by K Kazul Wolf
The guy sighs, poking at the fire some more while the girl laughs again.
They all seem so normal. More than normal. They’re talking about goat poop. Maur abandoned me in the middle of a desert to a sandstorm and people who seem to want to kill me, I’ve built enough wings for a small army to try to take on the dragons in the sky, and am looking for my mom who may or may not be alive. And somehow, these people are sitting here laughing about poop.
I keep moving, the walls reminding me of the illusions of Maur’s caves. The folds of them flicker and shift in the firelight coming from the pits around me, giving the impression that they’re always moving and sifting and forming around me.
There are other fires. At one, someone plays a string instrument on their lap. A man comes into the camp as the musician starts a new song, sweeping one of the women at the fire off her feet, dancing with her in a way much more intimate than I’ve ever seen. The other people jump up, joining in, and I hurry along. It’s too strange to stand there and watch something like that.
I pass another one and they’re singing, a wonderful chorus of different voices and words and languages, even. This one I pause at. They’re telling a story of some sort, the voices all carrying it so perfectly that it needs no instruments, no additions. But I can’t make out what it’s about, or what’s happening. There’s too much going on, too much to pick up. Frustration pricks through me and I move on.
Then I come onto the greatest opening of all. There are dozens upon dozens of people here, moving around, singing, laughing, eating. And being close to them, it doesn’t look like my mom’s the only illusionist here—people with those same, strange mutations that those guards had back in Mercatus make up a minority of the people, but they’re here. So much for not having illusionists in their home. A lot of them have those odd tattoos that Maur has, too. Discolored bits of skin that look like birthmarks, spiraling pictures and words across arms, dripping patterns down legs.
A massive fire roars in the center of them all, flicking upwards as if it’s licking at the sky, hungry for the stars. Trying to sneak around them doesn’t work too well; everyone’s shifting and moving, saying their goodnights or hellos.
This has to be what Hamahl was talking about, the main fire. But what am I here for? What should I be looking at?
“Hey!” someone shouts from the crowd. “It’s a new moon, and the sun’s down. It’s time for the story!”
The crowd erupts into a series of applause and shouting, and a few people boo, too. My heart pounds in my chest and I back away against a tent. Finally, a bunch of people drag a hooded figure into the center of it all, pushing and pulling until she finally yells, “All right, all right.”
That voice. I know it, distantly. It’s a whisper, a breeze rustling something in the back of my mind.
The woman moves to lower her hood with fingers tipped with small, filed claws.
On top of her head of hair are two rows of horns, one row full grown, the other one shorter, uneven. Odd, in the same way the guards of Mercatus were, but a little less noticeable. Her hair is longer than I’ve ever seen on an illusionist, tumbling from her head in complex braids, her full form lithe despite the silver streaks running along her scalp. It’s her eyes that I can’t stop staring at, though. Because I’ve seen them before. Over ten years ago, and on my own face every time I see my reflection.
My mom.
Does she know I’m here? My chest constricts, my fingers wanting to reach for her and pull away at the same time. I want to run forward, touch her, hug her and make sure she’s real. But what if she doesn’t want that? What if she doesn’t want me?
She gives a wide smile. “Settle down, the lot of you. I’ll do it.”
The crowd quiets, except for a man yelling, “Finally!”
A couple of people laugh and my mom yells, “You’re lucky I do this at all for you bunch of savages.”
People moan and complain until my mom reaches into her robes, drawing out a crystal.
One of dad’s crystals.
“What’re you going to tell tonight?” a child yells.
“Tonight,” she says, raising the crystal and covering the crowd in colors of light and water, the air shimmering with all the vapor that gathers into the air around her, “I’ll tell you the story of the city in the sky.”
A murmur runs through the crowd. A woman near me whispers, “She hasn’t told this one in years.”
“We all know about Caelum, don’t we?” The light and color gathers above her, above the fire into a miniature version of the city in the sky. A flurry of emotion runs through me. The place I called home for most of my life. What is it now?
“But what came before that, hmm?”
The crowd is silent. The city shifts, spires breaking off, becoming sharper, growing scales, spreading their wings and swooping toward the crowds. People scream at the miniature dragons, blocking them with their arms, one old woman waving a small blade at them. But they just land, curling up on people’s heads, perching on shoulders. A few children tentatively reach out, trying to pet their dragons. But they’re simply an illusion, and their fingers fall through the small scales.
One lands in front of me, perching at the edge of the crowd. His scales are brown. This one looks different, the horns wrong, but…like the children, I reach out. However, unlike them, I don’t make contact. I know my dragon isn’t here.
How is she managing all this, all these illusions at once?
“The dragons came first. They were here for a long time before the people arrived—overseas, from a land we’ve long since lost contact with. The dragons loved the humans. They happily shared this green, plentiful land with them. They strove and shifted until they could look like us, walk among us.” Some of the dragons changed into humans with dark amber skin, growing to a normal size, sitting and walking around the audience. “They welcomed the people. They loved them. Children were born of the two species, though they never inherited the ability to change forms.”
