by Katie Cross
Luteis, Elis, Cara, and Selasis circled Daid on the pyre, flying in low circles. Isadora was nowhere in sight, despite four letters set in the stump she was supposed to check. Sanna’s desperation for her sister had turned to panic, then to fury. Now, she felt the emptiness beside her with deep resignation.
She’ll come, Sanna told herself, clenching her fist. She’ll see it with her magic, or whatever.
All the dragons amassed, looming in the forest with flickers of color, soundless. She could feel their curiosity and was grateful she no longer heard their voices. Dragons didn’t mourn the same way as witches. At least, she didn’t think so. All six hatchlings lay on the ground, their heads pressed to the dirt, keeping a wary eye on Daid’s still form.
Next to them, Cara keened low in her throat, reaching down to nudge Sanna, who put up a hand to trace along her scales. They cooled immediately after she touched them.
“Amo, Cara.”
Cara closed her eyes, sent an affectionate, warm breath to dance around Sanna’s ankles, and withdrew. Jesse watched with a furrowed brow.
Dried bundles of sticks and weeds filled the space beneath Daid’s makeshift bed of rocks. His face lay inert. Pale, if not peaceful. Only a few traces of blood remained near his neck, around wounds that Adelina and Babs couldn’t hide.
Mam stood next to Babs, clinging to her. Babs kept a firm arm around Mam’s too-thin waist. Mam stared at the ground. A lone tear streaked her face.
“Sanna,” Elliot whispered. He held onto her arm, near the elbow. “Can you release your daid?”
Sanna sucked in a sharp breath.
She shouldn’t have to.
Mam should do it. Elliot could do it. Isadora should have done it. At the very least, Isadora would have been part of it—had her new life not intruded so much. The tradition of releasing a loved one to enter the fields of Halla usually fell to the spouse, parent, or oldest child.
Isadora wasn’t here.
Neither was Mam—not really. She hadn’t spoken since Luteis returned with Sanna clinging to Daid on his back and Rubeis hanging inert in his talons. The flight back had threatened to be too much for Luteis. A dragon wasn’t meant to carry the weight of another, older dragon. But somehow, he did it. Sanna drew in a deep breath.
She would also.
Sanna looked at Elliot. Her eyes required several moments to truly see him, and then she turned to the body. “Release him to honor and glory in the fields of Halla,” she said to Luteis. “May he live there as he could not here.”
Luteis wrapped his tail around her legs none too soon. The moment she said the words, her knees gave out. Only his gentle warmth kept her upright. Gently, Luteis turned to the pyre. Flames issued from his mouth in licking tongues, consuming the dried sticks and branches beneath Daid.
One at a time, the other dragons slowed, landed, and joined in. Their heat scalded the backs of Sanna’s hands. She stood in the curling heat instead of looking away. Each second that passed as Daid disappeared into the hellish flames seemed to awaken feelings that had been dead, lost to shock. Numbness. Sheer disbelief.
Hadn’t Daid just been flying next to her? Talking to her? Experiencing flight again, even if reluctantly?
Sanna turned away when she couldn’t stand the heat anymore. Mam sobbed, and her knees went out from underneath her. Babs caught her, lowering her to the ground. Sanna forced herself to watch, grim-faced, while Mam wept in Babs’s arms. Babs swallowed hard. Elliot reached out and put a hand on Sanna’s shoulders as the crackling began to subside.
“He’s at peace.”
His body burned away in what felt like minutes, flying skyward in coils of smoke and tendrils of bright flame. Only ash remained, piled on the rocks, dusting the ground. It was the way of things, and it brought Sanna a little sliver of peace.
Smoke filtered through the trees. Sanna felt a firm, heavy emptiness all the way to her chest.
It was over now.
There was no going back. Daid was gone.
Once the dragons finished, they retreated, except for Luteis. Rubeis had disappeared sometime in the night, reclaimed by the forest, nothing but a bright-red heart scale and a brand-new sapling left behind. By default, she supposed the scale belonged to her, but she left it near the tree, unable to bring it home.
