by Marc Secchia
At length, pouring Aranya’s tea with fastidious attention to the art of the task, Shan-Jarad shook his head and said, “Shapeshifters, a Princess, the Star Dragoness herself, an underworld leviathan, my grown-up daughter returned from the dead, the Marshal of the Mistral Fires, and the very foundations of my life shaken. Some day it has been. Some day. Aye, nor has my ruin ever been more complete. Let me start with this: I loved your mother, Iridiana. I loved her with every beat of my heart. And I now know, since the noble Star Dragoness touched me, that all three of my nemeses manipulated my mind and my purposes with masterful ease. I’ve been a deluded fool. Yet at the last, I too have a secret. You know it already, Aranya.”
His face was drawn into deeply scored, bitter lines about his mouth, Asturbar noticed, but when he gazed upon Iridiana, those harsh lines softened but also spoke of regrets fit to crush a man’s soul.
Aranya said, “Chanbar was duplicitous. The Chameleon and Azhukazi both possessed subtle mind powers that they employed to their best advantage.”
“Yes.” Uxâtate Shan-Jarad passed Aranya a beaker of tea. Bejewelled to nonexistence, naturally. Yazina sipped her cordial, listening with downcast mien. “I have carried my secret for far too long. My revelation is that, I am a repressed Shapeshifter.”
The Star inclined her head as if she had expected this. “Aye?”
He continued. “Yes. It seems clear to me now that Azhukazi spoke the truth when he revealed that I am infertile. I hail from a long line of repressed Shapeshifters. We have magic in my family. It manifests in small ways – skills, or knacks for particular tasks, say. Gifts of leadership, battle craft, strategy, and even the skills of survival in a realm as perilous as that of Wyldaroon.”
“Let me tell you what I believe you will wish to hear first, Iridiana,” said Shan-Jarad. “When the Chanbar-Chameleon confronted me with the humiliating truth of how I had been poisoned, rendered infertile and betrayed at every turn, I spent much time crying, yes, but then a much greater period of time plotting my revenge. Early on, I struck upon the idea that I no longer wanted my bloodline to be one that displayed repressed characteristics. I wanted power. Huge, undeniable fonts of power. Therefore, I depleted the treasuries in searching for an answer. It took five years, but eventually I felt I had divined the perfect solution – my agents found an uistarikolalion Shifter who had a peerless egg to offer, and the skills to implant it inside of my wife.”
Aranya’s eyes shuttered. Such a tremor wracked the girl, Asturbar almost expected the Isles to leap in the bay, howling the song of her heart. She must already have deduced the truth. The truth of Iridiana’s heritage.
Asturbar needed to hear it. He waited.
Shan-Jarad pressed his fingers against his temples and sipped his tea meditatively. At length, he added, “I paid a price for that service which made my royal Treasurer die of a heart attack. You have to understand how desperate I was. I would have done anything. Paid anything. Risked anything. Setting aside any morals or thoughts of where that egg might have come from, I had the uistarikolalion, the egg-stealer, perform the operation. I provided of my seed to fertilise that unique egg – or so I thought – and the creature magically inserted it into my wife’s womb.”
“What was the egg like?” Iridiana asked softly.
“Shh, my beloved,” said Asturbar, seeing how her tears were on the verge of spilling over.
Shan-Jarad said, “No, it’s a good question, albeit one calling for a strange answer. We tried to verify the authenticity of the egg before final payment was made – with such sums at stake, I wanted to be absolutely certain, but I was also terrified to lose the opportunity. It was at once an egg, and a spark. I have never seen a clear Dragon’s egg before. This one seemed closer in form to a Dragon’s fire-eye than to an egg with impermeable shell about it, but inside there was a silvery mist inhabited sometimes by a spark of pure light, and sometimes the very tiniest impression of a foetus – these pinprick fingers and toes might show for a moment, then they disappeared into the light. The uistarikolalion let slip that the egg was sourced from a White Dragoness.”
Aranya’s hand flew involuntary to her mouth, stifling a keening moan.
