“Maybe you’re right,” she murmured.
“Of course I’m right,” said Thorion. “I am a dragon. We are seldom wrong.”
They rested early that night and woke with the dawn. Thorion flew off to hunt, glittering as he climbed the skies. Keriya had to make do with digging in the mud for daikon roots. She found only one of the white vegetables, and it was pitifully small. She ate it anyway, dreaming of banquet hall feasts and a hot bath when she returned to Noryk.
Thorion returned after an hour. He didn’t look like he’d eaten.
“I spotted smoke and investigated its source. I found three humans making camp on high ground.” He paused before adding, “They were calling your name.”
Keriya’s face split in a grin. A weight she hadn’t known had been pressing on her heart lifted. “Those are my friends! Where were they?”
“West,” said Thorion, and he turned east.
“Where are you going? We have to find them! Fletcher,” she screamed, standing on tiptoe and peering over the fluffy phragmites reeds. “Fletcher, where are you?”
“You think they will help us?” he asked.
“I know they will!”
Thorion didn’t share her enthusiasm. He tensed and bared his fangs. As far as emotionless creatures went, that was a pretty extreme reaction.
She crouched in front of him, looking him in the eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“You intend to join them, so I am preparing for what is statistically likely to be a detrimental encounter. Wisdom dictates that it is inadvisable to deal with humans,” said Thorion.
Keriya winced. “I’m a human. You’re okay with me, aren’t you? You trust me?” She tried to sound offhand.
“If ‘trust’ is what it means to accept help from another creature based on the belief that he or she will be useful to me, then yes, I trust you.”
“If you trust me, come with me.” She rose and started walking. “There’s no need to be frightened.”
“What is ‘frightened’?”
“It’s when . . .” Keriya stalled. How could she describe fear to a creature who had never experienced it before? “Never mind. Just come. I promise I won’t let anything detrimental happen to you. I’d never let anyone hurt you.”
She was surprised by the vehemence in her voice, but perhaps that was what convinced Thorion. He leapt into the air and settled on her back, digging his talons into her shoulders. It was uncomfortable and unwieldy, but it filled Keriya with a glowing warmth. Thorion did trust her.
In this manner, he guided her through the fen. Thus, when she reached Fletcher, Roxanne, and Effrax, she greeted them with a dragon peeking over her neck.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“To receive the right answers, you must learn to ask the right questions.”
~ Skalda Leech, Twelfth Age
Roxanne gaped at the sight before her. Clinging to Keriya’s back was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. It bore the same shape as the Aerian effigies of Shivnath, but a wooden statue of a dragon was nothing compared to a living specimen.
So it had all been true. Keriya’s powers, Shivnath and Necrovar, everything.
“By Valaan’s feathers,” said Effrax, putting a hand to his heart.
“This is Thorion,” said Keriya, presenting the dragon.
Given the fuss everyone had made about him, he was much smaller than Roxanne had imagined. And younger. For all that his presence was supposed to be some kind of miracle, Thorion was somewhat underwhelming.
“And this is the dragon we were sent to find?” Effrax asked.
“I don’t see any other dragons around here.”
“My lady, I meant you no offense. Nor you, Lord Thorion,” he said in more formal a tone than he’d ever used before. He knelt to one knee to address the small beast. “The world has missed you for ten ages,” he whispered. “Welcome home.”
Thorion observed Effrax from his perch on Keriya’s back, but made no reply. Was he also less intelligent than they’d thought he would be?
Then Keriya spoke words Roxanne had never heard before, words saturated with a tangible power. Her voice—which had become deep and resonant—pierced Roxanne, sending shivers down every nerve.
“Endrat Effrax Nameless oth Fironemos. Sirat revenra teos Allentriis. Et trelas endrati Fletcher Earengale et Roxanne Fleuridae, vrelei e’es. Endral naler trelos thystra.”
Thorion responded to this. He nodded and leapt nimbly to the ground.
