When She Reigns

by Jodi Meadows

  I stared back at Damyan, who’d wrenched himself up from the ocean, separated from Darina until she, too, made ready to abandon us.

  How could our gods, these beings who’d given us life and gifts and a place to live, desert us? How could they turn their backs on their own children?

  My chest tightened with grief I’d never imagined possible, and the prolonged presence of the giant noorestones. If I’d pushed them again, we’d have been in Flamecrest hours ago. But the people floating on the open ocean . . .

  None of us could have passed them by—or crashed atop them—and lived with ourselves.

  Now, my friends and I stood at the bow of the Star-Touched, the bones of the first dragon coiled up behind us.

  Gerel leaned her head on Chenda’s shoulder as they looked at their gods, not quite silhouetted as the sun edged lower in the sky. The chains hanging from Khulan’s body—the God Shackle, warriors called it—gleamed with rust and uprooted plant life as they swung through empty air. And Bopha—she was a dark, terrifying form who cast no shadow on the water. She was the shadow.

  Aaru and Hristo stood together, both quiet as they faced Harta, and whatever complicated feelings my protector felt toward the island of his birth—they didn’t seem to matter right now. His god had risen and now he would never get to know what a life there would be like—not the way it was before.

  And then there were Ilina, Zara, and me. LaLa and Crystal perched on the rail between us, chirping softly. We watched Damyan for a while, his arms open and waiting for Darina to join him. I wondered if it had hurt, that separation. They were two gods, two islands, but connected by an isthmus where his arms held her. Everyone spoke of them as one island, so much that we’d long ago combined their names, but now . . . now they were broken in two, torn apart by the Great Abandonment.

  It had always been a choice, I thought. This sacrifice. This slow shift of my human soul into the dragon soul. Just because it was laid out in text didn’t mean it wasn’t my decision in the end.

  But now, seeing them with my own eyes, and witnessing the despair that dragged at my friends, I didn’t know how anyone would choose differently. I would let go of my human self. I would become a dragon. And I would do everything in my power to make the Fallen Gods stay.

  Even if I was successful, though, the damage was already done. Hundreds of thousands of people were gone.

  Homes. Societies. Histories.

  Nothing would ever be the same, no matter how we tried.

  It wasn’t long before we approached the harbor, and my seven large friends flew over the ship-choked port to rest on the red cliffs. A dull noise rose up from the city, like wind.

  “What’s that?” Hristo asked.

  “Cheering.” Aaru moved to stand beside me. “They’re cheering for the dragons.”

  “Because they think the dragons are here to protect them?” Ilina shook her head and sighed.

  “I think people have been hearing that Paorah was gathering up dragons to appease the goddess of destruction. They probably think this is his doing.” I slipped my hand into Aaru’s as the Star-Touched pushed toward the port, leaving the other ten ships behind. There wasn’t enough room for all of them to come in at once, but I suspected few were unhappy with the situation. Why disembark a ship when there was no guarantee of being able to get back on it when the island started to move?

  The Star-Touched maneuvered toward a berth being cleared, and by the time we eased our way in and the crew began securing the ship, night was full upon us.

  “Do you know where the birthplace is?” Hristo scanned the crowded port, searching for danger, probably. “Do you know how to get there? Anahera is a big island.”

  I closed my eyes, thinking back to my dreams of the first dragon’s creation, the way she’d burst from the ground in an explosion of light and molten rock, her scales glittering with stars. So much had changed in the two thousand years between my birth and hers, but Anahera’s nature had not. “Ruins.”

  Ilina glanced at the cliffs where seven dragons waited, watching us. “Like the ruins up there? The ones we destroyed three decans ago?”

  “Like those.”

  “That seems like something you should have thought of before you destroyed them,” Zara muttered. “Will I need these ancient and powerful ruins again? Maybe? Better not rip them apart.”

  “Yes. These would have been easiest, but any ruins will do.” I forced a smile. “There are ruins all across Anahera, more than on any other island. They are temples to her. We’ll find the closest one.”

