Yet, she knew what she saw - she remembered it too clearly for it to have been a product of her imagination. “I swear, I saw a red dragon, in flight. We need to warn the village. Dragons mean death, destruction…I need to protect Talia.”
Demelza moved her hair from her shoulders and smirked, before it began. She looked uncomfortable at first, and a blood-curdling sound - bones breaking, flesh morphing - made Xandrie cringe. But then, before her astonished eyes the woman had completed her change. In front of her, filling the humongous cave, there was an actual, real live dragon.
Xandrie stood, slack-jawed, the adrenaline ebbing and flowing through her in waves. Her bow fell to her side. Demelza was magnificent; a vision in red. Crazy as it was – in light of what she’d always thought, of what she’d said not a minute before – Xandrie felt no fear, only awe. “It was you.” Then, she realized the only thing that explained why she was still breathing. “You caught me.”
The dragon had saved her life, which went against everything she’d ever heard about their race.
Demelza shifted back to her glorious human form, laughing. “Getting you back here was excitement enough for one day, and besides, I’ve had a long flight. I don’t have the energy to consume an entire village.”
Xandrie plunked herself back down by the fire. The dragon-woman who called herself Demelza had such a quiet, peaceful energy. “Sorry, people say…well…dragons don’t usually appear in these parts.”
She felt silly for insulting the woman who’d saved her and sillier still for taking rumors for truth. She didn’t want to be rude, but it was true; there’d been no dragon sightings around Malec and she just didn’t know any better. Sometimes, cruelty was nothing more than ignorance.
Demelza sighed. “We don’t come to the Northern Var. Nothing much here.” Well, that was true enough. “I had to get away for a while, though.”
Xandrie asked why, her curiosity just as acute as it had been the previous day with the two mysterious elves.
“A good woman died on my watch; another one. She birthed her dragonling and paid for it with her life. It happens a lot, and well, flying tends to be distracting.”
“I’m sorry. It really sucks,” said Xandrie. The words felt empty, but there was nothing else to say.
Demelza shrugged. “Our women have been dying in childbirth for centuries. Over half our dragons grow up without a mother these days.”
“Can’t you fix it?” It felt like such a stupid thing to say, so she added, “I thought dragons had powerful magic at their disposal.”
“We have our own elemental magic, yes.” Demelza nodded at the fire, sending plumes of blue sparks up into the cave. A wave of her hand, and it went back to its gentle humming.
It had seemed completely effortless on her part - natural. Yet Xandrie was well placed to know that this was beyond Talia’s skills. Fire was untamed and unyielding; mages made used of it, but controlling it? She’d never seen anyone foolish enough to try.
But then again, she hadn’t met a dragon before.
“Pretty impressive.”
Demelza shrugged. “Perhaps. But you can’t burn your way to a safer birth.”
Xandrie was reminded of the conversation she’d had with the Elves, and wondered if Aether could have helped, but it was a pointless thought. The Aether-born prince was long gone now, and besides, Xandrie had sworn she wouldn’t talk of their meeting.
“But what about the mages, the Elves and the Fae? Surely someone can help.”
“Andera, the Kingdom’s most powerful mage, has been on the case and can find neither cause nor cure.”
Shadow, Xandrie thought. If the cause was Shadow, there was little chance anyone who didn’t know of it could find ways to fight against it. She bit her lip, wishing she could loosen her tongue; but she wouldn’t. Keeping her word wasn’t something she thought of as optional.
Just then, Claws rolled over, purring, and plunked his head in Demelza’s lap.
“He does that when I’m sad, too,” said Xandrie. “I think he’s secretly an empath tiger, if there’s such a thing.”
“Possibly. He’s certainly very fond of you; he followed me up here and watched over you as you slept. But don’t you two fret on my account - these deaths are just part of our lives. I should be used to it by now; my own mother died having me,” Demelza continued, running her fingers through the cub’s ruff.
Xandrie felt awkward as fuck, wanting to ease Demelza’s pain, befriend her, show her how grateful she was for saving her from the fall, but words had never been her forte. Sass and sarcasm, she could dish out like they were on sale for a dime a dozen, but meaningful words of comfort she had no experience with.
Xandrie racked her brains for anything that might take Demelza’s mind off dying mothers and orphaned dragonlings. “I had to clean the toilet with a toothbrush last week.”
Demelza frowned. “A toothbrush?” She laughed. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope, Mother said something about not damaging the precious porcelain. I use a toothbrush for the lavvy, chamois leather for the windows, elbow grease for everything else. I go through a powerful amount of elbow grease, let me tell you.”
“You’re a maid?” there was no judgment in the she-dragon’s tone. “Your energy and stance aren’t consistent with ‘maid.’ You read like a fighter.”
She grinned, taking it as a compliment. She liked to think that her effort to keep herself fit had paid off.
“I belong to a family of mages, but managed to enter the world with no powers or gifts, so I make myself useful. Could be worse. Once my chores are done, I come to the forest where I train with Claws for a few hours. Then I slip back into the village, under cover of night, and…dragon’s scales!” Xandrie cursed, looking around, but with no sky in view, it was impossible to tell the time. “I’ve been gone for too long today. I need to head home.”
Claws rubbed his head on Demelza’s arm one last time, then returned to Xandrie’s side.
Xandrie had a pang of deep sadness in the center of her chest. She’d felt such warmth and camaraderie sitting with Demelza, she wished she could blow curfew and hang by the fire and talk. But she couldn’t. If she didn’t get back when there were chores to be done, she’d be punished.
“’Til we meet again,” said Demelza.
“Shall we?”
She didn’t care that she sounded eager. She was sure this woman was meant to be her friend.
Demelza seemed to think it through.
“I live far, beyond the Plains and Lakelands. But yes. Yes, I believe we should.”
Rage
Rhey growled low, his ill humor growing worse each day.
Since the shields had fallen, countless swine had swindled their way inside his Kingdom - thieves, goblins, and worse. Each day, he and his men patrolled. Then, he received the mages, Elves and Fae he’d called to his aid, and let them explain how they couldn’t just reform an Aether wall. When he was done with that, he had to wine and dine the countless nobles crawling about his City.
That left very little time for anything else. It had been days - days - since he’d counted his gold.