by Kyle West
Secretly, though, I wanted the scarf. It was soft, and it was warm, and if I wore my current rags if we moved, I’d be laughed off the street.
“It’s yours,” he said.
He bought one for my mother as well, but hers was apricot, and he promised more later. It was the happiest I’d seen her in a long while, despite how frugal she’d grown over the last four years. It was strange how much difference money could make between being happy and unhappy. When my father ran the store and business was booming, I never thought about money, because you never thought about what you already had. You took it for granted. But when the war started, my mother and I obsessed over every single seste. If one came up missing, it could be the difference between eating a meal or not. It was surreal to watch my father hand over twenty sestes for two pieces of clothing that wouldn’t help my mother or me work a hard day in the fields. These were the kinds of clothes you didn’t work in. You wore these to be seen and comforted, to show that you were someone.
Another six sestes were gone by the time we sat outside at a cafe, drinking coffee with our cinnamon buns after a filling meal of lamb and rice with peppers and onions. The sun was high enough for it to be comfortable, if cool, and we sat for a while talking of old times, watching the throngs of people streaming by.
We left the cafe and went into the streets, the crowds thinning as we approached a tall row of apartments. My father was looking at them, taking note of the leasing signs. When he found one, he would write carefully with his pen and notepad, and move on.
“I’m starting to get the feeling we came here for more than to celebrate,” my mother mused. Her eyes went to the apartment in front of her. “I like this one.”
“I’ll enquire about the price,” my father said, making another note.
“It looks like our old place,” I said.
It was tall, three stories, with the same long, rectangular windows that every other apartment building had. It had the same stoop, the same red stucco, and several minor cracks on its face. Two small plots had been planted on either side of the door, each of which held a flowering cactus about half my height.
“We’ll see,” my mother said. “By the time they take our deposit for the first month, there may be nothing left for the store.”
“The bank offers fair loans for returning soldiers. In the end, a small loan might be necessary.”
My mother went quiet.
We walked on, away from the neighborhoods and toward the northern half of town, just west of Riverside. I wondered why my dad was taking us up here. This part of town was rougher, and if we walked any further, my scarf was going to become a liability rather than an asset.
“Did we take a wrong turn?” my mother asked.
“Just a minute,” my father said. “I want to show you something. It’s a surprise.”
As we continued to walk, the crowds thickened. Buildings of sandstone gave way to ones of wood and adobe, short and squat. There were few, if any, gardens and parks, and the only large building we passed was the North Cathedral, which I’d never been to. Even it looked run down compared to the others I’d seen.
“Father, where are we going?”
He smiled. “You’ll see.”
We passed out of the Wind Gate in the north, and the crowds were so thick that I had to wonder what was going on. But when I saw the multicolored tents and all the games, I knew exactly where we were.
“The fair?” I said.
My father chuckled. “I thought you might like it. I saw it on my way home last night.”
“Don’t you think I’m getting a little old for this?”
My father was still smiling. “You’ll always be my little girl, even if you’re seventeen now.” He shook his head. “Gods. When I left, you were a little girl. And when I come back...”
“Come on,” my mother said. “Let’s have a look around.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
IT DIDN’T TAKE ME LONG to realize you could never be too old for a fair. We played several games, and after I’d lost each time, my father decided that it would be best if he held on to our money. We just watched other people play while eating yet more food – corn on the cob this time.
That was when I noticed a stream of people walking toward the outside of the fair. I wondered what was going on over there, until I heard the trumpeting of an elephant.
“They have a menagerie!” I said.
I would have run if not held back by my father. I loved animals, and always have. The elephants were front and center, but I was surprised to see no one crowding around them. Most of the people seemed to be flowing to the back, as if there was something more exciting there.
I walked up to the tall fence and looked at the elephants. They both stared at me with intelligent eyes, swishing their trunks. They weren’t saddled and there were no attendants near the short staircase designed for people to mount them.
“Where do they come from, you think?” I asked.
“Down south,” my father said. “Beyond even Nova. That’s the only place they thrive.”
“I hear there’s two different kinds,” my mother said. “The big ones live in the jungle.”
“Maybe these lived in the jungle, too,” I said. “It’s hard to imagine how they all fit through the trees.”
Eventually we left and joined the crowds flowing to the back, the elephants impassively watching us go. Perhaps they were enjoying being left alone for once.
The crowd became even thicker, and it seemed as if it were crowding around a single cage in the center of a dusty field. It was so packed that there was no way I could see through the throng.
“What’s in there?” I asked a nearby woman.
“They say it’s a dragon!”
“A dragon? What’s so special about that?”
“This one’s black,” she said. “Evil-looking. It’s one of them Wild Dragons, with the spikes. A Radaska, they call it.”
“Wild dragon?”
The woman rolled her eyes. “Just telling you what I heard.”
“There are two kinds of dragon,” my father said. “There are the Askaleen, which the Covenant Dragonriders use in battle. They are tame, and have been for centuries. Then there are the Radaska, and they cannot be tamed. They are of the demonic Elekai, and highly dangerous.”
