Page 8 of The Fire Apprentice (Sylvania #5)

J ane woke to the smell of... something delicious. Of course, she was so hungry, stale biscuits would probably smell delicious. But this involved a fire, if she wasn’t imagining the scent of smoke in the air.

The folds of the hammock closed over her face and the tightly woven threads kept out the light. She nudged aside the edge, blinking in the morning sun. The brightness of the daylight surprised her. She twisted slowly to peek out in an effort not to dump herself onto the ground.

Rowan sat beside the firepit, stirring something in a small tin bowl in the coals. He barely had a fire, just embers, and the pile of wood he’d gathered was gone. A tin cup with no handle rested on the log beside him. The chill air nipped at her exposed face but the bright day promised to warm soon. The birdsong was a chorus.

She started to sit up and halted. She’d been so tired last night she couldn’t remember exactly how she’d gotten into the hammock without falling.

“Rowan?”

He looked over. For a moment, he felt closer than he usually did. His eyes were wider and his lips parted before he pressed them shut and swallowed. She could see the green of his eyes even from several paces away.

“I’m not sure how to get out of the hammock. I don’t want to fall on my ankle.”

He pushed the bowl out of the embers before standing and coming to her side. He helped her sit up and wiggle off the woven mesh, catching her when she wobbled on her left foot. She lowered her other foot to the ground.

He waited with his hands on her sides. This close, she could smell his skin, although the smoke of the campfire permeated all their clothing.

“It’s tender but there’s no pain.”

“Try walking on it.”

As she tested it out, he supported her weight, moving across the clearing with her. What a relief to walk again. If her ankle hadn’t improved overnight she’d have been stuck—she’d have had to let Rowan go on without her, or else make Elle wait even longer for her rescue.

Once she’d settled on the log, Rowan tilted his head at the cup beside her. “I made tea. That’s yours.”

The cup warmed her hands as she lifted it. She sniffed and a zingy aroma filled her nostrils.

“What’s in it?”

“Sassafras root, pine needles, and a few violets I found.”

She tried a sip. It was warm and peppery. “Thank you.”

“I made oats but I’ve only one bowl. You can have some first.”

Jane shook her head, sipping the tea. “You eat first. I’m not fully awake yet.”

Rowan lifted the bowl to his lap and had a few spoonfuls. “You can stay here,” he said, “if you’re worried about your ankle.”

She lowered the cup.

“I’ll be back by tonight.”

“Are you trying to get rid of me?” He’d been secretive about his past with this dragon they were trying to find. Maybe he didn’t want her to meet the dragon.

He met her gaze and quickly looked away.

“You’d be faster without me,” she said.

“I don’t mind how fast we go.”

“Do you want me to stay here?”

“I thought you might not want to continue.”

She straightened up. “I do want to. If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind.”

After a few minutes, he stopped eating and offered her the bowl. She held out her hands.

“I almost forgot,” he said. “I found some berries.” He turned to scoop them off the top of his pack.

Jane narrowed her eyes, staring as he sprinkled the tiny wild strawberries into the remaining cereal. He’d forgotten ? Why was she certain he’d waited to give the berries to her? She couldn’t see a way to argue with him so she accepted the bowl with a simple thank you.

When they eventually set out, with their gourds filled and the splint removed from Jane’s foot, Rowan led her up the trail only a short way before stepping off to the left. Nothing marked the spot, and he moved under the trees without any trail she could make out.

“How’s your ankle?” he asked.

“Okay. Once we got moving it felt good as new. Is it far to the dragon?”

“Not as the crow flies.” Something about the way he said it felt ominous.

But the way they walked was easy going, with moss covering the ground to cushion their feet and only a few places where they had to detour around undergrowth to keep on course. Through the trunks to the west, boulders littered the ground as it sloped upward on their right, and the trees and bushes to the left thinned as if the land dropped off. Squirrels chittered from the branches as they passed and once a chipmunk darted off a rock and disappeared beneath a mossy stump. No branches snagged at her hair, although today she had braided it and tied off the end with a ribbon instead of tying her usual sloppy bun, hoping to better keep it out of her face as they walked.

