10.1

Jewel let the flurries of snow and ice wash over her scales, soak her mane and fill her wings.

The howling rage of the blizzard that had descended on Kaeketeh as good a reason as any to finally get out of the halls that despite their size felt stifling. To stretch her every inch of wing and spine.

It wasn't a proper bath, closer to a chilly scrubbing. But in its own way the cold seemed to help sooth her muscles just the same as the heat had. The snow drifts on the opposite shore of the river would clear the accumulated dust, grime and other stains that caught in her individual hairs or along her scales.

It only took a quick tumbling roll in the fresh white piles.

The storms over Kaeketeh were different from Rochford. Winter seemed harsher here, the roar and howl of the winds off the mountains more constant now that the sun spent so much longer hidden away. The air moved in strange ways when the vault of heavens dipped in winter here.

So far from cliffs or hills, so far from one of the pillars which held it all aloft.

Winter and the heat sapping darkness of the sky felt closer.

Jewel wondered why.

Was it really the consumption and inhalation of the vital heat and fire from the sky into the hungry belly of the world? If she found an underway would this wind howl into the dark of the earth and draw out even more warmth from the air around her?

Or was it some order set out by the gods?

Not everyone performed the same rituals as Rochford.

Yet winter came and was dismissed.

Was each god required to push their own personal portion of the sky aloft and away? Were there lazy gods which did nothing of the sort and let their more powerful peers shoulder the burden of pushing back winter?

Jewel tilted her wings and barely even had to stretch her wake to be pushed aloft.

Wind lifting her up with a screaming torrential joy. Ice shattering against and dimpling her scales in the rush with delight and familiar touches.

It was so tempting to simply let herself ride that wind, float away into the storm. Fill herself so full of wyrmflame she became light as the clouds above and around her. Jewel was welcomed in the storm, the air, the very cold itself was a friend.

But she was not unwelcome in Kaeketeh either.

The nobles schemed and bartered and cowered from her. But the city?

Despite her best efforts, announcements and acts to instill in her vassals and liege that she did not order the death of Bathory, Kaeketeh had already made up its mind.

The Old Countess died.

The Hated Old Guard were cursed by Jewel.

And Kaeketeh loved her for it!

Their tales were that Jewel had destroyed the Countess and all would now be glorious and beautiful. They just needed to finish the work she had started and evict the waifs from their lives.

Nevermind it was the same hated guards turned waifs that murdered the countess.

Nevermind Jewel had the scrolls upon scrolls of court records and proceedings of common and noble law to prove most of the pain that Kaeketeh now suffered was coming from the people who shouted the loudest that it was all the waif’s fault.

No Jewel had apparently slain the Countess and destroyed the hated ‘bloody guard’ in the hearts of Kaeketeh.

Nothing she said would convince them otherwise.

She flexed her spine, dipping back into a dive, letting up on the lift of her wyrmflame subtly through her coils so that her head could lead in the rush. Flexing her wing fingers open to cut at the sleet of the storm, then clenching them closed so she could spiral tight and fast back towards the river.

The middlemosts portions of the vah were still open water, the current fast enough the ice had not had time to creep over it. But supposedly by the longest night the ice would seal over.

Before spring thaw the Vah would be solid enough that a fair could be held in the middle of it.

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In fact the city was planning on it!

Jewel was still trying to grapple with the reality of the river. She had been visiting for years but apparently there was much more she needed to learn about the ‘life blood of Viznove’.

In Rochford a different collection of streams flowed north among the valleys, finishing with a slow sinking beneath into an underway and from there to the far colder northlands, where an even shallower and more turbulent vault made the winters of Rochford and Kaeketeh feel like summer days.

Or so travelers and questing Knights claimed.

Jewel was starting to wonder if perhaps those were merely embellishments about the truth.

Surely there were not entire realms where simply breathing with an uncovered face at night could slay a man dead and freeze him from the inside out?

But then Sorcery and Divinity were strange.

