23. Petra

Petra ran her claws along the unfinished banister that led down from her personal roost in the Xin Manor. Let it never be said that she didn’t make sacrifices on behalf of her House. She had reallocated all hands and tradesmen from finishing different parts of the manor for the sake of building an amphitheater for the Crimson Court.

It had been a couple hundred years since the last Court had been held on Ruana, long ago when House Xin was still in power and the gathering was known as the Cobalt Court. A crumbling reminder of the long-ago glory days of House Xin, the amphitheater had suffered from disuse. No Xin wanted to lay eyes on it, like a shameful scar that would never stop weeping blood.

Petra was determined to see the place resurrected not just to its former glory, but even better than before. The laborers would work non-stop until the Court to complete her grand designs. But they would make the usual venue for the Crimson Court on Lysip look humble in comparison. She wanted retractable sunshades over the stadium seating. Cushions, special just for this Court, made for every seat. Running water, box seats, food and wine service throughout—nothing would be spared.

If Yveun was going to hand them the Court, she would show everyone why they deserved it.

“How does the construction proceed?” Cain waited for her at the bottom of the stairs.

“Slower than I would like.” As was usually the case. “But well enough. The foreman assures me that we will have it completed in time.” There were only two weeks left before the Court would begin.

“Gathering offenses on House Rok has proved no real difficulty.”

She snorted, as if it would have.

“Any word from Finnyr on the matter?”

“He’s handed me some good bits of information. I have those who can make the claims already working on ways for them to ‘uncover’ these offenses on their own.” Petra trusted Cain. She trusted him as much as she trusted any other man—the length of her arms and the depth of her claws. But he’d proved a loyal leader within House Xin and a faithful friend to Cvareh. For those two things, she found herself able to appreciate his brisk mannerisms and focused nature.

“Finnyr has proved useful.”

“By some miracle,” she agreed reluctantly. By far the most helpful information she’d ever worked out of Finnyr was the knowledge of the Philosopher’s Box schematics. Petra had heard about the box from the snippets of details she’d managed to attain from the last rebellion. But it wasn’t until one night when Finnyr was well in his cups that he boasted he’d seen such plans with his own eyes.

After that, it was simply a matter of more wine, sending Cvareh to visit his brother more often, and patience. Thoughts of Cvareh shifted her attention.

“How do my brother and the Chimera fare?” Petra hadn’t been terribly surprised when Cain had informed her Cvareh had elected to work with Arianna over him. The woman had a certain appeal for Cvareh that Cain did not. And Petra was inclined to allow Cvareh his desires, so long as he was still ready for the Court when the time came. She’d set Cain to ensuring that much.

“Surprising progress.” Cain motioned for a nearby stair, and Petra nodded.

They progressed silently upward, the stairs leveling out upon a high arcade. From the vantage, they could look down upon a private pit she had seen set aside for use of her immediate family. There were few windows that oversaw this pit, and Petra knew who had access to every one of them. She cast her eyes downward.

It was the first time she had seen the Chimera’s Dragon illusion. It was skillful, tight upon her and smooth. There wasn’t a single kink in it and no bizarre ripple of magic. The pulse that radiated from it was nothing more than what one would expect of a Dragon’s magical aura in general. There was nothing about it that would alert even Petra to its presence if she hadn’t known it was there.

Arianna spun widely around Cvareh, bringing her fingertips into his neck—a kill. Petra watched as they backed away and lunged for each other once more. The woman tripped up Petra’s brother, stumbling him and grabbing for his throat in the process—a kill. They separated again and were soon tumbling, head over heels, until the Chimera had mounted Cvareh like a broken stallion with her fingertips pressing over his heart—a kill.

“She’s quite good, isn’t she?”

“She is known as the White Wraith,” Cain begrudgingly admitted. “At least she seems to have earned her infamy.”

Petra watched them round each other, again and again. The longer she watched, the more unsettled she became. It was not just because Cvareh clearly needed to develop considerable polish in the short time before the Court. There was an odd shadow puppetry before her; it ran deeper than the illusion and more mysterious than the woman’s apparent skill.

“Why do they not use their claws?” The woman was all teeth and snarls and pure attack power. Yet neither drew blood.

“Cvareh tells me it was her decision. A caveat to their arrangement.”

“Did he say why?” The notion seemed far too tender for the woman before Petra. She couldn’t imagine Arianna’s demand stemmed from mere sentimentality.

