Kin
Chapter 11
Author's Note: I'm sorry it's been so long. I simply find myself distracted, always pushing this story aside for other things. I've forgotten the simple pleasure of putting words to a page and for those of you who have loyally followed this story, I apologize. I'm trying to do better. I've come to realize, with the help of a friend, that endlessly editing my chapters until they feel perfect is neither sustainable nor is it accomplishing. Far better to finish a story imperfect than to never finish one at all. So here it is. This was originally a much longer chapter but I felt that it was too much so I've decided to break it down into two. I don't have a scheduler planned for when the next one will be published but I've promised myself that I'm going to make an effort to get out to you guys. Please enjoy, and leave a comment if you feel up to it. The comments are what have kept this story alive. I welcome every last one.
Grand Composer Orefillio Thespero—named after his father Orefillion Thespero and the Old Flotheran phrase "Pursuer of good acts," was perhaps the most prodigious mind of the 635th dragon age. Responsible for orchestrating over thirteen dozen plays and theatrical performances, half a dozen paintings, sculptures, and portraits, and no less than one-hundred-ninety-three concerts across the north and southern kingdoms and allied continents, Thespero dominated the elitist market for quality entertainment. He is most notably prized for his 78th suite: Grandiloch Pertrahl that contained only one original composition set to be performed live on stage with Orefillio himself singing the chorus of his final performance on a tour that took him to all thirteen major cities across the five nations. The tour would mark the end of his brief time spent in isolated convalescence, and the beginning of the last decade of his life spent in the company of his beloved first wife Pazar Thespero. Mania swept across the nations with the crowd that followed Thespero's caravan growing to an incalculable size, every audience member feasted upon his music as acolytes rejoicing in the benedictions of musical worship. It was on the sandblasted steps of the city of Aagdoba that Orefillio exposed the truth behind Grandiloch Pertrahl's composition—a song rhapsodizing of the intricacies and depths of a most nefarious betrayal—as a revelation of his beloved Pazar's conspiracy to supplant him of his fortune, sell his unpublished works and murder him with the slow poisonous affliction he had been suffering from for the past several months. The crowd, an aforementioned army of beloved disciples, spurred on by Orefillio's enchanting music, tore Pazar Thespero to ribbons, decorating themselves with her entrails and parading her head along the streets for all to see. Today, Grandiloch Pertrahl is seldom entertained at public gatherings, considering the song to be in rather poor taste. In other parts of the world, the song is a warning, meant to be seen as a presage to imminent betrayal and a universal sign of distrust.
"For the days grow long,
And the teeth hold sharp
Eve's filled with love
Become a siren's harp
Gone be the one
Buried is the way
Ought you be sung
To an early grave"
-Verse 89 page 4 Translated Old Flotheran of "Grandiose Betrayal"
What is music but life in song, my friends?
The bell rang nine, the tolls heavy and muffled as they echoed across the frigid cityscape. Even a city shrouded in perpetual snow couldn't suppress the heavy chimes of the great clocktower. But the bell tolled wrong. It was not so late as that; the moon still shone but the sky glowed with the sun of early morning.
The streets were full of people but held no life. Every passerby was nothing more than a warm body, migrating with the same desultory pattern of a specter haunting a graveyard. Every empty house, every crumbling building, every corpse of charred stone and wood felt a mausoleum. The people avoided looking at them just as much as they did each other.
It was not unusual or even uncharacteristic behavior to see. And although she felt weak for admitting it, Cynder didn't like looking at them either. Staring for too long felt like submitting to a defeat—a reality that no one was quite ready to accept.
Ignorant, cowardly thoughts, she swore internally.
She did not need the distraction. Yes, that was it. She was meant to be finding Poetry. Not sightseeing like some clueless tourist—even though that's exactly how she felt.
Every turn left seemed to lead to three rights. A walk down an alley might turn into a main street with more than a dozen bridges to consider crossing. Where one could have taken you to a cozy little cottage, another might take you down a treacherous slope of ice with a narrow pathway too tight to fit your wings in. More than one trip down lanes like those had ended with her having to do a fair amount of backtracking, cursing, and swearing by the ancients all the way, only to wind up taking another wrong turn and repeating the process twice more.
She didn't need a map—although had one been offered she wouldn't have refused—she needed a landmark. Someplace from which to get her bearings. Too many cobbled streets looked the same, and too many faces looked familiar to have gone any further than a handful of blocks.
How many times have I walked past that monk with the ragged blue robe? Cynder groaned.
She could have flown, but flying meant exposing herself to the biting chill of Shiverum's frozen gusts, and while the streets might be labyrinthian she wasn't willing to trade them out for another case of frostbite.
Cynder shivered nonetheless.
