Dragon's Breath

  Millie had found the dragons.

  Seventeen

  Millie found it hard to control her excitement as she went in search of Azuria. She had wanted to shout the news as soon as she saw the dragon, but she didn’t want the snowmen to hear, although now they seemed to have gone somewhere and not come back. Although Millie knew she wasn’t very good at finding people with her magic, she tried to focus on the Blue Witch. When that didn’t work, she thought about the magic Azuria must have around her. This time, she found the old woman in less than a minute. Leery of alerting the snowmen, Millie didn’t knock, but just opened the door and slipped through, shutting it behind her. The old woman was there, brushing her hair in front of a mirror.

  “Good!” said Azuria. “You can help me with my hair. My servants usually do this, but they seem to have deserted me. I can feel my hair, I just can’t see it. How does it look?”

  “Here, let me,” said Millie, taking the brush from the old woman’s hand.

  “Now, tell me why you came looking for me,” said Azuria. “I can see by the expression on your face that you have news.”

  “I found the dragons!” said Millie. “They’re frozen in the walls of this castle! That’s probably why the walls are so oddly shaped.”

  “I’ve wondered why the servants add on to the castle when I’m the only one who lives here. They did it again last night. Did you feel the castle shake?” Azuria squinted at Millie. “Why are you standing there with a brush in your hand? Let’s go free the poor creatures! This isn’t going to be easy, so I need to take …” The old woman crossed to a chest and knelt down beside it. She muttered to herself as she rooted around, and finally sat back on her heels, saying, “This should do the trick.” The vial that she held had a gold filigreed stopper that seemed to glow with a light of its own. After draping its golden cord around her neck, she shoved her hand at Millie. “Here, help me stand up. All this ice makes my joints stiff. Now, where exactly are the dragons?”

  Millie braced herself and hauled the witch to her feet. “I saw one in the wall of the room where I slept.”

  “Then that’s where we’ll start,” the old woman said as she opened the door.

  They stepped into the hall so intent on their errand that Millie didn’t notice the snowmen at first. When she realized that they were appearing one by one out of thin air, she stopped and put her hand on Azuria’s shoulder. “They’re back,” she said. “They must have done something to make themselves truly invisible.”

  “Really?” said the old woman, placing her hand on her chest so that her fingers covered the vial. “Then they’ve learned how to draw more power from my object than I’d realized!”

  The snowman closest to the witch smirked and reached out his hand. Millie noticed that his fur was smudged with a deep, dull black. Just like Audun’s scales when the coal dust blew on him, she thought, and gasped when it occurred to her what that might mean. Audun must have brought coal to melt the door like he said he would. If he’d gotten in, surely I would have seen him by now. But I haven’t, which might explain why the snowmen were adding on to the castle last night: Audun is trapped in a wall, too.

  Millie was hoping that she was wrong when the snowman took hold of the vial and yanked so hard that the cord snapped.

  “Ow!” cried Azuria. “That hurt, you buffoon!” The old woman struck out, but it seemed that she still couldn’t see the snowmen because her blow merely grazed the creature’s ear. Raising her hand to point in his general direction, she said, “You won’t get away with this,” and had just started to chant when another snowman knocked her to the ground.

  “No!” Millie shouted. She was bending down to help Azuria when a blow landed on the back of her head and everything went dark.

  The first thing Millie noticed was the cold. She’d never really felt cold before because her metabolism was somewhere between that of a dragon and that of a human. But she was shivering now, which was a new sensation and one she didn’t particularly like. Her natural reaction was to wrap her arms around herself, but when she tried, she found that she couldn’t move. She wasn’t quite awake yet, so it just seemed odd to her, certainly nothing to worry about. However, when she tried again and still couldn’t budge, it bothered her enough that she finally came fully awake.

