Petal once told her that it was called a ship—that it was from the times before the ice. Toli didn’t know if she believed all that, but there was no doubt it was different. The sled was larger and heavier than the leatherleaf sleds, but a team of the Queendom’s waist-high snow foxes could still pull it without strain. The front arched gracefully up into the carved head of a dragon. Scales ran along the edges to the back and twisted up into a tail. Like the other sleds, it had two runners of stiff braided leatherleaf stems.
When Queen Una had presented it, just the thought of racing over the barrens in its dark belly made her breathless. It was the kind of sled that even the ice couldn’t stop. It was the kind of sled that might outrun a dragon.
If only she could manage to feel like she deserved such a gift.
She hurried to make herself useful, working to load the bison. There would be fresh meat now for several days. She should feel elated, but her fingers were sore with the cold, and her heart ached. She didn’t need Spar to tell her she’d endangered them all. I’ll do better next time, she thought, but the stubborn lump wouldn’t leave her throat.
Wix and the rest of the hunters melted out of the fog from the east, jogging to warm themselves. His shadow, lanky and leaning, jumped and shook along the surface of the ice, as if it was eager to go off and hunt on its own. His dark curls stuck out of his braids. She forced a small smile, despite her mood.
He hurried up to her, grinning, his rich brown cheeks flushed. Wix’s wide smile offered the only warmth in the vast expanse of ice. “I couldn’t see a hail-blasted thing with Justo and Mara blocking my view,” he began. “Great work though! It’s a big one. They wouldn’t tell me what happened. Who took it?”
She fought to keep her smile. “Spar.”
Wix came from a carving family, and although ice carving was highly honored in Gall, he longed, like Toli, to become a hunter. She’d known him since they were children. Wix understood her better than any other person could. His grin faltered as he met her green-eyed gaze. “What’s the matter?”
“There was a stampede.”
His hazel eyes turned dark with concern. “What happened?”
“I missed.”
He went quiet, then gave her an awkward pat on the back. “Sorry.”
“Yeah.”
He tried again. “It’s okay. It could have happened to anyone.”
She arched a brow at him.
“Well, yeah, okay, not anyone. But me. It could have happened to me too.”
Toli snorted, but her mouth twitched into the semblance of a true smile as they moved to help load the sled.
Pendar was talking about Rasca’s cooking, as usual.
“I bet she roasts it,” he said.
“Of course she roasts it,” Luca laughed. “You don’t expect the woman who cooks for the queen to boil it when it’s fresh.”
“She cooks for all of us,” Pendar chuckled.
“No more ice root,” one of the other hunters called from the back of the sled.
“No more ice root,” Pendar sighed. “At least not for a few days … and maybe she’ll make one of her sauces too,” he said, and slurped at the thought.
“Pendar,” Spar interrupted. “Stop worrying about the nightly gathering and go hitch up the foxes. Toli, Wix—you help him. Everyone else, load up.”
“I don’t s’pose you could have a word with Rasca, could you, Princess?” Pendar gave her a hopeful look. “The old bat seems to like you well enough.”
Wix laughed, answering before Toli could. “Maybe that’s because Toli doesn’t call her ‘the old bat.’”
Pendar shrugged. “I mean it in a nice way.”
Toli rolled her eyes at him.
The way back to the Great Hall was quiet. Wix sat nearby, but knew enough to leave her alone. She closed her eyes, and for a moment, her thoughts were whipped away by the wind, unable to keep up. Her shoulders relaxed.
The return trip was slower with the extra weight in the sled’s belly, and she was glad for the time. The foxes leaped forward, their narrow forms racing shadows across the dark gleam of the ice fields. Ahead, the dim smudge that was the Southern Wall rose against the horizon.
She could almost hear Wix grinning next to her, but the only real sound was the breath of the foxes, the shushing rush of the sled’s runners, and the beating of her heart. Darkness closed in behind them. The stars, each one a dream cast down by Nya-Daughter Moon on her travels, shone in the bowl of the sky. When Father Moon came along, any time now, his green light would obscure many of the dimmer stars as if they were nothing more than Nya’s toys and he was gathering them up.
