Coris was awakened by the combination of asphyxiation and an impending sneeze. A smothering weight flattened his lungs. A soft, warm breeze blew into his nostrils, bringing with it the scent of butter and sugar.
He opened his eyes and nearly propelled his head into the headboard—a pair of glowing green eyes, an inch away from his nose.
"Argh!" Coris yelled.
"Eek!" Meya (for it obviously was she) shrieked as she backpedaled onto the bed. Coris sprang upright, then fell onto his pillow, pinching the bridge of his nose to steady his swimming brain. Once his world stood still, he glowered at the idiot lass,
"What in the three lands were you doing? Trying to suffocate me?" He snapped. Meya cowered, fretting with her hands as she squeaked,
"I'm so sorry, milord. I can't help meself. The beetle..."
"Beetle?"
Meya lunged at his head. With swift, light fingers, she plucked something clinging to his fringe and held it up for him to see.
A tiny, emerald green ladybug with large, shiny golden spots squirmed feebly with its minuscule red legs and antenna on Meya's thumb, pinned down by her forefinger. Assuming he had taken a good enough look, she drew away and let the wee thing crawl free into her palm, cupping her hand over it to stop it from escaping too soon.
"He came in through the window then ended up on his back on the desk. I helped him upright, and he shot off again, but he couldn't find his way out." She prattled on absentmindedly, peering into her hand cave,
"He kept buzzing 'round the room until he landed on your head. Maybe because your hair smells of flowers?"
She turned to him with her glowing green eyes. Coris had been just as mesmerized watching the lass as she'd been watching the bug. Gathering himself, he caressed his hair,
"Possible. I use Hadrian Rose oil on it." He shrugged, seemingly unfettered. Meya blinked, then rolled her eyes,
"Dun you Hadrian folk have any other flowers apart from the Hadrian Rose, milord?" She edged off the bed. Coris sat up, watching as she strode to the window,
"We do. It's just that Mother insist I massage my scalp with it because she's convinced I'm getting prematurely bald."
Meya spun around. Behind her, the ladybug buzzed from her outstretched hands into the sunny spring day. Her eyes traveled to his pillow, where long strands of brown hair lay brittle and lifeless.
"Well, you do shed a lot of hair."
Coris's eyes narrowed, his cheeks tinged with self-conscious pink. Realizing her misstep, Meya swiped some parchment from the desk, then scurried back to her balding fake husband,
"I reckon you just have to eat more, milord. Why, you look like you've just been through a famine."
She knelt beside the bed and smoothed the contracts on the sheets. Moody and silent, Coris slapped the bed for her to clamber up. Meya obliged,
"Your hair needs more food. Fyr, every part of your body needs more food."
Meya's eyes pooled at the region below Coris's midriff. She stifled a laugh with much difficulty,
"Well, almost every."
Coris said nothing. Meya sneaked a glance. Grinning and shaking his head, he turned to the two copies of the contract. Meya looked glumly at her signature at the bottom. Next to Coris's impeccable, ornate print, hers was a puppy's doodle.
"If 'tis too hideous, I'll rub it off and do it over."
Coris met her gaze, then shook his head again,
"Meya, your true name is difficult even for clerks, yet you spelled it correctly in one night, with no prior education. You should be proud. You haven't yet met Penis Hadrian, aged three."
Coris picked up the contracts and examined them. Meya blinked, then fell to a heap of hysterical laughter. Coris chuckled along,
"My fault entirely. Should've known better than to trust Klythe Crosset to teach me my letters."
Meya hiccupped to a halt at that name the Hadrians so often mentioned. She eyed Coris warily. He was still scanning the contract as if for loopholes.
"You're close with Sir Klythe, Lord Coris?" She asked softly.
Coris turned around, and his grin faded. His eyes wandered, lost in tragic remembrance.
"He'd been living with us for as long as I can remember," He fidgeted with the parchment, "He was my father's squire, Simon and Chris's mentor."
"Your mother said he disappeared not long after The Axel Heist?" Meya leaned closer. Coris nodded. "What happened?"
Coris bit his lips. His fingers tightened and twitched on the parchment, sending small creases spreading like cracks on glass,
"I was sick in bed, trying to cough up The Axel that wasn't in my stomach."
His voice was heavy, void of emotion. His haunted eyes stared unseeing. Meya squeezed his arm. He rested his hand on her arm in return, swallowing hard,
"The last time I saw him was when he visited me, the day before Agnes died. The last time everyone else ever saw him, he was by Father's side, when Father sent him away on an errand."
"Soon after, a fire broke out in Agnes's rooms. They found Persephia there surrounded by flames and naked, unconscious but unharmed. Not a single burn. Agnes was nowhere to be found, dead or alive. When Persephia came to, she couldn't remember anything that had happened."
Coris's eyes bored into hers, piercing, foreboding. Meya blinked, then narrowed her eyes,
"You're thinking of Gillian? You think the Graye girls had a row, Persephia flew into a rage, called out her dragon and burned her sister to ash?"
Coris simply stared, an insinuating, almost desperate look in his eyes. Meya shrugged,
"But why were they naked? Do dragons have an aversion to clothes, or a fetish for naked human riders? So you must strip down before you can call them in? Do I have to be naked to summon my dragon soulmate, too?"
Meya jabbed her thumbs at her chest, eyes bulging as she stared at him, incredulous. Coris avoided her eyes, falling silent as if in thought. Meya moved on with her argument,
"Or maybe, 'tis got nothing to do with Greeneyes. Persephia might like being nude in private, or she'd just gotten out of a bath. I know folks back home who died naked on the loo."
