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I WOKE TO THE SOUND of someone quietly moving around the enclosure. I rubbed my eyes and Zin darted past me like a flash.
I froze. If I didn’t move, then maybe she would feel safe.
She froze, too, chewing her bottom lip and watching me.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I just ummm ...” I looked around. I had fallen asleep on the crate propped against a wall. “I just fell asleep.”
She didn’t move, just stood there, watching me from the doorway of the enclosure. I tilted my head to the side. I couldn’t really move without seeming threatening and I didn’t want to threaten her. Skies and stars, the girl had been through enough. I shifted my weight and she flinched. Great. She hadn’t been this scared of me before.
She was always with Zyla.
A paper slid from my lap and I reached for it. The writing was flowing and elegant like how I expected a magic book would be written.
Tor, it began.
Apeq and I have gone to his Jadefire House of Marvels to prepare a place for Bataar and Zin. Do not leave them alone. Do you hear me? I don’t like having to trust you with them, but I don’t have any other options.
Zyla.
Really? She didn’t trust me? After everything I’d done? Girls were the worst.
I had a flashing mental image of her huge golden eyes framed by too-long eyelashes. Well, maybe they weren’t the worst, but they sure did make things hard for a guy. I folded up the letter while I leaned over to look at Bataar. He was sweating and pale, his breathing shallow. I ran a hand over my forehead. He needed ... I didn’t even know what. He needed something. And he needed it soon or he was going to die.
Something magical.
I still wasn’t convinced of that.
I shoved the folded letter into my pocket and my fingers hit the book in there. Maybe I should read this thing that people wanted so badly. It wasn’t like I could do anything else. I couldn’t leave these two here on their own and there was no food around.
Irritably, I took out the book, glancing up to where Zin was standing on tiptoe, trying to get a better look at what I was doing.
At least she still had an interest in life. That was a good sign.
The book was handwritten in a flowing script and extra notes and maps had been shoved into the pages. One of the maps was of the plains around two sky cities. The only cities that close together were Dominion City and Sky City. I peered at the tiny notations all around the map. Was this a layout of the campaign in the war? It looked an awful lot like troop allocations and logistics scribbled in the margins. I tucked it carefully back into the end of the book.
The front of the book had a title written in it: Ibrenicus Prophecies.
These are the prophecies collected by Ibrenicus of Haz, son of dragons.
For the time comes soon in which these prophecies will be needed so that the world is not broken by a war between the earth and the sky. For long years we have fought, but peace is brokered, and we lay down arms. We shall grow sleepy in comfort and one day our children will have forgotten the grim battles fought for the peace they think they hold in their palms.
Boring, boring, boring. We get it. People are stupid, and they destroy themselves with their stupidity.
Without the Ibrenicus Prophecies, we would have lost the war against the Ifrit Scourge.
Had she been there?
No.
Was that chagrin I was feeling from my know-it-all dragon?
I wish I had been there.
Well, I didn’t. I was no hero and I knew how wars played out. The innocent died with the guilty and everything of value was spilled out across the ground including human love and life. No, thank you! All I wanted was my next meal and a warm place to sleep. I was no hero.
Your display last night was a great start to your life of anonymity.
Sarcasm, Saboraak? From you?
I flipped further into the book. There were scribbled notations in the margins beside some of the dusty old prophecies.
Here was one prophecy:
Surrounded on every side, not overcome,
Light battles the depths, commands armies come,
Her battle not with mortal man, but earth and fire
And beside it, the owner had written:
Ifrits are made of earth and fire. Knowing that, where does their weakness lie. Is it in opposites or in a stronger version of their own strength? If light battles the depths, from where does our help come? Could it be the skies?
Wow, the owner of this book really took it seriously. I flipped a little further to where the flowing script of the Ibrenicus prophecies seemed to end with the words:
These are all the prophecies of Ibrenicus son of Haz, son of skies, concerning the Chosen One and the coming age.
But why did the book keep going? In a tight hand, similar to the flowing hand of the prophecies above, but more ... hurried? stressed? cramped? ... another series of prophecies were written. I began to read, barely noticing that Zin had crept across the small enclosure and was sitting on the edge of her cot beside my crate. Her head pressed in close to me, so she could read, too. I sat still, afraid that any movement would spook her.
I read:
These are the prophecies of Savette, daughter of the light, Chosen One about the day to come.
The day of walking legends comes. A Legend returned for the north to fill the breach, to stop the leak of souls and death of power. His sign the brand of smoke on skin.
Uh oh.
What? Saboraak asked.
I only knew one man who had smoke branded on his skin.
Me.