But Hri Sora spared them not a glance. Her attention fixed upon the maiden from the Land.
She was unmistakable. Hri Sora could have laughed at herself for ever doubting. This girl with the mark of slavery all over her face could only come from the Land Behind the Mountains. She was enslaved to her own beliefs, to the laws of her people.
She belonged to the Beast.
The silent language of women was hateful to Hri Sora. But her fingers did not hesitate as they formed the familiar signs. How long now since she’d been taught this language of slavery? How long since she too had been rendered mute under the curse? She shuddered, wishing not to remember, struggling to keep at bay the fire that always raged to life with these memories. No, she could not succumb to it yet, no matter how tempting those surging flames might be.
One thing only she desired more than the return of her wings. One thing . . . and this girl might prove the key.
Though her hands shook, she formed the necessary words. “Tell me who you are.”
“Starflower,” the girl replied. “Daughter of Eldest Panther Master.”
“I do not know this Eldest.” Hri Sora blinked slowly. “There were many elders in the Land when last I was there.”
“There is but one Eldest now,” the girl signed. “All elders bow to Panther Master.” Then her face contorted, the skin of her forehead puckering while her mouth fixed in a firm line. Her chin quivered, and she bit down on her lip. Then she hung her head, and her hands signed a correction. “They bowed to Panther Master.”
“Look at me,” Hri Sora snarled. The girl raised her swimming eyes and watched the dragon form more words with her hands. “In my day, the elders bowed only to the Beast.”
The girl nodded but offered no other reply.
“Does the Beast still rule the Land?”
The girl nodded again. A shudder passed through her small frame, and Hri Sora wondered if the little mortal would faint then and there. Such a puny creature!
The dragon licked her dry lips. She hated the girl. She hated everything she represented: dirt, degradation, and despair. She wanted to swallow her up and then let herself descend back into the fire of her hatred. But no! She must focus.
“Tell me, child,” said Hri Sora, her hands moving harshly. “Tell me how you came to escape the Beast. Tell me how you fled from behind the Circle of Faces.”
The mortal girl closed her eyes, and a tear slipped down one cheek. One of the Dogs, seeing her distress, whined softly. Hri Sora turned to it with a snarl and cuffed its muzzle. It backed away, its tail tucked, and dared not whine again.
When the dragon turned back to the girl, she found those large black eyes fixed upon her in anger.
“What?” Hri Sora said. “Do you disapprove of how I treat my own slaves?”
The girl ground her teeth, her jaw working. Her hands remained still, but she spoke from her eyes with clarity.
Hri Sora realized suddenly that, for all her mortality, there was strength in this girl. Strength much deeper than what could be outwardly seen. Strength stemming from some source the Dragonwitch could not fathom. But women of the Land were never strong! They were beaten, downtrodden, worthless rags, just as she had once been. Where, then, had this girl come by such power? It took power indeed to feel compassion for one of the Black Dogs. Such power the Flame at Night, in her most potent wrath, had never known. Hri Sora growled, but a shiver ran down her spine.
The mortal’s eyes did not leave the Dragonwitch’s face. At last she signed with her clay-formed hands, “They are his children, aren’t they.”
Hri Sora hissed, and fire fell from her lips when she answered aloud rather than with her hands. “His monsters. Yes.”
The girl signed, “And yours?”
The fire would swallow her whole. Hri Sora felt a mounting desire to blast this girl into oblivion!
“Tell me,” she repeated, her claw-tipped fingers ripping at the darkness, “how you came to escape the Circle of Faces. You have his mark in your eyes. You have gazed upon his true face. Yet you lived. Mortal that you are, you lived.” Her lips curled back, and fire licked at the corners of her mouth. “Tell me!”
Imraldera stared at the devil before her, this creature out of her peoples’ darkest stories. Though she saw no wings, no scales, no long sinewy tail, she knew what this woman must be. A dragon, like the one that fell from the sky and smote Bald Mountain, killing everything within miles of its dreadful summit. Though her form was not right, the fire brimming inside her was unmistakable.
Yet somehow, Imraldera could not fear her. She could not decide what she felt instead. Was it hatred? Or merely pity?
“It is a long story,” she signed.