by Shae Ford
Even if he couldn’t remember everything, he didn’t worry about it. His head kept telling him that nothing beyond the haze was worth troubling himself over.
The mountains and valleys stretched so endlessly into the distance that Kael had begun to wonder if they touched the shores of another sea — one so far north that its waves were frozen in a shell of ice. But though his eyes couldn’t quite reach their ends, he would never get to see all the wonders the Motherlands kept hidden:
The dragons had far too many rules.
Kyleigh spent much of the day either hunting or flying about. Sometimes she would bring Kael along, but often times she didn’t. He wasn’t sure what she might have to do that he couldn’t be a part of — and anytime he asked, she would simply glare and say that her task was something she had to figure out for herself.
It was frustrating enough, not being able to help her. But Kyleigh’s absence meant that Kael was often stuck at the shore alone, trapped beneath Rua’s suffocating gaze.
The dragon had a near-endless list of things that Kael wasn’t allowed to do. Thus far he’d been scolded for traveling too far inland, and getting too close to the seas. He also got snapped at for just generally wandering out of sight.
That particular day, and after a particularly damp night, Kael pulled himself up the hills into the canopy of the forest — looking for someplace to start making camp. He didn’t know how long Kyleigh’s task would take her, but he knew for certain that he didn’t want to spend another dew-soaked night upon the ground.
Rua sprawled across the hill’s ledge while he searched, sunning his great crimson body atop the rocks. His scales only seemed to darken in the sun — as if the light dried the fresh red into a dull, crusted black. The dragon lay so still that Kael thought he’d gone to sleep. But the moment he found a promising place to start, Rua’s eyes snapped open.
His head snaked into the trees and he planted his wet, steaming nostrils in the middle of Kael’s bare chest. I know what you’re doing, human. These are my lands, and I won’t have you building one of your human roosts in my woods. Your homes are nothing like the beauty of the trees — they are ugly little squares with pointy tops.
“What if I give it a rounded top?” Kael said, turning his head from the damp heat of Rua’s breath.
The dragon didn’t seem to notice that Kael was inching away from him. In fact, he moved his snout up a bit — pressing its entire sticky front to the side of Kael’s face. No. It isn’t polite to try to nest in another male’s lands. And by it isn’t polite, I mean that I would tear the cords from your throat, were you a dragon. The only reason you have even been allowed to set foot here is because I am generous.
“And the only reason I haven’t left is because I don’t have the wings to get away from you,” Kael muttered. Sweat had begun to bead up across his chest, and the curls of his hair were all but straightened out.
He held his breath when Rua said: Hmm, even if you had wings, they would be too small to outpace me. His eyes darted away and his voice crept into a whisper. Why don’t humans have wings? You only have half the legs of other creatures, and the legs you do have are pitifully frail. It seems to me that you must always be getting chased down and eaten — and yet, there are so many of you.
Kael had honestly never given it much thought. “I suppose we must taste horrible.”
Rua’s blasting laugh knocked him off his feet. Before he had a chance to sit up, the dragon stuck his nose against his middle — pinning him to the earth. My mother used to tell me that humans are poisonous. Is that true? he rasped, eyes narrowing upon Kael’s face. Are you poisonous?
“Yes. Very,” he said quickly. “One bite will kill you.”
You are not even a bite … After a moment, Rua sighed. Still, I do not think you would be worth the stomachache. No nests, human. If you do not wish to be rained on, you may sleep beneath the trees — and the earth is warm enough to shelter your skin from the cold.
The ground in the Motherlands was strangely warm. Kael would often lie awake while Kyleigh slept fitfully beside him, feeling for the ebb and flow of the heat. It was as if the land was a creature all its own — as if the peaks were its spines, the hills were its flesh, and the great mountain in the middle was its rearing head.
If all that were true, then the fires that churned beneath the earth had to be the island’s pulse. The pattern was too steady, the warmth too deep for it to have been anything else. But he still didn’t see why they should have to sleep out in the open.
