Beneath Stained Glass Wings

by K Kazul Wolf

  “How are you doing this? How do you know this?” I’ve never met a dragon or illusionist that could move water directly, as a whole. Only as vapor, and with a lot of concentration, sometimes in specific areas. Not even the king used any illusions like this. Why did Maur fall when he has all this power and knowledge at his disposal?

  He’s quiet for long enough that I question if he’s going to answer me. “Dragons are quite the opposite of elephants, it seems.” His voice is quiet. “They easily forget. The humans, though, seem to cling to knowledge almost to a fault.”

  Ground dwellers? “But how would they know? Where did you find these people?”

  “If you’re lucky, I’ll tell you.”

  We walk deeper, the sea becoming a deep blue around us. A school of fish rushes toward our little pocket, floundering and rolling as they slip over the bubble surrounding us. There must be a mirage around us.

  “Ah, here we go.” Maur smiles.

  A great fish follows the school, long, flat and not very pretty looking with scales like the sea floor.

  The poor fish doesn’t see us coming. Maur’s hand twitches slightly, and the water around the fish becomes foggier and cloudier until it’s pure white, solidifying into large opaque crystal growing from the fish in cones.

  “W-what?” I manage to squeak, the crystals starting to dissipate, not unlike the one time I’d seen ice melting. The fish falls to the sea floor, eyes fogged over.

  Maur steps forward until the ever-shifting bubble covers the fish. He lifts it by the mouth, examining it. “I cured it with salt. Dantea taught me the basic idea, decades ago. Ever since her, I can’t seem to take eating raw meat.”

  Then he drops the fish again, and the wet sand opens underneath to swallow it whole.

  Part of me is relieved that the fish is gone—I’ve had the briny, stinky meat once and that was enough for me—but the greater part of me is confused.

  “Now.” Maur clasps his hands behind his back. “Find the fish. Point to where it is, don’t attempt to fight my illusion holding it there.”

  I blink. “But…it’s dead. It doesn’t have a heartbeat, and there’s an entire ocean of water around us so it’s not like I could find it by the water it carries.”

  He shrugs. “I have time.”

  I narrow my eyes. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  A flicker of a smile crosses his face, then he shrugs again. He’s getting easier to read.

  And much more difficult to work with.

  “Please keep in mind we do have to eat before discussing the matter that brought you here. I’m feeling a little hungry, and my appetite is a beast neither of us would like to deal with”

  “Of course,” I mutter, then sigh. I close my eyes again, grabbing at a focus that seems so much harder to reach in the overwhelming motion of the ocean all around me, above me, under me. The irritation of Maur being, well, Maur, helps me to stay a little more focused, but not much.

  There’s nothing. Just water everywhere, moving through everything and being everywhere. There’s no difference in the flow, like a heartbeat would have. It’s nothing.

  I squeeze my eyes tighter shut. “I can’t—”

  “If you finish that sentence, I’ll fling you into the ocean to swim with the fish until you drown.”

  I scowl. Such a pleasant dragon.

  His heart rate picks up a bit. Irritated? “Just like a heartbeat is different from the rest of the current, like a beacon, remember that everything—solid or not—affects the tide, if not changes it. Here.” There’s a swirl of water, just to my right. The rest of the water reverberates around it, and shows…something? I can’t quite grasp it, peeking to see a chair made of sand that Maur now lounges in.

  “What have I said about cheating?” He stands in a split second, towering over me.

  I flinch back, suddenly all too aware of what dragons are capable of, and unsure of what this dragon in particular could do to me. “I couldn’t see it. I wanted to see it.”

  He tuts, then rubs his temple. “You can see it, but not with your eyes. I don’t know why I’m wasting my time on one of my brother’s minions.”

