Nephrite was gone when they returned to the nest. Lamprophyre settled on the river bank and bent low to drink water from her cupped hand. She hadn’t realized she was thirsty until she tasted the delicious, cool water. Rokshan knelt by the river and scooped up a drink for himself. When he finished, he wiped his mouth and said, “What now?”
“We can’t leave the egg unattended, and I don’t dare bring you back to the flight. I’m in enough trouble as it is. I’ll return you to your people and then take the egg back.”
“Won’t that be dangerous?”
“It’s already been hurt. A few hundred beats exposed to our thoughts can’t make a difference.” She eyed the stick, which lay on the ground near Rokshan’s feet. “And what am I supposed to do with that?”
“It’s not safe for the dragons, and I don’t think humans should have it either. But breaking it could be a bad idea.”
Lamprophyre resisted the urge to kick it into the river. “Why is that?”
“Artifacts like that one are full of magical energy. Breaking it might release that energy explosively. It needs to be safely drained and then broken.” Rokshan picked it up and put a hand over the sapphire, squeezing it as if it were a fruit he could crush for its juice. “I don’t know why it doesn’t work on me. Somebody made this to hurt dragons. But nobody knew dragons existed until a few months ago, so why would it exist at all?”
“Will it hurt me if I touch just the stick?” Lamprophyre held out a hand.
Rokshan extended it toward her as if he expected it to discharge a pulse of magical energy that would kill them both. Lamprophyre closed her hand around the wooden shaft. “I don’t feel anything,” she said. “So it’s just the stone that does the damage.”
“That still makes it dangerous.”
“Less dangerous for us to keep it where we can see it.” She knelt for Rokshan to mount. “We should hurry. Princes are important, yes? So we don’t want your people getting upset and starting a war.”
“I’m not that important. I’m the youngest of my father’s children and therefore redundant.”
Lamprophyre shot into the air. “Your father’s children? Do human males give birth?” Rokshan had sounded uncharacteristically grim just then.
“No, I meant that my father has had two wives. Elini died in a boating accident when her youngest was only a baby, and Father married my mother Satiya shortly after that. She had two children, and I’m the youngest.”
“You sound as if that’s a problem.”
Rokshan laughed, though it didn’t sound very cheerful. “My father and I don’t get along. Look, I think I see my company—there, to the left.”
Lamprophyre thought about pressing Rokshan for more details, but decided it was none of her business what humans did in their families. How much better to be part of the flight, with your parents having no more or less influence on you than anyone else. A pang of ridiculous homesickness flashed through her, and she hugged the egg closer to her chest and thought calming thoughts. She wasn’t as effective as the egg’s father would be, but she had to be better than nothing.
She alit a dozen dragonlengths from the humans and leaned over to let Rokshan off. “Thank you,” she said. “It wouldn’t have worked without you. I’ll be sure to tell Hyaloclast that.”
“Good luck,” Rokshan said.
He waved a farewell as she leapt into the sky. Another gesture humans and dragons had in common. Language, gestures, some memories of a distant past…Hyaloclast was right; none of that was enough to give them a shared foundation to work from.
Lamprophyre wheeled and flew off toward home. She thought Rokshan might still be waving, but she didn’t look back to find out.
A twelveday later, Lamprophyre reclined on the rocky cliffside outside the caverns and soaked up the sun, so comforting in contrast to the brisk wind blowing across her scales. She needed that comfort to ease the tension that pulsed through the flight like a living thing, a snake gripping each dragon in its coils. Fluorspar and Nephrite’s egg had begun hatching before dawn, and while no one would intrude on their joyous moment, everyone longed to know who this dragonet would turn out to be.
Lamprophyre felt inappropriately guilty every time she thought of the dragonet. If not for her and Rokshan, it would be lost to the flight entirely, but suppose she’d taken too long, and the bandits’ corruption wouldn’t have taken hold if she’d been faster? What if her passing overhead had been the distraction that had left Nephrite vulnerable to the magic stick? They were all nonsensical thoughts, but she still burned with humiliation over the incident that had brought Rokshan to the flight, and inappropriate guilt seemed part of that.
