by Audrey Faye
She looked at Sapphire and Lotus expectantly.
The hush in the cave was absolute.
Sapphire smiled tremulously. She knew what the light was now—or at least she knew who had put it there. “It was the Dragon Star. She touched us in a dream.”
“Just so.” Elhen seemed delighted. She looked at Irin and Karis and spoke sharply. “The girl will remain, of course. And you will train them as thoroughly as you have ever trained a dragon and her kin. They must be ready for what comes. As must we all.”
That sounded big. And scary. And dangerous. But as a very sleepy Lotus cuddled into Sapphire’s chest, she also knew it meant one very important thing.
She was allowed to stay.
Lotus was hers.
Interlude
Lovissa woke with a snort. She could feel the tears running down her scales, dripping onto the floor of her cave. Such a dream. Or rather, a vision, for she had no doubt but that she had seen true. Through the eyes of the daughter of her daughter’s daughter, five times five generations hence.
And such a story she had told.
Lovissa’s heart burned hot with gratitude, for the vision had spoken to her greatest fear. Dragonkind was indeed in grave danger—but there would be a way. There would be dragons stretching down for generations far beyond this time, and led by such a one as she could be so very proud of. Elhen’s resonance of voice, her clarity of mind, the farseeing wisdom—such a queen. Such a granddaughter.
Telling a story Lovissa could scarcely believe.
For while her very scales still recoiled at some of what she had seen, she could not avoid the truth held in the minds of the dragons in Elhen’s cave. Young and old, large and small, their minds spoke the same truth. They were fulfilled. Satisfied. Living lives of purpose as every dragon sought to do. Time might change much, but it pleased her greatly to know it would not change that.
Because it would change everything else.
She shivered as the echoes of dragon mind memory resonated in the part of her that had known she was meant to be queen even before she had hatched. So much that was different.
Some of the changes were ones she embraced with the fire of pure joy. The purpose she had sensed in the gathered dragons—that place where they each chose to focus their lives—caught Lovissa’s breath in her lungs because in all that she had heard, and all that she had seen, there had been only a single warrior.
Old and fierce to be sure—but only one.
For a queen who had watched so many brave dragons die, that alone was a message of wrenching hope. She had lost so many. Warriors by necessity instead of life’s purpose. For there to come a time when they might seek their soul’s true purpose and not sacrifice themselves on the fires of battle—she would rejoice greatly to know such a time came for dragonkind.
Even if they must live side-by-side with their sworn enemies.
Lovissa could feel the fear of that quaking in her belly. What must come to pass before a dragon would close their eyes in the same cave as an elf? To sleep, while the enemy polished their knives?
And yet, she had seen it in the memories of those who gathered round the queen. Clear as day, from dragon and elf both. Camaraderie. Trust.
To share such with an elf was unthinkable.
And yet.
She had seen, as was her duty—and she would not turn away.
Lovissa climbed ponderously to her feet and strode as gracefully as she could to the cave’s entrance. She perched on the edge of the rocky cliff and raised her wings into the night sky. The deeper meaning of the child seeking and an egg left precariously in a tree had not been lost on her. Always, legends and dreams were full of such symbols, and it was the queen’s place to understand them.
It was not her job to find the five. They would come when it was their time, making their strange and difficult journeys, called by what lived in their hearts and marked by the Dragon Star.
Her job was not to find them, or to keep them safe. It was to make sure her dragons were ready.
To begin the story that would one day be told by Elhen to the first of the five. She would pass on every word of what she had seen, every scrap of detail in her dream. Her old eyes had been as cunning as they could possibly be. When the moment was right, she would share that knowledge with the dragons of the Veld.
She would tell them of Sapphire and Lotus. It was so very hard to entrust the future of dragonkind into such young claws—but trust she must. Lovissa held their names within her core of fire and felt it burn bright, felt the calling of what she must do.
Elhen had spoken truly. It had begun.
