“It’s furry,” Silver exclaimed. Her hands sank into the lush coat of silver fur on Kirja’s belly, and when Silver pulled away, iridescent strands clung to her fingers.
“Just on her tummy. She’s shedding, too. Her winter coat will grow in even thicker. You should see how much hair’s in the cave. Aquinder are a pain to take care of.” Nebekker’s voice sounded stern, but she gave Kirja a look of such deep love and affection that Silver knew the old woman would do anything to keep her water dragon happy.
“Where did she come from?” Silver asked as she went back to rubbing Kirja’s belly.
“All the other water dragons came from the depths of the earth through the Black Hole, of course, but no one quite knows where Aquinder came from. The old legends say they were birthed in the stars and bred in the clouds and raised in the seas, but who knows.”
“But Kirja … How did you find her?”
“This urchin found me. It was a long, long time ago. In a life I lived before I came to the deep desert.”
Kirja stiffened, and her finlike ears perked up. Nebekker dropped her voice to a whisper. “Come on. No time for tales right now. There’s someone out there.”
Silver snapped her head up.
“Sagittaria Wonder,” she whispered. Silver felt a chill. She didn’t want to think about what the racer might do if she discovered Kirja.
Nebekker glanced around the trees nervously. They did a good job hiding the oasis from view, but they also hid the desert. Anything could be out there.
“The cave’s this way. Follow close to me.”
“What about Kirja?”
“She’s been hiding from humans for seventy years. She knows what to do.”
Nebekker began walking briskly, but Silver hesitated. She wanted to make sure Kirja was going to be okay.
She needn’t have worried. As soon as Nebekker disappeared through the palms, Kirja backed into the oasis lake, until only her head stuck out like a rock. The Aquinder watched Silver, and, if the creature could have talked, Silver was certain she would have told her to hurry.
Silver ran for the palms.
She never made it out of the oasis.
TWELVE
“Ah! You’re a familiar face. Aren’t you that ridiculous child from the jeweler’s shop?”
Sagittaria Wonder emerged from the sands like a mirage. Her companions joined her, standing on either side, with their hulking arms crossed over their chests. “Grab her!”
Silver darted in the opposite direction. She pushed through the pebbles on the edge of the lake, splashing water up her legs as she ran for the ring of trees. A palm frond whipped into her forehead, slicing across her brow. Before she could make it to the desert sands, hands grabbed her shoulders, yanking her off-balance. One of Sagittaria’s men had caught her, and now tossed her over his shoulder.
“Let me go!” Silver kicked and pounded her fists against his back.
“Hang on to her.” Sagittaria laughed. Silver had come to hate that sound more than anything in the world. “Her father will want her returned.”
“He’ll never pay a ransom to you,” Silver screamed.
“Who said anything about a ransom?” Sagittaria said. “I don’t want your father’s jewels.” She put her fingers under Silver’s chin and forced their eyes to meet. Silver hated that she still admired the fierceness in the racer’s eyes. “But you should believe that he would give his entire workshop for your return,” Sagittaria said.
“You don’t know my father very well,” Silver said.
“No, I—” Sagittaria looked past Silver, and her eyes went wide. “It’s here. I knew it. All these years … all these rumors … and it’s here. Finally.” The water dragon racer took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The Aquinder.”
“No!” Silver craned her neck.
Kirja rose slowly from the oasis water, her enormous head looming over them all. Water dripped slowly from her scales. Her mouth opened to reveal her teeth, and her black eyes sparked with anger.
“Go back, Kirja!” Silver’s heart thudded painfully.
Kirja spread her wings, and Silver’s eyes widened. The wings were massive, dark and rippling. Kirja, who only moments before had seemed as harmless as a herd animal, shadowed them all with her size.
“Fly away,” Silver shouted. She would find a way to distract Sagittaria. She had to.
“Let her go,” Nebekker yelled. She rushed onto the scene, brandishing a huge palm frond.
