As soon as Corliss stepped onto the green, she knew something was afoot. Talking was prohibited, but glances and eyebrow waggles were exchanged at rapid rates.
Clearly it hadn’t been the day to skip breakfast, but how could she have known? Besides, extra sword practice was time better spent. She’d find out the news soon enough.
Corliss glanced at Ezry beside her, but he didn’t look at her. Usually he joined her early morning sword practice, but he hadn’t today. She was getting worried. The closer they got to Second Year, the more distracted he seemed.
Kerwin strode across the green, and everyone stood straighter.
“As many of you know, a dragon flew over the kingdom last night for the first time in two years.” Kerwin’s words boomed straight into Corliss. “Before the next full moon, I mean to train you in the ways of bleeding a dragon.”
Corliss grinned. This was how she would get herself on the top of the Second Year list, prove herself worthy of being a knight.
Kerwin lectured on dragons, and Corliss did her best to memorize every word. Some of it she already knew. Dragons only came out at a full moon. Their blood could cure almost anything, but it had to be taken from a living dragon.
She learned some things, too. A dragon’s fire was hotter than any forge, its teeth sharper than a sword. Bringing it down required enough arrows to ground it but not kill it, and then a brave squire to approach the downed dragon and bash it on just the right place on the skull to knock it unconscious before its exsanguination.
Corliss pictured it. She had a little trouble imagining the dragon since she’d only seen drawings, but she could easily see herself doing the bashing and the draining, being a hero.
Kerwin ended his speech with, “It takes a special squire to put down a dragon. One who is skilled and brave, patient and smart. One who truly embodies the knight’s code. I wish you all the best of fortune.”
The squires trooped off the green and then immediately began buzzing. Corliss turned to Ezry. “It flew over the boys’ barrack? Did you see it?”
He shook his head, looking miserable and exhausted.
Someone nudged between them. “Lucky you didn’t get killed out there, Ez,” Wati said in a way that implied he wouldn’t have cared if Ezry had. “If we need bait for this hunt, we know who to use.”
Wati kept walking. Corliss turned to Ezry. “What’s he talking about?”
“Later,” Ezry said, jaw tight.
They had aerial target practice with Kerwin. Corliss and the other squires had used the bows before, but at stationary targets or a heavily armored knight charging toward them. This time, to practice what it would be like to shoot a flying dragon, Kerwin had a man throw fowl from the high tower.
Corliss had been passable at the previous archery lessons, but hitting the birds seemed impossible. Fortunately, not many of the other squires did better, so she didn’t feel like a complete failure. Besides, they had nearly a month to practice.
The day passed without an opportunity to talk to Ezry. She couldn’t find him at dinner, so she sat with Adira instead. She and Adira had grown up at the same orphanage, had been the only two to have been accepted into the kingdom a year ago, she as a squire and Adira as a physician’s apprentice.
Corliss told Adira all about the dragon, but the longer she talked, the deeper Adira frowned, until finally Corliss was forced to ask, “What?”
“Dragons, dragons, dragons. You sound like Abba. Remember her? Working herself into a tizzy whenever she saw a horse?”
It was Corliss’s turn to frown. Abba had been all but simple. “I am not—”
“You’re worse! A horse was never going to kill Abba.”
“I’m not getting myself killed!”
“I had to copy over the castle death registry for the past decade. Do you know how many squires were killed by dragons in that time? Thirty-seven. And I bet every one of them didn’t expect to get killed.”
Corliss didn’t think that was a terribly large number, but she didn’t say so. Instead she said, “It’s my job.”
“Maybe. But you don’t have to sound so excited about it,”
Corliss didn’t respond. Adira just didn’t understand.
It was evening before Corliss finally got Ezry alone. “What’s wrong?”
“I haven’t been sleeping well. And then last night …”
“What happened?” she asked when he didn’t go on.
“I had a nightmare, and I woke up outside.”
“Outside the barrack?”
“Outside the castle wall! The guard found me at dawn, after he’d lost the dragon.”
She tried not to dwell on the embarrassment of that, or the fear. “I didn’t know you sleepwalked.”
“I don’t! Never before, anyway.”
“What did you dream about?”
