***
Chapter Seven
I spend the next two days eating, sleeping and in meditation, in between bouts of light exercise to return my strength.I want to push harder, but I know better, just like I’m aware that the short, wooden sword I’ve been allowed to swing in my practice is the best I’ll be permitted while on board.They’ve already seen what I can do, at least, they think so.It’s a challenge I accept to disguise my true abilities while pushing against the weariness that weighs down my muscles, a dance between weakness and caution that is a welcome distraction from what’s to come.
It’s clear I’m meant for some sort of contest of arms, so returning to my training isn’t just necessary to regain strength.It’s going to be life and death.When I broach the possibility of swimming, Captain Lhanin immediately shuts me down.
“She’ll escape the moment she’s in the water,” he snarls at Vunoshe.
“She’ll be tethered,” the slave master assures him.
“The crocodons,” the angry captain tries again.I don’t know what that means, but he’s reaching for excuses.
“Can’t keep up with this vessel,” Vunoshe brushes aside his protests.
It’s decided then that I’ll be allowed to swim.Now I’m wondering if it’s a good idea.
Except the short tether, a strap around my chest that links to my collar, ensures I don’t drown as much as preventing escape, and the rush of water against my body is the impact-free resistance I really needed to push myself without drawing attention.I swim with grim determination, resting against my constraints when needed, and by the time I step onto the back of the ship again, trembling from effort, I’m not only clean once more, I’m satisfied with my progress.
This just might work.
As the sun sets on that second night, I curl up at Vunoshe’s feet, eyes on the shore.We’ve slowed somewhat, the triangle sail no longer straining, wind failing us.Themasterresnaps open a large, folded fan, the frame made of some polished black substance inlaid with multi-hued decoration that glitters in the fading sun.He fans himself and me in the humidity that settles around us, buzzing flies appearing when our forward momentum’s slacking allows them to reach us.
Movement on the far bank catches my eye, something massive sliding into the water, ridged and barely visible if not for its gliding grace.I know I react to it in surprise, because Vunoshe flashes a grimace, the black liner he wears around his dark eyes bleeding into the fine lines at the corners, while his glistening skin glows with the same sweat as mine does.
“Crocodons,” he says in a playful tone.“Nasty things.Silent predators, admirable in their efficiency.”He turns himself, leaning past his chair back, and looking over the rail behind us.“It’s best you don’t swim when we’re moving so slowly, pet.Just in case.”
And all of my imagined escapes by water under my own power die immediately as a snout rises above the water, a pair of eyes watching us go by.This excuse of the captain’s to keep me from swimming isn’t quite so unfounded as I believed.Unblinking, crested in armored ridges, the peaks of its nostrils as wide as a war horse’s, I catch a flick of its tail and my breath at the same time.
It’s hard to judge at this distance, but the thing has to be at least fifteen feet long.“Are they all that big?”
Vunoshe observes it, then shrugs.“Some are bigger,” he says.“They consume one another, I understand, the biggest controlling parts of the river, while the smaller fight over scraps and one another for food.”He chuckles.“Crocodons are nothing if not practical.I adore them philosophically, if not up close and personally.”
Another crocodons slides from the bank, and this time I’m ready, watching.It’s massive, on short, stubby legs that seem unfathomably unremarkable for the large, bulky creature they carry.Low-slung to the ground, wide and burly, it would be impossible to fight from a low position.And those giant jaws jut with curving teeth, the massive tail slipping silently under the water as it drifts toward us, watching as the other had while we sail past.
The armor alone makes it a formidable foe, and now I’m wondering what it would be like to fight one.Not with fear, but with curiosity and out of a sense of challenge.
My sense of self-preservation has returned to normal, at least.Confirming once again that I’m far too much my mother’s daughter, even now.
We retreat below when darkness comes, the biting flies far worse after nightfall, Vunoshe sealing off the windows and doors to the outside.It’s hot and sticky in his quarters, and he’s unusually snappish with me.I blame the heat, my own temper on a short leash as he clamps me tightly to the end of his bed and throws himself, naked and sweating, onto his bunk.
He’s snoring quickly regardless, though this is the first night I struggle to find rest myself.It’s not just the humidity or discomfort of my position.I stretch a little, flex fully from toes to fingertips, and am satisfied that I’m much closer to full strength than I could have hoped just a few short days ago.
Which means I need to shift my attention from the here and now and start planning my escape more seriously.
Please, the voice in my head is back, wavering and distant, but present.Youmustcontinue.
I don’t have to do so as a slave, I snap back.
She sighs deeply, mournfully.You’re so close now, Flame, she says.But so far, still.You must hurry.I’m near the end, and I don’t know how long I can last.Not with it spreading so quickly.Faster than ever.
She’s talking about Neem’s stolen magic.There’s too much to tie her to what I’ve been through already for her to mean anything else.We’re past the Overkingdom influence, then?
For now, she agrees.But I don’t know for how long, Flame.I’ve spent so much of my power holding what they did to her at bay.I’m no longer strong enough to keep its spread from the Sun Kingdom.
What they did to Neem.You’re a dragon, I whisper to her, afraid to name her, but knowing I’m right.
Of course, she replies, sounding startled.Did you not know all along?
