by Audrey Faye
Reverently, she touched her fingers again to the piece of eggshell in her hand. It glowed, just like she imagined a dragon scale might. No one of her clan had ever seen a dragon, but she remembered some of the stories. Wings as wide as a forest, eyes of fierce wisdom, breath of flame.
She couldn’t remember any stories about how dragons were born, but eggs were as good a guess as anything else she could imagine.
She laid the glowing shell against her cheek and then looked up at the moon, grateful. Any forest that held something so breathtakingly lovely couldn’t be all that scary.
Sapphire reached for her rucksack. She’d tuck the shell in with her meager food supplies and look for shelter. Perhaps now that she was less afraid, she might actually find something workable. She had the rucksack halfway open when what she’d seen high overhead finally registered. She frowned and squinted up at the branches again, sure her eyes were playing tricks, but they weren’t. High in the winter branches, wedged in the crook of limb and trunk, was the oblong shape of what could only be an egg.
She stared at its faint glow, blinking. Dragons most definitely did not live in the tops of trees—that much she would have remembered. And that egg looked like it could fall out any minute. She sighed—sometimes the clan chickens laid their eggs in some really silly places, but this set a new standard for ridiculous.
One that she felt compelled to do something about, but she had no idea what that might be. It would be a daunting climb in the daylight, even for the clan’s best tree climber, and that very definitely wasn’t her. But Trevan wasn’t here, and she was—and whatever lived in that egg needed a rescue now, not whenever she could manage to find her way home and convince someone to help her.
Convincing Trevan would be especially hard. He didn’t much like girls.
She looked down at the shell in her hand again, and the faint glow up in the tree that matched it—at least in her tired, fevered, homesick imagination. A glow that called to her. Tugged on something inside her that said this was the reason she’d run away, and it wasn’t foolish at all.
Sapphire stared, and felt something inside her make a choice. The youngest, most ordinary daughter of the Silvermoon family had something she must do.
Moving slowly, she checked the ties on her rucksack and pushed her cloak back over her shoulders, out of the way of her arms and feet. The cold instantly made itself known, biting through the soft wool of her tunic and leggings. She grimaced and ignored her need to shiver. She couldn’t very well climb wrapped in a cloak, however much that might seem like a good notion to her weary brain.
Her toes found purchase on the trunk, feeling their way through the moccasins and thick socks she wore. Fortunately, the tree was bumpy, with lots of protrusions to give her footholds.
Carefully, one slow movement at a time, she shifted a hand or a foot, seeking a secure hold just a little farther up the tree’s trunk and inner branches. She remembered Trevan’s words. Don’t fight the tree—become one with it.
Grandfather had snorted and said the boy had the brains of a half-eaten leaf, but she wasn’t going to think about that part. Or about the part where it had taken all the clan’s healers four very long days to put Trevan’s youngest brother’s legs back together when a tree apparently hadn’t liked his company.
She was just going to keep moving up in the moon-streaked dark, one very careful step at a time.
After what felt like an eternity of slow creeping upward, Sapphire paused, both feet on a branch wide enough to offer a less precarious perch than usual and her arms wrapped around the trunk that served as her only anchor in this high world, and looked up.
Her whole body was shivering now, and her fingers and toes no longer felt nearly as much as they had at the base of the tree. But hope rose because she was nearly there.
And fear—because from this vantage point, one thing was alarmingly clear. The egg was huge. Whatever was in there was much bigger than a chick.
Sapphire heard a whimper cross her frozen lips. She swayed into the exhaustion, the soul-stealing cold, the trauma of trying something she had no business doing.
And then heard that wordless voice, calling again. Heat rose from somewhere deep inside her, someplace fiery and warm that she hadn’t even known existed. Determination. Ferocious intent, the kind that filled an elf girl of fourteen winters and firmed her backbone and had her moving her toes up the trunk again, seeking a way. Finding one.
