The Last Namsara

by Kristen Ciccarelli

  His father rallied the army and drove off the First Dragon. He ordered the slaves to put out the fires and repair the damage. The commandant saved the city, but he failed to save his wife. At the sound of her dying screams, he rushed into their burning home—and did not come out.

  The girl, however, survived.

  She woke in a strange room and a strange bed and she couldn’t remember what happened. In the beginning, her father hid the truth. How do you tell a girl of ten she’s responsible for the deaths of thousands?

  Instead, he never left her side. He sat with her through the pain-filled nights. He sent for burn experts to restore her to full health. When they said she would never recover her mobility, he found better experts. And, very slowly, he filled in the gaps of her memory.

  When the girl made her public apology and her people spat at her feet, her father stood by her side. While she promised to redeem herself and they hissed the name of a cursed god, her father took their curses and turned them into a title.

  The old heroes were called Namsara after a beloved god, he said. So she would be called Iskari, after a deadly one.

  Three

  The throne room, with its double arcades, soldat-lined walls, and precise mosaic work, was built to draw attention to one place: the dragon king’s throne. But whenever Asha stepped through the giant archway, it was the sacred flame that commanded her attention first. A pedestal of polished onyx stood halfway between the main entrance and the gilded throne. Upon it sat a shallow iron bowl, and in that bowl burned a white and whispering flame.

  When Asha was a child, the sacred flame was taken from the Old One’s caves and brought here, to keep the throne room alight. It struck such awe in Asha then.

  Not anymore.

  Now the flame seemed to watch Asha as much as she once watched it.

  A colorless flame burning on nothing but air? It was unnatural. She wished her father would send it back to the caves. But it was his trophy, a sign of what he’d overcome.

  “I’m sorry I interrupted your hunt, my dear.”

  Her father’s voice echoed across the room, snapping up her attention. Asha scanned the gleaming white walls, broken up by tapestries bearing the portraits of dragon kings and queens of old.

  “You didn’t interrupt. I killed it just before your message arrived.”

  Dressed now in silk gloves that came to her elbows and an indigo kaftan that swished when she walked, Asha made her way across the room while the eyes in the tapestries watched her. Her steps padded softly on the sea of blue and green tiles as sunlight slid through the skylight in the copper-domed roof, lighting up specks of dust floating in the air.

  The man waiting for her looked every bit a king: embroidered over the right shoulder of his robe was the royal crest—a dragon with a saber through its heart—and from his neck hung a citrine medallion. Gold slippers with elaborate white stitching hid his feet.

  It was this man she woke to in the sickroom almost eight years ago. The sight of him now brought on a memory.

  Kozu’s red-hot flames engulfing her. The awful smell of burning hair and flesh. The barbed screams snagging in her throat.

  It was the only part Asha remembered: burning. Everything else was lost to her.

  “That was your longest hunt yet,” he said. Asha stopped before the gilded steps of his throne. “I was beginning to worry.”

  She looked to the floor. The shame of it made her throat prickle. Like she’d swallowed a handful of cactus spines.

  Her father had too many things to worry about without Asha adding to them: war brewing with the scrublanders, the ever-present threat of another slave revolt, tension with the temple, and—though her father never spoke of it with Asha—the growing power of his commandant.

  Asha’s bandaged hand throbbed beneath the silk glove, screaming of the crime she’d committed that very morning. As if it wanted to betray her. She held it against her side, hoping her father wouldn’t ask about the gloves.

  “Don’t worry about me, Father. I always find my prey.”

  The dragon king smiled at her. Behind him, an ornate mosaic was etched into the golden throne, a pattern of shapes within shapes and lines crossing back over lines. Just like the city’s labyrinthine streets or the palace’s maze of hallways and secret passageways.

  “Tonight I want you to publicly present your kill. In honor of our guests.”

  She looked up. “Guests?”

  Her father’s smile broke. “You haven’t heard the news?”

  Asha shook her head no.

  “Your brother returned with a delegation of scrublanders.”

