Page 23

23

ESSA

I spent the whole next day in training. After all, I had a life-and-death trial ahead—and I’d wasted too much time playing tour guide already. It had been a day of flying and fighting and running formation drills. I always loved time spent in the sky with my friends, and I had moments where I felt I was doing well. And yet, each time I saw Laynine and her dragon, with all their grace and speed and skill, it felt as if a cloud drifted over the sun and I remembered how dire my position was. Even with two hands, I couldn’t match Laynine. And I had only one...

Worse, I spotted my mother on a balcony, watching us, and I knew she was communicating with Laynine. Training her. Teaching her. Preparing her—to destroy me.

Afterward, I sat eating dinner in the barracks, chewing a tough bit of stewed lamb and sulking as my friends chattered together, when Rohree entered. She handed me a note.

Meet me at the old stables at six,

and bring your poet. I have a surprise.

-Clua

It was a cryptic message, to be sure. And intriguing.

“Go fetch the foreigner,” I told her. “And bring Ollie as well. He’ll be doing his evening reading, but drag him out of his chair by the ear if you have to.”

“With pleasure,” the sprite said.

I summoned Othura, who was cranky to be interrupted in the midst of her post-training meal, and in less than half an hour, we were arriving at the appointed meeting place.

The stables were a huge, old, ramshackle building which sat about a half mile outside of town. It had been used to house the cavalry’s horses until, about seventy years ago, they were moved to a newer and more defensible facility within the city walls. Since then, this building had fallen into disrepair, a haunt for owls and squirrels. But its old walls were still sound, its roof mostly held out the rain, and its secluded location in the middle of the woods made it an ideal spot for clandestine meetings. Ollie, Clua, and I had been coming here since we were children.

We found Clua waiting at the south end of the barn, in an area that had once been used for repairing tack. She smiled as we approached with a self-satisfaction that made me even more curious.

“Clua,” I hugged her in greeting. “What’s going on?”

“First of all, don’t blame me,” She glanced at Kit. “Blame your poet. It was all his idea.”

He gave me the same smug look Clua had a second ago. All this was starting to make me very nervous.

He nodded to Clua. “Let’s show her.”

The dwarf went to an old work table and pulled a cloth off, revealing a long, unusually slender lance and a metal object about the size of a fist with leather straps on it and a clip of some sort on one end.

I stared at the objects, confused. “What…?”

“Pick up the lance,” Kit suggested.

Warily, I did as he asked, walking over, grabbing the lance by the middle of its shaft and hefting it. Most dragon lances were so heavy I could barely lift them with my one good arm. This one, I was able to lift easily. It had to be less than half the weight of a standard Skrathan’s lance.

“What is this?” I asked.

“There were some materials from my crashed plane that I thought might help you,” he said. “Aluminum for the lance. The clip to use in place of a hand so you can keep yourself in your saddle. With these, you should be able to fight just like any other Skrathan.”

He stepped over to the table, hefted the lance, and sighted down it, eyeing its straightness. He gave Clua an appreciative nod. “Excellent workmanship.”

“That’s where you went,” I said to Kit. “When you climbed down out of the tower. You were going back to your plane to get the materials so you could make these…?”

Kit picked up the other object, testing the metal clip. It was a “D” shaped loop of metal. When he pushed the moving part of it back and released it, it snapped back into place, forming a solid ring once again. I could see immediately how it would work, replacing my missing arm and attaching me to the saddle horn in the same way other Skrathans held on with their hand.

The possibilities these items presented were beginning to dawn on me, and along with them, hope.

I picked up the lance again and looked to Clua.

“It’s light. But will it hold up to battle?”

“I took the squared-off metal tube he gave me and shielded it in wood and dried dragon hide to give it stiffness,” the dwarf nodded. “It’s as strong as a normal lance. Stronger, probably.”

“Help me get the hand on.”

Clua helped me strap on the false arm.

“I modified your saddle so it has a place to clip onto,” she said. “Let me show you.”

I mounted Othura and Clua unscrewed the saddle horn. Beneath it, I saw, she had fashioned something like a leather cup. Within the cup a steel ring was affixed, which the clip attached to. I tugged at it and it held fast. I could have hung upside down from it easily and it would not have let go.

“Clever work, Clua,” I said to my friend, hardly able to keep back a smile.

“Well, it was him, really,” she nodded toward Kit. “The materials he brought me are like nothing I’ve seen before.”