Why was she out here? Why had she agreed to deliver notices of assembly to the important houses of shiverum diplomats?
Because Spyro had agreed to do the same. And you wanted an excuse to escape him without releasing him from your thoughts.
It was the same with her and Spyro as it was with the people of Shiverum and their averted gazes—pretending.
Regardless, being courier, Cynder found the simple task of delivering political notices to diplomats a uniquely invigorating reprieve from the grim severity of routine patrolling.
Too much quiet with too much room for solemn rumination.
She had specifically requested night shifts—or what passed for a night at least—in the hopes of catching Spyro during his closing exchange of the guard. There had only ever been one occasion when she had managed to get more than a few tail lengths close to him—and her throat had sewn itself shut the moment his eyes had lain on her.
He had flinched as if the sight of her there was something he had never imagined, and then suddenly his gaze had become very cold, more distant than a stranger's.
She would have screamed at him if they'd been anywhere else than in public, but he had since made damn well certain that he was never left alone in a room with her.
"It's like I'm hunting in the great eastern wood!" she had told Poetry that same night. "I hold my breath and draw myself in—then the wind shifts and he's already gone. It's so unlike him!"
Poetry had nodded, looking up momentarily as she drew a talon across a sheet of parchment to signature a set of official documents. "I've known him to be distant but never skittish." A frown as she looked back down to see inkblots dribbled across the page. "That's the way my father was with my mother for the longest time during their courtship."
Flushed, Cynder had bitten her tongue to keep herself from shouting that they weren't courting. Denial only ever seemed to encourage Poetry, Cynder had learned.
"How did she manage to get him to stay put long enough to speak reason?" She found herself asking.
Cynder had seen the deviousness in Poetry's smile but found it contradictory to the warmth with which the dragoness had spoke—memory dancing in the glass of her eyes.
"My dad always claimed that my mother had practically 'jawed' his neck to get him alone with her. But my mother always told me that she had simply waited, and after a matter of time, he had come to her." A long pause. "I imagine the truth is somewhere between the two," Poetry had mused, one paw idly fingering the necklace at her breast bone.
The story had almost made Cynder hopeful, But thinking of Spyro and the lengths with which he distanced himself from her, it was difficult to imagine him ever coming to her in such a way. Fate herself would have to drag him by the horns. And as far as 'jawing' his neck, well… No, No! Out of the question.
So she had thrown herself into other work, meaningful tasks to distract herself such as patrols and organizing supplies to the cities nearby stronghold settlements and garrison islands.
It was Aquaria that had requested her aid in delivering documents and correspondence with the various branches of Shiverum's political body.
Now, Cynder stood in front of only the first on the list of those names Aquaria had given her, wishing she had even half of Poetry's suave and charismatic demeanor.
"So master Spyro calls us to war once again then, eh?"
The question struck Cynder as harshly as the half-hour chime struck the great Shiverum belfry, but did not ring so deep as the name encased within it.
The name made her heart weep and her blood boil all in the same instant. It was a special wound, one that was still tender and made acknowledging the question a test of courage she wasn't sure she could muster.
Nevertheless, wetting her lips, Cynder had done her best to be noncommittal. She'd even added a smile just like Poetry had told her.
"Lass?" the voice asked again when she didn't answer
"I couldn't say." She hoped she kept the tremble out of her words. "But I can assure you he'll be there, as will I and many others." As an afterthought, "You said 'again'. Why?"
Across the table, a mammal that insisted it was a panther gazed at her with what Cynder could only assume was distrust. He looked more ogre than panther but she kept the thought to herself. She needed his esteem.
"Tide watcher be not so busy of late but not so un-busy that we can be running off to fight wars," the cat spoke gruffly. "'Course Aquaria callin on the Tide Masters be no small order either. The Seas—they've gone bad. I can feel it on the breeze, in the salt of me marrow." He appeared to be monologuing. Again. This made for the fifth time in just as many minutes. "Best to keep your toes beneath you when the tide shifts, no telling where it goes, only that it goes in a way there no be telling."
The ground beneath Cynder's paws shifted as if to reaffirm the notion, a gentle reminder of where she was—in the Stackouts of Shiverum's Fermented quay, trapped in a small wooden room atop a precarious spire of a dozen other small wooden rooms bobbing on the deck of an old frigate with the name Timid Ivory.
In front of her stood the vessel's captain: Timid Tobe.
The Fermented Quay was Shiverum's main avenue of export and trade, favoring heavily on libations and rare materials that were only produced in the harsh climate of Shiverum's Tiaga. It was the life-blood of Shiverum's economy as a coastal city.
Designated as the living quarters for the City's Council of Tide Watchers, the stackouts were only a small portion of the dockyard, mainly used for overseeing oceanic commerce.
