“Nevertheless,” Seron said, “you’re coming with us. If you can’t control yourself, you’re not safe to have around.”
Ezeru reluctantly climbed into Oszin’s boat, while Seron and I set off first, the sleek animals swimming ahead, tugging us toward a wide canal. Seron shoved some stuff off a seat. “Watch out for those nets on the floor, too. I’m hoping we can get a good catch while we’re at it.”
“We’re actually fishing today? With nets? I thought you just wanted an excuse to get us all out together away from the palace.”
“Well, sure, but we still need food.”
I smiled. “I’m sure you have enough fishermen. But…you like to get things done, I know. When we first met I thought you were a little too disciplined. All work.”
“I relax a bit here, but it still bothers me not to be doing anything for anybody.” He tapped his hands on the seat, restless. “I always thought I was born to serve. I guess the king ought to be the ultimate servant, in a way, but it never works out like that.”
“You look handsome in the crown.”
“Don’t say that, Himika…” He looked at his scaled hands. “This is a fucking mess.”
I put my hand over his. “No. It’s not. We’re going to make it work, just like with last night.” Kajira launched out of my lap again and went back to Ezeru, in the golden boat a distance behind us. It didn’t look like Oszin and Ezeru were talking.
“Don’t they look like they’re having boatloads of fun,” Seron said.
I snickered. “Kajira sure has taken to him. Do you think that means something? But I can’t do anything about it.”
“Hmm,” Seron said. “Let’s see what he can do.”
We sailed along, through some shallow waters, where crystal light glowed beneath us. Around the lagoon was a small settlement of houses and a shop selling fishing supplies and bathing costumes. I guess it was a local fun spot, although everything had a locked down feel. There were people in town, greeting our boats, but when they noticed Seron’s crown and hands, he had some explaining to do.
He cleared his throat and waved his hand. “Yeah, well, I guess Aurek and I were switched when we were babies, so I’m king now.”
Yes, that was his entire explanation to the little crowd that gathered.
Clearly, I had to take control of the situation.
“Yes, it seems the truth was discovered when my champion, Seron, was able to break the curse of the dragon’s tear. This may seem a shocking development, but in truth, Aurekdel and Seron have always ruled as a partnership, king and commander. Aurekdel is still the chief advisor. So nothing will change.”
“Oh my…” The villagers murmured.
“Seron.” I nudged him as we moved on. “You need to work on that story. I know you’re good with words when you bother.”
“I’m not used to taking the lead like that. That’s Aurek’s job.”
“You really do need to get out of his shadow,” I said.
“I am the commander,” he said. “Was I in his shadow when you met me? When I led my people to defend yours?”
“Hey…that night when you made me the apples and oats, was that something Aurekdel told you to do because he intended to share me with you?”
He frowned at the water.
There was no one at the lagoon itself except a lone fisherman who immediately packed up out of respect for the royal family.
The lagoon was tucked into the edges of the caverns. The water was deep and very clear, spring fed and full of fish, with a tiny waterfall falling down a sheer rock face. It glowed a faint blue from below, and the fish came in all sorts of colors that popped against the glow: red, gold, striped black and white…
“This is a beautiful place too!” I marveled. “Are you going to catch all those pretty fish?”
“Only the red ones are tasty,” he said. “The rest get thrown back.”
“Aww.”
“You’ve eaten plenty of them already.” He started untangling netting. “You can just jump out and swim around any time you feel inclined. And I brought snacks. Hopefully it’s stuff you like. Then I’ll grill up some of those gorgeous fish for lunch later.”
I saw Oszin and Ezeru’s boat coming, and I guess I really had lost all shame, because I started stripping off my dress right then and there. Raia had given me a swim costume underneath, but it was skimpy: a bandeau top and shorts. This wasn’t much of a surprise to me at this point because the dragons didn’t wear much to begin with, unless you were a noble or a mage or something.
Ezeru looked pretty angry at me as the boat drew closer. I jumped in the water and then shrieked.
