The Dragon Seed Box Set

by Resa Nelson

  While Brigga headed back to the tavern, Lumara urged Brownie toward the north end of Gott. Looking up at the sky, she felt grateful to see a decent amount of daylight left. She saw there might be enough time to find Skallagrim before nightfall.

  For a moment, Lumara considered dismounting so she could turn into a dragon, hunt the Scalding down, and kill him. It would be an easy solution.

  But it wouldn’t help. Not after everything I promised Fiera I would do. Not after everything she taught me.

  Lumara dug her heels into Brownie’s sides, urging the horse until it ran.

  * * *

  Following Brigga’s instructions, Lumara took the left fork in the road when it split and followed it to the foothills. By now, the sun dipped so low that it touched the horizon. She needed to find Skallagrim soon.

  Brownie whinnied and broke into a trot. Soon, the horse left the path and headed toward the mountains.

  Another horse whinnied up ahead.

  “Well, done, Brownie,” Lumara said. “You’ve found your friend.”

  She found a white horse tied to a tree at a makeshift camp. After dismounting and securing Brownie’s reins to the same tree, Lumara studied the scene. A fallen log faced a simple ring of small stones containing ashes from a fire. Encouraged, Lumara sank to her hands and knees and questioned those ashes. “How long have you been here? Do you know Skallagrim? Do you know where he’s gone?”

  The ashes stirred and then reached out to her.

  When Lumara held an open hand toward them, she realized that although she’d cleaned up the smithery, she’d failed to clean herself. Like the blacksmith, at the end of each day, smudge marks of soot covered her skin.

  She didn’t mind if the ashes marked her, too.

  A small pile of ashes swept up to rest in her palm.

  Lumara let the ashes show her what they knew. They shifted to form tiny pictures against her skin. An image of Skallagrim started a fire within the ring of stones and cooked a rabbit he’d caught. He ate his fill and then hung the remaining carcass from a tree at the entrance to a cave. His image faded to black.

  It’s bait. He used the rest of his meal as bait for the dragon he thinks he’ll find.

  “Thank you, my friends,” Lumara said to the ashes. She let them fall back into the pile with their friends.

  With light growing dimmer by the moment, Lumara headed toward an area that matched what the ashes had shown to her. She saw where Skallagrim had hung the carcass, but it had disappeared. Looking at the ground, she saw fresh animal tracks.

  That’s certainly not a lizard. Maybe a fox. Or even a wolf. Maybe more than one. They’re the ones that took the bait and disappeared with it.

  Confident that she’d traveled far enough away from Gott that no one in that city could hear her, Lumara shouted Skallagrim’s name but heard no one answer.

  He has to be here somewhere. But how do I find him in the dark?

  And how do I protect myself if a pack of wolves comes by looking for another treat?

  Lumara saw a simple solution. One that held a certain risk, but she’d done it before with success. Why wouldn’t it work again?

  First, she placed her shoes outside the ring of stones. Then she stripped and folded each item of clothing into a neat square and placed it on top of the fallen log. Shivering in the cold night air, Lumara shifted her shape to become a dragon.

  No pack of wolves stands a chance against me now.

  Lumara blinked until her eyes adjusted to the dim light. Her dragon eyes could see in the dark much better than her mortal ones.

  She flicked her long yellow tongue into the night air in search of Skallagrim’s scent. Lumara turned slowly in place, continuing to flick her tongue until she tasted a trace of him. She followed that trace and picked up another. Bit by bit, she climbed up a mountain side and onto a narrow path, barely wide enough to contain her dragon body.

  When she approached a tree growing on the steep ground next to the path, its branches rustled so hard that it made Lumara wonder if a monster hid among them. Instead, a few large birds bolted into flight out of the tree, disturbed from their sleeping place by Lumara’s presence.

  She looked skyward, watching the birds fly away.

  The thwack of something hard against her leg made Lumara look at it in astonishment. Even in this dim light, she had no problem making out the sight of a swinging sword and the man who wielded it.