  Something isn’t right, Millie thought, and tried to open her eyes. They were as cold as the rest of her and felt as if they were frozen shut. She worked on her eyelids for a while, squeezing her eyes tightly shut, then trying to open them wide. When she got one partly open, she wondered if she really had because all she could see was a sea of blue. It wasn’t until she had both eyes open that she saw something that wasn’t blue, off to her right. She focused both eyes in that direction and realized that she was looking at a face. It was a large face and belonged to a white dragon. And then it all came back to her—how she’d found the dragon in the wall and gone to tell the Blue Witch and then been hit on the back of her head.

  Millie felt another new sensation then—fear. Of course, she’d felt some kinds of fear before—fear for her friends’ safety, fear that she might never meet the person who was right for her, fear that her parents would be angry—but she’d never felt fear for her life. Now, trapped in a wall of ice, she feared she’d never get out and would die there without anyone ever knowing what had happened to her.

  It occurred to her that she wouldn’t have to stay trapped in the ice if only she could turn into a dragon. The other dragons couldn’t free themselves because they breathed poison gas instead of flames. If she were a dragon, however, she could free them all and then she’d teach those snowmen a lesson so they’d never harm anyone again! She was getting worked up over the prospect, but she just couldn’t seem to make the transition. The problem was, she wasn’t angry as much as afraid and worried.

  Millie took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. She thought about what Azuria had said about tapping into her dragon fire. It sounded simple enough, if only she knew how to do it. The most she could manage was to adjust her own temperature and … Perhaps the two things were related. Could she have been tapping into her fire every time she adjusted the warmth of her hands or body? Maybe this wouldn’t be so hard after all.

  Millie closed her eyes and turned her thoughts inward, searching for the source of the heat. There it was, deep inside her, a fire reverberating with so much power that she couldn’t understand why she hadn’t heard it every time she’d listened for magic. As she reached toward the fire she found that she could draw enough warmth from it to stop her shivering, but she could go only so far before the heat became a palpable force that pounded with the rhythm of her own heart, pushing her away with each beat. Azuria had been wrong about one thing: this was no ember waiting to be coaxed into a flame—this was a fire waiting to engulf Millie.

  Reluctant to go any closer, she tried to think of something else she could do. If only she could get angry enough to tap into the fire the way she usually did. But she wasn’t angry and trying to make herself mad hadn’t worked. What if nothing worked? What if she couldn’t change? What if she was trapped in the ice forever? Her parents would be furious that she had gone and worried that she hadn’t come back. She was sure they would come looking for her, but unless they talked to Mudine, which seemed extremely unlikely, they wouldn’t know where to look. There was always her mother’s farseeing ball, but what if the snowmen could block it? She was going to be stuck in this castle forever, she just knew it!

  If only she had never left Upper Montevista and come on this hopeless quest. Except … it hadn’t really been hopeless because she had found her answer. But now, even though Azuria had assured her that the fire wouldn’t hurt, Millie was looking for a way to avoid it. It wasn’t the Blue Witch’s fault that the fire was so big or that Millie was too scared to follow her advice. She could breathe fire, she could swim in fire, so why was she afraid of the fire inside her?

  The thought that her own timidity might be holding her back was more t
han Millie could bear. She took a deep breath and looked toward the fire, resolved to do whatever she had to. Having traveled so far seeking the witch’s advice, it would be foolish to ignore the witch now.

  Determined, Millie started toward the fire. This time she didn’t let herself think about what she was doing, but instead forced her way past the battering waves of evergrowing heat. Then, suddenly, she was through. To her surprise, the fire didn’t hurt. The heat pulsing around her was invigorating and made her feel invincible—powerful, unafraid, and ready to take on anything.

