He pulls back into the building and tugs me down to huddle against the wall.
“What is it?” I whisper.
“It’s...it’s beautiful.”
I pause. “Beautiful?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Jerking out of his grasp on my elbow, I spin back around and carefully lean out the window, just enough to see.
There, where we’d been heading, is the well lined with stone. And there, dipping its long neck down to take a drink, is a monster.
Chapter 4
When constructing a cage for a dragon, take into account its overly large heart.
I yank my head back into the building. “That’s a dragon.”
He nods. “It’s majestic.”
“It’s not majestic, Orion. It’s big enough to swallow us together in a single gulp.”
I can picture what I just saw, as if my mind took the image and wove it into a tapestry to consider at my leisure. A reptile, long as six men from nose to tail, covered in scales that might be green, although it’s difficult to tell in the moonlight. Claws as big as my hands on each of its feet. Giant wings, larger than the shrouds we use to wrap around our dead.
“We have to slay it,” I say. “This is our chance.”
“Slay—? No, Inez. No.” Orion grips my arm in his fist.
“It’s the whole reason we’re here,” I say. “If we slay a water dragon, its skin will take us to water.”
I had doubted that these creatures even existed. I had thought this a fool’s errand. But now that there is a dragon in front of me, all I can think about is killing it, skinning it, and saving our people. I would be a hero.
“We don’t even know it’s a water dragon,” Orion says. “It could be any kind of dragon.”
I give him a pointed look. “The only other dragons in Celinia are scorpion dragons. This is it. It’s our chance. We need to take it.”
“There is water here,” Orion argues.
“Yes, but for how long? From the sound of that beast’s greedy gulps, I wouldn’t be surprised if the well is dry by the time it has finished drinking. And will we be sending multiple parties all the way to Lament to retrieve water?”
“Inez,” he says in a low, firm voice.
Ignoring him, I turn back to the window. I look at the dragon not as a monster this time, but as a formidable foe. I evaluate the weaknesses, as Master Kenneth would tell me to do.
If I can pull its attention to me, I might reach its left side and, I hope, the location of its heart.
Do dragons even have hearts? I think back to what Petre said during his tale. Something about heartless beasts. But every creature must have a heart, surely.
Windhaunts don’t have hearts, though.
Just in case the dragon doesn’t have a heart, I must think of other ways to slay it. Severing the head works on windhaunts, but I would have to be very strong to slice through a neck that thick, and fast enough to dodge any counterattacks.
The eyes. When battling scorpion dragons, we first stab out their eyes.
The dragon lifts its head from the well and raises it to the sky. I watch, transfixed, as a burst of fire gusts from its mouth. The flame disappears instantly, and in its place is a shadowy cloud of smoke that hangs in the air. The dragon seems to study the smoke.
“What in the winds is it doing?” I murmur.
“Inez, please,” Orion whispers.
His tone is so earnest, I pause in my evaluation of the dragon and turn back to look at him.
“I never thought we would find a dragon,” I whisper, “and one has come to us.”
“But it’s a creature of legend,” he says, sitting up to look out the window with me once more. “It’s lovely.”
“Beautiful, lovely? Are you under some kind of spell?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No. We just need to think about this—”
I can’t hear the rest of his words because another tremble fills the city. The dragon leaps into the sky and flaps its wings. The pump of the air is once again deafening.
The shadow shrinks against the star-strewn sky until it disappears.
I shove Orion’s shoulder. “Why did we hesitate? Now we’ve lost our chance.”
I’m just as angry with him as I am with myself. Fear kept me from acting immediately—fear disguised as strategy.
We were so close. We could’ve killed the dragon and returned home to our people, heroes of our story. Everyone would have enough to drink again.
“We can follow it,” I say.
“It’s gone.” His voice is quiet.
“I know, but it must’ve gone somewhere. Petre talked about the jungles—”
“Oh, winds take Petre and his jungles.”
I swivel to look at Orion, surprised by the fierce tone in his voice.
He continues, “Petre didn’t say anything about the dragon’s dignity or honor. He made it sound grotesque, monstrous.”
“But that’s what I saw out there,” I say. “A monster.”
“Did you?” he asks. “Or did you see what Petre told you to see?”
“I...” I want to argue with him, but maybe he has a point. “I saw something terrifying,” I finally say. “And Petre told us about the danger.”
“We saw something we didn’t understand,” Orion says. “And Petre lied about many things.”
“He did,” I admit.
We’re quiet for a moment. Another wolf howl breaks the silence, followed by the wind moving sands against stone. Ages from now, will Lament be entirely worn away? Nothing but a sand dune.
“Let’s get our water and leave this place,” I say. My cheeks burn, that I was gullible enough to believe Petre’s stories, or parts of them, and disbelieve others. Our people are not bloodthirsty. We respect peace and we respect the lives of all living creatures. Yet I have been eager to slay a dragon.
“And go where?” Orion asks.
He looks younger now, unsure. As if he’s afraid of my decision, like I’ll insist on hunting the dragon. Shame burns my cheeks.
