29. The Night Before the Coining
Lilith passed the test with the ease of a swan gliding over still water.
Rand didn’t set a single stone in the Little White Dragon’s path. He had her dance once before a few elves, then waved it through like wind scattering leaves. He hooked the Little White Dragon by the collar and tossed her to the crew prepping for the Coining Festival.
And Nidhogg didn’t see the Little White Dragon again, as if mist had been swallowed by the crowd.
It was normal. Nidhogg herself had danced at the Coining Festival, so the gears and ropes of the rite were worn smooth in her mind.
Outsiders dancing the Mali Dance had to wear costumes woven from leaves and fibers plucked from Lamter’s tallest ancient tree, green breath still clinging like dew. For ease of movement, tailors only began a few days before, threads soft as river reeds.
Beyond the costume, the Little White Dragon was dragged to rehearsals, sparks and timing plotted like stars. Even how to light the bonfire had to be choreographed, every ember coaxed like a firefly.
Then came the prayer after the dance, incense-threaded words that needed Lilith’s say. Nidhogg had no patron god, so she led the prayer herself back then. Lilith, devout to Icarus, needed someone else to offer Mali the plea.
There were more odds and ends, like scattered beans to be picked up, all needing Lilith’s voice.
The outsider was the festival’s heart, the drumbeat at its center. So the Little White Dragon spun like a top, so busy even the shared inn rarely saw her shadow.
Those days, Nidhogg just took Litt and Abaddon wandering through Lamter, like swallows tracing new eaves. The two girls loved exploring a city that to them was a blank map. Nidhogg was happy to lead, and together they combed every place open to visitors, like tidewater rinsing every stone.
So it went. Three days later—days when Lilith was only a blur at the edge of vision—Lamter finally breathed in the Coining Festival.
It had truly begun a week earlier, when the streets first put on celebration like fresh paint on wood.
Little cauldrons appeared on doorsteps like squat guardians, and five days later visitors pinned leaves to their clothes, green picked from trees on Mali Mountain.
Two days after Mali’s priests took to the streets to shout about the evening gala, Nidhogg led the two little ones onto the venue’s packed earth, footprints like petals.
Over just one night, the square beneath her feet shed its bare, solemn skin. It grew into a banquet field, tables and logs and cups sprouting like mushrooms after rain.
Nidhogg stood beside the stage with the kids, the tall Black Dragon girl lifting one under each arm like baskets of fruit. She carried them over a tide of people, and they waited together for the Little White Dragon to bloom on the central stage.
“You came earlier than I thought.” Nidhogg spotted Ayla. The lord of Lamter wore a pitch-black cloak like a slice of night. She cradled a cup of Lamter’s signature fruit wine and chatted with Mio, voices like ripples. The elf saw Nidhogg, waved, and passed over a flute of sparkling wine, bubbles climbing like pearls. “I figured you’d be later. The dance starts in two hours.”
“I know. But if I don’t come now, all the good perches vanish like birds.” Nidhogg tossed back the fruit wine like rain on a parched throat. She moved to a table piled with food and drink like a harvest altar, grabbed two bottles of juice that looked just like the wine, and planted one in Litt’s hand and one in Abaddon’s. “You didn’t snag a good spot when you watched me dance back then.”
“First Coining Festival, no experience,” Ayla said, taking a small sip, her face twisting with old embarrassment like a knot in wood. “Now I don’t have that headache. As city lord, my reach is long as a shadow. Saving seats is child’s play.”
“So what masks are you handing us?” Nidhogg knew her old friend’s habits, smiles like concealed blades. “Some hapless runner for the lord? Or an ascetic from the Holy Mountain? Don’t tell me I’m ‘One of Kuri’s Eleven’ again.”
“No need for that circus. You’re tight with the Little White Dragon, so you sit with her,” Ayla said, flicking her hand like shooing a sparrow. “The outsider’s friends get reserved seats. No one objects. Besides, that Little White Dragon’s head is stuffed full of you. If she can’t see you from the best sightline, she’ll come down with clouds on her face. Pick a good spot.”
Nidhogg had to admit Ayla had a point. Still, she didn’t go to the padded place laid out for her. She kept the perch she had claimed, like a hunter sticking to her tree.
She was tall, a pine among Lamter’s many saplings. In a tribe of delicate elves, she stood like a marker stone. From the stage, the Little White Dragon would spot her in a heartbeat. No need to fuss.
Rather than fuss over sightlines, she was hungrier to see how the ritual dress would set Lilith aglow, like moonlight caught in silk.
“Have you seen Lilith’s dress? How does it feel?” Nidhogg asked, curiosity flickering like a wick.
“Want to know?” Ayla cocked a brow, playing the rogue, her voice stretching like caramel. “So—so gorgeous. I thought you once defined beauty. Tonight raised the bar like a banner in wind. Only after seeing that Little White Dragon in that gown did I get why the High Priestess at rites is always a young girl. If I were a god, I’d pick the same.”
“So how pretty, exactly?” In her head, Nidhogg was already stitching the image like a lantern frame. She knew the ritual dress from the inside. It wasn’t hard to imagine how it would sing on Lilith.
“Don’t ask. See for yourself.” Ayla finally set down her cup, glass kissing wood like a bell. Mio, no longer lazy, gathered the cups with careful hands, like collecting shells. “The Coining Festival is about to begin.”
“Got it.” Nidhogg answered, watching Ayla shrink into a black dot against the crowd, an ink stroke heading off to make final, pre-stage preparations.
How beautiful would Lilith be?
Nidhogg wondered, the question circling her heart like a moth around a lamp.
