As She Ascends

by Jodi Meadows

  A slow sigh released the tension from his shoulders. “Very well.”

  As we moved up the trail, Altan reported all the information he’d been given, clarifying when necessary.

  “What about the keepers?” Ilina asked. “Where are they likely to be held?”

  “Near the main chamber, I imagine,” Altan said. “In one of the towers. The guards will want to ensure the keepers are able to reach the dragons if there’s an emergency.”

  I looped my arm around Ilina’s waist and squeezed, just for a moment. “We’ll find them,” I whispered. “I promise.”

  A plan began to form around us, and by the time we were halfway up the trail, Hristo, Gerel, and Altan were arguing about contingency plans as well.

  Our real plan—the best plan, I thought—was simple: we’d use the gifts of our gods.

  We’d hide outside the sea-facing gatehouse at the top of the trail, and under the cover of shadows and silence, I would stretch my senses into the dome and awaken the dragons one at a time. I’d urge them to escape (through the same way they’d come in), and while guards and keepers were distracted trying to figure out why their sedated dragons were suddenly flying away, we would sneak in and look for Ilina’s parents.

  Straightforward. Nonviolent. Possible even with the impending earthquake.

  I just hoped we weren’t too late.

  And that we could reach the dragons before sunrise.

  And that the dragons would be ready to fly free.

  And that the coming tremor would be gentle.

  We pushed upward; the slope was so gradual it hardly felt like a climb . . . at least until I looked down to see the tops of waves as they gathered up starlight, then crashed onto the dark sand. The Chance Encounter stood as a black outline against the luminous sky, her sails furled and noorestones covered to keep her hidden from prying Anaheran eyes.

  As we approached the top of the trail, Aaru’s hand suddenly shot out. Everyone stopped, listening—and then we scrambled into the scraggly brush lining the path. Shadows bent unnaturally around us just in time.

  A man strode by, wearing a flame-blue uniform and a long blade at his hip. The cut of his clothes looked Anaheran, as did the fire emblem on his sleeve.

  Bile rose in the back of my throat. What did Anahera think of her people twisting her message of benevolent destruction? I could only imagine she felt the same as the other gods—Damyan and Darina’s love used to hate, Idris’s silence used to harm, Bopha’s shadow used to hide misdeeds . . . We—people—were so good at using our beliefs as blunt weapons against one another.

  When the guard was out of sight, we continued our ascent at a slower pace, painfully aware of moments slipping toward morning. And with every step I took, pressing my shoes to Anahera’s earth, I waited for the telltale tremble of world-shifting movement.

  We were so close to freeing the dragons.

  At last, the trail evened out and the pearlescent expanse of the ruins loomed before us.

  The main structure was an immense, egg-shaped dome, its once smooth roof now cracked open and spilling noorestone light into the sky. Seven towers stood sentinel around the dome, broken arches reaching between them. Before time and weather cast this place into ruin, the arches might have been bridges between the upper floors of the towers.

  “There,” Gerel breathed. “That’s where we’ll enter.”

  I followed her gaze toward the gatehouse yawning open before us. How strange that no one had closed it; it was more than big enough for a Drakontos titanus to walk through. Perhaps the mechanism no longer worked. I couldn’t see anything inside beyond bright light, but the thread of draconic anxiety tightened. They were there. Inside the main chamber. Just beyond the open throat of the seaside gatehouse.

  ::Do you hear them?:: Shadows crossed Aaru’s eyes. ::Noorestones.::

  As he tapped, I became aware of a deep hum in the back of my head. Any other noorestone would have darkened ages ago, but even after twenty-two centuries, these crystals—embedded in the ancient, weather-marked walls—remained lit. It was incredible.

  Old.

  Powerful.

  My fingers found Aaru’s. ::I can feel them.:: I stretched my senses wider. All the noorestones felt the same, rooted deeply into the red earth of Anahera. The giant noorestones—the potential weapons—were not here.

  Given the number of dragons, the coming earthquake, and the instability of those crystals, that was probably a good thing. A reaction between them could level this cliff, Flamecrest, and the entire harbor.

