by Audrey Faye
She shuddered. She didn’t want to think of down.
She reached her mind out to her dragon and felt determination and power—and fear. And in both of their minds, their first linked memory. The tree, impossibly high, swaying in a night almost as dark as this one.
Sapphire’s legs ached from holding tight to the rippling muscles as Lotus flapped her wings. She was so tired. So cold. She took a breath, trying to find the fortitude to hold on longer, to stay with this wild flight through the inky black.
Then the evil blackness reached out and knocked them both out of the ominous, unreal sky.
They fell, hurtling down, tumbling into something far worse than a barrel roll, far less controlled. Sapphire closed her eyes and screamed, clutching Lotus with her knees and hands and knowing it would never be enough. There was no soft ground to catch them this time, no big claws to break their fall or kind faces to dust them off.
She could feel the teeth coming for them in the dark, tearing cold, and the wild fear of a young dragon who had tried her hardest and knew it wasn’t enough.
They were going to die.
“Sapphire! You need to wake up!”
The hissing voice caught them just before they plunged into the black, gaping maw. Sapphire could feel her heart shuddering as they escaped certain death. Saved by a few words she could no longer hear.
“Sapph. You’re okay. You’re just dreaming.”
That was Kellan’s voice, and she sounded really scared. Sapphire wondered for one awful moment if the black maw had gotten everyone.
No, that wasn’t possible—Kellan wasn’t dragon kin. She couldn’t go flying in the dark night. The teeth couldn’t eat her. She was safe.
Small, strong hands stroked her cheek. “Can you open your eyes?”
Sapphire hadn’t been aware they were closed. She scrunched up her face, trying to find the muscles that would pull her eyelids open. It was hard—they were still fighting against the last awful things they had seen in the dark.
Finally, she got one eye squinted open just enough to see the blurry outlines of a hearth fire. Her head felt totally woozy. “Why am I in the kitchen?”
“Because after talking Lily and Alonia into helping you turn Kis’s dinner stew purple, you fell asleep in your supper,” said Kellan acerbically. “So we figured it was easier to bed you down here than to carry you back to your room.”
Purple stew. Followed by onion soup and crusty bread for dinner. Sapphire swallowed down the rising nausea and lifted her head. Clearly, her best friend had slept in the kitchen beside her instead of leaving to sleep in her own very comfortable bed. “Is Lotus okay?”
Kellan’s green eyes got a lot more worried. “She should be tucked in with Kis. Want me to go check?”
The cranky old dragon loved Lotus, even if she was more trouble than a herd of wild pigs. And if something had happened to his young charge, Kis would have set off an alarm loud enough to be heard far beyond the village. “No. I’m sure she’s fine—I just had a really bad dream.”
Kellan nodded as she moved toward the hearth fire. “You were thrashing like someone was trying to kill you, and then you grabbed my arm and held it so tight, I thought I might have to walk around for the rest of my life with your handprints on my skin.”
Sapphire winced—she’d had enough dragon claws wrapped around her arm to have some idea of how that must have felt. “Sorry. That probably hurt like the devil.”
Her best friend snorted as she ladled soup into a clay bowl. “Let’s just say I’m glad you let go. Want to tell me what the dream was about?”
It was receding now, but the echoes of the black maw still chilled her heart. “Lotus and I were flying really high. I thought we were in the tree at first.” Kellan was the only one who knew she still had nightmares about that. “Then I realized I was holding on to Lotus, and the wind was really cold.”
She shivered and pulled the light blanket tighter around her shoulders. “I couldn’t see stars. Nothing. Just this awful blackness that wanted to eat us.” She shuddered, remembering. “We were flying okay for a bit, but then something scared Lotus and we started to fall. Kind of like a barrel roll, only straight down in this big black hole below us. It looked like a mouth. With teeth.”
“Ugh.” Kellan wrinkled her nose and started slicing off chunks of bread to go with the soup. “That sounds hideous. I’m glad you woke up.”
This time. The dream had that horrible feeling of something that wasn’t finished yet. And she was still a child of Moon Clan, even if she’d left home long enough ago that some days, she barely remembered her old life. Dreams had meanings—sometimes important ones.
Kellan laid down the big bread knife, looking worried again. “Maybe you need to stop your flying practice earlier in the day so it doesn’t give you nightmares.”
That didn’t help Sapphire feel better. Flying was supposed to be the best thing dragons and their kin did together, not the biggest disaster. And definitely not the stuff of black dreams that tried to swallow you whole.
Especially flying practice that had finally gone decently well.
Kellan set the clay bowl on Sapphire’s lap and laid a fat slice of bread on top. “Here, eat—I don’t think you got much of your dinner before you started snoring.”
“I don’t snore.” The standard response was out before Sapphire even realized she’d said it, and it made her feel better. “Irin snores, Afran snores, and Lily snores when she’s been up too late. I do not snore.”
“Whatever.” Kellan’s eyes looked a lot happier. “You can believe whatever you want so long as you eat every bite of that soup.”
“Yes, Mother.” Sapphire dutifully dipped the thickly buttered bread into broth so thick, it was almost a stew. “Did you make this, or Inga?”
