Page 43 of Lady Dragon
THE RED DRAGON
The red dragon knew unerringly where to go.
The cave mouth felt to her like a keyhole, and she was the key.
She was coming home. She just needed to get inside, and everything would click—she would remember.
Though, as a dragon, she didn’t understand why she was even thinking of such human things as keyholes.
Perhaps it was because of whom she was carrying.
Her passenger was somehow part of this, even though the red dragon would rather the girl not have been here—and to certainly not be riding on her back.
The cave opened into the mountainside after only a short flight.
In the night, it should have been hidden amid rock and smoke, but darkness actually revealed it.
From inside its relatively narrow mouth came a glow as if from a dragon’s throat and a tongue of lava that might otherwise have blended in with the other orange-black flows veining the mountainside.
She let the entrance swallow them, flying carefully over the molten channel on the ground.
The cave was less smoky and ashy than outside, though no less hot.
The channel served as an overflow from the well within, though a cavern yawned out around and above it, allowing for a wide crescent of higher ground around the edges before sinking into a lava pool that was about the size of the oasis spring—but when had she seen that ?
The shape of this wellspring made the cave floor actually resemble a keyhole, with the glowing channel exiting the bottom.
At the top of the pool, farthest from the outlet at the cave mouth, sinister orange light outlined the ridges and hollows of a hulking, shadowy shape perched in the center of the crescent rim—a skull.
A dragon’s skull, like those they’d seen outside in the graveyard. It was as if the creature had crawled straight in, lain down in the molten pool, and left its chin to rest on the stone lip while it burned. The rest of its body had long since melted away.
The skull glowed on its own, somehow. In the empty eye sockets, a red flame flared as soon as the red dragon touched down in front of it, at the back of the cave. She stared into its eyes as the flames grew brighter and brighter—and then the red dragon herself could see.
This was Raka. She , the red dragon, was Raka, finally reunited with herself. She’d only needed to come here to understand. And yet, she still didn’t remember everything.
“You realize this could be a centipede den,” the girl said warily.
She’d slid from Raka’s back as silently as a shadow, and stood well away, out of claws’ reach, her back to the cave wall, facing the far exit, though she still had more room to retreat, if she wanted.
The cave wasn’t as big as the seat at High Nest— oh , how Raka missed High Nest—but there was still ample enough space for dragons to move, which was more than enough for this girl to run.
Raka didn’t want her to run. But she wasn’t quite sure why.
No, I’ve had faithful servants keep it secure, over the long years , Raka said slowly, trying to recall .
“You’ve always been here,” the girl said, staring at the skull as if she’d come to a disturbing realization, where Raka only felt calm certainty starting to seep into her bones. “This has been Raka’s den in death, not just her grave. The Heartstone is merely a doorway to her.”
More of a keystone , Raka said, looking around in curious wonder, despite herself.
There were other things in the cave, old stone molds that were mostly shattered, pieces of metal that were twisted and rusted, as frail as twigs.
Most noticeable was a dark stain that spread out from the skull’s toothy jaws.
Char. There was a slightly fainter spot in the middle of it, as if something had sat there while dragon fire streamed around it.
That’s where I left the Heartstone , Raka said, nodding at the spot. I’m remembering.
“Remembering what?” the girl asked.
When I took my Heartstone and burned it—melted part of my life force into it.
“ Your Heartstone?” the girl asked carefully.
Nakor had the other. Nakor took hers , Raka hissed, and never returned to me .
“But she died fighting King Wyleth.” It wasn’t quite a question from the girl, but almost.
She didn’t die , Raka spat. That was her greatest shame… and mine, which is why I told no one what truly happened. But you are her weak echo. You’re as pitiful as Nakor, so the shame falls from my shoulders to yours, in finally unburdening it.
Somehow, Raka knew things about this girl even if she didn’t quite understand why. Her knowledge was shadowed and indistinct in the cave of her mind. The memories she was trying to draw from were resistant, shrinking. Not her own memories, then, of which she found she had plenty.
Her memories burned through her like dragon fire, unleashed. She had to let them out, to light and clear the way. To see herself more clearly, if not what was around her.
The girl looked guarded, on her toes, though she didn’t move. “What happened to her?”
What happened to us, you mean? Raka asked, cocking her head at her.
The War of Fire was raging, never-ending, sometimes hibernating underground until it flared to life once more.
Even dragons grew weary of the flame. The humans were wily, and they reproduced so quickly.
Always more of them. More of their weapons. Dragonsbane was the worst.
“Aptly named, it seems.”
Was the girl trying to be humorous?
Raka’s lip curled in response, hinting at teeth.
There were a few humans, however, women, who wanted the war to end as much as we did.
Not their queen among them, not yet—this was before human queens had any real power.
These women were strong in other ways. Hidden ways.
They met with us, in secret. With their tools, knowledge, and sacrifice, and our fire, blood, and bone, here we created the Heartstones.
She cast her gaze about the cave, alighting once more on the tangled remains of human ingenuity.
Two of them, one for Nakor, and one for me.
And then we made two Songstones, so no matter where we were, we could always speak.
She tossed her head to the lava-tongued mouth of the cave.
First we both went to the human realm in secret, unknown to either dragon or human, to treat with our enemy in a way we had yet been unable—in their language, in their physical form.
The king would not even see us, thinking we were a trick of these other women—these witches, he called them.
He tried to bring them forth to have them executed, but they had already died.
See, they put their very lives into the Heartstones, not only their knowledge.
Raka bared her teeth fully this time. But the human queen, she would see us.
She told us she could help sway her husband—or help us get close enough to kill him, if he couldn’t be swayed.
But the war was still blazing, and so Nakor sent me back to High Nest to lead in her stead, in her name if not my own, promising me she would always speak to me through the Songstone.
But I heard her voice less and less over time, and I grew despondent.
And then, when I at last heard that she’d killed King Wyleth despite sustaining grave injuries, I despaired instead of rejoiced.
With her final breaths, Nakor declared that human queens would rule Andrath henceforth and keep peace with the dragons…
and then she died of her wounds. The news came by messenger.
Nothing came through the Songstone. She gave me no farewell, and yet every dragon called her the most honorable among us for ending the war.
Raka couldn’t help her snarl, and the girl backed away a few paces, though she still listened raptly.
The words kept coming—Raka’s path back to herself, burning clear.
But I was bonded to Nakor, and my bond had not broken with her death, as it should have.
So I flew to Andrath to find her. She was still there, in human form through the power of her Heartstone, and told me she loved the queen.
I wanted to kill her, and yet the bond wouldn’t let me—a bond she no longer felt for me, but rather for this human.
The connection between us had broken—but only for her and not for me.
It should have been impossible. It should have been more impossible for her to form it anew with a lowly human.
I tried to kill her queen, but Nakor transformed to defend her.
If only my bond had broken when hers had faded.
The shame was unbearable. I couldn’t return to High Nest and speak the truth.
I would dishonor her and myself—all dragonkind—beyond measure.
“So the Treaty wasn’t born of some similarity between dragons and women,” the girl murmured. “But of love between them.”
An abomination, yes. Raka searched the cave, seeing it both with eyes fresh and with memory ancient.
So I returned here, to where these witches had poured their lives into these stones with the heat of our fire.
And here, I added a piece of my own life to the stone.
But I needed a fire stronger than my own.
So I made this pool my nest, and the Heartstone the egg for my curse.
She glanced at where her skull rested—all that remained of her body after she’d submerged it in lava, while she’d channeled the heat that was consuming her upon the stone, until her last breath.
“Curse?” the girl gasped. “So the Heartstone was truly cursed?”