Dragon Soul

by Danielle Bennett

  A real girl at last, I thought. But I knew as well that this feeling, desert or no—woman or no—was a worldwide experience. An equalizer, one might call it.

  I was humiliating myself.

  “Contentment is quite a different thing from pleasure,” Kalim said, and without warning, without even so much as a handshake, he put his arms around my waist and kissed me upon the mouth.

  I fought it, of course. It was uncalled for and invasive and there were people everywhere. I could hear Airman Rook’s derisive snort, and a catcall that sounded distinctly like it’d come from Madoka. It certainly hadn’t come from Badger, thank bastion and all else. But Kalim’s arms were quite strong and sure. From this close the scent of him was overpowering, smelling more like the sun than the desert itself ever had. His shoulders were sweaty when I rested my hands against them, and taking that presumably as a sign of consent, he lifted me clean off my feet. Not exactly how every woman pictures her first kiss, but then I’d gone long beyond the stage of ever picturing anything of such a nature. Not even a dirty little orphan had dared to pull this manner of stunt on me. It was entirely a surprise, and it was entirely too much. What made it even more difficult was that I had no tongue at all—but if this lack of proper anatomy surprised Kalim, he gave no indication of it. The kiss was deep, as though I had everything it could require.

  “Put me down,” I said at once, when our lips parted. Our faces were still far too close, our bodies pressed together in a way that left very little to the imagination. Was he mad, I wondered? Perhaps there was a little madness in all the people of the desert—too much sun did much to desiccate the brain.

  Kalim complied, grinning like a jackal, and even when he’d set me back on my feet I didn’t feel as though I was properly on the ground.

  “Hate to fucking break up the party,” Rook snarled, though the bulk of his energy was clearly going to keeping himself upright, “but if we’re getting Madoka to whatever excuse this place has for a clinic, it oughta be sooner rather than later. You all can continue the freak show behind closed doors where nobody’s gotta look.”

  “Also, it might be a good idea to get out of the sun,” Thom added, ever the conciliator. “We’ve been standing in it probably much longer than is strictly healthy. I think I’m getting a headache, and some of us…Some of us are worse.”

  He put a hand against the dragonsoul in Rook’s arms. It was quite evident to me, if no one else, that Thom’s concern was not for himself.

  It was also evident that I was going to have to wrangle all these wild horses—converse in the language only I, apparently, knew; call for medical attention; keep an eye on the dragonsoul while Rook was being tended to; procure food for Badger and Madoka, to keep their strength up. Apparently a bath for myself was out of the question.

  I was by no means a caretaker. But neither was I the sort of woman who ran off into the desert following the whims of a strange man.

  At least, not the whims of this strange man.

  “Merely consider it,” Kalim said with a smile. “You are still young, and you have impressed my men with your skills at riding.”

  “Have I?” I replied. “Unfortunately, the desert does not suit me.”

  Kalim mounted up, with nothing more to say to me than that, and I shielded my eyes against the climbing sun.

  My skin had the propensity to freckle. No, I would not be living in the desert, ruining my complexion, living without running water, and without all the comforts that I had earned through cleverness and steady determination alike. I had not come all this way only to abandon everything that mattered as though it had meant nothing at all. What, then, would be my worth?

  “Perhaps I will come to you, then,” Kalim suggested. “I have always wished to open talks with the Volstov.”

  It felt as though the Cobalts in the distance were about to grow legs and move, all on their own. Then Kalim spurred his camel quickly into a trot, to follow his men out past Karakhum’s city walls, and did not turn to look behind him as he left.

  I had found something in the desert, something that I had not been looking for—something that I would have to keep for myself. However, I intended to write first thing to the Esar and tell him there were tribes in the desert disposed to friendly relations between our peoples.

  Or perhaps I would not.

  I had chosen to be restricted by Volstovic practice. This way, Kalim would never become entangled in the webs I made my living spinning. He could never be used as a bartering piece to get to me, and by extension the Esar. I could be very happy with that.

