Leaf thought it was amazing. He wished he were as brave as Wren was — or rather, he wished he could even think of the disobedient things that seemed to come very naturally to her.
His other four sisters, all of them older, had no trouble following the rules and staying out of the dragonmancers’ way. It was only the little one who gave his father heartburn and made his mother so furious.
“I’m not sure what’s worse, the dragons or the dragonmancers,” Wren would say. “At least the dragons aren’t bossing us around EVERY SINGLE MINUTE OF EVERY SINGLE DAY.”
But the summer Leaf turned eight, he discovered the answer. The dragons were worse. The dragons were the very worst creatures in the entire world.
His uncle had taken Leaf hunting, which was a rare treat, even if they had to hide under bushes every few steps because everything sounded like approaching wingbeats. He returned late that night, tired and itching from the grass and wood bits all over his skin, and his parents informed him that his little sister was gone.
“Gone?” Leaf echoed, puzzled. “She ran away again?” Once she’d disappeared for an entire day, then reappeared the next morning with a grin on her face and twigs in her hair. Saying she just wanted to see what it would be like to live on her own in the forest with no rules. She’d lost all three of her toys for a month because of that, and Leaf had secretly carved her a little wooden snail to replace them.
“No, dear,” his mother said, looking more tense than he’d ever seen her, which was saying something. “She wandered off and got eaten by dragons.”
Leaf felt like he was in a story, but the wrong story, one he’d stumbled into by accident, where very dramatic sad things were happening to someone, but of course that couldn’t be him.
“She wouldn’t,” he said. “You’re wrong. Dragons wouldn’t dare eat Wren.”
His father let out a shaky laugh. “That is what she would say,” he said. “But as I’m always telling you, death could swoop down at any moment. We should all be more scared. She should have been more scared,” he finished mournfully.
“It was really her own fault,” Leaf’s mother pointed out. “You know how disobedient she was. She brought this on herself.” She had her hands wrapped tightly together, as if she was pressing her feelings flat and thin between them.
“But you won’t get in that kind of trouble,” Leaf’s father said, patting Leaf’s shoulder anxiously. “You’ll keep being a good boy and following the rules, and you’ll be quite safe, won’t you? You won’t end up like her. You understand why we need to be terrified all the time.”
Leaf looked around the room, blinking. Wren’s toy snail was still perched on the windowsill. (“Keeping watch for dragons?” he’d asked. “No, planning his amazing escape!” she’d answered.) But her favorite doll was now in a basket with Camellia’s other toys. That was the thing that made it real. Wren would NEVER stand for that if she were here.
What was he feeling? Was he terrified, as his father said he should be?
“I’m not,” Leaf said, shoving his father’s hand away. “I’m not scared, I’m … I think I’m mad. Why aren’t you mad?”
“At your sister?” his father said. “Well, I suppose I’m a little —”
“No!” Leaf shouted. “At the DRAGONS WHO ATE HER!”
“Voices down,” his mother said sternly. “No yelling, not ever. You know it’s forbidden.”
“Do you want dragons to find us and eat us, too?” his father demanded.
“Maybe I want them to try!” Leaf said. “So I can punch them in the face!”
“It doesn’t do any good to be mad at the dragons,” his mother said in her “only grown-ups know anything” voice. “They’re just wild animals, catching prey like any other creature. We don’t get mad at bears or sharks or raccoons, after all.”
“Because raccoons don’t swoop out of the sky and burn up entire villages!” Leaf cried. “If sharks could fly and breathe fire, I think we could get mad at them sometimes, too! Plus also, we don’t have bearmancers and sharkmancers and raccoonmancers; we only have dragonmancers, and isn’t that because dragons are supposed to be all smart and mystical and magic? I mean, what are the dragonmancers even FOR if they can’t keep our village safe?”
His parents exchanged a weird look.
“Maybe if your sister had listened to the dragonmancers instead of annoying them all the time —” his mother started, then stopped herself with visible effort.
