Wix grinned. “Oh, I remember that one. Something about the rest of them all having to be loyal … then something else … something, something. What is a seethe, again?”
Toli pulled a face. “It’s all the dragons born in a year.”
Petal sighed. “Right, but they don’t have a seethe every year. Only every … I don’t know, every fifty years—maybe every hundred years. I don’t know. Dragons live a long time.”
“So a seethe is all brothers and sisters the same age?” Wix asked.
Petal nodded. “But only the first three female dragons hatched in a seethe have any power. They are the leaders of the seethe—kind of like the royalty. Only their strongest can grow up to challenge the Dragon-Mother. I mean, they don’t have to challenge her. Mother told me this Dragon-Mother has been around for generations, since way before even our grandmother was born.”
Toli unbraided and rebraided her hair, pulling out the knots from where the dragon had slept. “That makes sense. Dral said Dragon-Mother was a title. They use it the same way we use Queen.”
Petal nodded. “Then some of the dragons were born to a different Dragon-Mother.”
“How do you remember all that stuff?” Wix grumbled. “I bet you remember the rest of the poem too.”
Petal rolled her eyes. “‘In every seethe, they must obey. To sleep, to hunt, to toil, or play. The firstborn girl is named for Frost. The second named for Stone. The third to hatch makes do with Sky. The rest take their names alone.’” She put one hand on her hip. “Seriously, Toli? It’s not like we know that much about them to begin with. None of this is ringing a bell?”
“Maybe,” Toli muttered. “A small bell. In the distance.”
Wix grinned. “So Krala is a firstborn. So when they hatched, if one of her seethe was going to challenge the old Dragon-Mother, it would have been Krala, right? Shouldn’t that make her the Dragon-Mother?”
Petal shook her head. “Well, they seem to put a lot of importance on being firstborn, but you said this Dragon-Mother is Krala’s sister. That means it wasn’t Krala who challenged the old Dragon-Mother and won. Mother told me that this Dragon-Mother is a Sky. Thirdborn. I think any of the first three females born in a seethe can become the Dragon-Mother. One of them just … just has to take the old one’s place.”
Wix nodded. “Right. They fight for it.”
Toli scowled. “So they fight their own mother for the throne.”
Petal gave a somber nod. “Except for some, the Dragon-Mother might be an aunt or a niece … or—or a sister.”
“Ugh.” Wix gave a dramatic shiver. “That’s horrible.”
Toli gave her sister a tight smile. “Still think Ruby is just a sweet little bowl of bison butter?”
Petal sighed. “The point is, if those two dragons you met took Ruby, maybe it was because Ruby is a Frost too. If I was a dragon and I was planning on challenging the Dragon-Mother, and thought I could win, and I knew there wouldn’t be another seethe born for fifty or a hundred years…”
Toli was nodding. “Then taking the firstborn would be a pretty good way for Krala to secure her position and seize power.”
Petal scowled. “So if Krala believes she’s supposed to be the queen … is she planning on killing the Dragon-Mother?”
Toli winced as the little dragon’s talons dug into her shoulder. Ruby’s expression was fierce. Toli’s pulse skipped as she lifted Ruby’s talons and peeled the creature off, moving her to the bed. “I think so, or at least getting rid of her somehow. She said that the Dragon-Mother taking our queen was a sign of weakness, and … rot. Oh! And she said something to Dral about wanting other dragons to get the blame for taking the chrysalis too.”
“I can see why you didn’t give her the chrysalis,” Wix added. “I still can’t imagine how you faced one of them, never mind two!”
“It’s not as though I had a choice.” Toli smiled.
Petal nodded. “Toli was right not to trust them. Besides”—she turned to Toli—“your plan is a good one. Having Ruby might help us get Mother back.”
Wix stepped toward her. “So do you think the Dragon-Mother will talk to you?”
“It’s my best chance,” Toli said.
“Well, it’s better than Pendar’s plan, any day. I just hope it doesn’t get us killed.”
“Me,” Toli cut in. “You hope it doesn’t get me killed. You two are staying here.”
“No,” Wix and Petal said in unison as Petal lifted her hands to her hips.
