Dragons can’t be kind.
They can’t be sympathetic, or helpful, and they can’t possibly see us as anything but prey.
Right?
Wren?
She was uncharacteristically silent, as though even the imaginary voice in his head was confused by the situation.
Maybe the brown dragons were different from the others? Maybe they were vegetarians or only ate crocodiles or something.
“I’ll ask Rowan,” he whispered to Wren. “That’s a good idea, right?” That was a decision that would stop him from thinking in circles anymore, and one that would make him get up and go find his big sister.
He was worried that his shoulders couldn’t take any more climbing, but it turned out to be a lot easier to climb down into the palace than to climb out. There were columns along the top balcony that rose up to the roof, so once he shimmied onto one of those, he could slide down to the floor of the balcony fairly smoothly.
The top level seemed to be deserted. He could hear dragons roaring in the distance and muttering from the levels below, but up here each room was empty, looking as though the inhabitants had left in a hurry.
It was very unsettling to stand on a balcony with no railing, looking out over a long drop to the distant ground. Leaf glanced over the edge and thought he saw a dead dragon lying at the bottom, but there were other dragons milling around down there, so he wasn’t sure.
He began the long walk through the tunnels, spiraling down and down through the palace.
“This is weird, Wren,” he whispered. “I drew these hallways so many times! I remember marking this throne room up here.”
He hesitated a few steps from the doorway. Something was in there, stumbling around, knocking into things. It was kind of growl-groaning, a noise of pain and rage combined.
Leaf crept forward until he was close enough to peek inside.
The dragon queen was in there alone, leaning over her throne, breathing heavily. Something was wrong with her face, from what he could see of it. Even in silhouette, it wasn’t quite the right shape anymore.
The blueprint hadn’t noted how much gold there was in the throne room. It was all over the walls and floor and throne like someone had painted it on in thick wild strokes. Leaf thought it looked terrible, but he knew Rowan and Grove and Thyme would have loved it.
The queen groaned again and collapsed in a heap on the floor before her throne.
Someone attacked her, he guessed. Well. That’s good. With what, I wonder?
He could probably manage to stab her now, while she was unconscious and injured.
Yes! Stab her in the face! Wren suggested with gruesome enthusiasm.
Oh, now you have something to say? Well, I don’t have a sword, he reminded her. And I think it would be pretty dishonorable to kill an unconscious dragon.
The Wren in his head rolled her eyes. Dragons don’t care about honor. You are such a moosebreath.
Some dragons might care about honor, he thought, remembering the brown dragon. Shush. I’m trying to be stealthy here.
Leaf was about to race across the open space of the doorway when something moved in the sky outside. He crouched and froze as five sand dragons soared into the throne room, including the massively gigantic one who’d been with the queen the night before.
That one pointed at the unconscious queen and growled an order. The other four went to pick her up, their wings and tails tangling as they figured out how to share her weight. And then the five sand dragons flew out again, carrying the queen of the mountain dragons with them.
I was right, Leaf thought. The sand dragons must have attacked the mountain dragons.
Well, at least someone is probably going to stab her in the face, then, Wren said cheerfully. This might be a good time for a daring rescue, while everyone is going, “Ack! Betrayal! Where is our queen?!”
Yes, yes. Leaf darted across, ran down another curve of the balcony, and turned into a tunnel that, if he remembered right, led to the kitchens.
He did remember right. The kitchens, unfortunately, were not deserted, but all the hustle and bustle of the previous night had been swallowed by a weird aura of disaster. Half-prepared food was scattered across the tables and countertops. A pig was burning on a spit over a fire, charred almost entirely black on one side. Dragons stood in small clusters around the huge room, talking to one another in hushed growls.
Leaf edged along the wall, behind barrels and piles of animal skins. At one point he nearly ran into a mouse as tall as his knee; it looked up at him, squeaked something indignant (“This is MY thieving ground, you scoundrel!” the Wren voice suggested), and stalked away with a cross expression.
