Dragon (23 page)

The simple solution would be to kill her. Isn’t that how enemies have defeated one another for long centuries? And she’s the one who thinks all dragons should die, so it would be a fitting end, never mind that dragons are all but immortal.

But it sticks in my throat that if I kill her, I’ll only be proving she was right—that dragons are killers. That we don’t know compassion or mercy. That we don’t belong in this modern world, but are relics of a brutal past.

You know I almost sided with her when I first found out about dragons. I feared I was a monster, and I didn’t want to be a monster. I still don’t want to be a monster, or a killer. I didn’t want to be a dragon, either, until I realized I’m in love with a dragon.

So I’m torn. I want to get rid of Eudora so she won’t be a threat to me or my family or my people any longer. But I also don’t want to kill her, because that would make me no better than she is, on some level. I want to be a dragon of love, not a dragon of death.

But I don’t know how to do that.

*

“Ready?” My father holds out his hand to me.

I’m not. I’m not ready at all. I still haven’t figured out how to defeat Eudora without becoming a killer like she is. I’m not even sure if I’m ready to marry Ram. Come to think of it, we haven’t even kissed yet, or anything, which is a grave oversight on my part and probably only due to our having been dragons or scarfing down meat, or half-dead asleep for most of the time since I realized I love him.

Although in retrospect, if I’d thought of it, I could have tried kissing him while I was eating, or something. That might have been right fine.

And I’m not sure I’m ready to bear dragon babies, even if egg-laying isn’t as bad as giving birth. Arika, my friend from childhood, has three kids. She can handle it. She was always better with Tulip than I was. I’m not ready for this.

But I place my hand on my father’s elbow, anyway, and give him a smile that’s totally bluffing because nine-tenths of me is terrified and about to run away. And my father places his other hand over mine and smiles at me like he’s proud of me, although honestly, what have I done today besides my hair? And technically I didn’t even do that, Mahira did.

Still, when I think of Ram and that fact that we’ll shortly be married, and then I can make up for not having kissed him yet, I’m ready. More than ready.

So between the parts of me that want to run away and the parts that want to sprint down the aisle between the chairs in the village square, I manage to walk at a reasonable, solemn pace. Ram is standing at the front, under the wedding bower, near the table with the symbols of our union, including a sword, a bow and arrows, and a round shield.

He’s watching me walk toward him, and his eyes, which usually sparkle like jewels, are lit up with eagerness. For all his skills communicating without words, right now he’s sending me a message, as clear as if he was shouting from the rooftops. That he loves me. Me, just me, Ilsa. The butcher. The dragon. I don’t have to hide who I am or pretend to be something I’m not.

My father and I reach Ram, who’s standing in front of the table of symbols, below the wedding bower, which is covered with fragrant flowers of all colors, but mostly purple with highlights of blue, and just a few twinkles of orange and yellow for contrast. My father places my hand in Ram’s hand, and he gives my fingers a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

We state words that bind us together, vows that bind us together, and sign the paper on the table in the midst of the symbols, the one that confirms we are husband and wife. For that moment, I’m happy, so crazy happy I could burst, and the whole world seems to fade away, and the huge crowd of people seems to fall into sacred silence, like they’re holding their breaths, and I remember the thing we haven’t done yet, the thing I’ve been waiting for, which will surely happen any moment.

I look at Ram eagerly, ready to kiss him for the very first time.

Then the screams erupt, and I turn to see that everyone is pouring out the sides of the aisles, evacuating quickly, even as the yagi overpower their screams with their inhuman wailing. The yagi leap from the surrounding rooftops, and two fire-breathing dragons swoop down from overhead.

“To the tower!” My father reminds me, leaning close as though he’s afraid Eudora and Ion will hear from the sky. He clamps a hand on Ram’s shoulder. “Take her!” My father shouts to Ram even as he transforms into a scarlet-orange dragon and bounds into the air.

The yagi rush toward us, toppling the bower.

Ram pulls out the swords on his back and swings his blades at the head of the swarm. There’s no way we’re going to get to the tower, or even out of the square, without killing some yagi first.

