Page 13

T he common room was still packed and noisy.

Peering through green and blue wings, Vahly could see empty bowls, more dice games her fingers itched to play, and a slew of swaying dragons.

Several stools lay on the ground, evidence of another tavern fight.

Vahly’s boots stuck in a puddle of spilled drink.

At the dark, hand-hewn wood of the bar top, four Call Breakers played Waterfall. The race to finish one’s cup of dropcider started when the youngest of the bunch began to drink. If any dragon stopped drinking before the youngest, said dragon would have to buy the next round.

Beside those fools, Dramour slumped onto the bar. He lifted his black eyepatch to scratch underneath. When he saw Nix, his good eye brightened and he attempted to stand straight. The effect was comical. Like a sapling in a strong breeze.

Nix walked around the Waterfall players and past the large copper sink where a pile of dirty dishes sat ready for Baww to wash. Amid the colorful display of bottles, Nix’s jewel box sat on a dusty shelf.

Vahly didn’t know who had made the box. Nix pushed the question aside whenever Vahly asked about its creator. The craftsman had carved lapis lazuli stones into circles and set them into the sides and top. Everyone knew that Nix only permitted Baww to touch the box. It held the night’s take.

Nix opened it, threw in a pocketful of coins, then shut the lid. She had to have enough gold in there to buy a whole new tavern. Nix removed a large and tightly rolled scroll from the shelf that held the jewel box.

Dramour, swaying on his feet, accidentally knocked one of the Waterfall players’ drinks over with an elbow.

Nix glanced at Dramour. “Best sit down, Fine Eye. You’re about to greet the ground, my friend.”

Nodding at his nickname, he took a stool, resumed his position on the bar top, and promptly began snoring.

“Baww,” Nix called out. “Bring a good meal to the balcony. And don’t let anyone else come upstairs for tonight, please, darling.”

Baww nodded, then shouted in the direction of the kitchen.

Nix brought Vahly up the stairs and through a round door embellished with wrought iron red hat flowers.

Four males waited in Nix’s rooms.

One lounged on a four-poster bed, his chest bare.

The scales over his heart bore the scorched image of a flame hovering over a single claw.

It was the symbol of the Call Breakers. The other three males sat in the plush velvet chairs scattered around the room in no semblance of order or arrangement.

A large scarf in shades of amethyst and emerald stretched across the ceiling.

The thin fabric caught the glow of several oil lamps that hung from chains near the center of the chamber.

“You’ll have to wait for me downstairs, my dears.” Nix swept through the room, toward the double doors leading to her balcony. “I have business with our Vahly.”

The males grumbled, but started out the door.

“Save some of your energy for me!” The bare-chested dragon grinned at Nix before shutting her door.

Nix waved a hand at him, then proceeded to stroll through the double doors. She pulled two chairs up to a table.

The balcony, closed in with an intricate framework of iron flowers that formed a barrier, overlooked the broken ground that eventually sloped downward into the Lost Valley.

Saltwater waves rippled across the area like snakes.

In the moonlight, the water took on a wine color that reminded Vahly of the place’s history.

The flooded valley had once been Vahly’s home.

A collection of two-story stone houses, taverns, workshops, and a marketplace used to thrive in the place where the ocean now ruled.

The settlement hadn’t been there too long, built by those pushed out of the West by the tragedy of the main human region near Bihotzetik.

They’d never even given it a name which Vahly saw as a clear statement of their mindset then.

The sea folk had beaten the humans, nearly wiped them out.

And the humans were numbly going about the business of surviving by the time Vahly was born with her Blackwater mark.

Amona had told Vahly the story. The humans had informed their neighboring dragon clan, the Lapis, about the child who’d been born Touched.

The earth kynd anticipated Vahly’s future as an Earth Queen, hoping she would gain the powers that had grown weak and oftentimes unseen for far too many generations.

The last Earth Queen before Vahly had died in the Bihotzetik flooding three generations ago, and she’d never been powerful to begin with.

