by Cari Z
His cry of joy took her by surprise. It shouldn’t have, not when she could feel his passion bubbling up and overwhelming his anxiety. What was meant to be a training flight turned into an hour-long escapade, soaring high over the mountains and between valleys, snaking along the paths of streams and just barely brushing treetops as they flew, joyously, recklessly, simply for the fun of it. She hadn’t done this with Evan’s father, or his grandfather, but this boy was different. He loved this, exulted in the freedom of it, and she vowed then and there that Evan would be her last rider. For who would possibly compare, after him?
Evan woke up for the first time in months without a throat sore from holding back screams, or eyes fatigued from crying. He was so comfortable that he was almost uncomfortable, a decent night’s sleep and a good morning something he wasn’t used to experiencing anymore. He actually had to force himself out of bed, it was so unaccountably pleasant there, and into his cold morning shower.
The stinging water brought him back to the present, but didn’t completely wipe away his sense of refreshment. He grabbed some granola and a handful of dried currants from his lockbox and headed for his workshop.
He didn’t realize just how much better he really was feeling until the woman working at the forge closest to his turned away from the blade she was hammering and said, “Could you keep the damn whistling down, man?”
“Oh.” Holy shit. “Sure, sorry.”
“It don’t bother me that you’re happy, just . . . you can’t carry a tune in a bucket, buddy.” She half smiled. “I can’t tell if you’re whistling ‘Amazing Grace’ or ‘Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy.’”
“Neither, I’m afraid.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Evan started to turn back to his work, but the woman held up a hand. “I heard ’bout what happened to the kid yesterday. He okay?”
The memory of the incident on the range took care of the rest of Evan’s strange joy. “He’s fine.”
“Good. It ain’t right to be fucking with an adult like that, but getting a kid involved? Sick.” She shook her head. “You ever have to deal with shit people and need some cover for him at some point, you send him to me, okay? I’m Charlie. Charlie Jones.”
“I’m Evan Luck.”
Charlie grinned like he’d said something funny, and wrinkled her crooked nose. “Everybody knows you, Luckless. But lucky or not, no kid deserved to get pulled into that kinda crap. You hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“Good.” She picked up her hammer and got back to work, ending the conversation as abruptly as she’d started it. Evan stared at her a moment longer, then went back to making arrowheads.
When he mentioned the incident to Lee over dinner that night, Lee smiled. “It seems you might have a few friends, then.”
“But she’s never talked to me before. Never even looked my way.”
“Children open a lot of doors previously thought closed.” Lee nodded toward Jason, who was sitting on the floor on the other side of the room, making a tiny bow and arrow out of a twig and some string. “Protecting a child is elemental to almost every species. No one wants to see them hurt.”
Evan shook his head. “I can’t imagine how it must feel to be a parent, with the world the way it is now. Not that it’s ever been perfect, but . . .”
“For me, it’s like having your own heart living outside of your chest. It’s painful, but there’s no way to put it back in. You simply have to learn to live with it, and to take as many precautions as you can without being stifling. You have to put your child’s needs first, even when it’s uncomfortable for both of you.”
“Is that what you did by moving here?”
Lee grimaced, his normally smooth features furrowing. “It’s what I hope for, at least. It remains to be seen whether or not Forge will really be the place for us.”
Evan felt his dinner settle in his stomach like a lump of iron. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I made . . . deals, in order to come here. To be accepted here. I have to be able to uphold my end of those bargains in order for us to keep our place, and so far I haven’t managed it.”
“Is he going to make you leave?” That would be the height of cruelty, to kick a father and his child out of the city they were trying to make a home.
“No. I’ve found other ways to make myself useful to Townsend. He isn’t very happy about it, but he can’t deny that I’m effective. It’s just not everything he wants.”
“What does the governor want you to do?”
“He wants me to use my skills in defense of this city, like I did before.”
Evan nodded slowly. “He wants you to take another dragon.”
“It’s—” Lee sat back in his chair and blew out a breath. “It’s complicated. You can’t force a bond that isn’t there, all riders know that, but the governor would certainly like me to try.”
“He can’t expect too much from you yet, surely. None of the smaller dragons are ready to take a rider, and dragons never have more than one at a time.”
“Try explaining anything to a man who doesn’t want to listen.” Lee waved away Evan’s sound of concern. “It’s fine. I’m making him see sense, if slowly, and making myself as useful as I can be in other ways, but the pressure is . . . intense.”
“I’d tell him off for you if I thought it would do any good,” Evan said.
“And I’d let you.” Lee smiled. “I appreciate the support, more than I can say.”
“You’re my friend.” The word felt right-but-not-right on Evan’s tongue, close but not quite there. He couldn’t think about how to rephrase without opening himself up too wide, though. He could do this, be a friend to this man and his son. It was good. It was enough.
“I’m glad.” Lee glanced toward his son. “I think both of us needed a friend when we arrived here. We’re lucky we found you.” He stood up and cleared the dishes, placing a gentle hand on Evan’s shoulder before taking his plate. The contact sent a zing down his spine, and Evan reminded himself yet again not to read into things. Casual contact was something he’d lost the ability to appreciate—almost every touch since arriving at Forge had been the result of combat. He would learn it again, though.
