by S. W. Clarke
“You understood all that? You’ve only spoken Dragon for like, a week.”
The French Quarter sailed beneath us, all the tourists and drunk folk staring skyward. We’d probably attracted the attention of the entire city. “Longer than that, actually,” Percy said. “I’ve been studying it on the internet for a while. Just didn’t know anyone who spoke it.”
“Well I’ll be GoneGodDamned. You’re like one of those kids who mispronounces all the words because you learned them in books, aren’t you?”
He snorted. “Not all of them. Just a lot.”
When we arrived at the rooftop, Goldie and Greenie were already blasting fire on the webbing holding Yaroz down. They’d managed to snap a few of them, too. So much for “unbreakable.”
That was the heat of dragonfire.
Yaroz did the rest. She blew fire at the netting over her head, searing a larger and larger hole as the ninjas scattered. Then she threw a wing free, snapping more of the wires—ping, ping.
Percy and I landed before her, and I sat straight on his back as Red joined in to help his mother.
“You sure she’s done?” I whispered to Percy.
But Yaroz answered that question for us. With a great surge upward, both wings extending, she threw all the netting off and rose tall in front of us. She was completely unharmed.
“Percy,” Yaroz said as her three children came to a hover around her head. Her voice sounded different. Fury threaded through it. “You have disappointed me greatly.”
So Ferris hadn’t been able to bring himself to end her life as he’d planned. He had his chance, too—she’d been captive for a good five minutes.
Well, I didn’t blame him. A dragon in this GoneGod World was a miraculous creature. Even if this one might still kill us.
I was down to one option.
“Yaroz,” I yelled out, “I challenge you to an oath duel.”
↔
I stood with whips in hand, feet apart, waiting as Yaroz’s wings went on beating through the air.
Finally, a soft chuckle emanated from her throat, hot air washing over me. “A duel? I could eviscerate you with my smallest talon.”
I stared up at her. “Here’s your chance to try.”
It was obvious Yaroz’s demeanor had changed; she’d stiffened. Which meant Ferris had been right about dragon protocol: a face-off like this was a serious thing. No one else could get involved—only the challenger and the challenged.
Except these duels were historically dragon v. dragon. Not dragon v. nineteen-year-old human with two whips and a pair of throwing knives.
Well, I couldn’t back down now.
“Tara,” Percy whispered to me, “if you do this, you’ll die.”
“We’re all gonna die someday, Perce.” I scuffed my foot across the cement, firming up my stance. “And if it’s gonna be tonight, at least I’ll be protecting my family.”
He gave a quick breath like he was on the verge of tears, and then I heard Ferris corralling him toward the far side of the roof.
Thanks, Ferris.
I had one consolation: at least if I died here, the ninjas might still be able to rescue him. They’d look out for my little blue dragon.
“Very well.” Yaroz sounded half-amused, half-taken aback. “I accept your challenge, foolish young human.” She emitted a series of high-pitched shrieks, and the four children flew to the corners of the roof, perching like gargoyles to observe.
Yaroz swooped down, landed with a rumble twenty feet away from me. “The duel begins thus: the two opponents on equal footing. None other may interfere. We battle to the death.”
I nodded, tightening my fingers around the grips of my whips. “To the death.”
Yaroz took one long, deep breath, eyes closing for a moment. When they opened, her head lowered on her neck, all her attention fixed on me. “We begin now.”
Before I could even bring my whip up, her left foot surged out to crush me. I heard Percy scream my name as my instincts took over and I threw myself into a sidelong roll.
The first goal: don’t get crushed.
The second goal: find a way to defeat a dragon.
The moment I was on my feet, I heard the telltale noise of dragon fire. She screeched as heat poured from her mouth, and my training had me running across the roof, racing ahead of the heat. I could feel it on my heels, at my back, singeing my hair.
Keep running, Tara.
She had to run out of breath some time.
And she did—in the same moment, at the far corner of the roof, the little green dragon perched not two feet away, staring at me with wild, hateful eyes.
At this distance, he could lift one leg and claw my face off. He could end me with a simple swipe, and it was clear in his eyes that was exactly what he wanted to do.
But protocol prohibited him.
I spun around, whips still in hand. Yaroz was already preparing for her next strike, and this time I glimpsed something just before her massive claws rose to crush me.
A vulnerability.
I slotted my whips into my belt as the shadow of her foot swept overhead, darkening the world as it descended on a straight course to flatten me. This time I rolled forward, reaching into my boots and unslotting my throwing knives mid-roll. When I found my feet, I sprinted toward her stationary foreleg.
If I knew Yaroz’s fighting style at all, I had a sense of how she would react—and what her instincts would tell her to do just before she attacked.
She sensed me running toward her, and the scales on her left foreleg ruffled as she prepared to swipe sidelong. Ferris had been right: it was about aerodynamics.
I took a millisecond’s aim with the right-hand throwing knife, raising it to shoulder-height just before I launched it at the spot where her smallest talon met the rest of her leg.
The knife glinted under the moonlight a second before it lodged itself deep into the tender hide, forcing the scale to remain raised.
