The Dragons of Noor

  “You know I cannot do that,” the Dragon Queen said testily. Then, softening her voice, she added, “You will have to go without me, Hanna.”

  Hanna reveled in the sound of her name. The Damusaun had called her Kanameer, pilgrim, but this was the first time she’d called her Hanna.

  The pain of being known bit into her heart, but it wasn’t a bad sort of pain. There was joy behind it. She couldn’t look into the queen’s eyes just yet, still digesting the new fragile bond between them. She glanced at the rounding belly, where the new queen slept in her shell under the scales and skin, then lifted her eyes to the she-dragon’s chest, to the war scars tracing darker bronze lines against the gold scales. Did they hurt at all? I’m just getting used to living with dragons, she thought. Now I have to leave the Damusaun. I can’t even bring Thriss with me. She felt a lump growing in her throat. She’d have to reach Oth alone.

  Gently pulling Thriss out from under her cloak, she handed the sleeping pip to the queen. Thriss awoke to find herself cradled in the Damusaun’s arm, gave a squeak of pleasure, and went back to sleep.

  Hanna adjusted her knapsack, mentally noting what she’d packed: the Falconer’s book for its eastern Oth map showing the way from Taproot Hollow to All Souls Wood, where, she hoped, the black tree grew. She also had a knife, a full water pouch, a few herbal tinctures (though she’d left many of them back in the dragons’ cave for Kanoae to heal war wounds), and, finally, Thriss’s shell, which still glowed a little, even though it was broken.

  Hanna spoke to the Waytree. “Is there a deya within?” No answer came. But the Cutters had devastated this fallen grove. The deya might be too afraid to come out. “I’m coming inside to greet you,” she warned. “I hope you don’t mind.” She stepped through the grass, passed under the ten-foot-high arch, and entered the hollow tree.

  She knew the deyas guarded the way, moving the mysterious passage to Oth from tree to tree. She hoped this was the one.

  Feeling her way into the darkness, Hanna called, “Hello?”

  She thought of an opening spell she’d memorized from the Falconer’s book. It had not helped her into Oth when she’d tried it by herself last year, but the way had opened later when the wind woman used it in the old forest.

  “Open as you have before;

  Let the traveler through the door.

  From this opening begin;

  The only way out

  Is in.”

  Hanna waited, holding her breath, then sighed. She’d never learned the proper way to say spells. Things might have been different if she’d been allowed to study on Othlore. The hollow vault smelled of earth, fungus, and rotting wood. Hands out in front, she made her way along. So dark. So dead, she thought. It’s like an open grave.

  She squared her shoulders. Stop it! You’re only imagining things. Still, her gut told her otherwise, and she had to stop herself from racing back outside to the Damusaun. Through the entry, she saw the queen waiting in the rain. Thriss had awakened. She clung to the Damusaun’s cheek flap, beating her small wings, using the flap to swing back and forth.

  Hanna forced herself to turn away from her friends and step farther into the dark trunk. “Is there a deya here I can speak to?” The words sounded dull and lifeless. Biting her lip, she put out her hand, felt something soft and spongy on the wall, and hastily drew back. Don’t run. Stay here. Find the way in.

  “Tymm,” she whispered. “Tymm.” As if his name itself were an opening spell.

  She inched along, feeling up and down so as not to miss an entrance. Her arms and legs itched. The damp darkness inside the tree engulfed her. She stopped. Something was wrong, very wrong, with the Waytree.

  “It’s too dark,” she called. “I can’t find a way in.”

  The Damusaun could come no closer, but she breathed fire. A golden light filled the hollow tree. Hanna brushed at her prickling arms and legs. There was no passage, no opening other than the one she’d come through. And the rotting wood was moving, crawling with millions of red and black beetles. That meant the tickling she’d felt on her arms and legs …

  Hanna rushed out, screaming, “Get them off me!” She jumped up and down in the rain, sweeping her hands down her sides. Thriss flitted over and clung to her, poking out her tongue and hungrily gulping down her favorite treat. The Damusaun lent her fire, the wave of warmth sending the rest of the beetles scuttling back into the cool, dark tree.

