by Resa Nelson
"Duty?” Astrid frowned, remembering Temple the blacksmith. He'd refused to make the scars vanish from her skin when she was little, even though he had the power to do so. He'd taught her that she must avoid changing the appearance of others with her opinion of them. He'd taught her that no one had the right to change her except herself. It was what she'd learned living in Guell. It was how she'd lived in Guell, and she'd been happy there.
But here...no one in her clan took the slightest effort to keep their own appearance, much less respect the appearance of others.
"How can you demand my duty?" Astrid said.
"I'm not the one who ate you up. Blame the dragon, not me."
"You're the one who gave me to the dragon," Astrid said. She pointed to the cage. "You're the one who put me in there with it. The one who left me to die."
If Astrid didn't know better, she'd swear her brother looked at her with envy.
"You still don't understand," Drageen said. "It couldn't be me to be given to the dragon. My destiny is to lead this clan. There's no guarantee any Scalding can survive the dragon's bite. Luckily, you did. That makes you our savior."
"If you had asked, I would have done what I could," Astrid said. "You didn't have to destroy Guell."
The expression drained from Drageen's face. He flushed, as if ashamed. "The alchemist must use the ashes of your former life. The power in the ashes is born from destruction. It was necessary."
"Why?"
Drageen hesitated before he spoke. "Do you know of a place called Limru?"
Astrid nodded. Anyone who'd talked to traveling merchants had heard the rumors. "It's a sacred place. A temple of trees, somewhere in the south."
"It was," Drageen said. "It's been destroyed by a king who claims a new god. His armies sweep the south and slaughter everyone in his path."
Astrid paled. The south lands were home to nomadic tribes with ties to tree spirits. Everyone knew tree spirits were messengers to the gods of the land and sea and air and fire. Like Temple, Astrid never thought much about the gods, and she often questioned their existence. On a difficult day in the smithery, she'd sometimes utter a few brief words to ask help from the fire god, but always as a last resort.
At the same time, she knew enough to speak of Limru with reverence. She'd heard stories of tribes hanging ritual offerings of silver and gold on the trees of Limru. Once offered, no offering had ever been stolen.
Not until now.
"Limru destroyed?" Astrid said. "And plundered?"
Drageen nodded. "I always believed I'd need your bloodstones to fight dragons, but now we face a greater danger. I need your bloodstones to protect the clan, and it will take time to harvest them. Now is the time to prepare."
Dismayed, Astrid said, "If I have bloodstones, I'll give them to you. All you ever had to do was ask."
"You don't understand what causes bloodstones to be released from your body," Drageen said. "If it were as easy as your giving them to me, I would have asked."
Astrid noticed the alchemist flinch. "What releases them?" Astrid said.
"Chaos.” He took Astrid's hand, walking her toward the cage.
Astrid bolted, but the Scaldings caught her before she could reach the stairway. They gave her back to Drageen.
He unlocked the cage door and pushed Astrid inside.
Astrid skidded onto her hands and knees, scraping them bloody against the rough stone floor.
Drageen followed her into the cage. "Legend says bloodstones will creep out through your body one by one. Chaos is the catalyst that loosens them."
Astrid noticed she wasn't alone in the cage.
She saw a dark crumpled heap in a far corner, several yards away. By instinct, Astrid's nostrils flared, and she took a sharp breath in.
Like so many times in the past, Astrid thought she smelled dragon in the air.
The heap moved. It breathed.
It was alive.
Astrid stood, backing away, backing toward the cage door.
The crumpled heap looked up.
It was a woman, Astrid's age. Naked and dirty, covered only by her long, black hair. Her eyes were wild and untamed.
Astrid felt confused. Why did she smell dragon when there were none here?
Drageen called out to the Scaldings outside the cage. "There's a body in the hallway. Bring it here."
A cousin obeyed, hopping up from the table and disappearing into the tower.
Drageen hesitated, his face relaxing in genuine surprise. Turning back to Astrid, he said, "You don't remember her?"
The words spilled out of Astrid before she could think. "I remember everything."
