by Resa Nelson
"What?” Startled, Mauri's voice was too loud for Astrid's comfort.
Astrid whispered. "I didn't mean to! It was an accident. It just happened."
"How did you change him? For better? Or for worse?"
Astrid steeled herself for Mauri's reaction. "Worse."
Mauri's eyes squinted with accusation. "Worse! How did you make him worse?"
Astrid kept glancing, making sure no one could overhear. "He was ugly and old and weak."
"Weak!” Mauri struggled to keep her voice down. "He's a dragonslayer! How could you do that? What if a dragon —"
"A dragon did. I handled it."
"What?"
Astrid led Mauri to a quiet clump of trees, far enough from the dirt street that they could speak freely. "Taddeo came to the smithery. He upset me, and the next thing I knew—"
Mauri crossed her arms in anger. "The next thing you knew, you'd changed the dragonslayer, who we all pay to protect us, into a weak, old man. How could you do such a thing?"
"It was an accident.” Astrid struggled to keep her temper in check. "A dragon came through the trees. Taddeo tried to kill it, but he wasn't strong enough to pick up his sword."
Mauri gazed at Astrid, shaking her head in disgust, her face contorting more with every moment.
Astrid kept her voice calm and even. "I told it to leave, to find other things to eat. And it listened!"
Mauri rolled her eyes up at the treetops. "You're talking to dragons now? Stop lying, Astrid. What really happened?"
Mauri's words felt like a slap in the face. Astrid always confided in Mauri, her closest friend other than DiStephan. Astrid trusted her, revealing all but her deepest secrets over the years.
Mauri had never seen Astrid's true appearance. Mauri had never seen Astrid's face until Astrid was old enough to control how she wanted the world to see her.
She'd never told Mauri she was a monster. She'd never let Mauri see that side of her. Only the child seller and Temple the blacksmith—and DiStephan—had ever seen her that way. No one else knew.
Astrid crossed her arms to keep from trembling.
"I could have been killed by that dragon!” Mauri's face flushed as tears welled in her eyes. "It could have torn Guell apart. How could you change the dragonslayer? How could you have put us all in so much danger? And to lie about it!"
Astrid recoiled. "I'm not lying. Taddeo will confirm it."
Mauri paled. "Tell me again. What happened?"
"A dragon came into the smithery. Taddeo was too weak to pick up his sword. I could, and I tried to kill the dragon with it, but I couldn't make myself do it."
Mauri's voice became soft and weak. "You fought a dragon?"
"I tried."
"You just make weapons. You don't use them. How did you know what to do?"
"I didn't."
Mauri looked scared. "And the dragon didn't hurt you?"
"No. I reasoned with it. I don't think it understood what I said. I don't know what happened. I don't understand it, but the dragon's gone."
Mauri said nothing.
Astrid was scared by her silence. "Please don't tell anyone what happened. I made a mistake, but I mended it. I don't want everyone to hate me —"
"They won't. I won't mention it to anyone. I promise."
Something deeper must be troubling Mauri. Surely she'd confide her troubles in time. Sometimes it took a few days or a few weeks, but Mauri always had confided what was in her heart.
Astrid took a few steps toward the dirt street. "Let's look for berries."
"I'm not hungry.” Mauri's voice was quiet and calm. "I've no need of berries."
Astrid watched in astonishment as Mauri walked away.
Mauri had never acted this way before. All their lives, whenever they'd disagreed, Astrid had argued passionately, while Mauri sat quietly, focusing the same way she focused while shaping damp clay on the wheel. Mauri would listen, staring at her thumbs, hands clasped loosely in her lap, pressing her lips together. Sometimes she'd asked Astrid questions. Once Astrid's heat had died down to embers, Mauri would speak quietly for a long time until they'd come to an understanding.
Everything Mauri had just done was unlike her, as if she'd become a different person in mere moments. Astrid felt abandoned by a friend who had always stood by her side.
Everything was falling apart.
Don't worry. It's a disagreement, that's all. Give her time to cool down. Everything will be all right.