Part II
Eating Dirt
Chapter 8
“Free at last.”
Sapphire laughed as her best friend scooted out the door of the rondo that served as their classroom, dancing her way into the late-afternoon light. Kellan worked harder at her studies than any of them, but she hated sitting still, and Karis had made them sit a long time that day.
Lily rubbed her bottom ruefully. “I think I’m numb.”
Alonia snorted. “That’s because you’re all bony and you never eat enough to feed a flea.”
“Someone never leaves anything on the platter by the time it gets to my end of the table.”
Alonia grinned and patted her own substantial bottom, covered by a pretty green dress. “I have to watch my figure, you know. Dragons like a comely lass.”
Lily rolled her eyes. “Dragons like someone with half a brain in their head.”
Sapphire let the banter wash over her. Two years of listening to them tease each other had made her immune—and if anyone else ever said an unkind word to either Lily or Alonia, the other one would be first in line to throw a punch. They fought like sisters, and she’d been well used to that as the youngest of eight of them.
Kellan danced her way back to Sapphire’s side, rolling her eyes at their two classmates. “I think they’ve gotten worse since Dinny and Morris left.”
The two boys had just graduated and left the village, Dinny on his first tour with Lyris, and Morris off to seek his way in the world until a dragon or a woman came and dragged him off—or at least that’s what he’d said as he made his jaunty way out of the village and off to the big city. It had left a distinct hole in their class. All the other boys in the village were much younger and barely counted as people, at least as far as flirtatious Alonia was concerned. She came from a clan that handfasted young and had many children, and living in a village with no resident boys her age left a gap in her life that needed filling.
Sapphire hoped it was a dragon who filled it, and not a new arrival. Her sisters had always been fixated on some boy or another, and she’d had enough of it to fill a lifetime.
There were so many other fun things they could be doing instead. She looked at the three who had become the closest thing she had to family in the last two years and offered up her best idea for how to spend a free afternoon. “I stopped by the apple orchard yesterday, and I think if we pick carefully, we can get enough to make a pie.” She eyed Kellan. “If someone will bake it for us.”
Kellan laughed. “One day, you three are going to be out on tour, and you’re going to starve.”
Sapphire cooked just fine, but teasing didn’t have to be true to be funny. “Inga says Lily can almost boil water now.”
Lily snorted. “I hardboiled the eggs you had for dinner last night and nobody died.”
Alonia clutched her stomach and made a gagging noise.
Kellan laughed and elbowed Sapphire in the ribs. “If you helped Inga more, maybe she wouldn’t need to recruit Lily the Water Burner.”
“That’s a good idea.” Alonia’s eyes were bright with merriment. “Inga says I eat too much when I help, and that Lily’s as cranky as a cat in an empty fish pond.”
Lily scowled. “I’d take the fish pond any day. It’s too hot in the kitchens. It makes me feel all dry and scaldy.”
Sapphire had no idea how Lily survive
d at a dragon village at all. She was a water elf through and through, always splashing in a river or lake or even a bucket of water. She seemed like the last person likely to bond with a dragon, but all the dragons of the village loved her, even when she scolded them for making fire breath anywhere in her vicinity.
Lily might have a sharp tongue, but she had a heart of gold, and in this small village, there was no way to hide it.
Sapphire turned left, intending to herd everyone toward the apple orchard—until she felt the mind touch that meant Lotus was near.
Very near. Sapphire focused her attention long enough to register the glee in her dragon’s mind, and then groaned and started pushing at her friends. “Get under cover—quick.”
“Oh, no. Not again.” Kellan took off for a rain barrel tucked under an eave. Water was excellent dragon repellant.
Lily grabbed the much-slower Alonia’s hand, half dragging her to the nearest open doorway.
