Ivan’s hold around her was getting weaker, and she grasped him, praying he hadn’t given up and taken a breath. She was close—her head felt like it was about to erupt from the lack of oxygen—but she could hold out for a few more seconds. Hopefully, that was all it would take.
The bag sagged around them, and light rushed in as the water rushed out. A hole had been cut in the side and the barbed rope torn away. Anya tumbled out, gasping for air. She caught some water with her first breath and coughed violently as she collapsed to the ground. The day’s brightness blinded her, as did the spots in her vision.
The first thing she saw was Ivan, lying on the ground. She grabbed his shoulders and shook him, unable to yell his name like she wanted to, and his eyes popped open. He coughed and screamed at the same time, the look of terror on his face mirroring what she felt.
Finally, she choked out, “Ivan!”
He pushed himself to his knees, and they hugged, both hysterical with happiness that they were alive.
Suddenly, Ivan went rigid. He gulped and trembled in Anya’s arms, and she pulled back from him. He stared at something behind her, mouth pulled into a frightened grimace. Anya turned, expecting to see Sigurd looming behind them.
It wasn’t Sigurd.
The dragon coiled before them, ruby scales shiny with water. It didn’t move at all, just stared at them with its blue eyes, nostrils flaring as it breathed. Anya watched its snout, noting that within the nostrils a little flap of skin smacked shut periodically.
She found herself wondering why, in her last minutes of life before the dragon ate her, she was staring up its nose.
She heard Ivan’s ragged breathing from behind her, but she didn’t want to look back and take her eyes off the dragon.
No one moved for several minutes. Anya’s heart still hammered and her belly twisted with fear, and the first coherent thought she could dredge up was why the dragon hadn’t tried to eat her yet. It could have. It wasn’t enormous, but it was twice as big as any wolf in the area and more than twice Anya’s size. Plus, it had those teeth and claws that would easily turn Anya’s flesh into ribbons.
Anya inched a hand up and watched as the dragon’s eyes flicked toward the movement. She froze, it froze, and then she moved her hand again.
Ivan began to wheeze behind Anya.
She licked her lips and brought her hand closer to its face. Her fingers itched to know what a dragon felt like.
Not a dragon. Maybe the last dragon. The thought made her pause. The last dragon in Kievan Rus’ had saved her life, and what was she planning to do to it?
The dragon’s eyes darted from her hand to her face and back to her hand again, and it shifted its body as it reached a clawed foot toward her outstretched hand.
“Anya!” Ivan jumped forward and grabbed Anya’s arm, yanking her away from the dragon. He pulled her off balance, and she flailed her arms. One of them caught the dragon’s claws across the back of her forearm. Anya yelped as the claws split her flesh in three gouges. Blood gushed out.
Ivan pulled Anya a few steps, and then he let go. Her feet tangled in each other and she fell onto the ground, clutching her bleeding arm. She could hear Ivan’s rapid footsteps retreating down the river. Did he not realize she wasn’t running with him?
The dragon disappeared into the river with a splash, and Anya huddled on the ground, cold and wet and alone.
Chapter Twenty-One
Anya peeked under her hand to look at the wound on her arm. As soon as she moved her hand, blood flowed, so she clenched her fingers down on her arm again. She gritted her teeth against the pain, her heart beating so hard and fast, she could feel it in her toes.
She was certain Ivan was going to get his father. They’d be back soon, and the dragon would be gone, and it probably wouldn’t come near her again.
Something red peeked up over the river’s bank.
Anya managed to catch a glimpse of the dragon’s wide blue eyes for a second before the beast vanished under the water.
“Wait!” Anya struggled to her feet and stumbled to her knees a step later. She rested on the ground, gasping for air. Her head swam. The forest spun around her. She knew her wet dress should have been making her cold, but she felt hot.
Anya squeezed her eyes shut to try to stop the spinning. It didn’t work. She huffed, her frustration manifesting as a quiet sob, and then nearby splashing and rustling made her open her eyes.
