Page 15

W ith her heart beating in her teeth, Vahly crossed the cider house threshold and pushed through the crowd to find Nix at the back, talking quickly and quietly to Baww.

“You’ll open tomorrow at regular time. It’ll be fine. You don't need me.”

“They do.” Baww glanced over Nix to scan the room of Breakers. He saw Vahly. “Hi, Vahly. Are you all right?”

Nix swiveled, eyes wide. “What is it? What's happened?”

“Jades. They attacked the Lapis.”

Baww rolled his eyes. “And ice is cold.”

“No, Baww,” Vahly said, “this was different. It wasn’t on their territory. They came to the Lapis palace and Zarux attacked Amona.”

Nix hissed. “Stones and Blackwater. The gall of that dragon.”

“But she trounced him, aye?” Baww looked hopeful.

“She did. But she commanded me to flee. She said the Jade Matriarch decided to blame me for everything.”

“I thought she already did,” Baww said.

“Me too, but when Amona said it, the declaration sounded more official. I think she heard from Lord Maur. She had sent him to the North.”

“Bloody Jades.” Nix walked into the kitchen and Vahly and Baww trailed her.

The scent of chocolate filled the air. Rows of chocolate dipped scorchpeppers lined a metal tray.

With two dainty fingers—well, as dainty as a dragon’s can be—Nix lifted one and popped it into her mouth. “Don’t panic. There is dessert.”

Vahly found a bowl of unmelted chocolate discs beside the tray and gobbled a handful.

“Baww, can you give us a minute, darling?” Nix asked.

Baww dipped his head and hurried out the back door with a wicker basket.

Nix put her head near Vahly’s. “Dramour, Kemen, and Ibai have all agreed to go.”

Vahly breathed out slow, relief rushing through her.

“I have put Baww to the task of packing our bags with fresh water, food, and various other items. Now, you eat, drink, and enjoy yourself. We leave tonight.”

“Perfect.” Vahly put a hand over her heart. “Thanks, Nix. Really. You’re taking a tremendous risk for me.”

“It’s not as if we have a thousand options. You’re the hope of the land. And I am your friend.”

They embraced, then Vahly left the kitchen to find a game to distract her from what was to come.

By dusk, Vahly’s whole body simmered with the need to get going. She was afraid she’d lose her nerve if this took much longer. Dramour had fallen asleep in the orchards and had to be found. Ibai had insisted they wait until his latest wound treatment had been chilled for three full hours.

Kemen threw the bones into the chalked circle at Vahly’s feet. “I don’t have any more lapis to give you, Vahly,” he mumbled, shaking his head.

She clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t chew your talons off about it. I’m only playing to keep from screaming in panic.”

Kemen snorted a weak laugh.

“I’m going outside. Tell Nix if she asks.”

Not much for words, Kemen jerked his chin in agreement.

With the starry sky stretching across the Red Meadow, Vahly’s feet took her toward the Fire Marshes, toward the elves’ homeland.

The night crawled from the shadows, bringing the chirrup of insects and the coo-coo of the distura bird with its glowing feathers.

Vahly stepped over a tumble of stones that had once served as a marker for her kynd.

A rise of ground led her past the marker, then back down again as the earth presented a low-lying area veined in glowing lines of golden earthblood.

Smoke rose from black cracks in the ground.

The heat intensified as she neared the marshes’ border.

The air here was not unlike dragonfire, charcoal and that lemony-tang scent that cut through any other smell.

No trees grew in the marshes of course, and few animals lived in the awful place.

Just the rock lizards that reminded Vahly of wee dragons, not that she would ever say that in earshot of a dragon.

In this first part of the marshes, one could see the remainder of the path humans and elves had worked together to build centuries ago, back when they first ventured from their towering forest atop the plateau to meet with the dragons and the Earth Queens of the ages.

The marshes had absorbed the rest of the pathway, but the beginning was clear enough. Boulders and patches of earth marked safe spots to stand, mostly undeterred by the steaming pools of murky water and their accompanying streams of golden earthblood.

Vahly said a quiet thank you to her own evolutionary ancestors, the humans who’d risked coming to this island and adapted to the heat by way of guided procreation and earth magic, which created skin that didn’t burn like it once had long, long ago.

