“That is why there are no early records of the dragons anywhere in the six kingdoms,” Moyana concedes. “We moved all the information here and safeguarded it so it did not have the power to destroy anyone else.”
I groan as realization hits. “How am I going to get it to our ship? We do not have a boat. We swam past the reef. Is there a way for our ship to dock on the island?”
Sunlight reflects off Moyana’s beautiful eyes. When she blinks, a shimmering layer of tears is swept onto her cheeks. “Do not fear,” she says. “I have not spent hundreds of years in solitude, planning and preparing, to fail now.” She squeezes my hand in hers. Her fingers have turned as cold and hard as ice.
She pushes her chair back from the table and stands. “Come. We must get you back to your ship as quickly as possible.”
“But the library? The Infinite Vessel?”
She nods. “I will give it to you.”
We leave and cross the balcony to the other room. It is the exact same size as the room we just left, but a small pallet is in the center of the floor, and plants growing in clay pots cover the rest of the floor, filling the air with the smell of a lush, moist garden. “I have missed the company of people more than anything, but I have missed the forests of my homeland nearly as much as I have missed people,” she says, touching the leaves of the plants by the door. “I love you, my dear friends, and I thank you for the joy you have brought to me,” she whispers, speaking to the plants. Without another word, she ushers us out of the room, shutting the door behind us.
“Isn’t the Infinite Vessel in there?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “It used to be, but not anymore. Come. I will show you where it is.”
We leave the hall of records and walk along the hot sand path, over the footprints that we left on our way in. Moyana walks in front of Golmarr and me, silent, head held high. We pass the two-story house we entered, the one with the bones of the poisoned islanders resting silently in their beds. We pass the tiny house we first explored, and then squeeze through the narrow gap in the cliff.
The ocean shimmers and gleams and reflects the immeasurable blue of the sky. Moyana stops and stares at the horizon, the breeze whipping her loose clothing behind her like a pair of gossamer wings. “Did your ship drop anchor?” she asks.
I look at our ship, still bobbing above the edge of the reef. “Yes.”
Moyana nods. “Good.”
Golmarr takes my elbow in his hand and gives me a look—eyebrows furrowed, mouth a tight frown, and I know what he is intimating. Something isn’t right. I nod my agreement. He rests his hand on his sword hilt, ready to draw it if need be.
“Golmarr!” someone calls. Yerengul ducks out of a narrow groove in the cliff face twenty paces away, and his sword is drawn. A moment later, he is running toward us. He doesn’t slow when he sees Moyana, but his eyes narrow and don’t leave her as he blurts, “The two-headed dragon is perched atop the cliff and watching for us. We need to prepare to fight it!”
“No,” Moyana says, splaying her arms out to block us from running onto the beach. “You do not want to kill the sisters. Saphina treasured the attention and pleasures of men above everything else. It turned her into the hideous, ugly beast she is. Naphina’s downfall was envy for the attention her beautiful sister got. When Naphina discovered her husband had fallen in love with her own sister, she tried to kill Saphina and use magic to steal her beauty. Naphina did absorb her sister’s beauty—that is why she is such a gloriously beautiful dragon. But the envy and the magic also fused their bodies together.” She steps out from the shadow of the cliff and calls, “Why don’t you come and show yourselves, Naphina and Saphina? It has been a long time since I had the horror of looking at you in your revolting dragon body.”
Above, two twin screams ring out. A small boulder tumbles down the side of the cliff and thuds onto the sand. Rubble follows, and then a shadow darkens the beach. The two-headed dragon is flying down to us. Even though my staff is useless against such a creature, I grip it in both hands.
Be careful, sister. The man with the sword that can cut us is here, the deep voice says, disrupting my thoughts.
I want to eat his pretty face! I hate him! cries the ugly dragon.
Golmarr clenches his teeth and presses on the bridge of his nose. “Why do I hear everything they think?”
