Dragon Your Bones, page 8
“The vote to send an assassin after her during the Forging was not unanimous. There are debts we owe her tah.”
“We did what we had to do.”
“This is getting messy.”
“I say we stay out of it.”
“Let’s not forget the debts that need to be settled with the names of her other bloodline. They have oppressed us for generations. Her granta led the last purge. Why should we care about her life? We are owed blood prices.”
“The price on her head is immense and has only grown since the Forging. Regardless of whom owe what debts, we could use that money. We need to protect our own.”
Nico remained silent and tempered her reactions throughout the discussion. These people have experienced much harm, at times caused by her own ancestors. She didn’t blame them for not trusting her or acting in their own self-interests.
“Obviously, the child has evaded a few assassins already. Would it be worth trying to kill her compared to those we could lose?” Heron turned to Kelin. “Could you kill her?”
Kelin looked at Nico with serious consideration. “If I caught her off-guard maybe.”
Nico deflated. She had hoped that once the Flock knew the truth, they would take her side. But of course, it could never be that easy. Despite her growing anxiety, she sensed that it still wasn’t her time to speak up. She didn’t know if they would ever give her a chance to participate in the conversation but worried any interjection would be unwelcomed. She didn’t want to give them further reasons not to help her. Luckily, she had someone within the community to advocate on her behalf.
“Perhaps I can make a suggestion,” Kelin offered. “She is interested in hiring our services for that night of the bloodrites.” He looked at her, and Nico nodded slowly even though she had no idea what he was talking about. She didn’t have the money to hire Flock assassins, but she trusted him to know the room better than she did. “The dragonscale I mentioned that she hid out in the Desert? She is willing to give us that location to pay for her protection. Of course, she can’t possibly give us the location of it if she’s dead.”
“Yes,” Nico caught on, and confirmed her agreement, “I’ll be more than willing to give you the scale’s location after I have survived the bloodrites, with your help, of course.”
“And she is telling the truth?” Heron asked. “Have you seen this dragonscale, Kelin-po?”
“I have. She’s good for it.”
Heron looked around the room, at each other. “This is good. We’ll settle the debt with her tah, ensure the protection of the Tents, and we’ll get paid for our services.”
Heron nodded as one.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Nico said as they walked towards the border. “That wasn’t what I had intended the dragonscale for. It was supposed to be a gift.”
“This is the Tents,” Kelin shrugged. “Nothing is free.”
“You could have let me know the plan.”
“And miss the look on your face?” he smirked. “Besides, I came up with it on the spot.”
“Liar. You at least had the idea of it when you recited your Forging story. I wondered why you had skipped over the location of the scale but figured you were going to mention it later. I didn’t want to buy them. I wanted to gain their trust.”
“Gaining Heron’s trust is hard.”
“I have certainly learned that.” She sighed. Guess she should start somewhere. If she survived the bloodrites and delivered the scale, at least they would know they could trust her word. She had to make sure she differentiated herself from the two very different views they had of her parents.
“Just don’t forget your promises,” he advised.
“I won’t,” Nico promised.
She followed curiously when Kelin led her away from the border checkpoints. He lifted one of the vertebra plates at the bottom of the Tail. Ah. A smuggler’s tunnel. Nico crouched down and crawled under the bone to the other side.
The Elder’s tail circled to form an immense stage the Grankull used for celebrations. They paused for a moment to take in the hunched mountainous figure of the Elder.
“Do you mind if I ask you something?” Nico asked. “You don’t have to answer, but why are you so uncomfortable with touch?” It took a while for many of the Grankull to become accustomed to public touching once the shrouds came off, but she had never seen such an aversion with one’s own family.
Kelin pushed up and sat down on one of the vertebra plates. Nico joined him. “I think,” he said slowly. “It was something I had developed when I was an orphan. The Flock didn’t adopt me until I was nine-till, or so we think; I don’t really know how old I am. A few have been trying to break me of the aversion ever since.”