  Asha’s mouth went dry. The scrublanders dwelled across the sand sea and refused to acknowledge the authority of the king. They didn’t agree with killing dragons almost as much as they didn’t agree with keeping slaves. It was why her father had had such trouble handling them in the past—that, and the fact that they kept trying to assassinate him.

  “They’ve agreed to a truce,” her father explained. “They’re here to negotiate the terms of a peace treaty.”

  Peace with scrublanders? Impossible.

  Asha stepped closer to the throne, her voice tight. “They’re inside the palace walls?” How could Dax bring their oldest enemies into their home?

  No one had expected Dax to succeed in the scrublands. If Asha were honest, no one expected Dax to survive in the scrublands.

  “It’s too dangerous, Father.”

  The dragon king leaned forward in his throne, looking down at her with warm eyes. His nose was long and thin and his beard neatly trimmed.

  “Don’t worry, my dear.” His eyes traced the scar marring her face. “One look at you and they will never cross me again.”

  Asha frowned. If they didn’t fear the chopping block—which was the punishment for attempted regicide—why would they fear the Iskari?

  “But that isn’t why I summoned you.”

  The dragon king rose from his throne and descended the seven steps to the floor. Knotting his hands behind his back, her father made a slow tour of the tapestries up the left side of the room. Asha followed him, ignoring the soldats standing guard in between each one, their eyes hidden by crested morions and their burnished breastplates gleaming in the dusty sunlight.

  “I want to talk about Jarek.”

  Asha’s chin jerked upward.

  When the people of Firgaard lost lives and homes and loved ones in the wake of Kozu’s fire, they called for the death of the wicked girl responsible. The king, unable to put his own daughter to death, offered her a chance at redemption instead. He promised her hand in marriage to Jarek—the boy who saved her. The boy who’d lost both his parents in the fire that was her fault.

  Their union, he said, would be the last act of Asha’s redemption. When they came of age, Jarek would bind himself to Asha and in doing so, prove his forgiveness. Jarek, who lost the most because of Asha, would show all of Firgaard they could forgive her too.

  Furthermore, in exchange for Jarek’s heroism, the king groomed him to take over his father’s role as commandant.

  It was an act of faith and gratitude.

  In the years since, that heroic boy had grown into a powerful young man. At twenty-one, Jarek now held the army in his fist. His soldats were completely loyal. Too loyal, thought Asha. Once he married her, Jarek would be in very close proximity to the throne. A throne that would be very easy to take by force. It worried Asha.

  “He mustn’t know about this conversation. Do you understand?”

  Asha, who was lost in her thoughts, looked up to find them standing before a tapestry of her grandmother—the dragon queen who conquered and enslaved their fiercest enemy, the skral. The artist chose deep reds and maroons for the background and luminescent silvers and dark blues for her hair. The dragon queen’s eyes seemed to peer out at her granddaughter with deep disapproval. As if they could see straight into Asha’s heart, beholding all the secrets hidden there.

  Asha held her injured
hand closer to her body.

  “You mustn’t tell anyone what I’m about to tell you.”

  Tearing her gaze away from the old queen, she looked to her father. His warm eyes were on hers.

  A secret? Her every allegiance was to her father. She owed her life to him twice over. “Of course, Father.”

  “A dragon was spotted in the Rift while you hunted,” he said. “One that hasn’t been seen in eight years. A black dragon with a scar through one eye.”

  Lightning flickered up Asha’s legs. She nearly reached for the wall, in case they gave out on her.

  “Kozu?”

  It couldn’t be. The First Dragon hadn’t been seen since the day he attacked the city.

  Her father nodded. “This is an opportunity, Asha. One we must seize.” He smiled a slow, bright smile. “I want you to bring me Kozu’s head.”

  Asha suddenly smelled burning flesh. Felt her throat choking on screams.

  That was eight years ago, she thought, trying to fight off the memory. Eight years ago I was a child. I’m not anymore.

