The dragon plucked the sheet off Gideon’s bed and handed it to her. Or perhaps it merely snagged its claw—
Disturbed by its un-beast-like behavior, Leah twisted the sheet into a rope. The dragon waited as she looped it around its neck and knotted the ends around her waist.
She cleared her throat. “I’m ready.”
With an agile twist, the dragon flung itself off the window ledge. Leah screamed as the ground rushed up—
Then its membranous wings snapped open, and their fall became a glide. Three wingbeats took them high into the night sky. The stars shone crisp and cold.
Frigid air whistled past Leah’s face, contrasting with the dragon’s tremendous heat.
The dragon banked left, and Leah smiled with delight. Did Gideon do this every night? Ride the dragon?
Except no one had ridden the dragon during its attacks on Duke Ruben’s castle walls.
Shivering, she remembered her purpose. “Take me to Gideon,” she shouted into the wind.
She couldn’t be sure the dragon understood, but its wings beat harder, carving a path through the night. They passed first over Thunderhead’s lower slopes, then the red glow at his peak.
In the dark, Leah lost her bearings. She knew only that they flew for a long time—her thighs and bottom chafed—before the dragon skimmed over a valley.
Leah peered down. “Is Gideon down there? I can’t see.”
The dragon arched its neck, rib cage expanding, and spat out a fireball.
Leah recoiled, almost losing her seat. In the fading glow, she glimpsed a sleeping army.
She swallowed. No mere raiding party: over a hundred men slept on the valley floor. Only why hadn’t they pitched tents or at least removed their armor? And had those been fallen horses?
“Again,” Leah said hoarsely. “Show me again.”
Circling around, the dragon coughed out another fireball. Leah gasped.
The army wasn’t asleep; it was dead. Every man and beast, dead.
“No.” Leah denied her eyes. “Put me down.” Tears welled as she pounded on the dragon’s black hide. Had it shown her this to brag? How could she have forgotten, even for a second, that the dragon destroyed? “Put me down!”
A pulse of sullen heat. No.
Desperate, Leah slid off its back.
The ground lay farther below than she’d thought, twenty feet instead of ten. She had a moment of terror, of plummeting, and then the dragon’s claw snagged the back of her nightdress. The material ripped free, but her momentum slowed enough that she only hit the ground bruisingly hard instead of breaking both legs.
Leah scrambled up and ran toward the fallen army. A gust of wind and the flapping of wings told her the dragon had landed, but she refused to look back or acknowledge the pain in her bare feet from the rough ground.
The first man she found lay sprawled on his back. He wore a blue tabard with red crossed swords like the ones on Sabra’s dress. Smoking Cone’s sigil. His eyes bulged, and spittle had dried around his mouth. Not only dead, but cold. So was the second man.
“Hello? Can anyone hear me?” she called.
The dragon moaned.
She ignored the mournful sound, wading deeper into the ranks of the dead, shaking shoulders, prodding cold flesh, but they were all dead. Murdered by the dragon.
Except the bodies weren’t burned. How—?
The next corpse lay facedown. Carefully, Leah rolled him over and saw another distorted face, as if he’d choked on a piece of meat. But a whole army couldn’t choke to death. And where were the flies?
Her eyes stung. The wind had shifted, bringing the smell of sulfur. She coughed, and foul air bit her throat.
Horror rose inside Leah as she remembered a childhood tale of how Poison Cloud got his name. The Volcano Lord had breathed out a low-hanging fog that poisoned all animals in its path.
It had slain an army, and it would kill her, too, if she didn’t find clean air, fast.
Shielding her nose and mouth with her arm, Leah ran toward the dragon. It rose to meet her, diamond eyes shining. But she must’ve hit a pocket of bad air, because even through her sleeve her next breath felt like inhaling fire.
Coughing, she fell to her knees and found herself staring into the dead face of a young boy—
The dragon snatched her up in its claw and launched into the air.
Leah kept coughing for long minutes afterward. The dragon crooned in sympathy but didn’t seem affected. Finally, when her spasms stopped, the dragon placed her on its shoulder.
With shaking hands, she regained her seat and clutched the sheet still tied about its neck.
