Given

by Nandi Taylor

  He was utterly baffled when one day, at the gate to his townhouse, a man and a woman with notepads ran up to him. The woman squinted and sketched while the man bombarded him with questions. How does it feel to go from delivering packages to being a prince? Where will you two live, the Moonrise Isles or Cresh? We’ve learned you have Island heritage, officially making you the only known Island dragon—do you think it’s fate that your Given is a princess of the Moonrise Isles?

  Weysh never answered a single question. He and Yenni were having a tough enough time figuring things out without the dailies sticking their noses into their relationship, and it was easy to escape the reporters when he could fly, but they still found a way to spin the rags to riches story of his life. Whole interviews appeared that he’d never given, some of them quite entertaining. Harth certainly enjoyed them.

  He’d come running up to Weysh, daily paper fluttering in hand and summarize the latest nonsense. Loudly. “Weysh, how can it be, in all the time we’ve known each other, you never told me of your secret ambition to design extravagant hats made of your shed dragon scales?” Or “Weysh! Watcher above, I had no idea you were so self-conscious about your residual dragon tail! You know that little stub that remains for some reason when you turn back into a man? You should have confided in me! Good thing Yenni doesn’t mind it, en? It seems you fell head over tail for her when she accepted you just as you are, stub and all. It’s all right here. What a love story for the ages—ow!”

  Weysh boxed him on the ear for that one.

  At last, in an effort to get some peace, when they both had a free afternoon Weysh flew Yenni to a nice, hidden area on the bank of the River Noureer where it cut through the south of the campus. And now, at Yenni’s insistence, he was practicing using runes in dragon, again. They worked with a wall of green trees as their backdrop and the rushing water their musical score. Yenni sang the hymn for wind as she painted the scales of Weysh’s nose bridge. She sang to infuse the rune, but he knew that she also sang to him. Weysh closed his eyes, enjoying her voice.

  Yenni tied off the rune with a low, soothing note and Weysh sighed, his whole bulk shifting up then down. She laughed softly and gave him a kiss on the nose before reaching for her spear. “All right, Weh-sheh,” she said as she unscrewed the sharp metal tip. “Let’s begin.” He would practice his runes while she would practice her Creshen spellcraft.

  She attacked with her spear, augmenting herself with Creshen spells, and he was supposed to be calling on the runes she’d drawn to defend himself, but he constantly forgot, switching into the old defensive strategies that had been drilled into him over the years. He’d never been particularly adept at magic in human, and in dragon it was incredibly difficult and awkward.

  “Great golden sky turtles, Weh-sheh!” Yenni would yell every time, exasperated. “Use your runes!” But he would only lumber over and nuzzle against her until she was no longer annoyed.

  They worked at it until the sun cleared the horizon, with Yenni chanting Use your runes like a mantra, until at last Weysh flew them home. Home. He loved that the word had new meaning now. Home for him and home for Yenni. They didn’t sleep outside anymore, preferring to curl up together in bed instead, as they did that night. Exhausted from the day’s events, they fell into happy slumber.

  Yenni’s voice is strong and clear as she sings, as she paints, even though the wind screams and slaps her braids against her face, even as the sky cracks and flashes. The storm is not meant to harm them. Weysh stands before her in dragon, and she paints him in great swaths, singing of wind and of lightning, singing to Mother Ya.

  The storm rages, but she is not afraid. It fuels her runes. It offers protection.

  It drives her, and she paints with abandon. Soon Weysh is covered in white runes that glow all over his dark scales. Yenni’s heart swells with pride. He is beautiful, and he is hers.

  But what is this? A strange discord interrupts the grand music of the storm. She listens.

  As the rumble of thunder subsides she hears it again, under the singing wind. A rage-filled dragon’s roar.

  Yenni gasped awake, and Weysh bolted up beside her.

  “What? What is it, Yenni?”

  Why was her heart pounding?

  “I’m right here, lovely.” He stroked her braids and kissed her forehead. “Another bad dream?”

  She’d been having night terrors, and no wonder, after all she’d been through.

