by Jada Fisher
However, she was able to eventually release Dille, although her eyes didn’t leave her friend’s back until she disappeared down one of the halls that led toward the dragon caves.
That left just the four of them and Fior trundling toward the dorms. While her charge had once been no different from a dog trotting along beside her, he now took up too much room and had to follow along behind her or lead. It was strange when just that morning, he had been so small that no one was sure if he would ever grow enough to ride.
What had he seen in that time away from her? Did he resent her for letting him fall into the portal? For failing him? She couldn’t blame him if he did, but still, she hoped that maybe somehow things would be alright.
They walked up to her door in silence, although walking didn’t really describe the shuffling, uncertain sort of shamble they moved with. Even after all her healing, Eist didn’t think she’d ever been so exhausted. And she’d almost died twice.
“Huh, this seems a bit surreal, doesn’t it?” Eist asked, looking back at her companions. All of them looked as uncertain and awkward as she did. Because how did someone fall asleep after watching their world launch itself into the apocalypse?
“Maybe we should all spend the night in my room,” Yacrist offered. “My floor is still covered in mattresses.”
Eist smiled at her friend, but she had a feeling it looked much more melancholy than she intended. “Thank you, but I kind of want some alone time to talk to Fior. We have a lot to catch up on.”
“We understand,” Athar said, a kind expression on his face. “Just try to get some rest between all that talking.”
Eist nodded. “I’ll try my best, but no promises.”
She lifted the latch to her door and swung it open. It was a tight squeeze, but Fior managed to get himself inside with only a little bit of wiggling while the boys headed down the hall to their rooms.
Once Fior was completely inside, Eist watched him settle down on the floor. He took almost all of the spare room, with his tail curled up in Dille’s cot. It seemed that very soon he was going to have to sleep on the balcony or roof like Veralda.
“Eist!”
She turned at the sound of her name only to see Yacrist running back toward her. She stiffened automatically, expecting an attack or perhaps even something behind her, but instead he threw his arms around her and yanked her into a fierce kiss.
Oh.
Oh!
Eist blinked up at his face, so close to hers, but his eyes were closed. His lips pressed against her with a strange sort of heat that she wasn’t sure if she liked or made her nauseous. Suddenly, she was acutely aware of the firm cut of his body, and his musculature pressed along her form. Of how his arms were both crushing her and lifting her to him, caging her in his embrace.
It was all too much. All too intense. Eist was too exhausted to figure out if it was a good thing and she wanted it to keep going, or if she never wanted it to happen in the first place. Couldn’t life give her a tiny break for just a moment?
Yacrist pulled back, and when she focused on his face again, she saw tears in the corner of his eyes.
“Please, please, stop trying to take everything on by yourself,” he whispered before pulling her into another tight, desperate hug. “I don’t think I could survive if anything happened to you. Do you understand that? You’re so important. To all of us.”
Eist stood there, shocked by her friend’s emotional words. Sure, Yacrist was always flirty with everyone and a bit on the dramatic side, but this was different. She could hear the fear and the caring in his voice. She had really scared him.
She hadn’t meant to.
Gently, she patted his back as he held her, his fingers clinging to her back like he was afraid that she would turn to dust in his hands. She didn’t mind, but her attention was quickly diverted when her gaze caught on Athar’s expression.
The look on his face could only be described as crestfallen, his lips pressed into a thin line. His gaze met hers while Yacrist was still holding her and out of nowhere Eist found herself feeling both embarrassed and confused. But that didn’t make any sense.
Abruptly, the whole thing was just too overwhelming and irritating, so she pulled herself out of his grip.
“I’ll try, okay?”
“Okay,” he whispered, wiping his eyes and letting his arms drop.
Something in the air had changed as he walked back to join the other two, but Eist didn’t feel like she could put her finger on exactly what it was. It mostly just felt like expectations were heavy in the air. Expectations that she wasn’t even sure she wanted.
A quiet trill sounded from Fior and Eist shook herself from her reverie to glance at her charge. His crystalline eyes were full of curiosity and concern.
“It’s alright,” she assured him, moving around his large feet and going to sit on her cot. “We can deal with all that later. For tonight, let’s just focus on me and you.”
2
Reconnecting
“So, you’re a lot bigger now, aren’t ya?”
Fior blinked at her a moment, secondary eyelids moistening his crystal gaze, before his head surged forward. Before Eist could quite comprehend it, his head was in her lap and his muzzle was gently pressed against her still-healing injuries.
Goodness, his head was practically the same size that all of him had been just that morning. But also somehow heavier. It made her glow with pride that he was the grown dragon that she always knew he would be, but there was still that bitter edge of missing so much.
“So I’m guessing you remember me?”
Another sweet trill and it broke down what little defenses Eist had. She doubled over so that she was leaning against the top of his head, resting her cheek against his cool, smooth scales.
“I’m so sorry, my baby boy. I never meant for you to fall into that portal. You know that, right? You know I fought so hard to save you, right?”
Another set of soft coos, but with a whining sort of edge. Eist knew that sound, even if she didn’t hear it very often. It was a noise he made when he was sad, or scared, but was trying to tell her it wasn’t her fault.
