by Audrey Faye
Good. Lily had seen how Lotus reacted to a few stray drops of water, and it wasn’t pretty, but she had always been willing to heat the water for them, generally from as far up in the sky as she could get and still have decent aim.
Karis studied Oceana, who had woken up and was watching the visitors alertly. “We’ll have to see if she can talk to the dragons some other way.”
Lily bit into her berry pastry harder than she needed to. “She talks through water.”
“I know.” Karis nodded. “And if that’s the only way she can speak to another dragon, we’ll figure out how to manage. But her world will get a lot more comfortable and full of company if she can learn to speak mind to mind like the other dragons do. Afran thinks she may just need lessons.”
The words gritted on Lily’s skin, no matter how reasonably they’d been spoken. “She can’t speak to my mind without water, and we’re bonded.”
Karis looked a little grimmer at that thought. “True.”
Kellen tilted her head. “There was a man in my clan who couldn’t hear, and he used his hands to speak.”
Karis gave her a pleased smile. “That’s an option as well.”
Lily shoved her whole fruit pastry in her mouth. She wanted to yell at them all. Oceana was easy to talk to—you just had to put a finger or a tail in the water. It wasn’t her fault that all the other dragons were scared of something that couldn’t hurt them.
When she finally swallowed, all three of her friends were looking at her anxiously.
Lily tried to breathe around all the pastry crumbs. She couldn’t help Oceana if she lost her temper every time someone had an idea. “Kis managed to put his tail in the water. Maybe the other dragons can learn too.”
“Maybe.” Karis looked skeptical. “But in this case, we have one water dragon and hundreds of fire dragons. It would be much simpler to help Oceana learn new ways.”
Spoken like someone who didn’t know what it was like to feel all dry and itchy every time a dragon breathed fire. Lily swallowed. Kis had breathed fire at Oceana, but he’d done it to warm her water and toast her sandwich. And he’d put his tail in her pool and kept it there long enough for Lily to get hungry again.
This felt different, all the hard parts with nothing to balance them. Oceana already knew how to be an outcast. They needed to help her want to belong.
“You look worried.” Karis’s voice was steady and kind.
Lily shrugged. “It seems like all we’re talking about is my dragon’s problems.” The invisible mark on her forehead itched and made her want to scratch.
Sapphire sighed. “At least people aren’t asking why the Dragon Star chose you.”
Maybe they should be. “I think it was a mistake.”
Sapphire grinned. “I thought that too.”
Lily tried again. Lotus had been a menace, but it had been obvious that she was special right from the very first day. “You just had to get brave about flying. I have a dragon who is way too small for me to ride, and all she wants to do is sleep and eat meat pies and maybe go back to her swamp.” She slapped a hand to her mouth. She hadn’t meant to say that last part. She hadn’t really meant to say any of it.
It was Kellen who moved first, sliding in to give her a hug. “She’s just homesick. We all were when we got here, remember? It doesn’t mean anything is wrong.”
Alonia smiled, chin on her knees, and looked right at Oceana. “I think she’s the most beautiful dragon here. Her scales are a color I’ve never seen before, and they look like the sky and the spring green leaves all at the same time.”
Oceana preened a little on her rock.
Lily jerked, surprised her dragon had understood—and then saw Alonia’s fingers trailing in the water.
One friend who got it. Most people thought Alonia only had half a brain, but they were wrong. Lily shot her a grateful glance and turned to face Karis. If her friends could stand up for her dragon, surely she could do the same.
“Stand down, youngling.” Karis gave her a wry look. “I’m not the enemy, and I will help you and your dragon to the very best of my abilities. Starting with this. You worry that your dragon’s weaknesses, and perhaps your own, mean the Star chose incorrectly.”
Lily hadn’t even said that last part to herself, but it was true. She was a strange elf with a bad temper who couldn’t cook and didn’t like fire—or most people. “I don’t understand why we would have been chosen.”
Karis shrugged. “I don’t either.”
Somehow, the honesty was reassuring.
