Given

by Nandi Taylor

  Where is she? Weysh roared. In response Noriago let the necklace fall, the chain of it fluttering as it fell to the city below. Heart racing, Weysh beat his wings harder. He screeched after Noriago, lit up the night sky with fire, but just like in class, Noriago continued to gain the lead. Weysh was frantic. He had no clue if Noriago was leading him toward Yenni or away. All he was sure of was that he couldn’t track her scent, and only Noriago knew where she was. But if Noriago thought he could lose Weysh, he was badly mistaken. That rat shit might be faster, but Weysh was used to marathon flights. He would follow Noriago to the edge of the world if he had to.

  For terrible, agonizing minutes Weysh beat the air, hot in pursuit. He followed Noriago out of the city, clear to the mountains. Where were they going? Where was Yenni?! In no class, on no flight, had Weysh ever shot through the air like he did now. A cocktail of terror and fury fueled his flight. Noriago flew over the southern mountains, to the infamous Spider Pass. They soared over an old confection of platforms and bridges built long ago, suspended above tall, craggy slabs of rock. Noriago let out an angry, unintelligible shriek, then let loose with flame, setting fire to one of the forested platforms. The trees burned, turning their stone pillar into a giant torch. What was he doing? Weysh didn’t have much time to wonder, as the other dragon looped in the air and rushed him.

  Weysh was more than ready. For weeks he’d been longing to sink his claws into Noriago, rip into his throat with his teeth, shred his wings. They clashed, kicking and snapping at each other.

  Oh unholy shadows, the trees were ablaze!

  “Source-drawn rain here come and fall!” yelled Carmenna. Yenni followed suit, but their contained rainfalls did little to stop the fire racing down branches, jumping from tree to tree. It had erupted too quickly, and there was simply too much fuel. Soon the heat of it became painful, and the smoke burned Yenni’s eyes. Carmenna coughed beside her and they stumbled to the edge of the plateau by the bridge. Screeches and roars and bright gouts of flame pierced the air above them. Yenni gasped. Weysh was here, fighting Noriago. She swung between relief and terror, pausing even as the heat sent sweat rolling down her back.

  “We must move to the other platform,” she shouted to Carmenna at last, struggling to be heard over the crackle and roar of the flames.

  “The moment Noriago sees us he’ll light the bridge up! We should wait for Weysh.”

  “Weysh cannot smell! He likely doesn’t know we are here. If we want to live we must get across this bridge as fast as possible and cut it away so the fire does not spread. Do you know speed magic?”

  “It’s not my area of expertise, but—”

  Yenni hunched down before Carmenna. “Then get on my back.”

  Praise Ib-e-ji, Carmenna didn’t argue, as Yenni was quite tempted to leave her among the blazing trees. She hooked her arms under Carmenna’s thighs and hoisted her up, flared her strength and speed runes, and ran.

  Noriago closed his wings suddenly, plummeting to escape Weysh’s assault. He wheeled in the air and rushed back toward the copse of trees he’d set on fire. Weysh followed, and saw a blur streaking across the bridge. That couldn’t be . . .

  Yenni!

  Weysh screeched her name and dove after Noriago. The rest happened in seconds. Noriago hovered in the sky, his chest swelled and glowing, ready to let loose with fire. Weysh slammed into him, sending him spinning away in a spiral of flame. Weysh dove for the bridge, then roared as searing pain traveled up his tail, wrenching his spine. Noriago had latched on to his tail and now, beating his wings, he fairly whipped Weysh around and flung him in the opposite direction. Weysh heard an eruption of flame and turned back to see that the forested plateau at the other side of the bridge—the very place Yenni had run to for safety—was also on fire.

  Before Weysh could even think to go to her Noriago was on him.

  I want you to see! I want you to see! he screeched over and over as he flapped and snapped at Weysh. You don’t deserve it! Not you! Not you!

  Get out of my way! Weysh roared back.

