by Liz Flanagan
And yet, and yet …
It changed everything.
She had a family, however broken. She was loved. She’d always been loved. She knew who she was! At last.
Milla crawled into the little gap next to Kara. She curled herself around her grandmother’s sleeping body and fell asleep, holding her.
But by the time they reached Sartola, Kara was no longer breathing. She’d slipped away before the turn of the tide.
They buried Kara next to Serina. Vigo’s uncle Carlo led the speeches honoring her.
“This is how we bear witness. This is how we heal,” King Carlo said in Sartolan. “We honor Kara, daughter of Karys Stormrider. Our ancestors fought each other, but today we form a new alliance in their names.”
“Rest in the earth, Kara Seaborn,” Milla said next, using the name she’d found among Kara’s papers. She swayed, but her friends held her up: Tarya had Milla’s left hand, Rosa her right. “Your work is done,” she went on. “You devoted your life to the dragons of Arcosi. They survived because of you. We thank you for your courage.” It wasn’t enough, but it was the truth.
Heral and Petra flew in circles in the pure blue sky above them, but Milla couldn’t look at them. Missing Iggie felt like a huge stone on her back. Every moment they were apart, an invisible hand added another rock, and another, till the weight of it threatened to crush her.
They were standing on a narrow grassy spit of land that reached out like a pointing finger into the blue-green waters that lapped the coast of Sartola. The sun was bright and hot, and the colors were so vivid that they hurt her eyes. All around them were the ornate marble headstones of the Sartolan nobility, making a little city of the dead. But in the sunshine, with yellow flowers marking the rows, with orange butterflies flitting between blossoms, and the distant noise of the waves, it felt peaceful enough, and Milla hoped Kara would approve.
Milla stared out across the water, where Arcosi was just visible in the distance as a pale bump on the horizon, with tiny spirals of smoke staining the sky above it. It looked small and very vulnerable. Was Josi alive over there? Was Nestan?
“They’ll be all right,” Tarya whispered, guessing her thoughts. “Josi is a survivor. My father is a fighter. The duke needs Isak and Belara. They will be fine until we reach them.” And more softly, “I have to believe that. It’s the only thing that stops me riding Heral straight back there and flaming the palace today …”
Milla went over to Vigo when the ceremony was done. She could see her own pain reflected in his face. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you buried your mother.” She put her arms around her friend in a careful hug and was surprised how tightly he clung to her.
“I can’t believe it.” Vigo spoke into Milla’s hair. “I can’t believe she is down there. Isn’t that stupid, after everything? I saw her body. I carried her. We buried her, two days ago. But I keep thinking any moment I’ll wake up and it’ll all have been a bad dream and she’ll be stroking my head, like when I was little.”
“I know.” Milla pulled back, looking up at his tear-streaked face with her own eyes brimming.
“This is for you,” Vigo said, putting something in her hand and closing her fingers around it. “She always wore it. It matched my sister’s necklace that she gave to you.”
“It was stolen.”
“I know, that’s why she’d want you to have this one now.”
She looked down. There in her palm was a silver chain with a dangling fish pendant: identical to the one Serina had given her.
She tried to say thank you, but it was lost in tears.
“I’m sorry, too, Milla. To lose your grandmother, on the day you truly knew her … We’re going to make my father pay,” Vigo said, wiping his eyes. “Uncle Carlo has almost as many men at his command. But my father doesn’t have his own dragon. Yet. And we have two. Four when we rescue Belara and Iggie.”
Milla’s heart leapt at those words.
It was the first thing she had said to Tarya and Vigo: “When can we rescue Iggie?”
The other dragons had sensed her arrival. Petra and Heral had brought Vigo and Tarya to the Sartolan harbor, already crowded with fleeing Arcosi, just as the Dolphin moored. They had found Milla weeping over Kara’s body.
Tarya tried to prise Milla away.
“Back off, lady! Can’t you see she’s grieving?” Rosa removed Tarya’s hand from Milla’s shoulder and pushed her way between them.