She slammed the frond into the stomach of one of Sagittaria’s men. With a surprised groan, he buckled and fell to the ground. Without a second glance, Nebekker came for the man holding Silver. Her weapon crashed against the back of his knees. He shuddered and fell forward.
Silver rolled to the side to avoid being crushed. A great whoosh of air flipped her scarf. It was Kirja flying at them, her mouth wide.
“Hrrggaauwnnn!” Her roar shook the ground.
“Aaaahhhh!” Silver pressed her hands over her ears.
Kirja grabbed one of the men and lifted him from the ground. He screamed, his limbs flailing. The Aquinder tossed her head, throwing him out of the oasis to land somewhere in the vast desert.
Sagittaria strode to Nebekker, seemingly undisturbed by the dragon swooping overhead. “I’ve been looking for you, old woman,” the racer said. “Came all the way to Jaspaton because some rumors placed you in the deep desert. The same rumors that said you’d lead me to the Aquinder.”
She turned to Silver.
Nebekker raised the frond high and aimed for Sagittaria’s head. But just as she was about to bring the heavy branch down, one of the men sprang up and tackled her around the waist.
“Nebekker!” Silver heard the sickening snap of a bone.
Kirja roared again. Her body rolled, and she dove for the ground, her fins and ears flattened against the side of her head, and her wings tucked in, a streak of silver blue. Her speed took Silver’s breath away.
But Sagittaria was fast, too. She dropped to the ground beside Nebekker and yanked the old woman’s arms behind her back.
“Stop,” Sagittaria called out to Kirja. “Or I’ll hurt her!”
“No,” Silver screamed. One of the two men left shoved her to the ground.
Kirja widened her fins and wings, slowing until she was merely floating above them. Watching. Nervous. She mewled.
“Call her down,” Sagittaria said to Nebekker.
“You could threaten to kill me, and I still wouldn’t.”
Sagittaria Wonder sighed. “Don’t be so dramatic,” she said. “That’s unnecessary.”
A glimmer of blue caught Silver’s attention as Sagittaria reached for the gemstone pendant peeking out of Nebekker’s tunic.
“But this is necessary.”
Her palm closed, and she ripped the chain off Nebekker’s neck. At the same time, Silver flung herself at Sagittaria. The dragon racer looked up in time to throw an arm out as she stumbled backward, knocking Silver to the ground. The pendant flew through the air and landed under a tree.
One man was lying still on the ground and the other hovered to the side, sizing up Kirja. The water dragon didn’t pay any attention to them. She watched only Nebekker.
“Tell her to land,” Sagittaria Wonder said.
“I can’t force her to do anything,” Nebekker said. “Not after—”
“Don’t lie to me. I’ve been around dragons all my life. I know their ways.”
Nebekker tightened her lips but then nodded toward Kirja. The dragon touched down at the edge of the water and stretched her nose toward Nebekker.
As the man near the lake tiptoed closer to Kirja, Silver got to her feet. Half-formed plans flooded her brain. Leap on the man? Try to rescue Nebekker? Her body froze with indecision.
The man on the ground groaned. He pulled himself up, but he was clearly in pain, and Silver realized that the bone-snapping sound she’d heard hadn’t been Nebekker’s. It was his.
Sagittaria loosened her
grip on Nebekker long enough to wave at the men to close in on the dragon. Silver saw her chance and took it. She dove. At the same time, the men jumped on Kirja, jamming their hands into the tender joints where her wings met her body. Kirja screamed.
So did Silver. “Aaaiiieee!”
Sagittaria toppled back in surprise. Kirja reared, throwing off one man. The other managed to get a rope around one wing. Silver pulled Nebekker to her feet while Kirja swung her head and lashed out at the man with the rope, knocking him into the center of the oasis pool.
Sagittaria ran for the dragon, pulling on the rope until the other man got a rope around Kirja’s other wing. Silver threw her body toward the water dragon, but Nebekker caught her.
“No.” The old woman shoved Silver in the opposite direction. “Run. Now.”
“I won’t go without Kirja!” Silver fell at the roots of the trees, refusing to move.
“You will. We both will.”
