The Lost Lands

by Jessica Khoury

  “So you’ve said, Ness, so you’ve said,” rumbled the dragon, in its first voice. “But still … that sound they made … I could swear it made me remember something …”

  The Blue dragon continued arguing with itself, switching between the two voices so quickly and effectively that if Allie weren’t seeing it with her own eyes she would have thought it were two different dragons entirely. All the while, the lake’s waves lapped over the Blue’s tail and hindquarters, and the three humans and their dragons stood blinking and silent on the rocky shore.

  I fear, Bellacrux sent to Allie, that this will not be easy.

  It took about ten minutes of the Blue dragon’s rambling before Allie had had more than enough.

  “QUIET!” she shouted.

  The Blue dragon’s jaw snapped shut. He stared at Allie.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “But we’re in a bit of hurry here. We just have a few questions and then we’ll leave you alone.”

  The Blue grimaced. “If that’s what it will take to be rid of you, then ask them quick, before old Thorval loses his temper. I really can’t be responsible for him when that happens.”

  “I saw you,” Allie said hurriedly. “In the last battle against the Raptors, before all the dragons were banished from this world. Well, I didn’t see see you, I saw you in a scroll, in a library, and—oh, never mind. Just tell us, please, where did the Skyspinner fall?”

  The Blue snorted, then spoke in the higher, strongly accented voice. “I don’t know what you mean, lassie. In fact, I shouldn’t be talking to you at all. My brother, Thorval, came running the moment he heard your phony dragons here bleating to the skies, the poor fool.”

  “Your brother?” Allie asked. “It’s just you here!”

  “Nonsense.”

  “But—but I am looking at you! Nessie, Thorval, whatever your real name is. One dragon!”

  “Dragon!” The Blue made a hissing, choking sound that Allie slowly realized was laughter. “There is no such thing as dragons, small human. I am a monster. In fact, I am the monster, I’ll have you know. Humans come from all over the world to look at my lake.”

  I see, sent Bellacrux. This one’s mind has split. Thorval is the dragon we seek, but losing all his brethren two thousand years ago must have broken his mind, driving him mad with loneliness. So he invented this monster, Nessie, and now they think they are brothers.

  “It’s Thorval we have to talk to, then,” Allie muttered. She turned to the Blue dragon, then started over again in a more tempered tone. “Nessie, perhaps you could let your brother, Thorval, tell us a story about a great many dragons battling in the sky? And a dragon queen who fell into the sea?”

  With a shriek, Nessie withdrew slightly, sliding deeper into the water. “Not that story! That story frightens poor Thorval. Thorval doesn’t like to remember it. In fact, he has forgotten it entirely.”

  “Surely he can remember something?” Allie smiled, trying to look encouraging. “How about you let us ask him?”

  Nessie shook his head. “He’s gone now. Back to our secret caverns deep, deep below. It’s better this way. He is safe there, away from these poking, prying humans with their camera phones and noise.”

  With a shudder, Nessie slid even deeper into the water. Now his whole back was submerged and only his long neck stuck out of the water.

  Careful, Allie, Bellacrux sent. If he goes under, we may never see him again.

  Then Sirin stepped forward. “Hello, Nessie. I’m Sirin. I’m a great admirer of yours, you know.”

  “Oh?” Nessie preened a little. “How lovely to meet a fan. But no pictures, please.”

  “How clever you are,” said Sirin. “And so brave and noble too, protecting your brother, Thorval.”

  Nessie narrowed his eyes, as if growing suspicious of her motives. “Yes, I am quite noble.”

  “I also know how difficult it is to talk about things that have … hurt us.” Sirin’s voice sounded a little rougher. “Sometimes, it seems better not to talk about them at all, so that we don’t have to feel the bad feelings they stir up. Believe me, I know. I … I know what it’s like to lose everyone you love and feel all alone in the world. It’s the worst feeling of all.”

  Allie watched Sirin, her own heart hurting at the sudden memory of her parents being snatched away by Raptors. She felt a hand take her own and turned to see Joss at her side. She squeezed his hand.

  Boldly, Sirin stepped forward and put her hand on the Blue’s nose. He startled a little, but then let her hand remain.

