Marked by the Dragon

by Kayla Wolf

  A compass, the same silver as Hera’s hair. He flipped it open—it had markings for the cardinal directions, but the needle didn’t point north. It pointed south-west. As he moved, it moved too, remaining fixed on the same point. He knew without asking what it was pointing to.

  ”Guess you’ve got your answer, David,” Amara said, smiling at him. “Go get her.”

  Chapter 4 – Quinn

  Quinn spent the rest of the morning in the garden. It always calmed her down, getting her hands into the soil, getting to grips in a very practical way with what was out there, what was happening. Tomato plants didn’t care about laws of succession, they cared about water and sunlight.

  And there was plenty of both out here. The first thing Charles had done, all those years ago when they’d landed here in the middle of the Mohave Desert, was take their family’s ancient heirloom and bury it deep in the unforgiving soil. For a while, they’d worried that it wasn’t going to work—that the desert was too different from their ancestral home, that this soil couldn’t give rise to the water that had nourished their land back home. But sure enough, within the day, a puddle of water had arisen above where the stone had been buried. Within a week, it was a pond, and by the end of the month, it was a little lake, greenery already beginning to sprout around its edges.

  Now, that little lake was the centerpiece of their garden. It had to be—the nourishing impact of the waters only spread so far. It was about a mile, from what Quinn could figure, extending from the lake in all directions—a round circle of land on which all kinds of things that wouldn’t usually grow in a desert happily sprouted. They had every kind of vegetable imaginable growing, an orchard of fruit trees at the north edge, even some more traditional crops like corn and wheat to the east, and on the west wall, a little flock of chickens that provided them with eggs in exchange for scraps and chicken feed. In combination with the monthly trip Quinn made into the nearest human town, they were kept quite well-fed and cared for.

  Still, sometimes she felt a little strange, looking down at all these bright green plants in the midst of a desert. Sometimes it felt wrong, to know they stood in the midst of a desert where nothing like this ought to be able to grow. Wasn’t it a kind of arrogance, to change the land so profoundly, to impose their will on a landscape that had been a certain way for thousands of years? She’d raised it with her father, years ago, but he hadn’t shared any of her concerns.

  ”What’s the matter? There was nothing here. Now there’s life.”

  ”There wasn’t nothing,” she tried to say, frowning, but it was difficult to articulate that point. “There were—cactuses, and wild animals, there was—”

  ”It’s a desert. There was nothing here. We’ve brought life to the place.”

  He hadn’t been in a good mood that day—and every subsequent time she’d tried to bring it up, he’d dismissed it just as irritably. She supposed she was being ridiculous, to worry about what they’d done to the desert out here. After all, it was just a couple of square miles in the middle of nowhere. There was plenty of desert left on each side. Still, late at night sometimes, when the desert winds howled and left dust scattered across the surface of the lake, Quinn couldn’t shake the feeling that she was an unwelcome guest on a territory that she had no right to be on.

  She felt that way now, too, as she tended the tomato plants. The problem with the fertility of the soil was that weeds grew almost as quickly as their favored plants—she tugged out the new growth with expert fingers, taking a certain satisfaction in clearing the soil. Behind her, a wheelbarrow waited, already half-full of weeds to be disposed of. Some would go to the chickens, who always appreciated a bit of extra greenery, but the majority would need to be burned to stop their seeds from sprouting again. There was a firepit behind the house for that very purpose—it was a nice way to spend the long evenings out here. There was also the option of dumping the weeds outside the walls of the garden, letting them blow away into the unforgiving desert. Nothing could grow out there, after all.

  They’d built the garden walls after they’d built the house, using stone they’d carved from a nearby bluff. And the house had taken a little while. For a few months, they’d had to sleep in tents—they’d spend the day carving and fetching stone blocks from the bluff in their dragon shapes, the nights tucked up resting in their human ones. Quinn had wanted to just sleep in their draconic bodies, which didn’t feel the cold nearly as harshly as their soft human shapes, but her father had insisted. For their own safety, he’d said, glancing around.

