by Audrey Faye
She wrapped the blanket tighter around herself and eased a step backward toward the door. She’d overstayed her welcome, and now that the music was gone, its pull on her had vanished too. She could feel the star tugging on her. Calling her out into the night with nothing more than a musty blanket around her shoulders.
When the songs and tales spoke of trials, they never mentioned smelling bad. Or how weak her wings felt after three days of not enough to eat. She eased another step backward. The mountain man’s eyes raked over her again, but he seemed to be the only one looking. She let the cuffs of her dress slip out of the blanket. She didn’t look like a lass who had grown up on the high slopes, but the embroidery on her cuffs would tell the story of her village to one who knew how to read the simple, colorful stitches.
Put there in case her body was one of the ones found in the spring.
Not this far from home, though. No one else in the room had such stitching on their cuffs and collars. If she died in these parts, she would be wearing a message no one knew how to read. She flinched and took another step back. Her eyes strayed to the mountain man one last time. He was a stranger, but he had the look of home. Perhaps the last one she would ever see.
She blinked back tears. She wanted to go home. Had tried, more times than she knew how to count. But always, when she did, the feeling in her chest stretched taut, like the only way to go back to her village was to leave her heart beating in the sky behind her.
A hiss.
Jae spun toward the sound, and this face was neither familiar nor friendly. A woman, large as any man, seated on a stool and staring at the floor.
Jae looked down and froze in horror. The edge of her wing trailed through the dirt and grime. Feathers she hadn’t bound because she was too weary to find a cloth that might do the job.
She tried to think. Predators in the forest smelled fear, and so did ones in villages. It was best to act like you were meant to be just as you were. “It’s no creature, miss. Have no fear. Where I’m from, we use the feathers of birds to line our skirts.”
Skeptical blue eyes lifted to hers. “I’m no miss, and whoever you are, you’re a long way from home.”
Jae wanted nothing more than to pull the blanket tighter around her shoulders, but she resisted. Loose like it was, perhaps the woman wouldn’t notice the humps on her back. Or perhaps, in the dark, she would think them a cloak. “I am. And leaving just now.”
The doubt in the blue eyes deepened. “It’s the dead of night. No one’s leaving now unless they’ve thieved something.”
Jae had no earthly idea what she might have stolen that came with feathers and lumps, but it didn’t matter. Thieves never met good ends. “I don’t steal.”
“Then you have some explaining to do.” The large woman reached for the knife at her side.
Jae had seen that look before, from the occasional traveler to her village. A few might offer her an initial kindness, but as soon as they saw what she was, fear landed. Danger. The village had known her as a babe. No one meeting her fully grown ever saw her as anything other than dangerous.
And dangerous things met knives all too often.
Jae backed up faster, keeping her wings to the shadows as best as she could.
She heaved a teary sigh of relief when the sounds of the gittern rang through the room. The woman shot her one last dirty look and turned to face the fire, clearly deciding she had better things to do than chase a petty thief on a cold winter’s night.
Something she might easily change her mind about if she knew what those dirty feathers were really attached to.
Jae swallowed. No matter how lonely she had felt in her small village, it was far worse here, in a room full of people who could turn in an instant. To belong only because she was Gran’s was bad enough. Out here in the wider world, she could never belong at all.
Jae set her mug down gently on the corner of a table. It hurt to leave the still-warm tea, and the song the minstrel had just started was one of her favorites. But whatever demon had possessed her clearly didn’t care.
It wanted her to die of cold instead of loneliness.
She slipped out the door into the dark night and swallowed back her tears. Out here, they would only freeze to her face.
Chapter 4
Fendellen settled onto the visitor cushions in the dim-dark cave and tried not to squirm. Morning had come, with new-fallen snow to her knees, three sleeping hatchlings and a very sleepy village, and a summons.
“Relax and finish your stew. I promised young Kellan you would eat.”
Queens rarely made simple promises. However, the stew smelled delightful, and if Kellan chose to tend to her own heart by taking care of others, that was something a dragon who would one day be queen would honor as well as she could. Fendellen dipped her tongue into the sauce of the stew, appreciating the flavors. Elhen had a fondness for exotic tastes, and dragons returning from their travels often brought back spices to please their queen.
Ones who had a little warning they were returning, anyhow.
Fendellen kept quiet and made quick work of her stew. Elhen’s patience had increased in her later years, but that didn’t mean it was endless, particularly where her successor was concerned. And while this might not have the trappings of a formal visit, she doubted it was one meant merely for stew and idle conversation either.
The queen waited until she was licking the very last of the fragrant meal from the bottom of the bowl. “It is time for your questing to end.”
Fendellen hid a sigh. She had heard such pronouncements before, and not everyone used such kind words to describe her traveling hijinks. “My queen is still hale and hearty, and I still need to grow in wisdom.”
That earned her a snort. “The latter half, I will grant you. The state of your queen’s health is perhaps less certain. I am nearly old enough to see through.”
Worried blue eyes looked up to find the deep green ones that were all that still held color on the old queen’s body.
