Dragon Curse

by Lisa McMann

  Thisbe looked up at her brother’s tender words, but she felt threatened by them too—was he about to forbid her to go? Thisbe had been dreading this conversation, but she was going to be very firm with him. “You won’t lose me,” she said quietly. “Not to death, anyway. There’s no way she’ll outsmart me. I’m already planning.” She hesitated. “But I just want you to know that if you try to keep me from going, you might never see me again.” She surprised herself with the ultimatum.

  Aaron took in a sharp breath. “Wow. That’s harsh,” he said, but then a pained half smile curled up his lips, and he squeezed her hand. “Besides, I wasn’t planning to forbid you. You’re old enough to make your own decisions now.”

  Thisbe gave him a puzzled look. “So why are you so scared?”

  Aaron looked at her long and hard, then turned his gaze to the sea. “No one is invincible,” he said lightly, though he didn’t sound like he believed it. “If Alex could be taken by surprise, anyone can. Even you.”

  Still puzzled, Thisbe shifted uncertainly on the lawn. But she felt a surge of hope now that Aaron said he wouldn’t try to stop her. Before she could answer, she felt a tiny ripple over her skin and looked up to see what danger lurked. This time it was the dissenters, and they’d spotted her and Aaron. “Oh no,” Thisbe muttered. “Look who’s coming.”

  Aaron looked, then sighed deeply. “Here we go again. If they threaten you, I give you permission to fight back any way you see fit. You’ve got your vest now—just try not to kill anyone.”

  Thisbe thought greedily about taking out the whole lot of them in one explosion and was shocked by her own thoughts. It reminded her that the Revinir had called her evil. Thisbe believed it could be true, and she felt guilty again. But there was something else on her mind that pushed aside the guilt and the urge to fight. As Frieda Stubbs approached and the two Stowes stood up, Thisbe blurted out, “How did you know my mother?”

  Frieda Stubbs was taken aback. Then she snarled and said, “She moved in next door to me when she got thrown off her pirate ship. It was right as Justine was repairing part of the wall around Quill that had been damaged. She snuck inside before the workers closed it, and my neighbors took her in.”

  Aaron and Thisbe stared. “You lie,” said Thisbe. “My mother was not a pirate.”

  “When was this?” Aaron demanded. “As adults?”

  “No. It was a year before I was purged. She was my age.” Frieda snorted angrily. “And I ended up being the Unwanted. Can you believe that?”

  The other dissenters chuckled uneasily. Just before Thisbe was about to ask Frieda why she seemed so angry about being declared Unwanted when it led to being in Artimé, her head was filled with a wild roar. Her eyesight was taken over by blinding scenes of dragons and castles and fighting. She fell to the ground, quivering on the grass, until she lay still.

  “Look at that evil girl!” cried Frieda in alarm, stepping back and pointing. “She is possessed! All of you remaining Stowes are filled with the evil of your mother. And Alex is no longer here to control you.”

  Pushing Forward

  The Revinir’s roar brought Drock to the shore of Artimé looking for support. He came on land as Thisbe was sitting up. Luckily her episode had scared off the dissenters for now.

  “She knows we’re out here,” said Drock, more agitated than Thisbe had ever seen him since they’d been back. “She’s after you, Thisbe. And me. I knew this would happen.” Drock swung his head around, his eyes wild.

  “What makes you say that?” asked Aaron with alarm. He knew dragons had special senses, and he wasn’t about to discount Drock’s words and actions as hysterics.

  “I can feel it,” said Drock, beginning to pace the shore. His tail curled and unfurled. “I told you before—it’s the dragon curse. It’s like a great foreboding weight in my bones. It’s our flaw. Our weakness. She found it, and we can’t resist.”

  Thisbe rubbed her aching head. “What are you talking about?” she asked weakly. “You’re not making sense.”

  “She’s exploiting it. It’s finally coming together,” said Drock. He couldn’t stop his neck from fidgeting or his head from bobbing and constantly turning to look to the west. “We dragons are not all-powerful. Not like anyone thought.”

