The dragon sucked in a breath through its nostrils then puffed it back out again. I closed my eyes against the onslaught of air. “Ugh!” I pled. “Stop.”
I needed Finn. I had to tell him—
The presence inside me swelled and thought vanished. What are you? The voice appeared in my mind as if it had come from within me, unlike mindspeak, which still seemed to come from my auditory system, somehow. This new voice felt too familiar, too real in my mind.
I stared up into the bright green eyes, tiny geometric shapes swirling within them. I wanted to flee, to disappear, but I was trapped. How—what are you? I countered.
I am Fiarre, son of Solarre of Fier. The creature cocked his head back then snorted another puff of air. And you?
I have no idea what any of that meant. Warily, I lifted onto my elbows, relieved when he adjusted his stance to give me room. I’m Wylie. And I’m human. What is a Fiarre? How can I understand you?
I felt his annoyance as he puffed again. I am Fiarre. How can a creature as dimminded as yourself bond with me?
What? We’re not bonded. And I’m not dim-minded.
The creature made a rumbling sound in his throat, like gargling rocks. That remains to be seen. I accessed your thoughts and learned, just as I did with the Xel. You cannot speak the powerful language of the Fieren, he replied, but I can try to mindspeak in a way that your puny mind can comprehend.
His nostrils narrowed as he scrutinized me. You do not belong here, human.
We only just arrived, but I hope we can belong. My people have been without a home for a very long time. We didn’t think anyone lived here. I filled my mind with images of Eden I and our people.
Fiarre turned his head toward the city then swung it back so his eyes could peer into mine, his nose an inch from my chest. The Pale Horde finished them, then. He shuffled back until he sat on his haunches, dejected and sorrowful.
His scales glinted in more shades of red than I ever thought possible, though it was hard to get the full effect with the grime clinging to him. His wings were membranous, like a bat’s, tightly tucked to his sides.
I didn’t want to lose this world, but Fiarre was right that it didn’t belong to us. There are other Fierens here, I think. See? I pointed toward the statues behind him.
He didn’t bother to look. We do not belong here, either, he said. We came to bring them aid, but we were too late in the end, and could not save them.
I sat up and pulled my legs under me, sitting directly before him. I sensed the danger had passed, and I felt no fear of this creature, even though I knew he could crush me in an instant if he wished to do so. Instead, I felt a connection to him, and with it came a desire to understand, to discover the answers I knew he could give.
This world, this planet—it’s not Fier? I gestured to show the vast space around us and Fiarre looked up, his eyes shadowed as they met mine.
No, he said. This is Xelorian. Fieren, my world, was lost to us a very great time ago. He pointed toward the sun, and I understood that his planet orbited this star as well. He turned his attention back to Sol, the scales above his eyes shifting between shades of red. I sensed they indicated emotion, but the feeling was too complex for me to name. The Horde is here. He stood abruptly, casting me entirely in shadow. Where are the others like you?
I hurried to my feet. In the city. In the tallest tower, I said. Fear rode me as I considered what Fiarre might do to the others like me—Finn, Serantha, and Nicolai—but I was powerless to keep any secrets from him. He asked questions of me, but the truth was, my mind was laid bare to him. What do you mean about the Horde being here? Do you mean us?
No, Fiarre said, adding a rumble that made small stones on the ledge skitter about. Those do not possess the ability to use the frigid fire within us. Our Riders must be like you.
I shook my head.
There. Fiarre lifted a clawed foot to point into the distance. He turned and placed the curved edge of one of those talons against my temple. This. We must be able to communicate with our Riders.
You mean, telepathically—as we’re doing now?
He grunted in what I took for assent as the claw withdrew from my face.
I let out a slow, measured breath to calm my nerves. I still didn’t feel afraid, but when that talon touched me and the full weight of the dragon’s stare bore down on me, I might have been a little terrified. There are only a handful of us with the ability, but the others are far more powerful than me.
You will suffice, Fiarre said carelessly. Come. I wish to discover the extent of the infection before the others wake.
Come? Where? I asked.
Fiarre bent down low and extended his left foreleg. Before I could question what he planned to do, he hooked a talon into the collar of my tunic and tugged me forward.
Climb, he commanded. You must show me your people.
His words imprinted a desire to climb onto his back. A need to ride him, to work with him, and to fight with him. I didn’t know what we’d fight or why, but I stumbled onto his leg. He lifted me to his shoulder, and once I was straddling a smooth, natural saddle, he spread his wings wide. Though he didn’t speak, I understood he did this to protect me in case I should fall.
I found handholds easily enough among the small, boney spikes scattered between his two massive horns. My feet found similar horns to brace against.
A vision of flying high above the towers, the Fieren’s wide, red wings beating against the dry wind, filled my mind, and I felt hungry to experience it for myself. I squeezed Fiarre’s neck with my knees and tightened my grip around small horns.
The dragon’s presence roared into me again, but this time, I felt my awareness within him.
I recoiled with a gasp, holding my hands against my chest as if I could protect myself.
Come, Rider. First, we fly. Then, we hunt the Horde’s vile illness. Fiarre’s impatience caught my own emotions, and I lunged forward again, this time prepared for the onslaught of sensations.
As energy built in his haunches, I felt the subtle shifts in the shoulder muscles beneath my thighs. Nausea rose within as I struggled to accept his awareness alongside my own.
He launched us into the sky, my cry of terror quickly morphing into one of elation, echoing Fiarre’s roar. We spiraled up and up, then banked toward the ocean. We dove, just as I’d seen the birds do earlier. The water was frigid, but we were in and out too quickly for the temperature to bother me. Fiarre rolled, and we both admired the sleek appearance of his matte red scales reflected in the pool of a still lake between the mountains. I felt his joy in our flight and knew it was magnified by his having a Rider again.
