Dragonfire: Freedom in Flames (Secrets of the Makai Book 3)

by Toni Kerr

  The dragon nodded nonchalantly, neither condemning nor liking the answer.

  “They want to live honorably in hopes of doing the right thing,” Tristan said in a rush, using the dragon’s same words.

  “Better. You might have to work on that one.” Everyone studied the dragon as he walked in a large circle, apparently thinking. “Dragons are loyal to certain causes, and some of us don’t want to give up controlling the fate of these races. However, there comes a time when one must let go. The only obligation you have as a dragon, to honor the agreement made in the contract, is to see that all the magical races are released. It is perhaps too soon to release them, considering the state of the planet and human population, but if you remain involved for as long as needed, perhaps everyone will adapt in peace.”

  “Um.” Tristan rubbed the back of neck. He couldn’t disregard his own doubts. “What if I don’t truly believe peace is possible?” Not for the first time, he debated delaying the release, just to save lives.

  “We must live honorably in hopes that we are doing the right thing, even though the humans are not likely to accept sharing the planet with beings they cannot compete with.”

  “But they might,” Tristan said, grasping at straws. He knew in his heart it would never happen. “What if the humans set out to destroy everyone?”

  “The humans will always think they are the grandest species of all, but they have failed at keeping the land hospitable. If we wait too long, and release the creatures after the humans have destroyed themselves, they won’t survive the environment, making their deaths tragic and meaningless, assuming there’s still a dragon left to do the job. In releasing them now, while there’s still a chance of healing the Earth, the creatures will have a cause worth fighting and dying for. They will perhaps put aside their differences and work together to save the planet. In releasing them now, we give them opportunity and an honorable death, for they will surely die either way.”

  He’d thought along the same lines earlier, but needed the pep talk. “All true. Thank you.”

  “I’ve never felt so humiliated,” Alpheus said, taking Eleonora’s hand in his. “I believed the Makai’s intentions for the world were positive, but clearly our focus was misguided. I apologize.”

  People surrounding them nodded, uttering their apologies.

  “Maybe we can still make a difference,” Landon said. “It’s not an all-out war zone yet.”

  But in the hushed silence, changing the hearts of enough humans to make a real difference seemed like an impossible task.

  “All right!” snapped the dragon, addressing all the people. “Put your weapons away.”

  Tristan clung to the staff, unable to bear making direct eye contact with anyone. Once he shifted, they were on their own. And now without weapons.

  “Do not worry so. Humans are bony and smell like metal. You would never look at one and think, ‘Oh! What a tasty morsel!’”

  “Well then!” cheered Victor. “That certainly makes me feel better!”

  Suddenly the tension was gone and the people seemed to relax. Though they stayed on the outer edges of the clearing, allowing him plenty of room to make the transformation.

  “What about the blood ratios,” Donovan said quickly. “How does he transform from one size to another and keep the proper amount of blood?”

  The dragon spun and shrank to his human form. “Such things are instinct and not thought of on an individual basis. Just as joints, scales, or hairs on the skin.”

  Tristan and Donovan exchanged a look and Tristan shrugged. Both occasions had been particularly heavy for loss of blood.

  “How quickly should he be able to transition himself from one form to the other?”

  The dragon sighed. “There is a certain amount of conditioning that happens with practice, but health permitting, a few seconds. Not many of us had the ability after our forefathers maintained a human form for several generations. In fact, hardly any of us who are present now were ever exposed to the site of a dragon in life. So while it may be difficult in the beginning, we are grateful he is capable in the first place. The short answer: practice will increase speed.”

  “Last thing,” said Donovan. “The dragon slayers’ poison. Is there a cure for it?”

  Whiromanie dropped his gaze to the ground. “I was in on the creation of that, but I do not know of a cure.” He glanced up at Tristan. “I’m sorry.”

  Tristan handed the staff to Donovan. He tried not to look at anyone, except the human form of the dragon who didn’t seem to feel the need to back away.

  His eyes shifted first, as he recalled the last time he was a dragon, and before he could stop or control anything, the world shifted beneath his feet.

  32

  FINAL FAREWELL

  TRISTAN STUMBLED to the side, catching sight of the nearby humans. His wings ached and he could barely support his own weight. The trees around him weren’t trees at all, but some sort of solid stone with trunks like bars, keeping him confined to the ground. Above, the ivy tangled like netting.

  Tristan, said an airy voice. The shadow of a dragon materialized before him. For a moment, he felt like an intruder in his own cage and fell against the stone trees in his haste to escape, crushing his right wing. Even on the ground, the waves of disorientation were consuming. The dragon with no substance hovered over him and there wasn’t much he could do to prevent it.

  The green man stepped forward to speak to the dragon shadow, and the shadow responded with, “He’ll need some work.”

  You understand what the green man is saying? he asked, lifting his head off the ground.

  Of course. You must listen with your heart to understand the language of all things.

  Tristan rested his head against the cold ground and tried to ponder the idea.

  The dragon shifted into a human form and stood a breath away from Tristan’s elongated snout. He motioned the green man, Donovan, to come forward.

