Memory's Wake Omnibus: The Complete Illustrated YA Fantasy Series (83 page)

He was rewarded with a small smile then. “We must have at least twelve hours left, right? So let’s walk. We can walk for eleven hours, and then you can try your magic.”

Memory nodded, and her whole body swayed. If it had been anyone else, Will wouldn’t believe she’d last that long. But he knew Memory could.

“Deal,” she said. “No backsies.”

With a deadly serious shared look, they both spat in their hands and shook on it. And then they started walking.

Every step on the crackling, dead ground counted like a second ticking on a clock in Memory’s mind. When they started out she’d tried to count in her head, count the seconds, minutes, to get some idea of how long they had walked, of how much time they had left. But there were too many seconds, and minutes, and her thoughts were too addled with panic and exhaustion.

We’ll make it there in time, somehow.
That became the new mantra Memory repeated over and over instead of counting as the three of them walked in silence. Maybe Nyneve could do something for her, extend the deadline. Something. Memory kept hope alive within the burning magic in her chest. The walking was easy enough, great flat plains of hard-packed, shimmering dirt with just a few twisted trees reaching high into the air like giant beanstalks. Memory cast concerned glances at Will as they went, seeking support. The determination and courage on his face when he looked back at her hurt almost as much as it helped.

Shonae told Memory to relax. This was daytime apparently, and there would be a night. They had at least until then.

Memory stared skeptically at the dull gray sky and wondered how they would tell the difference. She couldn’t see the sun Shonae spoke of at all, only a slowly churning mass of monochrome clouds. There wasn’t even enough light to cast shadows, but Memory supposed it could get darker.
Things can always get worse
, she reminded herself.

Something in the sky moved on the horizon, and Memory swallowed hard.
Say the famous last words? Of course I did.

The wind picked up and there was a low whomping sound, ominous and drawing nearer. They all looked up, the small shreds of hope that had begun to settle on them shattering like thin ice on a lake.

There it was. The dragon.

“Just what we need,” Memory sighed, reaching for her knife.

In the dim light his black scales had no shine, making the dragon look like a shadow or silhouette in the sky rather than a real creature. He was flying low, a loping, tumbling flight that lacked the grace Memory had once seen him possess.

Even still, he flew fast and would reach them in seconds. Memory’s stomach clenched with fear at the thought of being bitten in half by those huge teeth, or set on fire by dragon breath. How badly would that hurt?

Memory knew they could not run or hide. She doubted they could fight. All they could do was wait. Will put his shoulder beside hers and they watched the dragon come to them. Shonae crumbled to the ground, her face down in the dirt in a deep kneeling bow.

The dragon landed in front of them. His feet hit the earth hard and skidded, sending puffs of dust flying up into their faces. Memory covered her eyes with her sleeve and Will coughed.

The dragon came to a stop lying on his side. Memory could see his wings were tattered. When the creature raised his head to look at the small group, it seemed to be with great effort.

Without moving his tooth-filled mouth, the dragon’s words rattled into Memory’s mind. “Hello human.”

The massive serpentine beast made no threatening move or sign that it would hurt them. He just waited.

“Hello dragon,” Memory replied, eyeing him with a confused frown. “Been a while.”

The dragon blinked huge verdant eyes. “I have been watching you since you came to our realm.”

Memory winced, both for the power of the dragon’s voice in her head, and for her failures the dragon must have observed.

Will spoke, obviously hearing everything Memory heard. “Why? What do you want?”

“I am trying to decide what it is you are doing. If you mean to harm or help the fae as we draw to our end.”

“I’m just here to save my friends. Standard search and rescue then we’re going home. I wasn’t even thinking about…”
I wasn’t even thinking about anyone else
. Memory let out a breath like she’d taken a baseball bat to the chest.
My friends are in trouble, and I wasn’t even thinking about anyone else.

Memory took a step closer to the dragon. His scales were patchy, missing in places, moldering. “Dragon, are you dying?”