The Radaska helped the evil Elekai in their war with the Covenant two and a half centuries ago, and since then, they have been the object of both revilement and fear. Radaska would sometimes attack from the Wild as well. Every decade or so there was at least one story of black dragons raiding eastern villages.
The crowd continued to mill north into the desert closer to the cage, wrapping around and allowing the people in the back to move in. Still, we were going maddeningly slow. The waiting was torturous, but we were going to finally get our chance. The yelling and excitement grew louder as we approached.
At last, a large family moved to the left, allowing me my first glimpse. A large, muscled worker stood nearby, leaning on the cage and holding a whip with three cords. I looked at the dragon and was stunned to silence.
First of all, it was small...much smaller than I had expected. It was perhaps five feet in length from snout to tail, and its wings were tiny, as if they had yet to grow. This was a dragonling. Its scales were dark and seemed to shine in the early afternoon light. Short ridges rose along its back, and if the stories were true, they would grow into wicked spikes by the time it matured. But its most striking quality lay in its completely white eyes, half-lidded with exhaustion. I was shocked to see that gashes ran up and down its slumped form from where it had been whipped, ones on which violet blood had crusted. I had heard that dragon’s blood was purple, but I didn’t believe it until now. Its thin scales were caked with food as well, and even as I watched, someone threw an overripe tomato, which splattered on its scales. The dragon didn’t even seem to register the attack.
I turned angrily to the person, but they were already on their way out. I hadn’
t realized this showing was just a means for people to express their hatred of the Elekai, but there seemed to be nothing evil about this dragon. I could just feel it, even if I couldn’t have explained how.
Already, my parents were trying to pull me away, only I stayed rooted to the ground. I broke from their grasp and approached the bars, kneeling in front of the tiny cage.
“Shanti!” my mother said. “We’re leaving.”
Part of me wanted to listen to her, but at the same time, it felt as if I wasn’t fully in control of my own actions. I looked at the dragon, who just now noticed me. As its eerie white eyes stared into mine, I become deaf to the calls and jeers of the crowd.
“What are they doing to you?” I asked.
The dragon blinked, but gave no other sign that it had heard me. Now, my parents were pulling on me.
“Shanti,” my father said firmly. “We’re leaving now!”
I felt something wet hit my back. It splashed against my hair, ruining my brand-new scarf. I turned to see a man with a pockmarked face staring me down, his eyes narrowed in anger. From the way he was looking at me, I know that food hadn’t been meant for the dragon. The attendant with the whip, who had been watching me this entire time, gave an amused chuckle.
Already my father was shouting at the man who threw the food – from the smell, it seemed like some kind of soup. I stood up, and before I could say anything, my father threw a punch, hitting the pockmarked man right in the jaw. The man staggered back as my father advanced.
The crowd became riotous as people took sides, mostly against my father. My mother was screaming and running toward him. As I ran to join her, the guard’s whip cracked the air, striking me on my left shoulder. I screamed as the pain spread through my arm. When I fell to the ground, my eyes were blinded with tears.
The man who had thrown the food backed away into the crowd, even as my father turned to see me sprawled on the ground. His eyes went up, catching sight of the guard, who merely stood his ground and stared, as if daring my father to attack.
My father didn’t care, though. He motioned for my mother to take care of me, even as he walked up to the guard, fists clenched.
The dragon tender raised his whip, but my father charged forward, tackling him before he could get a strike off. The guard dropped the whip as he crashed to the ground. The crowd surged forward to restrain my father, but not before he pummeled the man’s face a few times. From the look in my father’s brown eyes, he was set on killing the man. I didn’t want the man to die, even if he had whipped me.
I looked to my mother for support, but she merely stared, and her brown eyes were just as cold as my father’s. Already, my father’s hands were covered with blood, and my mother seemed to drink in the sight.
Several men, at last, were successful at pulling my father off the hapless man, and with that, my father seemed to come to his senses, even as his chest heaved from exertion. The dragon tender’s face was bloody, and he groaned on the ground.
Meanwhile, the Radaska dragonling watched, seeming to understand everything that had just happened. It blinked once, and I found myself entranced, as I was before. The entire world went still until it was just the dragon and me. I felt a strange connection with it that defied explanation. I couldn’t have explained how, but the dragon seemed to know a deep part of me that even I didn’t understand.
Then, I heard a voice in my mind, and somehow, I knew it was the dragon’s.
You are...Elekai.
I blinked, wondering if I had gone crazy. Had it really just spoken to me?
The world came back into focus. Several men were now helping the dragon tender to stand, and people were shouting at my father.
The dragon continued to stare at me, far more alert than it ever had been. I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Come on, Shanti,” my mother said, pulling me up from the dirt. “We need to go.”
The men jostled my father. He stumbled, but came to join us, ready to cut his losses. If he stayed any longer, he was liable to get ganged up on.
“Cowards,” he spat.
My mother pulled at him, and we walked away from the cage, the dragon, and the mob before things spun out of control.
