Questions. There were so many questions.
"When did Saintess Anastasia die?"
Nayan was the one asking, which was fine, since Tish felt dizzy.
"Oh, it was a lifetime ago," answered the old woman. "None of the young folks he'le had seen he'l, leally. I myself was a young young lass when I fi'lst saw he'l. Neve'l in my life did I imagine I'd see not one but two Saintesses!"
She spoke so fondly that Tish's stomach rolled. Bile rose from the base of her throat, and she clutched a hand over her mouth to keep everything inside.
Nayan seemed to have forgotten Tish's existence. She was shouting, almost frantic. "I don't care about your sick little devotion to the Saintess! I care about when Saintess Anastasia died! When!"
The two women pressed themselves together, away from Nayan, as she stepped in front of Tish. When Tish looked up, she noticed the fine tremor running down Nayan's arms and back, as if she were barely holding herself back.
"Fifty! Maybe s-sixty yea'ls ago!" the old woman blurted out, eyes tearful.
Nayan was unmoved by their fear. "And what happened to the dragon companion after the Saintess died?"
"We hea'ld he died befo'le the Saintess," the younger woman squeaked out. "But ou'l people neve'l have seen his co'lpse."
Nayan audibly drew a sharp breath. "He died? A dragon... died?"
She finally looked at Tish. Tish stared back. She could practically see what Nayan was thinking, the very thing Tish herself was thinking.
The Sword of Mamon...
"...How?" Nayan asked.
"W-we don't know," the old woman stuttered out. "As fa'l as I lemembe'l, we saw two la'lge bi'lds in the sky, almost as la'lge as the d'lagon himself. So he went out of the village and flew into the sky to d'law them away f'lom the village and kill them. But he neve'l leturned. A week late'l, an info'lmant came, a fo'leign man, da'lk-skinned, tall, with black hai'l, and told the Saintess that Lud'la had passed away in the battle with the bi'lds. The Saintess was ve'ly sad."
"Wait," Tish finally spoke, her voice coming out raspy, as if she hadn't used it for ages instead of minutes. "You said... large birds?"
Nayan took a step back. "We need to leave." She grabbed Tish's wrist. "Come."
"No," Tish protested. "We need to understand what they mean—"
"You know exactly what they mean!" Nayan cried out. "You're hoping they're true!"
Tish looked up and found raw, undiluted fear in Nayan's eyes.
"Both of us know you want him dead." Tish couldn't protest. "And I understand that, I really do." Her grip tightened a little. "But I don't want that. Not like that, not by those gigantic birds."
Tish recalled the battle she had witnessed last night between Rudra and the bird-like creature, between fire and shadow. Rudra's fire had been bright enough to light up the night sky like a temporary sun. But that avian creature had looked lethal enough to swallow that sun.
And it had looked like Rudra was losing. Almost losing.
Tish had no doubt that, had there been two of them, he wouldn't have survived.
A part of her wondered if the Sword of Mamon was not a real sword at all but a creature, a beast like that, strong enough to brave a dragon's fire...
*Then they need not travel to Alaka to find the sword. The weapon itself had flown to their land!*
Tish would have rejoiced, if not for the fact that the woman in front of her looked absolutely wrecked. Eyes wild. The same woman who had carried Tish away from that family with quiet determination after she had lost her fingers now looked... shaken.
"We must leave," she insisted. "I know Rudra says he can leave you in a heartbeat, but I've known him long enough to know that he won't leave this place without you."
"But these people..."
"Do they matter so much? After everything horrible they did to Saintess Anastasia, and wouldn't mind doing to you?" Nayan snapped. Her words struck Tish like a slap. Because they were probably true.
"Oh please, Rudra is no saint himself." Tish's anger rose, unreasonable and familiar, as it always was when it came to Rudra. "He burned down the walls! Scared me to death!"
"Not this again! We've all heard that a hundred times!" Nayan scoffed.
Tish stared. Baffled. For a second she was quiet, and then the anger returned tenfold. "Does that make my own suffering so little just because I've spoken about it so many times?"
"I didn't mean—"
"I jumped! Off the damn castle!" Tish snapped, eyes going blurry. She could feel her hair starting to float, like it always did whenever she was angry. "He chased me until I had to jump off a cliff! And even then he did not leave me! He chased me down! He jumped to make sure I didn't escape! What kind of monster chases its victim even in death?"
"Come on, you know you wouldn't have died!" Nayan laughed dryly. She laughed.
"I was scared!" Tish was just screaming now.
"So was he!" the Parthan General screamed back. "That's why he jumped!"
Tish stopped. The rest of her sentence dried up in her throat.
"His mother jumped from the same place and died!" Nayan continued.
What.
But Nayan wasn't stopping. She ran her fingers through her silken hair, frustrated. "He didn't jump to chase you. He jumped to make sure that the same thing that happened to his mother didn't happen to you!"
Tish blinked. "You are lying—"
"If he only wanted to chase and catch you, he could have waited until you were nearly at the ground, turned into a dragon and plucked you back to his quarters!" Nayan rolled her eyes so hard the irises disappeared into the whites, as if the whole thing were a small matter. "He didn't even transform mid-fall, lest you get burned by the heat released whenever he shifts between human and dragon! He twisted in the air so that he hit the ground first, and you landed on top of him. Shia was in the castle that day. She told me about the marks she saw on him afterward. Rudra walked with a limp for almost a month. If he had transformed, he could have avoided that. But he didn't, because he didn't want to burn you."
Tish squinted, trying to think very hard. She still vividly recalled the primal fear she had felt that day when Rudra had chased her from his quarters all the way to the door that opened onto nothing and everything, a doorway that had no landing or stairs. Just a steep drop and open sky. A doorway better suited to winged creatures like dragons.
She remembered standing at the edge, feeling the cold air.
"TISH, YOU SELFISH, UNGRATEFUL LITTLE BITCH!"
She recalled the way Rudra's voice had vibrated inside her very bones as he called to her from behind, conjuring the most reckless fear in her.
She didn't remember much about the fall, though. Just that she had found herself alone for a second, hurtling toward the ground like everything without wings did, and the next second she had found herself caged within Rudra's iron arms.
But it was true that he hadn't transformed midway. He could have. But he didn't.
Her face must have shown something. Tish didn't know what, but Nayan's face softened. "Do you understand now?" she whispered. "He didn't chase you to scare you. He did it to protect you!"
Tish wanted to say she understood. Wanted to say she didn't, not quite. But she swallowed her words as she looked behind Nayan.
The shouting had drawn the Dragon Prince inside. He loomed behind Nayan, looking like a dark god who had walked out of hell to collect a fleeing soul.
The worst part was that he didn't even look angry. He looked... focused.
Tish didn't know how much of the argument he had heard, but with his draconic hearing, he must have heard enough. She almost felt pity for the Parthan General. Almost.
Before Tish could warn Nayan, Rudra placed a hand on Nayan's shoulder. She turned. "Oh, fu—"
Rudra grabbed her arm and the side of her waist and lifted her with far too little trouble. Then he flipped her. Nayan landed on her back with a loud thud.
"And that," breathed the Dragon Prince, "is for meddling in my business."