She was glad to discover it was the sinister head, which snapped its jaw at her. Silver’s glare was fierier than anything the water dragon could produce. The green that had taken over the whites of her eyes reflected back at her. She delighted in looking like an evil goddess from the old tales. This was for Hiyyan.
To the molten depths of the earth and back.
Or, failing that, a drop of blood.
Silver’s lip curled. “We could have … left you in this cave … to die.”
“Which wouldn’t have happened.” Sagittaria’s amused tone infuriated Silver.
“None of us … knew that! You’ve said before … you don’t want harm to come … to any Aquinder. Now prove … we need … vial-ful. Give … or … else.”
Through her blurring vision, Silver saw three heads tip back and fill the cave with laughter. Kirja growled, sending vibrations into her boots.
With one last laugh, Sagittaria put her boot to Silver’s chest and pushed Silver aside, knocking her unceremoniously onto the gravel. The Dwakka crouched to face Kirja in a fighting stance.
“You said.” Silver stayed on the ground, her limbs too heavy and swollen to continue. Not just poison and pain, but something more than that. She was tired of fighting all the time. “You said you … loved … water dragons … remember that.” Silver raised her eyes to the woman she once called hero as her words and last bit of energy faded. “Please … Sagi … ttaria Won … der.”
But all Sagittaria Wonder did was flash Silver a disgusted look. “I’ll make you a deal. Show me how to get a dragon heartstone—my own, not yours—and I’ll donate a drop of my precious blood.”
“Deal. Blood … first.” Never mind that Silver hardly understood how she’d gotten her own. The heartstone found Silver on its own terms.
Sagittaria pondered Silver’s terms for a moment. Then, she slid from her Dwakka, pulled out her own blade, crouched, and tucked it under Silver’s chin. “If you’re lying, I destroy you, once and for all.”
“Hey!” Lers yelled.
“No … let her,” Silver whispered.
“Fine.” Sagittaria presented her arm to Lers. “If it hurts, I hurt you back.”
Lers was a head shorter than Sagittaria but about twice as wide. Silver wondered how they would match up in hand-to-hand combat. Lers’s beard bristled as he carefully tucked the tip of his knife under Sagittaria’s skin until a bead of blood appeared, then he pressed the vial close and filled it. When he was done, he gently blotted the spot and readied a small bandage, but Sagittaria swatted him away.
“I am not a child.” She spun on Silver. “There, it is done. Now tell me where you found the dragon heartstone.”
“I didn’t … find … found me.” The words were said baldly, with little room for question. Sagittaria Wonder realized that, her face tightening with anger.
“How did it find you?” she said through gritted teeth.
“Dragons … four.” Over Sagittaria’s shoulder, Lers was making an opening in Hiyyan’s skin. Silver winced at the sight. Her body felt light, ready to float away. She dug her fingertips into the gravel to keep herself grounded to this world. Stay, Hiyyan.
Silver’s eyes flickered from Lers and Hiyyan to Sagittaria and back. Hiyyan didn’t move as Lers injected Sagittaria’s antibody-rich blood into his veins, then applied pressure for a moment before bandaging the wound.
Sagittaria, too, was quiet, one hand playing over her chin. “Tell me more, girl.”
“Powerful … leaders…” Silver rasped.
Sagittaria’s knife glinted in Silver’s peripheral vision. “Yes, and? How did you find them? What did they say to you?”
Silver shook her head. “They found me. Gave me … choices.”
“Found you! How is that supposed to help me?” Sagittaria frowned thoughtfully. “Do you know how many water dragons are on their council? Ah, I see in your eyes that you do. Yes, four. And I have some idea where to find them. Being close to the queen through all her years of political work is good for that, at least. Now tell me what kinds of choices? Come on, speak up!”
Silver’s lips were too heavy to say anything more than “Trial.”
“They set you a trial,” Sagittaria said. “Let me guess: a personal one? Different for everyone. Hmm. I believe you. But just in case you’re lying to me, I’ll be on my way to a meeting with a Snucker at the coast.”
With one cry of fury, Sagittaria and her Dwakka burst through Kirja’s barrier and raced out of the cave. Kirja turned to give chase.