"Then you remember the dragon that chewed you up and spit you out."
Astrid remembered. It had been a young dragon.
Astrid had never seen this woman before in her life.
Minutes later, the cousin emerged from the tower, Mauri's lifeless body slung over his shoulder.
Drageen pointed to one side of the iron cage.
The cousin nodded, understanding. Shackles and chains hung from the cage bars. Keeping his gaze on the huddled, naked woman, the cousin shackled Mauri's body so it hung outside the cage. Once he’d secured the body in place, the cousin ran back to the safety of the banquet table where all the Scaldings watched.
The naked woman crawled across the stone floor, oblivious to the way it scraped her skin. She sniffed Mauri's body hungrily.
Wind rushed through the cage.
Astrid looked up through the iron bars above. The carrion birds circled overhead, growing steadily in number.
The woman chewed delicately at Mauri's ankle for a few moments, only to spit the taste out of her mouth, pawing at it with curled hands.
Hanging from one of the cage's overhead bars was a simple iron frame. It looked like the outline of an adult body. Astrid recognized every piece of iron making up the frame. She knew the handiwork of Randim's blacksmiths.
Drageen released a chain, and the device dropped from high above, dangling from that chain.
Astrid ran toward the cage door, but Drageen dug his fingers into her wrists, wrenching her toward the iron contraption. One by one, he raised her wrists high against the iron bar, clamping a shackle shut to lock each wrist against the bar. She wrenched and struggled but couldn't free herself from his grasp.
Already, Astrid felt the pain of her body's weight pulling away from her arms. She tried to pull free, but the iron bar above her head kept her wrists locked in place.
Drageen pushed Astrid into the iron frame, first stuffing her head inside the frame, then her shoulders. He locked a hinged iron bar around her waist, locking her inside the frame. He crammed her legs inside, shoving her feet on top of a bar at the bottom. While relieved to have something to support her weight and prevent her arms from popping out of their sockets, Astrid struggled to keep her balance, as the bottom of the iron frame hung a few inches above the stone floor.
It was a new trap, far worse than any contraption they'd used when she was a girl. The frame bit into her skin, and the iron bar around her waist squeezed too tight, pressing hard into her body, just below her ribs.
But what shocked her the most was seeing the tears in her brother's eyes as he walked out of the iron cage, locking the door behind him.
The woman sniffed the air. She turned to face Astrid.
A carrion bird swooped down; slashing its talons through Mauri's body. It flew up to perch on top of the cage.
Some of the Scaldings gasped and turned away. Others applauded, eager for more.
The woman sat up on her haunches, her dark hair cascading over her shoulders. She stared at Astrid.
Another carrion bird swooped down, plunging its talons into Mauri's torso, beating its wings until it ripped her from the shackles, letting her body fall to the floor.
One Scalding screamed with delight as carrion birds wrenched bones from Mauri's body, flying high above, dropping them to break on the stone floor, but the bones were too fr
esh and wet to shatter. The birds dove, picking up the same bones, flying high, and dropping them again and again.
The naked woman sniffed the air. She glared at Astrid, her eyes full of hate. "Scalding!" the woman hissed.
The woman crawled toward Astrid, as Mauri's bones rained outside the cage.
CHAPTER 23
"Let her go!" a familiar voice shouted.
The naked woman paused, her nostrils flaring.
Another woman emerged from the entrance to the tower. She stood tall, cocking her head high. But instead of a dress, she wore a man's shirt and trousers.
They looked like Trep's clothes.
And she looked like Mauri.
That can't be Mauri. Mauri's dead.
Panic stricken, the Scaldings scattered.
Astrid stared at the body on the cold stone floor outside the cage. Torn and bloody, it still looked like Mauri.
Astrid looked back at the woman confronting them all.
Was this Mauri's ghost?
The air was thick with carrion birds, still retrieving bones, flying high, and dropping them again, determined to shatter them.
The naked woman paused, sniffing the air hard and fast. She ran to the side of the cage where Mauri's shackles still hung. She keened like an ocean bird.
