by Katie Cross
“Luteis says he doesn’t recommend a hatchling merge,” she said, her amusement fading back into concern.
“Why not?”
She shrugged.
“He won’t force another dragon to merge with Daid, will he?” he asked.
“No.”
The word came out more forcefully than she’d expected. Sanna cleared her throat. “We don’t force dragons to do anything. That’s Talis’s game.”
Luteis glanced back, then snorted her direction. Elliot’s hand twitched. He must have heard her. Right then, Gellis, a female in mid life at eighty years old, stepped toward Elliot. Sanna had always known her as forward, but calm. The perfect dragon for Elliot.
Elliot stood there, frozen.
“Lift up your hand,” Sanna hissed to him as Gellis approached, gazing on him with curiosity. “Let her touch it with her snout.”
A trembling hand rose in the air. Gellis pressed her snout to it. Elliot sucked in a sharp breath, held his hand there for a pause, then pulled it away with a wince. Sanna hid a smirk. Gellis would be ready to mate soon, which made her burn hotter than usual
“Wh-what next?” Elliot asked under his breath.
“Do you want to merge with Gellis?” Sanna asked.
Elliot paused, met Gellis’s deep eyes, then nodded.
“Exchange of blood is next then,” Sanna said, sounding more confident than she’d expected herself to sound. “That initiates the merging.”
Gellis looked at her with an assessing gaze. Sanna held it. After what seemed an eternity, Gellis turned back to Elliot. She scored her own leg with a talon, allowing blood to rise to the surface. Elliot, with a knife pulled from his pocket, nicked the side of his thumb. When he pressed his skin to a drop of Gellis’s sizzling blood—which could have half-filled a bucket—he shouted.
Sanna held her breath. What would happen next? Would Elliot be overcome with power, the way she had with Luteis?
Elliot’s brow furrowed.
“Yes,” he said, not taking his eyes off Gellis. “I can hear you.”
A success, Luteis said.
Why was it so different from ours?
I don’t know.
Gellis slipped back a few steps, head flailing slightly, as if she were upset. Elliot turned to Sanna, panic in his gaze.
What do I do? he seemed to be asking. Sanna fought off a smile.
“Let her go,” Sanna said. “The merging is … a big step. Give both of you time to get used to it.”
With seeming relief, Gellis disappeared back into the trees. Elliot stumbled over to Sanna and Jesse. Jesse clapped him on the shoulder with a grin.
“Good work, Daid.”
Elliot mumbled under his breath as he sat next to them. “Odd feeling. In my head. Didn’t expect …” Sapphire blood still stained the skin of his hand and wrist.
A hopeful sign, Sanna said to Luteis.
Indeed.
She looked to Jesse. “See?” she mouthed. “Hope.”
He grinned.
The dragons continued to move toward the branch Luteis wanted them to jump from. It stood over ten times Sanna’s height, and twice theirs. The hatchlings scrambled upward fearlessly. One of Elliot’s adult males, Torrelis, sank his claws into the tree but climbed only three arm spans off the ground before he fell on his backside with a ferocious growl. A second later, he tried again.
Another dragon made it halfway, began to fall backward, and abandoned the tree. Her wings flailed as she plummeted, crashing into the ground on her back legs. She howled. Luteis’s tongue flickered. More dragons crashed, growling and throwing flame at each other when each attempt failed. The hatchlings peered down at them.
Sanna opened her mouth to say something to Jesse but closed it again when she saw Trey lingering just outside the open spot, watching. He looked so much older than she remembered. Haunted, even. Burning his family on a makeshift pyre had made her vomit several times in the bushes, but Trey had stood strong and silent.
Jesse tilted his head back. “Maybe Elis could help.”
Luteis spun around to stare at them, eyes tapered into thin yellow slits. Jesse held up two hands in a gesture of peace.
“I’m not trying to make you angry. I’m trying to be efficient.”
It’s an excellent idea, Luteis said. I would be happy to turn this over to Elis. We need to patrol, anyway.
You just want to fly.
I want eyes on the enemy.