  “I am not his minion,” I growl, taking a step forward. Dragon or no dragon, no one talks to me like that. Not anymore. “He is the one who stole everything from me. From so many of my kind, and your kind. You hate him. You know better than I that it is not my fault he’s so…so…”

  “Afraid.” The wrinkles around his eyes have grown less deep, more thoughtful. “He’s afraid of everything, everyone. He may be large, he may think he’s beautiful, but he will never trust himself enough to be powerful.” He waves a hand and the chair disintegrates back into the ocean floor. “I would hope you are different than him. But you must prove it. Do not be so afraid of anything as to be blinded by it.”

  He thinks I’m afraid? What’s left to be afraid of? Still, I nod and close my eyes.

  “Good. Enjoy your search, serpent. I’ll join you when you are in the mood to make progress.”

  I scowl as his heartbeat moves farther and farther away. I need to ignore him. He may be my only source of these strange illusions, but he’s also the worst distraction. I reach out, throw myself into the churning and turning ocean around me.

  My head swims and I sway, the ground unsteady beneath me. I gasp in a breath, opening my eyes and sitting before I fall over. So maybe complete concentration isn’t the best route. Maybe there’s a different approach.

  I open my eyes for a moment, just long enough to catch sight of a rock in the bubble of air with me but squeezing my eyes shut before I get a good look. This time my awareness spreads slowly, seeps from me like the fog in Caelum would curl in the streets in the morning. It crawls along the current of moisture floating through the air, following the puffs of my breath further and further until—

  There’s something there. It takes everything in me to not open my eyes and look, see whatever is there instead taking all this time to “see” without my eyes.

  With slow movements, careful to keep my focus on the small area where the rock has to be, I try to hone in on the currents. Time ticks away as I delicately wrap my mind around the disturbance in the air, in the moisture. It starts to take solid shape. Slowly but surely, I see the grooves and dents of the rock as it lies along the uneven surface of the sand. I feel the rough texture of it, the way it redirects the flow of moisture I push around it.

  There. I grin, opening my eyes to find the rock as the exact same shape and size as what I’d imagined, and a little thrown as it’s redder than I remembered. Or maybe that’s because the light has shifted since I last opened my eyes.

  Hours have passed. My stomach moans loudly, but I left my pack on the beach. My only chance of eating something is finding that weird fish Maur buried.

  Scowling, I close my eyes again. I reach out as slow as before, but this time farther, into the ocean. With nothing to focus on, the dizziness threatens to take me under, but I grit my teeth and focus.

  It takes time, but the overwhelming feeling fades, the intricacies of the ocean waters becoming clearer. I’m not just aware of the ocean like I was when I was on the shore, it feels like I’m a part of the ocean. With formless fingers, my mind traces over the sandy floor. The flitting, chaotic movement of a fish through water. The distinct shapes of rocks as they sit motionless in contrast to the plants that are scattered around, movements so very slow, but also very there.

  I dig into the sand, squeezing awareness through it, around rocks. The movement is quieter here, but it’s hard to focus on a solid object because there are so many. Bones and rocks and things I can’t identify spread everywhere. How am I supposed to locate it without knowing where it is? I start where Maur buried it until…

  I open my eyes.

  “It’s right where you left it.” I grimace at the spot where he buried it. “Why make me do all that if you were going to leave it?”

  “To see if you could.”

  I jump,
nearly falling back in an effort to turn around and see Maur standing behind me.

  “You’re an interesting one, for a Caelum-born. And it’s been a while since I’ve had fun.”

  “So I did that one well?”

  “You did that one better.” He draws up two chairs this time, and a table, my mind trying to grasp the changing currents as he manages to slice through the fish dozens of times with what seems to be…blades of water? My mind trips over itself, trying to keep up with it.

  I scowl. I suppose that line counts as a compliment in his mind. I get up, finding my knees sore from sitting too long, my head aching and heavy from all the concentration.

  “It would have been easier if you were a dragon, I will admit that much.” He takes a seat at the table, movement smooth and full of an energy I can’t fathom. “But you were still slow. Especially for being so closely related to a dragon. “

  Wait, what? My mind may be moving slow, but it still knows that’s wrong. “Who said I was closely related to a dragon? I'm average in talent, there can't be much dragon blood in my veins.”

  Besides, if I were closely related to a dragon, I would probably look more dragon, like that ambassador did.

  He shrugs. “My mistake. Are you familiar with your family tree, though?”

  “I…” I bite my lip. I barely remember my mother. I’ve only ever known my father. “No.”

  With a nod, he picks up a knife and fork that has the same, shiny texture as the walls that he constructs. The plates are made from the same thing, as well as the tables and the chairs.

  I collapse into the chair, picking up my own odd, surprisingly solid fork—I still want to know how he’s doing this—though the pink meat isn’t too appetizing.

  “It seems illusionists are kept as isolated as ever from each other as they were in my time.”

  I shake my head. “I grew up with my father.”

  He pauses in eating, looking at me. “Is that unusual?”

  I shrug. “I was never close to anyone else. Like you said, we were isolated, encouraged not to make any friends, to only care for our dragons and only focus on our orders.” I’d never thought about it before, but it isn’t a surprise anymore.

  “Hmm.” He takes another bite.

  I look at the fish again, my nose wrinkling at the thought of eating it. His eyebrows raise and I reluctantly stick my fork into the meat. It’s tender, so delicate it falls apart in layers, practically melting in my mouth. And, somehow, it doesn’t taste too fishy. A little salty, yes, but not that horrible smell I remember from my one taste of them.

  “This is good!” I splutter out, before my mind catches up to me.

  “You expected something different?”

  The memory of spikes shooting from the wall and the chair nearly crushing me through the roof flash through my mind’s eye. “I normally don’t like fish.”

  “I can’t imagine you would have it much in the sky.” He swallows the last of his serving, watching me down mine.

  When did I get this hungry? The salt draws up a thirst, the fish getting harder and harder to swallow. I grab my cup and gulp the water, feeling a bit like an animal and not caring much about it.

  His sips from his own cup, face placid. “I suppose the extravagant food was a benefit of having my family, despite it being a bit…stifling.”

  I stare at my empty plate, then at the remaining fish, wondering if it would be rude to take more. I shake my head. “Why did you leave, if you had so much family in the city?”

  “Family isn’t always a good thing, serpent.”

  Vito’s sister crawls into my mind, his bruises, her words cutting through him like knives.

  Until I was the one who ran a blade through her.

  I shiver, my appetite gone. “Is that the reason you left, then?”

  He shakes his head. “I was too curious for them. I began to figure out what I’m teaching you on my own and I wanted to learn more. Luckily, I was clever enough to trick my relatives into thinking me dead. It was an interesting process. I’m not sure everyone believed it. But I got free, and I learned more.”

  “From the ground dwellers you mentioned?”

  “Yes.” He scowls, pushing his plate away. “Now, it seems we’ve hit the point in this conversation where more talking will only make one of us angry. We’ll have to continue in the morning.”

  “The morning?” I squint at him, my head aching as I try to focus. “But I didn’t wake up that long ago.”

  “You were at your task for hours upon hours, serpent. Look around at the sea. It’s nightfall.”

  It is dark; the walls of water are black. And I never noticed. I rub my forehead, trying to work some sense and focus back into my head. I’ve wasted another day here, learning another technique that I don’t know will help me. I would probably have to pry Maur from this place, and dragons know he’s more powerful with illusions than me. Is all this worth learning?

  “Now, I suggest you get up.” He rises, chair scraping softly against sand. As he stands, the furniture falls, and I fall with it onto the soft sand.

  Is he going to cast me out for the night? Will he let me back in? Before I can open my mouth, the damp sand shifts underneath me, rising. He’s going to shoot me out into the ocean and kill me now that he’s had his fun with me and, and—

  The sand stops moving. I’m on a bed, quite large with a plush blanket and two pillows. It seems to be made of the same stuff as everything else in this weird creation of Maur’s, but it’s hard to tell in the dim light.

  “We’ll continue this in the morning, serpent.” And with that he slips through the walls, disappearing into the water.

  The impossible light dims to a soft glow. My fingers curl into the silky blanket beneath me, and I suck in a large breath of briny air. There’s no way for me to get out. Maybe I could break through his illusion into the ocean, but what then? I can’t swim.

  And if I leave, he won’t help me. I’ll go back to fixing those wings, day in and day out, with no plan and no purpose. I’ll never take from the dragons what they took from me. I’ll never figure out exactly what it is I want to take.

  So with slow movements, I unbuckle my sabre, place it next to me, pull the silvery blanket from the bed, and slip underneath. It’s more comfortable than anything I’ve lain on since the fall, silk against my filthy, gritty skin. My cot back in Mercatus wasn’t much better than a rock, if I managed to get there from my desk, and this…

  My eyes are so, so heavy. My head hurts with the ache of them, and I’m not sure if the walls are really moving or if it’s my sight. How did I make it this far without collapsing? My mind races for a moment longer, the past day running and rerunning through my head at a speed I can’t keep up with. Finally, the exhaustion stretches through me, warm and lazy. My eyes shut and darkness creeps in.

  18

  The Mother

  It’s dark, and it’s sticky, and it’s hot, and I’m running. Everything’s close and suffocating and I keep running. But there’s no escape. I try to scream, but there’s no noise, no air. I’m drowning, dying. I’m—

  Awareness shocks through me and I gasp for air. I was dreaming, that’s all. It’s not real. I reach for the comfort of my gloves—and don’t find them. “Dragons,” I curse quietly. You’d think I’d remember by now, not expect them to be there like a part of my skin.

  Something else is off. I freeze under blankets. On a bed that’s puzzlingly comfortable. Yesterday comes at me in a rush and the wrongness takes shape as a thought.

  There’s another heartbeat in the room.

  I snatch my sabre, roll to my feet and flap my wings backward, pulling the blade and lowering my horns toward the intruder.

  “Well, good morning to you, too, serpent.” Maur smiles, a hint of entertainment lighting his voice. “We’ve got to stop greeting each other like this.”

  I look away, gritting my teeth and closing my eyes for a moment. I’ve got to calm down. It was a nightmare, then Maur.
It doesn’t matter how often I have them, or how much of a jerk he is. I’ve had them before. I had them all the time while I was in town. They aren’t any more real—

  Wait. “It’s morning?”

  He waves toward the wall, the ocean around us, a deep blue. There’s the slightest shimmer of white above the distant surface. I slept through a whole night. Maybe a little bit more than that.

  “I figured it was best to let you sleep, considering you are my guest.”

  I eye him. Maur, being somewhat kind?

  He dissolves the bed, turning to walk through the water behind him. “It’s time for breakfast, come along.”

  The walls melt around me, so I flit forward and catch up to him.

  “Have you decided?” I ask, staying a few paces away from him. “If you would help the rebellion.”

  “No. I said we’d talk more in the morning, didn’t I?”

  This wasn’t really what the conversation was about last night, but I’m perfectly content to not talk more about families. Or…lack thereof.

  He glances at me from the corner of his eye, otherwise passive. “I still don’t know you or your goals. I’m afraid you’re going to have to swallow your pride, serpent, and that seems like it will be a big gulp for you.”

  I scowl, running a hand through my hair. It’s getting longer. I need to cut it short as soon as I get out of here; I don’t like how it bunches and tangles around my horns. But I suppose that’s the question: how will I get out? How does he do this?

  Curiosity grows and digs into my thoughts like a hungry parasite. “How are you moving the sand and the water? Keeping an illusion like this shouldn’t be possible.”

  The sand slowly rises around us, blocking the water and the fish, and raising the glimmering walls around us.

  “You can’t tell, even with what I’ve shown you? I suppose they do teach you how to be blind up there.” He pauses for a second, looking at me. Really looking at me, like he’s seeing something deeper than skin.