  Seeing the war waging inside her, the dragon king raised his hand, as if to touch her—something he never did. But a look flashed in his eyes. The same look that flashed in everyone else’s eyes, all of the time, whenever they looked at her.

  Her father didn’t like to show it, because he loved her. Because he didn’t want to hurt her. But sometimes it slipped through the cracks.

  The dragon king feared his own daughter.

  A heartbeat later, the look was gone. Her father’s hand fell back down to his side, resting on the gilt pommel of his ceremonial saber.

  “If you can hunt down the First Dragon, the religious zealots will no longer have a reason to challenge my authority. The scrublanders will be forced to concede that the old ways are no longer. All will submit to my rule. But, most of all, Asha, your marriage to Jarek will no longer be necessary.” He looked back to the tapestry on the wall. To the image of his mother. “This will be your redemption.”

  Asha swallowed, letting those words sink in.

  The raconteurs—sacred storytellers from days gone by—warned of the death of Kozu. Kozu, they said, was the wellspring of stories. As such, he was the Old One’s living link to his people.

  If Kozu were ever killed, all the old stories would be struck from mind or tongue or scroll—as if they’d never existed. The Old One would be forgotten and the link between him and his people broken. But so long as Kozu lived, the stories did too, and the yoke keeping Asha’s people shackled to the Old One remained.

  Even the most godless of hunters wouldn’t dare hunt Kozu down. Her father knew this. It was why he was asking her. Asha had more reason than anyone to kill the First Dragon.

  It would be the ultimate apology. A way to set things right.

  “Did you hear me, Asha? If you bring me Kozu’s head, there will no longer be a reason to marry Jarek.”

  Drawn out of her thoughts, she looked up into her father’s face to find him smiling down on her.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking, Asha. Will you do it?”

  Of course she would do it. The only question was: Could she do it before the red moon waned?

  The Last Namsara

  Once, the draksors were a mighty force. They were the wingbeats in the night. They were the fire that rained from the sky. They were the last sight you saw.

  No one dared come against them.

  But a storm was sweeping across the desert. Invaders from beyond the sea, a people called the skral, had conquered the northern isles and were hungry for more. The skral looked to Firgaard, the shining star of a desert kingdom. A bustling capital that straddled a seam dividing leagues of white sand from a mountainous mantle. If they could conquer Firgaard, they could rule the world.

  Hoping to take the draksors by surprise, the skral came beneath the cover of darkness.

  But when darkness falls, the Old One lights a flame.

  The Old One heard the enemy coming. He cast his gaze out over dusty villages and desert dunes until he found a man suited for just his purpose.

  A man by the name of Nishran.

  With that single whispered name, the Old One woke the First Dragon from his slumber. The First Dragon flew fast and far, over the desert, seeking out the owner of it.

  Nishran was a weaver. He sat at his loom when the First Dragon found him. The treadles stopped clicking and the shuttle stopped clacking as the weaver looked up into scales as black as moonless night.

  Fear filled his heart.

  But the Old One had chosen Nishran to be his Namsara, and there was no refusing the Old One.

  To aid him, the Old One gave Nishran the ability to see in darkness. Unhindered by the cloak of night, Nishran led the dragon queen and her army across the sand, beneath the pitch of a new moon, straight to the camp of the skral.

  The northern invaders were unprepared for the arrows and dragonfire they woke to. They were overcome by those they intended to conquer.

  When it was over, the dragon queen did not drive the enemy out of her realm. If she let the skral loose, they would only wreak their havoc elsewhere or return, stronger, for revenge. She refused to be responsible for another people’s destruction. So, with the Namsara at her side, the dragon queen ordered each and every skral locked into collars as penance for the horrors they’d unleashed on the northern isles.

  With the skral bound in iron, peace fell over the draksors. News of the conquered invaders traveled fast and far. Rulers of far-off nations crossed desert and mountain and sea to pledge their loyalty to the dragon queen.

  But the jubilation was short-lived.

