Given Read online

  “Have a seat, Weysh,” she said as she worked. “Sylvie, my heart, leave us be for a moment. I’m sure you have studying to do.”

  “That’s not fair!” Sylvie cried. “I’m part of this family, too, Maman. Stop keeping secrets from me.”

  “Sylvie!” she snapped, and then closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. “This is not about keeping secrets. This will be hard enough for me as it is.”

  Weysh squinted at his mother. Something was wrong. It was rare that she let her mask of propriety slip, even with him. Perhaps especially with him.

  “Go, Sylvie,” he said softly. “We’ll catch up later, en?”

  “All right,” she said uncertainly, finally reading the mood in the room. She slipped out, closing the door behind her. Weysh’s mother folded herself gracefully into the armchair across from him, without even offering him cake or biscuits or coffee. She truly must have been distraught.

  She rubbed her temple and let out a bitter chuckle through her nose. “She’s too young,” she said. “Too young to be burdened with all of this. Perhaps you are, too, but you seem to have met the woman you want to marry”—she sighed—“and marriage is no easy thing.”

  “I’m twenty, Maman, I’m a man grown.” Weysh forced a firmness into his voice that he didn’t feel.

  “And was it a man grown who attacked Montpierre last week? Were those the actions of a man grown, Weysh?”

  Weysh cringed. “I’m sorry, Maman.”

  “Then be quiet and listen.”

  A cold, unsettling feeling tingled down Weysh’s spine. Something seemed strange and off about his maman. Grave, and yet more real. Perhaps as real as she had ever been with him. The air about them loomed heavy and ominous, and Weysh could sense that the thing, that dark, shadowy thing hidden under her charming laughs and her impeccable skills as a hostess and model wife, was dangerously close to the surface.

  “At first, I went to Guste willingly,” she began.

  Weysh’s insides went icy, as if he’d inhaled a frigid breath from the realm of demons at the edge of the world. Oh, Kindly Watcher, not this. He had never been good at hiding his emotions, and by the tight set of his mother’s mouth, he knew his dismay was plain on his face. He could have happily gone his whole life in ignorant bliss, unaware of the sordid details of his mother’s communion with Guste Pain.

  But another, morbid part of him wanted to know everything. What had she seen in him? What had he done to her? What was so horrible that she couldn’t quite bring herself to fully love their offspring, her own son?

  Him?

  “Montpierre was not a particularly rich man when we met,” she began. “But he was ambitious. He got along well with your grandfather, you know. Both of them are self-made men, cut from the same cloth. Montpierre had just started his window-outfitting business with an old school friend as his partner. Through his wheelings and dealings and constant searching for investors, he eventually crossed paths with Guste Pain.

  “Guste was charming and enthusiastic about the business, and as with most dragon families, his was quite wealthy. He gave Montpierre a modest initial investment, which helped his business take off. After that the two of them became fast friends, and he was always visiting with us. For a while the business went well, but the death of the emperor and the succession of his son had a negative effect on the Creshen economy, and Montpierre’s contracts dwindled. What’s worse is we were also preparing for our wedding at the time.

  “With the economy as it was, no one was willing to invest in a fledgling window company headed by an untested young businessman. Believe me, Montpierre tried. Guste was all we had—your grandpapa’s delivery business was not the thriving enterprise it is today, barely breaking even. An infusion of funds from Guste would allow Montpierre to keep his company going, weather the storm until things improved. And Guste knew this. So he came to me and said he would give Montpierre the money, if in return I gave him myself.”

  “No, Maman,” said Weysh, sounding as breathless as if he’d just flown across the ocean.

  “I did say no, at first. And then for two moonturns I watched Montpierre’s business fail, watched him become sunken, sallow, and irritable, and watched our plans for a future shrivel like kindling in a fire. Eventually Montpierre was able to suspend his pride long enough to ask Guste for a loan, but Guste refused, of course, and their friendship faded. Then one day Montpierre took me out on a romantic moonlit stroll by the castle moat and gardens, and told me we couldn’t be married.