The Lost Valley settlement had thought they were safe from the sea, there on the eastern coast, protected by the wall that mirrored the one holding Nix’s cider house and the clanless city.

Besides, the sea folk had never attacked this side of the isle.

It was believed their powers waned as they left the western waters.

But the humans had been wrong.

Vahly took a shuddering breath and faced the rippling waters covering her birth mother’s final resting place.

“Vahly?” Nix came to stand in front of her, face filled with concern. “Are you all right?”

“I was remembering my biological mother. She had some guts to do what she did. I wish I could thank her.”

“You just did.” Nix’s yellow eyes reflected the moonlight. “I think the dead can hear us if they so choose.”

“We’ll find out the truth sooner rather than later.”

“Not if you have anything to do with it.” Nix took a seat and pointed to the other chair. “I have a good feeling about this plan of yours.”

She spread the large scroll across the table. Green stretches lay against gray mountains and a long, branched strip of silver crossed the length of it.

“I didn’t know you had a fine map like this.” Vahly scooted to the edge of her seat and ran a careful finger over the Red Meadow.

“How else would I help my smugglers find new routes to escape those we aren’t able to bribe?”

“Nix, you don’t have to help me. Let me be clear. I would never hold it against you if you took the wiser route and stayed out of this.”

“You’ve been dealt a dung hand in life, Vahly. You may have bonded with the Lapis—”

“You can tell?”

“I can feel the bond on you. I’m far more sensitive than most dragons.

If they paid any attention to those other than themselves…

” She waved a hand indicating they would hash that out later.

“So yes, you are bonded with the Lapis, but the Call Breakers bonded with you long before today’s event.

Not in the same way, but it is a bond nonetheless. ”

Baww brought a tray of herbed venison, olives, scorchpeppers, and apple slices that showed the slanted markings of a dragon’s claw. He then set two mugs of cider in front of them.

Vahly couldn’t believe Nix’s reaction. The bond with the Lapis was no small thing. Amona could potentially sway Vahly’s mind and force her to do her will.

It was a threat to Nix’s operations.

Once Baww left, and they were alone again, Vahly voiced that very concern.

Nix sipped her cider. Her hyssop-blue scales glittered in the moonlight as she turned a gold and lapis lazuli ring around her finger and tapped it against her mug.

“You and I both know that what you witnessed on the cliffs means I can no longer allow my business to come first.” Her reptilian gaze locked onto Vahly.

Vahly reached across her plate to grip Nix’s forearm. “I vow, as far as I am able, I’ll never allow my bond with Amona to endanger you or any of the Call Breakers in any way.”

“I accept your promise, Vahly of the Earth.”

A tingling rose in Vahly’s fingers as the vow encircled her heart, warming her chest.

Could Amona feel her promises now that they were bonded?

Nix pointed to the Fire Marshes on the map. “Obviously, we need to find a way through here.”

Vahly thought of how Amona had rescued her and had an idea.

From the trouble she’d had with her suggestion of riding a dragon’s back, she knew better than to bring that up, but perhaps it was less appalling to think of carrying her in another fashion.

“Could you shift and carry me in your claws like you do a kill?”

She wasn’t keen on being hoisted up by full-sized dragon claws like a sheep headed for the roasting pits, but both her fear and her pride would have to stand down in this situation.

Nix tilted her head. “Yes. I could do that.”

“The marshes are extensive.” Vahly bit her lip. The map showed the scorched and smoking ground reaching for miles and miles. “Do you know of certain spots that are safe enough to land?”

“None that I know have ever tried to enter the marshes in full. Of course, we enjoy the earth’s break and the earthblood there at the start of it, but the wind clears the air. Further in, well, breathing will become rather difficult.”

“So we’ll have to move fast or die.”

Nix jabbed a claw into an apple slice, then chewed it noisily. “That should be my motto.”

