Silver Batal and the Water Dragon Races Read online

  “You don’t even know what a whirlpool looks like,” Nebekker grumbled. Silver hid a smile. Nebekker always got a bit grouchy when Silver started rambling about Sagittaria Wonder.

  “It’s a shame your cousin’s birthday will be so stormy,” Nebekker said, peering out the window.

  “Maybe there won’t be so many people at his party, then,” Silver muttered.

  Nebekker gave her a long look, and a drumbeat of emotion pounded in her belly. Silver didn’t mean that, really. Her cousin Brajon was her favorite person in the desert—or anywhere—and she wanted his birthday to be spectacular. It wasn’t his fault that he was beloved by all in Jaspaton and that hundreds of people would come to wish him well. Or that his mother, Silver’s aunt Yidla, was likely at that very moment putting the finishing touches on a birthday feast that would rival what Queen Imea enjoyed in her fine palace. And it certainly wasn’t his fault that he was going to receive a coveted dune board this year: It was the traditional thirteenth-year present.

  Silver made a low sound in her throat. She’d messed up another two stitches. Be patient, find rhythm, respect the craft. Nebekker had repeated these words often over the two weeks they had been weaving together, but Silver didn’t have time to be patient. There was a plan for a spectacular riding suit tucked safely in one of Nebekker’s pots, and an even bigger plan rooted in Silver’s head. If she finished in time.

  “Fly, fingers, fly,” Silver whispered under her breath.

  The front door flew open. She glanced up, expecting a gust of wind. When she saw who it was, she stashed her work under the folds of her tunic, her heart racing.

  “Silver, I—” Brajon was shouldered aside before he could finish speaking.

  “So this is where you’re hiding!” Silver’s father squeezed into the room, his voice triumphant. The wind slammed the door shut behind him, and his scarf whipped around his black hair before settling on his shoulders. The low light emphasized the sharpness of Rami Batal’s cheekbones and jawline, flashing against the thin circlet of gold around his forehead and softening the myriad metalworking scars on his hands.

  “Ele-jeweler, you are supposed to be in class on the lower levels.” Rami frowned as he looked at them, seated on floor cushions. “What are you doing in here?”

  Silver shot a nervous glance at Nebekker.

  “She asked me to help her with a project. Something to impress her mother,” Nebekker said, lying smoothly.

  “Exactly,” Silver blurted out. It wasn’t the whole truth, but it didn’t have to be a lie, either. Someday, she did want to impress her mother. But on her own terms.

  Rami hesitated, choosing his words to the elderly woman carefully. “You are kind to help her.”

  Silver watched her father looking around Nebekker’s small home. She could see the wheels turning in his head, wondering what on earth his daughter was doing with the strange old yarnslady. His gaze paused at the jug decorated with the water dragon.

  Silver swallowed, forcing her scurrying pulse to slow, and tucked the racing suit even farther under her tunic. She couldn’t have her father asking questions.

  “I’m almost finished, Father. How did you know where to find me?” Silver narrowed her eyes at Brajon, who hunched over guiltily.

  Brajon was half a year younger than her but almost two heads taller and a whole lot heavier. He had new muscles since he started going into the mines on his twelfth birthday, following in his father’s footsteps. He was an ele-miner. Not that anyone ever called him that. He was always simply Brajon. Silver wished she could simply be called her own name, instead of always ele-jeweler. There were hundreds of miners for Brajon to blend in with, but there was only one Batal family. Silver’s path in life—and her shortcomings on that path—had nowhere to hide.

  “You have responsibilities, Silver,” Rami Batal said. “You missed your morning classes.”

  “I know! I just—” Silver hated that tinge of disappointment in her father’s voice, but she couldn’t explain herself.

  Her father sighed impatiently. “I saw the marks on your last exam, and you can’t afford to be missing any lessons. You will make them up tomorrow. Go home and get ready for the party. You should be glad I’m still letting you go.”

  Rami Batal pointed to the door. Silver scrambled to her feet.

  “Nebekker,” he said more gently, “Silver should not be bothering you.”

  “She isn’t bothering me. I invited her,” Nebekker said, her fingers still flying over her work. “But I never did invite you in.”