It was less a dockyard than an improvised buoyant city, haphazardly constructed towers of wood, lashed together and conjoined by incongruent ladders and gangplanks, zip lines and rope bridges, all built atop the encumber hulls of retired naval vessels to create a jungle of wood slats and rope vines.
Around her, the walls and floor creaked in an endless nauseating dissonance as if the structure itself wept in perpetual torment.
Items left loose—coins, bottles, picture frames, dangling oil lanterns, and writing utensils—rattled in a maddening rhythmic sway with the rise and fall of the flowing tide.
Certain she would have thrown up by now had she eaten before coming here, Cynder sent a prayer to the ancients for small mercies.
"But Spyro be a good lad," Tobe continued, and the name cut at her nerves worse than the incessant dip and sway of the room. "If he be there, I'll be going. I speak not for the rest of the watchers, but let it be known that when the Breaker of Barons be calling, Captain Tobe Dunhast be the one who answer."
Frowning, Cynder readjusted her footing to keep from tipping with the room. "I'm sorry, what was that name?"
"Dunhast," the feline said matter of factly, "that be me name, lass."
Flustered, and feeling as if she were talking circles, Cynder smiled uncertainly. "No, forgive me. I meant the other… what you called Spyro?"
"Oh! Aye!" The sailor laughed. "That be the name of his deeds he be so-called for so many years ago. Bloody business it was, but all the better, I say! Why, I don't be knowing where I do be if not for that."
"Breaker of Barons, why is he called that?"
"Why on account of the Barons he do be breaking so many odd years ago. I be just a kit then, but I do remember the criers just as well as if it were just the day before today. A ramble it was!" Tobe laughed, leaning his back against the drinking cabinet behind his desk, dragging a bottle from a lower shelf before popping the cork and pouring himself a glass. "He put the north to rest he did. Cut out the tongue's of those sinful mutinous curs," he snarled, nearly making Cynder flinch to hear Spyro spoken of in such a light. When he offered her a glass, she politely declined.
"Tongues?" She said faintly.
"Well,"—another laugh followed by a deep drowning swallow—"tongues do make it sound a touch messy don't it. But let me say! It kept the peace, it did. Put the Barony of those devilish houses in check. Always an example to be made, I say. Any captain knows! I do! Just like—Sometimes when you're all the way out to sea, and disease be taking a crew one by one, the only way to save the ship is…" Tobe paused.
"Is…?"
"Is to be rid of the sick," Tobe finished, downing the rest of his drink and pouring another, offering it to her again. This time she took it, holding the delicate glass in her talons as if it were an egg.
Spyro, everywhere she went his name followed her. And every time it was uttered left her with more questions than answers. People spoke of it as if it were less a name than a battle cry. In her mind she could hear the city, shouting his name, chanting, chanting. Sometimes she heard Poetry's name. Sometimes she heard her name. Other Times all she heard were screams.
"Will the red one be there? The mean one with the green eyes," Tobe chuckled.
It took a moment for Cynder to realize who he meant. "Oh! Eliesia?"
"Aye, that be the one. I's seen her around the docks sometimes, always lookin' sad, lookin' like she be angry at somethin. Somethin that follows her around."
Frowning, Cynder considered all the possibilities of why Eliesia would be roaming the docks of the Fermented Quay. None came to mind. Questions liked to follow her name too, dark and whispering ones that reminded Cynder of smoke and burned pages from a book.
"What does she do at the docks?" she found herself asking the mammal.
"Nothing. She just be looking at the ocean. Sometimes she do be reading something, but I've no the heart to bother her, looking all sad and whatnot."
Gossip, most likely she assumed, and not from a reliable source. Nevertheless, Cynder filed the information away for later.
Still holding the drink in her paws, Cynder finally took her first sip and had to bite her tongue to keep the liquid from bubbling back up her throat. "Eliesia… comes and goes as she chooses. I can't say if she will be present at the assembly or not." A frown crinkled the edges of Tobe's brow and for a moment Cynder worried that she offended the mammal in some way. "But Spyro will be there," She added quickly, hoping that if she spoke it would keep the burn from taking hold of her throat. The words were little more than a rasp.
A smile of crooked yellow teeth carved its way across the small mammals matted features.
"A good lad, him. He's got the makings of commander if Poetry ever finds the rope to tie him down." He laughed, a mumbling sort of bellow before realizing he might have said something he shouldn't have. "Ah… well, good day. Let mistress Aquaria know we'd not be late if the world were ending."
Cynder only barely managed to resist the urge to say that it just might have been the case.
After that, the questions had only gotten worse, and the gossip more tasteless.
