by Katie Cross
Sanna’s mind went immediately to Isadora, then Daid. A wave of disappointment crashed over her. No, Daid wasn’t here. But she looked anyway, as if a miracle would bring his expectant face to her.
We should have stopped at Anguis, Luteis said. To make sure your sister hadn’t come home looking for you while we were gone.
He’d read her mind.
Isadora said she’d be gone for a while. I doubt she would have come back. Besides, she’d probably be able to find us if she did.
You miss her.
I’m happy for Jesse, she said, although a pang of loss struck her anew. No one rushed out of the trees to see her. She missed Daid’s quiet smile and the gentle way he set his hand on her shoulder. Was Mam well? Did she even realize Sanna had been gone?
The sound of Elliot’s reverberating voice broke through her reverie.
“You returned.”
Sanna glanced up to see him standing a short distance away, hands on his hips. They hadn’t been gone long, but Elliot seemed even more haggard than before.
“With news.”
He drew in a deep breath, then nodded once.
“Come inside. It appears we need to talk.”
Chapter Eighteen
An hour later, Sanna, Jesse, and Elliot sat in front of a warm fire outside Elliot’s shanty. Babs murmured to the children in the background, preparing them for bed. Every now and then, the cry of a screaming gnome came from far away, and for a moment, Sanna almost felt as if they were back in Anguis. Elliot stared at the fire, blinking. A glazed expression had overtaken his face, as if he couldn’t quite believe all they’d told him. Sanna couldn’t blame him.
She wasn’t sure she believed it herself.
“Desert dragons,” he murmured. “Mountain dragons. Sea dragons. Who knew?”
Jesse poked at the fire with a long stick already charred at the end. “Apparently, we were the only ones who didn’t.”
While Elliot brooded, brow heavy, Sanna studied him. His tattered clothes hung off his shoulders. Babs had used black thread to stitch up a once-white shirt—somewhat haphazardly, at that. Elliot hadn’t given them many details, but he’d mentioned beluas and a hint of a troll.
Other creatures, he had said. Never seen them before.
Dinner had been meager. Stale leto nuts, late winter shrooms, and a couple of overripe falla melons that smelled rank. Sanna’s stomach rumbled. She intended to hunt with Luteis later.
None of the dragons had hunted for Elliot.
“I’m sorry, Elliot,” she said. “I should have left Elis and Jesse with you to hunt. Without Rubeis …”
“I’m going to be honest, Sanna.” Elliot’s eyes cut through the flames and right into her. “It’s not what I thought it was out here. Without Finn and all the dragons that went with him, it’s far more dangerous. The forest itself feels angry.” He shuddered. “I know it sounds like I’m mad, but I can’t shake the feeling. Tree branches fall all the time, half-rotted and dead. Sunlight doesn’t pierce the canopy except at high noon, and we’re always cold. When we had all those dragons here? Didn’t seem as bad. But now?”
Sanna swallowed, unsure of what to say.
The forest is angry, Luteis said. It has been forgotten.
“Perhaps we should go somewhere else,” she said.
He shrugged. “To where? What if it’s like this everywhere?”
Ah, Talis, Sanna thought. The legacy of your reign is still unfolding. In some ways, they were no better than babies out here. With dragons that didn’t know how to fight, hunt, or fly. And the desert dragons wanted their help?
“We have to find Finn,” Elliot said. “He can’t be faring any better than we are with all those dragons to feed. Even if we have to head north with him, maybe it would be worth it.”
“You can’t be thinking of—”
“I am.”
“Elliot, it’s only been a few days. We—”
“Exactly. That’s all it’s taken me to realize we can’t do this forever.”
Sanna stared at him, at a loss. How can I ask more of Elliot? she asked Luteis.
You cannot—and yet you must.
“The isolation out here has almost driven Babs mad.” Elliot ran a hand through his hair.