  “Ugh!” cried Hanna, shuddering. “I should have known this azure couldn’t lead me in. The tree is hollow,” she said with disgust. “It is dead.”

  She ran her hand through her wet hair. She should have known it wouldn’t be that simple. It was never easy to find the way in. And anyway, a dead tree without a deya couldn’t open the way into Oth.

  “Stupid,” she muttered.

  “What?” said the Damusaun.

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell me, Hanna.”

  Hanna plucked the last few beetles from her arm and fed them to Thriss. How long did she have before the worlds split apart? A few days? Less, if the Cutters managed to log more Waytrees?

  “I have to break through, Damusaun. I have to bring Tymm and the others home before the worlds split apart.”

  “You fear you will lose him.”

  Hanna nodded, holding back tears.

  The Damusaun flattened her ears. “I lost my brother long ago.” She pointed to her chest. “His name is written here.”

  Hanna stepped closer. So some of the scars were words.

  “The names of the dragon dead were blood-written on my scales when I became Damusaun. Here is my brother.”

  Hanna couldn’t read the words. “What was his name?”

  “Therros. The name means ‘wanderer.’ ”

  Hanna traced the lettering with her fingertip. “I’m sorry, Damusaun.”

  “I promised Therros I would bring one of his wing bones across the dragons’ bridge to Oth. He wanted me to bury it at the base of Shangor Mountain, where the sea meets the foothills. Where the waves speak.”

  The queen paused. “We were both hatched there.” She no longer looked at her brother’s name scar but at the small bulge of new life rising below her rib cage, where her golden chest scales subsided into green. She did not have to say that she was waiting to lay her hatchling in Oth, not here in exile. Hanna knew.

  The rain came down harder, blowing sideways up the deserted beach. “You said you saw your brother in your dreamwalk,” said the queen. “You know he lives. Keep searching.”

  “I will.”

  Hanna wiped the water from her face and shivered. Rain. Tears. It didn’t matter which.

  “Come.” The Damusaun encircled her and Thriss with her tail. Drawing them close to her warm body, she sheltered them under her wing.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  EVER CHANGING

  Quava is loss. Arii is renewal. Together in the Othic Tongue, “quava-arii” means “ever changing.”

  —THE WAY BETWEEN WORLDS

  They’d spent two nights in battle trying to destroy the trebuchets, and in the daylight hours, dragons flew out in teams with the Fire Herd to keep the fire wall protecting the last Waytrees on Mount Olone. The last grove was dwindling, mostly due to the Cutters’ deadly root poison that spread invisibly underground and felled trees all too quickly without saw or ax.

  While Taunier and his team worked at the fire wall, the Damusaun called the rest of the dragons to the great stone arch by the sea. A bright, midday sun lit the choppy water. Near the archway, Miles took his place by the youngling, Agreeya. Halfway down the circle, Hanna and Thriss stood in a small patch of shade under a lone sapling. Even from here, Miles detected the dark worry rings around his sister’s eyes. She’d been dismayed when the hollow tree had not turned out to be a way into Oth. Yesterday, while he lay recovering from his wound, she’d searched the last grove atop Mount Olone, walking tree to tree beyond Taunier’s fire wall. She’d found no entry to Oth there. Only at the Damusaun’s
insistence had she returned to eat and rest a little before going out again.

  Miles turned his attention to the Dragon Queen. He’d missed the second night’s battle, when two more trebuchets were found and destroyed, but he was fit enough to go out with the rest of the company tonight. If there were more weapons hidden on the mountainside, he wanted a part in their destruction.

  Feeling along his side, he secretly checked his bandage. Kanoae had wrapped it a little too tightly. Yesterday Breal had found him in the hills, back in human form. Half crouched with pain and still bleeding, Miles had barely managed to dart from tree to tree before Breal came along. He might be out there still if his dog hadn’t helped him home.

  Meer Kanoae had skillfully stitched his gash yesterday, her gentle talk and soft touch surprising him. A fighter herself, the Sea Meer respected battle wounds. She’d nodded approvingly at the way he’d handled the sharp pains during the operation. The fadeweed hadn’t numbed him completely. He’d bitten down hard on the leather strap and had cried out only once.