Vahly touched her sword hilt, the sword Amona had given her. “I think we should ask Amona to help us get there. To the elves.”

“But she loathes their kynd. What am I missing?”

“She is wise,” Vahly said. “Surely she can get past old hatred to see the sense in my seeking them.”

Nix ate another apple slice. “Doubt it.”

“But she could order a troop of dragons to get us across the area. Three, perhaps, that could trade out so that we would always have a strong retinue.” Vahly didn’t love the idea of including Amona, but she didn’t want to risk the lives of Nix and the Breakers more than was absolutely necessary.

“Too bad we can’t simply signal the elves and ask them to come to us. You know, I honestly thought they’d come for you at some point in your life.”

“Why?”

“They can sense great events. Like your birth and who you are meant to be. The elf I knew claimed the wind and shadows sometimes told him stories.”

Vahly frowned. “Right.” When she had been a child, she would’ve loved this idea of what elves’ mysterious magic could do. But now, after years of magic not doing what every text and creature claimed it should be doing to her, she was less than amused by whimsical stories about vague elven powers.

Nix shrugged. “I think we should go. Now. Under the cover of darkness so there are fewer eyes watching us traipse into the marshes like fools.”

“I don’t know. I could be leading you to your death.”

“Death is breathing down our backs already, wouldn’t you say?” Nix jerked her chin at the Lost Valley and the salt water covering its former understated glory.

“I should talk to Amona. I don’t want to, but I should.”

“Why don't you sleep on it? No matter what you decide, your body needs rest. Take the couch in my room where you won't be bothered.” Nix pushed away from the table. “I need to meet with Aitor, then I’ll be back shortly. We will discuss your decision over breakfast.”

With the balcony doors closed, Vahly was alone in the night.

What was the best choice? To ask Amona for help or not?

The entire idea was three jacks shy of a full deck.

Heading into the Fire Marshes to meet with elves who might very well be extinct. Insanity.

She stood and began to pace, drawing her short sword and her cleaning cloth. Walking the length of the balcony, she ran her cloth over the etched wing and flame pattern of her blade, the familiar job easing her nerves somewhat. The ivory hilt warmed under her grip.

Amona had ordered the weapon made for Vahly long ago.

She’d harvested the tusks from a sea beast that beached itself when Vahly was still toddling around the mountain palace and drooling.

Fight the sea with the sea, Amona had always said of the sword, smirking at her own little joke about the ivory.

Vahly loved the sword. It was part of her. She’d perfected an array of seamless moves made with her weapon side forward. Nothing that would take down a dragon set on killing her, but enough to drive away the ones who merely wanted to bruise the failed savior of the dragons.

Rubbing at a particularly stubborn smudge near the hilt’s scalloped guard, Vahly’s mind whirled.

What if Amona refused the trip to the Forest of Illumahrah?

What then? Vahly was definitely going. No doubt.

But it would prove far more difficult if Amona knew the basic plan.

She could Call Vahly back with a word and it would be impossible to disobey unless she was able to Break like the dragons here had.

There would be no going back to the Lapis if she did that.

What were the chances that Amona would help Vahly and Nix cross the marshes? From the way Amona had acted about the elves today, gaining her support was a long shot with odds too rough even for underdog-loving Vahly.

No, she couldn’t tell Amona. She had to come up with a reason to be gone for a while.

In the past, Vahly had traveled with Helena the healer, Xabier, and a few others to treat a disease in the goats that grazed the Red Meadow.

At Xabier’s feast, Maur had voiced concern about the bear that was killing all the deer.

Maybe Vahly could tell Amona that she would gather the Call Breakers and head out to slay the bear.

Amona would fight the suggestion, but Vahly could persuade her, noting the recent excursion’s success.

Then, she’d have an excuse for her absence.

Sighing, Vahly finished polishing her blade. She hated to keep the real plan from Amona, but it couldn’t be helped.

Vahly sheathed her sword, tucked her cloth into one of the many small bags at her belt, and went to bed.