When winter came, the dragons were warring with one another. It got so bad, we could hear their roaring from our homes in Meradell, and Goose started spending the nights outside my window, even when it was snowing. The fact that he’d rather stay outdoors, where it was freezing, then go back home broke my heart, and after this had happened three nights in a row, I demanded he take me to the mountains so I could find out what was going on. He was reluctant, but in the end we were soaring over the city and into the mountains.
It was bitterly cold when we landed, my boots and Goose’s feet crunching through the new snow as we walked to Aristo’s cave. I had my hood up, my scarf wrapped around the lower half of my face, my heaviest coat on, and my gloved hands jammed deep into my pockets, and I was still a frozen block of ice when we entered the cave.
Inside the cave a fire was going, and between that and the heat thrown off from the dragons’ bodies, it was downright blazing inside, but to me it felt like absolute bliss. As I tugged down my hood and removed my scarf, I assessed the scene. Aristo and Senia were standing on opposites sides of the fire, snarling at one another.
Normally, I’d be too frightened to say anything, but I was so tired of their behavior, of being kept in the dark about why they were acting this way, and of seeing Goose miserable as his kin fought that I exclaimed, “What is going on?”
Both dragons jumped in surprise. I guess they hadn’t heard me approach since they’d been too busy growling at one another. “Nerine,” Senia said. “What are you doing here?”
“I came for some answers! Do either of you know that Goose has spent the last three nights outside my home in the freezing cold?” Neither dragon spoke, but their guilty expressions were answer enough. “Why are you fighting? Why are all the dragons so upset? What’s going on? I know I’m just some human, but Goose is my dragon and I have a right to know, don’t I?”
Senia glanced at Aristo. When he nodded, the ruby dragon said, “We’ve been sensing magic coming from the west. Different from the magic we sensed three years ago.”
“What happened three years ago?” I asked.
“Something terrible.” Senia’s face darkened. “Many, many deaths. But this magic is different. Some of it is bad, but some of it is… familiar.”
“What do you mean, ‘familiar’?” I took a step forward. “You’re not talking about magicians, are you?”
“No.”
“Then what?” I glanced at her and Aristo in turn. They were both somber, but there was something else in Senia’s eyes. An eagerness I’d never seen before. Suddenly, I understood what she’d meant. “Familiar like a dragon, Senia?”
“Yes,” she hissed.
“Senia wants to travel across the ocean in search of what might not even be a dragon,” Aristo rumbled. “What she’s proposing is madness. And not only that, but what if she’s seen? What if she’s captured and tortured and reveals where the rest of us are hiding?” His blue eyes flared with anger. “We were nearly wiped out once, and I will not let that happen again based on a whim.”
“It’s not a whim!” Senia’s voice echoed against the cave walls. “You feel it too. You all feel it and yet you’re ignoring it! And the pool… You know what it showed me.”
“What?” I asked. So she had looked. I knew it! “What did you see?”
Her eyes gleamed. “Our future.”
“Senia saw the dragons returning to the lands in the west,” Aristo said.
“Our lands,” Senia corrected.
The gray dragon shook his head. “No. They no longer belong to us.”
“We can’t stay here either!” Senia insisted. “Look at us, Aristo. We might be safe, but our magic is dying. There are no eggs. Goose was a miracle that nearly didn’t happen.”
Aristo winced.
“We both know that there won’t be any more hatchlings as long as we stay hidden in our caves away from the magic we need,” Senia continued. “We thrived in the west, and there was a reason for that. The ancient magic, the kind you speak of in whispers; it’s not just a legend, is it?”
“You aren’t even three hundred years old,” Aristo snapped. “You are a mere baby compared to the rest of us. You have no idea what you’re talking about and you should consider yourself lucky that you weren’t alive during the wars. That you never saw a dragon ripped apart by this very same magic that you claim will save us.”
“I won’t sit by and do nothing.” Senia slapped her tail against the ground. “I will not remain here hiding in my cave and wait to die. My nephew, your son, deserves better than this, Aristo, and if you were half the great dragon you claim to be, then you would want the same.”
