Legend of the Realm

by Alexandra Ott

  Runa wraps her arms around Vin’s front spike and squeezes her eyes shut. “I’m ready,” she says.

  I give Vin another big push with my gift, and within moments, we ascend.

  At this speed, it takes us only a few minutes to reach the stretch of volcanoes that the dragons call home. I direct Vin toward Lilja’s den, and he swoops down eagerly, happy to be in familiar, comfortable territory. After a bumpy landing that causes Runa to shriek more than once, we clamber down from Vin’s back and proceed the rest of the way to Lilja’s cave on foot. Vin happily flies to the entrance of his own den and disappears inside.

  “I changed my mind,” Runa says with a shudder, taking in the landscape around us. “The Realm isn’t incredible. It’s just terrifying.”

  Admittedly, the volcanic terrain surrounding us does seem pretty intimidating. The landscape is nothing but rocks and ash, and the volcanoes rise on all sides like they’re closing us in. Still, I feel the need to defend the Realm.

  “You’ve only seen the scary parts,” I tell her. “Just wait until you see a unicorn, or look at the view off the western cliffs, or—”

  “I don’t think so,” Runa says, breathing heavily as the ground grows steeper. “You can stick to Seeker-ing or whatever it is you do, and I’ll stick to the village.”

  But there’s wonder in her eyes as she gazes around, taking in the sights, and I know she doesn’t really mean it. If only I really could take Runa with me into the Realm. There are so many things she’d love to see. We could explore the forests, hike the cliffs, fly around the mountain peaks on Lilja’s back, find sea wolves and saellons and unicorns….

  “You know what I just realized?” I say as we draw closer to the Valley of Ash. “You’re, like, the only person aside from the Seekers who’s been here. Ever.”

  Runa slows, taking in the view. “Okay, it is pretty incredible,” she concedes, brushing a flake of ash from her cheek. “But also terrifying. First we get attacked by a forest, and now we’re going to get eaten by dragons.”

  “We’re not going to get eaten,” I protest. “Dragons don’t eat humans.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  “I mean, they would, but we’re a bit difficult for them to digest—”

  Runa throws her hands over her ears. “Don’t tell me! I do not want to think about it.” She glances around again. “How many of them are in these lairs anyway?”

  “They’re not lairs, they’re dens,” I protest. “The Realm’s dragon population is small—probably about fifty or sixty altogether.”

  “Sixty!” Runa’s eyes widen. “And they’re all here? Right now? Watching us?”

  “Well, no, some of them are probably out hunting,” I say, and Runa sighs in relief. “But there are usually about ten or fifteen of them who stay behind to guard the dens, plus a lot of them are probably sleeping—”

  Runa shudders again. “Just. Stop. Talking. The sooner we get this potion to Lilja and get out of here, the better.”

  “We’re almost there,” I say, and it’s true. We ascend another slope, dodging the larger rocks that block the route, and make our way across the twisting path that leads to Lilja’s den. Runa grumbles something about “paths crumbling under us” and “falling to our deaths” as we climb, but we make steady progress to the top.

  “I never knew you were so afraid of everything,” I tease her.

  “Until this experience, I wasn’t,” she says grimly.

  I expect Lilja’s den to be filled with the yellow light of Ari’s gift, but it’s surprisingly dark. Using our gifts to guide us, Runa and I proceed into the depths of the cave, our footsteps echoing on the rocks. “Lilja?” I whisper.

  A soft, sad whimper responds to my voice, and I break into a run. “Lilja! Are you okay?”

  Her silver scales glimmer in the green light of my gift as I reach her. She’s curled up in a ball, her head resting on her tail. She doesn’t rise to greet me, which is how I know she’s really sick. Her eyes fix on me, and her pupils are nearly black, with only a few remaining flecks of yellow.

  “Hurry, Runa, hurry!” I yell. Runa rushes up behind me, blue gift swirling as she holds up the vial of potion.

  “Um, how do I give it to her?” Runa asks, glancing back and forth between Lilja’s massive jaws and the tiny vial of liquid.

