Phoenix

by Finley Aaron

  That’s it, then. She likes Ram’s plan.

  She likes Ram.

  And if I argue now, I’ll only be arguing with both of them. That won’t help my chances of wooing Nia back, if I have any chance left at all. I keep my eyes on my food. “Let’s finish our tuna and go.”

  I have difficulty swallowing, but somehow, I manage to choke down my food. What other choice do I have? The three of us have got to stick together. The yagi are trained on Nia’s scent. There’s no way for me to leave and draw them away. If I part ways with these two, I’d essentially be abandoning Nia.

  Not only would that give her the impression that I don’t care about her, that I’m ceding her to my brother, but it would leave her vulnerable to the yagi.

  Frankly, she needs me. She’s nearly given herself up to them how many times already?

  No, even though I don’t agree with Ram’s plan, I have no choice but to go along with it. We finish our tuna, gather our things, and go.

  We fly swiftly. If we have any hope of sleeping tonight, we must fly fast enough to stay ahead of the yagi.

  Speaking of, I think they made landfall. It was difficult to tell, even with my dragon eyes, in the fog and early morning darkness, but I saw shadows shifting unnaturally across the pre-morning landscape in a way that caused my breath to clench in my lungs. We may have outmaneuvered them this time, but they’re still after us. Relentless, like the shadow of death casting its pall across the earth.

  Not even dragons can outrun death forever.

  So we fly. And for the first hundred miles or so, I’m flying on pure anger. Ram is bossy. He’s not even a good boss, the kind who acknowledges the opinions and feelings of his inferiors. No, Ram is like a ramrod. He gets his way by pushing, by sheer force.

  I am so sick of being bossed around by him, sick of always being inferior just because he was born first. My life is one long capitulation, an unending admission that Ram is—and always will be—in charge.

  The worst part is that he’s never even thanked me. I mean, if I hadn’t gone after Nia that first night by the cave, or that second night when she tried to escape, she wouldn’t even be with us. I caught the food. I spotted the yagi approaching so we could escape from Mount Fuji just in time.

  But then, as I’m thinking all these things, I look over at Nia, that glowing golden dragon, as she flies through the morning between me and Ram.

  She is so lovely. Who knew such a gorgeous creature existed on the earth? And we found her.

  How can I be angry when I’m around Nia? The fact that she exists at all is a gift. That she’s with us and might even consider loving one of us—it’s a gift I didn’t know I’d ever receive.

  And what a mystery she is. Not just how to win her heart—which so far I haven’t had any luck doing, not that I can tell—but everything she’s told us about corners of the dragon world we’ve never explored. That she was born of fire. And all that stuff about Eudora, and life inside her castle, and the weird things Eudora said to Nia.

  What was the question she asked her?

  Don’t you know how to make gold?

  But Ram and Nia said gold isn’t made. It just exists, a distinct element that fell to the earth in a blaze of fire, or else was spewed out in a volcanic eruption from far underground, or was pushed up when the mountains crashed together and rose with the shifting plates of earth.

  Eudora is crazy. Her ideas are crazy, everything she does is crazy. And yet, her creations—mutant yagi, water yagi, maybe even someday, flying yagi—they all worked. They’re crazy, but they still work.

  In fact, they work so well, it’s taking everything we’ve got just to keep them from killing us.

  So maybe crazy isn’t the best word to describe Eudora. If she’s as old as dragon legend, centuries and centuries old, then she was raised in a world with a different understanding of how things operate.

  I’ve heard about knowledge being lost to the pages of time—like how the Egyptians built the pyramids. We still don’t know how they lifted those massive stones. Or how the Romans made the Coliseum out of concrete, but then that technology was forgotten for centuries, and it’s only been in the last couple hundred years that we’ve figured out how to make concrete again at all, and it’s still not as strong as the Romans’ concrete.