Some of the human illusions change, turning into a variety of illusionists, from grand ones like the ambassador, to ones like the guards in Mercatus. One, though, looks exactly like my father. He smiles like him, tilting his glasses toward a little child, like he would to me. I pull my hand away from the small dragon, clutching my arms around myself. She’s too good at this.
“But then grew the divide. The judgment. The dragons have always had more power than humans, in both shape and skill. Even though they taught the people, passed on what they could, they could never compare.” Some people boo and moan, but my mom ignores them. “So…they started fighting.”
The illusions around us bear arms, my father taking out a bow, my little brown dragon joining together with all the other miniature beasts to make one giant, onyx dragon, opening its mouth in a silent roar. It would be a gruesome fight, if there were blood accompanying the false images, if any hits left marks. At least the children won’t have too many nightmares, I guess.
“All of us grew to resent each other. Not just the individual races, but everyone, hating everyone. But not all gave into the hate. A group of dragons gathered together. They took a large plot of land and drained the life from the forest, the plants and lesser animals, concentrating it into as small an area as possible until it became solid, a stone as precious as a gem but with the potential for anything. They took this concentration of life and carved out a plot of land and lifted it into the sky, their stone at its center becoming the city’s heart for them to bleed their illusions into and feed.”
The images pause, frozen in their fighting. Slowly their forms fade away, leaving no tracks, no traces.
“We’re standing in the crater they left.”
There’s movement in the crowd, especially among the younger listeners.
“When they lifted from the ground, they drew water with them. They needed obscene amounts of it for their work. The entirety of the forests dried where they stood, rotting away into dust. Into sand. Other dr
agons saw what they were doing, saw a place to escape all of the chaos and fighting and joined them, dragging out more and more water until the tropics that thrived here…” Trees and flowers grow and bloom around us all, blocking everyone from each other. It’s like I’m alone, in this amazing garden. Some of these plants I’ve seen in the city above, but most are completely new to me. “…faded to dust.”
The plants rustle, like a strong wind blows them. Then, as wind rocks them and not a hair on my head stirs, they shrivel and shrivel and shrivel into grey and brown lumps until they can’t take it anymore. They blow away with the wind, a sandstorm of a dead forest.
“This was power. The dragons stole all the water from their once rich earth, and left the people with none. So they started to dry up, too, fading into the sand. It’s said, sometimes you can hear their moaning in the wind, that their souls could never join with the sky because they are a part of the ground.” Shivers run through many shoulders, including mine.
“But this was never the intention of the dragons that wanted peace. They recognized that they now owned the people, that they could control them. So they stopped the fighting. They stranded people around the desert inside their little moats as if islands in the sea. They took the knowledge that they once gave, hiding it so well that even they couldn’t find it. They’ve become victim to what they can no longer remember. Everyone has.”
She hangs her head, closing her eyes. “So as that city rose…” The fire behind her shifts. It rises from its logs, the actual thing moving upwards and forming a circle of light. “…the world fell into darkness.” And blackness creeps in like smoke, like water, rising from the ground, consuming everything, everyone. Except for that light. That one, damned light.
22
The Unselfishness
A gasp rings out in the absolute darkness and silence. The illusion flits away, the fire dropping back to the ground in an explosion of sparks and light.
My mom’s eyes train on me.
It takes until then for me to notice that the fire rising off the ground had made the air dry. Too dry.
My illusion is gone.
Eyes follow her gaze until they’re all pinned on me, glinting in the darkness.
I should have gone. Run into the desert and took my chances. Because from the looks of horror and anger on everyone’s faces, I stand no chance here.
Wanting to see my mom was the worst idea I’ve ever had. She doesn’t look happy. Maybe my dad never told me about her because she left us, she wanted nothing to do with us. It would make sense, too much sense.
I wish I could become an illusion. That it’s all I was all along, never born. All I am is water, and when I let go, I’ll be millions of particles drifting into the sky.
“She’s escaped?” the angry man from before yells from somewhere in the crowd.
“An illusionist?” the people murmur around me, backing away and slowly drawing their weapons.
“With wings?”
“I’ve never seen one with ‘em that wasn’t an ambassador.”
“She must be a spy!”
“Their messenger, their murderer!”
The adults around me draw their weapons, aiming them at me.
“N-no, I’m not— This is a mistake. I didn’t mean to—” What can I say? What will make them stop? There’s nothing but murder in their eyes. They aren’t listening.
And they’re moving closer.
I spread my wings, crouching. But it’s not quick enough, I know even as I’m about to spring forward, watching five weapons—swords, spears, shining things with sharp edges I’ve never seen before—aim for my neck, my wing joints. I close my eyes, push my wings as hard as I can and jump.
There’s a deafening clash of metal.
My feet leave the ground.
I fumble for a second, getting my bearings and rising from the ground.
“Don’t you dare touch her.” A woman stands in front of where I was standing seconds ago. She holds a scimitar, a few people knocked back, others still blocked by the blade.
My mom.