“I am at your service,” Effrax said as the dragon approached him. Keriya translated his words, speaking again in that fearsome language.
Thorion nodded once, slowly. A set of membranous lids rose briefly over his jewel-like eyes before he directed his attention to Fletcher. Fletcher recoiled from his ethereal gaze, so the dragon turned to Roxanne.
“Hello, little one,” she said, crouching to be on his level and smiling. Slowly, and a little uncertainly, Thorion smiled back. She could tell he was only mirroring what he saw, for the smile did not touch his eyes.
She lost herself for a moment, drawn into those depthless pools of amethyst. Her heart trembled on a thin edge between awe and fear. Thorion’s gaze was unlike any she’d seen before, animal or human—it seemed filled with secrets.
“Where’s Max?” Keriya asked, pulling Roxanne out of her reverie.
“He never returned after the storm,” said Effrax. “We thought he was with you.”
“He’s not,” said Keriya. “What if something happened to him?”
“A little thunder and lightning won’t do him any harm.”
“We were attacked. What if he’s in danger? What if he’s hurt? We have to find him!”
“Whatever trouble you think Max is in, I guarantee he can get himself out of it,” Effrax assured her. “You vowed to bring Thorion to the Fironem. Now that we have him, it’s time to put him to use.”
Keriya stiffened and narrowed her own eyes at Effrax. “What do you mean?”
“You’d have to be blind not to see that our empire is falling apart,” he said. “Fironians are suffering the most, and the people in power aren’t doing anything about it. But we can change that.” His eyes grew hungry as he looked at Thorion. “You can change it.”
Keriya looked at Thorion too, her expression unreadable. “I think we should rest first.”
“Why delay?” asked Roxanne.
“Max might see the smoke from your fire and find us,” said Keriya. “And it will give Thorion a chance to recover. We’ve been hiking for days. A water slug attacked us. We had to fight for our lives.”
A water slug didn’t sound like it was much of a bother, but Roxanne considered the possibility that this didn’t have anything to do with Max or slugs. Maybe it had more to do with the fact that Shivnath wanted the dragon kept safe . . . and now that they had him, they were forcing him into a war.
“Alright,” she said. “Let’s stay.”
Effrax was averse to resting, but that made Roxanne argue for it more stubbornly. Anything he wanted, she had decided she was against. She disliked everything about him, from his flippant attitude to his tendency to give people annoying nicknames.
“We could ask Thorion what he thinks,” Fletcher suggested in a small voice.
“Good idea.” Keriya turned and spoke to Thorion in that haunting language. Though he made no visible response, she smiled. “He wants to rest another night.”
Effrax scowled. “He didn’t say anything.”
“We were speaking telepathically.” She tapped the side of her head with her finger. “One of the perks of being a dragon speaker. It’s more efficient.”
Overruled and outnumbered, Effrax subsided. He stoked the fire, adding a clump of reeds that made it smoke, and left on the pretense of hunting for food.
Once he was out of earshot, Roxanne folde
d her arms and fixed Keriya with a beady look. “What’s the plan?”
“I’ve never been good at planning,” Keriya mumbled.
Thorion had lain down beside her and was inspecting an iridescent beetle that had crawled onto his paw.
“What’s there to plan?” said Fletcher. “We have to bring Thorion to Empress Aldelphia.”
“I’m starting to think that’s not such a good idea,” Keriya admitted.
Fletcher’s brows arced in surprise. “Why?”
“Because then Thorion will have to fight Necrovar, and that’s not what’s supposed to happen. Shivnath wants me to fight him.”
“This could be part of Shivnath’s plan,” Fletcher reasoned. “Maybe you’re supposed to use Thorion against Necrovar.”
“I know that seems like the logical explanation, but that’s exactly what Shivnath didn’t want. She wanted the dragon to stay safe, and she wanted me to go in his place.”
“Maybe you misunderstood Shivnath,” said Roxanne. “How are you supposed to fight someone who, according to all sources, is the most powerful wielder ever?”
