Magic Wept

by Andi Van

  “We think so,” Kelwin said. “Don’t touch the box, though. The last person who did that—” He cut off his own words, giving Josephina a cautious look. “How much did Tasis tell you that you could understand while he was panicking?”

  “How much could I understand of what Tasis said? Almost nothing. Emlynn, though….” Josephina sighed heavily, sadness sneaking back onto her face, an unwelcome guest crowding out her usual cheer. “It was a shock to see Bahz again. Emlynn told us. Falcon is a monster now?”

  “We’re hoping we can help her,” Jorget reassured her. “At least I am. No one should have to suffer like that.”

  “I agree,” Kelwin said. “And Tas will too. But for right now….”

  He looked up, and Jorget did the same, only to see a trail of bubbles making its way toward them. Triv popped up, and once she’d reached them, an enormous, scaly, terrifying head emerged from the water. Jorget yelped, and probably would have fallen into the water if he hadn’t been sitting down. He stared at the dragon’s face for a moment, one hand to his chest as he tried to get his heart to beat the proper speed again. “Sorry,” he apologized in a weak voice. “That was a bit unexpected.”

  “No, that was my fault,” Vashk—and it had to be Vashk; he looked like the sea dragon Kelwin had pointed out in the mural—said, bowing his head in apology. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Understandable,” Kelwin said. He pointed at the wooden box sitting next to him. “Falcon touched this box and was turned into a harpy. There was a mural in the abandoned guild that showed a dragon the color of the sky and a black dragon fighting. I’m thinking the blue dragon is in here. Can I open it?”

  Vashk moved in closer, and for a moment Jorget was afraid he’d get smooshed into the wood. Instead, the dragon craned his neck to touch his muzzle against the box. When he did, he shut his jewellike eyes. “Oh, Yldost.” He opened his eyes again, and nodded at them. “Open it. Smash it to pieces if you have to. But get my sibling out of there.”

  Kelwin looked at Josephina. “Do you have anything that can break the chains?”

  Josephina barked a word, and the chains shattered. Kelwin flung the top of the box open, and made a sound of such overwhelming sadness that Jorget couldn’t stop himself from looking in as well.

  The small dragon within had perhaps once been the dragon depicted in the mural, but now they were barely more than a skeleton. Their blue plumage was now a faded gray, and parts of him had no feathers at all, leaving bald spots. How they were still alive, Jorget couldn’t even guess.

  Kelwin swallowed hard and, after glancing at Vashk to make sure the dragon wasn’t going to stop him, reached into the box and, with excruciating care, lifted the nearly lifeless thing from the box. “Still breathing,” Kelwin confirmed. “What do you need to me to do, Vashk?”

  Vashk looked at them, the agony in his eyes making Jorget feel as if something deep within him had broken at the other creature’s pain. “I need you to save my sibling.”

  Chapter 17

  THREE DAYS. It had been three days since Kelwin and Jorget had been flung into the portal. Three days since he’d held Tasis in his arms. Three days since they’d freed the dragon Yldost from the prison of wood and chain. He looked down at his chest, where the sling holding the still-skeletal dragon rested. He hadn’t been willing to let the dragon die after spending so long trapped, and while Vashk was certainly capable of taking care of his sibling, the fact he couldn’t leave the ocean made it difficult. And it didn’t help that Vashk had no idea what exactly would help Yldost. “Dragons do not get sick,” he’d pointed out to Kelwin as they mulled over ways to bring the little dragon back to the waking world. “We are either alive and healthy, or we are dead. We might get hurt in battle, but we heal quickly and require no assistance. This is… this is beyond me. I have never seen this.” So Kelwin kept the little creature with him. Thus far, Yldost hadn’t woken up.

  “You should eat something,” his mentor’s wife, Firea, told him. She also fed the few occupants of the stronghold, and was like a second mother to Kelwin. It didn’t hurt that she was also Tasis’s aunt, though they hadn’t known that when they first met.

  She set a plate in front of Kelwin, and he stared at it. It looked delicious enough, but for some reason he was terrified that if he took his attention off the dragon for too long, something would go wrong. “I will,” he promised halfheartedly. He’d purposely avoided saying when exactly it was that he’d eat, but he would at some point.