  By my calculations, it took almost a full minute for you to recall this man’s name. That will improve as you shift more often.

  Did he want an improvement? Humans and dragons were unlikely to form a lasting partnership. Though this was the first time he hadn’t felt threatened—it was more the captivity than the presence of humans that had first set him off.

  Donovan stood still, keeping his hands behind his back suspiciously, while making odd noises with the dragon. After a few back and forth responses, words began to fall into place. They were talking about him, and the state of his physical condition.

  He attempted to get his feet under him, but failed considerably, crashing on his wing again. Perhaps they were correct to be discussing his weaknesses.

  Wait, Tristan, said the dragon, motioning for Donovan to return to his position.

  “He was shot, crashed landed, then was lost for a few days, then was shot upon once more with gunfire and modern harpoons.”

  “But these scars and breaks are older than that—”

  Tristan opened his eyes to see what they were talking about, and noticed they had walked down and around his clawed hands, inspecting his limp wing lying like a discarded cloth.

  The humans were inching closer.

  He shuddered at the thought and tried to pull his feet in to lift his body from the ground. A stream of mist filtered out from the thick sculpted trees and settled over the side of his face like calming breeze, fresh with spring grass.

  “Keep still,” Whiromanie said, encouraging the green man, Donovan, to run his hand along Tristan’s nose.

  Easy for you to say. He couldn’t think of a more vulnerable position to be in.

  “They are not here to slaughter you. This is when these humans will bond with you, and you with them. You must let them touch you, and you must not flinch. Do you understand?”

  Tristan shut his eyes and tried to relax. It was a lot like being asked to stick his hand in a beehive and trust that nothing would sting him.

  “Your wings do need some attent
ion, and it would be a good time for everyone to examine you closely.”

  Tristan groaned and ignored the people as they laid hands on his armored scales. The ghost man seemed to be giving them an anatomy lesson, which could have been extremely interesting if he wasn’t the one being examined.

  They touched his claws and jumped back when he clenched and unclenched his fist, then several climbed up his tail to get a look at his wing joints. On the ground, several people were running their hands along the most tender parts of his wing—where tears and breaks hadn’t quite healed.

  “It’s important to keep the vessels intact,” Whiromanie said. “If the flesh dies, it becomes stiff and brittle. Small bullet holes are unfortunate, but rips like this need to be mended as quickly as possible. And this break here…I’m not sure how it even fused back together like this.”

  A warmth seeped into his wing and his mind went numb.

  “Can’t he feel that?” asked someone.

  “Dragons can take a great deal of pain, and he is mentally prepared to endure this.”

  “Can I walk on this part?”

  “You could probably drive one of those automobiles on it and he wouldn’t feel much—go ahead!”

  The ghost dragon seemed to be enjoying himself.

  “So obviously, healing doesn’t take place in one form, while in the other?”

  “It will, once he is more in tune with his dragon self. I can see he attempted to heal these tears in the wings, but also that he did nothing to heal the breaks in bones. And you said he could fly like this?”

  Tristan lifted his head to see what they were doing. A woman was running her hands along the bones of his wings, standing on some sort of wooden stair structure. A few of the people ran out of the way, others froze where they were. Tristan put his head down and went back to ignoring them.

  A familiar voice called his name, haunting and full of echoes. Tristan opened his eyes and saw the green man, whose had a name he couldn’t recall. “Tristan, you’re lying on your wing and it’s cutting off the circulation.”

  Tristan tried to pull his right wing in, unable to move it. He lifted his head and glanced at his side, only slightly surprised to see the crowd of people had backed up and were waiting for something. The wooden structure they had built was gone, and his left wing seemed to be in good condition. He raised it slightly and stretched it outward, then lifted it a bit higher. The crowd of people began yelling, startling him with the sudden slapping of their hands.

  What are they doing, green one? Are they trying to get a response from me?

  The green man glanced at the misty ghost before answering. “They are happy your wing has mended successfully.”

  “Tristan,” said the misty dragon. “What is this man’s name?”

  I have always called him— even as he thought it, he knew there was something more than ‘green man.’ A shudder ran through him and the crowd retreated another step. Donovan. He rested his head back to the ground. Can’t think.

  “We need you to turn over so we can fix your other wing. But keep this one curled in so it doesn’t get damaged. Everyone is out of the way.”

  Tristan extended his wing to counter his weight and rolled to his belly, shifting the majority of his weight to his other side. His right wing hung limp, draping over his body like a ragged sheet. Artificial lights had been set up on tall poles. The fog flowing in and out of the stone trees morphed into the shapes of humans as he stared longer.

  We were supposed to be breaking the contract, he said, briefly wondering how long it had taken for him to remember.

  “We’ve waited this long,” the dragon ghost said. “A few more hours is manageable.”

  Tristan dropped his head to the ground as the living crowd of people circled around him. He caught whiffs of their scents and tried to remember names. His right wing twitched a bit more than the first one had, but the healing warmth seeped into the skin beneath his scales and into his back, allowing him to settle into a blissful numbness.

  Until a hand touched a scale near the wound on his bad shoulder.

