“Don’t show that to anyone else. Keep it covered up. Promise me.”
“I promise. Why do I need to keep it a secret?”
“It’s better if you don’t know.”
“Would someone else know if they saw it?”
He shrugged, looking uncomfortable and uncertain all at once, but then he gave me one of those brilliant smiles of his.
“Thank you for being you, Amel. For being the girl who cares so much about a dying man that she’s willing to face death to give him a little relief.” His voice faltered for a moment. “For being the girl so willing to sacrifice herself that she’s marked for the good of others. You ... I’m not worthy of you.”
What was he even talking about? Of course, I’d helped the Dominar. Anyone who wasn’t evil like Iskaris would have done that much. And all this symbol meant to me was that I’d been willing to help Savette. Nothing more than that. Nothing that anyone wouldn’t have done.
“You have it backward, Leng.” I smiled, taking his hand in mine. “I’m thankful every day for your friendship. Were you able to talk with your brother?”
He nodded gravely.
“Good. Then let’s keep going. I want to see these hot springs.”
We left the farmhouse hand in hand, but I was so curious now about the mark that I barely noticed Hubric’s excitement over the battered kettle. I barely noticed it when we took off again, flying south. It wasn’t until Savette tapped me on the shoulder to show me a mountain chalet in the distance that I even paid attention to where we were flying.
That’s why I do all the work around here.
Maybe Raolcan knew what the mark of light on my arm meant.
Maybe I do.
Maybe he’d tell me, then,
I think Leng is right. Best not to know. But definitely don’t show it to anyone.
I could have just about kicked him. Why wouldn’t he tell me?
Seriously? He wouldn’t tell you, so you told him how much he means to you. I won’t tell you and you want to kick me? That’s grossly unfair, Amel. It’s prejudice against dragons.
Chapter Four
The mountains, it turned out, were a series of foothills just north of the dormant volcanoes that marked the Lands of Haz’drazen. Nestled in their rocky protection, was a timber chalet, standing in a grove of trees so massive that they made the dragons appear to be the size of humans.
Exhausted wild dragons spread out through the mountainous forests, while we humans and our dragons made our way to the chalet.
We’re going to leave you humans here while we hunt. We haven’t eaten in far too long.
I hadn’t even thought of that, but I should have.
I caught sight of mountain sheep. If you wouldn’t mind, could you hurry up with that saddle? My mouth is already watering...
Savette helped me hurry to unsaddle Raolcan and while we were still dragging the last strap off his girth, he wiggled free and took off. Kyrowat leapt in the air right behind him, coughing a fireball at his heels and within seconds, we humans were left to fend for ourselves.
Savette was looking stronger and her steps were more sure as we settled Raolcan’s saddle on the ground. I kept watch on her out of the corner of my eye, but she didn’t seem to require any kind of help. The healing did exactly what Shonan had promised it would. Which was good, right? Because it meant I hadn’t given up my own healing for nothing.
“What is this place?” Haskell asked, wonder filling her eyes.
“A Lightbringer sanctuary, known only to us. A place for those in need to seek refuge,” Hubric said, smiling kindly. “Come, there should be tea and foods stored here, as well as clothes to replace our ruined ones.”
After what we’d been through over the last few weeks, that sounded like heaven. I followed them tiredly into the massive chalet, climbing the stairs up to the entrance with a smiling Savette. Leng and Shonan brought up the rear, silent, but in a way that spoke of contentment rather than coldness.
When we followed Hubric in the massive Great Room, I felt my whole body relax. Lush furnishings filled the room with wide windows that led out to a sprawling terrace. Bear rugs were laid out on the massive stone floor and wide tapestries hung over the shining, polished wood walls. In the center of the Great Room, a chimney led upward and under it stood a ring of stone masonry, wood for a fire laid out in the center of it.
“I’m going to find the storeroom. If there’s food, we’re going to eat,” Haskell said.
“I’ll come with you. This dress is a disaster.” Savette’s dress was so muddy and torn that it barely looked white anymore.
I didn’t want to go anywhere. I just wanted to stand here for a moment and drink up the beauty of this place. How long ago was the last time that I could just sit somewhere and enjoy the look of the place without fleeing for my life?
Hubric bent over the fireplace with his flint in hand and Leng went out to check on the dragons.
“After they’re done feeding, I need to send another messenger on ahead to tell Haz’drazen that we are drawing near,” he explained as he left. “It would be impolite to surprise her.”
Silent as a ghost, Shonan slipped out onto the wide terrace just outside the great room and I followed him. I wanted to sit down and rest, but this was more important. I stole a glance at his forearm. Could I see a faint glow under his sleeve? Or had he transferred his glowing mark to me?
He stood - as if he didn’t see me - looking off into the distance, a look of concern on his face.
“It’s not so easy to walk away, is it?” I asked.
He smiled slightly but didn’t answer, as if he was working out a problem too great for me to understand.
“Does your arm pain you?”
“Don’t concern yourself about it. I have endured worse.”
Worse than a lost limb? That was hard to fathom. It was hard not to take his injury seriously when I’d been the one to bandage it the first time.
