“We’re proud of you,” my adoptive father said. Renny was a man of few words, but the ones he said always counted. He leaned back into his chair, happiness radiating off of him like heat from the bonfire.
The fun of the party was fading as night descended and we sat around tables or the big bonfire, bellies full of fish and fruit, and hearts full of happiness. It was like nothing could ever go wrong, like life would always be happy and full of firelight flickering between the trees. Even the wind was warm and balmy, and the trees swayed gently, dancing with it.
Home, home, home the wind sang to me and my heart sang with it.
A smile filled my face and I hugged them close.
“Tomorrow, you’ll be coming with me to Abergande,” my father said.
“Abergande?” my eyes went wide. Going to the port was a rare treat. I loved the excitement of the town. There would be stalls selling jewelry and ribbons and bright cloth. There would be music and dancing and people from all over the Havenwind Isles. There might even be a boat! I’d seen one once. And though the people here feared them, I still longed for news of a home far away in a place full of trees and the smell of cinnamon – a place I still dreamed of most nights. This was my new home, but that place still mattered to me.
“You need to sell those shell necklaces you’ve been making all summer and purchase new supplies,” my mother said. “And your father has agreed to take Heron there to continue his training.”
“He’s leaving?” my eyes shot to where Heron was joking with two other boys from the village. His eyes sparkled in the firelight when they looked up and saw me. Feeling my cheeks grow hot, I turned back to my mother.
My mother smiled kindly, but she only shrugged as she answered. “Old Dapnee doesn’t have the work for another blacksmith, and Heron’s apprenticeship is almost over. He’ll need to leave eventually. He’ll be a blacksmith somewhere else – somewhere where there is enough work for two smithies, or where they’ve lost their smith.”
Why did the wind suddenly feel cold? I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself and glancing one more time at Heron, towering over the other boys, his thick muscles gleaming in the firelight. He was leaving. Leaving for Abergande while I stayed here. Who would I joke with now? Who would hunt shells with me along the beach? Who would help me hide baby dragons?
I chewed the inside of my cheek.
My mother caught my arm.
“Don’t fret, Seleska. Enjoy the rest of the party. There will be time to miss your friend when he is gone.”
I smiled, but I didn’t feel happy inside. The village would feel dull and hollow without Heron.
“I think I’ll take a walk,” I said, scooting off my bench.
“Just make sure you are in your bed within the hour,” my mother reminded me. “Tomorrow will be a long day of travel!”
I nodded, still smiling at them reassuringly, but my eyes felt glassy. Was Heron really going to leave?
I snuck off into the night, my feet taking me almost without thinking to the smithy. We’d hidden Nasataa there, and really, someone ought to check on him. I hoped no one noticed as I palmed a large piece of fruit and grabbed a wooden cup of water and a slab of fish.
I brushed away hot tears as I snuck inside the small building. What was Heron thinking? Leaving me without even saying a word about it!
Even now, in the forge, the embers were banked, staying hot for the work the next day. I snuck around to where we’d hidden Nasataa behind the furnace. His little chest rose and fell as he slept curled against the hot metal.
He was okay. And he was still here. I reached into my belt pouch and pulled out the scraps of fish and fruit I’d hidden, placing them in front of his sleeping snout. I put the cup of water beside them. When he woke up, he’d be hungry. And he’d be lonely. I’d have to make sure I was here first thing in the morning to get him. I’d need to hide him somehow in my things or he’d be discovered for sure.
“Seleska?” Heron’s throaty whisper cut through the tranquil moment and I hurriedly brushed away the last of my tears.
“Yes?” I replied, trying not to sound hurt. He should have told me.
“I meant to tell you that I was leaving.”
“And what? Your tongue fell out? You forgot what words mean?”
I could barely see him across the room with only the embers of the forge lighting the room. He was mostly just shadow there, but his voice was husky and laced with emotion.
“It was just so hard to say.”
“How long have you known?”
“Months, I guess.”
Months! He’d known for months!
The silence dragged out between us until eventually, he broke it again, this time with a lighter note to his voice.
“Maybe you should let that little guy go free. You can’t take him with us tomorrow.”
It was probably a good idea. But what if he didn’t know how to take care of himself? What if he just wandered on the beach and got lost or starved? What if he thought no one loved him? What if he felt abandoned? Like he’d had a friend and then just been dumped when his friend went off to go have adventures? My heart felt tight in my chest and my breathing hitched.
“He is free. He chose to stay with me.”
I’d take him to the beach tomorrow and see if he wanted to leave, but if he didn’t, I wouldn’t abandon him. There would be a way to hide him in my things. And he wasn’t that heavy. I would just have to carry him with me to Abergande. I wasn’t the one who abandoned my friends without warning.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Heron said, sounding dejected.
“I’m sorry that you didn’t, too,” I said, petting Nasataa gently on his sleeping head before standing up and walking past Heron to the door. I opened it, trying to think of the right way to put the hurt in my heart. “I wish you’d trusted me enough to tell me.”
I heard Heron’s breath hitch in his throat, but I didn’t want to hear what he might say. It was all just too painful and emotional. I needed some sleep and some time to sort out how I felt. I slipped into the velvet night, following the candlelight glow in the windows of my family’s cottage.
