselves.”

  Ashna bit her lip and nodded.

  Mother rounded the shelves at that moment, rubbing her hands together. “Well, there are half of my people!” she declared. “Shall we go hunt down the boys?”

  “Yes, I believe it’s time that we let them know just what an amazing woman their mother truly is,” said Father, standing.

  Chapter 7

  “I honestly expected these to be on the list,” Sylvia remarked to Laura, glancing at the tullet and luttel, the necklace and disk that she had used to move her castle. “After all, I wouldn’t have been able to torment Rizkaland at all if it weren’t for them.”

  “Their purpose has not yet been fulfilled,” answered Laura. “Nor was that the day appointed for their destruction. Trust me, these aren’t items you want to be destroyed at the wrong time. ‘Twould be as dangerous as if Petra had killed you in the Room of the Knife.”

  “Would that have been so bad?” asked Sylvia, forcing a smile.

  “Yes, it would have,” answered Laura, not smiling. “Look, Silver, I don’t begrudge the existence of this disk and necklace. Far from it. I’ve used … will use them … more than once. My power complements theirs. Besides, if you hadn’t used them, you wouldn’t have been able to be such a wonderful queen to Lintooalintae for nearly three thousand years, nor would you now be able to reunite with your sisters.”

  “But you…”

  “These are a complete set. I’m not a complete set, so they’re more powerful than I am,” said Laura. “You couldn’t be separated from this castle until you had faced the Room of the Knife, and I don’t have the power to move it. This disk does. It all worked out in the end.”

  “But I…”

  “Besides, we aren’t here to discuss this particular magic; we’re here to find the cure for King Niklas,” Laura continued. “Today’s the first day of Renee’s month. Are you any closer than you were when you started?”

  Sylvia sighed and shook her head. “No,” she admitted. “I knew it was hopeless from the outset. There is no cure for that poison, a poison that affected one’s fate, not necessarily their physical body. And yet I had to try.”

  “You made a gallant effort,” said Laura.

  “Gallant efforts don’t undo the past,” said Sylvia, sinking down onto her chair, pressing a hand to her forehead. “Sometimes, I feel so powerful … and then there come times like this, where I’m the one who tied my own hands.”

  “Mmm, I know the feeling,” said Laura. “At least you didn’t know what you were doing.”

  Sylvia slowly blinked, recognizing the look in the Doorkeeper’s eye. She glanced away. “I’m sorry…” she whispered.

  Laura gave a quick, sad laugh, more a puff of air than anything else. “You don’t need to apologize for my own choices. Yes, I call them choices – even I could have said no, could have done things differently. I don’t have the power to change history, though. Perhaps I could have warned you not to take the scale, told you what it truly was … but I would have stolen your innocence now. No, if anything, I’m sorry.”

  “The past can’t be undone,” said Sylvia.

  “No, and the future is difficult,” Laura answered. “Yes, you can affect it, and the smallest changes can have even the most drastic consequences … but at the same time, there are just so many factors and so many people that you can’t control.”

  “But what about the big things? Such as the Room of the Knife?” asked Sylvia. “You said that reality itself might have collapsed, had Petra made the wrong choice.”

  “But I didn’t tell her which choice to make,” Laura answered. “Because I knew she had already made it. Petra and Reuben were determined to save you and Richard. But even if I had told them, it was still theirs to choose whether or not they actually did it.”

  “But if the result is already determined, is it a choice?” Sylvia asked.

  “Yes, it’s still a choice,” Laura answered. “Day after day, I choose to do the tasks set before me. Yes, even I have a choice.” She tilted her head to the side, thoughtfully, as she walked over to the shelf where the luttel was kept. She picked it up.

  The air popped and crackled as Laura rolled the luttel between her hands. She had no need of the tullet. She was naturally surrounded by the same energy that it produced, the energy that powered the disk.

  Wind whipped around the room, swirling around Laura. Sylvia could feel it, and yet it seemed to not affect anything except Laura’s hair. Golden light oozed out of her skin, traveling up her arms towards the disk.

  Laura stopped rolling and turned the luttel flat against the palm of one hand. With the other, she gathered the light into a ball. She began to laugh, a loud, strange laughter that echoed around the room and didn’t quite feel natural.

  Sylvia wished that this was the strangest thing she’d ever witnessed in her six thousand years or even the strangest thing she had seen the Doorkeeper do.

  Laura thrust her hand into the gathered ball of light, and the room shook. Sylvia instinctively turned away. A moment later, Laura stood at her side and set a small hourglass on the desk.

  “Borrowed time,” she explained. “It will extend a life by anywhere from ten to twenty years, reversing any illness or even the effects of old age. It’s the only antidote to the Lifesnatch potion you used on the kings and queens.”

