by Resa Nelson
Astrid still lived despite being trapped in the rock. Why had she assumed she'd die when others hadn't?
Dragon's Head is merely a prison, not a death sentence!
No one would come to set her free—certainly not Drageen! If Astrid didn’t take it upon herself to discover a way to escape, she would spend eternity inside this rocky outcrop.
Years ago, she'd forged herself into who she wanted to be. The scars once covering her body had formed the dragon-like scale patterns that ran down her spine and down her breastbone like the blade of a dragonslayer's sword.
But now she felt as if she'd collapsed and melted back into a bloom of iron. A raw thing that had no real shape or purpose. A meaningless metal that a blacksmith would smite to create a desired thing.
How did I let this happen? How did I change so much? When did I stop paying attention to who I am?
How can I trust my own decisions when they've led to such horrible things?
More regret swept over Astrid.
Why didn't I stay and fight? Why couldn't I have been the one to defeat Mandulane?
With a start, she remembered the bloodstones buried near her smithery. She’d given them to her apprentice Donel with instructions to embed them like jewels in the hilt of every weapon held by an Iron Maiden or a Guell villager planning to travel south and face Mandulane. She’d made that decision knowing there were many ways for alchemists to release the protective essence of bloodstones.
But wasn’t the best way to use Astrid’s tears? What if Astrid’s absence delayed the harvesting of the bloodstones’ strength until it was too late to use them?
What if Astrid had just endangered all of the Northlands by letting Dragon’s Head engulf her?
The realization pounded through her like an avalanche.
I want a second chance.
Astrid sensed a tremor pass through her being. Pressure squeezed Astrid with enough intensity to force the air out of her lungs.
Hope that a dragon might have heard her overwhelmed Astrid.
Give me this chance, and I promise to make the best use of it!
Rumbling thunder filled her ears. The pressure squeezed tighter, pushing her to the brink of unconsciousness. Astrid tried to cry out but failed to find her voice.
In a flash, she detected her body again but her muscles strained and her bones verged on the point of splintering into shards. A shock shuddered through her, and her body flirted with death.
The earth around her quaked and broke apart until streams of sunlight blinded her. Astrid gasped for breath, and fresh ocean air filled her lungs. The rocks covering her body cracked, splitting and breaking apart.
Her body numb and stiff, Astrid covered her face with her hands, barely able to feel them. Squeezing her eyes shut against the bright sunlight, Astrid’s legs buckled and she fell to the trembling ground.
“Beware,” an unseen woman whispered. “Be ready.”
Astrid wanted to ask why, but she managed only a croak. Thinking she should recognize the voice, Astrid strained to detect the whispered words. She couldn’t identify the hidden speaker. She let her eyes open, but even with her hands covering her face the sunlight was far too bright for her to bear.
“Your stone of darkness is now a stone of light,” the woman’s voice said. “Use it as a beacon.”
Within moments Astrid’s vision adjusted to the sharp light around the edges of her hands. She let them drop so she could adjust to the sun.
Astrid realized she was still on Dragon's Head, bathed in daylight. But the blinding light emerged from a nearby stone, not the sun. Weak-kneed, Astrid crawled toward the small stone emitting the powerful light that shimmered at her.
She picked it up and examined it.
This is my stone. The one that came out of my foot weeks after Margreet died. This was my stone of darkness.
Suddenly, the light radiating from the stone shifted and pointed in another direction. It created a path of light.
Dragon's Head still rumbled beneath her. Astrid looked at the path of the light pointing across the sea toward the coast.
“It’s leading to Guell,” Astrid said, remembering what the disembodied voice told her about the stone just minutes ago: Use it as a beacon.
Fogginess cleared from Astrid's head, and she surveyed her surroundings.
I'm alive.
The realization came as a happy surprise.
One of the dragons heard me. That dragon is giving me the second chance I want! I can go back to Guell and join my friends. We can fight against Mandulane together!
