7. Arianna

It didn’t take long for Arianna to grow bored.

The room she’d been thrown into was uselessly lovely. She circled it a few times, staring out the tall windows to try to get her bearings. It was somewhere in the center of the castle’s x-axis, on western side, judging by the increasing brightness that streamed through one wall. She guessed she was somewhere in the middle of the y-axis as well.

Through both windows, she could see the curve of the carved stone, other colored glass portals dotting its surface. Those out the west-most facing window were far and the wall was sheer and smoothed. However, her other window was within an alcove of sorts. Relief carvings of sweeping birds across the face of the castle would make easy hand and foot holds, and it was sheltered from the gusts that regularly rattled the other window.

Why there were carvings on the outside of a castle, where only a select few with windows could see, escaped her. But seemingly everything about this place served to confound and enrage her, from the decor choices to the very Dragons living among them.

The bed had no less than ten pillows. Ten. As in, the number she would have to use two hands to count to. The fireplace burned cheerfully for a race of people who had skin as strong and thick as leather. Shelves were cluttered with all manner of paintings, bobbles, and strange devices that Arianna could not fathom a purpose for.

Cain had first had the audacity to refuse her winch box and daggers, claiming she was now under the protection of House Xin and such things were no longer needed. Arianna had cut a chunk from Dawyn’s throat with a straight razor in an effort to get to her effects before Cvareh’s “friend” did.

That had been the man’s first mistake. His second was when he threatened to burn her clothes due to the “stench of Loom” on them. Arianna had nearly painted the floor of the bath gold with Dragon blood before she finally submitted. She was outnumbered and it was a battle she’d never had a chance of winning, especially naked and needing to avoid every nick or scratch from the Dragons’ sharp talons. But her viciousness had forced them into a compromise—her clothing would be washed and boxed and hidden until it was decided what they were “doing with her.”

The satisfaction of backing them into a compromise was short-lived as they, in turn, forced her into the most offensive articles of clothing she’d ever worn. They were trying to make a fool of her with the garb, that much was obvious. Two-thirds of the shirt was literally missing and the skirt was utterly impractical. Arianna was a heinous seamstress, but necessity was the mother of invention and she understood the mechanics and principles behind tailoring.

It’d taken her nearly an hour of muttered curses but she’d finally modified some found garments in the room she’d been locked in into something that suited her a little better. Loose trousers belled around her knees, cinched at the waist. Over top, she wore a long tunic dress, split at the bottom much like her White Wraith coat. Just feeling the hem at her calves brought back reassurances in triplicate.

Dressed and harnessed, Arianna opened the window she’d selected, pushing it against the near-constant wind to be open flush against the outer wall. She placed her palms on the sill, leaning over. Nothing stared back up at her, the hazy clouds fogging over the world of Loom below in shifting degrees of opaque. If she didn’t know it was there, she wouldn’t imagine there could be anything solid beneath that impenetrable line.

But Loom waited. A resistance brewed. And Florence had cast in her lot with those rebels. Meaning Arianna had no choice but to align herself as well.

She stepped up onto the sill, the wind rising to meet her. Taking a deep breath, she grasped the clip of her golden line firmly, charging it with a jolt of magic. It jumped from her fingertips. The cabling spool on her hip whirred, golden line funneled through the gearbox without resistance, propelled by magic. It shot across the narrow chasm between her room and the stonework by the opposite window. The clip looped around the sculpture at Arianna’s silent command, magically fastening to itself.

She gave the line a firm tug, feeling the tension through her harness. There was a moment’s hesitation, a second where her throat tightened. Her feet shifted against the sill and then, nothing.

Her stomach shot to her throat and her harness tightened reassuringly as she dropped in free fall. Arianna had used her winch box to perform such a maneuver hundreds—thousands—of times, from heights that would mean her death if she miscalculated distance or the security of her line. But this felt different. The vast nothingness that yawned beneath her rose with alarming speed, threatening to consume her like nothing more than an irrelevant speck of sand in the hourglass of time.

She gripped the line tighter, pushing magic into her winch box with almost violent intent. Her descent slowed as she neared the arc of her jump. Ari felt herself rising upward toward the window and toward the security of established hand and foot holds.

Fear was nothing more than staring into the mirror known as death and seeing the reflection of your own transience, a visage far too intense for many to look upon. But, for Arianna, it was nothing more than an instrument in her toolbox. It had a handle worn from years of grabbing for it time and again. Fear was familiar from taking it into her own hands and using it as deftly as if she were the personification of time’s judgment upon all mortal men.

Weighted against the wall, she grabbed for one of the two daggers settled at the small of her back. The blunt, thin tip of one fit nicely into the narrow groove of the window. The locks were simple tension latches; nothing more than a twist of the wrist, and mechanical precision Ari possessed from years of practice, was needed to render it useless.

The window swung open, and she helped herself into the quiet hall before shutting the pane behind her. She hadn’t known Cain for very long, but she was already savoring the idea of the arrogant Dragon guarding an empty room. Arianna knew she’d be discovered eventually, or would choose to expose herself. But for now, she’d wander this floating castle on her own terms.

