The Last Namsara

by Kristen Ciccarelli

  She needed this dragon to aid her in her plan. He couldn’t help if he had a torn wing. Slowly, Asha approached from one side. The slave approached from the other.

  “He doesn’t need a name,” she said as they closed in on him.

  “And why’s that?”

  “Naming a thing endears you to it.”

  Like slaves. The moment you started calling them by their names was the moment you started losing power over them. Better to keep them nameless than to be risen up against.

  “Kozu has a name,” he pointed out.

  “Yes, and soon he’ll be dead.” Asha crept ever closer to the dragon perching on the side of the pool. She could see exactly which wing it was. Black blood dripped from the thin membrane.

  Slowly, she reached for the wing. The dragon darted away, quick as the wind, and jumped to the other side of the pool. His forked tail lashed playfully.

  “You hate Kozu that much?”

  The question broke her concentration. Asha whirled on the slave.

  “Have you seen my face, skral?” She stepped toward him. “Do you know what Kozu did to the city right after he did this to me?”

  He didn’t flinch, just met her gaze. “Have you seen the collar around my neck, Iskari?” It was the calm of a gathering storm. “Your own betrothed sends us to kill one another in the pit while you stand by, placing bets.” His eyes were colder than steel. “For that, maybe I should hunt you down.”

  “I’d like to see you try,” Asha muttered, turning back to the dragon. The sooner she tended that wing, the sooner she could carry out her plan.

  “There’s something I’ve never understood,” he called after her. “Why did Kozu turn on you then? On that day, and not before?”

  The dragon before her braced himself, crouching low on his front legs, tail swishing, eyes daring Asha. Slowly, she started closing the gap between them.

  “Something else I don’t understand? You should have died. Dragon burns are deadly, Iskari, and a burn like that?” His voice softened suddenly. “You were just a little girl.”

  A fire sparked in her belly. He hadn’t been there. He didn’t know the first thing about it.

  In her pause, the dragon broke his stance and slithered to the other side of the pool, closer to the slave, who was more friend than foe. He left behind a black spot of blood.

  Asha rose to face the slave.

  “I was alone,” she said, thinking of the sickroom. Of her father filling in the gaps in her memory. “I’d gone to end things. To tell Kozu I was done with the old stories. He kept pressing me, getting angrier and angrier, and when I refused for the last time, he flew into a rage, burning me and leaving me to die while he attacked the city. If Jarek hadn’t found me in time . . .”

  She rarely told this story aloud because she didn’t like to think about it. But now, hearing it on her own lips, something didn’t make sense. The slave was right. A burn as severe as the one Kozu gave her would have to be treated immediately.

  There must be a detail she was forgetting. She needed to pay more attention when her father told the story next.

  Asha fixed her attention once more on the dragon, who stood behind the slave now, using him as a shield. She stalked him down.

  The slave held out his arm, stopping her.

  “Why did you need to end things?” he asked.

  Because the stories killed my mother.

  Asha remembered that last night. Her mother could no longer speak; it took strength she didn’t have. Asha sat with her in the dark, stroking her beautiful hair, only her fingers kept catching and the hair kept coming out in clumps. She remembered trying to get her mother to drink, and how the water dribbled down her chin. She remembered lying down beside her and covering her face in kisses.

  Asha remembered falling asleep to the beat of her mother’s heart. . . .

  And waking up to a body cold as ice.

  She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “You don’t know,” she whispered, pushing past the slave. “You have no idea the kinds of wicked things the old stories are capable of.”

  He caught her arm, stopping her. “Not Willa’s story. It seemed . . . the opposite of wicked.”

  So naïve, thought Asha. The old stories were like jewels: dazzling, beguiling, luring you in. “They’re dangerous,” she whispered, staring over his shoulder at the dragon staring back.

  “Well then,” he said softly. “I guess I’m drawn to dangerous things.”

