It seemed to me that my father was sending me a message: he didn’t want me to escape my fate and he would make me do as he wanted, one way or another.
Even in death? That was the question. Not in actual death; he was as mortal as the next man, but the transformation I faced felt like death to me. It was the end of who I was as I became something else; maybe something more, but I feared it would be something less.
I heard the dragons before I saw them. Their roars and screeches felt like a bell tolling for me. I glanced sideways at David, who was expressionless and seemed in a hurry to have his task over with. Maybe he didn’t like dragons? I couldn’t imagine why not.
We walked until we reached the end of the path, and met an elderly man and a younger woman who waited for us there. I recognized the man on sight as the king’s Dragon-keeper. He wore the dark blue common to most of the king’s higher-ranking servants. I hadn’t met the woman before, and she dressed differently in coloured silks that befit a trader, though they weren’t often the kind you saw in the kingdom.
“I’m Drayce Michaels.” He nodded respectfully to the guards, as he waited for them to make the next move.
His eyes darted to me, as if to ask ‘is this her?’ He only got a partial view of me, and I of him, for the time being. I’d spoken to him before, including the fateful day Cyron and I rode to Kalan. He must’ve known it was me. In fact, I expected there were few people in the city that didn’t.
The woman was young enough to be Drayce’s daughter, but I didn’t think she was. I wondered if she might have had a role to play in my transformation and I was right. At that time I didn’t foresee what it was, but that was probably for the best, because I wouldn’t have handled it well had I known. The entire situation was difficult for me and I felt I had no way out.
“Where do you need the princess?” Harris asked. “We’ve been ordered to remain behind until the transformation is done.”
“You’ll be waiting a long time, if so. You can bring her down to the cottage,” he replied. “Sina has seen to the preparations.”
I realized Sina must be the woman with Drayce.
“Move your ass, Princess,” the unfamiliar guard ordered.
David glanced his way with a frown. He’d clearly behaved inappropriately.
I understood why, too. I might be a prisoner, but I was also the king’s daughter. It wasn’t a way that any soldier should speak to royalty.
I noticed two dragons circling in the sky above as we approached the cottage. They were fully grown adult dragons, and as we watched, one breathed out a billow of flame at a great height. I wondered if either of them would be my dragon to ride. My instincts told me no. By that age, the dragons would’ve already had riders of their own.
Facing this—my future—felt similar to facing battle, only my chances of avoiding harm were far worse, and my morale had hit rock-bottom.
The cottage was comfortable and homely-looking, though larger than a family home might’ve been. It was more than the residence of the Dragon-keeper, I knew. All who tended to the dragons lived there, and it was where matters related to their use were handled. It was perhaps telling that there were no stables, because the dragons would never have tolerated them.
The guards ushered me through the side door of the building and into the living area of a room that had been set aside for me. The room held no bed, but there was a lounge in the centre of the room, while nearly a dozen candles burned in small holders on cabinets along the walls. The guards didn’t follow me inside, but the woman did, closing the door behind us. It was the first time I’d had the chance to look at her up close, and her large brown eyes caught my attention. They looked innocent, which seemed strange to me when I expected cruelty.
“It’s alright, you don’t need to worry yourself,” she said, obviously able to see how upset I was about the process.
I wasn’t tearful, but I was shaking and I couldn’t make it stop. “Don’t I?” I asked, unable to prevent the tremor of fear that found its way into my voice.
“It won’t be as bad as you think. The dragons aren’t monsters, but they’re more alone than many people realize. When you join with a dragon, you and the dragon become something more. It’s why they need us, and why without us, they are vulnerable.”
“The dragons are vulnerable?” I asked, confused.
Sina nodded. “You wouldn’t think creatures like them would be, but they’re vulnerable to certain kinds of primordial magic. They are safer when they’re joined with a rider, and there is something else we can offer them that they wouldn’t otherwise have.”
“What’s that?” I asked. The truth was I didn’t know a lot about dragons, other than what they could do for the King’s army.
“Access to their ancestral home.”
“That makes sense,” I replied. I’d wondered what humanity could offer dragons that they couldn’t take for themselves; now I had the answer.
I could tell the woman, Sina, was trying to distract me to lessen my fears and it wasn’t working overly well. On the one hand, I needed to know what this meant for me, but the problem was once I did, I feared it would be too late. If I was honest with myself, it already was. There was nowhere I could go with the guards stationed outside. It seemed that Drayce and Sina weren’t bad people, even if they were akin to executioners. I didn’t think I was a bad person either, despite all of the questionable actions I’d undertaken in my father’s service.
“There is someone I should introduce you to,” Sina said. “You won’t be the only one undergoing the transformation. There is another—his name is Jenlon Kevaire.”
“The thief from Altis Township? I know of him by reputation,” I replied. “He was on the king’s wanted list for a while. I suppose the law caught up with him.”
There were two juvenile dragons, so it made sense there would be once for each of us, though it seemed that it might take a long time for the dragons to grow.