  “I’m not sure I follow you, Drock,” said Aaron. “We know that you were captured—that you could be kept against your will. So we already knew you weren’t all-powerful.”

  “But at least we had hold of our minds back then!” Drock roared, causing the mansion’s new windows to rattle. “This is different! The Revinir has discovered the dragon curse! She’s rendered us useless except to do her bidding. Where she failed before, allowing my siblings and me to escape, she has now rectified—she stole our minds, Aaron.

  “Worst of all,” Drock went on, “she knows she doesn’t have us all. She’s going to keep at it until you and I go to her, Thisbe—she won’t stop until we succumb to her call. I believe we’re the only ones left. The only . . . ones.” He cringed and squeezed his eyes shut, as if the pounding in his ears was growing worse. His words began to slur. “If we don’t go there, she’ll come after us. Yes, I’m certain she will.”

  Thisbe and Aaron exchanged an alarmed glance. This wasn’t news to Thisbe, but it seemed like nobody in Artimé had taken it seriously whenever she’d tried to explain it to them. “But why does she want us so badly when she has all the other dragons?” Thisbe asked.

  Drock opened his eyes and gave her a pained look. “Because we can help her . . . but we can also still beat her. You, Thisbe. She knows you can beat her.”

  “I wish I knew how.” Thisbe felt sick to her stomach, and for a moment she desperately wanted to doubt everything Drock was saying. “Why can’t she be happy with what she has? Why can’t she leave us alone?”

  “What makes her strongest is also her downfall,” Drock muttered. “This curse will come back to haunt her. It must!”

  Though some things were becoming clearer, Thisbe and Aaron were still puzzled. Drock was acting delirious and not always making sense. And Thisbe was struggling more than usual to get her strength back after the most recent roar. “Stay strong, Drock,” Thisbe urged him. “Do you hear the roar still?”

  “It’s not the roar of the Revinir that continues to haunt me,” Drock said as he turned to go. “It’s the deafening silence of no other dragon minds fighting back.” He hesitated, then looked over his shoulder at Thisbe. “We two are the last to battle the curse with our minds intact. I’m not sure how much longer I can withstand it. If we are to go, we must go soon.”

  “Soon?” Thisbe whispered, clutching her chest. Was she ready?

  Drock shoved off into the water. “I’ll be back.” He propelled himself to the west. Thisbe’s head ached. She turned to her brother. “What do you make of that?” she asked, feeling breathless.

  Aaron stared after the beast. “I think we’re in for a long brainstorming session, little sister,” he said. “You and me. If what Drock said is true, that the Revinir is not going to stop until she has you two, we need to cut off her ability to control the dragons. Who knows what she’s capable of? If she comes here, or even if she sends dragons to collect you, all of Artimé and the seven islands will be in danger. We don’t have the ability to fight an enemy like that.”

  Thisbe stepped into Aaron’s space and said accusingly, “I’ve been saying this for weeks! Finally someone believes me.” She shook her head. “Finally. Thank you, Aaron.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t give this my full attention before,” said Aaron. “With everything going on, it’s been . . . difficult. Hard to focus on this. But you have me now. We must prepare for the inevitable.” He was quiet for a long moment, then glanced around worriedly for the dissenters. He lowered his voice. “Even if we can fight off the Revinir somehow and miraculously sustain no injuries, the dissenters will blame me for her showing up, of course. And I don’t know how much more blame I can take before they grow strong enough to oust
me for good.”

  “That would be a huge mistake,” said Thisbe.

  “Or a huge relief,” Aaron said under his breath. He lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the afternoon sun and stared toward Warbler. “Hmm,” he said.

  “What?” Thisbe turned to look.

  “Drock is coming back.”

  The scales on Thisbe’s arms and legs shifted, and Thisbe felt a looming sense of dread. She stood up and stared at Drock, speeding toward them. “Something’s not right,” she said.

  Aaron stood up too, and they waited until Drock made a splash landing in front of them.

  “What is it?” Thisbe asked the dragon, feeling her heart leap to her throat.

  Drock was out of breath. “It’s happening,” he said, panting. “They’re coming. The Revinir is coming.”