Meya shrugged, then continued more seriously,
"Sir Klythe served your father. He might have set fire to Agnes's rooms. That must have been the errand the Baron sent him to do. That's why he fled. That's why he disappeared."
Meya's lips twisted into a satisfied smirk. Once her excitement subsided, she registered Coris's silence. She turned and found the pain and sorrow in his eyes. Her savage grin slid off,
"Oh, Freda. I'm so sorry." She rushed to his side. Coris closed his eyes as he quelled his emotions. Finally, he sighed,
"A good strategist values unbiased opinion." He forced out his benign, melancholic smile, "Even if Klythe did it, I don't blame him. I don't blame Father. They did what was in their nature, their duty."
Meya bit her lips, scolding herself. She caressed the back of his icy hand with shaking fingertips. Coris didn't flinch nor bat aside her hand. He closed his eyes, exhausted,
"It was just as you said. I made a choice but I didn't think it through. I saved Zier but I killed Agnes, when I should've seen it coming."
"You. Didn't. Kill. Agnes." Meya insisted, frustrated, almost pleading, as she glowered at those lifeless eyes, her hand squeezing his,
"Your priority then was Zier so you forgot about Agnes. 'Twas just natural. 'Twas the Baron who miscalculated. He killed an innocent little girl. He was the one what should be sorry, not you!"
A teardrop welled at the corner of his eye. Meya slumped beside him, downcast. Her heart was in turmoil, but she was dismayed to find a knot of envy deep within her guilt and sympathy. Would Coris ever cry for her as he did for Zier and Agnes?
Sweeping it under the figurative rug, Meya heaved a sigh,
"Knew I shouldn't have brought this up. I'm so sorry, milord."
Coris rested his icy hand on hers. Meya jolted.
"You don't have to be, Meya. We're working together. Anything you'd like to know, ask away. The smallest clue could turn out to be crucial."
Meya surfaced to find his gentle smile. Coris bowed, his voice a whisper,
"And, thank you, what you said really helped."
A wave of warmth engulfed Meya, and she blushed hard. She nodded and retracted her hand, trying to calm her panicking heart. She went on in a rush,
"If Lady Agnes wasn't in on the heist but your father had her killed anyway, why didn't Baron Graye do nothing? He should've been outraged. He should've declared war."
Coris stretched his legs and leaned against his pillow, hands clasped on his lap,
"It's a common strategy in warfare, Meya, to exploit the weak link and destroy the enemy from within. Baron Graye chose Zier for that."
"After the Heist, I made sure Zier couldn't contact Graye. Graye couldn't have known what actually happened. Where The Axel was. Whether his and Zier's involvement was discovered yet. By whom."
"Then, Agnes died in a fire. Persephia became Father's hostage. When Father told Graye the fire was an accident, it was probably a test. A trap. Graye knew Father suspected him, so he didn't challenge it. He accepted defeat, kept up his cover, brought Persephia back safe and sound, and awaits the chance to strike again."
Coris smiled in satisfaction. A wave of awe and fear swept down Meya's spine. Fyr, he made it seem effortless deciphering what was going on in the ruthless brains of them big cheeses. She'd love to see Coris in Logic class. He'd definitely demolish everyone else in Heist.
Coris studied her, dithering, then reached for the bedside cabinet. Meya craned her neck to see. He extracted a bundle from the topmost drawer and laid it before her.
The purple silk handkerchief unraveled to reveal shards of what must have once been a charcoal-gray clay ball, dusted with fine, glinting black powder. Meya picked up a shard and turned it around. The powder was oily to the touch.
"While Gillian took you to the ransom drop, an intruder tried to kill me and search my bowels for the Axel." As Meya gawked in terror, Coris picked up a shard of clay, "She escaped using this smoke bomb, packed with black sand from the Graye River."
"Her eyes were dark green, like yours. She was a Greeneye. She used a Lattis bracelet to hide it. I felt it when I grabbed her wrist," He pointed to his wrist, raising his eyebrows at Meya, "Was she one of Gillian's?"
Meya found it hard to digest. There was another Greeneye who was after The Axel? What exactly was with this thingamabob small enough to be swallowed by a little boy? What could it do apart from protecting people from poison?
Meya churned her lips, dredging every detail of every bandit in Gillian's band from the depths of her memory. She shook her head,
"There weren't no women in Gillian's band. And them bandits used Lattis coins, not bracelets. Gillian made this for me."
Meya held up her Lattis coin. It gleamed rainbow in the late morning light and reflected in Coris's silvery eyes. He nodded,
"Thank you. I needed to be sure." He avoided her gaze, pensive. Meya narrowed her eyes,
"Of what?"
Unfortunately, Meya wouldn't get her closure—a shriek echoed from the other side of the door. She jumped as if bitten in the bum and rushed to the door, tying the Lattis coin around her neck. Coris shook his head with a sigh as he slid off the bed,
"Who'd think denial could blind even dragon eyes to the truth."
It was frustrating and perplexing. He'd thought a girl courageous and intelligent enough to rescue a hostage from a dozen grown men driven demented by hunger, to negotiate with a band of Nostran dragon mercenaries at swordpoint, would have no trouble uncovering the truth about herself and her dwindling kind and accepting it. He'd thought it wouldn't take much prodding for her to step up and save them.
But the possibility of herself being something magical, extraordinary, legendary and beautiful, something other than a nameless, faceless existence or a monstrous abomination, had never crossed Meya's mind.
He chided her for being too trusting. He should've realized the person Meya believed least in was herself.
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