"I heard it was the wastelander's who orchestrated this attack," baroness Maribole had said, the perfume that wafted off of her like a fruity musk, "as revenge for the meddling our child of an heiress did all those years ago. The blame doesn't all go to her of course. That young upstart Spyro had her dragged into it, I'm sure. I've seen the look of him before! Trouble: that's what he brings!" The baroness had shaken with dissatisfaction, spouting out more hearsay.
Cynder began to wonder how much of it lay in truth.
"He's an influence, I know it," Maribole said sourly, eying her with sudden distrust—and recognition. Cynder pretended to not notice.
"You may tell Aquaria that I will be attending, but I'll not have my voice drowned out by a handful of young novices trying their hand at politics. Experience and discipline must take charge if we're to see Shiverum restored and the wastelanders brought down." Cynder got the distinct feeling that she was included in the term 'young novices.'
The next delivery had gone relatively well, if only because nobody but a frightened serving maid had been present—a jumpy wingless drake named Rooney.
The Holtivar household had been by far the grandest, albeit neglected. Gabled and palatial, it looked like a smaller version of the Shiverum palace, complete with timbered walls and billowing hearth vents and every facet that could have made the house a home if not for the lack of occupational life. With much of the exterior being encased in ice, the looming structure gave off the distinct feeling of abandonment and reclusion.
"Young master Royantis is not present at the moment," Rooney said after opening the door upon Cynder's eighteenth knock, "and master Dagwell is indisposed at the moment and does not wish to be bothered," he finished, dry-washing his hands.
It wasn't until she clarified that her business there was on behalf of Aquaria that she was finally invited in, and even then felt as if it were done out of obligation.
"I'm sure I can take a message."
Rooney's nerves seemed to only worsen as Cynder drew further into the house, constantly glancing over his shoulders at her as if to make sure she didn't wander off.
She couldn't remember much of what the interior looked like, only that it had been tall and echoing, the floor almost juddering with her every step. She thought she might have heard shouting from somewhere else in the house at one point, or perhaps a music player in the background but the sound had been too muted to identify.
In fact, the most she could remember was the long line of family portraits just like the ones in the palace. However, where Poetry's family had all been smiles and bright colors, the Holtivar's felt a dark reflection. Colors were subdued, every mouth a frown or expressionless glower, each portrait's eyes bore down on her like a sack of grain thrown on her back. In the Holtivar household, sunshine and laughter were as distant as the furthest depths of the ocean.
"Aquaria has asked me to send notices of assembly to all the major houses of the Shiverum parliament. The ministry is to meet today," Cynder said once Rooney had her seated on an elegantly uncomfortable cushioned sofa. "This address was written on the list but—"
"The Holtivar's keep quite busy," the servant interrupted, chuckling nervously.
"I've been told that I can't take no for an answer." She hadn't, but being direct seemed the best course at the moment.
Rooney audibly swallowed, wiping a damp paw across his forehead. "Of course, yes. Well, I'm sure something can be arranged, a schedule met. Quite busy. The Holtivar's have been very busy lately."
"You've said that," she said slowly. "Is everything alright?"
You'd have thought she'd slapped him from the surprise on his face: eyes wide as saucers, mouth flapping. She almost wanted to just to see if she could snap him out of it.
"Of course! I'm very well! Just busy is all!" His voice cracked with vehemence.
Trying to steer matters into a more comfortable topic, Cynder glanced around the room without ever actually taking note of what she looked at.
"They must do quite well for themselves. What business are they in?"
At this Rooney shot up like a ball fired from a cannon, his scales practically opaque. "Thank you for the message!" He blurted, ushering her back to the front door with surprising force. "I hope you enjoyed the tea!" Cynder hadn't gotten any tea. "You may tell Aquaria that a member of the Holtivar's will most certainly be present!"
The door was slammed shut before she could ever get a word in edgewise, what sounded to be a dozen locks clicking into place behind her.
Stranger yet, when she turned back to glance over her shoulder, Cynder was certain she had seen a pair of eyes watching her from between the folds of an upstairs curtain.
It wasn't until she was three blocks away that the feeling of being watched finally abated.
The bandaged tip of Spyro's wing gave a dull twinge, the muscle feathering over the bruised bone of articulate joints. A hairline fracture—not so profound as a broken wing but just as debilitating in that he was asked to refrain from flying anywhere for the next several hours. A simple wound sustained on simple patrol. It was a nice reminder that he was indeed not so untouchable as some believed him to be.
He had been prescribed a healing crystal tea and promptly ushered out of the Kesemechi clinic in favor of more dire patients. It was almost a relief to not be slaved over as if he were precious cargo; it felt nice to be treated just as any other dragon would have.
"Look at you," a voice says from behind him, dragging Spyro from his thoughts, "always so grim. You haven't even touched your cheesecake."
"Royantis," Spyro said plainly, turning to face the gem-encrusted dragon.