Ezry looked away. “I think it was the dragon.”
“Maybe it wasn’t a dream. Maybe you really saw him.” It made her feel shivery inside to think of Ezry half asleep and defenseless seeing the dragon.
“I don’t think so. I’ve had the same dream for weeks, it was just worse last night. And I don’t actually see the dragon. I just … know it’s there. It’s like I’m flying with it.”
“Oh.” That didn’t sound particularly frightening to Corliss, but then again she wasn’t the one who’d woken up outside the castle wall.
“Every time I wake up from one of those dreams, I’m scared,” he said.
She shook her head as though it might clear his words from her ears. They’d agreed that they’d be knights no matter what. Knights weren’t afraid.
“It’ll be all right,” she said, cutting him off before he could say anything else. “We’ll kill the dragon, you and me. We’ll be heroes.”
Ezry didn’t answer, but she pretended not to notice.
Every day after that, their training revolved around the dragon. In addition to the aerial archery, they practiced bludgeoning melons, pretending they were a dragon’s head. There was a knack to it—hard enough to dent the rind but not to break it. Most of the squires couldn’t perfect it, but Corliss was good at it, and so was Ezry.
They trained late in the evening, too, in darkness, so they’d be ready. Sometimes Corliss could barely contain her excitement, but Ezry continued to be morose.
“You still having trouble sleeping?” she finally asked him.
He shrugged, which she knew meant yes.
“Maybe you should visit Adira. She could give you a sleeping draught.”
“I don’t want to sleep more,” he said. “When I sleep, I dream, and the dreams—”
“Don’t say they scare you!” she interjected. She could hear a harshness in her voice that she hadn’t quite meant to be there, but she didn’t apologize. “Don’t you remember how we swore we’d be better than all of them?”
Ezry was an orphan like her, though he’d come from a different orphanage. All the other squires were the children of knights or minor nobles in the kingdom. They had been pages since they were small and seemed to know everything. They had wanted nothing to do with Corliss and Ezry, so the two kept getting thrown together. Soon enough Corliss had realized that Ezry might be a little quieter and clumsier than she was, but he had the same fire within, the same doggedness. They were going to be knights no matter what anyone else thought of them, and there was no room for fear.
“The Second Year list is in two weeks,” she reminded him. “We’re going to be at the top. That’s all that matters.”
“Is it?” he asked.
She grabbed his arm. “You know it is,” she said, and walked off before he could say anything else that would make her feel like she didn’t know him.
The day before the full moon, Kerwin called them to the green and assigned squads for the dragon patrol.
Ezry wasn’t next to her. Corliss hadn’t seen him all day. Maybe he’d finally gone to see a physician. He’d have to be better tomorrow, though. He couldn’t miss the dragon patrol.
Kerwin called her name as a bludgeoner and drainer, with Rayla and Wati as her archers. They were assigned to the eastern woods. Corliss tried not to think of having to share her glory with Rayla and Wati, neither of whom she particularly liked. They were good archers; that was all that mattered.
She didn’t hear Ezry’s name. Was he that sick?
After they’d been dismissed, she caught up with Amil, one of the least annoying squires. “Where’s Ezry?”
Wati shouldered in. “You didn’t hear? Your Ez deserted. Disappeared over night, the coward.”
Panic spread through Corliss. “He must’ve sleepwalked again. He could be hurt somewhere—”
“Not unless he sleep-packed all his things and sleep-made his bed.”
She wanted to deny it, to stick up for Ezry the way she always did. But there was nothing to say. He’d left, and he hadn’t even told her.
She shut away her thoughts. She could do that, almost. That was the focus it took to be a knight. To have an awful day, to be betrayed by your closest friend, and to keep going and pretend nothing had happened.
That evening Adira found her outside the barracks. “For you,” she said, holding out a small contraption with sharp teeth and a long tail of tubing. “I got it from the head physician. He uses it for draining blood-fever patients, but it should work on a dragon. Maximum efficiency. That is if the dragon doesn’t kill you first.”
“Thanks,” Corliss said, ignoring the part about possibly being killed.
“Did you know there’s a school of thought about where dragons go between full moons?”
