Silver Batal and the Water Dragon Races

by K. D. Halbrook

  Silver’s eyes went wide. Her spine seemed to twist upon itself, as though she could shrink to the size of a beetle and scamper out a small crack in the doorway. She had seen her father angry before—so angry he’d seemed like an unfiltered sun. When Gama had told him about how poorly she was doing in her classes, or when she’d snuck off with her cousin and forgotten to bring the daily bread, or even when he’d found her drawing water dragons in the dust on the windowsill. But this cold and distant Rami Batal was worse.

  Silver knew she was lost to him.

  Her lower lip trembled. She was a shell of a girl. Not talented. Not graceful. Not impressive. Not worthy of the Batal legacy.

  And not on her way to Calidia to ride water dragons.

  Slowly, she unhooked the remaining jewelry draping her neck and ears, and set it on the table. She hastily pulled on her mother’s caftan and retrieved her shoes. The older ele-jewelers pretended to work on their metals and gems, but they peeked at her as she gathered her things.

  “Here,” Phila whispered, passing the two golden hair combs to Silver. She opened her mouth as if to say more, but Silver turned away. There was pity in Phila’s face, and Silver hated that. She didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for her.

  She just wanted to disappear.

  * * *

  THE ROADS WERE still crammed. Instead of the usual twenty thousand people, there seemed double that. Ladies-in-waiting and drivers and servants and cooks and animal tenders. Silver couldn’t imagine how big Calidia was if all these people were only a tiny piece of that grand city.

  Vendors on the Jaspaton roads worked furiously to cook their desert specialties for all the Calidians waiting in line. The air became sweet with the heady smells of succulent tea, meat on spits, and desert-rose jellies softening in the growing warmth of the day. Silver’s mouth should have been watering, but it was as dry as a desert wind.

  Neighbors still smiled at her. People waved to her from high on the cliff, where they were perched to get a good view of the royal caravan. The tale of what had happened at the showroom must not have traveled to them yet, or else they would be laughing.

  As for Silver, she wasn’t sure she would ever laugh again.

  Her suit had been a failure. Her father was furious. Calidia was farther away than it ever had been. But the worst thing of all was …

  Sagittaria Wonder.

  At first glance, Sagittaria had been everything Silver had imagined. Strong, confident, mysterious. Impossible to miss. Waves of power flowed off her. She was the hero of Silver’s dreams. She had even called Silver ambitious!

  After that, though, her cruelty was like the bite of a scorpion. Fiercely painful at first touch, then spreading throughout Silver’s body until she was overtaken with shame. How could her hero be so awful?

  Silver wiped her nose with the back of her hand and crunched up the flight of stairs she’d toppled down earlier in the day. All her aches and bruises were returning, now that there was nothing to take her mind off them.

  She slammed the door of her house open, then slammed it closed behind her. In her room, she peeled the suit off and tossed it on the floor. With a cry, she tore the drawings off her walls and threw them down, too.

  “Where were you, Nebekker?” she sobbed.

  Her mother was still at the yarnsladies’ tents and would probably be all night. There would be parties for the Calidians, with delectable finger foods, and musicians pounding drums and plucking strings for dancing. They would celebrate their sales, their friendly relationships, and the very beauty of the harsh but generous desert.

  Silver would stay in her room for all of it. She looked out the window the rest of the afternoon, fat tears making tracks down her cheeks.

  “You’re as dumb as a dung beetle,” Silver told herself.

  Everything she had done, all the people she had disappointed—it was all for nothing.

  In the distance, the sun’s colors blurred into a muted yellow, then orange and pink as evening approached. And still the winds blew. The sleepless night and wounded emotions of the day overcame Silver. She sank into a restless sleep.

  When she opened her eyes again and went to the window, it was dark out. Very dark.

  The moon and stars were hidden. People outside carried the colorful gem lanterns of Jaspaton, or the intricately patterned metal lanterns of Calidia. But the light they gave off was dimmed by all the sand in the air.

  Were this a normal night of storms, everyone would be tucked away in their homes. Tonight, though, was for celebration. Partygoers were dressed in their finest, but by the end of the night, Silver knew their most beautiful scarves would be frayed and torn by the sands.