“She did.” Kellan bit into a slice of bread of her own. “I set the loaves to rising this morning, though.”
Inga was getting old, and everyone tried to pitch in where they could, but Kellan was definitely the helper with the most talent for making things that actually tasted good. Sapphire tried to stick with things that weren’t any more complicated than carrying wood and washing dishes. “It’s really delicious.” It was, and suddenly her stomach felt as hollow as the carved-out logs Irin used for dragonet cradles. She scooped in hot soup as fast as she could manage, using bread and spoon both, and felt it warming places inside her that were still cold from the dream.
Kellan just sat with her, companionably munching on bread and saying nothing.
Sapphire wiped the last of the soup out of her bowl with the last of the bread and chewed it slowly. Then she looked over at her best friend and sighed. “I’m really sorry I woke you.”
“You’re no worse than the babies.” Kellan grinned, taking the sting out of her words. “Between Raphia’s little ones and the two new dragonets, it doesn’t seem like anyone’s getting much sleep lately.”
Sapphire hoped fiercely that one of the new hatchlings would grow up into Kellan’s dragon. She knew bonding was a strange thing and nobody knew exactly how dragons and kin chose each other, but if anyone deserved to be a part of that, it was the girl who had lived here her whole life and loved each and every dragon with a fierce intensity no one else could match. Kellan never said a word, even when Charis had bonded with a boy barely six seasons old, but Sapphire had heard her crying softly in her bed.
She reached over and brushed the crumbs off her friend’s lap and into the empty soup bowl. “Want to sleep here the rest of the night, or go tuck ourselves into our own beds?” Someone would likely arrive early in the morning to tend the hearth fire, and that wasn’t going to be quiet.
Kellan smiled. “Our beds will be cold. Let’s just sleep here and then I’ll make the bread dough in the morning while you keep snoring.”
Sapphire snorted as she curled back down into her bedroll. And smiled as she felt her full belly and the warm fire and the quiet breathing of a friend lull her back to sleep.
Interlude
This time when Lovissa startled from a dream, it was with anguish in her veins. And death. The pitching, awful maw as child and dragon fell from the sky.
She shook her head, trying fiercely to land back in her own cave. The darkness here was friendly. Soothing, warming her bones and holding her tight in the quiet winter.
Here, darkness was peace.
She breathed out fire into the night.
The maw was a terrible hell, but it wasn’t what had chased her awake. She had caught snippets of flying lessons from the minds of the dreamers. The antics of a small dragon who flew like the tumbling wind, but would not reach for the sky. The eye-popping bravery of the one who climbed on her back, only to tumble off again.
It would be an amusing story, except for two things. These were the first two chosen to save dragonkind—and they spent more time in the dirt than in the air. The future of dragonkind rested on a dragon and an elf child who couldn’t get any farther off the ground than the youngest hatchling. They were only one of the five, but still. It put fear in her heart.
But even that, Lovissa might have entrusted to the wisdom of time.
What stabbed cold swords into her belly was the backdrop. The particular dirt the elf child and dragon kept meeting.
Lovissa did not know that dirt.
If the glimpses she had caught spoke true, dragons would live on—but not here. Not in their beloved Veld. In a land with barren hills and huge trees and strange dwellings that looked not at all like a proper cave. In a land where even the stars in the sky were different, if what the elf child remembered from the night of hatching was right.
Lovissa bent her head down, ashamed that her old heart’s first wish was that they would not have to leave in her lifetime. Such a loss she did not think she could bear, even if the fires of life willed it. She wanted to know she would become ashes here, just as all the queens who had come before.
She shook herself. That wasn’t what she must think about now. The dream had left her with a task. The child and her dragon wearied. They grew tired of fear and failure and the weight hanging heavy on their small shoulders.
Lovissa knew what lived in the maw—she had seen it swallow too many of her warriors.
And the two chosen by the Dragon Star must not quit.
Because whatever their destiny held, they would need to take to the skies to do it. They did not live in the Veld, or anywhere that any dragon in the last hundred years had ever flown. She knew this. She had been the finest scout of her time before she had accepted the mantle of warrior and queen.
She knew this—but Elhen did not. Perhaps the dragon who was queen in this far-off time didn’t speak to the ashes. Perhaps she couldn’t. The lands of rocks and strange fields of dirt might be too far away.
It made Lovissa’s heart almost heavier than she could bear to think of her dragons having to leave the place they had called home since the beginning of time. It was almost unthinkable. But if they must leave, they would need to know where to go.
They would need a path to follow.
For that to happen, Elhen must know that a way was needed. And the elf child and hatchling, first marked of the Dragon Star, must know. So that they kept practicing their flying and did not fall from the sky.
Lovissa snorted smoke again. She had seen too many dragons fall.
She needed to ready her dragons. They must send a message. One that asked for a map—and asked a tiny peach dragon and her rider to keep trying.
She laid her head down on the rock that had long served as her pillow. She must think carefully of how to do this. She did not believe they would have many chances.
* * *
Lovissa pulled herself up on the speaking ledge, royalty in every line. Her dragons needed to see their queen. Hear this from their queen.
