Seraphina

by Rachel Hartman

  The ice cools my thoughts and condenses my rationality. I saw and heard what I should not have: my father and eleven other generals speaking together upon his hoard. Words upon a hoard must be hoarded, as the ancient saying goes. They could kill me for eavesdropping.

  Worse: they spoke treason. I cannot hoard these words.

  The cave makes me claustrophobic. How do quigutl stay squeezed into crevasses without going mad? Perhaps they don’t. I distract myself by thinking: of my hatchling brother, who is studying in Ninys and safe if he will stay there; of the quickest route back to Goredd; and of Claude, whom I love. I do not feel love when I take my natural shape, but I remember it and want it back. The vast, empty space where the feeling once was makes me writhe in discomfort.

  Oh, Orma. You are not going to understand what has happened to me.

  Night comes; the gleaming blue ice dims to black. The cave is too tight to turn around in—I am not as lithe and serpentine as some—so I back out, step by step, up the slick passage. The tip of my tail emerges into the night air.

  I smell him too late. My father bites my tail on the pretext of pulling me out, then bites me again, behind the head, in chastisement.

  “General, put me back in ard,” I say, submitting to three more bites.

  “What did you hear?” he snarls.

  There is no point pretending I heard nothing. He did not raise me to be an imperceptive fool, and my scent in the passageway would have told him how long I listened. “That General Akara infiltrated the Goreddi knights, and that his actions led to their banishment.” That is the least of it; my own father is part of a treacherous cabal, plotting against our Ardmagar. I am loath to utter that aloud.

  He spits fire at the glacier, bringing the cave entrance crashing down. “I might have buried you alive in there. I did not. Do you know why?”

  It is hard to play submissive all the time, but my father accepts no other stance from his children, and he outweighs me by a factor of two. The day will come when the strength of our intellects counts for more than physical power. That is Comonot’s dream and I believe in it, but for now I bow my head. Dragons are slow to change.

  “I permit you to live because I know you will not tell the Ardmagar what you heard,” he says. “You will tell no one.”

  “What is the foundation of this belief?” I flatten myself further, no threat to him.

  “Your loyalty and your family honor should be basis enough,” he cries. “But you admit that you have neither.”

  “And if my loyalty is to my Ardmagar?” Or to his ideas, anyway.

  My father spits fire at my toes; I leap back but smell singed talons. “Then heed this, Linn: my allies among the Censors tell me you’re in trouble.”

  I have heard no official word, but I have expected this. I flare my nostrils and raise my head spines, however, as if I were startled. “Did they say why?”

  “They hoard details, but it doesn’t matter what you did. You’re on the list. If you reveal what was said upon my hoard—or whom you saw, or how many—it will be your word against mine. I will number you a dangerous deviant.”

  In fact I am a dangerous deviant, but until this moment I had been a dangerous deviant who was torn about returning to Goredd. I am no longer torn.

  My father climbs the glacier face so that he might launch himself more easily. The ice is weakened by summer’s heavy melt; blocks as large as my head break off beneath his claws, tumble toward me, dash to pieces. His collapse of the tunnel has put the glacier under stress; I see a deep crack in the ice.

  “Climb, hatchling,” he cries. “I shall escort you back to your mother’s. You won’t go south again; I shall see to it that the Ker cancels your visas.”

  “General, you are wise,” I say, raising the pitch of my voice, imitating the chirp of the newly hatched. I do not climb; I am completing a calculation. I must stall him. “Put me back in ard. If I am not to go south again, is it not time I was mated?”

  He has reached the top of the ice cliff. He arches his neck, muscles rippling along it. The moon has risen behind him, giving him a formidable gleam. He is intimidating; my cower is almost in earnest. I have a few more vectors to account for, and friction. Will friction befriend or foe? I extend a wing inconspicuously, trying to more accurately gauge the temperature.

  “You are the daughter of Imlann!” he shrieks. “You could have any one of those generals you saw today. You could have all of them, in whatever order you wish.”

  It is a challenge to keep him talking while my mouth is busy. I recoil in overstated awe, histrionic for a dragon, but my father accepts this unquestioningly as his due.

