Dragon Force: The Complete Series

by Lucia Ashta

  Rose was skittish with Mother and Traya at first, but once she realized their touch was gentle, she relaxed and was a good patient. Traya applied the salve Mother made and kept on hand to treat the regular injuries Rane and I received. I might have been invisible, but that didn’t stop me from hurting myself.

  “She’s pretty cute,” Traya said while she spread salve on the gash along Rose’s neck. Traya moved slowly and carefully. Even though she was a constant reminder of what my life might have been like if I’d been able to be a visible daughter of this family, I never resented Traya. I couldn’t. She was the gentlest person I’d ever met.

  She rubbed her free hand along Rose’s back while she applied the salve. Rose looked as if she’d be happy to stay at Traya’s side forever.

  Mother delayed in commenting. I dared to hope that maybe the unusual little dragon had charmed her, too. But then Mother said, “The dragon isn’t cute,” and dashed away my hopes. “She’s a dragon, and don’t you forget that for a moment.”

  “But, Ma,” I protested, “just look at her. She wouldn’t harm anyone.”

  “Maybe not now that she’s a baby. But what do you think will happen once she grows into a full-size dragon?”

  It was something I hadn’t thought about—on purpose. I wanted to keep my friend.

  Mother pressed on. “Do you think that just because she’s smaller than other dragons she won’t become far larger than any other animal in our village? No matter how much of a runt she is, she’ll still be bigger than the oxen. And she’ll still be a dragon.” Mother dropped this last part as if it were the damning fact that proved her case.

  Maybe she was right about some of it. I had no idea how large Rose might become. But if there was one thing I did know, it was that no one person—or dragon—was necessarily the same as another of its kind. “We can’t possibly predict what will happen to Rosie as she grows,” I said.

  “Of course. We can’t be sure of anything at all in life, let alone the growth cycle of a stunted dragon. But we can be certain that this little inoffensive-looking dragon that you’ve brought into our home will be able to cause us harm. Not just us, but maybe all our people.”

  “Aye, well, there’s always the possibility of the craziest of things happening.” I was proof of that. “But she won’t hurt anyone, not Rosie.”

  “Oh really?” Mother scoffed. “You can be so sure of this after spending barely any time with the creature?”

  “Aye, I can.” I squared my shoulders to Mother, and crossed my arms over my chest.

  “Are you going to make me ask, Anira? How can you be so sure?” Mother looked up from her seat next to the dragon to where I’d stood a few minutes before. There was nothing there but air now—and it looked no different to her than it did when I’d been there.

  I let my arms drop to my sides, and I moved to crouch next to Rose. Even as a baby, her body was large enough that Traya, Mother, and I could surround her, and each have room to touch her. I rubbed my hand across her head, where the forming scales were soft as hair. “I’m certain Rosie won’t hurt us because I can feel her, Ma.”

  “You can feel her? That’s what you want me to hinge the safety of our family on, your feelings about a dragon?”

  “That’s exactly what I want you to do. My senses about things are important. They guide me away from danger, and they’ve never betrayed me.”

  Mother leaned back against the stone edge of the hearth, and turned to me. This time, she accurately looked at the space my face occupied. “Your feelings? You have senses about things that guide you?” Her voice was softening with each word. I could almost see the change in our mother as she let go of her protectiveness, and allowed her nurturing side to come forward. “You’ve never spoken of this before. Do you feel these... sensations often?”

  “Aye, I do. I haven’t spoken of it before because so much of my life is beyond your experiences.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “What’s it like to be guided by my senses?”

  Mother nodded, a few strands of her dark hair, still nearly as silky as Traya’s, slipping free of their clasp.

  “It’s no stranger than anything else about me. I’m an invisible girl, a fact we have absolutely no logical explanation for.” I shrugged—invisibly. “Is it really that surprising that I would have invisible senses... or forces that guide my actions when I need them to?”

  “No, I suppose not.” Mother shifted her stare to the fire, where she seemed to look without focus.

