by Lilly Pink
All of us go through this same process, but normally at a much younger age. The initial transformation takes no longer than an hour. Learning to fly is another matter, but I will be here to help you, and this extreme height gives us an advantage.”
He was so nonchalant about the whole thing. Zoe knew there was no point in saying that he sounded insane, but she couldn’t deny that she was excited about the idea. “All right, so what do I do first?”
They sat on the ground cross-legged, facing each other. Kian held her fingers loosely in his own. “Close your eyes, my heart, and listen to your breath. Feel it moving in your chest, and listen to your heart beating. There is a rhythm to it, in and out, breath and blood, and if you attend to it, you can control it.
Let your breath come slow and deep. Each time you breathe out, tension leaves you, your worries, fears, and doubts float away, and when you breathe in, only peace enters.” Zoe had meditated before, but had never been quite so successful. Whether it was the measured cadence of Kian’s voice or something about the way he phrased things, she soon felt like she was nothing but a floating point of consciousness on a sea of tranquility.
“Your heart beats within you,”he continued, “steady and certain, but within it hides a fire. Listen to the sound of your heart until it is all you can hear. Feel each pulse of your blood against your skin, and let all your thought and beating center on your heart. This is the seat of your being, the nexus of your power and all that is you. It is not a heart but an egg, holding your other self within it. Imagine now that with each beat of your heart, cracks form on the shell of this egg, releasing some of the searing heat that is your inner fire.”
Zoe could almost see it, a shining pearlescent oval within her. Each heartbeat sounded like the strike of a giant’s hammer, and the cracks that formed on the egg’s surface glowed with incandescent light. “I will count down from ten,” came Kian’s voice, “And as I do, the egg will break open, and your dragon spirit will emerge. Embrace her, for she and you are one being.” She heard him counting, but in her mind another voice was saying something else, a poem or a chant. A spell.
“Ten.” Now you seek your other self.
“Nine.” Granted in a time of need.
“Eight.” Let body of earth and sea dissolve.
“Seven.” So form of fire and air is freed.
“Six.” As every object has a shadow.
“Five.” As every morning has a night.
“Four.” So your soul conceals a dragon.
“Three.” Call upon it as your right.
“Two.” Let wings burst forth from fiery heart. Let scales protect from wound and dart.
“One.” Tooth and claw and flame and horn. Now let the dragon-kin be born!
Zoe had felt something building as the voice within her chanted, a pressure in her bones that bordered on the painful. Her nerves buzzed with energy, her blood tingled, and the sensations only increased in intensity as the chant continued, louder and louder, until as Kian spoke the last number and her inner voice shouted in triumph, she cracked open in an explosion of light.
She opened her eyes. Everything looked strange, and felt strange. “Am I dead?” she tried to say, but her mouth didn’t move. The words just echoed in the air.
“No,” said a familiar voice, much smaller and quieter than she remembered. There was Kian, below her now, tiny and doll-like to her eyes. “You are changed. Even lovelier as a dragon than I could have imagined.”
She looked down at herself and saw iridescent white scales, sparkling with fractured rainbows as if they were made of opals. “I’m a dragon,” she said in hushed tone. “I’m a dragon!” she repeated, more excitedly, and her wings beat at the air, almost knocking Kian over.
He laughed while ducking her thrashing tail. “Be still, my heart. You must be cautious while getting used to this body. I will change into a sturdier form so that you do not accidentally dash me against the mountainside.”
Zoe held her breath, making herself as small and motionless as she could. A globe of light surrounded Kian. It pulsed, expanded, and then melted away with a flash, revealing the same dragon with midnight blue scales that had met her at the park. Only last night. It seemed like a lifetime ago, already.
In the daylight, he was even more striking, his scales shining in every shade of indigo and violet, and even some aqua, teal, and emerald on his limbs. They were nearly the same size now, but Zoe could see, craning her head around to examine herself more carefully, that she had a more stocky western build, and her wings were made of shining gold and copper feathers, in contrast to the leathery silver wings that Kian had.
“You’re not so bad-looking yourself. For a dragon,” she said teasingly, trying to nuzzle his cheek and ending up bumping heads clumsily. She growled in irritation and sat heavily on her hindquarters. “Sorry. I’m apparently a menace in this body.”
“Everyone is a menace when they first awaken their dragon form,” Kian replied with a rumble of laughter. “Only, since they are children, they are usually much smaller. Just take things slow and gentle. You are much bigger than you used to be, and with increased mass comes increased momentum.”
“I love it when you talk like a science nerd,” Zoe said with a sultry giggle, earning her a confused look from Kian.
“Before we attempt actual flight, let us practice wing flapping, so you can get a sense of how they move.’
***
It was perhaps an hour later when Kian finally pronounced himself satisfied enough with her grasp of the basics of flight that he was ready to try it in earnest. “Watch me once more, and then follow. I promise I will not let you fall,” he said, nuzzling her cheek in a reassuring manner before crouching on the edge of the balcony. He spread his wings wide, stretching the joints and flapping once or twice, and then dove headfirst from the balcony.