Moyana puts a hand on his shoulder. “Dragons communicate by thought. If a dragon wants to speak to a person, it can selectively put words into his head. But if you are becoming a dragon, your mind is open to everything they say to each other. Because you are turning into one of them, your ability to hear them has been awakened.”
The two-headed dragon touches down on the ground, its clawed, mismatched feet making deep depressions in the black pebbles. There are open wounds covering its body.
“If you don’t want us to kill it, why did you call it down, Moyana?” Golmarr demands, his eyes fixed to the creature.
“The sea serpent is going to take care of her,” Moyana says calmly. She waves her hand toward the ocean, and I almost drop my staff. The reef is jutting up out of dry land, and beyond it, I can barely see the tops of our ship’s masts poking up, for it is sitting on the ocean floor. Fish are flopping in the waterless bay, and far out to sea, a mountain of inky water is rising. Moyana, I see you gave in to your moping and never turned into a glorious beast. You chose the path of weakness. The words are not meant for me, yet they vibrate in my head.
Yes, still as plain and ordinary and mopey as ever, and to what end? You are a waste of life. That is why Grinndoar stopped loving you. The ugly head hisses and snaps its lipless mouth shut, making its yellow teeth break.
Moyana shakes her head in disgust. “You are even more hideous than I remember. How appropriate that you two have been imprisoned in the same body for all these centuries. I could never have found a more fitting punishment. How have you not driven each other mad?”
The ugly dragon shrieks, and the beast starts running toward us. I turn to face it, mentally preparing myself to fight, when Moyana thrusts her hand forward.
A loud roaring fills the air, and then all around me and my companions, sand and rock start flying outward, leaving us standing on a perfect circle of undisturbed earth. A shimmering dome encloses us, sealing us into a space where the only sounds we hear are those that we ourselves are making.
“What is this?” Yerengul asks, stepping up to the side of the dome and pressing on it. His voice echoes.
“I have made a shield of air,” Moyana says, still holding her hand out.
The two-headed dragon throws itself at the shield. It crashes into it and topples backward. The creature approaches again and slams its tail into the shield, and I can’t even hear the sound it makes when it hits. One dragon shoots water at the shield, and a moment later lightning crackles from the other, spreading veins of blue light over the air dome. Beneath me, the ground rumbles, but there is still no outside sound.
“Look!” Golmarr yells, pointing out to sea. A mountain of water is rushing toward us, filling the dry ocean bed. We know the moment it reaches Yeb’s ship, because the small vessel bobs high above the coral reef. And then the reef is covered, the bay is filled, and beneath my feet, the ground is trembling with the force of the approaching water.
The two-headed dragon turns its attention from us just as the giant wave reaches shore.
Fly! The word pierces my head and vibrates my brain. The dragon spreads its wings and lifts off the ground just as the top of the wave starts to curl. Caught in the midst of the wave is the sea serpent. The water tips and slams into the two-headed dragon, yanking it right out of the air. The two-headed dragon thrashes in the water, and veins of blue shoot from the ugly head’s mouth. It slashes at the water with its claws, whips its tail from side to side, and rears its two heads, but it is no match for the water.
The
wave surges around the air dome, completely covering it and dimming the sun’s light. I love you, daughter. The thought floats into my head, warm and gentle like a summer breeze. A moment later, the mountain of water, with the sea serpent and two-headed dragon trapped in its power, bursts against the white cliff face. Both dragons are smashed against stone. The sea serpent goes instantly limp, and fire the deep indigo of twilight flares from its black body before burning out.
Slowly, the two-headed dragon’s thrashing diminishes, and then the creature stills completely. A rush of bubbles erupts from the beautiful dragon’s mouth. One final fork of lightning leaves the mouth of the ugly dragon. A heartbeat later, yellow fire engulfs the body and fills the ocean with light, illuminating the fish darting about and broken pieces of ships. Like a candle being extinguished, the fire flickers and fades to nothing, returning the water to murky blue. The two dragons, both perfectly still, rise and fall with the motion of the water. I step to the air dome and press my nose to it, staring up at the white cliff and the two bodies suspended beside it. “They are dead,” I say.
