by Audrey Faye
Lotus puffed smoke out her nose.
Sapphire grinned—that was probably intended more as a commentary on the foolishness of getting wet than it was on her dragon’s firepower. Lotus, like every other dragon in the village, looked highly askance at the strange desire of humans and elves to immerse themselves in water, but they all willingly took turns heating up the small pool that had been built under Lily’s direction.
Sapphire had helped move small rocks for two days, highly skeptical of Lily’s plan—until Afran had streamed fire into the water for the first time and they’d all climbed into the steaming, blissfully warm waters. That first soak had converted even the most skeptical, and the river had become a frequent stopping place for most of the village after that. It was the best cure ever for winter chills, lonely hearts, and bruised-and-battered bodies.
Lily came every day, rain or shine, and Alonia manufactured herself plenty of heart troubles deserving of a visit, but Kellan and Sapphire prized the pool most for its ability to cure their physical aches and pains. Which meant it was high time she got in. She slid out of all but her light underlayer and glanced at her dragon.
Lotus ambled over and sniffed at the surface of the pool, checking for whatever hobgoblins the dragons thought lived in the waters, and then blew a delicate, careful stream of fire into the middle. She stopped as soon as the water started to steam—they’d learned through trial and error and the curses of the occasional elf foolish enough to stay in during reheating that even a small dragon could raise the water temperatures far past what was comfortable for the pool’s occupants.
Sapphire scratched behind Lotus’s ears in thanks. Dragons were useful for so many things.
She dipped her toes in the water, feeling a little guilty. She should have invited Kellan. Warming the waters just for one was a spoiled-elf indulgence, especially when there were always others who would welcome the chance for a soak—and Kellan would be mourning the loss of her daily ride on Afran.
Sapphire kicked her toes, causing ripples in the water. Truth be told, she hadn’t wanted the company. Irin was right—they needed to walk this alone, she and Lotus and the fear that lived between them. Maybe if they tumbled down the rocks often enough, the fear would crack open and melt away.
The fear—and the shame.
Sapphire dipped her legs farther into the warm water and leaned her head over on Lotus’s neck. “We’ll figure it out, girl. One day, we’ll be the best fliers in the village.” She wished her heart felt more certain. Dragons were born to fly. Everyone said so, but they’d said that Moon Clan daughters were born to be special too, and no amount of effort had ever made Sapphire into anything more than an absolutely ordinary elf.
::Don’t underestimate what lies within you, youngling. The star has marked you for a reason.::
The voice from behind had Sapphire spinning her head around in shock. That was two dragons in a month that had deigned to talk to her. When she saw who had spoken, she yanked her feet out of the water and tried to assemble herself into some sort of position of respect, Lotus quivering at her side. The queen’s guardians rarely came down to the village, and when they did, they never seemed to notice mere younglings. “Ciara. We are honored.”
The silver-gray dragon nodded her head regally. ::You have been working hard on your flying. Elhen wishes you to know that she has observed your progress and finds herself proud of both dragon and kin.::
They’d had an audience after all. Sapphire didn’t ask how the queen had seen—she had ways and means far beyond those of mere mortals. Honesty turned Sapphire’s cheeks bright pink as she admitted to what the dragon in front of her almost certainly already knew. “We’re mostly still just falling.”
The guardian turned her gaze on a trembling Lotus. ::No dragon should ever be ashamed of falling down. The greatest hearts are forged in the fires needed to get back up. Elhen is not yet certain if you will ever manage to fly the skies together, but she sees much progress in the forging of your hearts.::
Sapphire could feel the overwhelmed awe streaming from Lotus, and slid a little closer to her dragon as surreptitiously as she could. “Please convey our deep thanks to the queen.” She tried to think of what else to add, but it would be grievously impolite to ask Elhen to stop watching their failures, and her brain had hit far too many rocks to come up with any other words appropriate for the ears of a dragon queen.
Ciara’s eyes held a momentary twinkle as if they’d heard Sapphire’s unspoken thoughts, and then she reached out an elegant claw and set a small pot on the rocks next to them. ::This is a salve the queen uses on her own aching joints. She bade me tell you to soak in the foolish waters if you must, but to use this after. It will help your bruises heal by morning.::
Sapphire managed not to groan. If Elhen expected them to be flying again tomorrow, there was no hope that Karis or Irin might be convinced to grant them a reprieve. She lifted the lid off the small container and tried not to wince at the smell that wafted out. Dragon balms had renowned healing qualities, but they generally smelled like something three days dead. This one was no exception. “Please thank the queen for such a generous gift.” Lotus was eyeing the jar with interest, and that was plenty of reason to be grateful.
Ciara nodded one last time and then spread her wings, looking straight at the young dragon. ::I will see you in the skies.::
It was the traditional dragon farewell.
It wasn’t the guardian’s fault that it stabbed at both of their hearts.
Chapter 13
It took two weeks. Two weeks of solitary work from morning to dark up in the boulders north of the village. But the day finally came, and Sapphire marched through the village and into the nursery and straight over to the man who had taught her that sometimes you have to do things the hardest way possible, and held out an apple core.
He glanced down at it.