  The queen addressed them. “Kaleet has located a few storage huts where the Cutters stow their saws, axes, and, we hope, hide their devastating root poison.” She looked from face to face and flicked her tail at one of the less attentive pips. “We will mount an assault on the huts,” she said. “But first, we will prepare for what’s to come.” Her eyes fell on Miles. “Approach, shape-shifter.”

  Miles flinched. Why was she singling him out? He’d not told them he’d shape-shifted into a dragon. Instead, he’d let them think the gash down his side was from the fall from the sky when Endour was shot. Had the dragons caught his scent when he was in dragon form and informed the queen?

  Ignoring the shooting pains in his side, he walked as upright as he could, faced the Damusaun, and bowed. How many times he’d wanted her to call him out and recognize him for his gifts. But he wasn’t the Kanameer or Fire Herd spoken of in the dragons’ prophecy. The queen hadn’t seemed to expect or even want a shape-shifter.

  “Yesterday while you slept and let your wound heal, we burned Endour’s body, saving a wing bone to bring with us to Oth.”

  Miles nodded. He’d told the dragons Endour had died to save a youngling. He hadn’t named Agreeya, who was just old enough and large enough to join the battle. He had not wanted to shame her. “I sang Kaynumba over Endour’s body,” he said.

  The Damusaun flicked her tongue. “You shape-shifted into our likeness.”

  So they had scented him. Miles’s mouth went dry. “I … I had to shift to hunt down Endour’s murderers and help destroy their trebuchet. I needed—”

  “It would be better for you not to speak, pilgrim.” The Damusaun whipped her tail. “You put us all in danger when you shifted. If you had killed a single man while in dragon skin, we would have been exiled from Oth forever.”

  A low growl swept through the crowd.

  “I … I did not kill, Damusaun.”

  “You kept the vow you made by breath and fire?” she asked.

  “I kept it,” he whispered. He was grateful to chance or eOwey or the wound that downed him, all those things that had stopped him from going through with his plan to slay Endour’s killers. He could never have forgiven himself if he had destroyed the dragons’ one chance to go home.

  “Meer Eason,” said the Damusaun, “do you have the knife?”

  “I do,” said Eason.

  Knife? Why a knife?

  Eason and Kanoae joined Miles. The Music Meer pulled out the Falconer’s knife. Miles would recognize the elk horn handle anywhere. He’d last seen it when Kanoae used the blade to cut his cloth bandage. In Eason’s hand the flat side of the knife caught the sunlight.

  Hanna rushed through the crowd to the Damusaun. Long neck arched and head low, the queen blinked as she listened to Hanna’s hurried whispers. Was Hanna pleading for him? Miles’s temples pounded. The Damusaun spoke in Hanna’s ear. A look of surprise crossed his sister’s face.

  Miles said to Eason. “I don’t understand what the Damusaun wants.”

  “Just do as I say.”

  The Music Meer was trembling, but whether it was out of fear or excitement, Miles couldn’t tell. Something in his dark brown eyes asked Miles to trust him, even though he gripped a knife.

  Kanoae brought a bowl of seawater up the beach and placed it near Miles’s feet. A knife. Seawater. Were they about to enact some ancient dragon rite?

  “Roll up your sleeves,” said Kanoae.

  Meer Eason began to hum. Then he raised the knife and deftly cut a slit in Miles’s left upper arm. Miles bit down on his tongue as he felt the stinging blade. Meer Eason continued to hum, as a tiny rivulet of blood ran down to Miles’s elbow, over the burned patch from his earlier falcon shift, and dripped onto the sand. Kanoae pressed a clean cloth against his stinging flesh.

  Miles took a sharp breath, as Meer Eason pulled a folded leather square from his pocket. He opened it and tossed twelve round seeds into the air.

  The Damusaun breathed fire on them. The seeds turned from brown to bright orange as they flew up in the heat. They spun higher and higher like sparks from a fire before cascading down again. Eason caught them in his cloth and held them near Miles’s chin.

  “Breathe your keth-kara on them,” he said softly.

  Miles’s head spun. His keth-kara was the sacred sound eOwey voiced to form him in the womb. The Falconer had sung it to him last year, but only when he was in great need of healing from the Shriker’s wounds.

