She clicked her talons again. Sparks flew out this time. “The bapeeta you asked for grew in a crevasse. I had to crawl down the narrow crack. It cost me.”
What did she mean by cost me? “Were you hurt, rivule?”
She did not answer. Of course she would not. I’d noticed the unusually pungent scent as soon as I’d entered. I’d ignored it thinking it was because I was inside her den. But what if the putrid odor came from a wound? Afraid for her, I said, “Let me see.”
“There is nothing you can do, Uma.”
She snapped her teeth when I ignored her and crossed to her right side, where there was more space to move between her large body and the cave wall. There was a reason why she’d given that side more room. I only had to look to see the long jagged tear running down her partly folded wing. The overlapping scales should have protected the wing skin beneath like heavy plumage, but they hadn’t been thick enough to shield her against the sharp rocks that must have torn her wing in the narrow crevasse. “How in the name of the Holy Ones did you fly home with this torn wing, rivule?”
“I mostly walked,” she said, snapping her teeth again. I felt like snapping mine. It was a terrible injury for her. Dragons had to fly great distances to hunt. An inability to fly would be a death sentence. Large and powerful as she was, she wasn’t fast enough to chase a buck or a boar on the ground. I could scream at the injustice of an injury grounding her just when I needed her to fly south. But she’d gotten this way to begin with because I’d sent her to gather the bapeeta.
I needed to examine her more closely. She had never let me touch her. Ever.
I stepped closer and gently traced the edge of the tear. She growled. I kept my hand where it was.
Her dragon skin felt thick and leathery. The layered wing scales were varied shades, from bloodred with yellow edges, to poppy orange to red brown, to a rich vermillion. More beautiful than feathers, they shone like soft, living jewels.
“Do you trust me to help you?”
Her growl grew deeper.
I ignored it. I’d known her all my life. She’d been loyal to my father and borne him on her back year after year. “I can stitch your wing so you can fly again.”
“Flying made the tear worse,” she hissed.
“So you intend to keep to your cave and starve?” Smoke rolled from her nostrils. “The tear won’t worsen in flight if it’s sutured.” I hurried back to the entrance and pulled the wound kit from my basket. The sea fog illumined the den in soft gray tones. Not enough illumination for what I had to do. “I’ll need more light.”
She shot a breath of fire.
“Wait,” I added, dragging everything to the wall near her right side so she wouldn’t burn me or my basket. “Now, give me a steady flare, please.”
“You are not the Adan.”
“I’m all you have.”
There was a long silence. The Adan had trained me to thread his needle. He’d let me watch him stitch many kinds of wounds, small and large, deep and shallow, straight and ragged. I would not tell Vazan I had never sutured wounds myself.
I squeezed the needle between my fingers, waiting for more light. Vazan finally gave in and hissed out a low, steady fire so I could work. Her decision ignited a small flame of courage. I threaded the needle. “Open your wing a little and spread it out. Now tilt it upward.” The topmost part of the tear was too high up for me to reach even with her lying on her stomach. “I will have to stand on your back foot.”
“You will not,” she said, her fire going out again.
“I will if you want to be healed.”
She grunted and moved her leg forward, her claws fully extended in silent warning. It was one thing to touch her, another to stand on her back leg using it like a stool, but it had to be done. I steeled myself and stepped up. Her scales were soft, almost silken on the soles of my feet. I poised my needle. “This might hurt.”
Vazan huffed bright, indignant fire over the warning. Her right eye swiveled back to watch me as I poked her skin, drawing out the thread. I wished her eyes couldn’t move independently so I could work without an audience. I knew better than to suggest she look away.
Father said, Be present with what you are doing. I tried to put away my fears and focus on Vazan’s torn wing, my needle. Mother was a gifted weaver. I’d been hopeless at it, all ventures ended in tangled threads. I’d been no better at stitchery. I was in the past again, trapped in fear. Be present. I began working stitch by careful stitch. I grew calmer. After a while my hands and fingers began to tingle. The small flame of courage I’d felt earlier burned in my chest, warmth spread down my arms to my fingertips. My hand was steady. My sutures sure. Was this what the Adan meant by being present?
