“If it’s not the rocs, my wounds, or the cold, hunger can still kill me,” she said to herself and looked around, determined to find a meal.
She saw no more mushrooms, no pine cones, no berries. The canopy was thicker here than farther south, letting in less light; less grass, brambles, and reeds grew from the forest floor. That floor was a crunching carpet of dry leaves, fallen boles, and mossy boulders. Mist floated between the trunks and birds called above, too far to grab. If she still had her bow, Laira could have tried to hunt them, but now they were morsels beyond her reach.
She lifted a fallen branch and spent a while sharpening it against a shard of flint, forming a crude spear. It was noon when she finally saw a rabbit, tossed her spear, and missed. The animal fled into the distance. Her belly growled, and she thought it would soon stick to her back. Thirst dried her mouth. She had left the stream behind, for it traveled west while she moved north, seeking the fabled escarpment.
When it began to rain, she was thankful for the water—she drank some off flat leaves—but it made her colder. The downpour washed off her garment of mud and leaves, and strands of her hair hung over her eyes. At least the rain brought out some worms. She managed to catch three. She stuffed them into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed before her disgust could overwhelm her.
Resigned to being wet, she dressed in her drenched tunic and cloak. The rat fur clung to her, clammy and still foul; she doubted the smell would ever leave it. The rain kept pouring, and her spirits dampened with it. She could not stop shivering, but still she walked on.
It was afternoon and her belly was rumbling when she finally saw the bush of blueberries. Her mouth watered. The rain was finally easing up and a real meal waited ahead.
“A little gift of hope,” she whispered.
Swaying with weakness, she walked toward the berries, already tasting the healing sweetness.
A growl rose.
Laira was only steps away when the bear emerged from behind the trees.
Shaggy and black, the beast placed itself between her and the berries, rose upon its back feet, and roared.
Laira froze.
She held only her pointed stick as a weapon. She was a small, scrawny thing, barely larger than a child. Before her bellowed an animal that could slay her with a single swipe of its claws.
Stand still, Laira, she thought. If you flee, he’ll see you as prey. He’ll chase. Stand your ground.
The bear fell back to all four paws, snorted, and turned toward the berries. It began to eat.
Laira found herself growling. Hunger and weakness gave her the courage she’d normally lack. That was her meal. Three worms were not enough. Without these berries, she could die.
Pointed stick raised, she took a step closer to the berries. Maw stained blue, the bear turned back toward her and growled.
“Away!” Laira waved her stick and bared her teeth. “Go, go! My berries!”
It reared again, several times her size, and lashed its claws. Laira leaped back, waving her stick.
“Go! Go!”
It swiped at her again, and she stepped backward, tripped over a root, and fell into the dry leaves.
The bear drove down to bite.
Laira winced, reached down deep inside her, and grabbed her magic.
The bear’s fangs slammed against her scales.
Wings grew from her back, pushing her up. Her own fangs sprouted. Her tail whipped, cracking a tree, and her face lengthened into a snout. With hunger and fear, she lashed her hand—only it was no longer a hand but a dragon’s foot, clawed and scaled. It slammed into the bear, knocking the small animal down; the beast now seemed smaller than a cub. Laira leaned down and bit deep, tearing through fur, ripping off flesh, tasting hot blood and sweet meat, and she knew nothing but her hunger and craving and the heat of the meal. She feasted.
She ate the bear down to the bones.
When her meal was done, she lay on her scaly back, smoke pluming from her nostrils. She was no longer hungry. She was no longer cold. Her wounds—agonizing to her human form—seemed like mere scratches now.
“I can lie like this for a while,” she said softly. She was surprised to hear that her voice, even in dragon form, was the same. “I haven’t heard rocs since this morning. I will lie a while and digest.”
She wouldn’t even consider returning to her human form with an entire bear in her belly. That could not end well.
Her furs were gone. She had taken them inside her when shifting, and yet her pointed stick lay beside her. She wondered why clothes could shift with her—they had reappeared last time she had returned to human form—and not the stick.
