“You must rest now,” he said. Then he turned gravely to his men. “An army comes,” he said gravely, his voice filled with authority. “We must prepare.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Kyra stood alone in the midst of the field, in awe at the world around her. It was summer, everything in bloom, in dazzling color, the hills so green, so vibrant, dotted with glowing yellow and red flowers. Trees were everywhere, so thick, heavy with fruit, the hills rolled with vineyards, and the smell of flowers and grapes hung heavy in the warm, summer air. Kyra wondered where she was, where her people had gone—where winter had gone.
There came a screech, high in the sky, and Kyra looked up to see the dragon, the one she had saved, circle overhead, then swoop down before her, landing but a few feet away. It stared back at her with its intense, yellow glowing eyes, burning through her, and she could feel its power. Something unspoken passed between them, as if the two of them were one.
The dragon suddenly leaned back its head, shrieked, and breathed fire, right for her.
For some reason, Kyra was unafraid. She did not flinch as the flames approached her, somehow knowing the dragon would never harm her. As it approached, the flames forked, spreading out to the left and the right of her, igniting the landscape all around, and Kyra, unscathed, turned to watch. She was horrified as she watched the flames lick across the countryside, watched all the lush green, all the summer bounty, turn to black with ash. The landscape changed before her eyes, the trees burnt to a crisp, the grass now just soil.
The flames rose higher and higher, spread farther, faster, and in the distance, she could see them consuming her father’s fort—until there was nothing left but ash.
The dragon finally stopped, and Kyra turned and stared back at it. She stood perfectly still, not knowing what to expect, in the dragon’s shadow, humbled by its massive size. She reached out to touch its face, and suddenly, it raised a claw, screeched, and sliced open her cheek.
Kyra woke shrieking, clutching her cheek, the awful pain spreading through her. She flailed, trying to get away from the dragon—but was surprised to feel human hands on her, calming her, trying to restrain her.
Kyra blinked and looked up to see a familiar face standing over her, holding a compress to her cheek.
“Shh,” she said, consoling her. It was her nurse, Lyra.
Kyra looked around, disoriented, and finally realized she was home, in her father’s fort.
“You were dreaming,” Lyra said.
Kyra looked around and realized she must have fallen back asleep, how long ago, she did not know. She checked the window and saw the sunlight had been replaced by blackness. She sat bolt upright, alarmed.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Late in the night, my lady,” Lyra replied. “The moon has already risen and already set.”
“And what of the army?” she asked, her heart pounding.
“No army has come, my lady,” she replied. “The snow is still high, and the sun just set when you woke. Don’t worry—you have not slept for days—but hours. Rest now—there is nothing to be done while all are sleeping.”
Kyra leaned back and exhaled; she felt a wet nose on her hand, heard a whining, and she looked over to see Leo there, licking her hand.
“He hasn’t left your bedside, my lady,” Lyra smiled. “And neither has he.”
She gestured across the room, and Kyra looked over and was touched to see Aidan lying there, fast asleep, slumped in a pile of furs beside the fire, a leather-bound book in his hand.
“He read to you while you slept,” she added.
Kyra was overwhelmed with love for her younger brother—and it made her all the more alarmed at the trouble to come.
“Rest, my lady,” Lyra urged. “I can feel your tension,” she added as she laid a compress on her cheek. Kyra felt immediate relief as the salve soaked in. “You dream troubled dreams. It is the mark of a dragon.”
Kyra looked at her and saw her looking back at her meaningfully, in awe, and she wondered, feeling herself covered in a cold sweat.
“I don’t understand what is happening to me,” she said. “I have never dreamt before. They feel as if they are more than dreams—it is as if I am seeing things. As if I am seeing through the dragon’s eye.”
The nurse looked at her with her soulful eyes, and laid her hands in her lap.
“Is a very sacred thing to be marked by an animal,” she said. “And this is no ordinary animal. If a creature touches you, then you share a synergy—forever. You two are linked. You might see what it sees, or feel what it feels, or hear what it hears. Maybe tonight—maybe next year. But one day, it shall come.”
The nurse looked at the girl, searching.
“Do you understand, Kyra? You are not the same girl you were yesterday, when you set out from here. That is no mere mark on your cheek—it is a sign. A catalyst. You now carry the spirit of a dragon.”
Kyra furrowed her brow, trying to understand.
“But what does that mean?” Kyra asked, trying to make sense of it all.
The nurse sighed, exhaling a long time.
“Time will show you.”
Kyra thought of the Lord’s Men, of the coming war, and she felt a wave of urgency. She threw off her furs and rose to her feet. As she did, she felt wobbly, unlike herself, and Lyra rushed over and held her shoulder, steadying her.
“You must lie down,” Lyra urged. “The fever is not yet past.”
But Kyra felt a pressing urgency to help; she could not stay in bed any longer.
“I shall be fine,” she replied, grabbing her cloak and draping it over her shoulders. The night was cold, the wind still howled outside the walls, and the fort was drafty.
As she moved to go, she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Drink this first, at least, my lady,” Lyra said, handing her a mug.
Kyra looked down and saw a red liquid inside.
“What is it?”
