Race for the Dragon Heartstone Read online

  “Ffhhwwoooo!”

  The Screw-Claw shot back into the entrance cavern, tumbling head over feet. Kirja strode in after. She raised herself a few feet off the ground, then dove again, this time rear talons first, heaving the Screw-Claw back toward the tunnels with a strength that belied her size.

  “HiiirrRAW!”

  Each time Kirja tossed her dragon opponent to and fro, more of the cave ceiling fell, slowly filling in the entrances to the other tunnels. Silver saw the Aquinder’s plan clearly and was awed by her cleverness. Hiyyan, too, understood what his mother was trying to achieve and began pushing rocks and ceiling chunks to block the smallest of the entrances.

  The Screw-Claw rose and shook its head, dazed and furious. Its limbs swiped the air frantically. Kirja deftly sidestepped its attacks, looking for a way to get one last grip and send the Screw-Claw into the tunnel where it belonged.

  But one green claw caught Kirja, slashing her belly and coloring her silver fur red and green. Kirja grunted, slowed.

  “HAcccckkk!” From the side, Hiyyan chomped on the Screw-Claw’s hind leg and then got one more good bite on its front shoulder joint.

  Kirja took that opportunity to wrangle the Screw-Claw’s head between her back feet, whip him in a circle over the ice, and fling him for the last time back into the tunnel. Before the Screw-Claw could make its way back out, Kirja rammed the icy ceiling until enough of it had fallen to block the Screw-Claw from reentering the cavern.

  Through the sliver of space at the top of the rock, Silver watched the Screw-Claw roar and bat at its frozen prison, but pain and weariness had made the ice dragon weak for the moment. This meal was not worth the effort.

  Silver let out a shaky breath. “Kirja. Hiyyan.”

  Both Aquinder breathed heavily, their eyes piercing the Screw-Claw. A warning: Stay where you are if you know what’s good for you.

  “That won’t contain it forever. We have to get out of here.”

  Silver sat up, her body throbbing. Her left shoulder was a tangle of unfamiliar, white-hot pain. But she’d felt the pain in her right shoulder before, back when it had popped out of its socket during their escape from Calidia. Then, she’d had Brajon with her to help ease it. Now, with Mele prone on the ground, Silver had no one.

  She shook her head. No, she had Hiyyan. Who else did Silver need?

  “I need your help to put my shoulder back into place, please,” she said through gritted teeth. She sent Hiyyan an image of how she remembered Brajon doing it.

  “Hrumn?”

  “I know, your paws are different from hands. But if you push against me and I push against you … maybe we can maneuver just right…” Silver and Hiyyan moved at the same time, thoughts connected. He braced his leg against Silver’s back and pressed his chin to the front of her shoulder. Silver took a deep breath and, as she let it out, she let her body relax. Hiyyan squeezed. There was a crunch, a new burst of pain, then a rush of relief. “Ahhh. That’s better. As much as better can be right now. I don’t think that shoulder will ever be the same again.”

  Silver got to her feet and walked toward Mele, but the ground seemed to tremble. The world shifted. A swirl of dizziness hit Silver hard.

  Silver lowered her head between her knees to catch her breath. Shades of blue like the seas of Calidia swam in her vision. Silver swallowed back bile and breathed slowly until the dizziness passed. “Kirja, can you carry Mele out? Good. And…” Silver eyed the oozing mess of Hiyyan’s wing joint. “I’ll have to ride you, too. Hiyyan, can you get out like that?”

  Hiyyan lifted his chin determinedly, and Silver gingerly climbed onto Kirja’s back.

  The quartet exited, Kirja taking flight right through the opening in the ceiling, and Hiyyan carefully picking his way up a staircase of ice blocks and rocks. It was slow going back to the cave where Nebekker was waiting, and even through her pain, Silver felt over and over again the sensation that someone was following them. But each glance back revealed an unbroken ice plain. No Screw-Claw on their tail.

  “Where am I?”

  Silver glanced up to see Mele easing into consciousness just before they reached the cave.

  “Are you all right?” Silver asked.

  “I’m a bit banged up, and my head’s pounding,” Mele said, rubbing her temple. “But I’m okay.”

  Silver’s relief was short-lived. As soon as they reached the opening, Nebekker burst out of the cave, her face stormy.