  He sank his teeth in wherever he could, scraping off scales, mania taking him over. And when Noriago howled and Weysh tasted blood, he relished it. Bloodlust and vengeance crowded out his training and he completely forgot to protect his wings. Noriago saw his opening and slashed with his claws, ripping through the tough membrane. Pain sizzled through Weysh even as Noriago struck again, making another, searing slash in the same wing. Weysh tried to stay aloft, but his wing simply wouldn’t obey him and catch the air. And it hurt. Every flap of his injured wing was agony. And so he tumbled, spinning on one wing, doing all he could to aim for the platform with Yenni. He even locked eyes with her as he crashed straight through the bridge, sending rope and planks tumbling with him.

  Yenni screamed. Oh Mothers and Fathers, please Mothers and Fathers—to see Weysh falling from the sky, exactly like her nightmare, and her helpless to stop it, was enough to drive her mad, to make her forget the flames threatening to curdle and melt her flesh from her bones.

  “Watcher above!” Carmenna gasped. “Weysh!”

  “Don’t you call his name,” Yenni snarled, even as she peered desperately over the edge of the plateau, but she must have said it in Yirba, as Carmenna seemed confused more than anything.

  Please, please, please Mother Shu. I love him, I love him, I love him.

  Mother Shu answered her prayer. Weysh’s dragon call sounded from the darkness below.

  Yenni! I’m coming!

  “Where are you?!” she shouted back. Her eyes adjusted to the dark and she caught a glint of moonlight on scales. Weysh clung to the side of the huge pillar, climbing toward them. But Noriago spotted him at the same time. He roared and dove for Weysh.

  “Weh-sheh! Your runes!” she screamed at him. He was even now covered in the lightning runes she’d painted the night before. But if he heard her he didn’t heed her; he only climbed faster. By the cursed shadows, he couldn’t remember to use his runes at the best of times, he’d never call on them now. It was up to her to help him.

  When she and Carmenna had first burst into the copse of trees she’d seen her satchel and spear strewn on the ground, just in time to watch her satchel and paints ignite with the forest around them. Her spear, however, she had been able to snatch free. Now Yenni twisted it, extended it, drew on her focus runes, and took aim. She sent it flying true, straight for the other dragon’s throat.

  He dipped his neck and dove, beautiful and terrible, and her spear sailed over him, into the darkness below.

  Weysh dug in his claws, hauling himself up the rocky pillar to Yenni. He saw her spear go flying, saw Noriago dodge it, and then she was screaming at him. But she was still so far! He couldn’t hear her over his own blood thudding in his ears, and over Noriago.

  Die, Nolan! Noriago screeched. Weysh strained and climbed. If he could only make himself go faster, like he sometimes did as a man! If only he could use—

  MAGIC!

  He could use Yenni’s magic. That’s what she was always yelling at him.

  Use your runes!

  He did his best to concentrate through his desperation, against Noriago bearing down on him. He pulled source to the runes. It came slowly, like syrup, but at last he felt his scales warm. Noriago was right on top of him. Weysh flared source through the runes and let loose.

  Lightning whizzed, making the strangest sound he’d ever heard, like a buzzing note of music, and crackled through the darkness. Noriago let out a wail the likes of which Weysh had never heard, so awful it gave Weysh no satisfaction. The lightning coursed through Noriago, illuminating him from the inside so Weysh could see muscle and even bone. Then Noriago fell twitching to the jagged rocks below.

  “Weh-sheh!”

  Yenni’s frantic voice echoed above him and he remembered. Fire! Weysh scrambled up the column and hauled himself onto the plateau. Yenni was on him in an instan
t, kissing and stroking him. The trees burned and popped against the night sky. The heat must have been terrible for her and—was that Carmenna? She’d been stolen away as well?

  It mattered not; he had to find a way to get them free of the blazing plateau before the fire consumed their edge. Every second it burned closer. But how? Climb down the pillar with them on his back? That had its own risks. He was built for flying, not climbing. Suppose he should slip? He’d never be able to right himself. Or suppose one of them should lose purchase hanging on to him? But what other choice did they have?

  “Weysh can shield us from the fire with his body until it burns out,” said Carmenna.

  Yenni coughed, her eyes burning. “But he cannot protect us from the smoke. You must heal his wing, Carmenna.”