  Skallagrim!

  Lumara had assumed she’d be able to sneak up on Skallagrim, knock him unconscious, and then take him back to the makeshift camp. She hadn’t considered he might get the jump on her.

  Hoping to seize the advantage, Lumara lashed her tail out with just enough force to knock Skallagrim down without harming him.

  But with a fierce cry, Skallagrim dodged her lashing tail. He charged forward and landed a blow against her ribs. But her protective scales allowed his sword to slide off.

  I can’t stay here! He can’t find out it’s me!

  Lumara sprang away from Skallagrim and retraced her journey down the path and then down the mountainside. She sprinted, certain she could out-run the dragonslayer. Bounding back to the makeshift camp, she heard the horses snort and whinny. Without looking back, Lumara returned to her mortal form. But before she could find her clothing, she heard the dragonslayer speak.

  “What are you?” Skallagrim said.

  Lumara turned around to see Skallagrim standing behind her, sword in hand. Still naked, she stood tall and proud before his eyes in the faint light of dusk. “Isn’t it obvious?” she said. “I’m a woman.”

  “I saw what you did. I saw you change from a dragon.”

  Lumara stood her ground. “Your eyes played tricks on you.”

  Skallagrim shook his head. “I know what I saw.” With trembling hands, he pointed the dragonslayer sword at her. “Tell me what you are.”

  He won’t kill me. He can’t.

  Still, Lumara remembered a conversation she’d had with her sister Fiera years ago. Fiera had said it might come to this. Fiera said it might be necessary to tell the truth.

  “As you wish,” Lumara said. “I will tell you what you want to know. My sister is a dragon goddess.”

  “Dragon goddess.” Skallagrim kept the sword pointed at her. “There’s no such thing.”

  “Not in the Northlands. She is worshipped by the people of the Far East.”

  “And you? Are you a goddess, too?”

  “No.” Lumara gathered her wits in case she needed them. “I’m just a dragon.”

  Skallagrim swallowed so hard that Lumara heard it. “I kill dragons,” Skallagrim said. “It’s my duty to my country. To my people.”

  “You kill lizards,” Lumara said. Although she didn’t like being threatened with a sword, she believed she could reason with the man. “That’s what we call them. They’re animals, not gods. We know lizards destroy crops. Kill people. Of course, you kill lizards. If you didn’t, they’d wipe out the mortal population.” She paused. “But it’s never a good idea to kill a true dragon like me. Not unless you want to feel the wrath of an entire nation.”

  Skallagrim’s face paled with fear, but he continued to hold his sword steady. “What are you doing here? If you’re truly from the Far East, why did you leave?”

  Now we get to the heart of the matter.

  “To help,” Lumara said. “Because your own gods have given up on you.”

  “What?” Skallagrim’s face twisted in confusion. As if unaware of his actions, he lowered his sword. Although he still held onto the grip, he let the sword’s point rest on the ground.

  Heartened, Lumara continued. “Your people let their worship of the Northlander gods fade, and your gods are offended. Worse, they’ve witnessed a level of violence that all gods find unacceptable.”

  Skallagrim shifted in discomfort. “Because we kill dragons?”

  “Because you kill each other.”

  “It’s what people do. It’s part of life.”
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  “Not the life intended for this world by the Creation that all its gods and goddesses serve.” Lumara thought again of the strategies she’d discussed with Fiera. Lumara considered all the things they’d agreed could and should not be discussed with mortals. “A Northlander clan chose to decimate entire villages. In time, they corrected their ways. But one of their own spent his life following a dream of murdering them all.

  “If left alone, this family would have succeeded in mending their ways. But the Northlander who vowed to murder them all may change that course. The Northlander gods take this as proof that mortals are hopeless creatures that don’t deserve to live. Your gods want to destroy all mortal life in this world.”

  Shaken, Skallagrim used his sword like a cane to steady his walk and eased over to sit down on a log next to Lumara’s discarded clothing. “They want to kill us?”

  “Not just Northlanders. Midlanders. Southlanders. Far Easterners. Everyone.”

