by Lucia Ashta
Luma shrugged, her shoulders moving upward a fraction of an inch in gray swirls. However you choose to see it is up to you. To my people, he’s simply moved on from the vessel that was Pumpoo. He’s no longer a man.
Though he may become one again?
Another shrug. Maybe. He can become a variety of things. His life force could return to fill a dragon, or a mowab, or a person.
A mowab? What’s a mowab? I exchanged a look with Rane. How could we have lived so close to shadow people for millennia while knowing nothing about them—or mowabs?
They’re beasts of Origins, as formidable as dragons. Have you truly never heard of them before?
Truly. I couldn’t decide whether to feel deflated at our ignorance or excited by all there was to learn.
Incredible how much you haven’t seen, when it’s all around you.
Had anyone else said that, it might have injured my pride, but with Luma, pride seemed as foolish as it was.
I thought about what to say for a while, and finally settled on, I can’t wait to learn all there is to learn.
That’s the spirit. I didn’t have to look at her to feel the smile in her voice.
I sat up straighter, feeling stronger. I ran a hand along Rosie, finally remembering her injured leg and my injured arm. Her leg. It’s nearly healed. And my arm! You can barely see where Yoon cut me! The site was caked with dried blood, but all that remained of the wound was a raw, pink line.
Aye. Dragons have incredible powers. They heal quickly, and the cut to your Rosie wasn’t as deep as it looked. The wound on your arm, however, now that was bad. Yoon sliced through muscle. But you’re healing nearly as rapidly as the dragons.
What? I thought, but I didn’t allow myself to go there yet. I felt too much responsibility for all that had happened, and despite Traya’s explanations, I still wasn’t convinced that I hadn’t caused more harm than good. Did I release my faithum—magic—too soon? You said to wait, but I couldn’t any longer. I feared if I didn’t let go of the magic I’d built, it would kill me.
It would have, she said, her voice free of the gravity I believed that statement warranted. But then, if her people didn’t believe in death, that must change things. That must have been why she hadn’t mourned the uncle I accidentally killed any more than she had. You nearly did die, but I managed to direct the dragons to contain Pumpoo’s energy moments before you did.
H-how did the dragons contain Pumpoo? My awe must have been evident even through the waves of my mind.
Pumpoo was right about one thing, dragons do have magic. They have lots and lots of it. I’ve worked with them long enough that they trust me, at least the ones who know me. Even with us, you have to gain a dragon’s confidence, and that’s a long and trying task, one that’s entirely worth it if you manage it.
If?
Aye, if. Dragons kill our people, too. They don’t accept just anyone. You need to have an inclination to work with them, along with a certain amount of foolhardy courage. Anything less, and you won’t survive it.
Hunh. But these dragons, your dragon, you got her to do this thing with Pumpoo?
First of all, she isn’t my dragon. I can’t own her.
That’s not exactly what I meant.
It was that beautiful green dragon you see right in front of us, and the dragon who connects with my father, and the dragon who mourns my uncle. Together, they sent enough of their magic to Pumpoo to effectively seal his energetic field, making it so that no energy could leave him, only enter. This containment of his energy was what made him implode on himself.
My jaw dropped open, as did Rane’s. He spoke my thoughts, If Anira hadn’t released her faithum when she did, the same thing would’ve happened to her?
Aye. The body is only made to contain so much magic. We must pass the energy along, not store it as Pumpoo did. It was fortunate that you waited to send your magic to Pumpoo until the dragons encased him so he couldn’t release any of it. She turned to me. Had you released your magic before I’d contained his, he might have linked your magic to his… and you might have joined him in his fate if you didn’t know how to disconnect from him.
I wouldn’t have known how. I didn’t know what I was doing. Rane exchanged a frightened look with me as the full impact of what I’d done—we’d done—hit.
