And again with the talk of overthrowing the government. Hadn’t Aariac said something similar? She had no plans of doing anything of the sort. Could she really be the plague bearer? Maybe the dragon was lying to her. But she’d already shot down that thought when Aariac said it. No, the blue dragon wasn’t the only person who believed it.
She was the plague bearer.
She’d brought on the new home for dragons. She’d spread the disease that killed so many people. She was different than most wyverns and most humans before that. She had dragon eyes. She had a dragon arm. She was the one to find the first dragon saber, the first in over a hundred years to defeat a dragon with the aid of fire fruit. She’d seen firsthand the destruction of the wards that kept the dragons at bay, and even fought Baba Yaga.
“So it’s true?” she wondered. She’d hoped that Aariac had been right, that she couldn’t be the plague bearer. She’d hoped that the dragon had been wrong. She’d hoped many things, mainly that she could have some semblance of a normal life. Now she felt all of that slipping away from her. “What does it mean?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
Kelvin shrugged, and slipped his hands into his sleeves. “It means the plague started with you. You’re the reason for wyverns.”
“And I’m the reason for everything that’s happened,” Wylan whispered. Her head fell into her hands.
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“What do you mean?” Wylan wondered, lifting her head. “I brought the plague. Dragons came back to hunt me, to hunt the wyverns. Because they came back, because they broke through the ward, it caused other things to resurface, other powers to come back from extinction. It’s ruined homes, it’s ruined lives!” She was standing now, her voice loud and shrill. “All because of me.”
“Maybe the dragons would have come back anyway,” Kelvin said with a languid shrug. “You do know they were driven back by magic. Magic doesn’t last forever. How does your birth have anything to do with the dragons breaking through the wards?”
“They sensed my coming,” Wylan told him. “They came back the night I was born!”
He shrugged again, but this time it wasn’t so languid, and she saw a ghost of something dark dance across his face. “Maybe they did. Maybe they’d been trying for the last hundred years to break through the wards, and they finally weakened them enough to break through.”
Wylan sat down again. The truth was, she didn’t have the strength to stand. She didn’t have the strength to face any of this right now. Worst of all, she didn’t want to think that she was, ultimately, the reason for her parent’s death. Here it was being lain out before her that she was the plague bearer. If he knew that much without her telling him, it had to be true, right? She matched physical markers that he’d read about. He knew.
“More than that, what makes you so special?” he asked. “Why would the dragons have come back if you were the one to destroy mankind?”
“They came back because of me. That’s how I destroy mankind.”
“But you’ve done nothing but try to help mankind, right? You’re part of your guard, so I’ve heard. You don’t kill people. You help people.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Wylan muttered.
“Atonement? Is that what you’re seeking?”
Wylan shrugged.
Kelvin drew a dagger, and tossed it at her feet. Wylan jumped at the clatter that echoed around the library.
“Kill me,” Kelvin said.
“What?” Wylan looked at him, her eyes wild, a look of complete bafflement on her face.
“If you’re so terrible, kill me.” He stood before her, placidly. “If you’re such a destroyer of people, then killing a fat, old scholar shouldn’t be any trouble.”
“You’re insane!” Wylan kicked the dagger away from her.
“Maybe,” he said, “but I’m not the one claiming to be the destroyer of mankind when I can’t even stick a dagger in the heart of a stranger.”
“But I have no reason to kill you.”
“And you have a reason to be such a great destroyer?”
“I didn’t choose to be the plague bearer,” Wylan fired back.
“But you choose to wear the shame of it like rusted armor.”
She shook her head and looked away from him. “You don’t understand.”
“What I understand is this—sanction. Help. Stone. Seed. There are many others as well.”
“What are you even talking about?” Wylan asked. She flopped back in the chair, barely holding back the growl she felt build in her throat.
“Well, you can either sanction an action, giving permission and official license to do something, or you can sanction by imposing restrictions. You can stone a fruit, which means taking the stone out, or you can stone a person, which means throwing a stone at them. You can help someone by assisting them, but sometimes you can’t help yourself, which means you can’t prevent yourself from doing something. You can seed a garden by placing seeds into the dirt, or you can seed a fruit, which means taking the seed out.”
“This is going somewhere?” Wylan wondered.
“Yes. These are all words with double meanings. They show up in language all the time.”
“Okay…”
“So it was with ancient script as well. You’re the plague bearer, right?”
Wylan nodded.
“Why does that mean you’re a destroyer?”
“We’ve been through this.”
“Because someone long ago said you were?” Kelvin wondered, leaning against the long table that took up most of the room. “Because some prophet who feared dragons saw your coming, and thought you had to be evil? Because you were born with an illness that you couldn’t help, that spread through the long desert?”
“Because I’ve destroyed so much,” Wylan said.
“But we’ve already determined that you didn’t destroy anything. Moreover, you have no desire to destroy anything.”
This time Wylan did sigh. “I’m tired. If this isn’t going anywhere, I need to go to bed.”
“Staldin, is one such word.” Kelvin held up a finger to stop her. “In ancient text the plague bearer is called the Staldin. This word means destroyer, or it could mean savior.”