  “That makes no sense. Why destroy the entire world?”

  “It’s not the world your gods want to destroy. Just the mortals in it.”

  Skallagrim let his sword fall to the ground and rubbed his face with his hands. “Why?”

  Lumara walked to the fallen log on which Skallagrim sat and picked up the clothing she’d left on it. Once she’d dressed, Lumara spoke. “If mortals can lose so much control that they willingly slaughter each other for insignificant reasons like revenge and spite, then they can’t be trusted to respect any living thing in this world, whether animal or plant or tree or river. The Northlanders have proven to their gods that they can’t be trusted to live without placing the entire world at risk. That’s why the Northlander gods think all mortals must be destroyed. But not all gods agree.”

  She sat next to Skallagrim on the log and placed her hand on his shoulder.

  “My own gods have ruined everything.” Skallagrim stared into space with a stunned expression.

  Lumara reached around his shoulder and held him close. “There is still hope. The other gods of this world believe we can reason with the Northlander gods and convince them to let mortals live.”

  Skallagrim shook away his malaise. “I loved you the moment I saw you. I thought you would be my wife. I thought we’d have a family and be happy. But that’s impossible now.”

  Lumara hesitated, wanting to reveal the one secret Fiera had warned Lumara never to reveal for fear of scaring the mortal away.

  I’ve loved him since the day we met. How can I let him suffer? How can I let him wallow in doubt for lack of knowing what I know?

  Lumara took a leap of faith, hoping her instincts would prove her sister’s worries wrong.

  “You don’t understand,” Lumara said. “It’s why I came into your life. It’s why my sister sent you in search of me at a time that would make it impossible for you to leave Gott. So that you and I would be stranded in Gott together.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Lumara smiled in the fading twilight. “I came here to become your wife and bear your children. They are the ones who will have the power to save all mortal life from being erased from this world.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Skallagrim’s head swam with confusion. “My wife? Our children? But that’s impossible. How can a dragon and a man have children?”

  He felt as if Lumara’s bizarre declaration snapped him out of the muddled fog that had enveloped him when he’d witnessed her transformation from dragon to woman. Skallagrim knew what he’d seen, and although Lumara first tried to deceive him, she admitted she wasn’t mortal. He remembered what he’d promised himself in childhood. He remembered what had always mattered most.

  Proving his worth as a Scalding. Being the best Scalding ever to live in order to convince the Scalding clan of his worth.

  With a quick step, Skallagrim retrieved his sword from the ground and pointed it at Lumara again. “I’m a Scalding. I must protect the Northlands from dragons.”

  Lumara remained sitting on the log and corrected him. “Lizards.”

  “Dragons are full of tricks. They hide and lie in wait for someone to walk along and then attack.” He gestured at Lumara with his sword. “Your claim of the difference between dragons and lizards could be one of those tricks. I won’t be fooled by you.”

  “It’s not a trick.” Lumara stood and took a step toward him. “And I know you’re a Scalding. It’s why I chose you.”

  Skallagrim braced himself in case her words held deception. “Chose me?”

  Lumara took another step closer. “To love.”

  Skallagrim scoffed. “No one can choose love.”

  “Of course, you can.” Lumara shook her head as if in dismay. “You mortals. Always thinking things happen by happenstance. Always thinking you are victims of your own emotions. But you can choose to love just as you can choose to be happy.” She took another few steps forward until the point of Skallagrim’s sword rested against her chest. “It’s about making a decision and keeping that decision.”

  Skallagrim felt her words wash around him like a soothing waterfall on a hot summer day. He wanted to give in to the sensation and let it swaddle him. Instead, he kept the sword steady and willed his mind to stay sharp. “Did you use some kind of dragon magic to make me love you?”

  “There’s no such thing as dragon magic,” she said. “And I didn’t make you do anything. If you love me, it’s your choice, not mine.” Lumara tilted her head. “Do you love me, Skallagrim?”

