After they’d chased the invaders out, Elorma beseeched the Old One to release Willa from their bond. He didn’t want to be responsible for clapping a bird in irons and forcing it into a cage.
This time, the Old One granted his request.
Elorma sought Willa out. He told her to return to her old life and be free.
But Willa refused. The people of Firgaard no longer saw her as a silly peasant girl. She was a hero in their eyes, and the city was her home now. Willa was Elorma’s match.
On the night of their binding, Elorma waited in the temple while Willa made her way through the streets. The citizens of Firgaard threw flowers at her feet. They kissed her cheeks and wished her well, and Willa’s heart glowed within her. She was a burden no longer.
But Willa never made it to Elorma. She heard Death call her name and her weak and glowing heart faltered.
As Willa collapsed to her knees on the cobbles, the cheers around her went silent.
“My love,” she whispered, “I’ll wait for you at Death’s gate.”
The wind carried her words to Elorma, who ran to the girl he loved. But before he could reach her, Willa’s heart stopped beating. Death, the thief, stole her away.
When Elorma reached her, Willa’s body was still warm. He clung to her, cursing the Old One for not saving her, weeping into her hair.
But when Willa arrived at Death’s gate, she planted her feet and looked back to the land of the living. Souls were not permitted to linger at the gate, so Death himself came out to sway her.
She was unmoved.
He sent a sweeping cold to freeze the love in her heart—but Willa didn’t budge.
He sent a raging fire to burn away her memories—but Willa held them fast.
He sent a wind as strong as the sea to force her through—but Willa grabbed hold of the bars and wouldn’t let go.
So Death gave up and left her alone, thinking time itself would wear her away. But Willa’s loyalty never wavered. She waited until Elorma himself stepped up to the gate, a lifetime later, and the moment he did, she let go of the bars.
“What took you so long?” she asked. And then, taking his hand in hers, Willa walked her beloved into death.
Eighteen
After Asha’s voice went silent, the old story remained within her, brimming with power. The version on the scroll ended with Elorma walking Willa through the gate. But Asha didn’t like that ending. It was Willa’s story. Willa withstood cold and fire and wind and time. She should be the one to walk Elorma through. So Asha changed the last line.
When the story released its hold on her, she came back to the woods to find the slave leaning toward her. Asha was once again struck by the gentleness in his gaze. It didn’t possess her like Jarek’s gaze did. Nor did it fear her, like everyone else’s. This slave’s gaze was tender and featherlight.
A soft whuff broke through the silence. Their eyes snapped upward to the dragon standing over them, its breath hot and rank on their faces, its tail swishing dangerously.
The slitted eyes narrowed. A growl rumbled low.
Asha—still armorless and unarmed—panicked. She scrambled up and away.
“No.” Pain flared through her ribs as the slave grabbed her hard around the stomach, swinging her back to face the dragon. “Don’t run.”
Fire, red and raging. Burning up her skin and sealing off her screams . . .
He withstood her fists and elbows. He held her fast. And all the while the dragon crept closer.
“Hush. Stop fighting.”
When it was clear the slave wasn’t letting go, Asha gave up. Terrified, she turned into him, waiting for the dragon to strike.
The night stilled around them. Her heart hammered in her ears.
“Iskari.” His arms loosened around her waist. “Look.”
The dragon sat. Its head cocked, watching them.
The slave clicked at the creature, making Asha wonder if Greta had explained more to him than she realized.
With one arm secure around her waist, he held his other out, clicking softly, trying to coax the dragon to them. Asha held her breath.
It seemed unsure, its gaze moving from the slave’s outstretched hand to the Iskari and back. After several heartbeats, it crept forward, watching Asha the entire time. It sniffed at his palm, then nudged it gently. The slave’s arm tightened around her, as if fearing she might run. He slid his hand over the dragon’s scaly snout, then took Asha’s good hand in his and slowly held it out.
It was a long time before the dragon sniffed at her fingers, even longer before it nudged her palm. When it came in close, whuffing at her neck, Asha cautiously took hold of its snout. It had terrible breath. Like rotting meat.
“Explain something to me,” he whispered against her cheek. “The stories made your mother sick, right?”
“Yes,” said Asha, breathing in the thick, smoky scent of the dragon.
“So why don’t they do the same to you?”
“My mother was too soft,” she said, following his lead and running her own hand over the dragon’s warm snout. “Too good. She couldn’t control them. They ate away at her like poison. Just like they did with the raconteurs. I’m—different.”
When she looked to see if he understood, there was thunder in his brow.
“It’s difficult to explain.”
Asha turned back to the dragon, resting her forehead against its rough scales. The moment she did, her mind flickered like a candle flame. Images came in flashes and bursts: a hooded man riding a black dragon, an army advancing across the desert.
Asha pulled away and the images flickered out. She eyed the dragon, which darted around her and the slave, circling excitedly. Finally, it settled in a crouch and looked up into her face. As if anticipating some kind of game.
The slave said something, but Asha didn’t hear him. She was thinking back. Remembering herself from years before—the girl with the butterfly heart. Asha stepped toward the dragon and took its snout in her hands. Once again, images flared up in her mind.