  “He had nothing to offer me, he said. I told him he was overreacting, I loved him no matter what the circumstances may be. I told him I had faith in him. But Montpierre said that by the following week, at the end of the moonturn, his business would fold. He had no more money to pay the rent on his manufacturing workshop. He said he would not make me his wife until he could give me the life I deserved, and that I should find a man worthy of my beauty and kind soul.”

  She paused to wipe at two tears trailing down her cheeks. “So the next day I sought out Guste Pain.”

  Weysh let out a long exhale. “I see,” he said. It was a terrible situation, and his maman did the only thing she believed she could at the time.

  “Foolishly, I thought it would be a one-time thing,” she continued. “It was not. He gave Montpierre his loan, but he also said that if I didn’t continue with him he would tell Montpierre I had thrown myself at him. He even kept one of my underthings as his so-called proof.”

  Weysh shivered. Sometimes just knowing that psychopath’s blood ran through his veins made his skin crawl. “But, Maman, why didn’t you say something before he had the chance?”

  She laughed, the sound bitter. “Weysh, you lovely thing. Who would you expect people would have believed? The golden son of a wealthy dragon family or the wife of a fledging businessman? The half-Islander wife of a fledgling business man? Even after your birth, when it was clear Guste must have participated willingly, there were those who disbelieved me, who grumbled that I had somehow sought to entrap him. They said I should have been happy with the Creshen I’d already managed to catch, but I was a greedy harlot who’d hoped for bigger game.” Her eyes glistened with angry tears. “I thought it would never end. Even when I became pregnant it didn’t occur to me that it could be Guste’s.”

  Whether fact or folklore, it was thought to be practically impossible for a man who was dragonkind to impregnate any woman but his Given. Some scholars went so far as to say that dragonkind men could not impregnate anyone before they had found their Given, that her scent alone gave him that capability. Clearly, Weysh was proof of the contrary.

  “Some days I relish that your birth beat the odds. It forced everyone to finally see Guste for what he is. Other days I wonder why it had to be me.”

  Weysh’s heart sank. “I’m sorry, Maman.” His mouth twisted like he’d bitten into something sour. Every time she looked at him she saw the man who had kept her hostage. Every time Montpierre looked at him he saw his failure as a provider, the lengths to which he had driven the love of his life.

  “Oh, lovely, no,” she soothed. “It was my mistake. I was young and I believed—” She sighed. “My grandmother who raised me was never warm or kind, but she did drive home one piece of wisdom: a woman’s beauty is her power. Again and again, as she critiqued my posture, my complexion, my hair, and my smile. ‘A woman’s beauty is her power.’”

  “Do I look like him?”

  “There is a resemblance,” his mother said truthfully.

  “En? Even with my hair so long?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “The picture you showed me.” As a child of about six, Weysh had no real understanding of the nature of his parentage. He only knew Montpierre wasn’t his father. He had begged and pleaded for close to a year before his mother finally relented and showed him a portrait of Guste Pain in the newspaper.
In hindsight, that must have been an article about him being disgraced and disowned by his family—for a dragon, a sacred warrior of Byen, to commit any sort of crime was a menacing scare to polite society, much less something as terrible as adultery or rape.

  The man she’d shown him looked severe, with an aristocratic nose, a sharp and angular face, and Weysh’s violet eyes. He’d also worn his purple hair cut quite close to his head.

  “His hair was very short,” said Weysh, as if that explained everything. His mother got up from her chair and came over to him. She placed a delicate hand on his cheek, and smiled.

  “Oh, Weysh,” she said softly. “I’m your maman, lovely, and I can see what you’re thinking. I’m glad you were born, and not merely because your birth forced Guste Pain into the light. You’ve made your mistakes,” she said, stroking her thumb along the side of his face. “As have we all. I regret deeply my decision to succumb to Guste Pain, but I do not regret you, my heart. You are not Guste. You’re simply Weysh. My Weysh.”