  Sure, people in olden days used to believe some crazy things, like the sun orbiting around the earth or whatever. But maybe some of the things they knew were actually more accurate or insightful than the things we believe today. Maybe we’ve lost knowledge over the centuries, or discarded it in favor of more sophisticated-sounding theories that aren’t actually any better than what people used to believe.

  Maybe people used to know things that people no longer know.

  Maybe Eudora understands things no one else remembers.

  Maybe it’s actually possible to make gold.

  The realization hits me with a surge of something like adrenaline, and I jet forward in the sky, past Nia and Ram, who shoots me a look that says he thinks I’m trying to impress Nia and he doesn’t like it.

  Okay, so I am trying to impress Nia, but that’s not why I shot ahead of the others. And we do need to fly as quickly as possible. Our speed had sagged slightly with the length of our flight. But now we’re zooming along, and possibilities are sparking through my thoughts, firing like so many pistons, propelling me forward.

  Maybe that’s why Eudora has been so fixated with dragons. I mean, the general assumption has always been that she wants to kill us all off, just like the dragon hunters of old, but we’ve puzzled many times over her behavior, which doesn’t seem to align with that objective.

  I mean, Eudora knows where we live. Yes, my mom was hidden from her for the first eighteen years of her life, so that Eudora wasn’t even sure whether she existed or not. So closely was the secret held, that my mother herself wasn’t even allowed to know she was a dragon, for fear the truth might be overheard by someone who would betray her to Eudora.

  But surely Eudora knows where we live, and that my siblings and I exist. Doesn’t she? Anyway, she for sure knows about my parents and grandfather and the locations of our villages.

  And granted, Eudora is no longer a dragon herself, so her power is not as great, but she could still find a way to kill us if that was what she really wanted. She’s a mad scientist and she knows dark magic. The possibilities are endless. If she wanted us dead, she could have killed us a hundred times over.

  But we’re still alive.

  I know that forty-some years ago, Eudora captured by grandmother, Faye Goodwin. But Eudora’s not the one who killed her—the yagi were.

  And Eudora captured Nia, too. Nia said the yagi have only ever seemed to try to herd her back. It’s like they kill only as a last resort.

  What Eudora really seems to want, is not to kill the dragons. She wants to control the dragons.

  Why?

  Don’t you know how to make gold?

  I don’t. But I’m starting to think maybe I should.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  We reach the Bikini Atoll as the sun is setting again. Normally we prefer to fly by night and sleep by day in order to avoid being seen as dragons, but since we’re in the wide open Pacific Ocean, there’s no particular need for stealth. And frankly, the Bikini Atoll is such a tiny ring of islands in the vast, endless ocean, I’m not sure we’d have spotted it by night, not even with our dragon vision and knowledge of geography.

  By the time we land, my muscles are aching. The sand is soft and the pool of ocean water in the center of the atoll is warm and relatively calm. Inviting. I just want to slip into the water like we sat in the hot spring last night, and let the warm waves lap away my aching weariness.

  I stride in slowly, moaning with the blissful comfort of the soothing waters, when my brother’s voice hits me like a slap.

  “Hunt us some supper, Felix.”

  I spin around to face him. “Excuse me? I’ve hunted the last three suppers in a row. I’m no
t your servant.”

  “I was going to find drinking water. There were wells on this island, long ago when it was inhabited by humans, before the nuclear bombs were tested here and the people evacuated. I think I can find the wells more quickly than you can, but if you’d rather trade, I can hunt.” Ram lifts one eyebrow in challenge.

  Right. It’s a race to see who can bring back food or water for Nia first.

  Which challenge am I best fitted to—food, or water?

  I’m not bad at fishing. And from the gleam in Rams’ eyes, I know if I were to choose to look for water, and Ram came back with fish first, I’d look that much worse for failing at the task that’s supposed to be easiest.

  “I’ll fish.” I snap him a look that says challenge accepted, and fly off, scanning the water for something to eat.

  The water is beautiful here, with coral and sand not so far below—crystalline blue and green, capped with white-tipped waves, giving way to deepest blue. Paradise.

