by Morgan Rice
“I came as close to it as you and I are now,” she replied.
“And how did you survive?” he asked.
She gulped, unsure herself.
“It was how I received this wound,” she said, touching her cheek.
They all looked at her cheek in a new light, all seeming stunned.
As Kyra ran her fingers along it, she sensed that it would scar, that it would change her appearance forever; yet somehow, strangely, she did not care.
“But I don’t think it meant to hurt me,” she added.
They stared at her as if she were mad. She wanted to explain to them the connection she had with the creature, but she did not think they would understand.
They all stared at her, all these grown men stumped, and finally her father asked:
“Why would you risk your life to save a dragon? Why would you endanger us all?”
It was a good question, one which Kyra did not have the answer to. She wished she did. She could not put into words the feelings, the emotions, the sense of destiny she had when near the beast—and she did not think these men would ever understand. Yet she knew she had endangered them all, and she felt terribly for it.
All she could do was hang her head and say: “Forgive me, Father.”
“It is not possible,” Maltren said, agitated. “It is impossible to confront a dragon and live.”
“Unless,” Anvin said, looking at Kyra strangely, then turned to her father. “Unless your daughter is the—”
Her father suddenly shot Anvin a look, and Anvin immediately stopped himself.
Kyra looked back and forth between the two, puzzled, wondering what Anvin was about to say.
“Unless I am what?” Kyra demanded.
But Anvin looked away and would say no more. Indeed, the entire room fell silent, and as she searched all the faces she realized that all the men averted their gaze from her, as though they were all in on some secret about her.
Her father suddenly rose from her bedside and released his grip on her hand. He stood erect, in a way that signaled that the meeting was over.
“You must rest now,” he said. Then he turned gravely to his men. “An army comes,” he said gravely, his voice filled with authority. “We must prepare.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Kyra stood alone in the warm, summer field, in awe at the world around her. Everything was in bloom, in dazzling color, the hills so green, so vibrant, dotted with glowing yellow and red flowers. Trees were in bloom everywhere, their foliage so thick, swaying in the wind, heavy with fruit. The hills rolled with vineyards, ripe, and the smell of flowers and grapes hung heavy in the summer air. Kyra wondered where she was, where her people had gone—where winter had gone.
There came a screech, high in the sky, and Kyra looked up to see Theos circling overhead. He swooped down, landing in the grass but a few feet away, and stared back at her with his intense, glowing yellow eyes. Something unspoken passed between them, their connection so intense, as if no words need be said.
Theos suddenly reared his head, shrieked, and breathed fire, right for her.
For some reason, Kyra was unafraid. She did not flinch as the flames approached her, somehow knowing he would never harm her. The fire forked, spreading out to the left and right of her, igniting the landscape all around her yet leaving her unscathed.
Kyra turned and was horrified to see the flames spread across the countryside, to see all the lush green, all the summer bounty, turn to black. The landscape changed before her eyes, the trees burned to a crisp, the grass replaced with soil.
The flames rose higher and higher, spread farther, faster, and in the distance, she watched with horror as they consumed Volis—until there was nothing left but rubble and ash.
Theos finally stopped, and Kyra turned and stared back at him. Kyra stood there, in the dragon’s shadow, humbled by its massive size and she did not know what to expect. He wanted something from her, but she could not sense what it was.
Kyra reached out to touch its scales, and suddenly it raised a claw, screeched, and sliced open her cheek.
Kyra sat up in bed, shrieking, clutching her cheek, the awful pain spreading through her. She flailed, trying to get away from the dragon—but was surprised to feel human hands on her instead, calming her, trying to restrain her.
Kyra blinked and looked up to see a familiar face standing over her, holding a compress to her cheek.
“Shh,” said Lyra, consoling her.
Kyra looked around, disoriented, and finally realized she had been dreaming. She was home, in her father’s fort, still in her chamber.
“Just a nightmare,” Lyra said.
Kyra realized she must have fallen back asleep, how long ago, she did not know. She checked the window and saw the sunlight had been replaced by blackness. She sat bolt upright, alarmed.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Late in the night, my lady,” Lyra replied. “The moon has already risen and set.”
“And what of the coming army?” she asked, her heart pounding.
“No army has come, my lady,” she replied. “The snow is still high, and it was nearly dark when you woke. No army can march in this. Don’t worry—you have only slept for hours. Rest now.”
Kyra leaned back and exhaled; she felt a wet nose on her hand and she looked over to see Leo, licking her hand.
“He hasn’t left your bedside, my lady,” Lyra smiled. “And neither has he.”
She gestured and Kyra looked over and was touched to see Aidan lying there, slumped in a pile of furs beside the fire, a leather-bound book in his hand, fast asleep.
“He read to you while you slept,” she added.
Kyra was overwhelmed with love for her younger brother—and it made her all the more alarmed at the trouble to come.
“I can feel your tension,” Lyra added as she pressed a compress on her cheek. “You dreamt troubled dreams. It is the mark of a dragon.”
Kyra saw her looking back meaningfully, in awe, and she wondered.