The dragon was half out of the river, peering around a tree at her.
It hadn’t fled, and it hadn’t attacked. It could have killed her ten times by now. Why hadn’t it?
Anya tried again to stand up, but her legs were too weak. Blood ran down her arm. She squeezed tighter, and the pain made her gasp a breath into lungs that felt too small. Pinpricks of black crowded the edges of her vision.
A shadow fell over her. When she looked up, the dragon was there, its surprisingly expressive blue eyes passing back and forth between Anya’s face and her arm. She panted, and the pinpricks turned into the outer edges of a tunnel.
This was what it felt like to die. She supposed it wasn’t too bad. It could have been worse.
Everything went gray, and she hardly felt herself fall onto the ground.
* * *
Being dead was unexpectedly warm and soft.
Anya left her eyes shut for a moment. Babulya said when people died, the next time they woke up was when the Messiah came. She was about to see the Messiah, and while she was eager to do so, she was also nervous, and sad. Mama would be heartbroken that Anya had died.
When she opened her eyes, she realized being dead was dim, too. She sat up, and a wave of dizziness made her lie back down. Pushing up had made her arm throb, and she felt it carefully with her other hand. Her fingers touched a soft bandage that had been clumsily applied to her slashes.
From the ground, Anya saw something glittering red. She didn’t remember Babulya talking about a glittering red Messiah, but she supposed Babulya couldn’t be right about everything all the time.
But when a serpentlike head emerged from the darkness, Anya’s peace with death vanished and was replaced with cold fear. The dragon coiled in front of a fireplace, the flames lighting its ruby scales.
“You’re not the Messiah,” Anya mumbled.
The dragon said nothing and stayed in a neat coil by the fire. Anya pushed herself up slowly, never taking her eyes off the serpent. As she pushed up, the thick blanket that had been covering her slid down her shoulder, and she realized she wasn’t wearing her dress but an enormous tunic instead. Her dress, to her dismay, hung on a chair near the fire, behind the dragon.
A shield with a red dragon painted on it hung above the mantel. Dozens of weapons hung all over the walls.
She was in the house in the ravine.
The dragon crept forward until she looked back at it, and then it stopped. It blinked once, then said in a quiet, nervous voice, “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
Anya’s mouth dropped open. Nowhere in the stories and myths did anyone ever say dragons could speak. But this one could, apparently, and she gaped at it. At him, she supposed. He had sounded like a boy. A regular human boy. The dragon could talk.
She managed to squeak, “You didn’t mean to.”
The dragon crept closer. He used his two legs to walk across the floor and undulated his long body like a snake, helping to push himself along. The spines on his back caught the firelight and blazed.
As he approached, she held up her arm and pointed to the haphazard bandage. “Thank you for bandaging the cuts.”
“You’re welcome.” The dragon scooted closer. “Are you afraid of me?”
She didn’t answer right away. Was she? Yes, but no. She thought of what the stories said—fearsome, violent, monstrous—and then what Babulya said. Gentle. Benevolent. Good luck. The dragon coiled before her had pulled her out of the river and had brought her to his home to have her wounds bound. That was benevolent, wasn’t it? “Should I b
e?”
“No.” When he spoke, his words rushed out like water bursting through a weakened dam. “Does that mean you’re not? Really? That’s so great! Because my father always said I should stay away from the villagers because you’d all be afraid of me, and I thought you were afraid when you saw me in your barn, but you’re not anymore, right? What’s your name?”
Her mouth felt like she’d eaten a handful of sand. She tried to swallow away the dryness, but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and made it impossible. A dragon wanted to know her name.
Anya managed to wet her mouth and say, “Channah Miroslavovna Kozlova.” She cleared her throat. “But everyone calls me Anya.”
“I’m Håkon.” The dragon cocked his head and looked at the ceiling, like he was pondering something. “My father is called Jernhånd. So I suppose I’m Håkon Jernhåndssen.” He laughed. “I’ve never thought about it before!”
