Seraphina

by Rachel Hartman

  “I think we would be something formidable, all together,” I said. “And I think I could find the rest, if I went looking. I’ve wanted to find them.”

  “Do it,” said Glisselda. “Whatever you need—horses, guards, money—speak to Lucian, and Lucian will make it so.” She nodded to her cousin; he nodded back, although he avoided looking in my direction.

  The Regent could stand it no longer. “Your pardon, Highness, but who are these people? I know Count Pesavolta’s ambassadress, but the rest? A highland lout, a Porphyrian child, and this … this woman—”

  “My daughter Seraphina,” said Papa, his face hard.

  “Oh, that explains everything!” cried the Regent. “Princess? What’s going on?”

  Princess Glisselda opened her mouth, but no words came out.

  In that moment of hesitation, I realized she was embarrassed—for me, for all of us. We were the punch line of a hundred dirty jokes. How could she speak of such disgusting things to the leader of a foreign land?

  I rose, ready to spare her the mortification. My father had the same idea and found his voice first: “I married a dragon. My daughter, whom I love, is half dragon.”

  “Papa!” I cried, terrified for him, grateful, sad, and proud.

  “Infanta!” sputtered the Regent, leaping to his feet. “By St. Vitt, these are unnatural abominations. Soulless beasts!”

  Count Pesavolta snorted. “I can’t believe you were worried about our loyalty but are ready to trust these things. How can you ever be sure which side they will take, dragon or human? My ambassadress already seems determined to choose Goredd over Ninys. Surely this is only the first wave of her treachery?”

  “I choose what’s right,” snarled Dame Okra, “as I expect you will too, sir.”

  Comonot turned to Ninys and Samsam, his eyes bright but his voice filled with calm authority: “Can you not see that it’s no longer a question of dragon versus human? The division now is between those who think this peace is worth preserving and those who would keep us at war until one side or the other is destroyed.

  “There are dragons who see the good of the treaty. They will join us. The young have been raised with peaceful ideals; they won’t sympathize with these grizzled generals who want their hoards and their hunting grounds back.”

  He turned toward Glisselda and gestured toward the sky. “Something we dragons have learned from you is that we are stronger together. We need not take on the entire world alone. Let us stand together now for the peace.”

  Princess Glisselda rose, stepped around the great oaken desk, and embraced Comonot, removing all doubt. She would not turn him over to his generals. We would be going to war for peace.

  The meeting adjourned; the Regent and Count Pesavolta couldn’t quit the room fast enough. Glisselda and Kiggs already had their heads together, planning how best to address the council at noon. The princess smiled sheepishly at her cousin. “You were right: Ninys and Samsam took it poorly. I hoped to be efficient, but I should have met with everyone separately. Gloat, if you must.”

  “Not at all,” said Kiggs gently. “Instinct did not fail you. They’d have learned of the half-dragons eventually and accused us of duplicity. They’ll get over it.”

  I stared at the back of the prince’s neck as if it could reveal whether he himself was used to the idea yet. If his refusal to look at me was any indication, the answer was no. I tore myself away and left them to their planning.

  My father waited for me in the corridor, his arms crossed and his eyes anxious. He held out a hand when he saw me. I took it, and we stood in silence.

  “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I have lived in this prison so long, I … I suddenly found I couldn’t do it anymore.”

  I squeezed his hand and let go. “You only did what I was about to. What now? There must be repercussions within the lawyers’ guild for lawyers who break the law.” He had a wife and four other children to support; I could not bring myself to point that out.

  He smiled mirthlessly. “I’ve been preparing my case for sixteen years.”

  “Excuse me,” said a voice to my left, and we turned to see Comonot standing there. He cleared his throat and ran a jeweled hand over his jowls. “You are—were—the human involved with the nameless … that is, with Linn, daughter of Imlann?”

  Papa bowed stiffly.

  Comonot stepped closer, cautious as a cat. “She left her home, her people, her studies, everything. For you.” He touched my father’s face with his thick fingers: the left cheek, the right, the nose and chin. My father endured it stonily.