  FIVE

  Even as Nebekker ushered them inside, she lit into all of them, her concern transformed into anger.

  “Of course you would be dragged back here like half-eaten prey! Look at these beautiful Aquinder! They’re…”

  “Healable?” Silver said hopefully.

  Nebekker pressed her lips into a tight line. “Possibly. Here. You do something with this while I work on the dragons.”

  In spite of her fury, Nebekker flashed Silver a mischievous look and pulled a paper and a string-wrapped assortment of parcels from the large pack on the ground next to her. Silver’s favorite scents filled her nose. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Her stomach twisted like a wrung-out scarf.

  “Fresh bread and meat pies,” she whispered. “And golden cakes!” Silver unwrapped one of the packages. Inside, a sticky cake—full of the saffron, dried apricots, figs, and almonds grown in Herd Valley, just north of Jaspaton—glistened with its honey glaze. Silver took an eager bite. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes and she forgot all about her aches for a moment.

  “Good food does that to me, too,” Mele said, eyeing the sticky cake.

  But it wasn’t just the food. It was thinking about Aunt Yidla’s hands, which had made the pastries, about the last time Silver had eaten one, seated between her mother and father after a large family meal. They hadn’t been celebrating anything more than being together at that time, but now Silver’s pang of homesickness was greater than any other ache in her body.

  She broke off half the cake and passed it to Mele. The Calidian girl, too, became emotional as she dove into the delicious food.

  “Brajon…?” Silver asked between mouthfuls.

  “Yes. Sent by way of Kirja,” Nebekker said as she studied Kirja’s wounds. “She’d stopped here first. But then took off almost immediately. Sensed something was wrong.”

  “She came just in time,” Silver mumbled. She could tell Nebekker wanted to hear more, but Silver was too busy stuffing her mouth. Warm food!

  “Someday, I will reward him tenfold for this,” Mele mumbled, licking every crumb and sticky remnant from her fingers.

  “I’m sure he’ll hold you to that. It’s a burden keeping up with all the trouble you two get into.”

  “It’s good to keep him on his toes!” Silver chuckled. She dug into the pack to see what else Brajon had sent from home. Another thin but tightly woven blanket that must be from her mother, lots of dried and preserved food, paper and ink, a compass, candies, a little pouch of coins, and even a small bar of soap and a comb—Silver couldn’t hold back a laugh at that; Brajon was always so concerned about hygiene.

  “I love all the things Brajon sent,” Silver said, “but I was hoping for some particular news.”

  “Good news,” Mele emphasized, taking a hard candy from the pile and sucking on it.

  “I have the letter here, and there’s news aplenty.” Nebekker nodded to a spot on the ground next to her furs. “I have to warn you: It’s mostly bad.”

  “King A-Malusni?” Silver asked, alarmed. Had he denied their request for protection?

  “No word at all on that, yet. But there are people out there looking for something. They’re moving closer to the foothills.”

  Silver cringed as a sharp pain dashed up her arm. “Is it Hiyyan’s turn for healing yet?”

  “Almost,” Nebekker muttered.

  “People are coming? What kind of people?” Silver passed a cake to Hiyyan, pressing her nose to his for a moment, and gave an extra treat to Mele for Luap before taking up t
he parchment.

  They’re not wearing signs, Brajon had written, but I’m pretty sure they’re Q. I.’s people.

  A tiny smile broke through Silver’s discomfort. It was a valiant attempt at secrecy, but anyone who might have intercepted the missive would have immediately known Q. I. stood for Queen Imea.

  “Mercenary trackers,” Mele said. Silver raised her eyebrows, and Mele shrugged. “They stayed at Mr. Homm’s inn often enough. There’s good money in tracking.”

  Mr. Homm’s was one of the busiest inns in Calidia. It was also one of the closest guesthouses to the royal palace, and Mele had learned to keep her ears open and file away interesting tidbits spoken by people who didn’t think much of a cleaning girl hanging around. Her encyclopedia of knowledge was random and surprising, but often useful.

  “If they’re trackers, that means they’re better prepared and more experienced in this terrain than we are,” Nebekker said. “We can’t stay here much longer.”