“I do know this.” Karis leaned back against a log Lily had dragged over the previous night and included all four of them in her gaze. “Sapphire and Lotus’s biggest weakness became their strength.”
Sapphire smiled shyly.
Lily snorted. Her friend didn’t need to be shy. Those two flew circles around practically everyone else in the sky. Then she realized what Karis was really saying and frowned. “You think Oceana and I need to turn fire into our strength?” She could hear her voice getting higher, like someone was squeezing her around the middle.
“Possibly—or at least the facing of it.” Karis’s eyes were steady, but they didn’t let Lily look away. “Afran believes that the five may be learning lessons they will one day need to teach.”
Lily wrinkled her nose. This conversation was making less and less sense. “The old dragons aren’t scared of fire.” Not unless all the ballads and stories were big, fat lies, anyhow.
“No,” Karis said quietly. “But they are scared of elves.”
The dragons who had picked up the old queen’s star message all used stronger words than that. “They’re at war. They hate the elves.”
“Oh.” Kellen let out a soft, surprised breath. “Then Karis is right. That will need to change. The five who will save them aren’t just dragons. They’re elves, too.”
Karis nodded slowly. “Imagine that Oceana was in trouble and her rescuer tried to use fire to save her.”
Slow horror dawned in Lily’s ribs. “She wouldn’t let them help.”
Karis met her eyes. “Sapphire and Lotus needed to overcome their biggest fear. I don’t think that was an accident. It may be something all of the five will need to do so you can help the old dragons face that which they fear most.”
Lily groaned and tucked her head down between her knees. “Couldn’t I just learn to cook? That would be so much easier.”
Kellen started giggling, and pretty soon Alonia and Sapphire joined her. Lily raised her head and scowled at them all.
She wasn’t that terrible in the kitchen. And fire wasn’t that scary. She would help Oceana. Together, they would learn.
Chapter 12
Lily winced as Oceana shot up the inside of her tunic. Again. She grabbed for whatever dragon parts she could find. Elf skin wasn’t nearly as tough as dragon scales, something Oceana seemed to forget entirely in the presence of fire.
Even fire so far away they could barely see it.
She squinted at the two young dragons in the sky off in the distance, blowing fire at each other and probably scaring the cows while they were at it, especially since a certain peach-pink dragon didn’t aim her fire all that well when she was barrel rolling. Lily looked over at Sapphire. “Can you ask Lotus to stop until I get this creature out from under my clothes?”
Sapphire laughed. “I can ask.”
Lily rolled her eyes and peeled clenched blue claws out of her skin. Blowing fire within sight of the village was rarely a permissible activity, and Lotus had been taking full advantage of the new rules, much to the dismay of the more rule-bound dragons, villagers, and cows. Inga was convinced they’d get no more butter this summer, and Lily couldn’t really blame the cows. Fire was nasty stuff.
She tried to keep that thought to herself. Her emotions didn’t seem to impact Oceana all that much, but there was no point in reinforcing behaviors they were trying to change. She didn’t want to spend any more time as an elf pincushion than absolutel
y necessary.
Kellen, in charge of food bribes, held out a bite of bread and cheese for Oceana. A pink tongue emerged from under Lily’s tunic and licked it up.
Lily sighed. Unless their job was to teach the dragons of old how to eat, they were doomed to be abject failures as star-chosen ones. “Maybe we should take a break and try again in a while.” She eyed the elf sitting in the shade supervising this training session. Karis tended to frown on unscheduled pauses.
Their teacher raised a stern eyebrow. “A short one.”
Lily grimaced. Sometimes Karis looked awfully like her dragon.
Kellen tugged on Lily’s elbow. “We’ll go get some more snacks from the kitchen. That can be part of the lesson, because it will help Oceana get used to the village.”
Lily frowned. Taking Oceana anywhere near the kitchen was a bad idea, but Kellen knew that. Which meant she was up to something. Fortunately, Karis didn’t appear to be thinking hard enough to have figured that out. Lily adjusted the dragon-shaped lump under her tunic and followed in Kellen’s footsteps.