  “Hurry.” Gerel guided everyone behind a shelf of red rock, putting herself between Altan and the rest of us. “Keep down, and stay sharp for more guards,” she whispered. “Remember: stay hidden. No one does anything brave but stupid.”

  I frowned. “Why are you looking at me?”

  “If you feel that warning applies to you . . .” Gerel smirked.

  “Do you see anything to transport the dragons?” Ilina peered over the rock. “Carts? Wagons?”

  Altan shook his head. “They’ll be on the other side of the building, toward the road.”

  “Most of the guards will be over there, then,” Hristo said.

  “The dragons will be out before the guards even know what’s happening.” As Chenda gazed up at the structure, noorestone light gleamed off her copper tattoos, making the swirls seem alive. The effect vanished when she looked at me. “Are you ready, Mira?”

  Beyond the city’s glow, promises of morning hovered on the horizon. Purple just brushed the sky, stripping stars of their nightly reign. I didn’t need to be ready: I needed to be fast.

  “You can do this,” Ilina whispered.

  But even before I began, a deep, dark sense of dread gathered in my stomach. Not nerves. Not panic. Wrongness.

  Earlier, I’d felt a thread of anxiety from the dragons trapped within. Now, as I opened the connection wider, hopelessness and hunger traveled down, capturing me before I could pull back into my own thoughts.

  Memory gaped beneath me: isolation.

  Three walls.

  One grate.

  Hundreds of thousands of agonizing seconds of perfect, unobstructed darkness.

  A faint drip drip drip from the cell next to mine—too far to reach the cup—carved a desperate thirst in my stomach. There’d been no voices but mine, no comforting warmth through the hole in the wall, and no indication as to whether the darkness had made soft the boundaries between itself and my body. I could feather apart.

  “Mira?”

  I shuddered back into myself, fingers digging into the rock before me while my vision swam back into focus.

  Aaru’s hand pressed flat against the small of my back. ::What’s wrong?::

  It was impossible to explain.

  Sharing a connection with LaLa made sense; she and I had grown up together, so of course we knew each other’s moods and desires.

  And though it had taken some time to recognize the way other dragons behaved around me, like Kelsine and Hush, I was beginning to understand how my connections to them worked. I’d sometimes felt their joys and fears, and they’d felt mine.

  But this . . .

  I did not want strange dragons to be able to unspool my worst memories, especially when the monster responsible knelt only a few paces away.

  “They are so, so scared,” I whispered.

  “Are you going to throw up?” Chenda peered at me.

  “No.” Hopefully not. “I can do this.”

  I had to do this. For the dragons. For the Fallen Isles. Already, morning breathed against the sky.

  Aaru’s hand pressed flat against my back, offering strength as I tried again.

  One dragon this time. One sleeping mind to draw free from the sedatives.

  Then the next, and the next, and soon they would all do what dragons did best: burn.

  But even as I reached for one, my stomach clenched, hollowed out with hunger. Two realities collided: me crouched fifty paces away from the gate
house, pebbles digging into my knees; and me all alone, trapped in whole, unadulterated darkness.

  It was the sort of darkness that pressed through my skin, binding to my bones. It was a solid, smothering force that broke everything in its path.

  The absence of light.

  The absence of hope.

  The absence of love.

  A groan tumbled out of me, no matter how I tried to bite it off. I didn’t want the darkness to have my voice, but I was too late. Everything, everything was swallowed up in this unending darkness.

  “Mira!” The darkness consumed Ilina’s frantic whisper.

  ::Mira!:: It made Aaru’s quiet code pass right through my body.

  But that wasn’t right. I’d heard Ilina. I’d felt Aaru. If they were with me, then the darkness was not absolute.

  “This isn’t real,” I whispered. “This isn’t now.”

  It had been real, yes, but I wasn’t in the Pit anymore. Altan was my prisoner.

  I forced my eyes open and heaved, but the disgust and shame and terror stayed lodged in my chest. These were the dragons’ feelings.

  Dozens of dragons waited within the ruins, suffering soundlessly, locked within their own bodies. While my isolation had lasted mere days, theirs spanned months.