When the sun eventually shone through the branches overhead, it wasn’t where Jane expected it to be. She’d lost track of their direction, but the sun was behind them to their left as if they now headed west instead of south.

“What are these bushes?” she asked as they passed under more of the twisted branches she’d been seeing along the trail.

“Rhododendrons.”

She touched the center fronds as she passed a cluster of the bushes. A few dried-out strands with a reddish color clung to the leaves.

“Do they bloom?”

“Yes.”

“What do they look like?”

“Pretty.”

Was he teasing her? “That’s not helpful.”

“You might get to see some.”

“How?”

“They should still be blooming at the top of the mountains.”

The top of the mountains? Weren’t they already at the top? Jane bit her words back and kept walking.

Sunlight shone in front of them and grew brighter as they approached. Rowan slowed and Jane came up beside him and started. The forest floor dropped away and a vast valley spread before them. The trees stretched on endlessly—so far that it seemed she should see Woods Rest or even the towers of the castle in Woodglen. But all she saw were treetops under a blue sky. To the right, the way forward abruptly ended with a vertical wall of rock towering up on the south face of the mountain.

Why had Rowan led them this way?

He glanced down at her, and his eyes had a spark she hadn’t seen before. “Now comes the fun part.”

A sense of foreboding settled in her gut.

“It’s not too late to back out if you want to stay here.”

Was he daring her to continue? She lifted her chin. “Lead the way.”

He didn’t move, towering over her like the boulders. His lips moved and—

Jane stared.

Rowan was smiling at her.

“This will take a moment,” he said, and he slid his pack off and crouched beside it.

Jane snapped her jaw shut. He’d actually smiled. For the first time. Why? What made him smile, here of all places? Her chest warmed and her own lips smiled in the wake of it.

Rowan opened his pack and pulled out a coil of rope. It was thin but it might be crafted of that special magical thread the fairies made that could hold an extraordinary amount of weight. When Rose had been a princess and trapped in the castle, she had climbed out of her tower window on a ladder made of the stuff when Dustan was courting her—or rather, seducing her. The ladder scene was one of Jane’s favorite parts of Rose’s love story.

Rowan handed her a wide, tightly woven belt with several iron buckles along it. “Wrap that around your waist as tight as it will go,” he said. “Like this.” He stood, took off his coat, and rolled it into a bundle that he wedged into his pack. He fastened a second belt around himself, snapping the buckles rapidly. She took off her own coat and scarf but she couldn’t follow how he did the belt. He next tied the end of the rope to his belt before checking for snags and tying the other end around a tree trunk. He tucked the rest of the rope into a pocket.

He faced her, eyeing her waist as he rolled up his sleeves. “May I?” he asked.

She lifted her hands away. He undid the buckle she had fumbled with and cinched the belt tighter, then snapped several buckles shut. The belt had an odd metal loop on the front. He tugged on it and she stumbled into him.

“Sorry,” he said, catching her and setting her upright. “I wanted to make sure it was tight.” Her fingers had grabbed on to his bare forearms. She lifted her hands and tried not to think about how hard his forearms were.

He let go of her and turned to the wall of rock. He started forward but quickly turned back to her. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll come back for you.”

And he stepped onto the rock. Jane gasped, paralyzed. He’d wedged his bare toes into a wide crack, but his hands seemed to be gripping the flat face of the rock. Below him, the sheer face continued down, down, down. If he fell...

He worked his way out on the rock wall one smidge at a time, until he reached for a higher knob and pulled himself up. How did he know where to go? And more importantly, how was she ever going to follow him? As he moved, he let out the rope so it trailed down the wall and over to the tree where he’d secured it.

Once he got moving, he went more quickly, climbing from one handhold to the next. His body sprawled across the rock with his limbs at odd angles, reaching for protrusions she never would have noticed.

