by Amie Kaufman
Soon they were aloft once more. Anders saw the coastal town of Port Tylerd pass beneath them, with its tall, white lighthouse sitting atop a thick stone base, painted so brightly it seemed almost to shine in the afternoon sun without the lamp even being lit. Anders didn’t have much chance to admire it, though—by now they were over the northern coast of Vallen, and the winds were fierce.
He tucked himself down against Rayna’s back, arching his body over where Kess was nestled inside her sling. As the young dragons followed Ellukka out across the sea, freezing-cold winds buffeted them, tearing at their wings, at Anders and Lisabet, roaring around them. Anders tried to lift his head a few times to check on how the others were doing, but he couldn’t manage it for long. He could only look straight ahead, to where Ellukka was scrambling through the wind like she was swimming.
He could also drop his gaze and look downward, to where the islands were laid out in the deep, rich, dark blue of the sea just like jewels, or the crumbs the riddle had made them. Their sage-green shapes were jagged around the edges, each one as different from the others as a snowflake from its fellows. He saw one green shape like a huge letter C, fishing boats huddled inside its harbor, waiting out what was clearly now a burgeoning storm.
He saw others that were longer, or flatter, some with a single high peak that seemed to plunge straight from its top down into the sea, as if the mountain continued underwater.
As the sky turned gray, he began to wonder if they should turn back before the storm caught them, but he had no way to tell anyone what he was thinking.
And then, after what felt like a lifetime—with the sun already dipping toward the horizon—they reached the top of the chain of islands. The final two lay side by side, and beyond them, nothing but ocean, all the way to the great ice of the north. The island to the left was large, hills rising and falling, trees nestled between them.
But the little island to the right was tiny. The smallest, without a doubt. It had steep, rocky cliffs on every side, leaving not one spot where a boat could safely dock. The only way to approach this island was from the air. Had the dragons brought the wolves here, to their place of power?
The top of it wasn’t rocky at all, though. It was shaped like the inside of a bowl, one end higher than the other. The ground was perfectly smooth and green, marred by not one tree, not one shrub, not one stone. Just perfect grass.
But tucked into the higher side of the bowl was one thing to disrupt the flawless stretch of green—a small white house with a green grass roof. It was recessed into the slope, so only the front wall, the front door, and the windows were visible, the glass glinting for an instant as a hint of sun made it through the clouds.
The dragons started to descend toward it, the wind only growing worse as they lost altitude, twisting around the islands and the coastline behind them, vicious and unpredictable. Mikkel and Theo shot past Anders and Rayna, Theo veering dangerously off course, Mikkel forced to throw himself to one side at the last minute to avoid a collision.
Rayna was arrowing too fast, far too fast, toward the ground, and Anders wrapped himself around Kess and ducked his head, every muscle tense. At the very last instant, just as he was sure they were about to smash into the grass, he felt the shift of muscles in her back as she flared her wings and managed to slow them down. They landed with several tripping, bumpy steps, and then they were still.
The wind seemed to swirl around inside the cauldron of the island, nipping at them from every direction, and Anders uncurled cramped arms and legs, jumping down from Rayna’s side to drag off her harness as quickly as he could, so she could transform. Kess stuck her head out of her sling once, yowled her disapproval, then stuck it straight back inside again. Anders couldn’t blame her.
Mikkel and Theo had already changed, and Mikkel staggered over to help Anders with the harness. Anders felt incredible, invigorated by the cold, as if he could run the length of the island, but his friend was clearly feeling just the opposite, his face white, his hands fumbling.
They dragged the leather straps clear, and Rayna shifted back to human form, staying crouched on the ground. Anders hurried over and pulled his cloak off, wrapping it around her shoulders for extra warmth, and helped her to her feet. She was suffering as badly as the other dragons, and the twins hurried toward the house after the rest of the group.
They arrived just as Ellukka and Lisabet were pulling on the door—it was swollen with damp and wedged shut, but as they both tugged, suddenly it gave way, sending both girls stumbling back in surprise. All six children bundled inside, and Anders hauled the door closed behind them and then turned to see what kind of place they had found.