“Please let me know if anything I do makes you uncomfortable.”
Kelin tilted his head and smirked. “You’re the second kuller to have told me that.”
“Azan?” she asked, taking an educated guess.
“Being with my ex really drove home how achingly sweet that kid is,” Kelin sighed, and did that soft sigh sound a little like heartbreak? “But he’s a kuller.”
“Look who has a flame now,” Nico teased. Kelin snorted but didn’t disagree with her. He didn’t seem to want to elaborate so she changed the subject. He could be prickly about things until he was ready to talk about them. “So . . . you think can kill me?”
He laughed. “I said maybe.”
She swung her legs over the boneplate. Despite all of Kelin’s playful machinations of the truth, she trusted him. She couldn’t say the same for many others of the Grankull.
“I’m scared,” Nico confessed out loud for the first time.
“Good to know you’re human. You are the crazy person that regularly steps in front of dragonfire.”
She chuckled at that. She had never considered that worthy of appreciation. “Even so, thank you. Tonight meant a lot to me. I like to fool myself that I can do it all because I don’t have the choice not to, but I’m only one person against the entire Grankull. I can’t do this on my own. Thank you, Kelin-kull.”
Kelin sucked in a harsh breath, and Nico wondered if she had mis-stepped. In the Grankull, using the address was the ultimate seal of friendship, but the Tents were so distrusting that they rarely used it. Ideologically, they rejected the idea of belonging to any kull. She had meant it sincerely but had forgotten all the complicated Tent implications.
Kelin nodded and looked away. He wiped at his eyes, and grumbled, “Don’t call me that in front of my tahs. They might make fun of me.”
Nico smiled and placed a gentle hand on his knee. She said, more formally, “You may call me Nico-kull.”
CHAPTER NINE
The warship deck smelled of scorpion jerky, cooked gonda, kebabs of skinkos, grilled sandsnake, and anything else Rasia could empty out of the warship’s stores. All day, she conscripted the kull’s help to prepare a feast for their last night of the Forging. They rolled out barrels of scavenger moonshine and decorated the warship with flowers and strings of dragonglass. Crackling energy followed their heels all day and they finally gathered around all of their hard work.
Rasia overflowed the brim of their gourds with scavenger moonshine. Kai had seen this stuff take down the stoutest of Timar’s facehunters. It crept up on you and the next thing you knew, you were on the ground.
Zephyr sniffed at the drink. “I’m pretty sure this is going to kill someone.”
“A kid from the Tents is afraid of scavenger moonshine?” Rasia asked.
“I’m saying this kid from the Tents is going to watch all of you drop by the end of the night.”
“Don’t bet on that,” Azan said. “My jihs have been sneaking me drinks since I was five-years-till. I can drink all of you under the table.”
“Is that a challenge?” Rasia crowed in excitement.
“I guess this will be good practice for the namepour?” Neema asked slowly.
“Exactly.” Rasia winked at her. “You don’t want to be the one vomiting after one drink.”
Most people consumed alcohol for the first time during the namepour, and new faces must learn quickly how to hold their drink. You couldn’t buy food in the Grankull, but you could buy alcohol. You purchased it as a gift for when you’re visiting someone’s home, meeting a friend you haven’t seen in a season, courting gifts for flames, and celebrating every birth, death, new job, lucky windfall, and stubbed toe. Celebrations are called a pouring because the alcohol flowed faster and quicker than water.
Rasia handed Kai his gourd so full that the drink spilled down his arm. It gathered in a pool at his feet, pale and milky like the overhead gibbous. The dragonglass chimed twinkling songs in the wind. The oil lamp glowed off the mast posts and encased them all in a citrine glow.
Rasia raised her gourd and toasted, “To the best kull this Desert has ever seen. Tonight, we celebrate our hunt, we celebrate each other, and we celebrate ourselves. Thank you to all of you, both stupid and brave, who followed me on this hunt. We killed a ta-fucking dragon!”
