Blood Runner: Book Three of the Empress Saga

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

     Enfri gave a great deal of thought towards the question. Something she could do, even if it was nothing more than a symbolic gesture, to prove her devotion to the mighty. She had told herself that each dragon she forged a bond for was a part of her. What better way to show that than to make it a reality?

    The solution hadn't come to her on her own. She had the few knights who remained behind with her to thank for that. Paladin Hugin ran through a number of ideas with her over tea until he mentioned something that caught Enfri's fancy. By pure luck, another of Enfri's knights had experience with such art forms.

    That was how Enfri found herself bare to the waist and lying face down on a table inside her tent. Jin observed the process as a woman entranced. She'd never witnessed such a thing in person and couldn't have been pulled away by wild horses.

    The other within the tent was a Shotoese alchemist named Kolbat. She was of an age with Enfri and a skilled mariner. Kolbat was what was called an island hopper from the Isles of Shoto. From what Enfri gathered, that meant she was something of a vagabond who sailed from island to island to take on whatever work was available. This resulted in Kolbat possessing an impressive array of skills, a jack of all trades.

    The Shotoese were similar in appearance in many ways to Althandi, the same eyes and build, except they generally had darker skin tones. Kolbat had a round and well-formed face, though her mouth had a tendency to carry a frown when at rest. Her skin was weathered, bearing a few premature wrinkles around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth. The skin around her eye sockets was stained dark, a result of the grease paint she routinely slathered on her face to guard against glare while sailing. That had the beneficial side effect of making her lovely blue eyes stand out all the better.

    Jin sat in a wooden folding chair as she watched Kolbat work. Tattoo needles tapped in a steady rhythm across Enfri's flesh. The ink Kolbat used had a strong scent that Enfri found rather pleasant.

    "I had a thought," Enfri said. "Could a scrivener tattoo sigils on herself?"

    Kolbat grunted a negative. "A lot of people asked that when I did this on Ame Island. Far as I know, it has something to do with imprints. My Corsair could give you a better answer. He likes experimenting with unconventional spellcraft."

    Enfri believed that Darva the Corsair seemed to experiment with a lot of things that were unconventional, but she kept her mouth shut. She wasn't so foolish as to risk offending the woman jabbing her repeatedly with needles. One ill-conceived comment and Kolbat might decide to mark Enfri with something ridiculous.

    Kolbat had come to Ecclesia along with Darva the Corsair, the indigo dragon. Darva had known Kolbat for a couple of years before Deebee found them. They were close, but not in the same way as other dragons with their knights. When Enfri forged the bond between them, it felt like she had officiated a wedding. For their part, the Corsair and his Pearl Knight carried on as if that was precisely what had happened. They'd been lovers before Kolbat learned of Darva's true identity as one of the mighty. She mocked him incessantly for that to this day.

    A dragon romantically involved with a human. Merciful winds, I'd never have even thought of that.

    Enfri tried not to dwell too much on it. Both of them were adults, and Enfri had no business laying judgement. She focused instead on the needle tapping on her skin.

    "Does that not hurt?" Jin asked for perhaps the third time.

    "A little," Enfri admitted. "It's like pulling off a scab or taking out a thorn. A good pain, if that makes sense."