Voices of Dragons

She counted down the days to the next meeting with Artegal. She was grateful that she hadn’t been grounded or had her driver’s license confiscated after her run-in with her father. This time, she carefully constructed her story of going hiking. Asked permission in advance. Promised not to shut off her cell phone. Promised to keep an eye skyward and come home at the first sign of trouble. That said something, if her mother was still worried about trouble.

Alibi in place, she raced to the trailhead and the usual meeting place.

There was a chance he wouldn’t be there. She had no idea how the crash and its aftermath had played out on his side of the border. That was part of why she was so anxious to talk to him. What had the dragons really thought of it all? The pundits on the news shows could only speculate.

The creek was mostly frozen. Icicles, lattices, and sprays lined the bottom of the log bridge. On this su

If he didn’t show, she couldn’t even leave him a note, on the chance someone might find it. If he didn’t meet her, maybe that would be for the best. Maybe they’d both be safer if he stayed away and they never met again. But then she’d always wonder. She’d always worry that he’d been grounded, whatever dragons did to ground someone. But her heart ached at the thought of never flying again, of feeling the high wind scouring her face, and of looking down on the world as if it were a map.

She heard a brushing sound, like a branch dragged across soft earth. The creak of trees, like in a wind—but there wasn’t any wind. It was a dragon moving on foot through a forest.

Then Artegal appeared, his head leading, snaking forward on his long neck, arms and wings pulling him along. She had almost forgotten how bright his scales were, the way the mottled sunlight played off them, the way they shimmered in light and shadow, like sunlight on the ice. Her heart raced in fear at the sight of him all over again.

He saw her, blinked, and sighed, a noise like a growl. “You came.”

Her smile was thin. “So did you. I guess that means things aren’t so bad?”

“Elders understand. An accident, not an invasion.” He rumbled a growl, qualifying the statement. “Was a long argument, though.”

“Did you tell them? Did you talk to them about what happened?”

He settled on his haunches, pulling his wings close, and his lids grew heavy. Almost like a wince, Kay thought. Like he was trying to decide what to say. “I wasn’t there. Not old enough.”

“So you couldn’t—” She stopped herself. She couldn’t expect Artegal to have an influence on the dragon elders any more than she could influence her own government.

“I did what I could,” he said, fog curling from his nostrils as he sighed. “And you? Did the pilot tell?”

“No,” she said. “No one’s said anything about it.”

He grumbled, in either agreement or relief, or was simply sighing again. He looked at her, looked at the sky. “What now?”

She knew what was probably the safest thing to do—stop doing this. Stop meeting at all. Hope nothing more happened. But that didn’t feel like the right thing to do. “My mom works for border enforcement, and the thing that frustrated her most is that we didn’t have a way to talk to you guys, to explain what happened. She thought if we could just explain, everything would be all right. Instead, we sat around waiting for something bad to happen, for you to attack. If something like this happens again, we can keep talking. You and me. We have to.”

The lip curled, scales flashing. “Agreed.” Then he purred. “And the flying?”

She’d been thinking about that far too much. Because she was pretty sure she had the same gleam in her eyes that he had in his. “I don’t see how we can get away with that again. I don’t know how we got away with it before.”

“You don’t want to,” he said.

“No, I do,” she said quickly. But the consequences. It wasn’t the falling off, the getting in trouble, the lying she was having to do to keep this secret. This was so much more than staying out after curfew or getting pulled over by her sheriff father. This involved the rest of the world. “But if we got caught…I’m not sure people would understand. That we’re—”

“That we’re friends?”

She scuffed her feet in the dirt and looked up to the bright blue sky, wanting to go back there. There was still so much she hadn’t seen. But she didn’t know what she was getting into.

“My mentor would understand,” Artegal said. “Others will, too. So we should practice. In case.”

“In case?”

“In case we’re needed.”

She couldn’t imagine when that would be or what it would entail. But she remembered the first few times she went climbing, how she didn’t make any progress at all, and how her hands and arms hurt so much, she cried. But she’d practiced, until it came naturally. Artegal was right. They had to practice, if for no other reason than they may need this someday.

That was a good excuse, anyway. Really, she just couldn’t wait to fly with the dragon again.

11

Kay returned to the book, Dracopolis, continuing to try to ferret out some kind of translation. She had decided, mostly by looking at the pictures and the kind way the dragons and people regarded each other, and the angry way the men who carried the swords and spears appeared toward the end of the book, that the person who had written and drawn this had loved dragons, and hated when people fought with them. Maybe the author had some advice for a person who lived in a world where humans and dragons feared each other.

Copying out the Latin from a page that seemed to recount when the fires and wars started, she found a word she recognized: virgo. And variations: virginem, virgine. From the pictures surrounding the text, she could work out a meaning before she found a translation.

There was a sacrifice. A woman in a white gown—one of those characteristic medieval figures, flattened, with large, oval eyes, a tilted head, thin curving limbs—stood on a platform raised up in a clearing at the edge of a forest. Iron shackles, painted black, bound her to the platform. Her brown hair flowed loose down her back. She was neither smiling nor frowning, and it was hard to tell if she was really so calm or if she was simply a flat medieval drawing incapable of showing emotion.

Amid the trees, the dragon came for her. His mouth was open and filled with sharp teeth.

The virgin sacrifice. They really did it. So, according to this scene, Artegal was supposed to be eating her, not flying with her. But Kay looked, double-checked words in the online Latin dictionary, and didn’t find anything on the page that meant “eating.”

It was all so vague.

She studied the pages with references to flying. If she ever were caught and needed to defend herself, maybe she could bring the book. Work up some story about doing a history project. That would go over well.

In the meantime, they flew again. It was an all-day activity, because of how far into the hills Kay had to hike in order to reach their valley. After flying for an hour, Artegal walked back to the border as close as he could, and Kay hiked the rest of the way to her Jeep, which was hidden on a turn-off near a little-used dirt road—with all the ropes and gear slung over her shoulders. Exhausted, she then had to call Jon and tell him she was too tired to go out on a Saturday night. He’d sounded hurt and asked questions about what she’d been doing, why she was tired. She couldn’t answer, of course, and she couldn’t blame him for being grouchy. She kept assuring him that she really wanted to see him, but she wouldn’t be good company. The excuses sounded lame, but what could she tell him? The other alternative was to stop going to see Artegal, which she wasn’t going to do.