  “You’ll do no good to that poor thing if you collapse yourself,” Firea pointed out. Then she leaned in close and peeked into the sling, reaching in to gently rub Yldost under the chin. Kelwin frowned as he watched, but not out of irritation. Was that a purr he heard?

  Across the table from Kelwin, Jorget snorted. “I’ll tell Tasis you haven’t been eating,” he said, raising an eyebrow when Kelwin looked up at him and growled. “What? If you think it’s going to piss him off, why do you insist on doing it? What is it about Yldost that has you so tightly wound?”

  Kelwin lowered his gaze to the unconscious dragon again, but this time it wasn’t so much because he was afraid to take his eyes off Yldost as it was embarrassment. “I just… I don’t want to have freed them only to have them die. And it’s not just that. As far as we know, Yldost is the last living relative Vashk has. I don’t want to disappoint him.”

  He glanced up to see Jorget with his breakfast-laden fork paused halfway to his mouth as he gave Kelwin a bewildered look. “You’re doing everything you can,” Jorget told him. “Vashk knows that.” He set the fork back on his plate and leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. “What is this really about? I mean, I know you don’t want Yldost to die. But I doubt that’s what’s turned you into such a mess.”

  “I honestly don’t know,” Kelwin finally admitted. And he didn’t. He simply had this near-constant feeling of being on the verge of panic. It was highly unsettling, and he hoped it would at least lessen once Tasis was back. Speaking of which…. “Has Tasis contacted you this morning?”

  “Not me, but he got in touch with Josephina. I hate to tell you, but she probably informed him you’ve been a complete wreck. Anyway, he should be back this afternoon, unless Vashk gives them a hand. Or a fin. In which case, they’d be here sooner.” Jorget peered at the tiny dragon and frowned in thought. “Has Yldost eaten anything at all?”

  Kelwin readjusted the sling and shook his head. “No. Vashk assures me Yldost is an omnivore, but there’s been no reaction when I’ve tried to feed them. I even tried broth at Firea’s insistence that after so long, they wouldn’t be able to handle anything solid.”

  “Well, she kind of has a point,” Jorget said, chuckling when Firea preened at his words. “I mean, thousands of years or whatever it’s been has to be hard on one’s digestive system.”

  “The fact the poor thing’s been locked up longer than my mother-in-law has been alive makes me want to weep,” Firea said with a sigh as she set her plate down next to Kelwin and took a seat. “I can’t even imagine.” She looked at Kelwin’s plate, looked up at Kelwin, then looked down at his plate again.

  Kelwin sighed. “Yes, fine, I’ll eat.” Without bothering to look, he groped for his fork, only to feel a sharp pain in the pad of his thumb. He swore and pulled his hand back to see he’d managed to slice open the end of the digit.

  Firea let out an exasperated sigh. “Really, Kelwin, you’re not supposed to grab your knife by the blade. Is it bleeding?”

  “Yeah,” Kelwin admitted. “It’s not too bad.”

  “Um, Kelwin?” Jorget asked.

  “Really,” Firea said again, not paying any attention to the fact that Jorget had been talking as she shuffled over to the stove to grab a clean rag. “You need to take better care of yourself.”

  “Kelwin,” Jorget repeated.

  “I’m fine,” Kelwin protested as Firea returned to the table and grabbed at his hand to take a look at the injury.

  “Kelwin!�
�� Jorget shouted. This time both Kelwin and Firea stopped and looked at him. He pointed toward Kelwin’s chest.

  When Kelwin looked down, Yldost’s eyes were open. And they were focused on the blood slowly trailing down his thumb.

  Kelwin groaned and looked at the ceiling. “Of course. Of course I’ve tried everything, but the dragon wants my blood. Why wouldn’t I end up with a vampire dragon in my care?”

  “Vampires are a myth,” Jorget said. He shrugged when Kelwin frowned at him. “No, seriously, I asked Vashk. He said vampires are a myth.”

  “Why were you asking him about vampires?”

  “I was going through a list of things we think are myths to see what might be real,” Jorget admitted.

  A small sound of longing issued from the sling resting against Kelwin’s chest. Right. Vampires being a myth wasn’t the real problem at the moment. With a sigh, Kelwin offered his thumb to the emaciated dragon. “No taking chunks of my flesh,” he warned Yldost.