Soon he found the pit, which appeared to be unguarded. He couldn’t see any rope nearby, but there was a nearly empty sack of potatoes half his size. If he pulled on one of the loose threads … Yes, it spooled out into a long winding puddle, nearly as thick as a regular human rope. He dragged it over to the grate, tied one end to the metal, and dropped the other down into the hole. He couldn’t see the bottom very clearly, and he didn’t dare call out to Rowan in case it caught the attention of the kitchen dragons. He just had to hope they’d see the rope and start climbing it.
But they wouldn’t fit through the holes in the grate, so he’d have to get the trapdoor open — and it was locked with a padlock. He shook it hopelessly for a moment. Was there anything he could use to pick it?
“Grrrble?”
Leaf dropped the padlock and leaped back. A tiny, tiny dark red dragon with a long neck and sparkling eyes was staring at him from under the nearest table. It was the first dragon Leaf had ever seen who was smaller than him.
Maybe I could fight that one, he thought ruefully.
You promised to kill a dragon, Wren scolded him. THAT is barely a gecko.
A gecko with very sharp teeth! Leaf pointed out.
“Blrrrrb!” the dragon chirped. It dropped its front half in an about-to-pounce position, looking like the wild dogs around Talisman as they tried to play with one another.
“Shhh,” Leaf whispered. “Go away.”
“Lorp lorp lorp!” the baby dragon yodeled. It cavorted around the grate, as if it was nervous to step on the holes. “Lorp! Groble frrrrorble blrrb!”
Well, Leaf thought. If one dragon can be helpful, maybe this one could be, too.
Leaf pointed to the padlock. “Key?” he whispered, miming a turning action. “Any idea where it is, if you’re so determined to make friends?”
The little dragon sat down, tilted his head back, and began to sing at the top of his lungs. At least, that was what Leaf guessed he was trying to do; there was a hint of melody in it, but mostly enthusiasm.
Very loud enthusiasm. Leaf sprinted back to the wall and dove behind the potato sack as a new dragon came bustling into the room, clearly harrumphing at the baby.
The baby yelped in protest. The two of them argued for a little while, and then the small dragon came stomping right over to the potato sack.
Oh no, Leaf thought. Baby dragon! Don’t betray me!
The tiny dragon whisked the potato sack away and pointed triumphantly at Leaf.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand now you get eaten, said Wren.
But the bigger dragon did not seize Leaf and bite his head off. It didn’t even throw him back in the pit. It sighed impatiently, just like any parent or teacher in Talisman might do, and reached up to take a key off a hook on the wall.
“Yormorbleflorp!” the baby dragon said with enormous glee. It bounced over, took the key, and bounced back to Leaf — with a little difficulty, as the key was as big as one of its wings.
“Oh,” Leaf said, in shock, as the baby placed the key in his hands. “Th-thank you.”
The older dragon growled something, the little dragon warbled and waved at Leaf, and the two of them went out the way the last one had come in.
What was THAT all about? Wren asked in his head. Did you roll in something awful-smelling? Why doesn’t anyone want
to eat you today?
Do you think that baby dragon actually understood me? Leaf asked her. It must have, right?
Yeah, Wren agreed. Although I’m not sure that was helpfulness so much as a toddler having a temper tantrum until he got his way, which, in this case, worked out for you.
Leaf noticed that the rope was tight and swinging — someone was climbing it! He ran over and unlocked the padlock, dragging it aside. The trapdoor was too heavy to open all the way, but he was able to lever it up enough to brace with a few potatoes, and that left a crack just wide enough for Rowan, then Cranberry, to crawl through.
And then, right behind them: Thyme.
“You survived!” Leaf whispered in awe.
“I can’t believe you survived!” Thyme whispered back.
“Nor us!” Cranberry chimed in. “They sent us to the arena this morning, Leaf! We had to fight a blue dragon and a black dragon, and I came this close to stabbing the black one in the eye! Rowan was amazing; you should have seen her.”
Rowan enveloped Leaf in a fierce bear hug that went on remarkably long. Rowan was not a hugger; he couldn’t remember any other time when she’d ever hugged him. On the other hand, he’d just saved her life, so it made sense that she’d be a little pleased about that.