Yaroz screamed, a truly deafening noise at this distance. That was fine—I didn’t need my hearing right now. I just needed my eyes and the remaining knife in my left hand.
Before she could react, I dashed forward, sliding on my knees toward her talons. I plunged the other knife into the exposed spot, driving it as deep as I could with both hands and twisting—hard.
No matter what else happened tonight, I would make sure Yaroz never forgot this moment.
This is for hurting Percy.
I wedged the knife, angling it toward the raised scale. And then something I hadn’t expected happened.
Apparently I’d found the join where a dragon’s scale is most inelegantly attached to the hide, because with an odd popping noise, Yaroz’s raised scale detached itself, the ebony gleam of it catching the moonlight as it spun through the air and landed on the roof.
I had managed to dislodge one of the matriarch’s precious scales.
When I looked down, red-black blood began to pour from the spot where the two knives were still dug deep.
I yanked them both out, and Yaroz’s thunderous cry roared over me. Something massive thudded into my back so hard I went airborne. For a second I saw the glittering French Quarter far below, and then I hit the rooftop so hard my arm went numb.
I rolled and rolled, and when I came to a halt against something hard, I was on my back. Above me, the dark sky and Percy’s blue-scaled face staring down at mine.
Two emotions mixed in his eyes: terror and love. “Tara?” he whispered.
I knew I wasn’t getting back up again. Not after that blow. So at the end of my duel with Yaroz—of which I was the unequivocal loser—I decided to focus on the love.
Protecting Percy was all that mattered.
Chapter 25
“Now,” Yaroz said in a low, predatory voice, “you shall die once and for all, human. And the gods will not be present to welcome your soul.”
Those were my death words. The duel was over, and Yaroz was about to deliver the coup de grace.
Not until you’ve done your job.
Talk, GoneGodDamnit.
I forced myself up onto my good elbow, pain swarming like angry hornets through my body. Yaroz swung into dizzy relief as I propped myself up, her black-red blood still oozing like lava from the spot where I’d gotten her.
I hoped that scale would never grow back.
“You can kill me,” I breathed. “You can attack the city, but all you’re doing is guaranteeing the extinction of your kind.”
She rumbled with amusement or disdain—I couldn’t tell which. “I’m not guaranteeing our extinction. I’m guaranteeing our rise.”
“And that worked for you at Pompeii?”
She took a step closer, sucking air into her chest. She was preparing her fire.
But Percy’s safety wasn’t ensured.
“There are no gods to build you a sanctuary this time,” I went on. Protect Percy. I had to protect Percy. “This will be a battle to the death, and if one little human with a throwing knife could do what I did to you, what do you think an army of me will do to your kind?”
“There will be no quarter given!” Yaroz bellowed, white-hot fire visible in her throat when her mouth opened. “If this culminates in the extinction of one of us, then so be it. For your impudence, you shall be the first of many to die by my fire.”
A growl sounded behind me, and then the sound of Percy’s wings extending. His talons scraped across the rooftop as he took off into the air. “You won’t kill her.”
I knew exactly what he was doing.
“Perce!” I yelled. “Don’t.”
It didn’t matter what I said. He blasted over me, a blue blur headed straight at Yaroz’s eyes. With tenting wings, he stopped short of her head, shot his back legs out and clawed viciously at her right eye.
Yaroz’s head drew back and up, her right eye fluttering. He’d clearly gotten a talon or two in there. “You dare to get involved in an oath duel?” she said. “You have broken the protocol of battle, and you call yourself one of us?”
Her tail whipped around from behind her faster than my eyes could follow, the clubbed end of it catching Percy in the side. The whole building trembled as he was delivered straight onto the rooftop. The asphalt cracked where he’d hit it, and then her tail swung around again to toss him toward me. He sailed through the air and came to a sliding stop directly in front of me, wings and legs splayed.
His eyes were closed, and he didn’t move right away. He was hurt badly.
Tears blurred my sight, and I pulled myself closer to him. “Perce?” My arm went to his neck, lightly touching his scales. “Please no.”
He wasn’t supposed to die before me. Hell, he wasn’t meant to die at all. Dragons were meant to be immortal.
At least, my dragon was to me.
I stroked his neck, fighting back wracking sobs. “Percy.”
After a few seconds, one of his golden eyes cracked open and he drew in a deep, reviving breath.
My own heart seemed to restart. He was alive.
His head lifted half a foot off the asphalt, turning to look up at Yaroz. Then, with great care, he got his legs under him, one at a time until he was standing unsteadily between her and me, facing off against the enormous dragon.
“I’m not one of you,” he whispered. “I’m one of her. She is the one who has taken care of me, raised me and she is the one who will teach me how to survive in this GoneGod World.”
My chest went tight, and I managed to get my knees under me. I pushed myself up to my feet, my numb arm tucked against my body, as I came to stand by Percy’s side.
We were finally a family, standing side by side as we should. For the first time since I’d hatched him, it felt as though we truly understood one another. The rift between us had melted away, and only love remained.
My only regret was that it had happened in the moment before our deaths.
I set my good hand on Percy’s neck. “I’m proud of you, little egg.” Then my eyes raised to Yaroz.