Sapphire splayed herself against the classroom rondo wall and tried to send calming thoughts to her incoming dragon. ::Slow down. If you break anything, Karis will make us pick rocks in the cow pasture for the next week.::
Their bond transmitted feelings a lot better than it did words, but it was better than doing nothing. Or maybe not. Two-year-old dragons tended to ignore pretty much anything that wasn’t on fire or edible.
Sapphire didn’t need Kellan’s pointing arm to tell her that she’d failed.
Lotus came into view at the edge of the village, neck and wings and tail stretched out in wild abandon. She zoomed just over the rondo rooftops and then shot down the wide path that wound through most of the village, her claws no more than three feet off the ground.
Sapphire gave up trying to mindspeak and yelled instead. “Up, Lotus. Go higher!”
Her dragon turned happy green eyes her way and shifted course.
Oh, no. She was headed straight for them now. Sapphire watched the incoming peach-pink wings and ducked. This had been a lot cuter when Lotus was small. Back in those days, everyone had laughed and offered her a handful of milk curds. They’d had no idea they were training the village menace.
Kellan, perched on top of a water barrel, eyed the flying terror as Lotus zoomed off into the distance and sighed. “Three feet higher and she wouldn’t be taking off all our heads.”
Higher was the problem. Lotus had learned to fly before her first birthday, just like every other baby dragon—but she had a terrible fear of heights. Sapphire knew why. A long, cold night up a tree on the night of her hatching had left them both with a very strong preference for having their feet on the ground. Or in Lotus’s case, close enough to get there really quickly if necessary.
Which didn’t preclude showing off her barrel rolls right through the middle of the village.
Sapphire stepped out into the central path and waited. It was only a matter of time before a certain reckless dragon circled back around, unable to resist the lure of an audience and the unintentional wind tunnel the main path through the village created—if you were a small dragon without a lick of common sense, anyhow.
“Here she comes,” Kellan hissed from behind her rain barrel.
Sapphire didn’t question her best friend—Kellan had ears like a fox.
A moment later, she could hear Lotus approaching herself. Sapphire reached inside for the deep connection she shared with the peach-pink winged monster and tried to wrap her in calm discipline. She also projected as much disapproval as she could. Lotus might be acting like a teenager, but under her harebrained exterior, she was mostly still a sensitive hatchling who lapped up love almost as fast as she ate milk curds—and she hated it when Sapphire was mad at her.
Dragons who could fly weren’t supposed to get milk curds anymore, but no one in the village had the heart to cut her off. Although that might change if the barrel roll fly-bys didn’t stop soon. Sapphire held up her palms as a peach-colored streak came winging around Karis’s rondo and headed straight at her.
It took all the courage she had not to close her eyes and drop to the ground as Lotus hurtled closer. She knew her dragon would never hurt her on purpose, but there was one flying skill Lotus definitely hadn’t mastered yet, and that was stopping.
A heavy ball of dragon smacked into her outstretched arms and knocked both of them into a tumbling pile in the dirt. Sapphire cursed as her leg crashed into something hard. When they finally came to a stop, she figured out which way was the ground and pushed herself up to sitting. “Darn it, Lotus—you know you’re not supposed to fly through the village.” That wasn’t a rule any other dragon needed, but it hadn’t taken long for the residents to vote it into local law.
Lotus hunched over in the dirt a few feet away, looking dusty and chastened.
Sapphire was smart enough not to believe it. If she turned her back, she was pretty sure the next fly-by would happen before she had time to dust off her leggings. “We’re both going to be in big trouble when Karis hears about this.”
“That’s already happened,” said a dry voice from behind her.
Lotus hunched over further, doing her best impression of a tiny, guiltless hatchling.
Karis walked over and squatted by the small dragon. “I’m onto you, terrible creature. Afran says you have enough energy inside you to keep a dozen dragons flying for a whole moon cycle.”
Kellan and Lily snickered from nearby.
Sapphire was smart enough not to laugh. This was her dragon in trouble, and whatever consequences landed on Lotus generally heaped onto both of them. “She’s just a baby.”