She wished magic would ooze from the ground like her forebears had. If she could sense the earth’s heartbeat, maybe then she wouldn’t feel so alone, so separated from her own kynd.

A voice broke into her thoughts.

She looked up from the smoking ground at her boots, but couldn’t spot a dragon anywhere.

Had Euskal decided to make good on that play bet to fly over the area?

Straining her neck, she stared into the night sky, but she caught no glimpse of wings or dragon shapes. Maybe it was only a distura bird. Or even a rock lizard. She had never been out here, this close to the marshes. Perhaps they made such a noise after sundown.

But then she heard it again. A male voice. Low, strong. But the words…

It almost sounded like another language.

The voice echoed across the simmering marshland once more—just a weak shout.

A hissing started near Vahly’s boot.

A plume of acrid smoke blasted from the ground. Vahly leaped back, boots crunching on the uneven ground. Stumbling, she landed on her backside. Thankfully, she hadn’t been burned. But that creature out there, it was surely in trouble.

She would at least go as far as the remaining path allowed. Then, if she couldn’t go any further, she would return to Nix’s and get help.

The old path wound through pillars of curling gases and past black and crusty ground. Vahly’s throat burned, and a coughing fit stalled her progress. The path was nearly gone and now she second-guessed this rescue mission. Once she had stilled her struggling lungs, she walked a few more steps.

There, on the ground, was a shape that was not rock or smoke or golden earthblood.

Or dragon.

Her lips parted in a silent gasp.

Two arms. Two legs. Supple flesh instead of scales.

Crouching by the body, Vahly moved a curtain of obsidian hair away from the creature’s face.

A pointed ear.

Vahly’s tongue didn’t want to work.

It was an elf.

She shook him hard, finally forcing her mouth to make sounds. “Wake up, fool! You’re going to die out here and I’m not about to go down with you. I thought your kynd was known for wisdom. Why in the world are you out here by yourself?”

He could have asked her the same thing.

The elf was nothing like she’d imagined. Yes, he had the glowing elegance of the illustrations she’d seen from the library scrolls. His exposed arms showed powerful muscles and his features were just as chiseled as recorded in dragon history.

But there was an age to him, a feeling of having weathered many storms, a burnished look to his fine, clear skin and proud, beardless chin. His presence weighed on her like a winter cloak, heavy but somehow comforting.

A line between his sharply slanted eyebrows made her think he had experienced great frustration in his lifetime. She hadn’t thought to see that in an elf. This wasn’t the picture she’d cobbled from her research.

He was so much … more.

Grabbing the sleeveless, black surcoat he wore, she shook him hard.

Dirt fell from his front, but his inky lashes remained closed and resting on his sharp, moonlit cheeks.

Silver embroidery sewn to resemble small oak leaves decorated the shoulders and breast of his surcoat as well as the outside seam of his travel-stained trousers.

An image covered his heart, perhaps a half moon, half sun, though it was difficult to tell in the dark.

A quiver was attached to his belt, its details echoing those on the surcoat, and a bow showed behind him, its tip touching his head.

On his belt, he wore two knives with hilts of silver and blades of swirling steel—similar to the throwing knives the elf on the scroll held above the brazenberry bush.

The moonlight seemed to be playing with the shadows around his mouth, as if with a word, he could make light and dark dance to his tune.

She couldn’t stop staring. So still. So lovely. Like marble or glass, with the tiny scratches that time wore into such surfaces.

Except in illustrations, never had she seen a form so similar to her own.

Her entire life, Vahly had known only dragons.

Claw and fang, scaled bodies and translucent wings.

She lifted his hand to study his fingers, marveling at their slender strength.

They were larger than her own, but smoother.

He had no scars whatsoever though he appeared roughly her age.

Though she should have expected that part, it was still astounding to see with her own eyes.

A hiss sounded beside his left leg.

Panic needling her veins, Vahly put arms under him and attempted to move him, but he was too heavy.

The hissing grew louder.

She was going to watch his flesh, so similar to her own, boil in front of her eyes. Adrenaline pumping through her body, she moved herself over the hissing spot and rolled the elf onto his side, then to his stomach, avoiding the dangerous area.

The ground popped. The fire marshes’ deadly clouds reached out of the ground like claws.

Only a small area of the elf’s upper arm had suffered from the heat. The flesh was darker than the rest of him, but she couldn’t quite see the extent of the damage.

