Page 28

28

CHARLIE

I n my dream, I stood with Essaphine on a high hill. The land all around us was barren, windswept and bitterly cold, but heat radiated from the earth, hot as dragon’s breath. In the dream, Essaphine had two hands—not just one—and I held them, gazing into her eyes as if we were lovers. There was something I desperately wanted to say to her, but in the strange way of dreams, my lips wouldn’t work, and no words would come out. She couldn’t speak either, but there was a sorrow in her eyes that made my heart ache.

There came a cracking sound and I looked down at my feet. Small fissures were appearing in the rock under us, exposing veins of orange magma beneath the stone. The cracks spread, sundering the rock all around us, then a gap began opening, pulling us apart. The world blurred with waves of heat, and the magma’s glow lit everything with an ominous orange light. There was something in the sky, too. Many somethings. I could feel them waiting to swoop down and snatch us up in their rending claws, grab us in their gnashing mouths. Not dragons. They were something else. Something unnatural. But I was afraid to look up and see what they were. I held onto the princess’s hands as long as I could as the fissure beneath us widened and pulled us apart, until at last I was forced to release her.

“ Essa!” I shouted.

The word sent me gasping awake and I found I’d actually been shouting. Predawn light shone in the window, blue and dim. The fire in my hearth had burned down and a chill hung in the air, but sweat still beaded on my forehead.

A dull ache throbbed in my head, curtesy of the Gray Brother’s coffee, perhaps, and I let my head fall into my hands and breathed slow and steady, letting the anxiety of the dream drain out of me.

Crick. Crick-crick.

It was the sound from the dream, the cracking of the earth. But I was awake… wasn’t I?

Or was I going mad?

Crick .

No, that was real. I threw back the covers and rose from bed, standing and listening. When the sound came again I rushed to the window, looking out. It must be a bird. Or ? —?

There it was again—behind me. I turned back to the room and crept forward, listening harder.

Crack.

The wardrobe. I approached cautiously and flung open the doors.

In the bottom of the cabinet, the stack of blankets twitched. I reached in gingerly and jerked the top blanket away. Then the next one. Then the next.

And I saw it.

The dragon egg. Jagged cracks traced its surface, and from a hole in its top there emerged glowing orange eyes. Needle sharp teeth. Slimy bat wings.

I gasped, slamming the wardrobe doors, stumbling backwards and falling.

Heart thundering in my chest, I rolled to my bed, grabbed my oilskin bag from beneath it, groped in the false bottom and took out the gun. Back to the wardrobe I went, weapon ready.

One, two, three.

I threw the doors open again.

The creature emerging from the egg was no bigger than a squirrel. It sat inside its cradle of broken shell, blinking up at me with big, bright eyes. As I watched, it gave a huge yawn, which would have been adorable if not for the mouth full of sharp teeth.

“A dragon,” I breathed. “There’s a damned baby dragon in my room...”

A knock at the door startled me so much I literally jumped into the air and slammed the wardrobe shut.

“Yes!” I called in an overly musical voice, rushing to the bed and stuffing the gun under my pillow.

The lock clicked and the door swung open, revealing the sprite, Rohree.

“You’re up early,” she grunted, carrying a tray of food.

“Yes, well…” I tried to come up with some clever response, but nothing came to mind. The sprite set the food on the table.

“The princess has a full day of training today and wishes for you to join her. She bid me get you fed and ready.”

From the wardrobe there came a sound like a baby’s yawn. Rohree looked to me, frowning. I clapped my hands to my stomach.

“Hungry,” I said with a broad, fake smile.

The sprite arched an eyebrow.

“Well. I’ll leave you to eat and dress. I’ll be back to fetch you in half an hour,” she said, and left the room, locking the door again behind her.

I exhaled the breath I’d been holding and crept back to the wardrobe, praying what I’d seen before had been imagined, a dream that had strayed into the waking world. But no. There the thing was, clambering out of its shell, now. It had one clawed foreleg and a wing free, both covered in slime. When it looked at me, it cooed a greeting.