Astrid tried to calm her own nerves, sensing her own overreaction. But when she walked back to her smithery, she couldn't help but feel there was something wrong.
She could smell it in the air.
CHAPTER 7
Instead of returning to the smithery after her argument with Mauri, Astrid walked to the outskirts of Guell. For the first time since DiStephan had disappeared, she went to the secret place where they used to meet.
It was an unusual place in the forest, a secluded patch of land separated from a narrow path in the woods by a deep ravine. Because it was the part of the forest closest to Dragon's Head, no one had ever wanted to bridge the ravine—better to keep as many barriers as possible between the town and the dragons' nesting ground.
But the ravine was narrow enough to jump with a running start. Astrid ran hard and leaped across the ravine, plunging through the thicket of trees at its edge. She entered the tiny, rocky clearing and climbed down the boulders to the waterfall where she and DiStephan used to meet.
Astrid sat down on her rock, next to DiStephan's place. She watched the water tumble down the pile of boulders, flowing into the tiny pond at her feet.
She looked at the place where DiStephan had always sat, remembering him. Remembering his smile and the way he looked at her. Remembering his touch, his kiss, the softness of his breath against her hair.
She focused on the place where he used to be, every time they'd meet in secret here. She tried to see him. Maybe DiStephan had vanished, but that didn't mean she couldn't remember him.
"I've made a mess of everything," Astrid said. "I changed the dragonslayer, and he couldn't protect us when we needed him. It's my fault. It was an accident, but it's still my fault."
Astrid closed her eyes, trying to remember the sound of DiStephan's voice. Trying to imagine what he might have said in response to her.
But she heard only the soft gurgling of water over rocks.
"Mauri's right. I put everyone in danger. Mauri could have been killed. Everyone in Guell could have been killed."
Even though she was alone, Astrid struggled to keep her composure. She didn't want even her memory of DiStephan to see her cry. She was a blacksmith, strong and true—she was no girly crybaby.
Astrid hugged her knees to her chest. She felt like the dagger she'd ruined the other day by leaving it too long in the fire. The metal had bubbled, useless forever.
A soft touch brushed her shoulder, like a hand offering comfort.
She thought she heard him whisper, "Courage, Pigeon."
Astrid opened her eyes with sudden hope and turned to see if he might be there.
A tiny branch of a nearby bush caressed Astrid's shoulder, its leaves spread like caring fingers.
She pushed the branch away, standing up.
Astrid reached into the pouch tied to her belt, pulling out the silver brooch DiStephan had given to her when they first met. The serpentine dragon twisted in knots as two snakes attacked it. She'd always thought of the snakes as dragonslayers, DiStephan and his father, keeping constant vigilance, keeping all of Guell safe. But DiStephan's father had died many years ago, and Astrid didn't know when she'd see DiStephan again.
Ever since DiStephan left Guell, she'd seen herself in the silver brooch. Not as the snakes, but as the dragon. A monster hiding among lambs, pretending to be one of the lambs. Trying to fit in, all the while knowing she could never begin to understand how to live among lambs, much less how to become one of them.
A dragon could never be a
nything other than a dragon.
A monster could never be anything other than a monster.
And, sooner or later, the lambs might begin to catch on. They might figure out who and what she really was.
Astrid worried her thumb against the polished surface of the brooch. "I don't know what to do, and now I have no one to ask for advice."
A sudden wind roared from nowhere, swirling around her like a funnel.
Astrid wrapped her arms around herself, tightening her hand into a fist around the silver brooch. Her hair stung her face as the wind whipped it wildly.
The wind worked itself into a frenzy, pushing Astrid toward the thicket of trees, where she'd entered the clearing after jumping the ravine.
Astrid ran through the trees, slower than needed to make the leap across, but fast enough to make a commitment.
She felt a certain sense of freedom as she jumped into the ravine, determined to regret nothing.
But the wind picked her up and carried her across the narrow gap. Astrid's landing was hard enough to knock the air from her lungs.
"Astrid! Are you all right?"
Gasping as she tried to suck air back into her lungs, Astrid looked up from where she'd sprawled on the ground.
It was Lenore, the last person Astrid wanted to see.