“No!” Silver mumbled. “Let … go.”
Let go?
Silver rubbed her face on the cool ground. Sleep would be so nice. Long, long sleep. “Yes.” She didn’t have the strength to explain further. The dragon heartstone could wait. All that mattered was Hiyyan and making sure the antibody worked.
Lers tucked his materials into his bag and scooped Silver up off the ground, depositing her next to Hiyyan. Then he reached over to pat Kirja. The two shared a hopeful glance.
“Different … breeds,” Silver said to Lers. “Do you think … will still work?”
Lers crouched next to Silver and said, softly: “Sometimes, nature is kind to us. And sometimes, it ain’t.”
Silver closed her eyes, slowly scanning Hiyyan’s body from tail to mane. Already, things seemed to be happening. A lessening of the pain in their shoulders, an opening in the spaces around their lungs, a comfortable reduction in how hard their hearts were beating.
A kindness.
It’s working, isn’t it? Silver smiled, tears gathering under her lids.
Soon.
Hiyyan’s use of the word Silver had oft repeated to him as a promise made the tears slide down her cheeks. She reached up to wipe them away.
“Rest … a bit.”
Her body slumped heavily; her brain seemed to swim in green goo. She let it all happen. No fighting, no clinging to life, freedom, the future. A true movement-free, thoughtless rest. Time passed, but she couldn’t count how long. The light at the entrance to the cave grew brighter and less green. White noise took on a new clarity. When Kirja shifted to get comfortable at one point, Silver found she could turn her head to look at the mother dragon and it didn’t feel like stones were crunching in her spine.
Silver bent her knees and placed her palms against the ground. Timid, but hopeful, she pressed her weight off the gravel. And rose to her feet.
“Hhhhrruuhhh,” Hiyyan breathed, rolling his sounds against the roof of his mouth like a purr. The Aquinder blinked his eyes open and looked at Silver.
“You’re awake,” she breathed.
Kirja pranced, waking a napping Lers with her excitement. Lives!
“Look at this,” Lers said.
Silver peered at the original tear in Hiyyan’s wing. Slowly, but surely, scabs were growing. A stinking green ooze dribbled down Hiyyan’s side, soaking into the gravel beneath them.
“It’s so fast,” Silver said.
“A good find. This’ll save lives,” Lers said.
“Good? It’s the most amazing find in the whole world!” She was a new Silver, hopeful once again.
Get her. Hiyyan cranked his head around to meet Silver’s eyes with fierce determination.
Yes. Silver sent her shoulders back. We’ll race her to the heartstone and get back what’s ours. But first, you have to get better.
When the healing had progressed to the scabbing over of Hiyyan’s scales, Silver gave him a pat, then walked with Lers and Kirja to the entrance of the cave. She showed Lers her fingers, still an unsettling gray.
“What about these?” Silver said. “Do you think they’ll ever heal?”
“Frostbite gone an’ nipp’d ya real hard, eh?” Lers kindly took Silver’s hands in his and scrutinized the skin, then he shook his head sadly. “I’m not one to say a thing’s true if it ain’t. Your nerves were damaged, and there’s no going back from that. Be glad it’s just the tips. You won’t lose anything else.”
Silver hugged Kirja before sending them back to the Keep. At her sides, her fingers curled and uncurled. The brisk air blew at her short hair. The sky was sharply blue, painfully bright when Silver looked at it too long.
She wondered what her father was doing that very moment. If he was toiling over Queen Imea’s scepter. If he was searching every traveling trader’s wares, desperate to find the most perfect gemstones buried under the desert, if he was sending messages with those traders to pass far and wide: riches for anyone who brought him flawless stones. Riches and favors from the queen.
Silver had chosen something different, and it was the best and right thing for her. Her fingers curled once more as she clasped her hands behind her back. Still, every time the world created a new gap between her and her father’s dream for her—the legacy of her family—her heart broke a little.
Even if she’d wanted to become a famous Batal jeweler, dead fingertips wouldn’t allow it. She could never become the daughter her father wanted her to be.
Silver sighed.
