Aranya (Shapeshifter Dragons) by Secchia Marc

Author:Secchia, Marc [Secchia, Marc]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-06-12T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18: Treason

For the second time in her life, the Princess of Immadia fell toward the Cloudlands, her body spinning end over end in a ghastly parody of flight that could only end in death. She fell past the unsuspecting Dragonships of Yolathion’s command. She fell faster than the golden rays of dawn sweeping down the brief crags of Tyrodia Island. She fell into clear air that grew thicker and warmer the closer she came to the Cloudlands.

She had a moment to think of what Yolathion might have said up there. I hate you? I love you? Go toss yourself into the nearest Cloudlands volcano, you evil, shape-changing enchantress?

But Tyrodia was not a tall Island.

The transformation took longer than usual. It felt torn out of her, a step beyond what her strength could bear. Drawing the deepest breath she had ever taken into her lungs, Dragon-Aranya plunged into the clouds.

She pulled out of her dive carefully, careful not to repeat her ligament-tearing first flight’s mistake. Aranya flew by instinct beneath the toxic clouds for as long as her breath could hold out–which, for a Dragon, was a good quarter of an hour if she did not flap hard. In her condition, she managed about half that time, but it was enough to take her a good long way from the pursuing Dragonships. Her right wing dangled at the last wing-joint. Every stroke of her wings grated the broken bones together.

Aranya flew long enough in the grey world beneath the Cloudlands to appreciate what might happen if she flew into an unseen spire of rock. That would be a relief from the white-hot pain of her broken joint. Strangely, the pain did not dull her senses. It gave her purpose. It made her focus, purifying the extraneous as a meriatite furnace burns off the slag to produce pure, refined meriatite for the acid bath. She flapped through the thick, liquid-seeming air, a slow-motion flying as if she were underwater.

Zuziana! She mourned the loss of her Rider. This was the only way to escape Yolathion. But she could not do it with a Rider. Perhaps their physician could help Zip, where she had been unable to. She remembered reading about the ravages of disease when she was younger; she feared that Zuziana was close to death.

Leaving her felt like death.

Aranya wanted to believe that she could steal Zuziana a second time from the Sylakians. That she must leave her friend with a man like Yolathion burned her to the core. His duty would be to return her to Sylakia Town for her execution–and he had shown himself to be a perfect slave to duty. It was all she could do to keep flying. A Dragon could do nothing for her Rider if she was incapable of flying. She already had a glued-together wing. Now she looked like she had scabies, there were so many wounds on her body.

Nak and Oyda would know what to do, wouldn’t they?

Aranya leaped out of the Cloudlands like a trout leaping upriver, and descended again.

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