Heartscale

by Lola Ford

  Seeing Nerie, Myha jumped to her feet and ran to hug her daughter. Karina once again faded into the background. She bowed and stepped back into the hallway, closing the door behind her.

  “Oh Mama! I missed you!”

  “You saw me last night!”

  Nerie was already in tears. How was she supposed to do this? Be princess to a kingdom that she’d only ever known from the depths of its middle class. She tried to say as much to her mother, but it came out a garbled mess.

  Pulling Nerie to the soft couch, Myha held her as she cried softly. Stroking her daughter’s soft hair, she whispered to her.

  “How about I tell you a story? About me, before you were born?”

  Nerie nodded into her shoulder, her sobs racking her thin frame. She didn’t get to hear about her mother’s past very often.

  “You know our book shop? Well it was my papa’s before it was mine. My mother died when I was little. You know as much already. Anyway - Papa would have me run it for him when he was busy - just like I have you run it for me sometimes now.”

  Nerie tried to quiet her breathing - as her mother was talking very softly - and she wanted to hear. She was only partially successful. Her breathing came in long ragged gasps.

  “Well, one day, a man - Oh, he was quite a handsome man - came into the shop. I showed him around. He said he was looking for a specific book. One about dragons.”

  At the mention of dragons, Nerie’s interest spiked. Myha was still slowly stroking Nerie’s hair, massaging her scalp and twirling strands of hair.

  “Now, you know how rare the dragons are. We only had one book about them in the whole shop. In fact, you’ve probably read this book a million times before. It was your favorite growing up. About how Soros and Eras came to Situra.”

  Trying to nod, a large glob of snot ran down her face. Nerie was an ugly crier. She had snot dripping down her face and her eyes were so puffy she could hardly see out of them. She angrily tore the seam of her dress and used the hem to wipe her face. All she could think was What would Queen Alaena have to say to that?

  “Unfortunately, that was not the book that the man was looking for. He left, and I thought that was it. A strange man, looking for a strange book.”

  Nerie nodded her head successfully this time, looking at her mother. She wondered what book the man had been looking for. She also wondered why this was the story her mother wanted to tell.

  “The next day he was back. He actually introduced himself this time - Soren. I didn’t think anything of it, as Soren was an immensely popular name after the king had been born. He was looking at the book we did have. He called me over, started telling me how the book was wrong. How its mis-characterized Soros and Eras. At that point I thought he was quirky.”

  Myha smiled in memory. Nerie smiled back at her. It was good to see her mother reminiscing. She now had an idea of where this was going.

  “He came back every day. He always looked at different books. He would tell me about various places.”

  Myha shook her head, her own red hair tumbling around her heart-shaped face.

  “I thought we were in love. I mean - we did things that people in love do - we went on dates, we laughed, we kissed. We - well - you were conceived.”

  Her smile faded at this point.

  “One day, shortly after I’d found out I was pregnant with you, he came to see me. I was going to tell him I was expecting. He chose that day to confessed to me - he was the king.”

  Myha took a deep breath, her eyes unfocused as she relived that memory so far in the past,

  “He wanted me to come live in the palace with him - and the queen. I was mortified. What does one say to that? I didn’t tell him about you - instead I told him to leave and never come back.”

  Nerie was sitting up straight at this point, holding her mother’s hand, which was gripped vice like around her own.

  “I didn’t know Nerie. Not until right then that he was the king. I thought the king stayed in the palace all day.”

  Myha had tears of her own running down her face at this point.

  “The rumors about the queen being barren were rampant at that point. I felt used. Betrayed. I told him no, that had I known he was a married man I would’ve never agreed to be with him.”

  She sniffed and rubbed her face. A single tear ran down as she finished her story.

  “Maybe I should have been his royal consort. But I couldn’t Nerie. I just couldn’t. He said he understood. He left. That was it. And then you were born. So perfect. And I was happy. Happy with our life. Happy with you.”

  She pulled Nerie’s head to her shoulder, rocking them both gently back and forth.

  “I’m sorry baby. So sorry that I never told you the truth before now.”

  Kiriga, who’d been laying curled on the floor stood and walked over to the pair. She laid her little head on their laps and nuzzled both women.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Graith

  Graith and Zel were up early the next day. The sunlight filtered between the leaves momentarily warming Zel’s hide and leaving a trace of color before vanishing again. They made slow progress to Zel’s nesting cave. Her eggs were large and fragile, and they hoped that perhaps not all of them had been removed from the cave. Or if they had been taken, maybe they would be able to determine which direction the others had gone.

  They’d been near her main cave the day before. They would have reached it by nightfall, but instead had encountered the group of men. Graith had briefly wondered if the three men from the pub had been in the group, but since all were unrecognizable after Zel’s rampage, he was unsure.

  They traveled in silence as the sun moved slowly overhead. Graith simply watched Zel and let Mero follow on his own.

  When they arrived at Zel’s cave, it was obvious that all the eggs would be gone. Ropes and a conveyor system had been constructed and left behind by the men who had raided the cavern. They apparently had felt no need to remove it once their job was done.