Appearing drawn and strained, Drageen stood his ground. "Fall away, Death Shadow," he said to Mauri's ghost, his voice trembling. "Your evil spirit isn't welcome here."
Mauri's smile was small and strange. "I see many things you do not," she said.
The naked woman kept keening, fluttering near the iron bars.
Drageen's voice trembled. "Accept the fate the gods dealt to you, Death Shadow."
Mauri took a few determined steps toward Drageen. "My fate? You had your alchemist murder me."
Murder! The vial for Mauri's sneeze—it must have been poison!
"Why?" Mauri said. "Because I served my purpose?"
Drageen swallowed hard. "You were unprotected. Fate protects the unprotected, but only when their courage is strong. You had no courage. You had no strength."
Mauri's smile widened. "But isn't strength a gift of Fate?"
Mauri's ghost reminded Astrid of Taddeo. It was the way the ghost held herself, the way she smiled.
"Fate does as it pleases," Drageen said.
Mauri stepped up to the banquet table and picked up a dagger. She pointed it at Drageen. "You do as you please, with no thought for anyone or anything else. Do you have the arrogance to imagine you are one of the gods?"
This wasn't the first time someone had reminded Astrid of Taddeo. It happened before, at Randim's blacksmithing camp, just as they were leaving for Tower Island. But then, it had been Trep who'd made Astrid think of Taddeo.
Mauri threw the dagger with a yell of "Aiy yah!"
Drageen dodged, and the blade buried itself in his upper arm, not his chest. He pointed toward the doorway to the tower, calling out to the Scaldings. "Get the alchemist!"
The cousin who'd retrieved Mauri's dead body and chained it outside the iron cage dashed into the tower.
Mauri searched among the platters on the banquet table until she found another dagger.
With a determined, guttural cry, Drageen pulled the dagger from his arm, wielding it. "Evil spirit, Death Shadow, ethereal being," he shouted. "Leave our home. You're welcome here no more."
Mauri pointed toward the iron cage. "Open it."
Drageen ignored her.
Mauri threw the second dagger and vaulted over the banquet table as Drageen ducked out of the line of fire.
Mauri raised her arms, beating them like the wings of the carrion birds. She bared her teeth, hissing at every Scalding in sight.
The Scaldings trampled each other as they ran into the tower.
Drageen stayed his position, reaching down to pick the second dagger off the stone floor, now wielding a dagger in each hand.
Mauri walked among the carrion birds, turning her back on Drageen.
Drageen raised one hand, aiming at Mauri's back.
Suddenly, she disappeared among the carrion birds.
Inside the cage, the naked woman's keens grew louder and shriller.
Mauri's dead body was little more than a crumpled heap of gore and blood. A throng of carrion birds picked the last bones out.
Drageen turned, looking across the tower floor.
Mauri's ghost had disappeared.
A carrion bird slipped its wings between two iron bars of the cage. The bird pushed against the bars, widening them. The bird shouted, "Aiy yah!"
The bird changed. Its feathers became skin. Its beak became a nose. The bird changed into—
"Taddeo," Astrid said in wonder.
"Slaughter Demon!” Drageen cried out, flinging each dagger in succession at Taddeo.
But too many carrion birds flew between them, their wings deflecting the knives.
Taddeo pushed the bars far enough apart to escape. His hands blazed bright red and steam rose from them.
Iron.
Astrid remembered what Drageen had told her.
Iron repels dragons. It burns them.
And Taddeo had always worn leather gloves to handle the Magenta.
Tears welled in Taddeo's eyes, squinting with pain. He reached through the opening and called out, "Norah!"
The naked woman keened one last cry. She took his hand, letting him pull her out of the cage.
Astrid stared at the iron bars that Taddeo had bent open. Finally, she saw a way out of the bad place. All she had to do was walk through it.
But first she had to escape from the iron frame into which she’d been locked.
"Taddeo!" Astrid cried. "Help me!"
Taddeo held Norah close. He said, "Help yourself!"
All the Scaldings had escaped into the tower. Only Drageen remained, and he now crawled on top of the banquet table, searching for more weapons.