“Who are you anyway?” Tarya bristled, challenging Rosa.
Rosa squared up, ready for a fight. “Her friend Rosa,” she snapped. “Who are you?”
“Her friend Tarya.”
Milla’s friends were evenly matched: both tall, both strong, both fierce.
“Which makes us allies …” Tarya stepped back, with a tight smile. “Come on, let’s get everyone safe inside, and Milla can do all the grieving she needs …”
For a long moment, Rosa paused, assessing Tarya from head to toe. “All right,” she said finally. “But I’m staying with her.”
Milla sat vigil all night, watching over her grandmother’s body. Rosa and Tarya stayed with her, an uneasy truce between the two of them.
They wrapped Kara in the finest blue silk, in honor of her mother, Karys, and her dragon, Cato. They laid her in state, surrounded by lilies and candles, in a cool marble-lined vault below the Sartolan palace.
Milla was holding Kara’s belongings, which she’d found hidden in her cloak: Kara had been wearing her secrets the whole time. There was a small fortune in gold coins sewn into the fabric, a map showing where the rest of Rufus’s gold was hidden, in a secret cellar at Villa Dorato. And its key. Milla turned it over and over, feeling its weight and shape, till it was warmed by her skin.
“That’s where you found that coin, last year,” Tarya said. “Do you remember? It must have dropped from the main hoard.”
“Villa Dorato! That’s why Kara hid there. Of course. It must’ve belonged to her father, Gallus. They must have hidden the gold there before they left. Karys and Gallus always meant to return.”
Milla’s eyes rested on the silk-wrapped figure laid out in front of her. It looked too small to contain Kara: all her energy and defiance.
“What will you do with the gold?” Rosa asked her. “It’s yours now. You are the heir to the Arcosi throne.” Her eyes were dark and unreadable. “I should say, Your Grace.”
“Don’t be daft,” Milla said quickly, uncomfortable with the way they were both looking at her. “And it’s not mine.”
“It is yours,” Tarya said. “Let me fly to Arcosi and return it to you here. I can do it tonight if you like?”
“It’s Sartolan gold,” Milla answered. “Stolen in the burning war, melted down for Rufus’s hoard of coins. It’s blood money. It’s tainted.” She didn’t want to have anything to do with it. “It feels cursed and I don’t want to bring that upon us.”
“So you can redeem it now,” Rosa said.
“Carlo said he can’t afford a war. But you can,” Tarya agreed, picking up Rosa’s argument. “Use this money, pay his soldiers, and we can retake Arcosi. We can get Iggie back. And my brother. And the eggs. Didn’t Kara say the dragons needed to live in the city? Let’s do it for them …”
Milla stared at the flickering candles, wrestling with temptation. She wanted Iggie back more than anything. She spent every free moment planning how to break into the dragonhall and steal him back. Was this the way? She wasn’t used to making decisions that would affect hundreds, maybe thousands of other people.
What would Kara say? It was her gold, really.
Suddenly, Milla knew what Kara would want. She would want the dragons of Arcosi to belong to the city. Any future eggs must hatch in the marketplace, as they used to.
The words of the prophecy floated up from memory.
Daughter of the storm, three times reborn,
Who bears the sign of the sea.
When four seasons wane, for this bright dawn
> She will be given the key.
Karys Stormrider. Was she daughter of the storm? Her great-grandmother. Karys. Kara. Kamilla. Milla. Three times reborn. And the end of summer was in sight. That made four seasons since Iggie hatched. Was this the bright dawn they were waiting for? She gripped the key.
With a shiver, she felt something shift inside her.
She made her decision and spoke the words into the cool scented air, like a vow: “I will use the gold to pay for our war. And Carlo must be offered his share. Let’s win our home back. There’s just one condition …”
“When do we leave?” Milla asked now, blinking in the bright sunshine as they turned to leave Kara’s grave. “I can’t be away from Iggie much longer.”
“Before sunrise. You saw what my father was doing,” Vigo said. “There won’t be much left of Arcosi if we don’t act soon.”