Had he done this before? He was familiar with the area and the sources of water, and he seemed to know where the handholds on the rock were. And he’d said he knew this dragon. So why had he come here to visit a dragon in the past? Did the dragons have resources the fairies could use in addition to their fire?

Or had Rowan come to learn fire magic?

He pulled himself onto a ledge twenty paces over her head, kneeling and working with something out of her sight. He stood with the rope in his hand and fiddled with his belt, tugging on the rope a few times. He stepped backward off the ledge.

Jane squeaked. She would have screamed but he caught himself before she could get it out, somehow standing tilted at the edge of the ledge with the rope stretched tightly between his belt and the rock in front of him. What in the skies had he fastened it on up there?

He leaned backward farther and began walking down the wall. His right bicep was flexed and his fist gripped the thin rope, which was stretched taut but grew longer the farther he came down. He pushed with his toes and swung sideways toward her before dropping the rest of the way and stepping off the rock and onto the ground.

Did the rope possess some other form of magic, aside from being strong? The length in his hand connected to an iron piece he had fastened somehow to his belt’s front loop. The rope wrapped in a neat double loop around the iron piece. His tight grip on the rope must have stopped it from spooling out faster. Jane peeked up at his face.

He was smiling down at her. “Your turn.”

Her stomach churned like the oats had changed their mind about being eaten.

“Unless you no longer want to go.” His warm smile had the edge of a smirk on it. “You could wait here and I’ll go up alone.”

“Absolutely not,” Jane managed, fisting her shaking hands.

“Pack your coat and put on your bag.”

She did as he ordered, slinging her satchel across her chest to wear it on her back. Rowan unclipped the iron piece from his belt and slipped the loose rope off, then retied it into a firm knot. He hooked a finger into her belt (skies, those hands!) and pressed the iron piece against the loop on the front of her belt, and the side of the oval pushed open and snapped shut, attaching it to her. He tugged on the rope, but this time she planted her feet so she didn’t stumble into him.

Jane touched the iron piece, pressing on the springy part until it opened and letting it snap shut. “Did you make this?”

“I shaped the iron.”

“How?”

“Smithing.”

“How did you make this part that snaps closed?” It must have some tiny mechanical spring inside it.

“Maple made that. With jewelweed seedpods.”

“Jewelweed...?”

“And magic.”

Right. Magic. But why jewelweed?

Rowan stepped aside, leaving Jane a clear path to the edge of the drop. She gaped up at the rocks and at the rope trailing loosely from her belt to the top and back down.

He cleared his throat. “Tell me at once if you feel lightheaded. Up this high, the air gets thin and sometimes it makes people dizzy.”

“Okay.”

“I’ve got the other end of the rope.” He slowly drew it in until it went taut on the way up to the ledge and back, and tugged gently on her center. He wrapped it around his hands a few times. “I’ll take it in as you go up. If you did fall, I’d catch you. And if I slipped somehow, you’d only fall a short way before the tree caught you.”

Jane nodded, trying to still her shaking hands. “How do I know where to grab?”

“I’ll talk you through it. The worst part is the beginning. It’s meant to look impossible so no one will try it.”

“Why?”

“Dragons don’t like visitors.”

Right. The dragon. In her fear of climbing the cliff face, she’d completely forgotten there’d be a dragon at the top.

“Ready?” Rowan asked.

“Um, sure.” Jane wiped her sweaty palms on her shirt.

He pointed to the rock. “See the place with the darkish tint? That’s a place you can grab. You’ll have to step out to reach it.”

Jane lifted her foot. The belt at her waist pressed against her back, letting her know Rowan had the rope ready to catch her if needed.

She stepped forward onto the narrow crack, and for a moment her head spun and she risked tumbling off but the belt held her up. With a whimper, she placed her other foot in the crack and pushed herself to the left, moving her first foot and reaching for the spot Rowan had shown her. Her fingers closed on the barest edge of rock, but it was enough to hang on to and she could lean forward slightly. Her toes were wedged tightly in the crack. If only she’d taken off her shoes, she’d be able to detect the edge of the rock more easily, although if she had, her feet might get scraped up and make things harder.

