by Audrey Faye
Sapphire knew how to find the ladies in the sky—but they definitely weren’t way over there.
Gilhead looked like he wanted to turn Joren into the next star pebble. “Who are you?”
Irin stepped to the young man’s shoulder. “Someone who will get your respect, old man.”
The astronomer glared down from his high rock, and then flung his arms at the stars Joren had indicated. “In that case, the answer is obvious. These are the skies as seen from a land far away.”
Sapphire froze, as did everyone around her.
Afran stepped forward. ::How far?::
Gilhead shrugged, as if the answer didn’t concern him overmuch.
Afran rumbled, his threat abundantly clear.
“Far. At the far reaches of dragon flight or beyond.”
The large dragon took a step closer. ::Which way?::
Gilhead glanced at the rocks and flung out an arm again. “If the boy hasn’t totally mucked up this map, then a land in that direction.”
Sapphire followed his arm—and gulped. Nothing lay that direction. Nothing but ocean. Water, as far as any dragon had ever flown.
Afran turned to look at his kin and slowly nodded his big head.
A moment later, Karis turned white. And then Irin. And then lazy old Kis stepped up behind his kin and looked as fierce as Sapphire had ever seen him.
All of them looking straight at her.
She could feel her legs trembling. Whatever this was, it was bad. It was scaring the toughest people and dragons she knew—and they all thought it had something to do with her.
Lotus landed beside Sapphire, shaking like an ash leaf, her eyes as big as dinner bowls.
Afran’s head dipped, and he puffed gentle smoke in front of Lotus, just like Kis did when a dragonet was fearful. ::You will need to be very brave, my small dragon warrior. You have been chosen for a great task, and now we know some of what will be asked of you.::
Sapphire wrapped her arms around the neck of her dragon and hung on tighter than she ever had. “I don’t understand. Someone please tell me what’s going on.”
It was Irin who stepped forward, and she’d never seen his eyes so gentle. “These are the stars of the dragons of old, missy. The ones you will help save.” He paused and took a shaky breath. “Lovissa wanted us to know that this is her sky.”
A sky far away. Far out over the waters. Sapphire could barely find enough water in her mouth to speak. “What does that mean?”
He laid a hand on her shoulder. “We don’t know. Perhaps the ancient ones had to leave their homeland. All we know for sure is that they are far away.”
Far away, far over the waters—and she and Lotus were supposed to help them. She looked into Irin’s eyes, begging him to tell her she was wrong. “But we can’t fly.” Not even over a field, never mind a vast ocean with nothing in it.
He knelt on the ground in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders. “The bravest warriors are the ones who look in the face of the battle they know they might lose—and fight anyhow.”
Chapter 17
Sapphire stood in the shadows at the side of her rondo, waiting for a chance to sneak over to the nursery. The village was a flurry of activity, and she didn’t want to talk to anyone. The younger dragons had been flying scouting trips over the water, each a little farther than the last. The two that had limped in that morning had been exhausted, but their answer had been the same as the rest.
No land.
And every time such a report came back, people looked at Sapphire and her peach-pink dragon with doubt in their eyes. Worry. Fear.
She didn’t even want to think about what that meant. So she would go see the man who always told her to walk one step at a time, because she knew what that next step was and she had no idea how to take it.
She darted out into the sunlight and made it across the path and in through the side door to the nursery without anyone calling her name. She smiled as she stepped inside, into the shadows. Lotus was in the corner, curled up tight against a sleeping Kis.
“She came in the early morning and hasn’t woken since.” Irin stood at his high bench, weaving sticks into a small nest.
Sapphire walked over and picked up a knife to help whittle off any sharp ends that might poke at tender dragonet scales. “She’s been hiding ever since Gilhead’s news.” She took a breath and looked up at the man who always told her the truth. “Nobody thinks we can do this.”
“People are fools,” Irin said brusquely. “You are only one of the five, and no one knows what your task will be.”
