“And with all the colors, there’s a lot of things that can be done,” Josef agreed.
“So Josef can call water,” Wylan said, “I’m fire. Black wyverns are death magic. What can you do?” she asked Millie.
It was Josef who answered. “Millie is a green. Her power is poison.”
“And healing,” she interjected, almost as if she didn’t like associating with the poison side of her abilities. “Most powers have an opposite that we can control as well. I breath poison and illness, but I can also control those to a certain extent.”
“Nowhere near what a dragon can,” Josef said, looking down at the baby. She’d been asleep nearly since they left the ghost town.
Millie nodded. “Yes, dragons can control their powers much better than us. Size isn’t the only difference.”
“Okay, so what can the other colors do? If black can work with death, does that mean they can also stop death? Can they restore life?” Wylan was almost terrified of the answer. She wasn’t sure if she’d be more comfortable around someone that could grant life as well as death. What kind of responsibility would come with that?
“No,” Millie shook her head. “They can kill, yes, but they have to be very strong to do that. I’m sure there are black dragons that can snuff life out like that, but I don’t think even they can bring people to life.”
“Why can’t they bring life?” Wylan asked.
Millie seemed to be thinking of the best way to answer. “I think it has to do with calling energy back across the veil of death. There’s nothing I can adequately compare it to. Death is different, it changes everything about the person. The moment you die, the body starts to break down, and there’s no way to repair a dead body. Everything stops. If a black were to restore life, it would only be a fragment of life, it wouldn’t be a thinking creature, it would depend on the strength of the black wyrm and completely under its control.”
“Almost like the ruins of a town can’t ever be the same?” Wylan wondered.
Millie shook her head. “Not even that. A town can be repaired. Life can go on around it and eventually things will return to normal. There’s no returning to normal for a corpse.”
The thought chilled Wylan. She didn’t want to consider what that would be like. “Okay, what about the others?”
“Well,” Josef said, “there’s an entire list. You have yellow dragons who can divine the future and purple who can control storms. Then there are the rare ones like the ice dragons, the black dragons.”
Wylan was happy to hear the black dragons were rare. “Are there others?”
“Gray dragons, but I’ve never seen one of them,” Josef said. “Millie?”
Millie shook her head. “We haven’t seen any gray wyverns either.”
“And can you control your powers when you’re not in wyvern form?” She asked.
“Not as strongly, but yes,” Millie confirmed.
“We will teach you more about what wyverns can do tomorrow,” Josef said. “For now, can I just get back to sleep?”
Millie yawned and nodded her head as if she thought that was a good idea. She lay back, and Wylan lay down as well.
“But this information will help us?” Wylan asked.
Josef growled.
“Yes, Wylan, you did good. Now go to sleep.”
The day was too bright, the sand too warm, and Wylan’s companions too chipper. She wished the birds could sing a little quieter or that the water Josef summoned was a bit less refreshing. How could all of these things be so perfect when there was so much death all around? It was as if the entire world didn’t know what had happened a few miles away. Her parents were dead, and all Josef could talk about was how Sandy-what's-her-face used to smile so sweetly when he brought her lemon cakes early in the morning.
“I’m pretty sure that was a grimace,” Millie said.
“Not at all, she loved lemon cakes,” Josef argued.
“But not before the sun was up!”
“Wait…you and her are friends, right?” Josef asked, suddenly unsure of his previous assessment.
“Yes, and she said you were sweet, but she hated that you woke her up every morning, even if you were carrying lemon cakes!” Millie laughed at Josef’s anguished look. “Poor Josef, unable to conquer Sandy.”
“What about you, Wylan?” Josef asked, noticing she’d been rather sullen that morning. “Do you like lemon cakes?”
“Leave the poor girl alone,” Millie defended her.
“I’ve never had lemon cakes before,” she told him. “You know, with growing up on a farm, scraping by for everything we had in the wake of dragon fire.” It was a little snippier then she’d have liked, but she didn’t feel like sugarcoating anything.