  “What happened?” Ilina hugged me to her. “Seven gods, Mira. You’re shivering.”

  “It’s bad.” I looked up at the gatehouse, those beautiful, crumbling arches, and the elegant spires piercing the predawn sky. Now I understood why the gate stood open. Not only because it had long ago ceased to close, but because no one here was worried about the dragons escaping.

  They couldn’t.

  They were trapped. Shackled down into their own minds, their bodies filled with lead and rot.

  “I don’t know if they’re being poisoned or if they’re sick,” I whispered, “but I can’t wake them. Every time I try, it feels like I’m getting sucked down with them. Caught in a cage. Left in the darkness.” A shudder ran the entire length of my body.

  Aaru took my hand and pulled it to his chest. His heartbeat was strong and steady against my curled fingers. ::Not alone.:: His gaze flickered up—beyond me, beyond Ilina, beyond the others. His hands tightened over mine, and I knew he was looking at Altan. I knew he was thinking about the days he and the others had been taken from our cellblock, and by the time the guards had returned him, I’d been delirious with hunger and dehydration.

  He’d given me sips of water from his cup that collected drips from the ceiling. He’d talked to me, encouraged me, helped bring me back to life.

  My silent friend dropped his eyes to meet mine once more. ::I’m with you.::

  I twisted my fingers in his shirt—inadequate when I wanted to fall into his embrace—before sitting all the way up again.

  “What do we do, then?” Hristo shifted his weight to one side. “Can we still rescue the dragons?”

  “Can we?” Our entire plan—and our contingencies—relied on me being able to wake the dragons so they could fly away. If I couldn’t wake them, we had no way to help them. Still, I hadn’t come all this way to just give up. “What if we wait for the guards to load the dragons into wagons, then steal the wagons?”

  “And do what with them?” Gerel let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry, Mira. If you can’t wake them, we need to go. It’s too dangerous to stay here.”

  “Mira went back to the Pit for you,” Ilina whispered.

  A sour, sick feeling festered in my stomach. From the dragons. From this failure. From coming all this way and daring to have hope. And from working with Altan—of all people.

  “My parents could be in there,” Ilina went on. “We can at least rescue them.”

  “How?” Chenda glanced up at the bruising sky. “I’m not saying we can’t. But we need a plan. We can’t just go charging in. There are guards.”

  Despair clawed at me. All those dragons. Ilina’s parents.

  Aaru closed his eyes. Listening, his expression said. But whatever he heard must have displeased him, because a frown settled around his mouth.

  Then, slowly, he nodded.

  And chaos broke loose.

  It began with Altan. He bolted from our cover, a knife shining in one hand, and headed top speed toward one of the western towers—away from this gatehouse.

  Gerel swore and felt at her boot, but it was too late: Altan had stolen not only her knife, but the key to his cuffs as well.

  A lone alarm bell rang from one of the towers, echoing across the weather-worn stone.

  “He’ll get us all killed.” Chenda’s words dripped venom. “I knew bringing him was a mistake.”

  But while we’d been crouched here, half a dozen guards exited the gatehouse and ran after Altan . . . clearing the way for the rest of us. Moments after the blue-jacketed guards ran by, a man cried out for help—and was cut off. There was a solid thump: a body hitting the ground.

  “Chenda, we need shadows.” I grabbed Ilina’s hand and lurched to my feet. “Come on. We’re saving your parents.” Maybe there was no chance for the dragons—although it hurt to even think that—but my friend deserved to see her mother and father again.

  We didn’t wait for anyone else. Shadows or no shadows, my wingsister and I ran straight for the looming ruins, its gatehouse jaw hanging wide open.

  Five steps. Six. Seven. The noise of our footfalls vanished under Aaru’s silence as he caught up with us. Shadows folded around us, but there was only so much Chenda could do when the very walls shone bright with noorestones.

  Twelve, thirteen, fourteen. A sense of deep discomfort welled up within my soul, humming from the gossamer strand that connected me to the dragons trapped inside. Every step I took toward them strengthened that thread, spinning it tighter and hotter.

  Twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven. My breath puffed out in short gasps, in time with my steps.

  The white ruins dominated my view. They were immense. Imposing. A cage for dragons—and us, if we were caught. But I wouldn’t let fear stop me anymore.

  Fifty strides from our hiding spot, we finally reached the gatehouse. Ilina and I passed through the mouth, into a long tunnel that shone with noorestones. Silence and shadows fell away, pointless in this passage.

  Muffled sounds of violence chased us into the building: Gerel and Hristo had weapons drawn and were guarding the entrance from a pair of men in Anaheran blue.

  “Hurry.” The word came out in a flat huff of air as I picked up my pace, shedding the last shambles of our plan. There’d be no sneaking out now that the guards knew we were here. Even if we somehow managed to avoid being overwhelmed, Gerel and Hristo would have to incapacitate anyone in our way. And then we’d have to escape with Ilina’s parents, leaving behind dozens of frightened dragons.

  Another rush of their anguish caused me to stumble, but Ilina reached for me. We kept going together.

  We ran past halls that led to towers, past hollows carved out for statuary, looted long ago, and past column after column that stretched toward the high ceiling. A bright, indistinct glow shone ahead, but Altan had already explained what awaited us.

  Most people believed this building had been used for blood sports or performances, because the center held a deep depression with tiered levels toward the perimeter, like an arena with seating for thousands. That was where the dragons would be: in a place once reserved for public murder.

  My head pounded in time with my steps as we thundered into the main space, and my eyes watered and struggled to adjust to the bright glow of noorestones on alabaster walls. Enormous, dark mounds covered the floor. I blinked away tears and the shapes finally resolved into dragons.

  Dozens of them.

  I dropped to my knees and stared across the arena. Dragons huddled close to columns and walls, barely alive. A fog-like quiet pressed over the space. To some, it might have seemed peaceful—all these big, territorial dragons together—but anyone who knew dragons knew this was wrong. And I . . . I could feel them.

&
nbsp; The walls.

  The darkness clouding their minds.

  The sluggish pulse of blood through their bodies.

  Just before me, a russet Drakontos maximus lay on her side, gasping for breath. Her wings drooped across the floor, and her hazel eyes were glazed over. She stared at nothing. One of her facial horns had cracked, leaving a sharp, jagged edge.

  Another maximus lay nearby, his condition just as awful. Dull scales. Shallow breathing. Glazed eyes. Beyond him were a titanus, a rex, and then a dragon I knew.

  “Lex.” Her name tore from my throat. Ragged. Painful. “Oh, Darina. Damyan.”

  “All the gods.” Chenda pressed her hands to her heart, breathing hard after our run. “This is abhorrent.”

  And yet, our own governments had enabled this torment. Whether they’d believed the dragons were being sent to the Algotti Empire or staying here on Anahera, the governments she and I had spent our lives serving had willingly given up the children of the gods.

  “I see Tower.” Ilina pressed her hands to her mouth. “And Astrid.”

  I couldn’t look away from Lex.

  The Drakontos rex had been one of the first dragons to go missing from the Crescent Prominence sanctuary, and the dragon I’d tried to save in the Shadowed City. Once, her scales had been as bright and deep as rubies; now, they were faded and scraped, missing in several places as though they’d fallen off or she’d picked at them.

  I’d tried to save her, and still she’d ended up here. And come the dawn, her captors would take her somewhere else.

  “We can’t leave them.”

  Aaru placed his hands on my shoulders and squeezed, but I couldn’t look away from the dragons. Magnificent, wild creatures that belonged in the sky.

  For a dark moment, I was glad LaLa and Crystal and Hush weren’t here. They shouldn’t have to see this. Feel this.

  Misery and hopelessness festered within me—not mine, but the dragons’. Every one of them fluttered around the edges of my thoughts, beckoning me toward the abyss.

  A moan shuddered out of me. I dropped back my head, bumping Aaru’s leg. His fingers curled against my shoulders. There I saw it: a great split ran the length of the ceiling, like a giant child had cracked open the dome to peer inside.