“How is he dealing with this?” I asked, wondering if he knew as much as I did about his intended fate.
“Less well than you are, I think,” Sina replied. “He’s been here for several days and it was necessary to put him in a cell after he tried to escape. His guards had to re-capture him.”
I sighed, wondering if it would’ve turned out differently if he’d given them the impression he was going to stay where he was at first. “I see.”
I considered talking to him, but what was the point? Would I befriend him and then see him lost? I already felt out of sorts and he didn’t sound any better, so I shook my head. Better to get it over with.
“Is it going to take long?” I asked, wondering if there would be lengthy suffering involved.
“Yes,” she said.
I felt my stomach sink.
“The full process takes eight months, but you will be unconscious for much of it.”
“I…” I didn’t know what to say. “I thought it took an hour, maybe two. Where am I going to be for those months?”
Sina hesitated, and I knew when she did, that I wouldn’t like the answer.
“Below ground. The dragons have an ancestral cavern.”
I had no idea it existed and I felt then that I should’ve known about it already. I had been the new Spymaster for Olys. I should’ve known its secrets, but I was only discovering the biggest of them now.
“When will it begin?” I asked. I was terrified, but I tried not to show it.
“Now that you’re here, there’s no reason to delay. You’re sure you don’t want to meet with Jenlon first?”
I shook my head. I knew it would only draw out the situation for longer, and I was struggling as it was. “No, let’s begin.”
“Very well,” she said matter-of-factly.
Sina didn’t ask me if I had any last words, but then it wasn’t an execution. My body would still have the capacity to speak later.
She retrieved a small vial of liquid from a cabinet near the door and unstoppered it.
&nbs
p; “In order to begin the process, you need only drink this,” she said.
“What is it?” I asked. I could tell I was being more accepting of her than I would’ve been of one of the guards, but she was also talking to me like a person. Not like a prisoner.
“It will help you sleep. We’ll take care of the rest.”
“What’s going to happen to me?” I asked, not wanting to know the answer. I needed to, though, whether it was out of masochism or self-preservation. I had to know what they were going to do to me. Otherwise, how could I drink that vial of liquid?
“We will take you to the cavern where a spell will be cast and a chrysalis will form. The dragons will visit you as you undergo the change, and when your dragon frees you from the chrysalis, you will be different.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” I said, wondering if I wasn’t getting the full story.
“No, it’s not.”
“But I don’t have a choice,” I added.
“It would seem not,” she said, “but don’t think ill of the dragons. It’s not their fault.”
No, I reasoned. It’s probably mine.
The sleep draught must have worked quickly, because I didn’t remember anything immediately after taking it. I’m not sure how much time passed before my eyes opened again. A warm, soft barrier enclosed me. I could see through it; not well, but enough to gain a sense of rough stone on the other side and something else—a hallway or corridor. My mind was fuzzy and I felt half asleep. I thought back over my life and I knew I was still me. I couldn’t tell for certain how I had changed, if I had at all.
The world seemed to have a skewed perspective and it took me a moment to realise I laid at a forty-five degree angle with pieces of the chrysalis holding me almost upright. I wasn’t sure what had woken me, and I thought I was alone, but as I closed my eyes again I heard a distant sound like yelling and the clashing of blades. It was too far away to make out any detail, but it made me wonder if there was a battle taking place or whether someone else could be below ground.
Drifting in and out of sleep, the images in my mind were chaotic and nonsensical. I couldn’t make sense of myself or the world for the longest time, and there were many thoughts I began but never finished. I cried more than once in frustration, before darkness claimed me once-more. I was oblivious to the passage of time until I woke again to the amber eyes of a dragon watching me. I recoiled, a shiver of fear running through me.
A clawed foot pushed on my chrysalis, but didn’t tear through it. It took me a moment to realize what it was trying to do—I think it was trying to comfort me. Its eyes seemed alien to me, but they weren’t cruel—they were more curious and sympathetic than anything else. I wondered if this was my dragon—the one I would come to ride. As soon as my mind asked that question, I received an answer, somewhere deep in the recesses of my consciousness.
‘Yes’.
Tears formed in my eyes, and despite the curious sight of the dragon watching me, I felt only grief. I wasn’t afraid of losing my father, but I felt betrayed by him, that he would do this to me. He wanted me to serve as a warning to others.
‘Why are you sad?’ the voice asked and I stopped dwelling on the dark thoughts that threatened to overwhelm me.
“Because I don’t want to lose who I am or for you to consume my soul,” I replied. “And my father intends for it to happen. He’s a monster. I’m only here because I saved someone who deserved it.”
‘You won’t lose yourself, and I couldn’t consume your soul if I wanted to. I wouldn’t do that to you.’
The young dragon studied me through the chrysalis and I got a sense of its emotions too. It was upset that I thought it was evil.
“I’m sorry,” I said, wanting to apologize for how I’d made it feel. I just didn’t know dragons could feel that way. I was thinking about myself and not what it meant for the dragon.
‘You don’t have to become my rider if you don’t want to,’ it said. ‘What do you want?’
