Master Jo’el very much enjoyed making that statement, especially the emphasis he placed on the words ‘rightful ruler’. Perhaps now was not the moment to protest that she was a worthless royal ward and not a true Princess at all.
One should never steal a Dragon’s thunder.
Ja’alkon seemed in danger of choking as Lia turned a bright, albeit slightly brittle smile on him. “The Master is right. I should not have trespassed. I am truly sorry to have caused you such deep distress, Master Ja’alkon. Will you forgive me?”
The Master wrung his podgy hands as he laboured to formulate a polite response.
Jo’el put in dryly, “Well is it said that a woman’s smile is her greatest weapon.” His gaze paused on Rallon for a second as he spoke, causing the young monk to colour deeply.
A flutter of wings interrupted them. Flicker zipped through the open doorway and landed on Lia’s shoulder with a deft manoeuvre. “I leave you alone for one minute, Lia,” he hissed, in a whisper clearly pitched to carry to every ear present. “Could you not stay out of trouble for one whole minute?”
“And this?” squeaked another of the Masters.
“I shall take charge of this dumb beast, Master Ra’oon,” said Ja’alkon.
“Dumb beast?” spluttered Flicker. “I’ll give you a dumb beast, you great waddling ralti sheep.”
Lia clucked at him, “Shut the monkey-chatter, beast.”
Drawing himself up to his full two feet of height, the dragonet announced, “I am Flicker, and I saved this ungrateful imp’s life. Twice. But you are wise to keep her tied up. Indeed, she’s such a troublemaker, I must counsel you to lock her in your deepest dungeon, at once.”
“Oh?” said Master Jo’el.
“By the First Egg, indeed,” agreed the dragonet, warming to his task. “You might even consider feeding her to the Great Dragon.”
The Master frowned, “On a dragonet’s word?”
Flicker appeared unfazed. “Unless you want to help her defeat Ra’aba. You see, that traitor tried to murder my Lia, but I rescued her–indeed, at great personal sacrifice.” At the sound of Lia clearing her throat, Flicker hurried on, “She has been living on Ha’athior Island ever since, with me. I have tried to teach her the basics of civilised behaviour, truly, I have. But I despair.”
Lia struggled to contain her laugher. Oh, Flicker! He had learned entirely too much Island Standard for her liking.
Master Jo’el, however, seemed to have the measure of the dragonet. Stroking his beard, he said, “This is wise counsel, my fellow-Masters. Clearly, this wild Princess is in need of a firm hand of instruction–”
“We are not taking her in!” announced Master Ja’alkon.
From his great height, Jo’el quirked a wire-thin eyebrow at the source of the interruption. “You can’t find her a private chamber in the apprentice quarters, Master?”
“But … but she’s already created utter chaos and mayhem,” spluttered the Master, seemingly gripped by a vision of the end of the Island-World, with stars hurtling to their deaths in the Cloudlands and volcanoes blasting the Islands to smithereens. “What of our dignity? What of these young, impressionable monks? She–” he collected himself with a supreme effort “–she’s a girl.”
Finally, Master Jo’el’s smile lit up his face. “Then I wish for us all the discovery of a little joyous indignity.”
* * * *
Hualiama smacked down on the hard-packed sand with a grunt. She rolled, dodging Hal’s follow-up blow, leaped to her feet, and promptly had her footing scythed out from beneath her by his five-foot ironwood staff. Lia ate sand this time.
Get up. Never give in. She swung her staff at the monk. Block, block, the ironwood rods clacked together with sharp reports–yelp, as he crushed her already broken fingers. Attack! For perhaps fifteen seconds, Lia had the measure of Hallon, despite that he stood over a foot taller than her, and was twice as wide and three times as strong. He defended robustly, forcing her to retreat, to shift her attack as she sought a way through the blurred reaches of his rock-solid defence. From the corner of her eye, Hualiama caught sight of Master Jo’el and his fellow-Masters filing into the training arena to watch the royal ward having the stuffing belted out of her for at least the five hundredth time in the course of the three weeks she had been training at the monastery. She groaned. That millisecond’s distraction allowed Hallon the opening he hardly needed, given the beating he was busy handing her. Again.
Lia landed flat on her back. “Bloody ralti–”
His staff bore down. “Yield,” snarled the monk, his