  Asha felt her cheeks burn. She looked back into his face.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he went on quickly, his gaze holding hers, “about the first time I ever saw you. You were eight—or maybe nine. My mistress invited your mother for tea, and you came along. While Greta served them in the gardens, you wandered into the library.”

  Strangely, Asha remembered that day. Remembered the enormous dragon head mounted on the library wall. The lifeless glass eyes, the pale gold scales, the open mouth showing off a multitude of knifelike teeth . . .

  “I was dusting the shelves,” he said. “I saw you enter, and I knew I was supposed to leave, to give you privacy, but”—he swallowed—“I didn’t. You were wearing a blue kaftan and your hair was loose around your shoulders. You reminded me of someone.”

  Behind him, realizing their game was over, the dragon huffed a sigh and stalked off.

  “I watched you trail your fingers along the wooden handles of the scrolls until you found the one you wanted. I watched you pull it down, then sit on the cushions and read it to the end. And then I watched you go back for more.”

  The scrolls were the reason I wandered in there in the first place, she remembered. I was looking for stories.

  That thought surprised Asha. Was she remembering that right? Had she been drawn to the stories before the Old One corrupted her?

  “You came dangerously close to the shelf I hid behind. And I knew if you looked, you’d be able to see me through the space above the scrolls.”

  Asha thought backward, trying to remember a skral boy in the library that day.

  “I didn’t move.” The reflected light from the pool danced across his face. “I . . . wanted you to see me.”

  “But I didn’t,” she whispered.

  Asha felt suddenly exposed. Like when she stripped off her armor with a dragon lurking nearby. She turned quickly away from the skral, moving toward that same dragon now.

  “Iskari.”

  She stopped but didn’t look back.

  “The day I found you in the sickroom, I knew things were about to change. And before they did”—he paused—“I needed you to see me. Just once.”

  When Asha turned, there was no longer any steel in his eyes.

  He lowered his gaze, as if suddenly shy, then gestured to the dragon. “Come on. I’ll help you tend him.”

  Twenty-Three

  Asha told the first story to lure the dragon to her. She told the second to keep the dragon calm as she cleaned the tear in his wing, and then the third as the slave stitched up the tear. As each story emptied out of her, the dragon filled her up with new ones. And each time, with Asha’s help, the creature’s stories were stronger. Less fragmented and clearer.

  “Good boy,” she said when they finished, scratching his chin.

  The slave—who’d been humming a half-finished song while he worked—looked up at them and smiled.

  When the wing was mended and they flew Asha back to the clearing, the sun was well on its way to setting.

  Asha fetched the lute case from where she’d dropped it in the trees.

  “There’s just one thing,” she said, handing over the case.

  “Oh?” he said, taking it.

  “You can’t name him Redwing.”

  He crouched down to unbuckle the case. “Do you have a better suggestion?”

  “I do, actually.”

  He stopped unbuckling to look up at her.

  “Shadow is better.”

  “Shadow.” He paused to consider it, t
hen looked at the dragon stretching in the sunlight. “Shadow is . . . acceptable.”

  His eyes crinkled as he smiled. But when he pushed back the lid of the case, the smile slid away.

  He stared at the lute, but didn’t reach for it.

  “This isn’t mine,” he said. His voice sounded strange. Cracked at the edges.

  “I know,” said Asha. “I bought it this morning to replace your other one.”

  “Replace my other one? What happened to—”

  “I burned it.”

  “You . . .” Very slowly, he rose to his feet. “You . . . what?”

  Asha raised her palms. “Jarek found the room you were hiding in, so I did the only thing I could think of: I burned the scrolls, the cot, the lute. All of it.”

  He grabbed her wrist, startling her. His eyes were a storm as he said, “Do you realize how heartless you are?”

  The words scorched her. They shouldn’t have, because of course she knew. She was worse than heartless. Her heart was a withered husk.

