Test of the Dragon

by Jessica Drake

  "No, of course not," he said, his face flushing. "But if I was paying closer attention, I would have sensed those men approaching earlier. My talent allows me to sense how many people are in a given radius," he explained. "I was often put on watches during my military career for that reason."

  "Really?" The fog of depression lifted from my mind, my interest piqued. "How large of a radius?"

  "About two square miles," he said. "I've been trying to extend it, but it seems I can only go so far."

  "Tavarian might be able to help you," I said. When Halldor looked puzzled, I explained, "He used his magic to enhance my own talent not long after I came to Dragon Rider Academy. I used to only be able to sense treasure within a few miles as well. Now I have a ten-mile radius, plus I can conjure up images of what the objects look like even if I've never seen them before."

  "Are you serious?" Halldor's eyes were wide with astonishment. "I wonder if I'd be able to conjure up images of the people I can sense. That would be really good for reconnaissance."

  "We'll ask Tavarian about it later," I said, clapping him on the back. "As for the airship, don't beat yourself up too much about it. We can't be on all the time, and if you hadn't warned us when you did, the damage might have been a lot worse.”

  "True," Halldor said, but he sounded dubious as he glanced toward the ship. "How long until it’s up and running again? I just finished helping Daria go through the inventory—these supplies will last us about a month with our current numbers."

  "Well before that," I said confidently. "We just need one of our dragons to make a trip to Warosia."

  "Do you need me to do it?"

  I considered, then shook my head. "No. You're more valuable here with that talent of yours."

  I went indoors to seek out Daria, then got a report from her on the status of our stores. The airship had brought, in addition to food, bedding, tools, kitchen supplies, medical supplies, and a host of other things I hadn't thought of but were sorely needed.

  "We definitely need to figure out how we're going to get more money, though," Daria said. "We might be able to scrounge enough together to buy seeds for planting, like we were talking about earlier, but given how hostile the locals are, I wouldn't be surprised if they set our crops on fire."

  I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose to stave off a forming headache. "Ultimately, I think the solution is to find a better place," I said. "The locals are bad enough, but it’s only a matter of time before the Zallabarians figure out we're here and attack. We need to find a more remote location before they catch on to us."

  Tavarian and I spent the rest of the day discussing plans and strategies with the others before finally retreating to a tower room for the night.

  "Ugh," I groaned as I flopped onto the waiting bedroll. "I feel like I haven't slept in a real bed in weeks."

  "One week, to be precise," Tavarian teased as he lay down next to me. He wrapped his arms around me, and we both stiffened as his arm brushed against the pouch containing the piece of dragon heart.

  "We need to find a place for that, don't we?" I asked quietly. I'd been so distracted all day that I'd completely forgotten about the piece of heart, but now that Tavarian had drawn my attention back to it, I could feel the warped energy emanating from the artifact. With any other artifact I normally would have been tempted to take it out and study it—objectively speaking, it was beautiful, like a huge black diamond that sparkled both in sun and moonlight. But the very nature of its existence repelled me, and I'd had to resist the urge to rip it off my body and chuck it into the ocean on more than one occasion during our flight to Polyba.

  "We do," Tavarian said, just as quietly. He slipped his arm from around my waist, then helped me stand. "I wish there was somewhere we could seal it away permanently, but given that we need to take it to the forge to destroy it, the time and effort required would be a waste."

  A chill went down my spine at the thought of the quest ahead of us. It was one thing to realize that the gods, after disappearing from our world for millennia, were as alive and well as they'd always been. It was another thing entirely to willingly venture into the domain of Derynnis, the god of death, even if it was to ask him to help me defeat the dragon god. Caor's description of the death god hadn't been encouraging. Apparently, he was the least invested in humanity's welfare, and therefore cared little about saving lives. But then again, if all human life was snuffed out, his steady supply of souls would be cut off, wouldn't it? And considering that he was a god, that had to mean that he hated dragons.

  "That's not a mark in his favor," Lessie grumbled, eavesdropping on my thoughts as she often did. "Are you sure there isn't another way, Zara?"

