She gasped a sob and Hubric smiled as he looked at Heron and me.
“Let’s help her over to there. Some of the survivors are starting a fire down the beach.”
And despite myself I felt free. Free from hate, for the first time since I met Atura. Maybe there was something to forgiveness after all.
Chapter Nineteen
We’d been on the island for more than a week. Just Heron. Hubric, Atura and a handful of others – humans who had been prisoners of the Saaasallla, it turned out. They didn’t love Atura any more than I did, but Hubric hadn’t allowed for any violence.
Our biggest surprise was that one of them was Octon. He watched me often with hooded eyes until eventually, I asked him why.
“It’s strange to see you from the outside when I’m used to seeing you from the inside,” was all he said. But he didn’t seem resentful of that. He didn’t seem to hold it against me. He looked hungry most of the time.
“I need to get home,” he told Hubric on the second night. “Our land needs new rulers – people who can govern with mercy. I should be one of them.”
I agreed with him, but we were all equally stuck here. It took all of us to survive – gathering coconuts, finding fresh water, keeping the fire fed, and building shelter. There were barely enough of us to do it all. And we were all hungry and exhausted.
I tried almost every day to convince them to let me swim for help. If anyone could do it, it was me. But every time I suggested it, Hubric told me to be patient.
“Wait. Something is coming soon. Wait for it.”
He seemed smug, like he knew something that I didn’t.
I might have ignored him, but Heron agreed with him.
“Trust Hubric,” he said. “He always knows more than he lets on.”
And so, the days dragged out long and full of anxiety. I worried about Nasataa. I worried about my parents. I worried about all the friends I’d met on the way. I worried that we would be stuck on this small island forever. But mostly I worried about Heron, because what we had seemed to be too good to be true.
“What are you worrying about?” he asked me at dawn on the seventh day. We were sitting on a driftwood log at the edge of the fire, keeping it alive as dawn painted the sky in orange and gold under a bank of lavender clouds and over a violet sea.
“I’m afraid that I’ve fallen too hard for you, Heron.”
He laughed. “How would that be possible, little honey?”
“When all this is over and we leave this island, I won’t be able to leave you. It’s not fair to make demands of you – and yet I want to.”
His laughter was deeper yet as he said, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Seleska my little honey, but I haven’t left you – except under the most dire circumstances – since I followed you to the Lands of the Rock Eaters. And I never plan to again.”
Happiness filled me and I snuggled against him at the same moment that my mind lit up like a lantern was shining inside it.
Sela! Sela, are you there?
Nasataa!
We won! The world is free, and they’ve made me the King of the Dragons!
The what? I thought there were only dragon queens!
Taoslil said that it is in accordance with prophecy, right Taoslil? He sounded nervous.
I gasped at the voice of the White dragon echoed in my mind.
That is right, young one.
Nasataa broke in excitedly. And he’s here with me to bring you back to the dragon cities. We’re going to change them so the Blue dragons are welcome, too. Oh, and your parents are with me. They can come if you want. And Heron’s parents. I told them there’s going to be a wedding!
I looked at Heron, my eyes wide and he seemed to be trying to smother laughter with very poor success.
“Are you hearing this, too?” I asked, shocked.
“Yes. From Olfijum,” he said through his laughter.
Olfijum was here, too? I strained my eyes, looking toward the horizon and trying to see them.
Yes, I’m here. Bareena says to warn you that you have to wed before you leave the island. Something about a prophecy, but I’ll let her tell that part herself or she’ll get irritated. No. No, I’m not quoting the whole page. You can do that yourself!
And now I was laughing, too, holding onto Heron as we both stood and scanned the horizon.
Turn around, you fools, Olfjum said and we turned.
They came from the south, a whole fleet of dragons in the air – I could see Nasataa in the lead and Olfijum right behind him with Bareena on his back. There was Taoslil, who had my parents on his noble shoulders, and a Red dragon behind him carrying Heron’s parents. Beside them, that noble dragon Raolcan carried the Dominar and beside her was her guard – who I’d learned was her husband. In the back, a small color-shifting dragon carried a bored-looking Tor with Zyla behind him. For once, she looked satisfied instead of irritated.
And under them, the sea bubbled and swelled with the arching necks and rising backs of hundreds of Blue dragons.
I gasped, overwhelmed by the enormity of our rescue party. In all my dreams, I’d never dreamed this.
“I hadn’t planned to ask you to marry me so soon,” Heron whispered in my ear. “But since I don’t plan to leave you – ever – I think it’s not a bad idea.”
I looked up at him with a smile. “I’ve learned not to go against the prophecies.”
And we both laughed together until I was knocked off my feet by a small Blue dragon who really wasn’t small at all.
“Nasataa!” I giggled as he licked my face. “You did it! You were the Chosen One and you saved us all!”
And I thought I couldn’t have been happier than I was in that moment, though my reunion with my smiling parents was just as good, and the greetings from the lands we’d saved warmed my heart. But it was the final thing that we did on the island that made me so happy that I could have sworn that I was going to lift up from the earth and fly, too.
Heron took my hands in his and our parents laid their hands on our shoulders as our island customs dictated, and we spoke the sacred words before our lips met and our lives were linked forever.
See? I really have released magic into the world, Nasataa said.
And he had.
THANK YOU FOR READING Nasataa and Seleska’s stories. I have so many more tales of fantasy and magic to share. I hope that you’ll join my newsletter to stay up to date with all my books. <3
Sarah
You may also enjoy these series by the same author:
Dragon School: An empathetic dragon. A disabled teen. A bond that will save the world.
Dragon Chameleon: He’s not a hero – or so he keeps saying. But this non-hero has a dragon with different ideas.
Bridge of Legends: He has just five nights to save his sister. She has just five nights to stop him. But if one of them wins, the other one dies.
Fae Hunter: She’s going to end every faerie story ever told.
Behind the Scenes:
USA Today bestselling author, Sarah K. L. Wilson loves spinning a yarn and if it paints a magical new world, twists something old into something reborn, or makes your heart pound with excitement ... all the better! Sarah hails from the rocky Canadian Shield in Northern Ontario -
learning patience and tenacity from the long months of icy cold - where she lives with her husband and two small boys. You might find her building fires in her woodstove and wishing she had a dragon handy to light them for her
Sarah would like to thank Harold Trammel and Eugenia Kollia for their incredible work in beta reading and proofreading this book. Without their big hearts and passion for stories, this book would not be the same.
www.sarahklwilson.com
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