parts. “I’ll rest the acid bulb on this little stove to warm it gently, which speeds the reaction. Then I’ll drop chunks of meriatite into the acid where they’ll bubble away, and in the time it takes to toss a few ralti sheep at the Jade moon–hydrogen gas. This valve controls the gas outlet into this bag here, and the foot-pump drives the gas into the pipes leading to the sacks. Clear?”
“You know what? You’re weird.”
“I’m what?”
“Weird. What kind of Princess knows how to patch Dragonships and assemble a hydrogen still?”
“I keep telling you, I’m a royal ward–an imposter. Not a real Princess at all.”
“Royalty is an accident of birth,” said Ja’al, unexpectedly dropping a kiss on her cheek. “Chalcion may be a brute of a father and a respectable King, but I can guarantee he has no clue what a treasure he has in you.”
And he departed, leaving Lia to smile in bemusement, touching her cheek with a fingertip.
“Sooooo,” crooned Grandion, drawing out the word suggestively.
“He’s a monk. A friend. More like a brother, really.”
She babbled with the skill of the most empty-headed parakeet! Lia knew that the Dragon would not believe a single word.
On cue, he added, “Indeed, and I can safely reveal that I’m an overgrown windroc in disguise.”
Hualiama stamped her foot with unconvincing outrage. “Grandion! Ja’al is sworn to the Great Dragon’s service with vows of chastity, fidelity and service–”
“So that was a perfectly chaste kiss?”
“Aye.”
“Then why’s your little heart beating so fast?”
From her reading about Dragons, Lia knew their senses were many times acuter than those of Humans. It beggared belief–he could hear her heartbeat from down there? “It’s irritation–with you,” she retorted, bending low to blow on her little stove. The heat felt about right. Now to add the meriatite …
“Hualiama, why did the monk call your father a brute?”
Flip that Dragon over an Island, now he was suddenly full of questions–and none of them easy ones.
Hualiama went very still, transported to another time and place. Her sister Fyria, sneering, ‘Father never wanted you, little Lia. That’s why he hates you. It was Mother who insisted on adopting you. None of us wanted you, but she made us.’
“Father has a punishment board in his office,” she said, in a dull, lifeless voice. She tested the release valve cautiously. Not enough pressure, yet, although the meriatite was bubbling merrily. “It’s a square of wood covered in sharpened dowels. When I have done wrong, which is often, the punishment is to kneel on that board, for hours. Or he beats me, and my mother. When he’s drunk–”
“You stand between him and your mother, wishing he would beat you, rather.”
At first, Hualiama thought he had read her deepest feelings, but then she realised Grandion must be talking about himself. Could it be that they shared this secret shame of a father both loved and feared, who demanded respect but often did not deserve it, who lashed out at the most unexpected moments to tear a family apart? Suddenly, he seemed not a vast, serpentine predator, but a friend with whom she could share confidences.
“I should’ve stood on him,” said Grandion.
“Aye? Yet I love him, Grandion. Isn’t that the strangest thing?”
“No,” returned the Dragon, his voice now as mellifluous as the tones of a Fra’aniorian pan-flute. “No, for love transcends woe. Sometimes it is pure, like the stars of a moonless night, and sometimes it is as clouded as a storm, but it is still love.”
Such were the storms that lashed her heart.
After a time, he added, “I’m sorry I made you cry.”
And now he heard the drip of her tears above the chuckle of the bubbling still? Hualiama sniffed hugely. Pestiferous, perceptive Dragon!
“How many hours until your bomb is ready?” asked Grandion.
“Too many.”
Below, talons clicked on stone as Grandion shifted restlessly. “You have told me stories, and sung me songs, Hualiama, but I regret I was a feral beast for much of that time, unthinking and unheeding. I would know the tale of your life. Would you tell me of the heart of a girl who scorns death to comfort a lost Dragon?”
Hope lodged in her breast, yet it was hope bound to a disconcerting knowledge. This Dragon would not kill her. Whatever magic had emerged to ensnare them, it was far more dangerous than that.
Chapter 18: A Dragon’s Oath
ON HER THIRD strike of the spark-stone, the fuse caught. “Take cover!” Lia yelled, even though she had already warned Grandion four times. His muffled laughter chased her