My legs ached as I stepped out into full moonlight. But my heart leaped. To the left was the base of the arena. The structure towered over us. The bridges from the Top and the Middle were visible far above our heads, showing how far we had traveled tonight. The Bottom was at the very bottom of everything in the Walled City. To the right an enormous square tower connected to a long wall, stretching some forty feet high. I couldn’t see where it ended. A prison built to hold dangerous creatures.
The draignoch must have felt my arrival. Her calls rose to a fevered pitch.
“I’m coming!”
Griffin skidded to a stop, shushing me. “Who are you yelling at?”
“The draignoch.”
“You hear her?” He sounded skeptical.
“You don’t? Did you get hit in the ear in a match?”
“No . . .”
I cupped my ears, realizing all at once that it did nothing. Her clammers still banged inside my head. It was altogether incredible, yet irritating.
We crossed the grass to the wall and paced for at least fifty feet before finally finding a wooden door. The latch wouldn’t budge.
“It’s locked,” I whispered.
“Of course it is.” Griffin pulled a small knife from his boot and used it to lift the pins from the hinges. The door jerked open a foot.
“You really aren’t the tosspot I thought you were.”
“Probably the nicest thing you’ve to me said all night.” Griffin dropped the torch, rolling it until the fire doused. He took the lead into the rectangular compound. It was huge, twice the size of the arena floor. We walked by penned cows, pigs, chickens, lambs.
“Food for the beasts,” Griffin whispered.
Then by several empty cells. Then several with draignochs. All huddled pressed against the back walls, far from the reach of the bars. My heart ached at how many times guards must have stabbed spears through their cages, like Moldark had done to her, to instill such behavior. None came to greet us. People were feared.
For such large creatures, the draignochs were very quiet. She had gone quiet too.
Someone exited the tower, carrying a torch. Griffin and I hid behind a hay wagon. The light flickered closer. I held my breath and crawled under with Griffin. It felt like an eternity until the person left and we heard the tower door close and lock.
Griffin hurried out.
I heard her again, and caught his arm. “My turn to go first.”
We passed another draignoch cell. The poor yellow beast Malcolm had fought moaned. Its neck and side still bloody, a sticky sap held the wounded flesh together. At the sight of me, it lifted its head and let out a strangled cry.
Worried the guards would come out to see what was wrong, I ran. Griffin followed and a minute later we stood in front of a very different kind of cell. Larger than the others, the top and sides had stone exteriors, but the front of the cell and the insides were lined with glistening bars.
“Phantombronze,” Griffin whispered in awe. “I didn’t know this much existed in all of the Walled City.”
She scraped her claws in the dirt, and I knew she wanted me to come inside, but the cell was locked and the bars too close together for me to fit through. She lowered her head, straining against the chains digging into her neck. I could see her pale blue eyes glinting in the moonlight.
Griffin squinted, looking from her to me, seeing what I was, that our eyes matched in color and shape. He paced to the end of the cell and back again, trying to get a good look at her, but the space was too cramped and dim.
Griffin settled beside me and whispered, “It’s enormous. And the wings are much larger, that much I can see.”
“Her wings . . . ,” I corrected.
She shifted, chains clanking, to show me her side was peppered with stab wounds from the soldiers’ spears. “She needs me, Griffin.”
“Needs you? For what?” he growled.
I stretched my arms as far as I could into the cell. If I could touch her, perhaps I could heal her wounds.
“Maggie, have you lost your senses?” He grabbed my waist, preventing me from reaching her. His face winced at the pain he must have felt in his injured hand by latching on to me, but it wasn’t nearly as much pain as he was going to feel if he didn’t let me go!
“She won’t hurt me.” I struggled, but his grip remained clasped like irons. “Please . . .” I was begging. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except her.
“Maggie!” He yanked.
“I said let go!” I grabbed his hand, putting intense pressure on it, feeling the broken bone shift. He cursed.