The wyrm filled her coils out in flame again, leveled out and splayed her wings wide, tilting the trailing edges to angle and scoop the rushing wind, snow and tinkling ice. Extending a wake from the tense skin of her membrane that further caught and filled with rushing air. Pressing smooth and slick.

Almost like she was wrapping her wings around vast roiling fruits of ice.

The rushing air made solid as her descent was arrested.

The speed of the drop forced her upward, bleeding speed as she swept over the tallest rooftops of Kaeketeh.

From the outer shoreside hovels, across gate town and then over middle town, the fort wall (which was still far too understaffed) and finally right as she reached the open yard before the keep/manor house.

Arriving at the spot with only the slightest rise needed to finish bleeding off her momentum.

A final constriction of Wyrmflame letting Jewel’s fore and hind claws touch the stones of the Kaeketeh courtyard. The old venerable cobbles cheering alongside their more freshly cut brethren.

Marking the scar Jewel had burned into them from her first visit years ago even clearer.

No one was outside to meet her, but that was fine. Jewel would not want any of her household or the staff of the keep to catch their death in this.

Even on the ground the ice came down in stinging sheets. It felt much like being pelted with minute arrows. Not the fragile training stele but full metal headed armaments. Perhaps not as heavy or as sharp. But bracing all the same.

Jewel extended her wing forward, furled closed with just her thumb extended to catch the latch.

Pulling the door open, the howl of the wind struggled in vain as she opened the way into her temporary home. Howling around the door in delight for the challenge she gave it.

She hurried through the passage as fast as she could, catching the inner latch with her tail and a bit of a stronger clinging nature that she had once struggled with when trying to spin. Now nothing but convenient in how it allowed her to enter and close the way behind her in one fluid dive into the hallway.

There were no footmen immediately inside the keep to guard the door.

There were honestly almost none who were not bunking in the wall fortress barracks, training with the more experienced guards, or out in Gate Town trying to maintain the peace.

Even in the fury of the storm outside there were a few footmen either in the guild houses or staying in little post rooms around Kaeketeh. The main gate itself had accommodations for two shifts of ten guards each. Although they were making do with three men most days.

Jewel focused on her Wyrmflame, exhaling while not actually releasing any of the raw destructive force. Pushing instead the feeling she normally used to keep the water of her baths in their tub, Which this really was much alike too.

Instead of hot water scented in Lavender Jewel was glittering with a mix of melt water, frost and ice caught in her mane.

But with a hum of rushing flame under her skin the heat of her body rose with the roar of her blood in tumultuous currents. From that the ice and cold of the storm melted to a sopping mass all over her scales and wings.

Then slowly the water was peeled back from her face. Dragging through her mane and over every scale. Pulling the water free of her body in rivulets and then a shining coat of rippling shine.

Almost like silver in the oil light of the abandoned entryway.

As it went the coat became more of a wobbling mass of water, almost like the orbs of ice Jewel had imagined filled her wings when she pulled up from her dive.

The process of divesting herself of the storm’s watery additions finished with a flick of her tail over the large (for a human) bathing tub that was set beside the door for just this purpose. And this last step was the trickiest, the further from her own body the water went the more difficult holding onto it became.

Releasing it too quickly would splash in a torrent and ruin the entire point of the exercise.

But with the use of her coils and tail just so Jewel was able to slip the entirety of the storm’s wetness and ice into the provided receptacle and leave the floors just as dry as before she entered.

Jewel sighed, it was not a bath, there was no lavender scent and it did notably worse for removing her scent of petrichor. It didn't even really buff her scales to much of a shine.

But at least her hide no longer carried the touch of grime and oil that accumulated through the day.

So refreshed Jewel made her way to the ‘feasting hall’ which was becoming far too familiar.

At least Jewel only needed to use it as her study, court and dining room.

The few nights she had slept in that blasted room were too much.

Three days without even seeing the sky with her own eyes?

Jewel shuddered from her nose to the very tip of her tail.

Scales roiling and flexing in waves of disgust.

Never again!