It was the dragon. It was trying to tell her a story, she realized, in exchange for the one she’d told. Only instead of words strung together in a sequence, it sent flashes of images into Asha’s mind. They were like shards of glittering glass, sometimes too sharp to grasp, sometimes out of order.
Eight years had made her forget: dragons liked to tell stories almost as much as they liked to hear them. Asha forced herself to go back, to remember years with the dragons rather than against them.
Kozu’s storytelling was beautiful. Never hard to decipher. But this dragon chattered like a child who hadn’t yet learned how to form proper sentences.
Asha closed her eyes, trying to focus. She struggled to piece the flashes of images together, like assembling a mosaic in her mind.
There was the hooded man—he seemed important. He kept coming up over and over again, riding atop an inky-black dragon. Kozu, Asha realized, before he’d been scarred. But only a Namsara would dare ride the First Dragon. So the man had to be a Namsara.
It was the woman riding next to them, though, who interested Asha most. She wore Asha’s father’s citrine medallion. And while this woman was young, Asha knew her face. She knew those hard, disapproving eyes. They stared out at her from a tapestry in her father’s throne room.
The woman was Asha’s grandmother.
And the story was about the last Namsara, she realized. But the dragon’s story didn’t end where it normally did—with the skral being clapped into irons and turned into slaves. The dragon was telling her the part that came afterward.
The Severing Retold
The Old One granted the dragon queen victory over the skral. He gave her a Namsara who led her straight to the enemy’s camp while they slept. He gave her protection against her enemies. And what did she do in return?
She dishonored him.
She did not chase the skral out of the realm as he had commanded. Instead, she enslaved them.
“Drak
sors don’t take slaves,” the Namsara told her. “The Old One forbids it.”
“Just think of what we can accomplish!” said the dragon queen. “With our enemies forced to serve us, think of how powerful we will be! No one will dare come against us again.”
“To defy the Old One’s commands will be your undoing,” the Namsara warned.
The queen enslaved the skral anyway.
The city’s narrow, winding streets filled with slaves being fitted for collars. Gold for the palace. Silver for the wealthy. Iron for the rest.
The Namsara came to the dragon queen with a second warning. “The Old One will show mercy, but you must release the enemy. Break their collars and set them loose.”
The queen banished the Namsara from her sight.
The slaves were given roles, and rules were made to govern them: Never look a draksor in the eye or speak their name aloud. Never touch a draksor other than your master. Never drink out of a draksor’s cup or eat off their plate.
The Namsara came a third and final time. This time, he did not beseech the queen. Nor did he offer mercy. Instead, he declared, for all the city to hear:
“This will be a sign the Old One has left you. Your fiercest allies will turn against you. They will burn down your homes and attack your families, and their fleeing shadows will drive a wedge between all of Firgaard.”
And that’s exactly what happened.
Nineteen
The dragon was a liar.
Its story was all wrong. The skral were ruthless. They’d pillaged and burned every city they came across. They left only ruin in their wake. If the dragon queen let them go, their horror would continue. Asha’s grandmother had been protecting her people and everyone else.
The dragon was twisting the truth. Just like Asha herself had changed the end of her story, this dragon had changed his.
Later that night, Asha woke to the smell of smoke. Ready to yell at the slave reckless enough to make a fire and give their location away, she bolted to her feet. But the words fell silent on her lips in the presence of the man sitting opposite her. A fire roared between them, but it was no campfire. And there was no sign of the skral or the dragon.
Elorma sat across from her instead. “You’ve done well with your second gift,” he said. “The Old One is pleased.”
Asha’s temper curled around her like smoke. “The Old One can eat sand.”
His mouth quirked up at the side. “Let’s see how you do with your next gift.”
“No,” she said. “Please, no more.”
“You’ll like this one. I promise.” He pushed his hood back and his gaze slid to the burn scar running down her face. “I think you’ll find it . . . useful.”
Asha knew better. She gritted her teeth. Her fists clenched. “No matter how many times the Old One gets in my way, I’m still going to kill his dragon. I swear it.”
Elorma sighed, then got to his feet.
“The Old One bestows his third gift,” he said wearily. “Fireskin. You’ll need it to fulfill this next command.”
Fireskin?
Her fists uncurled.
“You will take the sacred flame from the thief who stole it and return it to where it belongs.”
A jolt of panic shot up through her legs. Her father took the sacred flame from the caves—where it belonged.
“You want me to commit treason . . . against my own father?”
Elorma’s silence confirmed it.
Suddenly she couldn’t catch her breath. As if she’d been running.
She felt dizzy. So dizzy, she sank to the ground and put her head on her knees, trying to make the world go still. Trying to force it to make sense again.
She thought of her father in the sickroom, holding her hand through the long, pain-filled nights. Standing fast at her side while her people hissed and spat at her feet. Looking at her with pride whenever she returned from a hunt with a dragon’s head on a platter.
Asha couldn’t. She wouldn’t betray him.