“My god…” I muttered, passing a hand over my forehead.

Why had I been so stupid as to steal a dragon egg? Had it never occurred to me what came from dragon eggs? But Essa had said the fungus on them would kill the dragons inside. That’s why all the eggs were being destroyed. If I hadn’t snatched this one, it would have been smashed on the rocks with all the others. I rubbed my stubbled chin, thinking. This egg should not have hatched. And yet here it was: a baby dragon.

I knelt before it. It was grunting now, laboring trying to get its other foreleg free.

“We’re in trouble, me and you,” I said.

What could the penalty for stealing a dragon egg be? Given how sacred dragons were in this culture, and given that I was an enemy of the state, such an infraction could very well be punishable by death. And there was no way I could keep this creature a secret in my room. Already, Rohree had almost found me out. There was only one remedy.

I stood and went to the bed, taking my gun from beneath the pillow again and striding back to the wardrobe. I shut off the gun’s safety and levelled it at the dragon.

The thing looked up at me. Aside from their orange hue, its eyes looked strikingly like those of a human baby. But it’s not a baby. It’s a dragon. A killer. A little man-eating monster. Kill it. Before it grows up to kill me—or my friends.

Slowly, my finger squeezed the trigger. Tighter. Tighter.

Those orange eyes locked onto mine… And then I felt it. A feeling in my gut that almost doubled me over. I was… hungry.

And then I felt something else. A warmth. Urine was running down my leg.

I cursed, stopping the piss with effort then hurrying to the water closet, where I finished. My bladder felt better, but the ache of hunger in my stomach continued.

“What the hell is happening to me?” I muttered, dabbing at my wet leg. I dropped the night gown Rohree had supplied me with back into place and hurried back to the wardrobe.

The little dragon was free of its shell now. And the blankets it stood on, I saw, were soaked dark and smelled of ammonia.

It had pissed. I had pissed.

It looked up at me again and our eyes met. Again, the feeling of hunger came over me, so overwhelming I almost felt dizzy.

“You’re hungry,” I whispered, turning my attention to the breakfast tray. As I crossed the room, I shivered, goosebumps breaking out on my arms. I grabbed the small pitcher of milk and went back to the wardrobe. By the time I got there, my teeth were chattering. I saw that the dragon was shivering, too.

“You’re cold, eh?”

Grabbing an unsoiled spare blanket from the floor where I’d thrown it, I knelt and wrapped the baby dragon up, cradling it to my chest. It nuzzled in like a human infant with a contented sigh, then opened its piranha mouth as if it were baby bird. I took the pitcher of milk and poured a drizzle into its maw. It gulped it down eagerly and opened its mouth again. I poured some more, and the pang of hunger in my own belly began to subside.

“Holy hell. I’m mother to a baby dragon,” I muttered, pouring more milk into the thing’s open jaws. Soon, its eyes were fluttering with sleepiness.

I sat staring at it. I’d never had a chance to observe a dragon so closely. They were truly beautiful, their back scales hard and glittering like gems, their fireproof bellies supple and soft like buffed leather. And all of them bulletproof. Except… Gently, I held one of the dragon’s wings and spread it out. It unfurled, a remarkable piece of anatomy. I took one of the dragon’s fore-claws and pulled it back, too. It gripped me with its little talons, like a baby holding a parent’s finger and sighed in its sleep. There, in the little beast’s armpit, was a spot where the back-scales and the tough belly skin met. The skin there seemed thinner. More delicate. More vulnerable. Conventional best practices called for targeting dragons at a 45-degree angle from the back, hoping the bullet would penetrate the gap between the scales. But it might just be time to revise that protocol, I thought. Gently, I placed the sleeping baby dragon back onto the blankets in the wardrobe and sat down to make some notes.