“We are all dying. You already know that.” The words held no bitterness. He extended a claw so carefully toward Shonae, scooping her arms onto it and raising her back to her feet.

Shonae shivered slightly, staring with round black eyes at the dragon, but she kept her fingers wrapped around his claw as though holding hands. Shonae looked so healthy, so alive, that it was hard to understand for Memory that she could be dying. Much like most of the fae. But seeing the dragon like this made the truth suddenly sink in.

The dragon tilted his head and Memory wondered how many of her thoughts he had access to. “My time is less due to my size. I need more magic to sustain me than the little ones. But eventually all of this will end.”

“I’ve been so selfish.” Memory shook her head, staring at her feet. “I am doing everything I can to save my friends but there are so many who need help. I should be doing more.”

The dragon shifted, making a soft hushing sound in the shifting, glittered sand. “What does the fate of the fae matter to you? If you wish you can take your friends and go to the other lands. You can live there with the rest of the humans and never worry for the fate of Tearnan Ogh or Avall.”

For a brief moment, Memory tried to imagine Eloryn and Roen adjusting to life in the modern world. Eloryn would probably love the internet. Could they live there happily? What about Erec, or Clara? Then there were Roen’s parents and Lanval. Maeve, and the orphans. Bedevere and the Wizards’ Council. The rest of the castle guards and staff. Memory’s thoughts spiraled out, larger and larger, reaching farther. The teachers and students at the university and finishing school. The people she saw on the streets of Caermaellan, Maerranton markets or Elder’s Bridge Inn. All the humans of Avall. Shonae… Aine, Nyneve, Lugh. All the shimmering sprites of the Seelie Court. The banshees and trolls and gaunts of the Unseelie Court. The dragon. Every creature in Avall and Tearnan Ogh. How could she abandon any of them? How could she pick and choose who would live?

This entire world of the fae was passing into the shadows, and would take Avall with it. Avall had been created as a haven, but the constant drain of magic away to the rest of the world had wrought devastation on the fae, and it was only the fae that kept Avall habitable for the humans.

“What can I do?” Memory’s words were a mere whisper.

“I think you already know.”

Magic. Life. Like a bonfire, burning me away from the inside.

Memory nodded. Everywhere things and people were dying from a lack of magic. Could she give them hers? She took a deep breath, and reached to place a hand on the dragon’s cheek.

“Dragon, would you let me gift you with some of my magic? I have more than I can ever use and it could save you.”

His lips split, showing rows of razor tipped teeth, and a harsh gust of hot air rushed out along with a rumbling chuckle. “Oh you little human. No. I would not take your magic. It is too compressed into you, tangled up inside. Who knows what other
human
things I might get along with it?”

The dragon leaned slightly into Memory’s touch, and Memory could feel the slow pulse of his life beneath his scales.

“Besides, I am old. Older than you can imagine, human, and I am the last of my kind. Life is just a series of lonely days and nights. There is no joy in it, no thrill. My mate is now dead and without her there is no love, no way to ease the stifling boredom that is centuries piling on top of one another. I am better off dying, then I could fly free again with my mate and the others of my kind who have gone before me.”

Having grown up believing dragons only to be a myth, the idea that Memory would discover they were real only to lose them again seemed too much to bear. It hurt to speak but she did. “Dragon, our worlds will not be the same without you.”

“I agree.” The sly humor in the dragon’s voice was clear as it reverberated in Memory’s head. She smiled at the dragon as tears streamed down her cheeks. Will took and squeezed her hand and put his other on the dragon’s neck.

“Be strong, small ones. The worlds need you. And you need help now, so let me help you. I will fly you to the Unseelie Court.”

“You are not a beast of burden,” Memory said, reminding him of what he had once told her when she had a boon to request of him.

“No, but the time for old rules has past. The good fight for themselves and their friends. The great fight for everyone.”