  “Will you … Are you going to take it away from me?”

  Eason’s mouth twitched into the shadow of a smile. “No one can take your keth-kara from you, son.”

  Meer Eason waited, but how could his teacher ask him to intone his keth-kara in front of the dragons? In front of everyone present here? Eason held his gaze.

  Kanoae said, “Your keth-kara will awaken them.”

  Miles looked from one face to another. He licked his lips and began to sing over the glowing seeds, softly at first, then louder. There was an answering in the wind, or seemed to be. The orange seeds began to unfurl. Tiny glowing worms wriggled on the leather cloth.

  “That’s it,” encouraged Eason. “Now, this will burn.”

  The dragons gathered round with Hanna as Eason held the leather cloth beside Miles’s left arm. The worms inched across the leather, entered the knife slit, and disappeared under his skin. Miles gritted his teeth to keep from screaming.

  Glowing spots swam under his skin as the worms traveled down his left arm to his hand. His palm burned as if placed on the stove. He crumpled to the sand to cool his burning hand in the water bowl.

  “Wait,” warned Kanoae.

  Miles held his hand above the bowl. Surely, the ceremony was over. He’d given away his sacred name. They’d cut his arm, fed worms into his flesh. What more could they ask of him?

  “Now,” said Eason.

  Miles plunged his hand in the water and felt relief. When the flesh was cool at last, he stood again. His legs felt weak, and he was cold and shivering now. Kanoae tied a cloth about his upper arm.

  “That’s better,” Miles said through chattering teeth.

  The Damusaun breathed fire. Taberrells and terrows parted so Miles could draw closer to the flames. When the worms had crawled into his arm, he’d wanted only water, only cold. Now he needed warmth again.

  Miles held his hands toward the flames. His palm was no longer painful. He felt only the smallest tickle where the worms had gathered under the skin.

  “Show us, Miles,” called Hanna. She was beaming at him.

  “He will be the first meer since the Mishtar to find his sign with dragon fire,” said Eason proudly.

  Suddenly Miles understood what the tingling in his palm meant. He’d not been singled out to be reprimanded for Endour’s death or for shape-shifting. They’d initiated him as a meer. His heart raced. He’d never seen the ritual on Othlore. It was always done in secret. One apprentice at a time would enter the dome room,
emerging later red-faced and sweating, proudly bearing a palm sign. No one ever divulged what happened inside.

  Now he knew. He was smiling, brimming with excitement. He held the flat of his hand out a little longer until the Damusaun’s flames died down. Then the she-dragon honored him by reading aloud the ancient Othic sign. “Quava-arii.”

  Miles recognized the words to the song Meer Eason offered on the ship the night he walked the plank.

  “It is the right word for a shape-shifter,” agreed Kanoae.

  Miles bent his arm. The blue symbol on his palm seemed to glow with its own inner light. A spiral shape with a crescent in the middle. The crescent shape stood for loss, the spiral for renewal. He followed the spiral with his eyes. At first it seemed to be spinning outward, but as he looked more closely, it appeared to be spinning in. It was both, he knew suddenly; the symbol itself was ever changing. He laughed with relief and gratitude. He was a meer in his own right. A meer now and forever.

  Waves drummed the sand as Miles bowed to the Dragon Queen. He stayed down, arms and knees trembling, collapsed with joy, exhaustion, and disbelief. He wanted to shout, laugh, dance, cry.

  At last, the Damusaun said, “Rise, pilgrim. You are a meer now.”

  Miles’s legs shook uncontrollably. He wasn’t sure he could obey. But this was the Damusaun’s first command to him as a meer. He got to his feet, wanting to thank her, thank them all. His heart was so full he couldn’t speak.

  “It was bold of you to shift to dragon’s form,” said the queen. “Only one meer before your time has done this.”

  “Mishtar,” said the dragon to her left.

  The cliff walls seemed to echo the name as all the dragons repeated it. Miles swayed. He knew the Mishtar had practiced the art of shifting. The first High Meer knew all the ways of magic, but he’d never heard of him or anyone else daring to change into a dragon.

  “Now,” said the Dragon Queen, “your meer sign pledges you to honor all your oaths.”