“If I ever do find others, maybe they’ll know how the magic works.”
She tilted her head, scales clanking. Magic? For so long, she had thought this a curse, a reptilian disease. Yet lying here, her belly full and warm, it was hard to think of shifting as a curse.
“Maybe it’s a gift,” she said to the rustling autumn leaves above. “And maybe others like me are out there, alone and afraid. I have to find them.”
As she lay digesting, she thought she heard a roc once, but it was distant, possibly only a crow. When the sun set, Laira rose to her clawed feet. Her body pressed against the trees, and fire sparked in her maw, raising smoke.
Tonight she would not sleep in a hole, small and afraid and hurt. Tonight she would fly.
She crashed through the canopy, showering autumn leaves, and into the sky. The stars spread above her, an endless carpet. The Draco constellation shone above, brightest among them, cold and distant but warming her soul. She beat her wings, bending trees and scattering leaves below. For so many years, she had felt weak, miserable, and worthless.
“But now, in this night, I am a dragon.”
She clawed the air and flew north, gliding on the wind.
ISSARI
WHEN ISSARI RETURNED TO HER bedchamber, she found the witch waiting inside with a bucket of leeches.
“Hello, princess,” said the crone, hissing out that last word like a taunt. She smiled, revealing toothless black gums, and sniffed loudly. Her bulbous nose quivered, the hairs on its moles twitching. “Yes, yes, I can smell it. Smells like ripe fruit.” She smacked her lips. “The blood of a princess—a more powerful elixir than the ichor of gods.”
Issari stood at the doorway. Instinctively, she pulled out her amulet and held it before her. “Leave this place!” Her heart pounded, and cold sweat trickled down her back. “You are not to enter my chambers again, old woman.”
The crone cackled—Shedah was her name, Issari remembered. “Your amulet cannot work on me, sweetling. I have no demon blood. Old I am, and ugly I must appear to you. Yes, you are young and fresh and delectable.” She licked her lips, reached into her bucket, and plucked out a squirming leech. “Yet I am no barbarous brute. I crave not your high breasts, your soft skin, or the warmth between your thighs. I seek a greater prize—the blood of a princess for my potions.”
Issari entered the room, shoulders squared, trying to ignore the pounding of her heart. She grabbed the old woman’s arm. “I will escort you downstairs to the chamber my father gave you.”
“Oh, feisty, are we, young thing?” Shedah would not budge. Her squat form seemed as immovable as Issari’s canopy bed of carved olive wood. “Your sister was feisty too, but we broke her spirit soon enough. I am over two hundred years old, did you know? The blood of princesses feeds me, keeps me alive, keeps me fresh. Your sister fed me for years. She came to love the leech, for when she bled, I did not beat her. It was a relief for her pain.” Shedah’s eyes narrowed. “You too can choose—pain or blood.”
Though Issari trembled, she managed to raise her chin and speak clearly. “If you try to leech me, it will be your blood that spills.”
Across her bedchamber, Issari could see signs of the crone’s presence. A glob of spit bubbled on the floor. The chamber pot was full and foul. Drool covered some of Issari’s stone figurines, mostly the ones represe
nting Nahar, the shapely goddess of fertility. The witch seemed to have slept in Issari’s bed; the sheets—soft silk embroidered with birds—were unkempt and damp. Issari had promised her father to remain in her chamber, safe from the demons that even now shrieked outside the windows. How long had the witch lingered here, and would she report Issari’s absence to the king?
Shedah stepped closer, raising the leech in one hand. Her other hand reached toward Issari, her fingernails like claws about to strike.
“Your father himself promised me your blood,” Shedah said. “That was the price of my tidings. He flies now to bring Laira home. Once the harlot is here, she can bleed too. For now . . . you will have to feed me alone.” She spat. “Your sister is a small, weak little maggot, her blood thin; I have perhaps drained her too often. But you are ripe. You are strong and fresh.”
Issari paled to think of Shedah beating her sister, draining her blood, and mixing it in her potions. She turned to leave. She would summon her guards. They were perhaps her father’s men, but they were loyal to her too.