“It’s finished,” Elliot said. “Rian can go to his reward with—”
His sentence choked off. The Servants—when they were that—used to say go to his reward with Drago. No longer. What was beyond now? Where was he going that she could not visit? The questions flittered in Sanna’s mind. Did Deasylva claim him?
She stood there, staring at the charred remains, with no thought in her empty mind except one.
Gone. Gone. Gone.
The Dragonmasters slipped away. Soon, only Sanna, Babs, Elliot, and Mam remained.
“Roxy,” Babs whispered, holding Mam tight to her side. “Let’s get you some rest.”
Mam blindly followed as if she weren’t present in her own body. Her face had turned an unearthly shade of white. Elliot’s hand dropped from Sanna’s shoulder.
“And you?” he murmured.
Sanna tilted her head back. Unbidden, a vine dropped from the great heights, landing just a few paces away.
“I’ll be back. Eventually.”
Sanna grabbed the vine, twisted it around her ankle, and began to climb. Luteis scrambled up the tree behind her, digging his talons into the trunk. She stepped onto the first branch, then climbed higher. To the next. And the next. Tears dropped down her cheeks as she worked past hanging vines and old animal bones left by beluas. The world seemed to pass her as if she wasn’t really in it.
Once she was far enough away from the ground that it didn’t seem to exist, she stepped onto a mossy branch and began to run. She darted through the canopy, leaping from one vine to the next, crossing great spaces in a single breath, then finding another branch and running as fast as her legs would carry her. Her calves burned, and her chest ached. On any other day, she never would have thrown herself from limb to limb, risking such great jumps.
Luteis soared through the canopy, dipping in and out, sometimes below her, sometimes above. Sanna pressed harder, comforted by his heavy, glittering shadow. Her bruised heart would burst out of her chest any moment now and join Daid. When her toe snagged a dead sprig of ivy, catching her mid-stride, she fell forward, skidded on her chest, and dropped off the mossy branch. She braced herself for the hard edge of the branch below, but a soft cushion of dragon wing embraced her instead.
Sanna curled into a ball, sliding onto Luteis’s back, where she stared at the dull, olive canopy. All signs of life had vanished. Not even birds rustled in the background. Her heavy breaths subsided. The agony of watching Daid’s body burn eased into the low, heady simmer of pure rage.
“He’s gone, Luteis.”
He is.
Tears welled up in her eyes.
“I will figure out what took him.”
We will.
Her resolved hardened as a hot tear dropped out of one eye. “And they will pay.”
Chapter Eight
Isadora rested her hands behind her head and stared at the ceiling early the next morning.
Rain plunked against the window, racing down the murky gray pane. She shivered. The foggy in-between when winter turned into spring was always strange. Frigid mornings with rain instead of snow and a bone-deep chill that led to days with warm rays of sunshine and budding flowers.
Her mind spun with magic and memories and deep thoughts. Despite the fatigue of searching for Lucey in the paths for hours, the magic still tugged, beckoning her back. She mentally tucked it away.
Later.
“Lucey,” she murmured. “Where are you?”
Her lack of firm conclusion only frustrated her more. What was the point? Why train? Beyond assisting raids, the magic had to serve some purpose, surely.
For a brief second, she thought of going home. Cuddling up to Sanna in the chilly
night, the way they used to. No. Sanna slept so fitfully these days, she didn’t want to wake her. She shoved out of bed, wrapped the blanket around her, and rummaged around her armoire for a wool dress.
Lying in bed wouldn’t solve any of her problems.
A frustrated sigh escaped Isadora.
The absolute stillness of Maximillion’s office rang around her. She longed to throw the windows open … but he’d probably stroll into the room, snap at her for letting the chilly air inside, and proceed to grill her with impossible questions. With a spell, she commanded a single candle to flame. The light bounced to life, the only cheery aspect of the dreary day. To have more light, she lit several others.
She grabbed her Ilese book from his shelf and settled into his chair to wait.
The distant sound of new recruits training outside in the lower bailey—a meager contingent of small boys likely lying about their age—rang through the window. The Network was so desperate for Guardians, she doubted they even screened them anymore. She stared at the words on her book’s pages, forcing her thoughts to the awaiting verbs.