“I don’t understand what is happening to me,” Kyra said. “I have never dreamt before. Not like this. They feel like more than dreams—it is as if I am really there. As if I am seeing through the dragon’s eye.”
The nurse looked at her with her soulful eyes, and laid her hands in her lap.
“Is a very sacred thing to be marked by an animal,” Lyra said. “And this is no ordinary animal. If a creature touches you, then you share a synergy—forever. You might see what it sees, or feel what it feels, or hear what it hears. It may happen tonight—or it may be next year. But one day, it shall happen.”
Lyra looked at her, searching.
“Do you understand, Kyra? You are not the same girl you were yesterday, when you set out from here. That is no mere mark on your cheek—it is a sign. You now carry within you the mark of a dragon.”
Kyra furrowed her brow, trying to understand.
“But what does that mean?” Kyra asked, trying to make sense of it all.
Lyra sighed, exhaling a long time.
“Time will show you.”
Kyra thought of the Lord’s Men, of the coming war, and she felt a wave of urgency. She threw off her furs and rose to her feet and as she did, she felt wobbly, unlike herself. Lyra rushed over and held her shoulder, steadying her.
“You must lie down,” Lyra urged. “The fever is not yet past.”
But Kyra felt a pressing urgency to help and she could stay in bed no longer.
“I shall be fine,” she replied, grabbing her cloak and draping it over her shoulders to ward off the draft. As she moved to go, she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Drink this, at least,” Lyra urged, handing her a mug.
Kyra looked down and saw a red liquid inside.
“What is it?”
“My own concoction,” she replied with a smile “It will calm the fever, and relieve the pain.”
Kyra took a long sip, holding it with both hands, and it felt thic
k as it went down, hard to swallow. She made a face and Lyra smiled.
“It tastes like earth,” Kyra observed.
Lyra smiled wider. “It’s not known for its taste.”
But already Kyra felt better from it, her whole body immediately warmer.
“Thank you,” she said. She went over to Aidan, leaned over and kissed his forehead, careful not to wake him. She then turned and hurried from the room, Leo beside her.
Kyra twisted and turned down Volis’s endless corridors, all dim, lit only by the flickering torches along the walls. Only a few men stood guard at this late hour, the rest of the fort quiet, fast asleep. Kyra ascended the spiral, stone staircase and stopped before her father’s chamber, blocked by a guard. He looked at her, something like reverence in his eyes, and she wondered how far the story had already spread. He nodded to her.
“My lady,” he said.
She nodded back.
“Is my father in his chamber?”
“He could not sleep. Last I saw he was pacing toward his study.”
Kyra hurried down the stone corridors, ducking her head beneath a low, tapered archway and down a spiral staircase until finally she made her way to the far end of the fort. The hall ended in the thick, arched wooden door to his library, and she reached out to open them, but found the doors already ajar. She stopped herself as she heard urgent, strained voices coming from inside.
“I tell you that is not what she saw,” came the angry voice of her father.
He was heated, and she stopped herself from entering, figuring it would be best to wait. She stood there, waiting for the voices to stop, curious who he was speaking to and what they were talking about. Were they talking about her? she wondered.
“If she did indeed see a dragon,” came a crackly voice, which Kyra immediately recognized as Thonos, her father’s oldest advisor, “there remains little hope for Volis.”
Her father muttered something she could not understand, and there followed a long silence, as Thonos sighed.
“The ancient scrolls,” Thonos replied, his voice labored, “tell of the rise of the dragons. A time we shall all be crushed under their flames. We have no wall to keep them out. We have nothing but hills and sky. And if they have come, they are here for a reason.”
“But what reason?” her father asked. “What would compel a dragon to cross the world?”
“Perhaps a better question, Commander,” Thonos replied, “is what could wound it?”
A long silence followed, punctuated only by the crackling of the fire, until finally Thonos spoke again.
“I suspect it is not the dragon that troubles you most, is it?” Thonos asked.
There followed another long silence, and Kyra, though she knew she should not listen in, leaned forward, unable to help herself, and peered through the crack. Her heart felt heavy to see her father sitting there, head in his hands, brooding.
“No,” he said, his voice thick with exhaustion. “It is not,” he admitted.
Kyra wondered what they could be talking about.
“You dwell on the prophecies, do you not?” he asked. “The time of her birth?”
Kyra leaned in, her heart pounding in her ears, sensing they were speaking about her, but not understanding what they meant.
There came no response.
“I was there, Commander,” Thonos finally said. “As were you.”
Her father sighed, but would not raise his head.
“She is your daughter. Do you not think it fair to tell her? About her birth? Her mother? Does she not have a right to know who she is?”
Kyra’s heart slammed in her chest; she hated secrets, especially about her. She was dying to know what they meant.
“The time is not right,” her father finally said.
“But the time is never right, is it?” the old man said.
Kyra breathed sharply, feeling stung.
She suddenly turned and ran off, a heaviness in her chest as her father’s words rang in her ears. They hurt her more than a million knives, more than anything the Lord’s Men could throw at her. She felt betrayed. He was withholding a secret from her, some secret he’d been hiding her entire life. He had been lying to her.