  “I will arrange it,” he says. “You are not the mightiest female, but you fly well, and your teeth are sound. They will be honored to join their lines with mine. Only promise to break any weak eggs before they hatch, as I ought to have broken Orma’s.”

  Oh, Orma. You are the only one I will miss.

  I expel a swift, surgical ball of flame, targeting a slim buttress beneath the ice wall. Its destruction tips the structural balance. A crevasse yawns behind my father; the ice screams as the face of the glacier shears off. I spring back, out of the path of flying ice, and scramble down the moraine, bounding over boulders until I can push off into the air. I tack into the winds of the glacial collapse, circling upward. I should fly as fast as I can toward anywhere else, away, but I cannot bring myself to leave. I must see what I have done: it is my pain, I have earned it, and I will carry it with me the rest of my days.

  It is no less than either of us deserves.

  As per my calculation, the ice beneath his calefactive bulk was too soft and slick for his claws to get good purchase. He could not push off in time; he has tumbled backward into the crevasse. A spire of ice from higher up—from an area not figuring in my algebra—has fallen on top of him, pinning his wing. Maybe piercing it. I circle, trying to determine whether I have killed him. I smell his blood, like sulfur and roses, but he snarls and thrashes, and I conclude he is not dead. I switch on every quigutl device I have and shed them down upon his body; they twinkle in the moonlight, and I estimate someone might mistake him for treasure, from a distance. He will be found.

  I circle the sky, bidding farewell to the Tanamoot—mountains, sky, water, all dragonkind. I have broken my family, my father, my promises, everything. I am the traitor now.

  Oh, Orma. Keep yourself safe from him.

  The bed curtains danced their ghostly sarabande in the warm air currents. I stared at them for some time, seeing nothing, feeling wrung out and boneless.

  Each subsequent memory filled gaps in my understanding. That first memory, so long ago, had forcefully ripped the scales from my blind eyes and destroyed my peace, I thought perhaps for good. The next had left me resenting her thoughtless selfishness; I could admit that to myself now. I envied her after the third, but now … something was different. Not her—she was dead and unchangeable—but me. I was changed. I clasped my aching left wrist tightly to my chest, understanding the nature of it.

  I felt her struggle this time, felt echoes of my own. She had chosen Papa over family, country, her own kind, everything she’d grown up with. She had cared about Orma, insofar as dragons could care; that went a long way toward earning my sympathy. As for the ringing emptiness at the very heart of her, that was only too familiar. “I thought I was the only one who’d ever felt that, Mother,” I whispered to the bed curtains. “I thought I was all alone, and maybe a little bit mad.”

  The feather bed had stopped trying to devour me; it seemed a cloud, rather, lifting me toward some bright epiphany: she had uncovered the existence of a cabal hostile to the Ardmagar. However personally difficult it was, however much more Kiggs despised me or the Ardmagar condemned me, I could not hoard these words.

  But whom could I tell?

  Kiggs was mad at me. Glisselda would wonder how I knew and why I had not come forward sooner. I supposed I could lie and say Orma had only just told me, but the ver
y thought of Orma made me sick at heart.

  I should tell Orma. It struck me that he would want to know.

  I rose at first light and sat at the spinet, hugging myself against the morning chill. I played Orma’s chord, having no idea whether he would answer or whether he had already departed for parts unknown.

  The kitten buzzed to life. “I’m here.”

  “That’s eighty-three percent of what I wanted to know.”

  “What’s the other seventeen?”

  “When do you leave? I need to talk to you.”

  There was a silence punctuated by thumps, as if he were setting down heavy books. If he was packing up every book he owned, he’d be lucky to be gone within the week. “Do you remember that newskin I was burdened with? He’s still here.”

  Saints’ dogs. “Haven’t you been deemed unfit to mentor him?”

  “Either no one cares that I’m leading him toward deviancy—possible, given how useless he is—or they think he’ll be a help packing, which he is not.”