A porcelain blue face, decorated in jewels strewn along golden chains that dangled from horns and nose rings watched him from across the sitting-room table, cross-legged and with an expression of unfettered smugness plastered across his face as thickly as the makeup lining his eyes and lips. Even if he wanted to keep the growl from his throat Spyro couldn't have done much to stop it.
"Careful, I'm almost starting to think you don't like me," the male ice dragon chuckled, dabbing the cake from the corners of his mouth.
"I don't." leave it to the Holtivars to dine on cake and fine wine as war raged outside the city walls.
Royantis only laughed. "No need to make up your mind so early. Life is about changing things, isn't it? We find ourselves amongst a great time of change. I would hate for you to be left behind in the past. At least try to be respectful." Another bite of cheesecake found its way to the dragon's smirking mouth.
"You have to earn that."
"Oh but bribery is so much easier."
The two dragons fell into mutual resentful silence. In the corner of the room, a musical recording preserved in memory crystal filled the ambiance with the gentle swoons and sweeps of brass and wood and string.
Smiling, tapping his tail in rhythm, Royantis looked content to let the world burn down around him if only to preserve what precious little he had. It was Spyro's job to remind him of the opposite.
"Don't you just love Thespero?" Royantis suddenly asked before Spyro could speak. "A stern but eccentric prodigy of the arts. Where would music be without him today? Take his final suite for example—his magnum opus—and consider whether or not history would have remembered him if not for his greatest masterpiece. The two of you might have gotten along rather well, I think. What with his battle against madness and muse and your proclivity for war and self-destruction. Yours' is a tale as old as time itself—one of brilliant talent brought down by the simple correspondence of every day minutiae. I wonder what your masterpiece will be and if history will remember it."
Music filled the room once again and Spyro could do nothing but laugh. Across the table, Royantis watched him with the drifting gaze of someone measuring an opponent in a game of Find The Fool. It was only a small comfort to know that he could still make Royantis feel unbalanced.
"Aquaria expects you to make an appearance," Spyro said matter of factly. "And while I can't say you would be missed if you didn't, I'm to remind you that it is in your best interest to accept the invitation."
"My best interest?"
Watching the ice dragon shift uneasily in his seat, Spyro bit his tongue to keep a smile from curling at the edges of his mouth. "We are at the beginning of what could be a long and terrible war."
Nodding, Royantis sipped from a crystal bowl of nectarous wine. "I'm aware," he said between swallows. "War is very profitable."
"War is also revealing. It shows us who our enemies are, who we can trust, and where we can trust them to be when the lines are drawn." Royantis remained silent, still watching him from over the rim of his glass. "This war is different though. And you and I both know that you've never been one to allow a simple line to tell you where you need to stand."
Slowly, Spyro watched Royantis lower the empty bowl back to its place on the table, making the wood groan in protest. "How industrious of me," he said carefully.
"Equivocal," Spyro corrected, "I believe is the word you were looking for."
"Goodness. Your time amongst the savages of the north did change you, Spyro." A cutting glance. "I'm impressed."
More silence.
"Shiverum relies on you far too much for you to simply take a backseat in all of this. You're part of the council after all. The Holtivar's have always been at the forefront of any successful campaign. I recall a time not so long ago when it was your father who sponsored dealings deep within the north, inspiring the masses to raise their voice. Of course… who could have foreseen what that voice would become?"
Looking paler than usual, the ice drake fiddled with a dangling chain of sapphires along his cheek. "Indeed," Royantis said tightly, clearing his throat. "Terrible circumstances."
"The worst," Spyro agreed, unable to keep the growl from his voice. The blue dragon all but trembled where he sat, whether it was from rage, or fear Spyro couldn't tell. He wasn't entirely sure that he cared.
"If you wish to lecture him as well, I'm afraid you're too late." Royantis gave an indignant huff. "He's gone away on business."
Business. Grifftilith? Perhaps. Or did he go northward?
It wasn't until the ice dragon had managed to regain some of his smug composure that Spyro finally felt he had gotten through to the dragon. "What do you require of me?" he asked.
Another twinge in Spyro's left wing had him readjusting the resting position of all his limbs, providing him with a much-needed moment to gather his thoughts. Royantis Holtivar was a business drake at heart, and one thing you could always trust a Holtivar to do is to protect their interests.
"I want you standing in that assembly. And I need you to make it look like it was your idea to be there." A pause. "I know what you want, Royantis."
"Is that so?"
Turning to face the solitary window of the room, Spyro frowned at what he saw staring back at him. "Aquaria and Poetry aren't as unaware of you as you think. Whatever your next move, I need your assurance that you won't make it until Shiverum and Warfang are secure."
No answer. Better than lying, Spyro told himself.