  Darkness fell once more over Firgaard as dragons suddenly and without warning turned on their riders, attacking their families and burning down their homes. Instead of being lit with celebratory song and dance, Firgaard was lit with dragonfire as terraces and courtyards and gardens blazed. In daylight, smoke clotted the air and black shadows fell over the narrow streets as dragons flew into the Rift and never returned.

  Chaos tore Firgaard apart. Some draksors ran to align themselves with their queen, who cursed the dragons for their betrayal; others ran to align themselves with the high priestess, who blamed the queen for the destruction.

  Draksors turned on draksors. More homes burned. Firgaard fell into ruin.

  That was the first betrayal.

  The second came in the form of stories.

  Four

  There was a long-standing tradition in Firgaard: whenever a dragon was killed, its head was presented to the dragon king. It was Asha’s favorite part of a hunt. The triumphant entry, the awed spectators, and most of all her father’s look of pride.

  Tonight, though, a bigger, older dragon roamed the wilds beyond the city walls and Asha was restless, itching to sink her axe into its heart.

  Soon, she thought as she and Safire stepped into the arching entrance of the palace’s largest courtyard. Music drifted out like smoke. The sound of a lute whispered beneath the brassy trumpet and the quick, driving beat of the drums.

  Before entering the courtyard, out of habit, Asha checked her cousin for fresh bruises and found none. Instead, Safire seemed to glow in a pale green kaftan embroidered with honeysuckle flowers.

  “I thought you hated those,” Safire said, gesturing to Asha’s silk gloves. They were a foreign style. Jarek bought them almost a year ago for Asha’s seventeenth birthday.

  She did hate them. They made her hands sweat and always fell down her arms, but they kept her burn hidden.

  Asha forced a shrug. “They went with the kaftan.”

  A kaftan that had been waiting in a lidded silver box by her bed. Yet another gift from Jarek.

  “Right,” said Safire, guessing at the real reason. “Just like the boots.”

  Asha looked down to her feet poking out from under her hem. In her hurry, she’d forgotten to exchange her hunting boots for her gold slippers. She swore under her breath. Too late now.

  Bronze l
amps blazed along the galleries of the courtyard, their colored glass drenching the dancers in glittering light. In the center, a wide basin full of water stretched across the court, its calm surface glimmering beneath the starry black sky.

  Normally the galleries were boisterous and the lush low-lying sofas full as people sipped sweet tea and gossiped in luxury. Not tonight. For a celebration in honor of the heir’s return, after a month away, the galleries were abandoned and the courtyard was crammed with draksors talking behind their hands and glancing toward the empty sofas.

  Safire spotted the reason first.

  “Look.” She pointed to where strangely dressed guests clustered together beneath the gallery, eyeing the draksors out in the court as if they expected an ambush. The draksors beneath the open night sky wore brightly colored kaftans or fitted knee-length tunics, decorated with complicated embroidery and delicate beading. The guests beneath the gallery wore much plainer garb. Cotton sandskarves were wrapped loosely around their shoulders, and their curving blades were sheathed at their hips.

  “Scrublanders.”

  Enemies in the heart of the palace. In the home of the king they’d tried to kill on three separate occasions.

  What was Dax thinking?

  For a group of people as committed to the old ways as the scrublanders were, they seemed surprisingly willing to defy their own god and ignore the age-old law against regicide. It was one of the only ancient laws her father allowed to remain. Rooted in the myth of the goddess Iskari, who’d tried to kill the Old One, the law declared that anyone who dared take the life of the dragon king or queen was condemned to death. Which meant every scrublander who tried to assassinate Asha’s father was knowingly committing suicide the moment he acted.

  Safire called her name, drawing her out of her thoughts.

  “Yes?” said Asha, turning.

  “Hmm?” Safire was drinking in the scene, counting every scrublander and estimating which were the most highly trained and which were the most likely to have extra weapons hiding in their clothes. It was the first thing Safire did whenever she entered a room. It was second nature. A survival instinct.