Page 43 of The Poisoned King (Impossible Creatures #2)
Sky Colors, Fire Colors
It was not the land of Dousha. They were not going immediately to the castle. There was one thing they had to do first.
She had agreed on it, she and Christopher together. Her father’s life and the life of dragons. If both were of infinite value, both must be treated as such.
The scramble to the cave in Edem took time—time they did not have. They went as fast as their bodies could bear and didn’t pause; neither of them suggested it, even though sweat rolled down both of their faces, and Anya found herself gasping for breath.
The sun was high and golden by the time they reached the plateau, with its sweet-smelling bushes that lined the mouth of the dragon’s cave.
Anya held Koo and Gallia close as Christopher took from his bag the chunk of minced venison they had put there.
They had mixed it with the new batch of antidote they had made just a few hours ago in the lamplit kitchen, waiting for the midnight chime to signal the readiness of the somulent leaf.
“Arach!” they called, as close to the mouth of the cave as they dared. “Arach, come out!”
Anya half expected fire to blast out at them, or that the great dragon would come storming, blind and vengeful, from the mouth of the cave, teeth bared. Nothing came.
Were they too late? Had they failed after all?
Christopher put the sphinx tooth in his mouth. He called out: “Arach! Last surviving dragon of the Edem caves! Come out! We bring you a cure!” No movement stirred the clear morning.
“We should go,” said Gallia.
“One second,” said Christopher. “One more minute.”
Then the ground under their feet began to vibrate. Anya bent and put her hand to the stone. “He’s coming!”
The scales around Arach’s mouth had begun to dry and peel, and his breath came in great heaves. He did not walk but dragged himself forward. He was very close to death.
“Here,” said Christopher, and he laid out the venison.
The dragon ate the meat without speech or sign of thanks. He was barely able to swallow.
Then he shuddered and groaned: a dragon groan so deep that Anya felt it in her chest more than her ears. Then he drew in breath enough to pull a ship across the world. His chest ceased to heave. He opened his eyes, and then opened them again.
“Light.” The dragon twisted his great lizard head to look up at the sky. His eyes were still filmed and opaque, but: “I see…light. Is it day?”
“Yes,” said Christopher. “The sun’s high.”
“I see the sun.” And then, murmuring in the old tongue that only Christopher could understand, he said, “I see sky colors, sky colors. Blue, yellow. I did not think I would see color again.”
Arach pulled himself to stand on his four legs—and roared. Scree cascaded down the mountain. He unleashed a burst of flames. The heat was a furnace; the rock beneath their feet burned.
“I see the color of my flames!” cried Arach. “Fire colors!”
He turned his head toward Christopher and Anya. “I will kill a cow, and you will share in it as thanks.”
Christopher spoke formally, carefully; for it was, after all, a dragon. “We require no thanks, and alas, we cannot wait: we have an urgent journey.”
“You will abide the briefest moment,” said the dragon, and coughed, a cough with fire in it.
“Five risings of the sun, or six, or seven at the most. By then I will be strong enough to help you. I will do what you came to ask of Sarkany. I will fly you to Argen Castle and burn the towers to the ground. I will liberate your father.”
But Anya couldn’t wait, however much she longed to. “Thank you. But we don’t have five days. We don’t have a single day to spare.”
The dragon did not argue. In general, dragons do not argue with humans; they leave them to live their lives or they eat them, and very little in between. Anya and Christopher left Arach outside the mouth of the cave, twisting his face to greet the sun.
It would have been a glorious thing, Anya thought, to take shelter behind the magnificence of a dragon. But she must be her own dragon now.