  ”The nearest human settlement is ages away. Who’s going to come across us?” she’d demanded irritably. But Charles, once set on a course of action, was very difficult to dissuade. She’d had a reminder of that this morning, she thought to herself, grimacing as she straightened up from weeding the tomato plants.

  ”You’re welcome,” she told the plants softly, grinning. Probably a bit of a batty habit, talking to plants, but she’d read that it helped them grow. Besides, with the exception of her father, she had precious few people to talk to out here. Sometimes she legitimately worried she was going to go insane. Her monthly visits to town were the only lifelines to civilization she had left… and even then she had to be careful about how much of an impression she made. She’d always dress down as much as possible, wear her oldest and dustiest gear—it was important not to invite too many questions. Like what kind of a farm could ever be flourishing in the middle of the desert. Still, she treasured the short conversations she had with the townspeople.

  And the shifter meeting she’d made a special trip to, of course. Maybe that was why she was feeling so out of sorts, she thought to herself, wheeling the wheelbarrow towards the gate in the garden walls. For a full weekend, she’d been around people again—people who talked and laughed and joked, people whose stories she could listen to, new, exciting people. The nomad pack she’d talked to had been full to the brim of amazing tales from all across the continent. To come back home after such an exciting week, to her stoic father and the silence of the desert… well, she thought as she dumped the weeds unceremoniously onto the red dirt outside of the walls, it was an unpleasant shock. Quinn was an extrovert, and this life was killing her.

  All the more reason to reclaim their rightful home, she thought to herself, standing for a moment and staring out across the desert with her hands on her hips. Sand blew into her gray-blue eyes, and she narrowed them in vexation. The perpetual wind out here seemed personally determined to irritate her. It was part of the reason she’d cut her hair so short. Once, her sleek black hair had fallen around her waist… but with the wind out here, it was constantly getting whipped around, tangled and disturbed, or thrown into her face when she was trying to concentrate. So she’d hacked it off—she quite liked the look of it, if she was honest. Not that it mattered. There was nobody around out here to see her—nobody but her father, who had only shrugged when he saw it.

  That was odd. Quinn was pulled from her solitary reflections by the sight of something strange on the desert horizon—a shape that didn’t belong among the rocks and sand she’d gotten so reluctantly used to. It looked for all the world like a person. She shaded her eyes with her hand, trying to look more closely—and sure enough, there was a human shape cut out against the desert backdrop. Walking steadily, and though she couldn’t make out much more than a silhouette, they seemed to be heading this way.

  They’d had a few visitors over the years, of course. A few people had come to admire their garden, including a couple of human scientists who’d been fascinated by the range of plant life being sustained on what should have been arid land. Charles had dissuaded those particular humans from returning any time soon, Quinn remembered with amusement. And they’d had visits from shifters now and again, too—some wolves who were travelling to Las Vegas to meet up with their pack had stopped by unexpectedly, hopelessly lost. But overall, nobody came to see them. For a moment, Quinn worried that she was hallucinating—that her loneliness h
ad summoned the mirage of an approaching stranger into being.

  But soon enough, that theory was disproven. She waited in the shade of the wall, watching the stranger approach, and the closer he got, the more she realized that he must be real. A young man, from what she could tell, in his late twenties at most, wearing jeans and a long-sleeved linen shirt that kept the sun off his tanned skin. His hair was a sandy mix of blond and brown, and when he got close enough, she could see that his eyes were a pale yellow color.

  ”Hi,” she offered, feeling oddly shy. The stranger was moving with purpose, and he didn’t seem surprised to see her standing by the gate to the garden. Was her father expecting a visitor?

  ”Hi,” he replied. His voice was low and pleasant, and he was looking at her intently—she felt an odd burst of shyness, and fought the urge to drop her gaze. “Is this your place?”

