Dragon Read online

  It’s not until I let out a relieved breath that I realize how much I didn’t want to try flying—especially not after Ion flung me through the air last night. The thought of taking to the air makes my stomach lurch. And besides, I have so many questions. I doubt Ram could answer them in dragon form.

  “Let’s get walking, shall we?” Ram suggests. He leads me out from between the boulders, which were near the top of a hill. From here we can see far, and Ram scans the area, his brow furrowed. “We’ll have to give wide berth to the places we encountered yagi yesterday.”

  “We killed them.”

  “We killed the ones who attacked us. In my experience there are always more.”

  I scan the horizon, too, aware that the dragon hunters could leap out at us at any time, that they may have been tracking us down all night while we slept. “What do they look like? I’ve only ever seen them in darkness.”

  “They look a lot like people, at least from a distance. They keep their antennae flat against their heads—it’s flexible when they want it to be, but it goes rigid when they fight. Generally they try to cover up so you can’t see that their heads are small, inhuman, and flat, and to hide their exoskeleton. In cities they wear trench coats and fedoras.” Ram appears to be satisfied that no yagi are lurking anywhere too close, and he picks a path down the hill, watching Ozzie as she lumbers after him. At least her injuries don’t seem to be causing her too much pain—for now.

  “Exoskeleton, huh? That explains it. I thought they seemed armored.”

  “Precisely. They have a smooth, hard shell all over their bodies. It’s usually a coppery brown, like the roaches they’re descended from. It’s also bullet-proof, which is why swords are so much more effective against them than guns. In fact, shooting at them can be very dangerous. Bullets can bounce off in any direction. It’s not safe to fire a gun at them.”

  I fall into step beside Ram so we can speak without being too loud. I don’t want to draw unnecessary attention our way, but at the same time, I need to know as much as I can learn about my enemy. “So, when I decapitated them…”

  “Their exoskeletons are jointed, almost like an armadillo’s body, but most of the joints overlap so you can’t pierce their armor—the only exception is at the base of their heads. They really don’t have much of a neck. The seam is narrow, but in order for them to turn their heads to the sides, the joint isn’t completely covered. You have to hit it just right.”

  “But you taught me how.”

  Ram pauses and grins at me. “I’m glad you got the hang of it. I tracked you down last night thinking I needed to rescue you, but you had things under control.”

  I’m glad Ram doesn’t realize how close I’d come to not having things under control at all. The sun is warm on my face. That, or I might be blushing slightly. I keep walking, half a step in front of Ram so he can’t see the red on my cheeks. “Until Ion picked me up.”

  “It’s a good thing I got there when I did.”

  While technically his statement is correct, I can’t help feeling insanely frustrated by the situation. “If I’d known I couldn’t trust him, I wouldn’t have gone with him in the first place.” I try to keep my voice calm, but the undercurrent of anger is so close to the surface I can hear it in spite of my best efforts.

  “I told you already—I didn’t know whether Ion was trustworthy or not. You knew he and I had been butting heads. You knew everything you needed to know.”

  “Except for the part where I’m a dragon and the yagi are after me.” It’s all I can do to keep my volume under control. I don’t want to alert the yagi to our presence with my shouting. So I don’t shout. But neither am I calm.

  “You knew the yagi were after you.”

  “But I didn’t know why, or what they are. I still don’t know why they’re after me.”

  “They’re dragon hunters. You’re a dragon.”

  “But why me? Why not everybody else in the village?”

  “Nobody else in the village is a dragon.”

  I all but stumble and fall, but when I look at my feet, there’s nothing there to trip me up. Ram and Ozzie both pause and look at me with concern.

  “I’m the only one?” A weird sense of guilt and overwhelming dread fill me. “Wait a minute, how many dragons are there? There’s me and you and Ion.”

  “And your father.”

  “Okay,” I nod. That makes sense that my dad must be one if I’m one. “Who else?”

  “Your mother was a dragon.”