  The kitten broadcast some disgruntled muttering, and then my uncle said clearly, “No, you’re not.” I smiled wan sympathy at the kitten eye. “In answer to your question,” he said at last, “I will depart for home and the surgeons in three days, upon your New Year, after I’ve packed up everything here. I will do exactly what is required of me by law. I am caught, and I am chastened, and there is no other alternative.”

  “I need to talk to you alone. I want to say goodbye while you still know me.”

  There was a very long pause, and for a moment I thought he had gone. I tapped the kitten eye in concern, but at last his voice came through, weakly: “My apologies, this body’s ridiculous larynx seized up, but it seems to be functioning again. Will you come into town tomorrow with the rest of the court, to watch the Golden Plays?”

  “I can’t. Tomorrow is dress rehearsal for the Treaty Eve concert.”

  “Then I don’t see how it will be possible to speak with you. Here’s where I emit a thunderous oath, I believe.”

  “Do it,” I urged him, but this time he really was gone.

  I puzzled over all his odd emphases while I tended my scales and dressed and drank my tea. I may have witnessed the first known incidence of a dragon attempting sarcasm. It was a pity I didn’t know how the spinet device worked because it surely could have recorded his utterance for future generations of dragons to learn from: This, hatchlings, is a valiant effort, but not quite it.

  I tried to laugh at that, but it rang hollow. He was leaving; I did not know when or where or for how long. If he was fleeing the Censors, he couldn’t risk staying near me. He would be gone for good. I might get no chance to say goodbye.

  Something had changed during the day I’d spent abed. The halls were devoid of chatter; everyone went about their business looking grim and anxious. Dragons loose in the countryside didn’t sit well with anyone, apparently. As I walked to breakfast, I noticed people scuttling into side rooms at my approach, refusing to meet my eye or bid me good morning if they found themselves forced to pass me in the corridor.

  Surely no one was blaming me? I’d found Imlann, but I hadn’t sent the petit ard after him; that had been up to the Queen and the council. I told myself I was imagining things until I entered the north tower dining hall and the entire room fell silent.

  There was space on the bench between Guntard and the scrawny sackbutist, if either of them moved over an inch. “Your pardon,” I said, but they pretended not to hear. “I would like to sit here,” I said, but each had an extremely interesting bowl of groats in front of him and couldn’t look up. I hoisted my skirts and stepped over the bench in unladylike fashion; they couldn’t scoot fast enough then. In fact, the sackbutist decided his breakfast wasn’t that fascinating after all and abandoned it entirely.

  I couldn’t catch the serving lad’s eye; nobody at the table would acknowledge me. I couldn’t take it: these fellows were, if not exactly friends, colleagues and the authors of my praise song. Surely that counted for something. “Out with it, then,” I said. “What’ve I done to earn the silent treatment?”

  They looked at each other, sidelong and shifty-eyed. Nobody wanted to be the one to talk. Finally Guntard said, “Where were you last evening?”

  “In bed, asleep, making up for a sleepless night the night before.”

  “Ah, right, your heroic expedition to find the rogue dragon,” said a crumhornist, picking his teeth with a kipper bone. “Well, now you’ve given the dragons an excuse for roaming Goredd freely, and Princess Glisselda an excuse for having us all jabbed!”

  “Jabbed?” All around the table, musicians held up bandaged fingers. Some of the fingers were rude ones. I tried not to take that personally, but it wasn’t easy.

  “The princess’s species-check initiative,” grunted Guntard.

  There was only one foolproof way to tell a saarantras: the silver blood. Glisselda was trying to flush out Imlann, if he was concealed at court.

  A lutist waved his fish fork dangerously. “Look at her; she has no intention of letting herself get poked!”

  Dragons don’t blush; they turn pale. My red cheeks might have banished doubts, but of course they didn’t. I said, “I’ll gladly cooperate. This is the first I’m hearing of it, is all.”

  “I told you oafs,” said Guntard, throwing an arm across my shoulders, suddenly my champion. “I don’t care what the rumors say, our Phina’s no dragon!”

  The bottom fell out of my stomach. Blue St. Prue. There was a huge difference between “won’t take a jab like the rest of us” and “is rumored to be a dragon in disguise.” I tried to keep my voice light, but it came out squeaky: “What rumor is this?”

