20
MY HORSE REARED, and I was on the ground, flat on my back in the snow, not a whisper of breath left in me.
Kiggs was off his horse in an instant, sword drawn, making himself a wall between me and the brimstone blackness, the muscular furl of wing against sky. He reached back left-handed to help me to my feet, groping around in the air; I forced myself to sit up, put my hand in his, pull breath back into my lungs. He heaved me to my feet and we stood there, hand in hand, and faced the dread behemoth, my grandfather.
To my utter shock I recognized Imlann, even as darkness rapidly descended. It wasn’t Orma’s nonsensical description; it came from my mother, from the memory box, which had given a smoky belch inside my mind. I knew the contours of his spiny head; the arch of his snaky neck resembled Orma’s . . .
Orma. Neck. Right. I fumbled at my neck, left-handed because Kiggs still had my right, seeking the cord to Orma’s earring. Kiggs stepped forward a little, shielding me again, and said, “You are in violation of Comonot’s Treaty—unless you have the documents to prove otherwise!”
I grimaced. It was easy to think of dragons as feral file clerks when there wasn’t an enormous, choleric specimen snorting sulfur in your face. I found the earring, flipped its tiny switch, and tucked it back into my clothes.
Orma was going to kill me; I hoped he’d help me first.
The dragon screamed, “You smell of saar!”
He meant me. I cringed. Kiggs, who didn’t understand Mootya, cried, “Stand down! Return to your saarantras immediately!”
Imlann ignored that, fixing his beady black eyes on me and screeching, “Who are you? Which side are you on? Have you been spying on me?”
I didn’t answer; I didn’t know what to do. Imlann thought I was a saarantras. Would Kiggs assume the same if he learned that I knew Mootya? I kept my eyes on the snow.
Kiggs waved his sword. A lot of good that was going to do.
“You feign deafness,” cried my grandfather. “What can I do to make you hear? Shall I kill this irritating little princeling?”
I flinched, and the saar laughed, or what would have been a laugh from a human. It was more like crowing, a horrid hoot of victory. “I bit a nerve! Surely you can’t be so attached to a mere human? Perhaps I will not kill you after all. I still have a friend on the Board of Censors; maybe I’ll let him turn you inside out.”
I had to do something; I could think of only one thing to try. I stepped forward and said, “It’s you the Censors should be after.”
Imlann recoiled, rippling his serpentine neck sideways and emitting a blast of acrid smoke from his nostrils. Kiggs pulled my arm and cried, “What are you doing?”
I couldn’t reassure him. A saarantras wouldn’t have, and that’s what I had to appear to be if we were to bluff Imlann long enough for Orma to get here.
If Orma was even coming. How far was it? How fast could he fly?
“I’ve contacted the embassy,” I cried. “Eskar is on her way, with a committee.”
“Why don’t you transform, and we’ll have this out properly?”
It was a frighteningly reasonable question. “I obey the law, even if you do not.”
“What’s to stop me from killing you this instant?”
I shrugged. “You apparently don’t know about the device implanted in my head.”
The dragon cocked his head to one side, flaring his nostrils, appearing to consider; I hoped he reached a conclusion favorable to letting me live a bit longer. I added: “It’s in my tooth. Flame me, or hit me with any percussive shock, and it will explode, destroying you too. If you bite off my head and swallow it, my tooth will continue to signal from inside your stomach. The embassy will track you down, General Imlann.”
He looked mystified; he’d never heard of such devices—he couldn’t have; I was making this up—but then, he’d been away from the Tanamoot for sixteen years. I lifted my chin haughtily, though I was shaking, and said, “The game is up. Surrender now and tell us everything. Where have you been hiding?”
That broke the spell. Smugness crept over him. I only knew it for smugness from my maternal memories; all my human eyes saw were the spines at the base of his head shift their angle. He said: “If you don’t know that, you know nothing worth knowing. I shall leave you to your disgusting infatuation. Plans are unfurling, all in their proper time; I shall let them. We shall meet again, and sooner than you expect.”
He turned with a serpentine ripple, swiping at us with his spiky tail, ran forward, and launched himself into the air. He made a wide, low circle in the sky, presumably scanning for embassy dragons, then flew swiftly south, disappearing in the clouds.
My knees trembled and my head throbbed, but I was elated. I could barely believe that had worked. I turned toward Kiggs; I must have been wild-eyed with relief.
He backed away, his expression closed, saying, “What are you?”
St. Masha and St. Daan. I’d saved us, but now I had to pay for it. I raised my hands as if in surrender. “I am what I ever was.”
“You’re a dragon.”
“I’m not. By Heaven’s hearthstone, I’m not.”
“You speak Mootya.”
“I understand it.”
“How is that possible?”
“I am very, very smart.”
He didn’t question that; I would have. He said, “You’ve got a draconian device. It is illegal for humans to be in possession of quigutl-built communication machinery—”
“No! I’ve got nothing! It was a bluff.”
He was breathing heavily now, delayed-onset panic finally catching up with him. “You bluffed him? A Porphyrian double ton of fire and brimstone, fangs like swords, claws like . . . like swords! And you just . . . bluffed him?”
He was yelling. I tried not to take it personally. I folded my arms. “Yes. I did.”
He ran his hands roughly through his hair. He bent double as if he might vomit, scooped up some snow, rubbed it over his face. “Sweet Heavenly Home, Seraphina! Did you think about what might have happened to us if that hadn’t worked?”
“No better plan presented itself.” Heavens, I sounded as cold as any dragon.
He had dropped his sword at some point; he picked it out of the snow, wiped it on his cloak, and resheathed it, his eyes still wide and shocked. “You can’t just . . . I mean, brave is one thing. This was madness.”
“He was going to kill you,” I said, my chin quivering. “I had to do something.”
Damn propriety. Forgive me, St. Clare.
I stepped forward and took him in my arms. He was exactly my height, which surprised me; my awe of him had made him seem taller. He emitted a whimper of protest, or maybe surprise, but wrapped his arms around me and buried his face in my hair, half weeping, half scolding me.
“Life is so short,” I said, not sure why I was saying it, not even sure if that was really true for someone like me.
We were still standing there, clinging to each other, our feet ice-cold in the snow, when Orma landed on the next hilltop, followed closely by Basind. Kiggs lifted his head and stared at them, big-eyed. My heart fell.
I’d told him I had no devices. I’d lied right to the prince’s face, and here was the proof: the dragon I’d called, and his dimwitted sidekick.