  Graith dismounted from the cart, unworried that the gelding might wander off. Zel launched herself to the sky, more of a tall leap than flight, before landing at the entrance of the cave. After studying the lift system for a moment, Graith was able to hoist himself up.

  Emerging at the entrance, Graith had to be impressed. The sunlight streamed in behind him, allowing him to see deep to the back wall of the cavern. The space was huge. His barn could’ve easily fit inside - with room to spare - however, it currently sat empty. There was some discarded rope off to one side, and some tattered paper near the entrance.

  Graith stepped towards the paper, his feet making deep indents in the soft sand that coated the floor. As he reached down to grab the worn, ragged paper, the tear down its middle completed its rip. He picked up both halves and held the together in the sunlight.

  A map.

  The cave they were in had been marked - along with where he assumed Zel’s main cave had been. He had to resist the urge to ball the paper in his fist - it also had several towns including Dunlaith and even the capital city of Tesia was marked.

  Instead, he carefully folded the two halves together and placed them in his pocket.

  He looked around the cave a second time. This time he saw where Zel had kept her eggs. Large rocks placed in a rough circle filled a good fourth of the cavern floor. They were spaced far enough apart for a man to walk between, but nearly as high as Graith’s waist. Graith could almost imagine Zel laying inside the circle, curled around the eggs in the same manner that she curled around him at night. His heart ached for her.

  Zel, they’re gone.

  I know.

  She wandered over to the ring, sniffing the ground like a hunting dog.

  I’ll find each and every one of the men that took my clutch.

  Graith sighed and headed back to the lift.

  I’ll meet you at the cart, I found a map, we can decide what to do from there.

  Zel seemed to ignore him and continued sniffing t
he ground. He was sure she was memorizing every scent, and unlike the first group of men, these ones would probably meet a slower, more painful death.

  He reached the cart, patted Mero on the snout and pulled the map back out. It was a large map, showing the entire country of Lutesia, and the surrounding countries Situra and Etria. Graith had never even been farther than Dunlaith, the town that homed Lord Arish.

  Well, he corrected himself mentally, hadn’t been before now. Now he had traveled all the way to the western mountains. He frowned, thinking of his crop sitting in his barn. He wouldn’t be going back, would he? Zel needed him.

  A moment of mental insecurity hit him hard. Did she need him? Why had he come along? He had just walked away from his whole life, for what? A dragon he was supposed to want to kill?

  Graith? Zel’s metal voice, almost back to her normal self, reached out to him.

  Zel, why am I here?

  She was quiet for a moment.

  You’re here because you’re my friend? Right?

  Graith let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

  I am, Zel.

  She lowered herself from the cavern and nuzzled his back. He turned and rubbed at her eye ridge. Color returned where he rubbed, fading slowly back to the near-white. Graith had chosen not to ask Zel about her color. He assumed it was due to her grief, and that her navy would return in due time. But he didn’t know for sure, since she was the first and only dragon he had met.

  After the moment ended, Graith turned back to the map and Zel raised her head above his to look down at it.

  I recognize those places! She told him excitedly, seeing the towns that had been marked on the map.

  You do? Graith asked surprised, but then remembered Zel had told him that she’d come from a faraway land.

  Yes, I flew over several of them on my way here.

  Where are you from Zel? Graith asked curiously.

  The south, there are lands where dragons and people coexist, the humans there call it Etria. It’s very far from here.

  Graith frowned, he’d known that there was a country to the south of Lutesia. He hadn’t remembered the fact that it homed dragons - if he had ever known in the first place. He had never paid much attention in his geography classes when he was young, as he had very little use for them - never intending to leave his home.

  He looked back down at the map. Its size was daunting, and there were so many places they could have taken the eggs. He sighed and scrubbed at his face. He felt movement behind him and when he looked again, Zel was pointing ever so delicately with one of her foreclaws to the town Lord Arish lived in.

  Dunlaith. We should go their first. The lord there was the one who sent the men after me in the first place wasn’t he? Zel asked.

  Once again Graith was surprised.

  Zel, can you read?

  She scoffed at him and looked annoyed.

  Can you talk? Of course, I can read. What kind of uneducated fool do you think I am?

  Graith reddened and shook his head.

  Zel, you forget, you’re the first dragon I’ve ever met. Men here talk about killing dragons and what horrid creatures they are. I have no idea what you can or cannot do.

  She seemed a little mollified at that, and once again nuzzled him.

  I did forget. Humans in Etria are so very different than the humans here. But Dunlaith, that seems like a good starting point. You, of course, will have to do all the talking since I would be killed on sight.

  Graith nodded, deep in thought. He had no hesitations about continuing to help Zel, but he was a planner.

  I think we should head back to my farm and travel from there, as I am familiar with the roads. Plus, I’ll need a few more things from my home.

  He gently folded the pieces of map back together and placed them in one of his bags. Climbing into the wagon seat, he gazed up at the empty nesting cavern and then down at Zel.

