Rise of the Dragons (15 page)

Kyra opened her eyes slowly,
disoriented, seeing a stone ceiling above her, lit by torches, and feeling
herself lying in a bed of luxurious furs. She couldn’t understand. The last she
remembered, she had been falling in the snow, looking up at a world of white
and sure she was going to die.

She lifted her head and looked all
around, expecting to see the snowy forest all around her. But instead, she was
shocked to find herself in a stone chamber, to see a group of familiar faces
crowding around her—her father, her brothers Brandon and Braxton and Aidan,
Anvin, Arthfael, Vidar, and a dozen of her father’s best warriors. They all
looked down at her with concern.

Kyra felt pressure on her arm, and she
looked over to see Lyra, the court healer, with her large hazel eyes and long,
silver hair, standing over her, examining her pulse. Kyra opened her eyes
fully, realizing she was not in the wood anymore, and that she was back in her
father’s fort, in her chamber. Somehow, she had made it back. She heard a
whining beside her, felt Leo’s head on her hand, and she realized: he must have
led them to her.

“What has happened?” she asked, still
confused, trying to piece it all together.

The crowd seemed vastly relieved to see
her awake, speaking, and her father stepped closer, face filled with remorse
and relief, and held her hand firmly. As he did, Aidan rushed forward and
grabbed her other hand, and she smiled to see her younger brother at her side.

“Kyra,” he said, his voice filled with
compassion. “You are home. Safe.”

Kyra saw the guilt in her father’s face,
and it all came back to her: their argument of the night before. She realized
he must feel responsible. It was his words, after all, that had driven her
away.

Kyra felt a sting and she cried out in
pain as Lyra reached up and touched a cool cloth to her cheek; it had some sort
of ointment in it, and immediately she felt her wound burn and then cool.

“Water of the Lily,” she said
soothingly. “It will cure this wound. But you are lucky we treat it now—the
infection was bad already.”

Her father looked down at her cheek with
an expression of concern.

“Tell us what happened,” he said. “Where
did you go last night? How did you end up where you did?”

Kyra propped herself up on one elbow,
her head spinning as she did, feeling all the eyes on her, all the men riveted
in the silence. She tried to remember, to piece it all together.

“I remember…” she began, her voice
hoarse. “The storm….The Flames…the Wood of Thorns.”

Her father’s brow furrowed in concern.

“Why did you venture there?” he asked.
“How did you hike so far on such a night?”

She tried to remember.

“I wanted to see them for myself,” she
said. “And then…I needed shelter. I remember…the Lake of Dreams...and then…a
woman.”

“A woman?” he asked. “In the Wood of
Thorns?”

“She was…ancient…impervious to the
snow.”

“A witch,” gasped Vidar. “Such things
venture out on the night of the Winter Moon.”

“And what did she say?” her father
demanded, on edge.

Kyra could see the confusion and concern
in all the faces, and she decided to refrain, not to tell them what the witch
had said, not to tell them of the prophecy, of her future. She was still trying
to process it all herself, and she feared that if they heard it, they might she
think was crazy.

“I….can’t remember,” she said.

“Did she do this to you?” her father
asked, looking at her cheek.

Kyra shook her head and swallowed, her
throat dry, and Lyra rushed forward and gave her water from a sack. She drank
it, feeling restored, realizing how parched she was.

“There came a cry,” she said. “Unlike
any I had heard.” She sat up, feeling more lucid as it all rushed back to her,
and she looked her father directly in the eye.

“A dragon’s cry,” she said flatly,
bracing herself for their reaction, wondering if they would believe her.

The room broke into an audible gasp of
disbelief, all the men gaping at her. An intense silence fell over the men, all
of them looking more stunned than she had ever seen.

No one said a word for what felt like an
eternity.

Thonos, once the old king’s historian
and philosopher and now a resident of her father’s fort, stepped forward, with
his long gray beard and hunched back, leaning on his cane, and the room grew
silent. He spoke rarely, and when he did, he always commanded great respect,
holding in his mind a vault of forgotten knowledge and wisdom.