As it was, Luma continued, things flowed beautifully. Anira, you released your magic when it was safe to do so, and Rane released his moments after. My father would have felt what the dragons did, and he would have told those with him it was safe to send their magic to Pumpoo. Shula told those with her, I heard her. That woman is more aware than she lets on. She felt what the dragons did.
So we got incredibly, incredibly lucky, Rane said.
For once. Luck was bound to be on our side at some point, I said. And Yoon? I asked so that I could relax entirely. What happened to him?
Rane answered, Dean hasn’t let him out of his sight. He’s also dealing with all the forcers that joined Yoon to oppose us.
Oppose is a nice way of saying kill.
It is, but I trust how Dean will deal with them.
I felt my shoulders ease up a bit. I trust Dean too.
Moments passed in which I stroked Rosie, she purred in delight, and I watched the green she-dragon who sparkled in the burnt orange sunlight of the Auxle Sun. I must’ve slept through the Plune Moon’s purple glow.
Rane tried to be circumspect while he watched Luma, but Luma’s sheepish smile assured me he failed miserably. Luma didn’t seem to mind, and I knew that something was brewing between the two of them, something I’d embrace, assuming we’d be around long enough.
Has Dean spoken of us leaving to return home?
No, Rane said. He’s mentioned nothing of us going home.
Good, I don’t want to leave yet.
I don’t either.
Luma didn’t say a word. Her shadowy face settled into a beautiful smile.
I hope we’ll be around long enough to learn some of your secrets with the dragons, Luma, I said.
I think you will, especially since they aren’t secrets. You just have to know how to connect with the dragons, that’s all. It’s clear you already do. She reached a hand to Rosie, and the dragonling purred with resumed enthusiasm.
Yeah, Rosie is pretty special. I’d swear she understands what I’m saying to her.
Are you serious?
I was obviously missing something. I, uh, was serious. I think she might understand me, but I’m not sure. Actually, I guess it’s pretty silly to believe a dragon could speak with me. The more Luma stared at me, the more I stumbled over my words. I still talk to her, but she wouldn’t understand what I’m saying, would she? I laughed at my own ridiculousness. Now that I reflect on it, I don’t know what I was thinking.
Honestly, Anira, I don’t know what you were thinking either. Obviously Rosie can speak with you. How else are you supposed to communicate with her?
Communicate with her? Are you saying what I think you’re saying?
If you think I’m saying that you can talk with Rosie as easily as you’re talking to me, then aye.
I stared at Luma long enough that she tilted her head back and laughed a long, hearty laugh that was enough to make her loose hair swing.
You’re saying that I can talk with Rosie, and she can talk back? I whispered the words through my mind, already tingling in anticipation at the confirmation of her answer.
How you managed as much as you did with all these limitations is a miracle. You stream enough magic at Pumpoo to evaporate him from his body, all by yourself, and you have no idea you can speak with the dragon who obviously has been waiting for you to do just that. She laughed again. You alone could have dealt with Pumpoo. You alone have a dragonling who trails you everywhere you go. Oh, this is good. I can’t wait to tell Father.
She stood.
Wait! Where are you going?
To see what you and this very special dragonling can do. She started walking toward Green, then turned
. Are you coming?
Of course, I was coming. I jumped to my feet as if I’d never collapsed in the first place. As I took my first step toward understanding my full capabilities, Rosie and Rane were right beside me.
25
I thought Luma might take it slow, and inaugurate Rane and me into the world of dragons gradually. But the shadow girl obviously had something else in mind.
She went straight to Green. What do you think, beautiful? Should we take the twins on a ride and let them see what it feels like? Show them all they’ve been missing?
I hadn’t heard Luma speak with Green before, and I wondered if the shadow girl was opening up a normally private channel of communication so Rane and I could listen in.
I expected the green dragon to talk back, but when the deep, silky voice arrived, I didn’t manage to prevent the shock. I’d been walking toward Green when I heard her voice. My step faltered, and I had to force myself to keep moving.
Do you think they’re ready for it? the gorgeous silky voice said with a tinge of mockery.