  “What are you?” said the Ardmagar, an unexpected roughness in his voice. “Not a depraved maniac. You are known in the north as a dispassionate interpreter of the treaty—you realize that? You’ve defended dragons in court when no one else would do it; don’t imagine we haven’t noticed. And yet it was you who lured our daughter away.”

  “I did not know,” said my father hoarsely.

  “No, but she knew.” Comonot laid a hand atop my father’s balding head, mystified. “What did she see? And why can’t I see it?”

  Papa extricated himself, bowed, and set off down the hall. For a fleeting instant, in the sad curve of his shoulders, I saw what Comonot could not: the core of decency; the weight he had carried so long; the endless struggle to do right in the wake of this irreversible wrong; the grieving husband and frightened father; the author of all those love songs. For the first time, I understood.

  Comonot seemed unfazed by my father’s hasty retreat. He took my arm and whispered in my ear breathily, like a small child: “Your uncle is at the seminary infirmary.”

  I goggled at him. “He transformed?”

  The Ardmagar shrugged. “He was adamant that no saar physician come near him; he seems to believe they’d excise him on the spot. He’ll be gone tomorrow in any case.”

  I pulled away from him. “Because Basind will take him away to have his brain pruned?”

  Comonot licked his thick lips, as if he needed to taste my bitterness to understand it. “Not at all. I’m pardoning Orma—not that the Censors will obey the edicts of an exiled Ardmagar. At midnight Eskar squirrels him away, and even I don’t know where. It may be a very long time before you see him again.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re indulging emotional deviants!”

  His pointed gaze held an intelligence I had not appreciated before. He said, “Indulging, no, but perhaps comprehending the hidden complexities better. I thought I knew which things we dragons should learn and which were unnecessary, but I see now that my opinions had calcified. I was as set in my thinking as the crusty old generals who’ve stolen my country.”

  He reached for my hand, lifted it, and clapped it to the side of his neck. I tried to pull away, but he held firm and said: “Let this signify my submission to your tutelage, since I doubt you would agree to bite the back of my neck. You are my teacher. I will listen, and I will try to learn.”

  “I will try to be worthy of your reverence,” I said, my mother’s words coming to me from the depths of the memory box. I felt compelled to add my own: “And I will try to sympathize with your efforts, even when you fail.”

  “Well put,” he said, releasing me. “Now go. Tell your uncle you love him. You do love him, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said, suddenly hoarse.

  “Go. And Seraphina,” he called after me, “I’m sorry about your mother. I believe I am.” He gestured toward his stomach. “There, yes? That’s where one feels it?”

  I gave him full courtesy and hurried away.

  An aged monk led me to the infirmary. “He’s got the place to himself. Once the other invalids learned there was a dragon coming, they miraculously got well! The lame could walk and the blind decided they didn’t really need to see. He’s a panacea.”

  I thanked the man and entered quietly in case my uncle was sleeping. At the far end of the ward, beside the only window, he lay propped up by pillows, talking to Eskar. I drew closer and
realized they weren’t talking, exactly. Each raised a hand toward the other, touching just the fingertips together; they took turns running their fingertips down the other’s palm.

  I cleared my throat. Eskar rose, stone-faced and dignified. “Sorry!” I said, unsure why I was apologizing. It wasn’t as though I’d caught them doing something naughty.

  Except maybe I had, from a dragon’s viewpoint. I clamped my mouth shut to prevent giggling. Eskar did not look like she would forgive giggling.

  I said, “I wish to speak to my uncle before you take him away. Thank you for helping him.”

  She stood aside but showed no inclination to leave until Orma said: “Eskar, go. Come back later.” She nodded curtly, drawing her cloak around her, and left.