The warm energy thrummed through me as I continued, repairing her wound with neat, even stitches. I was not my father. I was only Uma, but I knew this healing work. I knew it well. Vazan’s breaths were slow and steady by the time I salved her wing with fragrant woundwort.
“It will be sore for a while,” I said when I finished at last and climbed down from her leg.
“But I will fly?”
“Yes.”
“Yessss,” she said, scrabbling her claws against the cave floor.
“Not yet,” I warned. “It’s too soon!” Vazan ignored me. Her tail slapped my thighs, stinging them as she rushed through the entrance and launched into the air.
I cursed her impetuousness, watching her soar out over the water, anxiously called her name when she disappeared in the thick morning fog. Babak might swim, but if her weak wing failed her and she fell, she could not. By all that’s sacred. Fly out there and drown. That’s just what we need! I heaved a sigh when I could see her again. She caught a few gulls in her jaws before coming back inside, went to her favored spot, and spat her small prizes on the floor. Five dead gulls lay at her feet.
“I told you to wait,” I shouted. “It should be two days at least before you do that again!” It was dangerous to raise your voice to a fire breather. I didn’t care. I was her physician and she had to listen to me. She reared back, her silver eyes wide. I pressed myself against the wall, waiting for retribution. And waited.
“Tuma-doa, Uma,” she said. My head swam. She had never thanked me before. I was sure I had never even heard her thank the Adan. Her tuma-doa should be acknowledged. Words stuck in my throat. “I’m . . . glad I could help you,” I said, peeling myself away from the wall, still overcome with surprise. “I know what it means for you to be able to fly.”
“You do not know what it means or how much it means,” she corrected. Below the sharpness I heard a hint of gratitude.
Vazan lay down and speared the dead fowl, one on each talon of her left claw. She used her right to pluck the feathers the way I’d once seen Bianca tugging petals from a flower, saying, He loves me, he loves me not, then roasted her meal with a fiery breath.
When they were browned, she tore off some meat and held it out to me. “Hungry?” she asked, tipping her head.
My jaw dropped. What was happening? Reds never shared their food with humans. I stared at the meat within my reach, caught the alluring smell. My empty stomach growled.
“Take it, Uma,” she said in a soft tone. This was not the Vazan I knew. She held her offering closer. I had not eaten any food since Jackrun’s bread. I thanked her, plucked the meat from her talons, and stared at it in awe.
On the floor near Vazan I ate slowly. All my worries had melted while my mind was focused, working on her wing. Now my fears raced back with the full force of a raiding army.
“You are shaking,” Vazan said.
I hadn’t noticed that I was. Her dragon’s body radiated warmth, so it was not from cold. “I don’t know what I will do, Vazan.”
“You said you would go on fighting, Uma.”
How? I’d planned to send her down to Devil’s Boot for the fertili
ty herbs. A healthy dragon could fly there and back with speed, giving me a chance to continue the queen’s daily treatments. By the time Vazan’s wing was strong enough to fly the long journey to Devil’s Boot, we would be halfway through Dragon Moon.
The feathers on the cave floor were white as the egret feather Jackrun gave me for the Moon Dance. I touched one with my finger. I should have listened to him. What did it matter that I’d stayed behind to fight now that the medicines were stolen?
I pulled the keys out from under my gown and wrapped my fingers around them. They were icy cold. The Herbal was stolen. Father’s trunk ransacked. I should throw away the useless keys. I knew I wouldn’t. I tucked the cord back under my stitched bodice, the back side of my hand rubbing against the pearl-studded collar. Father’s keys were more precious to me than pearls. “I should return to the castle now,” I said, coming to a stand.
“Sit,” Vazan said.
