They would say the beast had gone savage. They would say it had chosen blood and earned the chain around its throat. They would say many things. None of them would be true enough to matter.
No longer were they fathers and mothers, friends and lovers. No longer were they people with dreams and jobs. To Alira, they were now a sea of suspects.
Somewhere behind one of those masks was her betrothed. He could be the figure purchasing clean filters for their respirator at the side shop or he could be the one taking the path to the mountainside factories. Whoever he was, he was the new wall standing between Alira and the open sky. But in a place like this, the sky had been lost long ago.
Graal is not a home for the faint of heart, nor the faint of lung. Smog crowned the city like a cruel king. It pooled heavily in the belly of the basin, trapped by an unbroken wall of jagged peaks that hemmed the city in on every side. Clinging to the steep rock faces, massive factories loomed over the streets, their chimneys belching black smoke that had nowhere to go but down.
Dragon’s breath fueled the industry, but it cost people their lives. Human lungs are fragile things, and they stood no chance against the caustic sulfur that filled the air. Hundreds of people died. Their lungs blistered and burst.
Desperation bred a crude sort of innovation. Folk quickly began fabricating respirators, hastily stitched leather masks stuffed with charcoal to filter the blackened yellow haze.
Still, people died.
Alira’s mother being one of them. Or so they said was her demise.
It was still early morning, yet Graal was sombre and sunless. She heard the shuffling of feet, the low, distorted murmuring of voices, and the rumbling bellows of beasts beneath the surface.
She blended into a crowd along the shops. Chimes dinged as people entered various doors advertising grains, weapons, and the like. Her palms felt slick against her leather gloves as she scanned the signs looking for one in particular.
She rolled her eyes at the weathered slab. Scissors crossed with a needle and thread inscribed above the one name she told herself she’d never speak again.
A wave of emotion rolled through her body. She tensed and sickened even more at the thought. What if it was him who paid for her hand in marriage? This miserable errand turned from a laughable request to possibly her ultimate ruin.
Veyla did, in fact, doom her.
She teetered awkwardly in front of the door, reluctant to turn the knob.
But he was too eager.
The door squeaked as it swung wide, revealing a man who she hadn’t seen in three years.
“Lira, my gem.” Thayer greeted her with a silver tongue amidst golden teeth. He welcomed her with open arms, hoping – or expecting – her to fill them.
Alira cringed and shouldered through the doorway, trying carefully not to brush against him. But his tall and muscled frame filled the doorway. Her skin touched his, and she recoiled, but he seized the opportunity to hook her wrist and spin her to face him.
Shocked, but not surprised. She was thankful for the respirator that hung between her and any air he might try to share.
He didn’t let go. Instead, he pushed the door closed and then raised his free hand behind her head.
“You don’t need this in here,” he whispered, his thumb finding the ties behind her ear, making her skin prickle.
With a tug, he eased the respirator away and tossed it on a nearby table, landing with a thud.
Sweet, fresh air flooded her nose. Free of toxins and sickly things. If only the respirators could get rid of toxic people.
“There she is.”
The heat rising to her cheeks had very little to do with anger. And that is precisely what made her angry.
She had forgotten how beautiful he was. She was attracted to the most pretty things. After all, her eyes had always been drawn to shiny gems and rare stones. Thayer was like clean cut obsidian, dark and perfectly polished, but could still cut.
He was a masterpiece of a man, and she was a fool for still appreciating the craftsmanship.
She yanked her arm back, this time successfully, though the ghost of his grip lingered on her skin. She stepped deeper into the room, putting a sturdy table between them to regain her senses.
But distance did nothing for her mind. Everything came rushing back to her. The hurt. The jealousy. The other girl’s face. The pleasure of his. Their bodies together.
Alira swallowed hard.
“The dresses.” Her voice catching despite her effort.
Thayer let out a short, airy chuckle. He didn’t move toward her, but his gaze remained fixed on her face, enjoying the flustered color in her cheeks.
“Always so focused, Lira” He murmured, savoring the sound of her name. “The dresses are this way.” He motioned for her to follow with an overly jeweled hand.
To her surprise, he still wore the old rings she made him years ago. The copper was tarnished and the settings were slightly crooked. Their designs too ambitious for her skill at the time. They looked childish among the more fanciful ones he wore.
