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.