  She could have easily slammed her elbow down on his forearm, forcing his fingers to release her. But she didn’t. She wanted him to believe her. “I was trying to protect you.”

  “You were protecting yourself,” he said. And then, like she was a monster he could no longer bear to touch, he let go, turning away, running his hands roughly through his hair. “Greta gave me that lute.”

  The image of the gray-haired slave flashed in Asha’s mind.

  “She was the closest thing I had to a mother. And now she’s gone, along with the only thing I had to remember her by.”

  Asha felt herself unravel. As if she were a carpet or a tapestry, and his words were claws tearing out all her threads.

  “I didn’t . . .”

  “And you don’t care, do you? It’s why you won’t speak the name of any slave. It’s the same reason you didn’t want to name that dragon.” He stepped toward her, closer than ever. “If you name us, you might start to care. And if you care, you might not be able to kill us when it suits you.”

  Gone was the slave who hummed songs while he worked. In his place stood a stranger. An enemy. A part of her said to be afraid. But another part said: Look at the way his hands shake. Look at the ghosts in his eyes. Asha had lost her mother, but he’d lost so much more than that. And she’d just destroyed what was probably his most precious possession. Likely his only possession.

  Her chest felt like someone had sunk an axe into it.

  She didn’t realize what she was doing, or that she was doing it, until it was done. All she knew was, just like he’d bandaged her burn and stitched up her side, she wanted to dress this wound. She wanted to soothe this hurt.

  Pressing her scarred palm to his chest, Asha broke her own rule.

  “Torwin.”

  His lips parted. He stared at her mouth as if he didn’t understand. As if she’d spoken another language entirely.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Very slowly, his fingers rose to touch her hand, checking to see if it was really there, really pressed against his chest.

  She looked to the new lute, still in its case. “I’ll get it out of your sight.”

  Her hand fell away from him.

  “No.” He caught her wrist, stopping her. They both went still as his thumb trailed a circle around the bump of her wrist bone. “That wasn’t fair of me. You didn’t know.”

  She stared up at him in the disappearing sunlight.

  He dropped his hand to his side.

  “You’re not heartless,” he said, staring into her eyes. “I hate myself for saying that.”

  Asha looked away. “I should go.”

  She gathered up her armor and buckled it on. After sheathing her slayers across her back, she reached for her axe, lying in the grass. Instead of putting it in her belt, though, she turned around.

  “If they find you,” she said, holding the axe out to him, “don’t think. Just strike.”

  He took the jeweled handle, his fingers brushing against hers.

  Before making her way into the trees, she stopped, pausing in the spot where the sunlight ended and the darkness of the canopy began, still warm from where he’d touched her.

  “Torwin?” she said, not daring to look back.

  “Yes?”

  “You could call me Asha. If you wanted to.”

  Twenty-Four

  A pair of soldats walked the street below. Asha held her breath and waited for them to turn the corner before jumping. Her boots landed with a soft thud, raising dust.

  She avoided the main streets. When Asha heard footsteps or felt eyes in the darkness, she backtracked. The longer she could go without being seen, the better.

  Getting up onto the palace roof was more difficult than getting down off it. But if Asha managed it as a child, she could certainly manage it now. She found the lowest wall and hoisted herself up and over. She ran across rooftops, past slaves rolling couscous and bringing in laundry, past the butcher preparing for his evening slaughter. No one saw her.

  She went to her room, where yet another silver-lidded box sat waiting. Jarek’s gifts were starting to pile up: a kaftan, a ruby-studded necklace, and now a bolt of bright red sabra silk. She pushed them into a corner and got what she needed: a lantern made of copper, inset with colored glass. She unbuckled her slayers from her back and hid them under the bed, tucking them up into the frame, then stripped off the armor that made her immediately recognizable. She didn’t need these things to kill Kozu. All she needed was her fireskin and her axe—which was presently in the slave’s care.

  No. Not the slave.

  Torwin.