He was about to argue when Rua raised his head above the trees and craned it to the south. He stared for such a long moment that Kael got curious. One of the trees had limbs that drooped down to his reach, and he climbed them quickly.
The valley danced before him. Its long bed of grass waved beneath the icy wind, like the feathers of some monstrous bird ruffled against the cold. There was only one large, rounded section of grass that didn’t move — a patch wedged beneath the body of a glittering purple dragon.
This dragon was quite a bit smaller than Rua. Its body was long and lean, and its horns grew straight from the top if its head. The spines across its face were so small at their points that they looked like needles.
Rua’s voice crackled over the trees and into the valley below. The purple dragon raised its head at the sound and answered in a softer groan.
Before Kael could ask, Rua stuck his wet nose against his knee — so roughly that he nearly toppled off the branch. Once the halved one has done what we’ve asked, you will leave the Motherlands. And you will never return.
That was fine by Kael. He wasn’t at all interested in living in a place where he was forced to spend his nights crouching beneath the trees. Still, he was curious. “What have you asked Kyleigh to do, exactly? And who is we?”
I cannot tell you what she has been told to do. She asked in earnest that I keep it from you, and so I shall.
Kael had to concentrate to keep his voice even. “Yes, well, she’s known for keeping secrets — to the point that she gets herself into trouble. She’s miserable,” he said, watching as the dragon’s eyes twitched uncertainly. “I’ve never seen her so unhappy. I only want to help.”
Kyleigh hadn’t been herself, of late — a fact that exhausted him more than all of Rua’s laws put together. It wasn’t like her to disappear all day. When she finally did come back, she was careful to keep her eyes cast down. She hardly looked at him any more, let alone touched him. And when he tried to reach out to her, she would back away like there were barbs growing from the tips of his fingers.
Then one night, a thin line of earth appeared between them. Now it had stretched to nearly a hand’s width. He wasn’t certain she would’ve returned to him at all, had Rua not forbade her to go flying at night. It made Kael sick to think she was miserable, but his prodding only seemed to make things worse. He wasn’t sure what to do.
If Rua would simply tell him what her task was, he might be able to help. But the dragon flatly refused.
She asked in earnest that we keep it from you. We cannot ignore a request asked in earnest.
“Who’s we?” Kael said again, hoping there might be someone a little less ridiculous on the island to deal with.
My mate, Rua replied. His great chest swelled with the word, stretching the blackened scar across its middle.
Kael leaned around him, to where the glittering purple dragon lay sprawled in the grass below. “Is that her?”
Her? Rua’s eyes bulged from their sockets. Are you blind, human? That isn’t a her. That is Corcra — a friend from the north. You would know my mate if you saw her, he added with a rumbling growl. There would be no doubt.
“All right,” Kael said slowly. He was fully aware of how Rua’s sharp teeth pressed against his leg, and couldn’t forget how the dragon had mentioned he was less than a bite. He tried to speak carefully. “Who is Corcra?”
He lives with his mate inside the great caverns to the north, in a land that is always evening. I’ve n
ot seen him for a hundred years, but my daughters have been spreading word throughout every roost that there is a halved one and a human living here. So he has come to see —
“Wait a moment. You have daughters?” Kael said.
Yes. The words came out somewhere between a growl and a groan, and Rua’s yellow eyes rolled back. I fear their chattering will end me, human, if time does not end me first. Normally, I would not have allowed Corcra into my lands, he went on, his stare roving back to the valley. But he flew in respectfully, so I could not deny him a glimpse.
“How does one fly respectfully, exactly?” Kael wondered.
Rua looked at him as if he was stupid. By slowing one’s wings and dropping beneath the clouds, of course. Height is everything to a dragon. The further in the air you are, the more power behind your fall. So a male who wishes me harm will fly in above my head, while one who wishes me respect needs no such advantage.