  Relief spread through him like warm brandy at that, melting something icy and hard in the pit of his stomach that he hadn’t even realized was there. He stood and enveloped her in a squeezing hug.

  “I love you, Maman, always.”

  “And I you, lovely.” She didn’t attempt to pull away, but Weysh noticed her voice sounded a bit strained, so he let her go. She took his hands.

  “Leave Montpierre to me,” she said. “I think it would be best if you gave him some time to cool off before attempting to reconcile.”

  Reconcile was an optimistic word. How did one reconcile something that had never been in the first place? “Maman, what is it you see in him?”

  “Montpierre is not one to suffer fools,” she said, “but he has always been fiercely loyal to me, whether I deserved it or not. The Pain family wanted to take you away, ship you off somewhere you could be forgotten, wherever they sent Guste perhaps, but I wouldn’t allow it. You were, are, my child, and I would raise you as my own. And because it was vitally important to me, Montpierre adopted you, knowing full well that everything he is able to earn in this life will go to you as his first male heir.”

  “I don’t want it,” Weysh grumbled. “I plan to turn everything over to you and Sylvie. I can make my own fortune.”

  “Don’t be so quick to dismiss it,” she said a bit sharply. “Montpierre has toiled for years to build his business, and you will be starting a family of your own soon, will you not?”

  “I, well, that is . . . probably.”

  “Yes. So think long and hard before you cast aside everything Montpierre has worked so hard to provide us.”

  Us, she said, as if she truly believed Montpierre cared one rat shit about him. Still, he didn’t want to argue with her. “All right, Maman, I will,” he said.

  “And do bring your Given by soon. I’m very eager to meet her.”

  Weysh hesitated. That would take some time. First and foremost, he had to get Yenni to admit she was his Given. But to explain it all to his mother would be complicated, not to mention embarrassing.

  “All right, Maman, I will,” he said again.

  An aggressive summer wind whipped stray strands of Weysh’s hair from his braid back. He closed in on the bank of the River Noureer, which ran along the eastern side of the campus. Here the grass was charred and brown, and tall, metal poles stuck up from the ground. This was where Prevan held fire-breathing class, in which dragons worked on the longevity and accuracy of their flame.

  Weysh was early. His conversation with his mother the day before had put him in a mood, and even changed to dragon he’d been restless and unable to sleep. Spitting fire at targets for an hour or two would make for a good distraction. But as he approached the riverbank he saw a few of his classmates were early as well. They sat hunched on the river’s edge in human, their backs to him. One was a woman with shining green hair cut short—his classmate Feiy. And—he wanted to groan aloud—another woman with long green twin-tails, that rumor-monger Clairette. His classmate Sween, whose blue hair burst from his head in its usual mess, as though it was permanently windswept, sat between them. They couldn’t hear or smell him coming against the wind, if their topic of conversation was any indication.

  “. . . in West Castle West of all places. It makes us all look bad!” said Feiy.

  “Well, Weysh isn’t a bad sort, though,” said Sween.

  Feiy made a noise of disapproval. “No, I know but—well, you know, about his father. Either way, dragons shouldn’t be fighting in the streets like that.”

  Weysh stopped, letting the wind blow his scent downwind, and blow their words back to him.

  “Forget about Weysh,” said Clairette, waving a hand. “Wait until you hear what my cousin had to say about Luiz.”

  “Your cousin with the peacekeepers?” asked Sween.

  “Obviously, Sween. Who else would know about all this? He told me that back in Espanna, Luiz’s father was charged with adultery, and he was ministralto for the whole of the Church of the Sacred Vigil.”

  “No!” cried Feiy.

  “Yes! It was quite the fall from grace. And—oh, this is the saddest part—the shame of it was so great that his mother took her own life.”

  Weysh jerked back, stunned.

  “Oh, Watcher above!” cried Feiy. Sween shook his head.

