An Accident of Stars (31 page)

“No.” This time, she spoke aloud. “I can't, Zech. I'm sorry. I can't. I'm lost. I'm so lost.”

“Please.” She was almost delirious now. Her voice was hoarse and cracked. “
Please
.”

The braided path. She remembered Trishka's words to her, back in the compound in Karavos, and tried to summon some of the courage and inner strength the concept had lent her then, but even the memory felt weak.

“I want to,” Saffron whispered, but keeled over even as she spoke, until her cheek was pressed to the mossy floor. She shut her eyes, inhaled – and instantly felt a fresh wave of terror swamp her.

“Can't.” She choked out the word, paralysed even beyond speech.
I'll die down here.
And yet some distant thought refused to stop niggling at her, itching at the back of her brain.
I'm not afraid of the dark.

Slowly, Saffron opened her eyes, pulse racing as though she'd run a marathon. It wasn't a boast, but a statement of fact. Even as a child, she'd never found darkness frightening, though Ruby once had. The thought of her sister hit her like a dose of cold water, and in the clarity that followed, she found the strength to push herself to her knees.

Her terror ebbed slightly, and only then did she understand.

“The moss,” she said, staggering to her feet. She spoke English, the familiar words a shield against the darkness. “It's a hallucinogen, a poison – something like that. I've been breathing it in. It's making me afraid. But
I'm not afraid
!”

And with that, she began to run, stumbling blindly on, still clutching her lightless crystal, free hand outstretched as a guide. More than once, she fell, and each time it was a struggle to stand again, the toxin increasing in potency the closer she came to the source. Within minutes, she was covered in cuts and scrapes from banging into the surrounding rock, tripping at every turn. It was a nightmare run, and if the tunnel had appeared endless before, that was nothing to how it felt now. Trying to breathe shallowly left her on the brink of hyperventilation, gasping for air she knew was poisoned – how long before it took her over completely, or did some permanent damage? She tried to push the thoughts away, knowing rationally that increased fear could only make things worse, but it was impossible.

And then, with a suddenness that made her eyes sting, her crystal suddenly flared into life, a white-gold glow that literally stopped her in her tracks. Hardly daring to believe it, Saffron blinked the afterimages out of her eyes and held the thing up in front of her, convinced it would wink back out again. Trembling, she took a shaky step forward.

The light remained.

She burst out laughing, the sound high-edged and tinged with hysteria born of relief. After so long in darkness, even such a limited glow felt bright as the sun, and when, a few metres on, she felt the moss give way to hard stone, she wept a few tears of relief. With each passing minute, she felt her thoughts grow clearer and calmer; the toxic influence was fading, and with it, her fear had gone. Soon, though, she had a new reason to be grateful for the crystal's light: the footing had grown treacherous. Small stones and chunks of rock strewed the path ahead, while the ground itself was pitted and rough – exactly the sort of place where an unwary soul could turn an ankle. Picking her way forwards with care, Saffron licked her cracked, dry lips and tried to remember Zech's instructions.

What came next? It was something about an
–

She rounded a corner, stopped, and stared.

“–egg,” she whispered, disbelieving. “No way.”

The tunnel had ended, after a fashion. She stood in a space no bigger than the average classroom lit by a smatter of crystals, and yet whose roof was so far overhead as to be almost invisible. Turning, she was confronted by a sheer, flat rock face, its only blemish the gaping crack through which she'd emerged. To both left and right, the ground dropped away into endless nothing, bordered by identical walls that sheered up into the darkness, leaving her on a slim stone bridge at the bottom of some massive, natural liftwell. She gulped, fighting the urge to peer down into the chasms, and wondered, with faint horror, how many would-be queens before her had come bolting out of the dark, only to trip and fall to that other, lightless death.

Shaking at the thought, she forced herself to look straight ahead – and baulked, dry-mouthed, at what she saw, the sight of it so alien that without Zech's warning, she might well have doubted the evidence of her own eyes.