Sanna had seen signs of strain on Babs’s usually cheery face. Babs had lost weight. Her skin sagged in deep lines of worry. She startled often, twitching at almost every sound. Mam’s neediness didn’t help. Mam had hardly said a word when Sanna returned. She’d just stared at the empty air, arms folded over her chest like she was warding something off.
Sanna thought of Isadora and clenched her fists. She was missing everything.
“It’s not just Babs, either,” he said. “It’s … without Rian, I can’t …“ He swallowed hard. “The emptiness of the forest can’t be easier than life with Finn. Maybe we can convince him with your new information. Maybe the dragons will fight.”
“The dragons that followed Finn definitely don’t recognize me as Dragonmaster,” she said. “They wouldn’t listen to me even if I wanted them to.”
“Don’t you want them to?”
Sanna hesitated, her breath stalled. Did she? Perhaps a small part of her thrilled to the idea. But would they? And if they did, what would it mean?
“I want us to be safe.”
“Do you think they’re really going to attack?” Elliot asked.
The fiery burn of Pemba’s breath, the sudden ferocity in his eyes, replayed in Sanna’s mind. Those desert dragons had died. Witches, too. In a carnage as bloody and real as her own daid’s death. She certainly hadn’t imagined it, even if she hadn’t wanted to face it. Did they have a choice now?
“I do,” she said, swallowing hard. “I do think they’re going to try, at least.”
“There’s no reason for this Selness—”
“Selsay.”
“Selsay to kill all the forest dragons. Maybe she doesn’t want us dead. Perhaps she hopes to strike a deal.”
“Then she’ll have a hard time explaining Daid’s death.”
Elliot blew out a hot breath, as if conceding her point. Sanna thought of the mountain dragon that flew into the cliffs, breaking its own wing and later dying. There was more than met the eye there. There had to be.
Something wasn’t right.
Elliot’s expression seemed to waver for a moment, torn between disbelief, fear, and uncertainty. Then it settled into troubled lines as he gazed back at the fire. Sanna straightened, pulling her shoulders back.
“I think we should return to the Ancients,” she said. “Maybe Finn will even be persuaded to go.”
Luteis lifted his head.
“There are houses and water, and it’s safer there,” she continued. “Maybe it’s our only chance.”
Elliot shook his head. “The massacre happened there.”
“There was one at Anguis, too.”
“Cursed lands,” he hissed. “We can’t go back! We have to go forward.”
“Wasn’t this moving forward? Does it really feel so much better?” She spread her hands.
His expression darkened.
Jesse reached over and put a hand on her arm before she could argue. He shook his head softly. Behind him, Elis moaned in his sleep.
“Just … consider it?” she asked, blowing out a hot, annoyed breath.
Elliot scowled. “Not now.”
Talis had assuredly destroyed any hope of unity, not only with his tyranny, but by instilling doubt and distrust amongst witches and dragons. The effective leadership Sanna had seen had been nothing but destructive—from Talis to Deasylva. Could the chasm ever be bridged?
She doubted it.
Very highly doubted it.
That night, Sanna climbed as high as she could go amidst the decaying trees.
She found a spot on a sturdy branch and settled onto it. Luteis eyed the peeling bark of a nearby tree. Needs a good torch, he muttered before laying behind Sanna on their massive, shared branch. His face res
ted near her back. She leaned against him, grateful to be in the silence, where it was easier to think.
After several hours staring at the underside of the branches overhead and slipping in and out of sleep, the sound of rustling wings broke into her stupor. Jesse leapt off Elis’s back and dropped onto the branch. He sat across from her, and a flicker of movement and color told her that Elis lingered nearby. Only forest dragons could be such powerful creatures but maintain such a lithe grace.
With her ankle on her knee and her hands stacked behind her head, she glanced at Jesse. Luteis was settled next to her, his tail lazily curled around a branch, eyes closed.
“You’ve been unusually quiet since returning,” Jesse said. Luteis reached over to hold Sanna’s ankle with his tail even though their bond didn’t require touch anymore. She appreciated the warm, familiar burn.
Sanna straightened. “I have an unusual amount to think about now.”
“You do.”
