Carve out my name on the blackwood bole,
Carve out my croft from the stony loam,
Carve out my peace when the thunders roll:
Carve out a place for to call my home.
—Elythian folk song
Jeorg led her to a cove west of the place where she had come ashore with Modin. There, in a cleft between two boulders, Jeorg had stowed the shore boat he’d stolen from the merchant ship. “I had a friend among Modin’s guards,” he said, “and he helped me escape. He told me Modin had been seeking you and planned to take you here, to Rog.”
It was nearly dark. They had seen no sign of pursuers; Jeorg thought it likely that with Modin dead the soldiers would lack a clear plan. Still, it was better to be safe. They must leave Rog, and soon.
Together they carried the boat over the rock-strewn shore to the water. They pushed it through the surf and climbed inside.
Jeorg rowed. The sea was calm now, bereft of spume. Kaeldra watched the fire on the bluff as it faded to smoldering orange, watched the stars burn holes through the sky. There was an aching in her chest, as though she were hollowed out inside.
“They could not have stayed here,” Jeorg said softly, seeming to know her thoughts. “Now they will be safe.”
“All but Synge—” Kaeldra’s throat closed up, and she could not finish.
“Kaeldra,” Jeorg said. “I’ve been thinking. . . . Were it not for the birds that gathered around Synge, I would have gone directly to the fortress, would have been captured by Modin’s men. I could not have warned you about the pipes. I could not have called you back.” He paused. “Synge saved us all, by her death.”
“It was a cruel exchange,” Kaeldra whispered.
Jeorg nodded and said nothing.
“They shouldn’t have had to leave!” she cried in sudden anger. “They have a right to be here! They belong to the earth as much as we!” Kaeldra hugged herself, shaken by sobs. The plash of water ceased; Jeorg enfolded her in his arms.
When her tears at last subsided, Jeorg asked, “And what will you do now, Kaeldra? Where will you go?”
“Home, to Elythia,” she said. “And you?”
“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I’m a disgrace to my family. I’m not sure I want to win their favor anymore. And now Landerath is dead—” He shook his head. “Oh, Kaeldra, I was so stupid! He was trying to tell me all along, to tell me what you just said: that dragons belong here as much as we. He could not tell me directly, not until I was ready to hear. And I—an idiot!—did not comprehend his true meaning because I was determined to be a dragonslayer, a son my bloodthirsty father would deem worthy. And now it’s too late. . . .”
Kaeldra’s hand drew toward him, rested lightly upon his arm. “How is it you understand this now, when you did not before?”
“The draclings,” he said. “When they came to me and nuzzled me and made that throbbing in their throats—Then when Synge—when I saw what Modin had done—” Jeorg swallowed and looked away. “Something Landerath said went through and through my mind. ‘All things bleed the same blood,’ he said, and at last I understood.”
Jeorg fumbled inside his tunic and pulled something out: an enameled brooch, Kaeldra saw. It was pale blue, trimmed in gold, wrought in the shape of a dragonpod bloom.
“Landerath’s brooch,” she breathed. “Granmyr told me of this.”
“He gave it to me as a talisman to show your granmyr.” Jeorg began to unlace his boot. “I don’t deserve to keep it.” He tied the lace in a loop, stuck the brooch’s pin through it and slipped it over Kaeldra’s head.
“But this doesn’t belong to me,” Kaeldra said.
“Mirym told me you lost yours. You deserve it more than anyone.”
Kaeldra held the brooch in her hand, ran her thumb across its smooth, enameled surface. Never had she seen an amulet so beautiful.
She looked up at Jeorg. “If you don’t go home, where will you go?”
Jeorg shrugged, brushing his hair from his brow.
“Is there any place you want to go?”
“I—” Kaeldra saw in his eyes an entreaty he was too proud to voice. She remembered what he had said to her, before. I care for you, he had said. And she knew all at once that parting with him would leave an empty place inside her, just as parting with the draclings had done.
She pulled the thong back over her head and slipped it over his.
“But I mean for you to have it,” he protested. “I’m giving it to you.”
“And I,” Kaeldra said, “am granting it to you.”
* * *
They traveled on foot to Radnor, the town where the merchant ship had docked. Kaeldra stayed hidden in a burlnut grove while Jeorg made inquiries about a ship. He found a fisherman who—for a price—would take them across the Kragish Sea to a cove south of Regalch. They would buy horses, then, and take a southerly route overland so as not to cause a stir.
Without dragons, a dragon-sayer would be of little use to those who had pursued her in the past. Still, they deemed it best not to court trouble.
“Thanks be to Hort that my friend managed to return my gold,” Jeorg said, untying a brightly colored bundle. “Our passage will be dear; and these were not cheap, either. Milady, your disguise.” He unfurled a gown of deepest scarlet, embroidered in purple and green and gold. It was shorter than the gowns Kaeldra was accustomed to. He draped a multicolored sash across the gown and pointed to a pair of high leather boots.
“You’ll look like a high-born Kragish damsel. No one who searches for you in those”—he nodded at the rags she now wore—“will recognize you.”
“They’re beautiful,” Kaeldra said, fingering the fine, soft cloth. “But why did you pay so dearly for things I cannot wear in Elythia? They are too bright. People would stare.”
“People ought to stare at you.”
Kaeldra felt the blush creep up her face.
“I don’t see why you always tried to make yourself look like something you weren’t,” Jeorg went on. “You aren’t of Elythian descent. You’re a Krag. Trying to make yourself into an Elythian is like trying to turn a dragon into a—a sun lizard. You, too, belong to the earth, you know.”
Kaeldra thought of all the folk she had seen on this journey, folk of every height and girth and complexion.
I belong to the earth. She tried on the thought as she would try on a new gown. She had never considered it quite that way before.
* * *
One day in early fall they arrived at Granmyr’s cottage. When they crested the last rise, Kaeldra caught her breath. A pale blue froth spilled down from the foothills and pooled like milk around the cottage.
“Dragonpod blooms!” Jeorg said. “A whole raving sea of dragonpod blooms!”
Kaeldra did not have time to marvel, for just then a shriek rent the air.
“Kaeldra! It’s Kaeldra!”
And a thin, glossy-haired girl was running out to meet them. Kaeldra swung down off her horse and scooped up Lyf in her arms. She pulled away to look at her, at the shocking green of her eyes. Then Mirym was there, too, hugging and giggling in a most ungrown-up fashion. They took Kaeldra’s hands and dragged her toward the cottage, where Granmyr and Ryfenn stood. Kaeldra gave Ryfenn a formal little hug, which was stiffly returned, then wrapped her arms around Granmyr, careful not to crush her. “Whatever have you done to your hair!” Granmyr said sternly, holding Kaeldra at arm’s length. Then the old woman ducked and swiped at something in her eyes.
Kaeldra turned and took Jeorg’s hand. “You remember Jeorg Sigrad,” she began shyly.
But Granmyr was staring at his brooch. “You presume to wear this?” she asked. “Landerath’s brooch?”
“Landerath is dead,” Jeorg said gently. Granmyr flinched and shut her eyes. “I thought he would like Kaeldra to have it.”
“And I granted it to him,” Kaeldra finished.
“You can’t do that.” Ryfenn’s mouth was tight. “It goes against tradition. You lost your own amulet; you aren’t permitted to grant another.”
“I have done it,” Kaeldra said. She held Ryfenn’s gaze while the dragonpod blooms lapped against the hills; then, at last, Ryfenn looked away.