Wei fed us as well the second night as she had the first. Only this time, there was not fox meat secreted within the morsels Hanari ate. Out of deference to my appetite, I allowed myself to indulge both in the precious meat Wei offered and the alcohol which flowed freely from her table. All three of her students served us again, but were also encouraged to join the table once they’d executed their duties.

  Hanari shared improbably tales with Wei and the young men about giants, spirits, and the fae creatures which haunted the forest. One such story caught my attention, the tale of an ancient goblin who lost the desire to rip and tear human flesh. Old goblins were a powerful form of demon, the eldest rivaling giants or even dragons in power. They gained the powers of the human flesh they consumed and as they grew, they could eat more and more powerful flesh. Hanari was familiar with all of the key details of goblin history and physiology. I assumed she’d learned what she’d known from her life as a Kitsune.

  I had learned them from Odgen, my master.

  Before he became a monk and swore off meat of all kinds, he’d become a powerful goblin. Only a few of his kind rivaled him in power. And the most powerful goblins avoided each other as much as possible. He ravaged hundreds of homes, thousands of villages. Odgen never told me what made him change to turn from his man-eating ways. But he joined a monastery and worked to repent of his crimes.

  When the monastery itself was burned down, my master fled and took up the sword to cut down the brigands who’d destroyed the town. By chance, he ran into a master who carried the Mountain Cutter and who offered Odgen a chance to join him on the road.

  According to Odgen, his master was far more cruel to him than Odgen ever was to me. When I first met him, living a debauched life and trying to drown my grief in alcohol and transient companionship, Odgen had dragged me away each time I escaped and subjected me to horribly painful penances. It wasn’t until I chose to stay with him that I discover those penances had been intended to strengthen my will.

  The practices his master forced on Odgen were far more severe than my own. And he never spoke of them. When his master died, the former goblin took up the Mountain Cutter and went in search of innocents to save and a new pupil to pass his teachings down to: me.

  I’d stopped listening to Hanari’s tale when it split off into ridiculous stories of flying cities and dragons who rode lightning from the ground to specially made clay docks on the sides of those floating cities.

  But her original tale of goblins had sent me thinking over my own master. His finding me had the providence usually reserved for fate to it, as with his own master finding him. How lucky were the three young men to have found Wei without the need to suffer or perform acts of depravity best not spoken of in polite society.

  By the time dinner ended, I’d drank more than four jugs of mead. Wei and the others moved to a special distilled honey spirit. The locals froze their mead in the heart of winter and siphoned off the alcohol which floated to the top of the ice. The sugary remnants they used as a kind of candy just for adults. Wei did not have any of the candy on hand, much to Hanari’s disappointment. But she had two full jugs of the distilled honey-liquor.

  I’d never tasted its like before, a rare and unusual experience in a life as long as mine. Smoke and a hint of spice rose in the vapors from the first cup. And it burned with more heat than a traditional grain spirit, at least in my opinion. But it slid down the back of my throat with the subtle softness of the mead itself.

  I drank almost a full jug of the spirit by myself.

  Dragons were mighty drinkers, outpaced only by a handful of species. Even in human form I possessed a hearty gut. But after the sheer volume I’d consumed, I wobbled on my way to through the hallways. My cheeks blazed bright enough I expected to find a red light glowing and casting away the shadows in the hallways of Wei’s home.

  And in my near-stupor, I could almost imagine the wavering, shifting halls aglow with an ochre light. Fortunately, Wei guided me toward her room. I knew I owed the woman for my loss in our duel, but no sooner had I sat down next to her door than I collapsed next to it.

  Sleep claimed me before I even had a chance to resist.

  As always, my nightmares resumed from where they’d left off.

  Mother’s face sparkled in the light of the forge where she’d discovered me. The palpable force of her rage buffeted against me like the wind chasing through the caverns of our home during the spring when we opened the windows and vents. Unlike the spring, no damp air chased my mother’s fury.

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  “My own child.” Anger quivered her otherwise stoic demeanor and the shadows of the forge streaked her cheeks with black tear-like trails. “You own sister.” She spat the words at me as if the words alone could have set my unworthy body ablaze. Her eyes flicked between the carcass on the ground and the suit of armor I held within my claws. Head and body shook as if the ground quaked beneath her. Before I could open my mouth to protest, my mother cursed me. “You are no daughter mine. You are no heir to the throne of the Western dragons. May the evidence of your treachery ever mark your flesh. And may the glorious form of our people be ever denied to you. With my tongue I name you blood traitor.” She raised a knife to her mouth and spat blood at me. “With the scales of my flesh, I name you dragon traitor.” She flecked a piece of her glorious mantle off and it struck me directly in the chest. “And with my heart’s blood I name you kinslayer. May this curse never rise from your foul shoulders.” She drove her blade into her own heart and sprayed me with her life’s blood.