“On the Winter Moon,” he said, his voice
frail, “such things are possible.”

Her father shook his head.

“Dragons have not visited Escalon for a
thousand years,” he said. “You must have heard something else. Perhaps your
ears played tricks on you.”

“I saw it,” she insisted. “I saved its
life.”

“
Saved
it?” her father asked,
looking at her as if she were mad. “
You
, saving a dragon?”

She could see all the men looking at her
as if she had lost her mind.

“It was the injury,” Vidar said. “The
cold. The long night. It has touched her mind.”

Kyra blushed, desperately wanting them
to believe her.

“It has
not
touched my mind,”
Kyra insisted. “I am speaking the truth!” She looked over all of their faces.
“When have any of you known me to lie?” she demanded.

They all stared back earnestly.

“Give the girl a chance,” Vidar called
out. “Let’s hear her tale.”

Her father nodded back at her.

“Go on,” he prodded.

Kyra licked her lips, sitting upright.

“It was wounded,” she continued,
remembering. “The Lord’s Men had it cornered. It was defenseless. They were
going to kill it. I could not let it die—not like that.”

“What did you do?” Anvin asked, his face
a bit less skeptical than the others.

“I killed them,” she said, staring into
space, seeing it again, her voice heavy, realizing how hard it would be to
believe her. She barely believed herself. “I killed them all.”

Another long silence fell over the room,
even graver than the first.

“I know you won’t believe me,” she
finally added.

Her father cleared his throat and
squeezed her hand.

“Kyra,” he said, somber. “We found five
dead men near you—Lord’s Men. If what you say is true, do you realize how
serious this is? Do you realize what you have done?”

“I had no choice, Father,” she said.
“The sigil of our house—we cannot leave a wounded animal to die.”

“A dragon is not an animal! A dragon is
a….” His voice trailed off, clearly unsure what to say.

“What is it, Father?” she asked.

But she could see he did not know how to
respond.

“If the men are all dead,” chimed in Arthfael,
rubbing his beard, “then what does it matter? Who’s to know a girl killed them?
How shall the trail lead back to us?”

Kyra felt a pit in her stomach, but knew
she had to tell them the complete truth.

“There was another,” she added. “A
squire. A boy. He escaped, on horseback.”

They stared at her, their faces somber.

“And why did you let this one live, then?”
Maltren stepped forward, frowning, and asked her skeptically.

“He was just a boy,” she said. “Unarmed.
Riding off, his back to me. Should I have put an arrow in it?”

“I doubt you put an arrow in any of
them,” Maltren snapped. “But if so, is it better to let a boy live and leave us
all to die?”

“No one has left us to die,” her father
scolded Maltren, sticking up for her.

“Hasn’t she?” he asked. “If she is not
lying, then this means we are all finished.”

Her father examined her, his face
heavier than she had ever seen, as if weighed down by the news.

“This is grave news indeed,” he said to
her, sounding a million years old.

“I am sorry, Father,” she said. “I did
not mean to cause you trouble.”

“Did not mean to?” Maltren countered.
“No, you just accidentally killed five of the Lord’s Men? And all for what?”

“I told you,” she said. “To save the
dragon.”

“To save an imaginary dragon,” Maltren
snickered. “That makes it all worth it. One that, if it existed, would have
gladly torn you apart.”

“It did not tear me apart,” she
countered.

“No more talk of this dragon nonsense,”
her father said, his voice rising, agitated. “Tell us now the truth. We are all
men here. Whatever happened, tell us. We shall not judge you.”

She felt like crying inside.

“I have already told you,” she said.

“I believe her,” Aidan said, standing by
her side—and she so appreciated him for that.

But as she looked back out at the sea of
faces, it was clear that no one else did. A long silence fell over the room

“It is not possible, Kyra,” her father
finally said softly.

“It is,” suddenly came a dark voice.