  “Hang on,” I say, letting my gift mix with Lilja’s. Her energy is weaker than I’ve ever seen before, barely responding to my magic. The heavy blackness of the plague is spreading through her life source, weighing it down. “It’s okay, Lil,” I murmur. “Runa’s going to help you, all right? You just have to take this potion, and then you’ll feel better.”

  I direct my gift at Lilja’s jaws and gently give her a nudge, encouraging her to open her mouth. She protests at first, turning her head away from me, but she doesn’t have the energy to keep it up. After only a moment, she opens her mouth wide.

  She must really be sick if she’s not even going to be stubborn about it.

  “Just pour it on her tongue,” I tell Runa, who’s staring at Lilja’s teeth with wide eyes. “She won’t bite you, I promise.”

  “Likely story,” Runa grumbles as she tears the cork from the potion vial and steps closer to Lilja. “ ‘How did you lose your arm, Runa?’ ‘Oh, you know, I just stuck it in a dragon’s mouth like a total fool….’ ”

  “Hurry,” I say. I know Runa isn’t really scared. She’s healed Lilja before, after all. If anything, she’s probably afraid that her potion isn’t going to work.

  I’m afraid it isn’t going to work. But I can’t think about that. It has to work. There’s no alternative. No backup plan. Just this.

  Runa takes a deep breath and steps toward Lilja. In one quick movement, she rushes forward and tilts the vial, letting the golden liquid splash onto Lilja’s tongue. The dragon’s eyes widen in surprise, and Runa quickly darts away as soon as the last drop falls from the vial. Lilja closes her mouth, considers the situation for a moment, and then swallows.

  “How long will it take to work?” I ask, studying Lilja’s eyes again. They’re still black.

  Runa sighs. “This is all experimental, remember? I don’t know how long it will take.” She hesitates, and I know what she’s going to say: It might not work at all. But then she closes her mouth and doesn’t say anything.

  I lean back on my heels. “Well. I guess we wait, then.”

  Lilja closes her eyes, tucking her head closer to her body like she’s taking a nap. I give her scales a soft stroke.

  Runa glances around the cave. “Where’s Ari, anyway? I thought he’d be here.”

  I look up. “Good question. I can’t believe he’d just leave Lilja like this, not when she’s so sick.”

  “Maybe he saw Agnar and the Vondur and went to get one of the other Seekers for help?”

  “Maybe.” Still, something about it doesn’t feel right. He left Lilja without water? Food? A pile of bilberries, at least? Knowing that she’s too weak to leave the den alone? Something doesn’t seem right. “He must be getting help,” I say, but I don’t fully believe myself. “He’s been weird lately, so who knows.”

  “Weird how?” Runa asks. She sits down next to me, no longer pretending to be afraid of Lilja.

  “We had a fight,” I admit. “I snuck Little Puff out of the quarantine when I wasn’t supposed to, and Ari thinks that’s probably how Lilja got sick.”

  Runa studies me for a moment. “Is he right?” she asks softly.

  I look down at the floor of the cave, nudging a pebble with my foot. “I don’t know,” I say. “This plague has been spreading quickly—it’s in the water—and I don’t know if we managed to quarantine all the affected areas in time. Lilja could have picked it up somewhere else. And Lilja hardly interacted with Little Puff. But it’s possible, I guess. And since Ari didn’t want me entering the Realm alone at all, let alone sneaking magical creatures out of it, he got all mad about it.”

  “I can see why,” Runa says, her tone
gentle. “Lilja is his dragon too. You should’ve decided on these kinds of risks together.”

  “That’s the problem. We couldn’t decide together, because he didn’t listen to anything I said. None of the Seekers do. Every time I pointed out that we needed to do more, they ignored me.”

  “But it’s not your job to single-handedly save the Realm, Bryn. The Seekers are supposed to work as a team, aren’t they?”

  I sigh. “Yeah, but how am I supposed to work with people who don’t want to work with me? Who don’t think of me as a teammate?”

  “You do it by proving that you’re their teammate.”

  “That’s what I was trying to do!”

  Runa raises her eyebrows. “Were you? I think you were trying to prove yourself, sure. But as an individual, not as a team player. You’ve already proved that you’re a good Seeker, Bryn. You’ve saved the whole Realm before! We all know that. But you have to prove you’re good at being a member of the team, too. That means listening to what the others have to say, and compromising, and helping the whole group. Doing your own thing without listening to the others doesn’t prove to them that you can be a Seeker.”

