by Sam Ryder
“Vrill, you don’t have a selfish bone in your body,” I said.
“Thank you for saying that, Sam. But it’s not true. All creatures have a measure of selfishness. I didn’t want to be the Three’s slave any longer, even if it meant I couldn’t help others who were enslaved.”
“We’re not slaves,” I said. “At least not anymore. And while technically we are protecting the Three, we make our own choices. We protect each other above all else. No more Circle. No more forcing people to come to Tor against their wills.”
At that, Vrill’s thin, bladelike eyebrows went up. “Eve agreed to that? Where is the bitch?”
A hammer blow to the chest. Not because Vrill still hated Eve—I already knew that. But she didn’t know she was dead either. I opened my mouth to say something, though I’m not sure what. In any case, my thoughts were obliterated by a powerful roar that seemed to shake the very world around us.
“Oh no,” Vrill said. She was already on her feet and running from the hut, banging her shoulder on the doorframe in her haste.
Beat and I were right behind her, but I quickly outdistanced my bulky friend. But I couldn’t catch Vrill, her legs seeming to sprout wings as she gained on me with each step.
And then she skidded to a stop just before the telltale shimmer of the ward shields. I slowed as well, jogging the last dozen feet to her side. “What is it?” I asked, staring at the serious expression on her face. She didn’t look at me—just stared through the ward shield with such intensity I thought she might burn a hole through it with just her eyes. Another roar, but instead of stepping back, Vrill stepped forward, lifting her arm and angling her hand palm out, as if to touch the edge of the shield.
“Mrizandr is….I can sense his thoughts,” she said. “He’s watching us. He can see us.” We couldn’t see the dragon, because somehow the ward shield masked any living creatures when you looked through it from either side. My Seeker eyes could see a little better through it than others, which meant Vrill could too, but it was still just the idea of a massive creature on the other side, with no detail. Mostly we could see the long stretch of unforgiving flatlands and the shadowy mountains rising in the distance, their peaks blanketed by dark clouds.
I shivered as a rare cool breeze washed over us. I was glad I was on this side of the ward shield and the dragon on the other. For all I knew, he wanted to finish the job he’d started on me with his tail. Though he’d been freed from the service of the Morgoss, that didn’t mean he wasn’t a monster who ate Seekers for breakfast. “Vrill,” I said. “You should…”
I stopped because something appeared through the ward shield, emerging scale by scale, claw by claw, the dragon’s forepaw pushing through until it rested gently against Vrill’s palm, which was so small in comparison it might’ve been a child’s hand.
“Holy fuck,” I breathed.
The ward shield no longer stopped the dragon. Vrill said, “My strong steed. You have been through fire and emerged unburned.”
Somewhere behind the ward shield, the dragon made a sound that shocked the hell out of me. It was a purr, so loud it might’ve been a chorus of cats. A sigh of contentment, of calm, the opposite to anything I’d seen from the dragon thus far, who always put the fire in fiery.
“Come to me,” Vrill said.
“Uh,” I said, backing up. “Maybe that’s not the best idea.”
Beat had caught up to us now, but when she saw the dragon’s claw, then arm, then its tooth-filled snout emerge through the shield, she muttered a curse and backed away, pulling me with her. I let her, even as the dragon’s shadow fell over us.
It—he—was so close to Vrill that the dragon could kill her just by taking another step, or by accidentally sneezing out a fireball. Instead, he lowered his head and allowed Vrill to pet him like a trained dog. She was speaking to him in soft, indistinguishable tones. Beat whispered in my ear: “There’s a fucking dragon inside the ward shields.”
“Is there? I hadn’t noticed.”
Something Vrill said made the dragon tilt its head in our direction, its nostrils flaring, smoke roiling out in long, sinewy tendrils. One breath and we were toast—literally.
It snorted and a gout of flame shot from its nose, singeing my feet. I jumped back with a yelp, ready to turn and run but stopping because—
The dragon was laughing. I shit you not, that was the only way to describe it. His head had risen high over us and he was making a deep chortling sound from the back of his throat. His dragon shoulders were even shaking. Flames licked his mouth as he had a good chuckle at my expense.
“Well I’ll be goddess-damned,” Beat said. “The big fella has a sense of a humor.”
Vrill turned to us and smiled. “He likes you. He’s decided not to eat you.”
“Yay for me,” I said. “Because I’d prefer not to be eaten. Is he, uh, planning to stay inside the ward shields with us?”
“Of course,” Vrill said. “Why wouldn’t he?”
The fact that she had to ask was pretty cute. Though Vrill had seen horrible things in her time on Tor, there was still an innocence about her. I found it highly attractive. “I dunno,” I said. “Maybe I’m just worried that he’ll sleep walk, get hungry, and mistake one of us for a snack.”
Vrill’s smile widened. “This guy? He’s as gentle as a furrik.”
I didn’t know what that was, but I doubted it was the kind of animal that would compare well to a dragon. Then again, what was I going to do? Hold up a sign that said, “Dragons not welcome”? I might as well write my own obituary.
So instead I stepped forward, trying to ignore the pain in my feet, which were still burning. I said, “Welcome Mrizandr. And thank you for helping us fight the Narzani.”