  We’re no longer walking, just standing still in the shaded woods. I don’t think I can handle having this conversation and walking at the same time. “Who else?”

  “It’s hard to say. Long ago, every region on earth, every town, village, and island, had a dragon protector. They kept their people safe from attack. They kept the earth at peace.”

  “Dragons? You always hear about them fighting—”

  “Sometimes they had to, to defend their people. And they’re territorial. They don’t tend to like other dragons, besides their own family members. But dragons are inherently peaceful.” Ram starts walking again, making his own path through the woods, disturbing little. The trees grow thicker and the underbrush more dense as we descend the hill.

  “As the years passed, humans discovered they could conquer their neighbors if they killed their dragons. Great military leaders arose, Attila the Hun, Alexander the Great, and many others, who learned they could conquer people by destroying their dragons. The Crusades—remember the crusades? Dragons played a huge role, but they were vilified for protecting their people. The truth of their good deeds was redacted from the history books, changed to make them sound evil. New stories were spread, making them out as a dangerous menace in hopes that people would betray or even kill their own dragons. Those rumors persist to this day.

  “Eventually, people realized they had to keep their dragons’ identities, even their existence, secret. To claim someone was a dragon was to put a target on their heads. Dragons went into hiding. They remain in hiding still.”

  I absorb Ram’s words slowly, their truth made so much more difficult to swallow because he’s not talking about mythical figures or even strangers from the pages of history books, but of himself and my father. And me. “That’s why the yagi are hunting me?”

  “They’re bred to destroy all dragons, yes, but you are particularly threatening to them.”

  “Why?”

  Ram almost laughs, but the sound is more one of irony and regret. “Of the names we’ve just listed—Ion, your father, me—what do we have in common?”

  “You all keep secrets from me?”

  “Yes,” Ram acknowledges, “but more generally? We’re all—”

  “Guys? Male?”

  “Yes. Alone, we are not a threat. We have proven our willingness to keep our heads down and not cause trouble, to stay hidden. But you, on the other hand, you—”

  “They think I’m going to cause trouble?” I bound over a fallen log, nearly laughing at the suggestion. The closest I came to causing trouble at Saint Evangeline’s was eating chicken bones, and since I mostly kept that a secret, I was never punished.

  “Your children might.” Ram bounds over the log, as well, landing in front of me and pausing. “You, Ilsa, are a female. And females are very few. I’d like to believe there are more in the world, hiding somewhere, but I’ve only ever known of three. My own mother, your mother, and Eudora.”

  “Eudora?” I repeat the name, conscious of the way his voice changed from affection when he spoke of our mothers, to a dreadful chill when he spoke the female dragon’s name. “Who is she?”

  “Remember when I said the yagi were created in labs?”

  “Yes?”

  “Eudora oversaw their creation. It was her idea, her mad science—her dark magic that stretched the limits of science. She is the one who trains them and sends them out to hunt us.”

  “But she’s a dragon, too, right?” I’m walking a little faste
r now, almost as though Eudora or her yagi might come up on us any moment. “Why would she want to kill off the last of her people?”

  Ram bounds across another fallen log, letting out a sigh that’s almost disgusted. “The short answer? Because she doesn’t believe dragons belong in the modern world. She thinks we’re the vestigial organs of the earth and should be amputated so the world can move forward. Dragons, in her mind, pull us backward to a time when wars were fought with blades and fire instead of words. She believes we should all be destroyed, but since the best weapon against a dragon is another dragon, she’s taken it upon herself to do the purging.”

  Ram pauses reflectively before he continues. “But there’s more to it. Dragons are territorial creatures who don’t get along well with their own kind. They say it’s stronger with females, the need to be the alpha, to be the top woman.”

  Having witnessed the popularity games of dominance many of the girls at Saint Evangeline’s played, I understand what he’s talking about. “But to kill off everyone?”

  “Not everyone. She has a history of making deals with others. From what I understand, she’s able to train the yagi using scent, to target specific dragons—such as you—and exempt other dragons, such as herself and presumably Ion. I can only assume Ion is working for her.”