  Nobody knew who’d started it, but it had run through court the day before like fire over summer fields. I was a dragon. I’d gone not to hunt down the rogue but to warn him. I could speak Mootya. I had devices. I had willfully endangered the prince.

  I sat there, stunned, trying to work out who could have said all these things. Kiggs might have, but I was unwilling to believe him so spiteful. No, unwilling was too tepid: it was unthinkable. I had little faith in Heaven, but I had faith in his honor, even when he was angry. Perhaps especially while angry—he struck me as someone who would cleave harder to his principles under duress.

  But then who?

  “I’m not a dragon,” I said feebly.

  “Let’s test that right now,” said Guntard, slapping his palms on the table. “Put everybody’s mind at ease and have a spot of fun, all in one go.”

  I recoiled, thinking he intended to stab me—with what, his porridge spoon?—but he rose and grabbed my left arm. I yanked it away ungently, my smile brittle as glass, but rose to follow, hoping he’d feel no need to grab me again if I came willingly. Eyes followed us from all quarters.

  We crossed the eerily silent dining hall and stopped at the dragons’ table. There were only two this morning, a pasty male and short-haired female, lowly amanuenses who had not gone hunting Imlann, but were left behind to run the embassy offices. They sat stiffly, rolls halfway to their mouths, staring at Guntard as though he were some talking turnip who had sneaked up on them.

  “Your pardon, saarantrai,” cried Guntard, addressing the whole room, tables, windows, serving lads, and all. “You can recognize your own kind by smell. True?”

  The saarantrai exchanged a wary glance. “The word of a saarantras does not hold up in court on certain issues, and this is one,” said the male, fastidiously wiping his fingers on the tablecloth. “If you’re hoping to evade the species check, we can’t help you.”

  “Not me. Our music mistress, Seraphina. She will submit to the bleed, as will all of us who must, but there have been vicious, hateful rumors circulating and I want them put to rest.” Guntard put one hand to his chest and the other in the air, like a blowhard in a play. “She is my friend, not some vile, deceitful dragon! Smell her and affirm it.”

  I couldn’t move; I had wrapped my arms around myself, as
if that alone prevented me from spontaneously combusting. The saarantrai had to rise and approach me in order to get close enough to discern anything. The female sniffed behind my ear, holding my hair aside like a dark curtain. The male bent over my left hand theatrically; he’d get a noseful. I’d changed the bandage on my self-inflicted wound this morning, but he would unquestionably discern it. Maybe I smelled edible; my blood was red as any Goreddi’s.

  I clenched my teeth, bracing for the blow. The saarantrai stepped away and reseated themselves without a word.

  “Well?” demanded Guntard. The entire room held its breath.

  Here it came. I said a little prayer.

  The female spoke: “Your music mistress is not a dragon.”

  Guntard started clapping, like a handful of gravel tossed down the mountainside, and little by little more hands joined in until I was buried under an avalanche of applause.

  I gaped at the saarantrai. They could not have failed to smell dragon. Had they assumed I was a bell-exempt scholar and kept quiet out of respect for my supposed research? Perhaps.

  “Shame on all of you, believing rumors!” said Guntard. “Seraphina has never been anything but honorable, fair, and kind, a fast friend and an excellent musician—”

  The male saar blinked, slowly, like a frog swallowing its dinner; the female gestured toward the sky in a subtle but unmistakable way. My doubts dissolved: they’d smelled me. They’d lied. Maybe they hoped I was an unauthorized dragon, just to spite Guntard and everyone else nodding agreement at all the noble, moral, non-draconian qualities I possessed.

  I had never seen the rift between our peoples laid out so starkly. These saarantrai wouldn’t lift a finger for the humans in this room; they might not have turned in Imlann himself. How many dragons would take his side if their choice was between submitting to Goreddi bigotry and breaking the law?

  Guntard was still clapping me on the back and extolling my human virtues. I turned and walked out of the hall without my breakfast. I imagined Guntard failing to notice I had gone, clapping at the empty air.