  Ilina looked west, where both moons were slipping behind the great shadow of Bopha. They were razor crescents now, just slices of gold and silver, and tomorrow both moons would be new. Tomorrow, they’d pass before the sun, one after the other, and the whole world would go dark.

  The Great Abandonment would be complete.

  And the only survivors would be those who’d managed to get on one of these ships.

  “We’ll go tonight. No delays. The eclipse won’t happen until noon, right?”

  Ilina nodded. “That still doesn’t give us much time. What if Anahera rises before we get there, or—”

  “The dragons will warn us.”

  “Or what if it really does need to be the exact site, not just the island?” She bit her lip. “And even if the dragons warn us of a tremor, we’ll be too far inland to get away. Not to mention all the ships will leave as soon as they see dragons flying.”

  “We have a very narrow window for success,” I agreed, because that was all I could say without falling into despair myself. “But that’s not what I’m going to tell them.”

  Ilina followed my gaze as thousands of people pressed together in the port, all of them staring up at us—at the bones of the first dragon.

  I couldn’t imagine what the people saw in her—they didn’t know about the first dragon any more than I had until the dreams started—and most people certainly didn’t know about dragon bone structures, or that even a Drakontos titanus wasn’t as big as this.

  But they must have sensed something about her, because a hush passed over the crowd as people began to point up.

  “What are you going to tell them?” Gerel asked.

  “The words I was born to say.” Now that we were back in the Fallen Isles, I could feel the noorestones glowing all around us. As I climbed up onto the first dragon, I let the power of several thousand noorestones trickle toward me—not enough to make their light so much as flicker, but just enough to heal the parts of my soul made tattered by their giant counterparts.

  My ascent up the first dragon’s spine was immediately noticed, but no one recognized me.

  I was dirty, scarred, skinny, and wearing a ragged hunting dress; no one knew who I was—not until I reached the skull and stood where everyone could see me. Then my name was a whisper through the crowd, louder as LaLa abandoned the rail and came to perch on my shoulder.

  As the questions and speculation grew, I glanced at Aaru. He nodded, and then the entire harbor went quiet.

  Not silent. Not like the morning he’d seen Idris on the horizon. But quiet enough that I could be heard over the hum of thousands of voices.

  “I’m not going to say good evening.” I gazed over the assembly, forcing myself steady. LaLa rested her cheek against mine, lending me strength. “We’ve all seen the gods on the horizon. We’ve all been wondering which island is next. We’ve all been hoping for a miracle that would save our world. It isn’t a good evening.”

  While I’d been talking, Aaru had eased the silence; more than anyone here, he knew how dangerous a weapon silence could be, and that no one should use it to strip others of their voices. So when the questions came, they were a rushed jumble of noise; I didn’t have a hope of understanding individual words.

  Aaru raised an eyebrow at me, but I shook my head and lifted my hand. Immediately, the port went quiet again.

  “I know what you’ve heard,” I said. “You’ve been told that I was kil
led, and that the Mira Treaty has been repealed. But that isn’t true. The Mira Treaty isn’t a person, and it isn’t repealed until we say it is. The ideals put forward in the treaty—equality, unity, and conservation—are still ideals I believe in, and we can decide that those are the qualities we want moving forward.” Again, I lifted my hand as murmurs rose up. “I can’t tell you everything right now. I wish I could. What I want you to understand is this:

  “In spite of High Magistrate Paorah’s claims that only he can protect the people of the Fallen Isles, his actions have hastened the Great Abandonment. Nor did he plan to protect everyone; he built a fleet of ships, allowed only his chosen on board, and sent them to the Algotti Empire, where the empress had agreed to take refugees. But even in that, he proved a traitor. He left orders to attack her city, but he was not there to face the consequences when they were stopped. He stayed behind in the Fallen Isles, with another ship to take him to the empire after everything was finished.”

  Grumbling filled the port.