“They do keep us safe,” his dad said hurriedly. “That’s how any of us have survived this long. Most of us are still here, aren’t we? That’s thanks to our three dragonmancers.”
“We should be grateful,” his mother added. “And obedient. And respectful. Very respectful. Don’t disrespect them, Leaf. They do such important work.”
“But they failed!” Leaf cried. “They were supposed to protect us and they didn’t! They’re stupid liars!” He was crying now, and he didn’t care how loud he was or whether the entire village and all the dragons on the mountain could hear him.
“Stop that!” His mother grabbed his arm and crouched beside him, glancing into the corners of their hut as though the dragonmancers might have buried little ears in the walls. “Never never speak that way of the dragonmancers.”
“If you study hard and listen to your elders, maybe you’ll be a dragonmancer one day,” his father said. “Then you’ll know even more about how to stay safe.”
“I don’t want to study dragons,” Leaf protested. “I want to stab them with swords and shoot them with arrows and kill as many of them as I can.”
His parents both winced. “That’s ridiculous,” said his mother. “And unnecessarily violent.”
“And will absolutely get you eaten,” said his father, running his hands through his thin hair so it stuck up like it couldn’t believe what Leaf was saying either.
“No human has ever killed a dragon,” his mother pointed out. “It’s not possible. You might as well walk into their cave and offer to be their lunch.”
“It is too possible,” Leaf’s oldest sister suddenly offered from her hammock in the loft overhead. Leaf hadn’t even realized she was up there, listening to them.
“Stay out of this, Rowan,” their mother warned. “You’ve had a long day and you’re only barely in our good graces right now.”
Rowan rolled out of the hammock and crouched to gaze down at them. Her voice was innocent but defiant at the same time. “I think Leaf should know about the Dragonslayer, that’s all.”
Leaf’s skin tingled all over just hearing the word. Dragonslayer. A slayer of dragons. That was the exact thing he wanted to be. Someone who protected good people from terrible monsters, not by chanting mumbo-jumbo and talking about visions, but by doing something.
“The Dragonslayer is just a myth,” their father said. “Rowan, please, don’t cause any more trouble.”
“He’s not a myth. My friend Grove says it’s all true,” Rowan insisted. “Grove’s family used to live in the Indestructible City and they had wandering travelers come through all the time and some of them had even met the Dragonslayer.”
“A real dragonslayer? Someone who’s still alive? Who is it?” Leaf asked.
“Rowan, do not put ideas in your brother’s head,” their mother warned.
“It’s not an idea, it’s a fact,” Rowan said. She sat down and swung her legs over the edge of the loft. Her hair was partly squashed from lying in the hammock, but her dark brown eyes were intense and hypnotic. Leaf would always remember this moment and the look on his sister’s face as he heard about the Dragonslayer for the first time.
“The Dragonslayer was only a young man, but he was determined to fight to free his people, and so he rode far out into the desert one night,” she said in a low storyteller voice. “He crept right inside the lair of the sand dragon queen, and he fought a great battle with her, and the blood sprayed and the scales flew, until finally he cut off her head and stole all her treasure and rode
back home, triumphant.”
“Really?” Leaf breathed.
“No, not really,” his mother snapped. “Utter nonsense, like we said.”
“He brought the venomous tail of the dragon queen back with him as proof,” Rowan said, still using her eerie voice. “The treasure made him the wealthiest man in the entire world. Rich, powerful, dangerous: the slayer of dragons, the hero of men!”
“Yes!” Leaf cried, caught up in the story. “And he saved everybody!”
“Stop mesmerizing your brother!” their mother yelled. She threw a dish towel at Rowan, breaking the spell. “If the Dragonslayer were real, the dragons would have caught him and eaten him by now to get their treasure back.”
“And you’re leaving out the part about the partner he left behind,” Father added. “Doesn’t sound so heroic when you think about that, does it?”
“AHA!” Leaf shouted. “So you know this story! It IS true!”
Mother gave Father an exasperated look. “No,” she said. “That’s in the myth. It’s a fairy tale that only brainless families tell their children.”