She heard someone scrambling rapidly up the cliffside, climbing rather than flying, and opened her eyes to see Bromargyrite of her own clutch pull himself over the ledge and disappear into Hyaloclast’s cavern. Bromargyrite was the new dragonet’s sibling, Fluorspar and Nephrite’s previous egg, and while he wouldn’t have been allowed to be present for the hatching, he would have been close by. Lamprophyre sat up and unfurled her wings, focusing on each muscle to keep from leaping into the air and flying to where the dragonet was.
Hyaloclast emerged, followed closely by Bromargyrite. She walked to the edge and stepped off, extending her wings before she hit the ground and swooping away. That was the signal for the rest of the flight to follow, at a respectful distance, of course. Lamprophyre lagged behind. If something was wrong with the dragonet, she didn’t want to know about it until she had to.
The hatching cavern was the largest one in the mountains, big enough to hold twelve dragons at a time and high enough that a dragon could fly from one end to the other without so much as brushing a wingtip against the walls. Its mouth, on the other hand, was too narrow for more than one dragon to enter at once. Lamprophyre, waiting outside with those of the flight too slow to find a place inside, reflected that it would be easy to trap dragons inside the hatching cavern with a few well-placed boulders. It was a thought she wouldn’t have had before facing humans and being touched by their terrible weapon.
She’d explained the magic stick to Hyaloclast as best she could without demonstrating it on anyone; the effect had been so terribly disorienting she couldn’t bring herself to inflict it on others. Hyaloclast had listened without saying anything until Lamprophyre had started repeating herself, then said, “I will warn the others, and put it where no one can easily reach it.”
“But suppose humans find it again?”
Hyaloclast had regarded her with amusement. “No human will ever get that far,” she had said, and that was the end of the conversation. Lamprophyre wasn’t sure the queen’s confidence was totally warranted—humans had to have made the stick, because it wasn’t something that had sprung fully-formed out of the earth, and who was to say they might not make another?—but she knew well that dragons were more than a match for ordinary human weapons, and she didn’t feel like arguing with the dragon queen.
A couple of dragons emerged from the hatching cavern, and Lamprophyre leaned forward, eager despite herself. Neither of them looked concerned or afraid, but they also didn’t have the cheerful expressions of dragons who’d just welcomed a new addition to the flight. Lamprophyre subsided. That wasn’t so awful, if they weren’t upset. The dragonet probably wasn’t deformed, or mentally deficient, or—she made herself stop going over the list of possible ailments she’d generated and refined in the last twelveday.
More dragons filed out, making way for others to enter. Chrysoprase stopped near Lamprophyre. “She’s not what anyone expected,” she said, “but it’s not so bad. You saved her, Lamprophyre. We’re all grateful for that.”
“She’s not corrupted?” Lamprophyre asked.
Chrysoprase frowned. “I wouldn’t call it corrupted, exactly. But nobody expected her to be completely untouched by her experience. Just remember how many twelvedays she was under Nephrite’s influence alone. A few thousand beats spent with humans, even vicious humans, isn’t enough to completely negate that.” She patted Lamprophyre’s shoulder. “Go on in. See what you think.”
Lamprophyre hesitated in front of the cavern until a few more dragons emerged. Before she could let fear stop her, she ducked her head and entered the cavern, folding her wings closely along her back though there was plenty of room. A moment of darkness, as her body blocked the sunlight, and then her eyes adjusted to the luminescence filling the chamber. Two dragons came toward her, murmuring to each other. Lamprophyre stepped aside to let them exit, then walked forward to the cavern’s far end, where a hollowed-out platform of stone rose above the smooth floor. Fluorspar and Nephrite flanked it, settled back on their haunches as if the hatching had exhausted them. Hyaloclast sat nearby, towering over the new parents. Her body obscured Lamprophyre’s view of the stone nest, but she seemed relaxed.
