Page 11

A t the edges of the Red Meadow, a ridge rose steeply, rocky and covered in nettle one had to avoid or resign oneself to a sennight of fierce itching and burning. Clanless dragons had tunneled a veritable city inside the ridge.

Voices, the clanging of pots, and all the sounds of living life flowed from the numerous doorways.

Lit by torches, stone stairways ran up and down the ridge like uneven seams in a poorly tailored cloak.

Two dragons in their human-like form argued over a basket of bread on a high stair on the eastern side of the makeshift city.

Another dragon hurried down the lowest outer staircase, a sword glinting from the creature’s belt.

Dragons tried to avoid using dragonfire on one another. If at all possible, they settled arguments with blades that hardly ever brought blood and only injured their pride.

Atop the high land formation, the windows of Nix’s three-storied cider house glowed—a welcome beacon in the night.

Boots crunching over sand and stone, past Nix’s chaotic apple orchard and its glorious smell, Vahly wondered what her friend would think of the bond Vahly now had with the Lapis.

Well, she didn’t exactly wonder, she thought as she leaned on a tree to take a breather.

Nix would be far from elated about the bond.

Vahly picked at the tree’s papery bark and sighed.

Nix didn’t trust Amona or any of the Lapis clan.

But Vahly wasn’t sure how Nix would actually react.

Would she remain a close friend, or would she want to distance herself somewhat from Vahly now that Vahly would have to answer Amona’s Call when or if she was summoned to action?

Stomach twisting, Vahly hoped the Call Breakers wouldn’t ban her from the cider house.

That would put her in a dung position. It wasn’t as if Vahly had a choice whether to bond with the Lapis.

Amona was, for all intents and purposes, Vahly’s mother.

She had saved her life. And continued to come to the rescue when Jades ran into the lackluster Earth Queen and decided to show exactly what they thought of Vahly.

Nearly there now, she plucked a pepper from a head-high plant and sniffed its pungent aroma before moving on, a habit she had picked up years ago.

Vahly wanted to be bonded with the Lapis.

She was glad of it, proud and pleased at the unexpected development.

But she still felt the same connection to the Call Breakers and her friend Nix.

No matter how Amona claimed Vahly, she remained an outcast like the kynd that spent their free hours at the cider house.

Besides, their dropcider had a much better kick.

Inside the carved, wooden door, Nix’s establishment was packed to bursting with dragons.

Sitting at one of the many round gaming tables, Dramour adjusted his eye patch. The lean Jade-blooded dragon had seen his fair share of war, but the horrors hadn’t stolen his ability to see the joy in life. He noticed Vahly and winked.

“How are pickings?” he said over the din of coins and stones exchanging hands, raucous laughter, and the bang of mugs on wood.

Dramour wore his usual midnight blue cloak.

Slits for his bright green wings boasted pewter buttons and blue embroidery in patterns of cracked dragon skulls and curling flames.

His white shirt, shockingly clean compared to everyone else’s clothing, fit snugly over a frame built by years of training with the Jade battle dragons and more than one horrible feud with the Lapis that Vahly called family.

At some point, he’d realized how ridiculous it was that the creatures that should have banded together to fight the murderous sea folk were killing one another instead. He’d left the Jades and their feud, broken the Call, and come to work for Nix.

Thankfully, the Jades and the Lapis had agreed on peace for the time being. But everyone knew it wouldn’t last.

Vahly often wondered what Dramour would do if his former general marched in here and demanded his return.

Normally, the clan dragons shunned the clanless, but with the approaching threat of the rising ocean, would they continue to do so?

Vahly flipped the pepper she’d nicked into the air, catching it neatly before tossing it again. “Pickings are slim, my friend. Slim, indeed. Though I did snag some of that rare fern I told you about.”

At the same table, Ibai and Kemen joined Dramour’s game. The mixed Jade and Lapis-blooded dragons worked as healers for Nix’s small army of spies and smugglers.

Ibai rolled a pair of black dice, and Kemen finished his cider before throwing a wave at Vahly.

Ibai sniffed, his gaze darting around the room. Sometimes he reminded Vahly more of a bird than a dragon. But he didn’t have the brain of a sparrow. That dragon held worlds of knowledge in his shifty little head. Ibai had healed Vahly more than a few times after a fight.

“Did you find the fern on the sea cliffs?” Dramour rolled his own set of dice, then leaned an elbow on the table to watch his luck spill out. “Can’t get enough of danger, can you?”

