Ice and Smoke

Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1“It’s been five years, Rindargeth. Five years today.”

“I know, child.”

“And I know nothing more now than I did the day you brought me here.” The night, rather—I remembered it well, cold stone and starlight, a dragon’s blazing eyes in the darkness.

That same dragon tilted his head at me now, making an attempt at light-heartedness. “You know that I am not going to eat you, which you did not know then.”

“True.” I smiled, glancing up from the trousers I was patching.

Not mine, of course; like any self-respecting lady, I wore skirts, though at the moment only a linen shift. I should have been chilled, dressed so lightly; the autumn breeze was strong at this height, and the sun had only just begun to peer over the treetops. Rindargeth, though, carried enough fire within him to radiate through his scales, scenting the air like hot metal and smoke.

“You are not so very unhappy here,” Rindargeth said, his voice more hopeful than certain. Voice like a roll of thunder, once incomprehensible to me; I understood it now as easily as my own.

Sunlight spilled over the tree line, and Rindargeth shifted, opening red-brown wings to catch its warmth.

“You are right. My cage is well-gilded.” I sighed and set down the trousers. “Five years with no hint of future release, and no knowledge of why I was taken. Five years away from my kin and companions, away from a kingdom that needs me.” Five years with no sign of my father, or my betrothed, either or both of whom I had expected to rescue me within days—but that question Rindargeth could not be expected to answer.

“It will not be forever, Ariana,” Rindargeth said. “It cannot be.” Did I imagine that his voice was less certain than it had been the many other times he had given me this reassurance?

“Why can’t it be?” I had debated with myself all night whether to ask these questions, but he had led me so perfectly to them that now I could not resist. “Tell me, Rindargeth. Clearly you know something of your master’s intentions. Please tell me!”

“Ari…” Rindargeth turned his head away. “If I had any master, I’m sure he would not confide in me.”

I growled under my breath. He certainly did have a master, and we both knew it. He was only f*******n to speak of the matter. Well, selfish as it might be, I valued my sanity and the restoration of my freedom above Rindargeth’s word. Today I was a woman, and no more a child to depend on others for rescue; therefore today I would have answers from him, whatever the cost.

“Rindargeth, you alone in all the world know what your master intends for me. Can you not tell me who he is, and why he keeps me here? Please! I am seventeen years old today, a woman grown by the laws of my people—I have the right to information about what concerns me so closely!”

“I know you do.”

“Then tell me!” I rose from my seat on the tower’s rampart and knelt at the crook of his front leg, a long-accustomed space for me to occupy. “Rindargeth, tell me, who is your master?”

“There is nothing I can tell you.”

“Is he from my own kingdom? Or does he reside somewhere near here—wherever we are? Does he bear a grudge against my father? Why else would he have me taken away?”

“Child, I cannot answer your questions.”

“Does he intend to keep me here the rest of my life?” I felt tears sting in my eyes. “I could bear it, you know, if I knew I would be trapped here another year, or five, or ten—even forever, if I knew there was no hope, I could resign myself, however painfully—”

“Ariana, don’t—”

“This captivity may be mild in itself, but the uncertainty is outright t*****e! Please, you claim to love me as your own child—will you let your child suffer?”

Rindargeth flinched as if I had struck him, and my heart ached. I knew I was aiming below the belt, but—five years.

“Rindargeth,” I said, but he backed away from me. Smoke poured from his mouth, sparks flickering within it, and I realized that he was changing form. Soon, a man stood in place of the dragon, perfectly human in form except for the yellow eyes. Eyes, I realized in shock, that were gleaming with tears, which I had never seen before.

“Ariana,” he said, kneeling beside me to gather me into his arms. “My Ari, I would tell you everything you want to know if I could. I would take you home to your people tomorrow if only I could!”

“I know you value your honor, but—”

“It is not merely that. I would break any promise for your sake, but I cannot. A dragon is bound by his word tighter than by chains of iron. If I have been charged not to speak of something, it is simply not possible for me to do so, any more than you could leap from this tower and grow wings on the way down.”

My tears were flowing freely now. I tried to swallow them back, burying my face against Rindargeth’s chest.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his gravelly voice almost too low to hear.

“Child, I am sorry.”

“No.” I pulled back from him, dashing my tears away irritably and forcing my voice to steadiness. “It is I who should apologize, for in my deepest heart, I suspected as much.” It was only that persuading Rindargeth to speak had been my only remaining hope. “I will not trouble you so cruelly again.”

“You could never trouble me.”

I laughed, watery but sincere. “That I know is a lie. I have done little else for five years.”

He shrugged, a hesitant twinkle in his eyes. “Well…in any case you have not plagued me half as much as that fool fairy.”

I laughed, for by now the dislike between Rindargeth and Sir Elaysius had become a jest, for all that it had begun with Elaysius’s sincere attempts to kill him. Reminded of Elaysius and my other companions, I got to my feet. “It is well and truly morning now, and there is breakfast to prepare.”

“In fact,” Rindargeth said, “I happen to know that breakfast does not depend upon you today. Your friends wished to surprise you.”

