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Chapter Twenty Three

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Alvaranox dug his claws into the memory of his father and did not let go. The more he felt the collar try to drag it from him, the harder he clung to it. As Kirra quickly dried and dressed herself in her riding clothes, the dragon paced back and forth in the street in front of her home. He muttered to himself the entire time.

“My father was a black dragon,” Alv said, under his breath. “He was slender. He had blue eyes. Piercing. My father had black scales. You cannot make me forget. I remember his voice. He loved me. I rarely saw him but he loved me.”

When Kirra was ready Alv lay upon his belly and let her climb onto his back. The dragon launched himself into the air, and flew from Kirra’s house to Nylah’s. It was a very short flight and the dragon spent that time murmuring to himself about his father. Several times Kirra asked the dragon if he was alright. He assured her he was and then went right back to muttering. He landed in front of Nylah’s colorfully painted home, hoping she was awake. If not, Kirra would have to wake her.

“Go and get Nylah,” the dragon murmured. “I don’t want her yelling at me for tramping her roses.” He settled down onto his belly so Kirra could slide off of him. “My father was a black dragon.”

“Alv,” Kirra said, the sharpness in her voice nearly cut the dragon. She walked around in front of him as Alvaranox rose, and seized his muzzle in her hands. “Are. You. Alright?”

Alvaranox opened his muzzle to reply, then froze up. Fear and confusion drifted across his eyes like copper storm clouds. “No, Kirra. I am not. I am starting to fear I am…” Alvaranox did not want to say it out loud.

“You’re not going mad,” Kirra assured the dragon. She leaned forward and gave the golden spot on the end of his nose a little kiss. “But you are worrying me. You can stop repeating those things to yourself. Now that I’ve heard you say it, I won’t let you forget your father, Alv. I promise.”

“Alright, Kirra,” Alvaranox said. Then he nudged her cheek with his nose. “Go and get Nylah please.”

Kirra walked up the path to Nylah’s front door and herself in. Nylah rarely locked her door. Few people would be foolish enough to steal from someone who could send a dragon to retrieve her property. Alv watched Kirra pass by a few windows as she moved deeper into the house. Nylah’s room was near the back. Alv hoped the poor old lady wasn’t still trying to sleep off her hangover. Alv paced a few times before he spotted movement inside again. Through the window he could see Kirra and Nylah at the end of a hall. Nylah tightened her robe around herself as Kirra gestured with the frantic anxiety she tried to hide from the dragon.

Alv tried to distract himself by looking around Nylah’s yard. The roses she’d planted beneath her windows all looked healthy. A few new images adorned the one of the murals between the dark beams that formed crisscrossing diamond shapes along her walls. Nylah had added a few birds with bright red and purple feathers to the green hills and blue flowers. Nylah liked colorful things. She was a good artist, though Alv thought Kirra was better. The dragon licked his nose. He tilted his horned head back and stared up at Nylah’s massive willow. Much like the oak tree at the pub, the willow spent the last fifty years or so growing up with the dragon. When he was little he could lay comfortably beneath it, the hanging boughs tickled his wings. Though he was much larger now so was the tree and he could sprawl out beneath it just the same.

“My father was a black dragon,” Alv said, dragging his claws against the dirt packed pathway that lead from the road to Nylah’s house. “He had blue eyes. He loved me.”

The front door opened and Nylah stormed through it with such fierceness the dragon expected her to try and walk right over him. Something familiar about her outfit caught his attention. The older woman had exchanged her robe for a long-sleeved blouse dyed several shades of blue. Stylized dragon heads adorned each sleeve, stitched with silver threading. She wore a pair thick, padded brown breeches as though she expected to go tromping through some briar. Nylah had a leather cloak lined with gray fur around her shoulders.

“That’s your old riding gear, isn’t it?”

Nylah ignored the dragon’s question. She propped one hand upon waterskin that hung from her hip. Nylah was chewing on a bushel worth of freshly cut herbs. When she came to a stop she simply stared at the dragon. Her hazel eyes betrayed both anger and concern, like oil and water struggling for balance.

“Lay down so I can get on your back.” Nylah waved the herbs at the dragon.

“Good morning to you too,” Alvaranox said, lowering himself to his belly. The dragon licked his nose. “I’m sorry to have to wake you like this.”

“Nonsense,” Nylah said, shaking her head. She pulled the fur-lined hood of her cloak up and tied it beneath her chin. “I told you before, when you need help all you need to do is ask.”

It did not surprise the dragon that Nylah wasn’t angry about being awoken. She did seem angry about something, though. Alvaranox wondered if she was angry with him for something else, or if she was just angry on his behalf. She probably wouldn’t answer him either way.

“Are you alright?” The dragon asked Nylah the same question Kirra asked him earlier. He expected to get the same sort of half-true answer. “To make the trip, I mean. If you’re too hungover…”

“I’m fine,” Nylah snapped, biting off a few leaves. The bitter taste caused her face to contort for a moment.

Now Alvaranox knew what she was angry about. The concern was for him, and the anger was directed at herself, though he would not blame her for misdirecting some of that anger at anyone else. Nylah was upset that she’d let herself get so drunk the night before, and now she was feeling the worst of the aftereffects when the dragon needed her help. Alvaranox scowled, flattening his spines back. It wasn’t as though she could have known he was going to have a break down the next day. She’d needed the stress relief as much as he had.

Breakdown. Was that what he was having? The dragon snarled, scarcely noticing that the noise caused both women to give him concerned looks. He did not like that word. It made it sound as though his mind was degrading. He was sure that was not the case. It was not his mind, his mind was sound. It was just the collar twisting things in his head. It was the collar hiding some of his memories while falsifying others.

“My father was a black dragon,” Alvaranox said, flicking his ears. He glanced at the women just in time to catch them exchanging worried looks. He snorted, tossing his black-horned head. “Just climb on my back.”

“That’s what the female dragon said, isn‘t it?” Kirra giggled, quickly hauling herself up atop the dragon’s back.

Alvaranox turned his head to look back at her, smiling a little. He appreciated the attempt to make him laugh, even if he could have done without the mention of female dragons. “I think I’d have gone with a comment about mounting, but close enough.”

Kirra leaned over the dragon’s back, offering Nylah her hand. Though it had been years sine Nylah had flown atop Alvaranox, her body still remembered the motions and she took Kirra’s hand and smoothly ascended. Nylah settled in behind Kirra, looking around. Nylah laughed nervously, and when Kirra did not seem to mind, she put an arm around the younger woman’s waist for stability.