“Well, you have to try them,” Josef said, slinging his arm over her and giving her a wink. No matter how sullen Wylan was, his clear blue eyes and his half-smile brought a smile to her own face.
“I swear to the Great Above, Josef, if you bring me lemon cakes as early as you brought them to Sandy, I will skin you alive,” Wylan warned him.
“That’s the wyvern soul talking, right?” Josef appraised her with a cocked eyebrow.
Wylan shrugged. “Do you honestly want to test that theory?”
Millie laughed.
Josef grumped something under his breath and went back to trading barbs with Millie about how she wouldn’t find someone to love unless they wound up on her operating table.
Wylan ignored them.
Even with as blinding as the sun was, the purple swirl of stars that marked the Great Above was easily visible in the sky. It was thought that’s where the spirits of the righteous went when they died. Wylan didn’t know who could be deemed righteous now, the gods had forsaken the long desert centuries ago. Who was to judge if someone was righteous? Still, she liked to think that’s where her mom and dad were now, together, happy, and among departed friends. The thought didn’t make her feel any better. As far as she knew, they hadn’t had any friends. Could they make some now that they were dead?
It was all foolish to consider. Wylan jammed the thought away because it seemed too much like a fairytale. Fantasy to make one feel better about death. Most likely there was nothing after life, why else would life be so hard down here? If there were gods and good spirits, wouldn’t they interfere a bit more with the everyday life and make things a little easier?
:You’ve had a run-in with ghosts and beings from the Dark Below, and you doubt there’s more happening under the surface of life?: Lissandra asked her.
:Is there?: Wylan asked her. :Do you know that there’s something more?:
The wyvern didn’t answer. Wylan grumbled at her.
But if there was an afterlife, wouldn’t her parents have come to her in a dream to let her know they were all right? They hadn’t, and Wylan wasn’t sure if she was angry at them for not showing themselves to her, or if she was angry with herself for hoping that there was such a thing as life after death.
She would avenge their deaths. Josef had offered her a means to that end.
A soldier, that’s what Josef had said. She wanted to fight dragons. She wanted to kill dragons and that’s the future she was being offered. A way to make a stand, a way to fight back the plague and make the Dar Desert safe again, or at least safer. It would provide her with a way to find the blue dragon and with the means to kill it. She wasn’t sure if dragons were sentient enough to know what they’d done, but she sure hoped it understood who she was when she killed it.
But when was that to happen? She had to learn control of her wyvern soul; she had to deal with weapons, and there was a hint that she possessed magic, if what Josef and Millie said was true. She’d seen Josef call water from deep beneath the sand that morning so they could freshen up before traveling. If he could do that in human form, couldn’t she deal with fire the same way?
When was she going to do all of this training? Millie and Josef said that she would start learning about the wyvern soul today, but so far they’d said
nothing more about it. She growled inwardly at the wasted time. She wanted to be in Darubai, learning all of these things. Instead, they were out here…walking.
It wasn’t like they could fly, though, the dragons were still too close. Wylan had the unsettling feeling they were being followed, but for some reason, the occasional dragon that glided high above them seemed not to notice their passage through the endless sand.
Even earlier that morning there had been a rather large clutch of dragons that had swirled around, hovering above their location. They’d all thought they’d been found, but the dragons only hung in the sky a few moments before heading off.
Worst of all was the damned soul within her. It spoke to her, but not of what mattered, it wouldn’t help her shift, or even show her how to do it. In all honesty, Lissandra didn’t seem to do much but sleep. If she could evict the damned thing, she would. A lot of good it was doing her. Most times it just upset her stomach when she felt it roil about.
It made an already long trip seem that much longer. When would all of this traveling end, and she would finally learn what she had to learn?
