by Katie Cross
After scraping the cracker crumbs into her bowl and topping them with a dash of jam, she pulled her translation book out of her pocket and set it on the table. Grumpy cooks or not, the change of scenery felt better. The well-creased pages flopped open to the middle. In between saccharine-sweet bites, Isadora murmured verb conjugations.
Fiona called over her shoulder as she bustled by, “Lucere is said as loo-sare, not looser.”
Isadora repeated it. Fiona nodded. Instead of voicing her thanks, Isadora averted her eyes. Fiona bustled off with a tsk.
“It will come to you; don’t worry,” Lorenzo said as he leaned against the table.
“They don’t like … ah …” She flipped through the book, consulted a page, then said, “Foreigners?”
He pointed to the book. “Foreigners are fine. We are all a bit … strange. It’s the lavanda maid they don’t like. But it’s good you are trying to learn. The others will eventually warm up to you if you just try. Because you are nothing, that means they are something. They rank above you. To them, that feels good.”
Odd logic.
Lorenzo waved a hand. “The East.” He shook his head. “They love their rules.”
Isadora cast a sidelong glance toward the kitchen. “I suppose accidentally missing a stain on a hat hasn’t helped my reputation.”
He winced. “Certainly not. It was Ernesto’s favorite.”
“It’s not my fault he stained it!”
He shrugged. “You are the lavanda.”
“No. I work in the lavanda.”
“There is no difference.”
Isadora fought the urge to roll her eyes. What was so bad about doing laundry, anyway?
Lorenzo straightened. “You are young. One day, you’ll advance and be a little less despised. Take courage. Have a good day, yes?”
“You as well.”
He folded his hands behind his back and walked away. Isadora hesitated, saw other bowls left on the table, and decided to leave hers. She gathered her book, tucked it in her pocket, and rubbed her soon-to-be-pruney fingers together. At this rate, she’d never gather any information to help Lucey.
With a sigh, she returned to her laundry.
Chapter Twelve
The wind stopped all of a sudden.
Sanna woke up, startled by the quiet. Sand carpeted her like a layer of fine silt. She sat up and shook it off, the top of her head grazing Luteis’s wing, which drooped from the weight of the sand. Luteis stirred. A downpour of sand cascaded off his neck.
It appears we survived, he said, musing.
“Come on,” Tashi called, her voice muffled by his wings. Somehow, she’d slipped out.
The thick, stifling air created by the heat of Luteis’s body cleared as soon as he withdrew his wings. A rippling red sun rose on the horizon in a bright-orange wash. Had the storm lasted through the night?
The oasis lay scattered in ruins. Leaves were completely ripped away, leaving shreds in the sand. Dirt muddied the water now—not even Tenzin would drink it. A small trickle bubbled up from below.
They wouldn’t be able to drink it now, even though her stomach grumbled and her dry throat longed for a cool drink. She wondered if the oasis would survive. Tashi rubbed the sand from her thick hair. Dust coated her nose and forehead.
“Welcome to the West.”
A monstrous pile of sand next to them shifted, then shook. Elis straightened up, his scales peeking through layers of dust. His head popped free, his eyes groggy. He stood slowly, Jesse at his side, the same dusty color as all the rest.
“Get a good rest, then?” Tashi asked Elis with a laugh.
Elis grumbled.
Will he be able to fly? Sanna asked Luteis.
He must, mustn’t he?
Sanna hesitated. What option did they have? Tashi grabbed Tenzin’s rope, then climbed on the saddle.
“Let’s get going,” she said. “It’s another ten hours to the next water, and I don’t want to waste another minute getting there.”
The heat posed no problem for Luteis and Elis—they were creatures of fire. But long distances and a lack of water would challenge their wings. Sanna stuffed her fears away. No use dwelling on it—whether forward or back, they had to fly. She climbed up Luteis’s tail before standing on his shoulders and stretching her arms far overhead. When she glanced over, Jesse gave a quick nod, still brushing sand from his hair.
“You all right?” she asked.
He squinted one eye—the sun was already punishingly bright against such a white, unchanging vista.
“Think so.”