  When no one followed up, I explained. I didn’t want them thinking I received answers to life’s big questions. Obviously, I didn’t. I could only guess why I was the way I was. That would’ve been extremely helpful information, and yet I received no answers about it. “I don’t get these feelings about everything. They’re unpredictable and don’t always make sense in the moment. But when I follow whatever guidance I feel, it usually works out best in the end. Almost always.”

  “Almost always?” Rane asked from his perch at the worn wooden table, which served for dining, darning and folding clothes, making tinctures and salves, and every other thing a family our size might need to do when we alienated ourselves from the rest of the Ooba people and much of their free-flowing barter system. “What does that mean?” Rane spoke around a piece of bread.

  “Chew with your mouth closed, Rane,” Mother said. “I’ve told you a thousand times.”

  “More like ten thousand,” Traya said, her voice free of sarcasm.

  “Aw, come on,” Rane said. “We’re talking about more important things than how I eat.”

  “Given how much you eat,” Mother said, “it’s something that concerns us all.”

  “I’m growing into a man. I need sustenance to grow strong and healthy, isn’t that what you’ve always told me?”

  Mother smiled, but didn’t point her smile at Rane. The flickering flames within the charred hearth held her attention. “It is, my son, it is. You’ll soon be a man your father would have been proud of. I wish he could be here to see you.”

  A tangible melancholy settled over the room, as it so often did when we remembered the father and brother no longer with us. Our thoughts drifted to the images of the men we loved, which faded more each day. Time was the one thing that managed to chip away at everything. No memory or person could withstand its influence long enough.

  Conversation of my senses and their whispers died away, Rane’s questions unanswered, until the sounds of the crackling fire soothed our hurting.

  We stayed that way for so long that Traya finished her ministrations, and Rose settled between her and me. The dragon turned in circles a few times until she managed to position herself so that her torn tail, now sutured, wouldn’t be aggravated. She rested her head against the hearth, draped a paw across my leg, and closed her big eyes.

  “Is she sleeping?” Traya asked.

  “I think so,” I said, smiling at the thought that my little dragon friend might feel safe enough to get the rest she needed to heal.

  “Should we move her back from the fire a bit? It doesn’t seem safe to leave her this close to the flames.”

  “She’s a dragon, Traya.”

  Traya chuckled, and moved an errant strand of hair from her face. “That’s right. It’s easy to forget. She’s just so... gentle.”

  “That she is.” I caressed Rose’s back. With the light of the flames flickering across her body, I could make out the divisions of the forming scales, but to the touch, it felt like one fluid stretch of silk. “She’s special.”

  “Aye, that she is. Anira?”

  I looked to Traya. “Yes?”

  “Why can she see you?”

  I took in the stunted snout, and the contented look across Rose’s face. The round, plump features instead of hard lines of muscle, designed to inflict a swift death. Little Rosie was hardly like the dragons our people protected.

  And I was hardly like our people.

  “I have no idea why she can
see me, but she can see me better than Rane can.”

  “Really?” he said around another piece of bread and cheese. “She can actually see you see you?”

  “No one will ever accuse you of using complicated terminology,” I jabbed.

  His mouth was too full to quip back.

  “Aye, she can see me see me,” I said. “How much she actually sees of me, I’m not sure, but she can make out my features at the very least. She always looks at me and touches me exactly in the right spot.” Unlike the rest of you, my family, my blood. “I was sleeping when she came up to me. She licked my cheek.”

  Rane whistled. Crumbs flew from his mouth.

  “Ew, that’s gross, Rane,” Traya said.

  He didn’t care. He was a boy growing into a man. A lot of what he did was gross. “If she could do that,” he said, “then she can definitely see you. I couldn’t do that.”

  “You couldn’t lick my cheek?”

  “Maybe some days I could, when the lighting is just right.” He grinned around his mouthful, and I realized he’d just accepted an unspoken challenge, one which I’d had no intention of issuing.

