“Underground villages!” Stone scoffed. “People living like scared rabbits because it’s not safe outside anymore. The dragons are still angry with us, even twenty years later. They are still destroying any humans they can find to punish us for what Heath did.”
Ivy felt like the room was spinning. Violet put one hand on her shoulder.
“Hey now,” Violet said. “That can’t be all the Dragonslayer’s fault. Dragons have been eating people and burning places forever. That’s literally what a dragon is.”
“No, not like this,” Stone said. “I remember how it was, and when I start to forget, I read the old stories, the ones they won’t give you in school anymore. People used to live aboveground, in ordinary towns, all over this continent. Occasionally someone would get eaten, but the dragons rarely burned whole villages. Not until we stole their treasure, killed their queen, and gave them something to be really vengeful about.”
“But … everyone thinks the Dragonslayer is a hero,” Daffodil said.
“Everyone here, sure,” Stone said. “You can’t live in Valor unless you do.”
That’s true. In Valor, home of the mighty Dragonslayer, any criticism of Dad — any questioning of the heroic story — will get you banished. Sent away from all safety, tossed out into the world.
Ivy thought of all the banishments she’d seen over the years, the odd lies and flimsy reasons she’d noticed for why those people had been kicked out. Was it really because they’d questioned the story? Was it because they mentioned Rose, or talked about a time before humans lived underground?
Were they sent away to be eaten because her father needed to protect his image?
She leaned forward, wrapping her arms around her stomach. Daffodil came over to sit next to her, and she felt both her friends put their arms over her back, like an invisible shield around her.
“My dad’s a liar,” she said quietly to them. “He let his sister die. And all the people he’s banished, and who knows how many hundreds of people in all those villages the dragons destroyed. That’s all because of him.”
“But not because of you,” Violet said, shaking her a little. “You’re still our wonderful Ivy. Don’t blame yourself for what he did.”
“Yeah, we love you anyway,” Daffodil said. “So what if your dad is the worst? My sister is totally evil, and I’m still awesome.”
Ivy let out a half laugh, half sob at the idea that harmless Daisy could be compared to Heath on any sort of evil scale.
“Plus, remember he didn’t do it on purpose,” Violet said. “He didn’t even mean to kill a dragon. Right?” She looked at Stone for confirmation and he nodded. “They just went to steal treasure, like people have been trying to do for centuries. It’s a basic fact of human-dragon existence — they have treasure, idiots try to steal it. It was a weird fluke that this one time this one idiot managed to kill a dragon who happened to be important. Right?” She looked toward Stone again, but he had accidentally flipped the chain around his wrists and disappeared. He appeared again a moment later, gazing at the wall.
But then that idiot went on to rule a whole town, Ivy thought, and he did it with lies and punishments that were probably as bad as executions. Even if killing the dragon was an accident, you can’t say that about anything he’s done since.
“We can deal with this, Ivy,” Violet said. “Together. We’re here for you.”
“Maybe we can fix it!” Daffodil said suddenly.
Ivy could feel the daggers Violet was shooting from her eyes even with her head down. “Fix what?” Violet said.
“The dragons being mad!” Daffodil jumped up and lifted the chain out of Stone’s hands so deftly that his fingers kept moving for a moment, catching up to the fact that the chain was gone. He gave her his most disgruntled look yet.
“How do we fix dragons being mad?” Violet asked, her voice dripping with scorn. “Send them a politely worded apology letter?”
“That would be great if we spoke Dragon,” Daffodil scoffed right back. “But we speak at least one language the same: We all love treasure.” She held the chain over her head with a flourish like a banner.
“Aha,” Violet said. “So we’ll spell out ‘Sorry about killing your queen’ in gold coins?”
“Shut UP and let me finish explaining!” Daffodil cried. “What if we give the dragons back the treasure Heath stole?”
There was an awed silence for a moment.
