Dragon Scales (9 page)

"They poison anyone in their vicinity. It's a slow sickness, and the only known remedy includes powdered dragon scales," Isaia explained.

"Oh," Amantea said. That made as much sense as Naldo wanting the scales to cast a spell on Isaia. And if he and Isaia had had a bad breakup, Naldo would've thought Isaia would say no. Which was stupid; Isaia wouldn't let anyone die just because he didn't like them. He'd saved Amantea in the lake, after all. "That's stupid. Why didn't you just ask for them?"

"He'd say no," Naldo said, glaring at Amantea like it was all his fault Naldo had tangled with a manticore and come out the worse for it.

"I wouldn't have," Isaia said, sounding hurt. "I know we didn't end on the best of terms, Naldo, but I wouldn't let you die."

"Hah," Naldo muttered. He leaned heavily against the doorframe to his home.

"Is it too late?" Teria asked, sounding annoyed. "Or would the antidote still work? Because you owe me, witch, and I plan to collect."

Naldo's mouth fell open slightly, and he looked at Isaia. "You'd still...?"

"Yes," Isaia snapped. "You only had to ask, you damn fool. But like usual, you're too stubborn and self-centered to think about anyone but your damn fool self. You can have the damn dragon scales, and then you
will
do anything Teria and Amantea ask of you, given how much your actions have affected their lives."

"Done," Naldo said, the word barely audible. He slumped, looking two seconds from passing out. Amantea opened his mouth, but then shut it, baffled. Why had Isaia included him in that? He didn't want anything from Naldo, except to keep his nest safe, and that was already done.

Teria crossed the lawn, approaching Naldo. She grabbed him by the arm, pulling him upright. "I'll check out the antidote recipe. Join us when you've got the scales."

Isaia nodded, and Teria all but dragged Naldo into the house. Amantea shook his head, still baffled. "I don't understand why he wouldn't ask. Surely that would've been easier to start with."

"Naldo doesn't trust anyone," Isaia said. "It's why we didn't work." He frowned, looking at the house. "I'm going to need your help getting the scales. Stay here a moment."

Amantea nodded, though he had no idea what that entailed. Isaia headed toward the house, disappearing inside. Amantea took a deep breath, running a hand through the tangles of his hair. He was nearly done. He would be able to go home soon. Why did that thought hurt so much?

Isaia reappeared before he could come up with an answer to that question, striding across the lawn with a wicked-looking knife in his hand. Amantea's eyes widened. Did he have to cut the scales out?

"I'm not going to hurt you!" Amantea blurted out when Isaia approached and offered him the knife. "I have to cut them out?!"

"No, no," Isaia said, smiling. "You'll be prying them out. The knife is just the only thing I could find quickly. I'm going to shift into dragonling form. The scales under my front legs are loosest. Just find a few that are ready to molt and pull them free. It won't hurt at all."

"Oh," Amantea said, taking the knife gingerly. It was heavy and the blade was thick. He swallowed against a surge of nerves. What if he screwed it up and did hurt Isaia?

"Try and get three," Isaia said. Amantea didn't get a chance to ask why, as Isaia started to shift. Amantea took a few steps back, giving him room to change.

Dragonling form was apparently Isaia's smaller dragon form, the one without wings and with the spiky, bobbed tail. It took Isaia several minutes to shift, and Amantea approached him nervously, nearly jumping out of his skin when Isaia flopped over and then rolled to lie on his back.

"I guess that's easier," Amantea muttered. Why did he have to be the one to do this? Why couldn't Teria? Why couldn't Naldo have asked for Teria's scales? But that was easy to answer: Teria wasn't a full dragon.

Sighing, Amantea surveyed the scales under Isaia's left leg. They all seemed the same, and he hesitantly poked and prodded at them, trying to find a loose one, which wasn't helped by the soft growling Isaia made every time he exhaled. The scales were soft but firm, strangely textured like some of the weirder plants Amantea's forest boasted, and even warmer than Amantea remembered Isaia's hands being.