“Maybe you didn’t kill the army,” she rasped, “but it’s still your fault.”
The dragon had stirred the Volcano Lords into belching out ash, spoiling the harvest. Smoking Cone’s army had probably been sent to plunder its neighbor’s grain stores. Then Poison Cloud’s duke had persuaded his Volcano Lord to strike back…
Leah shuddered. She closed her eyes, no longer enchanted by the dragon’s speed.
She assumed they were returning to Thunderhead’s valley until they flew over an unfamiliar town. Was it taking her to Gideon?
What seemed hours later—her thighs were screaming—she spied torches. She could make out a castle wall and the keep rising behind it. Men-at-arms patrolled the walls and battlements.
A vast rumble vibrated through the air. Leah’s hot blood surged. Isaiah.
The dragon blasted out a column of fire, illuminating the sky. The wall boiled with sudden activity. Messengers were sent to rouse Duke Ruben and those not on duty. Swords were drawn, crossbows cranked. Men with shovels stood by tubs of sand, ready to put out fires.
Ignoring the castle, the dragon descended toward the inner bailey. At its scent, livestock neighed, baaed, and squealed in fright. Dogs raced madly around. The din worsened when the dragon fireballed a haystack.
The stone buildings wouldn’t burn, but Grumbling Man spawned so few firewasps that grass had been allowed to grow in the bailey. It would catch fire and burn other things: thatch, wagons, doors. People. Like her mother.
“Stop!” Leah cried.
They winged upward, but her sigh of relief strangled when the dragon attacked the battlements. She sensed grim purpose, as if it were performing an unpleasant duty.
Arrows flew through the air. She ducked, but they all clattered off the dragon’s scales or missed.
“Distract him! Aim for the eyes!” Captain Brahim bellowed.
The dragon began a smooth, shallow dive through a hail of crossbow bolts. One bounced off its nose, and she felt a pulse of annoyance.
The men on the wall broke and ran. Leah turned her face away, but instead of raking them with its deadly flame, the dragon streaked toward a lone man.
The duke.
“No.” Leah pounded on the dragon’s neck. “You can’t!” Her feelings for her father were confused—fear, respect, the desire to please—but even if she’d hated him, the dragon’s intention would have horrified her. If the duke died, Isaiah would erupt.
For the first time she sensed words in the dragon’s hot pulses. He must be punished.
At the last second, Captain Brahim knocked the duke aside. The dragon snatched him up instead, then dropped him in irritation. Leah glimpsed the captain’s white face as he clung to a merlon on the castle wall, his legs dangling, and then they wheeled around in a great circle.
She had to stop the dragon from killing her father.
Heart in her throat, Leah swung both legs to one side. The dragon’s spine pressed into her stomach, and the wind whipped her hair into her eyes. She avoided looking down and lowered herself toward its wing joint, hoping to hinder its flight. But she slipped on the slick black scales—
A scream ripped out of her throat. The dragon twisted in midair, slinging her sideways. Leah hooked an elbow and one foot over its spinal ridge and stopped a few feet short of the base of its tail.
The dragon clawed at its own tail, u
nable to reach her.
A fall from this height would break every bone in her body. She closed her eyes against a surge of vertigo. Cold sweat broke out on her back. Ashes.
The dragon’s tail was thicker than her waist at the base but narrowed to a slender tip ten feet out. If she slid down it, would she be close enough to the ground?
Leah glanced down, then closed her eyes. No.
Nevertheless, she began to inch downward.
Its tail lashed under her. She slid three feet—and then the dragon plucked her off and cradled her to its chest. Leah shuddered in gratitude, unmindful of its bruising grip.
The dragon set her back on its shoulder.
“There it is!” a man shouted from the castle wall.
“It has a rider!” another yelled.
Leah winced. Would the duke recognize his bastard daughter?
“Now!” Captain Brahim yelled.
Thrum. A giant crossbow fired at them.
The dragon dipped, and a bolt the size of a spear hissed overhead. Ashes.
Shrieking in anger, the dragon turned to fight. It coughed out a fireball, scattering the men on the wall. But the fireball also highlighted their location.
