by Audrey Faye
“I’m not sure,” said the older woman. “But most importantly for right this minute, Elhen has called for us. We go to see the queen.”
Sapphire remembered her last visit to the cave of the nearly translucent white dragon. She looked around at all the people and dragons she could see coming out of their rondos. “How will we all fit?” The queen’s cave was spacious, but not big enough for this kind of crowd.
“It’s not a private audience,” Irin said, rejoining them. “We’ll go to the rocks.” He stopped, and Lotus stopped with him, and together they watched as a big head pushed aside the flap in the side of the nursery rondo’s biggest dome.
Sapphire stared—Kis almost never came outside these days, and when he did, it was on a nice afternoon to go sun himself on a rock somewhere. In the cold light of breaking dawn, he looked different. Not so old and tired and sad. Sapphire spoke under her breath, suddenly a little afraid of a dragon she’d seen a thousand times. “He looks really fierce.”
Irin chuckled. “Say that louder, missy—you could pay him no finer compliment.”
Kis rumbled and pulled the rest of his body out of the rondo. Then he looked at Irin, lifted his head high, and began leading their small procession in the direction of the hills where the queen lived.
This night was getting stranger and stranger. Sapphire leaned in and pitched her voice low enough that hopefully the mighty dragon in front of them wouldn’t hear. “Why is Kis coming?”
“Because he smells a fight,” said Irin gruffly.
That made no sense. “It was just a dream.”
“It wasn’t.” Karis exchanged a sharp glance with the nursery master. “It was a message, and one with some urgency behind it.”
There was dead silence at that, and then several of the people within earshot started nodding their heads and murmuring.
Sapphire stared—all she’d seen were some stars. Nothing that felt this important. “Why would someone send everyone a dream of a bunch of stars?”
“Wrong question.” Irin answered her without turning around. “Far more important is who sent it.”
That was a creepy thought. Sapphire snugged her cloak tighter around her shoulders and tried not to shiver. She didn’t want strangers invading her sleep.
Karis set a hand on Sapphire’s shoulder, but it was Irin she answered. “Every dragon we know got the message—and all kin. Only a dragon queen has that kind of power.”
Something sharp stabbed in Sapphire’s ribs. “That’s why Kellan didn’t wake up.” Or Lily, or Alonia, or any of the other unbonded inhabitants of the village. It was a divide that felt wrong. An odd sort of uneasiness that went all the way down to her bones.
“Elhen would have sent such a message to everyone, those without dragons as well.” Irin’s voice had a hard edge to it. “This didn’t come from her. There were undertones. Whoever sent that message doesn’t like elves very much.”
Karis nodded. “I felt that too. I’m not sure it was sent to any elves on purpose. Afran says all the dragons heard it, bonded or not. Those of us who are kin might have picked it up by accident.”
Sapphire shivered again. Dragon queens rarely bonded, but she had never heard of Elhen showing kin anything but respect. “I don’t like this. We should wake everyone.” Weird dreams were one thing. A potential enemy was something far different.
Irin eyed her steadily over his shoulder. “We don’t know yet what the message means or who sent it. For now, those of us who heard the message will go hear what Elhen has to say. But we won’t stand for the exclusion of those who stand fierce and brave at our sides. You have my word on that.”
Other heads nodded.
Sapphire let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding.
Ciara met them when they were halfway up the steep path to the rocks below Elhen’s cave. “She asks for you to assemble. She will emerge and speak with you.”
Sapphire gulped. Elhen left her cave even less often than Kis. Whatever this was, it was a very big deal. She stayed quiet as they walked the rest of the way to the rocks. Everyone was solemn and silent—even the dragons landing from the skies seemed to be doing their best to keep their wingbeats hushed.
When they got to the rocks, Sapphire would happily have taken a spot at the back of the gathering, but Kis pushed Lotus forward, and she could hardly leave her dragon standing up front alone. She’d barely taken her position at Lotus’s shoulder when the hush grew absolute, every head tilted up to the cliff’s edge.