Corliss had no idea what Adira was talking about, but she couldn’t bring herself to say so.
Adira told her anyway. “It’s thought that dragons are just regular people, and the moon transforms them.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!”
“I found two books about it, including one by a man who saw it himself. He wrote all about a dragon-woman he knew.”
“Fairy tales,” Corliss said. “Why are you reading about dragons, anyway?”
“I read when I’m worried. Sometimes knowing things eases my mind.” She paused. “It didn’t this time.”
“You don’t have to worry about me.”
“No? Because someone should. You want to talk about fairy tales? You’re the one who seems to want to live in one.”
“I don’t—”
“Do you know how many squires actually become knights? It’s a very small number.”
“I know that. I’m not an idiot.”
“No, but sometimes you need to open your eyes. You act like all it takes is some bravery and skill, and you’ll be all right. And sure, that’s something. But it takes luck, too, and when have we ever been lucky, Cor?”
Corliss clenched her jaw. “Luck got us here, didn’t it? We could have been maids or worse, like all the rest.”
“But we’re still expendable, just like we were at the orphanage. It’s the same for me as you. Half the apprentice physicians fail in the first year, and I know I won’t do that. But the rest get sent to work in the fever wards, and most of them die of the fever themselves. Just like all those squires getting killed by dragons—”
“It’s called life, Adira! Sometimes people die! At least we’ve lived first!”
Adira shook her head. “We’re just the kingdom’s puppets, and you can’t even see it. You’re just blindly loyal—”
“I can see just fine. I can see you’re a white-livered craven! Leave the kingdom if you want. As for me, I don’t need luck, and I’m not a puppet. I’m doing what I’ve always wanted to do.”
Adira stared at her, and Corliss wanted to apologize, to tell her they were really meant for Ezry, who wasn’t here to yell at. Instead she marched off and didn’t look back.
The entire next day felt wrong. Corliss wasn’t scared, but she didn’t feel like herself. When evening came, she was the last one in the courtyard. It was her job to drive the wagon with its load of bottles. She imagined all of them full of dragon’s blood, herself triumphant.
She followed Rayla and Wati, who were on horseback. They rode to the edge of the forest, the full moon producing an eerie light. Rayla and Wati took their positions in the blind they’d already made. Corliss left the wagon at the forest’s edge and crouched, looking at the sky.
Time crawled. Corliss stayed somewhere between rest and alertness, ready to spring to action but in the meantime nearly sleeping.
And then a crash, so close it lunged into her ears. She reached for her sword, and was shocked that it was actually firm beneath her fingers.
This was not a dream.
Something was in the air above her.
Corliss couldn’t breathe for staring at it, had never seen anything as glorious, as magnificent, as that dragon in flight, silhouetted against the moonlit sky.
When the arrows hit, she bit her lip to keep from yelping. She had forgotten about Rayla and Wati, forgotten her own task. She let go of the sword and felt for Adira’s contraption in her cloak pocket, then collected jars and her bludgeon, all the while watching the dragon.
It had been hit, but it didn’t fall. The arrows rained on it, and it twisted, jolted, staggered, still aloft, bellowing now, first just a noise, anguished and indignant, and then a stream of flames that made Corliss flinch even though it was nowhere near her.
She heard another scream, human this time. Wati? Corliss squinted through darkness and chaos as the dragon let one more breath of fire go in the direction of the blind before hurtling to the ground, thrashing and writhing against the dirt.
Rayla and Wati had done their job. Corliss could hear Wati’s muffled cries retreating as Rayla dragged him away. It was up to her now.
She stood still for a long moment even as her mind screamed at her to move, to drain that dragon dry before it died. Little puffs of flames came out of its mouth with each tortured breath, and her stomach burned with the fear of it.
She moved, finally, because she was a squire, and this was her job. She wasn’t going to be some wash-up, some coward.
She approached it from behind, bludgeon tight in her hand. The dragon had seemed so large in the air, but on the ground she could see its body was hardly bigger than her own, though its tail nearly doubled its length. Its wings were impressive in span but delicate; she could see the moonlight through them in a way that reminded her of the stained glass in the cathedral windows.