  “What was it this time?” Weysh asked soothingly.

  She shook her head. “I don’t remember.” All she knew was that anxiety and fear coursed through her blood. The dream had something to do with Weysh, and runes. She scrunched up her brow. “But I want to paint you.”

  “En?”

  “In dragon. It would give me some peace of mind to know you were protected by runes.”

  “Now?”

  Now, yes, now. “It will help calm me, I think.”

  He slid from the bed and they went to the rooftop, where he changed.

  Yenni unscrewed the top on her runepaint and took up her brush, almost sighing at the comforting feel of it in her hand. She went to start the wind rune, but somehow it didn’t feel right. Something about the air, the humid stickiness of it, reminded her of a summer storm, made her want to sing of lightning. She moved all around Weysh, singing him the lightning hymn, feeling a secret, thrilling connection to Mother Ya, the formidable Mistress of Storms. The hymn was fast, zipping up to sudden high notes at times, or rumbling and low at others. She seemed to fall into a trance as she worked, the hymn hypnotizing her so that when at last she was done and she took in Weysh, she reeled back.

  He looked fearsome, his dark scales covered in jagged white lightning runes—just as in her dream. Yenni took hold of his face and he lowered it, so that she could press her forehead to his.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  The next morning Yenni awoke feeling rested and calm, like a weight had been lifted from her. Weysh flew her into the academy, dropping her off at the library, and as she was dismounting a dragon called to them from the steps of the library.

  “Oho! Weysh!” cried the blue-skinned young man. He was differently blue-skinned than Zui—darker, with eyes like sapphires. “I heard the good news! Congratulations!”

  Weysh looked apprehensive, and Yenni knew he was wondering what fresh lunacy the dailies had written about him.

  “What news is that, Sween?”

  “About Noriago!” he cried. “Don’t tell me you don’t know? I thought they’d have told you first! He’s been apprehended! I heard it from Clairette.”

  “That’s wonderful!” cried Yenni.

  “Yes, everyone’s talking about it.”

  “En? Truly? Excellent! I expect I’ll hear from the peacekeepers soon.” Weysh collected his “flight toll” and left Yenni to her studies, joining his classmate and questioning him about Noriago’s arrest as they ambled down the walkway. Yenni exhaled a happy sigh. With the last looming threat taken care of, it felt like she and Weysh could breathe. At the very least they could sleep outside in peace if they chose. For the first time in weeks, perhaps since she’d come to Cresh, Yenni had a carefree day. She started by preparing for her runelore class later that week, then she met Diedre for lunch at the dining hall, and she didn’t even have to see Mainard at all, as he taught none of her classes that day.

  In the evening she went to Riverbank Chambers to check her messages. It was far too soon to expect anything from back home, but the academy would also leave memorandums and reminders, not to mention sometimes Diedre left her funny little notes about her day, which Yenni loved to read.

  But when she checked her letter box, she found something she’d never expected: a note from Carmenna.

  Dear Yenni Ajani,

  I want to say I’m sorry for how things ended between us. I abandoned you when you needed me most, and I
feel terrible about that. I hope that you will allow me to take you to dinner this evening and apologize in person. I know a wonderful place in the Southern Quarter. If you agree, please meet me at student services at the eighth hour of the evening. As well, there are some sensitive things I want to discuss with you, things that would be difficult to say in front of Weysh, so I’d very much appreciate it if the two of us could meet alone.

  Sincerely,

  Carmenna

  Yenni, too, was unhappy with how things had ended between them. She held no ill will toward Carmenna, and had never quite shaken off her guilt at breaking her promise to not fall for Weysh, though the arrogance of her promise seemed ludicrous now. She was glad the other woman wanted to talk. But she remembered the clock tower chiming seven a while ago—it had to be close to the eighth hour now.

  She wrote a quick note to Weysh that she would be meeting Carmenna and would find her way home. Then she painted on her runes, including focus—no matter what these Creshens thought, she would not be caught unawares again. Then she grabbed her spring-spear and set out.