Elhen stood there in the early dawn light, and when she spread her wings, she looked every inch a queen. Sapphire stared as the old dragon flapped once and then glided down to a high rock in front of them all. Her head surveyed them regally, and when her eyes fell on Sapphire and Lotus, they paused for a very long time.
Sapphire’s knees started to bang against each other.
“You have all seen the dream. The stars.” Elhen waited a beat. “It is a message, sent to us with much power and such urgency as I have never felt before in a vision.”
Karis stepped forward. “Afran felt the urgency as well, but not everyone did.”
“Of course not.” The queen sounded almost amused. “Afran is a dragon of great wisdom, and this was a message of many layers.”
Irin growled. “I might not be very wise, but I can tell you that one of those layers isn’t very friendly with elves.”
“Indeed. Dragons once fought elves.” Elhen’s voice was resonant, even though her chin barely moved. “The stories say we were once fierce enemies, at war for hundreds upon hundreds of years.”
Irin’s forehead wrinkled in surprise. “You think this is a message from the dragons way back then?”
“Yes. From their queen.” Elhen sounded absolutely certain. “From Lovissa, the great warrior dragon. I can feel her in what I dreamed.”
Lotus was squirming, moving from foot to foot, and Sapphire wanted to squirm with her. This all sounded way more complicated than the dream she’d woken up with. Probably because she was just an ordinary elf girl with no wisdom at all—and right now, that sounded like a really good thing, because Lovissa was more than a warrior and queen from some time long past.
She was the dragon who first told the story of the five.
Elhen looked around at the gathered dragons and their kin. “We must speak of this message, for I believe Lovissa would only have sent us a vision of great import. It took much power to do this.”
Sapphire stared. It was finally sinking in. She had dreamed a message from a long-dead dragon queen.
Elhen looked up at the dawn sky and the last fading pinpricks of starlight. “This dream was not of our stars. They were the stars of our grandmothers and our grandfathers from a time long past. Our great dragon ancestors, who once fought with the ancestors of our beloved and honored dragon kin.”
Sapphire tried to imagine fighting with Lotus and shuddered.
Karis and Afran stepped forward as one, both shaking their heads. “The stars don’t change that much. Not even across so many generations.”
The old queen’s eyes were deep black holes, impossible to read. “I know.”
“They might,” Irin said quietly. “If they’re from far enough back.”
Elhen pinned him with a gaze that had Sapphire quaking, and she wasn’t even the one it was pointed at. “Are you suggesting that dragons have lost so much of our history? That I do not know precisely how many queens have come before me?”
“No, honored one.” Irin’s voice was respectful, but firm. “I’m saying that we all got a vision, and sometimes those have meanings that aren’t so obvious at first look. We might want to keep our minds open until we take a closer look.”
A nervous silence, and then Elhen puffed smoke into the morning air. “That is good advice, old warrior.” She raised her head high and looked at everyone gathered. “We have received a message. We do not yet know the fullness of what it means, and we will not act without careful thought and the seeking
of dragon and kin and elf and human wisdom on this matter.”
A dead silence, and then Afran rumbled again, very quietly.
Elhen nodded regally. “Those who have come before us have sent a message. I believe they are asking for our help—or they believe we need theirs.” She paused, and the smoke that came out her nostrils was nearly black. “They are our grandmothers and grandfathers, but these are not our stars. We must know why this is.”
She turned her head to Afran. “Find Gilhead and Rhonden. Bring them to me.”
The dragons present began a low, scary rumble. Irin looked made of stone. Karis lifted an eyebrow, but said nothing.
Sapphire had no idea what was going on, but she was pretty sure something big and crazy had just taken place.
Kis stepped forward, and Irin beside him. The old dragon snorted fire out his nose. The queen gazed at the two of them for a long time, and then she nodded. “Very well. The two of you will go.” She snorted fire of her own at Kis, and her eyes looked almost amused again. “Don’t do anything foolish, old man.”
