by Jaime Samms
Sunny grunted. If he was claiming this entire large group as his progeny, then the man was well and truly living up to his name.
But it was something Sunny could work with. He spread out his arm as though draping it lovingly over someone’s shoulders, as Rootstock had done to his wife, and indicated the empty air under his arm. “The dragon I’m looking for, Emile—Emikku—is Sunny’s best and other.” He laid his hand over his heart. “Please. I need your help.”
Chapter 32
IN THE end, the brownies were only willing to go so far. They did guide Sunny safely through the huge cedar grove, each one filing past the fallen giant to run hands mournfully over its bark as they passed.
Following their lead, Sunny did the same. He could feel the eyes of many dryads on him, though none showed their faces. He wished he could do something for the fallen cedar and its dryad, but he could hardly replant such a behemoth. All he could do was vow to himself he would confront Hakko and do his best to make sure the dragon couldn’t take anything, or anyone, from anyone else.
He knew it was a tall order when the brownies began to slow. Dawn sent shafts of pale light between the tree trunks, and Sunny began to notice their party dwindling as the forest thinned. He didn’t see anyone leave, and yet by the time he could see sky and open space between the boles of the trees, he was alone with Rootstock and his wife, whom he’d begun to call Mamaroot in his head.
When the wizened little couple stopped, Sunny stopped next to them.
Rootstock pointed ahead. “Dragon waste.” He thumbed back over his shoulder. “Home safe.”
Sunny nodded. “You don’t have to go any farther. But I have to keep going. I have to see Emikku one more time. I have to be sure.”
Rootstock nodded to him. “Best and other.” He patted Sunny’s calf. “Sunny.” He smiled up at Sunny, teeth white against gunmetal lips and skin smudged with forest shadows and earth. “Luck and light.”
“Thanks.” Sunny smiled back at him, then took a few steps forward. When he glanced back, the brownies were gone. “Perfect.”
As he neared the last trees, he realised the forest ran almost to the very edge of a cliff, and that the space beyond was occupied. The voices he heard were gravelly and very much not human.
He recognised Hakko’s angered words as he raised his voice, and Sunny dashed forward to see three dragons perched on the edge of the world, sunshine rising topaz and mauve and pink behind them.
Hakko stood out bleak and dangerous against the delicate light. “I won’t let our House die with me.” He moved towards Emikku, who all but blended into the shining light, his colours echoing the rising sun that glinted from his scales like it was bouncing off polished metal.
“You will give me the egg I need,” Hakko bellowed, “and if I can’t convince you to carry it and care for the hatchling, I’ll take it.” He rose, claws flashing, fangs dripping something that steamed when it hit the ground. Bubbling rock sizzled where the drops landed.
“I won’t.” Emikku lowered his head. “That is one thing even your most persuasive manipulations cannot force me to do. You will have to kill me. Even an egg will feel the violence of such a beginning. Would you scar the hatchling in such a way, risk so much damage to an innocent, just to get your way?”
Sunny gasped in horror as he took in the scene.
The third dragon, all soft golds and shimmering, pale peach, turned to him. They moved to put their body between Sunny and the imminent violence.
“No!” Sunny dashed forward, shoving at a surprisingly soft hide. “Don’t. Hakko!”
“Stop!” It wasn’t Hakko’s booming voice that halted Sunny, frozen in stride. Emikku rose up to his hind legs. His hide crackled and popped as his scales sizzled and reformed, even more brilliantly coloured and reflective than before.
“Emikku.” The golden dragon keened loudly but kept the bulk of their body between Sunny and Emikku.
Sunny could feel the heat wafting off Emikku as he puffed out his chest. Cracks began to show between the soft sections along his belly, chest, and throat, glowing with a light so white-hot Sunny had to shield his eyes. The stench of singed hair and feathers sank heavily over the plateau, and Emikku screeched in obvious pain.
“What are you doing?” Hakko’s furious roar was barely discernible as words, and he rushed forward as though he intended to batter himself against Emikku’s body, but the golden dragon once more intervened, stepping between the two males.