I looked back at the cage, and the dragon was now standing as it suffered rocks and food being thrown at it with renewed vigor. It made me feel hollow inside, because I knew that dragon was young, and that this was the only life it had ever known.
What was more, it had spoken to me.
I’m sorry, I thought.
The dragon merely watched until it was lost to the crowd. There was one figure amongst the sea of angry faces, the only one that wasn’t trying to get at the dragon. Instead, he was looking right at me. He was a tall, strong man, and even as far away as I was, I could see the cold blue of his eyes and a long scar crossing his face diagonally. His white robe told me he was a priest; on his left breast was the emblem of an arrow wreathed in flame.
My blood went cold upon seeing it, though I couldn’t have said why. Memory escaped me as to what that arrow signified.
“Shanti, come on,” my mother said.
I hadn’t realized I’d stopped. I broke my gaze from the priest and we made our way quickly to the road that led to the city.
CHAPTER EIGHT
AS WE WALKED AWAY, THE pain in my shoulder had almost completely faded. When I lifted my sleeve, my skin was angry and red and the wound welted. It would be tender for a while, but thankfully, it hadn’t been a full-on lashing. My cloak had done a good job of eating some of the impact, but all the same, my mother stopped to inspect it once we were far enough from the crowd.
“I’m fine,” I said. “It could have been a lot worse.”
“Let me look at it,” she said in a voice that brooked no argument. I let her lift my sleeve, and it was a moment before she spoke again. “She’s right. It could have been worse.” She turned from me to face my father. “Nick, your nose...”
“It’s fine,” he insisted. “It’s just bleeding a bit.”
“All the same, take this,” she said sternly, handing him a kerchief. My father took the kerchief and did as he was told; there was no point in arguing with my mother when she took that tone.
He was staring in the direction of the fair. “I’m going to kill that man, I swear it.”
My mother fixed him with a steely gaze. “Hate him, but don’t kill him. We were lucky to get out of there without anything more happening. You might have been arrested had there been a Peacemaker nearby.” She nodded, as if to affirm what she’d just said. “We’re going to forget this ever happened. We’re going to go home, eat dinner, and not cause any trouble...after we get the rest of our money from the bank. We will not get caught up in senseless violence.”
My father’s face was unrepentant. “No one hurts my daughter. No one.”
“You’ve already repaid the man his cruelty.”
My father went quiet, and it was hard to read his eyes, which seemed so dangerously neutral. It wasn’t like him to disagree with my mother like this.
“He hurt the dragon,” I said.
My parents looked at me, seeming to forget themselves for a moment.
“We need to leave,” my father said. “The bank will be closing soon.”
We continued past the Wind Gate and into Riverside. It seemed strange that people were still celebrating because my spirit for it had been completely extinguished. I couldn’t get that Radaska or its suffering out of my mind.
What was more, it had spoken to me. That was something I couldn’t tell anyone, not even my parents. Shara, maybe, but even then...
I had always been told that the Radaska were evil, but it certainly didn’t feel that way. If the caged Radaska was truly bad, then maybe people had the right to abuse it. But that felt wrong. It was just a dragonling and it had been scared. I had seen into its soul, and there was nothing evil about it.
Was it possible for an entire crowd to be wrong?
“Are you oka
y, Shanti?” my mother asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Fine.”
She stroked my hair as we walked, even as the dragon’s words ran through my mind.
You are Elekai.
Why did it say that? I must have just imagined it. There hadn’t been an Elekai in Colonia for decades. They all lived in the Red Wild. Two hundred and fifty years ago they lived in Colonia, but they no longer did. The Hunters had seen to that.
“Do you really think that dragon was evil?” I asked.
My parents shared a troubled glance before my father answered. “It was a Radaska, Shanti. And Radaska are all demon Elekai.”
“Didn’t you feel bad for it? It was just a baby.”
Neither of them said anything, as if they had already decided the matter.
“Any priest will tell you, Shanti,” my mother said. “The Elekai fought against us, not just during the Ragnarok War, but in many wars since. Just twenty years ago, dragons were raiding the border villages. The Radaska are Elekai. The dragonling might be young now, but in time, it would tear you limb from limb without a second thought. The Radaska cannot be tamed; the Dragonriders have tried to no avail. They are not the Askaleen.”
“You felt nothing for it, then? You didn’t feel like it was hurting?”
My mother pursed her lips. “It’s evil, Shanti. Maybe you can’t see it, but free dragons are tricksters.”
“That dragon hardly looked free.”
“You know what I mean. Dragons free of a rightful master. The dragons of the Riders only do what their masters will.” She nodded. “It’s always been like that. Annara and the gods subjugated the dragons to us, long ago. It is the way of the world for humanity to rule over them.”
I went quiet, hardly believing this could be true. Any person could see that the dragon was in pain, and that it wasn’t meant for a life like this. Yet the teachings of Annara blinded people to the dragon’s suffering, even justified it. Even if the Elekai had tried to wipe us out, why should a baby suffer for something its ancestors did?