  “I know it’s a bit off the beaten path, but all the best places are.”

  Yenni had taken the tram into the city with Carmenna, and now they were skulking through the Creshen Southern Quarter, which was an interesting place, to say the least. It was much quieter than anywhere she’d been in Cresh, not nearly as crowded. It felt shadowed somehow. There were gas lamps lining the streets as opposed to magic lanterns, and the homes and shops were largely dark, no warm light glowing from within. Yenni had to hurry to keep up with Carmenna’s long-legged strides.

  Carmenna took her up a set of dark steps, between cold, empty houses that seemed long abandoned. The way they squeezed in on her reminded her uncomfortably of the alley where the Creshen thugs had robbed her.

  “What is this place? It seems like there is nothing here,” said Yenni.

  Carmenna only laughed. “That’s what everyone says, but you’ll see. We’re almost there.”

  The stairs opened to a flat, grassy landing that cut off abruptly. A drop to the canal lay ahead, while empty, staring houses loomed behind. What, by all the Mothers and Fathers was going on? There truly was nothing there, certainly no place to eat. Yenni whirled to face Carmenna.

  “What—”

  “Sleep by source, wake no time soon.”

  38

  The world jerked and swayed around Yenni, pulling her from sleep. Was she dreaming, or did she hear muffled screams? Her shoulders and hips hurt and she could tell she was lying on something hard but supple, like a hammock but also not like a hammock. Fighting through the fog of sleep, she opened her eyes.

  She was outside, that much she knew. Humid night air clung to her skin, but her tired, disoriented brain could make little sense of the strange landscape surrounding her. Dark, forested mountains loomed in the distance, but there were also little patches of forest on thick, plateaued pillars all around her with wooden bridges, many of them broken or rotted away, connecting them like some massive spider web.

  Clunky footsteps approached, shaking whatever she was lying on. A shadow blocked out the moonlight.

  “This is a princess? Not at all what I was expecting. You’re nothing more than a painted savage. Is that bird shit on your face supposed to be beautiful?”

  It was a man’s voice, and not one she recognized, though something about how he spoke was familiar. Yenni tried to sit up, but her wrists and ankles were tied. She tried to pull on her runes, but her groggy body refused to obey. Ach’e simply stirred lazily under her skin. She groaned against her cloth gag. The man grabbed her by the braids, and something sharp scraped her scalp painfully. He turned her to look at him, and primal fear rose up in her. His pupils were slits, black horns jutted from his forehead, and bat-like wings drooped from his back.

  “Still, when one marries a princess, no matter how loose the definition, I suppose he must become a prince.”

  His face contorted angrily, and Yenni knew why people feared dragons in half-change. With his sharp teeth barred and snakelike eyes burning with hate, he looked positively demonic.

  “NO!” he bellowed at her, and Yenni flinched. She heard another muffled scream. “Not. Him.” Yenni’s pulse rushed in her ears. What was he talking about? What was going on? The dragon studied her dispassionately. “I wouldn’t struggle too much if I were you. This bridge is fairly old. It’s a miracle it’s held until now. Besides, there’s nowhere for you to go.”

  With that he spread his wings and took off, rattling the bridge just as he’d warned her not to do. She strained against the sleepiness holding her like a weighted net, and at last sat up, though her head lolled to one side. She sat suspended on a bridge between two of the giant, forested pillars that jutted from the dark gorge below. By the light of the open moon she could see that jagged slabs of rock took up the entirety of the gap below, a massive stone forest. What was this place?

  Someone was making muffled sounds at her. Ahead, on the far side of the bridge, a figure with long, dark hair was tied up and gagged like she was. Was that Carmenna? The last thing she remembered was walking through the city with her to some Creshen pubs and . . .

  . . . and Carmenna had used that sleep incantation on her, the same one Diedre used on the thugs.

  Realization dawned like a red sun, the outrage of it burning away her lethargy. Yenni dragged on her strength runes, which lit up under the sleeves of her school uniform, and strained against her wrist bonds. When the pain of rope digging into her flesh made her eyes water she drew on pain ward as well, until the ropes burst at last.