“Yeah, it’s cold,” Seron said.
“I thought it would be warmer like the water in the baths!”
“Feels good once you’re swimming around, though.”
“Come in with me, Oszin! Warm me up!”
He waved a fishing pole at me menacingly. “Or I could just catch a Mothfish and reel you back in.”
“Aw…”
“I’ll go in if you make me.”
Pretty soon we were wrestling. I yanked his boots off and tried to drag him in. Seron was calmly casting his net. Ezeru definitely was in the wrong place. But I was giddy with freedom, splashing around in the water, relishing the raw physicality of grabbing Oszin and tugging on his clothes. He finally fought back, cuffing me like an irritated grown cat being hassled by a kitten; I kicked him under the water. We could get pretty rough without actually hurting each other because the water slowed things down. Seron was watching Ezeru carefully. Maybe I should have been more demure, but I just couldn’t bring myself to care.
In fact, some weird part of me wanted to see if I could crack Ezeru’s resolve…
After a few minutes of laughing, splashing and shrieking, Ezeru was carefully avoiding looking at me, but he said, “You might want to quiet down. We don’t want to attract an enemy…”
“You’re scaring the fish,” Seron said, but he sounded amused. “So let’s get down to business. As you can see, Ezeru, this place is loaded with rocks. The waterfall used to flow better and it was a lot of fun for the locals, but it was blocked by some fallen rocks far up the wall. You want to show me what you can do? I already know you’re good.”
“I can do that.” Ezeru dove right in the water, fully clothed. I could see the dark shape of him moving quickly over the light and he surfaced at the rock wall. He grabbed the wall, handholds appearing for him wherever he wanted them, and in a moment he was fifteen feet above us, at the top of the rocks.
He walked just out of sight. Just seconds later, the waterfall’s flow started changing as he shaped the rock, widening the stream. Ezeru peered over the edge to see how it was looking and then did something to tweak it even more so the waterfall fell in a perfect curtain down into the lagoon. Seron was riveted and I took the opportunity to pull Oszin fully into the water. He was soaking wet from getting splashed anyway.
“How is that?” Ezeru called down.
“Damn,” Seron whispered. “The hell is this guy? He doesn’t seem to have any trouble at all moving the rock.” He called up, “Looks good.”
Ezeru dove down with the waterfall. He surfaced, shoving wet hair out of his eyes.
“Let me ask you something,” Seron said. “When it comes to shaping rock, does anything give you trouble?”
“No…”
“Nothing?”
“No, Your Majesty,” he said. “I’m not sure why, but my powers went beyond what anyone expected. I guess I might as well show you this technique, since it was what helped me to launch those attacks on villages recently with a small force.”
“By all means.”
Ezeru walked onto the beach, a strip of rocky sand. Then he crouched and rolled in the rocks. All the tiny rocks came up with him and formed around him like a second skin.
“Eep!” I said, grabbing Oszin. Ugh. Talk about princess-y. Ooh, I’m scared of the rock man!
Ezeru took a few firm
steps forward, pretending to land a few blows. Seron’s mouth fell open a little. Then he shook off all the rocks and they fell off him, turning back into pebbles and sand.
“It took me some time to master that,” Ezeru said. “There are still some weaknesses. I don’t move very quickly, but it’s very defensive as I get faster at transforming.”
Seron scratched his head, trying to look cool again. “It’s impressive. The only weak point I see is your eyes. Is that so? You don’t even need joints in the armor?”
“No, I can move the rock with me.”
“So am I to understand that your only real weakness is that you have poor lungs? Asthma, perhaps?”
“I don’t know that word,” Ezeru said. “I do suspect that all the heavy mists in my formative years may have caused it. Sometimes it was hard to breathe.”
“I’m glad you’re on our side,” Seron said. “That’s all I can say to that. Why do you think Dvaro hasn’t replicated his success with you?”
“I don’t know that he was very pleased at how well it worked,” Ezeru said.