They walked silently for a bit, looping around the village. Lily thought they might be headed back to the pool when Kellen abruptly turned and ducked through the trees that shaded the kitchen gardens in the late afternoon.
Oceana’s head popped out the top of her tunic. Lily contemplated stopping by a rain barrel, but her dragon’s eyes seemed interested, not scared, which was a large improvement over the morning thus far. So she looked over at Kellen instead. “Where exactly are you dragging us?”
Kellen looked a little abashed, maybe even nervous. “I have a different idea for the fire lessons.”
Lily blinked. “Why didn’t you say so?”
Her friend shrugged. “Because I’m not sure if it will work, and I didn’t want to make anybody mad.”
Nobody questioned Afran and Karis, not when it came to matters of teaching and learning. They were legendary for their wisdom, patience, and skill with hard heads.
Kellen reached for Lily’s arm and tugged as they made it past the last of the flourishing soup greens. Lily’s eyebrows flew up as she realized where they were headed—and why her dragon was suddenly looking so cheerful. “We’re going to visit Kis?”
Kellen nodded.
Nobody visited Kis unannounced. “He’s probably napping.” Irin was off with a couple of the youngest students trying to keep the cows calm, and the old dragon needed a lot of sleep because of his war wounds.
“He’s not,” Kellen said calmly. “I took him some breakfast this morning and asked him to be ready for our visit.”
Lily’s respect for Kellen’s daring jumped up several notches. “You planned this?”
Kellen might be little, but she knew plenty about looking fierce. “I did. I took his favorite spicy stew so he’d be in a good mood.”
The cranky old dragon wouldn’t ordinarily be anyone’s choice as a teacher, but he’d been wonderful with Oceana down at the pool. Lily tilted her head, considering. “You think he can teach her to tolerate fire?”
“I don’t know.” Kellen shrugged. “I think she likes him, and maybe she even trusts him a little. I set up one of the old kitchen pots in there, and he’s going to heat it up so she can have a nice, warm bath.”
Lily stared at her friend as they ducked into the nursery, and then at the pot standing in the middle of the rondo, suspended from one of the iron tripods they used in the big kitchen hearth. “What if Irin had found this before we got here?”
Kellen shrugged. “Then he would have yelled at me and put it back in the storage shed where I got it from, or maybe Kis would have been able to convince him that this is an idea worth trying.”
Lily looked over at the massive yellow dragon, who looked sound asleep. “You talked about all of this with Kis?” The old dragon was one of the few capable of speaking to anyone in the village, but he rarely bothered.
“Yes.” Kellen’s smile was small, but proud. “He said I might make a fine teacher one day.”
That was possibly the nicest thing she’d ever heard come out of the cranky old dragon’s mouth. Lily smiled. She’d dodged Kis’s fire more times than she could count, but maybe he was turning over a new leaf. And anything sounded better than having Oceana crawl up her skin over and over again.
Kellen firmly shut the nursery door, which would at least slow down Oceana’s exit. Lily looked down at the black eyes that were very close to her nose and walked over to the kitchen pot, sticking her fingers in the cool water. “We’re in a safe place now, and you need to come out of there. Crawling up under my clothes hurts, and you’re not a baby dragon who needs to hide.”
Oceana looked a little abashed and dropped her tail in the water. The picture she sent was one of the soothing dim inside her ruins. Safety.
Lily rolled her eyes. “You like the daylight just fine when it makes your sleeping rock warm. My tunic isn’t a cave.” She looked around the rondo. “It’s plenty dim in here, so out from under my clothes.” She tapped a blue-green nose for emphasis.
A darting pink tongue licked her finger, and then Oceana scooted out the bottom of her tunic.
Kellen giggled and held out a length of frayed rope.
Lily looked at it, puzzled. “What’s that for?”
“A belt.” Kellen grinned. “That way, she won’t be able to crawl up your insides.”
That was genius—and so obvious, Lily was a little disgruntled that nobody had thought of it a lot sooner. She took the rope and wound it around her waist twice, tying it off in a simple knot.