They were in a large room, lit only by what gray sunlight made it in through the salt-encrusted front windows. To their right was a large fireplace, surrounded by thick, squashy chairs that were covered in cushions, some of them losing their stuffing. To their left was a long-abandoned kitchen, dull pots and pans hanging from the ceiling above a long counter, an empty wood-burning stove behind it, with a pipe that led up to the ceiling and disappeared through the hill.
Down the middle of the room ran a long table, still strewn with books and papers, as if whoever had left here had intended on coming back to resume their work. The books were everywhere, stacked on the ground and crammed into shelves lining the walls, and a series of doors suggested the house led farther back into the hill.
“We need a fire,” Lisabet said, stepping away from the dragons, who were huddled in a small group, almost too cold to think. “The wind’s freezing, we’re surrounded by cold water, this place is terrible for anyone who needs to be warm. I’ll start one in the fireplace. Anders, you try the stove.”
Anders set down Kess, who scampered away to explore, then hurried over to the stove, crouching in front of it and pulling open the black iron door. There was a basket of kindling stored beside it, and blocky brown squares of peat. He raised his voice to call to Lisabet as he found two pieces of flint connected by a piece of string, hanging on a hook beside the stove. “The wolves might have used this place centuries ago, but I don’t think it was abandoned that long ago. More like ten years than a hundred. There’s not enough dust, and there’s still fuel here.”
Theo called out from where he was standing by the table, his voice shaking as he shivered. “And th-there are dates on some of these p-papers. Someone was coming here.”
“Our mother, hopefully,” said Rayna, tugging both her cloaks tighter around her. “And hopefully she left something behind.”
Anders had the feeling Drifa could have left all kinds of things behind—after all, the map was showing them where to find the pieces of the Sun Scepter because that’s what they’d asked about, but Hayn had said she’d hidden many of her most valuable artifacts. He wondered what else might be tucked around the house, if only they knew to look for it.
Soon enough, he and Lisabet had the two fires going, and the room was beginning to warm up. The water pump in the kitchen still worked, so they had water boiling on the stove, and Lisabet and Mikkel made toasted cheese sandwiches out of some of the extra supplies the boys had brought when they joined the others.
It had fallen dark outside, but the fires and lamps inside the hidden cottage cast a glow over the room, and everyone began to cheer up as the temperature rose—even Lisabet didn’t mind a little more warmth. A little exploration yielded a bathroom with plumbing that seemed to still be working. There was even hot water—pipes ran through the wall behind the stove to heat the water up, then poured it out of a spout and into the bath. They found a room set up like a scientific laboratory and finally three bedrooms, though Ellukka and Anders dragged the mattresses out to the living room, so they could all sleep together in front of the fire, where it was warmest.
“Well,” said Theo, sometime later. They were all sitting on the mattresses or in the squashy chairs in front of the fire, drinking cocoa and eating toasted cheese sandwiches, except for Kess, who had some roast beef in hers.
“This place was once used for research, I’m sure of it. There are books on all kinds of things. It’s so cold up here, it feels like wolves could think faster and sharper here than anywhere else in the world. Maybe that’s why they came.”
“If they did, dragons must have flown them in,” Anders said, echoing his earlier thought. “There’s no way a ship could dock. Perhaps Drifa brought wolves here, and that’s how she knew about it.”
“There are artifacts here,” Lisabet said. “Odd ones, I can’t tell what most of them do.”
“I’d like it,” Mikkel said, “if it wasn’t so cold. We’ll need to keep warm tonight, so we’re well enough to fly out in the morning, assuming we can find the next piece of the scepter.”
“I wish I knew exactly what the scepter did,” Theo said, looking around at the piles of books. “I mean, it’ll make it warmer, but I don’t know how. Changing the weather is a big thing to do.”