A fissure cracked open between her feet, and Astrid backed away from it. All of Dragon's Head trembled as if shaken by the hands of the gods themselves.
A stream of young lizards skittered across the rocky surface of Dragon's Head and then leaped off its edge to the sea far below.
Dragon's Head made a safe place for hatchlings. It made no sense for these young lizards to leave unless they sensed something Astrid hadn't yet fathomed.
Astrid tucked the stone of light inside the pouch that still hung from her belt. Following the path of the young lizards, she took a running jump off the edge of Dragon's Head and plummeted into the ocean below.
Dragon's Head shuddered and collapsed into the sea, destroying all traces of the pact the Scalding family had made with dragons many decades ago: an agreement that Dragon’s Head would be a constant reminder that all people should fear dragons and Scaldings alike.
CHAPTER 3
At the time Astrid found herself released by Dragon’s Head, Trep hammered at the anvil in Astrid's smithery. Having no idea she’d left Guell, he focused on a new knife blade for Astrid. He'd feel better knowing she had one more weapon to tuck under her belt before they set foot on the road to the Southern coast and prepare to face Mandulane and his army of Krystr soldiers.
Trep noticed Astrid carried Falling Star, the dagger Donel made for her. Falling Star might be a fine enough dagger, but he liked the idea of her having two at hand.
Sweat poured down Trep’s face and neck. The breeze drifting through the smithery cooled his skin. With every blow, the metallic clang of hammerhead against the small iron blade rattled through his bones. Within seconds, its color cooled from bright orange to dull red. He paused to plunge the knife blade back into the fire at his side. The sound of distant hammering rang through the breeze, letting him know the other blacksmiths were still at work in Guell.
Suddenly, the ground shifted under his feet, and an ear-splitting crack filled the air.
Keeping a firm grip on the hammer still in his hand, Trep dashed across the yard surrounding Astrid's cottage toward Dragon's Teeth Field, the strip of land embedded with jagged rocks that stood between the beach and Astrid's land.
Trep's first instinct made him look at the row of poplars lining the edge of Astrid's land. She'd once told him about a dragon that had come crashing through them. But the poplars merely swayed in the breeze, showing no sign of a dragon or any other creature.
What had caused such a loud noise?
Trep glanced toward Guell, a short walk away from this spit of land. Could another one of Mandulane's spies be wreaking havoc? Did Trep’s fellow blacksmiths need his help?
Another booming crack split the air.
Glancing up, Trep saw a clear blue sky. He spun, looking in every direction for an answer.
He faced the ocean and saw Dragon's Head shift and fall apart.
His jaw slackened in surprise.
The rocky outcrop stood like an island a short distance across the sea, a tiny peninsula reaching out from where the mainland curved west. The only connection to the mainland was a high, rocky wall so narrow and laced with crevices that not even dragons could maneuver its treachery.
But now the lofty outcrop shuddered and trembled, chunks of it breaking off and falling into the ocean.
“By the gods,” Trep whispered, holding his hammer close to his chest. His eyes grew as large as blooms of iron.
The ragged surface of Dragon’s Head continued crumbling until the entire outcrop split down the middle like a man cleaved in half by a sword's overhead blow. In disbelief, Trep watched it fall apart and crash into the ocean, hurling gigantic waves into motion toward Guell.
“Astrid,” Trep murmured. He shook himself as if coming fully awake. Running toward the cottage, he shouted her name but found her nowhere.
Shaken, Trep raced toward Guell, still clutching his hammer. He worried more about finding Astrid than about what the destruction of Dragon's Head might mean.
CHAPTER 4
When Astrid approached the shore, she bobbed in the sea more than swam in it. Battered by rough waves, she'd already swallowed a few mouthfuls of salt water, leaving her tongue and throat stinging and aching for fresh water. The seawater also blurred her vision, and she blinked to clear it. She winced at something sharp that grazed her foot. Astrid pulled her knees toward her chest to draw her legs away from anything dangerous lurking below the water's surface.