“I will have you tossed into the dungeon for your impudence!” she said and headed toward the doorway.
Before Issari could step outside, Shedah snapped her fingers and the door slammed shut. The walls rattled. Several clay tablets engraved with letters—poems Issari had written in her childhood—fell from alcoves and shattered. Issari grabbed the knob and twisted. The door was locked.
“You cannot flee me, child.” Shedah drew closer and placed a leech on the back of Issari’s neck.
The clammy creature latched on. Issari gasped and spun back toward the witch, one hand trying to pluck off the leach. It clung hard, and she could not remove it.
“Guards!” Issari shouted.
Shedah only laughed. “They cannot hear you. I have blocked this chamber from sound. Hush. Listen. Do you hear?”
When the crone fell silent, Issari listened. She heard nothing. The trees no longer rustled below in the gardens. Though she could see demons flying outside her windows—winged, oozing creatures—she could no longer hear their shrieks.
“Guards!” she cried again, and she knew they could not hear. She reached into her cloak, drew her dagger, and held the blade before her. “Stand back.”
Ignoring the blade, Shedah drew another leech from her bucket. She tossed the squirming worm, and Issari winced and leaped back. The bloodsucker landed on her cheek, attached itself, and began to feed.
Issari cried out. Before she could reorient herself, pain flared on her wrist. Through wincing eyelids, she saw Shedah twisting her arm.
“I must whet my appetite . . .” The crone leaned in, and her rotted gums cut into Issari’s wrist.
“Release me!” Issari shouted, but Shedah kept biting, and blood gushed, and the crone’s throat bobbed.
She’s drinking my blood.
Issari’s fingers uncurled.
Her dagger fell to the floor.
Issari had never fought anyone before. All her life, she had been sheltered from the scraps so many children fought on the streets of Eteer. But today she balled her free hand into a fist. Today she was no mere princess; she was a savior of weredragons, an heiress to a crown, and she would not let this filthy creature defile her.
She drove her fist forward.
Her knuckles connected with Shedah’s head with a crack.
Shedah released her wrist and hissed, opening her mouth to reveal bloodied gums. Her moles twitched and her brittle, white hair thrust out like a halo. The crone leaped forward, claws outstretched, and barreled into Issari. The two crashed onto the floor.
“Feisty, yes indeed.” Shedah grinned above. Her gnarled knee drove into Issari’s belly. “Your blood is as hot as your temper. It is delicious.” A long, white tongue unfurled from the crone’s mouth to lick Issari’s cheek, smearing her with bloody saliva. “I will eat all of you.”
Shuddering with disgust, Issari struggled, trying to kick off the witch. But the small, frail woman seemed stronger than a warrior. Issari could barely breathe. The crone’s knee drove deeper into her belly, and Issari thought she would split in two, that her every internal organ would shatter. She reached across the floor, pawing for her dagger, but could not feel it.
Shedah raised a third leech and dropped it. It attached itself to Issari’s neck. She felt it pulse as it sucked her blood.
“With your blood, I will brew potent potions, yes.” Shedah spat. The glob landed on Issari’s cheek, sizzling like acid. “They will make me live for many years.”
Issari could barely breathe. The crone’s hand wrapped around her throat, constricting her. The second wizened hand tore at Issari’s tunic, and Shedah placed a new leech upon her; it sucked at the top of her breast. Weakness flowed through Issari, and her head spun. She felt blindly for the dagger, desperate to find it.
I have to stop her. I have to. Or she’ll do this to Laira again. Tears budded in Issari’s eyes. She did this to my sister so many times. I must stop her.
Her hand connected with something wet and soft—the toppled bucket of leeches, she surmised. Blindly, she grabbed one of the worms.
“Perhaps your father will let me keep you, princess.” Shedah grinned her bloody grin. “You will be mine—my giver of life, my toy to torment, my—“
With a choked gasp, Issari thrust up the leech she held.
She slapped it against Shedah’s eye.
The worm squirmed, latched onto the eyeball, and began to suck.
