from her sides, very slowly. Hualiama rose with draconic grace, a hunter’s stalking sinuosity that brought Flicker’s own fires roaring back into life.
She said, “Go help Ja’al, Flicker. I will take care of Ra’aba.”
Fungus-face seemed frozen, stupefied by her transformation. Rightly so. For a long second, Flicker understood the awe that rooted the Human in his clumping boots. Ra’aba knew fear. He knew that destiny’s claw shadowed his very soul.
Hualiama said, “Fifteen and a half years ago, I was born amidst mystery. I grew up in this household as a royal ward, aware only of the strangeness of my existence, of the fire-dreams that inhabited my soul. You see, Ra’aba, I have always longed to fly.” As she moved forward, it was as if an invisible bubble of Lia’s presence drove the man to retreat. No need for blades. “Why did you try to murder me, Ra’aba? Why did you send Razzior to burn a no-account royal ward?”
He shook his head violently, retreating into the Great Hall.
“You were right. I’m no Princess. For I know that a woman came from the East to treat with the Dragons at Gi’ishior. Her name was Azziala. Tell me, what do you remember of Azziala? Was she small, Ra’aba? Did she have smoky eyes like mine?”
“Ready archers!” Ra’aba screeched, sounding the exact note of a feral windroc.
The monks still fought furiously, though they were surrounded by purple robes. At the Great Hall’s doorway, Flicker glimpsed a hand-to-hand conflict before the four inch thick wooden panels were slammed shut and barred.
“You see, I have dreamed of my mother,” Hualiama said, as if that very dream entranced her now. “From the very beginning, the paw of the Great Dragon has shaped my destiny. Tell me your fears, Ra’aba. What do you fear most? Why do you tremble? Do you know that the Dragons of Gi’ishior are at hand? I have felt them. They come, and your rebellion will be immolated in Dragon fire.”
Flicker’s eyes shifted at a commotion up on one of the balconies. A shadow stole between the pillars. Both of the archers there crumpled, dead.
Slain by the shadow? What was this?
He must help the monks! He must get Lia the help she needed!
* * * *
Hualiama reacted to a flicker of movement in the corner of her eye. Her blades screamed aloft, slicing a single arrow into three disparate pieces.
She said, “Is this your best, Ra’aba?”
An archer pitched off one of the balconies with a choked-off cry. Even the pair of Green Dragons, so far disinterested in happenings in the Great Hall, began to shift uneasily. Hualiama’s nape pricked with a sense of foreboding. What on the Islands was going on?
Looking to her hands, Lia saw one blade blazing the red of a volcano’s heart, and the other the blue of a pearlescent sky. Insight crystallised within her. There was only one way to reach Ra’aba.
She had to beat him.
The Nuyallith forms surrounded her mental space in the likeness of a host of ancient warriors, Master Khoyal foremost among them. Honouring them with a mental bow, Hualiama picked a form. Her small feet tripped deftly across the flagstones, closing the distance with Ra’aba.
Their blades converged with shattering force. Hualiama harassed him like a small whirlwind, her petite frame generating so much power that chips of metal flew off the edge of Ra’aba’s blade. He parried robustly, sliding and coiling, trying his wiles and his trickery, reversing his strokes and even switching hands in a bid to throw her off. The Nuyallith blades struck sparks off his skin. And again. Whipping the blades around in parallel to strike neck and shoulder simultaneously, Hualiama sent the Roc staggering, yet still she could not break his skin. She drank deep of the pain of her father’s betrayal and Master Jo’el’s death, slowly driving Ra’aba up to the Onyx Throne, between the two Green Dragons.
She was living fire, flickering, burning from every angle. She was the spirit of a Dragon expressed in dance, the movement of her limbs becoming ever more expansive and flowing, the red and blue fire surrounding her artistic representation of the Dragon flying skill like a nimbus, yet Ra’aba withstood all she had, fighting grimly with his blade, using his forearms as shields when needed, and his stone skin power seemed unbreakable.
Lia stepped back, breathing hard. Not a single archer remained. Instead, on the final balcony, there stood a beautiful young man, clad in a Fra’aniorian Royal Guard’s purple uniform, yet Hualiama knew he