“Whatever you do, it can affect somewhere else,” Anders said, remembering the artifacts he’d seen in the Skraboks back at Ulfar, when he’d first been searching for a way to find Rayna. “If you make it rain in one place, you might cause a drought somewhere else.”
“I wish we knew what heat would do,” Theo replied.
“We have to risk using it, even if we’re not quite sure what will happen,” Lisabet said. “Hopefully, it’s just like the Snowstone—the temperature around where it is changes. So if we set them against each other, they should cancel each other out. Hopefully.”
After they’d eaten, the dragons stayed gathered around the fire, each taking a turn to use the bath, their smiles growing as they got the heat all the way into their bones. Meanwhile, Anders and Lisabet took a lamp each and started hunting for the next piece of the scepter, hoping it might be inside the house itself. Now that they’d seen the island, it didn’t seem possible Drifa would have risked hiding anything on the smooth expanse of grass outside. After two discoveries, they knew what they were searching for—a cylinder about the length of their forearms, wrapped in waxed canvas, tied with string.
“I’m hoping the main trial was getting here,” Lisabet said, as she looked under the bed frame in one of the bedrooms, while Anders searched the high shelves. “And now it’ll just be a matter of looking.”
“I think so,” he agreed. “She wasn’t trying to make it impossible for us to find them. Just difficult for anyone who didn’t have a clue. It should be somewhere in here.”
They were nearly ready to give up when finally they reached the laboratory at the back of the house. It had a fireplace, but it hadn’t been lit, and they could see their breath in the air. Lisabet started going through the equipment on a square table, and Anders held up his lamp, studying the shelves, trying to put himself into the mind-set of a dragon. Where would his mother think was a good place to hide something?
Then he took a closer look at the fireplace. It wasn’t just a fireplace—it had metal hooks set into the wall around it, ready to swing pots of different sizes out over the flame, to heat or melt whatever was inside. That was as close to a forge as Anders had seen so far inside the house. And Drifa had been a dragonsmith.
He tried to picture her at work here, but he didn’t know what she’d looked like. Judging by how he and Rayna looked, and the stories that she’d been half Mositalan, she’d probably had about the same brown skin as they did, and black hair too.
She would have been strong if she was a smith. If he’d gotten his tallness from their father, perhaps Rayna had gotten her shortness from their mother.
He wondered if his father had ever been here, or if Hayn had visited this place. Would a dragon have brought them there? Maybe even Drifa?
He pulled the biggest pot away from the wall, easing its hook around so the pot swung back and forth. What kind of thing went in it? Metal? He held up his lantern to take a look inside, and he stared as he realized something was still in the pot.
It was a very familiar shape.
“Lisabet, I’ve got it!”
He reached inside, closing his fingers around the wrapped-up piece of the scepter, and pulled it out triumphantly. His mother had left it just where she’d worked, of course.
He and Lisabet ran through to the main room where the others were waiting, and they greeted him with cheers when he held it up. Quickly they untied the string and revealed another piece of the wooden scepter, wrapped in bands of metal as the others had been, engraved with runes.
They unfolded the cloth map and laid it out on the floor, the silvery threads glinting in the firelight. Anders touched the newest piece of the scepter to the map, and they watched as the knotwork drawn around the edge wriggled and twisted and formed new words.
As always, Lisabet leaned down to read them out.
“The final piece is hidden high,
Concealed in the forbidden sky.
By name it is the safest place,
But know you well that danger waits.”
“The final piece! We were right!” Rayna said, scooping up Kess and holding her aloft like a trophy until the cat meowed indignantly to be let down.
“We’re nearly there!” Ellukka agreed, leaning down to read the words for herself.
But Anders was quiet, and eventually the others noticed, one by one turning to him with questioning eyes.
“I know where it is,” he said. “It’s somewhere high up, in the sky. Somewhere we’re forbidden to go. We’ve heard its name plenty of times—somewhere that sounds like it should be safe. A haven. Cloudhaven.”
They all stared at him in silence. Cloudhaven. The legendary home of the first dragonsmiths, the highest point in Vallen. A place all dragons were forbidden to go, though nobody knew why.