* * *
Annoyingly well prepared to help Astrid, Lenore first checked for injuries. She cleaned the blood from Astrid's hands and elbows, skinned from her hard landing.
Lenore had come to Guell five years ago. No one knew how old she was, but Astrid suspected they might be about the same age. Once in Guell, Lenore shaped herself to become the most beautiful woman in the town. She kept her long dark hair pulled back into a tight braid that fell down her back. Her narrow eyebrows arched elegantly above large almond eyes. She had full lips and a quick and wide smile.
"What's wrong?” Lenore's voice was teasing and light-hearted. "I know we've never been friends—probably because all women hate me—but I'm trying to help."
Astrid didn't want Lenore to touch her. Astrid jerked her skinned and bleeding hand out of Lenore's. "I don't need help.” But when Astrid tried to stand up, the blood rushed from her head, and she sank to her knees.
Lenore smiled. "So I see."
Astrid sat back on the ground, hugging her legs to her chest, resting her head on her bent knees. She was too dizzy to protest when she felt Lenore's hand on the back of her head.
"Eat this."
Astrid's head cleared when she inhaled a sharp scent of citrus, somewhere between sour and sweet. She looked at the pale green root in Lenore's hand, about the size of a large nail. "What's that?"
"Sing root."
Astrid frowned. "I'm not sick."
Lenore's amused tone made her sound as if her words might ripple into laughter at any moment. "Sing's good for nearly anything that ails you. Cuts and bruises and foggy head, as well as a winter cold or fevered brow."
Astrid took the root. When she held it close to her nose and breathed deeply, her head cleared even more. She took a small bite, and its spicy tang burned her mouth and lips.
Lenore's tone softened. "Even a broken heart, for that matter."
Astrid tensed. "My heart is fine."
"Oh, come now, Astrid. You and DiStephan were lovers —"
"That's not true," Astrid said. "I was his blacksmith. There's always a special bond between blacksmith and dragonslayer."
Lenore sighed, raising one eyebrow in a lethal, accusing stare. "Don't lie, it's unbecoming. I don't know why you wanted to keep it secret, but everybody in Guell knew about you and DiStephan."
The sing root dissolved in Astrid's mouth, leaving her numb.
Women hated Lenore because she'd change her body on a whim, seemingly to get a rise from any man who might be watching. Every woman knew there was only one explanation for Lenore's public flaunting.
She most likely traded her body to any man who could pay the price.
Like most women in Guell, Astrid had always hoped her sweetheart had the strength and resolve to resist Lenore.
"I don't know why you think DiStephan and I—" Astrid stopped, struggling to speak with her numb tongue.
"Because he told me," Lenore said. "Have another bite of sing."
Astrid's mind raced as she took another bite. It was impossible. DiStephan had promised he'd never tell. Then Astrid noticed Lenore watching her.
"When I first came here, I liked him," Lenore said. "He helped me. He made me think I could be happy here. Happy enough. When I wanted more from him, he told me about you."
Astrid chewed on the sing root.
"I'm the only one he told. I assumed it was obvious to everyone else."
Astrid still felt uneasy. "How did he help you?"
Lenore gestured to the bag by her side and herself. "He showed me how to dress to blend in with the woods, and what I'd need in case I ever ran into trouble."
Astrid noticed Lenore's clothes: trousers and a belted tunic, all colored to blend in with the forest. Clothes similar to those worn by dragonslayers.
"I'd never pulled up sing root in dragon territory before. If DiStephan hadn't helped me, a dragon would have supped on me years ago."
Astrid looked at the rest of the sing root in her hand, then at Lenore's cloth bag on the ground. Inside it, Astrid spotted the delicate wooden tools used to coax fragile roots from the ground without breaking them.
All evidence indicated Lenore was telling the truth.
"But the sing hunters in Guell —"
"Sell the sing I sell to them," Lenore said. "Usually it's women who buy sing, and what woman would buy anything from me?"
Astrid popped the last bite of root into her mouth. "If you didn't change your body for men, maybe the women wouldn't hate you."
