Eight Years Later

It had been years since Miri spoke to him. She existed in his periphery still, taking care of the girl. They had drawn a few trusted servants into their circle. They who knew the girl’s secret knew to keep it. Bartholomew had placed a hex on each of them, the magic to activate if they spoke to anyone about the child’s nature.

Bartholomew watched as the maid tucked the girl into bed, settling into the armchair by the bed to narrate a bedtime story. The girl was mature for her age. It was impossible for her to be completely a child, not with the regular transformations she underwent. She turned into a beast often. More and more, it was under her control, but not always.

She had never hurt anyone, but Bartholomew knew it was only a matter of time. Dragons were by nature destructive creatures. Fire was in their blood and bones. To not burn things, to not turn things into ash, it would against their very nature. The little girl looked normal from the outside. To a stranger’s eyes, she was just the manifestation of the wizard’s mercy. She was just an unfortunate soul, an orphan out of thousands of others who had lucked into living under the wizard’s care.

It did not matter that the little girl was intelligent or well-spoken. It did not matter that she never threw a fit or a tantrum. Such virtues would have been praised if she was a young noble, or even of wealth. But her future was a blank slate. The extent of where she went in the world would be decided by the wizard, and whole city knew of his fickleness.

Bartholomew was not normally well-versed in dealing with people or their perceptions. Such things had never mattered before. Everyone knew he was loyal to the royal family, and so they did not question his eccentricities. But with the girl… with the girl he had to be careful. The girl was a treasonous act. If she grew to be a valuable weapon, the royal family would reward him for his efforts. But if she lost control, or if he lost control of her as she and her power grew, he would be the one solely to blame for the destruction that would no doubt follow.

It was a balancing act, taking enough care of the little girl so she knew who she should be grateful towards, and abstaining from showing affection and letting the rest of the world think he held a soft spot for the child. If his plan failed, feigning ignorance of the girl’s powers might be his one path to survival.

Miri, somehow, could see all of his actions. She hated him all the more for it and avoided him. He missed the old woman’s chatter. Now, his laboratory was far too quiet. He thought he worked better in silence, that her visits were interruptions, but his thoughts were louder than her prattling on. The girl rarely came to visit him too, preferring to remain in the servants’ quarters and the kitchens most of the time.

When she transformed, Miri stopped by his laboratory for his numbing potion, to lessen the pain of her changing body. There was another knock at the door, and Bartholomew got up to answer it. Before he could, Miri opened the doors and barged inside.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“You need to come to Della’s room!”

Bartholomew hesitated. He was in the middle of an experiment, and loathe to leave.

“Now!”

He placed the vials of potions down and rushed outside with her. Miri was not light on her feet anymore, but she rushed through the corridors down to the kitchen like a small storm. The servants in their path cleared the way for him, until they finally reached the kitchens. The massive room was empty. It wasn’t a place Bartholomew frequented, but he knew that for the servants, it was the center of activity. A place responsible for the food of hundreds of people could not be still. Yet it was.

“I’ve shoved everyone out claiming I saw a demon, but they’ll come back eventually.”

“Is there a demon?” Bartholomew asked.

Miri shook her head. She only pointed to the blazing hearth, and the little dragonlet bathing in the flames.

“How long has she been like this?” he asked.

“Only for a few minutes at the most,” Miri said.

Bartholomew began the spell to transport all of them to his private quarters. It would be safer there.

“Transport the fire as well,” the dragonlet said, but it was the girl’s voice. Not entirely. The voice was like two threads woven together. It was the little girl, but it was something else as well. Infinitely older, and far less innocent.

Bartholomew hurried his spell, and they were in his sitting room in the blink of an eye. The dragonlet spread out her limbs and chirped.

“This room is better. Less drafty,” she said.

“Watch over the girl until she changes back,” Bartholomew told Miri. He had work to get back to, and it seemed the girl was gaining more control of her power.

“How long can I stay this way?” the girl asked.

Bartholomew paused. “You’re choosing to remain in your dragon form?”

“Yes. We’ve come to an understanding.”

“Change back,” Bartholomew said. “Please.”

The request was an afterthought, but even a dragonlet was a being to be treated with caution.

In a burst of blue fire, the dragon disappeared. The girl remained. She still sat in the middle of the fire from the kitchen, while her clothing caught fire. Bartholomew snapped his fingers, and the fire extinguished itself. His room was filled with the smell of smoke, but that could be fixed later.

“I spoke to her,” the girl said. “We’re friends now. She just felt trapped before.”

“Who did?”

“Netta,” she said. “That’s her name. Or the closest thing to it that people can say.”

“She’s speaking to you?” Bartholomew asked. “Since when?”

The girl didn’t answer him immediately. Bartholomew could tell there was another conversation going on inside her head. Another voice warning her to be careful with what she divulged.

“Recently,” the girl said. “She’s been telling me about her life before.”

“And you’ve been listening to it?” Miri asked. She made a sign of prayer as she looked at the girl. It was easy for Miri to forget that the little girl was anything more than a little girl. To Miri, it must have seemed like the girl was speaking to a stranger.

“Before what?” Bartholomew asked, dreading the answer.

“She had her own life, before. She wasn’t tied to a person then. She was telling me about all the places she flew then. I never heard of any of them.”

Kingdoms were different thousands of years before, and the boundaries of countries meant nothing to dragons either way.

“Be careful with what she tells you,” Bartholomew told the girl. She was young and easily impressionable.

“That’s funny,” the little girl said. “She said the same thing about you.”