They started walking back toward the Sartolan palace, through the gardens that spread as far as the cemetery. Tall palms shaded the pathways, and to their right, a large circular fountain bubbled with clear water—it tasted pure and fresh, Milla knew, but lacked the distinctive metallic tang of Arcosi water.
So much was different here: everything sprawled out, across the lush mountainous ridges and the lowland plains beneath. They approached the palace buildings, built high above the city and surrounding villages to give a clear view of approaching danger. The sunlight glinted off the pale domed roofs—some still bore the scars of old smoke damage—and a light breeze blew through the intricately carved windows that looked like lacework turned to stone.
“It’s so beautiful here,” Milla said.
Rosa squeezed her arm. “Didn’t I tell you so?” She looked down at the city where her parents had sought shelter with their families.
“Are you tempted to stay, Rosa?”
“I must admit, it’s a relief to be somewhere where everyone looks like us and talks like us, and no one is sticking badges on me. But no, Milla. Arcosi is my home, and I’m going to fight for it.”
“Same.” Thom was standing behind them, next to Luca, and he called over, “No question! I need to get back to my father. I’m with you. I’m going home.”
“Yes. Tarya and I agree on that,” Vigo said. “Even though this was my mother’s first home, and her ancestors’ for a thousand years before her.”
Milla’s new knowledge of her own heritage still felt dangerous, incendiary as firepowder. She circled it warily. But one distant day, if they won this fight, she resolved to sit in the palace library and read every book, every sentence, every word that had ever been written about Karys Stormrider and her family.
“My father always hated that my mother knew her roots and was proud of them. He used to put her down, endlessly, when no one else could hear.” Vigo sounded coldly furious. “Deep down, he knows he’s no duke. He’s no more right to rule than anyone else. That’s why he built that army. Always so afraid someone would come along and take it all away.”
Tarya said, “Well, let’s bring his worst nightmare.”
Milla looked at all the faces surrounding her: at Thom, Luca, Rosa, Tarya, and Vigo.
“Olvar’s right, in a way,” Milla said. “None of us have a right to rule. How can anyone call me Your Grace? I’m the same as I was when you shouted orders at me.”
“What are you saying?” Vigo asked.
They were all listening now.
It was interesting to Milla how people did that more now.
“Just that, if we win,” she said with fierce determination, “the dragons must belong to everyone. The new eggs must hatch before everyone. We have to do things differently. Or what’s the use in fighting?”
Wake up,” Tarya hissed, shaking Milla awake, her face lit from below by her lamp.
Milla scrambled into her borrowed clothes, all blue. At last the separation was almost over. By the end of today, she would be back with Iggie, or she would have died trying to reach him. Either way, she wanted to be dressed in his colors.
“Are you ready for this?” Tarya asked, as she buckled Milla into a leather breastplate. With her injuries still healing, she wasn’t strong enough for full armor like Tarya wore.
“I’ve been ready since the day I left Iggie,” said Milla, realizing she’d never seen Tarya look so calm, or so focused. She was made for this.
“Your tools, Your Grace,” Tarya said with a smile, handing over some long metal lockpicks and a sharp dagger that Milla sheathed at her waist.
“Stop that nonsense.” She nudged her. “I’m Milla, same as I’ve always been.” She tucked the tools away. Milla had dreamt about Iggie in chains. She could scarcely believe it, but she wanted to be prepared for the worst.
“Come here,” Tarya said, pulling her into an awkward hug as their armor met.
“If anything happens to me,” Milla said, “will you look after Iggie? Find him someone good to bond with? He seemed to like Rosa.” She could barely say the words.
“Shhh. It’s not going to happen. But yes. Of course. Will you do the same for Heral?”
Milla pulled back and they looked at each other in the circle of golden light from the lantern. “You know I will. You’re my sister.”
For a long moment they held each other’s gaze.
And then it was time.
