by Colt, K. J.
“Oh, my daughter,” he said. “Your heart is still too soft. But I will strength it. I will hammer your heart like a smith hammers bronze. You will be my heir now. Your grandfather is dead; he fell in the gardens. Your brother is diseased. Only you and I remain now, holding this fragile kingdom together.”
Fresh tears budded in Issari’s eyes. “Is Grandfather . . . ? He’s . . .” She covered her face with her palms.
Raem yanked her hands away. “Dry your tears! Today you must be strong. I will honor your wish. I will spare your filthy brother’s life. But he will not taint this kingdom again.”
He grabbed the boy, lifting him off the block. Sena seemed too dazed, too hurt, to resist. Blood filled his mouth and poured from his nose. His arm hung at a strange angle, perhaps dislocated, and his face was pale. Even if he wanted to shift now, to become a dragon and fly into exile like his mother and sister had, he was too hurt to summon his magic.
Leaving his daughter behind, Raem manhandled the prince across the courtyard, down a stone path, and toward Aerhein Tower.
The steeple rose outside the palace, towering and ancient, one of the first buildings to rise in all of Eteer. Many years ago, the first king had raised Aerhein Tower to gaze upon the city, an eye watching the coast. Today it served as Eteer’s most infamous prison, a place for its greatest enemies to languish. This place had imprisoned usurped kings, treacherous generals, and now a disgraced prince.
Blood trailed as Raem pulled his son up the winding staircase. They climbed round and round, the sunlight falling through arrowslits. Whenever Sena faltered or tried to beg, Raem struck him again, beating his face into a red, swollen mess.
When they reached the tower top, Raem shoved the door open, revealing an empty chamber. The bricks were rough and stained with old blood. Messages from previous prisoners were carved into the craggy walls. Chains hung from those walls, and only a single window, small and barred, let in light.
“You will remain here until your last day,” said Raem. “The kingdom will forget you. So will I. So will your sister. Eventually you will forget yourself, remaining but a starving, mad thing clawing at the walls, and even then you will linger. You became a creature in your chamber, and so I will turn you into a creature—a frail, mad mockery of a man. You have shamed me, Sena, and now you will suffer for your sin. Death would be a kindness to you. I give you instead damnation.”
A new burst of vigor filled Sena. He howled wordlessly, seeming unable to speak through his bloodied mouth, and tried to race toward the door. Another blow sent him sprawling.
Lying on the floor, Sena tried to shift. Scales began to rise across him. Wings began to sprout from his back, his body began to grow, and fangs lengthened in his mouth.
Raem kicked, driving his foot against his son’s scaly face.
With an anguished cry and splatter of blood, Sena lost his magic. His eyes rolled back and closed. He slumped down, unconscious.
Moving methodically, Raem grabbed chains from the walls. He bound his son’s wrists and ankles, then wrapped more chains around his torso.
“When you wake, you may try to shift again,” Raem said. “As you grow, you will find that these chains tear you apart.” He snorted. “Goodbye, reptile.”
Fists clenched at his sides, his son’s blood covering him, Raem left the tower.
He reentered the palace. He descended dark, narrow staircases, moving past wine cellars and armories, climbing down and down until he reached the deep cave under the palace, that gaping belly of water—the city cistern.
Columns rose here in many rows, supporting a vaulted ceiling. Water filled the chamber, running deep and black, enough for a city to drink. It was an old, oft-forgotten place, one of the oldest chambers in the city-state of Eteer. It was a place to be alone.
This is where I found them, Raem thought. This is where I found my wife, Anai, and my daughter, Laira. Here is where they came to shift.
That day returned to him, perhaps the worst of his days. He had secretly followed them here. He had seen them become the reptiles, swim in the water, fly to the ceiling.
He had confronted them with rage, screamed, even shed tears. He had drawn his sword, prepared to slay them, and they had fled, flying away from this city, flying to the northern lands of barbarians.
Raem trembled. “And now I’ve lost a son too.”
He could no longer contain his despair; it welled inside him, all consuming. Eyes stinging, he entered the water.