She could feel the pride in every line of her body—for her, and for Lotus, and for what they had done together. “I took the last small nibble during a barrel roll on the way home.” One that had made her teeth clatter, but she’d done it. It was the first day they’d been anywhere close to the milestone that let them quit before sunset, and every bruise on her body had insisted that she get the job done.
Irin reached out and took the core and juggled it on his palm. “Took you a while.”
It had. And the man who had abandoned them to the rocks on the first day had never come back, not even once, but today she didn’t care about that. “We needed some practice.” It had been the hardest work of her life, and the proudest. The look in Lotus’s eyes when they’d landed after the barrel roll, smooth as silk, had been worth every hard minute.
A tiny green dragonet scampered up Irin’s pant leg and sniffed the apple core. He scratched the top of its head. “Be careful, little one. There’s courage in this apple.”
Sapphire laughed—she couldn’t help it. “Not hardly. I might be the least brave person ever to ride a dragon.”
“Don’t be foolish.” Irin held still as the baby dragon crunched the treat in his hand. “Courage is being afraid and doing the damn thing anyhow.”
She thought about that, and it lit a quiet glow somewhere deep in her belly.
He settled the baby dragon on his shoulder and then looked her in the eye. “You know what you need to work on next.”
She cringed inside, both at his relentless tone and at the knowledge that she did indeed know. They’d tried, a little at least. Anything more than ten feet off the ground gave her and Lotus both hives. “I don’t know if we’re ever going to be able to go high.” There was such a huge difference between jumping off a boulder and falling out of the sky.
Irin thumped a hand on her shoulder that was probably meant to be comforting. “That’s a worry for another day. On this one, take the rest you’ve earned.”
Lotus was already happily following that plan. She’d buzzed the far edge of the village in tired jubilation and then headed straight for the
sunning rocks where the other dragons congregated in the late afternoon. “I should probably go find Kellan and see if I can help with supper.” Flying practice had displaced most of Sapphire’s usual contributions to village life, and her best friend had been picking up the slack.
“That’s a fine thought.” Irin’s voice sounded gruffer than usual. “The two of you are good for each other. Go help with dinner, and then take yourselves off and do whatever it is young girls do for fun.”
Sapphire tried not to giggle—generally that meant playing a joke on one of the village elders, and Irin was one of their favorite choices.
The gleam in his eye said he knew that—and that he knew all too well which way her thoughts had turned. “There have been fewer pranks around here lately, what with you and Kellan so busy.”
They’d have to fix that. Kellan was the best at teasing Kis out of his ill tempers, but they could all do it in a pinch. It was an unspoken pact in the village that the dragon with the hole in his wing would never be left to stew too long in his old and cranky juices.
Irin set the green dragonet on the floor. “You’ll do well to stay away from here tonight. Kis is feeling particularly stiff, and he’s likely to singe the hair off any youngling foolish enough to bother him.”
They’d have to see about that, but she was sorry the old dragon was hurting. Sapphire thought about the magic salve and reached for her rucksack. “Ciara gave us a pot of balm that might help him. We used some of it, but there’s still lots left.” Lotus had very much enjoyed its benefits, but Sapphire hadn’t been able to tolerate the smell. The only thing worse than being beat up by rocks was smelling like you’d let the goats poop on you afterwards.
Irin took the lid off the salve and raised an eyebrow. “This is the one Darius flies in from the borderlands. Some old hermit up there makes it each winter. It’s costly stuff, but if it helps Kis, I’ll work out a way to trade for some.”
All the more reason not to use it on a few bumps and bruises that would heal on their own. “You can keep the pot. Lotus can come by if she needs to use a little.”
Irin looked amused. “Offended by the smell of it, are you?”
Sapphire felt her cheeks go pink. The nursery master teased them unmercifully about such foolish attitudes during weapons training. “I like to go have a soak instead, and Kellan made me a tea balm.” Which might not work quite as well, but it smelled oceans better.
“Kellan’s got a fair hand with salves.”
The giddiness of a successful flight tickled Sapphire’s ribs and prompted her to say exactly what she was thinking. “She should have—you give her enough bruises to practice on.”
Irin’s laughter, loud and booming, sounded raspy, like he hadn’t used it in a long time. The green dragonet scurried under a low table and watched him with wide eyes.
Sapphire grinned at the baby. The hatchlings learned soon enough that Irin’s bark was far worse than his bite, but apparently this one had never heard him laugh. No surprise there—it was a rare enough thing. She eyed the older man carefully, wondering if he’d always been that way.
Or whether falling out of the sky had changed him.
He turned, smoothing out an invisible wrinkle in the weaving that covered his work table. “If you’ve got a question, ask it.”
She did—she just wasn’t sure where to begin. “What was it like for you and Kis? After he got injured?” Everyone knew the story of how the brave dragon had attacked from the sky, over and over, Irin on his back, as they single-handedly tried to stop an advancing army. It was the day that had made them heroes, but people rarely talked about what happened after.
Sapphire had heard a few things. About the honor guard of dragons that had flown them back to the village on a huge sailcloth as soon as Kis was stable enough to be lifted. About the man who hadn’t left his dragon’s side for three moons.