Hakko drew up short, rearing back as he glared, eyes wild with fury, maw gaping wide.
“Kill me and you truly do kill our future, Hakko,” the golden dragon said, voice so soft they shouldn’t have been able to hear.
Hakko’s nostrils flared. “Why are you doing this?”
Freed from the small dragon’s guard, Sunny rushed forward, reaching for Emikku. He had to battle through such intense heat he thought his skin would blister up and fall off, but he forced himself forward until his hands came into contact with Emikku’s scales.
They were hard as glass, sharp enough to draw blood, and scalding to the touch. Sunny refused to pull back, expecting to smell his own flesh burning, but in the instant before he screamed in pain, a flush of cold like liquid ice infused the spot where he and his lover connected.
Emikku ground out a moan, shivered outward from where Sunny touched him, and settled back to all six legs. His weight landing on the stone made the earth shudder and a cloud of dust rise around them.
He sagged, drooping until he all but lay on the ground, but his tail curled around to pull Sunny close to his side. “That was foolish,” he whispered.
“You looked like you were going to explode. I couldn’t—” Sunny gulped. What had he thought he was going to do, other than burn right alongside Emikku?
Emikku sighed.
“He might have burned himself alive from the inside out if you hadn’t stopped him.” Hakko sounded coldly furious, but his deep voice shook, and his eyes held a wild, frantic look.
“Why would you do that?” Sunny asked.
“The alternative was to let him have his way, either manipulate me with his pheromones or force me with violence, perhaps cut me open and take any eggs I might have had. Better I burn off my own magic than let him become something so ugly.” He laid his head on the ground, a slight lean to his body that brought him closer to Sunny. “No eggs hatched from such an unfavourable start would have produced any light.”
Hakko’s nostrils flared. “I have only ever wanted what our House deserves.”
“No, my broodmate.” Emikku lifted his head to glare at Hakko. “You wanted something that is long past and should never return. Too many have been hurt by what you call power. Better we have nothing than that we harm innocents.”
“And now we will have nothing,” Hakko said, bitterness edging his words.
“No eggs of our line,” Emikku agreed. “I’ve turned them all to ash and glass.” He turned to look at the third dragon. “I’m sorry, Ananth.”
“I’m not.” Ananth nuzzled his cheek. “It was the right thing to do.” Yet she looked sad. “You’ve done something that can’t be undone, though.” Her tongue flickered over his scales.
“It will be fine. This was always the form I was meant to take. I don’t expect anyone else to understand that.”
Sunny gasped. What had he done that was so irreversible? “Emile?”
His dragon slowly shifted, swinging his head around to peer at Sunny. His neck drooped, and his eyes were half-lidded, but even through the burning blue and despite the slitted pupils, he saw his Emile in the eyes of Emikku the dragon. “Sssunny,” he whispered, drawing out the s and sighing away the last syllable. He shuddered, laid his head on the ground, and went still.
“Emile!” Sunny pushed at his bulk, but he didn’t move, gave no sign that he heard or felt Sunny’s touch, even when Sunny threw his entire weight against Emile’s side.
“Stop.” Ananth pulled him away with their tail, nudged him wit
h remarkable gentleness with the side of their face until he was a few feet from Emile. “There is nothing any of us can do now but wait. He generated a lot of heat that he didn’t release. There was no place for it to go but inward. All we can do now is hope he didn’t burn up all his magic along with his eggs and his egg pouch.”
“He did that to kill his own offspring?” Sunny asked.
“It isn’t exactly that simple,” the dragon said. “Our eggs are not life, exactly, until we will them to be, and he never did. Instead, he petrified the tiny buds that might have become eggs, had he so chosen. And in doing it how he did, he may also have hardened his physical form permanently. He might always be a hard-scale now. Hard-scales don’t have eggs. Not in the same sense that a soft-scale does.”
Sunny turned to Ananth. “You have eggs?”
That got him a smile. “I do.”
“Ananth?” Hakko shuffled a step closer.
Ananth swung to face the Sire, gaze flat. “I would have told you first, Sire, if you had taken a moment to listen.”