They all turned as the door to the
chamber slammed open and in came another of her father’s men, joined by several
others, brushing the snow off their furs and hair. His face, still red from cold,
was more somber than all the others, and he looked at Kyra as if awestruck.

“We found tracks,” he said. “By the
river. Near where the men were found. Tracks that are too large for anything
that walks this earth. Tracks that could be no other than a dragon’s.”

The men all fell silent, looking back at
Kyra, now unsure.

“And where is this dragon then?” Maltren
said.

“The trail leads to the river.”

“It couldn’t fly,” Kyra said. “It was
wounded, like I said. It rolled into the rapids and I saw it no more.”

The room fell into a long silence, and
now, it was clear, they all believed her. They looked at her in awe, and in
fear.

“You say you saw this dragon?” her
father asked.

She nodded.

“As close to it as you and I are now,”
she replied.

“And how did you survive an encounter
with a dragon?” he asked.

She gulped, not sure herself.

“It wounded me,” she said, touching her
cheek. Kyra already sensed that it would scar, that it would change her
appearance forever; yet somehow, strangely enough, she did not care. “But I
don’t think it meant to hurt me.”

They stared at her as if she were mad.
She wanted to explain to them all, to explain the connection she had with the
creature—but she did not think they would understand.

After a long, tense silence, finally her
father asked, “Why would you risk your life to save a dragon? Why would you
endanger us all?”

It was a good question, and one which
Kyra did not have the answer to. She wished she did. She could not put into
words the feelings, the emotions, the sense of destiny she had around the
beast—and she did not think these men would ever understand.

Instead, she only hung her head and
said, “I’m sorry, Father.”

“It is not possible,” Maltren said,
agitated. “It is not possible to confront a dragon and live.”

“Unless,” Anvin said, looking at Kyra
strangely, as if she were a creature. He turned to her father. “Unless what
they say is true. Unless your daughter is the—”

Her father gave Anvin a look, stopping
him, and he immediately fell silent.

Kyra looked back and forth between them,
puzzled, wondering what Anvin was about to say about her.

“Unless I am
what
?” Kyra
demanded.

But Anvin looked away and would say no
more. Indeed, the entire room fell silent, and as she searched all the faces
she saw all the men averting their gaze from her, as though they were all in on
some great secret about who she was, a secret that was being withheld from her.

Her father suddenly rose from her
bedside and released his grip on her hand. He stood erect, in a way that
signaled that the meeting was over.

“You must rest now,” he said. Then he
turned gravely to his men. “An army comes,” he said gravely, his voice filled
with authority. “We must prepare.”

Kyra stood alone in the midst of the
field, in awe at the world around her. It was summer, everything in bloom, in
dazzling color, the hills so green, so vibrant, dotted with glowing yellow and
red flowers. Trees were everywhere, so thick, heavy with fruit, the hills
rolled with vineyards, and the smell of flowers and grapes hung heavy in the
warm, summer air. Kyra wondered where she was, where her people had gone—where
winter had gone.

There came a screech, high in the sky,
and Kyra looked up to see the dragon, the one she had saved, circle overhead,
then swoop down before her, landing but a few feet away. It stared back at her
with its intense, yellow glowing eyes, burning through her, and she could feel
its power. Something unspoken passed between them, as if the two of them were
one.

The dragon suddenly leaned back its
head, shrieked, and breathed fire, right for her.

For some reason, Kyra was unafraid. She
did not flinch as the flames approached her, somehow knowing the dragon would
never harm her. As it approached, the flames forked, spreading out to the left
and the right of her, igniting the landscape all around, and Kyra, unscathed,
turned to watch. She was horrified as she watched the flames lick across the
countryside, watched all the lush green, all the summer bounty, turn to black
with ash. The landscape changed before her eyes, the trees burnt to a crisp,
the grass now just soil.

The flames rose higher and higher,
spread farther, faster, and in the distance, she could see them consuming her
father’s fort—until there was nothing left but ash.

