The Dragoneer: Book 1: The Bonding

by Vickie Knestaut

  Galelin shook his head. “Paege may try the best he is able, but in the end, a relationship cannot be forced. The best he or any of us can do is to make ourselves available. To open up our empty curves so that others might recognize the inverse of themselves and see whether or not they might fit.”

  Trysten released another frustrated sigh. The number of options available to her were few.

  “Thank you for the tea,” Trysten said as she stood.

  “Any time, my dear. Any time. It is always a pleasure to have someone such as yourself as a guest in my cottage.”

  Trysten’s brow furrowed a bit. “How so?”

  “Why, the Dragoneer’s daughter. I’ve always admired the people who could bond with dragons. I have wished for such a gift myself all my life, but I’ve had to settle for being a healer. Still, I must admit, that if a man can’t have his dream, then there is a certain amount of satisfaction in watching others have it for him.”

  “You wanted to be a dragoneer?”

  Galelin nodded as he placed his cup of tea next to Trysten’s. He then pushed himself up off the stool and strode to the door. “My father was Wiglin, Dragoneer of the weyr Drowlin. I was his eldest son.”

  Trysten’s eyes grew wide. “You were the eldest son of a dragoneer?”

  “Have you ever heard of Drowlin?”

  She shook her head.

  “My father died fighting the Western Kingdom. He took an arrow through the throat. The alpha brought me his body.” The matter-of-fact tone of the admission chilled Trysten.

  “It was quite a fright, of course. I was seventeen years old at the time. The hordesmen of the Western Kingdom had prevailed that day. We lost half our horde and all but one of the hordesmen. The alpha, Tillin was her name, came to me, and I will never forget the look in her eyes as she dropped to the ground before me, my father still limp and strapped to her back. There was such a look of… expectation in her eyes. She wanted something from me.”

  Galelin’s gaze traveled up, to the top of the wall behind Trysten. She gripped the edge of the table to prevent herself from turning around, from looking for herself.

  “And then,” Galelin said with a shrug, “she turned away from me, as if whatever it was she sought was clearly not before her, and so she wished to find it elsewhere. She crouched, as dragons do, and then it hit me then and there what was about to happen. I remember it like it was yesterday, because to be honest, I lived these moments over and over yesterday, as I have today, as I am now. Time stretched out. Time itself wanted to give me every chance possible to right the egregious wrong about to take place. I threw up a hand, as if wildly hailing Tillin might stop her. I opened my mouth, to issue a command to stay, to flat out beg her not to leave.”

  A sigh heaved itself from Galelin’s chest, thick and weighty, like a bag of soil whose burden he wished to put down.

  “She leaped into the air. She spread those great, magenta wings of hers, and beat them down as if pushing away me, my failure to bond, and all of Drowlin. And as I watched her heave up into the air, there was my father upon her back still, bent over backwards, his arm cast out and waving back and forth as if waving goodbye, and that was the last I, or anyone in the Drowlin weyr, ever saw of her or the remainder of the horde. Drowlin fell to the Western Kingdom the next day. But I had gone the evening before.”

  Trysten let out a slow breath. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

  Galelin held up a hand and shook his head. “Of course not, of course you didn’t. It’s not something that most people in the village know. Your father. I assume your mother knows as well. That’s it.”

  Trysten’s back straightened. “And you’re telling me?”

  “I spent many, many years, decades, studying dragons and everything else to discover what I did wrong, what I might have done differently to save the horde, and my father’s body. I wanted to know the depth of my shame. And I eventually discovered that there was nothing I could have done at all. I was not open to Tillin. I was not ready to accept her as my bonded one. I saw my father dead upon her back and I completely shut down, shut myself off from her and myself as well. It took some time to realize this, but there was nothing I could have done. I was a seventeen-year-old boy who just saw his father and his future murdered by an advancing army. I am, as I have always been, utterly human.”

  Trysten took a deep breath as heat flushed across her cheeks. “So you’re saying I shouldn’t blame myself if the horde absconds?”

