by Lucia Ashta
If it wasn’t safe for the Ooba people, it wasn’t safe for the dragon charmers either. But I didn’t say it. They knew—far better than I.
“Peachy, Crush, Brute, Boom, and Scar, I want you all out there. Work together to make it happen.”
“What about you and Shula?” Boom asked. “Four riled up dragons? We could definitely use the help.”
“You’re the best there is at what you do. Remember that. Shula and I will be with Rosie and Anira, working to subdue the forest fire.”
Crap. In my terror, I’d totally forgotten that the dragons had lit tree canopies on fire. Maybe the fire hadn’t spread too much. I loved the forest. It was more home to me than anything else in these mountains.
I scrambled to my feet. “Come on, Rosie. We need to put the fire out.” I moved toward the entrance of the cave.
In seconds, they stood and caught up with me. “Whoa. Hold up there, Anira,” Crush said. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you can’t step out there with four dragons waiting for you. They’ll eat you.” Crush said it in a funny voice, but the weight of his words hit me hard regardless.
Crush, Brute, Boom, Scar, and Peachy muscled past Rosie and me. “We’ll handle this,” Peachy, dwarfed by the men surrounding her, said.
The purple light I maintained faded to nothing as I swallowed my fear for the dragon charmers. They walked up the length of the cave with sureness in their step. I was the only one who appeared to be terrified when they exited the cave and spread out, away from the cave entrance and my sight.
My breath hitched in my throat, which was suddenly as dry and brittle as bone. Just like the bones dragons liked to munch on to sharpen their teeth. I’d only read it in a book, but it had to be true. Dragons totally seemed like they’d gnaw on their victims’ bones.
I didn’t even hear Dean and Shula stop behind me over the terror that had seized me. I felt their hands on my back. “Come on,” Dean said. “They know what they’re doing. We need to take advantage of the distraction they’re causing to get into the cover of the forest.”
“We need to hurry,” Shula said to Dean, not me.
“Aye, I feel it too,” Dean said, and I wondered what they were referring to.
But the moment we reached the entrance to the cave, I understood. They were feeling the forest burning, the life within it writhing and extinguishing.
I felt it too. The forest was alight with the flame of dragons.
I had no idea what Dean and Shula could do to put the flames out, but I ran toward them, purposefully not looking at the dragon charmers and the dragons hovering overhead. If I was to keep my nerve, I’d have to ignore parts of my reality. Otherwise it would be far too much for an invisible girl to handle.
I ran toward the raging inferno as sparks rained down from above.
12
I believed I was ready to do my part, both to save the forest and to help the charmers subdue the dragons overhead if they asked for my help. But when I reached the edge of the forest, and managed to duck beneath the relative safety of its trees, I stopped, and couldn’t seem to get myself to move another step forward. Dean and Shula advanced farther into the forest without me. I didn’t think they realized I hadn’t followed, Rosie hanging back at my side.
The trees at the edge of the forest weren’t yet burning, but they would be soon. Everything would burn if we didn’t find the way to stop it. The dragons set fire to the trees in several different areas in their pursuit of us, and the different patches of fire were reaching for each other, burning with a terrifying rage. Even where I stood, apart from the fire, the heat whisked across my bare flesh, and pressed what little clothing I wore against my skin. Flecks of ash rained down, swirling and flying everywhere on the currents the heat created.
The forest I loved, the forest, which had offered me refuge from the harshness of my life so many times, was alight. The fire was loud, its flames roared, nearly masking the panicked sounds of the animals fleeing the area. Those that could, left in flight; those that couldn’t ran in the direction of the caves, if they were close enough, or the sacred pools, if they weren’t. Squeals and whinnies, and calls and brays, accentuated the sounds of the fire. I worked to keep grief over the loss from completely immobilizing me.
A group of birds, all with a wingspan as wide as I was tall, streamed overhead, jetting out into the rock clearing in the gap between the bottom of the tree canopies and my head. They didn’t spare me, or my little dragon friend, a glance. We weren’t the danger.
I lost sight of Dean and Shula. The smoke swallowed them up, just like the fire threatened to swallow everything else. I was aware I should follow them. That was the job they’d assigned me, but I couldn’t get my feet to move in the right direction. In any direction.
I really didn’t want to, but even so, I found myself turning back toward the direction of the caves. With the raging heat of the flames at my back, my terror grew even more. The five charmers were specks compared to the gargantuan size of the dragons swarming overhead. Of the four dragons, I recognized only one. The violet she-dragon I’d slapped to spare Dram’s life. She was furious then, she was even more furious now.
I stared, mouth open, until smoke made me cough. I snapped my mouth shut, but couldn’t tear my eyes away. There, at the center of the dragons’ focus, was Peachy, the smallest of all the dragon charmers. None of her weapons were drawn. She stood, with legs apart, arms reaching up to the skies, palms facing forward.
What the hell is she doing? Even in my mind, my thoughts were panicked. She’s out of her mind. Those dragons will rip her in half with as much ease as they flick their tails.
Crush, Brute, Boom, and Scar surrounded her in a half circle. As Peachy did, they stood strong before an unreasonable challenge, but they held their arms out to the sides, palms open and forward.