Taking up the space where, by rights, a fourth stone wall ought to have been was another substance entirely. It was convex as a spoon-back, absurdly smooth, and so massive that she couldn't see where it ended, except to note that it continued behind and beneath the surrounding stone rather than simply stopping – the visible flank of a larger, hidden object, rather than a disconnected panel. Absurdly, it was periwinkle blue, speckled all over with luminous gold and silver streaks.

It was part of an egg.

A massive, impossible egg.

“No
way
,” Saffron said again, and flinched as the words echoed back at her. The stone bridge to the egg was narrow, but not so much that she felt the need to get down on her hands and knees. Swallowing her vertigo, she edged across as quickly as she dared, not yet convinced the egg-wall wasn't some sort of optical illusion. Reaching safety, she laid her palm on the surface and pressed – and pulled back, surprised to feel it give a little. She eyed the egg-wall critically. It wasn't so much a shell as a thick, tough membranous substance, which raised the disconcerting possibility that it was somehow alive. More reticent now, she forced herself to touch it again – for longer, this time.

The egg pulsed under her fingers.

An absurd thought came to her:
this is the true border.
The notion rang oddly within her, though she didn't know why. It was, in any case, a consideration for later. She set it aside, blinking at the egg. It pulsed again, and Saffron shuddered.

Very slowly, she pulled her hand back, fighting the urge to wipe it clean on her tunic.

“I know, Zech,” she murmured. “I know. I just really,
really
don't want to.”

But at this point she had no other option – not unless she wanted to recross the chasm and run back through the toxic tunnel.

That did it: the prospect was unbearable. Quickly, before she could psych herself out, Saffron hefted her crystal, screwed her eyes shut, and stabbed it into the egg.

There was a liquid tearing sound, like ripping a piece of steak in half. She didn't want to look, but as she hadn't been drenched by a gush of yolky, amniotic fluid, she found the courage to look again. Her crystal had perforated the egg with surprising ease, and as she began to saw away, a jagged gash appeared. It was almost as hard a job as removing the crystal itself had been, and by the time she'd ripped a tear in the membrane big enough to climb through, her arms were aching.

“If this is the weirdest thing I ever do in my life,” she muttered, “I can die a happy woman. At home. Of old age. Very, very far from here.”

Wincing only a little, she pushed her hands through the split and forced the membrane apart. The inside edges were gelatinous to the touch, but not unbearably so, provided she didn't think too much about it. Eyes shut and breath held, she shoved her head through the gap, wriggled her shoulders, splayed her arms against the inner egg-wall and alternately pushed and pulled herself out, tugging one leg through at a time.

I'm inside an egg,
she thought, as her left foot cleared the hole.
How much weirder can things get?

The wall made a popping sound. She spun around, eyes opening just in time to see the gap heal over, knitting back up into a seamless, smooth whole between one blink and the next. On this side, the egg-wall was creamy white and dimpled like a golf ball, and when she looked down, she found she was standing on, of all things, purple grass, the soft blades slim and ankle-high. It was warmer here, too – much warmer. Steamy, in fact; already, the surface of her crystal had fogged up, moisture beading on her arms and neck. The sound of rushing water was back, louder than she'd yet heard it, and there was a steady, whooshing sound behind her – almost growly, like air rushing in and out of a vent.

Or like heavy breathing.

Slowly, Saffron turned.

And came face to face with a dragon.

S
affron froze
.

came Zech's awed whisper.
Ashasa's scions are dragons.

The creature was as tall as a Shire horse, its scales the liquid, luminous gold of owl-eyes. Three wicked claws extended from each of its forefeet, while its muscular, serpentine neck supported a head whose long, slim jaws were studded with gleaming teeth. Its folded wings twitched with a sound like umbrellas jostling together. In lieu of visible ears, a five-tined fan of webbed spines swept back from either side of its head; each one was twice the size of a human hand, and as Saffron watched, these weird appendages flattened and raised like a cockatoo's crest, telegraphing some unfathomable, animal code. Its eyes were round – the pupils too; not slit like a cat's, as she might have imagined – and a bright electric blue.“Oh,
shit
,” she whispered, and in that moment the only thing that kept her from pissing herself was her empty bladder.