Amantea finally found one that was paler than the rest and pulling away from Isaia's body at one side. Gingerly, he slipped the tip of the knife under it and teased it away from the rest of the scales. It came easily, leaving Amantea with a paper-thin, pale red disc about the size of his hand. Underneath, there was already a more vivid scale in place, which was a relief. Amantea had been afraid he might see skin under the missing scale, and he wasn't sure he could handle that.

It took him several more minutes to find two more loose scales, but finally he had three. They were all slightly irregular, and Amantea hoped their age didn't work against the antidote. He might not like Naldo, but he didn't want to let anyone die. Maybe that was why Isaia had said to get three, just to make sure there was enough potency.

"You can shift again," Amantea said. He set the last scale on top of the other two, marveling at the way they were paper-thin, but didn't shift or bend. Isaia growled, rolling back over. He hissed, his tongue flicking out to taste the air by Amantea's head. Amantea stared at him, baffled, but dismissed it when Isaia started to shift.

He fetched Isaia's wrap from where it had fallen when he'd shifted previously and brought it to Isaia as soon as he was back in his small form.

"Thanks," Isaia said. He tied it in place while Amantea scurried to get the discarded knife and dragon scales. They were lightweight, and Amantea handed them off to Isaia, along with the knife, not wanting to hold either. His stomach sank as he realized that was his part done. He could go home.

Isaia headed toward the house, but Amantea didn't follow. He bit his lip, wondering what to say. Goodbye sounded so final, but it was final. He was going home. Isaia would also be going home, and Amantea didn't know where that was. He took a deep breath, trying to force the words past his lips.

"Amantea?" Isaia asked, turning a few steps from the house. "You coming?"

Amantea shook his head. "You don't need me anymore. I don't want anything from him. He's... I'm..." Amantea took a deep breath, lifting his gaze to meet Isaia's. "My nest is safe. I should go home."

"Oh, right," Isaia said. He set the knife down on the porch, along with two of the dragon scales. He carried the third back over to where Amantea stood, grabbing one of Amantea's hands and pressing the dragon scale into it. "For everything you've done."

"What?" Amantea asked, startled. "No, I can't—"

"I insist," Isaia said, cutting Amantea off. "Just don't use it in spells against me, all right?"

Amantea scoffed because that wasn't how faerie magic worked, and Isaia should know that. "I won't." He curved his hands around the scale, biting his lip. He should go, before he said or did something stupid. "I promise."

"Thank you," Isaia said, softly, like Amantea had done something great for him. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to Amantea's forehead. Amantea blinked, shocked into silence, and Isaia stepped back after a second, something like disappointment crossing his face. Had Amantea missed something? "See you around, flit."

Amantea scowled, but Isaia hadn't sounded like he'd meant it like an insult, so he let it go. He nodded, not sure he could trust his voice, and Isaia cast him a last look before heading back to the house. He disappeared inside, leaving Amantea alone in Naldo's backyard.

Stifling a sigh, Amantea tucked the dragon scale into his pocket and shifted to his smaller form. He'd fly out to the forest and then either build a portal or fly back to his nest. Naldo's town wasn't too far from the nest, and a good long flight might help him gather his scattered thoughts.

Taking off, Amantea started the flight home, focusing on the wind in his hair and not the thought that he'd likely never see Isaia ever again.

"Amantea!"

Amantea shifted, burrowing his face further into the soft down of his pillow.

"Amantea! I know you're up there! Come out, sweetie!"

Muttering under his breath, Amantea pulled the pillow up over his head despite knowing it would do nothing to block out the sound of his mother's voice. The only thing he had in his favor was that she wouldn't enter his nest; it was incredibly taboo to enter a nest unless one was explicitly invited, and Amantea had no intentions of extending an invitation to anyone.