"I need something else from you," Spyro muttered, cursing himself. A debt was the last thing he wanted to owe to a dragon like Royantis.
The knowing smirk Royantis gave him was nothing short of invective. "Very well."
Spyro knew the words to be poison whispered in the air.
Sighing, Spyro forced himself to look away from the world outside the window. "I need you to keep Cynder from leaving this city."
For her last delivery, Cynder had been meant to take a notice to a commander Rodunn of the Shiverum navy but had to leave the message with his mate once it was revealed that being commander could have him at any number of places across the city.
Cynder didn't have that kind of time.
Rodunn's mate, however, had been a very kind wind dragoness with a teasing smile and boisterous laugh. She bore the scars of wounds long unhealed; if they haunted her, she showed none of it in the warmth of her opal eyes. Her name, rather fittingly, was Opal.
"Pulled in many directions," she said in an accent that made her words sound like the lyrics to some unheard song. "He wouldn't leave us for many days after attack. He refused to. But it was of inevitability. Now he misses home for longer than a breath and a kiss." She sighed, shaking her head. "Manners. My hearth is yours. Drink?"
Cynder had recognized the accent immediately. Had heard it many times during her self exile in the Jade Isle: Wind Speech, an older, less often used tongue of Dragleic.
"The wind brings me to your door," Cynder said customarily, lowering her head and tilting her chin. "I thank you for opening it."
Opal's eyes had swelled with surprise and delight, glowing even brighter—if that were even possible.
"A wind sister!" She gasped. "Come to the inside! We will share much talk. Oh," she swooned," Hercynite will be very pleased to meet you!"
Inside, the house had been the perfect kind of warm—thawing the chill that had eaten its way into her bones; Cynder felt as if she could have melted. Drapes hung from every interior doorway, curtains of silk and satin, wool and cotton with designs of stormy skies and verdant forests rife with wildlife and color.
"Forgive me. Knitting keeps my thoughts at ease," Opal said bashfully, her smile tugging at the scars that marred her muzzle and snout.
Still admiring the kaleidoscope of colors and patterns, Cynder shook her head. "It's lovely. How long did these take?"
"Many summers, many needles, and far too much thread," A voice suddenly whispered into her ear, the sound like a sighing breeze in a field of unbroken glass.
Cynder gasped, spinning on her heels. It was not the voice that startled her, but the clarity with which it spoke, the way it seemed to come from every direction and without echo or muffle; it was as if the house itself were speaking to her.
"Hello?" Cynder asked warily, scanning the many curtained doorways.
"On the winds of idiocy I ride today," Opal swore. "Much apologies. I forget to warn you. Hercynite is wind speaker." The voice laughed, its mirth filling the room like a cup of warm honey.
"I am upstairs. I will come down. Do not be alarmed," the voice whispered, delicate as spiders silk.
Shuffling her paws, Cynder tried to hide the red that crept into her cheeks.
Houses speaking, she scorned internally. Fool dragon.
Another set of paws could be heard slowly descending the stairs, if only just. Except for the crackle of a blazing hearth, the house was silent and even then Cynder could barely make out the soft paw falls of her second host.
If the voice had been beautiful, the dragoness to match it was practically enchanting. Sharp tilted eyes stared at her with the intensity of an archer's gaze, seeming to weigh and measure her in the same breath; Cynder got the distinct suspicion that they could have picked out a single grey mouse in a room full of lumbering dragons.
She couldn't remember the last time a dragon's gaze made her feel bare in her own scales, nor inadequate in appearance. To call Hercynite supple would have been an understatement—she was ravishing. Scales a flat mother of pearl, she appeared to be carved of marble as veins of copper snaked their way between the valleys of her figure. She would have been without flaw if not for the large grotesque scar tissue she bore at the front of her neck, what looked to be a large chunk of her flesh torn out. Even so, she was far from unattractive.
It wasn't until too late that Cynder realized she had been staring—ogling more like. Of course, Hercynite's gaze missed nothing.
"A token to remember an old enemy by," said the voice that was both Hercynite and not. She never actually spoke, not so much as move her lips. "But what he took from me, I took from him and more." Her tone never changed, gave away no emotion, but her expression was one of intense memory and raw nerve.
"I meant no disrespect, wind speaker," Cynder deferred. Adhering to jade isle custom, she closed her eyes when she lowered her head, a sign of reverence when insult was given.
It was Hercynite's turn to gasp. "A wind sister? Opal, why didn't you tell me? By your scales, I never would have thought to find one in you!" Closing the gap, Hercynite nuzzled Cynder's head with her own. "The wind honors me by bringing you to my door. Let us talk."