At his laugh, the tension in Anya’s body began to relax away. If she closed her eyes, she could have been speaking with a normal boy her age. She held the blanket against her chest and said, “It’s nice to meet you, Håkon Jernhåndssen.”
“You too!” Håkon said. “Do you want to play with me?”
Anya stared. “Play with you?”
“Yeah.” The dragon shifted from foot to foot. “I’ve watched villagers playing with one another. We could pretend you’re a princess and I’m a bogatyr and I have to rescue you!” He spun in a tight circle. “Oh! Or we could be on a quest to find a treasure!”
She had no idea what to say. This was the most bizarre thing that had ever happened to her. She started to think maybe she was dead after all.
“How old are you?” Anya asked.
Håkon bobbed his head from side to side. “I don’t know exactly. My father brought me here when I was very tiny. I don’t remember it. That was nearly thirteen years ago.”
A dragon her age, or close enough. She’d always thought of dragons as being ancient somehow, but a child dragon made sense. Those ancient dragons had to start somewhere. “Brought you here?” Anya said. “From where?”
“South,” Håkon said. “I think my father has marbles around here somewhere. Do you know how to play marbles?”
“No,” Anya said.
“It’s hard for me.” Håkon brought one clawed foot up and flexed his toes. “But I can usually get some if I concentrate, or if I’m allowed to use magic.”
“Magic?” Anya perked up. “What kind?”
“A bunch.” Håkon turned his nose toward the fire and inhaled sharply. A stream of flame jutted from the rest of the fire and toward his mouth, but he blew it back in before it went anywhere. “I can’t play with flames in here. I’ll catch something on fire and then I’ll be in big trouble. Let’s go outside!”
Anya opened her mouth to say that wasn’t a good idea; Ivan and his father would be searching the woods for her by now, and going outside put Håkon at risk of being seen. But the dragon zipped out of the house, slither-crawling through the door before Anya could say anything. She pulled the blanket away from herself enough to see if what she was wearing was appropriate for walking around in. The tunic was enormous on her, but it covered everything clothing needed to cover, so she tossed the blanket away and ran after the dragon.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Anya squinted against the brightness of the late afternoon as Håkon sprinted around the outside of the house. He went toward the back, where Anya hadn’t been yet. She followed carefully, hugging the oversize tunic to herself as she stepped gingerly around rocks and sticks.
Behind the house, Håkon had gone to the river’s edge. As soon as Anya appeared, he said, “Behold! Tremble before my power!” A column of water blasted up from the river behind him, and two watery tentacles peeled off the sides, whipping back and forth.
Anya watched the tentacled column with wide eyes, and then she examined Håkon. He didn’t move like he was pulling threads—the most he had done was whip his tail around a bit—and she wondered how he was creating the column. But then she remembered Yedsha talking about magical creatures. He’d described the way dragons flew, with special appendages on their wings. Anya’s eyes fell to Håkon’s twitching tail. Did he have magical appendages there that allowed him to control water? Did that mean he was a water dragon and not an air dragon?
The dragon brought his tail up, then down, and six more tentacles appeared. The column looked like a giant liquid spider.
“How are you doing that?” Anya asked.
Håkon peered back at her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, how are you making the water do that?”
He looked back at the water spider, then at Anya again. “The same way you would, I guess.”
Anya shook her head. “I can’t do that.”
“Oh,” Håkon said. “You don’t use water magic. What kind do you use? Earth? Air?” He perked. “Fire?”
“None of those.”
“Not elemental, then?” His tail swished, and the water spider swayed back and forth. “Oh, wow! What is it? I’ve heard of emotional magics. Is it one of those? Or sense magic? Or natural?”
Anya vaguely remembered Yedsha talking about emotional magic in the woods, but she definitely didn’t have that. She shook her head. “No. Nothing. I can’t use magic.”
Håkon let his tail drop, and the water spider collapsed back into the river with a dull crash.
“No magic at all?” He sounded incredulous.
She shook her head.
“That’s impossible.”