“There are those who will tell you we were brave.” Irin started taking small pots and jars out of the wooden box that served as his medicine chest, arranging them carefully on his table. “They’d be lying. We were cranky and angry and as out of sorts as man and dragon can be.”
Sapphire held her breath, amazed that he was answering her question.
“Kis was in great pain, so I would lean against him deep into the night and tell him tales of battle and victory and all the injuries we’d survived to fight again. I spun the hope that we would make it through the dark and the pain and take to the skies again, just like we’d always done.”
She could hear his bone-deep, shattered sadness. “Did you ever try to fly again?”
“We did. All the healers who came told us not to, but we tried anyhow. I took Kis to the same rocks where you’ve been practicing.”
Sapphire winced. No wonder he hadn’t stayed that first day.
“We climbed to the top of the highest boulder, and I told him to stretch his wings and go meet the sky.” Irin glanced over at the sleeping Kis and waited for his next snore. “He made it about the span of a planting field and then crumpled to the ground.”
Sapphire’s heart broke for the proud man and his dragon. “That must have been terrible.”
“Terrible was still to come.” Irin moved a small purple bottle, and his hands were shaking. “Every morning, we walked out to the rocks. Some days, Kis could fly a little farther. Two fields, or even three. Some days, he couldn’t even lift off the rock.”
She had some small idea of what that was like—trying day in and day out, with so very little to show for all the effort.
“It took us an entire summer to give up. Kis knew the truth first. My head was far harder. I was arrogant, and I pushed him far past what I should have.”
Sapphire wanted badly to give the old warrior a hug, but she knew he would never stand for it. “Do you fly with anyone else?” It wasn’t something she’d ever heard of, but if Afran could give Kellan a ride, anything was possible.
“No.” Irin took a long look at the sleeping dragon in the corner. “It would break his heart. And mine.”
The bond of kin. Sapphire squared her shoulders. Her dragon had young, strong, healthy wings. “We’ll keep trying.”
Irin’s shoulders hunched over his pots, and he suddenly looked tired and old. “Go,” he said gruffly. “Smart warriors know to rest between the battles, to enjoy a bit of the life they’re fighting for. Kis and I never did enough of that.”
Sapphire walked slowly out of the rondo, thinking about Irin’s words and his sadness, his rusty laugh and the pride in his eyes when she’d walked in with her mostly eaten apple. Out on the rocks alone with Lotus, day after day, getting bruised and battered and worn, it was easy to forget all the reasons why they bothered. Irin had just reminded her of one more.
He’d also reminded her that there was more to life than flying and failing. She looked around and saw a dark head and a blonde one, tilted together in a pose that said there was trouble brewing. Perfect.
Lily looked up as she approached. “Hey, look who’s decided to grace us with her presence.”
Sapphire stuck out her tongue. “I got tired of leaving my skin all over a bunch of rocks, so I decided to take a break.”
Alonia looked concerned. “How’s it going?”
It was nice to have good news to share for a change. “I had enough time to eat a whole apple today.” Her friends knew of Irin’s challenge. She only got to eat the apple while airborne. “It was a really small one, though.”
A big smile bloomed on Alonia’s face. “The size doesn’t matter.”
Lily snorted. “That’s not what you say about your bottom.”
Their flirtatious friend patted her ample curves and grinned. “You just wish you weren’t all bony and cranky and sour-faced.”
Sapphire hid a grin. Life, entirely back to normal. “Apparently, the two of you haven’t been keeping up our reputation. Irin says the pranks have been too quiet lately.”
Lily raised a skeptical eyebrow. “He said no such thing.�
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“He did.” More or less, especially if you were an elf who was good at reading between the lines. “He said to stay away from Kis or we’d get our hair flamed.” Which sounded like an invitation and a dare all rolled into one.
“Oh, did he, now?” Lily looked intrigued.
Good. Kellan might be the most fun-loving of the four of them, but Lily had the most devilish ideas—and Alonia could always convince anyone they might need to help them. “Let’s go rescue Kellan from the kitchens and see if we can shake things up a little around here. Maybe Inga will help.” Or at least give them a bit of roast venison. The cranky woman who ran the kitchen had a soft spot for Kis.
Alonia shook her head and hooked elbows with the two of them. “Inga? Are you sure you didn’t hit your head on a rock a little too hard?”
Every single day for the last two weeks, but she couldn’t let that stop her. It was time to celebrate—even Irin said so.
Although he might change his mind by the end of the night.
Chapter 14
It was cold, and they were so impossibly high. Sapphire closed her eyes and wrapped her fingers tighter around the branch. They would never get out of this tree. They would freeze, and the tiny baby dragon she had promised to keep safe would die.
A touch of warmth brushed her mind.
Lotus.
Sapphire gulped and opened her eyes. It wasn’t the tree she clutched tightly, and there was no baby dragon clinging to her chest. She looked down at muscles rippling under peach-pink scales and felt the cold night blasting against her cheeks.
They were flying.
That wasn’t possible. Lotus wasn’t this big, and she should be able to see something around them besides this terrible, inky, ominous dark. Stars, or maybe the light of a fire from somewhere far below.