The rope in front of her loosened. “Do you see the large knob where I pulled myself up?”

Jane turned her head, getting her bearings on the wall. “Yes.”

“If you move yourself along the crack bit by bit, you should be able to switch the hand that’s holding on and reach the next handhold, and the next, until you are under that knob. Go nice and slow.”

Jane felt her way along the crack with her toes until she could reach the first handhold with her right hand. She moved farther and patted the rock with her left fingers until they found a protrusion she could grasp. A breeze riffled her hair, blowing the sweat off the back of her neck. She kept her gaze up, away from the view opening behind her—and below her. Rowan had said this was the worst part.

She reached the third handhold. The knob came next. Eagerly she stepped toward it and her foot slipped. Her stomach lurched, but her fingers clenched around the smaller protrusion and the rope went tight in front of her, holding her safe until she got her toes back onto the wall. She swallowed. More carefully, she stepped out and reached for the knob.

Rowan walked her through the next step of pulling herself up and finding the next toehold, then the next and the next. Climbing was painstaking work. Without a guide, she’d have clung to the cliff face for hours before she located the places she could grip her hands or wedge her toes. After what felt like an hour, she pulled herself up onto the ledge and onto her knees. The rope trailed off her and passed through an iron loop driven into a crack in the solid rock before hanging down to where Rowan held it at the edge of the forest.

Jane touched the metal loop that had been holding her up when she’d slipped. Who had driven it into the rock like this?

“Are you all right?” Rowan called.

Jane turned onto her bottom and slid backward until she was safely seated on the ledge. She signaled down to him. As the rush of the climb wore off, her legs pounded in fatigue, and her fingers and palms were red and indented with the texture of the rock she’d clung to.

“Undo the clip on your belt and attach it to the loop up there,” Rowan said.

Jane carefully pressed the lever to open the clip and slid it off her belt. She hooked it through the loop in the rock and let go, and the lever snapped shut. Like the snap of a jewelweed pod shooting its seeds out when the children squeezed them. She smiled. That was how the fairies had made the hook snap shut. She tugged on the rope to check it and show Rowan it was secure.

He put his pack on and untied the other end of the rope from the tree, threaded it through his own special climbing belt until no extra remained, and tied a knot. He coiled the extra and wedged it into a side pocket on his trousers. Letting go of the rope, he stepped onto the crack again and moved up the rock following the now familiar path. No wonder his fingers were so strong, if he did this regularly. How often did one visit a dragon? Barely a minute later, he pulled himself onto the ledge. He wasn’t even sweating or breathing heavily.

He exhaled and relaxed as he sat beside her. His legs swung where they hung off the rock, like a child riding on the back of a wagon. “It’s a fine view.”

Jane tore her gaze away from him to scan the valley spreading all around. A ridge of tree-covered hills ran along the righthand side, probably the western side of the valley, but when she checked the sun, it was high overhead and didn’t help her with directions. “That’s the south?” she asked, pointing.

He nodded.

“Where’s Woods Rest? Can we see it?”

He pointed farther left than she’d have guessed. “The Forest Road curves away to the east. It’s that way.”

“All I see are trees.”

“The village is a small clearing relative to the forest.”

“Spoken like a fairy.” Jane smiled to show she was teasing.

He pressed his lips together and didn’t reply.

“What about the castle. Can we see that?”

“On a clear day you might. There’s too much mist today.” He pushed himself to his feet with no effort, seeming unconcerned that he might topple off the edge. “Ready?”

Rowan helped Jane to stand. He unclipped the magical spring-clip from the rock and coiled the remaining rope, stashing it in his pocket.

“Where did the iron loop in the rock come from?” she asked.

“I drove it in the first time I came.”

“You drove it in?”

“It’s best to be safe. Besides, it’s more fun to come down using the rope.”

Fun? She lifted her eyebrows.