At least the fresh meat would help get the people through the dragons’ waking. Her gaze rose to Nya’s wide, pale face. Did the Daughter Moon see them, racing for home across the ice? Not for the first time, Toli wondered if Nya had really sent the dragons to Ire herself to heat the planet from the inside. If she did, had she known what it would cost her people—in food and in fear—and in loss? Nya had wanted to keep her creations alive. Toli understood that need. Like Nya, she would do anything to keep the people she loved safe, but couldn’t the Daughter Moon have found some other way? Why did it have to be dragons?
A bitter taste rose in her throat, and Toli closed her eyes. As they skimmed along the surface, she tried to imagine what it would be like to spread out giant wings and ride the lights. Where did the dragons go when they vanished into the stars? Did the aurora actually carry them across the sky, as it seemed?
Her skin prickled as she reprimanded herself. What difference did it make where they went? She knew enough.
They had killed her father.
Every living thing knew their nature and ran. It made no difference that they could think and speak. They were predators, their every thought steeped in the instinct to kill or destroy from the moment they entered the world.
She tightened her grip on the side of the sled until her knuckles ached. One day when they attacked again, she’d show them they had crossed the wrong princess when they killed her father and his hunters. She would deny them everything.
She tried to listen to the rush of the wind, but all she could hear was the grating persistence of her thoughts.
Her father’s face, carved among the dead’s in the Hunters’ Shrine, flashed before her eyes.
They moved north, watching the stonetree forest grow larger as they approached. The hundred-foot-tall trees swept down from the black stone bluff over the Queendom of Gall, spilling across the ice fields and into the east like a shadow. The wind picked up, pushing against the sled as though trying to turn them back. Toli could just make out the hollow, soothing song it sang as they passed by the tubular ice caves pressed between the edge of the forest and the Southern Wall. She shivered. Sometimes she imagined the wind was alive, sending up its angry howls to make the caves ring like bells.
Spar pulled the foxes to a stop just outside the Southern Gate. They stood panting, tongues lolling from their narrow muzzles. The massive blocks of ice gleamed. Huge frozen statues spread out across the top edge of the wall.
Carving families were granted additional food and other items; then each year when the dragons returned to molt, the carvers of Gall competed for the honor of having their statue rise to look out across the ice. Sometimes they were elaborate scenes or fallen hunters. Sometimes they were quiet tributes to the harsh beauty that surrounded them every day.
The one of her mother, the queen, was so detailed it had taken Belgar Walerian himself almost a year to ease it out of the ice, and he’d let no one see it until it was finished—not even Wix, his own son. Of all the statues, only the one of the queen had been allowed to grace the wall for a second year. She loomed above Toli, looking out across the empty landscape.
On the other side of the arched entryway a dragon statue took flight. More statues lined the wall, stretching out until, at the farthest edge, where the wall met the rise of the stone ridge breaking through the ground, there st
ood the last statue—a delicately carved stack of delicious but dangerous foot-long ice beetles. Toli’s stomach was always impressed by the detail, even from a distance, and gave a hopeful growl.
She closed her eyes and allowed herself a small sigh, imagining what it would be like to put a lid on the afternoon, letting the quiet promise of the evening simmer, like one of Rasca’s soups, into something better—something perfect.
The sound of Spar’s voice snapped Toli back to the reality of her failure. The master hunter passed the reins to Wix. Spar’s black dragon-scale armor held pinpricks of starlight. “You take the foxes back to the stable and get them settled for the night. The rest of you tend to the bison.” She turned to Toli. “You stay a moment, Princess. I have something to discuss with you.”
Her stomach fell. Spar was going to tell her she was done hunting—that she’d ruined her chances and would have to stay home from now on. She could feel it coming like a sickness.
Toli watched the hunters. They were amiable with the prospect of the meal to come as they towed the sled toward the outbuildings at the outskirts of the Queendom. Maybe if she didn’t look at Spar, she wouldn’t have to hear the disappointment in her mentor’s voice.