Chapter Four
“Stay in there!” I hissed at Nasataa.
The little dragon was moving way too much. And he was growing heavier by the mile. The only way to get from our little village to the town of Abergande was on foot. All the village horses – and by all I meant the two owned by Jamrie and Esconse – were busy hauling cane and the donkey was just as busy with the sugarapple harvest. And that meant walking.
The path ran just inside the treeline along the beach, providing shade and shelter to travelers, but easy to follow with the ocean not far off. Any other day, I would have been absorbed in how beautiful the path was – how the brightly colored flowers hung from vines and filled the air with scents, how the waves of the ocean beat the shore in a way that lulled my spirit and made my heart soar, how the gentle breezes smelled of salt.
Today, I was distracted.
I had stuffed Nasataa in my bag of shell necklaces and armbands after he’d refused to return to the sea – again!
“Please,” I’d begged. “It’s safer for you with other dragons!”
But he’d climbed up my arm and dug his claws into my shoulder, absolutely refusing to budge. And his huge eyes were so cute that they just melted my heart. How could I say no to those eyes?
The shell necklaces were mine to sell and mine to carry to Abergande. No one else would look in the bag or notice that it was heavier than it should be, so it was a foolproof plan. Or at least, it had seemed like it when I put him in the bag that morning. Now, hours later, the bag was growing heavier by the hour and Nasataa just would not stay still!
I huffed, adjusting the bag and almost turning a heel in my boots. Pretty, they might be. But practical, they were not.
“When we get to Abergande, I have business in the Leaping Dolphin Inn,” my father said. He’d been silent all morning, seemi
ngly oblivious to the tension between me and Heron. “I trust that you can find the market and handle the sale of your shells?”
“Of course,” I said, smiling.
Excellent! I was going to get to roam the town free of any oversight. I could sell my shell jewelry and buy whatever I needed on my own. I couldn’t wait! I’d never had the chance to wander Abergande on my own before! And it would give me a chance to feed Nasataa and let him out to do whatever little dragons needed to do without prying eyes watching.
“We’ll take a room there, so come and find me when you’re done,” my father said. He was pulling a handcart with his own goods brought to market. He mostly spent his time fishing, but he also made musical instruments from reeds, and it was these instruments that he was bringing to market today. If we were fortunate, we would both get good prices and have enough to stock up on essentials that our village couldn’t make.
“I can walk with you to the market,” Heron suggested, trying to act as if I wasn’t furious with him. “It’s on the way to Whitehead Smithy where I’ll be finishing my apprenticeship.”
Those words felt like a brand laid against my skin. White hot and painful. I blinked away tears, refusing to look at him. He hadn’t told me. Everyone else knew, but he hadn’t told me.
When we’d left the village Heron’s family and other friends had been there to wish him the best with presents and hugs. His departure hadn’t been a surprise to any of them.
I fell back behind my father’s cart ignoring him. It hurt too much to talk to him. It hurt because I knew that this was my last chance and there was so much to say but my tongue just couldn’t form the words. Instead, I reached into my bag, stroking Nasataa’s head with a finger. He bit it and I flinched, looking around quickly to make sure no one had seen.
“Seleska,” Heron whispered falling back to where I was. “Don’t be mad, okay?”
“I’m not mad,” I muttered. Adjusting my bag and pushing Nasataa’s snout back in furtively.
“I’ll come home every few months and see everyone.”
Months!
He sighed. “What did you expect me to do? Stop working as a blacksmith? I’ve spent years training for it!”
“Of course not.”
“Then what did you think? Did you think I’d always be in our village?”
“No.”
“What, then?”
I stumbled over a root and he caught my arm, stabilizing me. My eyes were too watery to make out the path properly.
“I guess,” I said as I caught my balance again. “I guess I just hoped that if you were going on an adventure that you’d take me, too.” I sniffed, wiping my eyes harshly. “But I guess I’ll just have to make my own adventures. And I’ll have to go on them myself.”
I patted my bag where Nasataa was snuffling against my hip. Maybe I had a new friend to go on adventures with. Maybe he would stick around.
“Don’t be like that, Seleska,” Heron said, lifting my chin to look at him with one finger. “I’ll be back. We’ll go on adventures someday.”
“Sure,” I said. But I knew it was a silly promise. He’d make other friends in Abergande. He’d have adventures all his own. And I would live in our little village and make shell ornaments and wish for more for the rest of my life.
Or maybe not. Maybe Nasataa and I would dive into the water and figure out exactly who or what was singing to me.
And with that thought, the song began again, louder than ever, pulling me toward the water.
Chapter Five
Abergande always took my breath away.
When we emerged from the path into the little cove along the sea, the sheer size of the place made me want to look and look and look. Houses and inns and taverns and shops hunkered so close to one another that you could hardly step between them. They stood on tall wooden stilts to keep them safe when storms and floods came, and to keep out the slithering, scurrying, creatures in this area of the island. Boardwalks wove from one shop to the next, serving as streets on which the citizens could walk or push laden carts. I was already beginning to smile at the sight when my father’s gasp startled me.
