Fate of Dragons

by Alisha Klapheke

  They had longed for a savior. Instead, they were stuck with her. In place of an Earth Queen to fight the sea, they had a powerless human with a faulty Blackwater mark and a penchant for gambling.

  Amona came up beside Vahly, the Matriarch’s head tipping downward as she tied back her human-like black hair with a leather thong. More white showed in her tresses these days, but at four hundred years and counting, Amona still had the vibrancy of a far younger dragon. The breeze stirred the loose sleeves of her black, embroidered dress. The gold thread along the wrists glimmered in the shape of the Lapis symbol—dragon wings over a slitted eye.

  “You will sit next to me at the feasting, yes?” Amona’s voice brought drums to mind. There was an earthy beauty to the sound and a commanding tone as well. The Matriarch smiled expectantly, her human-like red lips pretty against the deep blue of her scaled skin.

  “I saw something.” Vahly kept her own raspy voice low so as not to alert the entire clan. That was Amona’s job if she saw fit to inform them.

  Amona cocked her head. “I’m listening.”

  Vahly spoke quickly, relating what had happened off the coast.

  Amona looked over Vahly’s head, staring into the distance, in the direction of the ocean. As she glared at their ancient enemy, her pupils expanded and contracted in a way Vahly’s never could.

  “So the Sea Queen thinks to attack us here, does she? The Jades will need to know this too.”

  The other dragon clan, those with Jade blood, lived far to the north and battled almost daily with the Sea Queen’s army in their colder waters. Sometimes it amazed Vahly that both clans were dragons. As the old saying went Lapis hunt with their minds; Jades with their claws. The end of the saying depended upon who was doing the telling. A Jade would conclude with And see who has the blood of enemies between their teeth? When the Lapis used the expression, they finished with And see who has a full belly at the end of a season?

  Despite their frightening common enemy and the ever-increasing threat to their existence, the two clans fought almost as much with one another as they did with the sea folk.

  “Vahly, are you injured?” Amona sniffed, then took up Vahly’s hand. What was left of the ripped nail hung loosely and blackened blood surrounded the first two knuckles.

  Vahly tugged away gently. “I’m fine. Would you like me to take a message to the Jades?”

  Amona would say no, of course. The Jades openly hated Vahly for not growing into the great powers her Blackwater mark claimed she’d possess, but Vahly still wanted to offer help.

  Heat crawled up Vahly’s neck and spread into her cheeks, but she kept her chin up. It wasn’t as if she hadn't tried to gain her powers. She’d imbibed nine kinds of potions Helena the healer crafted in the hopes of finding magic in her blood and bones. Vahly had scoured the Lapis library’s scrolls. She’d even tried half burying herself in the earth of the Red Meadow, outside the Lapis mountain palace, praying somehow the earth would notice her.

  Despite her determination not to hate herself, the pressure of not living up to everyone’s expectations gnawed Vahly’s heart and soul. Each day, the invisible beast of failure ripped another chunk of Vahly away and she found it more and more difficult to stand tall instead of crumbling into a mess of self-loathing.

  “Thank you,” Amona said, “but I think I’ll send Lord Maur. He enjoys the shouting they call talking up there.”

  “So you believe the Sea Queen won’t attack before he can get up there and back?” Vahly wanted to join Amona in gossiping about Lord Maur—he was a nightmare—but what she’d witnessed pushed everything else out of her mind.

  “I don’t know. There is no way to know. I will evacuate the lower floors of the palace for the time being, but we can’t scout or strike unless we have a plan in place. Like it or not, the Jades are my allies and I must make good use of their strengths. They must be involved in any aggression toward the Sea Queen. Not only because if we fail, the sea folk will strike the Jades next, but also because the Jades understand certain aspects of war in a way we Lapis do not.”

  This was why she was a great matriarch. All dragons were vain to a fault. But Amona never let those traits trip up her wisdom. Vahly hoped it would always be Amona’s way to stifle her haughtiness in order to help her kynd. Amona was not perfect, but she was the best dragon Vahly had ever known.