  “He’s a traitor to his own kind?” On a gut level, I’d realized as much the night before, when he led me into the midst of the yagi and then laughed while they swarmed me. “Why would he do that?”

  “His reasons are not so different from Eudora’s, I imagine.” Ram holds out his hand to help me over a fallen log nearly as high as my waist (there are lots of fallen logs, because we aren’t following any sort of path that I can see. These woods are thick and old). I am grateful for his gesture, which is more than a simple courtesy. With swords at my back, hips, and thighs, clambering over large obstacles can be tricky. With his help, I climb atop the log, then jump down on the other side.

  Ozzie stretches her front paws up the side of the log, then whimpers.

  Ram scoops her up, lifting her gently and settling her back on her feet on the other side.

  My throat constricts as I watch. Ozzie is getting weaker. I wonder about the poison and how fast it might act, but Ram said he doesn’t know much about it. Nor do I suppose that’s something a normal doctor or veterinarian would have experience with. No, the only thing we can do is try to get her to my father and hope he knows how to help.

  Rather than worry helplessly about Ozzie, I turn Ram back to our conversation. I’m glad he’s finally willing to answer my questions, even if his explanations are completely terrifying. At least now I know what we’re up against.

  “Ion wants to destroy the other dragons so he can be the top dragon?” I clarify.

  “Something like that.” Ram watches Ozzie as she trudges forward. He’s worried about her, too. “Beginning in the enlightenment, there has been a movement among dragons and their people, professing the belief that dragons are a relic of ancient times, made obsolete by humanity’s progress. That we’re dangerous and unnecessary and evil, and we don’t belong in the world anymore.”

  Sweat drips down my back along with a trickle of dread. If you’d have asked me any time before yesterday whether dragons had a place in our modern world, I’d have said they didn’t. In every story I can ever remember, dragons are the enemy, a terrifying source of destruction. And I hate destruction. Ever since my village was attacked and I had to flee for my life, I have hated violence of any kind.

  You can’t tell me dragons aren’t violent creatures. I saw Ram and Ion fighting last night.

  Ram shoots me an apologetic glance. “Eudora believes that the earth must be cleansed of the plague of dragons. She’s vowed not to rest until we’re all dead, and she created the yagi to do her bidding, to track us down so she can destroy us.”

  I stop still in the woods, not because there’s any obstacle before us, but just to look at Ram and digest what he’s said.

  Eudora wants to kill me simply because of who I am, and who my children might be? It’s a terrifying thought, made all the more dreadful because I was nearly overwhelmed by the yagi last night. If Ram hadn’t fought Ion, Eudora would have won already.

  But at the same time, I understand Eudora’s arguments far too well. Having witnessed the fight between Ram and Ion, I’ve seen how powerful and dangerous dragons can be. So I can’t shake the thought that maybe Eudora is right. Maybe dragons don’t belong in this world any longer.

  The thought settles like a knot in the pit of my stomach along with a realization that makes far too much sense. Perhaps this is why I’ve never felt like I fit in, not at Saint Evangeline’s or in Prague. Because I don’t belong in the world at all.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I’m hungry. You?” Ram changes the subject.

  I’m glad he did. I’ve heard as much as I can handle for now, and to be honest, I am hungry. If I can get some food in my stomach, maybe it won’t knot up so dreadfully. “Starving.”

  “Stay here with Ozzie. I’ll be right back.”

  Before I can ask where he’s going, he darts away, and I settle my bum onto a low rock to wait, my thoughts spinning.

  I am a dinosaur. I am a dragon. I’m a bigger freak that I’d ever suspected, and the yagi are probably justified in wanting to kill me.

  Still, I hope the yagi don’t show up while I’m sitting here, unprepared, with Ozzie’s head on my lap and Ram off to who-knows-where in search of food.

  It’s not long before I hear rustling in the woods, and I’ve just gotten my hands around the hilts of my swords when Ram emerges from the trees carrying a headless deer by its hind legs.