There was very little that bothered Renny. I followed his gaze to a ship with white sails bobbing out from the cove in the deeper water and my own breath caught in my throat. A ship? Here?
Everyone knew that the Havenwind Isles didn’t receive ships. Everyone knew that we didn’t take in outsiders – though they’d taken me in ten years ago when I’d arrived on their shores an orphan child, hunted by enemies she didn’t know.
But this was different. This was a real ship. This was news.
I hadn’t seen a ship since I was a little child and the sheer size of it – even so far away – took my breath away. Our entire village could live on that ship.
My father and Heron both stiffened, exchanging an unreadable look.
“It’s only one ship,” Heron said.
My father shook his head, pursing his lips with worry, but he didn’t say anything else as we followed the path into town.
“Be careful in the market,” he said quietly to me as we arrived at the inn. “Don’t take too long, or I will worry.”
“I’ll be careful,” I assured him.
I followed Heron as we carefully worked our way onto the boardwalks and into the market. Abergande was such an exciting place to visit. On one corner, a fire-thrower was practicing his tricks, breathing fire out into the crowd for pennies. I laughed as we passed.
“I bet you could use him in the forge!” I joked to Heron.
“The fire isn’t hot enough,” Heron said, but his voice was distracted.
“Are you okay?”
“Just getting nervous.” He smiled wryly at me. “I’ve never lived away from our village. No one here really knows me. I’m going to miss my family and friends.”
“You could just stay,” I said, throwing a coin to a smiling woman in the fruit stall and grabbing two mangoes from the stall. I shoved one into my bag, hoping it would settle Nasataa, before biting into the other one. What would it be like to live on an island without mangoes? They said that some of the Isles didn’t have them. The food must be very bland.
“I can’t, Seleska,” he said as he stopped, grabbing both my hands in his so suddenly that I thought he was about to say something significant. He bit his lip, his eyes suddenly nervous. He didn’t get the chance to speak.
A big burly man stepped out from the crowd with a grin on his face. He was a head taller than anyone there except for Heron and even wider across the shoulders. His scruffy face gleamed with sweat and when he clapped Heron on the shoulder, Heron swayed from the weight of the blow.
“There you are, apprentice! Excellent! Let’s get you settled. I’m very happy to have the help. That ship arrived this morning and with it, orders for all kinds of repairs they can’t do on board.”
“Is that allowed?” I asked. “I thought ships weren’t allowed to come to the Havenwind Isles.”
He snorted. “Allowed or not allowed is not for me to say, but I don’t turn away business. Say goodbye to your friend, Heron, and let’s get you to work!”
Heron leaned down, kissed my cheek so quickly that my breath caught in my throat and then with a last smile he was gone, pushing through the crowds with the master blacksmith.
I wasn’t crying. Really. I just had dust in my eyes. That happened sometimes when you were on the road.
It took a moment for me to gather myself and shake off the sadness and frustration that filled me. Heron was making his own choices. That was his right. I wasn’t going to hang off him like an unwanted barnacle. Besides, I had my own adventures waiting for me, too. I just needed to figure out what they were.
An image formed in my mind of me and Nasataa swimming beneath the waves toward a treasure chest. Where had that come from? I had the strangest feeling that the thought was not my own at all.
I nearly gasped, a delighted smile spreading across my face. That was Nasataa! Wasn’t
it? Had he put that picture in my mind?
Was that normal for dragons? Maybe he was advanced.
With a smile, I pushed along the boardwalk to the little jewelry stand that always bought my wares – Lady Zeldar’s.
“More necklaces for me, Seleska?” she asked smiling as she adjusted the colorful wrap-dress she always wore.
“Of course, Lady Zeldar!” I said, carefully reaching in to pull them from the bag without irritating Nasataa. A tiny nip at my hand made me flinch, but I tried not to let it show on my face and before I knew it, all the work I’d done for the past two months were spread out across the table while Lady Zeldar counted and graded and tallied what she was willing to pay.
There was a cheer a little further up the boardwalk toward where three branches met in a kind of a square. My gaze drifted to where a crowd was gathering there. I could almost make out what they were saying. Someone in a white, billowing shirt and tight breeches was standing up on the bench at the center of the square, gesturing broadly as he spoke.
“Who is that?” I asked Lady Zeldar.
She paled as she answered. “A ship came in this morning. That is the leader of the people who came to shore.”
I felt something move at my side.
“Why is he making such a big fuss in the square? Do the Elders know he’s doing that?” I asked, but before she could answer I heard my name called out from down the boardwalk.
“Seleska!” My father was running toward me, a look of fear on his face. I looked around. Where was the threat coming from? He wasn’t being chased.
“Dragon!” a voice said from behind me and I spun to see Nasataa racing down the boardwalk.
Oh no! He was going to get hurt or caught by someone else.
I left my wares behind, running down the boardwalk toward the little dragon. He was at the edges of the crowd and I had to squeeze between people to chase him through their ranks.
“Nasataa!” I called quietly, trying not to draw attention while I squeezed between people in the crowd. No one had noticed him yet – what a relief! But I felt bad about ignoring my father’s calls.
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