* * *

I spent the morning with Essa, training in the sky over the graveyard, teaching her some of my favorite dogfighting tricks. For such a belligerent girl, she was surprisingly receptive to my instruction, incorporating each technique and adjustment far better than the young pilots I’d mentored back home. As surreal as it was sitting dragon back, I grew almost comfortable there, my arms wrapped around Essa’s taut waist, our bodies pressed together, leaning into the turns as one, feeling her windblown hair brush my lips.

Through it all, my mind kept returning to the baby dragon. I’d fed it until it had drifted off to sleep, then I’d put it back into his blanket nest in the wardrobe. When I thought of it now, I could still feel it there, blissfully asleep.

What did it mean that I could feel what it felt? It couldn’t mean that we were bonded…

As we broke for lunch, Essa’s friends arrived, Pocha bearing a basket of food, Lure a picnic blanket, and Dagar a small crate filled with jars of honey mead. I greeted them warily, but soon Dagar was clapping me on the back and putting a jar of mead in my hand. Lure was asking me about women back in Ironberg—a subject that elicited a sour look from Essa—and Pocha was making me a sandwich of ham, fresh bread and spicy mustard, as if we were all old friends.

“Essa says your cousin is a pilot,” Lure said, one eyebrow cocked. “And that’s how you know so much about flying?”

I nodded, my mouth full of delicious food.

“You must have observed his moves closely to be able to teach them to another,” Lure pointed out.

“Well, I am a reporter,” I said. “Observation skills are important. And he used to let me ride with him, sometimes.”

My smile faded as a pang of hunger struck my belly—even though I was in the middle of chewing food. The little dragon must have sensed me eating and grown hungry. I clapped a hand on my gut, willing it to stop growling.

“So,” I grated out. “Tell me… what it’s like to be bonded to a dragon? When you’re first bonded—is it pleasant?”

Dagar laughed, running a hand through his messy brown hair. “Ha. Definitely not at first.”

“Dragons bond with riders when they are first born, the way baby birds bond to their mothers.” Pocha said. “It’s like sharing a mind. Imagine being plugged into the brain of a baby.”

Shit.

I was feeling a pressure in my bladder. Suddenly, it diminished. Back in my room, the baby dragon had pissed on something, I was sure.

Essa was leaning back on Othura as if she were huge couch. “Yes, it’s hard at first. Dragons don’t know human language, so they don’t actually communicate in words.”

“Really?” I frowned. “How do they communicate, then?”

“It’s its own language, really,” Essa said. “We call it simnal. Impulses, longings, aversions—those sorts of things—pass between dragons and their riders. Feelings, not words. But as time passes and the bond grows, you begin to experience their communications in such a nuanced way that it feels like you’re talking in words—if that makes sense.”

“Yeah. It’s weird,” Dagar agreed. “You’ll be sitting there holding a conversation in your mind and it will seem like words are going back and forth. Like, you could sit down and write out the conversation, but then when you really think about it, you realize it isn’t words at all. Its… I don’t know… something more.”

“A shared knowing,” Lure said, taking a dragon-sized bite of ham.

I nodded, mulling their words over. “Interesting. Can a person who isn’t bonded ever hear a dragon’s emotions?”

“No,” all four riders said at once.

So the thing is truly bonded to me . My god… Why did I ever pick up that goddamn egg?

In response to this thought, I felt a wave of affection—a psychic snuggle.

What have I gotten myself into?

“Is there any way to block out the communications?” I asked.

“You can learn to,” Essa said. “For example, if you’re having a… private moment you don’t want to share.”

“But most of the time we keep the doors to our minds open,” Pocha said. “Dragons are very intuitive. Almost psychic, really. And they look out for their riders. Many riders’ lives have been saved by warnings from their dragon that danger was approaching. There is nothing in the world more loyal than a bonded dragon.”

“Sounds fascinating,” I said casually. “Could I bond one?”

They all laughed uproariously.

“Oh. Are only riders allowed to bond them?” I asked, trying to sound as innocent as I could.