“Yes. That was their death fire. He made the wave and killed the sisters for you,” Moyana says, her voice quivering. I turn from the air dome to study her. Her cheeks are soaked with tears. “In doing so, he killed himself.”
“Who killed himself?” I ask.
“Prince Mordecai. My father. When he turned into a dragon, he became the sea serpent.” She dabs at her eyes with her sleeve. “He carried your ship here,” she adds.
“Was his vice greed over the sea?” Golmarr asks.
Moyana shakes her head and sorrow fills her eyes. “No. His desire to protect me is what ultimately turned him into a dragon. Sometimes even seemingly good things can destroy us. He lost all trust and hope when Grinndoar tried to poison us, and started killing anyone who attempted to get onto the island.”
The dome is growing brighter and brighter. Overhead, the water parts and exposes the top of the air shield to the sun. The level of the ocean is falling as the water is draining back into the sea, until the beach is a sodden mess and we are standing on the only dry patch of land anywhere in sight.
The dome shimmers around us, and with a gust of warm wind, it disappears. Moyana turns and faces me, and there is a hardness in her eyes that was not there before.
Golmarr notices it, too. He steps to my side and lifts his sword. “Where is the Infinite Vessel?” Golmarr asks, voice rigid with mistrust. Yerengul takes his place at my other side, sword drawn.
“The vessel has all been composed into one body,” Moyana says, and her shoulders firm with a strength I have never seen in another living being. Her gaze grips mine. “I am sorry,” she whispers. Something glints in the sunlight, and I tear my gaze from hers in time to see the knife in her hand. With a simple flick of her wrist, air slams into Golmarr and Yerengul, knocking them backward. Moyana steps forward and lifts her blade so the sharp tip is pricking the skin above my heart.
I scream and wrap my hands around hers, and everything happens so fast that I am nothing more than a pawn being moved by another’s will, by a plan that was put into place centuries before my mother conceived me. Moyana turns the knife in our joined hands so it is pointing at her own chest, and thrusts with a thousand years of preparation, of sorrow, of solitude, of purpose.
The knife pierces skin, grinds against bone, and finds the living, beating heart that has been waiting centuries for release. And it is my hands holding the blade to Moyana’s chest, embedded into a heart anticipating this moment for an eternity.
“Thank you,” Moyana whispers. She falls to her knees and the knife slips from my frozen fingers, still firmly implanted in her chest. “Now you can take the Infinite Vessel with you. Thank you, Sorrowlynn,” she whispers again, blood soaking through her white clothing and splattering the sand in big, thick drops. Moyana totters and falls to the side. Golmarr lunges and throws his arms around her before her head hits the ground. Gently, he eases her onto her back so she is in the exact center of the dry circle of sand, surrounded by a beach soaked with salt water and littered with debris.
With her last bit of strength, Moyana turns her head. Out in the water-filled bay floats the corpse of the two-headed dragon. Already, gulls are dipping down from the air and pulling chunks of flesh from the body. At the place where the water meets the black beach lies the sea serpent. The scales are raining from his body, revealing pale, human-looking flesh underneath. Moyana turns her head back up to face the sky, and the air filling her lungs seems to leak out.
Golmarr kneels at Moyana’s side and takes her beautiful, thin hands in his. He crosses them above her heart, beside the time-worn leather hilt of the knife—the final burial pose of a dead warrior. Together, Golmarr and Yerengul each touch a finger to their foreheads and cross their wrists—honored warrior.
And then I feel it. My head, my brain, my very soul opening and expanding as everything Moyana was enters me. It is not like the slime and vileness forced upon me when I killed King Vaunn, and it is not the mental agony that nearly burst my skull when I killed Zhun, the fire dragon. Moyana’s knowledge is filling me in the same way that my love for Golmarr fills me. I am a vessel being filled to the brim with light and truth, and any darkness hiding in my depths is forced out. I am like a flower opening to a sun I did not know existed and drinking in its energy for the first time. And now I know what her treasure was. Love.