“Yes,” Ivy said. She stood up and pointed at Daffodil. “Yes. We can do that! It won’t save the people who are gone, but it’ll show the dragons we’re sorry. And then maybe they’ll stop attacking everyone!”
“No,” Violet said. “No, no, no. You’ve both lost your minds. Just think about the logistics for one second! Do we walk up to the sand palace with a sack of coins and wave it at the guards? Here’s some treasure — may or may not look familiar — with three extra-delicious snacks on the side! At what point in this fantastic transaction do we escape with our lives?”
“Doesn’t matter!” said Daffodil.
“Um, matters a little bit!” Violet yelped.
“We’ll figure that out,” Ivy said. “First we have to get the treasure.”
“That’s where your plan falls apart,” Stone said gloomily.
“One of many places where your ‘plan’ falls apart,” Violet muttered.
“Heath will never give up his treasure,” Stone said. “Not in a million years, not to save a single soul, or a thousand souls. He loves it more than anything in the world.”
Daffodil and Violet both glanced at Ivy, but she’d always known that, and nothing else could hurt her right now. She was Ivy and she had spent her whole life making peace between angry people. So what if one side of this fight happened to be giant man-eating lizards?
“Then we won’t ask him,” she said. “We’ll find his stolen treasure ourselves and then … we’ll steal it back.”
The inhabitants of the Indestructible City, according to Undauntable, thought they lived in the most superior, most advanced, most impressive location in the entire world.
Wren really wished she could show them this dragon city and see the looks on their faces.
She resettled on her branch and shaded her eyes from the sun. She had been relieved to find at least a few trees here, this close to the river and the coast, although she wished there were more of them. These would do all right for hiding in, but if she and Sky needed to escape in a hurry, there was a whole lot of wide-open desert they’d have to cross in pretty much every direction.
Except west, because directly west of her tree was the gigantic dragon city. Dragons were already bustling through the streets, although the sun was barely up. There were lots of buildings, more than one market square, bridges over the river, dragons washing things in the water, fruit trees in pots in the courtyards. Some of the walls were painted with scale patterns, crimson red and pale butter yellow overlapping. Others bore images of dragons in regal, commanding poses and an interesting variety of colors.
In their travels, Wren and Sky had seen palaces surrounded by dragon communities — the swamp palace, from a distance, and the mountain palace, from an even farther distance. They’d seen clusters of oddly shaped mud structures that they thought were swamp dragon villages, too. But they’d never seen anything quite the size of this place.
The strangest part was that the inhabitants were not all sand dragons, as Wren had expected. She had sort of been counting on using that an excuse — “Oh, sorry, Sky dear; only sand dragons can safely go in there.” But red and orange scales clearly flashed between the pale yellow ones, and there was a fair number of brown dragons as well. Whatever had brought the three types of dragons together in one city, they seemed to be coexisting peacefully.
That still doesn’t mean it’s safe for Sky, though. Something about this place reminded Wren very much of the Indestructible City, and that made her nervous.
“What do you think?” Sky called from the ground. She shushe
d him and clambered down. He was sitting among the roots, beaming at a snail who was noodling peacefully along his tail.
“It’s … very busy,” Wren said. How could her sweet, easily distracted dragon not get trampled in a fast-paced place like that?
“Isn’t it exciting?” he said, his eyes shining. “Maybe they have dragon books! I don’t know how to read Dragon. But maybe we could figure it out together!”
See, here was someone who really did know her. That idea was the first suggestion that actually made Wren curious about the dragon city.
“I’m just worried, Sky,” Wren said, resting her hands on his talons. “We don’t know what those dragons are like. You’re a mountain dragon, but you still look really different from all of them.” His beautiful, perfect pale orange scales were unlike any other dragon’s in the world, as far as she knew. “And you don’t have fire to protect yourself.” You don’t have anything to protect yourself, she thought. Except me, and I can’t go with you.
“Aren’t you different from all the other humans?” Sky asked.