Wix cast a sympathetic glance at her over his shoulder as he led the foxes under the Southern Gate and into the Queendom.
“Anatolia.” Spar’s voice was soft, but Toli knew her eyes would be hard.
She swallowed and turned toward the inevitable.
“Your shoulder was too tight. I’ve told you a thousand times—hold the bow as if it could turn and bite you! Also you shifted your foot after you rose from the ice. The pause cost you. You held your breath! What were you thinking?”
Toli’s cheeks heated. Only children and stark beginners held their breath to shoot. “I—”
“The answer is, you weren’t. You could have gotten them killed—then where would your Queendom be, with half as many grown hunters to bring in food. People would starve.”
“I know, I—”
Spar took Toli’s upper arms in a tight grip. “Worse, Anatolia, you could have been killed.” Spar narrowed her amber eyes. “Why should I continue to teach you? My queen, your mother, would sigh with relief if I refused. Why should I continue to teach you when your stubborn desire to follow in your father’s footsteps distresses her?”
Toli’s throat was almost too tight to speak. “Because you have to.”
Spar’s face hardened.
“Because you want to, then. If you don’t, I won’t be good enough.”
The skin of Spar’s burns shone in the dim light. Her eyes flickered. “Why should I feed a child’s foolish whim?”
“I’m not a child!” Tears filled Toli’s eyes. She gritted her teeth. “And you know why,” she said angrily. “Because they killed him in cold blood. Because they killed all our best hunters that day, like they were nothing.” Her voice rose. “He brought them the tithe—a whole bison that could have fed our people well for days.” She tried to blink away the tears, but a single fat drop escaped to roll down her cheek. “You killed one, but one escaped, and—”
Spar’s grip relaxed as she met Toli’s eyes. “Anatolia—”
“Why did they do it? The queen says they were hungry, that they were out of their minds—but we were hungry too. Why didn’t they just take the bison and go, like always?”
Something flashed in Spar’s eyes, but then it was gone again, so fast Toli couldn’t tell if it was pain, or regret, or just her own imagination.
The hunt master dropped her hands. “We may never know what really drove them to do what they did,” she whispered, looking away across the wasteland. “But we know what drove the bison today—don’t we, Anatolia?”
The weight of Spar’s words settled on Toli’s shoulders like a layer of ice, cold and immovable.
On the day her father died, Spar had been the only survivor of the Tithing party. She’d suffered her devastating burns killing one of the dragons, and trying to save the queen’s consort—Toli’s father. The second dragon had escaped with nothing but a torn wing.
Everyone knew the huntress had never forgiven herself for failing Toli’s father, but in all the Queendom, only Spar knew the truth—Toli was the one to blame. Spar knew Toli had been there that day, and she alone had lived through the distraction. The huntress had never said a word about it.
Not to Toli.
Not to anyone.
Toli met her mentor’s amber eyes, her throat too tight to speak.
Spar’s mouth hardened. “I’m afraid we still have some unpleasant business ahead of us.”
Toli’s stomach dropped. “Couldn’t we … not … do that?” She hugged herself as she looked up into Spar’s face with its ruby burns. She poured all the hope she could muster into her eyes.
The hunt master just arched a brow at her. “I’m sorry, Toli. Your mother has to hear about what happened. You could have been killed. It must be done.”
Petal could talk Spar out of it, Toli thought bitterly. Her little sister could talk anyone out of anything.
In the dark times, when the world went cold,
Nya the kindhearted, bright and clever,
Sent creatures born of fire.
Raised a mountain from the frozen sea.
Showed them the task.
Heat in perpetuity. Heat for the living.
Heat for the young.
She placed hearts of fire in them,
And gave them breath of flame.
—Anonymous
CHAPTER THREE
Toli tramped through the Great Hall toward the empty throne. The rhythmic thudding of Spar’s steps reminded her to slow down, steady her pace—be calm. Petal was in the far corner of the room by the hearth, surrounded by a gaggle of friends. Her sister’s cascade of black hair hid her conversation, but her laugh rang through the rafters. Oil lamps hung along the walls, their light dancing across the floor like fox pups begging to play.