“Haskell is an apothecary. She could help you to dress it.”
He nodded, and I could tell by his body language that he didn’t want to talk, but I had something to say and I needed to say it while Hubric and Leng were busy, because I had a feeling that they wouldn’t like it at all. It kept springing to mind every time I saw Shonan and every time that I thought about Iskaris behind his silver mask, lord of the Dominion and in charge of all our resources...
“I don’t think that the mask is the man,” I blurted out. “I mean. I see why they do it that way, but I think that you can’t separate an idea from the thing it’s meant to be attached to and that thing is you - not some inanimate piece of metal. To me, you’re still our Dominar.” My face was already hot, but I pressed on. “And if you want to do something about that – if, maybe, you want to fight back and try to take back what’s yours - then I think you should know that I’m with you. I’ll help you.”
He still didn’t look at me, and when he eventually spoke his words were slow and deliberate. “That sentiment is treason.”
“Treason is just a word that means you’re loyal to the wrong thing. I’m loyal to you. There’s nothing wrong about that.”
But I wasn’t ready to get in more trouble. My face hot with embarrassment and worry, I scurried back into the chalet.
Chapter Five
Leng was whispering to Hubric when I entered the great room. He smiled and held out a hand.
“Let’s look at those hot springs before it gets too dark.”
I took his hand with a smile but underneath I was worried. I just knew that both he and Hubric were going to be upset when they heard what I’d told Shonan. I didn’t want to admit it to him, but I didn’t want to have to wait and wonder if Shonan had told him, either.
We walked out of the chalet, following a narrow winding path along the side of the mountain.
“This mountain was a volcano at one point. I don’t know if that’s why the pool is hot, or if it’s a magical thing. Either way, I’ve never seen a pool like t
his one before.”
Above us, dragons circled, coming and going, guarding the prisoners they’d taken and bringing back meat. They filled the sky – even here where I could see a long way off from the mountain. I admired their various colors. The reds were crusted and thick-scaled and so were the golds. The greens and blacks were a little larger than the others, the whites almost ethereal in how they dove through the clouds. I almost wished I could know them all as well as I knew the purples.
Why? We’re the best color. The others are fine, I suppose, but you wouldn’t hear their thoughts and they don’t think much of humans. You’re like wolves to them. Interesting, possibly harmful, you disrupt the ecosystem from time to time, but not really interesting conversationalists.
Well, that put me in my place.
Like I said, that’s other dragons. Not Purples. We care about people.
He thought that Purples were the mushy-hearted ones? Purples who happily flamed people and were insulted at the slightest thing?
We’re still dragons. Don’t mistake our soft-heartedness for weakness.
Sometimes I thought I knew everything about him, and then he said something like this and I realized I knew nothing at all.
“Here we are,” Leng said as we rounded a corner that opened up into a round rocky pool with rock walls on every side except for the small winding path that snuck between them. The minerals in the pool and surrounding it were a bright blue that slowly bled into green and then a bright gold as it moved from pool to rock walls. No wonder they called this place Sapphire Springs! I gasped at the beauty of it. “Worth the wait?”
“Absolutely!”
His smile was infectious and joy threatened to chase my own worries away as I dipped my hand in the warm pool, and then with care, lowered myself to the ground, stowed my crutch to one side, and carefully worked my boots loose to let my tired feet soak in the pool. The warmth and a tingling sensation embraced my feet and slowly began to relax my muscles and clear my mind.
“The minerals of the pool – or the magic of it, if that’s what it is – have a soothing quality for the mind,” Leng said. “The last time I was here I had just joined the Lightbringers. I think I spent the entire night in this pool.”
“Did you really conquer Saldrin and save all the refugees?” I asked.
He blushed. “Is that what you heard?”
“I really admire that.” More than that. I thought he was the best of heroes. He hadn’t been ordered to fight that battle – he’d done it just to help people. He could have just turned around and fled when he realized the city was occupied.
“I just couldn’t let them hurt people who had nothing to do with all of this. You know? They didn’t ask for a war. They didn’t ask for their homes to be ruined and their lives destroyed.”
“This whole mess is like that. None of this had to happen. We were all fine before this started and our enemies could have just enjoyed their families and their work and eaten some good dinners and lived their lives without starting all this.”
He snorted. “People aren’t like that. They aren’t content to just live simple lives that don’t hurt anyone. There’s always this kind of undercurrent in people driving them forward to either good things or really bent, gnarled things. It’s not that they just wake up one day and decide to start a fight. This kind of thinking is just building up in them all the time, like the tick of a clock, like the beat of a heart, it’s the rhythm they think their thoughts to. Selflessness, courage, honor – these things are as strange and unintelligible to them as evil and cruelty are to you.”
But evil wasn’t always unintelligible to me. I’d wanted to murder Iskaris in cold blood, hadn’t I? Even if I hadn’t done it, the thought was there. Maybe I wasn’t listening to my rhythm as well as I should be. I stared at my feet and bit my lip.
“What are you thinking of, Wind-rider?”
“Why do you call me that?” I asked, avoiding the question. I felt my cheeks heating up. Maybe it was just the hot spring doing that.