  “I-I don’t know if I can! Healing works best when spells are infused into balms or potions, healing straight through spellcraft is primitive and difficult.” She waved her hands uselessly.

  “Try! I will keep the smoke back,” said Yenni. “Hurry!”

  She pulled on her wind runes, blowing back the acrid smoke. It took quite a bit of force, and the smoke was only increasing. The fire continued to eat its way through the trees, as if sentient and hungry. She could hear Carmenna chanting behind her, words she couldn’t understand, likely San-Uramaik, the old magic language. Yenni blew and blew at the fire, but she could feel her wind runes failing, her body tiring.

  “Carmenna!”

  The chanting picked up in volume. Yenni glanced back and saw that the gashes in poor Weysh’s wing were much smaller. A loud crack echoed through the darkness, and a large tree fell toward them. Yenni pulled—fire wards, pain wards, and strength runes—and heaved the tree aside before it could land on Carmenna.

  “The trees are collapsing!” Yenni shouted. Carmenna’s voice became ragged, desperate, and Weysh rumbled and moaned as she worked.

  “There!” she cried at last. Yenni turned in time to see the last of the ragged rip in Weysh’s beautiful wing disappear.

  Weysh crouched down and Yenni hopped nimbly onto his back, as she had so many times before. She reached out hand to help Carmenna. Carmenna held out her arm but then froze, and screamed.

  Yenni followed her gaze. Impossibly, against all that was good and right, Noriago rose up out of the gorge. He roared, his wings spread wide. Weysh crouched at the edge of the platform and snarled at him, the runes on his nose bridge glowing brilliant white as he readied another attack. Noriago roared, enraged, and turned tail.

  Time to go, Weysh called to them. They hunched down and Weysh dove off the platform. Rushing wind cooled the sweat on Yenni’s heated skin, and she took deep, wheezing breaths of the fresh night air. Weysh arced around the pillar and took off in the opposite direction from Noriago, toward the cliffs that bordered the mountain pass. Yenni knew his main goal was to get them to safety, but she hated to know that that rat prick, as Weysh would put it, was escaping once again. She turned on Weysh’s back, watching him go.

  Please, Mother Ya, must he escape justice?

  Something large and winged streaked through the air like a whistling spear, colliding with Noriago. Another dragon! The two went spinning to the rocks below. Weysh landed on the other side of the gorge and spun around, so that the women wobbled atop him.

  Harth! he bellowed.

  Harth? She pulled on her focus runes, strengthening her vision to match Weysh’s dragon eyes. Sure enough, the other dragon was their green friend.

  “Har-tha!” Yenni screamed as well. Weysh crouched, growling. Yenni could see he was anxious to go help, but he also didn’t want to leave her. A small figure leapt off Harth’s back and a moment later Zui twisted and writhed in the sky. Harth dipped and zoomed and harried Noriago while Zui, for her part, attacked Noriago with those deadly streams of hers, aiming for his wings. Noriago could protect himself from Harth’s fire, but not Zui’s jets. Harth distracted him while with practiced aim, Zui pierced each of Noriago’s wings.

  Noriago fell, screeching, and crashed onto a platform below. As they watched, he tried to get up, flapping weakly before falling back to the trees. Again and again.

  Zui flew over while Harth perched on the platform across from Noriago, screeching at him.

  Zui touched down on the cliffs and changed. “Yenni!” she cried and hugged her. “I’m glad to see you’re okay!”

  Yenni squeezed her back. “And I’m glad to see you! How did you find us?”

  “Harth became quite suspicious when Weysh was supposed to show up for dinner and an hour later his plate remained unaccosted. We went to Weysh’s place to sniff him out, and caught Noriago’s scent instead. So we followed.”

  Weysh let out a soft dragon moan. Thank you so much, both of you.

  “Weysh, take Yenni and Carmenna back to safety and bring the peacekeepers. We’ll watch him.”

  Weysh screeched his thanks to his friends and dove off the platform, speeding them back to the city.