  Yenni ripped the cloth from her mouth, untied her legs, and stood, wobbling on the shaky bridge. When she reached Carmenna the other woman had tears running down her face. Yenni yanked her gag free. “I’m sorry!” she cried. “He threatened me! He said—”

  “Be quiet.” Yenni said it softly, but Carmenna must have heard the tirade underneath as she hung her head, silent. Yenni removed Carmenna’s ties, then surveyed the surroundings as Carmenna stood, rubbing her wrists. Their bridge stretched between two of the huge plateaus, both of them, impossibly, with grand trees growing out of the rock. The trees were sparse enough that she could see through them with the help of her focus rune, and it was clear that on either plateau there was no other connecting bridge.

  “We have to get out of here before Noriago returns,” said Carmenna.

  “Noriago?” cried Yenni. “That was Noriago? But he was apprehended!”

  Carmenna sniffled. “He wasn’t. It was a ruse. He told me to mention that he had been apprehended around one of his classmates and the rumor would spread, and Weysh would let his guard down.”

  “Mothers and Fathers!” Yenni shouted in Yirba.

  “What?”

  “Ah!” she said, angrily waving Carmenna away. How were they to get free? Dread pooled in her stomach as she surveyed their situation. The only way out was down, a long way down to sharp rocks that thrust up like stakes. The edges of the gorge seemed impossibly far. “Do you know of a spell that can make us fly?” Yenni asked, because that was what it would take to reach them.

  “No,” Carmenna whispered. “It would take a Magus’s skill to get across. I was hoping you had a rune.”

  “Even if I did, my satchel with my paint is gone, as well as my spear.” She rounded suddenly on Carmenna, her frustration reaching a crescendo. “Why would you do this?!”

  “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! He knows where my family lives. He said if I didn’t do as he said he would he would fly straight to my home and set it ablaze with my brothers inside, long before I could alert the peacekeepers. And I thought even gagged, you could escape with your runes. I planned to go straight to the peacekeepers once he let me go, but he must have guessed and he kidnapped me too. I—” She cut off at Yenni’s upheld hand.

  “None of that matters. We must now find our w
ay out of this gorge.” And they would have to do it on their own, because the one who could have rescued her could no longer track her scent.

  With Yenni gone to dinner with Carmenna, Weysh decided to visit with Harth and his family. It had been a while since he’d seen them—as a child he was always there, another escape from his home life. And though he would never admit it to Harth’s annoying green face, he was looking forward to seeing his friend as well. He’d sent a note by quick-post that he would be coming, asking what was for dinner. Harth had written back: Roast duck with hot-berry jelly and champagne tarts for me, Zui, and everyone else; leftover scraps from the wild boar I hunted the other day for you. Weysh was looking forward to showing up and eating both his and Harth’s share of the roast duck.

  Weysh had just put on his boots when he was overwhelmed by a terrible dread that washed over him like a wave of cold water. What by Byen . . . he jerked up straight. His alarm! That was how the magic of it worked, by sending a blast of horrible, unsettling anxiety through the owner if someone unauthorized entered his home. Weysh glanced around. He’d heard no one enter the door, which could only mean someone had breached his rooftop. Harth or Zui? But they’d been to his place enough times that the magic was attuned to them. Fighting back that sucking dread Weysh clomped up the stairs to the rooftop and threw open the door.

  “Who’s there?” he demanded. There was, in fact, a figure hidden in the shadows of the trees. “Show yourself!”

  He did. Smirking, Noriago stepped into the light of one of the magic lanterns.

  Weysh felt a moment of numbing shock, and then instant, painful cold, like needles of ice all over his body. Was this some sort of nightmare? Noriago should have been rotting away in a prison cell, not here on his thrice-damned rooftop!

  Noriago let something slip from his fingers, dangling. Weysh’s shock crystalized into brittle horror—it was the ivystone necklace he’d given Yenni. He lunged for Noriago, but the snake darted back, leapt from the roof, changed, and took off. Weysh changed and dove off the roof after him.