Hiyyan sighed.
“I hadn’t even heard you come close,” Silver said. “Or felt you.”
Silver sad. Hiyyan padded his big paws a few steps forward and settled in next to Silver, letting the winter wind blow his thick mane across his face.
Silver peeked at Hiyyan, marveling at how big and majestic he was now that he was well enough to stand tall again, his blue scales framed by the dark-stone cave, the green valley, the entire snowcapped mountain.
“No, not really sad. Just thinking about things. How I don’t feel much like a Batal anymore.”
Silver. Desert Fox. My human.
“Those are good things to be.” Silver pulled her arm out again and inspected the scar she’d received in her father’s workshop. A pop of molten metal had scalded her, leaving a dark shape on her wrist that looked undeniably like a curled-up water dragon. Her thumb played over the skin. This is where she was meant to be.
Like dragon. Hiyyan raised a paw and flashed his talons, then looked meaningfully at Silver’s gray-tipped fingers.
“They do look a bit like claws, don’t they?” Silver turned and inspected Hiyyan’s golden scale. A scar for her, a scar for him. Then, she rubbed her hand over his wing. “This, though, makes me happier than I’ve been in a long time. Hiyyan, I can’t believe that just yesterday the poison was pushing at our lungs, at our hearts. Now it’s gone.”
Better. Hiyyan flashed his double row of razor teeth. Fly!
“Fly,” Silver said, stretching out and savoring the word as though it was the first time she’d said it. A stupid grin lit up her face. “Do you think you can?”
Hiyyan puffed out his chest and gave Silver a side-eye.
Watch me.
Hiyyan took several steps into the valley, his paws crunching through a thin top layer of frozen dew, his breath blanketing him in a misty cloud. Even the sun seemed interested, peeking through two low, ragged-edged clouds to send a beam of soft brass light across Hiyyan’s body.
Hiyyan shook out his mane, rolled his shoulders back slowly, and sent his wings out, ruffling the very tips of them. Their span was as wide as the river that flowed from the cave.
He took two more steps forward, and then two more at a run, and launched himself into the air.
The first hard push of Hiyyan’s wings against the air was lopsided, and Silver gasped as he struggled to regain balance. Then muscle memory took over, and Hiyyan soared like a water dragon who’d never touched ground.
“It worked,” Silver breathed, watching her Aquinder become a sapphire dot against the violet sky. She pressed her hands together, entwining her fingers, lightning bolts zipping over her skin.
“Gaaaauuuuuhhhhnnn!” Hiyyan roared, triumphantly.
The Aquinder took another loop, disappearing behind a nearby mountain peak, before returning to the valley and landing with an earthshaking impact. Silver ran to Hiyyan and threw herself around his neck.
“You did it!” Hiyyan’s eyes were shining, and Silver laughed, her words breathless. “How’d it feel?”
Strong. Grand! And after a beat: cold. Hiyyan shivered, and Silver giggled again. She felt so light and happy that her own feet threatened to carry her off the ground and float her over the mountains.
Now we chase. Hiyyan’s eyes darkened into pools of volcanic stone. Sagittaria.
“Our heartstone,” Silver said. “Are you sure you’re ready?”
The waves of warmth Hiyyan sent Silver made her skin sweat under her layers of clothing.
The race was on.
NINETEEN
Silver ducked into the cave for the last time and collected her things. An extra bag sat next to hers. “Lers left us food!”
She devoured flatbreads crusted with black and white seeds, fed Hiyyan some dried fish and berry patties, then climbed onto his back. Her emotions were wild: Delight and thrill at finally being healed combined with the pulse-pounding drive to take back what was hers. If they didn’t hurry, Sagittaria Wonder would reach the coastline before they did, even with their flying advantage. And once in the sea? She could go anywhere.
“To the skies once more,” she said, and Hiyyan spread his wings, smoothly lifting them away from the river.
Silver relished the sharp wind through her short hair and the two-handed grip she had on Hiyyan. It wasn’t long before she saw the north seas with their big, bobbing ice floes and icebergs dotting the stern gray surface of the water. Her heartbeat sped up.