He clenched his fists, ground his teeth, and squeezed his eyes shut.
He releases the rage.
The curse swelled.
Scales flowed across Raem, black as the darkness. Horns grew from his head, and claws sprouted from his fingers. His wings burst from his back, banging against the columns, and his tail lashed in the water. Fire sparked between his teeth.
A dragon in the deep, he lowered his head, trembling, clanking, diseased, ashamed.
“You infected me too, Anai,” he said, voice rising from a mouth full of fire. “But I will hide it. I will end it. I will stop this disease from spreading. And I will kill anyone who stands in my way.”
He released his magic.
He became a human again, a mere man, a sick man, floating in the water.
He climbed onto a ledge of stone, trembling with his shame. He pulled off his shirt of bronze scales and the cotton tunic he wore beneath it. He unbuckled his thick leather belt.
Upon the ledge, Raem clenched his jaw and swung the belt over his back. The leather connected with his flesh, tearing into the skin.
Raem bit down on a cry.
I am filthy, he thought. I am a sinner. I will purify myself.
He lashed the belt again. Again. The blows kept landing, driving the shame away. When he was done, when the purity was restored, he curled up on the stone floor. He bit his fist. He took short, ragged breaths, and again he smelled it, that beautiful smell that could always soothe him. Blood.
TANIN
HE STOOD ON ONE FOOT, juggling his bronzed raven skulls, but the onlookers only yawned, shifted their weight, and fluttered their lips with bored snorts.
Standing on the creaky wooden stage, Tanin gulped. It was a chilly autumn day, the sky overcast and the wind biting, but Tanin felt as if he stood within the flames of the Abyss. He needed to win this crowd over—and quickly. Only the top performers in the harvest festival won the coveted prize: a purse of seashells from the distant southern coast. Seashells could be bartered for food, ale, medicine—and, Tanin thought, maybe a little dignity.
As the crowd began to wander off, Tanin cleared his throat.
“Ah, but juggling is not all I can do!” he announced. “I can sing while I juggle.”
He launched into a baritone song—a tale of a buxom lass from a wandering tribe, her hair as thick as mammoth fur, her legs as long and pale as tusks, her breasts as large as—
He dropped one skull, losing his place in the song. For a moment he wobbled on one foot, then completed his embarrassment by crashing down onto the stage. His remaining raven skulls clattered away in all directions. He quickly raced around, scooping them up, and tried to resume his performance despite jeers from the crowd. One man in the audience, a beefy brute with red cheeks, burst into laughter.
Tanin sighed. Another village, another humiliation.
This village—a little place called Blueford—lay south of the Ranin River. While most folk north of the sea still lived in nomadic tribes, hunting and gathering across the plains and forests, a few villages now grew along the river, none older than three or four generations. The recent invention of bronze, a metal Tanin himself used to forge with his father, meant plows could now till soil. Food could be grown, not merely collected from wild plants. Nails could hold together fences, and animals could be penned, not hunted. Many of the tribes, Tanin knew, mocked the villagers for abandoning the old ways, for growing soft and lazy.
Banished from his own village a decade ago, Tanin himself preferr
ed open spaces and solitude. But villages would barter. Villages would offer seashells, food, and even precious metal in return for juggling and singing—at least on days when he didn’t end up on his backside, his skulls rolling around him. And so Tanin kept traveling along the river, juggling and singing his rude songs.
His sister, Maev, had it even worse. She traveled from town to town with him, wrestling, boxing, and earning her keep with fists and kicks. She joked that he fell on his arse for seashells while she kicked arses for them. He often countered that her face—covered with bruises and scrapes from her many fights—ended up looking like an ape’s swollen backside.
My sister and me, he thought with a sigh. Two lost souls—outcast, afraid, always only days away from starvation.
Blueford—a village like any other. Looking off the stage, Tanin saw a collection of clay huts topped with straw roofs, a few gardens, fields of rye and wheat, a smithy, and corrals of cattle.
It looks like the village Maev and I were born in, he thought. The village that banished us. This place would banish us too if they knew our secret . . . our curse.