Wix snorted. “No way, Toli. We all go together.”
Toli’s breath caught as Ruby scrambled up her leg, curling around the back of her neck. “Ow! Hailfire,” Toli muttered.
Petal came over and tried to remove Ruby from Toli’s shoulders, but the dragon clung on. Petal sighed, giving up. “We’re going with you.”
“Um. No.”
Wix frowned. “Why not? She’s right. You need us.”
“I’m doing just fine. I don’t want the two of you involved. You might get hurt.”
Petal’s lip quivered. “She’s my mother too. And I can help. I know I can.”
“No, Petal. I can’t take care of everyone! Gall needs her queen and I’m going to get her. By myself. And if everything goes well, I’ll bring her home, and then everything can go back to normal. I’ll have proven to mother that I should be a hunter, so Wix and I can go back to training and you can do … whatever you usually do.” Toli shifted her weight. She realized with sudden discomfort that she’d never asked Petal about her hopes and dreams. Maybe Petal didn’t want things to go back to normal. Her sister always seemed so calm and … satisfied, just doing the things she did from one day to the next. Toli had always assumed that that meant she was happy … but maybe her sister wanted more. She shook the thought loose. Whatever the truth might be, Petal couldn’t have this. It wasn’t safe. Wix’s huff of breath brought her attention back to the argument.
“Sure,” Wix scoffed. “I mean, you taking a baby dragon to Dragon Mountain by yourself to bargain for your mother? That sounds like a brilliant plan, oh great queen. What could possibly go wrong?”
“Shut up.”
“No.” Wix squared his shoulders.
Petal was rubbing her fingers as if she were trying to clean the bones underneath. “Listen, I could do the cooking. I … I’ll bring my herbs in case one of us, or the foxes, gets hurt. I can look after Ruby. Please! I can be useful.”
“Yeah, don’t be stupid, Tol. Let us help.”
Toli crossed her arms. “Listen, both of you. I have the baby dragon. If Krala comes back—or worse, sends all the dragons, at least they’ll only come after me. I can lead them away from the Queendom. Besides,” Toli continued, “I’m not waiting. I’m going today—right now. The sled’s all packed.”
Wix began to pace, Ruby’s golden eyes following him. “I’ll go with you. Petal can stay—she’ll be able to deal with Pendar and Spar.”
“You’re not leaving me behind!” Petal yelled. “And why didn’t you just tell Pendar about Ruby, anyway?” she questioned.
Toli shook her head. “I thought about that, but he’s committed to waiting—to trying to reason with the dragons at the Tithing. He’ll just turn her over and hope for the best.”
“It’s not enough. I don’t know exactly what Krala and her brother are planning, but I don’t want to throw away our one chance to get Mother back. We have to take the dragon back now, and we have to give her to the Dragon-Mother—no one else. We don’t know how many other dragons feel the same way as Krala and Dral.
“And before you ask, I can’t tell Spar either. Believe me, I thought about it, but whatever is going on with her, one thing is certain: She’ll kill Ruby the moment she sets eyes on her. Besides, I’m the acting queen. This is my responsibility. If anyone’s going to get themselves brutally murdered, it’s going to be me.”
Wix blinked. “Your logic seems flawed.”
Petal turned to grasp Toli’s hands with cold fingers, her ey
es pleading, but Toli pulled away. “Only I can be held responsible if something goes wrong. No one else.”
Her sister’s face went blank, as though she’d drawn a curtain across it. Her black hair swayed as she moved past Toli to the door. “You know, we might not be just a risk, Toli,” Petal said, her voice strangely calm. “Wix is good at things … and I am too. It’s not for you to decide.”
Toli stared. “I didn’t say—”
Petal held up her hand. “Remember when you wanted to learn to hunt? Mother let you, right? She even got the hunt master herself to teach you. And when she told you it was time to start your training to follow in her footsteps as queen, she didn’t ask if you were strong enough, did she? No! She didn’t ask if you were smart enough … or good enough. Did she?”