That was exactly what Kellan kept saying, but it wasn’t all that comforting. “Everyone thinks we’ll need to fly.” Out over the water, maybe farther than any dragon had ever flown. To wherever the dragons of old had called home.
“Maybe.”
She hung her head. “We’ve been trying. I don’t know how to get us any farther off the ground.”
“She won’t until you can.” Irin kept weaving twigs. His tough, battle-scarred face wasn’t showing any kindness. “Dragons pick up the feelings of their kin, and your scamp is more empathic than most.”
Sapphire nodded. “It’s strongest when I’m riding her. When we’re touching.”
“Exactly.” He tipped his head at Kis, snoring in the back corner. “I always used to say he could read my mind when I was on his back. Lotus will be picking up your every thought and fear. If you keep remembering that hell-spawned tree she was born in every single moment you’re in the air, that’s all she’ll be thinking about too.”
She had more than trees to remember. The black teeth of her dream haunted her too, coming out of the maw and swallowing them both whole. New terrors layered over the old. New reasons to keep their feet firmly on the ground—except they couldn’t. Not if Lovissa’s stars meant what everyone thought they meant.
Maybe the Dragon Star chose wrong. Or worse. “Maybe I wasn’t supposed to be in that tree.” Maybe she’d just been an ordinary elf after all, one who got lost at exactly the wrong moment. It was a thought that pierced her with a thousand sharp knives. “Maybe Lotus picked the wrong kin.”
Irin’s eyes met hers, calm and steady. “No, I don’t think she did.”
That made Sapphire feel a little better, but she still had no idea what she should do next. Trying to stop the dreams and old fears from haunting her was like trying not to get hungry—it just didn’t work. Not any of the ways she’d tried, anyhow.
“You know,” Irin spoke casually as he turned toward the small counter where he kept the covered bowl of milk curds. “I grew up near an apple orchard. Loved picking them when I was a boy. If I remember rightly, the best ones were always highest up in the tree.”
She stared at him, wondering why in the world the conversation had taken this turn.
And then she thought hard, because Irin never said anything by accident. She thought about two weeks of jumping off rocks and learning to glide. About a dragon who could feel everything she felt. About a man who had once flown with his dragon and didn’t get to anymore. About how Kellan’s eyes watched Afran when she thought no one was looking, and about just how good a bite of a hard-won apple could taste.
She headed for the door, not even stopping to ask Irin if she’d read his clue right.
She knew what he’d say anyhow. This was her lesson to set, and her lesson to learn.
That sense of confidence stuck with her almost all the way to the apple orchard. She even sang as she walked, a silly summer song Alonia had taught them about maidens with straw in their hair and twinkles in their eyes. The grown-ups always laughed when they sang it, but she didn’t care. It felt like the right song to sing as you headed off to pick apples. It carried her all the way to the base of the biggest tree in the orchard, and even far enough to put her hands on the rough bark and look for the first good places to put her feet.
Lotus needed her strong, and being terrified of heights was just foolish if their destiny was to fly the ski
es together.
Sapphire lifted her foot, clad in a soft boot, to a knobby protrusion just above her knee. She reached over her head and wrapped her arms around a nice sturdy branch, walking her feet a little higher.
This part was fine—it was the thought of what she was going to do next that made her gulp.
She managed to squiggle up to sitting on the first branch and looked down at the ground, trying to breathe calmly. They’d jumped off boulders taller than this and been just fine. She stood up on the branch and reached for another one over her head. This one was skinnier, and it dipped and swayed as she swung her legs up.
It was deeply tempting to close her eyes, but Sapphire knew the whole point of this was to face her fear. She took a seat in a crook close to the tree trunk and looked down. It felt like she saw through two sets of eyes—the ones that remembered being high in a tree in the forest with Lotus on her lap, and the ones that had spent the last month zooming around on dragon back. Sapphire tried mostly to look through that second set of eyes. Even if Lotus didn’t fly very high compared to most dragons, it was still off the ground.