“My own concoction,” she replied with a smile “It will calm the fever, relieve the pain.”
Kyra took a long sip, holding it with both hands, and it felt thick as it went down, hard to swallow. She made a face and Lyra smiled.
“It tastes like earth,” Kyra remarked.
“I know,” Lyra replied. “It’s not known for its taste.”
But already Kyra felt better from it, her whole body immediately warmer, and she turned to Lyra.
“Thank you,” she said. She went over to Aidan and leaned over and kissed his forehead, careful not to wake him.
Kyra then turned and hurried from the room, Leo at her side, twisting and turning down the fort’s endless dim corridors, lit only by the flickering torches along the walls. But a few men stood guard at this late hour, the rest of the fort dead quiet, fast asleep.
She ascended the spiral, stone staircase and stopped before her father’s chamber, blocked by a guard. He looked at her, something like reverence in his eyes, and she wondered how far the story had already spread. He turned and nodded to her.
“My lady,” he said.
She nodded back.
“Is my father in his chamber?”
He shook his head.
“He could not sleep, my lady. Last I saw he was pacing toward his study.”
Kyra hurried down the stone corridors, ducking her head beneath a low, tapered archway, and down a spiral staircase, until finally she made her way to the far end of the fort, ending in the thick, arched wooden doors of his library. She reached to open them, but found the doors already ajar and stopped herself as she heard urgent, strained voices coming from inside.
“I tell you that is not what she saw,” came the angry voice of her father.
He was heated, and she stopped herself from entering, figuring it would be better to wait. She stood there, waiting for the voices to stop, curious who he was speaking to—and what they were talking about. Were they talking about her? she wondered.
“If your daughter did indeed see
a dragon,” came a crackly voice, which Kyra immediately recognized as belonging to Thonos, her father’s oldest advisor, “then there remains little hope for our people.”
Her father muttered something she could not understand, and there followed a long silence, as Thonos sighed.
“The ancient scrolls,” Thonos said, his voice labored, “speak of the rise of the dragons. A time we shall all be crushed under their flames. We have no wall to keep them out. We have nothing but hills and sky. And if they are here, they are here for a reason.”
“But what reason?” her father asked. “Why would a dragon fly halfway around the world?”
“Perhaps a better question, Commander,” Thonos replied, “is what could wound it?”
A long silence followed, punctuated only by the crackling of the fire, until finally Thonos spoke again.
“Yet I suspect it is not the appearance of the dragon that troubles you most, is it?” Thonos asked.
There followed another long silence, and Kyra, though she knew she should not listen in, leaned forward, unable to help herself, and peered through the crack. Her heart felt heavy to see her father sitting there, head in his hands, heavy in thought.
“No,” he said, his voice thick with exhaustion. “It is not,” he admitted.
Kyra wondered what they could be talking about.
“You dwell on the prophecies, do you not?” he asked. “The time of her birth?”
Kyra leaned in, her heart pounding in her ears, sensing they were speaking about her, but not understanding what they meant.
There came no response.
“I was there, Commander,” Thonos prodded, finally. “As were you.”
Her father sighed, but would not raise his head.
“She is your daughter. Do you not think it fair to tell her? About her birth? Her mother? Does she not have a right to know who she is?”
Kyra’s heart slammed in her chest; she hated secrets, especially about her. She was dying to know what they meant.
“The time is not right,” her father finally said.
“The time is never right, is it?” the old man said.
Kyra turned and ran off, feeling stung, betrayed by her own father. She had a heaviness in her chest as her father’s words rang in her ears; they hurt her more than a million knives, more than anything the Lord’s Men could throw at her. He was withholding a secret from her, some terrible secret. Some secret he’d been holding onto her entire life. Some secret that others knew about, but she did not.
Who was she?
Her entire life Kyra had felt that people looked at her differently, as if they knew something about her which she did not, and she had never understood why. Now, she was beginning to understand. They all knew. She didn’t just feel different than everyone else—she was different. But how?
She did not know, but she knew, she just knew, it had something to do with the rise of the dragons.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Vesuvius marched, a hundred trolls following, as he wound his way through Great Wood and up the sharply rising terrain, too steep for the horses to follow. He marched with a sense of determination, and for the first time, optimism, hacking through the thick brush with his blade. He could have passed through without cutting them, but he wanted to: he enjoyed killing things.
With each passing step Vesuvius heard the roar of the captured beast grow louder, more distinct on the horizon, making the ground beneath them tremble. He noted the fear in the faces of his fellow trolls—and it made him smile. That fear was what he had been hoping to see for years—it meant that finally, after all the rumors, after all the false starts and stops, the beast was real. Finally, they had truly found it.
He chopped through the last of the brush and crested the ridge, and as he did, the forest opened up into a vast clearing before him—and Vesuvius stopped in his tracks, caught off guard by the sight. At the far side of the clearing lay a huge cave, its arched opening a hundred feet high, and chained to its rock, by chains fifty feet long and three feet thick, one to each ankle and wrists, was the most immense, hideous creature Vesuvius had ever seen. It was a giant, a true giant, a nasty piece of creation, standing at least a hundred feet high and thirty feet wide, with a body built like a man but with four eyes, no nose, and a mouth that was all jaw and teeth. It opened its mouth in a roar, an awful sound, and Vesuvius, who feared nothing, who had faced the most gruesome creatures alive, had to admit that even he was afraid. It opened its mouth wider and wider, its teeth sharpened to a point five feet long, and looked as if it were ready to swallow the world.