“Then let’s go,” Sanna said. “I want to find out who’s responsible for Daid’s death.”
“They say that the desert god, Saren, ruled over the West with his twin, Sarena,” Tashi said at the second oasis. She touched the tip of a blooming purple cactus with bright pink flowers and long, foreboding spikes. “Legend says Sarena and Saren abandoned this land thousands of years ago. That when the mortals left to cross the ocean, banished by witches during the Mortal Wars, they took with them the gods.”
Sanna’s brow furrowed. She knew of the Mortal Wars, when witch and mortal fought against each other. Almorran magic was destroyed, so they said, and the forest dragons were saved by the pleading of her distant ancestors, who convinced Esmelda they were not traitors. But she’d never heard of gods being involved.
“Really?” Jesse asked.
Tashi nodded once, then straightened. Behind her, Elis gulped hungrily at the water, his wings trembling.
“I don’t believe it, though,” Tashi said. “It is one thing for a god to leave with the mortals he loved. But no goddess would abandon her desert or her land. Not Sarena. I think she hides and will return.”
Sanna glanced at Luteis, who had the same questioning, uncertain gaze. He returned to drink at the pool—twice as large as the last one—leaving Sanna to her thoughts. Tenzin sniffed toward the west again but turned away, seemingly bored.
“Tomorrow,” Tashi said, lying on a long leather roll on the sand. Tenzin curled up twenty paces away, tucked into a neat little ball. “We’ll arrive then.”
“Where, exactly, are we going?” Sanna asked.
Tashi yawned. “The ocean, of course. Yushi wishes to meet you.”
“Right there!” Tashi shouted. “Land in the open sand field.”
She pointed to the right, where the edge of a vast body of water—presumably the ocean—met giant mountains, creating sharp cliffs that soared above white-capped waves. The undulating desert landscape still loomed to the west, but signs of life cropped up here and there as they approached the ocean. Hints of green. Bushes amidst the mountains of sand. Red-rock cliffs littered the vista now, breaking up the monotony.
Elis’s wingbeats were staggered and halting. Even Luteis drooped with fatigue, the ravenous cry of his belly like a song. Luteis normally ate every three days. Sedentary dragons ate less often. To fly this far with nothing except an occasional desert lizard had pushed him to his limits. Elis flagged again.
Fatigue is no reason to lower our guard, Luteis said. We must be more alert than ever.
Agreed.
The sandy knoll quickly approached. Luteis descended in a slow, gentle swirl. Far to the north, high, purplish peaks loomed as a backdrop to the looser, silt mountains here.
Beasts littered the fields below. More desert dragons, or so it appeared from their tawny colors. Amongst them were fluffy white creatures, running like wild things within expansive pens blocked off by walls of dark-red rock. Elis dropped like a boulder; he flew too slowly to take it carefully. He crashed with a moan near a pond, then stuck his head into the water and began to drink.
Luteis landed gently. Sanna slid down his foreleg, hand on her knife. Tenzin landed thirty paces away, seeming almost … pleased. As soon as Tashi alighted, he bounced back into the air, flying fast for the craggy hills. He disappeared in the rocks.
Tashi joined Sanna, who watched a group of witches huddling together
near a red-and-yellow rock outcropping. They stared at Luteis and Elis with wide eyes. Sanna thought she saw hints of other dragons stirring in the rocks above them. A flicker of tail. A distant grunt or a flash of wing. Too difficult to tell—their scales blended with the rocks.
Tashi called to the witches in a different language, then motioned for Sanna to follow.
“Come. We have a tent, a bath, and food for you,” she said. “The dragons can hunt in the mountains just behind us.”
I will be fine, Luteis said when Sanna turned to him.
Elis—
I will hunt for him, Luteis said, shaking off his wings. Water dripped from his lips. Elis peered back at the witches, his eyes flickering to the distant, craggy hills where Tenzin had disappeared.
“I’ll go with Sanna,” Jesse said before Luteis could ask. Luteis snorted.
I’ll return shortly.