She counted three arrows, one in its wing and two in its back, all of them quivering as the dragon continued to thump around. Was it her imagination, or were its movements getting weaker? Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to give it a quick hit to the skull ….
Just that quickly, the dragon reared, nearly hitting her with its wings as it bellowed fire into the sky. Corliss tried to retreat, but there was nowhere to go; the dragon was enormous again, a whirlwind of wings and tail and noise, and she was going to die, going to—
Silence.
Pitch dark.
She opened her eyes to find the dragon at her feet, as though this last demonstration had spent all its energy. She raised the bludgeon, but a dragon wasn’t a melon. Suppose she killed it or it killed her or—
She jabbed the contraption into the dragon’s back, trying to stay well away from its head. It twitched, and she got ready to flee but continued to stand there, holding the siphon and the jar steady with one hand, still clutching the bludgeon in the other. She was being a fool, she needed to knock it out, needed to—
The dragon turned and she raised the bludgeon, trying to reposition herself to get at the base of its neck, trying to get out of range of any flames. The angle really was impossible.
The dragon looked right at her. She shifted again, but it didn’t do anything.
The first jar was spilling over with blood, and Corliss forgot about the bludgeon for a moment as she switched jars. The dragon was barely moving now, just the heaving of its sides as it breathed and the slight twitch of its head as it seemed to follow her with its eyes in a way that she found unnerving.
No, more than unnerving.
Familiar.
She knew those eyes.
She knew those—
The impossibility of it crashed into the certainty of it and hit her in a wave of fear so cold she shook all over.
The dragon had Ezry’s eyes.
She lunged, pulling the contraption out as the second jar filled, and then staring in horror at the blood continuing to pour out of its—his—back. She ripped off her cloak and pressed it against the wound. How could he—why hadn’t he—
She locked her eyes on his, the only part of him she knew.
“I’ll get help,” she said, her voice coming from somewhere far away, a place where things seemed less impossible.
In the past year, Corliss had done many difficult things, but nothing had been harder than standing in front of Kerwin and giving her report.
“It got away,” she repeated, trying to achieve the perfect tone for this complicated lie.
“We’ll send a patrol,” Kerwin said. “It must be weak.”
“It didn’t look weak,” she insisted. “I doubt we’ll see it before the next full moon.”
“Still, we’ll search at first light. Which direction did it fly?”
“Southwest,” she said, putting all the certainty she could into the word.
Kerwin nodded, then put a hand on her shoulder. “This jar is the first dragon’s blood we’ve gotten in four years. You did a fine job tonight.”
Just a few hours ago his words would have sent her soaring, but now they were meaningless. “Thank you, sir.”
He gave her a nod and sent her to bed, and she went so as not to rouse suspicion. She didn’t sleep, could hardly hold herself together during breakfast. Kerwin organized a patrol of the southwest woods, and she volunteered because it was the only thing she could think to do. It wasn’t until midday that she got away, forcing herself to walk even though her legs itched to run, trying to empty her mind with every step and failing. What if Adira hadn’t gotten there in time? What if he’d killed Adira, or—
Ezry wasn’t where she’d left him, but before she could panic Adira motioned to her from the forest’s edge. Her face was a mask of all the fear and worry Corliss could feel clawing at her own stomach.
“I dragged him in here,” Adira said, voice low but still panicked.
Corliss could see him now, just a boy covered by her cloak. He looked so tiny. “Is he …”
“He’s not good. He changed at sunrise. It was …” Adira shook her head. “I did what I could, but he needs a physician.”
“We could take him back,” she suggested, even though she knew they couldn’t. “He’s not a dragon anymore; we could—”
“What? He’s got three arrow wounds! They’ll figure it out, they’ll ….”
Adira didn’t finish, but Corliss could well imagine what they’d do. Kill him. Or cage him, wait for the next full moon, and then drain him dry.
Like she had tried to do.
Something was breaking within her, and she clenched it back together. “We need to get him somewhere safe.”
Adira nodded. “There’s a cave up ahead. The two of us should be able to carry him.”
They managed. “Has he been awake at all?” Corliss asked.
“A little, when I first got here. When he was still a dragon. I was ….”
“What?” Corliss prompted.