“I’m going to be a dragonslayer, too,” Leaf said stoutly. “I’m going to be a hero of men and kill dragons to save people just like him.” He seized a stick of firewood and brandished it around the house, jabbing at the furniture.
“No!” his mother said firmly. “Slaying dragons is absolutely against the rules! The dragonmancers forbid it and I forbid it, too!”
“Rowan, what have you done?” Leaf’s father said piteously.
“Serves you right and you know why!” Rowan called as she climbed back into her hammock.
“Don’t you want to be a dragonmancer?” Father pleaded, intercepting Leaf and trying to take the stick away. Leaf ducked under his arm and darted across the room. “Wise and respected and extremely knowledgeable about dragons … from a distance?”
“There’s no need to fight dragons,” Mother agreed. “We can appease them and keep them away from us if we just follow the dragonmancers’ rules.”
“No! Their horrible rules didn’t save Wren!” Leaf declared. “It’s not fair that dragons get to eat people we love and we can’t do anything about it!”
He clambered to the top of the tallest stool and stabbed his pretend sword toward the ceiling. “I won’t be scared of them! I swear on this sword, one day every little sister in the world will be safe. Because I shall be the next and greatest dragonslayer of them all!”
“Mommy? Is Daddy famous? All the people at the party tonight were acting like he’s maybe famous.”
“Yes, he’s very famous, dear. Probably the most famous person in the world.”
“Because he’s the boss of everyone? Or because he did a Dragonstare a long long long time ago?”
“Dragonslayer, Ivy. Yes. Well, partly because he’s the lord of the town, but mostly because he’s the only dragonslayer alive today. And it wasn’t that long ago.”
“I thought Uncle Stone dragonstared, too.”
“Slayer, Ivy. No, Uncle Stone didn’t slay the dragon. He was just there when it happened.”
“What does slay mean?”
“… It means Daddy poked the dragon very hard until it fell over and didn’t get up again.”
“Mommy. I know about hunting. You mean like the way you poke squirrels and rabbits with arrows to get us dinner.”
“Ye-es, sort of. But he didn’t eat the dragon afterward.”
“Why not?”
“Humans don’t eat dragons, silly bean. Also, he kind of had to run away in a hurry from the other dragons.”
“Other dragons! Why didn’t Daddy slayer them, too?”
“There were quite a lot of them, Ivy. And dragons are very big.”
“I want to see a dragon.”
“No, you don’t. We’re safe down here, far away from all the dragons. Your father keeps us all safe.”
“Why was Uncle Stone yelling at Daddy about running away from the dragons? Did he want Daddy to slayer all of them?”
“… No, your uncle just … gets sad sometimes, and then he thinks about that night and gets upset.”
“Why upset?”
“I’ll tell you when you’re older, Ivy.”
“… Mommy?”
“Ivy, go to sleep.”
“Were the other dragons mad at Daddy? I think maybe slayering a dragon is not very nice. I bet that dragon did not like getting poked until it fell over and couldn’t get up again.”
“It’s an animal, Ivy. It doesn’t have feelings. And your father is a hero. Now shhhh.”
“Mommy. Mommy. Mommy, you know how Daffodil has a pet rabbit? Do you think I could have a pet dragon?”
“NO, Ivy.”
* * *
Ivy was born in the hidden city of Valor, years after the dragons burned their village to cinders and tried to hunt them all into extinction. She spent her childhood in the cramped tunnels that the survivors and Dragonslayer followers had hollowed out of the earth — the only place where the dragons couldn’t find them.
Of course, in her dad’s version of the epic tale, the decimated village and vengeful dragons rarely came up. Instead he talked about the obsidian-tipped sword he’d found and how he drove it into the dragon’s eye. He described the yellow dragon’s fierce roar and the fire that scorched the sand around them as they fought, and he rolled up one sleeve to show the burn scars that covered half his body. Sometimes, if the Dragonslayer’s fans gave him enough to drink, he’d talk about the treasure — the gold, the glittering gems, the weight of the lazulite dragon in his hands. His eyes would blur as he described the treasure, the one thing in his life he’d ever truly loved.
