by Resa Nelson
Keeping a light heart, Astrid said, “I've seen almost no dragons this year. Either they're dying out faster than we thought or they're migrating later than usual.” Nodding at the young dragon near her feet, she said, “This looks like it hatched late last season and found a cave to sleep in all winter. I can't imagine why else a dragon this age would be this far north. Rogue dragons are rare, but you run into one every so often.”
The young dragon snorted again as if confirming its status.
“And thank goodness we had a true dragonslayer to catch it,” Peat said happily. “Now all we need is to decide what to do about it.”
“We could eat it,” Astrid said brightly.
Everyone looked at her in horror.
Peat cleared his throat and prepared his words carefully. “We do not eat animals. We live on plants and nuts and berries and other things that don't walk or swim or crawl.”
“All right,” Astrid said. “We could let it go, but it would probably come back. It sees us as food, and it knows it has found plenty to eat. We could keep it in a cage.”
Peat paled. “Like livestock?”
Oh, dear.
They probably thought Astrid meant to convince them to eat the thing against their wishes.
“No,” Astrid said. “We could use it to guard us. Back in Guell we have three dragons that guard the town gates. They've been quite helpful.”
“Guard us from what?” a man standing near Astrid said. “The merchants who come here to trade? They're the only visitors we have. No one else comes to the Boglands.”
Astrid met the man's eyes. Peat had suggested waiting a while before bringing up the subject, but Astrid believed in grabbing every good opportunity that presented itself. “Haven't the merchants told you about Mandulane? About the Krystr soldiers?”
“That's happening in the Southlands,” a woman in the small crowd said. “Why should we care what happens there?”
“I've met Mandulane,” Astrid said.
Everyone went so still that Astrid hoped they hadn't stopped breathing.
“It happened earlier this year. I was captured by Mandulane and escaped before being made into one of his slaves. He plans to invade the Northlands. We’re all at risk of losing everything.”
One of the men reached out a hand to steady himself while he sank to a sitting position on the stones, his face pale and drawn. The others joined him until only Peat kept standing.
The woman in the bog called out, “Why is this happening to us?”
Peat turned to her. “They say everyone should believe in the White Krystr because he is the one, true god. I believe when people claim to act in the name of a god, it's an excuse for them to act as they wish for their own benefit.”
The woman in the bog said, “Do you think if we're kind to the dragon and feed it and take care of it that it might attack the Krystrs instead of us?”
“It's possible,” Astrid said. “But it’s always a good idea to wear leather gloves. With one this young, a good pair of gloves can stop its bite and keep you safe.”
Peat cleared his throat again. “I believe we have a plan. We will keep the dragon with the intent of using it to give us more protection. Let us return to camp and devise a way to keep it in a place where it is safe and where we are safe from it.”
Astrid added, “When you get to camp, everyone should put on leather gloves and boots, if you have them. The key is to keep it from biting you, especially breaking your skin. Do not let its spittle anywhere near you, especially if you have broken skin.”
Peat cocked his head at Astrid. “How do you propose we move this monstrosity of an animal?”
“Leave that to me.”
“Should we meet you at camp?”
Astrid nodded.
The men and women followed Peat back to camp. At the same time, the blond woman in the bog sloshed her way closer to Astrid while still keeping a respectable distance.
“Thank you,” the woman said. “For saving my life.”
When the woman drew nearer, Astrid believed she already knew her but couldn't figure out why. She looked strangely familiar. Astrid thought she should recognize her.
“My name is Peppa,” the blond woman said.
Recognition hit Astrid like a punch thrown to the gut. Now she could see the family resemblance: the height, the lean build, the long blond hair in dozens of tiny braids.
This had to be Trep's sister.
Two years ago, he sat with Astrid on the wooden walkway outside Guell throughout the night and watched the moon turn from pale yellow to orange to blood red. They talked through the night, and Trep told the story of how his sister married a Midlander man only to discover herself being treated harshly. Trep told Astrid how she escaped to the Boglands.