  He jerked forward and the woman, Madam Galina, if he recalled correctly, slipped from the wooden decking. She and the others on his side vanished and reappeared on the ground.

  A guttural growl reverberated from his long throat as he rose to his feet, keeping his left arm pulled in tight. It didn’t hurt as much as he’d first thought, but the shock of pain had been unexpected.

  The green man stepped back with both hands raised. “Can we heal that?” he asked, shifting his attention back to the ghost dragon.

  “It’s never been healed before, but there haven’t been any survivors. There might be a chance it isn’t fatal, after this much time. Not to mention the immortal factor. But perhaps keeping the swelling down would be the most beneficial short-term fix.”

  Tristan knelt down and wrapped his long tail around himself. His left wing curled inward naturally and he let the right wing hang where the people could work on it. Donovan motioned for everyone to continue, though they were a bit more hesitant and jumpy with each twitch.

  “And put some meat on that boy—his scales shouldn’t hang separated like that. In fact, I would say searching for embedded bullets could be a higher priority than mending the wings.”

  “We did find several bullets after he shifted back to human.”

  “When he is in better physical condition, he won’t be so easily harmed. Even the fleshy parts of his wings should withstand a puny bullet.”

  Guess I’m not a very good dragon, Tristan said dully.

  “You are a dragon! That is all that matters. Accepting yourself as one entity, Human and Dragon, is a positive step. You have already made us proud.”

  Thanks for your help.

  “Thank you for freeing me, when you could have chosen different.” The ghostly dragon bowed his head. “I needn’t tell you that exposing your true nature, including your wings, to humans would be a mistake, which only proves I’ve told you everything I can think of. The rest should come naturally enough. The mental links between your human and dragon thought process will align over time, but take care not to stay in this dragon form for too long, lest you lose the link with your human self.”

  Tristan nodded.

  “Have you all accepted the dangers in being involved with a semi-stable dragon?”

  “We are no strangers to danger,” Donovan answered for all of them.

  “Good then. Because if you can earn the trust and loyalty of a dragon, you are truly blessed. Though I am rather biased.” The dragon man winked and drifted toward the center of the clearing. The metal box vanished, leaving a large, uncut diamond stone in its place. “Fire, little one.”

  Little one? Tristan straightened his neck and scoffed, only to realize he was probably little in the grand scheme of things. Another weight he hadn’t realized lifted, knowing he would have no one to compare himself to. He would simply be, and strive to be better.

  Around him, the misty crowd huddled close, holding hands as they watched him. He sought the warmth in his belly and embraced it, drawing the heat into his lungs. A tiny gentle flame licked the exposed diamond with his breath. When nothing happened, he nudged the small gem with the tip of his nose, snorting a bit of smoke on it.

  “Perhaps a bit hotter.”

  Tristan inhaled more deeply and exhaled a slow consistent breath of flames upon the stone. Around him, the mist swirled and cheers were suddenly so loud, he wished he could cover his ears.

  “Release the falcon!” someone shouted.

  Tristan almost panicked—how could he forget about Jacques? The mist circled into a cyclone and vanished into the black canopy above.

  “I think they’re actually gone,” Victor said in awe. Everyone else remained silent. Mournful.

  Tristan bowed his head and closed his eyes, giving the mix of joy and sadness time to exist. So many lives, yet the time should be a happy occasion if they were truly moving on to something better, to wh
erever they were supposed to be before agreeing to this contract business.

  He’d never know.

  “May they all find the peace they so eagerly seek and deserve,” offered Donovan. “We should celebrate this day as the end of an era and the start of a new. May our efforts not be in vain.”

  33

  A NEW REGIME

  A PULSING GLOW drew everyone’s attention to the ground at Tristan’s clawed feet. When the colored sparkles dimmed and fell to a light dusting, a snow-white creature with long legs, looking very much like a full-grown horse, lay perfectly still. A single horn twisted from the center of his forehead. Beautiful long hair flowed in thick waves as a mane and tail. Everyone crept closer to search for signs of life.

  Tristan nudged a hoof with his nose.

  “Maybe you should step back, Tristan,” said Victor. “No offense or anything, but you’re by far the scariest thing here.”

  Tristan backed up and watched the woman, Madam Galina, drop to her knees and run her hands along its neck. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “he looks perfectly healthy to me. No broken bones, plenty of muscle and fluids….”

  “Maybe they were right when they talked about the spirits of each creature you touched.”

  Everyone looked at Tristan, then gave him space to approach the unicorn. Tristan scooted forward, careful with each claw. He put his nose to the ground, then rested his head beside the creature. When there were still no signs of life, he curled his entire neck around the body and closed his eyes.

  He had felt a rush of power while interacting with the diamond, and though it was impossible to tell the energy apart from his own, or from others that he carried with him, he tried to focus on making a mental bridge between himself and the animal.

  A clear image of a healthy, glistening unicorn appeared in his mind. Tristan held back apologizing for not knowing exactly what to do, then directed it over the bridge and into its own body.

  The spirit seemed to take half Tristan’s strength with it, and when the unicorn leaped to its feet, Tristan could barely lift his head to greet the magical creature.