The takeoff was terrifying to watch, even though Zoe had seen him do it several times before. He dove straight down, limbs tucked close to his body and wings spread wide. The idea was to angle your wings slowly into the wind, letting gravity give you speed that would otherwise be dearly bought. Once your wings were parallel to the ground, it would take little energy to trade that speed for altitude. With any luck, she would not have to flap her wings until it was time to land; dragon flight was all about soaring.
Kian zoomed out of the dive and shot upward with plenty of room to spare. As he had said, it wasn’t just for defensibility that his house was built on top of a mountain. He made lazy circles above her, and she knew it was her turn. Zoe took a deep dive and went to the ledge, her claws clicking on the stone. She unfurled her wings as far as they could go and flapped them hard enough to raise the dust from the ground. Everything was in working order, no reason to delay. She closed her eyes and leaped, out and down like she was going off a diving board.
A shrieking roar followed her down, echoing off the surrounding mountains. “Do not panic,” Kian said from above, his mental voice as clear as if he had been speaking in her ear. “Angle your wings slowly upward. You will feel them catch the wind.” His calm instructions soothed her, and she realized she had half folded her wings in her fear.
As she spread them again, feathers fanning outward, she could feel the air pushing against her body, lifting her wings up, and when she let her body follow naturally, she found herself cruising along in level flight at a terrifying speed. “Well done, jãné del-am,” Kian said from high above. “Come and join me, and we will be off.”
Flying really was easy once Zoe stopped trying to overthink it and let her body do what came naturally. Soon, they were out of the mountains, gliding over forests and rolling hills at an easy pace. Zoe was amazed by how sharp her distance vision had become, she could easily see enough details of the village below them to know that it had been abandoned for many years. In fact, there had been no sign of other people, dragon or human, in the two or three hours that they had been flying.
“Is there a reason this area in so uninh
abited?” she asked Kian, flapping to catch up with him after her slight sight-seeing detour. “Was there a war, or sickness, or something? Or do you just have a reputation for being grumpy?”
He snorted. “I do not know about grumpy, but I am considered rather odd in my preference for solitude. However, that is not why this area is empty. There are very few of us, the Kumari, left alive, likely no more than a hundred individuals. Most live at the old Palace full time, to conserve resources.”
“But that’s terrible. Why are there so few of you?”
“The world is dying. There have been no children. I was somewhat of a miracle, considering the health and age of my parents. My mother died birthing me.” He sighed, and Zoe wished she could give him more comfort than words. No wonder he had been so excited and surprised by her pregnancy. “Over a century has passed since then. I was the last, until now.”
That was certainly something to think about, and it occupied Zoe all the rest of the journey until, in the late afternoon, she could see a tower in the distance, so tall it nearly pierced the sky. She wasn’t surprised when Kian told her that this was the palace, Darisam Eunir. They circled around it, descending in a lazy spiral, and she could hear bells ringing, either in celebration or in warning, she couldn’t be sure. Do they greet everyone like this? she wondered.
Landing, she’d been told, was the hard part, so she was happy to let Kian go first. He dove under an archway, angling his body backward and then beating his wings furiously to stall his descent so that when he finally folded them against his sides, he dropped to the ground with a click of his claws. That doesn’t look so hard.
She too dove into the archway, but realized how perfectly she would have to time every part of her descent as she nearly collided with the far wall. She began to flap around in a panic, and her cynical inner voice congratulated her on the excellent impression she was doing of a sparrow accidentally trapped in a garage.
Be calm, my heart, Kian’s voice echoed inside her head. Cast your wings aside, just as if you were discarding a heavy cloak. Zoe could feel herself being supported by something, a soothing pressure all around her, and it was enough to assuage her fear. With a sigh, she let her dragon form fade away and then fell slowly into Kian’s arms. “We will have to work on your landings,” he said softly, smiling to ease the sting. He set her on her feet, keeping a protective arm around her shoulder as several others approached.
The leader of this group was an older man robed in scarlet. “Your Majesty,” he said, sinking to one knee with head bowed. “We are so pleased that you have returned. I presume this means you were successful? You have brought your mate back from the Dreaming?”
“Your Majesty?” she hissed, glaring at Kian. “Do you think you might have mentioned that before?”
He winced, his cheeks actually reddening. “I did not think it mattered. King is hardly an impressive title when the whole of your subjects can fit into a modest sized room.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“His Majesty has never been particularly serious about his position,” the old man said with a long-suffering sigh. “But it remains important to the few of us that remain.”
“it is an important legacy with millennia of history and tradition, so I’ve heard,” Kian replied with a grimace. “Faizel is our historian and record-keeper. He also maintains the palace library.”
“Master Archivist is the proper title, my lady,” Faizel intoned. “And what shall we call you?”
“My name is Zoe,” she said, extending her hand to shake and then being embarrassed when the archivist kissed it instead. She took her hand back a bit more quickly than was perhaps necessary.
“I am surprised to hear you claim no other formal title,” he replied, leveling a pointed glance in Kian’s direction.