Seemingly oblivious to her reaction, Shan-Jarad said, “The creature called it a droplet of fire-life. A unique form of draconic life that could be fertilised by a Shapeshifter such as me, and draw from my wife’s being to become inextricably part of us both. Imagine my horror as the Chameleon tried to poison her; imagine my joy when she was born a perfect little girl, and then once more to the pyres of despair … when the chaos came upon her …”
The Immadian Princess was weeping soundlessly. Ardan clasped her hands with his blunt fingers, while with his left hand, he tried to catch her pearlescent teardrops. “Petal, oh my petal … it’ll be alright.”
The Uxâtate lifted his eyes at last, appearing confused by their interaction. “Ah … forgive me, o Star Dragoness. I do not understand, yet your tears slay me far more severely than any castigation you could possibly deliver to a ruler who used his might to steal a life from some other poor, unsuspecting woman –”
“From my mother!” Aranya burst out. Thunder pounded the citadel at her outcry.
Shan-Jarad recoiled so violently that his chair toppled, but the Star snapped out a quivering hand, arresting his fall midway. He hovered diagonally, his robes floating about his body as the force of her Kinetic power held him helpless.
Aranya’s face twisted. “I’ll … I’ll kill you –” The fresh wound upon her forehead had reopened, soaking her veil above the eyes in blood. Her appearance, in that moment, was terrible.
A Star hated. All of her was light, yet within her dwelled a paradoxical darkness that ravaged the Uxâtate’s private chamber. Every tendon in her neck and shoulders thrummed visibly even beneath her clothing, and her emotions swelled until all knew that their release must surely unleash the fullest might of her Storm, and smite the realm of Yazê-a-Kûz from the face of the Island-World, with such a tempest of lightning and wind and hail as only the granddaughter of Fra’anior himself could command. Her hunger for revenge must surely corrupt a star forever.
The man’s throat worked.
Aranya, I beg thee, no, Ardan whispered into her storm.
From her other side, Iridiana said, Please, Aranya. This is not the way.
What war raged within her, who could know? Seconds ticked by, marked by immense discharges of lightning that lit every face within that chamber with stark fragments of an insatiable fury. A minute. Then, Asturbar became aware of the return of the Immadian Princess’ composure. Extraordinary. The madness cleared from her eyes. Her fingers, which had twisted her metal chair’s armrest about her clenched fist, withdrew. The tension departed her body like a soundless sigh.
How simply, how profoundly, she chose the nobler path.
Uxâtate Shan-Jarad’s chair righted itself as Aranya muttered, “From my … from Izariela … no. It cannot be. How old are you, Iridiana?”
“Twenty-two.”
“The timelines don’t work,” puzzled the Immadian. As she subsided, the almighty thunderstorm she had summoned out of the aether appeared to diminish, too.
Shan-Jarad whispered, “How’s your mother involved?”
“This is how – simply this!” Her fingers did not release the face veil this time. She ripped it away. “Explain this, Uxâtate!”
For a second, shadows flickered across the man’s face as he clearly took in the disfiguration; he must think she meant the ravages of the pox. Then, his eyes popped wide. Wondering. Frightened, so frightened that beads of thick sweat squeezed forth from his wide, handsome brow. Spilling his beaker as he crashed to his knees, the ruler wailed, “O Star Dragoness, o Iridiana, will you ever forgive this vile deed I have done? Ah, ah, aaaaaaaaahhhh … I am a wicked man, ah, ah … I’m a worm, the lowest of men … aaah! AAAHH!!”
Yazina made a horrified noise. “How could he?”
The Immadian Princess was staring at
the man tearing at his face with his fingernails and spilling his tears upon her feet, when Iridiana crashed into her arms. “Sister! Oh, my precious … it’s impossible, isn’t it? Sisters? Can we be, now? Asturbar, tell me – yes? It’s true!”
He grinned helplessly. “You must be, yes – I’m overjoyed!”
Aranya’s throat bobbed, but she had no words. Her thin arms clutched Iridiana to her, desperately close, and she buried her face in those sable tresses. At length, a muffled whisper arose, “To think I wandered all of Herimor to discover such a treasure amidst its ruin.”
The Amethyst Dragoness said at the same time, Thou art our restoration, o Iridiana. Our beacon.
Iridiana was crying and laughing, and shaking head to foot. “But, it can’t be true. We must be … oh, four and a half summers apart?”