“We’re almost to the coast. Sagittaria has to come out near here.”
She strained her eyes, searching for movement below. A dark splotch could have been a Dwakka, but upon closer inspection was some other species of water dragon Silver wasn’t familiar with. Another spot wasn’t even a water dragon; it was a whale spouting a fountain of water into the sky. There were boulders to search—or those dark blobs could be a resting dragon, curled up in a ball—and shore caves that begged further exploration.
“Too many places to hide,” Silver said. “She can’t have gotten here ahead of us, though. Keep your eyes out for a Snucker.”
“Haur,” Hiyyan grunted his reply, his big head swaying left to right as he scanned the shoreline.
They flew past the coastline and over the sea itself. The fleeting morning changed the gray water to sweet pale blue. Silver saw islands just off the shore, some no larger than a fingerprint on a page of writing, while others were large enough to support life. There were flat islands, but also towering karsts, their bottoms narrower than their tops as the water ate away at stone, hiding tunnels and lagoon sanctuaries. Noisy seabirds created a chaotic din, and colonies of small water dragons, plus a few larger breeds who seemed to live solitary lives or in small pods, lounged on land or swam in search of a meal. But no Snuckers.
One island even had what looked to be a smattering of stone buildings. If Sagittaria had come out ahead of them, she might have headed for an island like this, sheltered and with dozens of places to lay low and rest for a while.
“There.” Silver pointed. “Land for a moment, Hiyyan.”
Hiyyan dipped his head toward the island, and Silver’s stomach rose to her throat as the Aquinder dove for the smooth, expansive sand beach. He landed softly, a much-improved maneuver from the first time he’d ever landed. Back then, he’d crashed into the desert on the outskirts of Calidia. Silver slid off his back smoothly and surveyed the island. Higher up in the center, snow lay over the land thickly, like the powdered sugar Aunt Yidla dusted over her honey-and-nut pastries. But lower, where Silver stood, the beach was only damp. A path cut through a stand of evergreen trees whose roots fought, and won, a battle with the rocky ground.
“Through here,” Silver said.
The duo trudged down the path, which quickly opened into a semicircular clearing. There, a single stone structure dominated the center of the space, while a dozen more smaller buildings with rustic roofs surrounded it.
“Sagittaria might be in one of
these. Let’s start with the big building.”
Silver took two steps but froze when there was a rustling in the treetops. Suddenly, figures dropped from the branches to surround them. They each sported fierce expressions with bared teeth and flashing eyes, and their short hair was spiked up like the spines on a desert lizard. Their tunics, colored in various shades of green and gray to provide camouflage, were close-fitted over athletic bodies. Boots, which seemed to be dipped in some kind of rubber sap to keep them dry and likely able to cling to tree trunks, laced up to their knees.
“Yaw!” cried one, brandishing a long dagger at Silver. The tip wavered right under her nose.
Hiyyan roared and stepped toward the man with the dagger.
“I don’t have a weapon,” Silver cried.
“Call off your beast,” the woman next to the dagger-wielding man growled. “He’s more weapon than we have.”
“No need,” came another voice, this one startlingly familiar. “Hiyyan, old friend! Come say hello!”
Silver and Hiyyan whipped around as one.
“Ferdi?” Silver exclaimed.
“The one and only.”
The desert prince looked exactly the same as the last time Silver had seen him, deep underground in the outskirts of Calidia. Same infuriatingly smug expression, same overconfident bearing, even the same dark-blue uniform.
“What are you doing here?” Silver said.
“I’m an islander, and this is an island,” Ferdi shot back with a grin. “A training island. One I picked specifically for its location.”
Silver looked at the dagger the man still held aloft warily. “Training for what?”
“Only for resiliency,” Ferdi said, wiggling his eyebrows to make Silver giggle. “We come here in the roughest season to toughen ourselves up like true island warriors. We can’t always lounge on the beaches of my home island. No, we warriors live in the cold, in the wake of an unforgiving wind, off a stingy land, blah blah.”
Ferdi dug his fists into his hips and looked into the distance over the seas, striking the pose of a weather-hardened warrior.
Race for the Dragon Heartstone Page 16