  Resist her. Maybe she lies. Maybe she does have dragon magic and is using it on you right now.

  Part of Skallagrim wanted to trust Lumara and take her in his arms. But another part of him wanted answers.

  “When we first met, you were the dragon I fought.” Skallagrim shook his head as he realized how everything he’d seen that day now made sense. “I saw your dress before I met you. You’d taken it off before you turned into a dragon.”

  “I like clothing,” Lumara said. “And if I don’t take it off before I change, then my dragon body rips it to shreds. It’s such a dreadful waste.”

  “You set me up. You manipulated me.”

  “I did,” Lumara said. “Because we no longer have the luxury of time. We don’t know how much longer we can stall your gods. Now is the time to act.”

  She eased back from the point of Skallagrim’s sword that still pressed against her chest. With a swift step, Lumara threw her forearms against the flat of the dragonslayer’s blade and knocked it free from Skallagrim’s hands.

  With the same swiftness, she wrapped her arms around Skallagrim’s neck and kissed him.

  Push her away! Find your sword!

  Instead of listening to the panicked thoughts rushing through his head, Skallagrim paid attention to the perfect way Lumara fit inside his arms. For the first time in his life, he felt the peace he thought becoming the best Scalding would bring. Skallagrim forgot about being a Scalding and relaxed in the unexpected feeling of finding a place he never imagined could exist.

  A place that made him feel alive and full of hope.

  Lumara eased away from him and stared into his eyes. “I choose to love you, dragonslayer. For the good of the dragon gods and the good of all mortals.” She smiled. “And for myself, as well. What do you choose? Would you rather love me or kill me?”

  Skallagrim felt so overwhelmed with emotion that he would have sworn his heart burst open. He remembered how the alchemist had warned him years ago, and that what she claimed would come to pass had finally happened.

  Skallagrim knew the dragon Lumara had succeeded in quelling him.

  CHAPTER 21

  Skallagrim paced, too confounded to think straight. “What do we do now?”

  Lumara answered without hesitation. “Travel your dragonslayer route. Live your normal life.”

  Something about Lumara’s tone made Skallagrim suspicious. But considering that he’d just witnessed her turn from a dragon into a mortal and then insist their future children would have t
he power to save all mortals, Skallagrim didn’t know what to believe. “Normal life?”

  “With me by your side.”

  “Here in the Northlands? What about the Northlander gods? Do they know about your plans?”

  “Not yet,” Lumara said. “But it might help for them to see you with me. They could take it as a sign of hope for a dragonslayer to marry a dragon. They might be more inclined to be forgiving of Northlanders.”

  “Could that turn them around? Convince them not to kill us?”

  “No. It’s our children who will have that power. A power that comes from our blood that runs in their veins. If the Northlands ever face danger, both the light and dark that comes from their blood will help our children save the Northlands.” Before Skallagrim could pepper her with more questions, Lumara said, “No children with the combined blood of dragon and mortal have existed yet, but they’ll have enough power to make a difference.”

  Skallagrim kept pacing while his mind raced. “Traveling the dragonslayer’s route is no life for a wife and children. I should take you to Tower Island.”

  “No.”

  Her tone stopped Skallagrim in his tracks. When he looked at her, the black look in Lumara’s eyes terrified him. He mustered up the courage to ask a question. “Why not?”

  “The Scaldings are murderers.”

  Something shattered inside Skallagrim. With a vehement protest, he said, “Not my parents. My mother has blue eyes. So does my father.”

  Lumara nodded. “They are the best of the Scaldings.” She reached out and touched his face. “But you are not one of them. The parents you know might be Scaldings, but you don’t share their blood. Even if you were to commit an act of murder, your eyes would remain blue.”

  All those years Frandulane claimed I wasn’t his brother. Claimed Mother and Father don’t share my blood. Claimed I didn’t belong.

  The confirmation didn’t surprise Skallagrim. He knew he’d spent his life pretending to forget the day his parents admitted they’d adopted him from a friend. He knew some of the truth about his past but wanted to find out what Lumara knew.