A deep growl emanated from the back of the dragon’s throat. It didn’t sound like a happy sound, but then again, I didn’t speak dragon. Vrill, however, seemed to know what he was saying somehow, perhaps a lingering side effect of the twin collars they’d worn. “He’s hungry,” she said.
Which was a problem. Meat wasn’t exactly something we had in plenty. “We can give him our entire supply of leafrat and then hunt for more,” I said.
Vrill laughed. Beat did too. Apparently there was some joke I was missing. Beat said, “He’s a fucking dragon, Ryder. He doesn’t need to be fed. He’s heading out to hunt.”
Duh. Though he acted like a pet around Vrill, he was nobody’s pet. He was wild and free. As if to confirm my thoughts, he bent his knees and then sprang up, his wings unfurling as he jetted into the air, turning once, the silver light reflecting off thousands of scales. And then he was gone, passing back through the amorphous ward shield as easily as any of us could’ve.
I had to admit, it was pretty awesome. “We have a dragon,” I said. “Awesome.”
Vrill looked at me, and I could see how happy she was. For once, something had gone our way. But then I remembered what she’d told us earlier, about the dark magic the Morgoss were using to conjure new monsters, ones that would be far more difficult to defeat than the ones we were accustomed to—even with a dragon fighting with us.
“We need to tell the Three everything you told us,” I said.
Vrill’s smile evaporated. “I thought you said we don’t answer to them anymore.” Despite the sharpness in her words, that single two-letter word in the middle felt like sunshine bursting through the clouds. We. She’d said we. Like she was one of us now, no longer an outsider. Like she was going to stay. “We don’t,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t use their help. Airiel may soon be strong enough to fight. And I don’t know about you, but I’ll take a goddess fighting on our side any day of the week.”
Vrill seemed to mull it over. “Fine. But I’m not going to make nice with them. It’s an alliance of necessity, that is all.”
“Understood.”
“And I won’t work with Eve. I won’t speak to her. I won’t look at her. I won’t breathe the same air she breathes.”
I felt m
y heart thudding in my chest. “That won’t be a problem,” I said. “Because Eve is dead.”
FIFTEEN
SURPRISE!
“Tell me again,” Vrill said, although I’d told her the story of Eve and my Finding mission to Primo twice already.
It almost seemed like she was enjoying hearing the tale of Eve’s demise. Which wasn’t very nice, but then again, they had history. Bad blood. I wasn’t one to judge, even if I felt differently. After all, I’d had my moments of strong dislike—if not hate—toward Eve. But then she’d changed. She’d started listening. She may not have fully atoned for her sins of the past, but when she’d died she was trying to be better. And that was all any of us could do.
“Vrill,” I said. “There’s nothing else to tell.”
“You brought back a marmot.”
It wasn’t a question, but I felt inclined to nod anyway. “Yes, you saw him in battle. We call him Stomp. He might not survive the injuries he sustained at the hands of the Narzani.”
In the distance, nestled against the cliffside, I could see Nrrrf prowling around the giant beast’s unmoving form. Apparently the lioness had managed to coax the giant creature to his feet and he was able to lumber all the way through the ward shield and close to home before flopping down to rest.
“The strain of transporting such a large creature back to Tor stopped Eve’s heart,” Vrill said. I finally realized that she wasn’t gloating or enjoying the story of her archnemesis’s death. No. She was trying to understand. As long as Vrill had been on Tor, she’d known Eve to be an invincible, ever-present force. For good. For ill. And now she was gone. I understood how she felt. It was like a giant black hole had been created in the firmament of this planet, an unfillable void. We would all need to find a way to adapt if we were going to survive, especially because we no longer had a Finder to rely on to bring back fresh Warriors.
An idea struck me, and I knew Vrill wasn’t going to like it. But I was done tiptoeing around feelings. We were in a precarious position as it was, and we needed something to tip the scales in our direction. “I don’t know if the Three will go for it, but I think you should be the new Finder,” I said.
Vrill’s lips opened. Closed. I’d rendered her speechless. She shook her head. “I thought you were different, Sam Ryder. But you don’t know me at all.”
“Hear me out,” I said, ignoring the sting of her words. “Try to erase the past from your mind. We no longer operate that way. There is no Circle. We don’t bring people here and throw them into an impossible situation where they’ll most likely die.”
“But you still bring them here to die.”
“Only if they want to fight,” I said. “And we train them now for as long as it takes until they feel ready to fight in the Black. Our goal is zero deaths. We don’t assume anyone will die, not anymore. If you are Finder, we can change things even more. You can make your own rules. You don’t have to abduct people. You can talk to them. Let them decide whether they want to come with you. It will take longer to get recruits, but willing recruits are better than unwilling ones.”
Vrill seemed to chew on my words for a few minutes. “The Three would allow that?” she finally asked.
Honestly, I didn’t know what they would think. Frankly, I didn’t care. “They don’t have a choice,” I said. “They need a Finder and you’re the most experienced person we’ve got.”
“You’re a Seeker too,” Vrill pointed out.