The dragon exhaled, its hot breath ripe with the scent of old blood, and flicked its ear-fans forward. Saffron swallowed a whimper of fear. She had nowhere to run, and the massive creature in front of her was all too clearly a predator. And yet it didn't attack. Though seconds ticked by, the dragon did nothing but stare at her, its wide eyes bright with the disconcerting intensity of a hunting cat's. Gulping, Saffron gripped her crystal, which was a pitiful excuse for a weapon but still the only one she had, and told herself sternly that she wasn't about to be eaten.
Be logical. If it were hungry, I'd be dead by now. It's part of the trial. It wants something from me. Think!

Out loud, she murmured, “Any advice, Zech?”

With a rumbling breath, the dragon shifted its head sideways, breaking eye contact. Instinctively, Saffron followed its gaze, and found herself gaping a little at her surroundings.

Inside the egg – or at least, on this side of the egg-wall; whatever this place was, it sure as hell wasn't ovoid – was a luminous, alien jungle. Stretching away in front of her was an uneven, tiered expanse of translucent stone, like a series of natural stairs and platforms cut from milky quartz. Impossible patches of purple grass clung to the surface, while giant, half-furled ferns sprouted in clusters from cracks in the rock, their thick stems glittering with thorns. The whole place was lit by massive crystals that sprouted like stalagmites and stalactites from floor and ceiling, their surfaces fogged by a layer of misty steam. Combined with the sound of running water, a sharp mineral scent explained the heat; there was a hot spring somewhere nearby, which must also have fed the plant life.

And populating this bizarre, beautiful landscape were dragons; aside from the one in front of her, she counted at least three more – two bronze, one the fiery red of hot iron, all lying belly-down on the rocks – and didn't doubt there were others she couldn't see. The sight of them pierced her in a way she'd thought that only powerful music could, shooting right through her heart like rhythm and pain and joy. She could die here, yes – die horribly at the whim of creatures she'd thought were myth – and yet, abruptly, a strange calm sank into her bones. She had no energy left for fear; the tunnel had exhausted her capacity for it.
It's all the will of Ashasa
, she thought dreamily, and before her conscious mind quite knew what it was doing, she reached out and laid a hand on the dragon's muzzle.

Despite the humidity, its scales were cool and smooth as snakeskin. Saffron stared at the dragon, and the dragon stared into her. Distantly, she felt a tug on the thread of magic that bound her to Zech, conveying not words, but a sense of trust and unity of purpose. It should have been impossible, but somehow she knew exactly what to do next; they both did.

Saffron slid her palm further along the dragon's jaw, up to where the larger scales joined its throat. There was a grain to them; the minute she rubbed the wrong way, each one snagged on her skin, turning the uniform whole into an expanse of sharp edges. The dragon rumbled low in its throat and tipped its head to one side, granting her better access to its throat scales. Questing gingerly, Saffron felt for a suitable grip, wincing as each failure left her already bloody fingers covered in tiny, stinging cuts. The dragon snorted angrily, clearly growing impatient. Saffron bit her lip, clamped thumb and forefinger to the upraised edge of the largest scale she could find, and
pulled
.

With a sudden pop, the scale came free. It was roughly the size and shape of a small guitar pick, the underside pearly and opalescent in contrast to the furious gold of the surface. The outer edge was razor sharp and smeared with blood.

Suddenly, the nearby iron-red dragon came to its feet and roared a challenge, revealing the scintillant copper-rose folds of its wings. In response, the gold dragon hissed and spun on its haunches, its barbed tail almost knocking Saffron clean off her feet. Staggering back, she slumped against the egg-wall and held the scale to her lips. She hesitated, mesmerised by the sight of the dragons circling each other, ear-fans flaring as their serpentine necks stretched and swayed.