Lenore took Astrid's bleeding hand and wiped it clean. She cut open another sing root and pressed it against the wound. "I thought women hated me because they think I'm a harlot."
The sing didn't burn Astrid's mouth as much, now that she was eating the last part of the root. Or maybe she'd just become accustomed to its bite. "Same thing."
Lenore took a small roll of narrow cloth strips from her bag. She peeled off one strip and wrapped it around Astrid's hand, binding the cut root against her skin. "It's a dangerous game to think that way," Lenore said. "People are not always what they seem."
Astrid noticed the care that Lenore took in wrapping her hand. The bandage was tight enough to bind the root in place and staunch the bleeding, but loose enough to let Astrid move her hand. "So you're a sing hunter, nothing more, nothing less?"
"No," Lenore said, taking Astrid's other hand to clean and bind. "I'm not. Are you a blacksmith, nothing more, nothing less?"
No. I'm a monster.
When Lenore finished, she picked up her hunting bag and stuffed the rolled cloth strips back inside. She extended her arm to give Astrid a hand up.
Astrid took Lenore's hand, standing while Lenore pulled her up. But Astrid cried out when she took a step.
"What happened?" Lenore said.
"I don't know.” Astrid kept the weight off her right foot, stinging with pain. She lowered herself back down to the ground.
Lenore knelt by Astrid's feet. "Maybe you twisted your ankle. Take off your shoe."
Astrid obeyed, and Lenore examined Astrid's ankle. "It looks fine."
"It feels fine. I think I stepped on something sharp."
"Maybe a rock?"
Astrid nodded.
Lenore ran her hands across the smooth dirt where Astrid had stepped.
"Maybe you picked up a rock in your boot.” Lenore slipped her hand inside the boot Astrid had removed. "Nothing. Let me see the bottom of your foot."
Astrid obeyed, wincing at a sharp, sudden pain in the ball of her foot. "Something's in my foot—I can feel it."
Lenore prodded Astrid's foot with her thumb. When Lenore pushed the center of the ball of Astrid's foot, she cried out in pain.
"There's no cut," Lenore said, keeping her grip on Astrid's foot. Lenore reached into her bag with her free hand.
"That's impossible.” Astrid winced. It felt like a large stone, getting bigger and sharper by the moment, was working its way through her foot. "I must have stepped on something, and it's cut into my foot."
Lenore retrieved one of her wooden digging sticks.
Astrid's eyes widened in alarm. "What's that for?"
Lenore focused on Astrid's foot, wielding her digging stick as if she were sizing up a new find of sing root, still buried underground, invisible, but detectable to experienced eyes. "Take some deep breaths."
Astrid tried to yank her foot out of Lenore's hand, but her grip was too tight.
Lenore poked Astrid's foot harder.
Astrid yelped, struggling to get free.
Lenore kept a steady grip. "That's right, keep breathing. But it will hurt more if you don't keep still."
Without thinking, Astrid held her breath.
"Breathe," Lenore said, resting the flat, thin edge of the digging tool against Astrid's skin.
As Astrid closed her eyes and breathed, she felt the digging tool go into her foot like a knife. Lenore poked and prodded for several long moments.
Lenore pulled the stick from Astrid's foot.
Relief washed over Astrid. Her foot felt sore, but fine, otherwise. "I thought you said it wouldn't hurt if I didn't struggle."
Lenore placed her digging stick on the ground, its tip stained with Astrid's blood. Lenore examined something in the palm of her hand. "I said no such thing," Lenore said, barely seeming to notice Astrid's presence. "I said it would hurt less. Trust me, it did."
Astrid drew her foot into her lap. Blood flowed freely from a small gash in the ball of her foot. "I thought you said there wasn't a cut."
"There wasn't. Not until I made one."
Astrid wiped the blood away with her fingers. Strangely, her skin already looked like it was healing. "I don't understand. What just happened?"
Lenore looked up at her. "This was in your body. I opened up your skin and dug it out."
Lenore handed the object to Astrid. At first glance, it looked like a stone no larger than Astrid's smallest fingernail. But when she took a closer look, she realized she held a crimson-colored gem.