“Let me help you with those,” Evan offered as Lee began to do the dishes, still not quite used to having anything, even something as mundane as cleaning up after a meal, done for him.
“I’d rather you relax, and tell me if you’ve had any new dreams,” Lee said as he worked soap into a lather in the sink.
“I did, actually.”
“Really?” Lee turned around, broadly smiling now. His teeth were snowy white, whiter than Evan had seen on any other adult. “That’s good news! What was it about?”
“I remembered my first flight.” Evan recounted the dream he’d had from Juree’s perspective, and by the time he was done, Lee was nodding along.
“It’s thrilling, isn’t it? The way the air lifts you, cradles you in the sky. It feels like you could go up forever, sometimes.”
“Well, not me, exactly,” Evan said with a chuckle. “But I think that’s how Juree felt about it, anyway. I actually forgot to fasten my harness for that first flight, I was so excited. I remember my father telling both of us off when we got back and he realized it.”
“Why did your father stop riding Juree? Why pass her on to you? Or did you somehow manage to share her?”
“No, we didn’t share her. He got hurt. Not in a fight, surprisingly. Cutting wood.”
The ax had slipped in his hands, hitting his lower leg and maiming him. He’d been lucky to survive, but unable to continue to ride. Evan still remembered his father’s tears as he’d explained this to Juree, and to him. It was the only time he’d ever seen his father cry. “I can’t have you halfway, and I won’t bring you down with me. Evan was always meant to be a rider. It’s just going to happen a little sooner than we thought.”
“I’m lucky that Juree chose me. That was always the intent, but you
can’t force compatibility between a dragon and their rider.”
“No.” Lee looked like he was trying to say something but couldn’t put it into words. “No, you can’t.”
Evan felt an odd prickle in his face, almost like he needed to sneeze. He rubbed at his nose in an effort to dispel it. “What about you? Any good dreams last night?”
“Several. The city skyline—Chicago managed to keep some of their largest skyscrapers, you know. I watched snow blow across frozen water, and rode the wind for miles and miles, searching for enemies. We didn’t find any.” He smiled. “It was a good day.”
“A day without enemies is always a good day.”
“Yes, it is.”
Jason’s huff of frustration pulled them out of the moment. “Evan, I can’t make the bowstring stay in place!”
Evan held out a hand. “Let me see how you’re tying it.” Lee turned away to finish the dishes, and Evan did his best to ignore a faint pang of disappointment. Jason was the reason he was here at all, and Evan was his teacher. He needed to remember that.
The new sense of closeness between him and Lee didn’t end after that evening, though. Every night, Lee asked Evan about his day and whether or not he’d dreamed. More often than not, lately, Evan was able to report that he had—new dreams, or old ones freshly remembered. Not all of them were pleasant, but they weren’t a constant rehash of Juree’s death, either. Lee shared his own dreams in return, until one night when he asked, Evan had to laugh.
“I think you’ve described Chicago to me so many times I’m starting to dream it myself.”
Lee went oddly still where he sat next to Evan—not across from him, like he had positioned himself originally, but beside him, almost close enough for their legs to touch. “What did you see?”
“A tall building with four . . . well, they look kind of like turrets, I guess, made of pale stone and green glass. One of the turrets looks like it’s on fire, but I’m not panicking in the dream, so maybe it’s nothing.” Evan laughed again. “I mean, of course it’s nothing. I’ve never been to Chicago.” His laughter died off when he took in Lee’s serious expression. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing at all.” Lee smiled, but it seemed to waver somehow, like he wasn’t quite sure whether it should broaden or diminish. “That’s definitely a skyscraper in Chicago. They used the turrets for lighting signal fires. The building was a convenient landing pad for riders and dragons sometimes as well.”
“Huh.” That stuff definitely hadn’t been in any description Lee had given him. Evan’s subconscious must have extrapolated it somehow. He had plenty of experience with signal fires, after all, and he’d gone to Forge’s movie night last month to watch The Return of the King. That was it. Everything had blended together.
“What else have you dreamed?”
Evan chuckled uncomfortably. “Nothing unusual. My old cabin. My father teaching me how to fire a bow for the first time.”
Lee’s smile looked more natural now. “That’s not surprising, given your relationship with Jason.”
“I’m not trying to—to replace you in any way.” Evan wanted to make that clear. “Jason is a great kid, but he’s your kid, and I respect that.”
“I appreciate that, but I’m not worried,” Lee assured him. “Like I said, you’ve become a good friend to us both. More than that, in some ways. We’re grateful for you.”
Evan’s mouth went dry. “More?” he managed.
“You’re a role model for Jason, of course. You do things with him that I’m not capable of.”
Ah, right. It was curious, actually, that Lee could be a rider and yet be utterly clueless about archery. Perhaps he’d used a gun back in Chicago.
“And for me you’re not just a friend, you’re a . . . companion. A solace.” Lee blushed a little. “I hope you don’t mind that I think of you that way.”
