by K Kazul Wolf
The sand scrapes against my face, rocks dig into my skin and tear feathers from my wings. I roll, until finally, my hip catches on the woody stump of a dead bush.
Everything hurts. I moan, trying to move. Pressure digs into my wing, directly into the wound. I scream.
Vito roars overheard, but above the sound, a man says, “So you’re the runaway, are you?”
My eyes slowly gain focus. A man stands over me, wearing a pair of my father’s wings. But what strikes me most are his teeth. Two long fangs hang beneath his top lip, another pair jutting up from the bottom. On any other person, it might look comical. But I know this man. I know how he uses those teeth.
Jamarcus. The general of the hunters.
I cringe back, try to crawl away, but gasp as he digs his toe deeper into the cut flesh of my wing, rubbing sand into it. He smiles. “Ah, I see you recognize me.” He runs a finger down the blade of his wickedly curved sabre, the edge stained with my blood. “Normally, hunting down the winged ones is entertaining. But my dear, you are an absolutely terrible fighter. I’m surprised they ever let you touch a dragon.”
The ground shakes underneath me. Air swirls and growling rips through it.
“And you, dragon, must be the infamous Vito.”
Vito’s growling rises, snarls that vibrate against my skin. I can almost hear his voice in my head, Let her go, or I’ll rip you to pieces.
“Ah, ah, ah, big boy.” Jamarcus’s sabre swings to my neck, stopping just short. “There’s someone at the top who would like to see the two of you back alive, but you know I’m not much one for those kind of missions.” He smiles at me, stroking my neck with his blade. “I am curious about one thing, though.” He looks toward Vito. “Why did you follow her?”
Vito doesn’t stop his growling, but a crease forms in his brow. Why wouldn’t I follow her?
No, no, no! “No, stop, I—”
His blade presses in closer. “I’m not talking to you. You’re not interesting. But, considering your crimes, it makes this dragon’s loyalty seem all the stranger.”
Vito’s growls fade. No, he can’t tell him. I need to tell him. He needs to hear it from me. I need to explain it. He needs to understand, as much as he ever could.
“Why would you not only escape with, but protect the illusionist who killed your sister?”
9
The Murder
Straps chafe against my skin, digging in and dripping blood. Darkness presses in. How long are they going to leave me here? Insect antennae and legs brush against my skin, crawling between my feathers as they click and scratch at my wounds. I pull at the leather tying my wrists, knees, and ankles to the ground, but there’s no give. I collapse, pressing my face against cool stone. Please, I want out of this hell, wherever it is.
Even if I got free, I don’t know how to get out. After what happened…it’s hard to concentrate.
Vito. He just stood there. Jamarcus threatened and sliced at my every word, but I couldn’t stop calling out to him, trying to blubber out some explanation, something so that he’d understand. He froze, his eyes stuck onto Jamarcus, as if the illusionist were a ghost, not real.
As if he couldn’t believe my crime.
Only after other soldiers landed around us did he stir. Even then, it took until they started poking and prodding with their shard spearheads to get him to move, only the threat of death to get him into the air. Before he took off, though, he looked at me.
That look broke me. It snapped my mind and my body and heart in two. They tied me and dragged me into the sky and I didn’t fight. We entered the clouds and Vito was lost to me.
Something large and furry brushes against me and I scream, tightening my shaking fingers into shaking fists. Why can’t I move? If only I’d paid attention when they bound me, but… There’s nothing I can do about anything now. I made my choices, as bad as they were.
I killed a dragon.
And now they’re going to kill me for it.
Skittering echoes from all around me and I bite my lip on another scream.
Flame bursts to life in the dark distance, running along the walls as it follows a trail around the long room. The place is so tall that the light barely touches the top, the walls looking like they’re carved from one great stone, painted like the feathers of a dragon’s wings. Staring at it too long makes me dizzy. The floor isn’t flat. Instead, it’s pitted with large drains, smelling of metal and rust and iron.
My breath catches. I know where I am.
The two great doors at the end of the hall creak open, two spiral-horned hunters holding them wide as a dragon walks through. He’s twice the size of Vito, his crest so large and with such enormous horns that it’s a wonder how he can hold his head up. As he walks, his scales pull back, rippling down the length of his body in waves as if looking at a reflection in a pool until he emerges as a human from the skin of a beast, peacock-colored clothes draping his body. His eyes are yellow, face and body a little round, hair shorn short against his scalp the same way mine is, the same way all the dragons and illusionists do by his order.
I’ve never seen him before, but the simple golden ringlet around his head tells me everything.
The king.
His pleasant smile turns into a cheerful laugh at the sight of my horror. “Oh? Didn’t expect the king himself to bear witness to your execution?”
My trembling becomes more violent, so much so that I can’t even shake my head.
“My dear, you are the first of your generation to run away from your fate. You can’t think that I’m not curious as to your reasoning.”
His voice goes on, a frighteningly pleasant rumble, but I don’t hear the words. Because behind him, I catch sight of a pale brown dragon. Vito has no chains on but his wings are bound in an ornate metal vice.
He won’t look at me.