  Thankfully, the dragon merely latched on to his thumb and began to suck.

  “Well, I suppose it makes sense,” Jorget allowed as he watched. “Blood’s full of nutrients.” He leaned his elbow on the table, then rested his chin in his hand to watch. “Did you happen to ask Vashk why Yldost is so small? I mean, he was huge in the mural. Relative to the other things portrayed, I mean. Of course the mural was huge.”

  “They,” Kelwin corrected, wincing when Yldost bit into his thumb. Apparently the cut had stopped bleeding, and the dragon had decided to create a new source. To their credit, they only bit hard enough to start the bleeding anew and didn’t actually try to eat him. “And Vashk said that before they disappeared, Yldost had the ability to change their size. He guessed once Yldost is stronger, they’ll make themself larger.”

  Jorget looked confused, and Kelwin had a feeling he knew what was coming. He hoped the question didn’t piss off the feasting dragon. “Why refer to a dragon in the plural?”

  Yldost neither paused nor bit down harder, so Kelwin decided they’d either ignored the question or didn’t care. “Vashk said something about neither gender applying to Yldost. ‘They’ is neutral. Just go with it. It makes them happy.”

  “I’m not going to argue with a dragon,” Jorget said quickly, giving a quick glance to Yldost. “It sounds odd to me. It’ll take some getting used to. No big deal.” He cocked his head, the confusion on his face deepening. “Is he—sorry, are they purring?”

  Kelwin looked down and smiled. “Yeah. That’s certainly what it sounds like.”

  Firea chuckled. “Cute.” She picked up Kelwin’s fork and offered him a bite of his now-cold breakfast. “Here. Eat while you feed them. If your blood is what they need right now, you need to make sure you’re replenishing.”

  Kelwin obediently took the bite and chewed, though he felt more than slightly ridiculous to have his mentor’s wife hand-feed him. He’d managed to get through about half of his meal when Josephina entered the room. “Come on,” she told him. “Time to go.”

  Kelwin cocked his head, trying to remember if they’d scheduled something for that morning. “Where?” he asked when he drew a blank.

  “Do you want to be waiting when the ship arrives or not?”

  Kelwin leaped to his feet, earning him a squeak from Yldost as the dragon was jostled, then a yelp from Daro as he nearly stepped on the poor wolf, who’d been waiting patiently under his chair. “Already?” he asked.

  “Guess Vashk decided to put you out of your misery,” Jorget said, leaving his place at the table as well. “Either that or Tasis made him push them along so he could give you a piece of his mind.”

  Tasis was certainly more even-tempered than, say, Zaree, but at this point it was still a possibility. Kelwin hoped he wouldn’t be met with a lot of yelling. Maybe the tiny, sick dragon would keep Tasis from being too mad. One could hope, at any rate.

  By the time the ship pulled into the grotto and was safely docked, Yldost had gotten his fill and had let go of Kelwin’s thumb. He was still clearly weak and not speaking, but he was awake and looking around when Tasis nearly knocked Kelwin over. “Careful,” Kelwin chuckled, wrapping one arm around his beloved and using his free hand to point at Yldost. “Don’t squash the dragon.”

  Tasis gasped and leaned close to get a good look. “You’re finally awake,” he crooned at Yldost. “It’s so good to meet you.”

  Yldost let out a shriek that belied his small stature, startling everyone who’d gathered around them after disembarking. “Onai!” the little dragon screamed. “Onai! Groo ent ai, Gisik!”

  Tasis lurched back and gave Vashk a look of concern. “What did I do?”

  Vashk shook his enormous head and moved his muzzle almost directly against his distraught sibling. “Gisik?”

  Yldost cocked his head. “Vashk?” He sniffed at the other dragon. “Vashk,” he said again, and this time his tone held relief. “Ia Hindra.”

  “What is he saying?” Zaree asked. “And what language is that?”

  “It’s our language,” Vashk told him. “The language we were raised speaking. He’s mistaken you for someone else.” He turned his attention back to Yldost, speaking rapidly in the smooth, foreign language none of them recognized. They heard a lot of “Onai,” and every time Yldost said the word, Vashk corrected him with “Tasis.”