“Please,” Saffron whispered, a helpless prayer to the universe, and then, more characteristically, “Oh, fuck it.”

And before she could change her mind, she tossed the scale into her mouth and dry-swallowed.

Fiery pain burned her throat. She was choking; the scale was cutting her trachea, wounding her on its way down. She gagged and spat blood on the grass, her vision spinning like a Sunday drunk's. She slid down the egg-wall, gasping for breath, arms clutched to her stomach as the scale cleared her oesophagus. A kaleidoscope exploded behind her eyes.

She fell.

s
he is
(they are) (I am) dragon

scale-sister (scale-sisters)

the red circles, her scent on the air like water-smoke, fire extinguished by rain; she snarls her want for the land-fish, the leggy flesh housing my (our) (her) soul, slumped by the stone-that-is-not-stone; but she shall not have it, the claim is ours (mine) (hers) – the flesh has swallowed our flesh, a little scale-sister, the right and the blood is

flowing as claws swipe flank, we roar

we retaliate

our jaws on the red-scales, red on red as the blood like fire paints our teeth, we bite, we hold at the junction of neck and shoulder, go for the kill-spot

but the red twists, rises; she digs her claws in the root of our headspines, digs and grips and rakes sharp down; and then the

pain

our eye, there is anger in pain; but our head is open

we lunge (I lunge) (she lunges) (together)

wrestle and claws in belly, we hook and bite; the red screams like a hawk, a mercy-plea; we deny it; we

ascend, lift the red by her belly; she bites our throat but still we throw her hard to the stone; we land on her flank (her flesh is our territory, we are her sovereigns) and wing-snap for balance; we pin her, she struggles but cannot

rise up, we rise and scream

no mercy

(we) (I) (you)

our kin sit judgement, they watch, they wait (the ritual is old beyond the hatching of ten times ten times a hundred eggs; the-ones-who-have-lore and scale-sisters both have told it so) and still the red fights, she scores our scales, her claws trail wakes of pain like fish-fins cutting through water, one headspine is all but ripped away, the blood from it blinds an eye half-closed by the risen scales split beside it; and still we

fight;

she rolls and rears

we falter

the red climbs over us, we

fall

down, down, down the stone planes (I fell) (she fell)

fern-thorns dig in our flanks, we scream – the red is insolent, she will not, cannot – a wingbone snaps beneath our weight, the red's teeth tear at our belly, we are overrun

(and where is dawn?)

(Zech–)

(Safi–)

(I can't, the pain but must–)

fight

fight

FIGHTour hindclaws scrabble her flank, our jaws to throat to head to neck; the red persists, our blood in her mouth, our flesh

(the flesh)

our wing hangs limp, yet still we rise

we bite

the crack of bone, the hot blood

the red shrieks, her water-smoke scent gone oily with fear; she reeks of death, and as our jaws tighten, her soulfire slips; her eyes wink out like stars at dawn, and we scream

(I scream)

(she screams)

the victory is ours (mine) (hers)

and the blood

and the pain

is

(mine)

alone

H
er body was screaming even
before she slammed back into it, a shipwrecked consciousness dashed on rocks of flesh. This was worse, a hundred times worse, than Kadeja cutting her fingers off. She couldn't see for blood – it was everywhere, sheeting across her face and arms like warm, red rain, the red dragon's death like ashes on her tongue. Her scream guttered out into hard, choked sobs. Nerves spasming with pain, Saffron tried to run a hand over her body, to tell where her injuries were, but everything hurt and her right eye was gummed shut, too – she'd sprawled sideways on an ever-reddening patch of grass, and ten feet away the golden dragon was drinking blood from the throat of her now-dead rival.