“Yes,” Wren said, “maybe not so obviously — but that’s why I don’t go all the way into the Indestructible City. I don’t trust them. I’m really, really careful.”
“I can be really, really careful!” Sky said brightly. “I promise!”
“You won’t forget and speak Human?” Wren said. “Promise you’ll fly out of there right away if anyone looks at you weird?”
He touched his snout to her forehead gently. “I’ll just walk around and look at things,” he said. “I won’t talk to anybody. Maybe they have wonderful desert animals for sale!”
Wren laughed. “Please don’t come back with a pet camel,” she said. “And don’t make friends with any scorpions! Also snakes; snakes are bad, try to remember that.”
“Camels bad, Wren wants a pet cobra,” Sky recited, then jumped back with a laugh as she swatted him.
“Don’t talk to anyone if you don’t have to,” she said. “But if they talk to you, act normal. I don’t know what that means for a dragon, but probably avoid the topic of snails. Definitely don’t let anyone know you don’t eat meat. I’m pretty sure that’s weird.”
“Really?” Sky said. “But hasn’t everyone SEEN bunnies?”
“Exactly, don’t say things like that,” Wren suggested. “Don’t volunteer any information, but if they ask, you can say you come from that mountain dragon outpost we saw way up north. Maybe your mom is a soldier there or something. Don’t say you’re from the mountain palace, in case they’re from there, too, or they might ask too many questions.”
“Wren, I’m sure no one will even talk to me,” Sky said. He squared his shoulders and made a fierce expression. “Because my face strikes terror in the hearts of dragons everywhere!”
Wren giggled. “Not exactly,” she said. “You have the most lovely face.”
“No, you have the most lovely face,” he said. “You’re the cutest, best pet any dragon could ever have.”
“QUIT THAT,” Wren said, whacking him again. This was a recent recurring joke that Sky found completely hilarious. “You know perfectly well you’re my pet.”
He lowered one of his front feet gently to touch her head. “Hmmm,” he said. “Not by the power of cuteness. You’re the cutest one here, ergo, you are my pet.”
“Well, then I will probably run off and leave you for another owner if you’re not back by midday,” Wren said. “So keep that in mind.”
“I will!” he said, nudging her head with his snout again. He gently slid one claw under the snail and moved it to the safety of a nearby bush. “Thank you! Be good, Wren! Hide well! I’ll be back soon!”
Wren’s heart pounded as he skipped away down the hill toward the city. Did other dragons skip, or was Sky the only one? What if he had all sorts of other obviously human habits that would make the normal dragons suspicious of him?
She scrambled back up the tree and found the highest spot with a view of the city. From there, she could see Sky sauntering happily past a dragon farmstead — was that tangerine dragon glaring at him over a field of vegetables? — and then over the river to one of the smaller market squares.
Sky wandered along between the stalls, gazing at the piles of carpets, the pottery, the different weirdly shaped cactus plants. She should have warned him to act less impressed. He must be staring at everything with his wide-eyed “who knew something like this could exist!” face. He looked very small next to all the full-grown dragons around him.
Wren watched him until he turned a corner and disappeared from view, and then she stared at the spot where he’d been until the sun was well over the mountains.
He’ll be fine.
He’s a dragon in a dragon city.
It’s not like anyone’s going to eat him.
He’s probably having a lovely time.
She wondered whether Sky felt this way each time she went to the Indestructible City. She hoped not; this was terrible.
She made herself climb down to eat something, but before long she was back in her perch. If only she had a new book to read, at least. Stupid Undauntable, ruining everything. This absolutely horrible panicked feeling she was having, like spiders running under her skin; this was his fault. If she only had a book she’d be perfectly relaxed right now.
It made her feel a little better to have someone to blame.
Sky will be back soon, and he’ll tell me all his adventures, and then I’ll feel silly.
The sun rose higher and higher. And then it began to slide quietly away to the west.
Midday had come and gone. Sky wasn’t back.
He got distracted by something. Some amazing animal or cool dragon invention we’ve never seen before.