They met Heral on a flat stretch of the palace rooftops, the full moon casting milky pools of light around them. Tarya went to her dragon first, patting and checking him over. “Milla?” she called eventually.
Milla had known this was coming. She gathered all her strength and crossed to them.
“Hey, Heral,” she said, holding out one open palm for him to sniff. It wasn’t his fault she’d been separated from Iggie. It wasn’t his fault that she compared him constantly to Ig, noting all the differences between them: how his head was larger, his neck more curved, his nature more restless.
The red dragon gave a deep rumbling whoosh of hot air, and touched his nose to Milla’s forehead.
He understood. Heral was telling Milla that he knew.
“Thank you.” Her chest felt like it might burst open, with painful longing for her dragon. But she blinked her tears away, and climbed on Heral’s back behind Tarya, tucking a quiver of arrows to the side so she didn’t squash them.
Milla flew with Tarya on Heral’s broad back. They left the lights of the palace behind, and soon Sartola was no more than a few pinpricks of light, no brighter than the stars. The full moon guided them, its reflection bright and shivering on the sea below.
At first she and Tarya murmured to each other for reassurance, but as Arcosi grew large before them and they could count the harbor lights, they fell into silence.
Peering hard at the sea below, Milla spotted darker textures in the waves. There! Carlo’s ships, like shadows within shadows, sleek shapes headed for the harbor.
To the east, the sky grew pale.
Vigo and Thom would be landing Petra on the harbor wall. While Petra kept the guards at bay, Thom was in charge of this part: he knew the harbor better than anyone.
As they soared closer, more lamps were lit on the harbor wall. Nothing unusual in that. But then they blinked, fast, three times: the signal that Carlo’s soldiers were ashore. While Vigo and Petra caused a diversion, a small cohort of Carlo’s best soldiers would tackle the city gates, led by Thom. The rest waited, ready to head for the palace, guided by Rosa. She knew the secret ways of the island almost as well as Milla.
So far, everything was unfolding just as they’d planned it, talking late into the night over maps of Arcosi that Milla and Rosa had drawn, showing all the hidden paths, right up to the shadow gate.
Tarya let the wind carry them way out west and then Heral circled in from the north. He lost height, dropping in over the cliffs, and then one last burst of speed, to plummet into the palace gardens.
Milla squeezed Tarya’s hand and whispered, “Good luck,” and then she was tumbling from Heral’s back before he launched again.
&nb
sp; Milla rolled and hid behind some bushes. She waited, listening for danger. Her heart was beating so loudly, she couldn’t hear anything else. This was not the time to be fearful. Iggie was out there, waiting for her. Thinking of him gave her the courage to move, one more shadow in a dawn of cool blue shadows, slipping to the secret door of the dragonhall, to avoid the guards.
She opened the door a crack, just wide enough to ease herself through, listening, listening, listening. She stayed hidden beneath the tapestry.
She peered around the heavy fabric.
There, curled on the dragonperch, was a single dragon.
Head down. Pale blue scales glinting dully.
Iggie.
He was here!
Her dragon was alive.
Joy bloomed inside her.
There was an explosion of noise inside the dragonhall, loud clanking and whining. Iggie saw her. Her dragon went wild, frantic to reach her, but something was stopping him. He seemed joined to the dragonperch by one of his hind legs.
He was chained, the shackle fastened around his leg with a huge padlock.
Her racing heart stuttered.
“Shhh! Easy, Ig! I’m here, it’s me.” Milla left the shadows, moving toward him, hands outstretched, alert for danger.
By the dim orange light of the stove, she could see the metal bite into his flesh, cutting through the outer scales, so blood ran down his foot. She’d come prepared, but it still hurt more than she imagined.
His scales were too pale. His green eyes, watching her every move, had lost some of their fire. She could count his ribs. But he was alive.
She sprang for Iggie, throwing her arms around his neck, finally holding his precious head against hers, breathing in his scent of smoke and blood and cinders.
“Oh, my love. My Ig. My dragon.” Her eyes were squeezed shut, but the tears flooded out anyway.