I skipped a few breaths as I watched, barely hearing the crackling behind me anymore. As much as I’d snuck around and attempted to watch dragon charmers—or even the lesser skilled dragon tamers—at work, it wasn’t an easy feat—mostly because the charmers worked in conditions like this, ones no sane person would want to get near.
The violet she-dragon roared her fury, and I started trembling. I tried to stop but I couldn’t, despite the growing heat. I was afraid not for myself, but for them. No wonder Father and Shean died, I thought before I could prevent it. I tried not to think of them because of the pain it brought, but I couldn’t help it. I understood now why the universe ripped them from our lives. No human being should be able to do what these charmers were attempting and survive it. The dragons were ferocious beasts, made by nature to be the very pinnacle of the food chain. There was nothing about them that suggested they could be tamed, and it was only an error in design that allowed Rosie to be at my side.
The charmers shouldn’t be able to do anything to calm the royalty of the sky. There was nothing a person could do to intimidate a dragon. We didn’t have a single advantage in this fight, just as Dean had warned all the new trainees in his orientation.
And yet... I found myself wishing with all my strength that I might witness some miracle. That I might watch the charmers do something to subdue the ferocity overhead. That I might be witness to the legendary charms of the Dragon Force that allowed them to work with the dragons in remarkable ways, to fulfill the sacred mission of our people. Part of that mission, as Dean also mentioned in the orientation, was to relocate the dragons when necessary to avoid conflict. It was something dragon charmers supposedly did, though I couldn’t fathom how.
The beasts above were gigantic, nearly blotting out what was left of the sunlight, that which the smoke hadn’t yet been able to touch. Their occasional shrieks were discordant. I experienced each dragon sound as a knife, which didn’t cut but only scratched against bare flesh. They hovered awkwardly above what I could only consider their prey. The dragons’ bodies weren’t meant to float, stationary; they were meant for streamlined flight, for the active pursuit of prey.
In such close proximity to each other, the four dragons struggled for dominion of the air space. An orange dragon and a red one bumped into each other, the wing of the orange throwing the red off balance. The red dragon craned its head and snapped its jaws at the offending dragon. Knife-like teeth sunk into the long neck of the orange dragon, who didn’t make a sound. It didn’t thrash, but just flapped its wings once to maintain altitude.
I definitely stopped breathing, and despite my worry for the five charmers below, I couldn’t tear my gaze from the dragons, locked in what had to be the precursor to an all-out dragon fight.
The red dragon held on for a very long time. When it finally disengaged its jaws, I thought that would be the end for the orange dragon. I pictured it plummeting, out of control, to the rock beneath, where I hoped the charmers would get out of the way in time.
But that didn’t happen. Instead, it flapped its wings, using that momentum to launch itself at the neck of the red dragon, and clinched maws around its throat. It shook the red dragon with such violence that I feared they’d both drop from the sky. All their focus on each other, the dragons knocked into the violet and green dragons, who roared their almighty fury. The violet dragon sank her teeth into the orange’s wing, and the green one lashed at it with its spiked tail.
And all the while, the charmers stood unmoving beneath the scene. What can they possibly do to control the dragons? There was nothing they could do. How Father and Shean had returned home at the end of a day like this, and managed to act like a loving father and older brother, was beyond my comprehension. I was shaking, and I wasn’t in immediate danger.
The four dragons were locked in a nasty fight, each now engaged in the violence. Each dragon took turns both inflicting injury and receiving it, without any concern for the forest that burned within sight.
The dragons, as deadly and fierce as they were, mesmerized me. I only drew my eyes from them because I sensed something going on below.
The men and Peachy linked hands, forming a circle, and tilted their heads upward.
My fear for them was real when Peachy snapped her head in my direction and yelled, “Your fear is interfering. Stop it.”
Startled, I didn’t know how to respond.
“Join us or leave. But you can’t do this. We don’t have time.”
I stared at Peachy, the small woman who looked as determined as the other charmers.
“Now, Anira.” Her sharp voice rapped me into motion.
I gave only a brief glance behind me, to my beloved forest and its impending demise. Even though Dean had told me to help Shula and him with the fire, clearly I wasn’t going to.
My feet started moving on their own, Rosie along with me. When they hit the rock, they picked up the pace, and before I knew it, I was running toward the charmers and their precarious position.
I drew up to Peachy. “You ready for this?” she asked. Before I could respond, she said, “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” She brushed off Boom’s hand and made room. “Get in between us, Rosie behind you, touching you, but in the center of the circle.”
I had no idea how any of this would help the disaster unfolding overhead. The violet dragon was gnawing on the wing of the orange, and the red and green dragons were snapping at each other. It was everything the Dragon Force worked to prevent.
“Now,” Peachy barked, and I sprang into motion.
I took her hand and Boom’s, with Rosie pressed against the backs of my legs. “What do I do?”
“Just follow my lead. We’re going to do faithum.”
I widened my eyes and looked at her, but she wasn’t looking at me anymore. Her bright brown eyes were staring at the dragons overhead with such an intensity that I wondered if that was it, if her piercing gaze was enough to force the dragons to behave.