“I love you so much,” Eist whispered into his scales. She didn’t know when she had started crying, but she felt the warm, salty tears as they trailed down her cheeks. “When I thought I lost you, I didn’t know how I was going to live. I didn’t want to live. And I know that you were gone much longer than me, but even just those few minutes were awful.
“I promise to never let anything like that happen to us again, okay? I’ll die before I let that happen. I swear it.”
Fior just snuffled further, his wings raising then resettling so that they cocooned Eist in a protective little shelter. Well, that was an answer if there ever was one.
“You ready for some sleep? I have a feeling that we won’t get a chance to rest, and I mean really rest, for a very long time now.”
He nodded ever-so-slightly, and Eist couldn’t help but smile. Swinging her legs up onto her cot, she arranged her pillows so she could comfortably stay with Fior on her lap.
It was surprising how quickly her eyelids grew heavy, and before too long, weariness sent her tumbling down into sleep.
Eist woke up painfully hungry. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant sensation, and her head spun as she rose from her bed. Judging by the disgruntled sound that Fior made, he was equally as grouchy from hunger pangs.
“How about we break the fast, huh, boy?”
He nodded eagerly and jumped to his feet, managing to completely knock over Dille’s desk. He cringed, his body hunkering low to the ground, but Eist just shrugged.
“I dunno, it’s been fifty years since she’s seen this room. Maybe she won’t notice her desk being, uh, upturned.” Fior seemed to perk up at that, allowing Eist to skirt around him and open the door. She was surprised to find Yacrist and Athar sitting in the hall.
“Uh, hello?” Eist asked, blinking at them.
“We wanted to let you
sleep, but we also wanted to be here if the bells sounded.”
“So, I’m guessing it hasn’t by the fact you didn’t burst through my door?”
“That would be correct.”
“Right. Okay. What time is it?”
“They just started putting out the food in the dining hall. You hungry?”
“Yeah, that’s one way to put it.” Eist ran a hand through her hair and stepped to the side so that Fior could do his little wiggle out of the room.
“Where’s Ain?”
“I think he went to get Dille and walk her to the dining hall.”
“Alright, shall we join them then?” Eist asked.
“Sounds good to me.” Yacrist offered his arm, which Eist looked down at. Their kiss was burned into her brain, and despite her long sleep, she wasn’t any clearer on how she felt. Maybe after they defeated the Blight and everything was back to normal she could worry about something as silly as a kiss.
Even if the kiss didn’t feel silly at all.
Brushing past him, Eist joined up with Fior and headed toward the food. If either of the boys thought anything of her subtle refusal, they didn’t say it, and for that, she was grateful.
Sure enough, she saw Ain and Dille in the line, piling food up on their trenchers. She trotted right up to them, trying to ignore the strange looks their fellow students were giving Dille.
“They called me M’baya,” she said as soon as they all had sat down. Dille blinked at her a moment, her cup of soup halfway to her mouth, before her mind caught up.
“Who?”
“Your parents. I mean, everyone. That was my name in that other life. I think this is M’baya’s body. Not Dille’s.”
“But you’re Dille.”
“Yes.” Her dark, full eyebrows furrowed. “I’m both. I just think that this body isn’t the same one you knew. I’m missing that scar on my calf from when I wiped out on a slick rock and sliced myself fairly deep. And I’ve got a few other scars that I didn’t before.”
“So, uh…” Eist set down her soup and rubbed at her throat, as if that would somehow soothe the unease as everything came flooding back to her. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know, really. I just thought it was something to point out.”
“Well, since we’re talking about complicated, magicky things again, there’s something I wanted to say.”
Everyone looked with surprise to Ain, who sounded much more dry and frustrated than he normally did.
“Look, I know we didn’t exactly start off on the best foot—”
“You slapped me,” Eist interrupted.
“You lied and tried to get her suspended after Fior de-defended her,” Athar added as well.
“You outed her in front of the entire academy about her hearing loss thinking that she would get kicked out,” Yacrist chimed in.
“Alright, alright, I get it. I was a proper cad. But look, even though we didn’t start off great, it’s clear that we’ve built up some level of trust. Athar and I have been your allies for at least two years, but we’re only just now finding out about magic, and dreams and sorcerers, and…well, everything.”
His tone sharpened. “I don’t think it’s fair to expect us to back you up whenever you need, to risk our literal lives for you, and not tell us exactly what is going on. No more secrets. No more dropping surprises like dreams that tell the future, or suddenly revealing the ability to use ancient and very forbidden spells. We’re either all on the same page or this—” He made a circle with his finger, encompassing all of them. “—does not happen. You got that?”
Perhaps it wasn’t appropriate, but Eist couldn’t help but smile. Ain was right, they definitely hadn’t started off on the right foot, but she appreciated where they were now. “I got that.”
“Good.” He nodded with satisfaction. “So, any other secrets to reveal?”
Dille swallowed her mouthful of food. “Uh, I don’t know if you’ve been told this or not, but Fior’s a brindled dragon.”