They got this high all the time.
She sat, breathing in the new experience, letting it push out some of the old, stagnant fear. This wasn’t so bad, even if she was clutching a tree trunk again, and with no dragon wings to help her land gently if she fell.
She snorted. Even when there were dragon wings available, the landings weren’t generally all that gentle.
Carefully, she stood on the branch under her feet and stretched up. The tree branches were a lot thinner up here, and laden with apples that bent them down. Maybe they didn’t have enough strength left to hold up an elf girl, even a light one. She moved one of her feet so her weight was spread over two branches, and felt a little steadier. With her hands gripped tightly to the trunk, she tipped her head back and looked up. The top of the tree was still awfully far away. She was at least halfway up—maybe that was far enough.
She looked at one of the red apples hanging just above her shoulder. It looked ripe and tasty, just like the ones far over her head—and she could pick this one and be down the tree and enjoying the sunshine in less time than it took for Lotus to scarf down a bowl of milk curds.
Sapphire sighed and looked up again. This was just like jumping off the boulders. No one would have known if she’d eaten those apples with her feet firmly on the ground—but it would have felt like cheating.
She didn’t want to feel like the girl who stopped halfway.
She wanted to feel brave.
Taking a deep breath, she reached for a branch just a little above her head. She didn’t have to do this quickly. Her heart beat against her chest hard enough that she thought it might pop right out. She let it beat. Irin said it was okay to feel scared, so long as you kept doing your job.
Two more small steps up, and her palms were getting sweaty too. Sapphire rubbed them against her leggings, remembering the awful, cold, slick rain of two years ago. Every branch had been treacherous.
This wasn’t that tree. This one was sun-warmed and old and bent from the weight of many seasons of apples hanging off its branches. The limbs under her hands were cool and strong and well used to creatures climbing them in search of crisp, sweet goodness. She let that soak into her skin and mix with the rain-drenched fear of two years ago.
One more small step up.
Sapphire reached up over her head for another handhold and realized there was nowhere left to go. She was at the top—up high enough that she could stretch her palm into the clear, bright sun.
Knowing it would be the hardest part, and wanting to get it over with, she looked down. Beyond her feet and beyond all the matte-gray branches and the leaf-cast shadows. To the ground, which still looked dizzyingly far away. Still made an elf girl of Moon Clan feel so very small and insignificant and helpless and scared. One slip and she would crack her head open, just like Lotus would do to the both of them if she caught an air current wrong or misjudged a distance or ran out of energy before she landed them both back safely on the ground.
Sapphire gulped. Irin was right—there was no way to do this brave stuff and not be scared. There were too many ways things could go wrong. Too many ways to fall out of an apple tree or off a dragon, or for a brave dragon like Kis to fall out of the sky and never fly again.
If she and Lotus wanted to fly high in the sky, they would have to know all that stuff and figure out how to be brave anyhow.
Sapphire could feel the shakes rising in her body. She held tight to the swaying branch that was all that was left of the apple tree’s trunk up this high, pushed her face against its rough bark, and let the tears come. Two years’ worth of them, running down her face in a waterfall of remembered terror and fear for herself and for the tiny creature who had loved her even then.
She had been so terribly scared, and so helpless—and that, maybe, was the worst of it.
She wasn’t so helpless anymore. And neither was Lotus. They had learned how to be brave, and how to work together, and how to practice until they got something right.
Flying high was just one more lesson. One more thing to practice.
She wasn’t a terrified elf girl high in a tree—not anymore. And Lotus wasn’t a hatchling fresh out of an egg. Sapphire felt her tears trailing away as the big knot in her ribs untangled. She swiped at her cheeks, laughing as snot fell along with the tears. Hopefully it didn’t land on any apples.
Then again, there were a couple of people who might deserve a snotty apple or two.