“The Noble Council won’t like it,” Ollie said. “And neither will the queen. It will be too much like a machine for them.”

“It’s just a clip with a steel spring,” Kit objected.

“Yes,” Ollie said. “But as I told Clua, the materials were made with machines. And the clip is pushing the edge of what is allowed.”

“Wait,” I wheeled on Ollie. “You knew about this?”

He smiled. “I am your Torouman. It’s my job to know everything. I let Clua finish the project because it might help you. Now, I’m not so sure.”

“So what if the clip is a sort of simple machine, or if it was made by machines?” Kit said. “If it helps you to function as if you had two hands, isn’t it a good thing?”

“People have been cast in the dungeons for less,” Ollie said.

“Not princesses,” I pointed out.

Kit shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

“It’s part of our religious teachings,” I told him. “If allowed to exist, machines will lead our people and our world to ruin. That which does not live must not live. So it is written.”

For a moment, a crestfallen look passed over the stranger’s handsome face. Honestly, it was adorable.

“ But ,” I went on, “It may be a risk I’m willing to take. My question is, why would you do this for me?”

The poet hesitated, running a hand through his hair. It fell back into his eyes in a way that was surprisingly charming. “Because I want to help you.”

“Why?” I demanded.

“Because…” he hesitated again. “Because though our people may be enemies, I see good in you. I think you’d be a good Irska. At least you deserve a fair shot at getting the job, right?”

I watched him, staring as intently as Mother gazing into her scrying bowl, as if I could probe his soul.

“And for that you scaled down a palace wall in the rain? And walked for leagues through the night? And risked being slain by the guards as you snuck out of the city? To give me a fair shot ?”

It wasn’t only my eyes boring into him. Othura had swung her head in through a window and watched him as well, with the astute attention of a dragon.

He does want to help you, she whispered in my mind. But he’s hiding something, too.

The poet squirmed a little under our scrutiny, but his eyes remained fixed on mine.

“Take these gifts,” he said. “And let me train you. You can beat Laynine. And I can help you.”

A laugh rose up in me, equal parts amusement and bitter cynicism. But the earnestness in his eyes killed my laughter.

“ You train me ?” I demanded. “What do you know about flying?”

He put a hand on my shoulder. With Othura’s keen senses aiding mine, I felt a breathless electricity in that touch.

“Just trust me,” he said.

Our eyes locked. Something passed between us as real and as potent as any communication between human and dragon. The moment stretched and the world seemed to blur. Clua, Ollie, and even Othura seemed to fade until there was only the two of us. Me and Kit. I realized I was trembling.

When I finally found my voice, it came out a whisper. “Alright, Poet. If you’re such a dragon expert, come and fly with me.”

* * *

I put on the false hand device Clua had made me, clipped it into the saddle, and bade Rohree hand me the lance. Kit climbed up behind me and wrapped his arms tight around my waist.

“It is forbidden for outsiders to ride dragons,” Ollie reminded me. “If someone sees you?—”

“They can go to hell,” I finished for him.

Ollie accepted my words with a sigh, and for a moment I pitied him for his lot in life, destined to talk sense to a headstrong fool like me. But I was beyond caring what others thought. And the wind was calling.

With a gallop and a leap, Othura bore us into the air.

I’d taken Kit up on Othura once before, but it had been only a brief, low flight to get him away from Braimar’s wounded dragon. This was a real flight, and some sadistic part of me couldn’t wait to terrify Kit—and to humble him, a little.

I’d given rides to plenty of first-timers before. Children from the city who watched us Skrathan with wonder, dreaming of a chance to ride a dragon, or old women who had spent all their lives watching us fly without ever getting the chance to do so themselves. I’d even taken a few cocky knights who thought they were brave enough to fly dragon-back—and most of those I’d dropped off with piss in their pants. I knew how people reacted when they rode a dragon for the first time. Before takeoff they’d be nearly bouncing with excitement. Then we’d take to the air, and they would go still. By the time we were as high as the treetops, they’d be hanging onto me as tight as a beartrap. And the moment I’d do my first maneuver, even something as simple as a leviathan turn, they’d be trembling like a leaf in a storm.

And so I waited, all my senses attuned, to feel the poet go through those stages as he rode behind me. Only he didn’t.

Before we took flight he was still, not jittering with excitement. As we took wing, he remained relaxed. As we flew higher, his arms at my waist did not tighten around me, though I was aware of his legs clenching, as a proper rider’s would, against Othura’s sides. I urged Othura higher, then higher still, waiting to feel Kit’s breathing get shallow, to feel his arms begin to quake. But they did not.