  “Curing the plague does,” I say, but my heart sinks. Is Runa right? Did I mess everything up by not listening to the Seekers? Maybe it is my fault that Lilja got sick. I never should’ve taken the risk of introducing her to Little Puff. Is she going to pay for my mistake?

  Something echoes in the back of my mind, and it takes a moment to place the words:

  They never would have listened to me. I have to prove to them that I have always had the Realm’s best interests at heart.

  It sounds like something I would’ve said about the Seekers’ rules. But it wasn’t me who said that tonight. It was Agnar.

  Maybe I’ve been acting too much like him all along—thinking that the rules don’t apply to me and that only I know what’s best for the Realm. I should’ve known better.

  “Excuse me, which one of us actually made the cure?” Runa jokes, interrupting my thoughts. “I cured the plague, thank you very much.”

  “Yeah, but I—”

  Lilja snorts suddenly, and both Runa and I turn toward her. She shifts her weight, her eyes still closed, and snorts again, a gust of hot air bursting from her nose.

  “Something’s happening!” I say, leaping to my feet.

  Runa and I watch, hardly daring to breathe, as Lilja slowly, slowly opens her eyes.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Runa gasps. I blink, making sure I’m not imagining it.

  Lilja’s eyes are yellow again.

  “It worked!” Runa whispers. “It worked!”

  Lilja yawns and sits up, gazing around the den as if seeing it for the first time. She stretches her wings and shakes her head, her scales glistening. I move my gift closer to her life source, and a familiar warm energy rushes to greet me.

  “You did it, Runa! This is the cure!”

  She grins. “I can’t believe it worked!”

  “We have to get this to the rest of the creatures right away! How much is left?”

  Runa gestures toward her bag. “Just the rest of that bottle,” she says. “But it didn’t take much to cure Lilja, and I’m sure the smaller creatures will need even less. We just have to get it to them before sunrise.”

  I gulp. In my worry for Lilja, I’d nearly forgotten—the gold dust in the potion might disappear by dawn. “Let’s get moving,” I say immediately, cutting our celebration short. “We need to get the other Seekers to help us find Agnar and the Vondur, and then we need to start giving the potion to the gyrpuffs and the icefoxes.”

  “Do you think Lilja’s well enough to fly us already?” Runa asks, studying her. Lilja tilts her head to the side curiously, probably recognizing her name.

  “I’m not sure,” I say. “But she’s better trained than Vin. Let’s see if we can coax her out of here. If not, we’ll call Vin instead.”

  It turns out that Lilja doesn’t need much coaxing. Although her energy does feel more depleted than normal, she’s still wide awake and eagerly follows me out of the cave. She happily snaps up the bilberries I offer her, and within moments we emerge from her den into the rocky landscape outside.

  “What’s that light?” Runa asks as we step out. “Is it sunrise already?”

  I follow her gaze and spot it—a flickering yellow light in the distance, near some of the larger dragon dens. At first I think it’s Ari, but it looks more like—

  “Torches,” I whisper, watching the way the light flickers. “Someone up there’s using torches.”

  “The other Seekers?” Runa asks. “Maybe Ari brought—”

  “No,” I say, my voice sharp as fear slides down my spine. “Seekers don’t use torches. We don’t need to when we have our gifts. It’s got to be Agnar and the Vondur.”

  Runa freezes, and Lilja stiffens as she picks up on our moods. “What would they be doing here?” she whispers. “They’ve already spread the plague. What more do they want?”

  “I don’t know. But we need help. We have to get out of here and find the other Seekers before—”

  A shout echoes through the valley, and suddenly one of the flickering torches charges right at us.

  It’s too late. They know we’re here.

  “Quick, get on Lilja!” I shout to Runa, scrambling up the dragon’s back. I pull Runa behind me as Lilja charges forward, snapping her wings open. I don’t even have to give her directions. She picks up on my panic and acts instantly.

  But we’re too late. Another dragon blocks Lilja’s path, and she doesn’t have enough room to take off. A hooded figure sits on the dragon’s back, a flickering torch held in one hand. More torchlights are visible in the distance, growing closer.