Wylan was beginning to understand why it was called the long desert. They had been walking for what seemed like hours and hadn’t seen any signs of another ruined town. She’d at least been right when she told Cuthburt that they were running low on options. If only she’d thought of it sooner, she might have gotten them out in time…
But that still wouldn’t have saved them. They’d still have been taken by the plague. But maybe dad would have survived.
She had a sense of how big the desert was when she’d gone out with her father to scavenge for supplies. Walking, however, gave her a better sense of just how massive and unforgiving the land could be.
Three of the canteens carried milk, so water was in short supply. Pair the lack of water with the shifting sand and it didn’t take long for her shins to burn. She lagged behind the other two frequently, trying to ease the paralyzing throb in her legs. Wylan wanted to sit and massage her legs, but Millie wasn’t giving any ground. She wished her wyvern half could have granted her some kind of strength, but apparently that’s not how it worked. It was a stroke of pure luck that Josef was a blue wyvern and was able to call water from deep within the land. When it bubbled to the surface they drank. While they were able to drink it was nowhere near enough to sate her thirst and it was often riddled with sand. At least it was enough to keep them going.
It was during one such rest that her mind was put to ease about when training would start.
“Shifting isn’t all that hard,” Millie told her as Wylan lay back in the sand. “It will be harder for you because reds are often more temperamental and fiery—excuse the pun. But if you want to eat out here, you either need to learn to shift or you need to know how to hunt.”
Wylan didn’t know how to do either.
Josef interjected, “Or you need to be able to eat raw meat.”
It grossed Wylan out how her stomach churned in hunger at the thought of bloody meat gnashing between her teeth.
“Don’t like that idea?” Josef smirked. The revulsion must have shown on her face. “Just tear into the blood tissue with hands and teeth.” He made the motion and Wylan blanched. He laughed at her, patting her shoulder.
“I assume you can feel the wyvern soul inside of you,” Millie asked as if Josef hadn’t interrupted them. “It may have already given you a name.”
“Yes,” Wylan said, “Lissandra.” At the moment, though, all she could feel were her throbbing legs, and she willed them to stop, wished that Millie would do something to heal them…if that would even work. Could she heal sore muscles? Would that be like asking her to mend a scrape? Wylan was too embarrassed to ask.
Millie pressed on. “The main issue with the wyvern soul is that it is wild and largely untamed. It’s our duty to tame it so it answers us when we call to it.”
“Is that why is only seems to come out when I’m afraid or mad?”
“Yea,” Josef said. “High emotion appeals to the wyrm. Imagine having sex!”
Wylan shuddered.
“Good Spirits, Josef, shut up,” Mille threw a handful of sand at Josef who shielded the baby and laughed. Sand showered Wylan too, but she didn’t bother to brush it off, she was too focused on her legs. “The wyvern will always be called to high emotion. We have to learn how to suppress the beast when we experience intense emotion and we also have to learn to control it when we need it, but don’t have the emotion it likes to feed on.”
“What about magic?” Wylan asked. “You can heal in human form, and Josef can do watery things…what exactly can you do besides call water?”
“There’s lots of things!” Josef said.
“Name one,” Millie challenged.
“Well, I can also dehydrate things as well as hydrate…”
“Fascinating,” Wylan said.
Millie smiled but continued. “Magic will come in time. It’s easier to learn, but I’d like you to learn to shift first so we can fly!”
“Yes young salamander, learn to walk before you run…or something.”
“If the dragons ever stop dogging us,” Millie mumbled, looking up as a winged shape cast dancing shadows over their resting spot.
“Well let’s get to work,” Wylan said. The sooner she knew how to control the wyvern soul; the sooner she could go after the blue dragon. When she thought of the blue dragon, the wyvern soul shifted uncomfortably inside of her and indigestion swirled through her guts. She burped and fire bloomed out of her mouth like a thin wisp of smoke.
“Oooo, your wyvern likes that idea!” Josef said.
“Or she’s going to rebel,” Millie told him. “Reds are notorious for being stubborn.”
