I hunt the night sky for stars I recognize, for constellations my dad taught me. I find Hercules first, and in the Milky Way, there’s Deneb, the bright star inside Cygnus, the swan. It’s hard to see the stars tonight because there are so many dragon trails. One in particular swoops over the plains where Robbie and I hunt and then wheels back up into the heavens.
What must it be like to fly like that? To sail through the air so fast it leaves behind a stream of fire. If I could fly like that, I would soar over the earth and search to see if my dad is out there somewhere missing us, the way we miss him. Mama is never happy anymore. And Robbie, well, he needs someone to show him how to grow into a man. I do my best to teach him how to hunt and shoot the bow, but I’m a girl, what do I know about a man’s feelings or thoughts? Sometimes I tell him things I can remember about our dad, but that’s the best I can do.
I scramble to my feet.
Trouble is coming.
The low-flying creature that’s been circling the plains heads straight for me. I can’t climb down and run fast enough to lure it away from the house. I’d never get down the ladder in time. I brace myself in the rooftop perch, nock an arrow into place and draw back the bow. I’ve no idea whether an arrow will do any good or not. I expect not, but it’s all I have.
The sudden brightness blinds me. I duck, my arrow slips and flies into the creature.
You would do better to save your arrows for quail. The creature alights quietly beside me. No shaking. No scorching. Still, I worry he’ll catch the roof on fire. What are you doing? He asks this as casually as if we are friends meeting along the road.
“Same thing I usually do. Guarding the house.” I edge back and warn, “You’re going to wake up my family. They’ll come running and—”
They will sleep. A fog, soft as moonlight, drifts from him and flows through our roof. You were watching the stars. I saw you.
“I can do both.” I lean over the railing and spot my arrow in the ground beyond the house. It must’ve flown straight through him.
Sit, it commands, and stretches out on the roof beside my perch, lying back.
“How did you know I was looking at the stars? You were way over there.” I point, tracing with my finger the path he flew over the prairie.
How did you know that was me, and not one of the others?
I shrug. “A guess.”
You knew. Just as I knew you were looking at the stars.
Cool air blows over us and I sit back, staring up at the sky, wondering if I glance sideways at the dragon out of the corner of my eye, I might be able to tolerate the brightness.
I’ve been there, you know. He says this with the stain of melancholy, as if he’s feeling homesick while gazing at the millions of stars glittering above us.
“To a star? Really? Which one?” I point to Sirius, the brightest star in the summer sky. “That one?”
Wind ruffles my hair again. Yes. That one. All of them. Stars you can’t even see yet.
“That’s not possible. It would take a thousand lifetimes to see all that. Maybe more.”
The creature gives no answer.
“If you miss them so badly, what are you doing here? Why don’t you just go?” I wave my fingers at his alluring stars.
The air suddenly fills with a scent that reminds me of late summer roses. Of fading petals. Sweet, but dying. It pierces me with sadness. I turn to him. I don’t care if it blinds me. I want to see why he is grieved. The light is still too bright, but his wing brushes over me. Instead of melting my flesh, it bathes me in warm colors. I am swallowed up by delicious pinks, healing golds, and soothing blues. Starlight dances through my skin, whispering through my blood and bone like wind through a screen.
He folds back his wing, leaving me, and instantly I feel abandoned, as if he has ripped away the one good thing in all the universe. I am left cold. Alone.
We came for you.
“For me?” I step back, remembering the destruction and how those of us who survived ran away from the cities in terror. “Why?”
We do not abandon our own.
“My brother and me?”
And others. We watch over you.
“That can’t be true.” Tears burn at the corner of my eyes. I don’t understand any of this. I have not cried since my father left us. I never cry, and yet I feel hot moisture trailing down my cheeks. “You’re lying! You’re not here for me. You’re not here for any of us. You made our lives harder. We were happier before you came. Things were better then.”
Were they?
“Yes!” Except I don’t know if that’s true. I can’t remember much about life before the dragons came. I was only five. Wind chafes my cheeks, rustling my cloak, making it flap. I’m grateful he doesn’t roar or shake the house, even though I can tell I’ve annoyed him.
“All right. I don’t really know if it was better,” I confess. “I do know it was easier. At least we had our dad, and Mama was happy back then.”
We dispersed your cities, burnt off the corruption, and put an end to the tools humans used to destroy each other. We did it to preserve those of you who belong to us.
Three more dragons circle above us. I worry they might arc down and carry me away. “If you’re here because of me and Robbie, you can turn around and go back where you came from. Leave us alone. I don’t need you. Go away. None of us need you.”
You do.
He rises—a blazing cyclone of flame atop our feeble roof. I fear the house will cave in or catch fire, but it does neither. It is not good for our kind to be apart. You are part of our clan.
“Your clan doesn’t need me,” I insist. But do I? It startles me to realize that, for the first time since my father left, I don’t feel alone. “There are hundreds of you.”
Thousands.
“Fine. Thousands.” I grip the splintery railing on my lookout. “There are only three left in my family. My mother and brother need me. You don’t.”
We will not leave without you.
There is an odd sense of relief in hearing that. There shouldn’t be, but there is. I will never be entirely alone. Deep inside I rejoice, and a fragrance drifts on the wind. Is it wild jasmine?
Someday you will want to soar with us through the skies and see all the worlds that are.
“Yes, but—”
On that day, you will come with us.
I watch two more dragons making rings of fire in the night sky. I feel a longing that I suppose I’d always known existed, a yearning for something beyond these bones. Instinctively, I realize what it would mean to go with him. When that day comes, I will leave this human shell the way a caterpillar sheds its cocoon. “I won’t be able to come back, will I?”
Why would you want to?
My answer sleeps in their cots beneath us. I can’t bear the thought of making my mother’s sadness worse by abandoning her. “I have to stay here, to protect Robbie and take care of my mother. They’re my family. I love them.”
It is the same reason we must stay and protect you.
He hovers in the air above me, and already I miss his nearness. The moment I admit this to myself, strings of brilliant fiery gold starlight shoot between us. I look past him, to the other dragons circling our earth and soaring amongst the stars. Why hadn’t I seen it before? Cords of fire lace the vast darkness, connecting all of us.
I am one of them.
About the Author
KATHLEEN BALDWIN has written award-winning traditional Regency romances for adults, including Lady Fiasco, winner of Cataromance’s Best Traditional Regency, and Mistaken Kiss, a Holt Medallion Finalist. She lives in Texas with her family. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Begin Reading
About the Author
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by Kathleen Baldwin
Art copyright © 2016 by Linda Yan
Dragons of Tomorrow Page 2