“Petal—”
“Did she? Because she trusts you! And you can’t even trust your own sister and your best friend to have your back. Not even just for company. So fine. I give up. You want to do it alone? Do it alone.” She spun on her heel and disappeared down the ladder to the Hall without looking back.
Wix glanced at Toli but wouldn’t meet her eyes.
Her cheeks heated. I can’t lose anyone else.
Wix turned to follow Petal, but before he slid down the ladder, he let out a long breath. “Be careful out there, Toli.”
Then they were both gone.
Cold spread under her ribs, aching as she struggled not to call after them. She stood looking at the door with tears in her eyes. At last she swallowed against the lump in her throat and turned to fill her bowl with embers.
“Bye,” she whispered back.
We are all fools. It cannot be helped.
—Ice carver Belgar Walerian
CHAPTER ELEVEN
People were usually busy about their tasks even this early in the morning, but Father Moon was up, and today they gathered outside to look at the streaks of red, green, gold, and blue as they wove across the sky and through the dim stars. The lights raced into the distance like dreams.
Toli, lost in thought, watched her feet as she walked along the packed snow of the path toward the Southern Gate.
As she passed the far side of the Hall, Rasca moved out of the shadows, startling her. She grabbed Toli’s arm in a grip that would have left bruises if she hadn’t been wearing dragon scale. “Look,” the old woman gasped.
Toli followed the line of Rasca’s gnarled finger just in time to see shining black feathers as they skimmed the ridge, low over the Queendom. Toli ran forward a few steps trying to see if it was Krala, but the dragon was gone.
“Must be hunting,” Rasca said, appearing at her elbow.
Goose bumps rose on Toli’s arms. Dragons didn’t hunt over the ledge. That dragon had been looking for something—or maybe someone. Toli shuddered.
Rasca’s watery blue eyes were wide. “Feathers like a whisper,” she said quietly, staring up at the sky with fear in her voice. Her wrinkled hands trembled on Toli’s arm. “Guess they’re all up now,” she sighed, then caught sight of Toli’s clothes with a frown. “You’re not going out there? Not today.”
“Just … just collecting.”
“Didn’t you see what just flew past, girl?” Rasca lifted her weathered brown hands to her hips. “And you’re not dressed for the forest. You’re dressed for deep ice.”
“No. Just collecting in the forest.”
Rasca snorted, her wisps of white hair practically standing up with the force of her indignation. “Humph. Well, maybe that’s where the hunt master was headed too—in her best armor. To the stonetrees … to collect conks.”
“What do you mean? Why would Spar go out on the ice?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. But her sled is missing—according to Pendar—and the hunt master with it.”
Toli’s pulse fluttered. There was no good reason Spar would be out on the ice. She swallowed.
Rasca watched Toli’s face carefully, her watery eyes narrowed to thin slits. Toli squirmed, and Rasca’s scowl grew deeper, the lines in her face like cracks in the ice. “Humph.” Her eyebrows scrunched together over her nose like a patch of moss on a tree. “I see. Well then, I’ll make up a marinade—sweet flower tea and a bitter lichen compote. It will be a proper feast.”
It was Toli’s turn to scowl. “Why?”
Rasca lifted herself up until her back was almost straight. She looked Toli right in the face without blinking. “I’d bet my last tooth you’re headed to the ice. You ask me, it will be a Strongarm funeral.” She turned to go back in the Hall, but paused, calling over her shoulder, “The least I can do is make your favorite sauce … in your honor.”
“Make lots!” Toli called in her direction. “I’ll be back!”
If Rasca heard her, she gave no sign.
The door to the Hall shut behind her.
Toli made her way to the Southern Gate. Had it really been Krala skimming the ridge? If so, why? Had Dral convinced her to continue looking for the chrysalis? Maybe Rasca was right and the dragon was just out hunting. Or maybe she was looking for Toli.
Regardless, the sooner Toli took Ruby out of the Queendom, the faster she could reach the Mountain—and her mother. She quickened her pace. Rasca would almost certainly be telling Pendar her suspicions. If she didn’t go now, he might try to stop her.