Arianna pulled her own magic in tight, winding it like a ball around her core. She silenced its pulse as much as possible, limiting its ability to radiate from her with each breath. The stillness it created was prone to disturbances from other magic, and Arianna avoided any unwanted encounters with relative ease.

For a castle of stone and glass, it was alive with the scents of earth. Notes of moss blended with fresh dirt and the sharp smells of cedar and sandalwood to create a palette that was slowly becoming definable as distinctly “Xin”. Twice, she thought she picked up the scent of woodsmoke, and edged toward corners expecting to see Cvareh on the other side. But it was never him, and she was left to label the emotion that charged through her as relief.

It would be an immense inconvenience if Cvareh discovered me now, she insisted. She certainly had no need of the Dragon.

At first, Arianna tried to make notes of the individual Dragon scents, but it quickly became impossible. Every Dragon’s aroma seemed unique on Loom purely because there weren’t many Dragons. But on Nova, the scents became repetitive and Arianna began to focus, instead, on filtering out all scents but the ones most important to her: woodsmoke and cedar.

No longer concerning herself with logging every Dragon in residence, Arianna shifted her focus to the residence itself. During her schooling in the Rivets guild, she had learned about architecture. It wasn’t her forte, but she understood the basic principle as any good Rivet would be able to. With every project, the first thing a designer was taught to look at was the function of the space, followed by allowances for land and materials. The result was a blissful logic across Loom. Everything had a purpose, and the reasoning behind that purpose was simple to see.

She could not see the purpose in half the decisions the architects made here.

Hallways led to nowhere. Rooms materialized in the least logical places she could fathom. Alcoves with what must be months’ worth of embellishments on their stonework were tucked away in obscurity. There were switchbacks and odd connections that made it nearly impossible to map the palace in her mind.

After nearly an hour of wandering, Arianna knew the only way she’d be able to find her way back to her room would be to let herself get discovered by one of the wandering occupants. It only made her resentment for the Dragons grow. Of course their way of life would prove as aggravating as their very existence.

She was about to give herself over to the next Dragon she encountered, when the scent of woodsmoke tickled her nose. It sizzled with familiarity she couldn’t deny. Cvareh. The man was close.

Like a bloodhound, Arianna tracked the essence of magic through narrow corridors and wide thoroughfares alike. Her ears twitched as the scent grew. The familiar tones of his speech, muffled yet from distance, echoed like an invisible whisper tether between them. He had imbibed from her and she from him; there was no place he could hide now where she wouldn’t find him, and the fact wasn’t nearly as repulsive to her as she thought it should be.

“… She will hand me my army?” an unfamiliar voice echoed from behind the door she’d tracked to.

“For Loom, there is nothing she wouldn’t do,” Cvareh replied.

Arianna dulled the sharpness of her anger at the idea of Cvareh correctly describing the design of her mind to someone else with the curiosity of what else he might say about her. If she knew what he told others about her, she could adjust her actions accordingly when the need to be subversive arose. She stilled her hand over the latch of the wide door, exercising patience.

“Very well,” the female voice continued after a long pause. “I will tell this Chimera what she needs to hear.”

“Arianna will know if you lie to her.”

Laughter erupted at the notion. “Brother, did your time on Loom dull your senses? You think I cannot handle a Chimera?”

Brother. That meant the speaker was certainly his sister—the woman Arianna had come to meet.

“She is of Loom, but do not underestimate her for it. Heed my counsel on this, Petra.”

“I fear no Dragon, so I hold no more concern for Chimera or Fenthri. I will sing the song she wishes to hear and she will thank me for it. Then I will have my army.”

Arianna rolled her eyes and pushed down the door handle. Loathing seared through her veins and she did little to temper it. She had come up to the Dragon’s world, allowed herself to be bare before strangers and treated like a simpleton. She had to draw a line somewhere.

“Your song will fall flat, I fear, since I have heard the truth of its melody,” Arianna seethed by means of greeting.

At one end of the wide room, Cvareh sat in surprise on the second level of a dais. Above him was a woman who looked as though her skin was made from the deepest blue ocean waters. Hair the color of Dragon blood spilled from her head in thick tresses. And, instead of shock or anger, she smiled widely, baring her canines.

Arianna replied in kind.

“I was told you had been sequestered.” Petra’s eyes had a nearly identical color to Cvareh’s, but they were similar in no other way. There was a savage edge to their shape, and they regarded her with a ravenous desire to consume every scrap of courage Arianna might even attempt to muster.

Arianna would reveal no seams in the iron walls of her resolve. She was the opposite and equal of this woman. She bent before no man, woman, king, or queen—and most certainly no Dragon. Folding her arms over her chest, Arianna leaned against the door, making no effort to cross the room. Foremost, she wanted to make it clear that she would not approach like some groveling mortal before an idol.

But not having to cross the floor was also appealing.