I was surprised it would give me a choice, when my own people hadn’t. I knew that if it rejected me, my father would probably have me put to death anyway, but it changed something for me that I was given a choice about it.
So far my fears had turned out to be unfounded.
And for the first time that made me wonder if my father knew what I was coming to understand. He was capable of the cruelest acts, but what if he’d intended to give me a way out?
Maybe I was being overly hopeful, but so far my darkest fears hadn’t manifested. The dragon had done something even my father, the king, hadn’t. It asked what I wanted, and that changed everything.
What did I honestly have to go back to, if my life turned to what it had been before? My mother was dead, and I hadn’t yet married. There was only my father, and Cyron had showed me kindness, but few others ever did. Most of them were afraid of me, and who could blame them?
Maybe joining the dragon as its rider was a way forward. The only way I’d ever know for sure was if I accepted its offer. I decided there and then that I didn’t want to be further away from my dragon, I wanted to be closer to it.
As it turned to walk away, I called out,“I will be your rider.”
I sensed that it had already understood my decision before I’d voiced it. Our connection was already forming. It had something to do with the chrysalis—it was changing me, but I felt that in a larger way I was changing myself.
‘You will never be alone again, except for when you want to be’.
The dragon’s thoughts drifted into silence as it left the cavern to return to the light of day, and me—I returned to my slumber. I couldn’t have said for how long, but when I awakened again I felt different. Neither my mind nor my spirit were gone. Confusion slowly abated as my mind was opened in directions it had never been before. Dark recesses of my understanding were illuminated one at a time until I understood there was so much more than I’d had the capacity to understand.
I wasn’t there long before the dragon came for me. My chrysalis had grown opaque during my transformation, but I sensed his presence even before I heard the scuff of his feet and scratch of his claws on stone.
A single claw sliced through the chrysalis. I instinctively pushed through it, like a bird hatching from its shell. The dragon towered over me. Even in the near-darkness I could tell he was jade green, and his eyes that I once perceived as alien glowed a warm, familiar amber that radiated understanding and belonging.
He had been small, this one. I didn’t realize dragons grew so fast, but while I’d been unconscious he’d reached adulthood. I wondered if the transformation had something to do with it.
‘I grew as you did,’ my dragon explained, speaking directly to my mind.
He knew my thoughts and I realized after a moment that I understood his as well. I’d been in my chrysalis for many months and a byproduct of the change caused him to age to adulthood more rapidly. I hadn’t known before, but barring sickness or injury, my life would now be longer than a typical human lifespan. I would share that trait with my dragon.
“What do I call you?” I asked, wondering if dragons gave each other names. I seemed to remember an old wives’ tale about names having power.
‘I don’t have a name,’ the dragon said. ‘But you may call me something if you wish.’
I thought it over and the name came to me quickly. “What about Endymion? The old tales tell of the first dragon rider, who fought victoriously with his dragon Iceheart for the Viking King, Haldred the First.”
‘Endymion,’ he said, trying the name on for size.
I could tell he wasn’t sure why I’d given him the name, but there were more old stories that came to mind. Endymion was a hero of old Olysian legend. He’d been cast into an enchanted sleep, and retained his eternal youth. While I was the one who had slept, perhaps Endymion and I would both stay young before a world that would age around us.
That would include my father. What of Jenlon the thief?
“C
an I ask—what became of the man who is undergoing the transformation too? Is he out of here or does he still sleep?”
I could sense hesitation from the dragon, then saddened feelings.
‘He is gone,’ Endymion replied.
I didn’t know what he meant. Gone?
“Didn’t he make it?” I asked, wondering if he’d died.
‘No, gone,’ he replied, his voice crystal clear in my mind. ‘Some of your people stole him away, but they didn’t take you. The man never completed his transformation—he was taken before he could.’
A rescue attempt? It had to be. I wondered why they’d left me. Maybe they’d been stopped before they could reach me, unless they feared me because I was my father’s daughter.
“What will become of his dragon?” I asked, wondering if the dragon would be sad about it or if it would cause some difficulty.
‘She won’t have a rider yet. There may be another,’ Endymion explained, ‘but not any person would be right. It is rare to find one who could be joined easily and rarer still that they would choose to be.’
It wasn’t something I’d come around too easily, but I guessed that made me more unique. When I saw, as others did, that riders usually weren’t fully conscious, I couldn’t blame them for wanting to avoid the same fate.
“Why am I different?” I asked. “I don’t mean unique for embracing this change but it seems like there isn’t that much of a person left sometimes when they become a rider. I don’t feel that way at all. I mean, I feel different, but also as much myself as I was. Do you understand?”
Endymion projected agreement and understanding. ‘The others talk often in their minds and not as much aloud. There is much of their inner life you don’t see. I knew it wasn’t what you wanted, so I didn’t let the change take you too far away from who you were before. Some of our kind might not care as much, but I do. I want you to be happy because then we both can be. We will be together a long time.’
Dragons and Mages: A Limited Edition Anthology Page 131
