A Dragon and Her Girl

by Max Florschutz

  It was a small, pink slipper with pearl beading sewn into the shape of a flower.

  Less than an hour ago, he had met the owner of that slipper. The child had been so excited to meet the Queen and had lifted the hem of her dress to display her new slippers. She had informed him that she brushed her fiery red hair and chose her pale blue dress all by herself. She had wanted to know if the Queen was nice, if she was pretty, if she would like her new shoes. Morley had ignored the anxious mother and chatted with the girl as he escorted her, her mother, and her two older brothers to the throne room.

  And now . . .

  His eyes darted around the dais, taking in the scraps of fabric soaking in pools of blood, the chunks of bone and flesh littering the floor, and the strands of fiery red hair caught in the arm of the throne, where a child had tried to hide.

  With trembling hands, he lifted the slipper from the floor and cradled it.

  He didn’t realize he was shaking until the Queen placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “They were traitors, Morley,” she said, her voice pitched to affect stern sorrow. “Their father and husband attempted to flee to Huru’s army. They had to be punished.”

  Morley kept his head bowed. “Even the children?”

  The Queen’s breath shuddered, but when she spoke, the words flowed like water. “They were traitors all, and had to be an example for the court. I can’t make allowances for anyone, no matter their age. You understand, don’t you, Morley? I can’t allow traitors to go unpunished, children or no. You understand, don’t you? Tell me you understand.”

  Morley took a deep breath and looked his Queen in the eyes. “I understand, my Queen.”

  She nodded. “Now go, bring me word of the Blood-Wraith’s death.”

  Morley bowed and turned to go.

  “And, Morley?”

  He paused and turned. “Yes, my Queen?”

  “Are you mine, Morley?”

  He clutched the slipper behind his back as he bowed. The pearls, smooth and wet against his palm, felt like tears. “Always, my Queen.”

  Chapter Seven

  Alone in his room, Morley put his head in his hands and cried. It was a relief to find out that he still could. He cried for the children he had led to slaughter, for the bloody future that lay ahead, and for his Queen, for the child she once was and for the monster that she became.

  After his tears were spent, Morley dried his eyes with a monogrammed handkerchief and, despite the summer heat, started a small fire in the brazier. When the coals were hot and red, he gently lowered the pink, blood-stained slipper into the brazier. As the scent of burning silk filled the air, he knelt before the brazier and watched the flames consume the small shoe. His throat burned with the urge to pray, but he resisted. There would be no forgiveness for his part in this child’s death. There would be no forgiveness for any of them.

  When the slipper was nothing more than ashy flakes on the coals, he stood and crossed to the shelf at the head of his bed. He paused, listening for footsteps, and, after hearing none, carefully retrieved the book from its hiding place.

  It was bound in green leather, barely bigger than his hand, and slim enough to be concealed within the pages of another book. The word “Draxoni” blazed across the cover in slightly raised letters.

  Dismissed by historians and scholars alike, Gurye’s Draxoni was filed next to myths and legends. The ancient language in which it was written was full of misspellings and punctuation errors. Most libraries had removed the book altogether, finding no value in a poorly-written dragon tale.

  Morley moved to the desk at the window where he had better light, and a view of the Queen’s room across the courtyard. The dragon had built an aerie on the roof of her tower, lined with torn silks and shiny gold coins that winked in the sun.

  Nothing but the best for the Queen’s dragon, everyone said. Probably better than its meager horde in the mountains or across the desert.

  Most of the courtiers suspected what Morley knew for a fact; the nest was also filled with bones, most of them human. The constant diet of traitors and cattle seemed to fill the dragon’s belly, but never satiate its appetite. No one knew what would satisfy the dragon, not even the Queen.

  Morley squinted at the aerie.

  And that was the problem, wasn’t it? No one really knew anything about the dragon. It had just appeared one day, unexplainably bound to the Queen and her will. Morley recalled the day the Queen had exited the chapel, a horse-sized dragon at her side. She had been dazed, confused, and couldn’t tell Morley where she had found it. And, since that day, it had grown in size and power. Some days, Morley wasn’t entirely certain who was in control, the Queen, or her dragon.