Shame washed over Astrid.
I love Trep but walked away from him. How can I admit to his sister what I’ve done? Or that I even know him?
“Truly,” Peppa said. “Thank you.”
Astrid nodded her acceptance. She then reached down to grab the young lizard by its tail, releasing it from the bog rake and hauling it up into the air like a chicken destined for the supper table.
“It's my pleasure,” Astrid said while the lizard squirmed helplessly.
CHAPTER 15
The calm sea lapped against Drageen’s ship, and he took a moment to study its position.
The high, distant mountains of the Northlands stood far in the distance behind him, and the low rays of the sun glinted off something golden straight ahead.
Drageen sighed in relief at the sight of Tower Island. Home of the Scalding clan, his family.
He remembered picking dandelions and tickling the underside of Astrid's chin when she was a toddler, making the little girl giggle.
The alchemist's rattling snore broke the early morning stillness. She slept curled up on the deck next to the bundled long oars stored down its center. Drageen walked toward her, the wooden floorboards creaking and groaning beneath his feet.
“Alchemist!”
Her white hair loose and covering her face like a blanket, the alchemist grunted.
Drageen nudged her with the toe of his weathered brown boot. “Get up!”
The alchemist rolled onto her stomach, pillowing her face with crossed arms. “Go away,” she muttered.
Before Drageen could kick her, the ship pitched enough for him to shuffle his feet to keep his footing. He winced, the ankle he'd twisted troubling him again.
“You should have someone look at that,” the alchemist said pointedly, her head still burrowed in her arms.
I swear the woman has eyes in the back of her head.
Recognizing her intent of offering to help him, he said, “It's nothing but a twist.”
The alchemist grunted again and then pushed herself up to sit cross-legged on the deck. “Are we there yet?”
Drageen pointed at the distant Tower Island. “I can see it from here. Can you appease the gods and have them hurry us there somehow? Have them push the ship with a bit more force?”
The alchemist shrugged.
Immediately, a new wind kicked up. Even though the ship’s sail had been lost years ago, they seemed to speed toward the island.
Drageen looked at the alchemist in wonder.
She shrugged again. “Sometimes the wind is just the wind. I had nothing to do with it.” The alchemist hesitated. “Although I'm willing to take full credit.”
They arrived at the Tower Island harbor within hours. But the sight of the unlocked gates standing open troubled Drageen. His ship glided into port. With no guards to help them, Drageen took a running leap onto the dock, tied off the ship, and then helped the alchemist climb out to join his side. “What do you make of this?” he asked.
The alchemist gazed at the open gates that had once guarded Tower Island from intruders. “I don't—”
As Drageen shifted his weight from one foot to the other, a sharp pain shot from the ball of his foot to his ankle, and he cried out.
He lifted his injured foot and grabbed the alchemist's shoulder to balance himself.
“You should have let me look at that foot,” the alchemist said.
Crying out, Drageen sat on the dock and yanked his boot off to find the ball of his foot raw and bleeding. Astonished, he said, “How did this happen?”
The alchemist merely rolled her eyes.
As Drageen prodded the ball of his foot in an effort to find the cause of the injury, a red stone fell through his skin and onto the wooden deck.
The alchemist gasped, pointing at it. “You've produced a bloodstone! Just like Astrid!”
Drageen shook his head. “It can't be. I can't.”
Although too ashamed to say so out loud, Drageen knew he and Astrid must have different fathers. Her father had been the son of the first dragonslayer. Drageen’s father had most likely been a commoner. Drageen didn’t have the lineage that would allow his body to create the bloodstones he needed to fight his battles. “I must have had a pebble in my boot. I must have stepped on it—”
“That's no pebble.” The alchemist fell to her knees and scooped the stone up in her hands to study it. She bubbled with excitement. “This is your own bloodstone!”
“Impossible.” Dazed, Drageen waved a hand to shoo her away. “You’re imagining things.”
“Do not doubt the possible until you truly understand the impossible,” a familiar voice said.