  Sylvia blinked and closed her hand around the hourglass, her heart hammering. “Thank you. I…”

  “To use it, break the glass and pour the sand over the person,” Laura explained. “But – look at me, Silver.”

  Sylvia swallowed, but did as she was told. Laura’s expression was stern.

  “It will not work without the person’s consent. You must let him know what it is, what it does. His life must be his choice.”

  “But I stole his life…”

  “Borrowed tim
e can be unpredictable, and isn’t always pleasant,” Laura explained. “There was a king once … all his worst decisions were made after his life was extended – even leading his country into ruin. Make sure Niklas knows this. Now, you have your cure so you can save the frozen people of Rizkaland. The first snow of winter coats the ground. You no longer have any excuse to delay.”

  She set Winsot onto the desk next to the hourglass. Sylvia took a deep breath, pulled the palika from her drawer, and destroyed Winsot without hesitation. Then she stood, sliding the Borrowed Time into a pocket, and left her office.

  The haric door that Sarah had brought stood just outside. Petra had chosen to let her keep it so that she could access her studies without the long journey between the castles. A moment later, she stood in the Bookholder’s library, and Laura joined her a moment after that.

  Together they made their way through the shelves of books. They managed to not run into anyone until they reached the bedroom where she had frozen King Niklas forty-nine years before.

  Petra was already there, talking to the man. Sylvia’s stomach twisted as she beheld King Niklas lying in the exact same position she had left him all those years before, his skin still deathly pale, his eyes still glassy.

  “Here’s my sister now,” said Petra, retreating to put a hand on Sylvia’s shoulder. “As I said, she’s changed since you last met her. She’s not the same woman she was. She’s not the Dragon anymore.”

  Sylvia winced. She hated that speech, hated how many times each day Petra had to give it, hated the knot of unworthiness and guilt that tightened within her whenever she heard it.

  “So you’ve changed your mind in the last few minutes?” asked King Niklas, his voice slow and thin. “You don’t strike me as a sudden person.”

  “I’m not,” Sylvia answered. “It’s been forty-nine years and a month since your surrender to me, and a month since my surrender to the Tela Du. You’ve been ice in the meantime.”

  “So I’ve been told.” His languid gaze shifted to Petra.

  “I … I have a cure,” said Sylvia, drawing the Borrowed Time from her pocket. “I can give you back your life.”

  “So I can live in a Rizkaland where everyone I know is gone, where the Tela Du is friends with the Lady Dragon?”

  “But…” Sylvia started to protest.

  “Silver, it must be his choice,” Laura reminded.

  “But you’ll be alive!” Sylvia declared. “Look, I’m sorry! I wish I could go back and undo everything I’ve done over the last three thousand years, especially these last fifty, but I can’t. But I can save your life.”

  “So you can sate your own conscience?” Niklas asked. “One life spared out of all the thousands that you’ve taken?”

  “And I would that I could undo them all.” Sylvia went to his bedside, holding out the hourglass. “The Doorkeeper herself found this for you – perhaps she made it, I wouldn’t put that past her. She says it’ll only work if you’re willing, so, please … please!”

  King Niklas stared at her, and the silence was painful. “You have changed in the last few minutes. Where’s your fire, mighty Dragon?”

  “Gone,” Sylvia whispered, pressing a hand to her stomach, where the dragonfire once boiled. “Gone, and I hope never to return. The Dragon is dead.”

  “The Dragon stole a lot from Rizkaland. A lot from me.”

  “I know. I want to give back what I can.”

  “Life has nothing left for me,” said King Niklas, “unless you can give me back my wife and friends, my unbroken country. No, I’m afraid I can’t sate your bleeding conscience.”

  “But…”

  “With your immortality, I don’t suppose you understand the knife’s edge of death,” said Niklas. “No, I’m too close now. My hope has been spent. Don’t waste your magic on me when I have nothing left to live for, no place left for me in this new Rizkaland.”

  “You can find something new to live for, a new place,” said Sylvia, glancing back towards Petra and Laura.

  But King Niklas merely closed his eyes and said nothing more.

  Petra gave a sharp gasp and dashed forward to join Sylvia at his bedside. “He’s gone.” Her voice scarcely a whisper. “He … I … he’s gone.”

  Sylvia stared at her sister. Petra’s face had turned pale, and her hands trembled as they hovered helplessly over the king.

  “Are you all right?” Sylvia asked, reaching up to put a hand on Petra’s shoulder.

  “Yeah, fine,” said Petra distractedly, pulling back as she brushed a wayward frizz of hair behind her ear. She was still trembling like a leaf. “I just … wasn’t prepared. I … I felt it.”