  This time, when Millie opened her eyes, she was delighted to see that although she was still locked in the ice, she was a dragon. The ice around her splintered as she shifted her weight, but she was still trapped and the pressure of fitting into a space that was too small for her dragon body was making it hard to breathe. The deepest breath she could take as a dragon wasn’t very deep, but it was enough to allow a tongue of flame to melt the ice in front of her mouth. She struggled to take another breath; this time the narrow flame shot long and true, melting the ice all the way to the outside edge of the wall. She had fresh air now, although little space in which to breathe, so she took her breaths carefully, melting more of the ice around her with each exhalation. Water trickled out the hole in the wall, turning into a small river as the hole widened.

  Once Millie had melted enough ice that she could take a truly deep breath, she began to work in earnest. She melted the ice behind the dragon to her right and was relieved to hear the creature free itself and scramble out of the wall. Knowing that at least one was alive gave her hope that the rest were as well, so she blew flames until she grew dizzy and light-headed. She rested for a moment, peering through the blue around her, hoping to locate another dragon. Instead, she saw Azuria and Zoë, shivering together in the sea of blue. Moving with great care, she melted the ice around them, then used her talons to break the rest of the ice and free them. Neither one was conscious. Millie laid them on the floor and went back into the wall to look around for others.

  She found an elderly dragon and freed him, then continued on until all of her friends and the rest of Audun’s family were either lying on the floor as they came around, or up and helping the others. Tired but happy, Millie went from dragon to human making sure that they were all right. When she reached Azuria, the old witch looked up and smiled. “I thought it was you. Glad to see you got that whole dragon thing under control. Did you get everyone out?” she asked, nodding at the dragons.

  “I think there might be one more, but he wasn’t near the others. Do you know where the snowmen went?”

  “Ran off with their tails between their legs, if they have tails, that is. I’ve blocked them so they can’t tap into my magic again. Should have done it long before this, but they were using it to take such good care of me that I didn’t really want to.”

  “How could you block them? I thought they took your object of power with them. That vial …”

  “That vial wasn’t my object of power! My left shoe is,” she said, lifting her foot and twisting her ankle back and forth so Millie could admire it.

  Closing her eyes for a moment, Millie listened for the object’s magic. It was there, a steady background noise that was so constant and pervasive that it was hard to notice unless she was specifically looking for it.

  “They never did guess it was a stinky old shoe,” Azuria continued. “That vial had some mighty tasty syrup in it, though. That stuff is great if you ever get a sore throat. I figured I’d need it once I started my incantations to free all the dragons. I wish I still had it. Sitting on this cold floor has made my throat hurt something awful.”

  “It’s time you got out of here,” said Millie. “Take everyone out of the castle and get them to safety while I look for Audun. I don’t know if he’s here or not, but I have to make sure.”

  “I want to get some things from my room,” said Azuria. “That troll boy can come with me. He looks like he’s strong enough to be of some use. Simon-Leo, come give me a hand! And before you go,” she said, turning back to Millie, “see how that girl’s doing. She looks awfully pale to me.”

  While Simon-Leo helped the old woman to her feet and supported her as they walked down the hall, Millie sat beside Zoë. Her friend was shivering in her sodden cloak, so Millie hugged her until both Zoë and the cloak were dry. “Are you all right?” she asked as Zoë pulled away.

  “I’m fine,” the girl replied. “Although I’ve never been so cold in my life.”

  “Where’s Francis?”

  “I told him I was all right so he went to talk to Audun’s grandfather. They’re comparing notes about the dragons from the different parts of the world.”

  Millie nodded, but her mind was already on something else. “I owe you an apology. I never should have let you and Francis come with me. I’ve put you both in danger throughout this whole trip.”

  “Don’t apologize for something that wasn’t your fault,” said Zoë. “You didn’t make me come with you. It was my decision, just like it was Francis’s. And I’m glad we came. After hearing about our parents’ adventures for so many years, it was time we had one of our own!”

  Millie grinned. “I’m happy you feel that way, because it isn’t over yet. You and Francis need to go with Azuria. I think Audun came looking for us and may still be trapped in the walls.”

