by Audrey Faye
After a short, cool walk, the trees thinned again and she could see the sparkle of the river, hear its quiet gurgle. Here, close to town, it was a well-mannered and lazy flow, although Lily could see evidence of its springtime antics. She picked a small dip where the bank got lower and knelt down by the water, doing her best to keep her dress out of the damp dirt. Not that it mattered much—even if she went back to the crush of bodies on the field, nobody was going to be looking at the hem of her skirt.
She trailed her fingers in the water, letting the cool soothe her, drain away some of her temper. It wasn’t Alonia’s fault that big crowds were annoying, and it was nice to be away from the village for a while. Lily just needed to do it on her own terms. Ones that didn’t involve too many people trying to step on her feet.
She lifted wet fingers and trailed them over her cheeks. One drop ran down to her chin and plopped off, trailing down inside her dress and making her laugh. Oh, to be a little girl again, one who waded into the river, dress and all, any time she chose. She cupped a little of the water and stuck her tongue in it. Tasting. Water that drifted too close to human lands sometimes tasted foul, but this was upriver of the town, and the drops on her tongue were cool and sweet. Perfectly safe for an elf to drink, and a lot cooler than most of the fruity punches arrayed on tables around the dancing.
She cupped more water, using both hands this time, and drank, careful not to let too much of it dribble down her chin. The fields weren’t as dusty as the roads, but this many feet had still kicked up some, and she didn’t want to be the embarrassing elf with a stain of mud running down her front. She owed Alonia that much effort.
Two more handfuls of water and the parched feeling in her throat finally began to ebb. They’d shaken the dust of the journey off their clothing, but she’d had far too much of it still riding inside her. She gave the river another sad look—it was perfect for swimming. Just deep enough, and with a gentle, swirly flow that would play with her hair if she floated on her back to watch the sunset.
She let her fingers play at the water’s edge instead. That would have to do.
The ripples teased her fingers, calling to her, and then it wasn’t the water and the sunset she was seeing anymore—or not only those. A picture formed over top. A painting. One that moved and looked very real, just as she might see through her own eyes. But this wasn’t the view through her eyes. And wherever it was, it wasn’t here.
Lily blinked, hard, but nothing changed.
She could see a building, or part of one, with columns of stone and a doorway that curved like the roof of a rondo. There was water, but not this water. Not the kind that flowed over rocks in a burbling stream. Dank, dark water, the kind that sat and grew smelly things, sometimes even dangerous things.
Lily felt her nose wrinkling, even though she smelled nothing. The elves of her clan would work to fix the water, to drain it or move whatever obstacles were impeding the water’s proper flow. Here, in this awake dreaming, she could do nothing.
She heard a small whiffle, almost like a cat. Whoever’s dream she shared was tired. Weary, and not just for a night’s sleep. Their bones felt heavy, like one who had lived a very long time and no longer had the strength to stand.
Lily blinked again, trying to get whatever weird vision had seized her head to go away. She didn’t want the dreams of some stray cat or visions of sick water she couldn’t fix. She wanted a drink and some peace, and a magical dose of patience to survive the next four days without killing Alonia or some overly hopeful farmer.
The dream wavered a moment—and then Lily saw the claw. The one covered in tiny, shimmering blue scales that caught the last rays of the sun. Translucent skin stretched between the claws, tinged with that same, shimmering blue with touches of gray and green.
Lily moved her head, trying to see more. She knew what that claw was—anyone would who lived in a village of dragons. A tail flicked into view, covered in scales that were undulating blue-green jewels. Lily wanted so very badly to touch. To see the face of the dragon who wore water in all its most beautiful colors. Who, even now, curled up to sleep on the edge of the dark waters, chin resting on its jeweled tail.
Lily gasped. She was seeing as the dragon saw. That wasn’t possible. She lifted her fingers out of the water, scrubbing her eyes, and the vision vanished. She shook her head, moving it left to right, trying to bring back the beautiful tail. Nothing. Gone, as if she’d imagined it.