  “Rosie is special,” I said, deflecting the attention from my lick-free cheek. I wanted to keep it that way.

  “She’s definitely special,” Mother said, finally drawing her gaze from the fire to the small dragon. Then she reached a hand toward mine, and I took it. “Just like you are, Anira. You’re my very special daughter.”

  That’s one way of putting it. “Does that mean we can keep her?”

  “Of course I don’t mean we can keep her. Seriously, Anira, you’ve got to let the hope go. She’s a dragon. She doesn’t belong home with us.”

  But that’s exactly where she belonged. She belonged with me, I could feel it. And I never gave up hope once I found it. My life would be nothing without it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Rose nudged me awake earlier than usual, before the Plune Moon set and the Suxle Sun rose. “What is it, girl?” I mumbled, still hoping she’d let me go back to sleep. But of course, Rose didn’t speak, she just nudged me again.

  I peeked an eye open. Rose’s dark eyes were alert and wide awake. I groaned. She wasn’t going to let me go back to sleep.

  Rane turned away from me. I rubbed my eyes, and tried to come awake when my body told me I should still be sleeping. “What is it, girl?” I asked again in a whisper. Everyone but Rose slept. There was no movement from the bed Mother and Traya shared.

  Rose gestured her head toward the door. My eyes widened. “You need to go out? Is that it, Rosie?” I slipped from the blankets, and padded toward the door. Rose was right next to me.

  As soon as I opened the door, she sped out, moving better already. She ambled beyond the trees closest to home and peed.

  “Of course,” I said to myself. She was an animal after all, a baby one at that.

  When Rose returned to my side, I said, “You’re a very smart girl, telling me what you need me to do for you. I’d bet you’re hungry too, but what do you eat? Do you drink water?” Even as dragon protectors, the Ooba people were certain of little when it came to the animals. Studying a deceased adult male, isolated from his home environment, didn’t tell us enough.

  “Let’s go back inside and figure it out.” Inside where there were no animals for a dragon to hunt down. Maybe I could train Rose to be a vegetarian. That would be much nicer than having to track down live animals to feed her. I didn’t like hurting anything.

  I was busy feeding Rose bread while rousing the fire from sleep, when the others started waking. Mother slid on her coat and joined me by the fire.

  “What are you doing up?” I asked.

  “You didn’t actually think we could sleep with you going on with Rose, did you?”

  She’d called her Rose, not dragon. That boded well. If she was Rose to Mother, maybe the little dragon had ingratiated herself enough to stay.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to wake you. It’s just that Rosie needed to pee, and I didn’t realize to let her out before she fell asleep.”

  “I see that she also wanted to eat.”

  “Aye, isn’t it great? She’s eating what we already had in the house.”

  “I see that. She’s eating our breakfast.”

  “Sorry, I just didn’t know what else to feed her.”

  Mother stared at Rose and me for a while before saying, “It’s okay. I’m up early, I’ll make more bread, and Traya can get more milk when she’s out.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Traya said while she brushed her long hair. Since no one could see mine, I rarely brushed it, leaving it in a waist-length braid most of the time.

  “Why is everyone talking?” Rane groaned, sitting up in bed. “The moon’s still up.” He yawned.

  “Cover your mouth, Rane,” Mother said, “or you might swallow us all up.”

  Rane didn’t bother, he shuffled out of bed and over to Rose and me. He put a hand on my shoulder. I was relieved that he placed it in the right spot. Rane tended to see me well next to the fire. He said the flickering light illuminated my edges. “How’d she do last night? She looks like she’s feeling better.”

  “I think she is.” I looked up at my twin, relief all over my face. But even illuminated by the flames, he wouldn’t notice. “She’s much more animated.”

  “I can see that.” Rane patted Rose’s head.

  Traya came over. “Let me take a look.”

  “As long as she doesn’t need to stop eating,” I said. “She’s hungry.”

  “That’s good,” Traya said. “That means she’s feeling better. If not, she wouldn’t have much of an appetite.”