But his favorite part of the story, the part he never skipped, was boasting about cutting off the poisonous tip of the dragon’s tail. He’d bring people over to see it day or night, even long after bedtime, even people who’d already seen it a thousand times. It sat preserved in a glass box in the family’s living room and gave Ivy nightmares.
The other girls in Ivy’s class refused to sleep over at Ivy’s after Violet said, “What if one day it comes to life?” and then Daffodil said, “Or a WHOLE OTHER DRAGON grows out of it? Like how lizards can grow back from their tails!” and Violet said, “Or WHAT IF one of us accidentally sleepwalks into it and gets all POISONED?” and all the other girls went, “OOOOOO.”
Ivy thought these were quite reasonable fears. It really was the creepiest room decoration ever. It had a dark crust of blood along one edge and a barb gleaming with venom that curled like a scorpion’s stinger. She didn’t understand why anyone would want to look at it even once, let alone keep it in a fancy box on a tapestry-covered pedestal, where one’s daughter would have to see it every day.
Sleeping over at the other girls’ caves instead was more than all right with her. She was always invited. Everyone wanted to be friends with the Dragonslayer’s daughter. She was practically a princess of the underground city.
But even the lord’s daughter was never allowed outside. She rarely saw the sun, and she had to imagine the wind.
Her bedtime story was the same every night:
“Once upon a time, a mighty hero went forth into the desert and slayed the sand dragon queen.” Ivy’s mother would stare dreamily at the flame of the oil lamp as she spoke, stroking Ivy’s hair. “He battled bravely into the night until she lay dead on the sand, and then he galloped home with the greatest treasure the world has ever seen.”
“Where is the treasure now?” Ivy asked when she was four, and again when she was five, and even more often when she was six. “Can I see it?”
“Shhh,” her mother would whisper. “No one can see it. It’s in a secret place.”
“But he’s my dad,” Ivy pointed out. “Daffodil says it’s weird that he has a big shiny treasure but I never get to see it. Daffodil says maybe it doesn’t exist at all or maybe he lost it or something. Daffodil says I should hold my breath until you let me see it, but I practiced and it gave me
a super big headache so I’mma not do that.”
“Daffodil has so many helpful thoughts,” her mother observed.
“Have you seen the treasure, Mommy?”
“Of course I have,” she’d say, but there was a flicker in her placid expression that made Ivy wonder.
Mother always saw Father as a hero, even when he was snoring loudly in his hammock or complaining about the smell in their cave mansion, which turned out to be coming from a pair of his wool socks that he’d stuffed under the rug and forgotten about. Mother repeated everything he said to anyone who would listen, even when she had to know some of it wasn’t true.
At around the age of six, Ivy started noticing all the things that weren’t true. That was confusing enough, but what was even stranger was how nobody else seemed to notice or care.
Like when her father told the citizens of Valor that he was going to expand the cave tunnels so there would be many safe and well-built ways to get to the underground lake. And then a year later, he pointed to the one tunnel that had always been there — the one Mother and a team of other moms had dug out on their own years ago — and told everyone he had shored it up and made it safer and bigger and better, and everyone said that was amazing and he was amazing and named it Dragonslayer Way, even though it was exactly the same as before.
Didn’t everyone see it was exactly the same as before? Didn’t they remember the women who’d worked so hard on it? Ivy was still only little, but she remembered carrying dirt in baskets when she was four years old, back and forth and back and forth in a line of children. She remembered her mother talking about how much safer it would be for everyone when they could get water without leaving the tunnels. She remembered her father rolling his eyes and scoffing at the silliness of the plan.
But now he said it was his plan, and it was named after him, and everyone nodded and cheered — even Mother?
It made Ivy wonder a little bit whether her brain was working all right. She wanted to ask questions, but questions always made her parents frustrated and grumpy with her, and her teachers only said things like “that’s not in the curriculum, Ivy” or “you’ll understand when you’re older” or “why don’t you sit quietly and do another math work-slate, dear.”
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