Sanna turned to Jesse. “It’s a good idea. Would Elis do it?”
“Gratefully.”
A body lumbered out of the trees before Sanna could ask him. Elis nuzzled Jesse. Sanna heard a whisper, a stirring, in the back of her mind. Before she could turn her attention to it, it faded. Luteis’s voice replaced it.
Elis will take over from here. I want you to try another spot, Luteis said to the dragons. Jumping from boulders and extending the wings will also strengthen them and be an easier start. Follow Elis and the witch boy Jesse.
Come, Sanna of the Forest. We fly.
Three children scampered past Sanna the next evening, giggling as they ran.
Scraps of old material tied Elliot’s youngest daughter’s hair into a bramble-filled messy bun at the back of her head. Hatchlings dropped from the trees, some of them flying, a few still falling—at least at first. Most of the hatchlings had quickly progressed to gliding. Rosy had long shown talent above all. Luteis often took her on longer flights with Junis. He pushed their endurance every day.
She slipped through the trees, seeking Jesse, a half-sharpened spear in her hand. Smoke rose from a deep hole in the ground where embers sizzled when forest-lion fat dripped into the fire. Mam stood, rotating the meat on a spit, staring at the orange and red flames with glazed eyes. She turned it so slowly the fat dripped into the flames instead of coating the meat. Sanna sighed. Mam seemed to be anywhere but in the forest.
“Avay, Mam.”
Mam glanced up and blinked. Seconds passed before recognition flittered across her face. “Sanna,” she said.
A breath of relief slipped from Sanna’s lips. Mam remembered her, at least. What of Isadora, though? Did anyone remember her? It seemed ages ago that they’d last seen her.
“Smells good.”
Sanna settled on a rock not far from the fire. In the background of her mind, she heard Luteis’s voice as he hunted with Elis and two of the older hatchlings. He spoke about beluas and forest lions and the differences in their scent. Although beluas had proliferated in the forest, particularly north of here, the meat was tough and gristle-filled and smelled foul.
For once, she felt better having her feet on the ground.
“Avay,” Mam said.
She turned the spit, and fat sizzled as it landed on the logs below. Sanna resisted the temptation to stretch out on the ground, the way she did when it was just her and Luteis. Mam probably couldn’t handle her lack of propriety. Even in the middle of the forest.
An awkward silence stretched between them until Sanna asked the question that had been burning in the back of her mind all day.
“Have you seen Isadora?”
Mam shook her head once. Her lips pressed together. “No.”
“Oh. Ah … not at all?”
“No.”
“Letter or …”
Mam shook her head. Sanna frowned, her frustration deepening. What now? When would Isadora return? Daid had been gone for weeks now, and Isadora didn’t even know.
“That’s not like her.”
“We’re gone.” Mam shrugged. “She may have tried.”
Sanna thought of going back to Anguis with Luteis, but banished the notion. She couldn’t leave with one of the two competent dragons—not for more than patrols, anyway. And how would they even find her? None of them knew anything of Isadora’s world.
Their first mistake.
“Perhaps,” Sanna said. But she let her worry go. Clearly, Isadora had taken care of herself so far. She’d have to continue to do so.
“How are you, Mam?”
Mam pressed a weary hand to her forehead. “Tired. Hungry.” She tilted her head back, shuddered, then closed her mouth, as if to cut off something else she wanted to say. Sanna waited, but Mam ventured no more.
“It’s been good to …”
The words died on her lips. To see you again, she wanted to say, but didn’t know how. Instead, the air between them grew tense. Was it good to see Mam again? To remember Daid—the horror of his death? Her distance from Isadora? The strange shell of the woman who resided in Mam’s body?
Sanna kicked at some pebbles on the ground. Mam turned the spit and frowned. The crease lines in her forehead seemed to burrow deep.
“Mam, are you okay? Really?”
The question came out on its own. The moment Sanna heard herself speak it, relief flooded her. How badly she’d wanted to ask. Mam’s gaze met hers for a brief moment, then flittered away.
