II. Flight
By: Amber Michelle

This is so angsty. I can’t get over it. Also, I’m not sure this is an appropriate follow-up, since the style is so different from the first, but I haven’t decided what to do about that yet.

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The day had nearly ended when a servant from the palace came to summon Lehran back to the city, and he did not spread his wings to fly over the valley to the city walls until the sun was half-set, a crescent crowning the peak of Goldoa's highest western mountain. It lit his way without heat, sending his shadow skittering over the green and yellow weaving of the treetops until they broke against the face of the mesa upon which the walls of the capitol rose to forbid entrance. It was a place of high, arched windows and tall, carved columns, the buildings all sandstone, all dust and dry wood scent, and the dragons uniformly dark, streaks of brown and green and dark gray from up high, organized on the streets according to which direction they walked - left to go eastward, right to go west. Similar rules governed the palace, but he kept to the center of the corridors once he landed and let the servants move out of his way.

The summons took him in the far wing of the palace, where the royal family lived and their guests rested when persons other than dragons were granted access to the city. He knew it well - the polished floors, here a dark gray, lamps with jade fixtures, curtains dark shades of red and plum, echoed in the runners, which were anchored precisely center in every corridor. Lehran counted doors, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, until he reached the one that was his when he was only a guest and turned the handle to go inside.

A splash of yellow on the round table greeted him, kerria rose arranged in a shallow earthenware bowl around the thick pillar of an unlit white candle. The purple curtains were wide open, the windows veiled by lace and gilded by the fading sunset. Her shadow was slender when lit from the back, her hair a long river down her back the color of an evening sky, twisted into submission and tied at the end with silk, and if he hadn't known her every curve by memory, or recognized the backward thrust of her shoulders, Lehran would have remembered her bright floral scent, deepened by leather and feathers, and the green tea in a pot on the table behind the flowers.

Altina.

The handle slipped from Lehran's fingers, rattled, loud and brass; the door closed. She turned around.

She said his name.

What was this - a fever dream, a trick? Had he found a blade at last and opened his veins, only to be greeted by a vision he wanted to forget?

She said his name again, and Lehran jerked his wings, knocked the cabinet behind him, and bent them close to his back. Her hand curled inward over her stomach, and his throat tightened until he thought it would spasm and make him throw up. "I-- I did not know you intended to visit."

He looked at the table because it wouldn't look back, saw her cup was already turned aright, half empty. A bit of yellow peeked over the rim, reflecting the flowers. "It came as a surprise to everyone," she said, and her shadow advanced upon him, one inch closer, two. "Dheginsea was not in when I arrived, so I will apologize later."

That explained the summons; Dheginsea knew his wishes on this matter, and would have seen them granted if he were present. "I'm sure that will not be necessary."

Silence. A hawk keened outside, past the walls; her beorc ears wouldn't hear, but Lehran imagined its wings spread to glide on invisible currents of air and wanted to do the same. His flight to the palace could have been days ago, for how little he remembered the cut of air between his feathers, above and below, and the emptiness beneath his feet - a chasm he could fall into if he wished, though it would be an ignoble end when his wings, at least, had not deserted him. They revealed more than he liked, cramping together, against his shoulders, their angle forcing him to hunch. He felt the wall to his left, his flight feathers slightly bent where they met the stone. Dusk deepened; he couldn't see her face, only highlights where the orange light, fading to red and pink, blushed her pale cheeks and offered the impression of her lips, and the rest was gray like a storm cloud.

His gaze drifted to follow the curves - her lips, the line of her neck, the slant of tendons to her clavicle, the shape of her arms, and only jerked his eyes away when she came closer, close enough to touch. Close enough he smelled the faint dryness of her skin below her floral oils, and the honey used to condition her hair. He remembered applying it with his own hands, dissolving it in a little bit of warm water and mixing with his fingers until it was a smooth golden gel he slicked over her hair, combed in with his fingers, and rinsed with slim glass vessels of water until it was soft enough to put the finest silk to shame.