“I cannot stay any longer, rivule. The queen—”
“Do it, Uma.” She pointed to the floor at the base of her ruby red chest. So close to her? Vazan was waiting. Red dragons lived long. Their patience was short. I stepped between her muscled forearms spread out like two large roots, and sat with crossed legs in the shadow of her jaw.
“Lean your back against my chest and close your eyes.”
“Why?”
She clicked her talons on the stone floor dangerously close to my knee and let out a small exasperated hiss.
I did as I was told. Her dragon warmth spread up my spine. Her throat made a windy sound as she drew breath in and out. She’d told me to close my eyes. The moment I shut them, my fear came at me in a torrent. It was over. I would fail. I would die. The army would stay in Devil’s Boot. My heart split open like dry, cracked clay, broke like one of the jars I’d hurled against the wall in Father’s healing hut. It hurt too much to sit still. I opened my eyes and struggled to stand. Vazan pushed me back down firmly with her claw and pressed me against her chest.
“I said close your eyessss.”
I closed them and sank deeper into my despair. Each thought was a stab.
The queen will kill me. Holy Ones help me. I don’t know what to do.
Hot tears ran down my cheeks. No answer came. The darkness went on and on. I walked on a dim path to nowhere, my feet moving in the rhythm of Vazan’s heart beating against my back. I carried my broken heart with me as if in offering to the Holy Ones; Father Sun, Mother Earth, Brother Wind, Sister Sea.
After a while the darkness behind my eyes went from pitch-black to a deep shade of twilight blue. Tall figures loomed ahead. I thought at first I had come to a place of standing dragons, but as the blue softened to daylight, I found I was walking in a forest, passing under ancient oaks and towering pines. Droplets fell from the branches pitter-pattering on the forest floor. The plants around the trees were unfamiliar, not like the ones in Devil’s Boot.
A flash of red-orange caught my eye. A bristling fox tail vanished between the trees. The fox mark below my collarbone began to burn as I followed the moving tail through the underbrush. In a clearing I saw the distant snowcapped ridges of a familiar mountain before the dense forest hid the view again. I climbed a steep path in the foothills, passing golden-leafed beech trees where the ground leveled off again, then row on row of dogwoods.
Another bright flash of fox tail. I followed as it darted behind mulberry bushes and brambles. Then fox came out in full view. She sat and looked straight at me with her golden brown eyes, her ears pricked, her mouth open, panting. The fox mark on my skin burned hotter as if a living coal were pressed below my collarbone. I stared at my Path Animal sitting before a cane patch of tall thorny plants with serrated leaves and dark shriveled berries.
Kea plants.
I fell to my knees.
When I opened my eyes again, I found myself in the cave, still leaning against Vazan. I’d been with Father in the healer’s hut, and later at Pendragon castle, when he’d prayed surrounded by the four sacred elements. A few times when he’d gone very still, he’d awakened saying, “I’ve seen where the herbs grow.”
The Holy Ones had never given me a vision. Until now.
I stood up, turned, and bowed to Vazan, touching her feet.
“Did you find something?” Vazan asked.
I looked into her molten silver eyes. “I saw a place where kea grows, Vazan. How did you do that?”
“I did nothing. I just made you sit and look inside. Visions do not come when you are fleeing from yourself.”
I looked at my small feet, her powerful claws. You could not run from yourself. But I knew what she meant. Visions had not always come quickly to my father. Nine years he’d prayed for the right fertility cure. I should not expect visions to be painless or to come easily. All Vazan had done was made me sit with my fears, feel them, move into them, pray my way beyond them. But it meant everything.
“Is the herb close by?” she asked.
I told her what I’d seen.
She flicked out her forked tongue. “Dragonswood,” she said.
Chapter Thirty-six
Pendragon Castle to Dragonswood
Death of Wolf Moon
September 1210
I HAVE HAD a vision, Your Majesty,” I told the queen in a firm voice. “I saw fresh herbs I must gather for you.”
The queen held very still for the artist painting her portrait in the throne room. I could not approach her throne and stood by Lady Olivia while the artist worked.