  Galelin’s bushy eyebrows lifted in surprise. “What? No, that’s not what I’m saying at all, my dear. What I’m saying is that you cannot force a bond between a human and a dragon. I admire young Paege, who is doing the best he can given the circumstances handed him. The fact that he even gets on the back of his father’s former dragon at all is quite admirable, but he cannot bond with Elevera. Elevera will not have him, because he will not have her.”

  Trysten’ shoulders slumped. “So what are we to do?”

  Galelin opened the door to his cottage. “My dear, we do what we have to do.” The old man stared steadily into Trysten’s eyes.

  Trysten glanced back and forth between the doorway and Galelin. It hardly seemed like the simple answer that Galelin presented it as. His posture, however, clearly indicated that the conversation was over.

  Trysten took a last drink of her tea, then stood, thanked Galelin for the tea and his time, then stepped back out into the mud and snow of the lane. She peered up at the sky. Above, the clouds rolled in shifting patterns of gray. Beneath them, dragons wheeled and swooped in the sky. Among them slid the large, golden form of Elevera. Trysten’s heart both thrilled and sank at the sight of her. What could she possibly do to save the horde?

  She turned her attention to the weyr a few doors away. It seemed that there was very little else to do except trust her father and Paege.

  After a few days, Aeronwind’s fever broke. Mardoc placed his vigil on hold and returned home to sleep and eat. Trysten met Paege out in the foothills twice more, and though she tried hard to show Paege how to handle Elevera, it eventually ended in frustration. He was adept at issuing commands, but Elevera only listened and obeyed whenever Trysten wished her to obey. Though Paege took her advice without argument or complaint, Trysten was left with the sense that she had only made matters worse between them. Paege felt a bit betrayed, she imagined. He knew, or at least suspected, that the commands Elevera obeyed were not his, and he was right.

  The morning after their last training session together, the sun broke through the clouds in the east. The light across the hills drew Trysten out of bed and to a window where she squinted into the pink and red dawn. Still in her nightshirt, she stepped outside to peer at the mountains. The block of gray that hung over them remained. But the clouds above had definition. She could see edges and contours. For a brief second, she thought she saw a spot of deep blue in a shifting patch.

  “Good morning,” a neighbor cried.

  Trysten glanced back at the older woman who lived in the next cottage. She flashed a quick grin and a return wave.

  The woman turned to the mountains as well. She surveyed the wall of rock and clouds as if waiting for a dispatch, for distant word. She turned back to Trysten, then peered out over the horizon and squinted. “Looks like we’ll have some sun today, doesn’t it?”

  Trysten nodded. A tight band held her lungs and prevented her from responding. She eyed the mountains again, and the band around her chest grew tighter.

  Chapter 18

  Later that day, when Trysten brought in several hares taken from the meadow by the river, she found her mother once again at work over a large meal. She turned to Trysten, and when she didn’t comment on the number of hares, Trysten knew something was wrong.

  “Aeronwind has taken fever again.”

  Trysten drew in a sharp breath. Though it seemed impossible that Aeronwind would recover from her injuries, she had hoped that they would at least level out, allow Paege and Elevera—mostly Paeg
e—to develop a bond. A second fever suggested that Aeronwind didn’t have long.

  The hares, strung together on a cord, fell to the floor. “Does Galelin know?”

  Caron nodded. “He’s at the weyr, with your father, I suppose.”

  She turned to the piles of vegetables and roots before her. “I was preparing a dinner for the hordesmen.”

  Trysten placed her mother’s bow and quiver above the mantel. She then moved to hang the hares from a peg on the wall above the table.

  “What are you doing?” her mother asked.

  Trysten paused, her hand outstretched, her knuckles blanched where the weight of the cord pressed against her fingers. “I was going to hang these up here.”

  “And then what?”

  Trysten’s shoulder slumped a bit. “I want to see Aeronwind.”

  “Clean those first. When you’re done, I’ll have something for you to take to your father. No one will enforce your banishment if you’re bringing your father something to eat and drink on his vigil.”