Or he forgot to look at the sun. He’ll come running out soon and apologize for worrying me.
The sun slipped farther and farther away. The sky turned orange and pink and gold, then slowly purple, and then the sun was gone. In the city, dragons lit torches and went on their merry way, packing up their wares or chatting on balconies, strolling along the river or getting their little dragons off to bed. An ordinary dragon day, coming to an end.
It was dark now. Sky could be fluffy-headed, but he would notice the difference between midday and full night.
He would be back by now, unless he couldn’t be.
Something has happened to him.
Wren wiped the tears from her eyes and rubbed her face as hard as she could.
He doesn’t have fire. He only has me.
All right, fine, dragon city. I’m coming for my friend.
Leaf woke up because something was licking his neck.
It was not big enough to be a dragon tongue (he thought, he hoped, he desperately prayed), but it wasn’t a small adorable kitten tongue either. And it had the breath of something that had eaten all the garbage in the world.
He pulled away and opened his eyes, and the goat standing over him gave him a calculating stare. It looked pretty sure that it could pin him down and eat his hair if it wanted to.
“Ha, look at that! All four of you alive!” said a voice nearby. “Wow, you’ve showed up at the right time. She must be planning a feast if she’s saving all of us for later.”
Leaf blinked, looking around wildly. He was in a room with no windows or doors; the only exit was a giant trapdoor in the grated ceiling. It felt more like a pit or a box than a room, really, but gigantic — a box for dragons to keep things in. Snacks, to be specific. A snack box for dragons, full of live prey for later munching. The air was hot and smoky and smelled awful, like a neglected farm, which made sense given the number of animals milling around.
Not just animals — people, too.
We’re not the only people trapped in here, Leaf noted as Rowan crouched beside him. There was a big bearded man leaning against the wall, watching him, and another figure lying on the floor with his arms over his head, whimpering. A third guy had draped himself over one of the cows and was asleep — or m
aybe unconscious — as the cow wandered slowly from side to side and sniffed the stone floor disapprovingly. Perhaps it was safer to sleep like that instead of on the floor where the cow could walk right over you.
Cows. Goats. Very large chickens. Two foxes, a beaver, several miserable squirrels. Also an alarmed deer and an actual bobcat, who was crouched in the corner snarling. Leaf wondered if it was feeling outnumbered by all the prey, or if it had any idea it was now in the category of prey itself.
As are you, imaginary Wren reminded him.
“Glad you’re OK, little brother,” Rowan said to him gruffly. She shoved his shoulder. “I know your plan is to kill dragons, but I didn’t think I’d trained you to run straight at any dragon you see, you big dope.”
“Did you see what happened?” Leaf demanded.
“The part where we got caught by dragons who are going to eat us soon?” Rowan asked. “Yeah, I did notice that.”
“No, with my sword!” Leaf said. “I stabbed that dragon twice and my sword bounced right off! It doesn’t penetrate their scales!”
Rowan frowned. “Well, that’s … terrible.”
“So what did the Dragonslayer do differently?” Leaf asked. “How did he manage to kill one? You never said swords wouldn’t work on them! That wasn’t in the story!”
“He did use a sword,” Rowan said. “I’m, like, eighty-five percent sure that’s what I heard anyway. I don’t know what he did to make it work, though.”
“Magic sword?” Cranberry guessed from over by the wall. She was sitting next to Thyme, who had his arms wrapped around his legs and was staring vacantly at the bobcat. “Or maybe it was dragon-made, and their own swords are strong enough to stab each other?”
“Arrrrgh,” Leaf groaned, dropping his head into his hands. All that training, and he still knew nothing? He was finally inside the dragons’ lair, and yet he was further away from protecting his village than he’d ever been.
“Doesn’t matter anyway,” said the bearded man, and Leaf realized that was the voice he’d heard before. “They took your swords. You might get one back if you’re chosen for the arena, but you still don’t stand a chance.”
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