  “Thorval,” Sirin said. “It doesn’t have to go on like this anymore. The dragons—your own kind—are ready to return to this world. They need to return to it, because terrible things are happening to them where they are now. We need to bring them back, Thorval, us and our Locks and you. To do that, we need to find the Skyspinner. Please, tell us where she fell.”

  “I …” The Blue dragon shivered, then suddenly dropped his head onto the rocky shore. “I can’t. I don’t want to remember them.”

  “Remembering is … is how you keep them with you.”

  The Blue dragon looked as sad as any creature Allie had ever seen.

  “They left me,” he said. “All of them. My brothers and sisters, my clan. They left me.”

  Sirin nodded and stroked his nose. “It must have been awful.”

  The daylight was fading fast. Long shadows stretched over the narrow loch, its murky waters turning opaque black. Fewer and fewer cars drove along the road across it. And up on the hill above them, Allie thought she saw a shadow move. She peered hard at the spot, but it was too dark to make much out. Had a human heard the dragons’ calling after all, and come to investigate? If they had a camera, Thorval would vanish at once.

  “Sirin,” Allie whispered. “Hurry.”

  “Thorval,” Sirin said, “we don’t have much time. Now is your chance to do what even the Skyspinner couldn’t do—save the dragons. All of them.”

  “It’s her Heart you want, isn’t it?” Thorval asked.

  Sirin nodded.

  With a deep, rumbling sigh, Thorval said, “Then know she fell off the coast of a continent west of here. They call it the Oosa.”

  “Oosa?” echoed Sirin. “Wait—you mean the USA?”

  “Like I said, the Oosa.”

  “Do you know where on the coast the Skyspinner fell?”

  “I only know that centuries later, humans began to build a great city there. I swam back once—I have tunnels down below that lead to the sea, you know—and I saw it. Great tall buildings, so many boats and humans with cameras, and a giant green woman standing on the same island where the battle began. Honestly. How rude! It ought to have been a memorial to all the dragons who died there.”

  “A giant green woman,” said Sirin, her eyes widening. “I know where that is!”

  “Then go,” said Thorval. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  “You’ve been brilliant, Nessie—er, Thorval. Really! Thank you!”

  He snorted and began to withdraw, his neck sliding into the water. “I don’t know why you want the Heart though. If you know the story of the Skyspinner, surely you know what the Heart truly does.”

  “Truly does?” echoed Allie. “What do you mean? It controls the minds of dragons.”

  “Aye,” said Thorval, with just the top of his head still above water. “But at what cost?”

  Then he vanished into the black lake with the smallest of ripples and was gone.

  They stared at the spot he’d been, but he made no reappearance. Allie didn’t think he would. He’d probably gone back to his deep caverns, to forget his own past all over again. She almost wished him luck; it had been clear in his ancient, sad eyes how much sorrow he’d carried over the centuries.

  Farrelara, ancient one, she heard Bellacrux say. Her Lock gazed at the lake. May you find peace.

  “May we all,” Allie murmured. Then she turned to Sirin. “So. You know where the Skyspinner is, then?”
>
  “Yes,” said Sirin. She still looked shaken from her conversation with Thorval, but there were no more tears in her eyes. Instead she looked at Allie with steely resolve. “I know exactly where to look. It’s called New—”

  Sirin was cut short by a thunderous roar from atop the hilly bank.

  They all spun just as a massive Red dragon came barreling toward them. There was no time to react. No time to think.

  All Allie could do was scream as Valkea and D’Mara Lennix fell upon them in a storm of claws and fangs and dragonfire.

  Sirin had been facing the lake, so when something slammed into her from behind, at first she thought it was Sammi fooling around. She landed hard on her stomach, and quickly rolled onto her back—only to see a dragon’s claw come pressing down on her, pinning her to the damp earth. There was no mistaking the Raptor tattoo on its belly. A moment later, the dragon released a jet of fire, spraying the bank. Sirin gasped and covered her face with her hands, her new coat barely protecting her skin from the intense heat.

  She heard screams and roars around her. Sammi!