When the transfer is complete, the tears come, because I know the depths of sorrow Moyana endured and the pain she experienced. The struggle she underwent to defeat her trials is staggering. And then the liberation she was given when she dedicated her life to the storing of knowledge, to becoming the Infinite Vessel and devoting her life to the hope of making the world a better place, steals my breath. I know the intense goodness of her heart and the sincere gratitude she had for her life, despite every earth-shaking, heart-wrenching trial she fought through. I am touching her very soul, and it is brighter and more glorious than the sun beating down on me.
Beneath the layers of Moyana’s long life, I feel the hall of records embedded within my mind, a knowledge so vast I cannot sense its beginning or ending. It is eternal, and it is infinite. I am within the hall of records, and the hall of records is within me. I am the Infinite Vessel.
“She was the Infinite Vessel, Golmarr. I inherited her knowledge.”
He cups the side of my cheek. “You are the Infinite Vessel now?”
I nod, and a sob shudders through my body.
Golmarr wraps his arms around me, and I cry against his chest. His hand slowly moves over my hair as he holds me close. When my tears have stopped, he tilts my face up and kisses my left eyelid, then my right. “Sorrowlynn.” His voice stirs my heart, and I open my eyes. He slides his sword from his belt and thrusts it into the ground between my feet. Kneeling, he looks up at me and says, “Sorrowlynn of Faodara, I vow to protect you all my life, to love you with all my soul, and to follow you to the ends of the world and back. I am yours until I die.”
I place my hand on top of his head and close my eyes as the pieces of Melchior’s puzzle slip perfectly into place.
We hoist the sails and catch the wind moments after the sun has hidden itself behind the western horizon. As the ship starts slowly pulling north, I lean my hands on the railing and stare at the sea. It no longer looks like a layer of glass placed above a ship graveyard. The water is moving, small white-capped waves rising and swelling and slapping against the ship’s hull, hiding the sunken vessels beneath its uneasy surface.
Hands come down on the railing on either side of mine, and the warmth of a body presses against my back. “Have you decided where we are going?” Golmarr asks, and nuzzles my hair. I turn, still encircled by his arms, and face him.
“First, we need to stop the sandworm from destroying Yassim’s city. Then we are going to Satar—to the abandoned stone city built in
the mountain.”
His eyebrows rise. “We are?” he asks, surprised. “What is in the ancient kingdom of Satar?”
I put my arms around his neck, not caring who sees how forward I am, and run my fingers through his damp hair. “There is a dragon in Satar who treasures strength above everything else.”
Golmarr nods. “Grinndoar, Moyana’s husband.”
“Yes.” I stand on my toes and kiss Golmarr’s right cheek. “You need to slay him and gain his strength.”
Golmarr’s mouth falls open for a moment before he asks, “I do?”
I nod and kiss his left cheek.
He removes his hands from the railing and places them on my waist, taking a tiny step closer. “Why do I need to slay Grinndoar?”
I brush my lips against his. He tightens his hands on my waist and tries to deepen the kiss, but I pull away and press my fingers to his mouth. “If you slay Grinndoar, you will inherit his strength. You will be the strongest man in the world. And when you are the strongest man in the world, you will be ready to face Relkinn.”
Golmarr glowers and clasps my hand, removing it from his lips. “That sounds incredibly impossible, Sorrowlynn.”
“But…the pieces of the puzzle,” I stammer, shocked at his reluctance. “If you inherit Grinndoar’s strength, you will be unstoppable.”
He stares into my eyes, and his glare falters as one corner of his mouth turns up. “I might need some convincing. Or you could completely addle my thoughts by kissing me, and then ask me again. But…” His eyes grow thoughtful. “Yes. I know how to solve this. The only way you’re going to get what you want is by kissing me,” he whispers.
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