The thought hit Wylan like a dragon in her sleep. She was thankful she was sitting, because her legs went weak, and began to shake. “So what you’re saying—”
“You’re not a destroyer. Not specifically. You could be the destroyer, or the savior.” Kelvin pushed away from the table, his body livelier than Wylan thought possible. He spread his hands out, his face wide with a grin. “Picture it! The dragons came, not because you were born, but you were born because the dragons were coming back!”
Wylan shook her head. This was too much to believe. It seemed the answer that she wanted to hear, so it couldn’t be the truth. This very thing that she’d wanted to be true since she’d heard she was the plague bearer couldn’t be the answer. What she wouldn’t give to be a savior, rather than the destroyer.
“But there are many ways you can be the destroyer, and one of them is sitting there, not doing anything to help. Sitting there, pitying yourself and fearing what people will think of you, instead of accepting it and making the best of it. Bad people win when good people do nothing.”
Wylan looked to her hands—one human, the other crimson scaled and tipped with black talons.
“I guess it’s easier to imagine that you’re so important a destroyer that your birth was the only reason the wards collapsed, the only reason the magic from the crumbling wards opened rifts that brought back extinct powers.” Kelvin shrugged. “Awful powerful for a baby, if you ask me. Or, maybe you were just one of those ancient powers that was born because the dragons were fracturing the wards.”
“How do we know for sure?” Wylan asked. “How do we know which meaning of the word?”
“Sadly, that wasn’t explained. All the writings indicate destroyer, but I think that’s because of the fear that surrounds drag
ons and all things associated with them. What would that prophet have thought of wyverns? Obviously nothing good, but look at the wyverns. They help. They’re in just as much danger as humans.” Kelvin gave a great sigh. “I guess that depends on you. What do you believe?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Sure it does. What do you choose? Do you want to see yourself as the destroyer, or do you want to help mankind survive the dragons?”
“Of course I don’t want to be the destroyer. But if we believe that Staldin means destroyer, then I’ve already done my part.”
“Yes, you’ve already done your part, and you don’t need to do anything about the future.” Kelvin frowned. “Seems kind of lazy if you ask me. Rids you of the burden of actually doing anything to help your fellow humans.”
Wylan bristled at that.
“So who cares?” Kelvin asked before she could round on him. “Even if you were the destroyer, can’t you be both? Can’t you work to help mankind now?”
“You’re saying by simply believing in something, I’m able to make it happen?”
“The mind’s a powerful thing.”
Wylan didn’t know what to think. “I need some time to think about this.”
“Take all the time you need. It was a pleasure meeting you. On the off chance that you agreed to seeing me, I put together a folio for you that includes arguments to my way of thinking.” He went behind his table and pulled out a thin folio, and on top of that he placed another piece of parchment. When he returned, she saw the paper on top was a map. “This will show you how to get home. I’m sure you will want to leave shortly.”
“You’re right back where you started,” Aariac said. He’d mended well, but Wylan figured he’d do better once they got him home to Darubai, and Millie could use the bone wand on him that she’d taken from Baba Yaga. That had seemed to do the trick with Wylan, regrowing bones and a new arm. Aariac didn’t need a new arm, but it would take more power than a green wyvern had to heal him, and they hadn’t been lucky enough to get ahold of any bones from a green dragon yet.
“What do you mean?” Wylan asked, leaning back in the chair, she crossed her arms over her chest. It felt good to be out of the gown. It felt better to have her hair down from the debacle Janelle had made of it.
“Ultimately, no one knows if you’re the cause of the plague, or the savior. Which do you want to live your life with? Peace or guilt?” He winced in pain as he tried to move farther up on the bed so he could see her better. Wylan was ashamed that she felt a twinge of smug glee at his pain. She hated when he could see straight through to the heart of the problem.
“It’s not that easy.”
“It never is with you,” he sighed. He looked out the window at the sunny day beyond. “Did you grab me any slips of plants while you were out? Something I can take home?”
“No,” Wylan said. She did feel bad about that. She’d been so wrapped up in her own stuff that she’d never thought of the things he’d hoped to accomplish while he was gone.
“Well, we succeeded in our mission,” he told her. “We found a settlement of humans.”
Wylan snorted. “That’s an understatement. But I did get a lot of information that will help us protect Darubai.”
“Like what?” He glanced back at her.
She told him of all the things she’d found, all the things she’d been told, and most importantly, how they could keep Darubai from the dragon attacks. She also told him what she’d found with the symbols that kept the rooms cool and the carafe hot.
“Honestly, I think it is the same kind of containment field, just resized to fit whatever spot they’re in. A little bit of fire magic woven into the room would help reduce the heat, or increase it. Should be rather simple.”
“Simple she says,” he scoffed. “That’s going to be a lot of work for our fledgling wizard, not to mention the amount of time it will take.”
“If what Nathaniel told me is true, the yellows can help her by channeling wizards.” Wylan looked around his room and noted the same inscriptions on the walls and the ceiling. “And to keep the room cool, I’m sure they used fire wyverns to pump a bit of their power into the walls. I can reduce heat as well as conjure fire. The wards look like they do the rest.”