She scrubbed her eyes again, more frantically this time, reaching out in her mind for the dream of the blue-green dragon.
Nothing.
She heard a small, sad whimper and realized she was the one who made it.
She made a face and wrapped her arms around herself, her fingers falling over her copper armbands. She should be imagining a soft bed with a pillow of goose down to pull over her head and block out the noise. Daydreaming of dragons was a clear sign of too much fruit punch. No dragon would come this close to humans, and no dragon would need to work this hard to find Lily. All they had to do was fly into the dragon kin village on any day besides this one.
She sighed and cupped her hands. One more drink and she’d try to find the tent where they were meant to sleep.
The moment her fingers scooped into the water, the picture in her mind was back. She froze, barely daring to breathe.
This time, the feelings that came with it were stronger. Sleepy dragon, but not the easy weight of welcomed sleep. The heaviness was nearly choking, almost as if the one falling asleep wished to never wake up.
Lily’s eyes flew open in horror.
Her dragon didn’t want to wake up.
Her dragon.
She leaped to her feet, urgency suddenly beating a sharp rhythm inside her chest. Then she doubled over again, stabbing her fingers into the water. “I’m coming. Don’t you dare move. I’m on my way.” To where, she didn’t know—but she knew which way. Up the river.
She ran a half-dozen steps and then skidded to a halt, her brain finally catching up with her feet. She couldn’t go alone into a strange forest at night, not without Karis stripping all her skin off her body once she got back. She needed to find her friends. All of them. Alonia because she knew these woods. Sapphire because she might have some stray milk curds in her pocket and she’d done this before. Kellen because she was really smart.
Lily’s feet flew, skirting the edge of the dancers, desperately trying to catch sight of her friends. People glanced at her, eyebrows raised, but she didn’t have time to stop and explain. She jumped to dodge a child who got in her way and then turned, skidding to a halt. People ignored children, but they saw everything. “Have you seen my friend Kellen? She’s about this big and she has red flowers in her hair.”
“I’m right here.”
Lily spun around and grabbed Kellen’s shoulders.
Her friend shook her head, laughing. “You’re running around like a lunatic—what’s going on?”
“My dragon is calling me.”
Kellen’s laugh died, her eyes wide.
“We have to go. Right now.” Lily tugged on Kellen’s arm, desperate to get moving. “Where are Alonia and Sapphire?”
“Sapphire went with one of the healers to get a new salve for Kis.” Kellen scanned the dancers helplessly. “Alonia is probably in there somewhere.”
They’d never find her. Not before full dark, and Lily’s fingers needed to be back in the water with a fierceness she could barely contain. “Then we have to go without her.”
Kellen shook her head. “She knows these woods. We need her.”
A pair of blond dancers swung by and nearly ran them over. Lily grabbed the arm of the elf, who looked surprisingly like Alonia, but wasn’t. Kellen darted into the crowd and came out a moment later, flushed with success. “She’s coming. She just has to finish this dance.”
Lily nearly screamed. “My dragon is more important than dancing.”
“I know, but we need to get Sapphire anyhow.” Kellen’s feet were
already running. “This way. I told Alonia to meet us by the river.”
Lily ran, barely keeping up with her fleet-footed friend. They ran around the dancers and into a neat row of tents, vying for space near the excitement. The rich farmers had provided free food and drink, but there were lots of vendors here offering baubles and trinkets—shiny, pretty ones that might have tempted Lily on any other day. She looked around as they ran, her eyes frantically seeking the bundled herbs and potions of a healer.
“This way.” Kellen dodged between two tents at full speed. Lily hopped over the rope lines, cursing, and nearly ran into Kellen’s back.
Sapphire looked up from the bottle she was smelling, eyes wide and astonished.
“My dragon.” Lily managed to get the words out before she sucked in a breath. “We need to go. She’s in trouble.”
Sapphire set the bottle down. “Which way? Where?”