Her brain stuttered and stopped.
“Come on,” she muttered, pressing a fisted hand to her forehead. “The word for disaster. What is it?”
She paused, so close to the answer it taunted her, just a breath away. The moment she thought she’d remembered, it slipped away, lost in the eddy of her mind. With another insistent tug, the magic swirled in her chest. Isadora sighed and dropped her head onto the desk.
Honestly.
The idea of Maximillion storming in and finding her in a less-than-composed state was mortifying. She was no Lucey, who seemed to take everything in stride. His temper never fazed Lucey’s cool exterior. In fact, the two of them together—
A slam echoed through the room.
She jumped, startled to see a thin, ragged witch in the doorway. Clumps of blonde hair spilled out of a rag tied in a swatch around her head. Dirt marred her gaunt cheeks and the backs of her hands, which stuck out from an old, wrinkled blouse. The smell of salt and body odor filled the space.
“Where’s Ambassador Sinclair?” the young witch cried, whipping around. “I must find him now!”
Isadora stood. “He’s in a meeting with the High Priest, I believe. Can I help you with something? Who are you?”
“No!” the witch moaned. She shoved her hands through her greasy hair. The familiar, light accent of the East tilted her words. “He can’t be!”
“He is, I assure you.”
The girl wrung her hands. “Oh, this is a mess. He’s going to have a fit when he finds out.”
“When who finds out?”
“Ambassador Sinclair!” she cried. “Aren’t you listening?”
Isadora frowned. Maximillion was no saint, but he rarely had a fit that Isadora hadn’t caused. “What’s happened?”
“Marguerite! She’s not there.”
“Who?”
“Marguerite.”
The name rang familiar in the back of Isadora’s mind. “Where is she not?” Isadora asked.
“At the wharf!”
Isadora’s head spun for just a moment before the words sank in.
Marguerite.
Maximillion had mentioned her just yesterday as the witch he wanted to search for Lucey. Isadora’s eyes widened. “Oh!” she breathed, moving out from behind the desk. “Marguer—”
“Yes! She’s supposed to be boarding the boat for”—the girl glanced around, then whispered—“the island, and she’s not there. No sign of her. I’ve stalled them, but they’re about to leave!”
“Wait. What is his plan?”
“Who are you?” the girl growled. “Don’t you know anything?”
“I don’t know his plans!”
All the blood drained from her face. “Oh no,” she whispered. “I’ve done it. He’ll destroy me. I-I-I shouldn’t have—”
Isadora held out a hand. The blue, woven Advocacy sign—the same she’d created in Letum Wood—wavered above her hand. “It’s all right. I’m part of this.”
The girl relaxed. “Oh. Thank the goddess mother Prana.”
“Tell me everything.”
The girl buried her face in her hands. “He’ll kill me!”
“It’s not your fault,” Isadora said, reaching out with a warm touch, but the girl didn’t seem to notice. She’d already collapsed into sobs. Isadora bit her bottom lip. Maximillion would be utterly livid if he knew how sloppy she’d been on Advocacy business. The girl had a right to be frightened, but she was lucky Isadora knew what she was about.
“Ah, what’s your name?”
“Might as well tell you, because you’ll need it for my grave.” She sniffled, wiping an arm under her nose. “I’m Sera. I help Ambassador Sinclair gather the …” She glanced around again, then stopped. “Is this a test?”
Isadora almost sighed. Sera’s paranoia wasn’t unfounded. Maximillion had tested her many times, creating false situations just to see how Isadora would react under pressure.
“He is not testing you right now.”
“Fine. I gather his … friends in the East when they’re needed. “
“And Maximillion is sending Marguerite to La Torra?”
Sera nodded. “The lavanda maid fell sick last night. Violently so. Marguerite is on Fiona’s list as a back-up.”
Setting aside Fiona and the not-so-strange “coincidence” of the maid falling sick, Isadora forced the puzzle pieces together. Maximillion must have acted immediately after Cecelia left—no doubt putting things in place before Cecelia even returned to La Torra, so it seemed less suspicious. His ability to command the Advocacy never ceased to amaze her.