Aariac nodded. “When do we leave?”
“Whenever you’re feeling ready,” Wylan said.
“I felt ready three days ago when I woke.” She could see the sings of restlessness around his eyes. Even when she’d walked in, he’d been frowning, which wasn’t like Aariac at all.
“Whenever your leg is feeling ready,” Wylan amended.
Aariac grumbled, but Wylan thought he saw the sense in that. It was three days before he was ready to leave, and Wylan thought he was pushing it. In those three days, she expected many things—more visits to the king and queen; another visit from Kelvin; maybe even gawkers coming to see all about the plague bearer, never mind that they didn’t know anything about her being a pawn of prophecy. But none of that happened. The three days were passed in her room, thinking about the problems before her. In the end, she realized the problems before her were only of her making. More than that, Kelvin was right. If she was the destroyer, that part was behind her. The deed was done, now all she could do was strive for a better future.
A future that Lissandra had pressed her for when they first came to work together. A world where dragons and humans could live side-by-side, and survive.
It was more work than one person could do alone, so she’d need help.
While Darubai was nowhere near as spectacular as Lastilor, the sight of the broken skyline bolstered Wylan’s spirits. The large domes seemed to float in the heat wavered air. Broken towers stabbed toward an orange sky that had seen many sandstorms in the past days. Sand shrugged up against the walls of the city, like great earthen soldiers, trying to batter their way through.
There was no sign of life in Darubai. No pinions fluttered above the city, no one made an open display of life, she could barely make out the guards in their towers along the wall. That was just one way they stayed safe. If they kept their activity to the streets below, there would be little indication to dragons that life existed in the city.
But still, it was home and her heart was happy to see it. All she could think about, despite the safety and lavish accommodations of Lastilor, was home—bed, Josef, Geffrey, and dinner around her own table. Those things could never be replaced, but they could be enhanced if Leaghan could only find the schematics for the containment cube Kelvin had told her about when he came to see her the night before she left.
She landed on the trail that cut its way along the mountains in the back of the city, just outside the infirmary doors. It didn’t take long for healers—both green wyverns in their human forms, and actual humans who helped them—to pour out of the infirmary and unburden Wylan of Aariac. He made joking remarks to the healers as they toted him in, and they laughed at him. That was his charm, it seemed, making women—and some men—crumble before the might of his charisma.
Only one healer remained behind, and that was Millie. The black woman smiled at her as Wylan shifted to her human form. Once settled, and her bones mended under human flesh, Wylan quickly dressed in her tunic and trousers. She still didn’t think she’d get used to going so openly naked around wyverns, as they seemed to be around her.
“Josef is injured,” Millie told her. “But don’t worry, he’s on the mend and back to his typical, annoying self.”
Wylan felt a moment of panic, and stepped closer to Millie. “Take me to him?”
“Don’t you need to debrief?” Millie wondered.
“I can spare a few moments.”
“It was your first mission, you should go immediately,” Millie scolded.
“There’s much to tell,” she said. “It could take a while; I’d like to see Josef first.”
Millie nodded her understanding, even if her face didn’t lose its disapproving façade.
Milli
e led her through the twisting halls of the infirmary. They were dark, lit with only a few torches here and there. The walls were roughhewn from the mountains with random doorways along its length that opened into darkened rooms. The occupied rooms were lit with candles, and Wylan saw many prone figures in the beds, some so badly injured, bandaged with bloody rags, that she didn’t think they were going to make it.
She had to calm her heart, where it thrummed in her throat, worried that one of those people was going to be Josef. When Millie finally stopped, Wylan heard Josef’s voice from within the chamber. Her chest loosened, and she breathed a heavy sigh. Millie motioned her in, and when Josef saw her, he stopped talking mid-sentence.
“If mother hen would let me out of bed, I’d charge right into you now,” Josef said. A wide smile split his face, and Wylan’s heart flipped in her chest. “You’re back.”
She rushed to him, gathering him in her arms. He gave a groan of pain, and Wylan loosened her grip on him.
“What did you do to yourself?” she asked him, accusingly.
“A lot has happened,” Marcella said, reclining in the chair by his side. It was only then that Wylan noticed the other people in the room. Leaghan leaned against the wall, a white staff held in her loose grip. Geffrey toyed with the candle flame, obviously bored. A dwarf she didn’t recognize stood by the door, as if he expected an enemy to come in at any moment. Wylan was a little unsettled by his hairless face.
“What things?” Wylan asked. Josef took hold of her hand, and it felt familiar, comfortable. She realized then that Darubai wasn’t home. Josef was home. Every bit of strangeness that had happened to her over the last several weeks had been so foreign to her, and she realized now it was because Josef hadn’t been around.
They filled her in on what had been going on, and as they spoke, her mouth fell open. Things were worse here than she’d thought they’d ever get once the friendly dragons came. She thought if they were protected by dragons, then everything would be fine. She’d been wrong. The dragons coming had stirred even more problems.
Dragon Forged: Chronicles of Dragon Aerie Young Adult Fantasy Fiction (Plague Born Book 3) Page 18