Elis let out a little croak—no doubt to say thanks—and lowered his head. His eyes remained open. By the time Luteis was a dot in the sky, Jesse and Sanna had turned to follow Tashi toward a cluster of tents not far away. The smell of roasting meat lingered in the air, making Sanna’s stomach grumble.
“What do you think of all this?” Jesse whispered.
“I’m not sure yet.”
“Trust her?”
Sanna frowned. “I’m not sure of that, either.”
Looming above all her other questions—particularly about Yushi, whoever that was—lingered the greatest questions of all: Why were the mountain dragons spying on them?
And why had they killed Daid?
“Whistle,” Jesse said, “the way the falling gnomes do if you’re in danger or suspect it.”
“Same.”
Feeling marginally better, Sanna turned her attention to their new world.
A field of sandy tents stretched through an open space three or four times wider than the old meadow in Anguis. The sprawling canvas homes had flaps that fluttered open and closed. Large spaces, at least forty paces across, separated each tent. Brightly colored rocks, set in patterns, lined most of the areas—as if marking off boundaries.
It wasn’t until she followed Tashi along the edge of the small, makeshift city that she realized the yards were for dragons. A young desert dragon curled up next to a tent, snarling as they passed by. A sloping forehead and slender shoulders made it seem more feminine. A metal chain anchored her to the ground.
In between blocks of homes were lanes where witches—and desert dragons—walked. Sanna eyed a young hatchling trailing a girl who couldn’t be older than ten. The girl spoke quietly to the dragon, giggled, and ran. The desert dragon followed, bound by a chain.
“Are they all feral, you think?” Jesse murmured.
“Must be. She said they weren’t as intelligent.”
Witches spilled out of their tents, chattering in another language. Warm lamplight illuminated the tents from within, casting long shadows and heralding the night. The open tents showed few belongings. Cots. Blankets in bright colors. An open, red-rock box with clay plates or cups spilling out. Some of the tents were wide and tall, large enough to encompass her old house. The snorts of dragons blew open a few tent flaps.
Ah. That was why.
“This is the city of Aztal.”
“It’s …”
“Transient. We go where the food is, as our ancestors did before us. Right now, Yushi and the other sea dragons supply us with fish. It’s not safe for us to be near the mountains.”
Sanna peered at the craggy hills that surrounded the sandy valley. Weren’t those enormous rocks mountains?
A young boy with a string of white beads around his forehead passed Sanna, eyeing her askance. The unfamiliar sounds of their language made her feel closed in, disoriented. What was she supposed to do here, anyway?
She already wished that Luteis hadn’t left. But the thought of another minute in the air—and Elis’s desperate state—made her think differently. Luteis wouldn’t stay away long.
“I would take you into the city, but there’s no space for your dragon to walk or land.” Tashi motioned ahead of her with a wave of her hand. “You’ll stay here.”
Sanna skidded to a stop.
A cave loomed ahead of them, fading into a deep-black recess. For a moment, she thought she heard Junis and Rosy crying. The sound of metal grating on stone as they tried to escape.
She shook the memories away. Talis was gone. This wasn’t his cave.
Inside the cave waited two pads, two blankets, a basin for water, and several piles of clothes.
“Put your dirty clothes out here, and someone will take care of them.”
“Someone?”
She shrugged. “Someone always does. They’ll bring it back. Although I’d hold onto your shoes. They’ll go quick.”
“Er, thanks.”
“There’s no hot water unless you want to start a fire and heat it up yourself. We’re in the valley now, so Selsay likely won’t find us here for a week. Or you can go to the ocean. Just the other side of the hill. Wait until it’s dark, and no one else will be there. They don’t like nighttime here. In case Selsay attacks. If you need something, just stop someone outside. They’ll help.”
“That’s very … kind.”
“They owe it to you.”
With that, Tashi strode away, leaving Sanna and Jesse at the mouth of the cave. “Odd,” Jesse murmured. “Why would they owe you anything?”
“We’ll find out, I’m sure.”
Sanna glanced around. The cave would fit Luteis and Elis. When she ventured farther inside, the light followed. She paced across the cavern, dropped to her back, and lay down. Having something over her head helped her feel less exposed. She forced herself not to check on Luteis.