His hold loosened enough for me to reach far enough inside. Her head brushed my hand. My palm flattened until I was well and truly touching her. Then, all at once, blinding light forced my eyes shut.
When I opened them, I was no longer in the draignoch’s compound. No longer in the Bottom, or in the Walled City at all. Or even in the Hinterlands. I was someplace else. Flying above treetops, soaring through night beneath the blazing full moon, like a bird in flight.
A beam struck the earth. A loud crack deep in the heart of a dense forest caught my attention. The moon left a path from the heavens for me to follow.
Downward.
Descending through light, I found the tree. It was sliced clean and steaming from the frigid moon’s carving. As the fog cleared, a baby cooed. I landed on the lip of the trunk, staring into blue eyes. My gaze jerked to the baby’s arm, where it was marked with my scar. That was me in the tree. I was the babe I was seeing.
I glimpsed the wing flapping beside me. On the other side, another.
I wasn’t me at all. This was the draignoch’s doing. These were her memories of the first time we’d met.
A woman with long black hair appeared out of the darkness. She was naked, as was the tiny boy whose hand she held. “As I foresaw, Armel. This babe will give you what you need. She only needs to reach her age of enlightenment.”
I took to the skies, following after the woman and the baby. Or rather, the draignoch did.
Images flew by. Glimpses in time.
The draignoch looking back at the girl crawling after her. The woman catching her, slapping her for running off.
Wings cascading over a crying girl’s bruised shoulders and back, giving a gentle hug.
“Get away from her! She belongs to me!” the woman screeched.
An arrow whizzing by, missing, barely.
“Yeah!” The boy hurled a rock.
The little girl ran, following the draignoch.
“Get back here! Worthless child!”
Through woods, across streams, into a cave too small for the woman to enter. We hid there, wrapped together. Girl and draignoch. No. Not draignoch.
Dragon.
Looking down on the girl, on me, older now, maybe five, staring at my reflection in a smooth pond. Wild sun-dusted raven hair. Blue eyes. Covered in mud.
The earthy scent of the woods after rain. The leaves green and plentiful with tiny burgeoning buds. It was spring.
A playful whine echoed from the dragon. The girl looked up and started running. The dragon took to the skies, sailing through fluffy white clouds, slicing them into different animal shapes as the girl called them out to her.
“A wolf!”
“A bear!”
“A fuzzy rabbit!”
“Rendicryss!” the girl called.
The dragon landed then, for that was the name I had given her. We were both still small. Rendicryss whinnied, wanting a pet, which my tiny hand gave her on the nose. In return she licked the mark on my arm.
A sudden forceful surge rocketed through me.
Moonlight struck palms, leaving a line from the heavens, leading directly to us. I wasn’t scared, but rather dancing and laughing, winding a light web, a cocoon around us.
A rock pelted Rendicryss’s side.
Armel’s snivelly pug-nosed face peeked out from behind a tree.
He hurled another rock.
I caught the rock in my moonlit web and hurled it back at him. Then chased him, for I was tired of running away from him and the woman we both called Mother.
He tried to run but there was no escape. He was hunched over, his eyes not level, which made him slower, off balance.
I threw another rock. “Stay away from us!”
It hit him, and he fell on all fours. His back trembling, not with fear but laughter.
“She’s here, Mother!”
I hid behind a tree. Rendicryss perched on a branch, too big to be missed.
“Worthless!” she yelled. “You cannot run anymore.”
An arrow sailed at Rendicryss. The jolt knocked her out of the tree.
I slapped a hand over her mouth, holding back her scream. Pulled the arrow out. A tiny hand over the web. Glistening white light. The hole knit together. The wing healing instantly.
“I’m going to chop up that creature and throw her in my cauldron!” She pinned another arrow, drawing the string taut. “And then you with her!”
The arrow hit the dragon’s other wing.
“Fly!” I screamed. “Please!”
The dragon did, but always keeping me in her sights.
I ran hard. Feet pounding soft ground, tripping over rising roots.
At the edge of the woods, I skidded to a stop. It was too dangerous beyond the woods.