Elhen shook her head. “I know of no troubles that seek me other than old age. Fret not. I am not yet ready to go, although the star doesn’t always wait for us to be ready.”
Fendellen was quite sure that last pronouncement was intended to do double duty, but it wasn’t her own readiness to be queen she doubted. It was something simpler than that, and always had been. “It’s not time.” She knew that as surely as she knew her own name.
“So you have always said, youngling.” Green eyes gentled. “You have a deeper connection to the star than most. But I do not speak of the day you become queen. You must stay and give the dragons more time to know you. There are some who have heard only stories of the ice-blue dragon and her travels, and you cannot be the queen of dragonkind based only on stories.”
It wasn’t quite that dire—and more than one queen had started her reign with little more than that. But Elhen’s message was more serious. “You think I shirk my duties.”
“I think you entirely redefine them.” The queen’s voice was dry.
Fendellen tried, once again, not to squirm. It was hard to hide when the dragon she faced had watched her hatch. “There is change coming. The prophecy, and perhaps more. I do what I feel is necessary. What the star requires of me.”
A long pause. “Do you?”
This time, there was no hiding her unease. “I try.”
A long, smoky sigh. “Talk to me, youngling. There is no one else who would understand, but while I may seem older than the hills, I remember being a brash young dragon once.”
Fendellen shaped a sharp memory of a certain translucent tail, splashing into the waters of midsummer and soaking a large yellow dragon, and sent it to her queen.
Elhen’s rumbled laughter filled the cave. “Perhaps a taste of that brashness still remains.”
Hopefully for a long time to come. “I will be ready when I need to be.” Brave words. Some days, she even believed them, although this one, even filled with sleepy celebration and very good ste
w, didn’t feel like one of them.
Another long pause, and the steady gaze of eyes that had seen everything for a very long time. “Tell me what you wait for.”
Fendellen closed her eyes. Her queen had spoken, and she would look at that place deep inside herself that had always known, but did not always have words. ::There is a part of me that is empty. That waits. I do not believe I can be queen until it is filled.::
::Fear speaks thusly.::
The words were gentle—and piercing. But it wasn’t fear that lived deep in Fendellen, or not only that. It was truth. To be queen was to be entirely alone. Even Kis treated Elhen with a respect, a distance. She wasn’t ready to take that last step into loneliness. Not until she had filled her empty places. ::I travel to find what fills me.::
Elhen sounded amused. ::Spices from far-flung lands are wondrous, but they are not the answer to all things.::
Fendellen snorted. The queen had a wry humor to go along with her volatile temper and haughty ways. “It’s more than my belly that sits empty.”
A white head finally nodded in the dim. “You are a different dragon than I was at your age. I was much like young Alonia and Trift. It was responsibility I feared.”
Those two knew how to have more fun in an hour in the forest than most knew how to have in a lifetime, and Fendellen loved them dearly for it. But it wasn’t responsibility she feared. It was the great, gaping chasm between the queen and everyone else. “The star chose them, as it chooses us.” A rebuke, as carefully put as she could make it.
Elhen’s eyes glittered diamond hard, and then with a humor few ever saw. “I am not fond of trusting the destiny of dragonkind to the stars, youngling. You would do well to cultivate your own wisdom in that regard.”
That was hard to do when you were going to be queen in an era of prophecies fulfilled. “Three have been chosen. We await two more.”
A thoughtful look. “You have the bonds of a queen with those three already.”
Fendellen was beyond tired of needing to squirm, but that fact hadn’t escaped her notice either. “I feel them deeply, but I am not yet their queen. They know it, as do I.”
Elhen snorted. “I don’t accuse you of usurping my authority. I wonder if perhaps the missing two are the source of your emptiness, and the blood of the queens inside you simply lacks the words and the understanding to know that as the cause.”
Fendellen blinked. It was an interesting thought. Despite her sharp fear of loneliness, she had never actually lacked for dragon companionship. An old yellow dragon who treated her like a hatchling had always ensured that. No queens-to-be were treated with reverence or distance on his watch. It was an odd thought that the emptiness inside her might be bonds that did not yet exist, rather than experiences.
An interesting thought, and one she refused to think about any longer. She was a dragon of action, not one who grew wisdom slowly in the forest like a mushroom. And while Elhen had not yet issued an order, it was quite clear there was one forthcoming. “I will stay for a while. The remainder of the winter, perhaps.”
Amusement glinted in green eyes. “There are three hatchlings who would do well to know their future queen.”
Fendellen let her own amusement glint back. “Kis might not want my influence on his charges.”
“That old warrior has dealt with far tougher than you.” Elhen paused. “And it would do well for the villagers to see your reverence.”
They no longer talked about the travel plans of ice-blue dragons. “The special one.”
“Yes. Elf clans do better than human villages, but both would see such a one as a burden, a mouth demanding more food and more care and giving little in return.”
Dragons did no such accounting. “She honors us with her presence.”
“I know that, and any elf or human kin to a dragon knows it by now as well.” Elhen raised her head, a regal queen on full display. “It is well that the others have a good example to follow.”