What builder would ever think it was a good idea to make the floor of a suspended castle from glass? Arianna deeply hoped that the multi-colored design was, in actuality, crystal or stone. Something, anything, stronger than liquefied and hardened sand. But she had her doubts.

“Were you also told that I cut a chunk from one of your servants’ necks? Or bit the ear off another?”

“Those details were neglected.” Instead of anger, there was a twisted sort of amusement playing between the woman’s words.

“Arianna, you should—”

Arianna shot Cvareh a glare.

“Silence, Cvareh,” Petra echoed Arianna’s sentiment, much to her surprise. “I am told that you have come to assess me for our negotiations with Loom’s rebellion to proceed.”

“That’s one way to put it.” Arianna relaxed her hands, placing them behind her, ready to grab for her daggers in an instant.

“Cvareh tells me you seek assurances for Loom should I rule. I will gladly give them.”

Arianna snorted. Did the woman really think her words would mean anything after what Arianna had just heard? “And what do you think your assurances are worth?”

“The word of an Oji? Very much.”

Well, Petra certainly believes her words, Arianna thought silently. She was shaping up to be exactly what Arianna had feared. The Dragon would be another ruler that saw herself seated above the world, who paid little attention to the plights of Loom and cared even less.

Which meant Arianna might need to course-correct. If she wouldn’t get anywhere with Petra, she would need to secure a way on her own to get the materials needed for the Philosopher’s Box. To give Loom a fighting chance in the power struggle to come. Let the Dragons fight among themselves, kill each other off. If they turned their eyes to Loom, Loom would be ready. There were options before her, still, and she would consider them all for Florence’s sake.

“We don’t have Oji—” Arianna tried to form the word so carefully it bordered on mocking, “—on Loom. So it means nothing to me, Petra.”

The claws shot out from the woman’s fingers so fast that Arianna was surprised they didn’t launch from her hands. Dragons were predictable. If one didn’t give in to their excessive system of titles and decorum, they lost all patience. Arianna would push until she exposed the truth of this woman’s nature.

Cvareh was an anomaly among Dragons. As was the fact that Arianna found him tolerable. The fact that, in some impossible way, she truly believed he harbored no ill will toward Loom. But it ended with him. All other Dragons thus far had proved just as she’d expected.

“I must remind you that you are not on Loom any longer, Arianna.” The woman continued to smile with murderous intent. She stood, unfurling like a sail, her ego ballooning on her magic to a size that was greater than her physical frame. “You are in my House. You are under my protection. Your presence is a liability to the wellbeing of my family, should you be discovered by the Dragon King. You are alive because I permit it. And for all this, you will call me Petra’Oji.”

Arianna shrugged. “I’ll call you as I please.”

The woman stepped forward. Cvareh rose as well, but made no attempt to impede his sister’s progress. Certainly, Petra had told him to stay out of their squabble, and Arianna echoed the sentiment. But the fact that he didn’t struggle to resist even the slightest urge to rise to her defense told Arianna everything.

He stood behind his sister, at home on Nova. She stood as a foreigner in a strange land on behalf of a Fenthri girl. No matter how close they’d become on their journey, an impenetrable line was still drawn between them. It had been foolish to think the chasm could ever be crossed.

Arianna drew her dagger. Her other hand hovered over the clip dangling from her winch box. Petra stopped in the middle of the room, the glass floor illuminating her from below as though she stood in the sky itself.

“Sheathe your blade. I have no interest in spilling blood here.”

“Certainly fooled me.” Arianna didn’t oblige the command.

“Cvareh told me of your ferocity. He told me you killed the King’s Bitch, which tells me two things, Arianna the Rivet.” She held up two clawed fingers. “One, that we are not enemies. Two, that killing you would be a waste. If you are not my enemy and you are a fierce fighter, then it would be a shame to see you die needlessly.”

Anger flashed like gunpowder in the priming pan of her emotional arsenal, but it was short lived. For, as frustrating as it was to see, Cvareh’s suspicions echoed true. She and Petra seemed to hold something in common, for Arianna had used much the same logic when it came to deeming who was worthy to kill.

“You have yet to prove that you are not my enemy. And you are doing a poor job of endearing yourself to me if you wish an ally.” Arianna sheathed her dagger.

Petra smiled. It was an arrogant look, but not sinister. Arianna couldn’t shake the condescending feeling of it, however. The Dragon began to walk again, making her way toward a different door.

“My family has been fighting the Dragon King for centuries. A few more days, weeks, months, years, will not hurt me. Time to wait for you to come around is something I have.” Petra paused in the open door frame across the room, staring Arianna down for one last long moment. “The real question is, do you?”

Arianna wanted to gouge out the knowing gaze from her eye sockets. The Dragon would live more than six lifetimes of the average Fenthri. Arianna could threaten with the Philosopher’s Box all she wanted. But the woman could stall until long after Florence was dead.

Petra hummed softly at Arianna’s silence, a purr of victory. “Cvareh, escort our guest back to her chambers before she makes a scene.”

Arianna watched the Dragon leave, walking as though she already owned the world.