Mountain dragons can’t fly straight, Jaydra thought to me, and I knew Saffron had heard as well for her shoulders shook as if she was laughing at what Jaydra had thought.
She was right.
The black dragons I had seen flying on their own looked more like serpents weaving through the air, and nothing like birds. The dragons of the Western Isles and the huge Crimson Reds flew steady and level—more like a bird. But these blacks jerked and flinched this way and like they had bugs under their scales. And then I realized the truth of that.
“Of course!” I shouted. “Mountain dragons can’t fly straight!”
Saffron glanced back at me. “The dragons will hear you and lose heart. I know it’s funny, but it’s not their fault their riders are—”
“No, no… they literally cannot fly straight. They have to twist in the air like a leaf on the wind.” I wiggled a hand in the air. “We’re trying to teach them how to fly like Jaydra…like Ysix. But these dragons are built different. They’re smaller. Thinner.”
Saffron’s mouth went wide and her eyes glittered. “Of course! That’s why the reds swoop and glide. They have much larger wing size.”
“And why the Western Isle dragons like Jaydra must beat their wings to move faster. Every dragon species is different. The old books of the Dragon Riders of Torvald that my father managed to save for me were from a time when the Dragon Academy really only had Middle Kingdom dragons. They didn’t have these black dragons—or the Western Isle dragons.”
Saffron urged Jaydra closer to the black dragons. “Ryland! Riders! We’re going to try something new!” She shouted and waved at them. “We want you to hold on tight and let your dragons fly as they wish.”
Ryland frowned and shouted back, “Are we not supposed to control our dragons? Fly them as we wish?”
Saffron shook her head.
From the stiff set of Ryland’s shoulders and the dark expression on his face, I could tell he thought Saffron was being stupid, so I called out, “Your dragons want to twist and turn in the air. They have to.” A lump rose in my throat, but I swallowed it back and shouted, “I had it wrong. We can’t bring the old academy back. But we can do something new. We’re going to fly like we fly—not the way that Dragon Riders once did!”
Ryland nodded as if this made sense to him.
“When you’re ready,” Saffron called out. “I’m going to tell Ysix to tell your dragons to just fly naturally.” She bowed her head.
Ysix gave an answering roar, followed by clicks and whirrs as she spoke to all the black dragons, even the ones in the meadow still. I glanced down and sat the riders there jumping into their saddles. Their dragons spread their wings.
With a final shriek, Ysix gave the command.
The black dragons on the ground rose up into the air, and the three flying with us broke away from the tight formation we had been trying to corral them into. In just moments, they became a cloud, twisting together, spinning and tumbling. I watched in amazement as they lost almost all their ungainliness and became an undulating wave.
Of course, the question was could their riders stay put and not become ill from all this turmoil.
In answer, one rider shouted as the black dragons spiraled past, all the dragons from the ground now joining the others. The dragons were moving too fast for me to tell whether it was a scream of joy or a shout of terror.
“At least none of them have fainted yet,” Saffron called.
Leaning forward, she urged Jaydra to chase after the black dragons, indulging in the natural dragon sport of chasing each other raucously across the sky.
The black dragon in the lead was, rather unsurprisingly, Ryland’s. At times, Ryland stood up entirely from his saddle, holding onto his dragon’s horns as she whirled across the sky.
“Ryland, would you be able to fight?” The wind whipped my words away, for now we were flying almost as fast as the black dragons.
Grinning manically as he held on, Ryland began to shift his way, as if to get the dragon beneath him to change direction. For the most part, it did.
Saffron laughed and shouted, “It looks like how they try to ride them on the ground—hang on for dear life!”
That was true. It looked almost exactly like how Ryland had tried to ride the chained dragon in their sport, only this time the human and the dragon were working together.
With a sudden snarl, Jaydra powered herself forward on strong wing beats, almost catching up to the Ryland’s mountain dragon. I could feel Jaydra’s excitement, thrumming up through her body and into mine.