  Not even stern Rami Batal could keep his lips from turning up slightly at the old woman’s saucy tone.

  “Then I’ll be on my way,” he said, bowing his head slightly. “But, Silver, there will be no more visits until your marks improve. Go home now. I must return to the workshop.”

  As her father left the house, Silver’s heart dropped and her cheeks burned. How would she finish the riding suit if she was banned from Nebekker’s house? She avoided looking at Nebekker or Brajon as she gathered her things.

  “Thanks for telling him where I was,” Silver hissed as she brushed by her cousin before darting down the road.

  “See you at my party,” Brajon called after her cheerfully.

  * * *

  SILVER RUSHED HOME and slipped into her bedroom. Directly across from the entrance was a fact sheet for the Aquinder, the most fabled of all water dragons. She walked over and brushed the corners of the paper with her fingertips. It was mostly blank, except for a scribble of what she thought it would look like based on the stories the traders told. Long and muscled, with fins and fur around its head and, most important, the only water dragon with wings to allow it to swim and fly.

  Under the drawing, there was only one sentence: Does it really exist?

  Silver rubbed her thumb over her sketch. According to Jaspatonians, a desert girl obsessed with water dragons also couldn’t exist. But as Silver closed her eyes, she could feel a spray of seawater on the back of her neck, the warmth of water dragon skin beneath her palms, the thrill of crossing a finish line in first place. She could even feel the weightless sensation that would come when she and her Aquinder lifted off into the sapphire-blue sky. Tears prickled her eyes. They were impossible creatures, she and the Aquinder.

  “You’re supposed to be getting ready for my party.” Brajon had come into Silver’s room so quietly that she hadn’t heard him part the curtains that hung between her room and the hallway. His words pulled her out of her dreams and back onto solid ground.

  “Don’t you know how to announce yourself?” It was good manners in Jaspaton to clear one’s throat or speak to let others know you were coming. Silver quickly turned away from her cousin and wiped her sleeve across her face. She knew the muslin would leave a muddy streak on her cheeks, but she didn’t care. “Besides, you should be back at your house waiting for all your adoring fans to arrive.”

  Brajon ran his hand through his hair, a shimmering gold wrist cuff catching the light. Silver recognized her father’s fine handiwork. An early birthday gift.

  “I came to apologize about Nebekker’s. Uncle Rami kept asking where you were, and I couldn’t lie to him. If you’re not careful, your father will pull you out of school.”

  “I was careful. Until someone spilled my secret.” Silver frowned. Brajon finally had the decency to turn pink and look away. “It would help if he did take me out of jewelers’ classes so I could finish the suit. Ele-jeweler,” she said bitterly.

  Brajon shrugged. “Have it your way. You’d be such a pretty ele-yarnslady, and you and Nebekker could sit around being weird together all day long.”

  “Nebekker’s more interesting than anyone else in boring Jaspaton.” Silver grabbed a scarf from her floor and hurled it at Brajon’s head. Her cousin laughed and ducked into the hallway.

  Silver knew her father would never banish her from his trade. After her grandfather nearly drove the family business to ruin, Rami had worked tirelessly to make the B
atal name once again synonymous with the best jewelers in all the desert. His final hurdle was to impress Queen Imea. Both Silver and her father had been eagerly awaiting her arrival, although for very different reasons. Her father, to secure his family legacy, and Silver, to escape it.

  Brajon poked his head back in and sighed. His long black hair fell across his eyes. “Come on, Silver. You can’t be all sulky in here. There’s going to be an epic feast.”

  On cue, Silver’s belly rumbled. Both cousins laughed.

  “I’m coming,” she said to Brajon’s retreating back.

  She picked up her favorite scarf and draped it across her neck, then changed her mind and tucked it into the bag she had hidden under a pile of cushions. She grinned, and what felt like desert hawks soared in her belly as she raced to catch up with her cousin.

  In two days, she would take that bag with her as she departed Jaspaton with the great Sagittaria Wonder.