Her mother would make them wait. She made everyone wait. Spar moved to speak with a cluster of young boys playing off to the side of one of the long hearths—no doubt telling them they should still be busy getting peat in, manning the fishing holes, or off in the melt house getting water.
Toli turned back to the throne. Raised on a platform in front of the fire, it cast a long shadow across the floor, flickering in the glow. It was carved to look like the trunks and branches of the stonetree forest. Across the tops of the trees, the head of the Dragon-Mother peered out at them. When the queen sat down, it would lean over their mother’s shoulder—a sign of their ancestral debt, and of their perpetual danger. As if they needed the reminder.
Toli fidgeted as Rasca shuffled in from the dimly lit root cellar. The cellar served as a larder for Gall’s precious stores of honeywine—fermented from the excretions of stonetree ants and for all the Queendom’s food. Rasca’s closely watched supplies of dried meat, mushrooms, lichens, ice beetle eggs, ice root, and snowflower stocked the shelves. The efficient and exact records of the Queendom’s food supplies were the old woman’s pride and joy, and woe to any who entered the storage room without permission.
Years ago, before she’d been given control of the supplies and the cooking, Rasca had been their mother’s nanny. The old woman was bent nearly double, and her skin was as pale and wrinkled as an ice root. But though she wore only simple clothes, she needed no other mark of respect than the single white feather in her hair.
Every year when the dragons returned, they would molt, shedding feathers and scales over the stonetrees. Petal often liked to gather them in the forest near the Queendom. Rasca’s feather, however, had come from the Dragon-Mother herself and was a gift from Queen Una. Everyone with half a brain took it as a warning. Rasca was valued and for far more than her supremacy at the hearth.
The old woman said something to Petal, and though Toli couldn’t make out the words, Petal spun around and hurried toward her. Petite and pale, Toli’s younger sister wore silk
en dresses, all grace and air as they floated around her. Maybe that was how Petal always managed to make walking look like gliding.
She’s so quick and light on her feet, Toli reflected. She would have made a good hunter. Her sister’s spirit was too gentle for that work though, however necessary it was to their survival. A smile snuck across Toli’s face as she watched her sister glide, like nightfall in her deep-blue dress, with her black hair flowing behind. She looked like a queen.
The thought made Toli drop her gaze to the scuffs across the tops of her boots.
“Are you okay?” Petal asked. “I heard what happened.”
Toli grimaced. “How could you have heard what happened? I just got back.”
Petal shrugged, her star-blue eyes wide. “Rasca always hears things first.” She glanced toward where Spar was lecturing the boys. “Was she mad?”
“Not exactly. More … disappointed.”
“Oh,” Petal whispered, moving closer.
Toli sent a wistful look back at the wide double doors of the Great Hall. Their dark surface gleamed an invitation. It would be so easy to avoid the coming lecture—just push them open and be gone.
She dragged her eyes away. The Daughter Moon would set soon. Then it would be too cold to be out on the ice without shelter. The wind would rise, sharp and bitter, and sometimes strong enough to shred clothing and tear at flesh. Without protection, the nighttime frost could burn skin as surely as dragon fire.
Rasca shuffled to Toli’s side, her eyes twinkling as she placed one soft hand on top of Toli’s.
Toli let her hopes out in a whisper. “Maybe the queen will let me hunt again.”
Rasca cocked her head. “Maybe she will, but your mother’s no fool. She’ll never let you fight a dragon.”
“A dragon?” Petal frowned, and for an instant the rare expression made her a stranger.
Toli blanched. “Who said anything about fighting a dragon?”
Rasca just shook her head. “Defending the Queendom’s not for you, girl. Anyway, dragons aren’t for killing. They’re for keeping our world alive. Use your brain, and turn your thoughts to something else.” She let out a soft chortle as she walked away. “Your brain is that mushy thing between your ears … in case you forgot.”
Rise of the Dragon Moon Page 2