“You’ll never catch us,” Ryland shouted, waving one gauntleted hand at us before hunkering down and allowing her to spin even faster.
Saffron gave a harsh yell, and I could feel her encouraging Jaydra with her thoughts to catch up to Ryland. Jaydra pushed herself faster, and Ryland pushed his dragon faster still. I couldn’t believe how fast these mountain dragons were—I had thought that Jaydra was the fastest thing in the sky.
Jaydra let out a rumble of delight as she caught up with Ryland’s dragon.
Behind us, Ysix crowed with pleasure. Everywhere I looked, I saw dragons. Ysix, her brood now in the sky, the dark mountain dragons—it looked a monumental game of chase-tail, scorching the sky with smoke and calls.
For a moment, everything felt right. I had never known such perfect joy as that moment, with the sky covered with the sound and sight of playing dragons.
And I knew this was how the world was meant to be.
This was what I had to bring back to the Middle Kingdom—or die trying to do so.
Saffron was acting strangely. She had complained of a headache and sought her bed early this night, telling me it had been a long, hard day. But Saffron never before had complained and the only time I had seen her take to her bed was when she was more than half dead from an injury. So what was wrong?
I didn’t actually have that much experience when it came to girls—well, when it came to anyone my age, apart from Vic Cassus who I’d thought a friend and who had betrayed me to the king. Which meant I didn’t know him quite so well either. But I was certain something was bothering Saffron. This just wasn’t like her.
And Jaydra wasn’t talking to me about Saffron.
Sitting on the ledge of rock that held the settlement’s main hall, I listened to the songs being sung inside. It seemed the Three-Rivers clan was having to come up with entirely new songs about riding dragons and taming dragons.
Although we were not really taming them.
If anything, it was more the other way around, with Ysix and the dragons teaching us how to treat them and work with them. It was all about equal respect.
The Three-Rivers clan still had a long way to go, but at least we had finally mastered some basics. There was no time to waste if Ryland’s scouts and the Crimson Reds were to be believed.
I watched the shadowed forms of the dragons who had settled on the mountainside above the settlement. Ysix gave a few rumbles. The reds had returned and Ysix had learned from them that the king’s army and the Iron Guard had camped on the far side of the mountains and seemed to be waiting—for orders perhaps. No one knew.
There was still no sign of White-eye and the other dragons that had flown away with her. From what little I had gleaned from the inscrutable Ysix, we were very unlikely to see her again.
The black dragons who had stayed shunned their old cavern, but they did like to den inside the caves on the mountain. I was a little surprised, though, that Ryland had not brought his dragon into the settlement—the two seemed as attached as were Jaydra and Saffron.
It was also surprising that Saffron wasn’t out here with me and with Jaydra, who lounged in the meadow just outside the settlement. Like the other Western Isle dragons, Jaydra would have little to do with the Crimson Red dragons, which perched far from all other dragons.
Staring up at the dark hillsides and the black sky, I found myself wondering why the reds had responded to my innate abilities.
Not that long ago, I’d been an outcast from my own city, hunted by the king, accused of harboring knowledge of the old history. I’d been just about the lowest person in all of Torvald, and had thought of becoming a wandering scribe. Now, I really was a traitor to my king, for I had fought against him. Zenema had declared me to be a king—and I had found a letter from my father, telling me I was actually a Flamma-Torvald, and the true heir to the throne.
The changes in my life had come so fast at times I felt I had lost control of everything.
I wished that my father was still alive to guide me. Or even that I had had more time with the Hermit of the Western Isles. Or that I had someone who could tell me what to do next.
Bower needs no one to command him. Kings take counsel, not orders!
The shock of Jaydra’s thoughts rocked me, almost knocking me off the rocky ledge. I stared out into the meadow and could just make out her dark shape and the glow of starlight off her scales.
I had heard her before, but we did not have the same natural connection Saffron had with her. I could really only communicate with a dragon with all my attention and willpower.