  I looked askance at him. “What were you two—”

  “Stimulating cortical nerve responses,” said my uncle, smiling eerily. The monks evidently had him on something for the pain. He seemed loose in the middle and soft around the edges. His right arm was wrapped and splinted; his jawline was mottled with white, what passes for bruising when you’ve got silver blood. I could not see where he’d been burned. His head lolled against the pillows. “She is rather majestic in her rightful shape. I’d forgotten. It’s been years. She was Linn’s agemate, you know. Used to come over to my mother’s nest to gut aurochs.”

  “Do we trust her?” I said, hating to bring it up when he seemed so unconcerned. “She was responsible for Zeyd and Basind. Are you sure—”

  “Not for Basind.”

  I frowned but did not pursue it. I tried to lighten my own mood by teasing him: “So you’re off the hook, you devious old deviant.”

  His brows drew together, and I wondered whether I’d joked a bit too far. It turned out something else bothered him: “I don’t know when I’ll see you again.”

  I patted his arm, trying to smile. “At least you’ll know me when you do see me.”

  “It could be a very long time, Seraphina. You could be middle-aged and married and have six children by then.”

  He was really out of it if he was talking this kind of nonsense. “I may be middle-aged, but no one would marry me, and surely I can’t have children. A mule can’t. Half-breeds are the end of the line.”

  He gazed beatifically into space. “I wonder if that’s really true.”

  “I’m not wondering. I’ve come to say goodbye and wish you good journey, not speculate about my reproductive capabilities.”

  “You talk like a dragon,” he said dreamily. He was getting drowsier.

  I wiped my eyes. “I’m going to miss you so much!”

  He rolled his head toward me. “I saved the little boy. He leaped from Imlann’s neck to mine, and then I fell into the river, and he danced. He danced right on my belly, and I could feel it.”

  “He was dancing on you. Of course you could feel it.”

  “No, not that way. The other way. I wasn’t in my saarantras, but I was … happy, for all that my legs were broken and the river icy. I was happy. And then Eskar landed, and I was grateful. And the sun shone, and I felt sad for my father. And for you.”

  “Why for me?”

  “Because the Censors had finally fooled me, and I was going to be excised, and you would weep.”

  I was weeping now. “You’ll be safe with Eskar.”

  “I know.” He took my hand, squeezed it. “I can’t bear that you’ll be alone.”

  “Not alone. There are others of my kind. I’m going to find them.”

  “Who will kiss you? Who will rock you to sleep?” His voice was slow, drowsy.

  “You never did,” I said, trying to tease him. “You were more father to me than my father, but you never did that.”

  “Someone should. Someone should love you. I will bite him if he will not.”

  “Hush. You’re talking nonsense now.”

  “Not nonsense. This is important!” He struggled to sit up straighter and failed. “Your mother once told me something, and I need to tell you … because you need … to understand it …”

  His eyes fluttered shut, and he was quiet so long I thought he had fallen asleep, but then he said, in a voice so soft I could barely hear: “Love is not a disease.”

  I leaned my forehead on his shoulder, all the words I’d never spoken to him rushing my throat at once, forming a terrible lump there. Hesitantly he stroked my hair.

  “I’m not completely certain she was right,” he murmured. “But I cannot let them cut you out of me, nor her either. I will cling to my sickness … if it is a sickness … I will hold it close to me like the … the sun, and the …”

  He faded away again, this time for good. I sat with my arms around him until Eskar returned. I smoothed his hair off his forehead and kissed him lightly. Eskar stared. “Take good care of him, or I’ll … I’ll bite you!” I told her. She looked unconcerned.

  The sky outside was blue, cold, and very far away; the sun was too bright to look at, let alone hold close to me. “But I will try, uncle,” I murmured, “though it burns me. I will keep it close.”

  I hurried homeward through the slushy streets. I had a prince to find.

  When I reached the palace, there was a great crush of carriages at the gates. The city magistrates, the bishop, the Chapter, the guild leaders, the Queen’s Guard—every important person in the city had arrived at once. Indoors, I was carried toward the great hall by a crowd of people, more than would comfortably fit inside, it turned out. Half of us were diverted back out to Stone Court.

  Apparently the council had been short. We were about to hear the official results.

