"It's okay, Lizard," said Jandra. "It's just Shay and me."
"Good boss?" Lizard asked, sounding skeptical.
Jandra floated toward him, her arms outstretched. "Jump on," she said. Lizard scooted further back on the branch. "Don't be scared," she said. Lizard looked down at his tail tip and changed the subject.
"Tail hurt," he said.
"I know," said Jandra.
"Eat soon?"
"Breakfast is the next item on the agenda," said Jandra.
"New meat?" Lizard asked. This wasn't a question Shay had heard before.
"Same old beef jerky and hard tack for now," said Jandra.
"New meat!" Lizard insisted.
Jandra cast a puzzled glance back toward Shay. Shay shrugged. Lizard looked perturbed. He leapt down from the branch and skittered across the rocks like a small green monkey, traveling thirty yards in the space of a few seconds, until he reached the mound of stones that Shay had used to bury the guards.
Lizard sniffed the rocks. "New meat," he said, looking up at Jandra. Jandra grew pale as she realized what was on Lizard's mind.
"Lizard, we can't eat those men," she said.
Lizard cocked his head, confused. "Smell," he said, and drew a deep, whistling breath through the nostril slots in his beak. "New meat."
"Lizard, I wouldn't let the men back at Dragon Forge eat you. I'm not going to let you eat men."
Lizard tilted his head to the other side. It was as if thoughts were physically shifting around in his skull. "Lizard not meat," he said.
Jandra lowered herself onto the rocks beside the little dragon. He looked up at her with a mix of hunger and reverence. He reached to the grave and picked up a stone that looked too heavy for his small frame.
"Put that down!" Jandra snapped. Lizard dropped the rock and hopped backward, looking alert as he studied Jandra's face. "Who's the boss here?" Jandra asked.
Lizard lowered his eyes. "You boss."
"We eat hardtack. Any questions?"
"No boss," Lizard said softly.
"Now jump onto my shoulders."
The little dragon leapt as if gravity had no true claim upon him. He made it to her shoulders in a single bound and clung tightly as she glided back over the pond toward Shay. Together, they drifted down to a landing beside the fire. Her wings folded up with a soft, musical chiming. He willed his own wings to close and they did the same.
Lizard hopped down from her shoulder and sat before the pack with the last few bricks of hard tack, staring at it intently. Jandra glanced at Shay. The stern countenance she'd wore while bossing Lizard melted into a look of worry. Shay knew what she was thinking. If Lizard was hungry for human flesh now, with other food available, what would he be like if the food ran out?
They lifted into the air with a rush of ozone and the wind-chime tinkling of silver feathers. Jandra bent her head up to meet the wind. She closed her eyes, lost in memories. As a child, she'd traveled many miles with her face pressed against Vendevorex's breast as he flew with her strapped against him in a sling. She remembered the hard, smooth texture of his scales and the way his muscles had radiated heat as he beat his wings to soar across the miles. She remembered the sound of his heart, the powerful bellows of his lungs, and the whistle of wind whipping her hair against her cheeks.
She opened her eyes. Lizard clung to her coat, looking moderately terrified. They'd risen a hundred feet in the air and were now arcing out over the underground lake. Its waters were dark as crude oil. Ripples on the surface hinted at the monsters beneath. Lizard's fear was rational.
Yet, so was her happiness. All her life she'd dreamed she had wings. She'd wake in the night and ached at their absence. Her dragon soul felt as if it had reclaimed a birthright.
Shay was flying lower, slower. She curved and flew a broad, graceful circle around him. He flew straight and steady, his eyes locked on the island shore that was their destination.
"You look nervous," she said as she slowed into a path parallel to him. "Relax. The wings won't drop you."
"I'm sure the guards thought the same thing," said Shay.
"Those crashes were a failure of the men, not the wings," said Jandra. "The fact that the wings survived proves how tough they are."
"It's not the wings' survival that concerns me," he said.
She beat her wings and soared high above him, climbing toward the stone sky. "I feel so alive!" She did a backwards flip and dropped toward him. Lizard squeaked at the maneuver and dug his claws deeply enough through her coat that she winced. Perhaps the more daring moves should wait until she was flying solo.
Too swiftly for her satisfaction, the lake passed beneath them and they arrived at the shore of the island. Shay dropped down onto a beach of black sand flecked with countless specks of gold.
"I've never imagined there was this much gold in the world," he said as he surveyed the long beach.
"There isn't. This is fool's gold."
"Oh."
Jandra floated down beside Shay and folded her wings. The beach stank. The decaying jungle gave the place a garbage heap aroma. A few hundred feet away, the bones of two long-wyrms stretched down to the water's edge. They'd fallen victim to Bitterwood during the final confrontation with Jazz. Crabs had picked the bones completely clean, leaving vertebrae, ribs, and claws scattered along the shore in a vaguely serpentine outline. Copper scales were strewn across the beach, gleaming in the dim light like newly minted coins.
She picked up one of the scales. Deep inside her mind, a door opened and she recalled sketching out her plans for the long-wyrms.
"What's that?" Shay asked.
Jandra held out the copper scale in her open palm. It resembled in size and shape the petal of some strange rose.
"Jazz spliced genes found in beetles into reptilian DNA to give the long worms their metallic sheen. She was inspired by images of Chinese dragons."
"Chinese?"
"There used to be a country called China."
"Like the plates and cups the wealthy biologians use? A country named for dinnerware?"
"It was actually the other way around. We remember the porcelain, but we've forgotten the country."
Lizard hopped down and picked up one of the scales, testing it against his tongue. He dropped it, apparently deciding it wasn't food.
"There may be more gaps in my knowledge of reproduction than I thought. I didn't think it was possible to breed a beetle and a reptile," said Shay.
"It isn't. Not in traditional ways. Jazz came from an age where it was possible to insert the genetic material of one creature into completely different creatures. Dragons were created this way. They were made as exotic game animals, to be hunted for sport."
"Humans used to hunt dragons for sport?" Shay sounded skeptical.
"Ironic isn't it?"
"Did Jazz make the dragons?"
"No. She was against hunting as sport. Her opinions shifted, though, when… if you don't mind, I'm going to change subjects. I'm uncomfortable talking too much about her life. She had a thousand years of memory; I have seventeen. I don't want her memories washing mine away through sheer volume."
"I understand," said Shay. He looked concerned. "I know you have additional memories, but do you feel like you're losing your own?"
"How would I know? How do you remember the things you've forgotten?"
"Perhaps you should keep a journal?"
"I'd rather get a genie again," said Jandra.
As they headed away from the shore, the tree branches took on a ghostly white pallor, as if covered in cotton. It wasn't until Shay grabbed one to brace himself that he realized nearly every surface of the dead jungle was covered with a film of mold.
He rubbed the slime off on his pants, then hurried to catch Jandra. She was carefully stepping over fallen branches as she worked her way toward the vine-draped ruins of some ancient civilization. Jandra moved confidently toward it and the stones began to shift, forming a staircase leading down into the ground.