  ROOK

  It wasn’t the first time Thom’d sat vigil at my bedside while I was recuperating, whereas I’d never once stood over his. And I sure as bastion didn’t like the implications of that.

  Sure, it was just dumb beginner’s luck that I kept getting the short end of the stick jammed in my eye and he didn’t even get scratched, and that was the way it had to be, I guessed, since if Thom was the one in bed and I was the one sitting next to him, I’d’ve been long gone already. Not even a note on the table—just some money, and the assumption that he’d use it to drag his sorry ass home for good and keep himself out of trouble. He could read for the rest of his life, sit in some professor’s armchair, talk until his jaw fell off, and not get in anybody’s way. Especially not his own. No arguing about it, no questions asked. And the second any of his blood spilled while we were together, that was gonna be the way of it.

  He’d been dragged around for long enough.

  I slept for a while, getting my energy back and trying not to think about how much my ribs hurt, and I let the desert doctors look at me like a good little boy while Thom stayed out of the room and kept the dragonsoul hid good and proper. Couldn’t let anyone else see it, even the medics—my girl had this bad habit of attracting too much attention, good and bad—and I didn’t want anybody to see her when she looked like this. Everyone had a whole lot of advice for how I should and shouldn’t feel, what I should and shouldn’t do, and just what she was and wasn’t anymore, but in the end, only I knew the down-and-dirty truth of it.

  Which was: Havemercy was gone. At least, the parts of her that’d been lingering in the soul were, since those’d gone into Madoka. I couldn’t hold on to a woman like a memento, and especially not one like Madoka. Besides, she’d made her choice, and now it was up to me to do away with the remains of the soul. Not because I wanted to, but because I had to—and I could fucking man up and accept that.

  If only for her sake.

  At least everyone else had fucked off, Malahide spending time with her Ke-Han buddies and smelling of desert perfumes and being exactly the kind of woman I didn’t want to have anything to do with—and because of that, I had to keep away from Madoka, exactly the kind of woman I did want to have something to do with. Not that there was much I could’ve done all bandaged up like a present. That was probably for the best, since her soldier friend kept looking at me like he knew what I was thinking. But the thoughts I was thinking about Madoka were far away and mostly unimportant. I could get back to ’em later, on lonelier nights, and keep myself nice and warm, but right now I couldn’t, since that’d cheapen it. And I guess I’d come to that point where I had to distinguish the women in my life, or at least I had to put one kind before the other.

  It was a weird feeling, but I could adjust. I wasn’t some kind of rigid ’Versity professor who couldn’t tell which way the wind was blowing. In fact, I’d always had a pretty good nose for the wind.

  I’d made up my mind, and because I wasn’t gonna pussyfoot my way through this like it was somebody’s prize daisy garden. I was just gonna do it. Rip the bandage off and deal with the consequences after that. Thinking about it too much was only going to drive me nuts, and I couldn’t let that happen, because what was Thom supposed to do with his brother in the nuthouse? If I had dreams about it while I slept, then it was because of getting my guts nearly sliced out in the desert, and if I had dreams about it later, the
n it was because I was a piss-poor excuse for an airman or even a man who couldn’t let a good thing go because he knew he’d never see anything that good again.

  At least I wasn’t gonna cry and share how I was feeling with my brother, which was what he was waiting for, all this time, just sitting by my bed and staring at me like he was expecting something. A word or two that would explain everything—like words could explain anything. The problem was, someone’d told him that they did, and he’d had it beat into his head so hard that he couldn’t quite see his way around to any other kind of thinking.

  Wasn’t my job to figure him out, though. That was his deal, analyzing. And if he wanted to waste his time with figuring me out instead of himself, then that was his problem.

  “Guess I’m gonna smash her,” I told him, late one night, just to keep him on his toes. He was nodding off in the chair by my bed and I startled him good—which I almost felt bad for, except then I didn’t. I’d told him to sleep in his own bed and that I’d had worse scrapes than this one, but he was being stubborn and there was no fucking arguing with him when he got like that. So there he was, shitting himself the second I spoke up, and I had to look away not to let on that I’d planned it that way all along.