When Sapphire’s head crested the branch where the egg sat, she knew she could be the butt of her sisters’ jokes and Orion’s poems for the rest of eternity and it wouldn’t matter. She’d made it. She stared at the pearlescent oyster shell and marveled. Its glow wasn’t from the dim light of the reflected moon, but from something interior, right in the heart of whatever lived inside and readied to greet the world from such a precarious perch.
It wouldn’t wait alone.
Her fingers moving more deftly, she carefully wrapped them around the egg that was bigger than her head and somehow managed to rearrange them both into the cleft where it had been. Her feet found another branch to hook around, her back found one to lean against, and with a little pulling and tugging, she got the heavy weight of her cloak wrapped around the both of them.
Hands full of exhausted reverence, Sapphire nestled the egg gently in the soft fabric of her tunic. It was winter wool and very warm, and it meant she could wrap one arm around the tree’s trunk and hold on for dear life and her treasure would still be safe.
Which was a good thing, because that was all the strength she had left.
Her head leaned against the trunk, pillowed by the hood of her cloak. Sapphire felt her eyes closing, and smiled. Apparently, she’d found a place to sleep after all.
Chapter 2
So warm.
Sapphire could feel dreams floating her way, and hoped for a nice one full of hearth fires and warm blankets.
The egg in her lap agreed.
Her eyes flew open. Eggs didn’t talk.
Apparently, they did get warm, however. Sapphire could feel the heat right through the arm of her tunic. She stared down into the recesses of her cloak. The egg glowed much more brightly now, in beautiful shades of pink and orange that reminded her of sunrises and the first peaches of spring. It was really warm—the parts of her touching the egg were quite comfortable, and even some of her a little farther away had almost managed to stop shivering.
The egg felt happy.
She blinked. This must be a dream. Eggs didn’t talk, and they definitely didn’t feel—she’d picked up enough chicken eggs over the years that if they did, she’d surely know it by now.
She shifted around and tried to get her other arm free. Words and feelings mattered a whole lot less than warmth right at this moment, and she could have kissed whatever magic was happening in her lap. Most little ones needed help to heat themselves, she knew that much from helping the healers stoke the birthing fires. This little one seemed to have the fire right inside its own egg, which seemed awfully smart, especially if its mother was foolish enough to lay it high in the reaches of a tree in winter.
She rubbed her hand gently over the pointy end of the egg. “I don’t know who you are in there, but I’m thankful for the warmth you’re sharing this night.” It seemed wise to be polite—and she really was grateful.
The egg vibrated under her hand.
Sapphire gulped and carefully moved her fingers away.
The egg vibrated again, much harder this time.
She quickly grasped the egg with both hands. “Easy now, I didn’t climb all the way up here just to end up dropping you because you got all wiggly.”
Perhaps she was imagining things, but it seemed like the glow flickered a little, almost like it was listening.
The corners of her mouth turned up in a wry grin. She was lost, stuck in a tree, and talking to an egg. Orion was going to have a field day with his poem.
The light inside the shell shifted, looking almost like am
used pink bubbles. Or Sapphire assumed they were amused, since the creature inside the egg clearly seemed to be.
This must be a dream.
She jolted as a dark spot rapped hard against the inside of the shell—and then stared, horrified, as a long crack ran lengthwise down the shell, splitting in two as it traveled under her hand.
“Oh, no. Not now. It’s freezing cold out here and we’re up in a tree and it can’t possibly be time for you to hatch.” Sapphire could hear herself babbling, but she was too tired and too panicked to do anything about it. The only thing that could possibly be worse than being lost and stuck in a tree would be to have some unidentified baby creature join her. Babies were hungry and loud and demanding and needed far more care than a warm and bubbly egg.
Another dark spot, another fierce tap, and then the egg grew another crack.
“This is a very bad idea.” Sapphire used her sternest voice, the one that sometimes made her tiny cousins pay attention. “Just put your head back down and curl up all nice and warm and stay put in there, okay?”