Does she not have a right to know who she is?
Her entire life Kyra had felt that people had looked at her differently, as if they knew something about her which she did not, as if she were an outside, and she had never understood why. Now, she understood. She didn’t just feel different than everyone else—she was different. But how?
Who was she?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Vesuvius marched, a hundred trolls on his heels, through Great Wood, up the sharply rising terrain, too steep for the horses to follow. He marched with a sense of determination, and for the first time, optimism. He hacked through the thick brush with his blade and knew he could have passed through without cutting them, but he wanted to: he enjoyed killing things.
With each passing step Vesuvius heard the roar of the captured giant, growing louder, making the ground beneath them tremble. He noted the fear in the faces of his fellow trolls—and it made him smile. That fear was what he had been hoping to see for years—it meant that finally, after all the rumors, the giant had been found.
He chopped through the last of the brush and crested the ridge, and as he did, the forest opened up into a vast clearing before him. Vesuvius stopped in his tracks, caught off guard by the sight. At the far side of the clearing lay a huge cave, its arched opening a hundred feet high, and chained to its rock, by chains fifty feet long and three feet thick, one to each ankle and wrist, was the most immense, hideous creature he had ever laid eyes upon. It was a true giant, a nasty piece of creation, standing at least a hundred feet high and thirty feet wide, with a body built like a man but with four eyes, no nose, and a mouth that was all jaw and teeth. It opened its mouth in a roar, an awful sound, and Vesuvius, who feared nothing, who had faced the most gruesome creatures alive, had to admit that even he was afraid. It opened its mouth wider and wider, its teeth sharpened to a point five feet long, and looked as if it were ready to swallow the world.
It also looked enraged. It roared again and again, stomping its feet, fighting at the chains that bound it, and the ground shook, the cave shook, the entire mountainside shook. It was as if this beast, with all its power, was moving the entire mountain by itself, as if it had so much energy that it could not be contained. Vesuvius grinned; this was exactly what he needed. A creature like this could blast through the tunnel, could do what an army of trolls could not.
Vesuvius stepped forward and entered the clearing, noticing the dozens of dead soldiers, their corpses littering the ground, and as he did, his hundreds of waiting soldiers lined up at attention. He could see the fear in all their faces, as if they had no idea what to do with the giant now that they had captured him.
Vesuvius stopped at the edge of the clearing, just out of range of the giant’s chains, not wanting to end up like the corpses, and as he did, it turned and charged for him, swiping at him with its long claws and missing by only a few feet.
Vesuvius stood there, staring back at it, while his commander came running up beside him, keeping his distance along the perimeter so as to be out of the giant’s range.
“My Lord and King,” the commander said, bowing deferentially. “The giant has been captured. It is yours to bring back. But we cannot bind it. We have lost many soldiers trying. We are at a loss for what to do.”
Vesuvius stood there, hands on his hips, feeling the eyes of all his trolls on him as he surveyed the beast. It was an awesome specimen of creation, and as it glared down and snarled at him, anxious to tear him apart, Vesuvius could see what the problem was. He realized at once, as he usually did, how to fix it.
Vesuvius lay a hand on his commander’s shoulder and leaned in close.
“You are trying to approach it,” he said softly. “You must let it come to you. You must catch it off guard, and only then can you bind it. Yo
u must give it what it wants.”
His commander looked back, confused.
“And what is it that it wants, my Lord and King?”
Vesuvius began to walk, leading his commander forward as they stepped deeper into the clearing, toward the giant.
“Why, you,” Vesuvius finally replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world—and then shoved his commander with all his might, sending the unsuspecting soldier stumbling forward into the clearing.
Vesuvius backed up, safely out of range, and watched as the giant blinked down, surprised. The soldier leapt to his feet, trying to run, but the giant reacted immediately, swooping down with its claws, scooping him up and squeezing his hands around his waist as he raised him to eye level. He pulled him close and bit off the troll’s head, swallowing his screams.
Vesuvius smiled, pleased to be rid of an inept commander.
“If I need to teach you what to do,” he said to the corpse that was once his commander, “then why bother having a commander?”
Vesuvius turned and looked over the rest of his soldiers, and they all stood there, petrified, staring back in shock. He pointed to a soldier standing nearby.
“You,” he said.
The troll stared back nervously.
“Yes, my Lord and King?”
“You are next.”
The troll’s eyes widened, and he dropped to his knees and clasped his hands out before him.
“I cannot, my Lord and King!” he wept. “I beg you! Not me! Choose someone else!”
Vesuvius stepped forward and nodded amicably.
“Okay,” he replied. He stepped forward and sliced the troll’s throat with his dagger, and the troll fell face-first, dead, at his feet. “I will.”
Vesuvius turned to his other soldiers.
“Pick him up,” he commanded, “and throw him in the giant’s range. When it approaches, have your ropes ready. You will bind him as he goes for the bait.”
A half dozen soldiers grabbed the corpse, rushed forward, and threw him into the clearing. The other soldiers followed Vesuvius’s command, rushing forward on either side of the clearing with their massive ropes at the ready.