Nodding, Cynder let herself be led through a thick wall of curtains into an adjacent room. Sparsely furnished, the room was kept mostly bare except for the pads that circled the hearth that had been set into the floor, a small tent descending from the roof of the home to act as a smoke catch for the vent.
"Opal," Hercynite said, "bring tea. Hot, not warm."
Sniffing, Opal raised her chin at her housemate's demanding tone. "There is not a need. It was brewing when I heard knock."
"Yes, well… Stay if you wish."
"It isn't necessary," Cynder tried to say but neither of the wind dragons would hear it.
"You are guest!" Opal said.
Hercynite nodded. "And a wind sister at that."
Swallowing her objections Cynder tried to divert attention in other directions. "I bring a message for Commander Rodunn."
"We'll speak of that later," Hercynite cut in simply, her billowing voice overpowering as it emanated from every direction. "I wish to hear news of home. It's been many seasons since I've visited." Something like shame crossed her features at the last part, as did the same with Opal.
Swallowing, Cynder kept her smile from falling. "I'm afraid I can't tell you much. I left before" —she waved her tail, gesturing to the world and its current circumstances— "all of this." At this, both dragons' faces fell. "But they had appointed a new Zephyr the last I had heard."
Opal and Hercynite both gaped, looking at one another. "Of this you are sure?" Opal asked, drawing closer as if to make certain she heard correctly.
"Who?" Hercynite asked, doing the same.
Shifting uncomfortably, Cynder cleared her throat. "Acolyte Farseer?"
Hercynite looked pleased, nodding her head as if she had made the decision. Cynder thought she might have seen an inkling of a smile before it disappeared behind the rim of her cup.
Opal on the other hand looked as if someone had spit in her tea.
"Farseer? Why do they choose someone as young? And a wind singer! Might as well ask a rock to change the weather! No, no. Foltier is much suited for Zephyr." Opal shook with dissatisfaction, raising her tea to sip, only to put it back down with every sentence. "He is mature. A good wind weaver.
"And also your egg sibling," Hercynite chimed, speaking in the same instance she took a long swallow from her steaming cup. "You have a conflict of interest."
"Not so! There are none of these conflicts of the interest! It is simple choice! Sensible!"
"My apologies but what is a wind singer?" Cynder asked, taking a sip of her tea and grimacing when she nearly burned the taste buds off her tongue.
At this, both females turned inquisitive gazes on her. "How is it you do not know?" Opal asked, disbelief evident in her voice.
In truth, Cynder was not so knowledgeable about wind dragon culture as the two females seemed to expect. Her time in the Jade isle had seen her exposed to many of the nuanced mannerisms of wind dragon behavior but never so much as a glimpse into how society was organized.
"Well, it is obvious that she was not born in the Jade isle," Hercynite said, stroking her tail down Cynder's flank of scales.
Opal frowned. "You are wastelander then?"
Wastlander. They thought she was a dark dragon from the Chasgrym waste.
Shaking her head, Cynder idly rolled a small pill of fuzz from the carpet. "I don't know where I'm from really."
Don't know where I belong.
Opal and Hercynite cooed in understanding.
"Well," Hercynite began. "For some, the wind is a song. It is a steady flow of music that swells and fades from moment to moment—this is what I, like all wind singers, can hear."
"At all times?" Cynder asked, Incredulous. "Does it ever bother you?"
Hercynite nodded, her voice like an omnipresent melody. "Most singers learn the skill required to 'ignore' the wind's song. Some describe it as background music that they can simply choose when to listen to while others suppress the ability within them" —she frowned— "but suppressing the song can be harmful to one's connection to it and is a grave sin within the wind singer tribe. Singing is what allows me to speak. What you hear is not really my voice but the strings and notes I have crafted from the wind's song. It is not so different from voice channeling but infinitely more challenging and artful."
"And what about the other tribe—weavers?"
Sniffing distastefully, Hercynite cast a glance at Opal, who looked ready to burst at the seams of her scales.
"It is like river of magic!" The accented dragon blurted out. "At all moments there is shimmering golden light flowing through air! Weavers can see this. They can grasp them—not with claws but with mind. Weavers must be gentle. Patient."
Sipping her tea, Hercynite scoffed, muffling the sound with a long audible slurp.
"There is—what is word for it?—affinity that weavers must have with wind. A weaver must be able to control emotions; when the flows of wind are in grasp, strange thoughts can shatter a weave—or sweep you away."
Turning her head, Cynder glanced vacantly around the room in an attempt to catch a glimpse of some of those golden threads. Opal and Herctnite shared a knowing grin.
"It takes many of your years to learn a weaver's skill," Opal consoled when a frown tugged at Cynd lips.
"And many years more to sing," Hercynite added.
Sipping her tea, Cynder's frown deepened. "I don't understand. I experience none of these things when I use wind."