  Not really, she wanted to say. “Yeah,” she said, gesturing behind her. “My father and I live here.”

  ”I’m Caleb,” he said, extending a hand for her to shake. She took it, and the firm grip banished the last of her lingering suspicions that this man was a mirage. “I’m lost. I saw the walls in the distance, so I headed your way. I hope that’s alright?”

  ”Quinn,” she replied, almost forgetting her manners. “Of course. Were you travelling?”

  ”Yes,” he said simply. “With my family. But we got separated in a sandstorm.”

  ”I’m sorry,” she said blankly. Had they been travelling on foot through the desert? Somehow, she got the feeling that this man wasn’t a human. Those eyes were too strange. She and her father hadn’t met any local shifters and had assumed there weren’t any in such a remote spot. Could they have been wrong? But it wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you could just ask a person. Hey, nice to meet you, and by the way, what species are you?

  ”I’d love some water,” he said gently, tilting his head to the side. “May I—”

  ”Oh, of course! Sorry.” She shook her head abruptly. “We don’t get many visitors, you’ll have to forgive me. Come in. You can meet my father.”

  ”Great,” Caleb said—then walked straight through the gate ahead of her. She watched him go, a little nonplussed by his confidence. It was almost as though he’d assumed she’d invite him in before he’d even met her. Something about it vexed her a little, somehow—gnawed with worry at the corners of her mind. You’ve been living alone in the desert too long, Quinn, she scolded herself. You’ve forgotten how to be hospitable. You invited him in, he came in. What’s wrong with that?

  She left the wheelbarrow on the inside wall of the garden and hastened after the stranger, who was walking slowly but purposefully down the main path of the garden, gazing around him with undisguised wonder at the plants that were growing. Well, that was something she could talk to him about, at least. Quinn accelerated to walk at his side, gesturing to the plants he was scrutinizing.

  ”We’ve been farming for a while. We’re mostly self-sufficient out here.”

  ”Interesting,” Caleb said, turning his yellow eyes to her. “I didn’t know there were dragons in the desert.”

  Well, that was that particular mystery solved. He was a shifter, then. She smiled, feeling the weight of secrecy lift a little. “Just me and my dad. That we know of, anyway.” Quinn hesitated—she’d not spent that much time around shifters, and it was hard to know how to ask this question. She settled for: “What about you?”

  ”I’m a coyote,” he said, making a brief little gesture to his yellow eyes. She nodded, though she was taken aback. They’d been out here for decades—they’d run into dozens of wild coyotes, heard them howling every night. How was this the first time she was hearing that there were coyote shifters out here? Caleb seemed to sense her discontent. “We keep to ourselves, mostly,” he explained with a shrug.

  ”It’s just—we’ve known there are wild coyotes around for ages, obviously, but we didn’t know there were shifters.”

  ”Did you try to find out?” he asked suddenly, eyes boring into hers—but before she could respond, he’d turned away. They’d reached the middle of the garden, where the path bent around the lake that lay at its center. Caleb paused, standing by the side of the little body of water.

  ”Fresh water,” she said, gesturing at it. “It’s the source of our drinking water, so if you’d like—”

  ”So much water,” he said, not looking at her. “In the desert?”

  ”It’s why our farm grows so well,” she said. A part of her almost wanted to tell him about the artefact, about the family heirloom that was the source of the lake—but something held her back. Something about the tension in his back, the way his eyes were fixed on the surface of the water as though he was getting ready to fight it. “We were lucky to find it, I guess,” she said finally, and he flicked his yellow eyes towards her.

  ”Lucky to find it. Yes.” He knelt by the bank and washed his face and hands in the water, before rising to his feet again. Unexpectedly, he smiled at her—the expression transformed his rather serious face, made him look younger. “Sorry. I’ve been travelling alone for a long time. It’s hard to talk to people.”

  ”I know what you mean,” Quinn said, smiling back. “It’s just my father and me out here—sometimes I think I’m going crazy.”

  ”Quinn! Who’s your friend?”