  “You’re going to—Oh,” he said, waking up real fast at least. Faster than he did most mornings, green eyes all bleary and hair that definitely wanted cutting. He was learning, even if it was slow going. “Oh, I see. Do you think that’s appropriate?”

  “Can’t burn her, can I? She was made to withstand that kind of heat. Part of her makeup. And I can’t bury her, either, ’cause someone’s bound to dig her up and we’ll be back where we started. I’ve been thinking about it, anyway. So that’s the only fucking way.”

  “I suppose it is,” Thom said. “I’m sorry. When do you want to do it?”

  “Tonight,” I told him, wondering if that would slide.

  Instead of giving me the usual dance-around about how I shouldn’t and he couldn’t and we wouldn’t, he clenched his jaw and looked somewhere else, far past me.

  “John,” he said, and oh, I knew I was in real trouble then—not even the kind of trouble you could argue with or ignore, but the kind of trouble that you had to face head-on and it made all your teeth hurt. “I don’t really remember anything.”

  “I noticed,” I said.

  He sighed, frustrated but not angry. “That isn’t what I meant,” he said. For once, my little brother, at a loss for words? Unfucking believable. “What I mean is, about you. Before all this. I wish I did remember.”

  “Why, ’cause you’d like me more?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” he said.

  “Probably not,” I told him. “And if you think you’re gonna distract me with all this hoopla about who I used to be and bastion knows what else, then you’re fucking mistaken.”

  “I’ve already decided we can go,” Thom said. “I was just trying to ask you a simple question. Not everything is a battlefield.”

  “Fuck you,” I said. Then, because I couldn’t say “help me up,” he saw right through my horseshit and helped me up anyway.

  It was slow moving, and the muscles in my chest did hurt, but like I’d said, it could’ve been a lot fucking worse. Fan hadn’t known where to stab and he’d been blind-crazy with trying to defend himself by that point; I’d gotten lucky, and he hadn’t. Somehow it’d all turned out to be simple as that. His move’d missed everything vital and it’d glanced off the rib cage, and so my own fucking bones had saved me. I’d have to thank ’em sometime, do something nice for ’em for a change. I’d heard they had baths in Eklesias, public ones, where everybody got naked, men and women together, and just spent time steaming and relaxing. I could use some of that, to finally get all the grit out of my heart.

  “I suppose you’re going to want to carry that by yourself?” Thom said, giving me one of those looks.

  I tested the weight of my baby’s soul. It was pretty damn heavy, just like I remembered, and parts of me were pretty pissed that I was even trying it. But I just snorted and ignored ’em.

  “You suppose pretty damn right,” I said. “Got any suggestions on how to smash this thing?”

  He looked up at me like that was the greatest question I’d ever asked him. And maybe it was, since I didn’t mind if he came with me, didn’t mind if he watched, didn’t mind if we walked back together in the end. I wasn’t gonna look up at the stars and tell him about how much I missed it. He already knew all that.

  “We could drop it from the roof,” he said.

  “Just like flying,” I agreed.

  Thom grinned. “So long as you don’t fall off.”

  We made it up to the top of the building, the wind cold up there in the darkness. The moon was a neat little sliver in the sky and too far away for me to look at. I remembered all the things Have used to say and I squared my shoulders, lugging the soul up past the final step and pausing to catch my breath. Thom had the fucking decency not to ask me if I was doing okay, because I was just fucking fine, thanks very much, and he sat there with me while the wind cooled off my sweat and made me feel like I was alive again.

  “We could always stay here,” Thom offered softly. “In the desert.”

  “You hate it here,” I said.

  “I do,” he agreed.

  “Don’t do me any favors,” I warned him, not angry, just wondering why he was so fucking bell-cracked.

  “It’s just that you seemed to enjoy the camel racing,” he explained. “And since I know it’s difficult to find things in life you truly enjoy, I simply thought—”

  “It’s not the same,” I said flatly.

  Thom stared at his hands. “I suppose it wouldn’t be,” he said at length, and thank bastion he didn’t bring it up a second time.