Keriya pursed her lips and closed her eyes. Her troubled expression told Roxanne the same thought had been weighing on her.
“Shivnath gave me this quest, and she gave me magic to complete it,” she said in a tightly controlled voice. “And I’m going to. I just . . . haven’t quite figured out how to do it yet.”
“That’s why we’re trying to make a plan,” said Roxanne, with more snap in her voice than she’d intended.
Keriya glanced at Thorion. “I need to think,” she said, striding off through the reeds.
Thorion twisted his long neck to watch Keriya’s receding form, silent and unblinking. When she was gone, he swung his wedge-shaped head around to regard Roxanne and Fletcher.
Fletcher quailed under the dragon’s inscrutable gaze. “I’ll go talk some sense into her,” he said quickly. He edged past Thorion, careful to give him a wide berth, before darting after the pale girl.
“Good luck with that,” Roxanne muttered.
Dragon.
Roxanne started at the intrusion of an uninvited voice in her mind.
Who’s there? she asked silently. She was finding it easier to communicate with animals. It was almost alarming how quickly she was mastering the art. Her head hardly ached anymore, but she’d be lying if she said the voices didn’t bother her.
Dragon! The mental image was tinged with a strange, wavering feeling. Judging from the upwards angle of the picture, Roxanne was picking up the thoughts of the beetle on Thorion’s claw. The wavering became clearer—she was sensing the movement of the insect’s antennae that signified excitement.
Yes, she thought back. How observant of you.
The beetle sent a few more antennae-images before it buzzed away. With it gone, Thorion rested his head on his forepaws and closed his eyes. He spread his wings, soaking up the heat of the sun.
Struck by an idea, Roxanne stood. Thorion’s eyes sprang open as she tiptoed toward him. He made no other movement, but the intensity of his gaze was enough to make her falter.
Can you hear me? She sent the thought out tentatively, but Thorion didn’t respond.
“Hello?” she whispered aloud, sending him an accompanying thought more forcefully this time. “Can you understand me?”
“You can’t speak to him, Tigress. He wouldn’t understand you even if you were one of those rare wielders who can mindspeak—or rather, you wouldn’t understand him.”
Roxanne glared over her shoulder and saw Effrax emerging into the clearing. “Were you spying on us?”
He didn’t know about Keriya’s assignment from Shivnath, and if he’d overheard them talking about Necrovar . . . well, she wasn’t sure it mattered, but she didn’t want Effrax knowing things like that.
“Just forgot my hunting knife,” he said amicably, digging in his travel pack and producing a small blade.
“What did you mean?” she asked before she could stop herself. “About the mindspeaking?”
“Strong wielders, Tier Nine and higher, are able to wield the root of their power, lifemagic,” he explained. “One aspect of lifemagic is the ability to manipulate your brainwaves to communicate telepathically with other living organisms. Powerful wielders have been known to develop the ability to speak with plants and animals.”
Something must have changed on her face, because a sly smile spread across his. “I knew there was something about you. You can speak to animals, is that it?”
Roxanne’s hands clenched into fists. “So what if I can? Are you going to blackmail me?”
“Ah-ah-ah! Never lay your cards on the table before you know your opponent’s hand,” he chided. “I didn’t know you were a mindspeaker until you gave yourself away. If I had wanted to blackmail you, you’d be in trouble.”
“Thorion’s an animal, isn’t he? I should be able to talk to him.”
“He’s a dragon,” Effrax corrected her. “He doesn’t use lifemagic to communicate, he uses something else. I’m afraid you’ll never have the power to speak to him the way you want to.”
“Keriya can speak to him,” Roxanne said moodily. “And she doesn’t have any magic.”
“Oh, Keriya has magic. She has a power greater and more dangerous than you or I will ever know.”
Roxanne wasn’t sure she believed that—and it wasn’t just because she refused to trust anything Effrax said. Everything from Keriya’s eyes to Thorion’s presence still felt mildly unbelievable to her.
