Then again, when you’re my height and not some giant like you, every guy thinks you’re just so cute–it’s maddening.”
Aranya moved forward to touch fingertips with her, thinking: Oh no. She hated people who had no idea what was going to spill out of their mouths before it did. She had beaten a Princess of another Island–wherever Remoy was–with a stick. She had thought her a servant. Another day her temper might have started a war, had Remoy and Immadia not both been brought under Sylakian rule. And–Zip? Who chose a nickname like that?
Princess Zuziana had offered not a word of apology.
Very well, she was about to learn just how frosty the tips of the Immadian mountains could be.
* * * *
The Tower of Sylakia was a mausoleum. The dull, dusty corridors echoed with years of neglect. Only two levels were inhabited–one by the exiles, and the other by the servants and guards. The outside was little better. Most of the open space around the building was paved in a grey granite stone that quickly became treacherous as the cold season made its storms felt. The landing field, the only green space, was often cordoned off so that the exiles could not approach the arriving and departing supply vessels. The Sylakian guards had no sense of humour. Apparently a posting to the Tower was considered a kind of punishment–at best.
The whole operation was run with clockwork precision by Third War-Hammer Nelthion, Ignathion’s ‘trusted man’, who had lost an eye and the better part of his right leg in an unfortunate Dragonship collision right above Sylakia itself , years before.
Aranya came to love watching the rajals stalking about in their wide moat. Each evening, they gathered beneath the Last Walk, pacing, rumbling and growling, as they waited for hunks of meat to be thrown down to them. Often their roaring would split the night; the great males, standing shoulder-high to her, she estimated, would ruff up their black manes and indulge in contests of ear-splitting volume. She decided to paint a rajal just as soon as she finished the final touches to her gift for Ignathion.
Once, Aranya dared to set foot upon the Last Walk. She tiptoed over the stone bridge to the edge of the battlements, and peered down. The Cloudlands were so far below it was hard to see any detail–much farther than at Immadia, she realised. The jutting peninsula of rock that housed the Tower split off from the main Island far, far below, but from where she stood, it was a straight drop into the Cloudlands. It turned her stomach to think of the prisoners who must have been forced to step off the edge.
Out over the void, a three-moon conjunction cast a partial eclipse of the twin suns upon the slowly roiling clouds. She wondered what effect the five moons must have–pulling the poisonous vapours this way and that, as the scholars claimed, or affecting peoples’ behaviour as the mystics would have it. The Cloudlands changed colour and character with the hues radiating f rom above.
Silently, she recited:
Iridith the Yellow, a very rotund fellow,
Jade the Green, who likes to go unseen,
A hint of White to light the night, Nightship she is called,
Consort to the great avenging Dragon, deathly Blue,
Last the Mystic, the mysterious changer of hue.
Then a soldier came to shout at her. She was not allowed on the Last Walk. After that, a warrior was permanently stationed there.
She had a nightmare about leaping off the Last Walk.
Aranya knew that she needed to make friends, or face a lonely exile. There were only so many days she could spend painting before she went mad. Beri was fine company, but Aranya longed to connect with her fellow-exiles, many of whom were her own age or a little older.
But she soon discovered why so few returned her overtures.
Chapter 4: A Minor War
T he exiles were divided into three groups. Two older men, hailing from two of the Twenty-Seven Sisters, had been in exile for over a decade. They were hermits. Aranya
Aranya moved forward to touch fingertips with her, thinking: Oh no. She hated people who had no idea what was going to spill out of their mouths before it did. She had beaten a Princess of another Island–wherever Remoy was–with a stick. She had thought her a servant. Another day her temper might have started a war, had Remoy and Immadia not both been brought under Sylakian rule. And–Zip? Who chose a nickname like that?
Princess Zuziana had offered not a word of apology.
Very well, she was about to learn just how frosty the tips of the Immadian mountains could be.
* * * *
The Tower of Sylakia was a mausoleum. The dull, dusty corridors echoed with years of neglect. Only two levels were inhabited–one by the exiles, and the other by the servants and guards. The outside was little better. Most of the open space around the building was paved in a grey granite stone that quickly became treacherous as the cold season made its storms felt. The landing field, the only green space, was often cordoned off so that the exiles could not approach the arriving and departing supply vessels. The Sylakian guards had no sense of humour. Apparently a posting to the Tower was considered a kind of punishment–at best.
The whole operation was run with clockwork precision by Third War-Hammer Nelthion, Ignathion’s ‘trusted man’, who had lost an eye and the better part of his right leg in an unfortunate Dragonship collision right above Sylakia itself , years before.
Aranya came to love watching the rajals stalking about in their wide moat. Each evening, they gathered beneath the Last Walk, pacing, rumbling and growling, as they waited for hunks of meat to be thrown down to them. Often their roaring would split the night; the great males, standing shoulder-high to her, she estimated, would ruff up their black manes and indulge in contests of ear-splitting volume. She decided to paint a rajal just as soon as she finished the final touches to her gift for Ignathion.
Once, Aranya dared to set foot upon the Last Walk. She tiptoed over the stone bridge to the edge of the battlements, and peered down. The Cloudlands were so far below it was hard to see any detail–much farther than at Immadia, she realised. The jutting peninsula of rock that housed the Tower split off from the main Island far, far below, but from where she stood, it was a straight drop into the Cloudlands. It turned her stomach to think of the prisoners who must have been forced to step off the edge.
Out over the void, a three-moon conjunction cast a partial eclipse of the twin suns upon the slowly roiling clouds. She wondered what effect the five moons must have–pulling the poisonous vapours this way and that, as the scholars claimed, or affecting peoples’ behaviour as the mystics would have it. The Cloudlands changed colour and character with the hues radiating f rom above.
Silently, she recited:
Iridith the Yellow, a very rotund fellow,
Jade the Green, who likes to go unseen,
A hint of White to light the night, Nightship she is called,
Consort to the great avenging Dragon, deathly Blue,
Last the Mystic, the mysterious changer of hue.
Then a soldier came to shout at her. She was not allowed on the Last Walk. After that, a warrior was permanently stationed there.
She had a nightmare about leaping off the Last Walk.
Aranya knew that she needed to make friends, or face a lonely exile. There were only so many days she could spend painting before she went mad. Beri was fine company, but Aranya longed to connect with her fellow-exiles, many of whom were her own age or a little older.
But she soon discovered why so few returned her overtures.
Chapter 4: A Minor War
T he exiles were divided into three groups. Two older men, hailing from two of the Twenty-Seven Sisters, had been in exile for over a decade. They were hermits. Aranya
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