A few moments later, Jaydra rose and padded across the meadow, slipping into the settlement as silently as a cat. It was amazing how quiet she could be. She settled down next to me and her thoughts tickled my mind almost like a dream voice.
Bower has no real magic. No dragon tricks.
Thanks! I thought a little huffily. But I knew what she meant.
I was not like Saffron. She could wield the Maddox magic, the same power Enric used. I had seen her do incredible things, even thwarting Enric’s terrible plan to try and burn the city of Torvald just to eliminate the rebels he saw as a threat.
We had stopped that plan and left Torvald unable to be walled in again. If Enric tried his plan again, the people could at least escape. But Enric still had his Iron Guard.
Saffron cannot control magic, Jaydra thought to me.
Surprised to hear these words from Jaydra’s mind, I turned to face her and asked, “But why are you telling me that? And isn’t this a lot of effort for you to communicate with me? I’m not bound to you.”
Bower is bound, Jaydra replied. I thought she sounded a little smug about it, as well. King magic holds all dragons as does the queen’s magic. All are part of dragons and part of humans. All are one.
Frowning, I tried to understand what Jaydra was trying to tell me. “You mean the Torvald magic is the same as what a queen dragon has? The ability to communicate mentally with everything?”
Jaydra cocked her head to one side, a curiously bird-like gesture as if she were asking me to tell her the answer.
I didn’t know what she wanted me to say. What might be right before my eyes that I could not see? Tired as I was from the day, worried about how we were going to win against Enric, as well as worried about Saffron, I gave a sigh and then asked Jaydra, “Do you know what’s wrong with Saffron—other than that we have to face Enric, and it was a hard day, and tomorrow is another hard day. I mean, I know it’s a lot—but Saffron’s never flinched from anything difficult.”
Saffron is sad that Jaydra keeps a secret. But not really a secret, it is a riddle, Jaydra thought to me.
“I’m good with puzzles. Maybe I can help work it out?”
Hooting calls drifted down from where the dragons perched. Looking over, I could see dark shapes moving against the purpling sky. What were the dragons saying to each other? Why could I only understand them sometimes?
I wanted to curse my past. I slumped down and rubbed my arms, wishing I had thought to wear a heavy cloak outside. If knowledge in Torvald hadn’t been so hard to come by, I might have already mastered the powers of the Flamma-Torvalds and be able to communicate with all dragons by now.
Jaydra moved closer as if to warm me with her body. That is the riddle, Bower. If it is magic for human and dragon to share a mind, is it magic that also breaks our ties? Or is it a lack of magic? And if there is a place where Jaydra and Saffron are one thing in our hearts and minds, is there also a place where Saffron and Enric are one?
Her thoughts chilled my heart. I shivered, feeling a buzz in the air between us as Jaydra huffed out a sooty breath. Jaydra saw Enric speak to Saffron through his metal men. Jaydra cannot protect Saffron from such magic. And now Jaydra feels a shadow looming over Saffron—Jaydra does not know how to defeat shadows.
It was starting to make sense. “You’re sensing Enric. Maybe that’s what his troops are waiting for—him to come. He must be using…what, a blood connection with Saffron to…to do what? Enchant her? Curse her? But Jaydra, Saffron’s magic works better when you help her.”
Jaydra does not know how to help now.
Now. The word echoed in my mind. Suddenly worried about Saffron, I stood and headed for the hut given to her for sleeping.
Saffron’s hut stood next to mine. Technically, it was the same one where Saffron had been held behind a wall of spears. But the spears were gone and the ground had been smoothed.
Even so, I kept trying to shake off a dark feeling that squeezed my heart as I approached the hut.
The canvas door glowed softly from the fire inside the small metal box the Three-River clan used for heating. The tang of wood smoke hung in the air.
I knocked on the wooden frame of the door and then pushed the canvas open. The room wasn’t that big, with only a bed made of wool blankets stacked on the floor, a couple of stools and a small table.