I’ve got my daggers under my dress, but those are for close-range fighting, and I don’t want to have to get that close to the yagi and their spearing antennae. Weapons are spread out on the table like a feast of defenses, and I throw a bow and quiver of arrows over my shoulder. I haven’t shot a bow since archery season ended last spring, but they’re light and who knows what I’ll need before I reach the tower.

There’s only one sword, but it’s a big one, and I grab it with my left hand, glancing up to see my father fighting Eudora in the air, while Ion dives toward us, breathing out fire.

I grab the shield and hold it over me to block the flames. As Ion swoops past and the fragrant flowers melt and burn from the heat of his flames, I shout to Ram, “He’s going to burn down the village if we don’t stop him!”

“I’ll fight him.” Ram shouts back. “Get to safety!” He beheads two more yagi before leaping into the air, morphing into a dragon as he soars through the sky after Ion.

Ram did a good job of clearing out many of the yagi on this end of the square, and the people evacuated quickly. I run back down the aisle, toward the main street Ram and I just walked up that morning, when we were greeted by townspeople tossing flower petals.

I’m almost to the street when I hear a tiny scream, and I turn to see a little girl peeking out from under one of the many chairs that crowd the square.

She can’t be more than two years old, if that. Though her dress is fancier than the one she wore this morning, I recognize her, just as I recognize the doll she’s carrying.

Tulip.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The yagi have seen the toddler, too.

While technically I don’t think yagi are supposed to bother humans, these particular yagi don’t look like they’re familiar with that rule, and no way am I taking any chances. I leap at them, bounding over chairs and performing a one-armed butterfly maneuver while I bar their way to the little girl with my shield. It takes me a little longer than usual to decapitate them all with just one hand.

“Jala!” Anika screams, running back into the square. I can only assume she evacuated with her babies, thinking her daughter was at her heels, only to realize once she got to safety that Jala wasn’t with her at all.

“Mommy!”

Two more yagi are drawn to their cries. Jala looks at her mother with longing, but appears to be rooted in place—probably by the paralyzing screams of the yagi.

I’m moving swiftly, ignoring their screams, propelled by my own momentum.

I pick up Jala with my arm that’s holding the shield (no, this is not a graceful move, and she’s probably going to slip out of my grasp if I have to go very far, but I don’t have much choice at this point) and I decapitate the two approaching yagi as I deliver the child to her mother.

“Thank you, Ilsa!” Anika cries as she embraces her child.

“Hurry! Get her to safety,” I tell her, aware the paralyzing wails of the yagi might lock her in place if she stays still too long. Anika runs with her daughter while I decapitate another yagi and look up to see how Ram and my father are faring in the sky.

The village is not on fire, at least.

That’s the good news.

Ram and my dad are trying to push back the dragons, but Ion and Eudora seem determined to fight their way past them.

Mindful of my promise to my father, I run down the street toward the tower. Along the way, yagi come at me from all directions, darting around buildings, leaping off rooftops, doing their best to slow me down and bar my way. It’s exhausting, fighting them, but at the same time, I keep thinking of what my father said, that they’re more a distraction than a worthy foe, in spite of their screams and venom and claws and horns. Granted, if I lower my guard at the wrong moment, they could very well fell me, but I can’t help thinking they’re not the real enemy.

There’s something more going on, isn’t there?

I check the sky again, but this time I can only see my father and Ion. Where’s Ram? Where’s Eudora? Somewhere out of sight, beyond the trees or the mountains?

Hopefully Ram has chased her far away, or better yet wounded her so gravely she’ll never return.

I decapitate two more yagi, and as they fall, I can see the tower only a few dozen yards ahead. I charge toward the wooden door. If I can just reach it, and duck behind it—

A woman runs around a building, headed toward me. She’s not screaming. She doesn’t even look Azeri. Her hair is long and blonde, with maybe a tiny tinge of green, the same color as her eyes.

I’m about to run past her on my way to the tower when she calls out to me.

“Ilsa! I’ve been looking for you. I want to help you!”