Oceana walked across the nursery floor like she owned the place and butted her head up against Kis’s side, scratching her head spikes against his huge scales.
Lily winced and reached for her dragon. Waking Kis was never a good idea.
A rumble froze her in her tracks. “She’s fine.” A golden eye slid open and surveyed the two of them. “I promise not to set her on fire unless she gets really annoying.”
Oceana chittered at him, obviously glad to see her friend awake, and jumped up on the kitchen pot, sticking her tail inside.
Lily wasn’t sure what to do. There was no way Kis’s tail was going to fit in the pot, even if he wanted to put it there—and that was doubtful.
The old dragon gazed at them, his eye unblinking. “Perhaps if you put your fingers in the water, she could hear me through your kin bond.”
Lily shook her head. There was no point having good ideas fail twice. “We already tried that with Afran.”
Kis snorted. “He’s more of an old man than I am some days. All right. Then I’ll talk to you, and you can pass my words to your dragon.”
Lily blinked. That was another one of those obvious ideas no one had thought of.
Kis’s visible eye looked mildly amused. “Soldiers rarely all speak the same language. A leader’s words on the battlefield are often relayed by others.”
A lump formed in Lily’s throat. That was exactly it. Oceana spoke a different language, and Kis was the first one to see it that way instead of as some kind of deformity. “Thank you.”
Kis snorted smoke again. Oceana chittered, and this time it wasn’t a happy sound. The old dragon looked straight at her. “No back talk from you, missy. I’m working on learning your language and customs, and you darn well need to get used to mine.”
Eyes wide, Lily thrust her fingers into the water and repeated his words under her breath.
Oceana startled and looked back and forth between them.
“I’m giving you his words.” Lily stroked a ridge crest. “And he’s right. He was brave enough to stick his tail in your water. Now you need to show him you can be just as brave.”
Her dragon blinked slowly, studying the old dragon.
Kis lifted his head. “I may be a useless old fart who sleeps all day and hurts far too much, but I can aim fire better than any dragon still living, and most of the dead ones too.”
Lily passed on the words, wondering why that wasn’t a thing
she had known.
Kellen stepped forward, looking nervous. “Are you sure you can do this in here, Kis? I can move the pot outside.”
“And make me get up and walk all the way out there?” Kis harrumphed. “You made a good battle plan, youngling. Have a little faith in your soldiers.”
Lilly passed on all the words quietly, noting just how interested Oceana’s eyes had become.
Kis raised his head, stretching his jaw in a way that was truly terrifying. Oceana hissed at him. He hissed right back. “Manners, missy, or I’ll scorch your scales.”
Lily winced as she transmitted. Threatening a dragon scared of fire with being scorched seemed kind of harsh.
Kis never took his eyes off his student, but Lily could have sworn that his rumble sounded the tiniest bit amused.
Oceana sat up straight as a rod on the edge of the soup pot, eyes glued to the big dragon.
Kellen tugged Lily away from pot. Reluctantly, she went. Elves weren’t nearly as fireproof as dragons.
Kis gave no warning. No words, no clicks in his throat. Just a hot, tight stream of flame straight onto the bottom of the metal pot.
It was done before Lily could even squeak. She stared at the steaming pot and at her dragon sitting like a statue on the edge of it. She dashed forward, thrusting her fingers into the pot, and winced. It was almost hot enough to cook soup, but Oceana’s tail hadn’t moved. And the feeling in the water wasn’t terror.
It was awe. And maybe even a touch of gratitude.
Oceana slid into the steaming pot, and the feeling running up Lily’s fingers turned to bliss. She raised her eyebrows at her dragon. “You’re going to turn into dragon soup.”
A snort behind them warned that they had a visitor. Or rather, the man who considered the nursery his domain. Lily turned, carefully keeping her fingers in the water.
Irin scowled at all of them, but mostly at his dragon. “You blew fire. In my nursery.”
One of Kis’s eyebrow ridges slid up.
Irin snorted. “Fine, our nursery. But I’m the one who’d be doing all the work to rebuild it if you burned it down.”