  The winds settled briefly and a sliver of moonglow broke through the clouds. A deceptive calm. Everyone hurried to their festivities while there was a respite from the weather.

  Silver squinted. Down on the desert floor, a dark figure shadowed by a lantern’s soft light began trekking out toward the deep desert. Three more people followed, their backs heavy with packs. Who was ignorant enough to leave the city on a night like this?

  She dashed out of her house and crossed the road to get a better view. The lead traveler was tall and slender. Dressed all in black, with long black hair whipping out of a scarf hastily drawn up. Silver knew that confident walk.

  Sagittaria Wonder was heading into the desert. And, when the storm resumed, as it surely would, to her death.

  Silver raced to get dressed. The great water dragon racer was right: Silver was ambitious, and she would use this opportunity to convince her that she was worth taking a chance on. Even if it meant risking her life.

  She started to put on her trousers, but the desert was frigid at night. Her riding suit would keep her warm and keep the whipping sand from blasting a layer of skin off her body.

  She snarled at the suit. The awkward, ugly thing had earned her only Sagittaria Wonder’s scorn.

  Still, she slipped it on, then added the trousers and a flowing tunic over the suit, boots, and a scarf wrapped around her face and head. Grabbing a lantern, she burst out of the house and raced down the stairs and roads to the lower levels.

  Already, Sagittaria was out of sight. But Silver knew what direction she had taken. It was a trail toward the sand dunes where she’d surfed. It shouldn’t be hard for her to catch up. Silver knelt and struck flint to light her lantern. When the oil-soaked wick caught, she flew with the speed of a diving hawk disappearing into the dark of vast night.

  TEN

  “Sagittaria Wonder,” Silver called into the night.

  The calm was eerie. Electricity zapped through Silver’s body as she trotted down the trail to the dunes. She knew the stillness wouldn’t last. The sand had settled enough for the moon to be seen again, but the stars were still hidden.

  She had underestimated how much of a head start Sagittaria had gotten, but Silver was a deep-desert girl.

  What was the dragon rider doing out in such a storm? Even the foxes and scorpions were tucked away in their underground burrows. Sagittaria would get herself hurt, or even killed.

  Why should I help her? As soon as the dark thought entered her mind, she pushed it back out again. Silver would never live down the shame she’d felt in the workshop, but that wasn’t reason enough to wish Sagittaria harm. Especially not at the hands of a desert storm.

  Silver—and probably everyone in Jaspaton—had a deep fear of dying out in the desert. The best option was for hundreds of scorpions to poison you. It would hurt, at first, but then a deep sleep that you’d never awaken from would overcome you. The scavenger birds would find your body eventually and make several meals out of it. But the worst option …

  Silver shivered. Family members gone missing in a desert storm, their bodies discovered days later after the dunes finished shifting. They’d been buried alive, their ears and eyes and mouth and nose filled with sand. Suffocated.

  A blast of wind scraped sand across Silver’s lips, and she yelped. The storm was pic
king up again.

  “Sagittaria!”

  Silver marched on. Past the dunes, which would look different in the morning as they shifted in the storm. Past the end of the trail. Into the vast desert, where her feet sank into the sand and she had to wade through the dunes with aching legs.

  Calidians! They might have great palaces and universities, they might interact with peoples from all across the globe, but when it came to deep-desert smarts, they had none.

  “Sagittaria!” Her voice was going hoarse. Sand collected in her nostrils in little balls. She snorted them out. Sound muted as her ears filled with sand, too. Who was she to call the Calidians stupid when she had run into the storm just as unprepared?

  Silver dropped to her knees. The lights of Jaspaton were now too far to see. Even the dark, shadowy mounds of the dunes had disappeared. She was farther into the desert than she’d ever been before.

  She could go back. She should go back. It wasn’t her fault Sagittaria thought she could take on a sandstorm. But as Silver looked in a slow circle, she realized she had no idea which way home was. She was lost.