He smiled. “I’ll show you on the way down.”

Ugh. “Why didn’t you leave the rope, since we’re coming down?”

“I don’t like to leave a rope at the bottom in case anyone comes along and sees it. Humans have all kinds of weird ideas about dragons—that they hoard gold and have magical scales. It makes the humans a danger.”

“I’ve never heard of anyone even seeing a dragon,” Jane said.

“That’s because they hide.”

“So how do you drive a piece of iron that far into rock?”

“With a hammer.”

Jane squinted. “How old were you?”

“Twelve.”

“Skies,” she whispered as Rowan reached for the rock behind them and shimmied up it. He turned to give her a hand and pulled her up after him.

“This part will be easier.”

After the sheer face of the cliff, climbing over the boulders above it was a cinch. Rowan lifted her up in a few places where he had to scale a wall but could reach down to her. The trees they’d left behind disappeared below the rocks as they climbed above the treetops. Nothing grew where they were climbing except scrubby bushes clinging to cracks in the rock and more of the fire mushrooms, which were unlike any Jane had ever seen, now that she’d examined them in daylight. Most mushrooms grew in moist places, feeding on dead logs or the mossy earth, but these were clinging to the rocks. They formed thick clusters of twenty or more caps with furry-looking gills underneath and they seemed to glow from the base, although when she blinked and looked again they were simply a brilliant orange.

She touched the edge of one mushroom cap they passed. “How are they growing here?” she murmured.

“The dragons make them grow. They breathe fire on certain places in the rock and leave it porous so rainwater can gather and the mushrooms can thrive. They spread into the forest but you never see as many as you do at a dragon den. And you find them only near a dragon.”

Of course he knew. Know-it-all fairy.

“Why do dragons grow mushrooms?”

He stopped at the base of the next boulder and scrunched his brow. “To eat them?”

“I thought...” Jane stopped. She already knew she was wrong.

“That dragons ate cows and deer and people?”

She couldn’t meet his gaze. “Yes.”

He shook his head sadly. “Humans.”

“Are you actually joking?”

He snorted. “No. Let’s go.” And he started up the next ledge.

Twice more they used the ropes to climb, each time using iron loops fastened in the rock. Rowan would tie the rope at the bottom, scale the wall, thread it through a loop at the top, and lower himself down. He’d fasten the rope to the spring-clip, fasten that to her, and hold the ropes as he guided her up. And after she attached the spring-clip to the loop in the rock at the top, he’d untie the rope at the bottom, attach it to himself, and climb up to join her.

Jane ran her finger over a loop as she waited. If Rowan had hammered them in, he must have expected to use them again—to visit the dragon often. Had he? Or was this his first visit since he’d been twelve winters old?

Each time they ascended, the top of the peak seemed just beyond them. But as they reached the top a new layer of rocks would appear above them. Until finally they came out on a flat rock with no further height to climb, surrounded by rocks loaded with a thick layer of the orange mushrooms—but she still didn’t see a dragon. Below, a tree-covered slope stretched to the north and ended. That must be the hill they’d been climbing from the crossroads. It continued upward to the west. Behind it, other rocky peaks like the one they were climbing towered in the distance.

“Could Elle be on one of those?” Jane asked, looking out at the sea of trees and rocks.

“She shouldn’t be far. The dragon wouldn’t want to carry her any longer than needed.”

So that was a yes. Elle was on top of one of those towering peaks. Hopefully the dragon wouldn’t let her fall off.

“Jane.”

She pulled her gaze in from the view.

“Are you... um, calm about meeting Axe?”

“Calm?” Her voice ended in a squeak.

“If we make too much noise, we might startle him, and if he flies away I can’t talk to him.”

“Oh. You don’t want me to scream and fling a shoe at him.”

“Correct.”

Jane licked her lips. “I can be calm.”

Rowan turned and stepped up on a rock. Once he did it, she saw a row of rocks climbing up like a staircase. It passed between two boulders—he turned sideways to fit through. Jane followed close behind. As Rowan exited the passage, something moved beyond him.

