Ice & Smoke

by Elizabeth Belyeu

  Braith grasped my wrist and pulled me back. "You are mad."

  "Let me go!"

  "Answer me a question first."

  I looked skyward in exasperation. "Ask it, then."

  "Do you truly intend to marry Prince Tristan?"

  I blinked. "Whatever has that to do with—"

  "Answer it."

  Rain was spattering us both, the wind whipping our clothes and bedraggled hair in all directions. His hand was hot as fire around my wrist.

  "Yes, of course I intend to marry Tristan," I said. "Thus is he called my betrothed."

  "Why will you marry him? Do you love him?"

  I stared at him.

  "This can hardly be a difficult question," Braith said. "Do you love him, or do you not?"

  "A princess does not marry for love, she must consider her kingdom, the needs of her people—"

  "Do you love him, or do you not?"

  "Yes!" I shouted. "He is my dear friend and companion. In his presence I find comfort and peace. He has dedicated five years of his life to my rescue. In all the best memories of my childhood, he is there. Yes, I love him."

  A long moment of silence dragged by, if thunder and roaring wind could be called silence.

  "Go, then!" Braith shouted, and shoved me through the doorway, and slammed the door shut behind me.

  It was more than two minutes' walk, this time, from stable to tower. I stumbled many times, fell twice, and when at last I fetched up against the tower door, soaked and shivering, I found I had wandered off course, and it was not the doorway at all. I was forced to feel my way 'round until my hands touched wood instead of stone. Yet I did make my way indoors with no further injury than a scraped knee, when the dratted dragon would have had me sleep in the stable.

  The tower was dim and silent, but a fire still clung to the coals in the hearth. I stoked it frantically, held out shaking hands to catch the warmth. Tristan, I realized, was asleep on the lounge-chair only a few feet away. He did not wake, only frowned faintly and turned his face away from the fire.

  I tried to imagine the future, when I would be queen of Dewgent and Tristan's wife. By now the world of court felt faraway and strange, but Tristan would be with me every step of the way. He would be a good husband, a good father, a good king. I was as confident of this as of anything in my life. For a princess—for almost any noblewoman—the question was never 'Which husband can make you happiest?' but rather 'Here is the wisest choice of husband for you. Can you be happy with him?' And the answer, for me, had ever been yes.

  My own parents, I had heard tell, never met until mere days before they were wed, but were soon as devoted as any star-eyed lovers. Tristan's parents, too, had married for largely practical reasons. The widowed queen of a precarious borderland kingdom; the unmarried king of a neighboring land, in need of her dowry and an heir besides—the match had been obvious, and had worked out to the betterment of all.

  And for heaven's sake, who else would I marry but Tristan? Certainly not Braith's despicable master, who was the only other currently vying for the privilege. I would as soon take vows of celibacy and live in a forest cave, like the Wild Witch of legend. For that matter, I would as soon throw myself from the top of the tower.

  No, that was melodramatic. If circumstances utterly demanded I marry my loathsome enemy, I would simply go to my marriage bed with a dagger in my bodice, and then we would see who inherited a kingdom.

  I let the fire warm my back, and watched Tristan sleep in the flickering shadow I cast. I could think of going to bed with my enemy, however briefly and catastrophically (for him), yet my mind shied from the thought of going to bed with my friend. How very awkward it would be! Most seemed to count the marriage bed a very pleasant thing, and I certainly hoped it would be, but I could not imagine... But there, I reminded myself sternly, a maiden should not imagine, and I was therefore worrying over nothing.

  After spending my childhood with my nurse always beside me, I had never entirely adjusted to sleeping alone. It would, at the very least, be most agreeable to retire to a bed that was not cold and half-empty.

  And it was absurd to even think of how warm Braith's hay-stack would be right now, much less the scorch of his fingers against my skin.

  I went to my room, stripped off the sopping borrowed clothes, and lay shivering under the blankets a long while before I fell asleep.