“A vision?” Her Majesty said.
“It is the way we find our cures.” The way an Adan finds cures, I thought, still reeling from what happened in Vazan’s cave. “Morgesh Mountain,” Vazan said when I described the shape of the snowy ridge I’d seen in my vision. That told me two things: First, since this was the mountain that crowned the northernmost section of Dragonswood, the kea was not far away. Second, unlike Jackrun, I would have to get permission to cross the boundary wall and enter the refuge.
Her Majesty adjusted her jeweled crown, lifted her chin, and posed again. “Why do you need these particular herbs?”
I couldn’t risk admitting my supplies had been stolen. “The Adan and I brought what we’d harvested back home. But now I need a fresh supply, Your Highness.”
“You are not telling me this so you can run away?” She’d turned her head. The artist paused mid-brushstroke.
“If I wanted to run away I would not be asking your permission, Your Majesty.”
“Please, Your Grace, turn your head again,” the painter said. She returned to her position. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”
“I will be gone herbing only a day or two at most, if it pleases you.”
“If it pleases me?” She laughed. “You are sounding very English these days, Uma Quarteney.”
“I am half English,” I said. I was less ashamed of my English blood now. Meeting Lady Tess had done that. Meeting Jackrun had done that.
Queen Adela turned to look at me. The painter tapped his foot, waiting for her to regain her pose. “You would risk the wolves?”
I shifted on my feet. “For you, Your Majesty, I would.”
“Brave of you,” said the queen.
“Or very foolish,” Lady Olivia whispered at my side.
“Jackrun interceded for you.” She was speaking out of the side of her mouth, her body frozen in place for the portrait. “He begged me to let you live and continue to serve as my physician. My nephew is very persuasive. But I can always build a new pyre. Come here,” she said to Lady Olivia. The artist sighed, having to pause again as the queen conferred with Lady Olivia, their two heads bobbing close together as doves in a dovecote. Queen Adela frowned, spoke again in whispers, then nodded.
“I will send Sir Giles to assure you keep your promise and come home safely to us.”
Everything in me revolted against thi
s. I couldn’t work with a soldier at my heels. Easy, I thought, taking a breath. She can be persuaded. Jackrun used diplomacy. I could do that too. “There is no need to send anyone, Your Majesty. I have gone herbing all my life. I will keep myself safe, and return to you as—”
“I insist, Uma,” she said holding out her hand. I crossed the room, curtsied, and kissed her ruby ring.
Half an hour later, I paced in the stables as Sir Giles readied the horses and supplies for our journey. He was not a tall man, but strong, thick-necked, a loyal soldier whose jutting jaw lent him a defiant look. At least this man wasn’t one of the soldiers who’d ridden down and taken Father and me from Devil’s Boot.
At last we were on our way. I rode Lady Gray, who did not know me well enough to appreciate my kicking heels as I urged her south on Kingsway Road. Dragonswood’s boundary wall on my right was only four feet high. The stacked stones, more property line than wall, could be easily crossed, but we had to ride south first to reach the place I’d seen in my vision. We needed to make time. I nudged Lady Gray to a canter. Sir Giles trailed me on his charger.
We’d covered a good twelve miles or so before I glimpsed a bright orange tail moving in the scrub beyond the wall. Heart pounding, I reined in Lady Gray. “We stop here,” I said.
“Thirsty?” Sir Giles asked, reaching for his ale pouch.
“No. I need to climb over the wall here.”
Sir Giles shook his head. “That place is meant for dragons and fey folk only, mistress physician. No one’s allowed in there without the king’s permission.”
“I have the queen’s permission. I am going in. You may stay here on the road or ride home if you like.”
Sir Giles spat and wiped his mouth. “What about the wolves?”
I did not look him in the face. I was keenly aware we traveled on the last day of Wolf Moon. I’d stashed a small handful of wolfsbane in his provision bag and mine before we left. If I could have waited another day to travel, I would have. But there was too much at stake with the queen now and not enough time to turn things around.