“Is that so? How lovely of them!” I had to smile, thinking of it—Genevieve was an accomplished cook, but she would get no help from Gareth, and all too much from Elaysius. ‘Twould be an interesting meal. And one that did not deserve to be ruined by my weeping and moping about. I straightened my spine and wiped my face clean on the hem of my shift. The smile on my face felt a bit stiff and unnatural, but it would warm and settle into place; I knew that much from experience.

“Very well, then, if I am not to cook, what shall we do instead?” I asked, knowing Rindargeth’s answer before he said it.

He did not disappoint, eyes twinkling as he replied, “It is too long since we taught the waves their place. It will not do to allow them too much freedom.”

“And they shall feel my dominion before yours, if you can refrain from cheating with your wings!” I darted for the trapdoor, shrieking with laughter as Rindargeth thundered close behind me, and raced down the spiral stair whose support column formed a core through the middle of the tower.

Down through the top floor, allegedly shared by Gareth and Elaysius; more often than not, Gareth scorned his perfectly adequate bed in favor of sleeping in the stable with his equine friends. Elaysius had installed a frame and curtains around the little basket of cushions that made his bed, and added as much other ornamentation as he could find; in all, his little region of the room was the richest-looking in the tower, silk and jewels flashing in the corner of my eye as I passed.

Down again, where my own chamber comprised the third floor.

How appalling its rustic simplicity had been to me once! But I was quite pleased with it now. Rindargeth, the only one who could leave our circle, had on my last birthday brought me a tapestry of a unicorn, not very different from the one I had treasured at home.

That done, I had no further complaints about my living space.

Genevieve’s chamber, on the second floor, looked much like mine but for the seashells—dozens, maybe hundreds of them gathered from our little strand of beach, and piled on shelves or strung on twine to decorate every angle of the room. Some of them rattled as Rindargeth and I passed, and I grimaced, hoping we’d done them no harm.

The spiral stair opened out into our common room, where mismatched seating ringed a large hearth opposite from our dining table and benches, the cold stone floor cushioned with rugs. I kicked one rug up as I passed, hoping to trip Rindargeth with it, and flung myself across the room and out into the dooryard.

Gareth was in the paddock, treating his favorite horse to a carrot, and looked up startled at my explosion from the tower.

“Come and swim!” I called to him, and he whooped, leaping onto the horse’s back. They galloped toward the beach, inevitably reaching it before me, but I still splashed into the waves a step ahead of Rindargeth, doubtless by his own indulgence.

I still preferred to swim in my makeshift sea-garb, but as I had been in a rush, my shift would do for today. Rindargeth, of course, remained fully dressed in his red-brown leather armor. The armor was, in fact, as much a part of his human form as his skin, and so long as he did not take it off, it could be easily reabsorbed into his dragon-body.

The water was thrillingly cold in the autumn air. We rubbed at our goosebumps as we splashed and paddled about, even the horse—shaggy white Winifred—prancing merrily in and out of the foam.

Rindargeth amused us by blowing rings of smoke, and I made a fuss over Gareth’s increased ability to reach the bottom. He had sprouted like one of his beloved bean-poles this last year or so, and at fourteen years of age was fast approaching my own height, though I was three years older. If his mind was still entirely that of a child, well, such was Gareth, and ever had been. And a relief, in its way, for being trapped in a tower with a truly adolescent boy, with no outlet for his affections but me and Genevieve, could have grown quickly awkward.

Gareth, with his once-prominent fear of Rindargeth a distant memory, seemed happy enough in captivity, with his garden and his animals—horses, chickens, milk-cow. I rather thought him better off here, where he was understood and cared for, than at loose ends in the wild world.

Genevieve, likewise, seemed content here. She had washed up on our beach three years ago, and spoken no word since, whether from a lifelong muteness or the shock of whatever shipwreck she had survived, we couldn’t know. She answered willingly to the name we gave her, and if she yearned for her lost homeland, her only sign was an occasional wistful gaze at the sea. She did not seem particularly dismayed by the enchanted circle that kept us within a half-mile of the tower. I sometimes thought that perhaps, for whatever reason, she could not go home, even if the circle were lifted—and so she might as well be here as anywhere.

Sir Elaysius was more restless. He tried to hide it, dear fellow, but had not half the subtlety he thought. When the little fairy knight made my rescue his sworn quest, he had never thought it could last so long. He had family and friends to return to—I suspected even a sweetheart—and although he made the best of things here, and seemed on a day-to-day basis to be enjoying himself immensely, I had more than once found him beating himself b****y against the circle in the middle of the night.

“Cheer up, Ariana,” Gareth said, tossing a wad of kelp at me.

“It’s your birthday!”

“Indeed it is, Gareth,” I said, shaking off my melancholy. “What gift have you found for me?”

“Maybe nothing.” He narrowed his wide-set green eyes into a look of sly innocence, baiting me.

I tossed the kelp back at him, targeting his head with a wet splat.

“Insolent whelp!”

He laughed and dove under the water to blow bubbles.