  As the runestones had promised, the storm died away just before dawn, and the sudden quiet after so many hours of howling wind woke me as surely as a thunderclap. I felt miserable, chilly and damp and tight-muscled, but the only cure for that was to be up and about. Everyone else seemed still asleep, which was perhaps best, considering my wretched mood; I slipped out to the kitchen and began making bread for breakfast.

  By the time Genevieve found me there, I had progressed from cold and ill-tempered to hot and ill-tempered. She forced me to sit and have my sweaty hair braided, listening serenely as I ranted on the manifold flaws of our oven, our flour, our bread pans, and the evil necessity of bread in general. Or perhaps she did not feel serene at all—it was so difficult to tell with Genevieve—but at any rate she did not box my ears for being an intolerable brat.

  "There, now it will rise as I milk Bessie, and we may have milksops for breakfast," I grumbled.

  Genevieve shook her head and gestured that she would milk Bessie, and that I was to go to the water for a swim.

  "Nay, Genevieve, I know I am quite the shrew this morning, but I will be more pleasant. I would not have you do my share simply because you could not stand my company."

  She insisted, with a gesture that implied, if I read it correctly, concern for Bessie's welfare if I were to tackle her poor udders in such a mood.

  I chuckled ruefully, and acquiesced—only to pause in the doorway and turn back. "Genevieve?"

  She looked up, alert, patient, my companion of near three years, of whom I knew nothing more than I had the day she washed ashore, save that she was gentle, intelligent, kind, and distant from us in a way I did not understand.

  "The music you played for us," I said. "It was… it was quite beautiful. I would love to hear you play again. If ever you feel a desire."

  Solemn, she nodded. I departed, trading the summer-hot kitchen for cool autumn morning.

  At the shore, I stood in my swimming garb and watched the young sun dancing on the water, my bare feet just beyond reach of the waves. This had been our morning custom, Rindargeth and I. I had not done it since his death. I did not know if I could.

  I let a wave wash against my ankles. It was deucedly cold.

  I stepped back again, and was quite suddenly in tears. I wanted my friend, my guardian and caretaker, my dragon-father. One who had always been there when I needed him.

  I wept, and he did not come.

  "Do you fear the water?"

  I gasped, tried desperately to stifle my tears as I turned toward the unexpected speaker—Braith, of course. Who else would appear at so awkward a time?

  "No, I do not fear water," I said, wiping my face. "A silly question, from one who tried to rescue me from a puddle of a stream."

  "The sea is an entirely different creature from a trickling stream. What else but fear could leave you trembling on the edge of the beach?"

  "I do not fear, I only…" I swallowed, rubbed my face again. "I am only debating whether I wish to swim anymore. Without your father."

  Braith was silent a long moment. Then he stepped forward and shoved me hard into the water.

  I splashed, flailed, tumbled in the waves, came up gasping and sputtering and furious.

  "You—son of a snake and a—mad dog! What—"

  "You have now been swimming without my father. It is done. You may as well keep doing it."

  I stared at him, eyes blurred and stinging, still half-choked on seawater. "This is your idea of a kindness?"

  "I will note you are no longer weeping."

  I yanked one leg out from under him, and when he fell with a cry,
grabbed hold of his hair and dragged him into the water.

  Though I hardly expected him to be pleased, he reacted with wholly unanticipated violence, lashing out at me with bruising force and scrambling back onto the beach with every evidence of terror.

  "Will you murder me?" His voice was near a scream.

  "You do not appear to be dead." I hardly knew whether to be more amazed or amused. "And you would taunt me for fearing the waves! It is mere water, Braith."

  "And I am mere fire! Tell me, historically, which element is usually victorious?" He rather shakily got his feet, steam already rising from his skin and hair.

  "But your father swam nearly every day."

  "And was widely considered mad for doing so."

  "You yourself survived hours in the rain yesterday."

  "A bit of rain and outright immersion are not at all equivalent."

  "They rather are, in so relentless a shower. Truly, Braith, I may utterly give my word in this. You are no more likely to drown than I am. Unless your ice-dragon heritage makes you more vulnerable in some way?"

  "No," he admitted reluctantly. "In fact, ice dragons are known for diving after prey of the waters—fish and seals..."