The dragon finally stopped, and Kyra
turned and stared back at it. She stood perfectly still, not knowing what to
expect, in the dragon’s shadow, humbled by its massive size. She reached out to
touch its face, and suddenly, it raised a claw, screeched, and sliced open her
cheek.

Kyra woke shrieking, clutching her
cheek, the awful pain spreading through her. She flailed, trying to get away
from the dragon—but was surprised to feel human hands on her, calming her,
trying to restrain her.

Kyra blinked and looked up to see a
familiar face standing over her, holding a compress to her cheek.

“Shh,” she said, consoling her. It was
her nurse, Lyra.

Kyra looked around, disoriented, and
finally realized she was home, in her father’s fort.

“You were dreaming,” Lyra said.

Kyra looked around and realized she must
have fallen back asleep, how long ago, she did not know. She checked the window
and saw the sunlight had been replaced by blackness. She sat bolt upright,
alarmed.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“Late in the night, my lady,” Lyra
replied. “The moon has already risen and already set.”

“And what of the army?” she asked, her
heart pounding.

“No army has come, my lady,” she
replied. “The snow is still high, and the sun just set when you woke. Don’t
worry—you have not slept for days—but hours. Rest now—there is nothing to be
done while all are sleeping.”

Kyra leaned back and exhaled; she felt a
wet nose on her hand, heard a whining, and she looked over to see Leo there,
licking her hand.

“He hasn’t left your bedside, my lady,”
Lyra smiled. “And neither has he.”

She gestured across the room, and Kyra
looked over and was touched to see Aidan lying there, fast asleep, slumped in a
pile of furs beside the fire, a leather-bound book in his hand.

“He read to you while you slept,” she
added.

Kyra was overwhelmed with love for her
younger brother—and it made her all the more alarmed at the trouble to come.

“Rest, my lady,” Lyra urged. “I can feel
your tension,” she added as she laid a compress on her cheek. Kyra felt
immediate relief as the salve soaked in. “You dream troubled dreams. It is the
mark of a dragon.”

Kyra looked at her and saw her looking
back at her meaningfully, in awe, and she wondered, feeling herself covered in
a cold sweat.

“I don’t understand what is happening to
me,” she said. “I have never dreamt before. They feel as if they are more than
dreams—it is as if I am seeing things. As if I am seeing through the dragon’s
eye.”

The nurse looked at her with her soulful
eyes, and laid her hands in her lap.

“Is a very sacred thing to be marked by
an animal,” she said. “And this is no ordinary animal. If a creature touches
you, then you share a synergy—forever. You two are linked. You might see what
it sees, or feel what it feels, or hear what it hears. Maybe tonight—maybe next
year. But one day, it shall come.”

The nurse looked at the girl, searching.

“Do you understand, Kyra? You are not
the same girl you were yesterday, when you set out from here. That is no mere
mark on your cheek—it is a sign. A catalyst. You now carry the spirit of a
dragon.”

Kyra furrowed her brow, trying to
understand.

“But what does that mean?” Kyra asked,
trying to make sense of it all.

The nurse sighed, exhaling a long time.

“Time will show you.”

Kyra thought of the Lord’s Men, of the
coming war, and she felt a wave of urgency. She threw off her furs and rose to
her feet. As she did, she felt wobbly, unlike herself, and Lyra rushed over and
held her shoulder, steadying her.

“You must lie down,” Lyra urged. “The
fever is not yet past.”

But Kyra felt a pressing urgency to
help; she could not stay in bed any longer.

“I shall be fine,” she replied, grabbing
her cloak and draping it over her shoulders. The night was cold, the wind still
howled outside the walls, and the fort was drafty.

As she moved to go, she felt a hand on
her shoulder.

“Drink this first, at least, my lady,”
Lyra said, handing her a mug.

Kyra looked down and saw a red liquid
inside.

“What is it?”

“My own concoction,” she replied with a
smile “It will calm the fever, relieve the pain.”

Kyra took a long sip, holding it with
both hands, and it felt thick as it went down, hard to swallow. She made a face
and Lyra smiled.