A thousand thoughts whirled through her mind as she watched Jesse flip a smooth stone over and over in his hands. They sat in the dark for several minutes. Sanna soaked in the ambient sounds of the forest. The gentle sigh of the wind. The creak of branches, the chitter of animals.
Why had he come here?
“Are you going to give Deasylva the message from Pemba?” Jesse asked as he crossed his ankles in front of him and leaned back on his palms.
“I tried. She didn’t wake up, or whatever. Besides, if she’s a goddess, shouldn’t she just … know … somehow?” she asked. “Why should I have to tell her anything?”
He shrugged. “I’m as new to this as you are. I dunno what the rules are or even what they should be. Didn’t know she existed until …”
His voice trailed away.
“Talis died,” Sanna snapped. “You can say it, Jesse. It’s not going to harm you. It happened.”
“Calm down,” he said easily. “I just didn’t know how to finish my thought because I couldn’t remember when you told me about her, all right?”
“Oh. Sorry. I’m … just on edge.”
Luteis opened one eye to study her. She tried to relax—but not very successfully. She leaned back against the trunk instead, wishing she could fold herself inside of it. Surely nothing could be more reassuring than the sappy, warm heart of the forest.
“It’s good to see my family again, at any rate.” Jesse plucked a piece of moss off the branch and flicked it aside with his fingertips. “I didn’t realize how much I had missed them until I saw them again. And, we were only gone a few days. Didn’t know the world was so big. Now I kind of get why Isadora wants to see so much of it. Want to talk about what’s on your mind?”
Sanna shoved her worries about Mam and Isadora aside.
“Not sure you want to hear.”
“I do. Because I don’t think it’s as much about the existence of other dragons as it is about your leadership of these dragons.”
She wrapped her arms around her knees and pulled them close to her chest. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. Everyone out there was under the impression that I was the leader of the forest dragons, but it’s not true. There is no leader now. And there can’t be. Not with Talis’s reign of terror hanging over our heads. Can there?”
He opened his mouth to speak again, then shook his head.
“What?” she asked.
“Never mind.”
Sanna fell into silence, grateful he didn’t push. Her thoughts lay on a path she didn’t want to follow. Luteis watched her closely.
Several minutes later, Jesse murmured, “It’s sad.”
Sanna glanced up, startled. “What’s sad?”
“That Talis is still defining who we are. That his control, the fear he instilled, is alive and strong, even after his death.”
He stood up.
She scrambled to her feet. “I didn’t ask for this, Jesse. I wish you could be the leader, or your father. Or—”
A knot in her throat forced her to stop. Or Daid.
His gaze softened. “None of us asked for this, Sanna. Not your daid. Not Elis or Luteis or even Talis.”
“It was forced on me.”
Jesse lifted his hands and gestured around them. “Us too.”
Words failed her. She opened and closed her mouth, then looked away with a scowl. She hadn’t thought of it that way before. Grief pressed on her shoulders, making her feel like a ghost. The thirst for bringing Selsay to justice—to make Daid’s murder mean something—naggd at her. And being the High Dragonmaster meant expectations. How could she possibly handle more right now?
Just as the storm began churning in her mind, a warm tail squeezed her ankle again, sending a soothing sensation through her.
You are not alone, Luteis said.
Her shoulders relaxed.
Jesse drew in a deep breath. “Listen, Sanna, I know you don’t want to be the High Dragonmaster. I wouldn’t want to either. Daid is also grateful it didn’t fall to him. And, I know you didn’t ask for it, but we need you.”
“Jesse, I couldn’t even …”
Save my father, she finished silently.
“No one could have,” he said.
How could she save all of them? How could she lead without being a dictator like Talis that ruined things for everyone? The responsibilities of leadership tripled out, years beyond her. A moment of quiet understanding passed between them. She looked away. Deasylva hadn’t saved Daid either. Just as she hadn’t stopped the massacre that, by all accounts, she knew was coming. So, why should they trust any of these immature goddesses, really?