The egg shook. Hard.
“How about I tell you a story?” Her brain couldn’t come up with even the vaguest possibility of one. “Or I could sing you a song.” She didn’t have Arial’s voice, but she could maybe manage a lullaby or two.
Her whole lap was vibrating now, and a lightshow danced just under the shell’s cracked, crazed surface.
Sapphire took a deep, shaky breath. Whatever was in her egg was most definitely coming out. As carefully as she could, she wrapped her arms and legs and cloak into a nest. One with no holes big enough for a baby to slide through and fall to its death in a cold, dark forest.
A crack that sounded like a small earthquake, and then a fist pushed out through a small hole.
Or not a fist. Sapphire could feel her eyes getting wide. Those were most definitely claws. Long and purple and very sharp.
It suddenly occurred to her that even baby things could be dangerous.
She trembled and held fast. It wasn’t like she had much choice—there was no way down and no way out.
The egg made another fierce cracking sound, and a head come out beside the purple-clawed fist. Two eyes looked straight at her, every color of green in the whole world in their depths. Vaguely, Sapphire noticed the pink coned nose, the shimmering peach scales, the spines running back from a broad, fierce forehead that were still covered in something glistening and wet.
None of those mattered. It was the green eyes, looking at her with all the trust in the universe, like she was goddess and clan mother and moon warrior all rolled up into one.
She could feel the answer rising up inside her, from somewhere way down deep. If she could be all that for this small dragon, she would be.
Sapphire had no idea how she knew that the creature she held was a dragon. She simply knew, just like she knew to gently peel off pieces of shell and wipe the wet, scaly face with the edge of her tunic. The baby dragon leaned into her touch, vibrating in a way that very much reminded Sapphire of her oldest sister’s cat. “You like that, do you?” She grinned as a second claw emerged, and then what looked like shoulders, but instead turned out to be two pink, shivering wings.
Two really big wings.
She blinked as the rest of the baby dragon slithered out, a long scaly body and a spiny tail at least as long as Sapphire’s arm. That was a lot of creature for one small egg, and it was all wings, tail, and spines.
And those two green eyes that never left her face.
Sapphire curled her head down, entirely enchanted, even as she kept wiping away wet slime with the corners of her tunic. “We have to clean you up so that you don’t catch a chill in this winter wind.” It sounded like the kind of thing one of the clan healers might say—if she was crazy enough to attend a birth high in a tree.
A long pink tongue reached out and started to help, occasionally rasping Sapphire’s fingers as they cleaned. She grinned as the baby slurped a particularly long string of goo. “Don’t tell me that tastes good.”
All she got in reply was a rumble—and more slurping.
She shrugged, amused. Babies ate all kinds of weird things. She stopped wiping up the slime. If the baby thought it was food, she would just let it be. Her tunic was going to be hard enough to wash as it was, and her mother had firmly insisted, ever since they were old enough to hold needles and washing rocks, that all of her children were perfectly capable of restoring whatever damage they did to their clothing.
That held doubly true for damage caused by foolish walks in the woods.
She might get some sympathy for having a baby dragon born in her lap, though. Everyone knew births were really messy.
A scaly chin settled on her arm and green eyes looked up at her, blinking slowly. She could feel the huge, awed trust again—and something new.
Sapphire felt her heart grow right inside her chest. She reached out a gentle finger to stroke the peach-pink forehead. "I think someone's getting tired."
One blink and then another, each one a little slower than the last.
She held very still. No Moon Clan elf with any brains at all moved when a little one was on its way to dreamland, because her mother also had a rule about waking sleeping babies. Ever so slowly, green eyes made their way closed. One brand-new baby dragon, still half covered in slime and bits of shell, fast asleep. The most beautiful creature in all the world.
Sapphire laughed quietly as pink nostrils let out a whiffling snore. Definitely asleep.