“You’ve gotten bigger since the last time I was up here,” Nylah said, running her hand against the dragon’s scales, memories drifting behind her polished topaz eyes. As Alvaranox rose to all fours, she smiled at him. “Ground looks farther away than before.”

“Going to look a lot farther away soon,” Kirra said. “Alv, walk around a little so Nylah can…”

“I’ve done this before,” Nylah said, her voice a little curt. “Just go, Alv.”

“Never carried two riders at once,” Alvaranox said, his head twisted around as he surveyed his two passengers. The added weight didn’t bother him. Nylah weighed less than Kirra did, especially as she grew older. He flared his wings and flexed them out, then pumped them halfway a few times to make sure they wouldn’t be in the way of his flight motions. Seemed an important consideration to have before he ascended. “Don’t think it will be a problem. I’ll climb gently. Hold on tight, though.”

Kirra leaned forward and wrapped her arms around the dragon’s neck. Nylah circled her grasp around Kirra. When they were as secure as possible, Alv took a few quick steps forward and launched himself into the air. By now Kirra was used to the feeling, though Nylah had almost forgotten it. She gave a tiny little scream before she clenched her jaw to cut it off. Ordinarily the dragon might have laughed but his mind was elsewhere. He looked back at the two women a few times to make sure they were still secure on his back as he began his wide, spiraling ascent into the sky above Asterryl.

“I’ve forgotten how beautiful the city looks from up,” Nylah said. She was speaking to Kirra but the dragon’s sensitive ears caught her words above the rushing the wind.

“How far outside Asterryl did you two fly, when you were younger?” Kirra turned her head to look back at Nylah.

“Not that far,” Nylah said, hunkering down behind Kirra to shield her eyes from the wind. “Not even as far as we’re going today, I suspect.”

Kirra nodded, leaning forward against the forest-green scales of the dragon’s neck. “How far are we going, Alvaranox?”

“I’m not sure, exactly.” The dragon began to pump his wings harder. He scanned the ground below. The maze-like network of streets, alleys and pathways seemed more expansive every time he took to his wings. Mixed in among them were the geometric patterns of all the old walls spread throughout the city, encircling the city in ever expanding sets of misshapen rings and boxes. “You’ll have to tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

Alvaranox stared out past Asterryl. To his eyes, the land looked green and beautiful as far as he could. “When the land is dead.”

Kirra’s grip tightened around the dragon’s neck. Alv felt Nylah shift as she tightened up her own grip around the younger woman. Alvaranox wished he had someone to cling to as well. For now he took solace in the warmth of his friends against his back, and the caress of the wind against his scales.

“Alright, Alv,” Kirra said, resting her cheek against the dragon’s scales. “It’s a little ways yet.”

Alvaranox lifted his central spines, turning his head back and forth. The Lake Of Teeth shone in the sunlight to one side of him. To the other, the outer reaches of Asterryl were giving way to alternating patches of green and brown farmland, rows of hedges and simple roads stretching between tiny villages. Snaking lines of blue water rippling over rocks and cutting between green hills ran through the lake’s drainage area. Plates and shelves of gray rock capped the taller hills.

“It’s beautiful here.” A hopeful note hung heavily in the dragon’s voice. “Isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Nylah called out. She pulled one hand away to stroke the dragon’s scales beneath her. “It’s beautiful here, Alv! So very beautiful!”

Alvaranox smiled as he flew. At least not everything beautiful he saw was a lie. No, of course it wasn’t. He saw Kirra, didn’t he? And she was beautiful. …Wasn’t she? The dragon turned his head back to look at the two women. Both had their hoods up, their cloaks rustled as heavy winds buffeted them. From beneath their hoods, each gave him looks that were as confused as they were concerned.

“Nylah,” Alvaranox said, turning his gaze back to the horizon. “Describe Kirra.”

“What?” Alvaranox didn’t have to look back again to know the two of them were staring at each other in befuddlement.

The dragon kept his voice as patient and even as he could. “Describe Kirra.”

“She’s earnest,” Nylah began. “Certainly caring. Very hardworking…”

“Describe her appearance!” Alvaranox snapped his jaws in frustration.

Nylah gave a little murmur as she caught on. “She has red hair, fair skin. She has green eyes. She’s always struck me as looking a bit youthful for her age…”

“For my age?” Kirra scoffed, than laughed. “I’m less than half your age, Old Lady, I’d better still look youthful.”

Nylah laughed with her friend. “If I’m honest, the last few months of worry while you were being nursed back to health have aged her a little. But a few lines here and there just add character. She’s also put on just a little weight lately while she’s been stuck sitting around with you all day. That’s alright, it gives me something to tease her about.”

“As though you needed anything else to tease me about,” Kirra said, smirking at her friend over her shoulder. Curls of red hair billowed about, seeking escape from the confines of her green hood. “Not everyone can be skin and bones like you.”

“I wasn’t always skin and bones, you know.” Nylah playfully squeezed Kirra’s middle. “Besides, men like a little cushioning! Why do you think tavern wenches are so…”

“Nylah!” Kirra said, cutting off her friend with a laugh.

“If she were a dragon,” Alvaranox said, perking his ears. “It would mean she was a healthy, well-fed female and a strong hunter.”

“You’d find that attractive, would you?” Nylah called out over Kirra’s shoulder.

“I would, yes,” Alvaranox said.

“What about in a human?” Nylah asked, unable to help but tease both her friends at the same time.

“I refuse to answer that.” Alvaranox shared a smile with only the wind. “On the grounds that if I do, I shall be teased without mercy for the rest of my days.”

“There might be a little mercy,” Nylah said, laughing.

Kirra patted his neck. “A day off or two.” She smiled at him, then leaned back against Nylah a little more. “Alvaranox?”

The dragon’s frilled green ears flicked. She did not use his full name often. “Did the description match?”

Alvaranox’s smile grew. “Yes, Kirra. It matched. That is how I see you. At least the collar hasn’t hid everything of beauty from me.”

Kirra smiled, her face reddening beneath the shadows of her cloak. Nylah grasped Kirra’s hand and gave it a squeeze. The older woman called out to the dragon. “You see? You two make perfect companions!”

“Yes, yes,” Alvaranox muttered. “Don’t rub it in, Old Lady.”

“Don’t rub what in?” Kirra twisted around, trying to glare at Nylah.

“Quit squirming.” Alvaranox snorted. “If you both fall, I’m going to save the one who didn’t make you fall.” Alvaranox licked the golden spot on his nose. “And you know what she’s talking about. She’s only been trying to get me to trust you for the last year, or so. Made sure to give us a chance to spend a little more time together once I’d done so.”