Mother chanting. She stepped out from behind the tree. An arrow struck Rendicryss’s wing.
As the images spun, I saw myself start running again. I saw Mother throw a curse. Me, falling out of the woods.
Wounded, the young dragon attacked, chasing Mother away from the edge of the woods, away from me, giving me time to run.
Rendicryss returned to the edge of the woods, but I was gone. She roared and her cry broke my heart. The world spun through setting suns and rising moons—
“Hey! You there!”
Griffin grabbed me, lifting me off my feet, pulling my hand off Rendicryss. The images cut off. My dragon hissed at the guards. Her hind legs and neck chained, her wings tied down, she slammed her tail against the bars, drawing their attention.
Griffin put a clammy hand over my mouth as he set me on my feet and backed us into an empty cell. He pressed my head into his shoulder, trying to keep me quiet because I couldn’t stop crying. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. For all these years, I had been lost to Rendicryss, and she to me. But not anymore. My dragon had found me. Her sting broke through the curse, giving me back what was rightfully mine. But she wasn’t finished. She had more to show me! More I needed to see. The power of the moon flowed through me like a raging river, but I had no idea what to do with it. I balled my hands into fists.
Guards and a familiar stick figure appeared. Griffin pushed me down and covered me with hay. “Don’t come out,” he whispered.
“I should’ve known.” I recognized Perig’s sniveling voice. “Leave us,” he shouted at the guards. Their footsteps softened until they were gone.
I heard Perig step into the cell. “Popped the hinges, did we, Sir Griffin? I’m going to have to bolt the gate now.”
“I just wanted to see her,” Griffin confessed. “I have to face that in the arena. Not you.” He sounded angrier than I’d ever heard him before. “I understand if you feel the need to report me, but if it makes you feel any better, she is so bound, I learned nothing.”
“Did you call it a she?” Perig asked.
“I meant it,” Griffin corrected himself.
“All the others have tossed gold at me. I assumed you’d understand, and have your bribe at the ready,” Perig laughed. Griffin blinked at him. “Yes, the others have all paid well to see it. Don’t look so surprised. I carry a death sentence so long as I work here. This coin will ensure that I can eventually leave this job.” He wiggled his three-fingered hand. “I’ve lost enough to these monsters. Twenty pieces is all I ask. My life is worth more than that, is it not?”
Griffin puffed a breath. “You take this secret with you to your grave or I will put you in it.”
“Bring me payment tomorrow and you have my word.” Perig scurried out of the cell. “Go now. The way you came. I will bring the guards inside the tower until you are gone so no one can say they bore witness to your entry or exit. I’ll tell them it was another, a drunk man from the Bottom. They will enjoy trying to find out who it was.”
Griffin returned a minute later. “He’s gone. We have to go.”
“I have to free Rendicryss,” I said, trying and failing to brush the hay off my cloak.
“Are you mad? You cannot let that thing loose.”
“Thing? That thing is my past!” I shoved him, struggling to get to her again, but he refused to get out of my way.
“Okay, let’s say for the sake of insane arguments that I believe that you believe that this monster is somehow from your past. She’s locked in Phantombronze. We have no key. You cannot free her.”
He danced, keeping me from her. Why didn’t Griffin understand this?
“Was this your plan all along?” he accused. “To let that monster out? Do you know the damage she would do to the city? To the people?”
Rage flooded through me. “She’s not the monster! You are!”
“I am? I am the monster?” His cheeks flushed with anger. He checked the tower door, then dragged me into the shadows. “And when they discovered you gone, and a draignoch escaped, they’d interrogate the guards, who wouldn’t want to get in trouble, so they’d tell the king they opened the gate for me.”
Tears free-flowed. “Fine! Just let me touch her again!”
“We’re out of time, Maggie! Please . . .”
The thought of leaving Rendicryss hurt me like nothing I had ever experienced before. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Yes, you do. We need to leave.”
He was right.
