“Do they capture them?” she asked. “Put them in prison?”
He shook his head after a glance at the two girls. “They never return with captives. The ones the patrols capture, I mean.”
That was clearly a warning. No unnecessary talking, no fire to cook or warm ourselves, and the route would be on the trails and paths rarely watched if we continued traveling with Flier. He slipped an arm into a backpack and slipped it to his shoulder. “This way.”
“If they do find us?” I asked softly while lifting another of the four packs.
“Fight for your life. All of you.”
Flier walked slower than expected, pausing to listen here and there. We climbed a long slope, the ground had turned dry and rocky, and the vegetation thinned to nothing, so we were exposed. Looking behind, the river in the distance was easy to make out, so was the bay, and the yellow lights of candles told us where the city was. My eyes lifted above the rooftops to the lights on the hillside, where there were many more all crowded together.
Kendra slumped and sat on a boulder. She gave me a piercing look before speaking to Flier. “I must rest for a few moments.”
Understanding at least part of what she tried to tell me, I added, “Why don’t we all sit here quietly and let her rest for a moment?”
What she really needed time to concentrate, to call her dragon—if that was possible, and draw it near. Then she would instruct it to attack the buildings in the distance, conveniently located where we could see them.
She sat with her elbows on her knees, her palms cradling her face, covering her eyes. The rest of us also sat, and I marveled at the quiet behaviors of the girls. Other children would whine and complain about being sleepy. I wanted to do it, myself. However, they sat and watched the three of us with big eyes that searched for understanding, but also with the trust that only comes from children.
Flier grudgingly sat, too. After a short while, he started to fidget. He wanted to get away from Trager before dawn, and as we moved away from the city, the number of patrols would probably diminish. Remaining in close proximity increased our chances of being spotted during the day.
A soft sound of rustling air in the distance warned me. It grew louder, and I watched both Kendra and Flier for their reactions. Kendra remained fixed. Flier turned his face up to the sky, as did both girls. I looked, too.
The sounds of leathery wings pumping regularly told us where to look. Across the background of white pinpricks of starlight, a massive object blotted them out as the dragon flew. It was too dark to make out the shape of the dragon, but not that a large area went dark, and behind that blot of darkness, the stars reappeared, and the beat of wings increased.
Flier said, “Wyverns frequently fly over Trager now. For most of the last month, anyway, there are a few every day.”
It was no Wyvern, but there was no need to tell him what I knew or how I knew. Flier adjusted his backpack and stood. “Ready?”
As if hearing him, the dragon let out a scream that had the girls hugging my legs for protection, and I wanted to hug something to protect me. The scream was close, loud, but the volume was not what made it so fearful. It was the timbre, the anger it portrayed, and the menace. It was the sound of terror.
The dragon couldn’t be seen by us because of darkness and distance, and it flew lower, so the hillside behind the city prevented the stars from outlining it any more. However, a thunderous crash told of the smashing of wood and timber. Another scream came from the dragon, and the sounds of more wood splintering drifted on the still night air, along with the grunting of the dragon, screams of people, the shouts of orders.
Kendra finally raised her head, her eyes vacant and unseeing—or she couldn’t see what we did. To distract Flier, I said, “What’s happening?”
He still stood, still wearing his backpack, but he made no attempt to move. “I think a wyvern is attacking Trager.”
His guess was accurate as far as it went. It was possible nobody in Trager had seen a dragon until today for two or three hundred years, maybe longer. They had seen only a few Wyverns, and those only recently, so asking him what was happening was unfair. I said, “Why?”
“It’s an animal. Who knows why they do things?”
“Has this ever happened before?” The words were barely out of my mouth when a spot of orange fire took hold in the city and devoured the dry wood of the structure that had held a lantern or candle.
The fire quickly spread to nearby buildings, but the dragon was in little danger because it had relocated. It had moved to another part of the city, knocking down more buildings that caught fire, then another fire erupted nearer the docks as the dragon moved there. In the flickering light, the dragon’s profile became clear.
Flier said, “That’s no Wyvern. It’s the true-dragon that was in the fight.”
Kendra was still pale and looked too weak to walk
“In Dire, we believed they were myths.” The statement was satisfying to tell him, and it was the truth. “Until recently.”
Something in my tone must have given me away. He spun and peered at me, then at Kendra. The shouts and screams from the city floated on the still air to us. Ahead, along the path we were following, at least six palace guards broke through the tangle of weeds and forest, racing to Trager to respond to the emergency. Without the distraction of the fire and dragon, we would have walked right into their ambush.
Flier watched the last of them disappear down the hillside, and he sat again, motioning for us to do the same. “There may be more passing us. Best to stay here and let them go fight the fires, then we’ll move quickly away.”
Avery was to spread the word of a fire breaking out tonight, and hopefully, the few residents of the lower city had been prepared and escaped as they had other fires in the past. As extraordinary as the raging inferno was, that wasn’t what my mind focused on. It was my sister, sitting calmly beside me as if an innocent girl of five or six.
However, Kendra had reached out with her mind and communicated with a dragon a fair distance away, ordered it to land in the city, and knock over buildings. Turning to look at her as if she was a stranger, that’s what I found. Not the sweet innocent sister I’d help raise, but a steely-eyed, slack-jawed, woman who commanded a dragon. My sister.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
K endra had lost all her softness and innocence in a single night. Perhaps it had taken a few days longer, and I hadn’t noticed, but certainly, since she had released the dragon. She still looked like my sister on the outside—but sitting beside me in the dark of the night while she concentrated her mind on the female dragon crushing the buildings of Trager, I realized she had transformed. Not that she was taller, heavier, or anything like that. It was her eyes, her bold confidence, and the jut of her chin. There was no remorse in ordering the dragon to destroy buildings. No regret.
There was no joy or pride, either. Thankfully. The act of knocking down buildings and thus setting fires was required because Avery, a member of the Court of Dire had ordered it, and we were loyal to the crown.
Flier said, “Four individual fires are burning down there, now. At the four corners of the city. If they merge, the entire city will be destroyed.”
The dragon lifted into the air and flew into the night. In the reflections from the flames, it quickly disappeared from our sight.
Another patrol of palace guards hurried past us down the hillside. We saw them in the reflected firelight of the city. They had not been close to us, however, in other ways, they had been too close.