Kirra suddenly gasped, twisting again. “You never hurt your back, did you!”

Nylah burst out laughing, squeezing Kirra’s hand again. “Not as bad as I made it out to be, anyway.”

“Congratulations on catching up to the rest of the class, Kirra.”

Kirra huffed, pulling her hand away from Nylah’s. She folded her arms beneath her cloak. “I don’t like being deceived. Even for a good purpose.” Then she softened her tone a little, grinning while no one could see. “But I do like being called beautiful.” SHe unfolded her arms to stroke the dragon’s neck. “So I’m only angry with Nylah.”

Nylah simply laughed, patting Kirra’s hip. “You’re going to have to try a lot harder than that to make me think you’re angry.”

Kirra smirked a little. “You could have told me, though.”

“You’d have felt awkward,” Nylah said, lowering her own voice. The dragon heard her anyway. “As though I was putting you on the spot, or testing you. It had to be natural for you.” Nylah leaned back, smiling. “And it seems it went quite well. You two are closer than ever.”

“I thought I told you not to rub it in,” Alvaranox said, hissing.

“I taught him about thistles!” Kirra giggled, straightening up. “And we went swimming. He even let me hold onto his tail spines so he could pull me around through the water.”

“Did he?” Nylah sounded genuinely surprised by that. “You never let me do that.”

“You never asked,” the dragon said, smirking. “Besides, you got nervous in the deeper water.”

“Kirra is a far better swimmer than I,” Nylah said, turning her gaze out across the land. “Besides. You rarely swam anywhere near the city, and you never wanted to take me to your island.”

Alvaranox had no reply for that. A wave of unexpected guilt crested over his heart. All the years he’d been friends with Nylah, and she’d never been to his private sanctuary. He knew that she let Kirra go in her stead when he finally offered, but he hoped she did not feel any jealous or regret over that. The place had been a refuge for him, the solitude a warm comfort. Only when that comfort turned to cold loneliness had he wished to share that place with anyone else.

Anyone other than Rain.

“Rain,” the dragon said. Fear tightened the dragon’s voice, propelled his heart. “She’s real, isn’t she? Kirra saw some of her scales, so of course she is. Isn‘t she?”

“You never brought her to meet us, Alv,” Nylah said gently. “But I saw her at a distance more than once, and she flew well overhead one day.”

“Describe her,” Alvaranox said.

“She was blue, for the most part,” Nylah said, trying to focus on those memories. It had been a long time since Alv’s old mate was around. “But she had other colors too. Mostly purple, I think. A bit slender for a dragon, I seem to recall wondering if she’d had enough to eat lately. Seemed healthy though, best I could tell. Definitely female. Missing a few key elements of your anatomy, after all.”

Alvaranox chuckled low in his throat. “Thank you, Nylah. That is how I remember her, as well. Blue and purple, and beautiful. But…I remember her being curvy, not slender.” The dragon narrowed his eyes, growing in thought.

Kirra patted his neck. “I’m sure dragons and humans have different definitions of curvy and slender.”

“And I didn’t get that good a look at her, Alv,” Nylah said, tugging her hood forward over bits of frizzy gray hair sticking out. “It’s quite likely that she only seemed slender by comparison to you. Male dragons might be much bulkier, and we might have just been fattening you up at the time.”

Alvaranox sighed, splaying out his crests till the black markings showed against the green membranes. “I suppose the important thing is that she is as I remember her.” He turned his head to smirk back at the other two. “I’d have felt quite odd if you told me Rain was in fact, male.”

Kirra and Nylah both laughed at that. Kirra leaned her cheek against his neck, staring out over the world. “That would have changed your outlook on a few things!”

“I’d have gotten over it eventually,” Alvaranox said, glancing back.

“Dragon’s don’t have many concerns about what gender they like, hmm?”

Alvaranox splayed his ears out at the sides of his head, flaring out the spines behind them. “I like females, obviously.” He tossed his head. “But if another male dragon prefers other males, what do I care? Dragons view that sort of thing in very simple terms. You like what you like. You humans seem to make mating and sharing pleasure far more complicated than it has to be.”

“A rather nice view, actually,” Nylah said, folding her arms beneath her cloak.

“Probably comes from having difficult lives, with humans always trying to hunt you down,” Alvaranox replied, licking his nose. “Enjoy what you enjoy, while you have the chance to enjoy it.”

“What about dragons who like humans?” Kirra giggled, tracing a circle around a single scale while she teased the dragon. “Or like to see human woman naked?”

“Is this a dragon we know?” Nylah asked, unable to help herself from joining in.

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Alvaranox snapped. “But, I suppose it’s the same. You like what you like. Now, if you two old betties will stop gossiping and teasing me about my mating preferences and start looking out for signs we’re reaching the dead world, I’d be quite appreciative.”

“He must be talking to you, Nylah,” Kirra said, working her fingers against the hilt of the knife strapped around her waist. “Cause I’m certainly not an old anything!”

Nylah just laughed and slapped Kirra across the back of her head.

“Ow, Nylah!” Kirra rubbed her head, then pulled her hood tighter against the wind.

“That will be Lady Nylah again, if you insist on pointing out my superior age.”

“Not sure that superior is the word I would use,” Kirra said, giggling inside her hood.

Alvaranox was happy to use the women’s friendly spat to keep himself distracted from his own worries. He glanced back at them, grinning. “Not to cold up here for your old bones, is it Nylah?”

“Oh, get mounted, Dragon,” Nylah said, grinning right back at him.

“You see, Kirra?” Alvaranox said, turning his eyes back to the horizon. Everything looked so green to him. “It’s Nylah’s fault I have a dirty mouth. I pick it up from her.”

As Alvaranox flew on, he kept his copper gaze focused upon the horizon. The dragon half expected to find the edges of the world turning red and cracked yet all he saw were endless green hills and splotches of colorful wildflowers. It dismayed the dragon to think that everything he’d enjoyed in the wilds beyond the limits of humanity might well be a lie. Alvaranox let the women talk amongst themselves for a while, drifting upon his thoughts just as he drifted upon the winds.

When the women fell silent, the dragon knew he must be getting close. He had not yet gotten within sight of the ruins he’d taken Kirra to, but was nonetheless well beyond his hunting grounds outside Asterryl. The dragon looked across the land below him. The ruins of a small village lay scattered around tall but gently sloped grassy hill. The place lay abandoned long enough that the only remaining structures were the framework of houses, and the crumbling stone foundations of a small church that once topped the rise. A little ways off, a a picturesque blue stream snaked around the empty village and the hill.