“No, she’s not,” Karis said briskly, swiveling around gracefully in her crouch. “She’s all wings and no brains, and we’re used to that around here. We’re just not used to it flying quite so close over our heads.”
Sapphire winced. Every dragon in the village had tried to help Lotus fly higher, and most of the human and elf inhabitants too. “She’ll figure it out once she gets a little bigger.” Maybe.
“Afran doesn’t think so.”
That wasn’t good. The wise old dragon was gentle and kind and had helped Sapphire through sadness more than once in the last two years, but he was also really fixed in his ways. Once he made up his mind about something, it rarely changed.
He was also hardly ever wrong. “What does that mean?” Sapphire couldn’t imagine what it would be like for Lotus never to fly properly. She knew that her dragon was sad in her dreams sometimes, wanting to be up high like the others.
“We have to be able to fix this.” Kellan sat down cross-legged beside Sapphire and offered a cup of water from the rain barrel.
Karis smiled at the younger girl. “It’s good that you’re always thinking of how to help others. I believe that will be seen as your greatest strength one day.”
Kellan made a face. “After people stop seeing me as a little kid, you mean.”
Sapphire knew her best friend got tired of being the baby of the village. And she knew that what was really going on had nothing to do with size or age or anything like that. Kellan wanted to bond with a dragon as much as she wanted to breathe, but despite living at the village most of her life and being well known to all of the dragons, not one of them had ever shown any signs of making Kellan their kin.
Which wasn’t fair, especially when Sapphire felt guilty about bonding with the first dragon she’d ever laid eyes on. She reached over and wrapped an arm around Kellan’s shoulders.
Karis watched them both with approval in her eyes. “Afran has an idea, and I think it has merit.”
All Afran’s ideas had merit. Sapphire looked over at Lotus, who was listening intently and using her long tongue to clean the dust off her scales. She grinned—her dragon liked to keep herself all shiny. Most dragons did. It reminded her of her sisters back in Moon Clan, primping and prettying all day long.
Karis reached out and scratched the spot under Lotus’s chin that was always itchy. “We’re not used to having dragons who have bonded so young, and perhaps it
has made us overlook the obvious.”
Whatever it was still wasn’t obvious to Sapphire, but she knew enough not to interrupt Karis. Their teacher could be long winded sometimes, especially when she was sharing the thought processes of her dragon. Afran always got to the end point, but he tended to take long and circuitous roads to get there.
Their teacher swept her gaze over all of them again, and then nodded decisively. “Afran believes that Lotus may learn to fly better with you on her back.”
Sapphire could feel the blood rushing out of her head. She looked at Lotus, stupefied. “You want me to ride her while she does those crazy barrel rolls?” That was several vales beyond insane.
“No.” Karis looked amused. “I want you to ride her while you practice some very sedate maneuvers with Afran over the south fields.”
That was where they taught all the baby dragons to fly. Wide-open flat spaces and soft landings.
Karis laid a hand on Kellan’s shoulder. “As you are a calming presence for both Sapphire and Lotus, Afran requests your assistance. He says that you may fly on his back during the lessons, and he would welcome your thoughtful input.”
All the protests Sapphire had been lining up died abruptly as she watched wild joy bloom on her best friend’s face.
Dragons hardly ever flew anyone other than their kin. That Afran had decided to make an exception was huge. None of them wanted to think about it, but Kellan might never bond. She might never have a dragon of her own to ride. She might never get this chance again—and no way was Sapphire going to take it from her.
Even if it meant barrel rolling into the soft dirt of the south fields every day for a year.
Chapter 9
It was the perfect day for apple picking or taking a picnic to the river or hanging laundry outside to dry. The afternoon sun was giving strong hints of summer to come, and it warmed the top of Sapphire’s head and the back of her neck. The rest of her was wearing as much padding as she’d been able to find on short notice because Karis and Afran had decided it was also the perfect day for a flying lesson.