  “Onai must be a name, then,” Jorget decided, keeping his voice soft so as to not interrupt the conversation going on directly in front of them. “A dragon, maybe?”

  “Do I look like a dragon to you?” Tasis asked with a snort. “Can you understand any of it?”

  Jorget paused and listened again for another moment before shaking his head. “No. It’s similar to mage-speak, but not quite.”

  It’s old, K’yerin noted. Even I don’t recognize it, and except for the dragons, I’m the oldest one here.

  Only by a few centuries, Bahz huffed from Emlynn’s shoulder.

  “Onai,” Triv said softly. “Why does that name sound familiar to me?”

  “From one of the books in the library?” Emlynn suggested, one hand resting protectively on Nabiha’s shoulder as the other girl stared at the dragons, her eyes wide with obvious fear. Malik, in her arms as always, giggled happily and reached out toward Vashk as if wanting to pet him.

  “That child is absolutely fearless,” Sireti noted as he looked at Malik—from a good distance away from the baby, Kelwin noted, and the clan leader was sporting a hell of a black eye. He had a feeling there was a story there. He’d have to ask Tasis about it later.

  “Why don’t you leave Yldost with Triv and me so you can take the others inside,” Vashk suggested suddenly, catching Kelwin’s attention.

  The elf nodded and carefully lifted the dragon from the sling, handing them over to Triv, who cradled the tiny form as gently. “They just ate,” Kelwin informed Vashk. “I’ll come down in a couple hours to see if they need anything.”

  “Thank you,” Vashk said. “Truly.”

  Josephina ushered them toward the stronghold, though Kelwin noticed she stayed near Nabiha so she could coo at the baby. Which reminded Kelwin…. “What’s up with Sireti?” he asked quietly.

  Tasis looked up at him, an odd smile that was one part smug and one part vicious on his face. “He outed Zar to Em and Nabiha. Em answered by punching him in the face.”

  “Seriously?” Kelwin asked, his voice louder than he meant for it to be. Those nearest looked at him curiously, and he shrugged and grinned at Emlynn. “Good job,” he said, gesturing at Sireti, who was rushing in front of all of them.

  Emlynn growled something that probably would have gotten her mouth washed out by her father and looked like she wanted to spit on the ground. “That piece of refuse doesn’t deserve a sister like Zaree.”

  Kelwin grinned at her, then lowered his voice again. “Was Reikos…?”

  Tasis shook his head. “Thankfully, no. This was after we boarded and were on our way. She’s going to tell him eventually, though.” He
shook his head again, this time giving Kelwin a grim look that said something much worse had happened. “We need to assemble in the library and talk.”

  That was definitely not a good sign, but Kelwin nodded. Much as he’d done with Jorget, he promised Emlynn and Nabiha they’d get the tour later, then directed them all to the library, save for Sireti, who Firea bustled away to the kitchen. Kelwin thought Nabiha might explode with excitement when she got her first look at the vast number of books, but she collected herself and took a seat next to Emlynn.

  “What’s wrong?” Josephina asked once they’d all settled.

  “Denekk contacted us yesterday,” Tasis said. “The journey up the mountain was a ruse. While Reikos was gone with his men, the king secretly amassed an army of guards. Reikos and his men are in the dungeon, and the king is preparing to set sail in a few days.” Tasis dropped his face into his hands and sighed. “He knew, and we don’t know how.”

  “Maker,” Jorget hissed. “Is Denekk going to be able to get them out?”

  “He thinks so, once the king leaves on the ship. The remaining guards will be few in number, and some of them are sympathetic. The problem is that the king is preparing to make his way here, and we have no way to stop him.”

  “History is trying to repeat itself,” Kelwin sighed.

  Josephina stood, her hands on her hips and her head held high. “It won’t succeed,” she said firmly. “We have something we didn’t last time. We have warning.”

  “Right,” Jorget agreed. “I’ll see if I can find anything in here that might help us.”

  “I’ll assist,” Nabiha said softly, surprising them all. She curled into herself when they all turned to look at her. “If… that’s okay.”

  “It’s perfect,” Jorget assured her. “I could use the help.”

  “Nabiha is very bright,” Emlynn said proudly, making the other girl smile even as she blushed. “May Bahz and I help as well?”