Nebekker shoved her again, and Silver got up. They pushed the greenery aside and dove for the sands on the other side. Nebekker grabbed Silver’s hand.
“This way!”
They cut left and circled the outer oasis until Silver found herself at a cave entrance.
“Get inside. They won’t find us here.”
“A cave,” Silver said, panting. “In the desert. They’ll find us.”
“Trust me.” Nebekker shoved her inside and pulled on a rope hanging at the entrance. A tapestry perfectly mimicking the landscape of the desert fell into place, obscuring the cave opening.
Nebekker took Silver’s elbow and marched them toward the back of the cave. “Keep walking.”
“There’s nowhere to go.” They were headed for a wall. What did Nebekker want her to do—walk through it?
But then Nebekker led them slightly to the right, and Silver realized that the cave continued, in a sharp slope down into darkness. There were myriad smells: stone and soil, water, and something else. Something lush and vegetal. Her ears picked up the sound of water, too. Dripping, somewhere close by. And, not too far away, rushing, like a stream.
Silver had so many questions. “How could you just let them—”
“Keep walking,” Nebekker repeated.
Silver scowled. She was finding it hard to trust the old woman. As they stepped deeper and deeper into the cave, flashes of Kirja’s expressions flitted through Silver’s mind: the Aquinder’s uncertainty, her anger, her need to make sure Nebekker was all right.
The water dragon was devoted. Too bad the same couldn’t be said of Nebekker.
Silver’s boots flew out from under her. She landed hard on her backside, sliding down the slick passageway and coming to a stop in the midst of something thick and wet. She got to her feet as fast as she could.
“Ew.” She wiped her hands on her trousers. The water was freezing. She knew she should be freezing, too, but the riding suit beneath her clothes was keeping her warm. “What’s down here?”
“Moss,” Nebekker said. “And perhaps a few slugs.”
“What are slugs?”
Nebekker snorted. “Desert girls,” she said. “Imagine a small, slithering animal made of jelly.”
“Gross.”
Silver’s ears tightened with pressure. How far underground had they gone? A chill ran up her spine. She didn’t like the way the walls seemed to close in on her from both sides and she really hated how close the ceiling was to her head. She barely had room to stand up straight.
“It’s too cramped,” she said.
Nebekker guided her with a gentle touch on her back. Silver turned left, then right. Then she turned another corner, and the underground opened up before them.
THIRTEEN
The cavern was massive, falling so deep into the ground that it was like standing on top of the Jaspaton cliffs, except that instead of the vast desert in the foreground, it was thick layers of moss and, cutting through the middle of it all, a swiftly flowing river. Above the river, stalactites like dragon’s teeth hung from the ceiling, dripping water in a pattern that filled the cavern with an otherworldly song.
Nebekker pushed past Silver so she could take the lead. The path to the riverbank descended rapidly down crudely cut steps in the cavern walls. Silver squinted to see each stair in the low light that came from an opening to the right. The glow gave the cavern an eerie quality; the light moved across the walls like sloshing waves.
Nebekker pointed. “The river runs through the oasis lagoon on that side. The lagoon undercurrent is strong. It pushes some water up to the surface.”
“Does the river go all the way to Calidia?” Silver said.
“To, and beyond.”
At the bottom of the trail, the riverbank was wide, as though the river had once been mightier and had carved space for itself. Nebekker made her way toward an overhang, where there was a stack of fuel for fires; baskets of preserved foods; piles of blankets; and a variety of tools, like knives and lanterns. She picked up one of the lanterns and lit the wick. It smoked for a moment, then burned clean and clear.
The light opened up the cavern even more, bringing its multicolored rock structures into view. It was the most beautiful place Silver had ever seen.
“You’ve been here before,” she said.
“I’ve been here often,” Nebekker said. She nodded in the opposite direction from the lagoon. “The river flows from Jaspaton in that direction.”
“Jaspaton?”
“Yes, Jaspaton,” Nebekker said. “Where you’ll be heading soon. I don’t need you hanging around here longer than necessary.”
