day. Good. But, copying scrolls? What kind of training was that?
“Two hundred laps,” said the Master. “A lap counts as there and back.”
Grr. Double that.
Ja’al arrived, carrying such a great armful of scrolls he could barely see where he was going. Lia smelled the mustiness from where she stood.
“Put them in that cave,” directed Master Khoyal. “Hurry up with the rest. Don’t dawdle!” The Master smacked her arm with his cane. “Idle hands, zephyr? Go help Ja’al carry those scrolls.”
The crack of his cane became a metaphor for her new life beneath the Island, hidden from Ra’aba’s prying eyes and, undoubtedly, his spies. Master Khoyal valued hard work as the path to mastery. “Eighteen hours of work. Nine to sleep,” muttered Lia, copying a scroll carefully. She eased her bruised knuckles, punishment that morning for a spelling error. “Only eighty laps today? Lazy little zephyr.” She had to stop lest she sink to the lake-bottom.
Khoyal was not unkind, but she was starting to dream about his whispery commands, when she was not suffering through sweat-soaked nightmares about a certain Dragon’s fate.
Hualiama eased her back. She and Flicker had spent their entire rest day–and the night, returning at dawn–searching up and down the avalanche site. Surely the Tourmaline Dragon was buried beneath ten thousand tons of rock? No sound, no sign, no possible route had they found, not even a hint of a crack that might lead within the Island. Her fancy new magic skill had been resoundingly silent.
Next week’s rest day, however, promised more entertainment. She would take Ja’al to meet Amaryllion.
“Coming to bed?” Inniora asked, sleepily.
“Just finishing this scroll.”
“If your head drops any lower, you’ll fall asleep and start drooling all over your work.”
“I do not drool!”
“Except over my brother.”
Lia huffed, “Inniora! He’s taking his vows tomorrow. End of Island.”
“Well, over that Blue Dragon, then–what was his name?”
“I don’t know. Fibber. I do not drool over Dragons.”
“Except when you dream about them,” Inniora said. “You talk in your sleep.” Lia favoured this with an expression no Princess should ever have made in public. “If I wanted to know your secrets, all I’d have to do is ask you questions while you sleep. Say, who’s Qualiana?”
Lia rubbed her eyes wearily. “Mate of Sapphurion the Dragon Elder, Red Dragoness. Over one hundred feet in wingspan, powerful healing capabilities beside the usual Red affinity for fireballs and lava attacks–why?”
“Night before last you mentioned her name, clear as the twin suns rising over Iridith.”
“Qualiana? Why would I dream about her?”
“Squirmy, aren’t you?” Inniora grinned. “To bed!”
“Shut your chirping parakeet-mouth. Better still, give me something to tease you about. There’s a man in your life, isn’t there? Ja’al was hinting. And, what reason under the twin suns could there possibly be for me to copy so many scrolls, blast them into a volcanic ruin!”
Lia jumped as Flicker chirped in her ear, “So that you learn, zephyr, and don’t just skim through the scrolls as you’re wont to do. Knowledge must be internalised before it can be reproduced as skill.”
Both girls chuckled at his flawless imitation of Master Khoyal.
A spiralling triple-loop showcased the dragonet’s skills as an aerial acrobat. Eyes a-whirl, he added, “Ask Inniora about Chago, straw-head.”
“Chago?” Lia turned on her three-legged wooden stool. “What would you like to tell me about Chago, Inniora?”
She swatted at Flicker as he whizzed past. “Nothing.”
Hualiama needled, “We are talking about Chago, Sub-Captain of the Royal Guard, right? The tattooed giant from the Western Isles?”
The taller girl developed spots of colour below her cheekbones. “He’s half Fra’aniorian.”
“I know … isn’t the story that he inherited his height from his Fra’aniorian father and his brawn from his Western Isles mother? He’s rather Dragon-esque, wouldn’t you say?”
“I’d say that flying pest of yours had better watch his wings!”
* * * *
To her mortification, Hualiama wept her way through Ja’al’s vows. Duty. Fidelity. Service and honour. The words were beautiful and poetic, but Ja’al’s elation as he spoke his vows, struck her as a hundred times more beautiful yet. His soul knew peace; she had done right. She would suffer this wound and lock it away in her secret storehouses of grief and loss.
Flicker wound his body around her neck, purring, Are these happy tears? Or sad?
She wiped her eyes. How’s about ridiculous tears, Flicker?
Hualiama. Attend.
Dragonet and Human stiffened alike. Amaryllion? she ventured.
It is I. His voice must surely judder the Islands off their foundations, Lia thought, as a mental earthquake faded into the recesses of her mind. The Ancient Dragon