He lunged for her, but Senia, smaller and faster, darted out of the way. I covered my mouth, silently screaming as Goose put his body between me and his warring aunt and father. “We have to do something,” I told him, even though I didn’t know what that was. I hadn’t been able to stop Grendel the night he’d fought with Aster—
But I wasn’t about to sit by and watch that tragedy occur again.
“Stop!” I screamed as loud as I could. Again both dragons halted to look at me. “You have to stop. What Senia said is true; there’re so few of you left. You can’t fight like this. Wasn’t losing Aster bad enough?”
Senia spoke quietly, her voice throbbing with emotion. “I know the reason we’re here, exiled from our land, is because of the magic. But the magic in the pool is telling me we need to return. If you don’t want to listen to the magic, then that’s fine. I’ll do this without you.” Senia turned for the mouth of the cave and Aristo made no move to follow her. “I’ll find this other source of magic, this dragon, and I’ll save our kin. Then you’ll beg me for a chance to apologize, Aristo.”
Watching her go, Aristo said quietly, all of his fight gone, “I hope that comes to pass, Senia. I truly do.”
Chapter Twenty-five
Outside it’d started snowing again, hard enough that our visibility was limited to only a few feet in front of us. Senia’s footprints were already filling with snow and I picked up the pace as Goose and I chased after her.
“Senia!” My shout was lost in the wind. Next to me Goose let out a terrible roar, unlike any noise he’d ever made before. It echoed off the rocks and I was relieved to see Senia, nothing but a red blur in the distance, pause.
When we caught up to her, my pant legs were soaking wet and I was panting hard. I readjusted my hood so it covered my head but kept my scarf down so she could hear me. “Senia, wait.”
“Nerine, I’ve been waiting for months,” she replied. “Since I saw that vision, I’ve been waiting, standing on the edge of a cliff as if I were deciding whether I should fall or take flight.” Her golden eyes narrowed. “I’m not going to fall.”
“Do you really think you’ll be able to find this dragon? And that he or she can help?”
“The fact that we can sense the dragon means they are powerful. More powerful than any of us.” Senia’s gaze went distant. “This dragon is a survivor from the old wars. Unlike my kin, this one didn’t run away. This dragon lived.”
Goose nosed past me, butting his aunt with his head. She smiled fondly at him. “I’m sorry to leave you, little one, but I’m doing this for you. I want you to have a future. If I stay, I’m afraid you won’t have one at all.”
Making a low, pitiful noise, Goose turned his head sideways. He was confused and hurt; he didn’t understand why Senia was leaving him.
And why he couldn’t go with her.
I swallowed hard. “Senia…”
“What did I promise you on your birthday, Nerine?” she asked. “I will never take Goose from you. I know I said I wouldn’t leave either, but I need to find this dragon. I can’t stay here.”
“I understand.” There was a lump in my throat. “But I’ll miss you.”
She smiled softly. “And I you, brave Nerine.” Senia allowed me to hug her briefly before she turned her attention to Goose. “Be good. Be brave. Be yourself, my sweet nephew. Don’
t let anyone change you. You’re perfect as you are.” She nuzzled him gently, her eyes sad. It was then that I realized this choice wasn’t easy for her either. Senia didn’t want to go, but she had to.
“Don’t look so sad,” Senia chided both of us. “I’ll be back, you’ll see, with the other dragon in tow.” She flashed us a grin. “Remember, I don’t break my promises.”
“Be careful,” I told her, but it came out as a whisper, so I wasn’t sure if she’d even heard me. Senia was already turning away and snapping her wings open. With a roar that shook the mountains, she took off at a run. When she reached the cliff, she made her decision:
She flew.
Next to me Goose shuddered and let loose a mournful cry. I went to hug him, but he tore away from me and raced after his aunt. All I could do was watch him go, my heart squeezing in fear.
If he follows her, I won’t stop him, I thought tearfully.
But at the edge of the cliff, Goose stopped and looked back at me. Stumbling through the snow, I joined him at the edge and threw my arms around his neck.