  “Do I truly need to be at the feast?” The Dragonfire ritual always included a massive concluding feast and Amona required all loyal Lapis to attend.

  The crowd of dragons began the walk toward the entrance to the mountain palace, Vahly and Amona leading the way.

  Amona’s lips parted. She halted, sending several dragons into Vahly’s back.

  “What is it?” Vahly ushered her mother off to the side of the throng.

  Murmured apologies and bows came from those who had bumped into their Matriarch, but Amona didn’t seem to notice them. Her gaze flew to Vahly. A clawed hand shot out to touch Vahly’s chest. Amona’s orange eyes focused, pinning Vahly in place like Vahly had stolen the cookie jar.

  “Daughter.” Amona rubbed a circle over Vahly’s heart and mimicked the movement on her own chest.

  “Yes? What is wrong? Did I say something?”

  “No.” Amona smiled, and if Vahly had been looking at anyone but Amona she would have guessed those were tears forming in her eyes. But Amona never cried. Never. Dragons loathed weakness and what they deemed excessive emotional attachment. “You truly care about the flooding and the possible evacuation, don't you?”

  “Of course, I do.” What was Amona getting at?

  “This is more,” Amona said, murmuring to herself.

  A buzz of excitement, or perhaps dread, ran through Vahly. Lightheaded, she blinked in the sun now piercing the storm clouds the dragons had called up. “It is?”

  Amona nodded and walked quickly toward the front of the mountain palace. “You will attend the feast. By my side, in your proper place. Vahly, I have discovered something very interesting. About you.”

  Chapter Two

  In the time before dragons recorded history, the Lapis carved a palace into the eastern mountains. The hard facade rose in stark contrast to the Red Meadow’s delicate grasses and the diminutive red hat flowers that grew on the banks of the Silver River.

  Above the entrance to the palace proper, numerous windows carved in the shape of flickering flames, and landings scored with claw marks from centuries of use dotted the cliff face. Some windows were small, only wide enough to grab a portion of the western light that coursed over the distant western ranges and through the meadow, or a bit of the eastern sunrises that glowed beyond the coastal mountains where Vahly had collected the vivanias plants. Other windows widened to allow for a dragon’s take off over the land in full battle form, or for a group of the creatures to gather for a game of dice or a meal and cider.

  During a game on the nearest window’s perch, Vahly had won a fine bear pelt. Sure, she didn’t have magic, but she was no slouch with numbers or statistics. Sometimes, she thought she might have a touch of luck. That wasn't nothing.

  Great steps of limestone, worn by weather and countless feet, reached wide enough to admit five full-sized dragons. An archway stood at the top of the stairs, its curve towering over Vahly’s head. The sign of the Lapis marked the arch’s peak—dragon wings over a slitted eye—and the lapis lazuli stone that naturally formed in these mountains glittered with stripes of golden pyrite and boasted the same blue as Amona’s scales.

  Inside, dragons had dug out massive tunnels and countless rooms. Sconces, as tall as Vahly and made of white crystal, hung at regular intervals down the main passageway. Dragons walked and talked, filling the corridor with smoky breath and the flutter of wings.

  Amona kept Vahly close, expanding one wing—blue as the bottom of a flame—so there was only room for the two of them as they made their way toward the feast. Amona tried to be casual about her protectiveness, but for Vahly, such tricks didn’t pass her
notice anymore.

  What was going on with Amona? What had happened outside, when she had stopped so suddenly? Vahly swallowed, her nerves on fire.

  “Amona, you don’t need to coddle me.” Vahly gave her mother a questioning smile.

  “I’m doing no such thing.”

  “Right.” Vahly shook her head. “This isn’t about new information on a human power ritual, is it?” Vahly whispered, not wanting the whole clan to hear the desperation in her voice.

  Amona’s eyes grew sad. “There is no ritual, Vahly. I have told you as much. We must simply be patient. Your power will rise, and we will fight the Sea Queen, and we will live.”

  So whatever Amona had learned about Vahly, it wasn't about a possible ceremony? Then what was it? Maybe she had discovered another way to wake Vahly's earth magic.