A strong current pushed her onto the beach, and Astrid scrambled to gain footing on the sand. She shivered, chilled by the ocean wind striking her wet skin and clothing. She crawled out of the tide toward the wooden boardwalk built by the blacksmiths of Guell a few years ago and sank into the grass growing at the foot of the walkway.
Incoming waves rushed across the entire beach and nipped at her legs. Astrid scrambled to climb up on the walkway. The waves eased away, leaving the grass and the sand shiny and wet.
That's impossible. The waves never wash up this far.
She hugged her knees to her chest, watching a greater wave sweep across the beach and the grass beyond it. The wooden walkway shuddered from the seawater rumbling beneath it, traveling far into Dragon's Teeth Field. Again, the water receded, but the field of jagged stones caught debris of broken rocks and a wealth of shellfish.
Dragon's Head. It broke apart and fell into the sea. And now pieces of it are washing up near Guell.
She felt as if she'd been awakened in the middle of the night, disoriented and on the verge of falling back asleep. She focused on the pain in her foot to stay awake. Now sitting, she cradled the foot in her hands and examined it.
Of all the things that have emerged from the bottom of my foot, what else is there that could be waiting to come out?
The sole of her foot looked fine. However, the top had been scraped and bled slightly, stinging from having been submersed in salt water. It didn't look like the bite from any kind of creature lurking beneath the ocean's depths. Instead, it looked like one of the jagged rocks rising from the sea floor had scraped against her foot.
Sighing, she stretched out on the wooden planks.
Just a few minutes. I'll rest here for a while and then go back to Guell.
A soft white glow emerged from the bag hanging from her belt, drenched like the rest of her.
Of course. She'd put the stone of light inside the pouch.
Astrid dug the stone out of the pouch and held it in the palm of her hand, where it continued glowing. The stone’s light had pointed Astrid back to Guell. Why did its light mean?
A beam stretched from the heart of the stone to illuminate the coastline.
North.
Astrid sat up.
That leads to the Far North. To the Boglands. Why is it pointing there?
The beam broke apart from the stone. The light shaped itself into a wall between Astrid and her village.
Amused, she touched it. The wall of light appeared to be solid.
A horrible thought occurred to her.
Why is the light forming a wall between me and Guell?
She tried pushing against the wall of light, but it didn’t give. She poked and prodded the wall, but it stretched higher than the trees and spread to either side, extending far along the shore.
Astrid shook her head and tried to reason with the light. “No one in Guell knows I went to Dragon’s Head. They expect me. I need to be with them. We have to go south to keep Mandulane out of the Northlands!”
The wall of light grew brighter and more solid.
“I won’t have any of this nonsense,” Astrid told the wall of light. Looking down at the stone in the palm of her hand, she told it, “Back into the pouch with you.”
But the stone brightened and melted into the palm of her hand. Astrid tried to dig it out. The stone’s surface burned her fingertips. She put them in her mouth to ease the pain.
I should have known. Before it lost its darkness, it did the same thing. Why didn’t I realize it might bury itself in my hand again?
“Taddeo!” Astrid shouted, raising her brightened fist toward the sea in which he likely hid. “I thought we were done with each other! Explain yourself or let me be!”
The ocean waves crashed toward her again, splashing Astrid even though they had weakened.
“This reeks of dragons,” Astrid muttered, glaring at the sea. She turned to face the wall of light that cut across the walkway. Making an impulsive decision, Astrid hurled herself forward, determined to run through the light and make her way to Guell before any dragon could stop her.
Instead, she hit the wall of light with such force that it knocked her unconscious. Astrid’s body crumpled onto the walkway, one hand landing in the seawater sliding upon her.
* * *
Astrid dreamed she shifted her shape and became a dragon. On four bent legs, she lumbered while she walked through a dense forest. She dragged the top of each foot across the ground and then flipped it up just in time to place her weight on it. A rock jutting from the ground scraped the top of one paw but she didn't mind. The scales covering her body provided good protection.