It also looked enraged. It roared again and again, stomping its feet, fighting at the chains that bound it, and the ground shook, the cave shook, the entire mountainside shook. It was as if this beast, with all its power, was moving the entire mountain by itself, as if it had so much energy that it could not be contained. Vesuvius grinned; this was exactly what he needed. A creature like this could blast through the tunnel, could do what an army of trolls could not.
Vesuvius stepped forward and entered the clearing, noticing the dozens of dead soldiers, their corpses littering the ground, and as he did, hundreds of his soldiers lined up at attention. He could see the fear in all their faces, as if they had no idea what to do with the giant now that they had captured him.
Vesuvius stopped at the edge of the clearing, just out of range of the giant’s chains, not wanting to end up like the corpses, and as he did it turned, charged, and lunged for him, swiping with his long claws and missing by only a few feet.
Vesuvius stood there, staring back at it, summing it up, while his commander came running to report to him, keeping a far distance along the perimeter so as to be out of the giant’s range.
“My Lord and King,” the commander said, bowing deferentially. “The giant has been captured. It is yours to bring back. But we cannot bind it. We have lost many a good men trying. We are at a loss for what to do.”
Vesuvius stood there, hands on his hips, feeling the eyes of all his men on him, and he surveyed the beast. It was an awesome specimen of creation, and as it glared down and snarled at him, anxious to tear him apart, Vesuvius could see what the problem was and he realized at once, as was his natural skill, how to fix it.
“The problem is,” Vesuvius began, laying a hand on his commander’s shoulder and leaning in in confidence, “you are trying to approach it. You must let it come to you. You must catch it off guard, and only then can you bind it. You must give it what it wants.”
His commander looked back, confused.
“And what is it that it wants, my Lord and King?” he asked.
Vesuvius began to walk, leading his commander forward as they stepped deeper into the clearing, toward the giant.
“Why, you,” Vesuvius finally replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world—and then, he suddenly shoved his commander with all his might, sending the unsuspecting soldier stumbling forward into the clearing, right into the giant’s range.
Vesuvius backed up, safely out of range, and watched as the giant blinked down, surprised. The troll leapt to his feet, trying to run back to the front lines—but the giant reacted immediately, swooping down with its claws, scooping him up and squeezing his hands around his waist as he raised him to eye level, holding him as if he were a snack. He then pulled him close and bit off the troll’s head, swallowing his screams.
Blood gushed everywhere as the beast stood there, chewing.
Vesuvius was pleased to be rid of an inept commander.
“If I need to tell you what to do,” he said to the corpse that was once his commander, “then why have a commander?”
Vesuvius turned and looked over the rest of his soldiers, and they all stood there, petrified, staring back at him in shock. He pointed to a soldier standing nearby.
“You,” he said.
The troll stared back nervously.
“Yes, my Lord and King?”
“You shall be next.”
The troll’s eyes widened, and he dropped to his knees and clasped his hands out before him.
“I cannot, my Lord and King!” he wept. “I beg you! Not me! Choose someone else!”
Vesuvius stepped forward and nodded amicably.
“Okay,” he replied. He stepped forward and sliced the troll’s throat with his dagger, and the troll fell face-first at his feet. “I will.”
Vesuvius turned to his other soldiers.
“Pick him up,” he commanded, “and throw him into the giant’s range. When it approaches, this time have your ropes ready. You will bind him as he goes for the bait.”
A half dozen soldiers grabbed the corpse, rushed forward, and threw him in range of the giant. At the same time, the other soldiers followed Vesuvius’s command, rushing forward on either side of the clearing with their massive ropes at the ready.
The beast looked at the fresh troll at its feet, as if debating. But finally, as Vesuvius had gambled, it exhibited its limited intelligence and lunged forward, grabbing the corpse—exactly as Vesuvius knew it would.
“NOW!” he shrieked.
The soldiers threw the ropes, casting them over the back of the giant, grabbing hold on either side and pulling, pinning it down. More soldiers rushed forward and threw more ropes, dozens of them, again and again, binding its neck, then its arms, then its legs. They pulled with all their might as they encircled it, and the beast strained and struggled and roared in fury—but there was soon nothing it could do. Bound by dozens of thick ropes, held down by hundreds of men, it lay face down in the dirt, roaring helplessly.
Vesuvius walked close and stood over it, unimaginable just moments ago, and looked down, satisfied at his conquest.
Finally, after all these years, he grinned wide.
“Now,” he said slowly, savoring each word, “Escalon is mine.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Kyra stood at the window of her chamber, watching dawn break over the countryside, Leo at her side, with a sense of both anticipation and dread. She had spent a long night plagued by nightmares, tossing and turning after overhearing her father’s conversation. She could still hear her father’s words ringing in her head: Does she not have a right to know who she is?