Though he hated to admit it, Kael supposed it made sense. “Is that how your daughters traveled around, then? Flying respectfully?”
Rua’s laugh rumbled inside his chest. No, human. A daughter is a female — females do not battle for skies or lands, he said when he saw Kael’s confusion. They are not a threat to us, and so they may fly wherever they wish.
Kael was still trying to wrap his head around it all when Rua crushed his spines tighter against his knee, bruising him again.
I must go now, human. Corcra will look after you while I am away, and you would do well to stay beneath his eyes. Rua’s voice dropped to a crackling growl as he added: If not, he will slip beneath your belly and spill your guts upon the ground. I have seen far greater beasts than you fall dead before him.
A chill raced up Kael’s spine. He kept a wary eye on the purple dragon, who’d crept from the grass and now rolled contentedly in an obliging patch of thorny shrubs. “Where are you going?”
To see my mate, he murmured, eyes brightening. The ache in my chest has grown unbearable. Her heart calls to me, and I must answer it.
*******
Days crawled by, and things only became worse.
Corcra wasn’t at all interested in speaking with him. Any time Kael got close, he would take to his wings and circle the sky — and he could circle for hours, using the gusts of wind to hold his slender frame aloft. Kael stared at him for nearly a full day once, hoping Corcra would eventually tire and come down. But he never did.
Kyleigh returned far less frequently. She left at dawn and would glide in with the last remaining shreds of light, her brows dropped low over her eyes.
Kael watched her stomp in from a distance, once. He couldn’t help but notice how she walked — like there was a weight upon her back and stones tied to her feet. Dark lines hung beneath her eyes and dragged at the corners of her mouth. Her stare, when it finally returned from some shadowed trail of thought, was hollow and vacant.
The fires were gone, and all that remained was an ashen shell of green.
When she saw him watching, her face went smooth and her stare returned to the ground. But it was too late. Kael had already decided that he’d had enough.
“All right, Kyleigh,” he said, snatching her around the shoulders. “I can’t stand this anymore. Tell me what’s going on with the dragons. What has Rua asked you to do? Whatever it is, I’m certain I can —”
“You can’t,” she snarled, glaring over his shoulder. “You can’t help me. I’ll figure it out on my own.”
“No, you won’t. You’ve been at it for days and all you’ve managed to do is snap at me. You’re getting darker by the minute, and we’re running out of time …”
His words trailed away as something in the back of his mind woke with a jolt. Pictures slid behind his eyes for a moment, dulled and gray at their edges. A wave of heat coursed over his flesh; he heard voices and screams.
“What did you say?” Kyleigh whispered.
Her question broke him from his trance, thrust the pictures aside. When he blinked, he saw she was staring at him very intently — as if she could see the pictures, as well.
“I said we’re running out of time.” Voices drifted through his mind for a moment, carried softly by the wind. “I’m not sure why, but I feel like there’s something we ought to be doing, someplace we ought to be … but we can’t get there unless you …”
Kyleigh placed a hand against his throat. Her fingers splayed across his neck and her thumb pressed very firmly against his chin. A soothing warmth stretched out from where she touched. It slipped inside his veins and Kael shut his eyes as the warmth numbed him to his toes. But it lasted only a moment.
When he looked up, Kyleigh’s face had changed.
It happened in a blink, a breath. Flames swelled inside her stare — not as bright as they’d once been, but driven to a sharpness that must’ve pained her. Her brows clamped down and her mouth twisted in what could’ve only been agony. Her look was too furious, her face too pale for it have been anything else.
Kael’s heart leapt up his throat. He lunged for her instinctively, prepared to do whatever it took to stop her from hurting. But she shoved him away with a roar.
“Leave it alone, Kael! For once in your life, just leave it blasted well alone!”
She left him, then — marching into the woods, where the trees’ shadows draped across her blackened armor until she slowly disappeared.