The world looked dim and dark. When light streamed through the trees, it made her squint. Every few seconds she flicked her yellow tongue, shooting through the serrated teeth in her jaws like a flame. She tasted the world because it helped her smell everything surrounding her.
Walking in her dragon body, the many varied and informative scents excited Astrid. She smelled the rich, deep dampness of earth and detected the movement of every creature crawling inside it. She noted the specific aroma of every flower and feather and blade of grass.
But most of all, she smelled fear. Although the vast majority of the world resonated in peace, Astrid detected a thick stream of anxiety wafting through the air. She stopped and held still, moving only to flare her nostrils and flick her yellow tongue to gather more clues.
Animals feared the presence of a predator but otherwise lived in contentment and peace. Therefore, the fear Astrid detected could not be the fear of ordinary animals. Intuitively, Astrid realized she smelled man’s ever-present fear.
“People are the only living creatures that choose to live in fear,” another dragon said.
Astrid turned, wondering why she hadn't sensed the dragon's presence. She thought she recognized Taddeo in his dragon form, and her jaw hung open in a reptilian grin. Of course she wouldn't have sensed him. His scent was too close to hers.
“You look well,” Taddeo said, nudging her shoulder with his snout in greeting.
Odd. One moment she believed it to be Taddeo but the next moment Astrid thought the other dragon spoke with a woman’s voice. Was this truly Taddeo? Or a different dragon?
The other dragon transformed into the image of Kikita, the Iron Maiden.
Kikita nodded her head. “Take care not to drag your belly.”
Astrid twisted her elongated dragon head to look at her own body. Astrid saw her belly bloated and hanging low to the ground. A sudden, shooting pain made her drop on her side. Astrid curled her legs and tail into her body.
“There is nothing to fear,” Kikita said. She circled Astrid slowly. “This is natural. It is your gift to all people. It is why they will have a chance to survive.”
Astrid roared at the wrenching pain of her body ripping apart. Paralyzed, she struggled to keep breathing.
What is wrong with me?
She wanted to
scream, but the pain left her speechless.
What is happening?
“We never expected this to happen,” Kikita said, kneeling by Astrid’s side. “Your decision to sacrifice yourself changed something inside you. It turned the stone from darkness to light. Your choice woke up something dormant. It made the impossible possible. It changed the essence of the form your spirit inhabits.”
Astrid screamed, hearing Kikita but barely understanding her words for the ripping sensation that shuddered through her body. Astrid wished she could die.
She no longer understood time. It seemed frozen and endless. Every second seemed like a year, and Astrid wanted only for the pain to stop and let her rest in peace. But the pain pressed through her body with relentless vigor. After what seemed to be an eternity, the pain finally vanished.
“You have done well,” Kikita said, gazing at Astrid. “You have served dragon-kind and the Scaldings with equal consideration, and we will not forget. We will remember what you have done when the time comes for us to determine the fate of the mortals who walk this world.”
Kikita transformed back into her dragon body and sprinted away, her short bowed legs moving clumsily and swiftly like those of a toddler.
Astrid sensed her body shifting shape. She climbed from her curled position on the ground to stand and stretch her arms up toward the sun. Something pulled loose from Astrid’s entire body, leaving her skin feeling smooth and itchy.
A large pile of papery skin puddled around her feet as if she had shrugged it off like a discarded cloak. Exhausted, Astrid sank next to it, curled up next to the papery pile and detected something new and round inside when she wrapped her arms around it.
I'll go home to Guell soon. Very soon.
Within moments, Astrid fell asleep once more.
CHAPTER 5
For the first time in several weeks, Komdra enjoyed a certain degree of success in protecting the Northlands.
Funny where life takes you. I buy a slave, her dragonslayer friend buys her back, and years later we all become allies. Who could have guessed we’d join forces to keep the Krystrs from stealing our homes?