There were few things Fendellen liked less than being an example, but for that squished yellow head, she would do anything that was necessary. “Do you truly think it a concern?”
The barest of head shakes. “I do not know. They accept a dragon who swims, but there is distance still.”
Distance that was as much Oceana’s fault as anyone else’s. “Kis is well loved.”
“Kis is a hero.” Four words spoken directly from the banked fire of a queen.
Fendellen bowed her head. Messages received.
All of them.
Chapter 5
Jae glared up at the night sky. Her feet were frozen solid, her cheeks flayed by wind until she couldn’t feel them anymore. “I will not. I’m done. I’m going home.”
The tug of the star pulsed in her ribs.
She didn’t care. Five days and five nights, and even her ribs had turned to ice. She was so far beyond hungry, she could no longer remember food, and she’d been chased off twice in two days by people hurling stones and nocking arrows as they screamed words she didn’t understand.
She is close.
Jae wrapped her wings around her body and wished she had the power to yank the star out of the sky, tie it off to the biggest rock she could find, and hurl it down some crevice with no bottom. Which might be hard to find in these flat lands, but she would do it as her last living act if it would only bring her some peace.
Your life will not be peaceful. But it will soon be warm.
Jae used words Gran would have gaped at. She moved the icy blocks that used to be her feet, turning around on the hard-packed snow, painfully slow.
Facing home.
She would take to the sky one more time. Perhaps, if she was very lucky, she would fall out of the sky close enough to the mountains that in spring, someone would recognize the stitching on her cuffs and send word back to Gran.
Assuming Gran was still alive. The shadow waving from outside the hut must have been the work of demons too. Jae felt the tears she could no longer stop spill over her cheeks. They rolled, cold and stinging, and turned to ice, yet more evidence of just how little warmth was left in her body.
She had made such a terrible mistake. She was not understood in her village—but she was not hated either. Even if death didn’t stalk her, in these lands, her heart would be forever as cold as her feet. Ignored at best, chased and arrow-shot at worst.
There will be no arrows this night. Fly.
No one was dumb enough to waste precious arrows shooting at sky shadows in the dark. Jae spread her wings, feeling the numbness creeping even under her feathers.
She would fly—but she would go home.
Restless. So very, ridiculously restless. Fendellen winged up into the night sky, glaring at the star that had pulled her away from sleep. ::I know these long nights must be boring for you with so little to watch, but I was up all day with a small purple dragonet who hatched without knowing what sleep is, so I was really looking forward to a nap.::
She caught a crisp updraft and snorted into the stiff wind. Talking to a star was a sure sign she’d been awake far too long. Especially when it sounded very much like the star was laughing. Fendellen flapped hard, climbing at a pitch that would have challenged all but a few. It wasn’t any warmer up high, but the view was better. It was fun to pretend to be one of the stars rather than part of the landscape they hung over and occasionally mocked.
She surveyed the dark, feeling out the air currents with her wings. On a night this cold, it was always tempting to head toward the sea and its warm updrafts, but something niggled, tugging her a different direction.
She executed a barrel roll that would have done Lotus proud and pointed her nose toward the niggling. The lands below weren’t ones dragons generally flew over. Too many fields, and the humans who tended them might not take kindly to a flyover by a large winged creature. However, there would be no field tending this night. The fields hid under blankets of deep snow, and humans didn’t have scales and bellies full of fire to keep th
em warm.
She studied the horizon ahead. There were mountains this way, more distant than her eyes could see, but she had flown in their direction more than once. They were beautiful in the summer, full of brave flowers that bloomed only briefly and were somehow more dazzling because of it. But even in summer, those mountains gave birth to fierce storms, and in winter, even restless dragon queens would do well to stay far away.
Fendellen stretched her wing tips, arcing in a wide circle. She huffed an amused puff as a dragon-shaped shadow caught the light of the moon and reflected on the snow below. It was a pretty shadow. She flapped her wings, not because it was necessary, but because it was fun to watch the shadow dragon flap too.
Jae blinked her eyes as the impossible flying creature dipped her wings again, dancing with the shadow on the snow. The old ones had spoken of such things—the torments of the mind that came just before death. Somehow, she had expected them to be less playful.
Somewhere, deep in the cold inside her, she felt a struggling heat, something that might have finished as a smile on a night when she wasn’t encased in ice. One of her wings twitched, wanting to join the dance in the sky.
Jae didn’t move. If she did, surely the illusion would vanish, and at least this way, she could die watching something so beautiful it nearly made her cold heart stop. Moonlight shone off the dragon’s scales. They weren’t quite white. A touch of blue, like the most beautiful ice on the lakes in the high mountains, the ones born from rocks and ice.
Starlight with wings.
Jae’s breath huffed out into the night, and with it, the faintest of sounds. A whimper, dying as fast as it was born. A wish that lacked enough flame to find its voice.
The dragon’s wings froze.
Somehow, the beautiful demon had heard her.
Jae knew she should run. Pray. Hide. Something. Anything other than standing there, staring at the sky as deep blue eyes searched the shadows and star-bright wings flapped straight at where she stood.