There was pain in Zech's voice too – wherever the other girl was, she'd ridden the gold alongside Saffron, ridden and been torn in turn as their bodies echoed and replicated the dragon's terrible injuries. Saffron moaned, an animal sound over which she had no control, and somehow managed to come to her knees. Blinking blood from her eyes, she watched as the gold dragon limped away from the corpse and turned to stare at her, its face transformed by something like recognition. Terrible cuts raked its arms and stomach, clustered bite-wounds distorting the scales of its neck and flanks. One wing, the left, hung at an awkward angle, leaving its lower edge to trail on the floor like a fallen hem.

But the worst injury by far was the one to its head. The red dragon's claws had struck so deeply on the righthand side that the entire ear-fan – spines, webbing and all – had been almost torn free, the ruined appendage left hanging by only a thread of scale and sinew. In its place were three parallel gashes stretching from high on the back of its skull to just above its right eye, which was swollen shut.

As the dragon approached, Saffron lurched to her feet, crying out again as her legs nearly gave out from under her. Yet somehow she managed to stay upright until it came alongside, proffering its least injured shoulder for her to lean on. No longer afraid of the creature, Saffron threw an arm over its back and rested as much of her weight on it as possible.

“Please,” she whispered, beyond caring if her actions made sense. Her voice was cracked beyond all recognition. “Show me the way out.”

The dragon rumbled – it sounded almost friendly now, like a big cat purring – and started to amble forwards. Though it led her slowly, Saffron was not only badly hurt, but dizzy from blood loss; black spots swam before her vision, and her breathing was ragged and sore. Her shift hung in tatters, shredded by whatever force had dealt her the dragon's injuries, and despite the heat of the cavern-egg, she began to shiver violently. Soon it became impossible to rest her full weight on her right foot; she stumbled and would have fallen, except that she grabbed at the dragon's wing and hung on for dear life, recognising in some distant part of herself that if she lay down now, she wouldn't be able to rise again.

Then the dragon stopped, lowering itself to the ground and sweeping its good wing aside in such a way as to indicate that Saffron could climb on its back. Weeping openly, she practically fell on the creature, whimpering with gratitude as she wrapped her arms around its neck. It was hardly comfortable, but the wings helped keep her in place, and as the dragon continued on, she began to drift in and out of consciousness, the purple grass, crystals and spiral ferns of the cavern bleeding together like colours in a psychotropic vision.

Flashes of sound and colour; a glimpse of a running stream below.
So thirsty
. They ought to stop and drink. She tried to reach out, but her arms wouldn't answer, and soon she drifted into the black again.

Dried blood crusted her body, though her wounds still wept; the dragon's sharp scales abraded her skin, so that myriad tiny injuries –
like papercuts
, a part of her thought – were inflicted with every step. Abruptly, her thirst turned into nausea, and before she could even turn her head, she vomited blood and bile onto the dragon's neck, where it stuck, forcing her to carry on with her face in the mess.

Her pulse was weak and thready. The world of the cavern slipped away, replaced by a glimpse of Zech, her limbs and head bound with bandages, being borne on a stretcher down a steep rock stairwell. The women who carried her were dressed in the garb of priestesses, their faces grave in the predawn light. The vision flickered and changed: a naked Zech lay curled on the ground in a blank white space, with Yasha crouched beside her. Sensing an intrusion, the matriarch whipped her head around, eyes narrowing as she lit on Saffron; yet when she spoke, her voice was uncharacteristically gentle.

“Go back, girl,” she said. “You're nearly there.”

Her lips trembled. “But it hurts. Everything hurts.”

Yasha smiled. “That's how you know it's real.”

Unable to answer, Saffron closed her eyes. The blackness took her again, but unlike the black of the tunnel, this was a friendly darkness, warm and safe. She swam within it, just as she'd swum in the underground pool, and lost all sense of time and space.
I could stay here,
she thought, and for the longest moment, it felt as though the choice had been taken from her. But then the stars came out – a trail of gold and silver lights winding their way overhead – and she thought,
not yet,
and followed them.