My shock at hearing Green vanished, immediately replaced by incredulity that I should be mocked by the creature. But then my gaze caught on the deep burgundy eyes, and I realized with a start that the gigantic dragon was actually teasing, not mocking.
Impossible, I thought. A dragon... playing with us?
Luma gave me a quick look over her shoulder.
Don’t bother, I said. I know what you’re going to say. Interestingly, it was probably much the same thing Dean would’ve said. Things are only impossible if we believe them to be that.
You’re catching on, Luma said. Then, to Green, This dragonling was abandoned by her own mother because of her differences. Would you be willing to take her under your care and teach her the ways of the dragon?
Green’s shiny eyes pinned Rosie down. Rosie slinked and hid behind my legs. I crouched down next to her, speaking to her aloud out of habit. “It’s all right, girl. Luma is only trying to help. I trust Luma, and she trusts the she-dragon, so you can trust her too.” I ran a hand across Rosie’s scarlet head and rubbed behind her floppy ears. She continued trying to hide behind me, and I didn’t blame her. Rosie might be a dragon too, but Green was enormous, and possessed of a certain level of sophistication I’d never expected of the beasts.
Green shifted so she was gazing at Rosie, Rane, and me straight on. Even her slight movement forced members of the Dragon Force to jump out of the way.
I will have to see if the dragonling is a good fit for me, Green said, but if her temperament works with mine, then yes, I will teach and help her.
Green was more eloquent than I was most days, and I tried to hide my shock at that too. It’s not that I was trying to impress the dragon, but it didn’t seem wise to let my jaw drop open every time she did something new to me. I wouldn’t be able to fool the dragon into thinking I knew what I was doing—nor did I want to fool anyone—but it’d be nice not to appear the bumbling novice I truly was.
Rane crouched next to Rosie and me, and whispered, “Holy crap, right?”
“For sure,” I said, and didn’t manage to hide my smile or my relief that my twin was as overwhelmed as I was.
Thank you, beautiful, Luma was saying to Green. That’s most kind of you. I think you and the dragonling, whose name is Rosie, will get along fabulously.
Rosie? Green said on waves of smoke. That’s the dragonling’s name?
Aye.
Green shifted her head in the opposite direction, her eyes never moving from us. It’s fitting, she pronounced.
Luma turned back to us. What are you doing crouched down there? You know Granelle won’t hurt you, right?
Of course! Rane and I said at the same time, covering up our hesitation. We were cut from the same stuff.
Well? she said. Are we doing this or what?
I moved to stand. It took a lot of convincing to get my knees to fully unlock. Granelle towered over us. She was a mountain and we were the ants that went about our busy business at the bottom of it.
Up close I could make out things I’d never had the ability to notice before. Her scales, bright and shiny, weren’t actually green; they were iridescent, flashing predominantly green amid a rainbow of colors. If not for her size, she’d blend into the treetops easily, concealed by her foliage colors.
Her two legs were taller than I was, her talons as long as my arm. Her tail was so long that it twisted and coiled into the distance, making the danger of its spiked end diminish. But even without looking at it, I realized Granelle’s tail was one of her formidable weapons, in an arsenal of formidable weapons.
Her teeth, now concealed behind a genteel smile, I guessed to be as bad as her claws. And the fire she could release from between them... well, I realized if I was ever going to ride a dragon, I’d better stop cataloging her strengths. There were far too many of them to rationally accept the danger of being this close to a dragon, let alone of riding one.
Riding a dragon required more trust than I’d ever granted anyone—that, and a level of courage and insanity I’d touched upon, but never fully embraced.
Granelle’s eyes locked on mine, and I realized with an unnerving certainty that once I rode a dragon, a basic part of myself, the one that controlled who and how I was, would forever change. I wasn’t entirely certain it was a change I was comfortable with, for I feared—or anticipated?—I might no longer recognize myself.
