Aranya (Shapeshifter Dragons) Read Free Page B

fixed on Immadia Island until her home was just a speck on the horizon; until the Cloudlands swallowed the setting suns and her guards, shivering, bade her to return to the cabin’s warmth.
    Aranya’s body was not cold. But her heart was ice.

Chapter 2: The Windroc
     
    A t the precise strike of the last hour of the afternoon, measured by the hourglass on the wall, on the eve of their third day out of Immadia, the Sylakian servitor delivered the First War-Hammer’s third invitation to dinner with his customary ramrod-formal efficiency. Beri, answering the door for the third time, replied that the Princess politely declined due to ill health.
    The man, unable to resist a smirk, added, “The War-Hammer wishes to convey to the daughter of the honoured King Beran that he commands her attendance by the hour of suns-set.”
    Beri nodded. “The Princess will attend.”
    The servitor withdrew with the slightest of bows.
    Aranya flung her wooden goblet against the wall of her tiny cabin, wishing it were made of fine crystal rather than exquisitely carved wood. It bounced straight back at her and cannoned off her cheek.
    She touched her bruised cheekbone. “Ouch! He commands? Filthy Sylakian barbarian, threatening me–and how dare you accept–”
    “Huh ,” Beri sniffed. “I changed your wet-cloths when you were a child, girl. Don’t you cheek me. He’ll drag you up there with or without your precious dignity. Thrice refused? An insult. He’s a proud man; as proud as your stubborn stick of a father. You were sick the first evening, granted. And abed yesterday morning. But just now? That was pure spite and beneath the woman you are. Don’t make me do that again.”
    Aranya threw aside the fine-spun ralti-wool bedcovers and surged to her feet. But her anger only made pain flower behind her temples. She sat back with a groan.
    “Princess? Aranya?”
    “Beri–oh, ralti droppings, you’re right . I’m sorry.”
    “Aye , I’m right.” But Beri tempered her growl with a smile that wrinkled her cheeks all the way up to her eyes. “He willingly exchanged your weapons for an easing of your chains. That’s not the conduct of a Sylakian brute.”
    Aranya eyed her elderly maidservant, feeling six rather than sixteen, vexed at being put in her place. Beri had ever been one to speak her mind, but her wisdom was said to be as wide as the Cloudlands and sharper than an Immadian forked dagger. She had served four generations of the Immadian royal family. Her father had chosen well. Would they allow her to keep Beri in Sylakia, in her exile? How much did Beri know about her?
    “Beri, how should I conduct myself with this man Ignathion? What would you advise?”
    “That you wear something more appropriate than a sleeping-shift,” she replied tartly. “Hurry up and change, girl.”
    Hurriedly sponged down with a cloth dipped in a basin of cool water, changed, perfumed and attired in her Helyon silk dress, Aranya inspected her appearance in the tiny mirror Beri had smuggled in with her effects. The matching violet headscarf accentuated the amethyst depths of her eyes–anxious eyes, she thought, wishing she appeared more confident and in control of her circumstances, not bullied about by … now there was a fair-day joke worthy of any jester. Confident? In control of what, exactly? This wind that buffeted her as though her life were chaff blown off at the tossing of the harvest, the unwanted husks of a realm that did not need a Princess in the succession?
    Hostage-tak ing was a ridiculous formality.
    She touched her new bruise. Hollow cheekbones, Beri had just been complaining. She had eaten little since leaving Immadia’s shores. The prospect of dinner made her stomach growl like a starving mountain lynx. The Sylakians apparently kept cats far larger than the Immadian lynx, cats called rajals …
    “Hustle now.” Beri spun her toward the door, breaking the drift of her thoughts. “Enough primping–not that you ever primp.