“Of course, I’ve known since the beginning,” said the Zuziana voice.
“Oh, Zip-Zap,” chortled Aranya, as Ardan clucked his tongue in exasperation. “She’s incorrigible.”
The voice added, “Didn’t your Aunty Hualiama teach you that there are truly peculiar matters a-paw when it comes to Star Dragoness gestation periods? Four and a half years is nothing compared to the couple of thousand she quoted for Granny Istariela, wasn’t it? Shame we can’t talk – well, we will! When we wake up your mother, we’ll ask her how long she might have hosted a pretty spark of starlight in her womb, and –”
“I am not pretty,” Aranya said tightly.
“Princesses should not lie. Nasty habit,” Zuziana corrected fondly, drawing a Dragoness growl from her friend before she even finished speaking. Abruptly, she snapped, “You. Aye you, Shadow! Do something with those musclebound arms of yours, you worthless, recalcitrant excuse for a ralti sheep.”
Ardan piled in willingly.
Zip added, “And you, muscly lump-a-Dragon-man. You get in here too.”
“Willingly, ma’am!” said Asturbar. Tears again? Oh well, he had better become used to the idea.
“I see who gives the orders around here,” Iridiana said, still squeezing Aranya as if her life depended upon it. One last, muted rumble of thunder played about the citadel, before it fled.
The Immadian’s free arm slipped loose to snag Yazina, but it was the Remoyan who said, Don’t think you can escape either, dragonet. Get over here.
Hey, squeaked Sapphire. I know! I know …
What do you know, petal? asked Aranya, ever so fondly. Are we missing out on our huggies?
The dragonet sniffed as if offended. Then, she said archly, Doesn’t this make the silvery-blue pest a Princess of Immadia? And since you’re younger, Aranya, Iridiana would become the next Queen, wouldn’t she?
Aranya made a choked sound.
Nooo … Iridiana squirmed, blushing furiously.
Asturbar was just starting to guffaw too, when Sapphire added, Are you ready to be a King? King Big Boots the First?
It was Asturbar’s turn to splutter until he turned purple and Iridiana had to pound him on the back. Then, his laughter boomed around the room. “Oh, this is ridiculous. Shan-Jarad, hurry up. You’re missing out on a family celebration.”
Such joy! Such relief. Still, he could not resist squeezing the man’s ribs until they creaked.
One egg-stealer to another.
Chapter 31: Iridiana’s Afterword
You wouldn’t believe how many months it took me to convince Asturbar to help me scribe this scroll. I mean, Chaos Shapeshifters can be awfully persuasive, as you well know – but Asturbar protested he was not a natural writer. I do believe that once I made clear what rewards he might earn, my big Azingloriax soldier buckled down with quill pen in paw and burned the midnight oil with me on more than a few occasions. Men are so easily motivated. To be fair, this ‘argument’ became something of a game for both of us. The result is our tale. Our love story. The redemption of the curse of chaos. The flowering of a most unexpected love in the loneliest desert of Wyldaroon – and I think we did a creditable job, don’t you?
Well, I did have to edit out a few naughty bits he tried to slip in. A girl-Dragon has a right to her secrets, hasn’t she?
So this afterword completes the account of the fate of two criminals whom, as the storytellers might style it, met once upon an Island. Wait, you say. Is there more?
Of course. As I was scribing these final runes, Sapphire popped in with her brood of six to insist I clarify one matter that she asserts – having heard directly from Fra’anior himself, the blasphemous rascal informs me – our account fails to explain. Very well. Hear Sapphire’s contribution. The Jewels are dragonets of the rarest kind. They originate in the vast ice fields north of Immadia, and they are called Chrysolitic Dragonets. This means they possess a unique power to command magic pertaining to what Aranya claims is another plane of existence, her source being none other than Hualiama Dragonfriend, and this capacity alone allowed them to defeat both the Shadow and the Necromancer.
Mystical gobbledegook, my Asturbar snorted.
Sapphire was openly offended that he wanted to elide this detail, and departed our chamber chirruping non-stop about its importance to the future. Egotism, or a prophetic word? All I know is that Leandrial herself respects the twice-born dragonet’s acumen, and that is enough for me.