“Anyone bonded to a dragon is a Skrathan by definition,” Essa said.

“No foreigner would ever be allowed to bond a dragon,” Pocha said. “Only Maethalian nobles are allowed to become riders. And even then, they only choose those who are especially talented.”

“Or members of the royal family,” Essa added, with a glance at her arm.

“And a few non-nobles are allowed to join if they’re extremely gifted, like Lure here,” Dagar said.

“Yeah. I’m the token commoner,” Lure gave me a smug wink.

I sipped my mead, taking all this in.

“But if a dragon did bond with a foreigner…”

“It could never happen,” Lure said, sounding irritated. “But if it did, it would mean death—for the dragon and the unauthorized rider.”

Dagar nodded. “Yep,” he drew a thumb across his throat and stuck out his tongue, a goofy approximation of death.

Essa was watching me a little too closely for my liking. As our eyes met, Othura brought her muzzle up to Essa’s ear, nuzzling her in a way that made me think of a person whispering a secret. Essa nodded, stroking the dragon’s nose without taking her eyes off me.

“Well, it’s all very fascinating,” I said, raising my cup and trying to sound as breezy as possible. “Cheers to the Skrathan.”

“Cheers to the aces,” Dagar said, raising his cup.

Lure gave him a venomous look.

“What?” Dagar shrugged. “They’re brave. They fly and they fight. They’re not so different from us when you think about it.”

“They fly machines. Necromantic abominations,” Lure said.

“I’m not saying I agree with them.” Dagar said. “But one day the war will be over and our people will be at peace. Maybe we’ll be sipping mead with an ace, just like we are with Kit here.”

Lure’s expression darkened. “The war will never be over. Not until all the aces are dead. Or all the Skrathan…”

We all took a sip of mead in silence.

“Well, who’s everyone taking to the ball?” Pocha demanded after a moment, changing the subject. When no one answered immediately, she frowned. “Come on. We’re all going.”

“What ball?” I asked.

“The Skrathan Ball,” Pocha said. “The queen throws one for her riders every season, but it’s an especially big occasion on years when challenges are happening.”

“They let us party extra hard—because some of us are about to die,” Dagar explained, taking a bite of bread. Pocha kicked him in the shin. “What? It’s true!” Dagar protested.

“Well, I’ve been asked to go by Dirian from Second Formation,” Pocha said. “And I’ve accepted.”

“Yay Pocha!” Essa said.

Dagar, I noticed, looked at tad dejected.

“I’m taking Vaini from First Formation,” Lure said.

Essa looked to Dagar, who crossed his arms sullenly. “I suppose I’ll take Clua again—if she’ll go. Last time she swore she’d never come again,” he said.

“Dagar drank too much mead and ended up dancing shirtless on a table,” Pocha informed me. “Clua was not impressed.”

“That new rider in Fifth Formation has had her eye on you,” Essa said.

“No!” Dagar grumbled. “She calls me Dagie all the time. That’s not my name.”

“She’s flirting,” Essa pointed out.

“Well that’s a poor way to do it,” Dagar sniffed. “Better to take a friend. No one else would appreciate the hors d’oeuvres as much Clua anyway.”

“What about you?” Pocha asked Essa.

“Braimar again,” Lure answered before Essa could, taking a bite of meat off the point of their dagger. “Every time I see him he has his eyes on you.”

“He may not be up for dancing,” Dagar said. “I heard he’s taking the death of one of his dragon’s heads a bit poorly. It’s affecting him,” he pointed to his head.

“I’m not taking Braimar,” Essa said pointedly. Her eyes swept to me. “What about you?”

I pointed to myself, blinking.

She huffed an exasperated sigh. “I’ve been tasked by the queen my mother to show you all the wonders of our kingdom. I think the Skrathan Ball qualifies.”

Lure gave a faint smile. “A bunch of debauched dragon riders acting like it’s their last night on earth—because it just might be. I’d say it’s a wonder.”