Lily’s head felt like it had gone down a waterfall in a wine barrel. “I don’t know. We need to follow the river.” She took one more breath and started running back the way they had come. Footfalls behind her said she wasn’t alone. She didn’t bother dodging dancers. She headed straight for the river and cool air and rippling water.
This time, she didn’t pause on the river bank. She jumped right in—feet, hands, even her face.
She could see nothing, and her heart caught in her throat—and then she felt it. The dim, slow breaths of sleep.
Lily gasped for air and pushed everything she could at that sleeping mind.
I’m coming.
Chapter 3
Lily narrowly avoided face-planting into yet another tree and cursed. Quietly, because her friends were also tripping over roots and limbs and knotted fronds in the pitch-black and were ready to kill her for dragging them out on this wild goose chase.
Except it wasn’t a goose they were chasing. It was a dragon, and she was still sleeping—or she had been the last time Lily had touched her fingers to the river.
“I could be dancing with Rolpho. Or Landis.” Alonia picked her way through a dense batch of fronds, her voice pitched to the perfect whine. “Or Merifreet.”
Lily wrinkled her nose. “What kind of name is Merifreet?”
“He’s from a family of rich merchants,” Alonia said primly.
They all were, at least to hear them tell it. Humans had the oddest fondness for making sure you knew just how much wealth their family had even before you started dancing. And they seemed to assume the same of hers, especially when she wore her copper branches. Lily reached up to make sure she was still wearing them—the night had already torn one of her slippers and the sleeve of Sapphire’s dress.
The only comfortable one was Kellen, who had somehow arranged to be wearing her usual tunic and leggings. She was also lower to the ground, so she wasn’t getting quite as badly banged and bruised as they made their way through the trees.
Sapphire sighed somewhere in the dark. “Are you sure we can’t take the road? The walking would be a lot easier.”
The road was too far away from the river. “I can’t feel my dragon from the road.”
“What kind of dragon talks in the water, anyhow?” Alonia sounded cross, but she also sounded a little bit envious.
Sapphire snorted. “Dragons aren’t supposed to hatch in trees either, but that’s where I found Lotus.”
Getting to your dragon wasn’t supposed to be the hard part. Lily bent down and untangled her foot from a particularly grabby vine. “The sun should be up soon, and then it won’t be so hard to walk.” She tried to move faster. The sun might also wake up her dragon. It would be a lot easier to find her if she was still sleeping.
“I don’t see any buildings,” Kellen said quietly.
Lily could only hope the waking dream had been a true one. “I think it was one of those manor houses Alonia told us about earlier. One that flooded.” Was still flooded, with water that smelled bad and filled her dragon with sadness.
Lily shook her head, trying to rid it of the thoughts that had been chasing her all night. First, she would find her dragon. Then she would worry about everything else. She squinted through the trees ahead, looking for a break in the darkness. There was a sliver of moon in the sky, and manor houses had clearings and fields around them, not trees and thickets. Or at least they did until they flooded. Floods changed everything, and Alonia’s great-grandmother was old. The clearings and fields would have had a long time to turn back into forest.
Lily veered toward the river again, needing to feel the connection, wavery though it was, with her sleeping dragon. The others followed her, well used to the routine by now. Kellen took a seat on a big tree root and waited patiently. Alonia fretted. “How could a dragon live in the valley like this without anyone knowing?”
Lily ignored her, fingers in the water, soaking in the quiet, whiffling slumber.
Kellen shrugged. “Maybe she only goes out at night.”
“She sleeps at night,” Alonia said dryly.
They could figure all that out after they got there. Lily stood up again and splashed out of the water. Her slippers were wretched messes. They were intended for dancing, not a hike through the woods. “I think we’re closer.”
Alonia made a face. “You said that last time.”
And the time before that, and the time before that. It had been true each time.
Sapphire squinted into the dark. Lily was pretty sure she was trying to send a message to Lotus, but they were two days’ travel away. Even kin bonds didn’t work from that far.
“Look.” Kellen pointed at the east horizon. “The sun’s coming up.”
The fear Lily had been hiking with all night scaled into panic. “She’ll wake up. She might leave.”