“Anywhere,” I say. “We can decide when we’re on the sled and safely away from this rotten city.”
“All right.” He picks up his spear and water barrel and leads the way out of the building.
The street is deserted, the sky, too. I scan the horizon to the front and back.
“We’re not going to find it,” Orion says.
“I just want to know where it went.” A set of stairs carved into one of the buildings gives me an idea. “Just a moment.”
He sees where I’m headed. “Inez, let’s just get the water and go.”
“This won’t take long.” I don’t know why I’m compelled, but I need to know which direction the dragon went. If I get up high enough, I might be able to see it in the sky.
Ignoring Orion’s continued protests, I start up the deteriorating steps. The stone is chalky and crumbles beneath my boots, but it holds my weight.
I’m nearly to the top when a step gives out entirely.
I reach out and catch the roof ledge before I fall. Kicking my legs, I struggle to find a solid step, anything. My arm aches from being wrenched, and my palm stings where the stone bites into it.
“Are you all right?” Orion’s voice is alarmed.
“I’ll be fine.” I’m strong enough to pull myself up.
Just as one of my feet finds purchase on another step, something stabs the top of my hand. The pain is sudden, sharp, and fiery. I look up in time to see a scorpion scuttle away from the roof’s edge, stinger raised.
My hand refuses to work. I let go of the wall, stumble to a solid step. Leaning against the building, I try to catch my breath. Color has been leached from my surroundings. All is turning gray.
“Inez!” Orion shouts.
He sounds far away.
“Where are you?” I murmur. Then I crumple.
My head hits stone as I fall down the steps. My arms don’t work; I can’t catch myself as the
fire in my hand spreads up my wrist and forearm. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to focus on breathing.
Warm arms engulf me, holding my weight.
“I have you,” a deep voice says. Orion.
“Where are you?” I ask him.
“Right here.”
“Orion?” I say. Something important needs to be said. My throat aches with the need to offer up the words.
“I’m here,” he says.
“Need you,” I say. “Never want to let go.”
His breath hitches. The world spins. My arm is flame and ash, and I cry out.
He curses. “Your hand is turning gray. It was a scourge scorpion.”
The same kind that killed my mother when I was a girl.
“Scourge of the desert,” I say with a cough.
She was stung on the foot while retrieving water from the well at dawn. She was dead before midday.
There is no antidote.
I’m going to die, and it’s going to hurt. Selfishly, I hope Orion won’t leave my side until I take my last breath. That promise he wanted us to make, to leave the other behind…fear grips me at the thought.
“I can help,” a faraway voice says. It’s feminine.
“Who’s there?” Orion demands.
My eyes are tightly shut from the pain, but I crack them open. The grayness of the world diminishes and color returns, although it is dim. The old buildings are washed bluish white by the moon, and stars sparkle in the sky. A beautiful woman approaches. She wears a long, shimmering dress and her long hair glimmers silver in the moonlight. Something about her makes me feel safe, yet all I can think about are the prophecies of dragons and the stories of Lament.
“Run,” I say to Orion, my voice a croak. I will die alone if it means he will be safe. “Leave me and go.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you,” he says.
As wracked as I am by pain, I need to remind him of what he said to me when we entered this sun-forsaken city. “You said you would go if something happened to me.”
He shrugs. “I lied.”
“I said, I can help her,” the woman speaks again.
“Who the winds are you?” Orion asks.
She’s silent. I try to open my eyes to see her, but everything is dim, as if the stars and moon and all of my surroundings have been shrouded in clouds.
“Inez,” Orion says. “Inez.”
My mouth refuses to open, but I try to respond anyway. My words, “Don’t worry about me,” come out as a pathetic moan. My heart sounds sluggish in my ears.
“All right,” Orion says. “Help her.”
“It will be painful,” the woman says. “There are sacrifices that must be made, but they come with gifts.”
“Whatever it takes,” he says. “I’ll give you anything.”
“Very well.”
I can’t feel my feet or my hands. The numbness travels up my limbs. The woman is too late—her cure won’t take effect in time, because the scorpion’s venom is already working through my system.
Water drops against my tongue. It is too salty but I gulp it down. Orion says something, but I can’t understand it. The woman responds, “It may be too late.”
It feels too early for my death, but I’m a warrior. I’ve faced it before now and overcome it, and now it has returned to me. I only wish I had more time with Orion. There are things I want to tell him, feelings that need to be shared. I see the two of us, side by side, holding hands—not as friends, but as lovers—our fingers twining as he pulls me against him for a kiss.
Because the chance will never come, I let my mind float away with the beautiful images.
Until pain blossoms through my chest, angry and red like blood splashing sand. I cry out, dismayed to return to the present and my dying body.
“What are you doing to her?” Orion shouts.
“I gave her my tears. The rest is up to her.”
The numbness in my limbs fades, only to be replaced with white-hot daggers of pain. It feels as if someone is peeling the skin and muscles from my bones and scouring them with sand.
“Make it stop!” I scream.
“You hurt her,” Orion says. “Stop this, now.”