“Scared. I was scared. I didn’t go to him till he passed out.”
“It’s all right,” Corliss said.
Adira shook her head. “He lost a lot of blood. The arrows weren’t lodged deep, but the other wound…”
The wound she had made. “Did you use the blood I gave you?”
Adira nodded. “But I’m not sure dragon’s blood works miracles on a dragon.”
“He’s not a dragon now.”
“No.”
Corliss looked at Ezry’s still form. They had laid him on his belly, and Adira had pulled back the cloak so Corliss could see all the bandages on his shoulder and back. All the blood.
“He could have told me,” she said, letting anger rise within her. Anything to dull the fear. “He should have told me.”
“The book I read, about the dragon woman? It said she didn’t know. When she was a woman, she didn’t remember being a dragon.”
“But all this time ….”
“I think this was just the second time he changed. The book said it doesn’t happen till a person reaches maturity.”
So he hadn’t known. Of course he hadn’t known. He would have told her. Her certainty over that only made her feel sadder.
They sat there for a long time. Ezry didn’t move. Corliss didn’t move. Every now and then Adira checked Ezry’s bandages, but that was all.
Finally Adira said, “You need to go fetch me some more bandages and blankets and herbs. Food, too.”
“You go,” Corliss said.
“You’re sneakier. I’ll tell you where everything is.”
The next few days were a blur of fear and subterfuge. Corliss did what she needed to do as a squire, and then sneaked back to the cave at night with supplies. The dragon’s blood seemed to be working, or so Adira claimed.
On the third night, Adira met her outside the cave. “He’s awake.”
Joy spread within Corliss. “Good.”
“Go see him.”
She nodded but didn’t move, changing the subject instead. “Don’t you need to go back?” She wasn’t sure if physician apprentices were kept track of as closely as squires. “Your first year test must be soon.”
Adira looked away. “It was two days ago.”
Her words hit Corliss in the gut. “You should have ….”
“What? Said, ‘Sorry, I can’t save Ezry’s life, I have a test to take?’”
“Maybe they’d let you take it later?”
“You know that’s not how it works.”
Corliss tried to find something to make it right, but she already knew there was nothing.
“Stop looking like my life has ended,” Adira said. “I
don’t obsess over my future in the kingdom like you do. Sometimes I’m more than happy to let fate intervene. Or at least happy enough to avoid the fever wards.”
“Where will you go?”
Adira shrugged. “I’ll stay here as long as Ezry needs me. Then … well, there are other kingdoms. Or perhaps there’s a village that could use a half-trained physician.”
“They’d be lucky to get you,” Corliss murmured. The words seemed inadequate.
Adira shrugged. “Go see Ezry.”
Inside the cave, Ezry was sitting up, pale in the lantern light but definitely alive. Before she could say anything, he said, “Thank you.”
She stared at him. “Why are you thanking me? I nearly killed you.”
“Adira says you saved my life.”
“She saved your life.”
“But you’re the one who sneaked back and fetched her. You’re the one who gave her the blood to use.”
She shook her head, words sticking in her throat.
Ezry said, “I’m sorry. For leaving and not telling you.”
He sounded like he was having trouble talking, too. At least he had said something. She should be the one apologizing. She should—
“Did I ever tell you how I came to the orphanage?” Ezry asked, not quite looking at her.
“You were a baby,” she said. Why was he changing the subject?
“Yes.” He didn’t say anything else for a long moment, but Corliss could feel the words crowding in, and at last they spilled over. “I was found in a cave. By Kerwin.”
Corliss tried to fit these facts together. “Kerwin?”
“He was hunting a dragon, him and his mates. They killed it, and then they found me. They figured the dragon must’ve killed my mother.”
The words sank into Corliss like talons.
“Kerwin said it was a nice little home in that cave. My mother’s things neat and clean, and a cradle …. I thought that’s why I was having the dreams, about the dragon that killed my mother. That’s why I left, to see if I could find that cave. Finally get over that fear. I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you’d talk me out of going.”
She nodded. She would have tried.
“But now I know the dragon didn’t kill my mother.” He sounded desperate for her to catch on.
She did. “The dragon was your mother.”