Thrum. Thrum. Two bolts launched almost simultaneously from different directions.
The dragon twisted. Leah clung to the sheet, screaming as her body was flung to one side.
The first bolt missed.
The dragon could have evaded the second by performing one of its writhing, whiplash maneuvers, but Leah would’ve fallen. Instead the dragon’s muscles tensed just before a ten-foot arrow punched through the delicate membrane of its wing.
The dragon bellowed in pain and bobbled but didn’t fall from the sky.
They winged away into the darkness. Droplets of orange lava blood spattered the ground below, setting fires wherever they touched.
Chapter Fourteen
The Secret
Leah clung to the dragon’s back, muscles aching.
Wounded, the dragon had lost much of its prior speed. One wing beat stronger than the other, giving them a wobble.
She only screamed once. The noise made the dragon frantic—he twisted his long neck around and almost dislodged her. So she bit her lip bloody, clung to the sheet, and prayed the dragon wouldn’t plummet to the earth.
The dragon moaned, crystal eyes cloudy with misery.
Despite what it had done, pity stirred in Leah’s heart. “Find shelter,” she told it. “You need to eat and gain strength.”
She felt a pulse of heat. Agreement.
How far had they flown? Were they still in Grumbling Man’s valley? Closing her eyes, Leah sensed Isaiah off to her right, a deep well of fire.
Bright ribbons of underground heat radiated out from the Volcano Lord. “Do you see the hypocaust?” Leah asked the dragon. “Those branchings probably lead to a village. They’ll have livestock.” She stamped down on her guilt by telling herself the duke would compensate the owner. Probably.
The dragon began to descend, its wing obviously stiff. Instead of a smooth glide, they jerked and shuddered up and down.
They hit the ground hard. Leah slid off. Sheep bleated nearby.
The dragon roasted the nearest one with a fireball. Beyond the pasture, the flash of light illuminated a sprawling stone manor house and a rocky pool of steaming water. Hot springs. Not a village, then, but the border outpost between Grumbling Man and Poison Cloud.
A man came to the window, holding a candle. He looked like a stouter, grayer version of the duke, and she remembered that his uncle manned the outpost. “What’s all that noise?” he called angrily.
Other faces appeared at the window. With a shock, Leah recognized Jehannah, her half sister. What was—? Of course. The duke must have hidden her here to keep Qeturah from discovering that she had the wrong daughter.
With a last crunch, the dragon finished its meal, then sniffed at the window as if curious. Jehannah screamed.
“To arms!” the duke’s uncle bellowed. The outpost responded like a poked anthill. Men snatched up swords and shields and charged outside.
“Go!” Leah scrambled up the dragon’s scaly side and threw a leg over his spine.
The dragon obeyed, opening its wings and leaping into the night sky. An arrow twanged below, but missed.
The gulped meal seemed to help; the dragon flew steadily for the next few hours. The sky lightened in the east, sending out red fingers of light as if reaching for them.
Leah spotted Thunderhead’s distant silhouette. “Almost there.” She sighed in relief, but just then the dragon shuddered and abruptly began to descend.
The forest below became more detailed, leafy treetops stabbing upward like spears—
The dragon spread its wings, trying to slow, and a wind gust tipped them sideways. Taken unawares, Leah tumbled off, branches cracking under her weight. She heard the dragon shriek as pain exploded in her skull.
…
“Leah! Leah, wake up!”
Blinking, Leah saw Gideon’s anxious face bending over her. She lay on some flexible saplings that grew amid the ruin of an older forest. “Where are we? What happened?” She slowly sat up.
Gideon paused. “We’re ten miles from the Tower. What’s the last thing you remember?”
Leah touched her throbbing forehead and found a bump but no blood. “I was riding the dragon and—”
“You were what?” Gideon interrupted. “I told you not to go anywhere near that brute.”
Leah bristled. “I was looking for you. The dragon wanted me to ride it.”
Gideon scowled, unmollified. “And if it wanted to eat you, would you walk into its mouth?”
“That’s not fair. I went with it because you were in trouble.”
“Well, I wasn’t in trouble. I’m fine. You’re the one who almost got herself killed.”