“‘But know you well,’” Rayna whispered, “‘that danger waits.’”
Chapter Fourteen
THE NEXT MORNING THEY WERE ALL UP EARLY, preparing to leave. Anders had the same feeling as he’d had when they’d left Flic Waterfall—that there was so much here they could still discover, so many more stories that could be told. But they’d have to come back another time. Now there was no time to waste in getting to Cloudhaven.
“It’s a dangerous route,” Ellukka said. “We’ll fly across the Uplands—that part’s all right, it’s mostly just shepherds out there, and I’m pretty sure they’re used to seeing dragons from time to time—but then we have to cross the Icespire Mountains. We’ll have to go high. It’ll be long, windy, and cold.”
“And north of Drekhelm,” Mikkel said, with a grimace. “If they’re keeping a lookout, there’s a chance they’ll spot us.”
“We can’t afford to take a longer path,” Rayna said. “Not when we know they’re probably already looking for us.”
“Agreed,” said Anders. Rayna had always been good at assessing risks, whether they were pickpocketing on the streets or trying to avoid the wrath of the Dragonmeet. Hopefully once they reached Cloudhaven itself, they’d be protected by the clouds that gave the mysterious peak its name. First, though, there was something he had to say to the others.
“Anders?” said Rayna, reading the look on his face.
“Before we go,” he said, “there’s something I’ve been thinking about. To do with what happens next, when we go after the final piece of the scepter.”
They were all silent, gathering around, waiting for him to continue.
“I suppose what I want to say,” he began, “is that once we start out, we can’t go back. I mean, I know we can’t go back already, the Dragonmeet’s after us. But . . . what we’re doing is more important than anything. To be honest, when I began, I was thinking about Rayna, about Lisabet, and then about the rest of you as I got to know you. I wasn’t trying to do anything to change the world. I felt too small to do that. I just wanted to keep my part of it safe.”
Small nods told him he wasn’t alone in feeling that way.
“But now it’s bigger than that,” he continued. “Hayn’s been arrested, Leif’s being undermined by the Dra
gonmeet. Dragons are sick, and so are the people of Holbard. If the cold continues the wolves will attack eventually, and terrible things will happen to people on both sides—but things will get much worse even before then. It’s not about how we keep ourselves safe anymore. It’s about how we keep everyone safe.”
“It has to be,” Rayna said quietly, and the others made soft noises of agreement.
“So I think that means,” said Anders, “that no matter what happens at Cloudhaven, we have to put getting the scepter before anything else. And then using it, no matter what happens to us.”
“No matter what happens to any of us,” Lisabet said softly, “the others have to use it.”
“No matter what,” echoed Ellukka, making the words a promise. And one by one, the others whispered them too. Quiet, determined, and—Anders knew now—of one mind, ready for whatever lay ahead.
They finished packing up their supplies, and Mikkel and Theo closed the door of the cottage firmly behind them while Anders and Lisabet helped Rayna and Ellukka with their harnesses.
“We’ll be back,” said Lisabet, looking at the door, echoing Anders’s earlier thoughts. “One day. When this is over.”
Anders didn’t say what he knew both of them were thinking—that they only hoped that one day it would be over, and that they’d all make it out the other side.
The flight away from the island was as treacherous as the approach had been the night before, with icy winds snatching at Anders like so many fingers, determined to drag him from his sister’s back and send him tumbling to the dark-blue sea far below. Eventually they reached the coast, and the big white lighthouse and small stone village of Port Tylerd, and they flew out across the Uplands.
Here the clouds cleared a little, and the golden green plains beneath them seemed to glow; silvery, mirrored streams ran across them in endlessly winding patterns, hills cast long shadows, tiny sheep and cows gathered together in flocks far below. But too soon—or perhaps not soon enough, to the tired dragons—the Icespire Mountains loomed up ahead of them, dark stone rising from the grassy plains like huge creatures shaking off their velvet cloaks and reaching for the clouds.