“You told us long ago you had no eggs of your own.”
“Because I don’t. I carry three eggs from three other Houses who agreed to take a chance on us. They allowed me to take their already fertilised eggs on the understanding that I would carry them, not Emikku.”
“Only three?”
“Three is more than none. You will never be allowed to raise them. Come your Reckoning Day, you will be replaced. A new Sire has already been chosen. There can be no Corcaird tie to these eggs. That was their stipulation, and now I cannot refute them.” Ananth cast a sad glance to Emikku’s still form. “What happened here can never be forgiven.” Straightening to the full height of golden scale and feather, Ananth lifted both wings, gave a single, voluminous beat that raised a cloud of dust around them. “You are cast out.”
“You can’t—”
Behind Hakko, a huge midnight blue dragon rose over the edge of the cliff. It crawled up to level ground, opened its huge maw, and let out a deafening roar. Hakko cringed, but Ananth puffed out their chest, ruffling scales and feathers in a ripple of welcome.
Sunny stood next to them. “You should go,” Sunny suggested to Hakko.
“I should listen to a human?”
The blue dragon lifted one clawed front foot and brought it down on Hakko’s switching tail. “Take the human’s advice. While you can.”
Hakko curled a lip, glanced to Emikku, and snarled softly. “Fool thing,” he rumbled. Then, with a snort and blast of wings that sent sand and grit into Sunny’s eyes and slicing at his shins and arms, Hakko scrambled nimbly over the edge to disappear but for the scraping sound of his claws below on the cliff face.
“Where will he go?”
Ananth sighed. “Who’s to say? What he did—or threatened to do—to his own broodmate….”
The huge blue dragon snorted. “He is a fool.” With a much gentler flourish, the blue dragon slipped away over the edge of the cliff.
“Is he your new Sire?” Sunny asked.
Ananth nodded. “Rokkan. He will be a good Sire. He is kind. He is a handsome dragon and fierce fighter, but his magic is not strong, so while he will be the one to enhance them, we will have to rely on the magic of the hatchlings themselves to carry on our House. Rokkan will raise the hatchlings with care and compassion and wisdom. If it is meant to be, our House will remain, small, yes, but intact. If not?” She shrugged. “If not, the nine remaining Houses will carry on without us.”
“Maybe Emikku would have….” Sunny shrugged awkwardly. “For Rokkan.”
“Rokkan would never have asked him, Sunny. And that is why he is a worthy Sire.”
“I can’t believe this was the only way to stop Hakko.” Sunny ran a hand down a spike on Emikku’s shoulder.
“He did what he thought he must,” Ananth said softly. “Now we hope it didn’t cost him everything.”
“Tell me how to help him.”
“You already did all you can do,” Ananth said. “You stopped him killing himself. That is more than any dragon could have done. Now all we can do is wait to see if his magic remains strong enough to pull him through.”
“Will he turn back? To human?”
“Who knows?” Ananth petted Emikku’s long neck, clawed fingers floating around the base of a line of sharp spikes that marched down the back of his neck. “If his magic hasn’t all burned away, perhaps.”
Sunny gulped. What would he do if Emile was gone forever, and only Emikku remained? He stared at his dragon, willing him to open his eyes.
“You can do nothing more for him.”
“I won’t leave him,” Sunny blurted, realising that whatever the outcome, he wasn’t leaving, at least until he knew.
“It could be years before he recovers,” Ananth said.
“Then I will wait.” He moved to Emikku’s side, folded his legs under him, and sat, back pressed to Emikku’s rigid scales. He crossed his arms over his chest and ignored the loud rumble of his belly.
“You love him that much?” Ananth asked.
“I guess I do.” Sunny flattened a palm against Emikku’s neck. He felt a warm, steady pulse under his hand and smiled. “I love him enough to wait.”
After some time, Ananth spoke. “I have to go.”
“Then you should go.”
Ananth sighed, folded their good wing, but held the other out awkwardly, then turned to follow after where Rokkan had disappeared. At the top of the path, they looked back at Sunny. “You aren’t what I thought humans would be like.”