  And empty.

  I fly north, retracing our path but looping wide, scanning the clear waters for any fish big enough to bother bringing back. I’m not being picky or hunting a trophy. I’m hungry. I’m sure Nia’s hungry, too. But the big game tuna I’ve caught so easily on my recent fishing trips are in short supply here, probably hiding out in the deepest, coolest waters, or maybe at some distant point in their migratory journey.

  Wherever they are, they’re not where I can see them.

  I don’t dare fly east or west or south of Bikini. It’s technically part of the Marshall Islands, most of the rest of which are located in those directions. Many of those islands are inhabited. If I fly too close to them, I could be seen.

  In fact, Bikini used to be inhabited. If my memory of history serves me correctly, the place was evacuated when the United States tested their nuclear bombs here shortly after World War Two. The original inhabitants of the island have asked to move back, but the nuclear residue levels remain too high to make long term habitation possible.

  The realization hits me like a stab in the back. Of course. The nuclear residue has rendered this area uninhabited. One night here won’t hurt us, but the contamination has apparently thinned the sea life, especially of large fish who live at the top of the food chain, whose bodies would be most affected by the poison.

  Did Ram realize that ahead of time? Is that why he sent me on a fool’s errand—hunting for fish he knew wouldn’t be there?

  He purposely tricked me. As if he didn’t already have enough of an advantage with Nia. I’m already losing, but he still went out of his way to make me look bad.

  He is such a jerk! I’m flying back to give him a piece of my mind when I see them.

  Fish.

  Not big fish, but lots of fish. A school of silverbacked somethings, which look to be about a pound or two each. A handful of them would hardly amount to a snack for a dragon. But there have to be hundreds of them swimming tight together in formation.

  I don’t have much choice. There’s nothing else to eat. Ram probably found a well long ago, and frankly, I’m just plain hungry after so many rigorous strength-sapping flights so many days in a row. If I’m going to bring back enough to fill us up, I’m going to need a net of some sort.

  Hovering above the school, I strip off my shorts, pull the drawstring waist as tight as it will go, leaving a hole just smaller than the fish, and then grab the leg holes by their sides. Our shorts are made of a durable, lightweight material, similar to the fireproof fabric firefighter’s uniforms are made of. The waists adjust via slipknot at the drawstring when we change into dragons, and the legs billow with extra material, enough to cover our massive dragon thighs.

  So there’s plenty of material there to use as a dragnet to catch a full meal of fish. I grip the sides of the two leg openings and swoop low, dipping my shorts into the water, scooping up the better part of the school of fish, and then flying back to the island with the dripping, writhing bundle held tight against my chest with my arms.

  Ram is on the beach, in human form. “Where’s our supper? Are those your shorts? Didn’t you find any fish?” The half-smirk on his lips says he knew I wouldn’t find any.

  That’s it.

  I’ve had enough of his trickery, his better-than-me haughty perfection.

  Gripping the leg holes of my shorts with one hand, I reach in and grab a fish with my free hand, and hurl it at him.

  For one satisfying, startled instant, he sees the fish headed straight for his face.

  Then he ducks.

  I send another fish flying and it smacks him in the back of the head as he turns away.

  The blow sends him spinning around. He morphs into a dragon and flies at me even as I reach the beach and drop my fish-filled shorts at Nia’s feet. I spin and meet Ram in the air, locking talons with his talons, horns with horns.

  We tumble through the air, braced against each other, faces less than a foot apart, both of us straining, pushing against the other. My goal is to outmuscle Ram, to force him to the ground and pin him there until he pleads to be freed. Until he admits that I am every bit as strong as he is, and sometimes, stronger.

  Except that I’m not stronger. He’s older than I am and bigger, twenty-one years to my not-quite-eighteen. I’ve got the force of fury on my side, but it’s hardly enough to make up the difference. Maybe to hold him, but not to best him.