“You said, ‘Whatever it takes,’” she says in a level voice. How can she sound so calm when my body is being sliced and shredded, over and over again? Does she hold the knife? “My tears will heal her, but it will hurt.”
A cool palm rests against my forehead. “I’m sorry, Inez,” Orion whispers.
“There is both a sacrifice and a gift,” the woman says.
The knives of pain have sliced their way up my arms and legs. Now they approach my heart.
“No. No, please, no,” I say. “Please kill me.”
“It’s all right,” the woman croons. “This, as all pain, is fleeting. There is nothing you can’t overcome. Let the tears find your heart, little daughter.”
Daughter? She isn’t my mother. Still, I must be certain. Cracking open my eyes, I see a woman who is entirely a stranger. Daughter is merely an expression, then. I stifle my disappointment.
The slicing pain is in my chest, nearly to my heart.
“I can’t—I can’t—” I try to say.
“Help her!” Orion shouts.
“It’s okay, little daughter,” the woman says. “We all sleep through this part.”
The pain is too great. Agony fills my mind with the fury of a sandstorm. I close my eyes and fall into unconsciousness.
Chapter 5
Fear not the dragon’s fire. Rage and wrath are only one part of the majestic creature’s beauty.
I wake in the daytime. There’s a ceiling over my head—cracked white sandstone. Sunlight comes through a window, its illumination creating a bright rectangle on the bare floor. From the slant of it, I’m guessing it to be evening or late afternoon.
Just beyond the light, Orion sits. He sees me looking at him and scrambles toward me. “Inez. How do you feel?”
I slowly tense each of my arms and legs in turn. “I’m sore, but that’s all.”
There’s more to it than that—I remember the excruciating pain, and the strange woman, and the paralysis as my skin and muscle burned.
But my body is intact. My heart continues to beat.
“She...saved me?” I ask. “Why? Who was she?”
“She refused to give me a name.” Orion looks past me. I quickly turn my head to glance at the shadowy corner of the room, but there’s no one back there. “I offered her coin, food—winds take it, Inez, I offered her my very sword. She wanted none of it. And now…now I know why.”
Pushing myself up on my elbows, I look at him until he meets my gaze. “Why?”
“Because she changed you. That was the sacrifice she was talking about.”
I look down at my legs—still encased in my simple leggings. My feet are bare. My toes look the same as always. I hold one of my hands in front of my face. Fingernails, calluses, the lines of my palm—all are intact.
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
He stands up and looks away again. “She said she transformed your heart. She made you like her so that you would heal. She said you would be strong enough to embrace it.”
I can only stare at him. He sounds as if he’s fallen into sun sickness.
“It’s true,” he says. “I can tell—you’re already different.”
“How long have I been sleeping?” I ask.
“It’s the end of the third day.”
“Orion, that’s nonsense. You must be ill.”
“I’m not ill,” he says. “Inez, listen—”
“Where are the wolves?” I ask.
“I made them a stable.”
“And we’re still in Lament?”
“Yes.”
I sit up all the way, perching on the edge of the stone table I’d been lying on. “And other than the strange woman—the dragon! Orion—what about the dragon? Have you seen any others?”
“That’s what I’
m trying to tell you, Inez.”
I raise my eyebrows at him, waiting.
He takes a breath. “The dragon we saw, and that woman, they are the same creature.”
I burst out laughing. “You have taken too many of Nima’s fanciful tales as truth.”
“No,” he says. “This is real.”
“All right.” I step down from the table and sway on my feet. Reaching out, I hold the edge of the table until the dizziness passes.
“Are you all right?” Orion asks.
“I’ve never been better,” I say brightly. “Let’s harness the wolves and continue west.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he says.
“And I think it’s the best idea.” I stand up and find my boots. I put them on, followed by my belt and sword. “Let’s go.”
“Inez.” His voice stops me just as I reach the stone doorway to leave the building.
“What?”
“There’s something I need to tell you. We need to talk.”
“We’ll talk on the way, Orion. It’s nearly evening.”
The truth is, I’m worried about him. He’s been alone here for three days in the city rumored to “change people” with only my unconscious presence for company. He must be going mad.
And why didn’t he leave? He was supposed to leave—we said we would leave.
He scrambles out of the building and falls into step beside me. The energy between us is as strong as ever.
When I reach out to take his hand and he folds his fingers over mine, I no longer wonder why he didn’t leave me behind. I wouldn’t have been able to leave him, either. It’s because my heart is drawn to his, and his heart is drawn to mine.
I stop walking, stunned by the sudden epiphany.
“What is it?” he asks.
The city ruins are silent around us, shadows lengthening as the sun descends. What light there is has taken on an orange-pink cast.
I look into Orion’s dark green eyes, at the curled lashes beneath his arched eyebrows. His cheekbones are bold, hard with determination, and those full, soft lips of his are curved lightly as he watches me study him. His forehead wrinkles slightly. “Is there something on my face?”
Dragons and Mages: A Limited Edition Anthology Page 94
