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.