  FOUR

  Silver dragged her feet behind her parents as the Batals escorted Brajon back to his home for the party. Her mother peeked back a few times to make sure Silver was keeping up, but her father surged forward, his hand on Brajon’s shoulder.

  “Thirteen years old,” he said. “Your path is chosen. Your future is secure. Comfort. Certainty. It’s a nice way to be.”

  “Sure is, Uncle Rami.” Brajon peered over his shoulder and winked at Silver.

  Silver stayed silent as they descended the staircases carved into the face of the Jaspaton cliffs toward Brajon’s house.

  “Ah, there’s my missing birthday boy,” Aunt Yidla exclaimed, greeting them at the front door. She was swathed in her usual apron, but her dark hair was tucked under a festive, glittering wrap. She pulled Brajon into a hug, squishing his face into her neck. In the past year, he’d grown taller than her, too. “Come in, come in. Everyone’s here. Oh, aren’t those pretty!”

  Their grandparents were there, aunts and uncles and cousins, some of Brajon’s friends from school, and some old family friends. Even Nebekker had come, silently tucked into a shadowy corner. Brajon held up his new gold cuffs for everyone in the house to see. They all fawned over the impeccable design and execution. Rami nodded modestly, but his face flushed with pride. He glanced at Silver as if to say, See the admiration that is waiting for you?

  Silver bit back a groan and melted into the crowd.

  Aunt Yidla had pulled her finest crystal goblets out and filled them with a syrupy berry cordial, ruby red in the slowly fading afternoon light. Silver took a glass. The cordial was from Calidia, but it had been made in lands whose names she had seen only on maps. She loved studying maps, imagining where she might live someday. Settlements in the mountains to the north and south of the desert … cities in the Island Nations. Places where the landscapes were green and lush, and where rain and water were plenty. Places where, she imagined, there were hundreds of happy water dragons. She was determined to see them all.

  “Silver,” her grandfather said, interrupting her thoughts. “Tell me about your studies. Are you also presenting a piece to Queen Imea, like your father?”

  “I don’t think so,” Silver said quietly. “My skills need a lot of work.”

  Last year, she and Brajon and everyone their age had graduated from the standard curriculum: reading and writing and math, but also useful desert skills like basic wool working, cooking, herding, and sky watching. Now, students studied their family trades alongside their other studies. Considering Rami’s reputation, Silver should have been excelling in jewelry making and metalwork. Instead, the other ele-jewelers outclassed her. And laughed at her. She had no friends among them.

  “So humble!” her grandfather said.

  “No, she’s not,” Brajon said, teasing. “She’s just as daft as a desert fox.”

  “And you’re as useful as a jelly pickax,” Silver shot back. Their grandfather chuckled at the cousins’ banter.

  “Ah, desert foxes are incredibly clever!” Nebekker called from across the room. “To survive the desert requires great intelligence and capability.”

  The buzzing activity in the room quieted for a moment, but when Nebekker sipped from her glass again and said no more, the fun continued. Aunt Yidla brought over Brajon’s birthday gift from her and Uncle Saad.

  The present was large and heavy, bundled in a big piece of emerald-green fabric. Silver moved closer to her cousin as he took the gift in his lap and pulled the wrapping away. The dune board was deep brown, inlaid with a smooth white-shell border. As Brajon ran his hand over the waxed surface, Silver’s own fingers itched to touch the wood. Painted in the center was a Decodro, the ten-armed water dragon. In a different world—one in which Silver had her own dune board—she would make a joke about how the Decodro represented Brajon’s ten fingers, always getting into the treats in his mother’s kitchen.

  Instead, a knot formed in her chest and pulled itself taut.

  “It’s nice,” she croaked. It was better than nice. It was the best dune board she’d ever seen.

  Brajon’s smile faded. He looked at the board for a long time. Then he looked up at his cousin. “You want to take the first ride?”

  “No way! It’s your present.”

  “I wouldn’t mind.”

  “I would.” Silver’s father came up behind them. “You know Silver’s not allowed to ride dune boards. I don’t want her hurting herself right before…” Rami shifted his gaze. “Well, it’s a secret.”

  Silver looked up at her father in surprise. A secret?