She hadn’t moved. Her mouth had closed, and she stared down at the two of us as though she wasn’t quite sure what to make of the sight before her.
She wasn’t burning us. She wasn’t swiping us.
I had never in my wildest dreams imagined things would go this way. Surely a creature like Yaroz had seen betrayals of all kinds. But as my eyes lowered to Percy, I knew that wasn’t what had surprised her.
It was something else.
Footsteps sounded across the rooftop, and a small form appeared between us and the matriarch. Ferris threw his weapons down, hands out as though to protect us.
“Move out of the way, gnome,” Yaroz growled.
“No.” He didn’t move an inch. “Percy is right. It is this woman who will teach Percy to survive in this new world, not you. Pompeii taught us that. The last five years have taught us that. And the fact that this dragon has imprinted on a human has taught us that.”
Imprinted.
The word shocked me like voltage to the heart, even as my eyes lowered again to Percy.
His tail was curled as he faced off against Yaroz.
Percy had imprinted on me like I was his mother. Like he was my son. He was prepared to die for me, just as I was prepared to die for him.
It seemed miracles still existed in this GoneGod World.
↔
Yaroz sucked in a breath, let it slowly out. “A dragon has imprinted on a human. Of all the unexpected things this new world has brought, I expected this least of all.”
Ferris’s hands lowered. “It is a good thing, Yaroz. The world changes, and all races must change with it. Leave these two in peace.”
She shot him a venomous look. “Do not think I have forgotten tonight’s betrayal, gnome. If you give me another order, I will reduce your heart to ash before it can beat even once more.” With an enormous flap of her wings, she took to the sky, hovering above us. Her remaining children took off from the rooftop, came to hover around her.
Is it over?
My hand remained on Percy’s neck, partly out of love, and partly because I wasn’t sure if I could stand up straight.
“My children and I will depart this place,” Yaroz said from above us.
Thank the GoneGods.
She hung there a moment longer, gazing down at Percy and me as the police sirens neared in the distance. “I was wrong—you are not each other’s weakness. You are each other’s strength.”
The truth of that statement descended over me, tightened my chest and pricked at my eyes.
She could see it.
A cry sounded in the distance—the wet dragon calling from the shore. Yaroz turned her head, listening to the sound of it, let out a carrying call back. The sirens had reached a crescendo around the building.
When she looked back at us for a final time, her eyes shifted between Percy and me. “It has been a long, long time since I have suffered a defeat such as this. I told you I would grant you one favor for raising my child, and so I give you my promise: I will take my dragons to a place for us, far up the eastern coast, to contemplate our role in this new world.” Then, her eyes narrowing, “If you ever shed your scales of this human flesh, come find me, Percy.”
Percy didn’t answer. He only let out a long sigh as Yaroz flapped harder, higher over the city, and she and her brood circled around and headed north. Together, they set out into the night sky, disappearing from sight in two seconds. The last I heard was a dragon’s cry, far-off like a specter.
And then they were gone.
“Tara?” Ferris called above the sirens. He trotted toward me. “Are you and Percy all right?”
“We’re alive.” I shot a glance around. “And the others?”
“Not the first time we’ve dealt with dragonfire.” He gestured us off. “You should go. I imagine you don’t want any of what’s coming up the stairs.”
Police reports. Bureaucracy. They weren’t worth the glory of, after a long and tedious
investigation, being venerated as the dragon and rider who’d saved the day. Especially since they would have no idea what to do with Percy in the interim. Nobody ever knew what to do with a dragon.
“We’ll move out.” I nodded toward the other ninjas now taking off their flame-retardant gear. “What about you all?”
He waved a hand. “We’re ninjas. If we can’t get down without evading the police, we’re not worthy of the designation.”
I set my good hand over my chest. “Thank you, Ferris. For everything.” Then, to Percy, “Little egg, can you fly?”
Percy turned toward me, wings bravely extending to their full span. “Get on.”
I stepped carefully onto his back using my good arm as leverage. As Percy lifted off the roof, Ferris called out to me. “Tara.”
We paused, hovering over him. “Yeah?” I called back.
“I’ve reconsidered. I’ll be your manager.”
“Really?”
He shrugged. “Maybe I like a little trouble now and then.”
I half-smiled down at him. “Then we’ll talk to you later, Ferris wheel.”
He shook his head as Percy and I took off over the city. He really loved that nickname.
As we flew, Percy said, “GoneGods Tara, where do we even go now?”
“We can go anywhere, Perce. Anywhere we want. I’ve still got that rental on the barn. But given all that’s happened, what do you say we splurge tonight?”
“I’m listening.”
“I’m thinking AirBnB, a nice shower, a TV with cable. I think we’ve earned it.”
“GoneGods, it’s been so long. But there’s one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“I can’t fit through most front doors anymore.”
I patted his neck. “We’ll find one.”
Chapter 26
Two days later, Percy and I swooped down onto the street in the French Quarter in a flurry of wings. I vaulted off his back, landed with a flourishing bow. I’d gone easy on my left shoulder—which had been dislocated in the battle with Yaroz—and kept it tight to my body throughout the show.