She had just begun learning, creating, and her biggest inspiration was Thayer himself and his wild ideas with color. She remembered his excitement when she first started working with metal, the way he’d brought her that tiny amethyst, insisting she make something of it. Now, it rested in the mountainside dirt still wrapped around her mother’s neck.
Years ago, Thayer had the idea to create together. Him and his fabrics and threads and her with her metals and gems. The shop she walked through now could have been theirs. Hers.
Mannequins clothed with traditional Graal linens hid in the shadows while the more colorful dresses and vests were closer to the door. Spools of textures she had no names for colored the wall behind a desk. Large measuring tapes, scissors and sketches that lay strewn about the desk reminded Alira of her workbench back home. No system of organization, yet she knew where everything was.
The back sewing room was quite different. Stuffed with half used fabrics sticking out of cubby holes. Jackets and shirts hung in any open area available. Undyed linens draped from the low ceiling. The room smelled of glue and fermenting dyes.
Thayer stood in the middle next to something that couldn’t – shouldn’t be her dress.
Alira stepped closer despite herself.
Her eyes narrowed. “So this is why prices have increased at The Pit,” she said flatly, gesturing toward the dress. “You’ve been using gems in your dresses?”
“Just yours,” Thayer replied without missing a beat.
Alira crossed her arms, trying to appear unimpressed. “Then you shouldn’t mind if I repurpose them.”
Thayer didn’t flinch. Instead, he moved closer to the gown and began tracing a light, admiring path along the sleek fabric.
“Ever since Veyla mentioned your dress, this is all I’ve been able to imagine you in.” He said.
Alira grimaced. “I’d rather you not imagine me in anything at all.” The words left her too fast.
The silence that followed was immediate and deeply unfortunate.
Alira winced. “No – that’s not – I mean – “ She dragged both hands down her face and let out a longed defeated sigh. “Don’t imagine me. At all.”
Ashes to Veyla.
Because of her, Alira was thrown into this emotional wreck that could have otherwise been avoided. But also because of Veyla, Alira might have the most beautiful dress at the Furnace Festival.
He watched her for a beat too long before finally turning away with a crooked smile and heavy-lidded eyes.
“Of course.”
Swiping a neatly coiled loc from his face, he gathered two black boxes with silver emblems enlarged on the front and set them on the table between them. He began undressing the mannequins and carefully folded the fabrics in the boxes.
He stole glances at Alira, who stood awkwardly in the doorway. All she wanted was to put her mask back on and blend back into the crowd of people.
He laid two stems of lavender atop each dress before placing the cover on and stepping toward her. He stopped just inches away, the weight of the boxes between them.
“Since you’re so concerned about the cost of gems,” Thayer said, his voice dropping low, “consider it a wedding present.”
Heat overwhelmed Alira’s face, so hot, her cheeks burned. She clamped her teeth together to keep her mouth from falling open.
How could Veyla mention something so… sensitive to Thayer? And then another question, even more alarming, sounded in her mind. When did Veyla mention something so… new?
Unless… he already knew. Unless he was the one.
No. It couldn’t be.
Thayer was a scoundrel, but he wouldn’t have played her hand in this way.
Would he?
Still, Alira would rather marry this scoundrel than a stranger.
She reached out and took the boxes, her fingers accidentally brushing against Thayer’s. She gripped the cardboard tight enough to dent it. She forced her expression to remain indifferent.
“How generous,” Alira bit out, her voice tight.
She spun on her heel before he could say another word, her mind already rehearsing every word she was going to have with Veyla.
Her boots slipped on the soot-stained street. The boxes fumbled out of her fingers and plummeted to the pavement. Part of Veyla’s dress slipped out, the soot staining the shiny fabric.
Alira quickly gathered the garment back in the box before adjusting her respirator. The ties loosed when she stumbled, sending sour air to her lungs. She tried to hold her breath, but choked as her throat tightened.
No one paid her a glance. Not the diggers walking home from the mines nor the burners who motioned their jeers at her. To them, she was just another body in the gray. Another pair of lungs coughing up ash. No one worth stopping for.
Alira swallowed hard against the burn in her throat. She tightened the straps and forced her next breath through the filter. Better. Not clean. Never clean. But survivable.
A burner leaned against a wall ahead, laughing under his breath as he watched her struggle.