  ”Speak of the devil,” she murmured as the familiar sound of her father’s voice reached her ears. Sure enough, he was headed their way with a bucket in his hands. “Dad! Come and meet Caleb.”

  ”Caleb! I’m Charles. I thought you were a mirage for a minute,” Charles said cheerfully, dropping the bucket and reaching out to shake Caleb’s hand enthusiastically. He was in a much better mood than he’d been in that morning, Quinn noticed with some amusement. Spending time with his fruit trees always cheered him up. “Where’ve you come from, then?”

  ”I was travelling with my family, but we were separated by a sandstorm,” Caleb explained, his sharp yellow eyes fixed on Charles.

  ”Well, you’d better stay with us,” Charles said cheerfully. “Until you can get in contact with them, of course.”

  ”Much appreciated,” the coyote said softly, and Quinn felt an odd pang of unease which she did her best to dismiss. What reason did she have to distrust this stranger?

  “Interesting eyes,” Charles said thoughtfully, scrutinizing Caleb. “Are you—”

  ”Coyote,” Caleb said. “And you two are dragons.”

  ”Guilty as charged,” Charles said cheerfully. “Not many of us around these parts, I know. We haven’t met many coyotes, though! Where are your people from?”

  ”Around,” Caleb said simply. “We travel.”

  ”Right. Well, you stay just as long as you like, alright? We’ve got plenty of space.”

  It was true. For some reason, Charles had insisted on building four bedrooms into the house—even though by that stage, there had only been two of them. He’d built beds for the two spare bedrooms, too, which had struck her as a strange exercise, especially given the difficulty involved with procuring enough timber to build furniture. But he’d persisted. Had he had dreams of hosting guests at the homestead, she wondered now, looking at the enthusiasm with which he was embracing this visitor of theirs? Was her father as lonely as she was out here?

  The afternoon had crept by almost without her notice, and by the time they’d returned to the homestead with Caleb, night had fallen. They’d been planning a simple dinner, a cookout over the fire in the back yard, and it was easy enough to prepare extra food for Caleb. It felt strange but not unpleasant, sitting around outside under the stars, the three of them eating and talking as the desert wind moaned and howled.

  Caleb had talked a little about his family, his life out here, but nothing particularly specific. Quinn was itching to ask why it was that they were only just now hearing that there was a whole community of other shifters out here, but she didn’t want to be rude. There was something ever so slightly stand-offish about C
aleb, something that was almost—but not quite—dangerous about him. Attractive, she supposed, gazing at him in the light of the fire. A handsome stranger, turning up at her gate… she wasn’t completely oblivious to the way he looked at her, either, inexperienced though she may have been. Was it possible there was some potential here? Could Caleb be the one she was destined for?

  It was frustrating. These were exactly the kinds of questions that she shouldn’t have to ask—she should know by now, surely, know what it would feel like when she met her soulmate. But her father had never had that conversation with her—nor could she reasonably ask him about it. Not now. Not after what he’d been through with her mother’s disappearance. She clenched her jaw, fighting the anger that rose up in her like a snake at the thought. She always worked so hard not to think too much about her mother, about why she’d left, where she’d gone, what had caused her to abandon her family like she had. On some level, Quinn had to believe that she’d had a good reason for it, whatever that was. But at times like these, when she could have used her mother’s advice… it was hard not to be angry.

  She turned her face upwards, instead, towards the sky. There was always something comforting about the sky. No matter how far away from her real home she got, the stars would always be the same. She traced the constellations with her eyes, letting the buzz of conversation between her father and Caleb recede from her concentration. The night sky was beautiful out here, so far from any sources of light pollution—it was one of the few perks of living so remotely. As she gazed into the sky, she felt her eyes drawn to one particular star, a little brighter than the rest. And as she watched, to her surprise, the star seemed to blink. At the same time, she felt an odd feeling in her chest, a burst of strange yearning that seemed to be focused on that star.