“Right. You’re more powerful than him. Well, I won’t make you do tricks all afternoon.” Seron held up a string of fish. “Let’s have some lunch.”
I could tell that Ezeru just wasn’t used to normal people, who were interested him, and nice to him. He didn’t trust us. Seeing that made my heart ache, but I was afraid to say a word to him or even look at him because I didn’t want to stir him up or anything.
Anyway, I noticed little ways that Seron was taking care of him. He didn’t talk much, but he asked him to watch the fish as it grilled—a gesture of trust. When Kajira kept insisting on standing on Ezeru’s shoulder, Seron kept scratching her head, which seemed like a way of conveying that he had no fear of Ezeru’s physical presence. Seron always seemed keenly aware of small gestures and facial expressions. Now that Seron wasn’t shy with me anymore, I noticed how good he was when anyone needed anything.
Meanwhile, I was nervous. I didn’t know how else to be, since Ezeru didn’t want to talk to me. If friendly is forbidden, what else is left but awkward?
Ezeru suddenly got to his feet and looked up into the upper levels of the cavern.
“What is it?” Seron asked, grabbing a bow from the boat.
We all listened over the crackling of the fire and soon, the sound of rock dragon chittering was apparent above us.
“Oh gods. It’s my fault, isn’t it?” I whispered.
Seron regarded Ezeru cautiously. “Not your fault. They do attack us sometimes,” he said. “The northern clans. Dvaro has been working on them too.”
“I understand,” Ezeru said. “If they attack us…we’ll have to fight back.”
“Ezeru,” I said. “Can’t you talk to them? When we were in the caves, you talked to those rock dragons.”
“They were wild,” he said. “They hadn’t been corrupted.”
“But…they respect you. Why do they follow Dvaro? He feeds them, right? And Seron has all those fish…”
Seron shot me a look like I was crazy. “We can’t feed the enemy, Himika. Certainly not with you here. We have to protect you first.”
“Oh, nonsense. That’s why I brought my sword. I’m getting tired of you guys acting like I can’t do anything for myself.”
“Moth,” Oszin said. “No one’s trying to do that, but you don’t actually know how to fight. Even if you’re healed now, you’re still pretty small and you don’t have training in anything.”
I drew my own sword out and poked the air in front of him with exasperation. But I think that just made Oszin think I was acting like a stubborn kid.
I probably was.
“Keep them back from the queen,” Seron said, stepping forward as a pack of rock dragons swept down the wall.
At first, it was just a few and I thought it would be over quickly, but then more kept pouring out of a crevice above and fanning out, and soon—I hardly wanted to count. It must have been fifty or more. My pulse sped up. I knew the guys were strong, but they still had a lot of enemies to take care of.
Ezeru punched rocks out of the wall, sending rock dragons tumbling down with them. They were tough, so even if they fell down and got pinned by a rock, they usually wriggled out from under it and kept coming. Seron picked more off with arrows, although most of the arrows just bounced off their tough hides.
The rock dragon family we saw by the lake was kind of cute. But when they were in attack mode, they remained completely terrifying, all claws and vicious teeth, stocky bodies with tough hides. “Hungry, hungry,” I heard them muttering. “We could eat a girl.”
“Ah, you were right, Himika, they’re just hungry,” Seron grunted. “Ezeru…we have to kill more of them before they get here or we’ll be overwhelmed. You’re holding back. I just saw what you can do.”
“I’ve never—fought them before.” Ezeru hesitated.
“There are too many coming to get soft about it!” Seron said.
As they got closer, they saw Ezeru and one of them screeched, “You like us!”
“No, no, too tall,” a female rock dragon replied.
“Look! He made the rocks move. He are like us!”
“Like…god,” another one said.
They all stopped at a distance to look at Ezeru. “Are you god of rock dragons?”
I just knew the guys weren’t going to seize on this like they should. I grabbed the grilled fish off the fire by the cool end of the skewer. It was getting overcooked anyway. I shoved it into Ezeru’s hand. “Tell them you’re a god,” I hissed.