A high-pitched chattering echoed off the distant walls and ceiling, rapid like birdsong. It took Lamprophyre a moment to realize she was hearing speech. Mesmerized, she walked forward until the words became clear:
“…and I want to see the trees and the birds and the rocks and the everything, yes, Mama and Papa? There are so many trees and they grow taller than us and they’re green, and not many dragons are green, they’re red and blue and purple and bronze and black like that dragon, she’s really big, bigger than Mama. And Mama is bigger than Papa and Papa is smaller than that one—”
The dragonet was no bigger nor smaller than any other dragonet. Her scales were an unsurprising gray; her adult color would fade in over the first ten years of her life. She looked up at Lamprophyre with eyes that were pure liquid gold, and her flood of words cut off. Lamprophyre gazed at her, speechless.
Finally, the dragonet said, “I remember your thoughts. Blood and death and fire. You killed humans.”
It felt like a blow to both stomachs. “I thought I hadn’t,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“I remember death,” the dragonet said. “It hovers over me and if I talk it floats away like a boat—what is a boat?”
“It’s…a human thing that floats on water like a leaf, but it’s made of wood.”
“I thought it was a living thing.” The dragonet yawned. “If I sleep, will I still hear screaming?”
Lamprophyre felt like screaming herself. “I don’t know.”
“I hope so. The screams are like a song.” The dragonet clambered over the lip of the hatching nest and snuggled between her father’s knees. She yawned again and lay still, a little gray ball that blended with the stone floor.
Lamprophyre looked at Hyaloclast, her eyes wide. “I’m so sorry,” she began.
“Her memories will dim as time passes,” Hyaloclast said. “Already she thinks of her experiences as a bad dream, though a vivid one. I don’t think the effect will be permanent.”
“I swear I tried not to kill them. I really don’t remember—”
“Enough, Lamprophyre,” Hyaloclast said. “The blame lies with the humans who stole her. But you will need to stay well away from young Opal until she heals. Contact with your memories will lengthen her recovery.”
“Of course.” Lamprophyre dared to look at Fluorspar, who regarded her with the look of a parent who sees a threat to her child and wants it gone at any cost. “That makes sense.”
She hurried back outside and took to the air, with no particular destination in mind, just filled with the desire to fly and fly and never come down to earth again. They were right, it wasn’t so bad. Opal would live. She might even turn out sane. If Lamprophyre had only been able to eliminate those bandits, everything would be…well, not perfect, but better than all right.
She soared over the peaks toward Mother Stone, who rose endless and mighty over the lowlands. If she dared, she might fly higher, where the air was too thin to breathe and the cold could freeze your eyeballs. She might find the final resting place of all dragons, where the old and sick journeyed at the end of their lives. But that would mean the end of her own life, and she wasn’t so discouraged and low as to want that. She flipped a lazy roll in midair and headed for home.
As she neared the flight’s caverns, movement on the lower slopes caught her eye. She swooped lower to examine it—a large deer, or a mountain lion, perhaps? Whatever it was moved steadily in the direction of the caves, and no animal would do that. Then she gasped, and dropped out of the sky to land near Rokshan. “What are you doing here?”
“Wishing I had the wings of a dragon,” Rokshan said. “Will you give me a ride? I didn’t realize how long a journey this would be.” His normally brown skin was flushed ruddy with exertion, and the hair over his brow was matted and damp with sweat.
“Give you a ride where? Rokshan, why did you come here?”
Rokshan squatted and drank from a waterskin at his hip. “I told my father about you. All of you,” he said. “About how we’re wrong to simply come into your lands, prophecy or no. That we should treat you as we would any other kingdom, with respect. He’s authorized me to bring our requests before Hyaloclast.”
“She won’t listen. You’re wasting your time.”
“Lamprophyre,” Rokshan said, tilting his head to look up at her, “I have to take that chance. You don’t understand our position. The last time humans ignored a prophecy of this nature, thousands died. We don’t want to impose on you, but we must move north. I’m counting on being able to explain this to her.”
Lamprophyre regarded him steadily. Rokshan’s expression was as incomprehensible as ever. “Fine,” she finally said. “But I still say you’re wasting your time.”