Beat snorted. “More like a baby Seeker,” she said. “He’s only just been Leveled up. I wouldn’t trust him to Find a cow patty in a barn.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said. “But Beat’s right. I’m still learning the ropes as a Seeker. Trying to figure out my role and how to defeat the Morgoss. You, on the other hand, can make an immediate difference. Help us grow our army with the right kind of Warriors. What do you say?”
“I’ll think about it,” Vrill said, which was a better response than I expected.
“Good enough for me,” I said. “But don’t think too long. We need more Warriors as soon as possible.”
“I’ll decide by the next Black,” Vrill promised.
“Deal,” I said. “Now let’s go visit your three best friends.”
Vrill frowned. “I despise the Three. Why would you refer to them as my ‘best friends’?”
I grinned. I’d forgotten that human sarcasm was difficult for the Lry Ay warrior to understand. “It was just a joke. Probably a bad one.”
“Agreed,” Beat said. “Like most of your jokes.”
“Let’s go,” I said.
~~~
Because I didn’t know whether we’d be able to get in through the back entrance, we took the long way, trudging up the hill, sliding down the glowing vines into the gully, and then making our way along the canyon walk.
Vrill kept taking deep breaths, and I could sense her unease. “It is strange being back here,” she said as we walked. “Like I’m in a dream and unable to wake up.”
I thought I understood what she meant. It wasn’t so different to how I’d felt when I’d visited my parents one Christmas after not seeing them for a few years. They hadn’t invited me, so I’d just shown up. The house I’d grown up in was different in a lot of ways, and yet there was a sameness I hadn’t expected. It was like walking through a stranger’s house that I’d seen in photographs but never really experienced. I recognized myself in some of the pictures on the walls, but it might’ve been someone else who just happened to look like me—a twin perhaps. My parents had acted like robots the entire time I was there, saying and doing all the right things but with no feeling or meaning behind any of it. Clearly, I’d disrupted their plans, but they didn’t want to say it. I ended up leaving a few days before Christmas and my parents hadn’t protested. It was the last time I’d seen them, our phone calls growing less and less frequent until we’d stopped talking altogether.
As much time as Vrill had spent here, she now felt like a stranger the same way I had in my childhood house.
“We can stop if you need to rest,” I offered, though none of us were tired.
“I—” Vrill said. “I’m fine. Let’s keep moving.”
The area in the center that was supposed to be filled with pots of ooze was empty, a stark reminder that we were all out of goddess spittle, unable to heal any more wounds or Level anyone up. The Three would need to use every waking moment to replenish our stores. I didn’t regret using all of it to free Vrill and her dragon from the Morgoss, of course not, but it was still a hard sight to see.
The next area, however, was full of the cocoon-like material spun by Airiel. The material was piled high like the wares of a rug factory, ready to be used. The familiar river running along the edge of the canyon burbled as the current grew faster. I could hear the telltale sound of the waterfall that emptied into the large pool just beyond the tower of rocks that blocked our progress forward.
Beat said, “It’s just like a Slip ’n Slide.”
I remembered she had never been here before. Recently, most of the interactions with the Three had been handled by me or Eve. I was way past due in bringing Beat into the inner circle. Lace would be pissed off that she hadn’t been invited, but she’d been training her Warriors and she wasn’t always the best at conversations that required a certain degree of tact and compromise.
Vrill said, “I’ve never been this far before.”
Now that surprised me. She was the same Level as me. I didn’t know how long she’d been with the Three, but I believed it was longer than me. I remembered the stories she’d told me, about how she’d been treated like a valuable person. Promised a special place once the Three had restored their kingdom. Maybe that was all true, but it didn’t change the fact that Vrill had been treated badly. The beautiful thing about the past, no matter how shadowy: You can use it to change the future. You can avoid the same mistakes. You can learn from them. You can be better. We all needed to be better, the Three included.
I heard the sound of the others entering the water, but didn’t turn to watch as the current accelerated as the channel narrowed. There was one somewhat dangerous part, where a large stone sat in the center of the river, forcing the stream to divert around it on either side. It was also the fun part and I shouted, “Lead with your feet. Once you’re past the big rock you’re home free.”
I wasn’t certain whether they heard me over the sound of the rushing water, but it was too late for further instructions, the current grabbing my body and sucking me to the left, whipping me past the big stone with just enough distance that I didn’t get slammed against it.
And then I was free, surrounded by whitewater and bubbles and, in front of me, empty air.
Despite having ridden this water slide before, my stomach dropped and my heart skipped a beat as I went airborne. The drop wasn’t too far, and I knew from experience that the water was deep and free of dangerous rock edges.
Just before my feet hit the water, I heard someone yell, “Motherfucker!” from above. That would be Beat.
And then the water was all around me and I was kicking my legs, but not upward. To the side, because I didn’t want the muscly Protector to land on my head. I resurfaced and looked around. Vrill already had her head above the water because she was lighter and hadn’t sunk as deep. She wasn’t smiling exactly, but I could tell she’d enjoyed the ride. I had a pretty good idea why she wasn’t smiling. We were going to see the Three. Not exactly a fun outing for her, not after all this time and everything that had transpired between them.