  He beats his wings, spinning us in the air until he’s on top, forcing me down toward the sand.

  I blow a blast of fire in his face. He’s fire proof. We all are, even our paper-thin wings, but he has to close his eyes against the flames. It’s hot and disorienting and makes it difficult to breathe and impossible to see.

  Ram counters by blowing a blast of flame right back.

  How long we’re braced like that, straining against each other, blasting fire like a pair of blowtorches, I don’t know, but then I feel a second set of hands, talons pushing against my shoulder.

  I stop blowing fire long enough to see.

  Nia.

  She’s in dragon form, trying to separate us, and she has this look on her face that says we’re fools, both of us, and she’s not impressed with either one.

  A look that says brothers shouldn’t fight. Dragons shouldn’t fight, not against each other when there are so few of us on earth.

  Chastened, I release Ram and lower myself back down to the ground, where Nia has dug a large bowl-like hole in the sand and dumped the fish from my shorts.

  I grab my boxers and tug them on before turning back into a human.

  Ram and Nia have changed by then and are hastily eating fish.

  For a while, we eat in fuming silence. The fish are delicious, but due to their size and the quantity we need to eat to make up for flying all night long, we don’t bother to remove the bones, which means we have to chew thoroughly to grind the bones down small, or risk getting a severe case of indigestion. It’s still faster than attempting to remove the bones first, but all that chewing leaves little room for conversation.

  And besides, what can I say? Do I accuse Ram of trying to impress Nia by making me look bad? Challenge him to a real duel, a fight-to-the-death for a bride? Nia has already said she doesn’t want to endanger either of us. That’s why she tried to run away that first night. I don’t think she’d let us duel.

  No, Nia would surely insist on choosing her own mate before letting us duel for her.

  And right now, I think she’d choose Ram.

  So I keep my mouth shut, because any chance I might have of winning her hand lies in the future. I’ve got to impress her. Or Ram has to repel her. The balance has to shift between us.

  Arguing now won’t accomplish that.

  I eat my fish and drink water from the freshwater well Ram found (yes, he found water far before I returned with fish) and then we grab the last several fish and head to the highest ground we can find to bed down for the night.

  While I’m not ready to challenge my brother to a duel or ask
Nia to choose between us, there are a few things we need to discuss. And since we’re planning to sleep until the yagi catch up to us and then fly on as dragons, the only way we’ll be able to discuss this before it’s too late, is if we talk it out before we go to sleep.

  “We need to post a watch tonight.” I inform the other two.

  “We won’t get much sleep that way,” Ram argues.

  “If the yagi catch up to us while we’re asleep, if they paralyze us with their wailing before we start moving, we won’t be able to run away or even defend ourselves.” I state my arguments as succinctly as I know how.

  “We can’t risk that.” Nia turns her concerned face Ram’s way. “We’ll need to post a guard, even if it means less sleep. We’re close enough to our destination now, safety is more important than sleep.”

  “Fine.” Ram scowls. “We’ll take turns. I’ll take the first shift. Nia, you can go second. Felix can go third.” He gives the orders in a voice that’s particularly bossy, probably because he had to capitulate once Nia agreed with me. The extra bossiness is to compensate for the fact that I got my way.

  Ram is cranky. I’m cranky, too, but I don’t want to end up with horns locked again, and I’m not finished raising important issues to discuss. But if I choose my words carefully, and speak only once Ram has a large bite of fish in his mouth, he’ll have to chew and swallow before he can interrupt me.

  As I’d hoped, Ram takes out his frustration by biting off a large portion of fish. It will take him awhile to chew it.

  Still, I speak quickly. “I think we should only fly as far as the northernmost islands of Fiji tomorrow, then eat and sleep before we continue on to find the island we’re looking for. It will take time to locate the island and find the dragon, if there is a dragon there. We don’t want to get there when we’re tired and hungry, or the yagi will catch up to us while we’re sleeping, and we’ll end up drawing them to the dragon. We want to avoid that if at all possible.”