  Underprepared

  Thisbe felt like her head was underwater. She heard what Drock was saying, but his words were muted because her heart was pounding so loudly. “Oh, Aaron,” she said with a groan, “she’s coming for me.” There was no question in Thisbe’s mind. She knew it by the way her scales rose. She was part dragon, and with it came certain instincts, some of which she was still figuring out. But this was definitely one of them.

  She also knew the dragon-woman had sent soldiers out looking for her and Rohan after their escape. But why did she want Thisbe back so badly when she had everyone else? One more black-eyed slave seemed inconsequential when the Revinir had all the dragons from everywhere and beyond. Was there something to what Drock had said about Thisbe being able to beat her? If so, she certainly didn’t believe it. Or was it more about being able to help her with her awful plans? And what did it mean that the Revinir was coming now? So soon? If she was venturing way out here, did that mean she’d already captured Rohan and Maiven? Or didn’t she care about them anymore, because they hadn’t drunk the dragon-bone broth?

  “Are you sure?” Aaron demanded of Drock. “The Revinir herself is coming?”

  “She and a few other dragons have crossed the gorge. At the rate they’re flying, and if they don’t stop, they’ll be here in a day and a half.”

  “A day and a half?” Thisbe cried. “What are we going to do? We’re not ready.” She took a few paces up the shore, absently trying to brush her scales flat, then turned sharply and walked back toward Aaron, a most fearful look on her face. “We can’t fight them. We’re not equipped! We’re not strong enough! And we don’t have the right weapons. They’ll destroy us all.”

  Aaron was standing in shocked silence. Then he shouted at the top of his lungs, “Florence! Simber!”

  Seconds later the door to the mansion flew open, and the two came running.

  Thisbe grabbed her brother’s sleeve and choked back a sob. “You have to give me up. She’ll destroy everything! Everyone! The only human she wants is me. You’ve got to let me go to her!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I will never give you up.”

  “What’s going on?” Simber growled as he and Florence arrived.

  Aaron explained everything as quickly as he could, while Drock muttered and grumbled at the shoreline.

  “A day and a half?” Florence said, incredulous. “There’s no way we’ll be ready.”

  “You have to let me go,” Thisbe pleaded again. “It’s the only way to save Artimé.”

  “Absolutely not!” said Simber. “Stop that kind of talk. Let’s all take a few minutes to think this thrrrough.”

  Drock, Aaron, Thisbe, Simber, and Florence all went silent as they tried to collect their thoughts and figure out a plan. But Thisbe already knew what had to happen, and she wasn’t deterred. She was way more familiar with the Revinir’s tactics than any of them. And once the dragon-woman decided she wanted something, she wouldn’t stop until she had it.

  Before the group could discuss anything, the Revinir’s roar pierced into Thisbe’s ears again, knocking her flat and blinding her with the same old images for several minutes. By the time her senses returned and she opened her eyes, she found that Sky had joined them and was sitting near Thisbe’s head waiting for her to wake up. A few others had gathered as well and were talking gravely through the options.

  “Aaron, please listen to me,” Thisbe said, though her voice and her whole body was still weak from the Revinir’s call. “I told you what needs to happen. I can solve this and make it all go away.”

  “Thisbe, I told you already. The answer is no,” said Aaron sharply. “That’s not how Artimé does things.”

  “He’s right,” said Florence. “And who really believes that the Revinir will go away peacefully once she has you? I don’t trust her for a minute to just leave quietly. She’s greedy, and she has a lot of anger toward all of us after what we did to her years ago.”

  Florence had a point.

  Thisbe lay quietly, eyes closed, gathering her strength and hoping the dragon-woman wouldn’t roar again. The way the roar permeated right into Thisbe’s mind was frightening. That the Revinir had such control of the deadly dragons and black-eyed children was shocking. Everything was so mental with her—and the people of Artimé had no way to fight something like that.