“This can’t be all that bad,” Isadora said, using the same soothing tone as she did with Sanna. “I’m sure Marguerite will show up soon. And if she doesn’t, Maximillion can hardly blame you for it.”
“They’re leaving for La Torra in a few minutes.” She shuddered, tears brimming in her eyes. “I was supposed to see her off and report back, but what if she doesn’t show up? Everything could fall apart.” Sera leaned forward with a dramatic whisper. “Everything.”
Isadora sucked in a sharp breath. This was, decidedly, the most important mission in the world. If things went badly and Cecelia murdered Lucey, dozens of lives would be lost. That alone could set the Advocacy so far back it never recovered. Not to mention the horrid fate Lucey would endure.
“How about I come back with you?” Isadora asked. “I’ll see if there’s something I can do. Stall them further, perhaps?”
Sera’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“I can do that without much danger.”
“And you’ll tell Ambassador Sinclair what happened when you return?”
Ah. There was the rub. Sera likely wasn’t as worried about the mission or Marguerite as she was about her own hide.
Well, Isadora couldn’t blame her.
“Yes. I’ll tell him.”
Sera brightened considerably. Her tears stopped, and terror took their place. “Then we must go now!”
Before Isadora could get out another word, Sera disappeared in a transportation spell.
“Wait! What wharf?”
But it was no use. Only the empty room heard her call. Frantic, she ran back to Maximillion’s desk and scrubbed through the parchment there. Nothing. No letter. No description of where she was supposed to follow Sera.
Of course there wasn’t. Transporting to a place she’d never been before was too risky—she’d almost died doing that last year. She didn’t know how to follow magic yet. Isadora huffed. “What am I supposed to do now?”
Sera didn’t return. Isadora paced, her thoughts whirling. “Think,” she murmured. “There must be another way. Think about what it would look li—”
She gasped, her head popping up. Seconds later, she opened her powers and slipped into the magic. Wisps populated before her, no doubt responding to the frenzy of her emotion, tripling in front of her with unusu
ally high numbers. Sanna littered most of them, but Isadora ignored them for now.
“Show only my path. And only the Eastern Network. And only immediate possibilities.”
The powers obeyed.
Wisps disappeared, leaving four trails that wound into the bracken. Isadora rushed up to the first wisp she saw. A wharf, indeed. Teeming with people and populated with unwanted fish guts. She scoured the image for details, closed the magic, and returned fully to Maximillion’s office.
“Please,” she murmured, lacing her fingers together in an icy ball. Transporting to a place she’d never been was a dangerous art—at least, this time, she’d seen something of the wharf. “Please work.”
Isadora reimagined the picture of the wharf, whispered the words to the transportation spell, and let it wash over her in a long, cool brush.
Magic whisked her away.
An eternity of darkness and discomfort followed, as if she were swimming in a tunnel that pressed upon her. Her chest—which wasn’t really there—ached for air. The pressure bore down on her face as if it would peel her skin away. She wanted to scream but had no voice. Finally, when she thought she’d die, the pain stopped.
She landed on her feet in something soft.
“My dragons have spoken.”
Finn said the words with a finality that sent sparks of annoyance up Sanna’s spine. She stood near a makeshift window of Elliot’s house, peering past a lion hide and onto a wet world. Cold crawled into the room, slipping between the cracks in the walls, twining into her bones. She ignored it, comforted by the dismal sound of the rain, and whipped around.
“Your dragons have said nothing.”
Finn hesitated, his expression twitching as if he held back a sneer. “They’ve clustered around my house!”
“They’re scared. The leader they’ve always known was just killed, and the next leader died as well.” Sanna maintained an even tone by sheer willpower. “They’re seeking reassurance.”
She let the lion skin fall back into place, then stepped deeper into the room, shoving thoughts of Isadora aside. The last place she wanted to be was in this haphazard structure Elliot and Jesse had cobbled together with thin flakes of bark the length of her body, but she couldn’t avoid this confrontation any longer.