  The animal is dripping fresh blood and I feel a little sorry for it.

  But also hungry.

  Seriously, this shouldn’t be much different from butchering beef, but it is. Ram uses a hooked dagger to slit the deer’s belly, gutting it and peeling back the skin. I try to remind myself that this is where meat comes from—everything from fast food burgers to the steaks I so love. They were all animals at one point.

  But the deer, at least until Ram finishes skinning it, looks more like a loveable woodland creature than a roast.

  “Want it cooked, or raw?” Ram asks as he tugs the last of the hide from the dangling legs.

  For an instant I’m tempted to tell him I don’t want it at all, but my stomach growls, reminding me I’m hungry. And I know I need to keep my strength up if I expect to make the journey home. “Cooked.”

  Ram holds the venison high above the undergrowth, and glances around, stepping clear of some overhanging branches. “Don’t want to set the woods on fire,” he says with a wink.

  And then he does it—the thing I can only assume he’s been doing out of my sight before every meal I’ve ever shared with him.

  He breathes fire.

  Beautiful, multi-colored fire that emerges blue-tinged and white hot from his mouth, then flickers to yellow and licks the sides of the meat with red and orange flames.

  He pauses to suck in a breath, turns the venison so the other side is near him, and breathes fire again. Then he extends the roasted animal toward me. “Grab your sword and lop off what you want.”

  I do. I’m so hungry, I take a quarter section of the animal and dig in, but even as I’m chewing and swallowing, I feel guilty. This is why I like meat so much, isn’t it? This is why I’m a chicken-bone-crunching freak.

  Because I’m a dragon.

  Ram offers a leg quarter to Ozzie and she opens her mouth to eat, but then winces and sniffs the meat, licking it a few times before looking up at us with sad eyes.

  When she finally manages a few nibbles, I glance at Ram and swallow the bite of meat in my mouth.

  Ram looks concerned and steps closer, consulting me in low tones. “We could try to rest now, then fly as dragons once night falls.”

  I can’t look at him, but instead hug myself, watching Ozzie, my appetite gone. “I don’t kn
ow enough to make that choice,” I admit. “I don’t know how to change or to fly.”

  What I don’t tell him is that I can’t imagine turning into a dragon. I don’t even think I want to be a dragon. To allow myself to transform into a giant flying lizard—that implies a certain level of acceptance that I just don’t feel. As long as I stay human, I can pretend this dragon business isn’t about me. But if I become one, even for a night, then that’s part of who I am.

  “I can help you,” Ram offers. “It’s not too difficult, but it’s not an easy choice. I’m not sure if it’s the right choice right now. Changing is exhausting, especially when you’re not used to it. I don’t know how far you’ll be able to fly the first time, and I’d hate to have to put down somewhere even more dangerous than here.”

  “And didn’t you say it would make my eyes change? So it would be harder for me to hide?”

  Ram repeats my words, confirming them. “Harder to hide as a person, and when you’re in the air, flying as a dragon, you’ll be out in the open for anyone to see. There’s nowhere to hide in the sky, unless the clouds are just right. But clouds can be trouble, too, because then you can’t see where you’re going or if something’s headed toward you.”

  I close my eyes as I ponder my options. “I want to get Ozzie to my father as soon as we can. I don’t think she’ll make it on foot.” I glance up at Ram, and he’s nodding like he understands. “At the same time, we’re still awfully close to where the yagi attacked us last night. I don’t know if I’d feel safe staying put. I’m not even tired enough to sleep right now.”

  “How about we keep moving, then? We can always rest later, or sleep a bit this evening and fly in the deepest darkness before dawn. I doubt you’d be able to fly for more than a few hours your first time, anyway.”

  I let out a shaky breath and nod. Ram’s plan works around some of my biggest misgivings—like that I don’t want to be a dragon, or I’m not ready to be one yet, anyway. “But what about Ozzie? Do you think she can keep going?”