Eist wasn’t exactly surprised, especially given what she and Yacrist had read in one of their books. Ain and Athar, however, seemed fairly shocked.
“What in the name of the Three is a brindled dragon?”
“One of the original dragons. They’re smaller, only a bit bigger than the metallic dragons, but there hasn’t been one born in several hundred years.”
“Why is that?” Eist asked. It seemed like the most harmless question she could ask without tipping her hand that she’d already had an idea that he wasn’t just a lightning struck bronze dragon.
“Because they grow so slowly. While it might take most dragons about a decade to reach full growth, a brindle can need up to thirty years. Their hide is the thickest and most resilient of any dragon, but after the last war, none of them were able to reach reproductive age.”
“If that’s true, then how did Fior’s egg get laid?”
“Two dragons with recessive brindle traits must have mated. He’s a miracle, to say the least.” Dille’s eyes were full of admiration and camaraderie. Eist felt a flare of jealousy at what kind of adventures the two must have shared in their decades together. It wasn’t like her grandfather had taught her how to deal with time portals knocking her dragon charge into the past.
“But the most amazing thing is their inner ability. The two of you were really destined for each other.”
“You mean his roar?” Eist asked.
Dille nodded. “Yeah. Do you know what it is?”
“I’m not sure. I always guessed he was summoning some sort of great wind or something. Something that could push people and break open doors.”
“I dunno,” Ain said with a grimace. “When I was hit with it, it didn’t feel like wind. It was more like someone was trying to shake my entire body apart. I thought I was going to bleed from my ears.”
“Ain’s on the right track,” Dille said with an excited gleam to her eyes. “It’s not wind, Eist. It’s sound. He generates noise that’s so loud and powerful that it can bring down entire walls of a castle. The vibrations alone can kill a man.” Her grin grew even broader. “But the most amazing part is that you can’t hear it.”
Eist found herself blinking at her friend again. “What?”
“Don’t you see? Back when Fior and I were in the first war, there were a handful of brindled riders. All of them had to have protective gear so they didn’t succumb to their own dragon’s cries. And if they were caught without their headgear, or if someone knocked it off, they were done for. But you! You don’t have the need for that at all. You and Fior are the most perfect pair that could ever have matched with each other!”
Eist’s heart swelled at the same time she felt her cheeks redden. “Huh.” She looked back at her handsome not-so-little guy and reached up to rub his snoot. “I could have told you that last part.”
“I’m sure you could have.”
From there, the meal settled into something much more casual and they all stuffed their faces to bursting. It wasn’t until Eist was halfway through her meal that she even remembered just the previous night that she’d had a hole in her stomach. Yanking her tunic up, she was pleased to see a very ugly but entirely closed scar.
“Really, Eist, are you trying to kill Athar outright?”
“Huh?” She looked up to once again see that the giant of a man was bright red and staring at the ceiling. Again, she was struck by how strangely cute it was before rough fingertips traced around her scar and she nearly jumped out of her own skin.
While she had been distracted, Yacrist had reached over to touch what remained of her wound. Although there wasn’t anything demanding about the gesture, it still made goosepimples rise along her arms. It was just so…
Intense.
She looked up at his face to see him gazing at her with those bright blue eyes. They were darker than usual, full of feelings that she didn’t know what to do with. And those feelings just kept on amplifying, growing thicker between them, until sud
denly the bells were tolling all around them. To Eist, it was a pleasant sound, but she watched her friends all flinch and cover their ears.
“Looks like our rest is over,” she said as soon as they were done. Standing up, they all headed out to the open court.
It seemed that their training had ended. Whether they were ready or not, it was time for war.
3
Guardians of Many Shapes
“And what do you think you’re doing?”
The dozen or so students who were saddling up their dragons all paused as the weapons master came striding toward them. His barrel chest was heaving, and his face was clouded with anger.
It was a tall, slender woman that Eist wasn’t familiar with who spoke up first. “The reinforcement bell tolled. I heard that the ravens say there’s been an attack on Margaid.”
“I don’t care what kind of cockamamie stories you’ve heard. You all are fourth years, students, and you aren’t ready to go off into battle. Most of you don’t even know how to properly stock the saddles of your mounts. Most of you don’t even have saddles.”
Several students circled the man to argue, but Eist looked to her friends. They were all sharing a fairly similar expression, so she gave them a little nod.
They all crept through the process of strapping their weapons to their mounts while the weapons master gave the other students a real diatribe. It was tricky, walking back and forth, creeping between the stall walls and the weapons racks, but they managed to get their mounts all loaded up and nearly out of the other end of the stables before they were caught.
“You all think you’re sneaky, don’t you?!”
It didn’t matter how hard of hearing Eist was, the weapons master was just that loud. She swore her ancestors heard him, and she nearly dropped the spare shortsword she was attaching to her belt.
“I don’t know,” Yacrist replied smoothly. “We got this far without you noticing.”
He took a breath as if he was going to really give it to the group, but before he could, there was a flash of red at the main door and suddenly a huge gob of spit flew through the air and smacked right into the back of the man’s head.