Millie walked her through relaxation exercises. Wylan was unsure what they had to do with the wyvern. If the wyvern reacted to high emotion, wouldn’t she want to be stressed or angry? It took longer than she’d expected to fully relax. All she kept thinking about was the wyvern soul and how much she wanted to use it to shift and get to Darubai where she could learn to fight dragons. Many times she had to repress the sensation as it made her tense along with the soul inside. Even excitement wouldn’t help; it was the opposite of relaxed.
When she finally felt the relaxation through her muscles, she told Millie.
“Alright, you feel the wyvern soul inside of you,” Millie said.
“Yes.”
“It is different than anything you’ve ever known. Wyvern react to high emotion. What emotion brings it out in you?”
Wylan didn’t have to think about what brought the wyvern soul to the surface, it was clear to her. “Anger.”
“Typical red,” Josef said.
“Good. The wyvern wants something from you, what is it? It’s likely to be associated with anger.”
“To kill the blue dragon,” Wylan said.
“No, that’s what you want. Sometimes it’s the same, but you have to be sure. What does the wyvern want?”
Josef’s voice intruded. “I doubt it’s something as singular as killing one dragon. If it wanted to kill all dragons, that might sound more like the wyvern soul, at least it would be a larger desire. To kill one dragon sounds like you.”
“He’s right,” Millie said. “What does the wyvern want?”
Wylan didn’t know. All she could think about was her anger and what she wanted most. What did the wyvern soul want? She tried to reach the Lissandra and feel what she might want, but the wyrm was balled up tight and wouldn’t open to her. Wylan sighed. She knew this was going to be tough, but why did it have to be impossible?
Something of her frustration must have shown on her face, because Millie stepped in on her practice. “Don’t worry if it doesn’t come to you right away. When you know what it wants, then you can come to an agreement.”
Josef interjected, “For instance, mine wants safety from the dragons. I joined the military and that allows me to protect.”
“Safety from drag
ons?” Wylan wondered, opening her eyes. “Why would a wyvern want safety from dragons?”
Millie cut in, “Wyverns are often hunted down by dragons. They see us as impure half breeds and seek to destroy us.”
“What does yours want?” Wylan asked Millie.
“Coincidentally, mine wants the same thing I want—to help those who’ve suffered from the plague and to raise a healthy generation of whelps. I vowed to the wyvern that, whenever possible, I would never leave another in need as I left the people of Dulasan the night the dragons returned.”
Dulasan. The night the dragons returned was the night Wylan was born. Millie had been there. If she hadn’t left, what would have happened to Wylan? I wouldn’t have met Kethill and Cuthburt, she thought and her adopted parents had meant everything to her.
When she thought about Dulasan, she felt revulsion. It was as though she could remember the night she was birthed. Dragon’s screaming outside and a women saying Wylan was a monster and to get rid of her.
Millie changed the subject. “What does the wyvern soul want?”
“I’m trying to listen, but all I can think about is how I want the blue dragon dead,” Wylan said.
“And the wyvern won’t answer you when it thinks you’re using it as a weapon,” Millie told her.
“What do I have to vow? How do I promise things to my wyvern?”
“You have to mean it,” Millie said. “You have to mean it, and you have to strive for it, and it has to be something the wyvern agrees with. Josef changed his path from minstrel to soldier, and I’ve dedicated my life to rearing the whelps and helping in the hospital.”
“So it’s like a life path?” Wylan asked. “And as soon as I learn that, I have complete control?”
“Well…” Josef said. “Not specifically. There are times when you will have to fight with the wyvern. Like in the ghost town when you attacked me, my wyvern wanted nothing more than to face that challenge and tear you apart.”
“What stopped you?” Wylan asked.
“Well, you’re much bigger as a wyvern than I am…of course, most people are. The other reason was the tight control I had on it.” Josef smiled. “And I couldn’t see tearing apart a woman as gorg—”
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