Leah narrowed her eyes. “Stop shouting at me. How did you get here, anyhow? And why”—she focused suddenly on his attire—“are you wrapped up in the sheet?”
Gideon avoided her eyes. “The dragon brought me here to you. My clothes were torn.”
“Where’s the dragon now?”
“Away. Where doesn’t matter,” Gideon said brusquely. He held her hands. “Leah, the dragon is dangerous. Promise me that you’ll never go near it again.” He kissed her, his mouth warm. “Please?” he coaxed. “I couldn’t bear it if that thing hurt you.”
When he touched her, she wanted to promise him anything, but… “If you’re in danger, I’ll do anything. Even ride a dragon.”
Gideon embraced her with one arm. “I don’t deserve you.” He sounded miserable.
Leah hugged him back—and her right hand encountered a bandage around his upper chest and shoulder. “You’re hurt!”
Gideon winced as she unwound the bloodstained strip of white linen. “I woke up bleeding. I don’t remember how I got hurt. I never do. It’s part of the curse. And I’m glad of it. I don’t want to remember.”
His very fierceness made her doubt his words.
On either side of his shoulder blade, she found twin punctures. She probed one oozing hole to make sure nothing festered inside and discovered they connected, as if a single crossbow bolt had pierced a pinch of skin.
Leah’s hands stilled. A monstrous suspicion occurred to her: the dragon’s wing had been injured.
No. It couldn’t be true. But—it explained why the dragon hadn’t killed her and why Gideon’s skin always felt so hot. No wonder he sleeps all day.
Leah’s mouth tasted of ashes. “You’re the dragon.”
“No!” Gideon spun around, but she heard panic in his voice, not outrage or surprise.
As she watched, his alarm turned to shame; he averted his eyes. Her heart sank to her toes. She took a stumbling step back. “It’s true.”
Hurt and despair aged his face. “Yes,” Gideon admitted. “Every nightfall, I turn into the dragon. At dawn, I turn back.”
Leah gasped as if she were being
torn in two. She loved Gideon with every bone in her body, but the dragon—the dragon destroyed. It had set Saul aflame, tried to kill the duke, and taunted Isaiah into erupting. “Why?” she asked, her voice aching. “Why did you attack my father’s castle?”
“I didn’t—the dragon did.”
“Why did the dragon attack Grumbling Man last night?”
Gideon puffed out a breath. “There is no why. My dragon form is a ravening beast. If not for my mother’s efforts, it would’ve burned half the duchies by now.” He sat on a half-rotted log, shoulders drooping.
Leah frowned. The dragon hadn’t seemed unreasoning to her. It had Called her and shown her the dead army for some purpose.
But she sensed Gideon believed what he said. His body might turn into the dragon, but their minds were separate. Leah’s fear and anger abruptly burned out. Feeling hollow, she seated herself beside him.
He looked askance at her. “What are you doing?”
She didn’t understand. “Sitting.”
“No.” He shoved the hair out of his eyes. “Why are you sitting beside me? How can you stand it?” He jumped up. “Now that you know what I am, how can you want to be anywhere near me?”
Leah stared.
His face twisted. “I’m a monster.”
She spoke gently, as if to a wild animal. “You would never hurt me.”
Despair filled his eyes. “You’re wrong. Sometimes when I wake there’s blood in my mouth. I lied when I said I had no memory of last night. I remember fragments, an army lying dead—”
She winced.
His gaze fastened on hers. “You know about the dead men. Tell me. How many did I kill?”
“You didn’t kill them.” Leah explained about Poison Cloud’s vengeance, but when she finished, the horror in Gideon’s eyes had grown.
“My mother should have killed me as soon as my dragon form grew big enough to break the chain.”
Leah blinked. “Chain?”
“Before I moved into the Aerie, Mother would chain me at night so I didn’t fly off.” His tone was offhand.
The thought of a little boy wearing chains outraged her. “That’s terrible. How old were you when you first changed into a dragon?”
“Qeturah says I was three weeks old when I first changed completely. I started flying at age three. Fortunately, my fire didn’t come until I was thirteen.”
Through Fire & Sea Page 15