  "I wish there was, but there's no time for us to fart around trying to find it," I told her. "Salcombe already has too many pieces as it is. If he manages to get his hands on the one Tavarian left in Elantia, he might become too powerful to stop."

  "I wonder what will happen to him once we destroy it?" Lessie asked, and I blinked, surprised at the sudden change in thought. "Do you think he'll wither away and die without the dragon god's power to boost him up anymore? Or will he go back to being a curmudgeonly old man, living out his days in prison?"

  I repeated the question to Tavarian, but he only shook his head. "There are too many different factors at play to give a definitive answer," he said. "Taking so much of the dragon god's power into his body might very well have harmful effects that could cause him to crumble the moment that influence is removed. But even more concerning is what his state of mind will be like. After all, we don't know if Salcombe sought out the pieces of heart with the intention of resurrecting Zakyiar, or if the dragon god planted the thought in his mind after he got his hands on the first one. Once the dragon god is vanquished, we might very well find that Salcombe's desire to destroy humanity has vanished completely. But killing the god, his entire reason for existing, could make his head spin in."

  My stomach twisted at the different scenarios Tavarian presented, and the empathetic side of me, the little girl who'd just been grateful to the man who'd put a roof over her head, found that she hated all of those scenarios. But the rest of me hardened my heart, and I shook my head. "It doesn't matter either way," I said hollowly. Getting my hopes up that Salcombe hadn't intended all this destruction didn't change the fact that he'd still committed heinous crimes against humanity. He had to pay for what he'd done, and I'd see that he did, no matter what it cost me.

  3

  In the end, Tavarian and I hid the piece of heart under a loose flagstone in the tower, near enough that I could get to it easily but far enough away that the effects of its slimy influence were muted. Even so, I had a restless night of sleep, my dreams plagued by darkness. When I woke up the next morning, I felt as if I'd spent the night on a rock slab, tossing and turning, instead of out cold for eight hours on a comfortable mattress.

  "Did you sleep any better than I did?" I asked as we trudged downstairs for breakfast.

  The shadows carved beneath Tavarian's eyes answered the question before he did. "It's that blasted stone," he muttered. "The dragon god must be trying to attack us in our sleep."

  The idea that the dragon god was doing this on purpose was extremely unsettling, but I put that thought aside for later and sat down in the hall with the others for breakfast. This time we had pillows to sit on rather than the harsh stone floor, which already would have made the experience better without the addition of fried potatoes. I felt a little bit guilty that I was sitting on a pillow when not everyone else had one—there were only about thirty pillows, and nearly a hundred people in this room—but everyone seemed to be in high spirits despite the ship's crash-landing, likely because they now had access to soap, toiletries, and bedding.

  "You humans are a fussy lot," Lessie remarked. She and the other dragons were flying over the ocean, snatching fish from the waves for their own breakfast after bringing back the catch to feed the riders. "You need beds, toilets, clothes, cooked food
, and fancy drinks. All a dragon needs is fresh meat, clean water, and the open air."

  "Oh, is that all?" I said in mock surprise. "So, you didn't need me to clean out your scale rot the other day?"

  I could practically see her tossing her head. "If I was living in the wild, I would get my mate to do that," she said. After a pause, she added, "But I'm not living in the wild. And I also need you, too, Zara. Don't ever forget it."

  The unexpectedly sappy words brought a smile to my face, banishing the feelings of resentment at the dragon god ruining what was supposed to be a great night of sleep.

  "Back atcha," I said, and then turned my attention to business.

  After hashing out the day's agenda with the others, it was decided that Rhia and I would go to the other estate to search for the weapon, while Tavarian took a crack at using his diplomatic skills to smooth over relations with the locals. I could tell he wasn't thrilled about the prospect, especially since he'd been looking forward to going to the estate with me, but talking the locals down from their aggressive behavior was more important.

  "Do you think he'll be able to get them to back off?" Rhia asked as we flew together on Lessie and Ykos. We still had a few of the magical earpieces left, so we could communicate despite the high winds shrieking around us. "I haven't had the chance to talk much with the natives myself, but despite being Elantian themselves, they seem to have a deep resentment toward us."