“Focus,” she said, without looking at me, and she closed her eyes.
I didn’t know what else to do, so I closed my eyes too. As soon as they were closed, something yanked me out of the worried thoughts of my mind, so fast that I felt my internal world tilt. For a long moment, I hung in a nauseating lack of balance, and then my internal compass shifted back to normal.
That’s when I finally understood what it was that these men and woman were attempting to do. It was only once I stopped looking to identify that which operated only in the visible world that I was able to see the more important action.
I sensed energy flowing from Peachy to me, and from Boom to me, and I realized I was interrupting the flow of energy. It was meant to circle around the charmers and then... well after that I had no idea, but I could do the part I understood.
I’d never done it before, but I had to open up my flow of energy to join that of the others. How the hell do I do that? But before I could go down the road of doubt and mess up whatever the charmers were trying to do, I got over myself. Without planning, I acted. Without understanding, I trusted.
I willed my energy, my faithum, whatever it was, to meld with that of the others. Perhaps there were some specifics I should have taken into account, some disclaimers or limitations, but I did none of that. I opened up the flow, and once I did, it was like a torrent. It was too much for me to handle.
A warm flow, which tingled as it moved through me, sped across my body and into the connection with the others. It obliterated everything else. Every fear that tried to take hold failed. There was no place it could take root, everything within me was aflame in its own way, a rushing gush of energy and maybe the faithum Dean believed I had.
My body sprang into rigidity at first as it tried to process an overload of energy, but as some of it began to leave and flow into the others, I relaxed—as much as I could considering I was doing something I had no idea I could do while dragons battled overhead, and the forest burned to my left. I tasted ash and breathed in smoke, but the most significant fire now raged within. It wasn’t the kind that burned, it was the kind that could mold reality.
I felt some of my energy going into Rosie, and was surprised when I felt her sending some of her own back. My little friend was doing her part. Even if she didn’t understand, she trusted me enough to respond. I would have smiled, but the energy was too great for that. My focus was both pinpointed and vague all at once.
And then any notion of myself as an individual evaporated in the force of our communal merging. The energy pushed through every bit of my body, pulsed and moved from me to the reality outside of me.
It was so bright within my consciousness that I could no longer make sense of anything. Any notion that had once defined me was gone, perhaps forever. If I was once Anira, invisible girl, now I was vibrating energy beyond form.
With a blast of light, I gave it my all. And then the world went dark.
13
I came to and blinked against whatever sunlight managed to filter through a thick covering of smoke. It took me only a few seconds to remember I’d joined the charmers in subduing the clashing dragons instead of helping Dean and Shula as I was supposed to.
The only dragon in sight now was Rosie, who licked at my leg. The dragon charmers had somehow gotten four belligerent dragons to leave. But... had they all survived? From my place against the rock, I swiveled my head.
“Ah,” I groaned. The movement caused a sharp pain to shoot through my head.
“You’re awake!” Peachy said, but Rane and Traya were the ones to rush to my side.
“Where’d you come from?” I asked my siblings, noticing a slight slur to my voice.
“Shhh, don’t talk,” Traya said in deep soothing tones. She drew up to my side, sat next to Rosie, and felt about gingerly until she found my forehead. “You might be hurt. You fell.” She probed at the back of my head with gentle fingers. “Does this hurt? Are you bleeding?” Traya showed signs of becoming as skilled a healer as Mother, but it wasn’t easy when she couldn’t see her patient.
“I don’t know,” I mumbled and groaned again when every one of the dragon charmers crowded over to look at me—or the sp
ot where I lay, surrounded by a baby dragon and my siblings. My head throbbed. “Too much,” was all I managed to get out, but Traya understood.
“Back off, everyone. She needs some space.” Traya sounded less like the gentle sister I knew, and more like my protective twin.
Rane sidled against my free side. “Nir, you scared the crap out of me. Don’t ever do that again. Ever.”
This was how my twin showed his affection. I tried to smile, but it hurt; he wouldn’t have seen it anyway. “I’m all right,” I eked out, for his sake.
“Like hell you are.”
“You can’t even see me.”
“True, but I can see enough, and feel enough, to know you’re not all right.”
I tried to sit up, and with Traya’s help, I managed to sit some and lean on her more. “What happened to me?”
Peachy said, “You joined us all in doing faithum, and then you blacked out.”
“We did it? We did faithum?”
“Hell yes we did. You did a crap load of it.” Dragon charmers were known for taking action, not poetic wording. “That’s probably what blacked you out. You streamed as much energy as all the rest of us combined.”
“I... did?”
“Mmm-mph.” Peachy sounded happy. “You sure did. Didn’t she, guys?”
“Oh yeah,” Boom said, and I cringed. He was always loud. Everything he did was loud, and right then he was too loud. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Well you didn’t see me, did you?”
“We might not have seen your physical body, but we saw you, that’s for damn sure.”
“What?”
Peachy said, “We saw you lit up by the energy you were streaming.”
“You— Wait, really?”
“Really. You were lit up as bright as the Suxle Sun.” Peachy was definitely happy.