Something doesn’t add up, she thought, not for the first time. Why did Shivnath choose Keriya for a mission like this?
“How’d you like to come hunting with me?” Effrax offered, slicing through Roxanne’s thread of thought. “That gift of yours will come in handy. I’ll teach you how to string a longbow if you like.”
“I wouldn’t use my gift to lure innocent animals to their deaths. Unlike some people, I have moral standards.” She speared him with a pointed look.
Effrax cracked a lopsided grin, unfazed. “It’s a demon-eat-demon world out there, Tigress. We do whatever it takes to survive. Putting that gift to use is better than letting it go to waste.”
“I’m not letting it go to waste,” she retorted, heat flaring in her chest. She didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that he’d struck a nerve. Here she was, free of her father, free of the Elders, in a magical realm on a fantastical quest, and what was she doing? Wasting her time sulking and bemoaning the alien voices in her head.
No more, she resolved on the spot. She wouldn’t let her upbringing hold her back. She wasn’t in Aeria anymore—it was time to start acting like her own person, the person she knew she could be if given the chance to flourish.
She realized Effrax was watching her. “Someone has to look after Thorion,” she said imperiously. “I’m staying here.”
“Your loss,” he said, slipping into the reeds once more.
Roxanne sat beside the little dragon, mulling things over until Keriya and Fletcher returned.
“I’ve thought things through,” Keriya announced, “and I’ve decided to bring Thorion to Noryk. From there, we can figure out what to do about Necrovar.”
“Good,” said Roxanne. It had taken Keriya all that time to come up with that? What had Erasmus been filling her head with for the past fourteen years, wood shavings?
Thorion stretched, kneaded the soft earth with his claws, and trotted to Keriya. She reached out to scratch him behind his ear. He closed his eyes and his brow ridges—which, Roxanne realized, had been drawn together in the faintest of frowns—finally relaxed.
And in that one gesture, Roxanne began to understand the real reason Keriya didn’t want to bring Thorion to Noryk.
As the group traveled south toward Noryk, Fletcher came to an unfortunate realization: he didn’t like drag
ons.
When Thorion conversed with Keriya he seemed almost human, and Fletcher noticed more human mannerisms in him with each passing day. When he hunted for fish or listened to the sounds of the fen, Fletcher saw a wild, deadly predator.
He wasn’t sure which version of the drackling bothered him more.
“Kemraté a’eos, Thorion!” Ahead, Keriya called out and Thorion bounded to her. This was the phrase she used whenever he strayed too far from her side.
Fletcher suppressed a shiver. A tingling chill raced through his nerves whenever he heard them speaking that language. It was as if a great power was trapped in their words, waiting to be set free—waiting for a slip of the tongue to break free, more like.
He shook his head. Now he was being paranoid. Still, if Thorion was the only one who could defeat Necrovar, who knew what sorts of magic he had hidden away?
Maybe that was what was really bothering Fletcher. He was committed to getting rid of the most powerful evil force in the world, but he wasn’t sure where his place would be when the time came to do the deed. The only thing he’d ever been good at was crafting, which would be useless against Necrovar.
Indulging in a moment of self-pity, he found himself missing his family and wishing he was still on the other side of Shivnath’s Mountains. But if he’d stayed, he would have been named a Lower for his sins. He would have been living in that hidden part of Aeria, far from Asher and his mother. They were probably celebrating his absence, since he’d never been much use to them.
Family, he was beginning to realize, had little to do with blood. It had to do with choosing the people you cared about.
I chose to come on this journey with Keriya, he reflected, somewhat bitterly, but I have no idea where I fit into her story anymore.
“Maevraté aelra seuler nostite.” Keriya spoke once more. The dragon made a chirping noise and vanished into the reeds, his bronze scales blending in with his surroundings. She slowed, waiting for Fletcher.
“How are you?” she asked when he joined her.
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