  "There's probably a story there," I admitted. An arrow whizzed through the air beneath us, missing its mark by a dozen feet, and I pressed my body closer to Lessie's. The locals were still shooting at us, squirreled away in hidden holes in the bushy ground, and we were forced to fly high to avoid their arrows. "This island is pretty inhospitable, and if their ancestors are Elantian, I can't imagine they came here for fun." I wondered if there might have been some bad blood between them and the dragon riders who'd owned the estate here. "But Tavarian has gotten entire nations to change their minds about going to war with diplomacy alone. If he can do that, then surely he can convince a few hundred people to stop shooting us with arrows."

  "Maybe," Rhia said dubiously. "But these guys have an unnatural hatred of us. And the only reason Tavarian was able to get Traggar to back off was because of that incident you staged with the Zallabarian ambassador."

  The mention of General Trattner reminded me that just a few days ago I'd been sitting in his home at a dinner party, discussing art and artifacts with him. Shortly after that, I'd made a scene, left with another man, and ended up killing that man at his house before absconding with the piece of heart. As far as he was concerned, I was both a murderer and a spy, and he'd let me into not only his home but also within spitting distance of his autocrator.

  I shouldn't care about that. It didn't matter what General Trattner thought of me. He was the enemy, after all.

  But he had also, for a brief period in time, been my friend.

  "A false friendship," Lessie reminded me. "You did, after all, spike his wine and coerce him into getting himself kicked out of Traggar so Tavarian could convince King Zoltar to back out of the war. Not quite what a true friend would do."

  "You don't have to remind me," I said mulishly. I'd done what I had to, but even though I'd made my living as a thief in the early days and was no stranger to sleight of hand, the deception had bothered me. It made me wonder if I really had the right to judge others who manipulated and deceived people to get what they needed. After all, the ends justified the means, didn't it? And whether or not those ends were morally right all depended on which standpoint you viewed the situation from.

  "Yes, we are all the same in the end," Lessie said, nudging me away from the swirling doubt threatening to take over my brain. "But some of us want to save the world, and the rest of us want to destroy it because we have mommy issues."

  The modern turn of phrase startled a laugh out of me. "Mommy issues? Where did you get that one?"

  "It's not as modern as you think," Lessie said smugly. "Remember, I've been listening to other people’s conversations for hundreds of yea—"

  A plink distracted us as an arrow struck Lessie's scales. I cringed as she roared loud enough to make my ears vibrate, and instinctively hunkered down, away from the sound. Rage blazed through our bond, and, ignoring my shouts completely, both dragons dove toward the bushes.

  "No!" I cried as they spewed fire at the enemy. Two scrawny boys jumped out of a hole as the brush caught fire. My heart leapt into my throat as I watched them race away, their legs pumping as hard as they could to outrun the spreading blaze. There were many dry bushes clumped close together, and I watched with dismay as the fire spread across the entire hillside, forcing birds and rabbits to flee the area.

  "STOP!" I infused my voice with as much willpower as I could muster, and Lessie came to a halt in midair, the magic in our bond compelling her. Ykos drew up beside her, and Rhia and I glared at our respective dragons. A long moment passed as we hovered there, trying to get a handle on our emotions again.

  "I don't ever want to have to use our bond to force you to comply," I finally said, my jaw clenching so hard that the lower half of my face ached. “Do you understand?"

  "I wasn't going to kill them," Lessie said sourly. "I just wanted to give them a healthy dose of fear. Maybe now they'll think twice about shooting at us again."

  I threw up my hands in the air. "And maybe now instead of shooting at dragons flying in the sky, they'll sneak up to our camp and set the whole damn thing on fire! They probably know that killing the riders will also kill the dragons, Lessie. And since you guys keep stealing their livestock, they're understandably resentful!"

  "It's not my fault the other dragons are imbeciles!" Lessie snapped back. "I didn't steal any livestock, because I was in Zallabar, rescuing your hide!"