At the thought of his shame, Tanin stumbled upon the stage, falling again with a cascade of clattering skulls. The crowd jeered.
“Get off the stage!” someone shouted. “Let the dancer on, you lout!”
Sitting on the stage, his legs splayed out before him, Tanin turned his head to see a dancer standing in the grass, awaiting her turn to perform. She met his eyes and gave him a shrug and sympathetic smile. Seeing her only amplified Tanin’s humiliation.
By the stars, she’s beautiful, he thought. The young woman—she seemed about twenty, five years younger than him—wore only thin bits of cotton over her tall, curvy figure, and tresses of red hair cascaded across her shoulders. Her eyes were green, her nose freckled, and Tanin felt his face redden.
Just the type of woman I’d want to impress, he thought. And I’m sitting here like a—
“Clumsy sack of shite!” someone shouted from the crowd. “Off the stage!”
A gob of brown, gooey mud sailed from the crowd to slam against Tanin’s face. At least he hoped it was mud and not one of the many cow pies dotting the village. Wishing he could vanish in a puff of smoke like the magician who had performed before him, Tanin all but fled the stage, slipping over a bronzed skull and crashing down into the dirt.
He moved through the crowd, any trace of lingering dignity gone, and wiped the mud off his face. The crowd cheered behind him, and Tanin turned to see the red-haired woman step onto the stage and begin her dance. She swayed like reeds in the wind, jingling bells in her hands. Tanin gulped to see the seductive movements of her near-naked body. It had been so long since he’d held a woman, even talked to one—aside from talking to his sister, that is, but Tanin often thought her more an enraged warthog than a woman. Watching the dance, he imagined holding this dancer, kissing her lips, and seeking in her arms some respite from loneliness. As she swayed, she met his eyes across the crowd and gave him a knowing, crooked smile. Tanin felt his face flush.
I’m a fool, he thought. She knew what he was thinking, yet after his travesty of a performance, surely she only mocked him. Besides, if she knew my secret, knew who I really am, knew why I was banished from my own town . . .
The shame grew too great to bear. Tanin turned and walked away.
Leaving the stage behind, he walked through the village. The harvest festival was in full swing. Farmers displayed their largest gourds, turnips, and cabbages upon tables for judges to measure. Shepherds haggled over prize bulls. Gardeners swapped wreaths of wheat and flowers for meat pies and mugs of ale. Several dogs ran underfoot, tails wagging furiously as they begged for treats.
Grunts, curses, and the thud of fists on flesh rose from within a ring of cheering men. Tanin approached, peered through the crowd, and a saw a pit of mud. In the dirt, his sister was pinning down a hairy man twice her size, pounding his face with her fists. All around, the crowd raised their own fists, cheering for her. A brusque woman, her powerful arms tattooed with coiling dragons, Maev could have been beautiful if not for the black eyes, fat lips, and cuts that always marred her face. Blood dripped down her face today, and more blood matted her long blond hair, but she smiled as she pummeled her victim.
“The Hammer!” cried the crowd, chanting the name Maev had chosen for her fights. “The Hammer!”
Tanin sighed and turned away. He hated seeing his sister fight like this in every village they passed through. Whenever he tried to sway her away from another battle, her rage turned on him.
I juggle, fall on stage, and sell my dignity to survive, Tanin thought. She sells blood.
Grimacing, he walked away. That evening he would nurse his sister’s wounds. For now, he sought distraction in the festival. Leaving the wrestling pit behind, he approached a dirt square where a puppeteer hid inside a wooden booth, putting on a show. A group of parents and children were watching the puppets, and Tanin paused among them.
One puppet, a wooden girl with long hair of golden wool, walked across the little stage, picking fabric flowers. A second puppet lurked behind her—this one was stooped, hook-nosed, and pale, its eyes beady and red, its warts hairy. Children squealed to see the ugly man, crying out to the golden-haired doll, warning her of the danger lurking behind.