“Talis cared for us in so many ways,” she said. “He provided. He kept us safe. Your daid wouldn’t be dead if Talis were alive.”
“Wouldn’t he?”
Mam closed her eyes. “I don’t know. It’s all so confusing. Aren’t you confused?”
“I was.”
“Talis clearly crossed the line, didn’t he?” Mam asked. Her fingers toyed with the edges of her tattered dress. “He … he killed witches. That’s wrong. It’s wrong, right? Even for Talis. And Drago. Yes, of course it’s wrong. But if we were to do wrong and bring it upon ourselves? No, because Drago doesn’t exist …”
Mam’s voice trailed away, anguish in her eyes. She lowered herself to a log, her face pale. Sanna stood and turned the roasting meat. No wonder Mam always seemed exhausted. Was she constantly running through this mental dialogue?
“Talis killed other forest dragons, too, Mam. And may have initiated the downfall of the forest-dragon race.”
“Yes. But … don’t you feel afraid without him?” She glanced at the canopy with distrustful eyes. “There is so much that could harm us. I never felt this way with Talis. And then your daid …”
There is so much more than this, Sanna thought, grateful Mam didn’t know the extent of what they faced.
“These other mountain dragons could attack at any moment,” Mam continued. “What’s to stop them? Talis would have.”
Mam stared at her, as if lost. Sanna scrambled for reassurances but had none to give. Mam continued, speaking more than she had at one time since Talis died.
“Why haven’t they attacked? It’s been three days. It’s awful, waiting. Fearing. Thinking that we could … but then, your daid …”
Sanna couldn’t tell if Mam felt hope at the possibility of death, or fear. In death, at least they’d see Daid. Or would they? Was Halla real? Or did Daid just not exist at all anymore? Perhaps that thought comforted—or motivated—Mam. But she seemed terrified. Distraught at the very idea of another massacre.
Sanna couldn’t blame her. She felt it, too, all the way to the tips of her fingers. There hadn’t been a single sign of the mountain dragons yet. Not even their daily reconnaissance missions made her feel more at ease.
She tried to remind herself that while the mountain dragons could be looking for them, Letum Wood was expansive and disorienting. The mountain dragons hadn’t yet moved close enough to be dangerous.
At least, not that they could tell.
“Still,” Mam said, shaking her head. “Now that Talis is gone, and we’re doing this without his rules and without …”
She trailed off, but Sanna knew exactly what she would have said.
Without Daid.
“I can’t help but … it’s like there’s something inside me that’s remembering what it was like before I came to Anguis and handfasted your father. Something I felt once.”
Sanna chose her words carefully—Mam never spoke of life before the dragons. Never. Maybe she had feared Talis’s wrath, or just didn’t want to remember the past.
“What is it?” Sanna asked.
“Never mind. I … I miss Anguis. I miss your daid and Isadora and a time when things made sense.”
Tears pooled in Mam’s eyes. Her lips trembled. One hand clutched her heart, and Sanna doubted she was even aware of the gesture.
“Mam, about Da—”
“Stop.” The firm command rang through the air. “I can’t talk about him anymore, Sanna. I’m not ready.”
“I just—”
Mam stood up and strode into the trees without another word. Sanna watched her disappear with a sinking feeling in her chest. She reached up, touched the acid burns that still smarted on her face, and let her hand drop.
“I miss you, Mam.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Isadora frowned at the waves.
They frothed in a lacy ribbon along the edge of the shore, a white backdrop to the churning sky. The sun had just climbed above the horizon, painting the expanse in a wash of tangerine orange. In the distance, the slate cloud still lingered in the distance—a dark smudge in a beautiful globe. It never disappeared. What did it cover? Lightning streaked from it, darting to the water.
Isadora’s mind spun with questions about Lucey and Cecelia and the Defenders. How big was Carcere? Were there only two Guards? She’d only seen a breath of the gloomy prison, but it still felt expansive. Endless.