Sunny shrugged, not really caring what this dragon thought of him or his kind.
“Emikku is lucky to have someone who cares so much.”
“I am lucky to have him too.”
“Love can be powerful magic.”
Looking up, Sunny smiled again. “I hope so, because it’s all the magic I have.”
Chapter 33
HOT SUN on Sunny’s face woke him. Or maybe it was the weight on his chest, like a small cat perched there and plucking at his lower lip.
A string of noises like rustling leaves and the hard-scrabble sound of rocks rolling over rocks brought Sunny fully awake. He blinked into the light—and into a pair of huge moon eyes with filigree black lashes blinking back at him above a pert, round nose and broad mouth. The mouth smiled, revealing wide-spaced, flat teeth just breaking through the gums, and then the body attached to that interesting face shook under a gale of giggles.
Sunny startled straighter, fully awake now. The movement dislodged the small body from his chest. It toppled backwards, and he scrambled to catch the young brownie before she tumbled end over end to the ground.
“Easy!” He cupped her small frame as he sat upright and lowered her to her feet. “Who are you?”
Rootstock peered from the edge of the trees, his face set in a furious glare, his arms waving madly at the child Sunny had addressed. He was saying something to her in a language that sounded more like a stick dragged through pebbles than words Sunny could understand, but the older brownie’s intent was clear.
He wanted the girl back in the woods. Pronto.
“Go on.” Sunny gently turned her around and nudged her towards her father. “You’re scaring him to death, little root.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him, patted her chest proudly, and declared, “Ittaroot.”
“Okay. Sure. Ittaroot.” He had to stop naming things. What if he was unleashing some kind of naming magic he didn’t know about? He waved again, and her gap-toothed baby grin widened. “Go on now. Before his head explodes.” He made a shooing motion, and she toddled back to her father, who gathered her up in a tight hug, then promptly smacked her bottom before handing her off to an older boy and pointing back into the woods.
Other brownies peered past their patriarch at Sunny, and even past Sunny to the dragon he’d been dozing against. He’d been there, to the best he could figure out, about three days. Emikku breathed steadily at his back, but there w
as no other sign of life. Just the slight warmth emanating from his body and the even, if shallow, rise and fall of his back. Sunny had found a spot, safe from the deadly spikes that had taken the place of the hairy mane along his spine, to lean and wait.
From the shadows of the trees, his audience, about the same size it had been for the past two days, though the faces constantly changed, watched them. Only Mamaroot had remained for the entire vigil, watching him, singing lullabies to babies Sunny thought might be grandchildren or even great-grandchildren, weaving vines into the many necklaces and bracelets her clan wore, and twining roots, pinecones, and other small forest items into the longer hair of the older children.
Rootstock came and went, watching, saying nothing. Sunny wasn’t sure if any of the other brownies spoke English, but Rootstock hadn’t answered any of his questions.
Ananth had come once to leave a huge basket filled with leather water bladders and some cheese and what he thought was probably smoked fish. The dragon had guaranteed him the stories about eating and drinking on this side of the Fold were so much “salamander sludge” and assured him that keeping himself hydrated would not affect his ability to go home when it was time.
Sadly, Ananth hadn’t stayed long or answered any of his questions about Hakko other than to tell him Hakko was gone and that many of the Houses had sent their best hunters out after him. She hadn’t been able to tell him any more about Emikku.
As for Emikku, there was no way to tell if he would ever wake up or if he would ever have enough magic to change to his human form. Or, Sunny had to admit to himself, if he would want to return to his weaker human form.
“Stay with him,” Ananth had encouraged. “At least for a little while longer. If I know my wild one, then I know he feels you here, and that’s good for him.”
“Why are you helping me?”
“Because. Love is strong magic.” Ananth smiled at him in that unnerving, sharp-toothed dragon way, and stretched out delicate wings to flap them about a bit. The gash was nothing more than a thin gold line twisting through the membrane now. When Sunny asked, he got a shrug. “I will fly again. Someday.”