He nodded, eyes clouded over with tears. “I really did want to be a knight. I thought I could be a good one, too, even if I didn’t have your skills, your confidence. But after those dreams … I knew I couldn’t be. I was too scared. And then it turned out I’m a monster.”
“You’re not.”
“I could’ve killed you!”
“You didn’t.” She paused. “You kept looking at me. I think you knew me.”
He shut his eyes. “I don’t remember.”
She wanted to tell him that was good. She didn’t want him to remember the pain she’d inflicted. She wanted to tell him she still knew him, no matter what he was. She wanted to say so much.
“You’ll be a good knight,” he said. “You were meant for that. There’s nothing I wanted more than to be side by side with you, but … let’s say good-bye now.”
“What?”
“You might get caught if you keep sneaking out here. And I have to leave as soon as I’m able. I have to be long gone by the next full moon.” He shoved something into her hand, a tiny vial of red. “In case you ever need it, when you’re a knight.”
“Thanks,” she whispered.
He nodded, then turned his head away. She left without saying anything else to him or Adira. She didn’t know how to say good-bye.
The following evening Corliss stood in her place on the green, except it didn’t feel like her place without Ezry next to her. She’d imagined the Second Year list a thousand times and with multiple outcomes, but all of those scenarios included Ezry.
Kerwin was speaking, but for the first time Corliss didn’t fully listen until he started reading the names, from the bottom of the list to the top. Shoulders began to sag while others grew tenser, expectant. And then the list was over and hers was the last name, the one left ringing in everyone’s ears.
“You are one year closer to being knights,” Kerwin said. “To taking the oath to the kingdom you love above all, to pledging your loyalty and honor.”
The words hit her in the heart. She thought of Adira going into the woods without question when she’d asked her to, of Ezry thanking her and giving her the vial of his blood. Everything she thought she knew seemed to be sliding beneath her feet.
“Tomorrow, your first task as second year squires will be a patrol of the eastern forest. I mean to discover where the dragon’s hiding so we’ll know exactly where to look next full moon. Or you might catch it napping and take care of it tomorrow. Dismissed.”
They trooped off the green and then dissolved, celebrating and sobbing. Corliss didn’t listen to any of it. Even if she went now to warn them, Ezry was still too weak to get far with just Adira to help him—
Rayla tugged on the arm. “I’ll help you drain the dragon this time. It’s not getting away again. Not after what it did to Wati.”
“How is he?” Corliss asked, distracted.
“Still with the physicians. They think his arm’s crippled for good.”
“Can’t they use dragon’s blood on it?”
Rayla snorted. “They’re not wasting dragon’s blood on a squire.” Her expression was so fierce and sad that Corliss realized Wati was her Ezry.
You had to be fierce for the people you loved. You had to protect them.
Corliss went back to the barrack, found everything she needed, and arranged her bed to make it look like someone was sleeping in it. She’d done it before. No one had ever noticed or cared.
She walked to the physician’s ward, trying not to think about the precious minutes she was wasting. Wati looked surprised to see her. “I suppose you made first name?”
She nodded.
“You deserve it,” he said in his grudging way.
She knew better than to thank him. She fingered the vial in her pocket, thinking of all the awful things Wati had done and said to her and Ezry over the past year. Besides, what if he told, sounded the alarm—
Wati’s voice interrupted her thoughts. For once it wasn’t grudging or sarcastic; it was just sad. “I would’ve been a good knight.”
“Maybe you still can be,” she said, shoving the vial into his hand. Because he might be awful, but he wasn’t a snitch. And he would make a good knight.
“What’s this?” he asked, but she could tell he already knew.
“Use it,” she whispered. She didn’t need it. The forest was waiting, and Ezry and Adira. If she went, too, they could get him safely away.
That was where her loyalty and honor belonged. That was where she wanted to be.
Valerie Hunter is a high school English teacher as well as a graduate student at Vermont College of Fine Arts’ Writing for Children and Young Adults program. Her short stories have appeared in anthologies including Real Girls Don’t Rust, Cleavage: Real Fiction for Real Girls, One Thousand Words for War, Brave New Girls, and (Re)Sisters.