There was no way to get her out tonight. No time for me to sit beside her and see what more she had to show me. But I would return. I would figure out how to free her, then we would both leave this place.
A lump lodged in my throat, making it impossible to speak, so I nodded. We sprinted across the compound, Rendicryss’s sad mew crushing my heart with every step.
But we kept running—taking the stairs in the dark, making it halfway up until we both had to stop to catch our breath.
Griffin leaned his back against the wall, clutching his hand, writhing in pain. “Dammit.”
His injury was worse. I could smell the beginnings of infection. I wanted to hate Griffin for what he’d said, but he’d helped me, and I owed him. “I always repay my debts. Give me your hand.”
Griffin recoiled. “Why? You don’t owe me anything.”
“You brought me here. You’re going to have to pay that whiny fool, Perig. I owe you.” I held out my hand, palm up in expectation. “Give it to me. Now.”
He placed his left hand in mine.
I smirked. “The other one.”
“I’m not a complete idiot. It’s already broken. You need not try and make it worse. If I met your best friend in the ring, I would be a tasty meal as it is.”
“I wasn’t intending to make it worse.” His scowl was proof he didn’t believe me. I wiggled my fingers, goading him. “That infection will leach into your bloodstream and kill you long before Rendicryss has a chance.”
Griffin contemplated, biting his lip.
“What do you have to lose by letting me see it?”
He remained frozen as I slid my palm beneath his. He let me move his other arm out of the way so I could sandwich the broken one between mine. I slowly unraveled the bandage, growing ill at the sight of what lay beneath. Swollen and festering, blood and pus oozed from the gaping wound left by a draignoch’s spike. The broken bone separated so far, his fingers pointed in unnatural directions. The worst part was the smell coming off it. It was all I could do not to vomit. I never liked the sight of blood, and this was so much worse.
His brow was sweaty; he was fevered. “How
long has it been like this? Poisoned?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” he said, his gaze fixed on mine.
The moon wasn’t visible any longer, but if I was right it shouldn’t have to be. The moon simply was, visible or not. I felt it in the air around me, the push and pull—and I knew I could draw from it. A deep breath and I closed my eyes. A pin light in the darkness grew brighter. A surge rushed down my arms, into my hands. My palms collapsed on his, glowing brightly.
“Maggie! Your hands . . . your hands!”
All at once Griffin roared in pain. He tried to pull his hand out, but the force holding us together was too strong. My eyes still closed, I could see the cracked and separated bone in my mind. The fluid swelled like a growing tide with nowhere for it to go.
Griffin hissed.
I was making it worse.
My fingers stretched as far as possible. I blew out a long breath, the power jolting through my hands, and finally into his. The jagged shards moved until they were aligned, then knitted together, becoming one again. The infection from the wound took more effort. My whole body trembled, drawing out the toxins until the smell of rotting flesh was replaced with only Griffin.
Winded and weary beyond belief, I opened my eyes to his surprised smile.
“What . . . ? How . . . ?” he stuttered, flexing his fingers freely.
And then . . . he hugged me. The smell of rot gone, replaced by his own scent, which I liked more than I should.
I laughed to hide my embarrassment, but I didn’t let go. “No one can know.”
Griffin leaned back, his warm hands cradling my shoulders. “Are you insane? Why would you hide such a gift? Do you know the kind of influence you could wield at court?” He grew more excited by the question, then stopped. “You brought the moonlight into the Great Hall, didn’t you? You made that cheetah chase me!”
I laughed at what sounded like fear in his voice. “Oh, come now. It was only moonlight. You can’t be afraid of—”
“It wasn’t just light. It burned me, Maggie.”
“Burned?” I stared at my hands.
“Not with heat, but with cold.”
“That is . . . unexpected!” I paced, unable to hold still. “In the memories—the ones I just saw—I used the light like a fisherman uses a net. I caught a rock thrown at her.” I reached a hand up, willing moonlight to come to me, but nothing happened. “But alas, I don’t know how I did it.”
The Color of Dragons Page 15