Together we watched Senia fly away.
***
Senia wasn’t gone for long when it happened.
It’d only been a handful of weeks. The snow had stopped, although the mountains were still blanketed in it and would remain that way until the spring. Down in Meradell it was warmer than usual this time of year; our neighbors said that meant we would have an early, hot summer.
“Great,” Trey remarked. “As if it weren’t hot enough here in the summer anyway.”
“Like you do anything but spend your summers swimming in the lake or lounging on the beach,” Nicolas retorted.
As the two—friends now, despite their differences—bickered good-naturedly, I tuned them out as I worked on threading my favorite stone from Goose—a blue one that matched his eyes—on a long cord. After knotting the ends, I slipped the cord over my neck. The stone rested right above my heart, the perfect spot for it.
“What do you think?” I asked Goose, striking a silly pose for him. He honked in response and nudged me with his nose, nearly toppling me over into the sand. It was too cold to go swimming, but we’d found ourselves at the beach today anyway, Celes digging a giant hole in the sand for no reason whatsoever while Goose deposited shell after shell at my feet. I was starting to run out of space in my room and had taken to displaying Goose’s presents throughout the house. So far I hadn’t heard any complaints from Mom or Dad, so I guessed they liked the new decorations.
Rummaging through the shells, I picked one up, about to ask Goose where he’d found it when my dragon froze, his pupils dilating. He looked so odd that I jumped to my feet in alarm. “Goose?”
Trey and Nicolas must have realized something was wrong from my tone of voice because they stopped bickering to turn to me in unison.
“Goose!” I waved my hands in front of his face, but he didn’t even blink. He looked like a statue; I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing. There was nothing flickering across the bond to tell me what he was feeling, either. It was like he wasn’t even there, I realized as icy horror trickled down my spine.
When Trey let out a cry and sprinted across the sand, I glanced at Celes and saw she was acting the same as Goose. Is it all the dragons?
What was happening?
“Nic?” I called, my voice shaking. He was at my side in a flash, peering at Goose. “Have you ever seen them do something like this before?”
He shook his head. “It’s like he’s in a trance.”
“What’s happening? Is it the magic?” I’d told Nicolas and Trey everything Senia had said the day she’d left and they were as worried as I was about the fate of the dragons. More than once one of them had suggested leaving Meradell in search of Senia and the new dragon. Like Senia, Nicolas and Trey were convinced this other dragon could save our dragons. But since we didn’t even know where to start looking, we’d remained in Meradell, hoping Senia would return and save us the work of searching for her.
But now… What if something had happened because we hadn’t gone after her?
Just as I was reaching for Goose, he shuddered and a flood of emotions slammed into me, knocking me to my knees. Fear and anger and such a gut-wrenching sadness.
I hadn’t felt grief like this since my sister died and I knew, I knew—
“Neri!” Nicolas hauled me to my feet, his hands gripping my shoulders. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Senia,” I said, tears flooding my eyes. “She’s dead.”
Behind me Goose let out a long and loud mournful note, one that Celes echoed. It was such a horrible noise that Nicolas paled and stepped away from me, the realization that I was right plain on his face. Grimacing, Nicolas whispered, “Aristo feels it too.”
“How did she d-die?” Trey asked, looking like he was about to be sick.
I wrapped my arms around my stomach. “I don’t know. I don’t even know how the dragons know—”
“They know when one of theirs has died,” Nicolas said. “This is the noise they made when Aster…” He covered his mouth with his hand and shook his head.
Aster and Maya and now Senia. Senia who’d left to help her kin. Senia, who’d promised she would be back. She never broke her promises. Never. So how could this be happening?
“We need to find her,” I said, my voice like steel.
“Neri—”
“She’s out there all alone,” I said, speaking over Nicolas. “She’s out there in a foreign land and she’s alone and we need to find her, Nic.”