“Then I waste my time. But if it means spending more time with you, I can live with that.” He hauled himself into the notch before her wings.
“With me? Why would you care about that?” Lamprophyre launched herself into the sky.
“Because you’re interesting. Because we’ve fought together, and saved each other’s lives. Among my people, that makes for a bond that isn’t easily dismissed.”
“You’re strange. I’m a dragon. You’re a human. How much in common can we have?”
“We both want humans and dragons to live in peace,” Rokshan said.
That startled her. She’d been so intent on impressing Hyaloclast she hadn’t really cared how she might impress her. Solving the human problem had simply been a means to that end. But after meeting Rokshan, and fighting those bandits…humans weren’t just a faceless mob anymore. And she discovered she agreed with Rokshan: their two peoples needed to learn to live together, not humans invading dragon territory or dragons scaring humans away.
“Did the dragonet hatch?” Rokshan asked.
“This morning. She’s…well, she’s not entirely well, but she’ll recover. It’s better than death, or whatever fate those bandits had in mind.”
“I’m glad. I took my men hunting those bandits, but they’d already fled downriver. Probably went to ground in Kolmira—that’s the next big city to the south along the Rindra River. I’m sorry we couldn’t catch them.”
Ahead, the ledges of the flight’s caves loomed. It reminded her so much of that day a twelveday ago when she’d brought Rokshan so triumphantly to meet Hyaloclast she almost veered off and flew away. The thought of being humiliated once again curdled her second stomach. She could already feel Hyaloclast’s disdain. This was idiotic. She would never listen to Rokshan, might even decide to kill him, and his death would be on Lamprophyre’s head.
But she knew Rokshan well enough—how strange, to think of knowing a human at all—to realize if she refused to take him, he’d come on his own, and Lamprophyre would be a coward as well as a fool. No, she owed it to both of them, and to all dragons, to see this through.
She settled lightly on the outermost ledge and leaned over to help Rokshan dismount. “Wait here,” she told him, and climbed to the royal cavern. As she’d hoped, Hyaloclast had either seen her approach or been warned, and the queen waited outside the cavern for her. She caught a breath of Rokshan’s thoughts—big dragon could crush me like a bug—before shutting them out. The drifting thoughts of the flight were enough of a distraction.
Hyaloclast regarded her closely, her nictitating membranes half-lidded in deep thought or disdain. Lamprophyre controlled her impulse to grovel and said, “The prince has returned with a request to negotiate.”
Hyaloclast looked past her to where Rokshan stood. Lamprophyre risked glancing at him over her shoulder; he stood straight, his head bare and his feet planted securely as if he expected a stray gust of wind to knock him over the edge. It filled her with fear for him, and she resolved in that instant to carry him to safety if this went wrong as it surely would.
“Negotiation is for those who want something,” Hyaloclast said. “We have nothing we want from the humans.”
“But they want to live in harmony with us,” Lamprophyre said. “Our oldest stories say that was once possible. Why can’t it be again?”
“Because they have nothing to offer.” Hyaloclast continued to stare at Rokshan. “Take him back where you found him.”
“No.”
Hyaloclast’s gaze snapped to Lamprophyre’s face. “No?”
Lamprophyre swallowed. “No. You need to talk to him. Maybe there’s no chance for an accord, but shouldn’t you find that out rather than assuming it’s impossible?”
“You dare challenge me?” A jet of white smoke shot from one of Hyaloclast’s nostrils.
“It’s not about me. It’s a reminder of what’s true. Of what the queen owes her people.” Lamprophyre dropped to her knees, an uncomfortable pose for any dragon. “Please. Mother. Just listen to him.”
More smoke rose to wreath the queen’s head. “You choose to trade on our relationship for this human?”
“I won’t ask for anything ever again. That’s how important this is.” Lamprophyre’s knees ached and her thighs burned with the effort of staying upright.
Hyaloclast looked at Rokshan again. “He has until midday,” she said, leaping down from the ledge to land lightly in front of Rokshan. Lamprophyre got to her feet and followed, ranging herself behind Rokshan. She hoped she didn’t look too much like she was poised to flee.