  Vahly fidgeted with her sword hilt, clicking the end of it with a knuckle. Her mind threw ideas at her like a drunken juggler.

  “There has to be a ceremony of some sort,” Vahly argued. “Dragons have them. Elves, too, if the stories are true.”

  “Who has been talking about elves?” Amona sneered.

  The venom in her tone surprised Vahly. Sure, she knew the Lapis were no friend to the forgotten kynd. They had warred in the past. But Amona sounded absolutely close-minded about the elven race.

  “They were an arrogant kynd,” Amona said, “and did nothing but hide their knowledge from us, age after age. Thankfully, I believe them to be extinct. Do not mention elves in my presence again. And, my daughter, if there had been a human power ritual, I would have heard of it long ago. I’ve told you this. We lived closely for a while. I would have seen the ceremony, heard the secrets.”

  Nix was the one who had talked about elves, but Vahly wasn’t about to rat her out. Last night, during a heated round of Trap—a nine-player dice game in which Vahly collected a lovely sum of coins—Nix had claimed elves had rituals for everything from gaining powers at maturity to taking out the rubbish bin.

  Vahly’s friend had also told her about a hidden chamber in the library where the dragons kept records concerning elves. The entrance was supposedly near a shelf of unlabeled scrolls. Vahly had originally waved off Nix’s suggestion that Vahly find her way into that restricted area. She was sure Amona would have told her about it if the room did in fact exist. Or at least, Amona would have searched the scrolls there herself for anything that could be related to Vahly gaining her earth magic.

  But now, with this strong, adverse reaction to Vahly bringing up elves, she wondered if Nix had been right to suggest sneaking into that hidden room.

  If Vahly were caught violating the library’s rules, she would be whipped. It was one thing to galavant around with Nix and the others and be a less than perfect daughter to Amona, but to directly disobey a written rule concerning official scrolls, here in the palace? The punishment would be steep. Dragons loved their scrolls almost as much as they loved their gold.

  “If the humans held the ceremony in secret,” Vahly said, “and performed under cover, then perhaps not?”

  Dragons clogged the passageway, and Vahly, feeling hemmed in, unlaced her leather vest to let it hang freely over her shirt. Dragons never seemed to mind a crowd as long as it was made up of clan. Vahly, on the other hand, felt her differences keenly in such situations. Boots scraped the ground and wings shuffled. One male offered another a silver filigreed flask of firecider to a taller male whose laugh made Vahly’s ears ring.

  Amona let out a quiet, wry laugh. “And that is why I love you. You are not afraid to push me.”

  “Oh, I’m plenty afraid. Don’t think that I’m not.” Vahly held up her own hands, then gestured toward Amona’s claws. “I’m no fool.”

  A smile graced Amona’s lips as she ushered Vahly into a room off the corridor. Some dragon had stacked extra chairs along the back wall beside a row of wooden kegs. The rest of the clan streamed by the doorway, not noticing their Matriarch and her adopted daughter.

  “No, you are not a fool,” Amona said. “You are brave.” And I am proud you are a Lapis.

  Vahly froze, mouth open.

  Amona had used telepathy, known to dragons as the Call. Only when the matriarch of a dragon clan bonded with another dragon could the Call function.

  A lump formed in Vahly's throat and tears blurred her vision. She had waited forever for this, thinking it would never happen. Vahly had all but given up on enjoying the closeness that this part of living with dragons allowed. She grabbed Amona’s shoulders, not caring that dragons didn’t like to show tender emotion.

  Amona smiled genuinely and Vahly’s heart soared. “You are now bonded with the Lapis, in every way, Vahly.”

  Amona collected a shocked Vahly into a rare hug. She smelled familiar, like the sandalwood she burned in her quarters and the sage-like aroma of a powerful dragon’s blood. Vahly let herself be held until she could halt her tears. Amona was the only mother she had ever known.

  “You are truly my daughter.”

  “Thank you, Matriarch. Mother. But how? What finally secured the bond?”

  It was the highest honor for a creature not born into the clan. Vahly could think of only one other that had bonded with the Lapis—a Jade whose personality did not fit the Jade culture. She pulled back a little from Amona.

