The Hearts of Dragons

by Josh VanBrakle

  “When she gets here,” Hana dared to say, “may I have a chance at redemption, at killing Rondel?”

  “No,” Lord Melwar replied. Hana could picture the gleam in the Maantec lord’s eyes as he said, “I have a different opponent in mind for her.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  The Hearts of Dragons

  “Picture the ocean.”

  Iren sat on his knees in his room with his eyes closed. He listened to Melwar’s words, struggling to focus only on them.

  “Can you see it?”

  There was a rare urgency in Melwar’s tone. In the past two days he’d begun pushing Iren harder. Out of nowhere, Melwar had added this meditation practice, and the lord already expected Iren to be proficient at it.

  Iren had no idea what had changed to put the calm Melwar on edge. He hoped Hana didn’t have anything to do with it. He had woken two nights ago and found her gone, and he’d seen almost nothing of her since then.

  “Concentrate, Iren,” Melwar interjected on his thoughts. “Answer my question.”

  Iren pulled himself back to the exercise at hand. “I see it,” he said. His mental image of the Yuushin Sea in Ziorsecth sparkled in the late afternoon sun. He stood on the beach, and the water swept in and out over his ankles.

  “Good,” Melwar said. “Now remember, the waves are your thoughts. Each thought is its own wave, from the tiniest ripple to the mightiest tsunami.”

  Iren grimaced. If the waves were his thoughts, then his head was a jumbled mess.

  “Make the waves disappear,” Melwar intoned. “As your thoughts disappear, so will the waves. Make the sea flat, like glass.”

  Iren tried to calm the churning Yuushin. When he focused, he could remove most of the waves, but two thoughts remained. The first was Hana. Even though they hadn’t spent much time together lately, her cherry-blossom scent filled him. He was convinced she was the woman in his dream.

  That dream was the second thought. It came to him at least twice a night now, and sometimes in these sessions, he would lapse into it too.

  The images flashed before him again, his black-haired wife and the baby they had made together. The beach dissolved into a farmhouse at night. A fire crackled in the hearth. His wife looked at him and said, “You are loved.”

  Iren snapped back to reality. He still couldn’t do it. According to Melwar, these meditations would help him enter No Mind without fighting, but he was no closer to that goal than he’d been the first time he and Melwar had dueled in the garden.

  Those sparring bouts weren’t going much better. Melwar’s swordsmanship was superb. In their first six matches, the Maantec lord had defeated Iren with a single blow every time. Iren had made his way to lasting through two or three strikes, but by that point Melwar could enter No Mind and defeat him easily. Iren would never win unless he could activate the trance before the battle started.

  Unfortunately, that scenario was looking more unlikely every day. A month had passed since Iren had defeated Hana, and he now understood why Melwar thought entering No Mind outside a fight might be impossible. It was like looking in two directions at once. Iren needed absolute concentration to achieve No Mind, yet the technique was defined by the purging of concentration.

  Despite the paradox, Iren wouldn’t give up. He was on the cusp of regaining his magic. The pain training was progressing well. He could last almost an hour now, and his recovery time had dropped to less than an hour. Melwar figured that in another two weeks, Iren would be able to withstand the pain without losing consciousness at all. He wanted to be ready to break his barrier when that time came.

  Melwar frowned at him from across the room. “A thought distracts you,” the Maantec lord said.

  Iren bowed to the floor. “Lord Melwar,” he said, “in your experience with magic, have you ever had visions of the future?”

  “I have heard stories of those who have vague dreams that later come to pass,” Melwar replied. “I also recall a Maantec legend that claims the Dragon Knights are fated to be drawn to one another. At best, though, these prophecies are hazy and open to interpretation. A true vision of the future is impossible. The future is not fixed. Our actions determine its shape.” He paused and stroked his chin. “That is your lingering thought, then. You have had a dream and are curious about it.”

  Iren told Melwar about the farmhouse vision. When he finished, he thought Melwar would berate him for letting it distract him. Instead the Maantec looked thoughtful.