“Oi-yo!” Everyone drank.
Kai took small sips. He knew he wouldn’t be able to keep up with everyone else otherwise. He learned that the hard way back at the gorge. When he swallowed, he thought he knew what to expect, but he gagged on the trail of fire that burned down his throat.
“Shit,” Azan coughed, then doubled over and coughed some more.
“My throat is still burning,” Neema hacked.
Zephyr watched, smug. Rasia rolled her eyes at the dramatics.
“Suck it up. This is a kull toast. We’ve got four more to go,” Rasia reminded them all. “Lani, your turn.”
Kai blushed deep red at the address, nor did it go unnoticed. Azan glanced between Rasia and Kai. Neema snarked, “You two do know that Forging flames never last?”
“They also say it’s impossible to slay a dragon within a Forging season, but we beat those odds,” Rasia said.
“You two are like, together?” Azan asked. “You’re not wearing any namesakes. How am I supposed to know if you’re together if you’re not wearing any namesakes? I’ve been flirting with you all day!”
“Is that what you’ve been doing?” Rasia scoffed and patted Azan’s shoulder, consolingly. “Flattered, but his dick can do magic.”
Far from being put off, Azan rose his brows intrigued. “Are we talking about literally or figuratively? Or both?”
Kai hid his face in his hands, while Rasia whispered loudly, “both.”
“Ugh. Too much information,” Neema complained.
“Try being stuck on a windship with them for half your Forging,” Zephyr grumbled.
Rasia cackled and nudged Kai in the arm. “Come on, toast. At this pace, we’re never going to eat.”
Kai cleared his throat, shoulders up to his ears, embarrassed to face them all. Most people would be proud of the fact they could satisfy their partner, and Kai should be proud Rasia boasted of it—but he was still embarrassed. More than ready not to be the center of attention, he lamely mumbled out, “To the kull?”
“That toast sucks,” Rasia said. Because of course, she would never let him get away with that half-ass attempt. “Come on. Try again. Make me wet.”
Zephyr took a drink without prompting. Azan looked entirely too invested. Neema blanched. And Kai realized, at that moment, that none of the others mattered. He killed a dragon. What did he have to be embarrassed of? Kai focused on Rasia. He raised his drink, and the movement sloshed most of it down his arm.
“A toast—to all the hunts awaiting us, to all the horizons we’ve yet to reach, to all the nights we’ve yet to sail, to many more ends and many more beginnings, and all the journeys in between. This is a promise to you, Rasia.”
“Oi-yo,” Rasia purred in response. She hid the curling of her lips over the rim of her gourd, but her eyes visually stripped him of his clothes. He sipped at his gourd and eye-fucked her with the same intensity. He barely noted the second burn of the alcohol.
“You two are so weird,” Neema muttered.
“What do you think of a threesome?” Azan asked.
“Is food and sex all you think about?” Neema asked, exasperated.
“Yes. Why? You interested?”
“Not my type.”
“You mean your type for small, curved, and sharp?” Azan joked, referring to Neema’s obsession with her daggers.
She gave Azan the ‘V’ of her fingers. “My type is someone with a job, and established, and with status.”
“To the Tents, to prosperity, and to better seasons,” Zephyr toasted, interrupting them all.
“Oi-yo!”
Azan toasted, “To all the faces we’re going to fuck on our Naming night!”
“Oi-yo!”
Neema toasted, “To glory! To a name remembered!”
“Oi-yo!”
They drank. Both Rasia and Zephyr emptied their gourds. Neema looked to have the same idea as Kai, sipping at safe mouthfuls, while Azan finished half of his. Even with small sips, Kai wobbled as they gathered around the feast and attacked the endless spread of food. Per tradition, it was Rasia’s duty as Han to make sure the gourds were always topped off, and she certainly took the job seriously.