  “You’d better leave now!” I shout. “All of the Seekers are here!”

  The figure doesn’t respond, but the other dragon snarls suddenly, baring his teeth. It’s hard to make out his features in the dark, but I don’t recognize him—his scales are a dull, mossy green. He’s not very big—close to Vin’s size. Lilja bristles, spikes rising along her back, and I wish Ari were here to keep control of her emotions—

  “Bryn!” a familiar voice shouts, and I glance toward the torchlights in the distance. That was Ari!

  “Bryn?” Runa whispers from behind me. “What’s happening?”

  “Hold on,” I mutter, tightening my grip on Lilja’s spike and summoning more of my magic. “I think this just became a rescue mission.”

  I give Lilja a nudge with my gift, and she lunges to the side, startling the other dragon, who rears back, creating just enough room for Lilja to slip past him. The sudden movement extinguishes the rider’s torch, and I can’t make out the figure anymore.

  “Hurry!” I shout to Lilja, guiding her toward the other lights, where I heard Ari’s voice.

  Lilja whips her tail toward the green dragon, causing him to snarl again, but he doesn’t stop us as Lilja rushes forward. The rider clearly doesn’t have much control as the dragon snaps his jaws and lashes out so quickly, he almost sends his rider tumbling off his back. Luckily, Lilja is too fast and breaks away from the other dragon, running so hard that the earth trembles beneath her steps.

  “Bryn!” Ari shouts again. “Lilja!”

  Lilja’s ears whip up as she recognizes the voice and charges straight toward him. As we draw closer to the flickering lights, I can make out more shadows, more torches. I don’t see any more dragons, so maybe they’re only in control of one….

  But there’s something dark and thick in the air, a feeling I recognize instantly as Vondur magic. I don’t know enough about how their magic works to know what kind of threat they might pose, and we’re clearly outnumbered—there are at least four or five Vondur. And Agnar’s probably lurking around somewhere. I have to get Ari out of here and get the other Seekers—

  “Over here!” Ari shouts, and his gift flares up in the darkness. One of the Vondur charges toward him, but he backs off as Lilja emerges fr
om the darkness, roaring at the top of her lungs. Ari is huddled on the ground, hidden behind a large cluster of rocks. As Lilja passes by, he leaps to his feet and scrambles toward us. Runa reaches down, grabs his hand, and hauls him up onto Lilja’s back.

  “What happened?” I shout to him as Lilja turns, snapping her jaws at the nearest torch-bearing Vondur. “What’s going on?”

  “I was headed for Gulldrik’s den,” Ari explains, gasping for breath, “to get him to fly me back to Dragon’s Point. I was going to ask the other Seekers for help with Lilja once I got her settled in her den. But then I heard the Vondur coming, and I couldn’t get to the den without them seeing me. I’ve been trapped back there, hoping they wouldn’t notice me and trying to figure out what they’re doing.”

  Another Vondur approaches Lilja, waving his torch. She takes one look at it and huffs. Her breath extinguishes the flame in a single gust.

  “What are they doing?” Runa asks.

  “Take out all the torches!” Ari shouts. “They’re using magic to—”

  His warning comes a second too late. One of the Vondur raises a torch into the air and shouts something that sounds like a spell or an incantation. Within seconds, flames explode from the lit torch, filling the air with fire. I duck behind Lilja’s neck as heat surrounds us, and the flames quickly coalesce into a twisting, writhing shape.

  A dragon soars through the air above us, sparks shooting from the tips of its wings, made entirely of fire.

  For a moment, none of us can speak. Then Ari finishes his sentence. “They’re using magic to set the dragon dens on fire.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  The fire soars above us, filling the sky, sparks raining down. It looks just like a dragon, its wings beating, its jaws gaping wide. More flames pour from its mouth.

  “I couldn’t stop them alone,” Ari says, almost apologetically. “I tried to use my empathy gift, but there were too many of them—”

  “It’s okay,” I say quickly. “You were right to wait for help. Now, what are we going to do about that?” I point to the sky.

  Lilja lets out a low rumble, somewhere between a warning and a whine, and watches the fire-dragon. The crests on her back shoot upward, signaling danger.