All I want is to meet his eyes, to see what’s in them—if he still hates me, if he'll ever listen to my explanation.
Pain flares across the back of my head. I cry out, trying to reach up and rub it out, but the leather straps don’t give.
“You manage to escape for a few days and you think that you’re good enough to ignore your king?”
“N-n-no, of c-course not, m-m-my Lord.” I bow my head to the floor, the pain rolling in on waves. If I could just get Vito to look at me, talk to me.
But I suppose it’s too late for that. I had so much time to tell him, to be able to explain myself. Now there’s nothing I can say.
“Really? Your words don’t match your actions.” He looks behind him, past his two horned illusionists and to Vito, surrounded by his small guard. “Is it that this one is so important that you couldn’t focus on me? Maybe I should remove him from the picture.” He starts to wave his hand.
“No!” I fling myself forward, a few pathetic inches. “Please, do what you have to do to me. Vito didn’t know. He never did. I…I used him.” The words come out choked, strangled. The truth hurts.
“Do you have any evidence of this? He certainly can’t speak for himself.” The king smirks.
“The only wounds from a dragon were on my father,” I screech, feeling dizzy from the emotions whirling and changing and pricking against my skin. “Why would Vito kill my father, why would I encourage him? The wound that killed the caretaker came from my father before I arrived, and the sabre— You know this already!”
He tilts his head. “Do I? I think you should explain it further.”
All of it. Out in the open for everyone.
Yes. That would be best.
I collapse to the ground again, pressing my forehead to the stone, the weight of shame impossible to lift.
“I was out late.” The words come out a whisper. Vito and I watched the sunset, then observed the stars in their slow twirling. It was one of the things we still did after he became only a beast, even though we couldn’t create stories for our own constellations anymore, our galaxies severed. “When I got home, my father wasn’t there. He’s
never not there, not within the past few years. He normally finishes his work outside the house before I ever do.”
His work. The wings. He would never have given these people those wings, would he? “Only for your mother.” He had smiled as he patted my head. “Or you, if you had been born without wings. As I’d hoped.”
That doesn’t matter now. I clear my throat.
“I tried to leave, to go and find him, but…there were hunters. They gagged me, blinded me, dragged me away until I was chained to the floor, like this. They took off my blindfold and I was next to my father. He already had blood on him, but it wasn’t his. I saw…I saw the body of the caretaker in the corner.”
He apologized for it. He said that it was his only choice. And I didn’t care. I just wanted to go home, be safe, know that we’d be all right.
“Then Livius came in. I didn’t understand a lot of what she said, something about how Vito and my father protected me for too long. And…my crimes. She had seen me stroke my hand against Vito’s side, on multiple occasions. She wanted to cleanse her brother and see him rise into the Circles, cleanse this world of my family. And then… She…”
My father didn’t fight. His eyes never left me. He said that he didn’t blame me, that he was proud of me. All I could say was that I loved him, and that I was sorry. Over and over and over again. Just as Livius jaws opened wide, he nudged something toward me with his foot. One of his inventions, the key to my escape. Then Livius came down on him.
“I…used an illusion to escape.” It tumbles out of my mouth as broken as the rest of my words, my breathing uneven and my eyes stinging. “I flew to him and tried to help him, but nothing would work. I…I don’t know why she…” Tears choke my throat again, and I have to clear it, try to keep going. “She teased me. Dared an illusionist as weak as me to defeat a dragon like her. So I drew my sabre and I…I stabbed her through the chest.”
My vision blurs, my cheeks soaked. “That’s when I ran, I took to the air, slamming through a window—”
“That window?” the king interrupts, gesturing behind me.
I sit slowly, trying to swivel around, see the stained glass, but all I catch sight of is a bit of tarp. Not that I need to look. There’s only one room I’ve seen like this, and I could never forget the night I saw it.
“Yes.” I turn back around, keeping my head low. Seeing their faces is too much. Seeing this room is too painful. “That’s it, that’s all I can explain. I don’t know why she killed him. I know it sounds stupid, and I’ve been thinking and thinking but I can’t find any answer, and—”
The king laughs, excessive clothes jiggling with him. “You don’t know? Your father never actually told you how he bought your life from us?”
Finally, I look up. He looks honestly entertained. “You— What?”
“Little winged half-breed, your father struck a bargain with us a few years after your pairing, just after your dragon lost the right to fully be a dragon. Your life in exchange for those wonderful, confusing wings of his.”
His pride and joy. His life’s work that he kept safe and sound on the ceiling of our rooms. He gave them to the people that he quietly defied? “But why?”
“Didn’t I just say? He bought your life. However, he made the mistake of forgetting to bargain for his own life. We had what we needed of him,”
My eyebrows furrow and I take a breath, planning to say something, but I can’t figure out what that something is.
“You must have noticed that all of the other caretakers your age are all gone? Have been gone for, what, three years since the last dragon gave in, at least?”
I have, but I figured it was because they moved on to work in the castle, or to start their own families, or…anything really. Was that so naive?
“When dragons turn fifteen years of age, they take on their first sacrifice, their caretaker. By the time they become two decades old, they take on their second sacrifice. He’s nearly behind on two, at this point.”