  “Don’t panic,” she whispered. She looked to the sky to guide her way home. “Stars, where are you?” There were no astronomical markers to be seen.

  It had been many, many generations since anyone but the most remote of nomadic desert peoples believed in the ancient goddesses, but just then, Silver closed her eyes and imagined the arms of them scooping her up from the desert floor and swifting her to safety back in Jaspaton.

  When she opened her eyes, she was in the same place, with the same storm bearing down on her. No one was coming for her. She had to get herself out of this mess.

  Okay, Silver. What would a dragon rider do? She wiped her face with her scarf, scratching the delicate skin of her eyelids, and winced. A dragon rider wouldn’t be here in the first place. Nowhere for a dragon to swim.

  She laughed at her own train of thought. When she got home—if she got home—she would become the model daughter. She would take up jewelry making with great passion. She would burn all her charts and drawings. She would never get in trouble again.

  Silver put one foot in front of the next. She counted.

  One. Two. Three. She counted to one hundred, then to one thousand. The dunes never came back into sight. Silver’s legs turned to jelly. She didn’t dare open her mouth, for fear the sand would fill her entire body.

  She fell, letting the soft, cool sand envelop her like a blanket. Her eyes drifted closed.

  * * *

  DREAMS BEFORE DYING were the loveliest things.

  In Silver’s, she was weightless. Her aching muscles held up hollow bones; her clumsy limbs were tucked in close to her body, as though she were being held and rocked gently. The last time she remembered being rocked was by her mother. Then, Sersha had sung to her ancient ballads of desert lore. In the melody Silver heard in her dream, it was the sand itself that sang, rolling and lifting and fading its melancholy notes into her ears.

  Silver hummed along with the desert song.

  Moisture trickled down her throat. A succulent tea, but not the same that she’d always known. This one was fruitier. Dozens of layers of flavors and very fragrant. Cool.

  She coughed.

  Water was everywhere. In her face, her eyes, up her nose. Silver sat, and hacked up the contents of her lungs. How could she be drowning when she was buried alive in the desert? She was scared to take a breath, for fear she’d take in only sand, not air. Her head pounded, and her chest was on fire.

  A familiar voice. “Breathe, girl.”

  “I can’t!”

  “Breathe.”

  Silver squeezed her eyes shut even tighter. Her body wouldn’t listen to her brain. Without her permission, her lungs sucked in.

  Air. Not sand. Sweet, sweet air. Silver took another greedy breath, then another.

  She dared to open her eyes, but she couldn’t see anything. They stung like they’d been pricked by Flying Black-Eyed Scorpions.

  “Here.” A hand tipped Silver’s head back. A wash of water went over her face, followed by a soft cloth. This was repeated several times, until the sand was flushed from Silver’s eyes and nose and mouth and ears.

  “Is that better?”

  Silver sat up again. Opened her eyes. Saw the sparkle of a pale-blue gemstone before it disappeared behind cloth again. Nebekker. Nebekker was out here?

  “What are you doing over the dunes?” Silver said.

  “I should have left you for the scorpions.” The old woman frowned at her. “What kind of common sense have you misplaced? I always thought highly of your parents, but if they let you out wandering in this weather, I’m changing my mind.”

  “They don’t know I’m here.” Silver peered at the sky, bright with the first blush of morning. The world had settled. The storm was over. “At least, they didn’t know. They probably do now. I’m supposed to be in my room.”

  Suddenly, a roar of anger filled Silver’s ears.

  “You left!” she said, accusing Nebekker. “When I needed you most.” Silver leaped to her feet, swayed, and fell back again. That was when she realized she wasn’t in the open desert anymore. Before her, narrow trees rose into the sky. Slivers of blue appeared between their trunks. It was an oasis.

  Silver had only heard of them. The air was as salty as ever, but it was damp, too. When she strained her ears, she could hear water—dripping and flowing—from somewhere in the distance.

  The marvel of the oasis almost softened Silver’s heart, but her anger was too great.

  “You disappeared, and I had to finish the suit by myself,” Silver cried. “Brajon tried to help, but it was a disaster. Sagittaria Wonder laughed at me. She said … She said…” But Silver couldn’t bear to repeat what Sagittaria had said to her.