She stopped at the end of the tight space, waiting as Rowan stepped down into the... courtyard? It was a circular area with a flat floor of rock. A long scaly tail curled out of a dark, gaping hole at the far side. The tail twitched on the floor. Jane stopped breathing, watching the tail. The dragon tail. It was green and shiny, covered with hand-sized scales. Rowan looked back. He motioned for her to stay and continued forward.

“Axe?” he called out gently. As if the dragon were a child he was waking from a nap.

The tail lashed up and down. When Mouser’s tail moved that way, he was cross and about to attack someone.

But were dragons like cats? Or more like dogs? Was the lashing tail friendly, like a dog tail?

Jane stepped back into the passage so the boulders surrounded her.

Rowan called again and this time a scuffling sounded in the cave, and the tail was pulled in. And the front of the dragon came out.

It had a giant head, as tall as Rowan, with pale yellow eyes and faded green scales covering its snout, and a small ridge down the middle, from its eyes over its head and along its neck. Its neck went on and on to the massive body filling the cave entrance. It shuffled forward on two stout front legs (with claws!) until its folded wings cleared the cave and flexed open slightly, as if it were balancing but didn’t want to open them all the way. And it was sniffing Rowan. Its snout was right up against him, snuffling his clothing. Rowan stood motionless.

Was he able to communicate with it? With him. Rowan had called Axe a him.

Axe drew back his head to study Rowan from top to bottom. He lowered his bulky body to the stone floor and folded back his wings. Rowan sank down before him, and he had a hand on Axe’s snout. Like he was petting the dragon.

“That’s not why we’re here,” Rowan said softly.

The dragon exhaled. Thankfully no fire came out, with Rowan sitting right in front of him.

“It’s too late,” he murmured. “We can’t stay here.”

The dragon snorted hard enough to ruffle Rowan’s hair.

“It’s too late,” he said again, and he reached up to wipe his eyes.

Was Rowan crying?

Jane lowered herself carefully and quietly to sit in the passage. She leaned on the boulder and hugged her knees. Witnessing this reunion she didn’t understand felt awkward and intrusive. She closed her eyes and waited.

A few minutes later, Rowan touched her shoulder. She blinked up at him standing before her. And behind him, the dragon was watching her.

“Come say hello.”

Rowan took her hand, helped her up, and led her into the courtyard. He kept ahold of her hand. Maybe he worried she’d bolt if he didn’t hang on to her. They stopped in front of the dragon’s huge face.

“This is Jane,” Rowan said, as if they were in a parlor about to have formal tea. “Jane, this is Axe.”

Jane curtsied slightly. Heat from the dragon’s exhales washed over her.

“He’s told me where Elle is,” Rowan said.

“Can he understand our words?” Jane asked.

“No. Maybe his name and a few others.”

“Will you thank him for me?”

Rowan was silent and the dragon’s eyes darted over to him. The eyes moved quickly for such a lumbering body. Jane couldn’t imagine Axe swooping over Woods Rest and snatching Elle the way the other dragon had. Was he older? Or did dragons always wake up with creaky joints? As soon as they were back in the forest, she was going to ambush Rowan with questions.

“He’s happy to help us. He didn’t realize how young Elle is. But he understands your concern. And—” Rowan’s voice cracked once, and he swallowed. “He understands we can’t stay.”

The dragon was watching her again.

“Could we come back?” Jane asked. She turned to Rowan. “We could come back to visit with him for longer. After we find Elle and sort everything out.”

Rowan gazed at her with his lips parted. He shut them, blinking a few times. He smiled softly. “He would like that.”

With one last glimpse at Axe, Rowan turned away from the dragon. He gestured for Jane to go first across the courtyard. She stepped once toward the exit before Rowan pushed into her, stumbling against her back and grabbing her around the waist to stop her from falling over. He let go of her quickly, apologizing for tripping.

Jane peeked back. She could have sworn Axe was grinning.