  Mother was already pulling the ingredients for bread from the cupboards. “It’s a good thing after today she’ll become Dean’s responsibility. We don’t have enough to feed a growing dragon and our family.”

  We had just enough for us, and a pang of guilt sprang to life. I couldn’t drain my family’s resources, but I was hoping I wouldn’t have to turn Rose over to Dean. I hoped to find another option. Maybe I could teach her to eat leaves, there were plenty of those in the forests.

  But Mother continued speaking of a different plan. “Rane, when you go to your class this morning, you’ll take Rose with you and hand her over to Dean.”

  “I can do that. No problem.”

  Instinctively, I wrapped an arm around Rose. “Already?” I croaked out.

  Mother didn’t even turn in my direction. “Of course, Anira. The sooner, the better.”

  The panic in my chest obstructed any words.

  “I’ll go soon,” Rane said. “Since I’m up already, I might as well get an early start. We’re meeting at the Sacred Pools again.”

  “Really?” Mother said. “That’s surprising. I didn’t think the chieftain would allow it.”

  “I didn’t either, but I’m glad he’s letting us. I like it there.”

  “I love it there,” I said, before thinking.

  Now Mother turned her full attention on me. Even though I realized she couldn’t see me, I still squirmed under her scrutiny. “You love it there?”

  I swallowed. She caught me in a trap of my own making. “I do. It’s really beautiful. The pools are so peaceful. The trickling sound of the water relaxes me.” I was rambling.

  Mother cinched the apron around her waist. “And you’ve noticed this because you go there, a place Chieftain Pumpoo has specifically forbidden.”

  “It’s the safest place because it’s forbidden,” I said meekly. “No one goes there, so I’m safe.”

  “That’s what you think, is it?”

  “Aye, mama.”

  Mother harrumphed, turned around, and started banging around ingredients and utensils.

  Rane put a hand on my other shoulder, and said softly, “You’ll have to let me take her, Nir. We can’t do anything to freak Ma out any more than she already is.”

  I looked at Mother, and I looked at Rose.

  “Nir, you hav
e to.” He squeezed my shoulders in a comforting gesture. He whispered, “She’s a dragon. She can’t live with us, not when any misstep could expose you. She’s sweet and only a baby, I get it, I really do, but you have to let her go.”

  Rane didn’t get it, he didn’t get it at all, but it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t. It wasn’t his fault that luck delivered him to the world for all to see, and made his twin invisible so he could carry on the existence of a single child. He didn’t understand what it was like to experience your own life from the outside. He might comprehend more than most because of his connection to me, but he couldn’t possibly grasp what it was to live as I did. He couldn’t understand what it was like to find a friend in a little dragon that needed me as much as I did her.

  Regardless, I said what my family needed me to say. “I understand. You can take her with you when you go to Dragon Force lessons.” The ones I wasn’t allowed to take part in, no matter how much I wished I could.

  “I can help you with her,” Traya added, doing a wonderful job of reminding me that both my siblings got to take part in what I couldn’t. Even though the dragon had come to me—something that had never happened before to any of our people—I was the only one who wasn’t going to train to learn how to work with the creatures.

  “That’d be great,” Rane said, unaware of my plight, even though I couldn’t imagine that my inner turmoil wasn’t rising to the surface of my skin. “What time are you meeting Shula?”

  “At sunrise.”

  “That’s the same time we’re supposed to meet Dean. But I was thinking he might get there early. He strikes me as the kind of man who likes to arrive and settle in before distractions.”

  “He’ll be there early,” I said, working hard to keep the resentment from my voice.

  Everyone, even Rose, more or less looked at me. Mother was the one to say, “And you know this how?”

  “I told you, sometimes I just know things.”

  “And you know things about the fiercest of the Dragon Force charmers?”

  “I do,” I said, with more of a snap than I intended.

  “I see.” Mother wiggled her jaw like she did when she was upset, then turned around to beat dough into submission.