It was still as he remembered when he reached to touch the smooth, slightly curled hair brushed to frame her face. Soft. Cool. The ends tickled his fingertips.

"You're not sleeping well." Altina's palm warmed his cheek, and her thumb brushed the skin beneath his eye. "You're so thin-- aren't you taking care of yourself?"

Lehran pulled his gaze away. The flowers-- they were bright, sweet. "Don't be foolish. I'm fine. I haven't changed."

"Do you realize how long it has been?" She turned his face with her other hand, made him look at the glint of her golden eyes. "Sarai is almost five years old."

If he could have looked elsewhere without seeming a child-- "An infant."

"A little girl, now," Altina said, and the pressure of her fingertips increased for a breath before she pulled her hands away, slowly, her fingers curling as if to take hold of his robe. "She reads and writes. They say she has tremendous potential for the magic arts."

His face felt tight; his chest refused to expand for a deep breath. "And her father? How is he?"

Altina's brows knitted and creased her forehead with lines. She blinked, again and again and again, and Lehran thought she would look away and release him, but her lips flattened instead. "Her father-- he cowers behind the dragon king when he should be home with his daughter."

Lehran felt his feathers shift when he backed away, pressed against the door. They were like a blanket, his wings and his hair, making the air hot and unbearable. His voice came out dry and cracked. "Can I be blamed after what you've done to me?" Her fingers clenched suddenly, tightly at her sides, the tendons standing out in the dying light. He watched her shoulders hunch, her chest draw in, almost as if he'd pushed her, and instead of trying to divine the expression on her face he watched her feet, watched her step back through a shimmering veil of heat in his eyes.

He wanted to breathe deeply of the floral scent she brought with her and follow it to its source at her throat, behind her ear, and soothe the tension in her back, the tightness making her draw in as he did. It didn't look right on Altina; she was strong, she was confident, she was a wall her enemies shattered against like the tide upon a rock. She was an night-blooming flower, cool and aloof by day, soft and fragrant at night when she opened to welcome him. Once there was only his own scent lingering beneath her perfume, his own touch a memory on her skin, and his own hand in the arrangement of her hair down to the knotting of the ribbon. Once, she told Lehran he was the only blessing she needed, that Ashera's favor shined upon her whenever she opened her eyes to see him in the morning and stroke his wings.

Did she remember that when her new husband laid his hands on her? That brazen-- that opportunist had the nerve to offer himself--

Did Altina bear his scent now, his mark?

Lehran stepped away from the door, but only to reach backward for the handle. He saw her tense. There was only an arm's length between them; he could reach her easily, take her in his arms, erase that man from her body and her memory. She would be warm, inviting, beautiful.

"I have no daughter." He might have had his birthright back at that moment, for how easy it was to divine her feelings on the matter in the way she flinched and the glitter of tears on her cheeks. His fingers clenched around the handle until the polished corners bit his fingers. "Go home." Lehran jerked it down and pulled the door open, wings angled to go out, and said over his shoulder, "I never want to see you again." The door slammed shut.

The lamps had been lit while they talked, all blazing and glaring in his eyes. The corridor was silent. Altina's gasps for air were muffled, and made him wish he'd lost his senses along with his galdrar so he wouldn't have to listen to them and feel his heart beat the same pace against his ribs. Any moment it would break free - any moment.

He walked away before Altina could realize he'd not moved and open the door, and the sound of her faded like a ghost, a nightmare. His cheeks were wet. The memory of her scent followed Lehran like the echo of her sobs - so he ran, and vaulted through a window, thinking again of neglecting to spread his wings. Night burned against his cheeks, cold as winter.

All he did was run; his own grandson refused condone the breaking of his sacred vows by offering sanctuary in Serenes. What would Lady Ashera say?

If only they knew.

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