Sapphire didn’t understand the reply, but whatever it was, it turned Elhen’s scales nearly pink.
Chapter 16
Sapphire carried the heavily laden tray of soup and bread and meat pies over to the low table near where everyone was working. Inga and Kellan had the kitchen working overtime producing food for all the star mappers, and anyone who wasn’t placing a star or two had been put into service.
She’d stopped trying to help long ago. The dream hadn’t felt important, and she’d only been able to remember the Dragon Star with enough accuracy to be useful.
Others had apparently paid far more attention. Enough so that it had taken them the better part of a week to map what had been seen.
She set down the tray and then walked over to the huge flat rock where the mappers were working. The surface of the rock had long ago been blasted by dragons into a sheer surface that was black and shiny and served as a really excellent skating rink in the winter. She and Lotus had spent a lot of cold afternoons running down the hill and then throwing themselves onto the glassy rock and sliding as far as they could.
Today, anyone dragon or elf who tried such a stunt would find themselves on potato-digging duty until they were older than Elhen. The entire flat surface was surrounded by dragons and kin, and every so often, a dragon would lift off and circle in the sky, looking down at all the small white pebbles that were being laid out on its surface.
Sapphire watched as a skinny young kin walked nearly into the center and nudged a stone with his toe and then looked up. “That about right?”
The dragon in the sky over his head rumbled.
Irin nodded on the sidelines. “You’ve got a good memory, young Joren.”
Joren’s cheeks turned red. “You taught me to remember the details.”
Sapphire grinned ruefully—she’d gotten that speech a whole lot of times too, but clearly it had done Joren some actual good.
The young man who had flown in just before dawn like there were banshees on his heels, yelling that they had the stars in the south of the map wrong, tilted his head. “These definitely aren’t our stars. What do you think Queen Lovissa wanted us to know?”
Irin’s expression firmed as everyone within ear shot paused what they were doing. “You heard what Elhen told us. Theories wait until we have better knowledge. What we can do right now is to lay out what we know, not what we think.”
Joren’s face flamed. “Sorry.”
Irin’s eyes softened a stitch. “Curiosity kills more young lads than sharp swords. Show us what you remember. Gilhead will be finished with his soup soon, and assuming Inga doesn’t kill him first, he’ll be here wondering why we aren’t done with his map yet. Have we fixed the south stones to your satisfaction yet?”
Joren looked at his dragon flying overhead, and then squinted at the scattering of pebbles to his left. “We’re close.”
“That won’t be good enough for Gilhead,” Irin said dryly.
Joren’s eyes got hard and he muttered something under his breath that Sapphire couldn’t hear. It had been that all week, and the mutters had gotten louder when Kis and Irin had returned at the crack of dawn with an exhausted old man and his dragon in tow. Nobody seemed to like their new arrivals. Sapphire hadn’t seen the astronomer and his dragon yet, but she’d heard his querulous voice demanding food—and the pot Inga had thrown at his head. She’d been smart enough to scurry away with her tray, but Kellan was trapped in there.
Bad tempers were a regular part of village life, but this level of animosity was something different.
Irin shot a glance at everyone in the vicinity. “If you’re not better at mapping than young Joren here, off with you. There’s plenty of work to be done, and if you can’t find it for yourself, someone will be glad to give you a push in the right direction.”
People began to mill about, but Sapphire noticed it was a lot of movement without a whole lot of useful purpose.
Irin just shook his head and looked at the young man standing in the carefully placed pebbles.
“Right. Well.” Joren squared his shoulders and nudged a pebble a finger width farther left with his foot. “Something’s still not right with this grouping.”
Afran rumbled agreement and moved closer to that edge of the star map.
Sapphire handed bowls and meat pies to anyone who wandered near her tray, and tried to keep the sour mess in her belly from rising up her throat. Joren wasn’t the only one who wanted to know why the stars were weird. The invisible light of the Dragon Star’s mark felt heavy on her forehead. People kept looking at her like they could see it.