  I sucked in a deep breath, trying for patience. "I know," I said, gentling my voice. "And I appreciate that. But Tavarian is out there right now trying to reason with the locals. Going after their children isn't going to help. The arrows they're shooting at us are harmless as long as we stay up in the sky, and you know it."

  "Fine." Lessie let out a long sigh, and twin plumes of smoke jetted out of her nostrils. "I will endeavor to be nicer to the murderous humans."

  I patted the side of her neck. "That's the spirit."

  We continued on, reaching the estate a few minutes later. "Do you sense anything?" Rhia asked as we hovered over the property. It was twice as large as the first one, but in even worse repair, with hardly any roofing left intact and walls that were so decrepit they might as well have been lattices. To my relief, it didn't look like anyone occupied it—there were no signs that anyone lived here and, judging by the lack of arrows flying through the air, no one waiting to ambush us.

  Clearing my head, I called on my treasure sense and focused on the area. "I don't sense anything from up here," I told her after a moment, "but we should go down and investigate, just in case. There might be some clues that can tell us more."

  We landed in the courtyard, and I let out a sigh of relief as my feet touched solid ground. Normally, I was happiest in the sky, but after that encounter, I wanted to put a little space between me and Lessie until we'd both cooled down a bit more.

  I knew it was bound to happen eventually, but the argument had left me feeling more than a little unsettled.

  "All right," I said, putting it out of my mind and focusing my treasure sense again. "Let's comb this place thoroughly."

  We spent an hour searching the ruins for any sign of a weapon. I knew I wasn't going to actually find the weapon itself here—if my treasure sense hadn't picked it up from the sky, it certainly wasn't going to do better here—but we hoped to find something that could at least tell us what kind of weapon we were looking for, maybe even a secret passage with diaries or clues the locals hadn't found. But the estate had been picked clean, not even a scrap of pottery left behind.

  "I had wondered if maybe the weapon could have been something that your
treasure sense wouldn't pick up on," Rhia said as we sat on the edge of a crumbling wall, looking out at the arid landscape. "Like maybe a vat of special poison hidden away somewhere, or a recipe or instructions to build something formidable. But there's nothing here, is there?"

  "No." I twirled a corroded silver spoon in my hand that I'd found buried in the dirt—trampled, more likely—and considered the birds wheeling over the forest a few miles away. If we had a few bows, we could hunt them.

  "Perhaps a slingshot?" Lessie said. "That girl, Aria, was surprisingly effective with the one she used on you."

  I gritted my teeth as that encounter reared up in my mind, as fresh as though it had happened yesterday. I'd been flying on Lessie—our first attempt together—when Aria, Jallis's jealous ex-girlfriend, had hit me with a projectile using her slingshot. Unprepared, and with no stirrups to keep me on Lessie's back, I'd tumbled out of the sky and nearly to my death.

  That shot had only been a few hundred feet in the air, much higher than I thought one could shoot with a slingshot, or I would have died. But it was certainly enough to take down birds, so long as one could be sneaky and quiet.

  "Hey, Rhia—" I looked over at her, about to share my suggestion, but the words died in my throat at the tear tracks on her face. "What's wrong?"

  "I've brought us here for nothing," she said in a tortured voice. Her lower lip trembled as she tried to swipe the tears from her face, but more kept coming. "If the weapon isn't here, then all this trouble we've gone through has been wasted."

  "Don't be silly. Sure, we've had some setbacks, but the weapon could still be on this island, and we haven't lost any li—"

  "It's not just that!" she wailed, and suddenly I remembered that Rhia was only nineteen, barely an adult. She always presented such a strong and capable front, taking on problems without a word of complaint, I forgot that, in actuality, she was very inexperienced. "It's everything—the shock of losing the war, being separated from my family, watching my comrades get cut down and blasted to pieces by the enemy! I have nightmares, Zara, that I'll return home to Elantia one day and find only my mother's grave waiting for me. Last night I dreamed that I walked into my home and she was sitting by the hearth, a skeleton wearing her best day dress. She stood up to give me a hug, and her bones fell apart."