The wooden girl seemed to hear the shouts from the audience. She froze, then spun around to face the lurking man behind her. With a flurry of ribbons and a puff of smoke, the twisted puppet vanished. Where it had stood now roared a wooden dragon, painted black, its eyes red.
“A weredragon!” shouted the wooden girl.
The crowd gasped and cried out. “A weredragon! Be careful!”
Tanin’s heart sank. He hadn’t thought the day could get worse, but seeing this play soured his belly more than his failed performance.
We are monsters to them, he thought, balling his fists at his sides. He shut his eyes, remembering that night—that night his old home, a village like this, had discovered his family’s secret.
His father, Jeid Blacksmith, a beefy man with a shaggy beard. His sisters, headstrong Maev and little Requiem. His grandfather, the wise druid Eranor. And him—Tanin, only a youth in those days. A family cursed. Diseased.
“Weredragons!” the people had cried to them, firing arrows, tossing stones. His own uncle, the cruel Zerra, had stood among them. “Weredragons!”
Today, ten years later, as Tanin stood here in this new village, the voices calling toward the puppet mingled with the voices in his memory.
“Weredragon, weredragon!”
He opened his eyes and took a shuddering breath. In the puppet booth, a new doll—a noble warrior clad in armor, bearing a little spear—raced across the stage and slew the carved dragon. The crowd cheered. The wooden girl rose to her little feet and kissed the hero—a happy ending, a monster vanquished.
“But we’re not monsters,” Tanin whispered. “We’re not.”
A voice rose in the crowd. “Oi! Juggle boy!”
Tanin blinked, banishing his memories, and looked to his side. He lost his breath, his heart burst into a gallop, and he felt his cheeks flush. The dancer was walking toward him, her red hair cascading like a fiery waterfall. She swayed as she moved through the crowd, her scanty outfit doing little to hide her form, and gave him that crooked smile of hers.
He cleared his throat. “Hello, dancing boy! I mean, girl. I mean—obviously you’re a girl.” He glanced down at her body, then froze and quickly raised his eyes. “I mean—not obviously. Not that I care. I mean, whether you’re a boy or a girl, or—“
She reached him and placed a finger against his lips. “Shush, juggling boy. You’re only digging yourself a deeper hole.”
Tanin sighed. “I’m as clumsy with words as I am with juggling.”
She laughed. “But I think you’re cute. I’m Feyna.” She gave a little curtsy.
“My name is Tanin.” His heart leaped. Cute indeed!
For yea
rs now, wandering from town to town, Tanin had tried to forget the girl he had loved in his youth—the girl who had broken his heart, who had turned against him after learning his secret.
She called me diseased, he remembered, wincing. She shouted for her father to kill me—the dirty weredragon, the monster she had kissed.
Tanin looked at Feyna’s green eyes, her bright smile, and her tresses of red hair, and his heart rose again. Maybe this day, this new life, wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe there was some hope for him—for acceptance, for love.
Music was playing at a stage nearby. Ask her to dance, Tanin told himself. Ask her to drink some ale. He gulped. Ask to walk together in the fields or—
As he was stumbling with his tongue, Feyna pointed at the puppet show and gasped.
“Oh, look, Tanin!” she said. “A weredragon.” Upon the stage, the heroic doll was now battling two wooden dragons, slashing them with its sword.
At once, Tanin’s heart sank again. “Anyway, how about a dance or—“
But she seemed not to hear him. Her face changed—turned bitter, disgusted. She shuddered. “Foul creatures, weredragons. Even as dolls they chill me. They say they drink the blood of babies. Thank goodness our town has arrows to shoot down those monsters.”
“They’re not monsters!” Tanin said before he could stop himself. He instantly regretted those words.
Stupid! he told himself. Do you want another village to shoot arrows at you, chase you into banishment?
Feyna turned toward him, narrowed her eyes, and tilted her head. “Not . . . monsters? Have you met one? My father saw a weredragon only this moon—a great beast in the village of Oldforge. The creature burned ten men.” She sneered. “One of those men was my uncle. I hate weredragons and would slay them all myself if I could.”