“A mantle may have been given to you, but that doesn’t mean it has to control you,” Jesse said. “We all have to deal with what life sends us.”
He grabbed a vine and disappeared. Elis followed without a sound, leaving Sanna staring at empty space. Luteis shuffled closer, his head draped near her. She reached out blindly, pressing a hand to the scales along his face. They were smooth, burnished. Luteis let out a little grunt deep in his throat and closed his eyes.
What do you think it means to be the High Dragonmaster? she asked. He blinked once, his yellow eyes bright against the dark backdrop of Letum Wood.
I think that’s entirely up to you.
Is it?
Deasylva had bestowed the title on Sanna, but it didn’t mean anything, really. Not unless the dragons let it mean something. That they’d run away from her at their first chance wasn’t a mark in her favor. Even Elliot’s dragons had been indifferent, perhaps a bit annoyed, when she’d returned. Though, she couldn’t tell if that was because Luteis came back with her.
The Dragonmasters before us were leaders, Luteis said, nudging the side of her leg. Not tyrants. Not like Talis.
Which makes it even more unfortunate that the dragons blame me for their current predicament.
Do they?
His question rang in her head. Why else would they shut her out when they knew she was near? Avoid her? Not look her in the eye?
Then the strange, feral ferocity of the desert dragons came back to her. And worse—the mountain dragons with their wild eyes and lack of control. What if that happened to Luteis? Would he even know her? Could she handle such a loss after everything else?
Calm yourself, Luteis murmured.
Her hands had formed tight fists. Pain radiated from her jaw into her skull from clenching her teeth too hard. Sanna forced herself to relax, but it was slow in coming.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Just thinking.”
Luteis nuzzled closer, then closed his eyes.
Sanna stared into the quiet canopy again, more lost than ever. The tangled mass was as unfamiliar to her as the rest of the forest. She longed for the worn paths she knew so well in her own trees back in Anguis. But it wasn’t likely she’d ever get them back.
Whispers of another Defender raid—and subsequent staff party—floated through La Torra.
Isadora waited impatiently for word from Maximillion, cataloguing he
r quiet observations. Numbers of East Guards. Schedule rotation for the cooks. Cecelia’s strange silence—no Defender had been training in the courtyard for the past week. No snapping of whips. No breaking of vases. Isadora didn’t dare write her observations down, so they ricocheted through her brain like jumping beans.
Once Cecelia and the Defenders left on the raid, an almost audible sigh of relief swept La Torra. While the staff ate crab cakes and drank wine without suppressing their voices—Ernesto amongst the loudest of them—Isadora waded back into the water. They didn’t miss her.
In fact, they hadn’t even invited her.
Water rushed around her shoulders and gently pulled her in. The swim to the sand bank went faster this time. She lay on her back, eyes taking in the stars as she passed beneath them. The thrill of knowing she’d be back in the magic filled her body. She hauled her body up onto the gritty shore. Except for the ocean, no other sound reached her ears. No Guards. No aquilas. For one delicious moment, she felt entirely alone.
Isadora slipped back into the magic.
Light infused the paths, illuminating strands of ivy, curling flowers, and a ground littered with petals. She held an arm over her eyes to block the brightness as the power pulsed through her body in a euphoric song. She’d expected it to have lessened—her magic wasn’t as wild this time—but it seemed brighter than ever.
Her own path, and Sanna’s, populated. Just the two. They split into different directions. Isadora’s path showed her on the sandbar, eyes closed, with sea foam around her shoulders. Down the trail lingered a glimpse of Maximillion, another of Cecelia. In the very farthest, faintest trail lay Sanna.
Before she lost herself in concern for her sister, Isadora closed the paths.
She lay on the sand again, staring at the velvety sky. No sound. No movement. One quick check reassured her. No one had found her. She closed her eyes and returned.
Letum Wood awaited.
“Show me Lucey’s paths.”
Nothing showed. She frowned. The wisps disappeared back into the empty forest. She stood there for a moment, reveling in the quiet. Her magic whirled, pleased to be in use again.