  “Oh,” said Sylvia. Petra’s abilities as the queen of Eliue were strange, that was for certain. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t save him. I was so close, but he didn’t want it. He preferred death to living in a world where I still lived.”

  “I don’t think it was that,” said Petra. “He saw you’d changed, I’m sure of it! He … he was just too close to death to accept life. He’d already given up his hope and was looking forward to the glory of Alphego’s country. And seeing his queen again.”

  “But…” Sylvia glanced down at the Borrowed Time that lay in the palm of her hand. “But even after Laura went through all the trouble of getting this for him? It wasn’t easy for her, I’m sure of it!”

  Laura put her hand on Sylvia’s shoulder. “I knew what his choice would be, but I wanted him to have that choice. Guard that, Silver. Perhaps you’ll find someone else in need of it? Just make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Borrowed Time can be dangerous if misused.”

  “But I … but I could have saved him! He could have lived! All those people, but I could have saved him!”

  In her six thousand years, Sylvia had observed many a death, even deaths that she herself had caused. But here was a man whom she had killed in cold blood – and she could have saved him! Her stomach churned uneasily.

  “Sylvia, it was his choice,” said Petra. “Sylvia … are you okay?”

  “I don’t know.” Sylvia shook her head and finally tore her eyes away from King Niklas. She shoved the hourglass back into her pocket. “I … I can’t stay here.” With that, she bolted from the room.

  Chapter 8

  Ashna’s arm still tingled while her mother did her hair. She and Noraeto had been Tied the night before in a joint ceremony with Tyler and Summer, and now they were preparing for the coronation that would make their roles as kings and queens official.

  The whole day had been a blur of excitement and chatter as people bustled here and there to get ready for that afternoon. She and Noraeto had been parted as soon as it’d been safe, and now she was in the fanciest dress she’d ever worn, her mother’s hands flying about, undoing the braids she’d worn the night before, pinning the curls up in an elegant style.

  “I still can’t believe this is happening,” Ashna whispered, staring in the mirror, trying to catch her mother’s eye. “It’s been nearly two months since I found out that you’re human, and that I’m to be a queen and not just a Bookdaughter, but I still can’t believe that this is happening.”

  “You’re going to do fine, Ashes,” said Mother, offering an encouraging smile. “And you’ll have your aunts and uncles beside you, and a whole host of people behind you. Rizkan power isn’t meant to fall on one person’s shoulders, never forget that.”

  “But I always expected to be the one behind.” Ashna shook her head. “I would go to Klarand and take Aunt Adnama’s place. Now…”

  “Alphego has entrusted you with great power, but don’t think for a moment that He won’t be beside you every second of it,” said Mother. “As Bookdaughter, you should know that.”

  “Yes…”

  “Ah, here we go, last pin – and there!” Mother took a step back. “Now don’t you look like the little princess?”

  Ashna turned her head to get a better look. “I still can’t believe I am one. Two months ago … I’d nearly
gotten used to life on Earth, and now I’m home again, and everything’s different. It’s like a whole new world all over again.”

  “You seem to be adjusting quite well, all things considered,” said Mother.

  At that moment, the door flew open, and Petra swept in. “Is Ashna ready? We need to—”

  “Petra! Your hair!” Mother exclaimed.

  Petra stopped short and brushed a wayward bit behind her ear. She was wearing the simple braid she normally wore – perhaps it was the exact same braid she’d worn to Tie Summer and Tyler the night before, her frizz was that bad. She rolled her eyes. “I’ve been bustling here and there all day, Sarah,” she protested. “I haven’t had time to deal with it – and we only have a few minutes before we need to be to the throne room, which is why I’m here to ask if Ashna’s ready.”

  “She’s ready, but you’re not,” said Mother. She pointed to the stool that Ashna had just vacated. “Sit.”

  “Sarah, we really don’t have time for this,” Petra protested, even as she sat down. “My hair is a nightmare in the best of circumstances.”

  “Petra, I’ve dealt with the same head of hair every day for over eighty years – it’s one of the few elements of my natural appearance I was able to keep and, indeed, one of the few elements I can’t even change,” said Mother, undoing the braid and running the brush through it. “Trust me, I’m familiar with its … mind of its own.”

  “Then you should be aware that taming it at this late hour is a lost cause,” said Petra.

  “I also know that today is a very important day for you,” Mother countered. “You already have people questioning you because of your decision to spare Sylvia. You can at least look like you care about becoming their queen.”

  “I don’t see how my hairdo has anything to do with that,” retorted Petra.

  “It’s strange what people notice,” said Mother. “And if you’re in the braid you slept in last night, while your fellow queens both have their hair done well, they’re going to question how much you care about being their queen.”