“It’s the way I think of you. You’re like the wind. I never know where you are or where you’ll turn up.”
Personally, I like that. The wind is powerful and untameable – like me.
I smiled, still looking at my feet. “I like that.”
“Wind-rider?”
“Hmmm?” He was so sweet. Far too sweet. I didn’t deserve him.
“What were you thinking of?”
The sun was low now and dusk was upon us. I looked up into his dark eyes, twinkling in the last rays of the sun and I couldn’t help myself. He deserved the truth.
“I think your brother still deserves to be the Dominar and I told him so. I told him that I’d help him try to get it back.”
His face went ghostly pale.
Chapter Six
He leaned toward me and I stiffened, expecting a threat, but instead, he wrapped me in his arms.
“Chaos follows you, Wind-rider.”
“Chaos?” I was definitely not a chaotic person! People like Starie were chaotic. People like Iskaris. I just wanted to keep things on the right course.
“No one else but you would think that speaking treason aloud – and to him! – was a good idea. Listen, Amel, I love how you love truth and loyalty. I love how you’re full of compassion and want the best for your friends, but please, please, don’t say this to anyone else! You could get yourself imprisoned - or killed - with those words.”
He kept me in a close hug while he spoke, and I liked the feeling – like he was trying to protect me from myself. It didn’t mean I was wrong, though.
“When Shonan was the Dominar, I wasn’t allowed to know him anymore. I wasn’t allowed to speak about him. I wasn’t allowed to ever acknowledge that he was part of our family. I lost him. And I thought it was forever.”
I got that. After all, I had to leave my family for their own good.
“If Shonan is not the Dominar, then Iskaris is,” I said. “You haven’t met him. You don’t know what a terrible man he is. When we were in the warrens, he tried to kill Shonan.”
“My brother told me that.” Now that the sun was sinking, the only warmth was his arms around me and the warm pool. “He told me that you saved him, too. Thank you for that, Amel.” He leaned in to kiss my forehead and then pulled back again, pulling his feet out of the water and tugging his boots back on. “But you have to know that I just can’t ask him to go back to that. He wasn’t a man, he was a mask - living without love or friendship. He shouldn’t have had to give himself up like that – even if it was for the good of the Dominion - and I won’t ask him to do it again.”
I swallowed, pulling my own boots back on again. What had I hoped for? I guess I’d hoped he’d see it my way even though I was sure he wouldn’t like the idea. I guess I’d hoped that underneath it all, we had the same goals. He was a good man – but if he was good, why couldn’t he see what I saw.
Ha! There’s some dragon-level arrogance right there! Yes, if someone doesn’t see eye to eye with you, that’s a reason to question their goodness.
I felt my cheeks growing hot. It might have been an idle thought, but Raolcan was right, it was unfair.
“Amel?” Leng asked as I adjusted my crutch.
“Yes?”
“Don’t talk about this to anyone else, okay? He doesn’t need to get back into this.”
I put a hand in his and followed him back to the chalet, but I wasn’t ready to promise anything. I was certain I was right about this one. There had to be some way to prove it to everyone else.
“There will be other people who think he should be the ruler again,” Leng said as we walked. “I’m worried about that. There’s got to be some way that I can protect him from all of this.”
I felt a bit like a traitor as we approached the chalet. If I helped Leng, the Dominion would suffer for it. If I helped the Dominion, he would suffer. Either way, I was about to betray someone.
When we returned, food was ready, and water had
been drawn for washing. I was delighted to finally get properly clean and full, but my mind was busy. I kept thinking through what it would mean to have Iskaris as our ruler permanently and I knew that wasn’t an outcome that I could live with. And if I couldn’t live with it, where did that leave me?
Savette had found clothing in the back and she was dressed in a fresh dress of soft-pink sky-silk and a white fur cloak. Haskell, Hubric, and Shonan were also wearing fresh clothing. Savette tossed a set of black dragon-rider leathers to me, cut in a female shape. I looked them over – still stiff with their newness - and sighed.
“I can’t wear them, Savette,” I said.
“Just put them on,” Hubric growled. “There are no trainee leathers here and I won’t have you embarrassing me with dirty ripped clothes at our meeting tomorrow.”
I hurried to one of the rooms in the back and changed, grateful, despite my misgivings, for the fresh clothes. They smelled clean and new and between that and a good meal, I felt like a new woman. When I emerged, Hubric was waiting for me in the hall.
“Come with me,” he growled.
Great. He seemed jumpy, looking both ways as he led me to a storeroom in the back and that couldn’t be good. He must have heard my words to Shonan while he was lighting the fire and he must be ready to add his warnings to Leng’s.
He shut the door with care, latching it behind him and then drew very close before saying in a low voice, “I heard you speak to Shonan and by your disappointed look tonight, I gather Leng was no more interested in treason than his brother was.”
“You don’t need to lecture me, Hubric.” I sighed. “I know, it’s not the man that leads us, it’s the mask. And it’s not for me to decide who gets to wear that mask. Suggesting anything else is treason.”
Dragon School_Mark of Loyalty Page 2