  "So if anything you are less vulnerable than Rindargeth, who splashed about quite fearlessly." I rose from the water and took his hands, gave him a teasing smile. "Come, Braith, I promise I will protect you."

  He snorted at me. "You would have me steep my wound in saltwater?"

  "Your father once told me the warmth of your blood prevents infection, as fire purifies water. It may still be painful, but what is pain to a dragon?"

  He glared, but allowed himself to be led, gently, toward the waves. His hands gripped mine so hard, I fancied I could feel my bones creak, but his feet continued to move. The waves lapped at his ankles, then his knees—when it reached my waist, I permitted him to stop.

  "You have not drowned yet," I said.

  "The day is young."

  "Do not attempt to breathe the water, and I promise you, you shall do admirably."

  A wave rocked us, nearly costing Braith his balance.

  "Do not try to stand against the water, you will not succeed," I said. "The sea is stronger even than a dragon. You must move with the water, like a dance. This is what your father taught me. Did he not teach you?"

  "My father was... away for long periods of my childhood," Braith said. "By the time he had an opportunity…"

  "You had contracted the cultural phobia. I see. Who cared for you, then, when he was away serving his master?"

  He arched a brow at this assumption, but did not gainsay it. "The clan as a whole will do its duty by any hatchling in need of care," he said, from which I gleaned: No one in particular.

  Under my tutelage, Braith became gradually less stiff and awkward, learning to shift and bend and bounce with the waves, though he did not let go of my hands.

  A problem of chronology began to occur to me, until I said at last, "You are some fifty years of age?"

  "Fifty-eight."

  "Yet your father was… away in your childhood."

  "Yes."

  "How could a master your father served so long ago… it seems strange that he would live still, much less think to wed a maiden so young as I!"

  "It is true that human lives are tragically short, in our view," Braith said. "But you have seen already, by the fact of my presence, that a dragon's debt is not bound to individuals, but to bloodlines."

  "So this debt, this thrice-accursed debt that so afflicts us all, is not between Rindargeth and a human master, but Rindargeth's bloodline and the master's bloodline… Yet it must be fulfilled eventually, must it not? Pray do not tell me your line is bound to his in perpetuity!"

  He shook his head. "Even the strongest debt must be called paid after one hundred years of service."

  "A hundred years! And some fifty years it has been at least. It is most unlikely, then, that the master you serve now is the same one who earned the debt."

  He could not answer this directly, of course, but he gave a black sort of smile and said, "I believe we discussed the injustice of a man inheriting honors earned by another?"

  "Nor did you incur the debt you now labor to fulfill. Injustice in all directions."

  "I'm sure there are some circumstances in which a son would be happy to fulfill his father's debt. If the master's demands were less cruel. To everyone involved."

  I cocked my head. "I believe that is the first time you have made mention of anyone besides yourself being inconvenienced by our situation."

  A flush of tawny gold appeared in his pale cheeks. "I have been, perhaps, overly distracted by my own troubles. But I am not utterly incognizant of the troubles of others. Even that fool fairy—how I wished I could kill him! But I cannot justify it, when he wishes only to go home again." He shook his head. "I would release you all if I could."

  My mind on our conversation, I had let my attention wander from the sea that surrounded me; the next wave to shoulder past found no dancing partner, but an obstacle to shove. My face mashed hard into Braith's chest.

  We both yelped in surprise and pain—oh dear, had I burst his stitches?—and both fumbled and slipped, each trying to steady the other and regain our own balance. In the end we narrowly avoided a dunking, and got our feet back beneath us only by bracing against each other. I came to rest with one hand on his elbow, the other clutching his tunic, while he grasped both my shoulders.

  "Oh, you are warm," I said, quite idiotically.

  "And the sun shines, and the water is salty." Despite the mocking words, his smile was not unkind. "Will you now share observations on the solidity of the earth?"

  The earth did not feel particularly solid, in fact. It grew less so as his smile faded into a strange, intent expression, something solemn and uncertain and very nearly fearful. Carefully he brushed a ragged, dripping lock of hair from my face.