She grinned and swiped at her cheeks one more time. Then she reached up over her head, right up to the very top of the tallest tree in the orchard, and picked herself a red and juicy apple.
Chapter 18
Sapphire didn’t know she was awake until she felt the hands shaking her.
Kellan was bent over her, eyes full of fear. “You were screaming this time. I’m going to get Karis.”
“No need,” said a voice from the door. “I’m already here.” She walked into their rondo, Afran’s huge eye peering through the door behind her.
Sapphire blinked—the big dragon rarely came this deep into the village.
A moment later, Lotus squeezed in and landed on Sapphire’s bed in two quick hops. Her chirruping sounds were full of worry, and her claws had to be poking holes in the bed covers with how hard she was clutching.
“I’m okay.” Sapphire tried to keep her very worried dragon from destroying everything in the small bedroom. “Hold still before you break the bed.”
Lotus just chirruped louder—until Afran rumbled from the door.
“Indeed.” Karis gave him a quick look. “This is no place for dragons, well behaved or otherwise.” She gave Lotus a stern look and pointed at a spot on the floor by the bed. “Lie down there, and if I hear a peep out of you, I’m sending you back to Kis.”
Sapphire stared as her dragon curled up on the floor, totally silent. “Wow—you have to teach me how to do that.” Her voice sounded scratchy, and it hurt to talk.
Karis smiled. “Years of practice.” She looked over at Afran. “This is mine to do, wise old man. Get everyone else settled, please, and I’ll come to you when I can.”
She waited while the large dragon backed himself slowly away from the door and began rumbling at whoever had gathered outside. From the sounds of it, half the village was out there. Kellan stood and took her cloak off a hook behind the door. “I’ll go too. Maybe some hot tea will help everyone sleep.”
Sapphire’s head hurt—and for some reason, so did her throat. She watched her best friend leave and then looked at Karis, who was sitting on the foot of her bed, idly scratching Lotus’s tail with her foot.
The older woman studied her for a bit. “I’m sure Kellan will bring you some of that tea shortly. In the meantime, why don’t you tell me why you woke up half the village with your screams?”
Sapphire’s hand went to her throat. It felt raw inside. “I didn’t know—I’m rea
lly sorry.”
“You were sleeping.” Karis’s eyes were dark and serious. “I assume your dream wasn’t a good one.”
This one had been worse than all the others—but no one knew about any of those. Sapphire hung her head, ashamed and scared. “I’ve been having nightmares since I first arrived. I was hoping they would go away.”
“Sometimes they do.” The older woman sounded totally calm, like they were discussing what to put in the evening stew. “But when they don’t, sometimes it can help to talk about it.”
That required thinking about them. “I used to dream about being up in the big tree. Now I’m having nightmares about flying.” That was as much as she intended to say on the subject.
“Ah.” Karis was nodding, like that made total sense. “And did they start when your flying lessons began?”
Sapphire looked down at the patched quilt on her bed and the three new holes from Lotus’s claws. “Yes.” She wanted to reach out and touch her dragon, but she remembered what Irin had said about passing on her fear. “This one was worse, though, and we didn’t fly at all yesterday.”
Karis was silent for a minute. “Did something else happen?”
Yes, Sapphire thought bitterly. She’d managed to climb an apple tree and feel a little bit brave. Which was clearly sheer foolishness. She and Lotus might not be a girl and a hatchling anymore, but they weren’t big enough to take on raging winds and black maws and evil magics in the sky.
She wanted to curl up in a ball and cuddle up to Lotus and never sleep again.
Karis’s hand reached out and stroked her hair. “Perhaps a bowl of soup, and then we’ll talk of this more in the morning.”
Bowls of soup didn’t keep the dreams away—Sapphire knew that all too well. Nothing did.
Suddenly Lotus shot up from her neatly curled position by the bed and scurried out of the rondo, making wild chirruping sounds.