“Wouldn’t want to ruin those pretty things.” He called out.
Her fingers curled around the boxes as she picked them back up. She considered snapping back, but instead, she adjusted her grip and kept walking.
The buildings thinned as she neared the jagged scar carved into the eastern mountainside. The city didn’t end so much as it surrendered. The road narrowed until the black mouth of the cavern filled the end of it, dark and waiting.
Her heart beat faster with each step toward The Scrape. Toward Veyla. Toward dragons.
She rolled the High Crown’s words over her tongue like a prayer.
Chained. Controlled. Compliant.
The High Crown wouldn’t lie. His word was the bedrock of the city. If he said the monsters were contained, then the fear rising in her throat was nothing more than an error in judgment. To doubt the High Crown was to doubt the very ground beneath her feet.
She passed a massive rusted drainage grate, where runoff from the wards pooled in dark viscous puddles. The smell was sharp even through the respirator. Burnt metal and wet ash.
A sudden sound made her flinch. A low, dragging scrape. Scales against stone.
She had arrived.
The black maw of The Scrape loomed before her, ready to devour. Growls escaped like the rumbling stomach of a hungry predator.
She should turn back. She still had work waiting. Still had orders to finish before the Festival. Those things were safer than this. Safer than the place where dragons were mended enough to scrape by with a few more years of labor.
Chained. Controlled. Compliant.
She was safe. That’s what they assured.
She pulled the boxes tight against her chest, using them as a flimsy cardboard shield as she crept through the entrance.
Torches did a poor job at lighting the space. Her eyes adjusted slowly. The sound of heavy iron chains dragging over stone pulled her attention to the far left corner.
Laced in chains as thick as her waist, lay a dragon.
Not the charred black or sickly gray she expected, but white. It’s wings were lined in shimmering gold, and its scales had the translucent, milky depth of fine quartz.
Alira stared, breathless. A hot, bitter lump rose in her throat. It was a beautiful, haunting thing – and she hated it for that. She wanted it to look like a murderer. She wanted it to look like the thing that had turned her father’s laugh into a memory and his workshop into a tomb.
How can something that leaves so much ash look so much like light?
Its sides rose in slow, shallow breaths. Its eyelids drooped, as if even the effort of keeping them open was too much.
A shadow peeled out of the dark corner. A man.
He wasn’t from Graal; Alira was certain of that. He lacked the slumped shoulders and heavy booted footfalls of of the local men. He wore a respirator and gripped a soft glowing chain in his hand. Enchanted. The dragon was leashed to him.
He moved with a terrifying lack of fear, stepping right into the dragon’s reach and resting a hand against the side of its long, slender neck.
Alira’s pulse spiked. She waited for the snap of jaws or the spray of red, but the beast only shivered under his touch.
Chained. Controlled. Compliant. The High Crown hadn’t lied. The monster was broken.
Veyla appeared then, her golden braid hung over her shoulder. She carried a bucket with a cloth draped over the edge and a syringe the size of her forearm. She didn’t hesitate as she entered the cage. Alira’s sister didn’t look like a girl mending a monster, but instead, tending to something fragile.
Veyla dipped the cloth, wrung it once, then reached beneath the dragon’s wing. Veyla worked quickly, exposing a tender patch of skin and driving the syringe in without pause.
The creature tensed, a ripple of muscle sliding under quartz scales. But the man whispered to it, his hand never leaving the creature’s neck. Slowly, the dragon slumped.
Alira’s chest tightened, something unfamiliar and uncomfortable curling beneath her ribs. She found herself watching the dragon’s flank, waiting, her own lungs frozen.
Breathe, she pleaded silently. Please.
When the dragon finally took a long, shuddering breath, Alira exhaled with it, stunned by her own compassion.
Veyla and the man exchanged quiet words, muffled by the cavern’s appetite for sound. When Veyla eventually turned to head deeper into The Scrape, leaving the man alone with his sleeping captive, Alira didn’t follow.
She should go. But she didn’t want to forget this beautiful dragon or this moment. The fear was still there, but the hate had found a crack.
The puzzling stone came to her mind, glimmering its many colors.
She found her inspiration.
Dragon divider: https://www.clipartmax.com/middle/m2H7d3N4Z5A0A0A0_dragons-divider-zps4f32a6fe-fantasy-divider/