  “Don’t worry about us,” said Zoë. “Go look for Audun. Just be careful. We started this trip with you and we want to end it the same way.”

  Millie had already listened for Audun while she’d been freeing the others but hadn’t sensed any other dragon magic close by. While her friends made their way out of the castle, Millie paced the hallways, her head cocked to the side as she listened with more than just her ears. When she finally sensed something, it was so faint that she almost passed it by. It was less of a sound than a tickling, like the tip of a feather traced along her cheek, but it was enough to make her curious.

  She studied the wall separating her from the source of the sensation. It was thicker than the rest, with a blue so deep in places that it was almost black. Try as she might, she couldn’t see the curve of a sleek tail or the angle of the ridge down a back. Millie searched for the sensation again, trying to pinpoint it in the depths of the blue ice. When she believed she had it, she melted the wall in front of her a few inches at a time. Taking a deeper breath, she let out a bigger flame, but still the ice melted ever so slowly. She kept at it, however, until she thought she saw the outline of something.… It was Audun, she was sure of it, but a dark cloud swirled around him, making his figure indistinct.

  As hard as she had worked before, Millie worked even harder now. She took deep breaths, melting the ice until she had almost reached the cloud. Audun hung suspended in the shifting vapors with his eyes half-closed. Millie listened again; his magic was fainter than before, as if he were fading away. Unsure of what the vapor might be, Millie stopped melting the ice when only a few inches were left and began scraping at it with her talons. When she finally broke through, she cautiously sniffed the air. Just as she had feared, it was the same smell that she and her friends had noticed in Audun’s cave. It was poison gas, and from the look of the cloud swirling around the white dragon, it was very concentrated.

  Millie knew that she had two choices, neither of which appealed to her. She could either melt the rest of the ice around him, probably igniting the gas, or chip away at the ice with her talons while breathing it herself.

  It didn’t take Millie long to make her decision. Breathing in the poison gas might kill her and then she wouldn’t be able to help anyone. However, if she were to melt the ice and the gas did ignite … She’d just have to be quick, that was all.

  This time, when Millie filled her lungs with air, she started moving before she exhaled. The ice melted in a blast of heat and she launched herself through it just as the gas inside turned into a ball of fire. An instant before the flames engulfed Audun, Millie wrapped her limbs and tail a
round him. She adjusted her body temperature so that she could absorb the heat of the fire with her back while chilling the side closest to him. The fire was fierce and hot, but it didn’t last long. By the time it died away, the entire wall had melted, leaving a gaping hole in the side of the castle.

  Audun was stirring in her grasp when she laid him on the ground and vaulted into the air. Although she hadn’t been sure that she could take the fire into herself, now that she had, she knew that she had to release it before it consumed her. Choosing a gap between two mountains, she plunged into its depths and let her heat dissipate, melting the ice around her and creating a clear mountain pool.

  Carrying the heat of the fire had left Millie feeling tired and weak. She floated in the pool, scarcely able to keep her head above the surface, and was on the verge of losing consciousness when she felt herself lifted from the water and carried into the air. “Are you all right?” Audun asked, gazing down into her eyes.

  “I am now,” Millie said with a certainty that surprised her. “How are you?”

  “I couldn’t be better,” he replied, despite the singed scales that darkened his cheek. “Thank you for everything. You rescued my family and then you rescued me. I was coming for you when those beasts froze me with some sort of magic and covered me with ice. I would have been there forever if you hadn’t come along. I can’t believe you soaked up the fire like that. You have to be the bravest dragon I’ve ever met. Look, here are my parents. I want you to meet them.”

  Millie turned her head to look as Audun landed beside the ruins of the Blue Witch’s castle, where his family had gathered. Like Audun, his family’s scales were white, tinged with blue. They all thanked her effusively, but only his grandmother seemed to notice the tender way Audun set her on the ground when Millie swore that she was strong enough to stand, and how he wrapped his tail around hers in a proprietary sort of way.