Kemen gave Vahly an approving nod. Kemen and Vahly were well known for daring one another to steal from the Lapis treasury.

Kemen had been caught attempting the foolish deed, forcing Vahly to make up a wild excuse for the dragon, claiming he’d been looking for her because of an emergency outside Nix’s establishment.

The excuse worked only because the guard that had nabbed him was a complete idiot and allowed Kemen to escape with his life.

Vahly snorted at Dramour. “Don’t worry, mother. I have been climbing those cliffs since I was a babe.” Her hand darted in front of his nose, snatched his cider, and then downed the rest of the cold liquid.

“How dare you?” Dramour held a hand to his forehead like he was going to faint.

Vahly’s gaze flicked to Ibai. “You should thank me, Dramour. I just saved you from being too drunk to notice Ibai is about to turn that second set of dice to match his first throw.”

Dramour’s eye widened. “What?” He turned, then lurched forward, jostling the table and spilling Kemen’s drink. He snatched Ibai’s hand. “I thought you used that brain of yours to win.”

Ibai laughed nervously. “Sometimes only luck can grab a win, Fine Eye.”

Fine Eye was Dramour’s nickname. He’d been a handsome dragon in his youth, or so they claimed.

Vahly was not attracted to dragons. The scales didn’t do it for her.

She knew well that even if she was interested, she could never mate with one.

Her body was not set up to handle dragon mating; the parts involved were all wrong and they tended to breed in full dragon form.

“And by luck you mean cheating,” Vahly said to Ibai.

She patted Dramour on the back. “Let him go. Whatever coin he wins he’ll use to buy some fine salve that you’ll most likely need in the future if you keep annoying his rather large brother.

” Vahly nodded respectfully at Kemen, who almost smiled in return—that was the most anyone got out of him.

Dramour released his hold, a wry grin pulling at the green scales around his mouth. “All right. But you’re rolling again, Ibai, and this time, I’m watching.”

Kemen threw a small chunk of jade into their piles of old human coins and glittering stones while Dramour shouted to Baww, the cider house’s chunky barkeep, for another cider.

Oil lamps hung from the rough hewn timbers of the ceiling, and smoke rings issued from the nostrils of a narrow-eyed male named Euskal and a bald female named Miren, who were obviously having a contest of sorts.

Beyond them, five dragons—all newer Jade smugglers that Vahly couldn’t keep straight—threw bones on the chalked floor, amid a scattering of coins and precious stones.

The largest of the bones landed in the chalked twelve-pointed star.

A big win for that fellow. An even bigger loss for the others.

Vahly stepped quickly around them, knowing a fight was coming.

One of the losers slammed a fist into the winner, and chaos ensued, nostrils smoking and talons slashing.

A chair flew backward.

Vahly, snickering, ducked to keep from being hit. She headed for the bar where countless glass liquor bottles in every color of the rainbow perched precariously on a wall of wooden shelving.

Thankfully, Dramour and Kemen hurried to drag the new Call Breakers apart before the fight escalated into a bout of dragonfire. Nix would have murdered any survivors if they burned her cider house down over a game of bones.

One of the Jades pulled a knife.

Kemen kicked him in the gut, throwing off the other dragon’s balance. Then Kemen stole the knife in one quick movement.

Dramour held another male dragon by the scruff of his black tunic. Releasing his grip, he shoved the male into his fellows. “Leave off, fools. If you want a proper fight, you can find me outside in an hour.”

Narrow-eyed Euskal broke away from his smoke ring contest with Miren and shouted to a group hanging halfway out the side door. “Dare you to fly over the Lost Valley! I’ll give you five rubies and a jade piece if you go beyond the peak.”

“I’m not that stupid, Eus!” It was Aitor. He drank from a dented mug, then wiped a blue-scaled hand across the burn scars that marred his mouth.

The scars were shocking. It took a lot of dragonfire to scorch a dragon’s scales. Normally, it was only seen when dragons asked an artist to mark them with a symbol or design. He must have been tied down by an angry Jade and tortured. Vahly was selfishly glad she hadn’t been around for that one.

“You’ve been trying to get rid of me since that fouled up robbery on the Jade blacksmith’s guild,” Aitor added. Vahly remembered that heist. A fun night. “I won’t be downed that easy,” Aitor said.

Euskal worked his way through the crowd to the bar where he stuffed his mouth full of pickled scorchpeppers, a snack Vahly was sad to say she could not handle. She tried them once. That afternoon had not been pleasant.