“How about this place?” Alvaranox called back to his riders. “You’ve both gone quiet. It’s dead out here, isn’t it.”

“It’s…awfully close,” Nylah said, her somber voice nearly lost among the winds.

“Then this is as far as we need to go.” The dragon dipped a wing, banking into a descending spiral. “I’m going to land on that hill, if it looks safe to you two.”

“That’s fine, Alv. You see the ruins there, right?”

Alv growled to himself. “Yes, Kirra.”

“Just didn’t want you to crash into them because you couldn’t see them.”

That coaxed a bitter chuckle from the dragon. “I doubt the collar would hide anything from me that might get me killed. Don’t think I’d be much good to it if I broke my neck flying right into some old wall.”

The dragon circled the hill a few times, descending lower each pass until he touched down upon his hind paws. Nylah held Kirra tightly, and Kirra clung to the dragon in turn during the bumpiest part of his landing. After the dragon was on all four paws and had trotted to a stop, the two women relaxed. Alvaranox lowered himself to his belly. Kirra climbed down first and then offered Nylah her hand to help her down as well. Nylah smiled, and accepted her assistance.

Once both women were off of him, Alvaranox remained on his belly for a moment, relishing the feel of sun-warmed grass against his underbelly scales. As Nylah and Kirra walked around a little, Alv ran his paw back and forth against the green grass. It felt so soft. He dragged his claws through it, the scents of freshly shredded grass and rent earth filled his nose. He lowered his head, biting off a mouthful of long, green grass. He chewed it, it tasted fresh and wet. The dragon spat it out.

“Is there even grass here?” Alvaranox lifted his head, turning his wounded gaze onto Kirra.

Kirra walked around to the dragon’s head, and cupped his pebbly scaled cheek in her hand. “There is, but most of it is dead. It almost looks as though it springs up after a rain, and then just…dies away again.”

The dragon sighed, and pushed himself up to his paws. He padded around the hill a little bit. He saw none of that. He saw only thick, lush green grass peppered with red and purple. A fresh crop of wildflowers that had sprung up all across the hill. Bees buzzed all around them. Birds swooped over a distant hill, chasing insects. The dragon gazed down at the ruined village below. There were remains of a dozen buildings scattered around the area, though nothing more than broken framework remained of any of them. It looked as though the place had been abandoned, and yet the dragon wondered if there was not more to it.

“Kirra,” Alvaranox said, opening a wing to gesture at the village with it. “Do you see anything down there? Any bones or anything?”

Kirra walked to the dragon’s side, staring down into the village. “Not from up here, Alv. I’d have to go down there and look around. I can, if you want.”

“No,” Alv said, shaking his horned head. “That’s alright.”

Alvaranox had subjected Kirra to enough corpses already. The dragon walked back towards the top of the rise. Nylah was picking around in the ruins of the old church. Several broken walls of misshapen gray stone blocks stood sentinel over rotting wooden pews. Tendrils of thorny bramble with serrated red and green leaves climbed across the tallest wall. Their leaves rustled in the breeze. Nylah picked up a broken stone, turned it over in her hands, and then tossed it away.

“Careful, Nylah,” the dragon called out. “There might be…”

“Hmm?” Nylah glanced up at him. She stepped over a pile of rubble on her way back to the dragon. “Lovely spot for a church. Pity it didn’t last.” She put her hand on the dragon’s neck, gently stroking his scales. “What were you saying?”

“Nothing,” Alv murmured, closing his eyes. He was going to warn Nylah that there could be venomous things lurking beneath stones and debris. Then he realized that if Kirra was right, there was nothing living out here at all.

“Place looks awfully old,” Nylah said, walking past Alvaranox to peer down at the remains of the village. “Wonder how long it’s been empty?”

“Probably not as long as the last ruins Alv took me too.” Kirra grit her teeth a moment, pulling her green hood back. Curls of red hair sprang free. “That place seemed as though it had been and gone a lot longer. It was also a lot bigger.”

“How far away is that from here?” Nylah followed Kirra’s lead, tugging back her own hood till her frizzy gray hair was billowing in the breeze.

“Not that much further, as long as you’re riding a dragon.” Kirra chuckled. “There’s a bridge out there that some of the travelers still use, it’s the only way to get a wagon or a carriage across this big gully for quite a few miles. I think it also keeps them clear of Va’chaak terrain. And come to think of it, traveling through an empty land probably means less bandits and beasts to worry about.”

“True enough.” Nylah walked a little ways down the slope to get a better look at the village. “Wonder what happened here?”

“Monsters is my guess,” Kirra said. She walked to the dragon and stroked the scales of his shoulder. “As the land beyond dies off, the monsters start running out of food and water, and go searching for more. A bunch of tasty humans must have been irresistible.”

“That’s why you need me,” Alvaranox murmured to himself.

“What?” Kirra glanced up at him.

“The land is dying. The more the beasts of the world starve, the more they prey upon humanity.” The dragon turned his head to gaze down at Kirra. “They’re not monsters. They’re just hungry, and the villages around Asterryl are filled with food.”

Nylah began to trudge back up the hill. “Collar used to send him out to deal with monsters quite a bit. And bandits. Probably looking for food too, or at least easy coin to buy it with.”

“When’s the last time it sent you after monsters?” Kirra chewed on her lip, then amended herself when the dragon glared at her. “Sorry. Beasts.”

“It’s been a while.” The dragon settled upon his haunches, curling his spined tail in thought. “I think the last time was some far flung farm beset by a pack of Vargeeth.”

“Did they make it?” Kirra rubbed Alv’s shoulder again. “The people I mean, not the Vargeeth. I mean, not that I think Vargeeth should die just for being monsters. Er, beasts. For being hungry. I just meant…”

“The farmer’s family survived,” the dragon said. He growled under his breath. “The Vargeeth did not.”

“I’m sure you did what you had to do.”

“They were teaching their pack’s pups how to hunt,” the dragon said, staring at the vines that lay in green lays against the gray stone. “I wanted to spare them, but when the adults were dead, the farmers went after the rest of them, and the collar wouldn’t let me stop them. They said if they grew up they’d only come back to eat them.”

“It’s cold,“ Nylah said, walking up alongside the dragon. “but, the farmer may have had a point. And he had his own family to look after…”

“Isn’t that what a human would say to justify killing a dragon hatchling?” Alvaranox glared down at Nylah. “Kill it now, because it will grow into a monster?”

“I think that’s a different situation, Alv,” Nylah said, gentle as could be.