Kellen’s hand, warm and comforting, landed on her arm. “If she does, she’ll come find you. That’s what dragons do. They find their kin.”
Lily wasn’t nearly so sure. She’d never heard about a call like this. And her dragon felt wrong. Dim somehow. Dark and sick, like the water.
Alonia sucked in a sharp breath. “There.”
Lily followed the direction of the handwaving and tried to see. Alonia might only have half a brain sometimes, but she had really sharp eyes. “I don’t see anything.”
“I do.” Alonia grabbed her fingers and started dragging.
Lily went willingly, peering into the very first wisps of light creeping through the dark. Her heart thundered in her chest, willing the manor house in her dream to be there.
“I see it too.” Kellan’s voice was hushed, almost reverent. “It’s falling down.”
Water did that, and so did houses without anyone living there to keep them strong and tidy. Lily’s eyes finally spied an angled line that didn’t belong to a tree, and she let go of Alonia’s hand, running toward the thinning trees and the strange shadows of a half-fallen house.
She froze as her feet touched water, and looked down. They’d arrived at the edge of a dank, fetid swamp, spring flood waters held in place by the natural contours of the land and heated by the summer warmth into a stinky stew.
Alonia’s nose wrinkled. “It smells worse than the stables.”
It was only going to get worse as the sun came up. Lily dipped her fingers into the water, her need to sense her dragon overriding her disgust. Still sleeping, but more lightly. She peered at the ruins, trying to figure out where a dragon might be hiding. There were only a couple of parts of the house still standing that looked large enough to be the room she had seen. She gathered up the skirt of her dress and peeled off slippers she should have taken off hours ago.
“Wait.” Kellen looked almost panicked. “Don’t. That water’s terrible.”
It was, but there was no choice. “My dragon’s in there somewhere. I need to find her.”
Kellen looked at the dank water, confused. “No dragon would choose to sleep by water. Especially when it smells this bad.”
Sapphire nodded. “Lotus wouldn’t come anywhere near this. She
doesn’t even like getting close enough to heat the hot pool.”
Lily gritted her teeth. “Maybe my dragon is weird like me. I know she’s in there.”
Sapphire dipped her hand toward the water and stopped before she actually touched it. “Maybe we can find a boat.”
Something frantic clawed at Lily’s insides. She needed to go. Now. “Farms don’t have boats, and there’s no time for us to build a raft or drain the water.” She took her first steps into the swamp, gritting her teeth and trying not to think about what she was stepping in. “You went up a tree in the middle of the night for your dragon.”
“I don’t think this is a good idea.” Alonia sounded like she might be sick any minute.
Lily took two steps deeper into the water. “Wait here. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” This wasn’t theirs to do. They couldn’t feel her dragon, or how heavy she was, how close she was to going to sleep for good and never waking up again. How much emptiness lived inside the most beautiful blue-green scales Lily had ever seen.
The water was getting deeper—deep enough that there was no point trying to hold up her dress. Lily let it fall into the dank wet, grateful that the sun had crept up high enough that she could at least see a little. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see a lot. These waters were deep enough that swimming things likely lived here.
She jumped as something nibbled on her toes and shook her head, ashamed. Just a little fish. If her clan could see her now, they’d send her off to live with the landlubbers. She wrapped her arms around her waist and kept walking. The water wasn’t getting much deeper. She headed toward the most intact part of the manor house, one that had four walls mostly left standing.
The curious fish traveled with her, and apparently, it had friends. More nibbles on her toes and legs, and not all of them were as friendly as the first one. Lily shuddered and kept going. Her dragon was inside. Unless something in the swamp had venom or really big teeth, she was going in.
She was almost to the standing wall when her feet struck something hard. Stone, flattened on top. She stepped onto the cool surface, grateful to have her toes out of the muck, and felt around. It went sideways along the standing wall. Lily looked back at her friends, who were standing at the edge of the swamp in various states of dismay, worry, and shock. She turned back to the wall. There were three windows along its length, all too high for her to climb in.