  “You are not seeing the future, but the past,” Melwar said. “You are seeing the world through the eyes of a former Holy Dragon Knight.”

  “How can that be?”

  “You know that when you use Divinion’s magic, you also draw in some of his will, correct? His memories come along with it. But while the kanji circles draw the dragon’s will back into the Holy Diamond, the memories linger. They are buried in your subconscious. It is not well known even among Dragon Knights, but if a knight concentrates, he can see the past through the eyes of his predecessors. If you focus hard enough, for example, you could experience what happened to Iren Saito a thousand years ago. Also, unlike an ordinary memory, which fades with time, the dragons’ memories are perfect. You will experience what happened in every detail as though you were living it yourself.”

  Melwar’s explanation struck Iren like a blow from a wooden katana. In seconds the Maantec lord had shattered Iren’s perspective that his dream had been of him and Hana living together as husband and wife.

  But then who was he seeing in those dreams? The memory could belong to any Holy Dragon Knight.

  “Is it possible to control these visions?” Iren asked. “Can I choose a memory and enter it at will?”

  “I do not encourage it,” Melwar said. His frown deepened. “There is a reason few Dragon Knights know about this ability. Knights have died from using it.”

  “Died?”

  “As I said, these visions go beyond normal memories. While you are in one, you become the person whose memory you examine. You see what they saw and feel what they felt. You will retain your own thoughts at first, but you can lose yourself if the memory stretches too long. Surrounded by the previous knight’s experiences, particularly if they are traumatic, you forget that you are not that person. If that happens, you will never escape. You will be trapped in the memory until your real body dies of exhaustion.”

  Iren felt lightheaded. He’d thought his dreams were innocent, but if Melwar was right, Iren risked death every time they affected him.

  That was all the more reason to end them. “How do I enter a memory?” he asked. “If I can learn what this dream is about, maybe I can get it to stop plaguing my thoughts.”

  Melwar sighed. “Under normal circumstances, I would not teach you how to do this. It seems, however, that until you resolve this memory, you will not achieve No Mind. Very well. You have learned the first step: meditation. Focus your mind as I have taught you these past two days. When the ocean becomes as still as possible, think back on the time you want to examine. The more precise you can be, the better. The memory will come to you.”

  Iren bowed once more. “Thank you, Lord Melwar.”

  The Maantec nodded. “You are welcome, but Iren, please take care. Only you can pull your mind from a memory. No one on the outside can help you. More important, never forget that while the past has triumphs, it has failures too. Be cautious in your search for truth. More often than not, it does not bring happiness. It only brings more pain.”

  With that Melwar left the room. Iren extinguished the candles and sat on the floor. He pictured the ocean. The sea appeared, and the waves calmed. He focused on the dream. The scene in his mind stayed the same. He concentrated harder, but he remained on the sand.

  He was about to give up when a figure appeared down the beach and walked toward him. Iren wondered if he was lapsing into the dream again, but as the person came closer, he realized the newcomer was an old man with white robes and sandals flecked with blue.
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  Iren gasped. “Divinion!” he shouted. He raced across the sand and slammed into the old man, wrapping him in a hug. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you trapped in the Holy Diamond? Did I use magic?”

  “One question at a time!” the old man laughed as he disentangled himself. When he was free, he looked around the beach and said, “This is an interesting place to meet. It doesn’t surprise me that the mental image you can conjure best is a seaside.”

  Iren looked at him blankly. “So then, are you just an image in my mind, something I made up like this ocean?”

  Divinion shook his head. “Nope, I’m the real Holy Dragon. I’m afraid I must admit to being the one who’s caused your recurring dreams this past year. I wanted to get your attention.”

  “Well, your plan worked,” Iren said. “Those dreams, or memories, or whatever they are, have been driving me crazy!”

  The old man smiled sheepishly and put his right hand behind his head. It was an odd gesture for the most powerful being on Raa. “Sorry about that,” he said, “but I wanted to talk to you.”