“She only just arrived this morning,” he said, his cheeks red again. “We have not had the opportunity to discuss those sorts of… arrangements.” He cleared his throat as he squeezed her shoulder tightly. Zoe realized that this was a tactful way of inquiring about the status of their relationship. It was probably assumed they would marry, if only for the sake of their child. The very idea made her heart race and her face feel hot. “It is not as if Zoe requires a title. I hope that simply the fact that she is important to me, as well as general politeness, would cause you to treat her with respect,” he said with a raised eyebrow.
“Of course, Your Highness. I was only curious how she should be addressed,” Faizel said with a bow of his head.
“Lady Zoe will be sufficient, I expect,” Kian said, turning to the small crowd of people who were now gathered around them. “I should introduce you to some of the others,” he said in Zoe’s ear, beckoning a woman forward who appeared to be in her mid-thirties. She was olive-skinned, much like Faizel, with thick dark hair.
She inclined her head to the two of them, but left off any ridiculous bowing, which seemed to be a relief to Kian. “I am pleased to meet you, Zoe. I am called Darya, and I serve as the Oracle for the palace.”
“An Oracle?” Zoe asked with no small bit of amazement. “Meaning you can see the future?”
“Sometimes. More often, I employ my skills to see things in the present which would otherwise be hidden, and I help other to interpret omens they have received. The future is not immutable, but is a sea of probability based on our choices. Predicting it can be problematic,” Darya said with a soft smile.
“Darya has offered to teach you magic, if you wish,” Kian said. “She is a bit more patient than I.”
“And less boring,” the seer said with a chuckle. “Forgive me for saying so, Highness, but your explanations do tend to wander.”
Kian frowned in annoyance, but it was clearly an old joke. Darya moved aside so that two men could step forward. They didn’t look much older than Kian, and were so alike they could almost be twins, both dark-skinned with sharp yellow eyes and black hair sheared short. “This is Zhubin, the Captain of the Guard, such as it is, and his brother Shahin, who leads the scouts and hunters.”
“We are honored to serve you, my lady,” said the one on the left, who was slightly taller. He had a voice so deep that Zoe imagined she could feel it vibrating through her feet.
“I didn’t think he’d really do it. Bring you here after all this time, and now I owe Ameretat twenty silvers,” said the other cheerfully. Zoe laughed out loud, when the first brother elbowed the second, and then another woman pushed past the both of them.
“Shahin, you never know when to keep your mouth shut,” she groused, pointing at Kian who was scowling with his arms crossed.
“Ah, right, you know, I think I need to go feed the falcons,” Shahin said nervously, backing up and scooting out of Zoe’s line of sight.
Kian mumbled something about seeing where his smart mouth was on the practice field later, and then indicated the newcomer. “This is who I have most wanted you to meet. Ameretat is the foremost of our healers. I hope you two will get along.”
Zoe swallowed, wondering if the two of them had some sort of previous relationship. Ameretat was beautiful. Her eyes were a striking shade of sky blue, and not only was she much fairer of skin than most of the Kumari that Zoe had seen, but her hair was long, silky, and silver-white. She would stand out in any crowd, and standing next to her, Zoe felt rather plain and boring.
“Kian, you really are completely socially incompetent,” Ameretat said with a roll of her eyes. “Now she thinks I’m some ex-lover that she has to compete with.” He started to stammer adorably, his eyes wide with horror, and she held up her hand. “Let me handle this. Go read a book or something,” she said with a sigh. Zoe couldn’t help but like her.
Ameretat turned back to her, looking her up and down appraisingly before smiling and holding out her hand to shake, which Zoe did, relieved that there wasn’t going to be bowing or kissing. “I know he probably hasn’t told you anything useful, but I promise you have nothing to worry about. Kian is my cousin, and my mom adopted him after his dad died.
So he’s like my little brother. I think he hopes I’ll help you learn to deal with his infuriating behavior.”
Zoe laughed again, glad to meet someone who was a bit less formal and stilted. Ameretat reminded her of some of her friends back home. “He might have told me some things, but unfortunately, I don’t remember any of it.”
“If I know him, he did nothing but wax poetic about your beauty,” the healer said with a wry grin. “That’s certainly all the information most of us got about you, and he couldn’t figure out why no one believed you were real. I had to practically bring out the torture implements to find out anything useful. Anyway, I think I’m supposed to be examining your health, so if you’ll follow me, we can get that started.”
Zoe glanced back at Kian, who squeezed her hand and nodded while listening to Faizel with a bored expression. “He’ll join us in a minute,” Ameretat said quietly, offering her elbow. “As much as he tries to downplay his position, Kian is a good ruler, and the people rely on his leadership. He’s been gone for several weeks going after you, so of course there are about a thousand things that need his personal attention,” she said as they walked down a wide marble hallway.
The palace was a bit brighter and airier than Zoe might have expected, just from what photos and imagination told her to expect from a palace, but it was still clearly both ancient and luxurious. It was practically empty of people, but it was almost crowded with decorations. Probably everything they’d managed to save of their history was kept here, since everyone lived in the palace at that time. Like a combination hotel and museum.
Ameretat led them confidently through a series of corridors and up several flights of stairs before guiding Zoe through a curtained archway into a suite of simply decorated rooms all painted in very pale, calming, colors. It looks a bit like a really comfortable hospital, so I suppose this is the… what? Infirmary?