Queen of Dragons

CHAPTER TWENTY

So here is the scene you missed, you delis:

The Princess hurried toward her escape. The glass doors were already ajar, because the fat elder dragon-man had already pushed through them—roughly, mind you; he had broken a fine brass latch to do so—and so they stood cracked, with a nick of cleaner air from the garden beyond pushing wet into the odors of the pump room.

The Princess was swift. Her slippers barely touched the floor. She moved like a dancer in ethereal gray past the slow and startled Others; the surest way to follow her was by the jet beads fringing her gown. They shone in black winking tears, and clinked and rustled and sang out with her every step.

That was how the other female dragon found her, and was able to take her by the hand. With that one single touch their minds fell into harmony. Together they flitted past the glass doors and became seamless with the night.

This other dragon was no princess. But she was yellow-haired and fair and born in a mansion of clouds and light; let us call her a Lady.

The Lady also winked with stones, mostly amethysts that moaned a curious song about lakes and caverns, and geodes breaking apart into sparkles. About the Lady's neck was tied a velvet ribbon, and from it hung a pendant shaped as a heart. Embedded in the pendant were three shards of diamond, each one of them shining pale, evil blue.

The Princess looked at the Lady, and the Lady looked at the Princess. The rain fell upon them in hard silver pins, biting at their skin.

The diamonds lifted and joined to weave a chorus of blinding noise; it was all the Princess could hear, and all she could fathom, until the Lady said:

"Go, Maricara, and forget me."

And the Princess did.