Even if she dared to, there was no way to succeed. A thief couldn’t just march in and take the sacred flame. She would be seen and stopped immediately.
“I can’t do it,” she said. “It’s impossible.”
“You’ll find a way,” said Elorma.
When Asha woke, the larks were singing the sky awake and the sun was a haze of gold setting the tops of the trees aglow. Nearby, the red dragon wheezed as it slept.
It was as if the world knew nothing of the wicked task the Old One had set for her.
Asha didn’t want to play this game anymore. In three days, she’d be bound to Jarek. She needed to hunt down Kozu. It was the only way to halt the coming tide.
She needed a plan—a way to outwit the Old One.
Asha rubbed the lingering sleep from her eyes, then stopped when she realized her burned hand didn’t hurt. She lifted the bandaged hand in front of her face, then started to unwrap it.
When the linen fell away, she stared in shock.
Yesterday her hand was raw and scorched. Today there was the tough skin of a scar. It took up the whole of her palm and some of her fingers. Her burn had healed completely.
Asha sat up. What was it Elorma had said about the Old One’s third gift?
Fireskin, he’d called it.
But what does that mean?
She had the tiniest spark of a notion.
Asha reached for the matches next to the lamp and lit one. When it flared to life, she held her breath. Very slowly, she held the quivering flame under her palm and started to count.
One. Two. Three.
Four. Five. Six.
Seven. Eight. Nine . . .
Nothing. No pain.
A slow smile spread across her lips. If she were impervious to fire, how much easier would killing Kozu be?
A hand shot out, knocking the match from her fingers. It hit the earth and died.
“What is wrong with you?” The slave crouched beside her, breathless. On his shoulder perched a hawk as white as mist. It stared at Asha with silvery eyes.
The sight of it startled her. “Is that Roa’s hawk?”
He reached up to touch its white feathers, as if he’d forgotten it was there. “Her name’s Essie.” Shaking his head, he returned to the original subject. “Were you just trying to hurt yourself?” He frowned. As if Asha trying to hurt herself was something for him to be concerned about.
“Yes,” she said, looking up into his face. She reached for another match and lit it. Keeping her eyes locked on his stormy ones, she raised her hand above the flame and held it there. It tickled. It warmed. But it never burned.
“It’s my third gift.”
The frown in his brow deepened. “What?”
Asha shook out the match. “He wants me to use it to steal the sacred flame.”
“Who wants you to use it?” His eyebrows were two hard, dark lines. He seemed exceptionally agitated this morning. Asha looked to the hawk—Essie—wondering if its presence was the reason. “What are you talking about?”
Their voices woke the dragon, who sat up.
“The Old One gave me this,” she said, raising the scarred hand she’d tried to burn. “Just like he gave me that,” she said, nodding to the dragon—now prowling through the grass toward them. “Just like he gave me those.” She pointed to the slayers, sheathed on the ground beside her. “And every gift comes with a command.”
He reached for her hand. Surprised, Asha let him take it. He frowned as he studied it, his thumb brushing across the rough, discolored skin, sending warmth blooming through her.
“That’s not possible,” he said. From her perch on his shoulder, Essie peered down too. “I just bandaged this a few days ago. It was completely raw.”
Asha watched the smooth sweep of his thumb. Once again, she thought of her mother, of the way she’d reach out and tuck a strand of Asha’s hair behind her ear. Or grab Asha as she ran down the corridor and pull her into a hug. Asha always squirmed away—she’d had better
things to do.
Now, though, she wondered what those things were.
He let go of her hand, snapping Asha out of her memories.
“What is the command?” His gaze slid to her hair.
She ran her fingers over her braid and found it coming undone. “I have to steal the sacred flame and return it to the caves.”
“And you’re going to?”
“I don’t know.” Maybe she could just steal it temporarily. Until she killed Kozu. After that, the flame wouldn’t matter anymore. Nothing connected to the old ways would.
The old stories were like the branches of an argan tree and Kozu the thirsty root: cut off the root and the branches withered and died. To silence the First Dragon’s heart was to silence the stories forever, and with them, the Old One’s link to his people.
The moment Kozu died, the old ways would crumble and turn to dust.
Asha shook out her dark hair, running her fingers through it.
When she looked up, she found the slave staring. He turned his face away so fast, Essie squawked at the sudden movement. She flapped her white wings and flew off his shoulder.
“You need me,” he said without looking at her.
“What?”
“You said yourself he follows you.” He looked to where the dragon pounced on the hawk, dust-red scales rippling. A blur of white flew out from under him, screeching in annoyance. “As soon as you go back, what’s to stop him from flying after you again into the city?”
Essie’s flapping wings sounded like the soft hush of Darmoor’s sea. The dragon stared into the sky, contemplating his lost prey, then slunk over to where Asha sat. He walked two circles around her and the slave, then sank to the ground, blocking the sunlight with his folded wings. Lying down, the dragon was roughly the height of a horse.
The slave was right: if she was going to complete this task, she’d need a way to keep the beast in place. She didn’t have time to teach it to stay. And she couldn’t risk it following her again.
The Last Namsara Page 13