The first in what will hopefully become a series of stand alone stories that relate to one another. Based in Tizayne, a different world; no, these guys aren’t human.

Admitting Truth

Mother Aury, head of the family Fawnshawe, made no effort to disguise her dislike of Kluar, but she was neither powerful enough nor stupid enough to deny him when he asked to attend her feast. She knew why he had come, and hoped he would take it quickly and leave.

Kluar found Yash in the alchemy room, mixing toxins, and didn’t wait to be acknowledged.

“Where is he?’ the prince demanded. “I’ve looked for two hours and will not be kept waiting any longer.”

The old Aiko blinked slow, hazy eyes at his son, a beaker in both thin hands. “Where…? Oh, you mean the child. Yes, well,” he muttered, sullenly, “I can’t know where he is all the time, can I? He’s not a hatchling, to be looked after—”

“Where is he? If you don’t tell me now—”

“Captain,” a soldier snapped, just outside the door, and Kluar turned stormy eyes on him in a fury.

“Report!”

“The Intelligence Commander requests your presence, Captain, at the guest tower. She says it’s about your brother.” The soldier looked ready to flinch away from his commander, but Kluar ignored him as he stalked out of the room and launched himself skyward in a flurry of scales and rage. Huge flaps of his wings took him up and up.

“Salem!” he yelled, landing at the top of the guest tower. “Salem, don’t touch him, or I’ll have out your eyes, I swear it—”

Two brown Aiko stared at him, exactly the same in every way, down the slant of their headspikes and the tone of their scales. Kluar froze, and watched the way that both Salems tilted their heads at him in mocking question.

“Salem…?” he questioned, unsure of what he was seeing. This was an unusually perfect copy.

“Isn’t he amazing?” the Salem on the left asked. “Less than thirty seconds and the likeness was exact. He can copy my mannerisms fairly well now.”

The Salem on the right smiled the same cold calculating smile the other Salem wore, and began to blur and shift, growing taller and broader and darker.

“Joy of the skies, prince!” Abdal exclaimed, his steel gray scales reflecting and glimmering with a light that wasn’t there, and his eyes, black and red and gray, slanted and deep enough to hypnotize. “I’m been practicing.”

“He’s wasted in the Guard, Kluar. Let Berwen have him, or let me. Think of what we could to with talent like his.”

Kluar paced into the room, talons rap-tapping on the stone floor, gouging rivets in his irritation. “No, and definitely no. Why did you bring him here?” Kluar snapped, resentment fueled by his confusion and anxiety.

Not oblivious to the anger between the two commanders, Abdal seemed to shrink into himself, noticeably shifting in size. Kluar stopped, uncertain, and Salem placed a sharp hand on the young Aiko’s shoulder, whether to reassure or restrain, Kluar couldn’t tell.

“He’s my brother as well, Captain; your rights are not exclusive. Why should Jemni not hear my case?” Salem demanded, her tone not changing and her posture rigid, indignant.

“This is ridiculous and you know it. Leave him alone.”

There was something between them, words that had not been spoken, and Kluar had already decided he would not be the one to say them. Salem could threaten and wheedle and connive as much as she liked, but he would not budge, nor give her the victory she was digging for, gouging at his pride and composure with her barbs. It stung, but he would keep his mouth shut.

“Leave, Abdal; the feast has started.” Salem’s thin hand still rested on his shoulder; he hesitated, not looking at either of his siblings but starting at the floor. “Go!”

He jumped and shifted as though to move, and the small commander’s claw tightened perceptibly. Blood rose from under her talons and Abdal writhed away, but only a little, held in place by fear. He made a thin noise in the back of his throat, and his wide eyes met Kluar’s.

The prince growled and would have flow at his sister in a rage, but her razor fingers by Abdal’s face gave him pause. “Leave him alone!”

“Why?” she asked, but she wasn’t responding to his demand. “Why do your priorities take precedence over mine? Why do you deserve him more? Answer me, or he loses his eye,” she tapped Abdal’s left temple, and he flinched, “before you can move a foot.”

This was not a bluff, and the promise was not random; she was mocking the threat he Kluar had screamed to her just minutes before. His teeth clenched, his spikes tightening to his head and the tip of his tail lashing from side to side. He thought of nothing but the imagined head and slickness of his sister’s blood on his scales.

“Speak, Captain!” Salem commanded, her voice like the crack of a whip. “I won’t wait forever.”

He took orders from few, and tolerated little disrespect. But her talon was a hairsbreadth away from his brother’s eye, and his fury was impotent. Those words that he would not say were trying to force themselves from his throat, crowding and aching. Blood dribbled down Abdal’s chest from the wholes in his shoulder, but he didn’t twitch. Kluar cursed him for not leaving. “Stop this.”

“Say it.”

“Stop!”

Salem sighed, as though at a child’s silly stubbornness. “Very well,” she intoned, emotionlessly, and raked her claws down Abdal’s face in one swift movement, from temple to chin, cutting deep. The child shrieked and tried to twist away, but even the pain couldn’t break his fear or her grip. Kluar took a lunging step forward before her talons touched Abdal’s eyelid again. “This is my last warning to you, Kluar,” she snarled, finally angry, her hands bloody. “Tell me now.”

“Because—” he started, but couldn’t choke out the words that his sister would kill to hear him admit. She was not satisfied, and he felt with every drop of crimson that dropped to the floor that he had lost. “Because…”

“One last chance.”

He could have killed her then, plunged his hands into her body and ripped out gushing entrails, but he spoke the words instead. “Because you don’t care about him. He’s your brother only in name, just as I am. You and Berwen would see him dead if it furthered your own ends.” His voice remained monotonous and he never looked away from the commander’s face. “If I can keep him beside me, maybe I can keep him from harm.”

The blood still flowed easily, but with the admission Kluar felt himself empty and cold. The rage was gone, now, as Salem pulled her claws out of Abdal’s shoulder and away from his face.

“Go,” she told him, and without looking at either of them the boy fled, running past Kluar and flapping awkwardly out the window. “You can keep him, Captain; though I think you will waste his considerable talent. Just remember: “False hopes are treason against the scriptures and your own heart”. The Royal Guard will not protect him.”

With one last smile that might have been kind on a softer face, she left him alone to his thoughts. As darkness fell, he left the guest tower and flew to the main hall. Someone had bandaged Abdal’s face, and the boy hesitated only a moment before smiling up at the prince. Kluar didn’t see Salem that night at the feast, and he didn’t expect to. The next day, boy and brother were gone.