Drageen looked up to see the dreaded dragon Taddeo standing at the open gates to Tower Island.
CHAPTER 16
Invisible to Drageen, the ghost DiStephan stood next to Taddeo. “I told you he'd come.”
Things had failed to turn out the way the ghost expected, but he saw no point in making that fact obvious to the dragons who forced him to stay on Tower Island.
Taddeo sighed. “I did not send you to Guell to ensure the return of Drageen.”
“Right,” DiStephan said. “But won't he do?”
Out of habit, DiStephan moved his ghostly form to shift his weight from one foot to the other. He didn't have weight, but the action made him feel better, as if he still had a place in the world.
A sea breeze blew through the open gates of the island's harbor, and Drageen's ship creaked and groaned while gentle waves chopped at its sides. Even though the day appeared calm at first glance, DiStephan knew the turmoil that still roiled inside the tower. “Is it my fault Fiera failed to clear the murderous taint from the passageway beyond the bottom of the tower steps? I did my part. I helped her restore the steps, and there’s hundreds of them!”
They'd all been expecting the removal of the taint from the stairs to clear the passageway the dragons needed to return to their own home. Instead, they'd discovered the blockage intact, which meant they needed additional help.
Taddeo said, “I expected Kikita to come, or possibly even Astrid.” He cast a cool look at the ghost. “Were those not your instructions?”
DiStephan shook his head in frustration. “How could I know Astrid would let herself become part of Dragon's Head? But isn’t it good that Drageen has come back to Tower Island? Won’t he do?”
Just beyond them, Drageen sat on the ground, staring at the bloodstone that had just emerged from his foot.
“Bee,” Taddeo called out to Drageen’s alchemist. “Bring it to me.”
Nodding, the alchemist took the bloodstone from Drageen's hand as if picking a low-hanging apple from a tree. Before Drageen had time to react, she marched over to Taddeo and placed it in his hand.
Taddeo rubbed the bloodstone against his sleeve for a quick polish. He held it up in the sunlight, and the bloodstone sparkled and cast a sunburst of red beams. “You are correct, DiStephan. This will do.”
The alchemist Bee crossed her arms. “And my sisters?”
A wave of dark smoke sped past Taddeo and hurled through the gates as if an explosion had occurred in the courtyard. The smoke lifted, turning and twisting until new forms took shape. After the air cleared, two women dressed in bright green and yellow dresses stood next to Drageen. Their faces lit up. “Bee!” they cried in unison.
“Fee!” the alchemist shouted. “Glee!”
The women ran toward each other and embraced.
Alchemists, DiStephan thought.
He winced, imagining his pain to be far worse than it was.
Why do they always have to be such show offs?
Drageen stood and walked toward Taddeo, jabbing an accusing finger at the bloodstone. “Give that back. It belongs to me.”
Taddeo smiled. “Not any longer.” He turned and walked away from the gates and onto the courtyard.
Enraged, Drageen withdrew a dagger tucked under his belt, raised it high above his head, and charged.
“Taddeo!” DiStephan called out in warning.
The dragon in mortal form turned in time to block Drageen's attack and wrench the dagger out of his hands. “No need for that,” Taddeo said calmly to Drageen. “The time has come for us to work together.”
Drageen took a step back. “I'd rather that you kill me.”
Taddeo laughed. “No need for that either. You amuse me, Drageen. You always have and you always will. I have plans for you.”
Turning to DiStephan, Taddeo said, “You have served me well. You understand quite well when it is time to fight and when it is time to die.”
A wave of sadness washed through DiStephan. “All I did was make the best choice.” He hadn't wanted to die, especially not at Taddeo's hands. But Taddeo had been right about everything. If DiStephan hadn't been willing to let Taddeo kill him, most likely the entire world would no longer exist.
Taddeo smiled. “The time has come for you to depart.”
Startled, DiStephan protested. “No! There is still so much—”
Taddeo sighed one final time. “I release you.”