Alvaranox took a deep breath, his green chest plates expanding. He held it till his vast lungs burned and then exhaled in a great, heaving sigh. “I do not mean to lay the blame for others actions at your feet, Nylah. But it did not feel different to me at the time. And it does not feel different to me now. Your people are so often quick to condemn anything they see as a monster. To take its life not because it is dangerous, but because it may some day be dangerous. If I wasn’t put in this damnable collar when I was young, your people probably would have slain me, too.” Alvaranox tilted his head back to stare up at the sky. It seemed so blue yet so empty. “As I have begun to suspect they slew my father, and later my mother.”

Nylah and Kirra both recoiled from the dragon. Kirra gasped in horror, but Nylah simply looked away. Alvaranox glanced at the older woman. She seemed to share his fear while Kirra looked as though this was the first time she’d ever considered such a possibility. The dragon drummed his fingers against the grass, and then shook his head. Both women looked as though they were about to say something, but the green dragon cut them off with a snarl.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, lifting his spines. “And I do not mean to imply that either of you or anyone living today had anything to do with their deaths. It’s just…” The dragon flicked his black-mottled wings open, stretched them to their full extent, and then folded one of them back against his sides. “It’s just a theory.” He folded his other wing over Kirra and used it to pull her up against his body. “Let’s get this over with.”

Kirra’s mouth hung open for long moments. It was clear to the dragon she had more she wanted to say, but whatever it was, she kept it to herself. It was for the best. Alvaranox was not in the mood to hear her apologize for something she had nothing to do with, or suggest he was over thinking things. He wasn’t really in the mood for much discussion of anything right now. He simply wanted to do what he’d come here to do. At his other side, Nylah looked a little forlorn. The dragon opened his other wing to hug her up against his body as well. With his wings, the dragon hugged both his friends against himself, a silent but effect mending of any minor cracks their friendship might have born.

Alvaranox’s breathing eased a little as both women stroked his scales. “Go on, Kirra,” the dragon said, lowering his head to make the collar more accessible. “Let’s see if this works or not.”

Kirra nodded and put her hand upon the dragon’s neck. Alvaranox felt her warm fingers trembling. When her fingers brushed the collar, a tingle ran through the dragon. He shivered, his scales clicked together and his spines all flared out. The dragon’s belly twisted in cold, painful knots. He unsheathed his claws and sunk them into the earth. His breath trembled. The distant horizon flickered, shaking.

Kirra’s voice echoed in his head though she spoke no words aloud. Let him see. Show him the real word. Let him see what I see. Pull back your veil of lies and show him the dying world as it really is.

In the back of the dragon’s mind, a bell tolled. The dragon smirked at the collar’s protest. “The collar dislikes lately, Kirra.”

Kirra leaned her head against the dragon’s scales. “The collar can kiss your green stones, Alv.”

The dragon’s smirk grew. “That’s the spirit.”

Kirra lifted her other hand to press both palms against the collar’s engraved surface. Let him see what I see. Stop hiding the world from him. Open his eyes.

Alvaranox’s mind felt distended, as though Kirra’s thoughts were a physical thing filling it up, bulging against its walls. He groaned, but did not pull away. Tingles ran down his spine, his tail spikes trembled. He stared out across the moors and at the edges of his vision, the horizon grew darker. The world around him flickered from green to brown and back again. From life to death and back to life.

Kirra’s thoughts continued to roll around inside his mind but they no longer had words to give them form. Instead they were shapeless ideas, concepts that occasionally coalesced into wavering images. Alvaranox saw dead grass all around him, broken only by occasional patches of faint green. The vines that had sprung up over the church’s wall were long dead, the leaves dried and falling from the thorny, desiccated stalk.

Just as Alvaranox thought it was working, a single blink wiped the dead world away like crust from his eye, and replaced it with a familiar emerald moor. Patches of gray heather sprung up all across the hills. Wild flowers waved in the pleasant breeze. The vine was not only alive but actively creeping up the wall, curling over the top of it. Patches of color bloomed before his eyes as an entire life cycle of wildflowers played out in an instant.

In the dark recesses of his mind, caution prickled at the dragon’s thoughts. Perhaps this was a bad idea. The collar might react to their attempts to remove the shroud of lies by reinforcing it. Tenuous as its hold upon his mind now seemed to be there was no telling what form that might taken. The dragon pressed on. He had not come all the way out here just to give up as soon as things grew uncomfortable.

“I think it’s working Kirra,” the dragon said, his voice little more than a murmur. Kirra was focused now and he did not want to distract her. When they’d visited Guardian’s lost home, Alv saw dead grass for a moment when her fingers brushed the collar. Now though, a lapse no longer than a heartbeat was not good enough. “Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.”

“I see green grass,” Kirra mumbled. “I see the moors…they go on forever…It’s beautiful.”

Alvaranox saw it too. The world had stopped changing, and once more resembled the endless emerald expanse he remembered growing up in. For a moment he was heartened that Kirra finally got to see the beautiful world he once tried to show her. His heart soon sank when he realized that knowing what the dragon thought he saw would probably break Kirra’s heart. But he had to know. He had to be sure.

“Keep going,” the dragon said, his voice a half-choked growl.

Nylah pressed herself to the dragon’s scales. She stroked his shoulder and the top of his foreleg, trying to keep him comforted. They both knew that whatever Kirra was doing to the collar, Nylah could not do it. Any connection she once held with the collar was severed when Kirra took her place as Handler. But Alv brought her here for her friendship and her support, and that was just what she was providing.

Kirra’s breath was a steadying whisper upon his mind. It blew through the leaves in the trees the dragon saw in the distance. Without realizing it, Alv’s breathing began to match Kirra’s. He stared out across the horizon, darkness was creeping in from the edges of his vision. Roiling storm clouds began to form, a line of dark gray boils upon the distant land. Flashes of lightning and sparks of fire glowed beneath the clouds.

“Nylah,” Alv said, tightening his wings against the women. “Is there a storm in the distance?”

“No, Alv,” Nylah said. “It’s blue as far as I can see.”

Kirra’s hands began to tremble against the collar. Should I stop?

“No,” the dragon answered her aloud. “Unless it hurts. Don’t endanger yourself.”

Alvaranox had no idea if this was difficult for Kirra. If this was causing her to strain herself somehow, if this hurt her, he would not want her to continue. He felt Nylah tense up against his side. He could not blame the woman for being anxious, not between the talk of a storm she could not see and his warning to Kirra. The dragon was nervous too. The larger the distance storm clouds grew, the more his belly tightened. Though he had not eaten, his belly churned far too much for him to feel any hunger. If there was food in the dragon’s stomach he’d probably retch.