She had to get him out of here. Now.

Like so many times before, she wished she were a dragon with powerful wings. A dragon could easily save this elf. But she was a lowly human with a faulty Blackwater mark between her brows. A cruel joke.

She collapsed, her lungs beginning to clog in the foul air again. Soon, she’d be on the ground with him, well on her way to death.

“Nix!” she called out, knowing the only chance she had of being heard was if the dragons had already set out to meet her. “Dramour!” Stones, why had she wandered out here by herself? Her nerves had trumped her good sense.

The elf stirred, and his fingers twitched. He moaned a word or what she guessed was a word. It sounded like Etor . A name? She reached for the opposite hand and found a circlet of leather on his wrist. Tiny silver bells rang out as she shifted his arm.

The elf said the word again.

“Are you saying Etor ? Is Etor a friend? Does that mean help ?” Vahly cursed her own ignorance.

Granted, no one besides Nix had seen an elf in an age.

But still. She should have at least studied the basics of their language just in case.

This was twice now it would have come in handy.

“We need to get you out of here or we’re both destined to be a fine, steamed dinner for the marshes.

Does this have magic to it?” She shook the bells.

A black and white horse with a curved neck pranced out of the darkness.

Vahly stood. “Etor?”

The horse clomped forward, then skittered at the nearest vein of earthblood.

She held out a hand. “It’s all right. Just stay on the path. Let’s get your master on your back.”

“Etor.” The elf’s luminous, black eyes opened briefly.

Vahly shivered. “We need to go,” she said, hoping against everything that he might understand.

The elf nodded doggedly and hauled himself to a seated position. Vahly crooked an arm under his and helped him to his horse. She put a steady hand on the simplebeast. The animal’s coat was finer than Amona’s best velvet.

The elf coughed out words in a language that wasn’t elven or dragon. She shook her head, fearing the hiss sounding right behind her.

Dropping suddenly, the elf called the horse’s name. Vahly caught him, and he seemed to fade away for a moment before rousing himself again.

He managed to stand, leaning heavily on Etor.

With a shove, she aided him in working his way onto the horse.

It wasn’t easy. His sword’s sheath—pale bone tooled with a riot of symbols Vahly had not the time nor the will to study—stuck her in the side once.

His boot caught on the horse’s saddle as she tried to get him settled.

With his feet in the stirrups, she had done all she could do.

The elf’s eyes remained shut. He swayed like a drunk, his hair falling in front of his face and his pointed ears catching the moonlight.

She took Etor’s bridle and headed quickly down the winding path of rock and earth, toward safety.

Seen only through the haze of gases released by the earthblood cracks, the sky was starry bright.

Using the constellation of Goat’s Horn and Wolf Pack, she determined she was heading the right direction.

Another hiss and a blast with no pause between sounded behind them.

Etor startled, jingling his reins. The elf pitched to the side.

Vahly spun to catch him. The gas burned her leg. Her trousers smoked in one spot and agony crawled up her limb. The pain was red-hot, and it pulsed slow and strong, taking her breath and making her shiver. Coughing, she forced the elf to his seat, then took up the bridle.

Her body shook as she guided the horse through the fire marshes.

One more step. Just one more. One more. She took up the phrases and turned them into a chant to keep her going despite the pounding pain in her leg and the intense heat soaking through her linen and leather clothing.

The soles of her boots softened in the extreme temperature and sweat pooled between her toes.

The fire marshes were going to eat through the bottoms of her boots.

She glanced back at Etor and his master. The horse’s white mane trailed low, to the simplebeast’s knees and he nickered in Vahly’s direction.

“Yes, Etor,” she croaked. “This isn’t my favorite day either.”

The elf kept his seat. His fingers curled loosely around the reins, but his feet hung free of the stirrups. His cheeks looked hollow and unhealthy and his color had faded further. If they didn’t get out of this foul air soon, he would surely die.

Finally, they breached the last stretch of fire marsh and felt solid earth under their feet and hooves, respectively.

She tied the horse to a tree at the side of the cider house and hurried inside the kitchen door. She found Nix with her crew huddled around her like disciples.

“Vahly?” Nix hurried to meet her, mouth drawn.

She winced at her own injury, the pain lancing through her in time with her heartbeat. “I found an elf. In the marshes. Just now. He’s wounded.”