  “About what? What could be so important that you would pester me for a year?”

  Divinion flushed. “Nothing, really. When your body created its magical barrier, part of my will remained inside you from the Dragoon transformation. The wall prevented the Holy Diamond from pulling me back into it. I’ve been trapped in your subconscious ever since. I was lonely.”

  “Lonely?” Iren asked. He put a hand to his forehead. “You sent me those memories because you were lonely? I thought you were a god!”

  “Gods get lonely too. We may have great power, but the hearts of dragons yearn for companionship just as those of other species do. When I was in the Holy Diamond, I could count on you using magic and releasing me from that prison on a regular basis. With your barrier in place, I thought I would never see the outside world again. I thought I would never see you again. It terrified me.”

  Iren had nothing to say. He couldn’t believe Divinion, the Holy Dragon, could be terrified of anything. Then again, if their places were reversed, Iren knew he would find the dragon’s situation unbearable. Now that he thought about it, it didn’t shock him that Divinion would go to such lengths to contact him.

  That raised a question though. “Why use a memory?” Iren asked. “You could have just come yourself.”

  “I tried that at first, but even in your sleep, I couldn’t touch your conscious mind enough to reach you. Instead, I took advantage of our shared memories of past Holy Dragon Knights. When I focused on an especially strong memory, one where you were present, I found I could connect with your dreams. I hoped the repeated vision would prompt you to come looking for me.”

  Iren thought about the memory Divinion had sent him. “You’re not making sense,” he said. “I’m not in that memory. I’ve never been married. I’ve never had a child. I’ve never lived in a farmhou—”

  He stopped short. He had lived in a farmhouse, though never as an adult. “I am in it, aren’t I?” he whispered. “I’m not the man whose eyes I’m looking through. I’m the baby in the woman’s arms. That woman isn’t Hana; she’s my mother. The man is my father.”

  Divinion nodded.

  “But that doesn’t make sense either,” Iren said. “The woman in the memory calls me ‘Iren.’ How would she know that’s my name?”

  The Holy Dragon had no answer for that. “Let’s just enjoy that we can talk to each other again,” he said. “Even if you never regain your magic, if you meditate, you can reach me here any time.”

  “I would like to talk to you more,” Iren admitted, but even as he spoke, he knew Divinion had changed the subject. The dragon hadn’t liked where Iren’s question was leading.

  That only made Iren want the answer more. Why would the woman call him Iren? Melwar had said he would see the memories exactly as they happened. How could that be unless . . .

  His breath caught. “She’s not addressing me,” he murmured. “She’s talking to my father. My father’s name is Iren.”

  It couldn’t be.

  “Divinion,” Iren said, his voice fast, “I need to see a memory. I need to see the first memory you have of the Holy Dragon Knight after the end of the Kodama-Maantec War.”

  The old man looked crestfallen. “I should have known this would happen. I thought you had moved past your parents. It seems I was wrong. So be it. I will let you see the memory if you wish, but I advise against it. It will only hurt you.”

  Divinion’s words echoed Melwar’s warning, but Iren didn’t care. He needed to know. “Show me.”

  The dragon sighed, reached out, and touched Iren on the forehead. In an instant, the beach, ocean, and Divinion disappeared. Iren was left in darkness.

  * * *

  Iren felt himself open his eyes. He had no control over his actions. He was in the memory.

  He lay on a stone floor. The smooth black rock spread around him. He pressed his hands down and pushed onto his knees. “I’m alive?” he whispered.

  Standing, he walked to the floor’s edge. He stood atop a gigantic tower a thousand feet in the air. The landscape mortified him, and he panicked as he realized he wasn’t dreaming. This was reality. This was what he had caused.

  Storm clouds covered the sky. Lightning arced from cloud to cloud and struck the ground dozens of times every second. Rain gushed from the storm, but it evaporated before it struck the earth. On the ground, once a verdant country dotted with rice paddies, everything was scorched red and dry. White flames erupted from crevasses that crisscrossed the land. Some of those fires reached as high as the roof on which he stood.