  My mother’s life blood poured over me a geyser of blazing lava. Everywhere it touched my scales burned and peeled back. In the wind-whistling sound of her blood spray, I heard Kon laugh at the end of my mother’s line.

  Then my own voice rose and screamed. The pale green armor in my hand writhed about me and the shade of my cruel sister appeared before me like glass floating on a pond. She burst into shards and each of those shivered as they dove into my body. Pierced by spirit steel and melted by my mother’s blood, I shrieked over the sound of the forge. Bones reknit and and warped in the most painful, agonizing transformation I’d ever suffered. Jade green and liquid red threatened to overwhelm my senses, to drown my screams as the world swelled around me and my mighty horns, soft pink scales, and talons sheared away.

  When I was done, I’d fallen insensate on the floor of the forge, heaving breaths which burned my lungs. Wrapped around my neck was a jade green amulet. It was the only thing on my body untouched by the blood which still covered and steamed from me.

  I raised my head and beheld my mother’s dead form. Another scream tore through me as I watched the light fade from her eyes, the last light of hatred winking out as her spirit departed. Then Kon roared in triumph. The dark forge spirit I’d trusted swelled with power, having caught a fraction of the blast of my mother’s death and dove into her slowly cooling form.

  As he did, the dagger in her chest wiggled out from its hole and the ugly mark where my mother had taken her own life sealed behind the dagger’s tip. Her body shuddered once and her eyes opened back up. For a split second, I thought my own mother had returned. I foolishly believed she would forgive me and release me from her curse. But the moment I looked within the black pupil of her eye, I spotted the flicker of flame within and recognized the spark of Kon.

  He’d possessed my mother. At once I knew it to have been his plan all along. I’d handed an evil spirit control over the dragon kingdom of the West. My shame knew no bounds.

  He laughed at me then, mocking me now with my mother’s own voice. As the body he’d stolen from her morphed and healed of the damage mother had inflicted upon herself, the final mark of Kon faded from her eyes. Though I knew better, Kon the spirit looked in every way like my own mother.

  “When your father learns of what you’ve done, what do you think he will do?”

  I shook my head at the question, holding my ears to the resounding draconic voice which shook the forge room. “Shut up, evil spirit!”

  “Ahaha, I’ve given you what you want, no?” Mother’s claw reached out, pulled my head up and tapped the jade necklace. “Here you will find your sister’s hide and her power. I did not lie to you, you may be trapped as a human, but a fraction of your sister’s power will be yours forever.”

  “But…”

  “But nothing!” Kon rose up. “In avarice you demanded the death of your kin. And in generosity I blessed you with not only her end, but a use to her power. All that remains for you, little Isha Blackheart, is to flee before the king discovers what you’ve done.”

  “I will tell him about you!” A tiny ember of defiance remained in my soul then, but Kon stomped on it and scowled at me.

  “You will do no such thing. Because before you reach the throne room, your own father will have ordered your exile and death. He will deem your crime so low as to be beneath the claws of dragon kind!” Kon laughed at me. “Your only hope now is to run with… well you no longer have a tail, I suppose run with your tiny little mortal feet as far as you can before the hordes of the king seek you out.”

  The spirit spoke the truth. It was the worst aspect of Kon’s being. He’d betrayed me and my entire family, but he’d never once lied to me.

  Tears stung my pathetic cheeks as I turned and raced away from the mountain which was my home.

  Before I reached the mouth of the cave, smoke began to choke my lungs. It was black, the smoke which rose from burning wood and paper. It defied my memory of my flight from the mountains and I stood confused with the faint light of the moon glaring from the end of the tunnel I used to escape my father’s righteous wrath. This was not how my memory ended, this was not the dream which had hounded me every night for a hundred years since I’d escaped the Western Mountains.

  Because this smoke is a thing of the floating world, it is not a part of your dreams.

  My own mind spoke to me through unconsciousness, whispering to me rather than jolt me awake. As always, only the dawn or my own will would tear me from this nightmare. And the smoke told me I might not see another dawn if I did not pull myself from slumber.

  I jolted awake with fires raging around me. Flames rose to the red wood ceilings and lapped at the gorgeous panels laid there. Wei was nowhere in sight, so at least she’d not died from smoke inhalation.