  “You don’t have to do this. I am not your blood and I don’t need your pity.”

  Amona straightened. A stab of fear shot through Vahly's chest.

  “I am fully aware I do not have to do this, or anything.” Amona's eyes blazed. “I do this because I want to.”

  Vahly couldn’t believe it. She was bonded with the Lapis. A real bond she never thought she could have. She had long endured sly insults and the lancing pain of not belonging. Now, that would all change. Wouldn't it?

  “When did you feel it? When did the bond hit you?” Vahly asked, a sour note wheedling into her voice.

  Something was off.

  When Vahly dreamed of being bonded, of hearing the Call, she’d thought her heart would fill. A glowing happiness did light her, but still, that same hollowness echoed inside her heart. That loneliness Vahly had always carried.

  Surely, it was just shock. Once the truth of this set in, she’d feel satisfied.

  Amona was practically glowing with pride. “Just now. After you warned me of the sea and what you saw. You must have been thinking of the clan, of your family,” she stressed the last word, “and suddenly, the bond pinched me.”

  “Pinched?” Vahly had to laugh, even as she struggled with warring emotions, both good and bad.

  Amona laughed too. “Yes. The bond feels like a pinch. Right here.” She touched her chest. “It’s not a dissimilar sensation to the one when we make a heart promise. But unlike a promise, a bond will not burn through your heart if you break it. Not that I have to tell you this.” Vahly knew Amona was thinking of Nix and her Call Breakers. “If you feel the urge to leave us, I will fight it, but not more than I think is fair. I will respect your wishes and aid you in any way I am able.”

  “I have no desire to leave the clan.” Vahly wasn’t lying. She didn’t. But she hoped the news of her bonding would bring her a true belonging and get rid of at least a few of the insults she had to endure every day. “If I did, I think the Jades would eat me for lunch.”

  The Jades were warlike and loud and did not pretend to be content with the way Vahly had turned out thus far.

  Amona’s laugh rocked the floor under Vahly’s feet as they headed for the smell of roasted meat.

  Pale sunlight fell through the oculus set into the high ceiling of the feasting hall. Charcoal, deep red, and yellow ocher artwork showed age-old battles between dragons and sea folk. Wings unfurling. Jagged lightning. A long-dead Sea Queen brandished her coral spear, launching spelled ocean water through crashing waves. One of Amona’s ancestors blasted dragonfire through the foam and burned a unit of sea warriors to ash.

  Below, three large pits showed bubbling pools of earthblood. S
imilar to magma, though less hot and infused with magic, the golden substance gave dragons their energy. The pits belched a heat that slicked Vahly’s face in sweat.

  Once, when she was a third of the size she was now, she had gone past one pit’s circle of high-backed chairs and stone table to look down and see what created those bursts of flame and that unrelenting temperature. Amona’s own hand had snatched her back before she’d gone close enough to see more than a flash of earthblood.

  Now, she stayed as far away from the openings as was polite.

  The dragons didn’t always open the metal grates that covered the pits. But when ceremonies required the entire clan to use dragonfire, the dragons grew tired and their magic withered inside the ovens of their chests. They needed to be near the earthblood’s golden flow—its heat revived their dragonfire to full capacity. In such times of need, young dragon warriors would turn the pulleys and drag the great slabs of black iron along metal tracks to expose the earthblood.

  The mood in the room would normally have been relentlessly celebratory, considering the ritual they had just completed. But the dragons’ toasts to Xabier lacked enthusiasm. The scene of the heaving ocean, so near their home, had brought the knowledge that time was short to the forefront.

  The clan’s tension was a thousand pinpricks in Vahly’s skin.

  Servants brought out hundreds of glazed venison haunches—dressed in pickled onions—and laid them out on the circle-shaped, stone tables surrounding the pits. Every dragon took their seat, wings adjusting around slender chair backs that supported the spine. For a moment, the sound of flapping wings filled the room.

  Vahly sighed at the relief of a breeze on her flushed cheeks. Then, resigning herself to at least one cup of cider and a small bite alongside Amona, with Maur on her mother’s right, Vahly sat and tried to think of winter.