The boiling clouds on the horizon began to march across the land, growing larger by the moment. The storms swept over the world in the way of dreams, covering a great distance in mere moments, a stuttering, stop and go cascade of constantly swelling storm clouds. As the clouds swelled and drew near, they sucked the color from the land. Swirling funnels of green twisted up into the air, speckled with flashes of red and purple. Bolts of blue-white lightening struck the earth, sending flames hurtling across the land. Then even the orange glow of the fire was pulled into the storms, a churning maelstrom of whirling colors and gray clouds that blasted across the dragon.

Alvaranox grit his teeth to keep from screaming. His whole body shook, his breath caught in his lungs. The dragon told himself this was not real. This was not real. And yet he felt the wind rushing over his scales. He felt bits of debris biting at his wings. Shredded grass and torn flower petals clung to his scales. The maelstrom tore the life from the land and left only a barren waste. At the center of that waste there was a box made of shadow. All the colors that drained from the land rushed in streams across the ground, funneling into the box as it leeched away the world’s life.

“Alv,” Nylah said, her voice a lifeline tossed for the dragon to cling too.

“My father was a black dragon,” Alv said. The words were practically his mantra now. He knew his father was a black dragon. “My father had blue eyes.” He knew his father had blue eyes, so rare among dragons. “My father loved me.” He knew his father loved him. So long as he knew all those things, surely he could find his way through any other falsehood.

The maelstrom of color and fury faded, the box of shadow sunk into the earth. All that remained was a barren, lifeless hill, an empty village and a dying land. Alvaranox felt Kirra shaking against him, her fingers remained on the collar but she was starting to sag against his wing. The dragon’s breathing eased again, his copper eyes wide and filled with unspoken sorry. For the first time in memory Alvaranox saw the world beyond Asterryl as it truly was and it was a horrible place.

The green moors had long since faded. Everywhere he looked the land was barren and brown. The grass was dead and dry in all but a few isolated patches. Even there it clung to life as a fading shadow itself. The trees in the distance bore only a few fading leaves among empty branches. There was no stream that ran around the hill. There was only an empty streambed, dry cracked earth ran in both directions as far as he could see. Only a few muddy patches lined with stunted, thirsty reeds attested to the fact there had ever been water there. Even those were only memories of rain.

There were no birds in the sky and no insects for them to chase. There were no wildflowers and no bees. No deer nor three-horn roamed the dead hills. The only signs of life at all were the footprints the three of them left in the dry grass. In some places it crumbled to dust beneath the woman’s boots and the dragon’s paws. The dragon remembered the mouthful of grass he’d spat out. It tasted so fresh, and yet now the taste of old straw lingered upon his tongue.

There was no beautiful wild. There was no endless moor. The only lush green lands that remained where those all around Asterryl, but beyond those there was only a dying land. There was only desolation. Somewhere beyond the ruins of Guardian’s old home, there was cracked red earth and broken black stone. The wasteland was creeping ever closer, and between it and Asterryl the land was dying.

Fragments of broken memory drifted through the dragon’s mind, uninvited and unwelcome. The smell of dying grass. The feel of it crunching under his paws. The gnawing pain of daily hunger. The smell of his mother’s fear. The taste of muddy water. The feel of wet earth caking his tongue.

Digging in the dirt.

In those muddy patches in a stream, where filthy water lingered beneath the surface. Enough to keep a dragon alive a little longer.

Alvaranox felt Kirra shaking, and he lifted his head, pulling the collar away from her. He had seen enough, and she was pushing herself too far. As soon as Kirra’s fingers broke contact with the collar, the memory faded, replaced by green grass and clean, burbling water. The same things filled his vision. The earth shook before his eyes as the collar painted the brilliant colors of life across the world once more. Yet to Alvaranox, the green world looked faded and haunted, a specter of a life in a place where there was none to be found.

Kirra stumbled on her feet, and the dragon held her against his body with his wing. He turned his head, concern etching lines in the pebbly scales of his muzzle. He pinned his ears back, watching as Kirra pressed a hand to her head. “Are you alright, Kirra?”

Nylah rushed around the dragon to assist her friend. She took Kirra by the arm and gently eased her down into a seated position. Kirra groaned, and Nylah repeated the dragon’s question. “Are you alright, Kirra?”

Kirra settled onto her rump, and gave a weak nod. “I’m alright, thank you. Just…took more out of me than I expected. I had to really focus. It was…it was like there was a wall in Alv’s mind, with a tiny gap in it. I tried to force that gap open and let the light spill through. At first I saw what he sees, but…the more I focused, the more everything just…grew dark. There were…storm clouds…”

“Relax, Kirra,” Alvaranox said. “Just rest.”

Nylah pulled her waterskin from her belt, uncapped it and offered it to Kirra. “Here. Have some water.“

Kirra gratefully accepted it and took a long drink. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Did it work?” She peered up at the dragon, her eyes were pools of emerald worry. Hard as this had been on her, and her only concern remained the dragon.

Alvaranox smiled at Kirra. He stretched his wing out to shade the two women from the sun. The green of Kirra’s eyes was so beautiful. So real. “Yes, Kirra. It worked. I have seen the world as it really is, and it is a place of terrible desolation.”

Kirra sighed, and nodded. She took another drink, and handed the waterskin back to Nylah. “Now we just have to figure out why the collar doesn’t want you to know.” With Nylah’s help, Kirra eased back to her feet. “And how the damn collar expects you to stop this desolation from reaching Asterryl.”

---

Chapter Twenty Four

---

“My father was a black dragon. He had blue eyes. He loved me. My father was a black dragon…”

“I know Alv,” Kirra said, lifting her eyes from her drawing to gaze over at the dragon. He murmured to himself as he lay sprawled upon his soft things. Alvaranox kneaded one of his blankets beneath his fore paws. “You’ve told me about a million times.” Kirra knew that wasn’t why the dragon kept repeating it, but a little teasing and a little smile would do him good. “Do you want to see how it’s coming along?”

Alvaranox lifted his head. The dragon’s copper eyes looked unfocused for a moment before they fixed upon Kirra. Alv nodded, and Kirra turned her sketchpad around to show him her latest drawing. Alv peered at it for a moment before he smiled, flicking his frilled ears in approval.

“It looks good.”

Kirra pursed her lips a moment, twining her fingers around a curl of red hair as she rested the sketching pad in her lap. “But does it look right?”

Alvaranox smirked at her a little. “Best I can remember.”

“That’s all we can hope for, right?” Kirra smiled at the dragon again. She released her hair and selected another charcoal stick cut to a sharper point than the last one. She added a few lines to the image. “If you think if anything else its going to need, just let me know.”