  “Brajon agrees with you.” Another bit of parchment, torn as though from a school essay assignment, accompanied the main letter.

  In Jaspaton, gold is common enough. And silver is even more common, plain, boring, and completely, entirely uninteresting. So what is an adventurous miner to do (besides stay HOME where it’s nice and safe)?

  Silver sighed when she saw that Brajon had underlined “silver” several times. Stealthy, her cousin was not.

  A legendary material might draw a miner’s attention. Camouin, a fluid metal that solidifies under heat, is rumored to create invisibility, though it’s more likely to use some kind of light reflection to create enhanced camouflage. According to stories, this material was used in the brutal Land and Sea Wars and is a banned substance. Those who hold it face death. Of course, no one has seen it in hundreds of years, and anyone with an ounce of sense knows it doesn’t really exist. If they saw it, they would run.

  If they touched it, they would RUN EVEN MORE from those who would track them. Even if they were presumed ALREADY DEAD.

  Silver frowned. The bundle of bones hadn’t worked.

  “He wrote that for school?” Mele peered over Silver’s shoulder, and Luap peered over Mele’s. “Look at his handwriting! What a mess.”

  “What’s a miner need great handwriting for?” Silver shot back defensively.

  “Not like our ele-jeweler over here,” Nebekker added.

  Silver grunted. It seemed a whole lifetime ago that she was training to follow in her father’s footsteps as the greatest jeweler in all the desert.

  “It’s good enough,” Mele conceded, “to tell us it’s time to move. The trackers must have just left Jaspaton. We have to take advantage of our head start. But without King A-Malusni’s protection, where do we go?”

  Silver said, “I still think our best move is to follow the river all the way to the summit and—”

  “No,” Nebekker interrupted. The old woman looked up from the salves and poultices she was mixing. “That way leads to the Watchers’ Keep.”

  “Exactly,” Silver said. “And why don’t you want us to go there?”

  Luap sent a tragic wail through the cave.

  “Quiet,” Nebekker muttered. “I need to concentrate.”

  In anticipation of the healing, Silver’s arm thudded with a last burst of pain as Nebekker pulled out a violet pendant on a chain from beneath her cloak.

  “Thank the sands Nebekker has a dragon heartstone,” Silver said to Hiyyan. The Aquinder nodded in agreement, shifting his own painful shoulder to try to find a moment’s comfort.

  Silver watched Nebekker press the heartstone to Kirja’s belly and closed her eyes. A warm breeze brushed strands of hair across Silver’s forehead, and the sweet scent of a meadow filled her nostrils. Through the soft, glowing amethyst-cream light that grew out of the heartstone, Silver saw the green poison from the Screw-Claw drain down Kirja’s scales and to the ground. Nebekker studied the wound, her eyebrows knitted together.

  “Hmm. Too much to heal at once? I think it’s clean. That’s something, at least.” Nebekker applied medicinal goop and a bandage, and when she was finished, Kirja tested the healing by stretching one way, then the other, and finally nuzzling her cheek to Nebekker’s.

  “You look like a brand-new dragon,” Mele said.

  “Please,” Silver whispered. “Heal Hiyyan now.”

  Silver crouched next to Hiyyan. They locked glances, eyes mirroring pain. But there was a softness, too. A gentle love born of their bond. Silver would do anything to help Hiyyan get better. She ran her hand over his smooth snout and caught her fingers in his white mane. Hiyyan began a song of friendship in his mind and silently sent it to Silver.

  It was a melody like rolling rainbow hills of wildflowers framed by a clear blue sky. In her mind, a sparkling blue stream cut through the scene, nourishing the flowers. The breeze that made the petals dance was gentle and tickling, and it bore whispers of her and Hiyyan’s own friendship: how they met, how loyal they’ve been.

  Ever since they were in Calidia, Hiyyan and Silver had been eager to learn the songs that water dragons sang to one another. Unlike her language, where Silver could simply point to an object and tell Hiyyan the word for it, water dragon language was complex. Each tune expressed a different emotion, told a unique story. Silver had learned a song of pain, a song of cold, a song of fear, a song of love, and a song of family.

  All the time stuck in the mountain cave with Kirja had been well-used; Hiyyan and Silver could express themselves through the dozens of songs she’d taught them, short and long.