  Asha unbraided her hair, donned her plainest mantle, and went to the window. With the lantern gripped tight in her fist, she waited. Watching the horizon.

  The red moon rose.

  Two more days until my wedding.

  The sky turned from blue to purple.

  Two more days to hunt down Kozu.

  The sun set over the Rift, and as it did . . .

  The screams began. Soldats shouted: Dragon in the city!

  If she hadn’t been so nervous, Asha might have smiled.

  Torwin had impeccable timing.

  A dragon in the city meant all the soldats would abandon their posts and, once the king was safe, head for the rooftops or the streets.

  With the hood of her mantle flipped up, cloaking her face in shadow, Asha moved quickly through the chaos of running soldats.

  As the archway of the throne room came into view, the hallways quieted. In the distance, Asha could hear the screams in the street, the shout of soldats keeping order; but here, deep in the palace, all was quiet.

  As she stepped into the throne room, Asha’s palms were sweaty and her grip on the lantern handle was slick.

  She moved swiftly toward the pedestal, her footsteps echoing loudly through the empty chamber. Peering down into the iron basin, she found the white flame burning silently. Mysteriously.

  As a child, the wonder of it had mesmerized her. But no wonder filled her now. Only fear.

  Asha unhooked the latch of her lantern. Sweat beaded on her temples and dripped down her back. She had no idea how Elorma brought the flame from the desert all the way to the city, but the lantern was all she had. She hoped it would be enough.

  Asha reached into the shallow basin. Her hand closed around something smooth and heavy as a stone. The moment she touched the heart of the flame, it seared her—not her skin, though. Something far deeper. Perhaps her soul.

  A thousand whispering voices rose in her mind, each one telling a sacred story. As if the voices of all the raconteurs from the beginning of time dwelled within.

  Asha shoved the flame inside her lantern and locked it back up.

  The voices went silent.

  “You there!”

  Asha spun, her heart skittering.

  In the archway, a single soldat stood staring at her. Young. Maybe Dax’s age. His hand was on his hilt, but his morion was miss
ing. It had probably fallen in the chaos.

  “What do you think you’re . . . ?” He looked from the brightly lit lantern in her hand to the empty basin behind her. Realizing what she’d just done, he drew his saber.

  Asha reached for an axe that wasn’t there and winced.

  “Put it back, thief.”

  He stepped through the archway, his brow furrowed, his blade pointed at her chest.

  Asha had two choices: bolt and risk getting run through, or push back her hood and hope his fear of the Iskari would override all other sense. She was about to choose the latter when her brother entered the room.

  “Well, this is interesting.”

  “My lord,” said the soldat, who hadn’t recognized Asha yet. “She’s stolen the flame.”

  When she didn’t move, Dax held out his hand. “Give me your sword. I’ll hold the thief here, you get help.”

  The soldat nodded. Asha watched the young man run, shouting the alarm. Telling the entire palace about the thief in the throne room.

  The moment he left, Dax lowered the blade.

  “I don’t know what you’re doing, little sister”—he glanced over his shoulder—“but you’d better scurry.”

  Asha’s eyes pricked with tears of relief.

  “Go!”

  Nodding, she ran past him, hiding the lantern in the folds of her mantle, snuffing out its unnatural glow.

  As soon as she could turn the corner, she did. As soon as she could start to run without drawing attention, she ran. And as soon as there was an arching glassless window, she climbed out of it and onto the roof.

  Which was when shouts of alarm rose up behind her.

  The thief had been spotted.

  Twenty-Five

  Asha ran.

  She ran across twilight-soaked rooftops and scrambled over plaster walls. She ran through crowded alleys and across chaotic squares.

  But the sky was empty now. No dragon soared. Torwin had moved on to the second part of their plan. She needed to meet him at the temple.

  She ducked into doorways and shop fronts when one or more soldats came into view. She stayed there until they passed, listened to them describe the cloaked thief from the palace.