Chapter Fourteen
Ezeru
When Himika spoke, my instincts screamed at me to listen to her. Everything inside me said, This is the woman for you. This is your mate.
I grabbed the skewer of fish instead, and took a few steps away from her, where at least I couldn’t smell her anymore.
i pulled chunks of grilled white flesh off the fish and threw them toward the rock dragons. They dove at them, the first ones to snap them up growling at the others. In moment the fish was gone and they were all looking at me expectantly.
I had mere seconds to size them up. Dvaro’s lackeys. I’d never tried to persuade them before.
Tell them you’re a god?
It certainly seemed arrogant to declare myself a god, but the way they were all looking at me, it was hard not to get an ego. Maybe I was just a messed up experiment, but…it had made me powerful.
My eyes sought out the leader of the group. The male dragon had a strong hide covered in jagged rocks on his back, almost like a turtle shell. He was one of the larger dragons, nearly double the size of the females. I needed to show dominance to gain his acceptance.
I walked up to him. “You lead the pack, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“You are strong rock dragon,” he admitted.
“The strongest.” I stomped my foot and threw up a rock wall between him and the other dragons closest to him. I guessed they might be his mate and possibly sons. The males were young and all had the same broad skulls and pale yellow eyes. “I control all the rock.”
He growled, tense. “I hear of you. You King’s favorite.”
“No. I’m going to kill the king,” I said, and the words felt good. “I’ll give you a choice now. You can follow me, or you can go back to him and tell him so.”
I heard Seron suck in a nervous breath. I don’t think he wanted to run them off to tell Dvaro anything. He’d been about to kill them, so I expected him to step in any moment.
Maybe I’d made a mistake.
But no, he held back, watching.
I wanted to turn into a dragon myself, but it would mean disrobing in front of Himika, and I couldn’t do that. She was a human. I had some ridiculous sense that I needed to stay a man for her.
As if you need to be doing anything ‘for’ her.
“Kill king…” The dragon was going into a defensive pose.
&
nbsp; “The king gives you food and shelter,” I said. “And he speaks to you. He has not put you in slavery…yet.”
That was going over their heads a little, I could tell. “There used to be bad times with the pretty dragons,” I amended, reminding myself that to the rock dragons, all the years of being captured were summed by ‘bad times’ and ‘pretty dragons’.
Now I saw them understand. “Bad times…ahh. No bad times now.”
This was tricky. They wouldn’t really get the idea that Dvaro was manipulating them with words, mists, and calculated discipline. They only knew what they saw and the things repeated through generations.
“King Dvaro wants to make the bad times come again. He will use the mist. He will take your children away if they’re bad.”
Now they were just getting restless. The leader’s children had clambered over the walls I made and were eyeing Himika. She would seem like the weakest target. In another minute, they’d rush her.
I wanted to tear my hair out. “How can I make you see? The king is not your friend! His bad times are as bad as any, because he’s tricked you.”
The rock dragons made a few little restless sounds amongst themselves, the leader let out a squawk, and they all rushed toward Himika. She took out her sword but I already knew the girl didn’t really know how to fight.
Seron gave me a look of anger before he plunged into the fray, trading bow for sword, aiming right for the leader now. His hide was well protected; even Seron was struggling to penetrate his weak spots. Oszin stayed close to Himika, but they were quickly getting overwhelmed.
“Next time, we don’t talk!” Seron barked. “I’m sorry, Ezeru, but we just can’t trust them! Stop standing there. Go protect the queen with that rock magic of yours, or else I don’t see how we can trust you.”
“You can trust me.” I snapped into action and did what I knew I must do—I used my magic to strip the armor off the leader. His rock hide tumbled aside and Seron drove a blade into him. That quickly, the leader was taken out. His mate wailed, rushing to his body. She hissed at the sons to get back into the fight as they tried to go to their father.
The Kingdoms of Sky and Shadow Box Set: A Fantasy Romance Page 37