I felt that this was a step I should really explore before I took it. I should look at its ups and downs, its ramifications, first. It didn’t matter that Luma was moving quickly. She’d done this before. From what she’d said, she’d been either doing this or aware she would for as long as she lived. She was different from me. I didn’t have to fall into the current of her momentum if it wasn’t right for me.
Rane stood next to me, and put an arm around my shoulder. He always sensed what I needed. Right then, I needed to know he was there with me. That whatever rabbit hole I was going down, he was traveling down it with me.
But we won’t be going down, I thought with a dry gulp. We’ll be going up, so far up that if we fall, we won’t even know when we die.
Rosie whined at my legs, feeling my fear, no doubt, just as she’d done when I’d built too much magic within myself to contain it.
That worked out all right in the end, didn’t it? I didn’t die, Pumpoo did.
I’d just gotten lucky. But hadn’t Luma said that luck tended to favor those of us who followed the flow of life? Of our belief? She’d said something like that, and it had felt right at the time.
I should think on this more. I should find Dean or Shula and ask them what they thought. The reality was, I knew what they’d say. They’d probably ask if they could ride a dragon too. They’d dedicated their lives to interacting with the dragons, and never managed to ride one.
This was the opportunity of a lifetime. And what did I choose for my life? Did I choose fear... or did I choose faith?
Suddenly, my indecision crystallized into this easy choice. It was one or the other, and nothing in between. Would I let my life be dictated by fear? Or would I embrace the possibilities I could reach only if I allowed myself to believe?
I knew what decision I’d ultimately arrive at—or at least I realized what decision I’d want to arrive at. I pushed myself toward it, before I could convince myself to take the route of caution.
I was born invisible, with a death sentence on my head. Nothing about my life had ever been about caution. It had always been about survival.
It was time to start living a life that stretched far beyond survival, and into the magical realms of actually living.
I squeezed Rane’s hand and whispered, working to keep my doubts from my thoughts and my voice. “Are you ready?”
“Nir, I’ve been waiting my whole life to do something like this with you.”
“What about you, Rosie girl?” I asked, trying to ignore the big burgundy eyes on her and me. “Are you ready to le
arn more about being a dragon?”
My eyes swirled with unexpected tears and I blinked them away. I didn’t know where they came from, and I didn’t want them there. I could do this. Rane was ready to do this, with none of the fear I was experiencing. Why was I scared then, no matter how much I didn’t want to be?
With a start, I knew. I knew. I’d spent my entire life searching for my own sacred purpose, and now it was in my reach. I didn’t yet understand what it would look like, but I did understand—with a certainty that rang through my gut—that this was the start of reaching it. The moment I rose onto a dragon, and then into the air, I was placing myself on the path to my sacred purpose, the one thing that I’d been missing all my life. The one thing that had been like a gaping hole inside, keeping me from moving forward.
Until now.
My purpose in this lifetime was within my reach. And it was magnificent. I sensed that even before I realized what, exactly, it was.
The time for hesitation and doubt was over. It had to be. I owed myself that and so much more. After a life half lived, I owed myself a life full of magic.
Through the teachings of the shadow people, that’s exactly what I’d get.
I’m ready, I said more to myself than anyone else. My tears weren’t ones of sadness, they came from a heart, long restrained, but now swelling to impossible heights—to an infinite stretch of possibilities. Of all the magic an unpredictable world such as this could offer me. It was more than I was capable of imagining right then.
A second arm alighted on me, and I jumped.
It’s all right, Luma said, with a soothing kindness I wanted to experience always. You’re ready. Now all you have to do is connect with Rosie—like this, like we are—and ask her if she’s ready too.
I nodded, ignoring the tingling feeling that was beginning to build in my extremities. I crouched back down so I could face her. Luma and Rane’s arms followed me down, where their hands touched.
I pulled in a deep breath and stared into the deep, black eyes of a dragonling I realized I’d learned to love as much as any family member. I put a hand to either side of her scrunched snout, and pushed the thought from my mind to hers. Hi girl, I said.