  Her Lock replied only with a ferocious growl. Sammi was unharmed but scrambling to avoid the Raptor’s next blast of fire.

  Then Bellacrux hurtled from the left, slamming into the Raptor and pushing it off Sirin. Sirin leapt to her feet, gasping for air. The two great dragons rolled and clawed at each other, knocking over trees and sending rocks rumbling into the lake with great splashes.

  Sirin saw Joss and Allie standing by Lysander, and started to run their way, but then a hand grabbed her from behind. Before she could react, she found a blade nudged beneath her chin and a chilly voice in her ear. She could only move her eyes, which she tilted upward to see a tall, black-haired woman standing over her. Nearly as terrifying as the Raptor, the woman looked to Sirin like an evil sorceress from a story, her eyes glinting with terrible intention.

  SIRIN! screamed Sammi.

  She sensed her Lock nearby, still hidden, but vibrating with the urge to defend her. No, Sammi! Stay back. I can handle this.

  “Keep still, little girl,” said her captor, “and you might yet live.”

  “Wh-who are you?” Sirin whispered shakily.

  “Your future queen, that’s who.” The woman laughed, then called out, “Well, well! If it isn’t my ex-son. Hello, Joshua.”

  “D’Mara Lennix,” said Joss. “Let her go!”

  “How did you find us?” demanded Allie.

  “Oh, that,” said D’Mara, waving a hand. “That was easy, given that everyone in Ox Ford could talk of nothing but the three dragons they’d just seen. From there, it was simply a matter of sniffing you out. It’s as if you wanted to be found.” She pulled something from her pocket, and Sirin recoiled at the familiar and pungent odor wafting from it.

  An athelantis leaf.

  Sirin gasped and looked down. The mesh pocket in her backpack, where she’d shoved the leaves after Joss had thrown them to her on the bus, had torn open. She must have left a trail of the reeking leaves all the way from Oxford to Loch Ness—a trail that would have been invisible to most, but not to a dragon like Valkea with her superior sense of smell.

  “But how did you get through the portal?” asked Joss.

  “It is astonishing, is it not, what one can discover in a library?” said D’Mara. “For example, my Tamra discovered the power of a Silver’s scales to open portals, when forged onto a Raptor’s own skin. But clearly, she missed the even bigger story.”

  “She heard everything,” whispered Allie in horror.

  “The Skyspinner’s Heart,” said D’Mara, tasting each word as if it were a delicious piece of chocolate. “A jewel with the power to control dragons’ minds. How intriguing. You know, I’d heard stories when I was little, rumors of ancient dragons born out of stars and endowed with miraculous powers … but perhaps they were more than just stories.”

  Behind them, Sirin could hear the battle between the Raptor and Bellacrux growing ever more ferocious. Snarls and bright blasts of fire filled the gloaming sky.

  “There’s no proof of that,” said Joss. “It probably is just a story.”

  “Well, if I’ve learned anything this week, it’s that there is more truth in stories than one might believe. After all, here I am!” She gestured around them with her sword, before quickly returning it to Sirin’s throat. “So, you’re the girl from the Lost Lands. You’re the one who knows where to find the Heart.”

  “Sirin, don’t tell her anything!” ordered Allie.

  D’Mara pressed the sword harder against Sirin’s skin, until she felt blood running down her neck.

  Sirin! I will bite off her head! I will chew on her bones!

  No, Sammi! Stay!

  “Stop!” cried Joss. “We’ll tell you everything, just let her go!”

  “No!” Allie said. “Joss, we can’t let her get the Heart at any cost!”

  “Not at the cost of Sirin’s life!”

  “Enough!” ordered D’Mara. “Sirin, is that your name? Well, Sirin, it’s your life. It’s your choice.”

  Sirin swallowed, but her throat felt like it was stuffed with sandpaper. “Will—will you let the others go, and not harm them?”

  “You can’t trust her,” said Allie. “Sirin, be quiet!”

  Sirin breathed harder, her skin cold, her heart galloping. “Please,” she whimpered, tears running from her eyes. “Please, don’t—umph!”

  Something crashed into Sirin and D’Mara, knocking them both over. Sirin rolled down the bank, stopping herself from falling into the water by grabbing a sapling just in time.