No, his intentions were to stay in his nest for as long as possible and pretend the world outside the leaves he was snuggly ensconced in didn't exist. That his mother wasn't after him to make grandchildren now the nest was safe again, that the elders of the nest weren't after him to sit him down and talk at him about how dangerous it had been for him to leave (completely ignoring that he'd fixed the problem), and that Isaia didn't exist and therefore, wasn't at the forefront of Amantea's every thought.

He wanted to leave again, which was ridiculous given he'd only been home for a week and a half. He'd spent most of that time sleeping and hiding, and yet, he still itched to port himself back to Isaia's house. Except Isaia wouldn't be there because it wasn't his home. He doubted Naldo knew where Isaia was, and he wasn't sure even Teria would still be at Naldo's house. All Amantea had was a lone dragon scale, and nothing more.

He should stop moping. He should stop re-living the moment when Isaia had kissed him on the forehead. He should stop analyzing everything that had happened over the few days he'd spent with Isaia. Was that short a period long enough to get infatuated with someone? Amantea ran his fingers over Isaia's scale, frowning miserably at it. It was, at least for him, but he wasn't stupid enough to think Isaia had felt the same way. Isaia had been nothing but direct, so he'd have said something.

"Amantea!" His mother's voice cut through the leaves of his nest again. "Honestly, this is getting ridiculous. I'll be in the center if you decide to deign us with your presence."

"Not when 'us' is going to include someone you want me to mate with," Amantea muttered into his pillow, knowing she couldn't hear him. He hadn't been home one day before his mother had started in on that again. Amantea heaved a sigh. He heard the soft sounds of his mother's wings flying her away, but he still didn't move, staring at the leafy ceiling of his nest morosely.

The soft sounds of the forest were usually lulling. Birds, insects, the wind in the trees; those were the sounds of his life, the sounds that he fell asleep to and woke to in the morning. Now they grated along his nerves, reminding him he was stuck in his nest lest he be subjected to all the things he was avoiding.

Sitting up, Amantea glanced around. His nest was cozy, on the smaller side. Individual nests weren't meant to be large; they were for sleeping and for mating, and most of the faeries spent the majority of their time in the center of the group nest or in one of the nooks for schooling or harvesting seeds or otherwise not in their own nests.

Amantea had several flowers tucked around the nest, growing carefully along leafy seams. He also had several mushrooms growing at the head of his sleeping leaves, their earthy smell pervading the whole nest. Amantea bit his lip. He liked their presence. They were comforting, and he loved the way they smelled.

They would be perfect to port out of the nest without anyone noticing. If he left his nest to find mushrooms, someone might find him, force him to the center, force him to speak with the elders or his mother... but he should do that anyway. His life was here, not out searching for a dragon who was probably counting his lucky stars he wasn't stuck with a flit any longer.

Amantea snapped a mushroom stalk. He'd go out, clear his head, and then come back and deal with his mother and everything else. He could plant more mushrooms later. Biting his lip, Amantea focused on the lake shore and set his anchors.

A few minutes later, he was sitting on the rocky lakeshore, staring out at the water. It looked so small, but Amantea could still recall the cold and dark, the way the water invaded his lungs and smothered the air from them. Shivering, Amantea climbed to his feet. The hill where Isaia's house was situated wasn't far off. Amantea started walking toward it, breathing deeply as the wind brought the smell of sun-touched grass to him.

Isaia wouldn't be there. Amantea knew it. Maybe he could find one of Isaia's wraps, or some other memento. As though the dragon scale wasn't enough. Amantea slipped his hand into his pocket, running his fingers over the smooth surface of the scale. The house was still hidden, but when Amantea slipped through the trees, he could see it. The stone building looked unchanged from the last time Amantea had seen it, and he walked up to the door.

Should he knock? Or just let himself in? Isaia wasn't there, Amantea reasoned, and opened the door.

He promptly squeaked, stepped back, and shut the door, because Isaia
was
there, and he was in his smaller form, and he was entirely naked
again
.