She uncovered the sled and hitched up the foxes just as the green light of Father Moon reached over the edge of the Mountain to stain the ice fields like a sickness. The green moon would stay risen now until the dragons went south, battling with the clean light of the Daughter Moon’s daily rise—the dragon time.
The conversation with Wix and Petal spun in Toli’s head. She missed them both already, and Petal might never forgive her—Wix too. But she felt she’d done the right thing, and that was the end of it. She shook off her doubts like bits of frost that had overstayed their welcome. The supplies she’d loaded onto the sled didn’t seem like much, all tucked away under a leatherleaf tarp, but it would have to be enough.
Ruby slipped out of her hood and dropped down to stand in the belly of the sled next to her. She placed one taloned foreleg on Toli’s foot. “Friend,” she hissed, blinking her golden eyes. Toli forced away the tiny burst of warmth that bloomed in her chest.
Ruby cocked her head. “Food.”
Toli frowned and pulled a bit of dried bison from her pocket. It wouldn’t be long before the dragon used the words friend and food interchangeably, she thought.
She sighed. “Well, come on, then.”
The little dragon climbed back up her leg, took the bison, and moved to a lookout position on her shoulder as Toli drove the foxes out onto the ice. The extra supplies she had packed for the deep ice weighed them down, the foxes working hard to get up to speed.
As hours passed, Toli lost sight of the Queendom, then of the stone ridge. By Nya’s moonset, even the two-hundred-foot-tall stonetree forest would begin to look like nothing but a thin dark smudge across the landscape.
Low, heavy clouds moved in, covering the sky. Flickers of aurora light shone through them, like storms in the distance. Bad weather was coming.
A muffled voice from under the blankets called out, “Could we stop and have something to eat?”
Toli yelped, nearly toppling out the sled as she yanked it to a stop and spun around, her knife clutched in her hand. There was a shifting sound at the very back as Petal clambered out from beneath the back bench. Ruby hustled over to scuttle up her arm, looking pleased.
Toli’s mouth opened, then shut again.
“I could stand to eat too.”
Wix climbed out from the other side of the tarp cloth, his face the picture of innocence.
“What are you doing here?!”
Petal stroked Ruby’s head. “We told you. We’re coming with you. We’re not letting you do this without us.”
Toli grasped her braids and tried not to shriek. “I told you not to come!”
“And we didn’t listen!” Petal snapped back
.
Wix shrugged. “Yeah, we thought we’d come anyway. Our lives. Our choice.”
Hailfire. There was a selfish part of Toli that was relieved to see them, but she knew too well what selfishness led to. Her father had paid that price. She tried to think of a way to make them go home.
She looked at her sister. “I don’t want you here!”
Hurt flashed across Petal’s face, and Toli wished she could take it back. She could see from the way her sister folded her arms that it hadn’t done any good anyway.
“Tough.” Petal scowled. “I know your cooking. You’ll poison yourself, and Ruby too, if someone’s not here to help.”
“Look at it this way,” Wix added, clapping her on the back. “Now, if the Dragon-Mother decides to eat us, we’ll make a decent meal.”
Petal dropped her head into her hands as Toli turned to stare at him. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
He shrugged. “I think you’re pretty much stuck with us.”
Toli stared at each of them in turn, her thoughts churning. She was almost a full day’s ride from the Queendom. Nya would be setting soon. People would have noticed they were missing by now. Pendar, Luca, Rasca—all of them would be worried—and angry. If she went back, it would be over. They’d lock her in a room before they’d let her out of their sight again. And Ruby …
After a moment Toli threw up her hands. “Fine. But when we get there, we stick together, and I do the talking. Agreed?”
Neither answered. The Mountain was dark against the horizon, larger and nearer than it had been when she’d left that morning—but the wastes still stretched into the distance ahead of them. Toli couldn’t see where the ice stopped and the Mountain began. Father Moon’s green light swept over the summit like a sickness.
“So,” Petal asked, looking up at Father Moon. “How far do we still have to go?”
Toli frowned but followed her gaze. “Hard to say. I … I’m not sure anyone knows, except maybe Spar. She went at least as far as the pass. Anyway, I’m guessing it’s farther than it looks.”
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