  “Tragic, isn’t it? No wonder he left Espanna. That’s why he transferred to Prevan last year. Well, that and what I just told you, about . . .” Clairette had lowered her voice and Weysh couldn’t catch the last part of what she said.

  “I wonder why those two are so constantly at odds when they have such similar grim backgrounds,” mused Feiy.

  Weysh rubbed at his temples: not this again. No matter what he did, his father’s legacy plagued him. A classmate to whom he’d perhaps said five words to all year seemed to think she knew all about his background. Weysh was long used to the gossip and the whispers, but he never would have guessed that Noriago was subject to the same treatment, not with all the high and mighty airs he put on.

  Weysh marched up to his classmates. “Windy today, isn’t it?” Watching them startle was so incredibly satisfying. “It will make practice difficult,” he continued. “Everything is blowing back west, en?” He grinned and pointed the way he’d come.

  “Oh! Weysh! Hello!” said Feiy. Sween simply cringed, not even trying to hide the fact that they had been talking about him. Weysh nodded to Sween and ignored the others, making for the practice targets at the back of the building.

  “Well that was rude,” said Clairette.

  Weysh changed to dragon and made some circles around the training field, putting them from his mind and instead doing his best to judge how the wind would affect his shots.

  In due time Lieutenant Duval—Harth’s cousin on his mother’s side—took to the field. He was gangly and sallow, but in dragon could he ever control a flame. More of Weysh’s classmates joined them on the riverbank including, to Weysh’s shock, Noriago. Weysh was sure starting fights in the streets would have been grounds for expulsion.

  He wondered what connections Noriago had back home, or if it was simply that Prevan’s powers that be had decided they didn’t want to make a minor ripple into something more and cast negative attention on the school. Or perhaps Noriago was simply benefiting from being dragonkind. Whatever the reason, it looked like Weysh would be stuck with Noriago until the bitter end.

  Noriago, for his part, ignored Weysh all class, and Weysh didn’t feel much like talking to anyone. Thankfully there was no partnering in fire-breathing training. Lieutenant Duval had them sail over the targets one by one, blasting them with fire and critiquing their performance in front of the others. Weysh was glad to change to dragon and simply focus on the class, pushing himself to melt the metal poles as quickly and cleanly as possible. But after a time, when he was back on the riverbank watch
ing another of his classmates take their turn, someone settled in beside him.

  “Erm, sorry about earlier, Weysh,” said Sween.

  “It’s nothing new,” Weysh replied.

  “I told them you’re not a bad guy. But listen, Clairette told us some things about Noriago, things he did in Espanna. If they’re true, I’d stay clear of him, Weysh.”

  “En? Such as?”

  “Well, he already has a record. There was a house fire and a woman was badly burned and disfigured. Noriago was suspected in connection to it—largely because the woman was his father’s mistress. There was no proof he did it or anything, but it seems that’s the only reason he got off.”

  Weysh frowned; that was serious. And yet Noriago had been cleared. Weysh couldn’t believe he was about to advocate for Noriago of all people, but more than once in second school Weysh had been pinned with the blame for crimes he hadn’t committed—petty thefts, vandalism, starting fights when he was only defending himself—simply because he fit the profile of a criminal and the teachers and administration were too lazy to investigate further. And he certainly couldn’t have turned to Montpierre for help.

  “But if there was no proof that he did it, that’s that. Why are we talking about this?” asked Weysh, suddenly irritated.

  “It’s true there’s no proof but it’s suspicious. Just watch yourself with him, en?”

  “I’m not afraid of Noriago,” said Weysh, and turned back to the lesson, ending the conversation.

  Still, once class was over and Weysh saw Noriago trudging across the burned plain toward the spires of the campus proper, the sudden urge to confront the other dragon took him over. Weysh never was one to leave well enough alone, after all.

  “Noriago!” he called, and jogged up to him.

  Noriago put his head down and walked faster, his steps crunching on the dead grass. “Sweet Sienta Marin, what in all hells do you want, Nolan?”