“I swear,” Anya said. “I tried to use some earth magic, and all I did was throw dirt in a zmeyok’s face. I can’t even see threads most of the time.”
Håkon stared at her, his dragony face pulled into an expression of skepticism. Finally, he said, “So you can use magic.”
“Not very well,” Anya said. “Not well enough to be useful.”
“You just need to practice more,” Håkon said. He jerked his head toward the ground. “You used earth magic, right? Use it again right now.”
Anya sighed and searched the air for threads. None appeared. “I don’t see any threads.”
“Any what?”
“Threads,” Anya said. “There are no magic threads anywhere.”
Håkon pursed his lips. “I don’t see any threads either.”
“How do you do magic, then?”
“I just feel it!” Håkon arched his back, and a mound of earth rose up, then split apart. A little cave formed in the hard ground, and Håkon dove into it. The cave opening vanished and the mound flattened again.
“Håkon!” Anya ran to where the dragon had disappeared. The soil was softer, but there was no other sign that anything had happened. She spun in a circle, trying to discern some way to find the dragon in his cave, but there was nothing.
A laugh came from the river, and Anya looked over to see Håkon’s red head peeking over the riverbank. He climbed out of the water and shook water off his scales.
“How did you do that?” Anya was so jealous, she could hardly stand it. “That’s incredible.”
Håkon arched his back again. “There’s magic all around, and I can catch it.” He wiggled from side to side. “Like there, earth magic.” He stopped wiggling, and another mound rose up. A cave mouth appeared, but this time it didn’t collapse right away. A stream of water poured up from the river and into the little cave, forming a rudimentary table and chairs. Anya wondered how she would sit on the chair, and then the water crunched as it turned to ice.
“What?” Anya ran to the ice furniture, clasping the oversize tunic around herself. “How?” She rapped on the ice tabletop with her knuckles. They came away pink and cold.
“Sit,” Håkon said. “It’s strong enough.”
Anya did. The chair made the same groan beneath her as an icy pond made in the wintertime when she walked on its frozen surface, but it didn’t break.
“I wish I could do magic,” Anya whispered
.
Håkon crawled into the little cave and carved on the icy table with a claw. “I wish I could do human stuff.”
“Like what?” Anya asked. “Humans are boring.”
“No way,” Håkon said. “Humans can do all kinds of things. Your hands are . . .” He trailed off, lifting up his clawed feet.
Anya brought her hands beside his feet. She flexed her fingers, and he flexed his claws. He had three toes facing forward and one facing back, like a bird. When he flexed his toes, the rear one bent only at one knuckle.
“You can pick things up,” Håkon said. “I can, sometimes. If it’s big enough. If the surface is just right. And do you know what I heard about human hands?”
“What?” Anya said.
“You can feel things,” he said. “Textures. The table feels different from your tunic.”
“Of course it does,” Anya said, feeling both. “You can’t feel the difference?”
“I can feel the table is colder,” Håkon said, patting the table with his foot and then patting the tunic’s shoulder. “But other than that, they’re the same.”
Anya hadn’t ever thought her hands could be as magical to a dragon as his . . . well, his actual magic was to her. “I guess we’re each magical to each other, huh?”
Håkon laughed. “I guess! Hey. Are you hungry?”
Anya’s day had been such a mess that she hadn’t had anything since Marina’s breakfast, which had been hours and hours ago. The sun was so low, she couldn’t see it past the cliffs anymore. “I am, actually,” she said.
They got up from the ice chairs in the cavern, and Håkon slithered toward the house. Anya followed him a few steps, then stopped. The dragon’s magic had been so astonishing, she had forgotten all about the danger in the forest. Yedsha and Dobrynya were still hunting Håkon, and so was Sigurd. Ivan had certainly told Yedsha by now about the dragon, and they’d be by the river searching for him, and for Anya.
If Anya told Yedsha where Håkon was, she’d have all the money she needed to save her farm. But what would happen to Håkon if they found him?
Anya and the Dragon Page 12