It was said that those who eat the heart of a dragon die as legends. Many lived their entire lives without a taste of dragon meat, and only a handful of hunters have ever eaten the heart. They didn’t have the time to celebrate the day they slayed Aurum, but Rasia had sun-dried and salted the organ to eat on their last night of the Forging. They all sat in reverent silence with that dragon heart on their tongue. Even though dried, it melted like butter in their mouths.
“I don’t feel any different,” Azan said when he finished.
“Of course not,” Rasia said. “It’s food like everything else.”
“Yes, but it’s magic food.”
“It has never given anyone magic to have eaten it,” Rasia said. “Shamai-ta killed two dragons, and he was never any different.”
“They say you live longer,” Neema piped in.
Rasia said darkly, “You don’t.”
“I always thought the magic was in the bones, not the meat,” Zephyr said.
All at once, they turned to Kai for clarity. Transport one warship across the Desert and now, suddenly, he was an expert on magic.
“He’s right,” Kai explained. “There’s no magic in the heart, only the bones. Bones are . . . magnets for magic, but that doesn’t mean all bones hold magic, or can hold magic at the same capacity. Magic prefers dragon bones because dragon bones remember magic the most, but that doesn’t mean the magic won’t transfer if there is a more appealing container. Magic might prefer dragon bones, but it also prefers living ones. Eventually, the magic will be recycled somewhere else.”
They all squinted at him.
“Huh. Are the throwing bones really magic, then?” Azan asked.
“Kind of? Because the throwing bones are made from the bones of the magicborn, they attract more magic than normal bones, but I wouldn’t say they contain a lot. I can’t speak to how much they affect a greater divine plan, but at the very least, they stay in the air a little longer.” Kai shrugged.
Rasia guffawed.
The throwing bones were supposed to be sacred and held the secrets of everyone’s destinies. Kai sometimes forgot that the Grankull didn’t perceive things the same way. Nico constantly reminded him that the truth was not always the truth. Sometimes it was false for a reason, and sometimes it had been stretched over hundreds of years to become something new.
“We probably shouldn’t mention this in our interview,” Neema grumbled into her cup. “After everything, we wouldn’t want the Grankull to fail us for blasphemy.”
“We’ll need to omit quite a bit from our interview,” Rasia said. “No one should mention anything about Kai’s magic either. We caught a lucky wind and made it in time. That’s that.”
“Why don’t you want the Grankull to know about your magic?” Zephyr asked Kai.
“That’s Nico’s thing, and I don’t want the Grankull to expect it of me when I might not always be able to perform it.”
“But why should we have to lie to the Grankull on the runt’s behalf?” Neema asked.
Rasia surged through the crumbs and dishes. She swiped up a bone, chewed meat still clinging to it, and brandished it at Neema’s throat. “He killed a fucking dragon. You put some respect on his name.”
Kai was so used to Neema calling him runt, he hadn’t realized this was the first time Neema had said it in Rasia’s presence. Neema reached for a dagger, but Rasia already had that bone shoved so hard against Neema’s throat she could barely breathe. She gave a reluctant stubborn nod up.
Rasia shifted enough for Neema to breathe in air, but kept her glare pinned on Neema in case Neema had the gall to call him a runt a second time.
“No one complains when it’s Nico,” Rasia complained. “None of those oasis kids killed a gonda on their own. Those gonda were our kills. They haven’t earned their Forging, but Nico made us all agree to lie for them. That’s the one thing I respect about you, Neema. You didn’t take the easy way out. You killed your hunt. Don’t ruin that by playing the fucking snitch.” Rasia plopped back down and pointed to both Azan and Zephyr. “And that goes for both of you. Anyone spills about Kai’s magic, or anything about me and Kai, and I swear no one will ever find your bones.”
Azan said after a moment of silence. “You know, Rasia. You can be kind of a bully sometimes. Of course, we aren’t going to say anything. We wouldn’t be here without you.”
Neema’s dark glare told a different opinion, and Rasia didn’t miss it. She dragged the bone across her neck in warning.