  39

  The next couple of weeks were a tempest of activity. Noriago was well and truly arrested, and finally locked away in an Espannian prison. Yenni and Weysh gave testimony at the trials for Gilles Desroches and Emmanuel Devon—open and shut affairs due to the mountain of evidence against them—and they too went away.

  The case for Carmenna’s involvement had been heard as well. She’d tearfully admitted her guilt to the peacekeepers, drawing shock and disappointment from Weysh. But due to Noriago’s coercion, her sentence was not as severe. She was not imprisoned, but tasked with serving the community as a voluntary healer for the less fortunate.

  “I know I can never atone for what I have done,” she told them when they saw her last at her hearing. “But I want you to know that I’ve solidified my focus of study, and I’m going to specialize in dragon physicry. Weysh, I will make it my life’s goal to bring back your sense of smell.”

  It was only now, two weeks later, that things were beginning to die down. Yenni had settled into her role as acting professor of runelore and between studying for her own classes and teaching others, she was constantly tired, though she had a good bit of help from her teaching assistant and best friend, Diedre.

  Still, exhaustion was not the word for what weighed her steps that evening. She was so tired she didn’t even trust herself to use speed runes to run home, afraid she would pass out. Luckily, her classroom was not as far away as the previous runelore classroom had been, but just a short walk from her residence at Riverbank Chambers. At last she flopped down on her bed, not caring that it was too soft, and settled in for a few hours of well-deserved sleep before her next class.

  Her head had just touched her pillow when a familiar metallic creaking chased away the first tendrils of sleep. It took her half-drowsing brain a moment to realize it was her letter box.

  Her letter box!

  She darted up in bed, adrenaline fueling her to wakefulness. When she checked, there it was, a brown papua roll. Her family’s response to Weysh.

  Yenni hesitated, biting her bottom lip. She wondered: What would they say? Would they welcome a dragon into their midst, even if he was only part Islander? Would they lambaste her for shacking up with a strange Creshen man? In fact, she no longer stayed at Weysh’s townhome since Noriago had been caught. She’d told him she needed to be close to the school for her professor’s duties, but in truth he could be quite a distraction. A wonderful distraction, yes, but a distraction.

  She worried: would her parents demand she follow through on the marriage to Prince Natahi? Perhaps she should go back to bed and wait until she could read it with Weysh.

  No, she was not a coward. She would read the letter now.

  She opened it to reveal her family’s crest—a white field sphinx. The letter itself was quite short. She frowned as she read:

  Daughter,

  Praises to all the Mothers and Fathers that you are once again
safe. You must bring this dragon with you when your pledged year abroad is complete and you return. We will form a strategy then. Write no more of this. Love from your iyaya, your siblings, your tribe and me, your n’baba. May the Sha guide you safely home.

  What? That was it? That was all?

  Yenni turned the paper over, even shook it, as if she could shake free more words. How frustratingly vague! What did her father mean by “We will form a strategy”?

  Still, it seemed as if her family had accepted Weysh. They wanted her to bring him back with her. That was a good thing, was it not? So why did the letter fill her with such apprehension? Just what would she find on returning home?

  Weysh screeched his arrival as he landed on his family’s lawn, but he was surprised when his maman, not Genie, answered the door, her eyes puffy and her smile brittle. She hugged him long and tightly, and he didn’t need his sense of smell to tell that something was very wrong.

  “How is Montpierre?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Come, let’s sit,” was all she said. As he followed her to the den, Sylvie hurried down the stairs to join them. She attached herself to Weysh’s side and didn’t let him go until they reached the winged armchairs and sat down.

  Maman sighed. “Montpierre is not well. He was too exhausted to rise from bed this morning.”

  Weysh took in their haunted expressions and felt nothing but sadness. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She waved at the air as if she could flick away her sorrows like swatting a buzzing fly. “But what about you, sweet? Where’s your princess?”

  “Professor Yenni Ajani is teaching a class at the moment,” said Weysh, smiling fondly. Weysh made small talk with them, updating them on his life in a way he never used to, until eventually his maman rose. “It’s time for Montpierre’s next dose of medicine. Excuse me,” she said, and glided from the den.