“I’m not arguing with you,” he said, “but we need to think about this. We can’t just go charging in. We don’t know what killed Senia, but whatever or whoever it is, they’re still out there. We don’t want them attacking our dragons, either.” Nicolas pointed toward the mountains. “Let’s discuss this with the others before we decide anything.”
“Aristo,” I growled. “He didn’t want Senia to leave in the first place. What makes you think he’ll want to help now?”
“Even if he doesn’t want to go, I will,” Celes said. “And you will find others who will be willing to go against Aristo’s wishes. The death of one of our own is not something we will take lightly.” Her eyes darkened as she snapped her teeth. “Whoever did this will pay.”
“Then let’s go round up an army,” I said grimly.
***
We stopped briefly at our respective homes to grab our heavy coats. I found my parents in the kitchen about to eat lunch, and the words rushed out of me. They stared at me, their eyes wide with shock and their mouths slightly ajar. They’re going to tell me to stay, I thought, panicked. And I couldn’t— I hated the thought of disobeying them, but I had to do this.
“Please,” I said before they could speak. “I need to go. For Goose. For Senia.” My voice broke and the tears came, hot and furious. I stood there, swiping them as they fell, waiting for my parents to speak.
“We already lost Maya,” Dad began, pausing when Mom placed a hand on his arm. He turned to her. “Lila?”
She shook her head. “We can’t keep her here. It’s not fair to her or Goose.”
“Goose?” Dad looked confused. “What does he have to do with any of this? He can go; he doesn’t need Neri.”
“Marcus.” Mom spoke his name firmly, causing my dad to snap his mouth shut. She rarely used that tone of voice, but when she did, you had to listen or else face her wrath. “Don’t act like you haven’t been watching Neri and Goose interact this past year. Where one goes, the other follows. If we keep Neri here, Goose will stay.” Now it was Mom’s turn to brush away a tear as it trailed down her cheek. “He’s already lost his mother. Now his aunt. You can’t—we can’t keep him here. He needs to go. He needs to see what happened to Senia.”
Dad looked at me. “But leaving Meradell… Lila, are you sure?”
She took his hand in hers, then reached out for me. I stepped forward, entwining my fingers through Mom’s. “I know Neri wi
ll come back to us.”
“I will,” I promised. “You’re not going to lose me. I’ll never let that happen. I’ll never let you experience that type of heartache again.”
Dad sucked in a deep, shaky breath before nodding. With his free hand, he pulled me into a hug, Mom wrapping her arms around me from the other side.
We stood there in our kitchen for a long moment before they let me go.
“I’ll see you soon,” I told them before walking away.
When I met up with Trey and Nicolas, they were wearing identical somber expressions, which I imagined mirrored the one on my face. “Did your parents threaten to lock you up in your bedroom until you were fifty, too?” Trey asked.
“Dad didn’t want me to go, but Mom convinced him,” I said, still surprised by that turn of events.
“I think my parents disowned me,” Nicolas said, squinting at the sky.
“Sorry,” I said.
He shrugged. “I’ll fix it when we come back.”
When we come back. I glanced at my house, repeating my promise one final time. I’ll come home.
***
As Trey, Nicolas, and I flew to the mountains, Goose was silent and mournful and I hated that I didn’t know what to say to him. There wasn’t anything to say. Death had claimed another loved one and I was too paralyzed with grief to do anything but plan my next immediate step.
Talk to the dragons.
Find Senia.
Deal with my sorrow later.
The dragons were gathered outside of Aristo’s cave surrounding their leader. They moved out of the way so Goose and Celes could land. Once my feet touched the snowy ground, Aristo demanded, “You felt it too?”
“Yes,” Celes said. “What are we going to do about it?”
The entire mountainside was silent as everyone waited for Aristo’s answer. I curled my hands into fists, ready for a fight.
Aristo growled, a deep rumbling in his chest. “We’re going to find whoever killed Senia, and we will rip them to shreds.”
As the other dragons roared in agreement, I felt a trickle of relief sneak in amongst my grief. Looking at Trey and Nicolas, I shouted to them over the noise, “Are you coming?”
Run and Touch the Sky Page 16