  With his attention split between the southern sky and the book, Morley did his best to concentrate on the words scrawled across the page. Behind each slash of ink was another, lighter mark, dismissed and unrecorded by history. Morley had first noticed the pale marks years ago as he read the tales to a young princess. He began studying them in earnest when she found her dragon. They told a very different story, one unfit for children’s ears. Instead of the bumbling adventures of Yulrick the squire, it was a desperate tale of war, bloodshed, and pain.

  Morley had forced himself to learn the archaic language in which it was written. The process of translation mired now and again by his lack of knowledge and was constantly interrupted by trips to the library and careful—oh, so careful—discussions with the clergy.

  He found his place toward the end of the book and followed the words with his fingertip. It took him almost an hour, but he managed to translate the next paragraph, recording it on rough, hand-made paper.

  When the paragraph was complete, he stared at the words struggling to understand what he had written.

  He bowed in his grief. And his tears hardened to anger. And his anger turned to fury. And when he lifted his head, behold, a dragon stood before him. He put forth his hand and the dragon did again likewise. For the dragon was him and he was the dragon and together in their guilt and hatred, they raged.

  Morley looked out the window to the Queen’s tower.

  Tears, anger, guilt . . .

  His eyes slid from the tower to the grand chapel at the other end of the bailey. In the middle of the chapel, carved in pure white marble, lay the reason for all of it. For a week after their death, the Queen remained in the chapel, caressing the stone face of her husband and kissing the marble cheek of her toddler son.

  Fury and hatred . . .

  The dragon had appeared one week after they were buried.

  He looked down at his translation.

  For the dragon was him and he was the dragon and together in their guilt and hatred, they raged.

  Standing alone in his room, staring at the Queen’s tower and her dragon’s aerie, Morley whispered, “Together they raged.”

  Chapter Eight

  The Sibyl smeared ash from the funeral pyre across Eva’s face. She was a Blood-Wraith, and as such, would wear a dead man’s bones.

  “It is fitting,” the Sibyl said as she ground the dust into Eva’s hair, “that you wear your first kill into battle. His ghost will frighten your enemies.”

  Eva trembled in the early morning air. The Sibyl had bathed her, fed her, and let her sleep in a warm cocoon of furs and wool blankets before waking her early this morning with whispered instructions to follow. She exchanged Eva’s worn dress for loose trousers, a gauzy shirt, and a fitted leather jerkin with bone plates, all dusted with the same ashy gray from the pyre. The ashes coated her skin, her hair, her clothes, working its way into every crack and crevice in her skin. But this time she was coated with a stranger instead of her family and friends.

  Pieces of Gavin’s bones still burned with residual heat from the pyre. Ordinary fire was not as hot as dragon fire, Eva found, and so the bones took longer to break down. A long arm bone and half of his jawbone glowed with heat, but the rest had dissolved into ash.

  “And if his ghost does not
frighten your enemies, he will, at the very least, hide your scent.” The Sibyl lifted a bowl of blood, collected from a recently slaughtered goat, and plunged her fingers into the viscous liquid.

  Eva shuddered as she smeared the blood across her eyes, and down her chin. To be a Blood-Wraith, she had to look the part. And Blood-Wraiths were, by their very nature, bloody.

  The Sibyl stood back to observe her handiwork. “There. Now you are a true Blood-Wraith.” The Sibyl placed her hands on Eva’s shoulders. “Do you understand what you must do?”

  Eva stepped out of her hold and rubbed at her eyes. “Yes.” She whispered the word. If she said it any louder, she thought she might scream.

  For a moment, the Sibyl’s eyes softened. “You will be with them soon.”

  Eva nodded. There was nothing more certain. “I know.”

  The Sibyl bent her head and whispered a prayer. Eva let the words slip off her skin where they pooled at her feet, forgotten. She stared through the camp at the horizon. The sun was rising, but she was just as dead as before. Nothing had changed.