The crone screamed.
It was an inhuman sound, the buzz of a thousand insects, the cry of shattering bones and ripping souls, the cry of steam, of cracking wood in fire, or burning men. The witch stumbled back, and Issari gasped for breath and pushed herself to her elbows.
Shedah stood, grabbed the leech with her knobby fingers, and ripped it off. The leech came free with the eyeball still attached, leaving an empty socket.
No. Don’t faint. Issari sucked in breath. Fight her.
She spotted her fallen dagger near the bed; it lay among several smashed statuettes. Issari grabbed the hilt, leaped up, and pointed the blade. “Stand back!”
But Shedah, enraged, leaped forward. She rose into the air and hovered for a moment, a creature of blood and rage and drool, more demon than human. Then she plunged down, claws extended, blackened gums bared.
Issari grimaced, blade held before her.
Claws slashed her shoulder.
Issari screamed.
Her blade thrust into the crone, tearing through leathery skin and into crackling, dry flesh.
For a moment Shedah hung upon the blade, suspended in the air like some deformed, bloated sack. Then she crashed down, twisting, writhing, screaming. Smoke rose from her and worms escaped her wound.
“I . . . I’m sorry.” Horror pulsed through Issari. “I didn’t mean to stab you. I just . . .” Her heart thumped and she knelt by the witch. “I can heal you. I know some healing. I—“
She gasped when Shedah clutched her arm. The witch stared with her one good eye. Ooze dripped from where the second eye had once peered.
“I curse you, child.” The witch spat. “I curse you with the pain of a thousand deaths in fire. I curse you to become a creature like your sister. I curse you with the heat of demons and the blood of reptiles. You will forever be unclean.”
With a last spasm, Shedah retched, clawed ruts into the tiled floor, and lay still.
Issari stood, trembling, the bloody dagger still in her hand.
I killed.
She took a shuddering breath and her head spun.
I sinned. I promised to save lives. Now I’ve taken a life.
To be sure, she had taken a foul life. She had ended a creature that had tortured and betrayed and hurt many. But it was a life nonetheless. Issari had sinned. Murder was an abomination unto Taal, and when she touched her amulet, it felt so cold it hurt.
“I have to hide this.”
She looked around the room. It was a mess of blood, ooze,
and spilled leeches. Some of the worms were still attached to Issari, and she winced.
First I must take them off.
Knees shaking, she rummaged around for her tinderbox and lit a candle. Eyes narrowed, she held the flame to the bloodsuckers. With hisses, they burned and fell off her skin, bloated with her blood.
Next she stared down at the dead crone.
Do I burn her too?
If anyone discovered Shedah’s corpse here, Raem would hear of it. Shedah had served the king, delivered Laira’s location to him.
He will beat me bloody if he knows I slew her.
Issari did not know what to do. A princess, she had no friends to call upon, only guards and servants—men who would report to her father. Her only friend was her brother, and he languished in his cell. She bit her lip. She could not burn the body, not without raising a pillar of smoke for all to see. She considered dragging the corpse through the streets and out the city, but how? Even if Issari wrapped up the body, the city folk would smell it; Shedah had smelled bad enough when living, and her corpse already stank of rot and human waste.
The demons can get rid of her.
The thought chilled Issari. She remembered seeing the demon by the well chewing upon a dog. She remembered hearing Angel, the fiery queen of the creatures, begging her father for human flesh.
Issari tightened her lips, swallowing down her fear. She grabbed hold of Shedah’s corpse. She tugged. The body was surprisingly heavy, and Issari grimaced as she pulled it inch by inch; it felt like dragging a sack of iron ore. She opened her sliding doors, grunted, and dragged the corpse out onto the balcony.
At once, as if attracted by the stench, three demons came flying toward her.
One of the creatures looked like a strip of dried flesh, its insect wings buzzing. Another could barely keep airborne; its bloated belly swung beneath it like a sack, and its red eyes burned in its pasty face. The third creature looked like flying entrails, warty and red and squirming as it flew, wingless. They were as large as horses, festering and reeking.
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