  Hiyyan’s love warmed her through, and Silver snuggled closer to him, taking care not to jostle his shoulder. Even Nebekker’s rattling on as she examined the Aquinder couldn’t break their spell.

  “This is a terrible wound. How you manage to meet every fierce creature in existence…” Nebekker shook her head. “I’ll heal Hiyyan, and then we’ll discuss going east to the Island Nations, even if we don’t have King A-Malusni’s promise of help.”

  Silver felt in her own shoulder every poke and prod Nebekker gave Hiyyan. Girl and water dragon winced and gritted their teeth in unison. But when the light of the dragon heartstone began to fill Silver’s vision, she took a deep breath, ready to be free from the poison.

  Nebekker pressed the heartstone to Hiyyan’s scales. The soft glow began. Silver felt the poison shift as though it were blood beneath her own skin.

  Nebekker closed her eyes.

  And then the heartstone light went out. Mele gasped.

  “What’s happening?” Silver asked.

  Nebekker didn’t answer. She frowned, pressed her forehead to Hiyyan’s scales, and focused, her wrinkled skin flushing burgundy with effort. There was the soft violet light … More poison shifted, with even a dribble running down Hiyyan’s side, and there was the tiniest bit of relief from the pain, but the wound refused to respond. The light went out again.

  “Nebekker?”

  The old woman shook her head, sitting back on her heels. Silver’s breath came fast, as though knowing what terrible news Nebekker was about to deliver.

  “My dragon heartstone doesn’t work on your bonded dragon.”

  * * *

  SILVER CLUTCHED AT her short hair. “It should have worked. Why didn’t it work?”

  Nebekker wordlessly went to her dwindling supply of healing herbs and tonics, opening a bag and sniffing, or holding a vial of potion up to the light to study its contents. There wasn’t much left of her supplies.

  “But before…” Silver paced, stopped, put her hand on Hiyyan’s side to calm herself. “After Calidia, the dragon heartstone worked on Hiyyan.”

  “He is young,” Nebekker interrupted sternly. “His wounds weren’t as—” The old woman bit off her words and snuck a glance at Silver before looking at her medicines again. “Cuts and scrapes, bruises and bone aches. That’s all they were…”

  A shadow crossed over Nebekker’s face. That was all Silver needed for her heart to fly into
her throat, as though she were duneboarding from the moon itself.

  “Don’t worry. Nebekker is a great healer.” Mele pressed her fingers to Silver’s wrist. “She’ll fix him up the old-fashioned way.”

  Silver nodded, but her heart squeezed like a gem in a vice. This was different. Cuts and scrapes … no. This was poison.

  Silver ran her hand over the back of her neck. “You’ve seen this poison, and you know how to counteract it? Will you have enough for a dragon Hiyyan’s size?”

  Nebekker sighed impatiently. “Your energy is distracting. I need water. Go get some.”

  “But I—”

  “Go!”

  Silver trekked back outside, glad for the cold to numb her thoughts. Mele’s boots crunched after her.

  “She’ll heal him,” Mele repeated.

  “He’s suffering,” Silver said. “I can’t stand that he’s hurt.”

  “What about your pain?”

  Silver shrugged, but that shot sparks down her arm. Mele gave her a knowing look.

  They walked the rest of the way to the river in silence, but after Silver had hacked away enough ice to fill the jug, she whispered, “Do you think Screw-Claw poison kills?”

  “It looks pretty bad.”

  Mele could have said a lot of things to reassure Silver, but instead she went with brutal honesty. Silver appreciated that.

  “I can’t imagine a world without Hiyyan. And with our bond…”

  Such was the power of a bond: that a dragon and a human could not long exist without the other. A world without Hiyyan meant a world without Silver.

  Mele set her mouth into a firm line. “Stop thinking that way! Of course Nebekker will heal Hiyyan. Her talent is without measure. And he has youth, strength. Just as Nebekker said.”

  Silver nodded, a flicker of hope erupting into a flame. “You’re right. He might even be healed by the time we get back!”

  But when Silver and Mele reentered the cave, the silence that blanketed its inhabitants was thick with worry. Nearly all of Nebekker’s bottles and bags were empty. Kirja was arranging a blanket over Hiyyan. And Luap was sniffling as though death was imminent.