  A balcony halfway up the wall was opened up to both the hall and the courtyard, such that someone with a loud voice could be heard in both places. Glisselda appeared there, waving to the roaring throng. She acted on her grandmother’s behalf, but everyone who saw her that day, clad in white for her mother, her golden hair shining like any crown, knew they were in the presence of the next Queen. She awed us into silence.

  She handed a folded letter to a herald, a particularly vociferous fellow, whose voice rang out clearly over the hushed crowd.

  Generals of the Tanamoot:

  Goredd rejects the legitimacy of your claim to sovereignty over the Dragon Lands. Ardmagar Comonot yet lives; petty threats will not induce us to turn him over, nor do we recognize the validity of these trumped-up charges against him. He is our proven friend and ally, author and champion of the peace, and the legitimate ruler of the Tanamoot.

  If you push this toward war, do not foolishly imagine we are helpless, or that your own people will choose to fight for you rather than for continued cooperation between our species. This peace has been a true blessing upon the world, which is changed for the better; you cannot drag it back into the past.

  Devoutly hoping we may settle this with words, I am,

  Her Highness Princess Glisselda, First Heir of Goredd,

  On behalf of Her Majesty Queen Lavonda the Magnificent

  We applauded with heavy hearts, knowing that this was all the pretext the generals would need for war. Another conflict was coming, whether we willed it or not. I saw smirks on faces in the crowd and feared that some among us willed it in fact.

  It took forever for the crowd to disperse; everyone wanted a chance to petition the princess or the Ardmagar, swear loyalty, argue. The palace guard managed the crowds as best they could, but I did not see Kiggs anywhere. It wasn’t like him not to be right in the thick of things.

  Princess Glisselda had also contrived to disappear. I suspected Kiggs might be with her. There were two places outside the royal wing where someone like me could look. I had just set foot upon the grand stair, however, when a voice behind me stopped me short: “Tell me it isn’t true, Seraphina. Tell me they’re lying about you.”

  I looked back. The Earl of Apsig crossed the atrium toward me, his boots echoing upon the marble floor. I didn’t ask what he meant. Ninys and Samsam had spread the news to every corner of the court. I gripped the balus
trade tightly, bracing myself. “It’s no lie,” I said. “I am half dragon—like Lars.”

  He neither flinched nor rushed up to hit me—as I’d half feared he would. His face went slack with despair; he flopped himself onto the broad stone steps and sat with his head in his hands. For a moment I considered sitting beside him—he looked so sad!—but he was too unpredictable.

  “What are we to do?” he said at last, throwing up his hands and looking up with red-rimmed eyes. “They’ve won. Nowhere is exclusively human; no side in this conflict is ours alone. They infiltrate everything, control everything! I joined the Sons of St. Ogdo because they seemed to be the only people willing to take action, the only ones looking the treaty in the eye and calling it what it was: our ruin.”

  He ran his hands through his hair, as if he might pull it out by the roots. “But who connected me with the Sons and urged me to get involved? That dragon, Lady Corongi.”

  “They’re not all out to get us,” I said softly.

  “No? How about the one that tricked your father, or the one that deceived my mother and made her bear a bastard?”

  I drew a sharp breath, and he glowered at me. “My mother raised Lars as if he were my equal. One day he began sprouting scales out of his very flesh. He was only seven; he showed us all, innocently rolled up his sleeve—” His voice broke; he coughed. “My father stabbed her right through the neck. It was his right, his injured honor. He might have killed Lars, too.”

  He stared at the air as if disinclined to speak further. “You didn’t let him,” I prompted. “You persuaded him otherwise.”

  He looked at me as if I were speaking Mootya. “Persuaded? No. I killed the old man. Pushed him off the round tower.” He smiled mirthlessly at my shock. “We live in the remotest highlands. This sort of thing happens all the time. I took my great-grandmother’s family name to avoid awkward questions if I went to court in Blystane. Highland genealogies are complex; none of the coastal Samsamese keep track of them.”