For one confused millisecond I think maybe she knows of a hiding place or something, but before that thought even fully forms, I realize she’s holding a gun—a weird-looking gun with a big glass tube-looking thing on it.

She’s coming closer to me, still talking. “I can help you. You don’t really want to be a dragon, do you? Dragons don’t belong in this world. You can be so much more.”

She’s talking in that uber-soothing tone like Ion used the other night. There may have been a time when I would have stopped to listen to her, but that time has passed.

I ignore her and make a run for the tower door, glancing back to see her hold up the gun and take aim at me. I block the shot with the shield as I reach the tower, haul open the door, and duck inside, slamming the drop bar behind the iron catch plate just as the woman on the other side throws herself against it.

It’s Eudora, isn’t it? Of course it is. There’s a small glass window near the top of the door, and I can see her yellow-green eyes, a jewel tone somewhere between citrine and peridot, which I only know about because some of the girls at school were seriously into gemstones.

Also, her eyes look angry.

But even as I realize that, I look down at the round shield in my hand, which is made of wood covered in leather or something like it, and I see there’s a syringe sticking out of the shield.

So that’s what she shot at me. It’s the serum—the serum to make me only human, and not a dragon anymore.

Suddenly I’m terrified and look myself over to make sure she didn’t fire another one and hit me anywhere. But I don’t see anything or feel anything, and it occurs to me that dart-guns are probably single-load, not a revolving multi-bullet-chamber like a regular gun.

I look back at the syringe in my shield. It didn’t inject the serum, probably because the wood is hard, too hard for the serum to go anywhere, unlike porous flesh.

Outside the door, Eudora has changed into a dragon and is blasting fire at the door, which is made of thick, heavy beams. It will take a while for them to burn through, but they will burn. And given the heat of dragon fire, it might not take as long as I’d like.

I look at the syringe and then at the dragon outside as she takes a step back and gathers her breath for another blast.

She can’t shoot me with a dart gun when she’s a dragon, I don’t think. Dragon fingers are too big to pull triggers.

I’m worried about Ram and my father and the rest of the village. I need to get out there and help them. If I wait around inside the tower, pretty soon Eudora’s going to burn the door down, or she’ll figure out she can reach me via the top, or something.

I need to act now. The syringe is sticking out of my shield, looking far more innocent than I know it to really be.

An idea, probably not a good idea, but the only thing I have, forms in my mind, and I tug a ribbon from my hair.

I pull a sturdy arrow from the quiver on my back (fortunately they’re not just for show, but real arrows capable of shooting straight) and then I set the shield flat on the floor with the syringe sticking up, and I position the arrow next to it, wrapping the ribbon tight around the two, weaving them securely together.

The syringe is going to mess up the arrow’s flight-path, of course it is, but I’ve dealt with something similar with our flaming arrow exhibition shoots at the Highland Games. I’ve even shot flaming arrows into moving targets, which was probably good practice, because I doubt Eudora’s going to stand still.

I’ll only have one shot. And I’ll have to take it quickly. I’d aim for one of her eyes, but she could too easily blink and block it. Even if I make the hit, she could pull the syringe out or even claw out her own eye before the serum soaks in if she realizes her choice is to go through life minus an eye or only human.

That leaves her mouth, which will need to be open, wide open, enough for the needle to make it past her fangs. I’ll have to make the shot as she’s breathing fire, preferably when she’s just opened her mouth so the blast hasn’t grown to full strength yet, or it could incinerate the syringe and the arrow both, and then I’ll have to come up with a new plan.

Once the syringe is tied tight to the arrow, I pull them both out together, taking care not to touch anything near the tip of the needle because no way do I want any of that stuff getting on me. My people and my future family need me to be a dragon.

But they also need me to get rid of Eudora.

She’s between fire blasts now. I raise the drop bar, peek out the door, and see her gathering herself to spray another billow of flames.

I get the bow ready, the arrow nock fitted to the string, the syringe on the outside. I test its weight with my fingers and estimate how much it will weigh the arrow down on the short flight path to Eudora’s mouth.