She…she does care? My chest feels like it’s about to explode, like I sucked the vast expanse of the giant fire into the cavity of my ribs. It’s so warm, but it burns, too.
Then she looks at me. My wings stutter for one moment, and I want to let them stop, fall and run at her and touch her and feel that she is real, and that she didn’t leave me and that…that… Hot tears fall down my face without me noticing, words choking my throat. “I’m sorry,” I should say. “I should have waited,” “You’re alive,” “I missed you more than I can begin to describe.”
But she speaks first.
“Run!” She waves violently, eyes wide, voice cracking.
The word doesn’t process at first, my head swimming and silent all at the same time. Then the crowd explodes, voices yelling, shouting, arguing. An arrow nicks my cheek, and barely thinking, I turn and fly away. Illusions pulse through the air around me, a few more arrows flying as I rise higher and higher, racing away from the danger, and the camp.
And leaving my mom in the middle of it.
I hesitate over the edge of the large dune marking the edge of the camp—or rather, the edge of a crater. I fold my wings and fall along the far side of the lip, sliding into a valley of sand. It’s getting cold, the chill wind making bumps rise on my arms.
For a moment, all I can do is breathe. I have a mother. She protected me. I left her.
I turn, half-crouched in the sand, back toward the slight, flickering light of the camp creeping across the edge of the dune. I need to save her, but I can’t save her. Didn’t Maur say these people captured him, a full-fledged dragon? I don’t have half his training, and from the display my mom gave tonight, I don’t have a fraction of the skills.
What have I done? If I hadn’t been so selfish, if I hadn’t taken Maur’s offer… What will they do to her?
“So you are her daughter.”
I swing around, drawing my sabre and stepping back.
It’s the man who broke me out and started this mess, his golden skin black as his curly hair in the starlight. Hamahl.
“What do you want?” I hiss, keeping my voice low. Did he have all of this planned from the start? Maybe he has something against my mom, he wanted her in this situation. Who is my mom to these people?
He raises his hands. “I’m not here to fight you. I’m here to help.”
“Like you did last time? Telling me to wander into the center of the camp and practically ask to get caught?”
He shrugs. “I didn’t expect that to happen. I’d hoped you’d be able to slip by while everyone was distracted. I forgot how powerful your mother is.”
“That still doesn’t explain what you want.” I shift my grip in my blade, lowering my horns a bit. I’ve had enough of being led around and all these betrayals and stolen hopes. I need to get to my mom.
He sighs and looks down. Then he reaches up and parts his hair. Despite myself, my grip on the sabre loosens, as I lean forward to see what he’s doing.
Buried in his mess of hair are tiny, underdeveloped horns. They replicate a dragon’s formation perfectly, but they’re so small. He’s an illusionist? Why didn’t I notice?
“Caelum decided to keep me for a while, when I was born. See if I would develop. When I was five, the guards came to get me, and my parents didn’t lift a finger as I cried and screamed and begged.” He stands straight, looking me in the eye. “I know what it’s like to fall and have your entire life dragged out from underneath you. And I know how good it feels to find home again.” He waves behind me, toward the encampment.
He’s like Carita. Like me.
No. I shake my head. “Home?” I look over my shoulder at the glow. “If this is the place my mom calls home, it doesn’t seem very welcoming. Cornering a person because they’re different? And what did they do to her after?”
“As opposed to how your home would have treated an outsider?”
I wi
nce.
He gives a soft smile. “They aren’t right. Azelain is naïve in its isolation, sometimes. But you can’t blame them for acting like that, when we’re hunted by your kind—our kind—every day for trying to live free, happy lives. You can only hope to change their minds and situation over time, by being the change.”
His heartbeat is even, normal. He’s telling the truth. Slowly, I sheathe my weapon. “So that’s what you want, then? For me to be whatever this change of yours is?”
With a sigh, he shoves his hands into his pockets. “Again with not being able to accept that good deeds exist! When I first arrived here a few years back, do you know who was to first to greet me? Your mother. She’s very important around here. We talked for a long time about Caelum, and she told me about you. She thought you were dead, Ava. She couldn’t forgive herself.”
I blink. But…how? Everything here seems backward and twisted—more so than anywhere else down here, at least.
“She welcomed me here, gave me a home.” He takes a slow step forward. “I wanted to return the favor, and it, well…”
He’s so honest, sincerity dripping from his words. Guilt rises in me, wraps around my ribcage. It’s stupid, it’s ridiculous. I’m being practical; I know where trusting the wrong people leads. But…before I fell, I was like him. And even after all that he’s seen, all that’s been done to him, he somehow came through this and stayed, so…so…
I shake my head. “Fine.” I take a breath. “Thank you.”
He shrugs. “You’re welcome, for all the good that it did you.”
With a deep breath, I cross my arms and ask, “What did they do with my mom after I flew away?”
He blinks, like the last thing he was expecting was that question. “They’re holding her in a tent, deciding what to do next. They can’t exile her, and I don’t think a punishment’s ever been dealt in this place while I’ve lived here, so I imagine some time will be put into that.”
The inside of my chest twists. “Will you take me to her?”