“Cardinal?” he asked over her shoulder. “Arbutus? Are they coming?”
Cranberry shook her head, twisting one of her braids around her fingers. “They were in the arena, too,” she said. “They didn’t make it.”
“It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” Rowan said, finally releasing Leaf. She did look shaken, even more so than she had after the dragonmancers threatened Grove.
“But we’re alive,” he said. “We’re all right, Rowan; we can still escape. Come on, I think I remember where one of the entrances to the trash chute is from here.”
“Leaf,” Rowan said, gripping his shoulders. “I have to tell you something.” Her eyes were as serious as the day she’d told him about the Dragonslayer.
“Now?” Leaf asked. “Couldn’t we escape the palace full of hungry dragons first?”
“Give us a moment,” Rowan said to her friends. She tugged Leaf behind the potato sack and turned to face him, but in a weird way, like she couldn’t quite hold eye contact with him. Her hands kept twitching like she’d forgotten where to put them.
“Rowan?” Leaf prompted her when she didn’t say anything for a moment.
“Last night,” Rowan said in a rush, “I realized that I might never see you again. I realized that you might die, or I might die, and you would never know the truth.”
“The truth?” Goose bumps trailed along Leaf’s arms. “What — what truth?”
“About Wren.” Rowan glanced into his eyes and then back down at the flagstones. The kitchen felt much colder than a dragon kitchen should be. “She wasn’t just accidentally eaten by dragons, Leaf. She was … sacrificed.”
Oh dear, said the Wren in Leaf’s head. I don’t think we’re going to like this story.
“It was the dragonmancers,” Rowan went on quickly. “They said they had a vision, and she needed to be given to the dragons in order to protect the town. But it was my fault, Leaf.”
“Your fault?”
“Do you remember those books she stole from the dragonmancers’ private collection?” Leaf nodded — he remembered Wren sneaking off to read them and telling him how smart she would be when she’d finished them and how they had lots of boring parts.
“She was hiding them in my loft,” Rowan went on, “and reading them whenever Mother and Father were out. She didn’t care if I knew she had them. And then Mother found one while you guys were at school, and she was so mad, and she thought I’d taken it, so I told her it wasn’t me. I … I told her it was Wren.”
Rowan rubbed her face with both hands. “I thought she’d be normal-punished, you know? The way she usually was. I mean, I knew it was bad, but I had no idea the dragonmancers would … that they’d decide she was so much trouble they had to get rid of her.”
“For reading their books?” Leaf said numbly. “They fed a seven-year-old to the dragons for that?”
Such upstanding civilized people, Wren said. Thank goodness we have moral giants like that leading our village.
“I tried to stop them,” Rowan said. “When I found out what they were going to do — I yelled at our parents, I threw a few things — but I should have done more. They locked me in the cellar when they took her. I should have figured out a way to escape and help her. You would have.”
Leaf was still thinking about the punishment compared to the crime. “Maybe they were trying to shut her up,” he said. “She must have read something in the books that they didn’t want anyone to know.” He racked his brain — had she told him anything? He’d been eight, and not at all interested in the scribblings inside a moldy book. He remembered her saying there was a lot of math in it. That couldn’t be right — that didn’t sound like a secret at all.
“I’m sorry, Leaf,” Rowan said.
He looked up at her, and it suddenly hit him that she’d been lying to him for seven years. Her and Grove, they both had. Every time he talked about Wren, they had stuck to the lie. Rowan had let him blame the dragons — she had let him build his whole life around blaming the dragons — even though she knew all along who the real villains were.
The dragonmancers. And Mother and Father, who let this happen.
“Did you ever really care about slaying dragons?” he asked. “Getting justice for Wren? Protecting the village?” He took a deep breath. The kitchen smelled like onions and burnt pig and betrayal. “Or did you only spend all that time training me because you wanted help to steal treasure?”
“I mean …” She kind of shrugged. “Both? Two birds with one stone? It was still the dragons who ate her, after all. We can be mad at them and at the dragonmancers, can’t we?”