  "Ariana! Are you swimming, in this autumn chill? You shall turn blue!"

  "Tristan!" I turned and began slogging toward the shore, moving as fast as waist-high water would let me. "Tristan, do come swim with us! It will do you good, I am sure."

  Tristan, cresting the hill on Genevieve's arm, looked doubtful, and Genevieve more doubtful still.

  "Yes, do join us," Braith called. "After all, there is every chance you will drown."

  I shot Braith a glare and put my shoulder under Tristan's arm. "Do come wade a bit, Tristan. In the water there will be less weight upon your leg." Without waiting for him to protest, I marched him down to the water's edge. "You see? It is not so very cold. Genevieve, help me remove the prince's shoes and tunic."

  But Genevieve only stood on the sand, well clear of the waves, staring into them with an expression of disquiet.

  "Do you know, this is rather refreshing," Tristan admitted, as I led him deeper into the water. "Oh! Those waves are stronger than they look." Even with a broken leg, he bounced and drifted quite naturally, without my having to instruct him. With such easy movement, and his black curls and sun-browned shoulders, he could hardly have been more Braith's opposite. "Come, Genevieve, do not stand woefully on the shore! Join us."

  She glanced up most briefly, and stepped further from the water.

  "Genevieve never swims," I explained. "Shipwrecked, you know—I cannot blame her."

  "Oh, she is permitted to fear," Braith grumbled.

  "She nearly drowned, whereas you are merely a coward."

  "Coward, indeed! I am in the water, am I not?"

  "Tristan, wait! What are you doing?"

  He had let go of me and started back to shore. He could not possibly stay upright for long, not at that pace—

  He fell, of course, bowled over by a wave that near defeated my own balance, and came up gasping and thrashing, unable to regain his feet.

  Before I could move more than a step in his direction, Genevieve was at his side, in water past her knees.

  "That was a most foolish—oh, thank you, Genev
ieve, I believe I can—oh, no I can't, do not let go just yet." At length he was standing reliably again, leaning on Genevieve. He winked at me over his shoulder, and I did not know whether to laugh or fume. His fall had been no accident. "I thank you most humbly, my lady. It would have served me quite right to drown. Oh, no, pray do not take me to shore," he said, when she made to tug him toward the beach, "I assure you I am not hurt, and would much rather enjoy the waves."

  She looked down at the water swirling her skirts about her legs, as if she had not noticed it before, and went rigidly still. She made an abortive movement as if to flee, but Tristan would have fallen; she remained where she was.

  "Is it truly the water you fear, or only drowning in it?" Tristan said softly. I could hardly hear him over the wind and waves. "I do not aim to be cruel—I will let you go if you wish. But I swear, Genevieve, I will let no harm come to you if you stay. I have seen how you watch the sea. I believe you loved it once. Will you stay, and discover if you love it still?"

  She looked at him a long moment, dark eyes huge in her delicate face, then nodded.

  They walked deeper into the water. I could hardly tell who supported whom, Genevieve trembled so, but she did not again attempt to escape. When they were deep enough for Tristan to support his own weight—or rather, to let the sea support it—he ceased to lean on her, and instead placed her before him, arranging their arms in the attitude of a waltz. Though I could not quite hear Tristan's words, only snatches of his voice, it was not difficult to guess the subject of conversation. I watched in happy amazement as Genevieve's terror eased ever so slowly, a tremulous smile flickering in and out of existence on her face.

  "Whatever are they doing?" Braith asked. "With the… arms and the circling about?"

  "Dancing, of course. You said you have lived among humans—have you never seen dancing?"

  "I have seen groups of villagers dancing, hands all linked, spinning and singing. But not quite like that."

  "That is a waltz. It is not for groups, but for couples. Here, the gentleman puts his hands thus—one on the lady's waist, the other up, like so, with mine—and my other hand on your shoulder. And we step forward, and back, and forward, and back…" He stumbled, and I laughed. "I admit, it is not usually performed chest-deep in the sea."