“Alright, Kirra.” The dragon curled a little tighter atop his sprawling pile of softness. He stared out the window a moment. “My father was a black dragon.”

Kirra let him murmur. She tapped her charcoal stick on the top of the pad she watched the green dragon. Alv’s hide curtains were pulled back, and beads of rain dripped down the glass. The dragon’s usually-copper eyes held a pale silver hue, reflecting the cold, gray light that filtered through the rain clouds. Kirra could almost see the rain running down Alvaranox’s eyes like streams of memories wiped away every time he blinked.

Kirra looked down at her pad again. She’d nearly completed her latest drawing. A slender male dragon with scales of shadowy black sprawled across the parchment. Kirra tried to gift the dragon an aloof demeanor. The slender, scaly creature stood with his horned head lifted high in the air, spines flared out. His wings were half extended, one of them looked as though it were sheltering something. She’d added a bit of shadowing beneath it to hint at the tiny figure she imagined hiding beneath that wing.

Kirra told Alv she wouldn’t let him forget his father, and she meant it. Getting a sketch that looked right to Alv was the first part of the process. She’d been through a few of them already, trying to jog his memory or find one that seemed familiar. Now that they’d settled on a close approximation, she was just adding the details and the shadowing. Kirra planned to use the image as a guide to paint a much larger version. A portrait of Alvaranox’s father he could hang on the wall of his home.

“I think this one’s nearly done,” Kirra said, as much to distract Alv from his thoughts and murmuring whispers as anything else. “Before I start painting it, you’ll have to help me settle on the right shade of blue for his eyes. You said it was pale, right?”

“Very pale,” Alvaranox said, turning his head back towards Kirra. She forced herself not to scowl at all the pained uncertainty filling the dragon’s eyes. “It’s a rare color, actually.”

“Is it?” Kirra smiled at him. She set that sketchpad down and picked up another one, looking over the half drawn image of a female dragon and a bouncy hatchling. “Do most dragons have copper eyes like you?”

“Some,” Alvaranox said. “Not all.” Alvaranox rubbing one forepaw with the other, sighing. “Rain had silver eyes. Pale silver, almost like moonlight.”

“What about silver?” Kirra asked, starting to add a few new lines to the half-completed drawing of Alvaranox’s mother and himself as a hatchling. She wanted to keep him talking, not thinking. “Are those common eyes for dragons?”

“Relatively so,” Alvaranox replied, licking at the golden spot on the end of his nose. “Especially for females. At least as far as I know.”

“As far as you know is still a lot farther than I know,” Kirra said, giggling to herself. She licked the tip of her charcoal stick, heedless of the little gray mark it left upon her tongue. She added a bit of shading. “Did your mother teach things like that? From what you can still remember?”

“Some,” Alvaranox said. He turned one of his fore paws over and rubbed at the fat pink scar that marked it. “I learned more about our kind from the other dragons I met when I was younger. When Rain and a few others still lingered in the wilds outside Asterryl.” A bitter smirk crossed Alvaranox’s muzzle. “At least I know why she’s not here anymore.”

“Alv,” Kirra said, shaking her drawing utensil at him. “She’s probably fine. Probably just got uncomfortable having to hunt her food too close to Asterryl, and flew off. And I’m sure the same is true of the others. When we go to visit some of the other towns, maybe we’ll see them.”

Alvaranox snorted, flaring his frills at Kirra till the black mottling on the membranes between the spines stood out. “Yes, I’m sure they have fled the dying wilds in order to go live a civilized life. Probably sitting around in oversized houses like this…” He waved his paw at the log-hewn walls around him. “Drinking tea and eating biscuits and exchanging gossip with the local maids.”

Kirra giggled to herself. Bitterness may have been the fuel to the dragon’s sarcasm but it was an amusing image nonetheless. “Now that sounds like something else I’ll have to draw. But that’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

Kirra went back to her drawing, though a scowl tugged at her lips. She hated seeing Alv put through all this. His life would have been so much easier if he still thought the wilds beyond Asterryl were infinitely green and…no. His life was already unfairly painful, and it was better he knew the truth. Kirra hoped that after he’d had a few days to come to terms with everything, he’d feel a little better about it.

“What did you mean then?” The dragon sounded sullen, staring down at the floorboards beneath the edges of his soft things.

“Don’t mope, Alv,” Kirra said. She kept her reproach gentle, she did not want to come across as chiding the poor dragon. “I meant there is still plenty of wild land between Asterryl and the other towns. There’s wilderness around much of the Lake Of Teeth. And beyond the furthest of the four other towns from here, there’s plenty of wild land before the roads lead anywhere near any sort of kingdom.” Kirra smiled, and exchanged her charcoal stick for a cookie studded with bits of fruit. She had a whole platter of them sitting alongside her. “Catch.”

Kirra tossed the cookie at the dragon, and Alv snapped it out of the air in his jaws. The dragon looked like a big green dog learning a new trick, and it made Kirra laugh. Her laughter continued even as Alv glared at her before he licked crumbs from his nose. Kirra nibbled on a cookie of her own till Alv opened his jaws and held them open, waiting for another treat. She held her own cookie in her teeth, and tossed another one to the dragon. He caught it out of the air just as easily.

“At least you’re easy to train,” Kirra said, wiping crumbs from her lips.

“On the contrary,” Alvaranox said, smirking. “I am the one who has trained you.”

“That’s probably true, actually.” Kirra finished off her cookie, then stared at the rain pattering against the window behind the dragon. It had rained all day, but at least it was a gentle rain. “What I was trying to suggest Alv, is that there is plenty of wild land left out there where dragons would be happy to make their homes.”

The dragon took a deep breath. Kirra thought if his chest plates expanded any further they were going to pop right off his skin. He let out a long sigh, then licked his nose again. “Perhaps you are right. Now give me another damn cookie.”

“Only if you stop acting like such a grumpy lizard,” Kirra said, grinning him.

In truth, if she was in Alvaranox’s stead she doubted she would have handled things half as well as he had. It wasn’t as though her own methods of coping were exactly the healthiest. Kirra simply did not have the privilege of letting herself fall into worry and despair over a creeping wasteland, a dying world, and a box of shadow that now sat just beyond Asterryl’s walls. Alvaranox needed her, and she would do the dragon no good if she fell into despair. Kirra had to be strong for Alvaranox, and she would do whatever she must to offer him that strength. Even if it meant swallowing up her own fears and forgetting them as often as possible.

“I am not a grumpy lizard,” Alvaranox said, tossing his head. “I’m not a lizard at all.”