Did he mind? Did crix hunt in packs? “I don’t mind at all.” The way that Lee was looking at him right now, warm and open, invited Evan to bare himself to the man, to expose thoughts and feelings he’d tried so hard to lock away. It would be so easy to tell him that Evan felt more than friendship, more than solace—that he wanted Lee like he’d never wanted another human being, that sometimes he woke up at night rutting against his pallet and coming in his briefs. That had never happened before, not even when Evan was a teenager. He could tell Lee this, and maybe, just maybe, he’d get away with it. Maybe Fate or God or even the aimless, uncaring universe would let him have this. Let him have Lee. “Actually, I—”
Fate, God, or the universe intervened in the form of a faint, grinding shudder in the floor beneath their feet, followed a second later by the siren calling all fighters to arms. Evan blinked rapidly, coming out of their moment of intimacy with all the sudden shock of a bucket of cold water to the face. “What the hell?” he muttered, already getting to his feet and moving toward the door.
Jason burst out of his bedroom. “The ground is moving! Is it an earthquake?”
“I’m going to go find out.”
“Let me come with you!”
“No,” Evan and Lee said in tandem.
“I’ll tell you all about whatever it is tomorrow,” Evan promised. “But not until then. Go back to bed.” He looked at Lee, regret and a bit of relief seeping through his veins as he remembered what he’d almost confessed. “If I can’t come for some reason, I’ll try to get a messenger to you.”
“Don’t worry about us, just let us know that you’re safe.” Lee’s pale brow was heavily furrowed. “Night fights are especially dangerous. Be careful.”
“I will be.” Evan clenched his hands into fists to keep from reaching out, and left their comfortable apartment at a run for his own.
By the time he got to the wall, it was teeming with people, none of whom seemed to know what was going on. Evan pushed his way to the edge and stared out over the rubble of Denver. It seemed empty, none of the usual suspects in view. He looked around for a familiar face and spotted Charlie. “What’s happening?” he asked.
“Best we can tell, something’s going after the foundations,” she said with a grimace. “Tunnelers of some kind.”
“Well, fuck.” Tunnelers were bad news, especially when your main line of defense was a dragon. They could fight from the ground, but it left them vulnerable. “Has anything ever made it into Forge before?”
“No, but then we’ve never felt the shakes before like we are now.” She stamped her foot on the concrete, which was in fact shaking, just a little.
“They’ll have to send a group out to investigate, won’t they?”
She spat to the side. “Good luck finding volunteers for that! Who wants to go out into the ruins and look for tunnels at night, eh? Damn fools, that’s who. They’ll order people sooner or later, but I’m betting they’ll send Gorot out to dig around. Ah, yeah—look.” She raised her hand toward the stadium, where the dark dragon was in fact rising into the air. “Yep, here he comes.”
Evan’s free hand clenched into a fist. “It’s not safe for a dragon to fight on the ground.”
“It’s probably not safe for any of us down there right now. At least he’s big.”
He was big, but that was part of the problem. Big creatures could be overwhelmed by enough small ones, and when they didn’t even know what was causing the tremors . . . Evan watched Gorot and his rider land, somewhat ponderously, on the ground in front of the wall. The dragon sprayed fire, illuminating the path ahead as he made his way forward. After a few hundred feet, he stopped and lowered his muzzle to the ground, then breathed a gout of flame that went straight down, vanishing into the rubble. The tremors abruptly cut off.
“Found an entrance.” Charlie smirked. “Whatever it is down there, he’ll burn it out now.” A few of the other watchers cheered, but Evan kept his eyes on Gorot. It was easy to get caught up in the might of a dragon, their size and strength, and not remember that they had weaknesses as well. Dragons were creatures of fire and air, but put t
hem on the ground or in water and they floundered.
With the brightness of the flames diminished, Evan’s night vision returned. He stared into the darkness surrounding the dragon, not sure what he was looking for but feeling like this was—well, it was too easy. Monsters were never easy, especially not ones that could make the entire city quiver. Marble, at least, hadn’t had to worry about tunnelers; it had been built on solid granite, whereas here—
Wait—
“Look there.” Evan raised a hand and pointed out into the darkness. “Look, do you see the movement?”
Charlie squinted into the distance. “How can you see any damn thing in this gloom? What’re you looking at?”
“I don’t know, it’s— It looks like a worm. Or a snake, maybe. It’s dark, but there, just ahead of the long piece of rebar—”
“I see it,” Charlie said grimly. Other people were beginning to notice it too. “What the hell is that?”
Whatever it was, it was heading straight for Gorot and his rider, and after another few moments of staring, Evan realized that it wasn’t the only one. “There are more—five, six that I can see.” He whirled toward the nearest turret. “They should signal them to get out of there.”
“Don’t be hasty. What’s a little worm compared to a dragon? He’ll probably just—” Charlie’s insistent confidence blew away as the first of the creatures reached Gorot. It slammed into his side, and a moment later the dragon let out a deafening roar. Not just of anger, but pain. He clawed at the creature, but it stuck fast in his flesh, and seemed to be burrowing deeper. Another reached him, then another, attaching themselves like leeches and digging in. Evan knew Susan had to be firing on them, but the arrows didn’t seem to be having any effect.