  I could’ve been okay in the desert, but Thom wouldn’t be. He’d be complaining every morning and hanging back at watering holes staring like a lost soul at the pools, dreaming about books and cities and crowds and crazies. We had to find somewhere in between or we really were going to lose each other, and as much as I wasn’t about to admit it to anyone, I worked best in a team. Not that I couldn’t pull through on my own if I had to.

  I stood and lifted the dragonsoul after me, then moved to the edge of the roof. It was about five stories up and the alley below was narrow and quiet. Had to check and make sure no one was wandering around down below, because my brother’d never forgive me if we accidentally killed someone in the explosion.

  Blowing up part of a city street was enough to get us thrown in jail, but if we planned things right we could actually steal some horses—no more camels, not ever—and race out of there, heading back to the mountains, and back in the direction of Eklesias too. I didn’t want to answer any questions about what we’d been doing in Karakhum with explosives anyway.

  “You can do it,” Thom said, trying to be helpful and achieving about the same level of success as usual.

  “Shut up,” I warned him.

  He held up his hands in defeat and I breathed in deep and long and slow, probably just putting off the inevitable like I knew I couldn’t for too much longer. I wished I was alone but I was glad that I wasn’t, and when Thom came up behind me I didn’t shout at him, or make him back away, or anything like that. He put his hand on my shoulder, and I didn’t even shrug him off, which said a lot about just how fucking doomed I really was. But then, it was Have who’d spotted some kind of resemblance between Thom and me in the first place—almost like she’d known before either of us, though I didn’t go in for that kind of spooky crap. If anything, I figured she wouldn’t mind him being here now.

  It was a weird thought, but kinda nice—my girl’s soul in front of me, and Thom at my back, like that one crazy night we went up into the sky all together and my own brother nearly squeezing me in half with how tightly he was holding on. Already it seemed like something out of another life, but it also seemed like it could’ve happened yesterday, and that was what had me so mixed up.
I didn’t know where I was coming and where I was going, and Havemercy would’ve told me to just get it over with, stop being so sentimental, and grow a pair while I was at it.

  So that’s what I was gonna do.

  With a grunt, I lifted the dragonsoul up over the lip of the roof, effectively ending the conversation. Even if it was a lot damn heavier than it looked, the dragonsoul had a nice heft to it, and maybe someday we’d come back to the desert just so I could tell Sarah Fleet what a piece of work this thing was—almost as much a piece of work as the creator herself, and that was saying something. We should all be lucky enough to make something in this world half as fucked up as we were ourselves, something we could leave behind.

  Behind me, I could hear my brother’s sharp inhale, his hand tight against my shoulder. Even in the dark, the soul glowed—the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Moonlight glinted off the edge of the glass, and I held my breath. Just like the first time I’d ever seen her—my girl—it was almost too hard to look at her.

  Then I threw the dragonsoul over the edge of the roof, sticking out an arm just in time to catch Thom as he stepped forward to watch it.

  Havemercy arced through the sky like a big red shooting star—like those comets that came once every seven years and astronomers all shit themselves, marking it down as a portent of doom and disaster. Terror flying bright through the skies, coming a little too close to earth.

  As a dragon, my girl had been just that. It only seemed right that she go out in the same fashion.

  Thom held tight to the arm I’d used to keep him back, and we both watched for the split-second turn when flying became falling and you knew it was all gonna be over soon. The soul crested the height of its arc—at least I’d given her one last flight—and then plummeted sharply down like a stone.

  “I hope that doesn’t kill anyone,” Thom said, but his tone was quiet, almost reverent.

  “I checked,” I told him, figuring I could let it slide just this once.

  It landed seconds later with a bang, and a ferocious crunch on top of that—sort of like a lightbulb exploding, only magnified by ten at least. A bright light flared up from the streets, then immediately went out, like it’d burned too brightly for whatever fuel was left to sustain it. We were probably lucky we hadn’t triggered some explosion. Or I was lucky—because I had to be with her at the last, no matter what kind of boom and crash followed.