“But you were using me and the way I felt about losing Wren,” he said. “You let me hate the dragons because it made me more useful to you.” His destiny was crumbling like sand around him. He wanted to press it all back together and be himself again, the person he’d imagined he’d be one day, slaying dragons and saving the world. Simple and uncomplicated; bad guys with scales and claws over there, good guys who were human over here.
“No!” Rowan cried. “I thought I was helping you! I saw how upset you were — I wanted to give you a way to fight back!”
“But against the wrong bad guy!” Leaf cried. “I could have spent all this time trying to stop the dragonmancers instead! They’re the ones endangering the village.” He took a step back. The room felt like it was expanding and contracting around him. “That’s why you believed they would sacrifice Grove. Because you know they’ve done it before. Were there others? Before Wren?”
“I think so,” Rowan said. “I remember one of their apprentices being sacrificed when I was really little. They didn’t say why. Just another vision. The dragons demanded it, all that.”
“And you let me go work for them,” Leaf said. He crouched, burying his face in his hands. All he could think of was little Wren and how she must have felt. Did she know that Mother and Father had let her be sacrificed? Did she think Leaf had known, too; did she think he didn’t care? Did she go to the dragons feeling completely abandoned by everyone?
Poor me, Wren whispered sadly.
Thyme poked his head around the edge of the potato sack. “You know, we could still go steal treasure,” he whispered.
“Not a good moment, Thyme,” Rowan snapped.
“I’m just saying, now that we’re free and inside the palace … if we’re quiet and avoid the dragons … there’s treasure everywhere. We have to bring something back to save Grove anyway, right?”
Leaf could sense Rowan glancing at him, but he didn’t look up. He couldn’t even imagine thinking about treasure right now. He didn’t know what to do next. He couldn’t go back to the village; he couldn’t face his parents or the dragonmancers again,
knowing what he knew. But what was he supposed to do with this handful of sand that used to be his great destiny?
“You’re right, Thyme,” Rowan said finally. “We have to steal treasure to save Grove. We’ll give the dragonmancers enough to free him, and then we can keep the rest for ourselves.”
Leaf snorted and stood up. “That’s not going to work,” he said. “The dragonmancers are murderers and thieves, and obviously they’ll kill to keep their secrets. If you go back to them, they’ll still ‘sacrifice’ Grove and you as well. And no one is going to stop them. Just like no one tried to save Wren.”
Rowan wrapped her arms around herself. “You’d stop them,” she said.
“I’m not going back to Talisman,” Leaf said. “You can steal treasure and walk back into the dragonmancers’ trap yourselves, if that’s what you really want to do. You don’t need me for that.”
“Leaf?” Cranberry said from behind him.
“You’re not even going to help us steal the treasure?” Thyme asked.
“I never wanted to steal treasure!” Leaf said. “I came to kill a dragon and instead I learned that it’s almost impossible.”
You also learned that some dragons might be good, and some sisters might be liars, and that maybe your whole destiny plan was wrong all along, Wren pointed out.
“Then where are you going to go?” Cranberry asked, putting one hand on his arm.
Leaf thought for a moment, but the answer had been ricocheting around his brain ever since he tried to stab the dragon and his sword bounced off. There was one person out there who was a real hero. One person who could tell Leaf the truth and help him find a destiny that would be worthy of Wren.
He met Rowan’s eyes. “I’m going to find the Dragonslayer.”
It was amazing that Wren hadn’t been eaten by a dragon yet.
Or bitten by a scorpion. Or that she hadn’t just fallen over on the sand and let the sun burn her into bleached white bones.
She had certainly been walking through the big hot horrible desert long enough for any of those things to have happened.
First, she had tried to follow the army and Sky to their fight with the ice dragons. They had gone west from the dragon city, so she went west, even though she lost sight of their flashing wings within minutes. But she remembered the vague maps she’d studied; the ice kingdom was this way and north. If she kept going, she’d reach it eventually. Maybe she could rescue Sky while all the dragons were distracted with their battle.
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