Cain shook his head.

Petra continued to stare, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. There was something amiss. She could almost, almost… smell it.

“There is something… off about her.” Cain gave Petra’s thoughts sound. “I thought it the first day she came. I’d mistakenly attributed it to merely being a Chimera, but it’s deeper than that.”

“Explain.” Petra would not rake her brain against something Cain had already begun to make sense of.

“She moves like a Dragon, she acts like a Dragon.”

“She’s clearly well educated.” The woman had designed the Philosopher’s Box, after all. Or so Cvareh claimed.

“She’s taller than the usual Fen. Her body is stronger. She has true weight to her.” Petra held her refute, allowing Cain to continue, hoping he would tell her something more meaningful than mannerisms and muscles. “She doesn’t smell of rot.”

Petra inhaled deeply, as though she could smell the woman in the pit far below from their obscure vantage. That’s what it is, she realized. All the Chimera she had ever encountered smelled fiercely of rot, of muddled blood and stolen organs. Arianna had no such scent about her.

“Even when she attached Finnyr’s hands… There were no rags of blood in her quarters. She burnt them along with her severed parts. The stink from the procedure should have been enough to set half the manor fleeing to avoid the smell.”

“Was there no mark of Chimera blood in her room?” Only Dragon blood disappeared tidily in the air. Chimera and Fenthri blood stained, much like their very existence.

Cain shook his head. Petra considered heading there herself just for the sake of checking. “There was a blood trace, but it was unlike anything I’ve known—Dragon or Chimera. It smelled of both Xin cedar, like Finnyr, and Tam honeysuckle.”

“The room would smell of Finnyr,” Petra reasoned, thinking of her elder brother’s severed hands. But that didn’t explain the crispness, the purity. “What do you think is the cause?”

“I don’t know…” Cain struggled with the evidence set before him. If looks could kill, the Chimera who was still besting Cvareh far below them would be struck down and begging for release. “But I do know she has at least four Dragon organs.”

“Four?”

“Eyes and ears were visible from the start, even if she’s capped her ears with metal so they do not grow into points.”

Petra couldn’t stop herself from touching her own ear, horrified at the thought of such mutilation of one of the most striking features of a Dragon.

“Hands, now, thanks to Finnyr,” Cain continued. “And her stomach.”

“Her stomach?” Petra repeated expectantly. That wasn’t information that could be encountered casually.

“I saw the addition of holly peas into her food.”

Red and unassuming, the holly pea looked similar to any other brilliant berry. But it caused severe indigestion in both Dragon and Fenthri alike. Consumption of just a small amount was usually followed with a day of vomiting and diarrhea. Non-lethal, but severely uncomfortable if one did not possess magic in their stomach. “How very underhanded of you, Cain.”

“Forgive me.” He avoided her narrowed eyes.

Subversion was something Petra didn’t tolerate; it was an affront to their ways. But the matter was done, and the woman in question wasn’t a Dragon anyway. “Do not make a habit of such deceptions. You are above it.”

“I would not.” He looked horrified.

“Good.” Petra let the conversation continue, satisfied. “She was unaffected?”

“No sign of troubles.”

“There was no way she could have removed them?”

“If she even knows what they are? No. They were added to a strawberry jam.”

“You are truly ruthless.” She bared her teeth in an appreciative smile. This was what she needed from Cain. She needed someone who was so loyal to their House that he would risk her ire for the sake of its defense.

He gave a small bow of his head. All delight faded when Cain turned back to the pit. Arianna had just bested Cvareh again. “Petra’Oji…”

She wasn’t familiar with hesitation from Cain. It made her give him all the more attention. “Be careful with this one.”

Petra narrowed her eyes to slits. “You think I cannot fell her?”

“I do not doubt you.” The but was felt before it was spoken. “But she is something different. She has that many organs and has not fallen. Think of what she might be like with more. More magic? More power? She—”

“You have been heard, Cain,” Petra dismissed him abruptly. She would not tolerate dissent or questioning in her ranks. Cain had earned himself good will for investigating the woman, an odd mix given his unconventional methods of doing so. She wouldn’t want to see him squander it.

Cain gave a short bow and descended the stairs gracefully. Petra’s eyes remained locked on the woman far below. Cain didn’t know it, but what he feared was a Perfect Chimera. A creature that was so mighty it could even challenge a Dragon.

Petra grinned madly.

One man’s fear was another’s salvation.