Jesse said nothing, just peered outside with a frown.
“Sanna?”
Her eyes opened moments later, and she realized she’d started drifting off.
“Hmm?”
“I don’t like leaving Elis alone. He says he’s fine, but I’m going back to get him. He needs to rest here.”
“Agreed.”
Jesse shuffled away. Sanna glanced out, surprised to see that night had almost fallen. She thought of Daid. The dark blanket of Letum Wood on their house. The shuffling sounds as Daid moved around the house, speaking quietly to Mam.
A snort brought Sanna out of her memories.
I have returned, Luteis said. His bulky shadow filled the entrance to the cave. Sanna sat up. His heat rushed over her in a comforting wave. She already missed the friendly weight of the forest air. It seemed so dry here. The air was almost … thin, and laced with the coppery smell of blood.
“How long do you think we’ll be here?” she asked as he settled in, licking his lips.
Until we have answers.
“The rest of the Dragonmasters are in danger.” Her heart sank when she thought of Finn and everyone else heading farther north. “You heard Tashi—it’s not safe to be near mountains. But Finn is going north. We can’t stay here long.”
We cannot.
She reached out and touched his snout. The slickness of his scales on her palm calmed her.
I left a carcass with Elis, but someone had already brought him food. There was enough for Jesse.
“Good.”
A reluctant desert dragon showed me to the cave. I heard some other witches talking, saying that there would be a summit in a few days. What is a summit?
“I don’t know.”
They also said that we would meet Yushi tomorrow. I don’t understand what a yushi is.
“More like who, I think.”
This should prove interesting.
“Are Jesse and Elis going to come here?”
No. Elis asked to stay where he was. Jesse will stay with him. It appears that Jesse enjoys seeing all these new things.
Winks of his burnt-orange scales glimmered in the darkness of the cave. The yellow-moon orbs of his eyes glowed. Sanna lay on the floor near him with h
er back to the cave opening. He wrapped his tail around her. She closed her eyes and rested her head on her arm.
Time to rest, he said. We can ask our questions in the morning.
Luteis settled his wing over her again. The dying sounds of the camp at her back faded. Cocooned in darkness, Sanna fell into a fast, deep sleep.
Chapter Thirteen
A headache slammed into Isadora with a walloping smack.
She pressed her hands to her neck with a groan. Light wheeled through her mind, demanding release, like white, hot, burning ropes of magic. They wriggled and writhed, unusually agitated and bright and searing.
Acknowledge me, she imagined it would say, if magic had a voice. She commanded it to obey her, then stuffed it away again, imagining shoving the bright filaments in a closet and closing the door.
The headache ebbed. Slowly. It wouldn’t be much longer before she had to use her magic or bear the pain of it—and eventually, death.
Still wincing, Isadora rubbed her neck and peered over a stack of recently folded pillowcases, through the open doors, and into the empty hallway.
Silence.
She quietly crossed the lavanda in slippered feet, then pressed her back against the wall near the door. Still quiet. Breath held, she leaned out and looked right. An empty hallway. To the left, the same.
No sign of Ernesto.
After breakfast the day before, the surly cook had shown up with a bucketful of dishes and demanded, in rapid Ilese, that she clean them. After several shouting rounds, she figured out that the last witch to eat was supposed to clean up the meal. Not long after she finished and returned those dishes—which barely passed his intense scrutiny—Fiona showed up, demanding fresh towels she didn’t have.
Ten blankets hung from the ropes in the courtyard outside the lavanda. A warm draft blew by, stirring them. Lightning streaked down to the ocean from the clouds in the distance. For the hundredth time, Isadora forced her gaze away from the rolling waves. She longed to wade into the ocean. Run in the wet sand.
Ignore all this laundry.
The sound of shouting drew her attention to the hallway. Who would be shouting? Lunch had long since come and gone, and La Torra usually lay in sleepy repose at this time of day. Despite housing, supposedly, tens of Defenders, she’d seen no one but the servants so far. Which also meant she had little to report to Maximillion, and even less confidence on her ability to help Lucey