  A grin crossed Trysten’s face as she lowered the string. “Thank you,” she said to her mother.

  Caron returned her attention to the carrot before her. After a few slices, she stopped and looked back at her daughter. “Your father is trying everything he can to protect the weyr. You understand that, right?”

  The grin disappeared from Trysten’s face. “If that was true, he would let me be the Dragoneer. I can bond with Elevera.”

  Caron set her knife aside. “What makes you so sure of that? That you can bond with her?”

  “I know.” Trysten’s back straightened. “I know.”

  “Yes, but how do you know?”

  Trysten looked away, to the cooking utensils hanging from a row of pegs in the wall.

  “It takes more than confidence to be the Dragoneer,” Caron said. “If confidence was all there was to it, then you would certainly have the position.”

  “I can learn everything I need to learn. And Elevera already knows—”

  “Elevera doesn’t have to convince anyone of her ability, or her value.”

  Trysten’s head shifted back a tiny bit on her neck. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Only what I said. What Elevera knows or thinks or feels is not at issue here. This is about her rider.”

  “I don’t understand, then. What are you getting at?”

  “There are other qualities to a dragoneer. We talk about bravery and skill. We celebrate it in those who ride the dragons into battle, but there are other qualities necessary.”

  “Such as?”

  “What do dragons think of honesty?”

  “Honesty?” It had never occurred to Trysten. After her mother mentioned it, she thought back and couldn’t remember a single time that a dragon had felt like someone was lying.

  “I don’t know,” Trysten said, then clamped her jaw shut before adding, I’ve never asked them.

  “I’ll ask you again,” Caron said. “How do you know that you could be a dragoneer?”

  Trysten took in a slow, deep breath as her mind raced. Not saying something that no one would believe anyway was not a lie by omission. It wasn’t a lie at all. She wasn’t saying anything that was untrue, and she wasn’t withholding anything that would be recognized as truth.

  “I just know.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Mother…”

  Caron returned her attention to the work before her. “Paege may have difficulty with the dragons, with earning their faith, but he is always truthful.”

  “Always?” Trysten lifted an eyebrow.

  Caron gave a brief nod as she picked up a turnip and began slicing it into thick chunks.

  Trysten went to cross her arms over her chest, then recalled the line of hares hanging from her hand. She settled for cocking a hand upon her left hip. “Does father know then that Paege doesn’t want to be Dragoneer?”

  Caron looked up at Trysten. She regarded her daughter a second. “Yes,” she said, “he does. And your father also knows that Paege is willing to do it anyway because it is what is best for the weyr.”

  A scowl darkened Trysten’s face. “Well say it, then. What is wrong with me? Why won’t he let me be the Dragoneer?”

  “Have you asked him?”

  Trysten gave a short, sharp nod.

  “Then you have your answer. Your father is a dragoneer. He is honest in all things.”

  A sharp bushel of words bubbled up in Trysten’s throat, scratched at her chest to be let out, to fly from her mouth like a dozen arrows shot at once from her bow. Instead, she slung the hares over her shoulder, took the skinning knife from its place in the block, and stormed outside.

  When Trysten returned with the skinned hares, her mother presented her with a tray that held a bowl of stew, a hunk of bread with a bit of goat cheese, and a large mug of tea. She took the offering down to the weyr where several of the weyrmen regarded her, but after a glance at the tray, let her go as she made her way back to Aeronwind’s stall.

  There, her father once again sat on the floor with his back against the great dragon, who breathed fast and shallow. The air above Aeronwind’s nostrils shimmered as if exceptionally warm.

  “I brought you some lunch,” Trysten said. She held up the platter.

  Her father opened his eyes and peered back at her. His eyes were red, rimmed with sleeplessness. When he moved, a grimace passed over his face and his right hand clutched his right knee.

  The look nearly brought Trysten to her knees with helplessness. She glanced up at Elevera, who regarded the scene from above, from the end of her long, graceful neck of gold. Her face creased in concern. Where was Paege, if Elevera was in her stall? Ought he not be out practicing with her, pretending to bond with the dragon who would not have him?