  Huru was suddenly at her elbow, one hand holding a shortsword, and the other holding the reins to a horse. The horse, too, was covered with ash. It stood placidly, tilting its head this way and that, and ash drifted to the ground with each movement.

  “Is the Blood-Wraith ready?” Huru’s eyes kept sliding past her, as though she was gone already.

  Eva placed a hand over the small pouch tied to her waist. After three years of study, the Sibyl said that this was the only way to kill a dragon. Poison of the foulest kind lay on her hip, all she had to do was administer it. It would work. Or it wouldn’t. Either way, her problems were solved.

  “I’m ready.” Her voice was reed-thin, like the wail of the wind through trees.

  He boosted her onto the horse without another word, handing her the shortsword to buckle at her hip. He stepped back and turned his face to the sun. Eva took this moment to study him. Without his warpaint, he appeared younger, more vulnerable, despite his size. She wondered if his entire campaign rested on her shoulders. She wondered if she failed, if he would die.

  A part of her was slightly dismayed to discover that she didn’t care either way.

  “We will be right behind you.” The Sibyl handed Eva the reins. “You will succeed.”

  There was a lie in those words, carefully layered over with good intentions. But Eva just nodded and tugged at the reins, directing the horse north. The Sibyl may have waved farewell, but Eva didn’t look back to see.

  A few scattered soldiers stood as she rode by to watch her pass. Sometime in the night, the main body had broken camp and moved on, but they would not be accompanying her to the Queen’s castle. Blood-Wraiths traveled alone.

  She kept her eyes straight ahead, ignoring the blessings and curses tossed her way. Revenge would not be had by exchanging words with these men. Revenge would be had by killing the dragon.

  And the only way to kill a dragon was not by meeting it head-on. It was through subterfuge and cunning.

  And this was why, when the dragon descended on the camp, spewing fire and shrieking in rage, Eva hardened herself against the screams, stiffened her shoulders, and rode hard with flames chasing her back.

  Chapter Nine

  After two days of hard riding, her horse finally collapsed. She slit his throat and left him in some poor farmer’s field, the blood watering a fresh crop of wheat. She continued the rest of the way on foot. The Sibyl’s directions skirted around the town to the north side of the curtain wall where the forest slowly encroached on the castle. Beneath a bramble of thorns, she found the crumbling hole in the stone and crawled inside. There, the muted sounds of soldiers training lulled her into a dreamless slumber.

  The lack of sound woke her. She crept into the open bailey, finding it deserted. The sun had gone down while she slept and the stars twinkled brightly in their dark bed. With a hand on the pouch at her hip, and the other clutching the short sword, she darted into the deeply shadowed crevice between a chicken coop and a pig pen. The animals were missing, nothing more than a few drifted feathers to indicate that they were here at all.

  Eva waited one hour, then two, as the clouds chased each other across the moon. When she was certain the castle was asleep, she emerged from her hiding space and hurried across the open yard.

  The southern tower was her goal. The dragon slept there each night. If Eva could make it to the roof, her task would be accomplished.

  Locked.

  Eva leaned her head against the door and tried the handle again. It still wouldn’t budge.

  The ache in her chest threatened to unravel.

  Of course it was locked. She was a fool to think that the Queen wouldn’t safeguard her dragon.

  The knot of emotions began to loosen and she stepped back, pressing her hands to her chest, her head bowed.

  There would be a way. There had to be a way.

  The sound of a door opening behind her forced her into the shadows. She held her breath and watched as a man made his way across the yard, illuminated by a single candle on a tray held with both hands. The dishes on the tray and the key ring on his belt clicked and chimed with every step on the cobblestones. Eva’s eyes narrowed. His halting walk and thinning white hair indicated an advanced age. But his shoulders were broad and his limbs strong. It was unlikely that she could subdue him and take the keys.

  He approached the door to the southern tower and paused, his eyes lifted toward the sky. He mumbled what sounded like a prayer, and balanced the tray with one hand, unlocking the door with the other. As he hooked the keys back to his belt, he paused, noticing a smudge mark on the door.

  Eva clutched her sword.

  It was the ash from her forehead.