  Thisbe’s eyes popped open. She stared at the blue sky, where a single fluffy cloud floated. The scales on her arms and legs began to tingle, and she sat up swiftly. “Could that be it?” she said softly. They’d been so focused on designing a physical spell to beat dragons and the Revinir. And that was definitely important. But what if the Revinir really was impossible to beat in a physical way? They had to come up with something else, or she’d have control of all of these dragons and people forever. Thisbe touched Florence’s arm to get her attention. “Florence, I know what we need to do.”

  Florence stopped talking and turned to Thisbe. “What?”

  “We need a different kind of magic.”

  Another Direction

  Yes. A different kind of magic,” Thisbe repeated as her thoughts came together. “Not just physical, like components that we throw to cause injury. We need mental components. Something that will affect the Revinir’s mind.”

  Everyone looked at Thisbe with varying levels of confusion. “Okaaay,” said Florence after a moment. “I see where you’re going. But we don’t really do that kind of magic here.”

  “Nobody did my kind of magic before I came along,” Thisbe argued. “Or Fifer’s.”

  “True,” said Florence, still looking skeptical. “But you were born with that. You weren’t taught it. We didn’t create it.”

  Thisbe wrinkled her forehead. “Good point.” She slumped for a moment.

  “I think Thisbe is onto something,” Samheed said. “Obviously, different kinds of magic exist even if we don’t use them. Remember Gondoleery Rattrapp? Hers was element based. Fire, rain, ice, wind. And the Revinir definitely has a different sort of magic from us. When she was Queen Eagala on Warbler, she placed that silence spell over the island. And now she’s using two types of bone broth as her components.”

  “Not everything we do requires a physical component,” Thisbe added, sitting up again. “Like the glass spell. We use our minds to send that. So why can’t we try to . . . I don’t know . . . develop that kind of magic some more?”

  “Therrre’s a big differrrence between conjurrring up a piece of glass and stopping a drrragon-woman frrrom mentally commanding hundrrreds of drrragons,” said Simber. “We’d have a lot of experrrimenting to do.”

  “And no time to do it,” said Aaron. “There’s no way we can develop anything of that sort in months, much less by tomorrow.”

  “We can try, at least,” said Thisbe. “Maybe it’s easy. You don’t know.”

  “I wouldn’t know where to start,” Aaron admitted. “I don’t even understand how her whole roar thing works.”

  “I do,” said Thisbe.

  “As do I,” said Drock from the water, surprising the others. They hadn’t expected the dragon to contribute to this part of the conversation, but perhaps he had some insight the rest
of them didn’t have.

  “Great,” said Florence. “Thisbe and Drock, you two see what you can come up with while the rest of us speed up the work on Alex’s old obliterate spells. I cringe to imagine what would happen if anyone makes a mistake with one of them, but that’s the only thing we have going for us in this short amount of time. I think our backs are against the wall. I wish there was a way to hold them off—even a week would give me enough time to properly put together the obliterate spell. Then at least we wouldn’t be caught flat-footed.”

  “Do what you can,” said Aaron. “Even if you can only put together one component before they get here, it’ll be much better than none. I’ll go alert the blackboards and get the word out about the threat.” He seemed to deflate a bit as he imagined the reaction to the news. “This isn’t going to be easy.”

  Sky gave him a sympathetic smile. “It never was for Alex, either. But at least he didn’t have the gang of dissenters to deal with. He’d be so furious about that.”

  “Yes, he would be,” said Aaron, catching Sky’s eye with a hint of a smile. “I’m afraid to see what they’ll do when they hear this. I guess we’ll soon find out.” His smile faded and was replaced by a look of determination as he strode toward the mansion.

  Thisbe turned to the dragon. A desperate feeling rose in her throat. “Where do we start, Drock?” she asked.

  “I don’t quite know,” said Drock. “Perhaps pooling information based on our experiences will help us gain more understanding of the way she works. Then we can try to figure out how to stop her.”

  “Can I help?” Sky asked them. “I’m not much use in the component-building department. But I grew up with her—she was Queen Eagala back then. She was my leader on Warbler until Crow and I escaped.”

  “Oh, yes, that’s a great idea,” said Thisbe. “You probably have a lot of insight about the way she was when she had Warbler under her thumb.” But would it help them actually accomplish anything in time? Thisbe doubted it.