  We’ll get them back Zel.

  She didn’t answer him, instead she once again leapt into the cavern, where she turned and roared to the sky, issuing her challenge to those who had taken her clutch.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Graith

  They set off for Graith’s home, retracing the path they had made on their journey to her cave in the first place. At one-point Zel flew off, telling Graith she would be back shortly. About an hour after she had left, she returned, carrying a few swords and another bow in her forepaws.

  What are those? Graith asked, unsure where she would have gone to get weapons.

  The weapons left from the men that I killed in my cave initially. There were so many it was all I could do to get away at the time.

  Aye, I remember. You weren’t more than a bloody meat sack.

  She chuckled darkly at that.

  You could have killed me then, I was so weak and exhausted. Or, if you had merely left me, I may have bled out.

  I could never have done that, Graith insisted profusely.

  He examined the bow she had brought for him. It was much finer than the one he had currently, made to punch through heavy leather rather than hunting. However, the bowstring had broken, and the one he had would be insufficient for a replacement.

  You are sweet, Graith.

  He smiled up at her, then looked at the swords she had brought. They were standard issue, all having the same length and general weight. He’d never used a sword before, but it wouldn’t hurt to carry one.

  ***

  The journey back to Graith’s farm was uneventful. They made it in three days, since they used the trail they had created. Once they arrived, Graith couldn’t help but look around and feel like he no longer belonged there. He was a different person than the man who’d found a dying dragon in his barn just over a week ago.

  That man had belonged - but now?

  There was more of the world that Graith intended to see and staying here would be like forgetting Zel even existed. What he had promised her.

  They went to his house where the chickens were still in the yard. The door was locked, but other than that, he could have simply been away for an hour, not the long week he had been. He opened the door and was surprised to discover a letter someone had slipped under it. Graith looked around, wondering if he was going to see anything out of the ordinary, but everything looked just as he’d left it.

  The pile of laundry he needed to wash, the bed, rumpled from the last time he had slept in it. His favorite chair, still slumped in the middle of the seat, as if he had just risen from it.

  It was his home, but it felt like a stranger’s.

  He slowly walked to his chair, looking around him, feeling as if he was walking into someone else’s life. He sank into the chair that molded around him perfectly, and mechanically opened the letter.

  It was from Ralph. That seemed to pull Graith back into the here and now, and his brows furrowed as he read the letter.

  Graith,

  I came to see how the gelding of yours was doing. I wanted to make sure he was getting along with your animal that the other was afraid of. I’m only writing this because I didn’t find you at the house, barn, or any of your fields - for the last two days. When you return from wherever you’ve gone, come see me. Sarah is worried about you.

  Ralph

  Guilt spread over Graith, his face burning in shame.

  Of course, Ralph would come check on the gelding.

  He was concerned about all the animals he raised. He was also a good friend. Graith should have told him that he was leaving town for a while. Honestly, he’d thought no one would notice or care that he was gone. It’s not like he had regular visitors.

  Running his hand through his hair, Graith thought about riding into town now to let Ralph know he was home. But that wouldn’t do much good as he was just going to be leaving again. Indecision seized him, and guilt flowed through him for several minutes.

  Until Zel’s voice broke through, stopping his mind from racing.

  Graith, what’s t
he matter? she asked, sounding worried.

  I wasn’t a good friend to Ralph. He came to check on me and Mero, but we weren’t here.

  You were being a good friend to me at the time. You can explain to him later. For now you should rest. I know you’re not used to traveling and we’ve done much of it in the last few days.

  A shadow passed over the window, and Graith looked up to see Zel’s large blue eye peering through. He noticed she was the palest shade of blue at the moment, and he hoped that it was a sign that she was healing. She might be a creature of legend and feared by all, but she had just as human of emotions as he did. He couldn’t imagine having his children taken if he were in her place. She was stronger than he could be in that position.

  He wasn’t sure how to verbalize these thoughts to her, so he just sent warm and caring thoughts her way. He received them in turn.

  Smiling, he got out of the chair. His knees popped and his back ached as he made his way to the bed that no longer felt like his - though it was much softer than the ground he’d been sleeping on for the better part of two weeks. As he laid among the woolen sheets, he missed having Zel curled around him. She provided such a feeling of protection, that without it he felt exposed - even in his own home.

  ***

  The next morning, he took stock of his possessions. Sometime in the night he’d decided that once he left, he would not be coming back.

  He carried in his large saddlebags and unpacked them. He planned on repacking only the things that were too important to leave behind. As he dumped the contents of the three saddlebags dirty clothes and dishes toppled out along with the small odds and ends that had seemed useful at the time. He set the dirty things aside and sorted through the rest.

  He still a few loaves of bread and a few small hunks of the dried meat. He grabbed the oiled cloth his cheese had been wrapped in and set it aside. While tasty, cheese was expensive, and he’d run out of cheese the night before. Food was going to be the biggest problem while traveling, but he hoped that Zel would share anything that she caught.