  “I’m sure you’re asking yourselves how you can trust that I’m telling the truth. You can’t. That’s fair. For years, I spoke everyone else’s words, and not my own, but after everything I’ve experienced in the last few months, that’s changed. I know better now. I know the truth. And I hope you’ll believe me when I say that Paorah has never been on your side. If he’s promised you salvation, he will not deliver.”

  “What can you promise us?” someone called, and a few people shouted in agreement.

  LaLa chirped at them, scolding.

  “I won’t promise anything I’m not certain I can deliver,” I said, touching LaLa’s shoulder; it was sweet that she wanted to defend me, but unnecessary this time. “However, I have come to help. The ships sent to the Algotti Empire are waiting in the harbor, and we’ve been rescuing people from the ocean since we returned to Fallen Isles’ waters. They will come into the port one at a time and take as many people as will fit. I urge you to consider leaving the island if possible. If you have boats or ships of your own, I hope you’ll make room for others.”

  People stared, confused. All the speeches I’d ever made during a crisis included a promise and vague description of what was being done to solve the problem, but this wasn’t any normal crisis. This was the end of our world.

  And I’d just told all these people to prepare for the worst.

  It wasn’t very Hopebearer-like.

  I took a deep breath, trying to find a balance between baseless optimism and honesty. “I can promise you this: I will do everything in my power to save what’s left of the Fallen Isles. Everything. I will do anything.” I swallowed hard, ignoring the crawling sensation of my friends’ curious stares. “I won’t claim to have miracles at my disposal, but I do have her.”

  People looked around, searching for a person, but I swept my arm down toward the first dragon, immobile beneath my feet. Yet her head was up, held aloft by nothing at all. For a skeleton, she seemed eerily alive.

  Attention sharpened. Focused. Anyone who’d somehow missed the enormous dragon skeleton looked hard at her now.

  I lifted my voice again; lots of these people were probably from other islands, but plenty must have been Anaheran. I hoped they’d recognize the words of their goddess. “The Book of Destruction says ‘In the moment when the day and the night are the same, when the first and the last become one, and when hope and despair meet on the field of battle: then the Great Abandonment will be done.’

  “Tomorrow, the moons will cross before the sun, one after the other, and twice, our world will darken. The eclipse will make day and night the same.

  “And she”—again, I gestured at the bones—“is the first dragon, the first child of our gods. Two thousand years ago, she died protecting the Fallen Isles during the Sundering. Now I’ve brought her back from the Algotti Empire because I believe she can protect us once again.”

  “What about the last?” someone called.

  I pressed my mouth in a line, and then I pulled. Thousands of noorestones flared, then dimmed as threads of their light spilled toward me. A corona of light formed around my body, and when I willed my wings into existence, they blazed up and out, stretching as wide as they would go.

  LaLa squeaked with joy, and beneath me, the first dragon rumbled in question, but I bade her back to sleep for now.

  Soon. Soon we would become one.

  And then . . .

  I released the noorestones. The light returned to normal; my wings vanished; no one even had a chance to scream.

  “I am the last,” I whispered, but still, it carried across the crowd. “As I said: I cannot promise miracles, but I will do everything in my power to protect you. And in the meantime, we all need to prepare for the worst. So get on ships. Help others. And remember this:

  “Without hope, we achieve nothing. Without one another, we have nothing.”

  With that, I turned and stepped down the first dragon’s spine, with LaLa clucking soothingly into my ear as the crowd erupted into conversation and planning, and people pointing out the dragons perched on the cliffs.

  At the lowest point of the spine, Aaru reached up to help me down to the main deck, his hand warm around mine. “That was good. Everyone was inspired.”

  I smiled. It wasn’t my best speech, but I didn’t want to dismiss the compliment. Not from him. And not when it might be one of the last times I heard his praise. “Are you ready to go? We have ruins to find.”

  “I’m ready to leave before Paorah finds out that you’re here.” He touched my face gently, and his gaze dropped to my lips. He didn’t kiss me, not here, and certainly not in front of everyone, but the moment lingered as his thumb caressed the curve of my lower lip. “Do you think after this—”

  I wasn’t certain there would be an after this, but I was ready to agree to anything if he just kept touching me.