  “Aw, Uncle Rami. It’s easy enough. And if you fall, the sand is soft.”

  “Silver would find a way to break a finger. A jeweler’s hands are her most precious tools.”

  Silver’s face burned, any curiosity about the secret lost in her embarrassment. “Can I at least go out to the dunes and watch Brajon ride?”

  “I see no harm in letting her go,” Nebekker said. She had crept up to Silver’s side. “She’s a clever desert fox, after all.”

  She nodded to Brajon as she set her empty glass on a table and turned to leave. “May your year be as sweet as desert-bloom jellies.”

  Rami Batal huffed at the old woman’s retreating back, then turned to his daughter. “No point in standing around while everyone else is riding,” he said as he walked away to sample treats from the tables groaning with food.

  Silver let out a long sigh. Dune boards were traditional thirteenth-birthday presents. The wood was precious, brought all the way from Calidia. The dragons painted on them were supposed to represent the recipient. The Decodro on Brajon’s had most likely been chosen because of his love for finding and reaching for all the shiny things in the mines. But for Silver’s thirteenth birthday?

  A jeweler’s kit.

  Brajon gave Silver’s shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. She forced a smile and joined in as Aunt Yidla led the crowd in the traditional birthday song: “… years of health, friendship, and joy…”

  When they got to the part about success and wealth, everyone put up their hands like they were throwing gold coins at Brajon. During the next lines about staying humble and grounded, everyone flipped their wrists so their palms seemed to press against the floor.

  Everyone except Silver.

  She let her hands float at her waist. She didn’t want to stay grounded. She wanted to soar.

  * * *

  AS THE WINDS died down, the party picked up. Etched copper platters of glistening meats in rich sauces were devoured and refilled. Glasses were topped off with cordial and wines. Towers of sparkling fruit jellies and custard-filled cakes iced in pastel colors slowly disappeared. The older family members broke out into traditional folk songs, at the tops of their voices, while the younger people danced, spilling out into the streets with merriment.

  It was too much for Silver. Her head ached from the noise and the berry cordial, but mostly she was anxious to return to Nebekker and her racing suit. Would anyone notice if she left? Silver looked around at all the familiar faces celebrat
ing her cousin, many of whom hadn’t bothered coming to her thirteenth-birthday celebration half a year earlier. Of course they wouldn’t notice the ele-jeweler slipping away.

  Ducking her head, she pushed her way through the crowds and into the cool desert night. Without looking back, she quickly went up the first flight of stone steps to the Jaspaton midlevels.

  It was Brajon’s voice that stopped her.

  “Hey, cousin! Where are you … Wait, what’s wrong? You look as sad as a beetle lost in a sandstorm. Aren’t you enjoying yourself?”

  Silver tucked loose strands of hair behind her ears. “The party is wonderful. All those people, and all that delicious food, but I just don’t belong here.”

  “Silver…” Brajon tucked his dune board under his arm.

  “I’m sorry I left.” Silver took a deep breath. “I didn’t think you’d notice I was gone.”

  “Sure, I noticed. I don’t want you to go.” Brajon’s voice went low, and Silver knew that he wasn’t just talking about the party.

  In her mind, her reply was clear: What if I’m already gone?

  But those weren’t words she could say to her cousin. He was her best friend, but even he would never understand.

  “Listen,” he said. “There’s a bunch of us going to the dunes. Come with us. Let’s take my board out for its first ride.”

  “I can’t, Brajon! My father’s already suspicious after Nebekker’s today. I need him to bring me along to meet Sagittaria Wonder, and he won’t do that if I get in more trouble.”

  “He’ll say yes. Who could refuse this adorable desert-fox face?” Brajon reached out to pinch Silver’s cheek, but she swatted his hand away with a laugh. “What you need,” he said, “is to clear your head. Come on, cousin. Come race with me.”

  “Are you sure he won’t find out?” Silver’s stomach fluttered.

  Brajon pushed his face close to hers. “Dune racing is our version of water dragon racing, and you know that’s the real reason Uncle Rami won’t ever let you do it. I say, do it this once. Show him what you’re capable of. You never know—he might pack your bags for Calidia himself once he sees your talent.”