Assassin's Blade

Apologies and regrets

Fia stormed up the narrow, dark staircase to the aerie, wishing she could have left both of her gloves in Carmelo's father's face.

She burst through the door to the roof, and it banged against the wall.

"Fia!" her father said behind her.

She was striding across the roof to her dragon. Ryelleth had startled at the loud bang, her wings half open, teeth showing, eyes wide.

"Ryelleth, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Fia grabbed her soft sheepskin and flung it over the dragon's back so hard that the dragon flinched.

"You apologize to a dragon? You need to apologize to me," Papa said behind her, his voice vibrant with anger.

"What for?" Fia snapped. "For giving up my best friend as my bridal-price? For being threatened with a rawhide strap by some dirty, stinking—"

"I have four other daughters I need to marry off," her father said, his face turning red. "Must I use all my money to marry off the first two and then send the rest to the nunnery because I can't afford to marry all of you to honest men?"

"Hey, here's an idea," Fia snapped, kneeling at her dragon's side to tighten the girth. "Maybe I shouldn't marry at all. Then I could use my dragon-work to pay for all of my sisters' dowries. This is not hard."

"This is not how things are done."

"That's how they've been done, up to now! You let me raise a dragon, you let me use her to ferry your friends, you let me go into business for myself! And all of a sudden you've decided that's not the way things are done?"

Fia yanked a girth strap hard. Ryelleth made a whining sound, turning her ponderous head around to look at Fia.

Fia exhaled gustily, loosening the strap. Under the strap was a bent scale, still attached to the dragon, of course. She smoothed the scale back, and this time buckled the girth more carefully.

She could see her father's frown from the corner of her eye. "I'd always considered you to be the sensible one, despite the fact that you essentially do the type of work a commoner does."

Fia, still kneeling, swept an open hand at Ryelleth. "You were the one who gave me this dragon."

"I didn't expect you to keep her. Only rehabilitate her."

"I keep her honestly, and have never had to ask you for money," Fia said. "I thought that might be something you could be proud of."

"I live in a city that's been torn by warfare since I was a child. It's not the way I want the world. But it's the world I'm forced to live in."

Fia rolled her eyes. "The world you're forced to live in. Yeah, yeah. You can work in any profession you want," she said, standing up and dusting off her gloves. "If I were a man as you are, I could keep my profession and my dragon. But because I'm a woman, I'm about to lose both, and also get whipped by my future father-in-law, because how dare I feel angry about this!"

Papa's voice grew steely. "I did my level best to find a match that is congenial for you, while being of advantage to both our families."

"Oh, that fixes everything. My being whipped by some pus-licking hog sounds really advantageous—"

"That's enough!" Her father's roar stunned her into silence. "It's not all about you. It's about making certain that our family has allies so we can survive this city's infighting!"

"You call that piece of pus an ally?" Fia grumbled.

"Yes. We need this alliance to protect our family in case the exiles try and come back, or in case things turn out badly after the peace talks. I don't have the backing of the holy Church. They aren't happy that I married a follower of Islam. And if they decide to do an inquisition, I'm doomed, and likely, our whole family will be, too."