The temptation to slip back into the paths nearly overcame her. She winced against a restless surge of power. She’d need to vent her magic soon. Despite the triumph of seeing Carcere, her mind kept slipping back toward the paths. To Maximillion—as an adult, a child, and a troubled teenager. To the night she felt she’d pulled the Defenders into her magic. Why did the magic show her so much of Maximillion when he wasn’t here, but not Lucey? And how could she see him as a child? That would be the past, and the Defenders saw the past.
Why did she feel like she was missing a piece of this puzzle?
Thoughts of Maximillion shot a tight pang through her chest. She had so much information now—when would he come? Getting Lucey out actually seemed, for the first time, at least slightly plausible. There was the question of getting Maximillion into the castle, finding Lucey within the intricate maze of Carcere, extracting her, and getting off the island …
… but they could do it.
If only Maximillion would show up, already.
A commotion from the hall caught her attention, drawing her from her thoughts. Fiona stood in the doorway, frowning.
“Cecelia requested her bedsheets be changed,” she croaked. “Better do that first today.”
Fiona’s bloodshot, red-rimmed eyes were bleary, but Isadora knew better than to ask why. The Vittoria Day party must have gone longer than anticipated. The castle had been quieter than normal this morning.
Isadora frowned. Cecelia had never requested her linens changed before. Besides, they had just been washed two days ago.
“The extra set should be in the closet.”
“Cecelia requested the lavanda maid do it. Don’t ask me why.” Fiona flicked her wrist as she fought off a yawn. “Don’t know. She must have had one of her usual … ah … visitors.” Fiona frowned. “Seemed odd, at any rate, that her maids aren’t taking care of it.”
“Where are they?”
Fiona shrugged. “She said they’re gone for the day.”
“Recovering?”
Fiona mumbled something incoherent under her breath. Isadora decided not to press her luck.
“Of course I will do as Cecelia has requested, and right away.”
Satisfied, Fiona moved on, still grimacing as her skirts swished. A prickling suspicion nagged Isadora, tingling up the back of her neck. This wouldn’t—couldn’t—have anything to do with her trip to Carcere, could it?
No.
Absurd.
Still, she wondered.
Not a single maid greeted Isadora.
The third floor lay as hauntingly empty as before, except the double doors to Cecelia’s apartment stood ajar, spill
ing light into a rectangular entryway. A glittering chandelier hovered overhead, its half-melted candles seeming to hold their breath. Small rooms that likely housed the maids branched away from the entry.
Not a single sign of life stirred. No sound, not even the ocean.
Isadora paused on the threshold, sheets draped over her arms. Her neck prickled. What now? Could this be a test? Blast Maximillion for instilling her with such paranoia. Her magic stirred, and she wondered if it could sense her fear.
She hesitated a moment longer before advancing a step. A sliver of light peeked out between two doors—similar to the ones in the hall but decorated with a glass mosaic instead of stained glass. One of the doors moaned at a little shuffle of wind, swinging open another half-pace. Isadora paused, heart pounding. The temptation to throw the sheets down and run nearly overcame her, but she drew in a deep breath. Perhaps it was good she hadn’t gone into the paths. Courage felt far more difficult when she knew what she faced.
Her knuckles tapped on one of the doors. She poked her head in.
“Allo?”
Light infused a sprawling room, falling over the furniture and illuminating the stone floor. A four-poster bed the size of Isadora’s entire room stood against the far wall. Elegant tapestries lay on the floor, depicting sprawling trees. Winding paths of darkness and light. Circular windows of stained glass dotted the top of the outer wall with varying designs of magnolia flowers. A gentle sea breeze caressed her face. The entire room felt … oddly bright.
“What is wanted?”
At Cecelia’s voice, Isadora whirled around, nearly dropping the linens—which she’d ironed twice just to be sure. She clutched them to her chest, barely maintaining her hold by sheer luck.
Cecelia stood in front of a mirror, hair tucked into a complicated maze of braids that wove into a bun at the back. A dove-gray dress hugged her arms, leading to lacey cuffs around the wrists. Pearls were strung around her neck, and from her ears hung diamond earrings. Her eyes flickered briefly to Isadora, hardly long enough to register her, and then back to the mirror.