Picking Norah up in his arms, Taddeo ran to the opposite side of the tower floor, away from Drageen.
Astrid wanted to feel the same way she'd felt the day a dragon had burst into her smithery. The day she'd returned to herself from the way Taddeo had changed her.
Astrid's true appearance—her Scalding body—had emerged when she'd felt helpless in the alchemist's sphere.
Feeling the cold iron squeeze against her skin, Astrid realized she had no reason to be afraid of the metal.
She was a blacksmith.
I love iron. I work with iron.
She imagined herself fluid. She closed her eyes, feeling liquid against the cold, hard metal. She let her love of it melt her heart and bones and muscles. Keeping her eyes squeezed shut, Astrid imagined herself—felt herself—slipping through the iron contraption.
With a thump, Astrid fell to the stone floor.
Free!
She glanced up at the iron frame, still hanging above her. It stood intact. Nothing had broken or changed or shifted.
She looked at her own body. Although she still looked like her Scalding self, skin covered with scars, she was intact.
She ran across the cage floor to the place where Taddeo had pressed the bars apart.
Astrid squeezed through the iron bars, covering her head while she ran through the rain of Mauri's bones from above.
Taddeo stood atop the jagged enclosing wall, Norah still in his arms.
"Taddeo!" Astrid shouted.
The wind ripped through his hair and clothes as Taddeo jumped with Norah, disappearing over the wall.
Astrid ran to the spot from which they'd leapt, looking over the edge to see them fall into the sea below.
"No!” Drageen cried, racing toward Astrid.
Astrid jumped off the high tower, plummeting toward the ocean below.
* * *
The fall took Astrid's breath away, as she stared at the ocean waves below, cool and clear and smoky blue.
Sea birds shrieked, startled, swooping away when Astrid fell past them.
Panic seized her, a
nd Astrid tried reaching out to the golden tower wall, racing past her, as if she could somehow stop the fall or at least slow it down. But the tower was too far away, just out of arm's reach.
She tried breathing, but the ocean air pressed hard and fast against her mouth and nose like someone holding a hand over her face, smothering her.
Staring down at the oncoming ocean surface, Astrid squinted at the strong sunlight reflecting hard off the water.
The icy water enveloped her, stinging hard against her skin, knocking what little air was left from her lungs when she plunged into the ocean. Momentum forced her down, deeper, deeper, making Astrid's ears nearly burst from the sudden pressure.
Sunlight streamed through the water, as if following her, lighting her path. It shimmered in soft darting shafts around her.
Looking up, Astrid saw a long, pale creature twice her size glide above, swimming up toward the ocean surface. It looked like a waving tail made of strips of seaweed.
Even higher, Astrid saw a fish as big as a ship skimming just below the ocean surface, fins splayed out to its sides.
Just when it seemed she should be slowing down, she dropped faster, plunging into a school of hundreds of hand-size fish, circling around Astrid and swimming down with her. It was as if each fish wore a skin of polished metal, a tiny suit of tiny metal scales. Even this deep, the streaming sunlight shone golden off the fish, like flashing metal, freshly polished.
All Astrid could see were the shining golden fish. Seeing nothing beyond or above or below them, Astrid felt dizzy, lost in the motion of the hundreds of fish encircling her.
The gold faded to black as Astrid lost consciousness.
CHAPTER 24
Drageen raced to the tower's edge, reaching out, hoping to catch Astrid's clothes, something—anything—to hold her back.
It was too late. He could only watch while Astrid splashed into the ocean below.
"Alchemist!” He sank to the stone floor, and stared at the iron cage, now bent and empty. Even the carrion birds had finished with Mauri's bones, finally broken. A few birds fluttered about, pecking among the shards, looking for a final bit of marrow.
He saw the alchemist crouched under the banquet table.
Everything was falling apart. The alchemist's good advice and good portents guided him after his father's death. The alchemist predicted Astrid's blood would produce what Drageen needed to lead and protect his kindred and the kindred home, Tower Island.