by Garth Nix
“Ylane?” croaked Jaxon. The croak was psychological. There was nothing wrong with his throat. He just couldn’t believe he was alive at all, or that he could speak. He looked at his hands, and saw that his skin was as red as the bricks beneath him, but it was whole, and he felt no pain.
Yes, said the dragon, though her voice was not audible. Jaxon heard it in his head.
“What the hell happened?”
You know, said Ylane.
Jaxon thought about it for a moment, and he did know.
“A dragon dies, a dragon is born,” he said.
Yes.
“I am a dragon,” he said, and as he spoke he realized he was OK with it, because he knew what it was to be a dragon and to be a dragon was immeasurably better than to be merely human.
He popped the cooling, misshapen gold disc into his mouth and ate it with some relish, the metal soft under his teeth. Then he jumped up, and in that motion, there was no longer a man with golden eyes and skin the color of dusk, but another small dragon, as resplendent as the first.
Yes, said Ylane. She led him into the hot bricks and the bedrock beneath, and they dove into it together, heading deeper and deeper toward the hot center of the earth where dragons lived and grew, till they became ancient, and rose like salmon to a waterhead, to seek their birthplace, and begin anew.
A dragon dies, a dragon is born. But sometimes they need a little help.
Copyright (C) 2013 by Garth Nix
Art copyright (C) 2013 by Robert Hunt