  She had killed a soldier with nothing more than a butcher knife. She could certainly kill an old man with a sword.

  He muttered something and rubbed at the mark with his sleeve, buffing it from the wood. When it was cleaned to his satisfaction, he opened the door and stepped inside, the tray rattling with each step.

  Eva waited a moment, then followed.

  The winding stairs were tall and narrow, but Eva managed them easily, taking long strides as she climbed. The flickering candlelight above her wavered in the darkness, and then paused. A moment later, the man knocked on a door.

  Eva froze as the door opened and a woman’s voice echoed down the stairs.

  “Morley.”

  The tone, the sigh, the emotion, felt familiar. Eva crept upwards, keeping to the shadows, and peered at the landing.

  The old man bowed at the waist, the tray carefully shifting in his grip. “My Queen.”

  She was beautiful. Standing in the soft glow of candlelight and framed by an intricately carved doorway, she was everything Eva imagined the Queen to be. Her eyebrows arched above wide, purple eyes. Full, pink lips lent a softness to a face with sharp cheekbones and a pointed chin. The crown on her head was heavy and golden, inset with bold red jewels. Her heavy brocade gown brushed the floor in perfect pleats.

  But there was . . . something else. A darkness clouded her eyes and pulled her lips into a frown. And there, like a shadow, it stood behind the Queen, wrapping tendrils around her heart.

  “Are they routed? Do we have them?” She demanded answers and the man delivered.

  “Yes, my Queen. What is left of Huru’s army is being led here as we speak.” Morley straightened and the tray rattled again. “With Huru himself in chains.”

  The Queen smiled and withdrew into the room. After a moment’s hesitation, the man followed and the light dimmed.

  Eva fingered the pouch hanging from her waist. The poison was like a pulsing heartbeat, urging her upwards. She quickly crossed the landing, and hurried up the next flight of stairs. These led to a small hatch in the roof that opened easily at her touch. The hinges were well-oiled and well-used. She clambered onto the roof and stood with her arms outstretched, facing the aerie.

  “Dragon,”
she called, her voice strong against the night wind.

  Nothing.

  The pouch burned at her side and the fury in her chest boiled, aching for release.

  She crept towards the nest, her breath hitching with every step.

  It was empty.

  Sticks, silks, and gold formed the nest, with bones scattered across the floor.

  She looked up. If the dragon wasn’t here, where was it? The starry sky was empty of all but the stars, moon, and a few wispy clouds. She frowned and turned back to the nest.

  A scrap of yellow caught her eye.

  With halting steps, she walked around the pile of sticks, silks, gold, and bones, and touched the scrap of yellow wool. It was a torn strip of a skirt, with delicate pink roses embroidered on the hem.

  With controlled horror, she lifted it from the nest.

  It belonged to one of her sisters.

  “Cara,” she whispered, her gaze taking in the broken bones scattered around her. “Hamar.”

  There was no answer. Of course there was no answer. She stood on nothing but bones.

  She turned her face to the sky, rage boiling in her chest.

  A large hand covered her mouth, muffling her scream, and pulled her down to the roof. She stiffened and attempted to reach the short sword, but his arm pinned hers to her side.

  “Quiet, Blood-Wraith,” the old man said, holding her tight against his chest. “The dragon comes.” He released his hold and tilted his head to the sky. “Quiet, or we’re both dead.”

  Eva followed his gaze and saw on the horizon a pale shape gliding silently through the stars.

  The old man placed a finger on his lips. “Stay silent, and follow me.” He turned to go.

  “Why?” Eva’s whisper came out harsh and raw. “What do you want?”

  “What do I want?” His eyes closed for a moment, and when he opened them, they glared fiercely. “To kill a dragon.”

  Chapter Ten

  Morley stared at the girl sitting on the bed across from him, her legs drawn up to her chest, a scrap of embroidered wool clutched in her hands. She was gray. Everywhere gray. From the top of her head to the soles of her boots. The only break in color was the rusty brown stripe running across her eyes from temple to temple and the stain covering her chin and dripping down her neck.