Saffron lay wrapped up in the blankets, her back to the door. She seemed asleep, her breaths even and deep. I sat down on one of the wooden stools and watched her, warming my hands against the small metal box that sat in the center of the room.
Had I started to worry about Saffron just because Jaydra was worried? Were we seeing too much in Saffron’s connection to the Maddox clan?
Surely what she does has to be more important than her blood ties?
But wasn’t it my blood ties that had led me to think myself king? And Saffron’s connection to Enric had led him to want to keep her with him—and he seemed to want her back, enough so that he had not sent his Iron Guard to destroy this settlement.
Not yet at least.
He wants her—but why?
Was it simply a family thing?
I rejected the idea almost as soon as I thought it. Enric Maddox didn’t know anything about family, despite some of the pretty speeches that he’d given over the decades about the Middle Kingdom being one happy family. The king knew only one thing—how to rule with fear.
Maybe he doesn’t want her, but needs her for something?
That seemed to make more sense to me.
Enric must need Saffron in order to do something—to reach the dragons maybe? No, that didn’t fit with what I knew of Enric, a man who hated dragons and did his best to make them seem a dangerous creature of myth. Enric would destroy any dragon as powerful as Ysix or Zenema.
Saffron murmured something.
Standing, I moved to her side and touched her shoulder. “Saffron?” I whispered.
She turned from me, flinging herself onto her back. She shoved the blankets down and then clutched at them. I touched her shoulder again. “Saffron, it’s only a dream.”
Sweat slicked her face and she turned her head from one side to the next. I started to fear she was in the grip of some terrible fever.
I put a hand to her forehead to see if her skin was hot or cold. As soon I touched my skin to hers, a charge sizzled up my hand and through me. I pulled back but my heart thudded and my hair stood on end as if a thunderstorm was approaching.
“Get away from me,” she muttered, her words slurred. She lifted her hands as if trying to fight off someone or something.
I couldn’t let her struggle like this—I had to wake her.
Putting both my hands on her shoulders, I started to shake her, but as soon as I took hold of her, pain shot up my arms and into my chest. I trie
d to gulp down a breath but couldn’t. I couldn’t move. It was as if I was being ripped from my body and taken elsewhere.
For a moment, I managed to close my eyes.
When I opened them again, I could see nothing but darkness. However, I was still holding onto Saffron’s shoulders. But instead of lying on her blankets, she was standing, as was I. Hadn’t I just been leaning over her?
She put her hand on my wrist and asked, her voice taut and anxious, “How is it that you are here, Bower?”
“Where are we?” I tightened my grip on her shoulders, afraid if I let go I would lose her in the darkness around us.
“I don’t know! I think maybe I’m still asleep. This…I feel as if I’ve been here before in dreams. Bad dreams.” She pulled away, but she kept her hand wrapped tightly around my wrist. She was glancing around, looking left and right as I had seen her move as she lay on her blankets in the hut.
“But I didn’t fall asleep. I just touched you.”
Saffron’s hand gripped my wrist even tighter. “Somehow I pulled you into this. Or maybe the darkness did.”
It was dark—darker than the deepest part of a night without moon or stars.
Saffron turned and looked at me. “Am I dreaming you, or are you dreaming I’m here?”
I shook my head. “You were sleeping. But I think this…it’s because we’re somehow connected through your magic and through Jaydra and the other dragons.”
Saffron turned suddenly and said, “Something else is here.”
I felt it as well. The darkness itself seemed to changed temperature, with a chill that crept into it. I could see nothing, but a feeling swept through me as if something had gone terribly wrong in Saffron’s dream.
“Wh-what is it?” Saffron said, her teeth chattering and her hands shaking now.
I moved closer to her, chilled as well, wishing I had a fire. Wasn’t wishing supposed to change a dream?
A sound like the hissing of boiling lifted and seemed to be getting closer to us.
Dragons of Kings (Upon Dragon's Breath Trilogy Book 2) Page 18