  Above her, she saw Sammi attacking D’Mara Lennix. The small dragon scratched like a cat, but the woman clearly knew how to handle an angry hatchling. She jabbed Sammi at a nerve point beneath her jaw, and the little Green fell limp.

  “SAMMI!” screamed Sirin.

  D’Mara threw up her arm. “Valkea! To me!”

  The Red disengaged from battling Bellacrux and thundered to them. She shot a blast of fiery breath to hold Lysander at bay while D’Mara climbed onto her back. With Bellacrux closing in from behind and Lysander roaring ahead, the Lennix leader seemed torn about what to do. Then her eyes briefly connected with Sirin’s, before looking down at the unconscious Sammi in her arms.

  “One day!” she shouted. “You have one day to give me both the location of the Heart … and the Silver.”

  She pointed her sword at Lysander.

  “You know where to find me. One day, or the hatchling dies … slowly.”

  With an earsplitting screech, the Raptor launched into the sky. Bellacrux didn’t even wait for Allie to mount up before giving chase, but in seconds, a flash of light above signaled the opening of a portal, and the Raptor, D’Mara, and Sammi vanished.

  Triumph tasted oh so sweet.

  D’Mara resisted pumping her fist in the air, and instead held on tightly to her small, scaled prisoner.

  Valkea flew quickly over the ravaged Raptor lands; they were leagues from the fortress, but at this pace, they’d reach it in a few hours D’Mara had until then to plan her next move. She reminded herself that victory was not quite in hand, though she felt buoyant as a leaf on the wind.

  The Skyspinner’s Heart!

  All the dragons that had slipped through her fingers or defied Raptor law, even Bellacrux, would be hers again. And this time, the Green would be utterly obedient—after D’Mara made her suffer awhile for her treachery. Oh, the very image was enough to fill her with glee!

  So enraptured was she by her visions of a glorious future that D’Mara didn’t realize Valkea was landing until the dragon was touching down. Lurching forward at the impact, D’Mara nearly dropped Sammi.

  “Valkea!” she snapped. “What are you doing?”

  They’d landed on a small, rocky island in the middle of Brimstone Lake, a sulfuric pit of yellowish water—that was boiling hot. Acrid steam choked D’Mara’s nostrils, the rotten smell strong enough to even wake Sammi. The hatchling sh
rieked in terror at the sight of the boiling-hot water all around them and the putrid steam clogging the air, and she didn’t even try to fly away.

  “Valkea!” roared D’Mara. “What are you doing?”

  “Thinking how best to tell the woeful tale of D’Mara Lennix, and how she fell gloriously in battle against Bellacrux in the Lost Lands.”

  D’Mara’s skin went cold. She swallowed, her mind racing.

  “I will not kill you, D’Mara,” Valkea said in a taunting tone. “You are a warrior, and I honor that. So I will instead leave you here to decide your own fate.”

  It was clear what Valkea meant: D’Mara could sit on this rock until she starved, or she could attempt to cross to the shore. But the water would boil her alive in minutes. It was a death sentence, and a particularly cruel one. She tried to call out for Krane, but though she felt her Lock, it was as if he were a sparrow on a distant mountain—barely seen, and certainly too far away to notice her. Even if her Lock went searching for her, he might never find her in time to save her life.

  “So,” she said, her voice calm. She met Valkea’s gaze. “You’ve finally worked up the nerve and made your move. You are very fierce, it is true. But how long will it take for you to oust Decimus and my husband and all our loyal Raptors? There will be bloodshed, of course. How many followers will you lose? And look at you, you’re still battered from your tussle with Bellacrux.”

  Valkea snorted, but watched her warily.

  “Valkea. Listen to reason. It is clear you are a born leader of dragons—”

  “I will be queen of the dragons! Only I may enter the Lost Lands! I will claim the Skyspinner’s Heart and all her power!”

  “Yes, yes,” said D’Mara, flapping her hand as if waving off the insensible shouts of a child. “That is … unless Bellacrux claims it while you’re busy fighting Decimus and his Raptors. After all, those Moran brats know where it is. You’ll become Bellacrux’s puppet.”