“It tastes like earth,” Kyra remarked.

“I know,” Lyra replied. “It’s not known
for its taste.”

But already Kyra felt better from it,
her whole body immediately warmer, and she turned to Lyra.

“Thank you,” she said. She went over to
Aidan and leaned over and kissed his forehead, careful not to wake him.

Kyra then turned and hurried from the
room, Leo at her side, twisting and turning down the fort’s endless dim
corridors, lit only by the flickering torches along the walls. But a few men
stood guard at this late hour, the rest of the fort dead quiet, fast asleep.

She ascended the spiral, stone staircase
and stopped before her father’s chamber, blocked by a guard. He looked at her,
something like reverence in his eyes, and she wondered how far the story had
already spread. He turned and nodded to her.

“My lady,” he said.

She nodded back.

“Is my father in his chamber?”

He shook his head.

“He could not sleep, my lady. Last I saw
he was pacing toward his study.”

Kyra hurried down the stone corridors,
ducking her head beneath a low, tapered archway, and down a spiral staircase,
until finally she made her way to the far end of the fort, ending in the thick,
arched wooden doors of his library. She reached to open them, but found the
doors already ajar and stopped herself as she heard urgent, strained voices
coming from inside.

“I tell you that is
not
what she
saw,” came the angry voice of her father.

He was heated, and she stopped herself
from entering, figuring it would be better to wait. She stood there, waiting
for the voices to stop, curious who he was speaking to—and what they were
talking about. Were they talking about her? she wondered.

“If your daughter did indeed see a
dragon,” came a crackly voice, which Kyra immediately recognized as belonging
to Thonos, her father’s oldest advisor, “then there remains little hope for our
people.”

Her father muttered something she could
not understand, and there followed a long silence, as Thonos sighed.

“The ancient scrolls,” Thonos said, his
voice labored, “speak of the rise of the dragons. A time we shall all be
crushed under their flames. We have no wall to keep them out. We have nothing
but hills and sky. And if they are here, they are here for a reason.”

“But what reason?” her father asked.
“Why would a dragon fly halfway around the world?”

“Perhaps a better question, Commander,”
Thonos replied, “is what could wound it?”

A long silence followed, punctuated only
by the crackling of the fire, until finally Thonos spoke again.

“Yet I suspect it is not the appearance
of the dragon that troubles you most, is it?”  Thonos asked.

There followed another long silence, and
Kyra, though she knew she should not listen in, leaned forward, unable to help
herself, and peered through the crack. Her heart felt heavy to see her father
sitting there, head in his hands, heavy in thought.

“No,” he said, his voice thick with
exhaustion. “It is not,” he admitted.

Kyra wondered what they could be talking
about.

“You dwell on the prophecies, do you
not?” he asked. “The time of her birth?”

Kyra leaned in, her heart pounding in
her ears, sensing they were speaking about her, but not understanding what they
meant.

There came no response.

“I was there, Commander,” Thonos
prodded, finally. “As were you.”

Her father sighed, but would not raise
his head.

“She is your daughter. Do you not think
it fair to tell her? About her birth? Her mother? Does she not have a right to
know who she is?”

Kyra’s heart slammed in her chest; she
hated secrets, especially about her. She was dying to know what they meant.

“The time is not right,” her father
finally said.

“The time is never right, is it?” the
old man said.

Kyra turned and ran off, feeling stung,
betrayed by her own father. She had a heaviness in her chest as her father’s
words rang in her ears; they hurt her more than a million knives, more than
anything the Lord’s Men could throw at her. He was withholding a secret from
her, some terrible secret. Some secret he’d been holding onto her entire life.
Some secret that others knew about, but she did not.

Who was she?

Her entire life Kyra had felt that
people looked at her differently, as if they knew something about her which she
did not, and she had never understood why. Now, she was beginning to
understand. They all knew. She didn’t just feel different than everyone
else—she
was
different. But how?

She did not know, but she knew, she just
knew, it had something to do with the rise of the dragons.