  He had seen all that before, during the battle. The scenery wasn’t what sickened him. The corpses did.

  They filled the land. Nearly all his Maantec forces had fallen; only a handful still moved amid the destruction. More terrifying, though, not a single Kodama remained alive. They all lay dead, their hair bone white in a sign that their biological magic had left them.

  Iren vomited over the tower’s edge. This wasn’t supposed to happen. His spell wasn’t supposed to do this. He remembered the biological magic flowing out of him. He’d intended to create shields around the combatants—Maantec and Kodama alike—so they couldn’t harm each other. He’d wanted to stop the fighting while he went to King Otunë and negotiated a Maantec surrender. It would have been shameful, but at least it would have saved the rest of his people.

  Instead, something had gone horribly wrong. His spell had somehow taken on a life of its own, knocking him unconscious while it wreaked its gruesome work.

  The Muryozaki lay on the roof next to him. Iren trembled to look at it. Divinion had been his companion for more than two hundred years. What would the Holy Dragon say when he saw this massacre?

  Iren couldn’t face the dragon’s judgment. He picked up the katana. His finger brushed against its blade. Blood flowed for a second before the wound healed itself. He would need to be fast. He pointed the sword at his abdomen.

  “Stop!”

  The command echoed in Iren’s head. He froze. He recognized that voice.

  “Divinion?” he asked. “How can you be here? You should be locked in the Holy Diamond.”

  “Your spell used enough magic to draw me forth. You cannot die here, Iren Saito.”

  “I must!” Iren cried. “Don’t you see what I’ve done? I’ve wiped out my people and the Kodamas as well. I’m disgraced, more than any Maantec who has come before me. Death by seppuku is the only proper punishment. I name it as Maantec emperor.”

  “Fool,” Divinion spat, “do you think death will bring back those butchered on your account? Can you save them by killing yourself?”

  “Then what do I do?”

  “Live,” the dragon said. “That is your punishment, Iren Saito. Live with the pain of what you have done.”

  Iren felt like Divinion had stabbed him a thousand times. He fell on the roof of Edasuko Tower and wept until his eyes ran dry.

  CHAPT
ER THIRTY-EIGHT

  The Rest of the Dream

  Iren Saitosan pulled himself from the ancient emperor’s memory. His body shook. He’d returned to the seaside within his mind, but the waves were more disturbed than ever. The sky was black as the new moon and full of clouds.

  A light approached from down the beach. It was Divinion, and he had shed his human form in favor of his true reptilian shape.

  Iren gulped. The god was a gigantic white serpent with wings that seemed to extend to infinity. Blue hairs grew down his spine, and one blue whisker thirty feet long extended off either side of his muzzle.

  “He survived,” Iren said when the dragon reached him. “Iren Saito didn’t die a thousand years ago.”

  “He lived in exile for a thousand years,” Divinion growled, baring teeth that made the Muryozaki look dull. “No one knew he had escaped death, so history recorded that he died in that final battle, killed by his use of biological magic.”

  Iren recalled the diary he’d retrieved from his parents’ farmhouse. He’d set it aside weeks ago, but now everything became clear. “My name is Iren Saito,” the book had begun. Iren’s first impression of it had been right after all. It was his father’s diary, and his father was Iren Saito, the man responsible for genocide against both Kodamas and Maantecs.

  Then a new realization made Iren gasp. “Divinion, not everyone believed Saito was dead. Rondel knew. She must have.”

  The dragon’s eyes narrowed. “What makes you say that?”

  “My name. Rondel gave it to me. Last year she said she named me ‘Iren Saitosan’ because I reminded her of Saito. In a way I suppose that’s true, but as I think more about it, I don’t think she meant to name me at all. She was surprised when Amroth showed me to her. She played off her mistake as naming me, but in reality she just said what I was: Iren Saito’s son.”

  Divinion said nothing. He set his piercing gaze over the stormy Yuushin. That look, more than the memories Iren had seen, convinced him of the truth.