That he considered me that Rider blew my mind, but I was too busy experiencing the flight to question it.
I had room to think of Finn, though, as we flew low over the sub-stellar zone’s jungle, the tips of Fiarre’s wings brushing the tops of trees. My clothing dried in the burning wind, and soon, even Fiarre found the intense heat and direct sunlight unbearable.
As we left the sub-stellar zone for cooler air, I said, Finn would give anything to fly like this. I can’t wait for him to meet you.
Fiarre’s emotions twanged against mine in a sort of disharmony that urged me to explain. Finn is—or will be—my partner, I told Fiarre. It’ll blow his mind to meet you.
You are my Rider, Fiarre said. We must fulfill our purpose.
Purpose? I managed. Fiarre’s intensity threatened to bend my will to his, but I fought against it.
To destroy the pathogen. There is no time to waste. Fiarre seemed to expect me to leave everything I knew and loved to dedicate myself to his mission.
What pathogen? I asked.
Have your people not fallen ill since coming to this place? he asked.
I thought of the people dying, and Fiarre knew the truth.
We need to get closer, but when we do, you will see. I can smell it already. The pathogen is here.
As we flew toward Eden I, its lights gleaming in the distance like a beacon, Fiarre pulled me into his memories . . .
The Fierens welcomed a small party of pale humanoids but couldn’t communicate with them, so the strangers left. Within hours of their departure, the first Fierens fell ill. At first, it was fatigue, accompanied by clusters of white spots. Eventually, their lungs failing, they were unable to fly. Nothing eased the suffering of their wingmates, and every one of them that contracted the disease died.
When only two dozen Fierens remained in a land littered with the disintegrating bones of their kin, they vowed to do what they could to save their neighbors from a similar fate. They flew to Xelorian, a planet they saw in their night sky but had never visited.
The Xel are also psionic, so they found a way to communicate when the Fierens came to their world—but the Pale Horde, as the Fierens called them, had already come and left behind their deadly pathogen.
Eons had passed since the Fierens had Riders, but they found that connection again in the Xel. They learned to identify the infected, but only the frigid fire would stop the blight. The cure came at a bitter cost for the Xel, and in the end, there was no one left to save. Eventually, even their Riders fell ill and died.
Mourning all they had lost, the Fierens hibernated, expecting never to wake again.
I/Fiarre cried together, but as we approached the city, I/we shed the grief as we had done so many times before. It was time for war.
As we approached the city, a keening cry issued from Fiarre. It looks deserted. Before, it was vibrant with life and movement and color. Now, it is as dead as my friends.
It didn’t seem enough to tell him I was sorry, but I did my best to comfort him by sending an outpouring of love and understanding. Some of our people live in those homes past the main street, I told him. Some live in those towers. I sent him an image of the towers where Birch lived with his parents. And I live over there. I showed him the tallest of the towers.
That is where I sensed others like you. He banked to the right, and I marveled at how at ease I felt on his back. I should have been terrified, but it felt like we’d been flying together forever.
The tarp still obscured the street market, and Fiarre passed over it without comment. However, as we flew over the quarters Birch had called townhomes, I noticed red and blue blotches behind the stone walls. I was about to ask about them when he rejoined his consciousness with mine.
Images I couldn’t see with my own eyes came to my mind—red blotches of varying shades in most of the homes, interspersed with the occasional sharp contrast of bright white. Dread bloomed in my chest as Fiarre and I thought: The Pale Horde.
We banked away, flying more swiftly now. Beneath us, the city spread in a wide circle beyond the main street, but we flew directly toward the towers on the north side. To Birch’s tower.
My heart sank as we searched the two occupied towers. Easily half of the people appeared as the white of the pathogen versus the red of a healthy body.
I am sorry, Fiarre said. In my mind, his voice was sonorous and soothing. He continued, answering the question I hadn’t the courage to ask. The pathogen is always fatal once contracted.
We flew around Eden I, setting off alarms as we did. It was impossible to see how far the infection had spread into those living within because our sight couldn’t penetrate the ship’s skin. In haste now, we flew toward the Dharma tower. I wondered if we all returned to the ship, if we would be saved, but I didn’t ask.
Do your people stay on the ship, or move in and out? Fiarre asked in response to my line of thinking.
I didn’t answer, and he said no more. We both knew the answers to our questions, and the result was the same. This pathogen had already wiped out two civilizations that we knew of; what would stop it from claiming another?
We tried many things, Fiarre told me as we circled my tower.
Most of the Kshatriya and Brahmin who lived in the tower appeared to be healthy, but here and there a white spot appeared in the lower levels.
And then . . .
One person on the top floor.
Serantha.
A sob burst from me, and I lay down along Fiarre’s long neck as he flew away. Finn would be heartbroken.
We flew low over the ocean and soon rose to Fiarre’s ledge. He set himself down but made no move to hurry me off his back. Instead, he did for me as I had tried to do for him earlier—he comforted me as best he could.
After a few moments, I finally asked, How? How do we stop this? I envisioned all the many studies and trials that typically encompassed finding a cure.
The frigid fire, Fiarre said. It is the only way. For as long as any part of the infected remains, they can infect someone else. Some will be immune, but a great many will not.
You mean, we kill them? I showed Fiarre the things Birch and I had found inside the cavern, hoping the Xel were on their way to finding a non-lethal solution.
Someone is coming, Fiarre said, interrupting my thoughts. We spun to face northward—and a shuttle dropped before us.
Finn! I exclaimed while I flooded Fiarre with all things Finn.
But then I saw, just as Fiarre did, the white glow of infection within the shuttle.