  “Thank you,” Mardoc said, his voice rough and sandy. He cleared his throat, then motioned at the wooden chest by his feet.

  “How is Aeronwind?” Trysten asked as she entered the stall.

  Mardoc gave a slight nod, and said nothing.

  Trysten placed the platter where indicated, then looked back up at Elevera. “Where’s Paege?”

  “Out with Galelin,” her father said. He extended a hand to her, and she gripped him about the wrist and pulled him to his feet. “I wanted Galelin to spend some time with him, teach him a bit about dragons and dragon lore.

  Elevera swung her head out toward the aisle. She let out a huff, a bit of a rumble, then shuffled her feet in the straw. Her wings flicked up and then back. An answering disturbance came from several of the other dragons, and the noise shuffled down the aisle of the weyr. Trysten’s skin crawled. The hairs on her arms stood on end.

  Mardoc grabbed the edge of the stall with one hand, then raised the other above his head as he stretched.

  There were so many things Trysten wanted to say to her father. She wished to unpack them from herself and swing them like sacks of grain into her father’s stomach. She demanded answers, or would, but ended up saying nothing at all because she couldn’t say it all at once.

  “What food has your mother made this time?” Mardoc asked.

  “Is it because I’m a girl?” Trysten said, then straightened her back. “A woman?”

  Her father raised an eyebrow. A bit of straw stuck out from the bottom of his beard, and she pictured him curled up on his side, sleeping beside his dying dragon. She wanted to reach out and pluck the bit of straw away and then hated herself for wanting to do it. None of the other men in the weyr would do it. But then again, should she aspire to such attitudes? Shouldn’t they aspire to hers?

  “I beg your pardon?” Mardoc asked.

  “If I were your son, would I be the Dragoneer?”

  Her father’s shoulders slumped. He looked down to the plate of the food. Longing filled his face. His jaw flexed and his eyes appeared to grow heavier, as if they were becoming too much of a burden, too much of a bother to do anything with.

  “If you were my son,” Mar
doc said as he studied Trysten, “then I would be the worse off for not having such a daughter.”

  Trysten’s brow furrowed. “What does that even mean? That’s not an answer.”

  Mardoc shook his head a bit. “I suppose not. I’m afraid I don’t have an answer. If you were my son, would you behave the way you did the other day, taking Ulbeg out into battle practice without my permission and against Bolsar’s orders?”

  “Would I have to? If I was your son, that is?”

  “Who has that answer? Where would you find it?”

  Trysten glanced up at Elevera, who looked away as soon as Trysten made eye contact. Again, she shuffled her feet. Her tail swished and landed with a soft thud against the side of the stall. Something was in the air in the weyr.

  “We’re going to lose the horde,” Trysten said. “Paege can’t do this. He can’t open himself up to Elevera like he has to, like I have. When…” Trysten gestured at Aeronwind. “When it’s time, we’ll lose it all. We’ll lose everything.”

  It was Mardoc’s turn to straighten his back. “No such thing will happen here. This is my horde, and I will pass it on as I see fit. Aeronwind has chosen me, and it is my duty to see that her horde has succession.”

  Trysten took a deep breath. “Elevera has chosen me. Can’t you see that? She wants me to be the Dragoneer. Not Paege. If you know these dragons like you say you do, like the Dragoneer is supposed to, then surely you can see that. So why won’t you pass the title on to me? Is it because I’m your daughter?”

  Redness flashed across her father’s face. He let go of the stable wall and stood upright and tall, as if his twisted leg had found itself braced and rigid with a sudden flush of anger. “What I can see is that my child, regardless of gender, is too envious, too jealous to take on the role of a dragoneer. Trysten, you are too rash. You don’t think. You don’t stop and consider the consequences of your actions. You act without considering others. I have forbidden you to enter the weyr, to mingle with the dragons, and I have asked you to give Elevera and Paege space in order to bond.”