“S-sacrifice?”
“You’re a caretaker who ran before the sacrifice.”
“It’s best you don’t know, then.”
“Why, the consumption of an illusionist, of course.”
“C-con— You eat us! But we’re your blood! You’re eating yourself!” It’s ridiculous to even imagine. Vito, any of my fellow caretakers’ dragons—eating them? B-but the smell of metal in the air of this room, the dark stains that refused to be scrubbed out of the stone floor, the way Livius’ jaw wrapped so easily around my father’s body…
“But of course, my dear.” He walks closer, kneeling in front of me. “Have you ever wondered how we generate the power to turn back and forth, between human and beast? Flesh and blood are the most powerful substances in this world, the most priceless. Especially your kind and your mixed blood.”
My stomach roils as my mind races back to the days of my classes, all the winged children that I would sit with, play with. Gone. “What about the endless life you promised us? What about the promise of godhood that you hung on our ears?” My father turned those ideas away, clipped them where they flew from my mouth. Dragons weren’t gods, he’d insist, they just were a little different than us. But most other children believed them with barely a question
“Of course, my dear. You join with us. You live eternally as a part of an immortal being. That is, if you actually consume the flesh.” He turns back, looking toward Vito.
The brown dragon’s mouth is shut tight, eyes turned away. How long has he known this?
And…that was why. That was why he couldn’t turn back. Oh, Vito. I want to run over and hug him, tell him thank you, tell him that he’s wonderful, that we should fly back and join the ground dwellers, leave these horrific people.
But I can’t.
Because I killed his sister, his kin. I murdered, and I hid it from him.
“Now, time to give you both your punishment.” He swirls to his feet, walking back toward Vito and the others. “Since you weren’t actually involved in the murders—which I expected, but I wanted to hear your story first—I excuse your crimes of abandoning the city and consorting with lesser blood. On one condition.” He turns on his heel, walking back toward me. “You. It took years upon years of trial and error to get you serpents to this point of complete submission, and you were the only one in thirty years to defy your lessons. We tell you from the moment you’re born that your dragon lords are the most important thing in your life, and somehow you managed to kill one? When your peers think that they’ve been chosen to save their dragon’s life, they throw themselves at their feet. But, you—truly, your parents’ daughter. Between your father’s antics and the disgrace that your mother became and what she did.” He grabs my chin in his hand, examining my face.
My…my mother? This has nothing to do with her; she disappeared so long ago… My gut twists. Maybe she was sacrificed. But why bring her up, then?
He turns toward Vito. “Now, my boy, to prove your loyalty and destroy all your betrayal, you are going to have to finally accept your sacrifice. No more excuses.”
My blood runs cold as the seconds tick by. No wonder they have me tied down, like a lesser animal. Because that’s what they need me to be. So Vito can…eat me.
“I admire your persistence to let your pet live for so long, but it is bordering on ridiculousness, boy. So have at it. Oh, don’t worry. You get a taste for it, after a while.”
After a moment, claws scrape the ground, making their way closer. My shivers rock more violently, then…slow down.
If I die, Vito will keep living.
If I die, all the guilt will be gone.
All I can hope is he makes it quick.
10
The Cost
Vito stops a few inches in front of me, his claws shimmering in the firelight. I dig my nails into my palms. Won’t he get it over with? Hopefully he’ll make it swift, painless. Maybe he’ll—
No, I don’t want to think about it. I can’t.
&nb
sp; He leans in closer, his breath puffing against my face, through my short hair. His presence feels like the sun: warm, comforting, with fear mingling and tainting it. It makes my heart flutter around like it’s trying to break free. I may die before he lays his teeth on me, or his claws, whichever he chooses.
As I’m about to scream out, tell him to end it all, his snout nudges my face.
No teeth, no claws. The last thing I expected. Despite myself, I look at him.
I take that back. His expression is the last thing I expect.
And in his eyes is a look I've seen all too often but haven't paid attention to. It's the look he wore when he would step in front of those mocking us for being caretaker and dragon when he hardly qualified as being a dragon anymore. It's the look he wore just before he turned fifteen, when he confessed that he would rather live as a helpless ground dweller than give up the person he cares about most. It's the look that was in his eyes when he made true on that promise and followed me to the world below Caelum.
He…he won’t do it. Even with what I’ve done to him, his sister.
Tears pour down my face in a silent stream. I never deserved him. He never deserved me.
He touches his nose to mine, shutting his eyes. I close mine, too, focusing on the heat of him, his presence. I…I don’t want to go.
“Hurry it up.” The king’s voice makes me jump, but I don’t otherwise move. All I want is my arms to be free, so I can hold his face tight, never let him pull it away. Luckily for me, he doesn’t. “I don’t have all day to waste on your hesitation. And Vito, you’re already behind on your lessons from your years of dawdling. Move.”
“Vito,” I choke on the word, his name. “You can’t put it off forever.”
He doesn’t make to move, so I open my eyes.
Like hell I can’t, his eyes say to me, wide with anger, his lips curled in a quiet snarl.