She tucked her head between her knees and tried to breathe. Afran had chased all the young dragons away from the mapping rock in no uncertain terms, and she missed Lotus.
Kellan scooted in beside her and gave her a quick, wordless hug.
The nasty feeling in Sapphire’s belly settled a little. “What are you doing here?”
“Gilhead’s on his way up, and I didn’t want to miss it. I can’t believe Kis didn’t set him on fire.”
Sapphire’s eyes widened. “Why would he do that?”
“Didn’t anyone tell you?” Kellan was whispering, but she sounded shocked. “Back during the big war with the slavers in the south, Gilhead and Rhonden were supposed to be on message relay at the border. They stayed up all night looking at the stars instead and fell asleep on their shift.” Her eyes got fierce and sad. “That was the day Irin and Kis signaled that they saw the army coming. Nobody got their message.”
Sapphire stared, appalled. She knew the rest of the story. “So they had to fly into battle themselves. All alone.”
Their last flight.
Kellan nodded solemnly. “After the battle, Elhen exiled Gilhead and Rhonden. She said they were a disgrace to dragon and kin and could never come home as long as they lived.” She looked over at the rock map, her face uncertain. “Maybe this is their chance to finally do some good.”
Or to mess things up for all of dragonkind. “Isn’t there anyone else who can help?”
Kellan shook her head slowly. “Elhen never would have sent for them otherwise.” She looked over at their weapons master, adjusting a pebble according to Joren’s hand signals. “Even Irin thinks so, or he would have run that nasty old man through with his sword.”
Sapphire was pretty sure Kis had the better claim. She crossed her arms in front of her chest, angry and uneasy and wishing she could go back in time and kick a sleeping astronomer and his dragon in the knees.
The steady buzz of conversation behind them suddenly hiccupped to a halt. Kellan wiggled sideways to see better. “He’s coming,” she whispered.
Sapphire hunched down a little smaller.
She watched, rapt, as an old man walked, tapping his cane, over to the high point that gave the best view of the star map. He gazed at it long enough for Sapphire to take three long, quiet breaths, and then glared at the two stand
ing in the middle of the pebbles. “What foolishness is this? Clearly both of you drank far too much last night.”
Joren’s face turned mottled red, but Irin plunked a restraining hand on his shoulder before the younger man could do anything but splutter. “Neither of us have ever shirked our responsibilities in such a manner, Gilhead. As you can’t claim the same, I suggest you start by treating us both with some respect, or I’ll be rethinking my position on running you through with my sword.”
The old man wheezed. “I was never drunk. Never.”
“Which is why you’re still alive.” Irin’s voice was calm and entirely unyielding. “And why you have a chance to be useful. Do you know these stars?”
Gilhead snorted. “No. These are the stars of someone’s fevered imaginings.”
Irin raised a slow, fierce eyebrow. “You are still kin. You would have seen the dream too.”
The old man met the fierce look, but his hands shook with tremors. “I take a sleeping draft. To keep the nightmares away.”
Sapphire’s hands were shaking too. There was no draft strong enough to take away Kis’s pain—or that of the man who loved him. She hated that the ones responsible got to hide from their pain.
Karis stepped forward, Afran at her shoulder. “We know the stars aren’t the ones we see. Could the skies have looked like this in Lovissa’s time?”
Gilhead snorted again. “No.”
Karis only stared at him mildly. “Then how do you explain this star pattern?”
The old man turned to leave. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. I’m an astronomer, not a storyteller.”
Fire hissed from Afran’s nose.
Sapphire jumped—Afran was never rude. Ever.
Gilhead turned back, his face an unhealthy shade of red.
“Some of them could be our stars.” Joren looked as surprised as anyone at the sound of his own voice. He gulped hard and threaded his way to the far west edge of the map. “This grouping here—that looks like the Wanderer. We see that in our sky, only over in the east. And these over here, if we moved them closer together and took these two out, look like part of the Dancing Ladies.”