She had no idea how they were going to hold tight in the tree all night, or how they were going to stay warm, or how they were going to get down in the morning. Part of her was scared out of her mind because this was far worse than running away from home or getting lost in a strange forest.
But the other part of her, the part with one arm wrapped around a strong tree trunk and the other wrapped around a tiny, snoring dragon, felt like something unbelievably important had just happened in her life, and no matter what happened in the morning, it could never be undone.
This small creature with the long tail and the sharp claws and the eyes that had been so full of trust—this creature needed her.
And that made Sapphire Silvermoon anything but ordinary.
She looked up at the deep night sky and the blanket of stars that nestled just over the treetops, and even though her teeth were only a hairsbreadth from chattering, she felt oddly content. She leaned her cheek against the tree and started counting stars. One down low on the horizon seemed to wink at her, and Sapphire laughed softly and winked back.
Maybe this really was all just a dream.
Chapter 3
Sapphire jerked awake, sure the demon hordes of hell were about to land on her doorstep and rend everyone in her clan limb from limb. And nearly fell out of the tree as she did so.
She screeched as her numb foot slipped off the tree branch, and somehow managed to juggle feet, tree, and baby dragon back into some semblance of order before they all plummeted to their deaths. Then she took a deep breath and tried to open her eyes again, because clearly she was still dreaming.
Teenage elves didn’t wake up in trees with baby dragons on their laps. Especially not ones making such an outrageous, ear-splitting racket.
It took three tries before Sapphire convinced herself that her eyes were already open.
Memories flooded into her sleep-clouded brain of glowing shells and winking stars and the pure, innocent love of a shiny peach-pink baby dragon—one that bore passing resemblance to the small, shrieking monster in her lap. As well as she could with cold-numbed fingers, Sapphire tried to pat its head. “Hey, shh. You’re okay, little one. We’re safe up here.” That last part wasn’t exactly true, but in her experience, telling littles the whole truth wasn’t a good way to get them to calm down.
The dragonet let loose another bellow, and this time, smoke came out its nose.
Sapphire could feel her eyes getting big. Her baby cousins sometimes had very fierce tempe
rs, but none of them had ever set anything on fire.
She stared at the yowling creature in her lap and felt her whole body start to shake. Her muscles were so sore, she could barely move them. Her legs felt like two frozen blocks of ice, and she was up a huge tree in a strange forest with a tiny, fire-breathing monster.
This couldn’t possibly be happening. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to will herself back into a dream.
Something swooshed in the air right past her nose. Sapphire’s eyes popped open, and she flinched, horrified, at the arrow embedded in the tree branch inches from her hand. Then she realized that the howling creature in her lap had gone totally silent, its eyes absolutely riveted on the small blue bag hanging down from the arrow’s tip.
Moving as little as she possibly could, Sapphire’s eyes cast around for the source of the arrow.
“Down here.” The voice sounded far away and quite amused.
Very carefully, Sapphire tilted her head down toward the forest floor. Her head spun—it was insanely far away. She could make out the outlines of a woman who might be human or elf. She stared, wondering if she dared say anything.
“The bag’s got some milk curds in it. If you can feed that to your youngling, that should hold her long enough for us to figure out how to get you down from there.”
Sapphire had no idea how the stranger knew about the dragon in her lap, or that it was a girl, or what to feed it, but she was far too cold to look askance at such a gift from the heavens. With clumsy fingers, she undid the bit of rope holding the bag closed and offered a small bit of the lumpy white stuff she found inside to the very attentive baby in her lap. A scratchy pink tongue whipped out and slurped up the curds faster than a blink.
“Like those, do you?” Sapphire tried to take out another lump and gave up—her fingers were too swollen from the cold to do anything nearly so dexterous. As quickly as she could without letting go of dragon or tree, she poured the contents of the bag out onto a patch of her cloak. It would need the washing of its life if she ever got down from here, but at this very moment, that seemed like the least of her worries.