When I meet my grandfather – how I tremble at the prospect – I shall ask him about my heritage, if I don’t expire of awe first. He’s the Great Onyx, the legendary Storm of Storms, after all! Apparently, Aranya teases and provokes him no end. It is a strangely beautiful privilege to know such a sister, whose bravery, mystery and unwillingness to accept evil’s dominion have set our Island-World alight, from North to South and East to West.
On the morrow, we shall fly on with Aranya and her armies. Was there ever any question? After all, our labours are far from complete. Did the Thoralians truly imagine they had shown us a clean pair of paws? Could we let their overweening hubris flay the Island-World unchecked? By no means! To battle!
In private, Boots and I dream of the realms we might see and the places we might fly together, North of the Rift, where no stigma against the power of Chaos Magic exists. A realm that to me, sounds truly magical. We dream of finding my mother, the White Dragoness, and of seeing both her and Aranya restored, even if that means flying literally to the end of the world. Aranya and I dream of finding our lost sister or brother, wherever they might be. I want to see the fabled Isle of Immadia and discover Asturbar’s Azingloriax heritage and maybe, one day, I shall fly as far again to the South, beyond the mountains hiding the third sun, to my homeland. The most secretive homeland of all.
For like the Amethyst, I am a Shapeshifter Dragoness of unique heritage. She is starlight. I am chaos. I wish I knew all that meant, but I know that with my shell-sister and my beloved Boots at my side, I have nothing to fear.
I am Iridiana the Iridium Dragoness, Chaos Shifter, and I’m the most fortunate girl alive.
For I am home, and loved.
The End
Aranya’s tale begins with Aranya, and continues with Shadow Dragon and Song of the Storm Dragon. Chaos Shifter intersects this series early in Book 4 of Aranya’s series, Beautiful Fury, coming soon.
Appendix
Weight measures
1 stone = 12 pebbles = 6.35kg = 14 pounds = 1.44 sackweight = 20.2 pounds
In Herimor parlance, 1 stone is divided into 12 pebbles. A stone is equivalent to 6.35kg (14 pounds). Asturbar weighs 42.7 stone or 271.1kg (597.8 pounds) and his armour adds a further 77 stone (488.9kg). 1 tonne is 160 stone or 1,016kg.
North of the Rift, weight is measured in sackweight, grains and Sylakian short tonnes.
1 sackweight = 14 grains (for reference 1 sackweight = 4.4kg or 9.7 pounds) Therefore Pip the Pygmy Dragon who is 7 sackweight and 3 grains in her Human form, weighs just 31.7kg (a shade under 70 pounds).
A Sylakian short tonne is an anachronistic measure of 200 sackweight (880kg) developed by merchants for ease of accounting. This contrasts with the Immadia
n or Fra’aniorian standard tonne, which is the same as the metric 1,000kg but measures a mathematically unwieldy 227.27 sackweight.
About the Author
www.marcsecchia.com
Marc is the bestselling author of over twenty fantasy books and is published in five languages. Born in South Africa, he lives and works in Ethiopia with his wife and 4 children, 2 dogs, a rabbit, and a variable number of marabou storks that roost on the acacia trees out back. On a good night you can also hear hyenas prowling along the back fence.
When he’s not writing about Africa or dragons, Marc can be found travelling to remote locations. He thinks there’s nothing better than standing on a mountaintop wondering what lies over the next horizon.
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Other Books by Marc Secchia
Shapeshifter Dragons: (Young Adult and older readers) Four allied series of bestselling Dragon adventures. Prepare to wing away to a unique world of mighty Dragons and volcanic Islands above the deadly Cloudlands!
In chronological order (Island-World timeline):
Dragonfriend series: Dragonfriend, Dragonlove, Dragonsoul and Dragonstar
Scrolls of Fire series: The Dragon Librarian (planned for 3 books)
Shapeshifter Dragon Legends series: The Pygmy Dragon and The Onyx Dragon
Shapeshifter Dragons series: Aranya, Shadow Dragon, Song of the Storm Dragon and Volume #4 Beautiful Fury coming in 2018
Standalone Book: Dragon Thief
Set in the same world as the Shapeshifter Dragons series, join Zhialeiana in an oceanic adventure with Whales and Sea-Dragons: