Beneath Stained Glass Wings

by K Kazul Wolf

  I shiver.

  “Maybe I’ll teach you how.”

  Then he continues walking, like he made a comment about the weather instead of the impossibility of learning a dragon’s illusion. Not just feeling things, but doing things, doing the impossible.

  “What would be the price?” I watch his face, waiting for a twitch of the lip, the quirk of an eyebrow. For years I studied body language, but this man is so blank sometimes.

  “You and your exchanges, your prices, your reasons. Life is too short for that, especially yours.”

  I open my mouth to argue, but catch myself. “Really? You’ll teach me, just like that?” I could learn illusions that work wonders, that put me on the same playing field with my greatest enemy. Maybe even more powerful.

  He cocks his head. “Well, I’ll need to know a couple of things first.”

  “Like what?” It’s not excitement running through me, but a low humming, a need to know.

  “Well, first and foremost I need to observe how you cast an illusion after all of this. Quite honestly, I barely remember how you cast them when you broke my defenses when you first got here. It’s impossible to teach without knowing your subject.”

  Though he taught me other techniques without any evaluations.

  “All right. What do I need to do?”

  For a second, he’s quiet as we walk. As I open my mouth to ask if he’s changed his mind, the wall of silver stops growing in front of him. Instead, an archway of stone forms out of the shimmering surface. It’s old, cracked, and crumbled, but it’s a relief to have something solid instead of the constant shifting, the constant movement. Without breaking stride, Maur steps right through the archway. The walls collapse on me faster than usual. I bound after him, half running and half-flying through the opening.

  It’s a small, rectangular room, all the other doors leading out of it filled with sand—or, well, now even the door behind me is piling quickly with sand. The ceiling’s high above, at least four stories before I can catch a glimpse of light filtering through the distant roof. But…the walls. They’re covered in paintings and carvings of all different styles and sorts. Some of the languages I recognize, but most are foreign to me, beautiful and mysterious. A lot of it looks like the tattoos arching across Maur’s skin.

  “What is this place?” is the first question that escapes my mouth.

  “Ruins.”

  Like Dantea mentioned. No wonder Fitz was traveling our country to discover them—these are amazing. “They were shown to me by the people of the desert. This one in particular was shown to me by a woman who was fond of insects. Fancied herself queen of spiders. Her collection made my skin crawl, but she had the best tea in the entire country. Not this country mind you, but the tropics to the south. It’s swarming with bugs and far too green for my taste from what travelers have to say about it, but they have the best spices. If only Caelum had continued trading with them…”

  Trying to not to lose myself in the growing mountain of questions, I ask, “But why are we here?”

  “It’s hard to concentrate on too much else when you’re busy maintaining multiple illusions, little serpent. We’re here to focus.”

  Then how on earth did he keep up conversations with me the whole time? I’m a little disappointed that we didn’t come here to learn about the languages and I won’t be told about the images on the walls. Maybe I can ask when I’m not getting a lesson thrown at me.

  He leans against a wall. “Now, I want to you to show me a mirage.”

  A puff of pride rolls through me, followed by a wave of unease. I’m much more practiced than when Carita asked me to show her, that first night in the caravan. And there’s so much water in the air around me. But this was what was taught to me above, maybe it’s not what he’s looking for.

  Still, it’s all I have.

  My cheek is scarred from use, pain blossoming easily up my jaw as I bite the flesh. I draw the water around me in a smooth motion, cloaking myself. In an instant, I’m covered.

  Maur’s eyebrows arch. Surprise? Astonishment? Did I manage to actually impress the dragon, for once?

  He crosses his arms. “How like your king, using pain to focus your instinct. Weak, and a cheater’s way out. With all I’ve taught you, this is all you can manage? You’ve really learned nothing?”

  His little tests taught me nothing about casting illusions, only sensing the water that I manipulate for them.

  “But I still did it.”

  He shakes his head. “The method you used isn’t meant to cast real illusions, to control the water. You force it in a quick burst of adrenaline and focus from the pain. No, I want to see what you’re really capable of, serpent.”

  I eye him. “What do you mean?”

  “I want you to try again. This time, without harming yourself.”

  Without pain? Without a focus? He’s mad. My hair stands on end. He can’t be serious—it’s never been done. It can’t be.

  But then how does he do it? I’ve never seen him bite his cheek, scratch himself, anything.

  So, clenching my jaw shut and fighting back the urge to chew the inside of my cheek, I try to focus on the water around me. I can see everything, how it groggily floats about the room, Maur’s heartbeat moving slightly faster than usual. But how do I manipulate it with nothing to touch it with? The gentle pushes I used to find the rock is completely different than the concentration needed to create a sheet of water around me. I try to spread out my mind, draw it all around me, but it barely flutters the air around me.

  Maur sighs. My eyes snap open, finding him shaking his head. “Of course you can’t do it, serpent. I don’t know what I was expecting from an illusionist clinging to the lies of Caelum. Anything more than the basics would be lost on you.”

  My wings flick open, my fingers twitching as I resist lowering my horns. “Really? We’re less than you? Because if I’ve learned anything about your people, it’s that you’re all lies and tricks and deceit.” Except Vito. Always except Vito. “Just because it doesn’t fit into your little box doesn’t mean it isn’t right.”

  Fine, maybe biting my cheek isn’t enough. With one arm I reach into my pocket, the other I bring to my mouth. I bite down, small canines drawing blood from my forearm, then bring out my father’s crystal. And I feel it, even stronger, the water a tidal movement against my skin. Drawing on a mirage, I disappear from Maur’s line of sight. Then I angle my father’s crystal, catching the sun. I cast doubles of myself. Two, three, four of me surround him. His eyes grow wide. They all hold their sabres, and in one, uniform movement, aim the tips of the blades at his gut, his throat.

  “Never,” I hiss, walking forward as my doubles all raise their blades for a final blow, “never underestimate someone, especially an illusionist.”

  I let the illusions fall, my mirage dropping like a shed skin. Maur’s eyes flick to me, wide on his blank face. Fear? A dark satisfaction blooms in my chest at the thought.

  Maur clears his throat. “Well.” He pushes off the wall. “I can safely say I’ve only seen that sort of illusion from one other caster.” Two chairs slowly drift up from the floor, Maur’s eyes moving in thought as he walks toward the chairs. “Especially now that I’ve seen it twice. This makes things much easier, and much more complicated.”

  He waves toward the seat, and I accept his offer, walking with careful steps. What is he even talking about? Maybe he’s going to take revenge for that little show.

  “I’m surprised you haven’t asked,” he starts, glancing at the walls, “how I got my markings.”

  He really does jump around a lot. “I didn’t think about it.”

  “Your mistake. On my way to settle here I got slightly…sidetracked. A traveling group of desert goers may have captured me.”

  “Captured you?” I nearly laugh. “A dragon?”

  “Yes, me, a dragon. Because, somehow, they knew more about myself than I did. They knew more about dragons than anyone above knows anymore. Whereas all
of us were stifled, strangled in false knowledge—if we received any knowledge at all—these people bathed in it. And let me tell you, you learn a lot about yourself when you live honestly. I know how to show you that. And I may decide to. But you have to trust me.”

  Because that hasn’t been what I’ve been doing this whole time? Guilt twangs through me, knowing that I shouldn’t be playing games with this more than likely insane dragon, that those wings need to get finished. But, if I learn what he knows…

  “I’ll do my best.” If he wants honesty, I’ll give it.

  “And that’s all anyone can ask.” He leans forward. “Now, tell me about Vito.”

  I pull my wings tight against me. “No.”

  He smiles a bit. “Ah, that fire again. You let it eat at you. But that’s only the surface of it, hmm? The flames. What about your fuel? Is there something you left up there, or something else taken from you? Your family?”

  My wings wilt at my sides. I clasp my hands in front of me until my knuckles are white. “Vito is gone, he was captured while I escaped. My father is gone, I watched him die. My mother…”

  “Your mother?” Maur prompts after a moment of my silence.

  “I don’t know what happened to her. She was there until I was five. My father told me she was gone, that I should be proud of her. But he also said never to follow in her footsteps.” Then there was what the king said, too, but I don’t know what he meant. And what happened to Carita’s mom…

  He quirks his head slightly. “And, tell me, what were your memories of her?”

  I glare at him, biting back the response of “None of your business.” I don’t want to share this with anyone else. The only person I’ve ever talked about this with was Vito. It’s one of the things that was ours, a part of that small, thatched wall we’d built to block out the world and its worries.

  But that wall is gone.

  Vito is gone.

  “She was…warm. She would carry me around a lot, play with my wings. My father and I have wings, but she didn’t. My father actually made her a pair of mechanical ones.”

  “Anything else?” he presses. There’s an odd glint to his eyes, something that doesn’t belong there while I talk about my long-gone mother.

  “I can’t remember much.” Shame heats my face. You’d think you’d remember someone so important to you. “Well, she did always smell like flowers. Jasmine, usually.”

  He leans back, clasping his hands together. “Serpent, was your mother’s name Chava?”

  I stand, banging the back of my legs against the chair that’s stuck to the ground. I don’t care about the pain. “How do you know my mother?”

  19

  The Decision

  Silence stretches on for a moment. I can’t stand it. I want to tear it into bits, scream and shake Maur until he tells me about my mom. That one subject I couldn’t push with my father, despite his silent devotion to her. Who was she, what did she do, why isn’t she here anymore? The need to know is strangling me, choking me.

  “Your mother,” he starts slowly, pressing his lips together before continuing. “She was a special case, for Caelum. Not exactly what you would consider the norm, in any way. Which made it especially hard for your father, what with one of your grandparents being a dragon.”

  “I…” An argument rises in my mouth, but I can’t get it out. Dantea mentioned that I must have a lot of dragon blood in my veins. Maur himself said I was closely related to a dragon before. My father never mentioned any sort of grandparents, and I never asked. I always assumed they were dead. “How would you know?”

  “Oh, believe me, I have ways of knowing.” He smiles grimly. “After my fall, I snuck back into the city on great occasions. See how things are going, attempt to reconcile with your father, those sorts of things. And the very last time I went, years after I met Dantea, I met your mother.”

  “Ah.” I draw my wings in tight again. “So you don’t know what happened to her.”

  He snorts. “Oh, I know what happened to her. Don’t assume, serpent, never assume. She’s involved with the nomads in this area of the desert. She didn’t want to leave the sea.”

  “Where?” I walk closer, then pause, unsure of what to do with my hands as my heart skips a beat. She’s alive. It can’t be true, but I want to believe it. “Where is she? Where can I find her?”

  She’s so close. I can find someone. All my family isn’t gone, and I have one hope left. One person.

  He tilts his head, examining me. “And here lies your problem. You have a choice, serpent. I can show you where your mother lives and you can see her again. But if you go, I won’t come with you. You may not get anything you came here for. What’s more important: your family or your revenge?”

  But…Vito. My father. I can’t leave that city to continue on; I can’t let them keep that twisted, horrible society. No one should have to suffer like we did because of those bastards.

  And yet, my mom. How often did I daydream about meeting her? And the sacrifices; I knew that those had to be what took Carita’s mom from her, and after the king brought my own mother up, of course I assumed. I haven’t had any dreams of meeting her, or anyone I’ve loved, in so long.

  I was wrong.

  She’s alive.

  But so is Caelum.

  “I…I don’t…” My brain is tearing in two. Neither side is coming above the other, neither knocked to the ground. I want one right choice, one easy answer. But it isn’t coming. I step back, falling into my chair. “Honestly,” I whisper, “I don’t know.”

  He examines me for a moment, first a disapproving glare, then his eyebrows rise and he purses his lips, like he’s tasting a new idea. He clasps his hands together, making me jump. “Of course you can’t make the decision right now. I’m breaking my own rules, forgive me.”

  “Wh-what?”

  “You can’t make this sort of decision on an empty stomach.” A table rises between us, sand dripping off the edges until the plates and silverware are revealed. As predicted, the fish is there again, but this time a wad of dark, moist, green stuff accompanies it.

  “Kelp,” he announces cheerfully at my disgusted face. “It’s excellent for your health. I suggest you eat. As someone who lives in the air, it may take you a moment to adjust to the flavor.”

  And he digs in. This time he isn’t nearly as particular about his food as he was before, biting and swallowing it in large hunks and chunks. Tentatively, I lift a bit of the green kelp. It looks no better up close than from on the plate. I slip it onto my tongue, all slime and salt and sand, and it slides between my teeth as I try to break down the slippery stuff.

  He gives me a look. Almost like a father to a child. You’d better not spit that out or so help me…

  I gulp it down. He’s going to make me eat this whole thing, isn’t he? From that half-glare still on his face, yes. I eat bits of the fish with the kelp, and it makes it a slightly more tolerable, the texture a little less like eating my own snot.

  “So,” I need anything to take my mind off this food. “How do you even know my mom? Why did you see her when you went back up there? Why did you go back up there?”

  He takes the last bite off his plate and puts it in his mouth, chewing slowly. “I think those are questions I’d rather not answer. Not yet, at least.”

  “And why not?” I know I should be cautious. He controls the entire world around me, he could spear me through in a second. And it’s not that I’m not afraid, it’s not the apathy of my life since I fell again. No, the nervous energy bouncing around inside me is too much. I can’t control it. I need to know.

  “Because I think that you of all people wouldn’t like my explanations very much.”

  “And what if I want to hear them anyway?”

  He raises an eyebrow. “You are really quite like your mother, you know. I have to wonder what chaos would happen if you meet.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  He sighs, looking away. “No,
it doesn’t. And I won’t tell you. I won’t give you a reason good enough to satisfy you; I simply don’t want to. Now, time for my question: what is your choice?”

  I bristle. It’s barely been any time at all—he ate too fast. “What about you? I asked you a question when I first got here and you never answered. Why do I have to answer you right now, when you haven’t answered me?”

  “Well, dear, this is a completely different situation. You came here to ask something of me, which I may choose to give or not to give as I see fit. Right now I’m offering you something that you may choose to or not to accept. I completely control both situations. Considering this, I think I’m being fairly generous.”

  I bite my lip, looking away. Damn him. He’s right. Not about being “generous,” but nearly everything else. If I learn what he has to teach me, if I discover how he has enough power to control these walls, I could teach Carita. Between the wings and being able to cast illusions unlike anything I’d ever seen in the city, we might stand a chance.

  But…my mom. The rebellion may be relying on me, and I might be able to give them more than wings, more ways to defeat Caelum. But I’ve lost everything and everyone I’ve fought for so far. The glimmer of hope that comes with finding someone I love alive and well overwhelms my thoughts.

  How the hell am I going to choose?

  I…I did promise Carita I’d fix the wings. I want to prove that not all dragons are evil, even if I’m not quite sure what this one is. And I want to get revenge for Vito. Something needs to happen for Vito.

  But a question pops into my head.

  What would Vito want?

  My wings shudder at the thought. No matter how hard I try to shut it out, I imagine him here, sitting next to me. Dragons, I don’t want him here, to see what I’ve become and what I’m considering. But…that’s my answer, isn’t it?

  We have the wings. We have people—hell, we have an entire town on our side. It may be hard to take down Caelum, but we can. In comparison, how many more opportunities will I get to meet my mother?