Before DiStephan could protest, the world he loved in both life and death blinked into a black abyss.
CHAPTER 17
Standing on the island that once belonged to his family and now appeared to be taken over by dragons, Drageen braced himself, ready to take on the whole lot of them if need be.
Rising behind Taddeo, the golden tower gleamed in the sunlight. Birds chirped ceaselessly, nesting in the stone walls surrounding the courtyard. The earthiness of plowed fields and the manure used to fertilize them drifted on the breeze from the small bit of farmland beyond the courtyard.
“Oh, come now,” his alchemist said to Drageen, giggling while her sisters embraced her. “The dragon offered to work with you. It can’t be all that bad.”
“Traitor!” Drageen shouted at her. When Drageen tried to attack Taddeo, the horrible dragon wrenched his dagger away. Now Drageen stood unarmed, while Taddeo held both his dagger and his bloodstone.
“All these years,” the alchemist said to Drageen, “and you’ve never known my name.”
“What does that matter now?” Drageen said, still enraged by her betrayal. She’d been the family alchemist for as long as he could remember. Sworn by duty and the gods to serve the Scaldings. But he realized the folly in antagonizing her any more than necessary.
He frowned, trying to remember what her sisters had called her, just moments ago. “Bee, is it?” Drageen said, noticing her smile in recognition of her own name. “Honestly? You call yourself Bee?” What a dreadfully peculiar name. “Like the insect?”
“We’ve been through a great much, your family and mine,” Taddeo said, seemingly mesmerized by the bloodstone. “And the time has come for us to part ways.”
“How dare you!” Drageen shouted. He stopped short, frowning once he realized Taddeo had failed to threaten him. “Wait,” Drageen said, now confused. “What?”
Taddeo turned the bloodstone over and over in his hand, glancing up at Drageen and then Bee. “Do we need his tears?”
Drageen remembered the day he’d ordered Bee to force Astrid to cry and gather her tears. The alchemist used those tears with the ground bloodstone from Astrid’s body
to create a solution that Drageen could smear over his body to make himself invincible long enough to win in battle should one come to pass. Could that now be Taddeo’s intent with Drageen’s bloodstone?
“Not at all,” Bee said happily. She smiled at Drageen and walked toward him. “It’s only for protection that one needs emotion, and you need no protection. You simply need the tainted passageway to open and provide you with a way to go home.”
“Fiera removed that taint,” Taddeo muttered.
Keeping her eyes on Drageen, Bee said, “Not entirely. The taint lingers by the passageway. The potion to open it requires a binding agent to remind the bloodstone from whence it came.” Standing toe to toe with Drageen, she sank her fingers into his hair and pulled hard.
Drageen cried out in pain.
“We need the essence of a Scalding to act as that binding agent.” Bee counted the hairs she’d pulled out of his head. “This should do.”
“Take your sisters to the passageway and open it up.” Taddeo hesitated. “And tell Fiera she can see him now.” Taddeo cast a brief glance in Drageen’s vicinity. “I need him no more.”
Bee closed her pudgy hand around the strands of Drageen’s hair. Her amusement seemed to fade after she joined her sisters and walked toward the tower.
“Stop!” Drageen shouted, but Bee ignored him and walked through the open door and into the tower. Turning with indignation toward Taddeo, Drageen complained. “She claims to repair damage created by murder? Whose murder?”
“Astrid’s friend from childhood,” Taddeo said calmly. “Mauri.”
Drageen squinted, trying to remember. “The yellow-haired girl?”
Taddeo nodded.
“This is wrong,” Drageen said, pointing at the tower door behind Taddeo. “That alchemist poisoned the girl. Not me!”
“Bee may have carried out the order, but you gave the command. Would you not have killed Bee had she refused to do your bidding?”
Drageen puffed himself up like a lizard preparing to fight. “Clearly, that alchemist and her sisters are in alignment with you! And if she has always done your bidding, then you are the one at fault for the killing of the yellow-haired girl!”