There were rumbles from those assembled below. Baraken, back from his scouting mission to the far passes. Snow would keep them safe now for the winter. He stood guard next to Fonia, young Eleret’s sister, honoring her grief.
They would miss Eleret’s laughing, dancing presence around the fires this winter.
Lovissa felt the weight of all that she was settling across her wing crests. She wanted to tell her dragons that they must not hate the elves, but she couldn’t find the words. Not yet, not while their grief was still so fresh. They must conserve their strength, their conviction, for this thing she meant to attempt.
In the winter, around the fires, would be soon enough to speak of the elves.
She drew in a breath and waited for silence to fall. It came almost immediately. “I have had a dream. One of great import, of queen memory. I saw through the eyes of a daughter of my daughters. Saw of hope—and of great need.”
A few of the younger dragons reacted. The older and wiser didn’t move so much as an eyelid.
She wished deeply that what she brought them was solely a message of hope. Of survival. Of victory. She would give them what she could. “I saw our kindred, wise and proud and owning the skies with their feats of skill and courage.”
Dozens of dragon claws, stomping the ground with approval.
She could not tell them about the elves. Not yet. Let them enjoy the idea that their efforts, their sacrifice made a future for dragonkind possible. She knew that one day, they would walk side by side with their enemies. She didn’t know how many battles they would need to fight and win first. She was queen—she would not disarm her warriors too early. “We have knowledge that those who will one day come from us need to know. I need your help to send it to them.”
Even the youngest dragons were utterly still now. Listening.
Lovissa let the voices of all the queens rise in her throat. “We will call those who will be kin to us.” She had chosen those words very carefully. She would not speak of the elves—but perhaps, if they truly loved those with dragon hearts, those elves of a distant time would hear. “We will sing for them, and show them the skies of our time.”
It was the best way she could think of to ask for a map. She prayed that the sons and daughters of her daughters had ears to hear.
Slowly, letting the rumble build from deep in her chest, Lovissa began the song that was known by every dragon ever born. It was a song of heartbeats, of tenderness, of warrior spirit, of life and death and all that was and would be.
The Song of the Dragonveld.
Dozens of voices rose to join hers. Some, merely rumbles, some the dancing lightness of their youngest. One or two that would have been bards in a different time. All of them, thinking of those who would come after them. Those who would be.
Lovissa let the song build, let the sounds tremble on the chill night air. And then she tipped her head back to gaze on the night sky and pushed all that she could see into the place inside her soul that had seen the dream.
Bright, beautiful stars spread across the night sky and streamed into the music and into the vision she built for those who would come from her line. From all their lines. A message so very simple in its meaning, she could scarcely believe it needed to be said.
::We are here::
Part III
Stars & Destiny
Chapter 15
Sapphire jerked out of a dream for the second night in a row and cursed. This was getting very tiresome. She scrubbed her eyes and tried to figure out what had woken her up this time. There was no bile rising in her throat, so it couldn’t possibly have been anything as scary as the falling dream. But there had been stars. Lots and lots of stars.
And then the insistent demand that she wake up.
She looked over at Kellan’s bed and saw her best friend still curled up like a sleeping kitten. Apparently this nocturnal wake-up call had arrived more quietly than the last one.
And it wasn’t actually the middle of the night. Dim rays of light made their way in the window slats. Sapphire shimmied to the foot of her bed, blanket still wrapped tightly around her, to peer out the crack in the shutters. There were noises coming from severa
l rondos. A lot of activity for the crack of dawn.
She needed to check on Lotus. Her dragon had started the night tucked in between their beds, but sometime in the dark, she’d gone, headed for the nursery and Kis’s large, warm comfort. Irin said most young dragons grew out of that eventually, but Lotus loved her cranky old nursemaid, even if he snored louder than a midwinter drumming festival.
Sapphire shivered as she pulled on her warmest cloak. The mornings were getting colder—winter was coming. She opened the door, wincing as it creaked, and made a note to ask Inga for some oil for the hinges. Kellan took care of that kind of thing too often.
“You too, youngling?” Karis strode up, looking as relaxed and refreshed as if it were the middle of the day.
Sapphire blinked away sleep. There were dragons in the sky, flying in from the direction of caves and cliffs, and if anyone in the village but Kellan was still asleep, they wouldn’t be for much longer. “What’s going on?”
Karis’s hand settled on her shoulder. “You dreamed of stars?”
Sapphire could feel her forehead wrinkling. “Yes.”
“So did Afran and all the dragons within speaking distance.”
Afran could mind-speak all the way to Elhen’s cave. “Everyone?” That was totally bizarre. Sapphire thought back to the dream. It had been pretty, and the Dragon Star had been particularly bright, but that was all she could remember. Nothing scary, no black teeth trying to eat them, no falling out of the sky. Nothing that seemed like it should wake up the entire village.
Irin poked his head out of the nursery as they walked by. “Stars?”
Karis nodded.
The old soldier disappeared back inside, but from the sounds of it, he wasn’t staying in there for long. Lotus popped out the door seconds later, eye ridges high and wings quivering.
Sapphire laid a calming hand on her dragon and looked over at Karis. “What’s going on?”