through her old armor, making it click and clack softly as her short hair fluttered around her head.
“That poor woman,” Priya whispered. “Such a miserable, empty, dark life.”
“I know,” Asha said. “But I think she’ll be all right. Someday. Maybe she needs to be in a dark place for a while before she can find the light again. I spent eight years in a coma. You spent two centuries in a cave. But we woke up. And maybe someday she’ll wake up, too. Time is on her side, at least.”
They sat and listened to the wind playing through the tall grass. Asha glanced over her shoulder once at the distant shape of the dragon’s body lying at the bottom of the hill. “I should go find my needle, I suppose. We should burn the body too, but I doubt any campfire of ours will consume that creature.” Then she looked down at her hand. “I wonder.”
In her mind’s eye she conjured an image of fire and the sound of angry voices, the clash of swords, and the screaming of eagles. The smooth flesh of her hand rippled into golden scales and scarlet claws. But Asha held the violence in her mind in check, fencing it in to one small corner of her heart, keeping it focused and narrow, directing it only at the memories of a single act of cruelty, a single doctor’s face, a single tragedy from long ago. The transformation of her arm halted at the elbow.
Then she exhaled, banishing her rage and letting the calm meadows and empty skies fill her mind’s eye again, restoring her arm to its original shape and color.
Asha smiled. “This might not be so bad after all.” She turned to Priya. “So. What do you think? Should we go to Alexandria, or should we go somewhere else? Constantia, perhaps?”
Priya smiled and shrugged. “Whichever you prefer.”
The two women stood up and scattered their fire, shouldered a bag and a mongoose, and set out for the road.
Chapter 10
1
They stood on the stone quay overlooking the water. Asha squinted across the sparkling harbor at the steamship as it chuffed toward the dock with two white cloudy columns rising from its two funnels and more than a hundred passengers congregating on its deck. Priya leaned on her new walking stick, an ash pole with a thick brass ring set into its top holding half a dozen smaller rings and bells that jangled and tinkled when she walked. But now it was silent and the sounds of the city of Tyre pressed down on the women from all sides. Merchants, dock workers, carts and wagons, camels and donkeys, birds, fish, and crabs, and machines of all sizes grunted and whined and shouted and clanked and barked, their voices echoing off the faces of the harbor-side buildings.
“I’ve never been on a boat before,” Priya said. “I think the idea of it is a little scary. Just a little. A wooden house floating on the water, all alone, far from help.”
Asha nodded. “I’ve been on lots of boats, and never had any trouble with them. But if you don’t like boats, then be grateful you can’t see the one we’re about to board.”
“Why? What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it. Except that it’s made out of metal.”
“Oh.” Priya frowned. “How are you feeling today?”
“Fine. Calm. I slept well last night.”
“Good.”
An urgent shout drew their attention to the right where Asha saw two men high atop a stack of crates. They were struggling to lift the topmost box down, but the crates under their feet had shifted, sliding apart, creaking and crackling as the wooden planks began to splinter. The men balanced precariously as the crate under them rolled up at an angle as it tried to fall between two other crates below it. Both men were shouting at each other in some dialect that Asha didn’t recognize, but she recognized clearly enough that neither man was moving or doing anything at all to get out of harm’s way. The bottom crates slid apart a bit more, edging closer to the stones at the water’s edge.
Then Asha saw the two little boys sitting on the stones, their feet dangling over the water, their backs to the shifting pile of crates.
“Hey!” Asha jogged toward them, leaving Priya behind. “Hey, you! Boys! Hey! Get up! Get up! You! Yes, you! Get up, get away from there! Look out!”
One of the boys glanced in her direction, then slowly swiveled his head to see the rocking mountain of crates behind him. He cried out and scrambled to his feet and darted away, leaving his friend staring after him with a confused look on his face. Asha yelled at the straggler as she reached the loading area and had to slow down to get through the other men moving barrels and boxes near the stacked crates. None of them gave her or the boy a look.
The remaining boy twisted around to scowl at the crates, but he did pull his legs up and stand, pausing to wipe his hands on his dirty trousers. Just then one of the bottom crates snapped apart and collapsed, and everything teetering above it collapsed with it. Half a dozen huge wooden containers, a dozen small casks, and two angry men crashed down to the stone dock.
Asha shouted, her hand outstretched as though she might grab the boy from a dozen paces away to pull him to safety. But as the crates smashed down into the stones, the boy took two light running steps and dove gracefully into the harbor. Asha jogged to a halt at the edge of the wreckage where the broken containers still stood in a high pile, many cracked open to reveal bolts of cloth or earthenware jugs wrapped in straw. A moment later the boy’s head broke the surface of the water and he squinted up through the water streaming down over his face. Asha waved to him. He waved back with a grin.
The two angry dock workers staggered up on top of the mess, surveyed the destruction, and began shouting at each other anew. One of them took a swing at the other’s head, and the crates shifted again. A wave of splintered wood and broken pottery cascaded over the edge of the dock and plummeted into the harbor straight down onto the boy.
2
“No!” Asha dashed forward, scrambling over the ruined cargo to look down into the water, but all she could see were wooden panels and planks piled high on the surface of the water. She couldn’t see the boy anywhere.
Asha dropped her shoulder bag on the dock and jumped feet-first into the water. As she jumped, she curled her hands into fists and summoned up a burning rage in her breast. In a corner of her mind there was a gallery of evils, each one just a little worse than the one before, and each one known to bring forth a certain degree of her fury. Now she called up the faces of the doctors who had trained her, who had betrayed her, who had killed her first love. She kindled that rage in her heart, fanning the flames of it until her entire body was flush with adrenaline, with the urge to scream, with the urge to lash out at the entire world and crush it in her bare hands.
The dragon awoke.
From deep inside her belly, the soul of the golden dragon blazed to life, filling her veins with liquid fire and Asha felt the change come over her, sweeping across her body. Her skin rippled with golden scales, harder than steel and shining in the bright morning light. Her feet crashed down into the floating ruins of the crates, and the wood shattered beneath her, splintering into tiny shards that flew high in the air and far out over the water. The water was freezing cold, but Asha knew this only distantly. She could barely feel the water at all through her dragon skin.