Something like concern appeared in both females' gazes as if she were a child admitting to committing some accidental crime.
To prove her point, she lifted her cup of tea from its saucer, took a sip, and returned it without so much as twitching a muscle. To Cynder, the act was as simple as if she had done it herself.
She held onto the wind a moment longer. There was a feeling of weight to the air as if the space around her were trying to occupy the space she was in. When she moved, she half expected the air to resist as if she were trying to move through a lake of tree sap. In truth it was the opposite; motions felt smoother—accelerated—and every facet of her being seemed to be sending out small ripples through the air like a stone tossed into a still pond, but she could see none of the golden threads Opal had spoken of.
Cynder watched smiling as the waves of her heartbeat entangled with the waves of the other females. An unexpected fondness swelled within her.
Wind sisters indeed.
Letting go of her grasp on the wind was nothing like letting go of her other elements: like saying farewell to an old friend knowing that there will be a meeting sometime in the future without the question of if, only when.
The sense of fondness and contentedness never faded now that she was aware of them, only dimmed. Cynder relayed her experiences to the two females before her.
Two sets of eyes blinked at her, studying her. Cynder felt her cheeks redden and tried to hide it with a long sip from her now room temperature tea.
"I've heard not much about this before except in stories," Opal said slowly.
Hercynite nodded. "As have I."
Both females shared a glance, some unseen conversation passing between them. Cynder felt her scales ruffle in indignation.
To me. Talk to me! Not over me! She wanted to spout.
"Stories of what?" she asked instead.
"Of a third tribe," Hercynite said breezily, leveling those fierce eyes on her once more. "An old one, nomadic and wild."
"The Osavar," Opal said simply. "Or Wind Rider's for simple tongue."
Nodding, Hercynite averted her gaze, suddenly very interested in the dregs of her tea. "It is not our place to assume but you exhibit many of their symptoms."
Symptoms… As if she were diagnosed with some incurable disease.
Swallowing, Cynder shuffled her paws. "What do you know about them?"
"They are a harsh people," Hercynite answered levelly, her face like stone. "Cruelly principled, irridentic. They outcast their own and any they deem unfit of their approbation. They wage war with one another and any who they consider to be allied against them. There is a saying we have for them in the isle: "Better to write a eulogy than to utter insult to an Osavar."
"And fierce warriors," Opal cut in enthusiastically. "Loyal to a fault, yes? Passionate. Honorable. They would break a thousand claws on their body for ones they hate and ten thousand for ones they love. There is value in this."
"That does not change the fact that they still cut out tongues and behead their prisoners."
Cynder meanwhile, thought she might be sick. The tea, once sweet, tasted bitter now.
If any of what they had said was true—not that she thought they had reason to lie—Cynder had no desire to confirm any of it.
To learn that her cruelty stemmed back so far. She did not know who her parents were, nor did she intend to find out, but even learning of this small facet of herself felt an invasion from a time she had long since tried to bury.
She must not have looked herself because both Opal and Hercynite laid a reassuring paw on her own.
"It's time I should leave, I think," Cynder said weakly.
That's right, run. Run away like you always do.
She was not being a coward. Of course not—just busy.
Hercynite and Opal looked sad to see her go as they escorted her back to the front door.
Cynder swallowed the lump in her throat. "Would you tell Rodunn there is an assembly today? Aquaria expects him to be there."
"We will all be there," Opal chimed sweetly, nuzzling Cynder's chin. "I thank the wind for bringing you to me, and I thank you for news of home. Where the wind wills, we shall meet again."
Cynder managed to smile at the dragoness before she walked away, leaving just herself and Hercynite at the door.
"Thank you for—" Cynder began to say but was suddenly cut off.
Hercynite had lowered herself in a deep curtsy, almost scraping the floor; her eyes were closed.
Is she…?
"I have insulted you and your heritage," the wind dragoness said dreamily, her voice still the same ghostly sigh as always. "Forgive me, wind sister."
Ancients above she is.
Cynder didn't know what to say. She certainly didn't want to think of the Osavar as her closest form or relatives, but rejecting one's heritage was a grave offense in the eyes of Jadian culture, just as it was to refuse an apology.
"All is already forgiven, Sidhan," she replied, raising Hercynite's head with a gentle touch of her tail.
The wind dragoness would not meet her gaze, nor would she for another four days going by what Cynder could remember of Isle custom. Four days—the first for the apology, the second for repentance, the third for acquiescence, and the fourth for remembrance—or longer depending on whether or not Hercynite felt she had shown enough sincerity; Cynder hoped that was not the case.
"Be well, Sidhan," she said to Hercynite smoothly, once again using the Spoken Winds term for Wind Sister.
Cynder left before the door had finished closing.
Thank you. For everything. There will be more.