May your groom in his sleep snore not.
—Elythian wedding toast
Look, Kael!” Lyf’s little fingers tightened around Kaeldra’s own. “Someone’s coming!”
Clouds fled across the sky as if chased by a pack of wolves. A long shadow wound down across the hillside from the west, a horse and rider at its tail.
“It’s likely Jeorg Sigrad,” Kaeldra said. The Kragish youth had visited often since that first night, but stayed only when Granmyr was gone. He told tales of ancient dragons while Ryfenn and Mirym plied him with honey cakes and brew. He did not again ask Kaeldra about dragons; nor did he mention the green in her eyes.
Still, Kaeldra felt her shoulders stiffen. Ever since the day the Elythian men had come seeking her, dreams of horsemen had filled her nights. She would wake suddenly and sit up in the dark, palms damp, blood pounding in her throat like hoofbeats.
“Master Jeorg! Master Jeorg! I hope it’s Master Jeorg!” Lyf did a little dance. Dark hairwisps escaped her woolen headwrap and whipped across her face. Lyf grabbed Kaeldra’s hands, spun her around. Kaeldra, looking down at her, felt light inside. Lyf was well again. That’s what Granmyr had said. Well enough to come watch the flock with Kaeldra as before.
The horseman grew larger. His shadow rippled across a moving sea of gorse and bracken. It was Jeorg, she saw. He would be disappointed that it was she, and not Mirym, who watched the sheep today.
Jeorg reined in his horse and jumped to the ground. “Kaeldra!” he said. “You’ve returned!” He turned to Lyf, lifted her high over his head. His cloak billowed and snapped in the wind.
“Let me down! Let me down!” Lyf shrieked, delighted.
He laughed. “And how’s my Lyfling?” he said.
His Lyfling? That was Kaeldra’s special name for Lyf. It didn’t sound right when he said it.
“Mirym’s at the cottage,” Kaeldra said.
Jeorg set down Lyf. He tousled her hair, then pulled her headwrap snug over her head. “I wasn’t looking for Mirym.” He straightened. “I came to talk to you.”
Kaeldra felt the warmth rush to her face. “What about?”
“Ah,” the young man hesitated, as if uncertain how to begin. “Sheep,” he said at last.
“Oh.” Kaeldra turned away, surprised by a twinge of disappointment. A jackdaw called hoarsely, tilted in a sudden air gust.
“. . . eight sheep missing,” he was saying. “Calyffs have lost ten. Nearly every farm in the district has lost three or four, at least. You’ve lost—how many?”
“Seven,” Kaeldra lied. Two days ago another sheep had disappeared, making eleven all together.
“Mirym said nine some days ago.”
Kaeldra shrugged.
“And the cows. Five gone. Disappeared with neither track nor bone to go by.”
“Wolves,” Kaeldra said. “There are many this year.” Near her foot, a clump of gorse rattled in the breeze. Its blossoms looked butter soft against the prickly stalks.
“Kaeldra—”
“What can I do? Why are you telling me about this? I don’t know any more than you!”
“Look,” Jeorg said. “I need—” He stopped, and in his eyes she saw an unguarded plea for help. Vexed, he brushed back a lock of hair. “If you don’t care about the sheep, at least you owe it to your countrymen to help. They neglect their fields to hunt the thing, but they know not the craft. Someone will die before they’re through, unless you—”
“So talk to them! I can’t do anything about it.”
Lyf scampered up the hillside after a lamb. It bleated and ran to be near its mother.
Jeorg sighed, shook his head, and turned to watch Lyf. “She’s much better, now, isn’t she?” he said. “The first time I saw her, she was a very sick lass. Now—look at her. As healthy a lamblet as ever I saw.”
“She’s not entirely well yet. We have to be careful. She gets better and worse.”
“Yes, but she’s almost well. Thanks be to the gods—and to that—medicine—you bring her.”
A tightness coiled around Kaeldra’s chest and neck. He knows, she thought.
“Kaeldra.” He touched her shoulder. She pulled away. “I wouldn’t kill it before Lyf was completely well. Tell me where it lairs, and I’ll protect it from the hunters until then.”
The air felt dense, hard to breathe. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” He knows.
“Don’t you? What about her eyes?” Kaeldra stared at him, uncomprehending. “Look at her eyes!” Jeorg turned and strode away, calling for Lyf. She ran to him, grabbed his hand, and tugged him down the hill. If Kaeldra had not been so frightened, she would have laughed.
“What is it?” Lyf asked. “What do you want me to show Kaeldra?” She turned from him, tilted her head up at Kaeldra. “What does he want you to see?”
Kaeldra felt a crumbling inside her, like a stone wall shaken apart in a quaking of the earth.
They were green. Lyf’s eyes were flecked with green. And even more: two circles of green, the color of fir trees in the shadows, pooled around her pupils. How could she not have seen?
“Your eyes,” Kaeldra whispered.
“Kael?” Lyf said. She sounded afraid. “Kael, what’s wrong with my eyes?”
Kaeldra drew Lyf to her, hugged her tight. “Nothing is wrong with your eyes,” she said. “They are beautiful eyes.”
“Very beautiful,” Jeorg agreed. “Even more beautiful than when they were brown. The green in them—” He broke off, and as his own eyes moved to gaze into Kaeldra’s, she saw again the silent plea, felt the tug of an insistent current, drawing her toward him.
“Kaeldra, please,” he said.
He is a dragonslayer, she told herself fiercely. He is my enemy.
“If you’re worried about Lyfling—”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kaeldra said. “Go away. Leave me alone.”
Jeorg’s eyes hardened. “Very well, I will.” He mounted his horse and wheeled to face Kaeldra. “I warned you, Kaeldra. Remember that.”
He spun his horse around and galloped away.
* * *
The horsemen were chasing her. It was night, and they were chasing her up the mountain. She was running, running to the cave, but it was far away. They were shooting arrows at her, fire-arrows, arrows that flamed through the air. There was a brightness on her eyes, there was a rushing in her ears when the fire-arrows passed.
Bright-rush.
Bright-rush.
Bright-rush.
Kaeldra opened her eyes. It was dark. She was in the cave, safe, with the draclings.
She took a deep breath to calm her bloodbeat. She smelled the smoky cave-smell, now almost as familiar as home. Safe.
Bright-rush.
Kaeldra sat up. What was that? She scanned the darkness. Where were the draclings?
Molten panic dripped into her chest.
Bright-rush.
Flame shot through the air! Kaeldra blinked, blinded by the sudden light burst. Something dark floated up, beyond the yellow spots that swam before her eyes. She blinked again, strained to see what floated in the dark.
It was a dracling.
It was three draclings; they drifted in the air like leaves on a still mountain lake.
Bright-rush.
One of the draclings breathed out flame. It dropped down and rose again slowly when the flaming ended.
〈Embyr?〉 Kaeldra reached out with her mind. Stillness. They’re asleep, she realized. They were floating in their sleep, as the dragonslayer had said.
For a long time, Kaeldra watched. She saw the dracclings rise through the air, saw them flame and drop and rise again. After a time, they did not rise as high, and when they dropped, they touched the ground. Soon the rising was a sigh, and the flames were only sparks. At last the draclings came to rest; only their sides rose and fell in sleep breathing.
But Kaeldra slept no more that night. She lay awake and thought—of horsemen, of green eyes, of dragons that flame and fly—until the cave walls glowed pink with dawn.