  But then his gaze flickered beyond me, and he gasped. Shock went sharp over his features—shock and hope and disbelief. I followed his gaze to see what had struck him into such a clear display of emotion, there for anyone to see.

  In the fore of the crowd, a girl stared up. She was maybe three or four years younger than us, with dark brown skin and a sweet round face, and black hair that floated around her head like a halo. She had both fists pressed against her mouth, as though trying to crush the sound of her squeal, but even that couldn’t hide the huge grin stretching across her face as she looked back at Aaru.

  My heart twisted—with jealousy, at first, as much as I hated to admit it—but then I realized who we were looking at.

  Safa.

  Suddenly, I remembered this girl from my dragon dreams—all those girls in boats, this one in particular—and I knew why Aaru had been so interested when I told him that part. He’d known, somehow, she might be one of those girls, and only a few days later . . .

  My chest tightened as I scanned the crowd, but some people were never hard to find. I saw him immediately. Altan.

  Altan was here.

  Aaru had sent Altan after Safa.

  And Altan had done it.

  Then more familiar faces stuck out to me: warriors. Or, rather, the dishonored. Naran was in the lead, but several others stood behind her.

  Had Altan retrieved them, too? I couldn’t imagine why. Unless . . .

  Aaru had told Altan everything—about the spies, the empire, the high magistrate’s duplicity—in exchange for finding our friends.

  I couldn’t be mad, not when Aaru’s face was shining with relief, and just beyond him, Gerel was noticing Naran in the crowd. And not when LaLa and Crystal shrieked with draconic joy and went diving off the ship—straight for Kelsine, the Drakontos ignitus who’d been separated from us back on Khulan. The dragons tumbled together, clicking and roaring with complete happiness.

  After only a few minutes, Safa, Naran, Altan, and Kelsine had come aboard the Star-Touched, along with several other dishonored and young girls I recognized only from my dreams. Aaru and Safa embrace
d, while Gerel and Naran clasped hands. LaLa and Crystal were perched on Kelsine’s back, chittering and preening their larger wingsister, as though updating her on everything that had happened since they’d separated; I could almost hear the awe of such scandals in their tones. Kelsine puffed out smoke and cocked her head, listening.

  Altan approached me, ignoring Hristo and Ilina at my sides. The burns LaLa had given him were healed now, but his skin was lumpy with scars. “Nice performance, Fancy.”

  I ignored that. “What do you want?”

  “To help.” He grinned, lopsided now, thanks to the burn scar, and motioned over his shoulder to the others. “I found an army for you,” he said, “and good thing, too, because I’ve been keeping track of Paorah, and I have some bad news.”

  My heart sank. Of course Altan brought bad news.

  “He’s convinced his people that he knew the attack on the empire would fail, and the only thing left to do, as a proper follower of Anahera, is to begin again. He’s at the Archland Ruins, only a few hours’ walk from here, with an army of his own, as well as some fanatics and political enemies—including your mother.”

  My legs felt weak, but I locked my knees and forced my voice steady. “Why?”

  “The Book of Destruction speaks of a sacrifice, doesn’t it?”

  “What?” I breathed. “He can’t. Surely he wouldn’t.”

  Altan almost looked like he felt sorry for me. “He believes the sacrifice is necessary to complete the Great Abandonment and bring about a new world—one he intends to rule.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  WASTED TIME MEANT WASTED LIVES.

  While Ilina and Zara went to charm wagons and horsecarres out of local shop owners, Gerel, Naran, and forty dishonored warriors lifted the first dragon off the ship and settled her on a platform meant for moving cargo crates. I could have done it more quickly, but the last time I’d merged with her, I’d lost track of everything. If we wanted to get to the ruins, and if I wanted to appeal to the gods without getting shot out of the sky with arrows, then we needed to do this the long way. It was the only chance of success, no matter how I wanted to fly across the desert and breathe fire upon my enemies.