Silver frowned. “I’m staying here until you get Kirja back.”
How could Silver even think about going home now that she knew Aquinder were real?
Nebekker chuckled. “I never invited you to stay.”
“You don’t own this cavern.” Silver crossed her arms and sat down. Right in a puddle. The water was freezing cold, and she gritted her teeth to keep them from rattling.
Nebekker built a small fire, ignoring Silver. From one basket, she pulled out a pot and set it over the fire to boil; from another, a package wrapped in paper. She walked to the river and stood there with the package in her hands, looking toward some stalagmites.
She whistled. “Come on out, pretty one,” Nebekker called. “My turn to be your mama for a little while.”
Silver waited, pretending not to be watching. Who in the desert was Nebekker talking to? Surely there couldn’t be children down here.
Nebekker whistled again. Then her teeth flashed as she grinned. Silver followed her gaze across the river. There was something moving among the stalagmites. Crouched or … even slithering. Something that matched the blue light and pale silver of the cavern.
The thing across the river purred.
Purred?
The sound touched Silver to her very core. She got to her feet and ran toward the river without thinking, as though a string tied to her middle were pulling her. There was no staying away if she’d wanted to. Her need to meet the creature was far too great. She stepped into the river.
The ice-cold water over her boots slowed her down for only a moment. But that was long enough for Nebekker to grab her arm and hold her in place. She was surprisingly strong.
“Of course this would happen.” Nebekker sighed wearily.
“Let me go!” Silver had to get to the other side of the river.
“Stay right here. He’ll come to you. The stars know, it’ll affect the both of you.”
In the back of her mind, Silver wondered what the old woman meant, but she didn’t ask, because the pull to cross the river was still so powerful.
She struggled to free herself. “I have to—”
Splash.
Just then, a shadow slipped into the river and made its way to Silver and Nebekker. Silver knelt into the water, waiting. She didn’t know what for or if she was in danger. She knew only that she had to open her arms and greet it.
When the creature finally bur
st from the water, it bowled Silver over. She landed on her back, hard, rocks digging into her spine. Soaking in the river water, her arms and chest became even colder than before. But she didn’t care. She was awash in euphoria.
Within seconds, the warmth of the creature bled into her skin. Its happy heartbeat thudded in time with her own. It purred again and licked her face until the smell of fish and river weeds overwhelmed her nostrils.
Silver laughed and opened her eyes. A pair of obsidian-dark eyes looked back down at her from a sky-blue face ringed with white.
“Another Aquinder,” Silver said, marveling. “A little one!”
“If your definition of ‘little’ is ‘the size of a house.’” Nebekker stood with her hands on her hips. She didn’t seem particularly happy. “Kirja’s son. Another troublemaker, if you ask me.”
“No, he’s perfect.” Silver’s heart had swelled to nearly bursting. “And I won’t have you calling him names, or else.”
Nebekker snorted. “Or else what?”
“I don’t know what. But I’ll think of something. I’d do anything for … for … What’s his name?”
The water dragon licked Silver some more, then rolled over and let his tongue loll out to the side, just like Kirja had. Silver rubbed his belly.
Nebekker tilted her head back and spoke to the ceiling of the cavern. “It’s not how I’d have wanted it, Kirja. He should have bonded with someone with more experience. But it’s out of my hands, as you know. We never ask for these things.”
Silver rested her cheek on the dragon’s belly. “Never ask for what? How could you keep this secret from me? A mom and baby!”
“Never ask to be bonded!” Nebekker stood over them. “You think this water lizard is cute? Of course you would. You don’t know a thing about the real world. Neither of you do.”
Nebekker retrieved the paper-wrapped package and walked back to her fire. Her sigh filled the cavern. “Come here. Both of you. I have a tale to tell.”
Silver got to her feet, and the Aquinder followed suit, swaying a bit before he got full control of his balance. Silver stifled a giggle. The Aquinder grinned. When Silver took a step forward, so did the water dragon. When she took another and then another, he matched her step by step.
Silver Batal and the Water Dragon Races Page 7