“I’d go just for the food,” Dagar nudged me with his elbow.

“And the gorgeous dresses and decorations,” Pocha said.

Lure stood, holding the picnic basket. “We should leave them to talk about it.”

In an instant, Essa’s three friends had gathered the remnants of lunch and departed. Even Othura wandered off to sniff along the edge of the forest.

I found myself and Essa standing toe-to-toe and eye-to-eye. She reached out her hand and adjusted the front of my shirt.

“Don’t think of going to the ball as some big thing. I just want to bring you because taking a foreigner will make everyone angry,” she shrugged, but her gaze left the ground and found its way to my lips.

My eyes dropped to her lips, too. I blinked and looked away.

“I’d be honored,” I breathed.

It hit me then: a feeling in my bowels, urgent and roiling. Other feelings swelled along with it. Hunger. Thirst. Claustrophobia. And rage.

The baby dragon was awake.

I pulled away from Essa. “Excuse me. I have to go.”

“What? Where?” she demanded. “We’re not done training.”

“Back to my room,” I called over my shoulder.

She looked baffled. “Why?”

“I… have to work on my article!” I shouted, then turned away from her, heading back for the palace at a jog.

* * *

I burst into my room and stopped cold, taking in the scene. The bed clothes were in disarray, the canopy pulled down. The curtains were shredded and smoldering. A pile of stinking brown waste and a puddle of urine soiled the carpet. The wood for the fire had been chewed to kindling, as had the footstool.

And the little dragon stood in the midst of all of it, its inquisitive orange eyes on me.

Its scales glistened in the sunlight, a dark gold color with reddish stipes down each of its sides, and I noticed it had the buds of horns on either side of its head. Its short wings opened and closed, as if testing the air, and it’s claws worked on the slate floor like a cat kneading its bedding. A feeling came from it as distinct as the sound of a gong being rung. It was not a word it spoke, but the communication was clearer than any word could have been.

I’m hungry. Hungry. Hungry!

Impossible. There was no way I could exist like this. I could not hide this creature, not for any length of time. I’d be found out. I’d be killed.

Resolute, I slung my bag off my shoulder and took out the pistol once more, aiming it at the spot between the dragon’s large eyes.

Kill the thing. Now, before it grows up. Before it kills your friends. Before it kills you. Do it, this time. Pull the trigger.

It watched me. The thing had been happy to see me when I came in, its tongue lolling out of its mouth, its tail swirling in a way that made me think of a wagging puppy.

Now, I thought I saw sadness creeping into its eyes.

“You won’t get anywhere begging,” I snapped. “Do you know how many dragons I’ve shot down? Eighty-nine confirmed kills. I’ve gotten a damned Star of Valor for it. I’m an ace. Not a… not a…”

Essa’s words came back to me. Anyone bonded to a dragon is a Skrathan…

But I would be damned if I were tied to a beast like this. I’d rather turn the gun on myself. And I did, pressing the barrel to the side of my head, just to test the idea. The dragon tilted its head, confused.

I clenched my teeth, my finger taut on the trigger.

Then I exhaled and the arm holding the gun drop in despair.

“Back in the wardrobe,” I said, pointing.

I never expected it to understand my command much less follow it. But with a flourish of its tail, the little thing scampered to the wardrobe and nestled into the blankets there. I stuffed the gun into the waistband of my paints and wagged a finger at the dragon.

“If you come out of this wardrobe before I get back, I swear on all things holy, my dragon count will be up to ninety. Is that clear?”

It agreed, making a sound like the cooing of a baby. I groaned, closing the wardrobe doors and turning to take in the demolished room once more. Fast as I could I cleaned it up, bunching up the damaged curtains to hide their rips, tossing the gnawed firewood into the hearth, cleaning up the piss and feces with a towel, and re-making the bed. Then, with my stomach grumbling, I left for the kitchens to steal the beastly creature some more milk.