  Nebekker’s frown deepened. “I’m sorry it didn’t go well with Sagittaria. But you weren’t the only one who needed me.”

  Silver bit back tears. “Who needed you more than I did? There’s no one else out here.”

  Nebekker’s lips twitched. “It’s a bit complicated. There is someone. Two someones, actually. But I’d rather you didn’t … Oh, too late for that.”

  Nebekker’s gaze focused on something in the sky. Silver followed its direction and saw a black dot in the distance. As she watched, the dot grew larger … and longer.

  “What is it?” Silver whispered.

  “My great secret,” Nebekker said. She stood as the thing in the sky approached.

  ELEVEN

  What Silver thought at first must have been a very large hawk turned out to be nothing of the sort. It was blue. The blue she’d always imagined the oceans were. Its wings and tail were tipped with white. On a day when fluffy white clouds danced in the sky, the creature would be perfectly camouflaged. When it disappeared in the center of the trees with a splash, Silver got to her feet and began running, forgetting her aches and pains completely.

  “Wait,” Nebekker called, lifting her flowing trousers and running after Silver.

  Did I see…? Is it really…?

  Silver burst through the greenery surrounding the lake.

  “Hoowawrrrrr!” The roar nearly lifted Silver off her feet. A head almost as big as her bedroom greeted her. Its mouth opened wide to show off a double row of razor-sharp teeth and a long, slithering pink tongue. Its black eyes glinted.

  Silver scrambled backward. The creature shook its head, spraying water everywhere. It stepped forward, its sinewy muscles rolling under scaled skin. It licked its lips. Opened its mouth to roar again.

  “Kirja,” Nebekker said sternly. “Knock that off!”

  The creature—Kirja—immediately rolled to its back. Its tongue lolled out the side of its mouth, and it panted.

  Silver’s jaw fell nearly to her feet. She could hardly breathe. Blood rushed to her ears, and her hands shook.

  Nebekker put her palms on the creature’s belly and rubbed quickly. Kirja’s stubby legs shook happily in all direc
tions.

  “You’re too much a baby to be a—” Nebekker looked at Silver sharply. “Never mind. Kirja, this is Silver. She’s all right. You don’t have to eat her. Silver, this is Kirja. My Aquinder.”

  Silver reached out an arm, then pulled it back again.

  Belief. It was a hard thing to find. In some tiny corner of her heart, Silver had always known Aquinder were real. But seeing one shocked her.

  She thought back to looking at the night sky with Brajon and seeing a moving thing that blocked strips of stars. Could it have been…?

  In that moment, everything felt like an impossibility. An Aquinder, living in the vast desert, belonging to an old woman. Maybe Silver had died. Maybe this was all just a dream.

  Then again, the Aquinder’s breath had been pretty stinky. It would have had nicer breath if this were all her dream.

  “You can touch her,” Nebekker said, beckoning Silver closer. “She won’t hurt you.”

  “Are you sure? I mean…”

  In every legend Silver had heard, Aquinder had been hunted to extinction hundreds of years ago, after the great wars, because they were dangerous. Deadly.

  Kirja wriggled back and forth as Nebekker tickled her underbelly.

  Deadly? Silver giggled. More like ridiculously playful.

  Kirja’s upside-down face sported a dopey grin. A series of snorts that sounded suspiciously like laughter came from her big, round nostrils. Nebekker paused, and Kirja opened her eyes. Her tongue lolled out of her mouth again.

  “Come over here. Kirja’s going to think you don’t like her. Nothing upsets an Aquinder more.”

  “But I thought—”

  “They were only a children’s story? Or that they were ferocious beasts?” Nebekker shook her head. “They’re neither. Aquinder crave love and attention. And when people learn that, well, they take advantage of that and force them to do terrible things.”

  Silver edged closer to the water dragon. Kirja’s dark eyes followed her movements, and the closer Silver got, the more Kirja wriggled with delight. When Silver finally put her hand on the water dragon’s belly, Kirja relaxed, and sighed contentedly.