Ember fought back a yawn as he finished writing down the last
dragon’s name that Crystal would need to be hyper aware around. It was a long
list, but it just might save her life. Ember yawned again, he’d been on his
talons practically all day, and it was starting to get to him. Lifting one paw
upwards, he scratched at his neck, just below his chin. Digging his claws in
just a bit harder to try and stay awake Ember looked up at Crystal and said
“Alright, that’s everyone.”
Before she could fully read it though, Ember rolled the paper
into a small scroll. “I image you’ve had a long day, so I’ll take you to your
quarters on the floor below us. An escort will be sent in the morning, I’ll try
to make sure that its someone you can trust, but no guarantees. I’ll leave this
with you so you can read it, but I recommend you find someplace to keep it
hidden during the day.”
Crystal nodded sharply, the feathers along her once carefully
aligned wings rippling. “One last thing, nothing we’ve spoken about, and I mean
nothing, leaves this room. Is that understood.”
Crystal’s head moved with her rolling eyes, and she gave him
a brief nod, along with a roll of her left talon that he was fairly sure meant
‘of course.’
Leaning forwards, Embers talons quickly maneuvered the key
he’d placed beside him into the lock on Crystal’s chain. There were three locks
in total, one keeping it to the spike in the floor, one cutting the chain in
two, and one attaching it to the brace around her neck. The middle one was the
one he unlocked, and once they were separated, he set the key down, he had six
of them now, and said “Come on, your new chambers are this way.”
Crystal followed him without hesitation and kept her head
downwards as they left his room. There were no visible dragons in sight, but
with his parents’ room just down the hall, Ember decided not to correct her. No
telling who could walk out of there at any given second.
They made it to the stairwell without mishap, and Ember
muttered a quick “Watch your step.” Before he began to descend. Keeping his
wings pinned against his sides, Ember stayed silent during the trip downwards.
As they reached the
next floor down, Ember opened the door and led Crystal through the narrow hall.
This floor was a lot tighter than the one just above, with a narrow passageway
that led to about twenty doors.
All the floors between here and the ground level were like
this, filled with servants of the castle. Whenever they got full, roughly every
thirty years if there weren’t any mass releasing of servants, which there
hadn’t been in Ember’s lifetime, there was a purging to empty out the rooms by
killing the unfit to serve. That was yet another one of the traditions that
Ember hated. Probably even worse than the Silencing.
The Cleansing, as the purging was called, killed any who were
found being unfit to serve, and the reasons they gave for selecting the Ice
Dragons to kill were sometimes downright unfair. They tended not to choose from
those chosen in the past year, but if everyone else was behaving well, then they
might not have a choice but pick someone who struggled at their job, simply
because they weren’t used to it yet.
Shaking his head out of his thoughts, Ember knew it would do no good to worry about the Cleansing yet. It was still quite a few years away, by the time it arrived, he'd hopefully have found a way to call it off.
Crystal had been assigned a room on the left side of this
hall, seventeen doors down. Almost in the very back, which meant quite a bit of
dusty walking. Flicking the tips of his wings to shake off the dirt on them,
Ember sped up a bit to try and lessen his time in the darkness that seemed to
be folding around him.
Behind him, he could hear Crystal speed up was well, to avoid
being choked by her chain. Ember felt a brief stab of guilt, although he knew
it would appear proper to anyone watching. Daring a brief glance around what he
could see of the corridor, Ember realized that there were only a few Ice
dragons in the hall, and all of them were too busy entering their chambers or
leaving at a brisk pace to notice him.
The door to Crystal’s new chambers were in sight now, and the
doorway behind him was now practically invisible through all the dust and
whirling long-legged dragons. Reaching out with his free leg, Ember roughly
thrust the door open and stepped inside swiftly.
The room was much like the hallway they’d just left. Dark,
gloomy, and covered in a fine layer of dust. A few beams of light pierced the
shadow through a window on the far wall, and there was a small cot bolted to
the floor. A thin mattress was on the cot, as well as a blanket that would do
next to nothing to keep out the cold. Ember knew that Ice dragons were immune
to cold weather, but that didn’t stop the shiver that ran along his own wings.
There was a post in the center of the room, just like the one
back in Ember’s quarters. Quickly stepping up to it, Ember bit back a yelp as
his claws touched the frozen floor. The floor directly below this one was for
the servants who worked in the blacksmith, and since it was so hot there, Ember
knew from a secret visit that they completely iced over their rooms, to give
themselves relief in their off-hours.
Gritting his teeth as he walked across the ice cold ground, Ember snapped the chain together and finally dropped
the horrid metal snake and turned to Crystal. “These will be your quarters for
the first two years. After that you’ll be moved to a room with a larger bed,
since you should have reached your adult size by that time.” The ‘if you
survive’ was left unsaid, but by Crystal’s stillness, Ember knew she had heard
the message hidden in his words. Obey or Die. He didn’t like it, but it was the
way of the island.
“In the morning,
someone will come to unchain you and take you back to my quarters, after a few
days they’ll only unchain you, and in roughly seven or eight days you’ll be
released from the chain in this room only.” Ember finished, catching the way
Crystal was eying the post with disgust. “There’s nothing I can do to change
that. It’s the way things have been done for countless seasons, and everything
I’ve tried to make things easier on the Ice dragons in the castle has only
resulted in bloodshed.”
Crystal shot him a look. A look that, were he any other
dragon in the castle, or even any other Fire Dragon in general, would have resulted
in her losing her head. Then her wings splayed out to their full extent, and
her tail flicked from side to side, the feathers along the tip of the long
white-scaled limb fully flared as well. The meaning of the signal? Well it was
usually used by Ice dragon parents who were mad at their kids for doing
something that was bad. It roughly translated to ‘What in the name of the First
Dragons were you thinking, you absolute idiot?’
Ember snorted, a small puff of smoke escaping his muzzle.
Crystal’s eyes widened, and her wings instantly dropped. Before she could
signal an explanation, Ember lifted a paw and rolled it. “No worries,” he said,
voicing the sign’s meaning “Like I said, I want to help you. Just…maybe don’t give that sign to anyone else, all right?”
Crystal nodded quickly, although she was refusing to meet his
gaze. Ember sighed, and then took a step towards the door. Reflexively, Crystal
shied away, causing Ember to frown. But he had dropped a lot on her, more than
would be easily comprehensible in only an hour. Not to mention she’d likely
grown up learning that Fire Dragons were always to be respected.
“I’ll see you in the morning.” Ember said, nodding to her.
Crystal lowered her head and splayed her wings. Submission. Ember bit back another sigh and stepped back into the
hallway.
As he left, closing the door behind him, Ember thought he heard
skittering paws. But when he turned to look, the only Ice Dragons still in the
hallway were entering their rooms. Ember shook his head, flattening his ears
against his skull and then flicking them out again. He needed to get some
sleep, after all, now he was getting to the point of imagining things.
