FIVE
Rogan was dressed casually in leather trousers and a soft cardigan. He was thumbing through a book and looked up at her, his expression unreadable. Bella fidgeted with her sleeve and sat down beside him.
“So,” he began, and Bella shrugged.
“So.”
“I suppose Hildevar filled you in a bit on the singing?”
“Well, only just a bit. I’d rather hear what you had to say about it.”
Rogan smiled. “Smart girl.”
“So, no one sings here?”
Rogan made a face and then shook his head. “They try. But they do it terribly. Singing is connected to the magic here. The things they sing create warped magic, useless things.”
“I can do magic with my singing?”
Rogan looked at her a moment. “Yes.”
“But I’ve seen Hildevar do spells and things already. What’s the difference?”
“Those spells are good, yes. Powerful, no. There is something about how the voice blends words during a song that makes spells ten times, maybe even more, powerful. Kings would have singers at their side during battles to sing them to victory. Singers were somewhat common many millennia ago. Now, they are very, very rare.”
“Why? I mean, why would they be rare?”
“I don’t know. Some say that the magic of this world is leaving us. To look at the number of us dragons, I would say that is so.”
“You think dragons are dying off?”
Rogan thought a moment. “Yes. I don’t understand why, but we are. I knew when I was a young boy I would probably be marrying a human female. There are not as many female dragons--”
“But Hildevar and Alannah and--”
“They are all promised. Have been since they were very young. There are more males than females. Some male dragons die before spawning. That is why my ancestors saw fit to put in the clause.”
Bella narrowed her eyes. “Your ancestors did that?”
Rogan looked down at his hands and didn’t answer. Bella knew then what the answer was. His ancestors saw the disaster coming and prepared something just in case.
“They knew!” Bella shouted angrily. “They knew your numbers would decrease. Why didn’t they do something about it then?”
“If they knew how, they would have. Dragon magic is a very—strange thing. To tamper with it, one would have to understand a whole host of things. But it is all unknowable, is it not?”
“Not if you have science.”
Rogan chuckled. “Is that one of your earth things?”
Bella sucked her teeth and crossed her arms. “For your information, science is very useful. My people have no magic.”
Rogan sat up at attention at this proclamation. “None?”
“Not one bit. We have made ways of navigating the world that have nothing to do with magic. There are people who CLAIM they can do magic, but it has never been proven. For the most part, we depend on technology.”
Rogan looked utterly confused. She began trying to explain cell phones and televisions. It all seemed like magic to him.
“That is magic!”
“No, it is science. Rooted in deliberate inquiry. It can help where magic hinders.”
“Impossible!”
“It is true. We fly through the air using machines. The machines are based on what we observe in our world. I am studying to be a scientist of a sort myself. Well--” Bella dropped her gaze, “Was.”
“What kind of magic were you studying?” Rogan asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“I told you. It isn’t magic. It’s--”
A servant flew into the door, her face tear-stricken and her voice near hysterical.
“Please, my king! You must help her! I know she is the last born child and a girl, but she is my child! My husband does not want to waste his magic on saving her. But I beg of you to try!”
A look of concern passed over Rogan’s face before it smoothed out.
“I suppose I could try. I am—in need of something interesting this eve.”
The servant fell to her knees. “Thank you, my king!”
“Where is the girl?” Rogan asked, and the servant pointed to outside the castle walls.
“The lake, your highness.”
Rogan, the servant and Bella made their way quickly to the small lake and saw a huge crowd of servants surrounding a young girl. Many of them were trying to utter something, but it was futile, and the girl remained inert.
“What happened?” Bella asked sharply, and a young boy, who looked no more than 13, squeaked when he saw who was addressing him, but he bowed all the same.
“I dared her to go in, your majesty. It was my fault. She—she drowned.”
“How long was she under the water?”
The boy shrugged and began to cry. “I don’t know, a few moments perhaps.”
Bella went to her knees near the girl. She pried open the girl’s mouth and covered her mouth with her own. A collective gasp went up. The girl’s mother tried to yank Bella away, only for Rogan to stay her hand.
“Let her do what needs to be done,” he commanded, and the woman reluctantly agreed.
Bella pumped her chest and alternated with forceful deep breaths. Her CPR training was quickly coming back to her as she worked. Soon, the girl was sputtering up water. Bella rolled her onto her side.
The girl sat up, saw everyone staring at her and burst into tears. Bella soothed her with soft cooing, and the girl’s mother ran to get her, thanking Bella profusely at the same time.
Rogan ordered everyone back inside, and the crowd dispersed. Everyone bowed deeply at Bella, and a few reached out to touch her gently. Bella followed Rogan back into the castle. They returned to the library. Bella resumed her seat opposite Rogan’s. The fire near them had been stoked and slippers for Bella’s feet had been placed near her chair.
Rogan laughed. “My people are already warming to you,” he said, indicating the slippers.
Bella moaned as she took off the dreadful heels she had been forced to wear and pulled on the plush, warm shoes.
“Thank goodness for that,” she said and then leveled Rogan with a serious look. “That girl--”
“Yes,” Rogan replied.
“Would you have let her die?” Bella questioned.
Rogan didn’t hesitate. “She is my subject. Her life is valuable. I would have stepped in if you hadn’t. But if the spells everyone used did not work, I doubt mine would have.”
“But you would have tried?”
“Yes.”
Bella became pensive, and the silence stretched out long between them. “The servant—the mother of the girl—she said something about the child being the last born and a female. Why didn’t the father want to save her?”
Rogan sighed. “I don’t want you to think ill of our world, but women have slightly less importance than men here.”
Bella folded her arms angrily. “Big surprise there,” she muttered.
“And as the last born child who is not male, she cannot challenge a man for land, fight in a battle and win a title or many of the things that can move a person from one social class to another.”
“But you need women to procreate. To bring life into the world--”
“And that is primarily what they are used for, but other things they are not.”
“Do you agree with how the world works?”
Rogan sensed something deeper in her question, and he sat forward.
“What are you asking?”
“I’m asking—are you a dirt bag who believes that women are inferior to men just because they lack an appendage?”
Rogan furrowed his brow. “If you are insultingly asking if I think women are less than men in general then the answer to that is no. I think my mother is far smarter than my father. If she’d been a man, she would have been extremely powerful. As it stands, she is powerful in her own right and holds sway like no other woman.”
“But--”
“But the dragon world, and even the world outside it, is rife with politics and tradition. I can’t side step those in one fortnight. I can only change attitudes a bit at a time. It is hard to stamp out ignorance and hatred.”
“If I hadn’t come along to help that girl, her father would have just let her die? He wouldn’t even have tried to help her?”
Rogan sighed and, for a moment, looked very, very old and weary.
“He most likely wouldn’t have, and that would have been his right. She is his property until she marries.”
Bella stayed silent for a while. She listened to the fire as it crackled and to the night breeze as it carried the damp coolness from the outside with it. She could see clearly now why her mother ran. It was oppressive to be a woman there. But yet, something burned inside Bella for the first time she could remember. She wanted to be a doctor to help people, to forge a path to the future. But what if she could make some kind of tangible change there, right in that world filled with so much ignorance and intolerance?
“I—I have some things to think about. I’m going to my room.”
Rogan made a motion with his hand, and suddenly Hildevar was opening the door to lead Bella away.
“Good night, my queen,” Rogan said, and Bella nodded.
Bella was quiet as Hildevar helped her undress. She slipped beneath the warm soft covers of an opulent bed and looked up at a grand ceiling and could think of nothing but the little servant girl whose father refused to save her.