He's a natural rider, Othura said.

There’s nothing natural about an Admite being comfortable on dragon-back, I thought back. It was the sort of thing the priestesses would have proclaimed a sign—the foreigner who can ride dragons. But if it were a sign, what could it portend? That was a mystery, and my mind worried at it like a tongue nudging a sore tooth.

To distract myself from the unease, I decided to try the lance, leading Othura toward a grove of pines on the eastern slope of the hills and tilting at treetops. I’d hardly used a lance on dragon back, but I remembered my training as best I could, rising in my stirrups, squeezing with my knees, keeping my upper body loose, keeping my eyes on the target, and?—

I missed. A growl of frustration rumbled out of me.

“Aim a little low,” the poet said in my ear. “That way when Othura flaps her wings, it will bring you up to the target, not lift you over it.”

“I know how to use a lance!” I shouted back at him.

But as Othura banked for another pass, I did as he suggested, dropping the lance point a little lower, and?—

Pfff!

The treetop exploded in a burst of pine needles.

We tilted and banked, aiming for a second treetop.

Pfff!

My lance tip found that one, too, then a third one.

“Yes!” the poet shouted behind me.

The weapon felt good in my hand. It felt agile, manageable in a way the standard lances never had. But there was another way lances were useful; as massive wands for focusing a dragon’s breath power. I tried that now, urging Othura toward a rocky promontory jutting off a hillside. I focused my energy on the lance and as I did so, I felt the dragonstone necklace resting against my chest grow warm.

Now, I told Othura.

She did as I asked, exhaling a small whirlwind that whisked along the treetops, stirring leaves and pine needles. I aimed the lance at the rocky outcropping and called upon the power of the dragon stone. Sure enough, the whirlwind veered obediently, hitting the hillside and sending stones rumbling down the slope below us. Of course I could control wind some without a lance using the dragon stone, but this was better. More precise.

I gave a shout of triumph.

“Impressive,” the foreigner said in my ear. I glanced back to find a devilish smile on lips which were, I realized, very close to mine. I gave the smile right back to him, turning forward again.

He’s a bit too cocky, I told Othura. Let’s see if we can humble him a bit.

I felt her amusement as she snapped her wings taut to her body and dove, dropping into the valley like a stone.

At last, Kit’s arms around my waist tightened. I felt his body pull against mine from behind. Even through my leathers and even with the wind I could feel the heat of him against me.

“Hold on,” I breathed.

Just before hitting the valley floor, Othura pulled up so hard my heart dropped into my belly. Then she was winging upward again in a vertical climb that left Kit nearly hanging off me, his grip the only thing preventing a long plummet and a grisly death. At the top of the climb, Othura suddenly banked and dropped again, her rear talons skipping off the slope of the hillside.

“You won’t lose me that easily,” Kit said in my ear. There was a smile in his voice that made me smile, too.

He’s a tough one to crack, Othura pointed out.

Then we’d better try harder.

Othura dove below the canopy of the treetops. Limbs jutted at out all angles, assailing us like a thicket of lances, and Othura expertly dodged each one, tilting her wings or tucking them to fit through tight spaces, banking and wheeling to avoid tree-trunks.

I could feel Kit breathing faster behind me, his chest rising and falling against my back. I could almost feel his heartbeat thumping in time with mine, both our bodies lost in a dance of exhilaration and adrenaline and pure, feral joy. We burst out of the woods at the Cauldron and found ourselves in the open. It was dark, and the black lake glimmered with moonshine and starlight. Othura glided over the mirror surface of the water, her wingtips sending up tiny splashes, her tail tracing along the surface of the water, leaving a pattern of ever-expanding ripples behind us.

Kit held me tight now, though it wasn’t fear I sensed from him, but something else. Life. Longing. And I found myself arching my back against him like cat against an outstretched hand.

I turned my head and found his face there. My lips brushed the stubble of his cheek—and for a fraction of an instant, I felt what the priestesses called one . One with the stars. One with the sky. One with Othura, and the night wind, and the moonlight.

One with Kit.

My body felt alive with his nearness, full, aching, bursting. I turned and faced forward again fast, my heart racing.

“We fly well together,” he said, his voice so low and soft he could have been speaking inside my mind, his lips so close I felt his breath on my cheek.

So close… Too close.

Othura, take us back, I thought. Now.