Kael stood alone in the darkness for a long moment, trying to make some sense out of what had happened. But it didn’t make any sense at all. He had no idea why she was angry with him. All he’d wanted to do was help her, to try to stop her pain if he could.
Perhaps she was right: perhaps he really ought to leave it alone.
When a few hours dragged by and Kyleigh still hadn’t returned, Kael fell into a restless sleep. Things clawed at him from the darkness. They were hurt and angry things. More than once, a pulse of heat from deep within the earth dragged him from his sleep. He woke feeling sick, the warmth too much for his stomach.
It was in the hour when the night air was coolest that he finally relaxed enough to dream … and it was a horrible dream.
He dreamt that he stood in the Unforgivable Mountains once more. Snow blustered so thickly about him that he couldn’t see what lay ahead. Still, he walked very purposely onward, picking his way down the slopes and across the frozen lands.
Every once in a while, he heard a cry on the wind:
… finish it … finish what we started …
The voice was so faint that Kael wasn’t sure he’d heard it. When he turned, the world behind him was too shrouded to tell if someone followed. His legs kept moving even as he watched, as if they were determined to carry him down. And after a moment, his eyes turned back to the frozen path ahead.
… finish it, lad …
The voice had grown louder. He was certain he’d heard it, this time. Kael twisted against the march of his legs and stared intently at the thick curtain of snow behind him. It swirled, pulsing against the tug of the wind. He stared until his eyes ached from the strain, but the voice didn’t come again.
He was about to turn away when something inside the blusters began to take shape: the stocky figure of a man limping through the snow. The man’s pace was short and halting. He seemed to more stumble than walk. Though the ground was treacherous, he kept one arm clamped against his chest — nursing it as if it were broken.
Kael tried to turn back, but his legs wouldn’t let him. They marched on at a steady pace even as the man behind him stumbled and fell. The snow stormed in as Kael outdistanced him. Everything he tried to yell was torn aside by the wind.
In the moment before the man could be lost behind the next rising hill, he raised his arm. His hand was gone, hewed from his wrist. A torrent of blood wept thickly from its ragged nub. The bright red somehow cut through the winter and seemed to glow as he cried:
You finish it, lad! Finish what we started!
Kael cried out when the man collapsed. He grabbed his knees and tried
to force his legs to turn, but they kept marching on. Behind him, the man’s blood became a river: it ran down the slope and washed over Kael’s boots. The blood pooled in a mirror before him, and he saw images swirling inside the red.
A black dragon fell from the skies, wildmen clashed against a gilded army. Villagers screamed, fires churned the seas aside — a castle moaned as it crumbled to the ground.
Kael leapt away from the cackling of a horrible, grinning skull, and the shock jolted him from his sleep. He woke with the sun blaring above him.
And he remembered everything.
CHAPTER 29
His-Rua
“Kyleigh!”
Kael roared her name into the sky, the trees. He searched throughout the forest and hardly paused for a breath. He didn’t know if it was a trick or a curse, or some ridiculous brand of dragon magic.
But he knew for certain this was all her doing.
No man simply lost his memories. It was no coincidence that he numbed every time she touched him. He should’ve known when his mind went soggy that there was something odd happening. There had to be a reason his head had been so muddled the past … however long it’d been.
Blast it all, he wasn’t even sure how long they’d been trapped in the Motherlands. The whole Kingdom could’ve fallen apart by now.
They had to get out.
Kyleigh was nowhere to be found. Either she was still sulking from the night before, or she’d heard him cursing at the trees. But it didn’t matter where she hid: he was determined to find her.
After a few hours of combing through the woods, he thought she might’ve gone back to camp. There wasn’t any sign of her beneath their tree. His filthy clothes and armor sat untouched upon the scant pile of their belongings. He marched out from the woods to the cliffs that overlooked the valley, hoping to catch some sight of her there.
Instead, he found Rua.
The red dragon was curled atop his usual hill, so unmoving that Kael might’ve mistaken him for its jagged crest, had the sunlight not revealed his scales.