Memory bowed her head.

“I think you are worthy of a ride, or at least, one day, you will be,” the dragon quipped. His words were light, but Memory thought she saw something on his wizened face, some emotion so close to human sorrow that it cut her to the very core.

Memory did not even bother to wipe away the tears that rolled down her cheeks. “I cannot thank you enough, Dragon.”

The dragon laid himself low and Will helped boost Memory and Shonae up, then climbed up behind them. The dragon’s back was smooth despite the scales and scars. Shonae took the webbing she had collected from the spiders and wrapped it carefully around the three of them and then around the dragon’s neck. They sat in a row with Memory up front, Will behind her and Shonae clinging tightly at the rear.

“For all the risk and danger you put me through on your journey,” Shonae snuffled, “perhaps it is worth it all, to fly on the back of a dragon.”

Memory brushed her hands across the metallic black scales she sat on.
Perhaps it is worth it all.

The dragon shifted under her, and as he raised himself up Memory gasped at how high she was, there on his back. The tattered wings spread, lifted, and pushed downwards, creating mini-tornadoes of sparkling dust as they lifted off the ground. Memory had to close her eyes when they took off and her fear mounted as they soared over treetops and higher, until the ground had vanished below the clouds they rode through.

Memory wasn’t sure the dragon would even have enough life left in him to get them safely to the Unseelie Court, but if he trusted her enough to let her ride, then she trusted him enough to try. Each dip and glide of the dragon’s wings sent her stomach swirling, and she had to crouch low against the scaly back to shelter from the rushing winds. The Rump of Steel-skin web that she clung to felt too silky and delicate to be her tether on this creature so far above the world. She knew too well what it felt like to fall.

The warmth of Will’s body behind her was reassuring, and after a while her thoughts took her mind away from her fear of falling off the dragon’s back. Tearnan Ogh was dying, the creatures and people within it were dying, and there seemed to be no way to stop all of it. She could go back to the rest of the world if need be, and take her friends with her but what about all the other humans of Avall?

How would any of the citizens of Avall survive in a world they had so long been separated from? Time had passed, and the old ways that stayed with Avall long gone. Cars and nuclear weapons had replaced swords and horses; people ate food from paper wrappers and flew in steel tubes across the sky. Would the people of Avall be able to withstand those changes without going mad?

Maybe I should have helped educate people on the modern world,
she thought tiredly
. I should have done… anything. I should have… Crudmonkeys! What is the use in thinking of what I should have done when it is obvious I need to do something right now?

But what?

Memory knew even if she could take every human from Avall into the modern world, she couldn’t take any of the fae. They couldn’t stand the abundance of iron and steel there.
What can I do to save this land and the fae and the dragon? How could one person save an entire world?

She wanted to save it. As strange and weird and terrifying as Tearnan Ogh was, it hurt her to think of it disappearing forever.

Memory wiped a tear away on her shoulder so it wouldn’t fly back and splash on Will or Shonae behind her, alerting them to her uncontrollable emotions.

Will seemed to understand anyway. “Stop worrying. Just rest. You need it.” His breath tickled her ear and his hand stroked her back.

He was right. She was beyond exhausted. They all were. Even the dragon swooped lower, floating on the updrafts and saving his waning energy.

Memory’s head sagged to one side and her body relaxing into Will’s. His heart beat below his skin and she felt it echoing into hers as she fell asleep.

“We are here,” Shonae said and Memory wished she did not hear the terror in her voice, wished she didn’t hear her at all, that she could have slept one hundred years and given up all her worries and responsibilities.

But she knew no one else could do what needed to be done. And she was starting to understand what that was.

Since Memory had slept, the world had grown darker, black like the mottled scales of the dragon they rode.

The Unseelie Court came into view, a beacon of red fire light reflecting off dark crystal under the ebony dome of the sky.

Please.
Memory said a silent prayer to anything that would listen.
Please just let my friends still be alive.