I snorted. “I’ve never been very good at making friends.” I picked up my flute and checked it for damage—it was fine—before I climbed to my feet. I wanted to be standing when I faced the dragon.
The ring of sylph around me parted as I found my footing, revealing deep blue eyes as big as my splayed hands. Its face was mostly jaws, topped by round nostrils, hung with fangs as long as my forearm. The dragon was stretched out, lying along the wall like a snake. It blocked my way down—unless I wanted to jump. Its huge wings were folded flat against the serpentine body, while one of its forelegs hung off the side of the wall, shredding a spruce tree as though it were fidgeting.
The other two dragons waited in the forest below, coiled around trees and rubble from the deteriorating wall. The woods were horribly silent. Nothing dared make a sound with dragons so nearby.
I met the lead dragon’s eyes—one of its eyes, since they were so big and far apart—and decided to start with an apology. “I’m sorry I made fun of you and threw rocks at you.”
Another low rumble carried through the stone beneath my boots.
“I really am sorry. I came here to talk to you.”
The dragon only stared. Wind hissed through the trees, and my sylph huddled closer to me, buzzing with some conversation they kept to themselves. I focused on the dragon in front of me. Its giant teeth. The eyes that didn’t blink. It kept staring at me, the others too, as though waiting for something. Could they even understand me?
Suddenly I remembered a voice, a growled thought just before I passed out. I’d forgotten about it when I woke up, but now the words pressed on me. They break so easily.
It hadn’t been a sylph song. There’d been no music in the words, no idea of words. Just thoughts that weren’t mine.
Along with a mind-crushing headache.
“You said I break easily.”
The dragon’s eyes narrowed.
“I heard you. And”—I steeled myself—“I think you can understand me, too.”
My ears rang, like the world suddenly gone silent, but I could still hear the wind and something far off, like animals chattering in the distance. I didn’t look away from the dragon, though.
“I know you don’t like humans.” My voice trembled, no matter how I willed myself to be strong. I tried to tell myself it was no different from talking to a bird or squirrel in the woods. My childhood had been filled with attempted animal communication, since humans wouldn’t talk to me. “Dragons have been flying to Heart for millennia, trying to break open the tower in the middle of the city.”
The dragon growled again, and a word crackled in the back of my head. <Hate. Hate. Hate.>
I nodded. “Last year, you did break it. The tower cracked.” I couldn’t ignore the tower looming to my left. From here, I could see where trees were overcoming the stone, not as quickly and devastatingly as they had in the jungle Cris once told me about. Nevertheless, the structure would eventually topple.
I resisted the urge to look at my sylph and think about which one might have been imprisoned here five thousand years ago.
And the reason why.
They were on my side now, and they yearned for redemption.
I returned my attention to the dragon. “You may be asking yourself what was different about last year. Why you were able to affect the tower after trying unsuccessfully so long.” Maybe saying their efforts had been futile before wasn’t the best idea, but the dragon didn’t react. “The answer is a type of poison. You see, there’s a man who made himself part of the tower. He’s been controlling it for the last five thousand years, along with the rest of the city. . . .”
The dragon yawned, its breath reeking of acid and dead bear.
Oh. Okay. I glanced at Cris for help, but he and the other sylph were distracted. I checked the forest but saw nothing unusual. Just lots of snow and trees and brilliant blue sky. Everything shimmered in the noon light. My stomach tightened, reminding me I’d had nothing but a skinny pigeon in what seemed like forever.
Acid Breath rumbled again, vibrating the wall so hard I staggered. The other two dragons peered at me, their eyes slitted as though they wanted to doze.
“Anyway.” My voice came out high and panicky as the dragon shifted its head, so a long fang stood out right in front of me, bone white against shimmering gold scales. “It seems to me you’re not much of a fan of the tower.” Though they didn’t seem to mind the one in their domain. “And I thought I’d let you know that I have the same poison that was used last year, and I’m going to use the poison again on the spring equinox.”
The dragon lifted its head. <Why?>
Ah. At last.
I bit my cheeks to avoid smiling while I put together the next words. “Because that night, the man living inside the walls is going to ascend. He wants to be immortal. He’s going to break free of the walls that have caged him for five thousand years. Already it’s beginning. The earth is shifting.”