“Are you sure?” Kirra picked up another cookie, waggling it in the air. “You look like a lizard to me. You’ve got all those scales, and those beady little lizard eyes.”

“I don’t have beady eyes!” Alvaranox jerked his head back, soon narrowing his decidedly non-beady eyes when he realized Kirra was teasing him. “Such a little harlot sometimes, Kirra.”

“Got you to forget your worries for a moment, didn’t it?” Kirra made a show of eating the cookie herself, stuffing the whole thing in her mouth in a few bits. Alvaranox whined and hung his head. Kirra laughed, spitting a few cookie crumbs into the air. After she swallowed her mouthful of cookie, she smirked at the dragon. “I was going to give you that, till you called me names.”

“You deserved it for inferring I was a lizard.” Alvaranox thumped his tail against the floor, the clattering of spines was muffled by the blankets. “I’d wager my blood is warmer than yours.”

“Let’s not wager on that,” Kirra said, pushing the pile of cookies towards the dragon. “I’ve seen enough of your blood already.”

Alvaranox snacked his head forward and dropped it down till he took the edge of the platter in his teeth. He pulled it back towards him, then glanced up at Kirra. “And I’d rather not have to see any of your blood at all.”

Kirra forced a laugh, though it came across as far too nervous for her liking. “We share that desire then.”

For a moment, Kirra simply watched the dragon enjoy the treats. They came not from one of the bakers in the town but from Nylah. The older woman brought them around early that morning, shortly before the rains began. Kirra already had plans to spend the day working on sketches for the dragon in the hopes of lifting his spirits, and Nylah baked the cookies in an effort to do the same. Kirra invited her to say but Nylah said she had other business to attend too. Kirra suspected she was just trying to give the dragon and new handler more time to themselves.

It was a wise enough choice. Alvaranox wasn’t exactly sociable today, not that Kirra could blame him. The very way the dragon saw the world had been proven a lie, a falsehood that even now he could not see through. He knew the world beyond the western moors was dying, but he could not see it. Kirra’s heart sank for him. For many years there was little left for the dragon to cling too beyond some vague hope that some day he’d be free and able to return to the beautiful home he remembered from his childhood. Now even that had been wrenched away from his paws and cast aside, leaving him with nothing. Even the memories he had of that place seemed to be part of the great lie that the collar had wrapped around the dragon.

Kirra looked down at her sketch again. She’d been drawing Alv’s mother based on both the dragon’s own descriptions, and the images she saw in his own head the morning he brought the Box to Asterryl. In the drawing she looked healthy, but there were broken images in Alv’s mind that showed her far less so. If they’d wandered a dying land together in Alv’s youth, it was clear she’d given most of their food to their son. But was that an image Alv wanted on his wall? This was supposed to cheer him up. But it was also supposed to help him remember.

Kirra sighed, rubbing her face. In the process she smeared gray lines upon her skin. Perhaps she could compromise. Make the female a little more slender than she had, but not so much as to make her appear malnourished. She did not want Alv to look upon the final painting and despair. She wanted it to lift the dragon’s heart, not drag him down.

Kirra felt her skin prickle. She lifted her eyes and found the dragon was watching her. As soon as she caught him looking, he glanced away. Kirra giggled a bit. She was a little surprised by the shyness Alv sometimes showed around her. Even when they swam, the dragon seemed embarrassed to be caught looking at her when she was naked. The memory made her blush a little, though the red of her cheeks would never quite match that of her hair. Wasn’t that just like a man. Sneaking peeks at a woman when she disrobed. Yet she wouldn’t have expected a dragon to be so shy about it. Kirra wondered if the dragon was shy like that around Rain, when she was still around. It wasn’t as though Alv had a lot of chances to get experience with females. Though, Kirra was hardly “a female” to the dragon. She was a friend, and a human.

Hadn’t he asked her something about having a lover?

Kirra’s blush deepened. Poor dragon. Kirra wondered if he was feeling confused, or conflicted. There was a time when the Bluestrand had given him a rather embarrassingly exposed side effect. He’d muttered something about hoping it didn’t make things awkward for her. Now it almost seemed as though the dragon was the one who felt awkward. Perhaps it just her imagination. Still, it wasn’t that many days ago the dragon blurted out that he found her beautiful.

Kirra smiled to herself. Alvaranox fidgeted with one of his blankets, and gestured at the empty platter of treats. “Those are good. You should tell Nylah to make me more. Next time don’t hog them all to yourself.”

“If that’s your attitude, I’ll just tell Nylah to deliver them to my house,” Kirra giggled. Kirra wondered if the dragon was trying to distract her from his sudden shyness. “You won’t get any at all.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“I certainly would,” Kirra said, folding her arms.

“They’re dry and distasteful anyway.” Alvaranox thumped his tail against the cushions and blankets. “They’ve made me terribly thirsty and I’ve got crumbs stuck in my throat.” The dragon flicked a wing half open and pointed towards the chamber where he stored his barrels of drink. “Fetch me some wine.”

“If you’re thirsty, you should drink water.” Kirra unfolded her arms and jerked her thumb towards the trough. Hides still covered his entrance but his new door was nearly ready. “If you’re determined to have wine, you can get it your damn self.”

Alvaranox growled to himself. Muscles rippled beneath his green and black scales as he pushed himself to his feet. “Very well,” he muttered. “But you shall not get any.”

Grinning, Kirra quickly moved her drawing supplies further away from the entrance to the storage chamber. She settled back down between two of the dragon’s bookshelves with her back up against the wall. As the dragon rose and walked across his chamber, Kirra watched him closely. Since that morning, she’d noticed the dragon favoring his scarred paw a little. She’d seen him rub the scar, and when he walked he sometimes had just a hint of a limb. He was also careful not to lay on his scarred belly the wrong way. The change in the weather must have made the dragon’s wounds ache again. She saw no reason to bring it up, it would only embarrass the beast. But given a chance to watch him walk around a little she was quick to keep an eye on him.

Not that she didn’t enjoy watching Alvaranox all the time anyway. Even now that they considered each other friends, the dragon was still endlessly fascinating to Kirra. It amazed her that a creature so large could move with so much grace. More like a stalking lion than a hulking bear. Muscles rolled like liquid steel beneath all his natural armor. His head bore a natural crown of spines and horns. His wings were impressive even when still folded against his body. Alvaranox really was a magnificent creature. Kirra hadn’t been lying when she told the dragon she thought he was beautiful. She’d thought that ever since she was a little girl and first saw him spinning in the skies. It pained her now to think of how she used to see him. He’d been a beautiful guard dog to her once, now she knew the beast had a beautiful soul as well.

Alvaranox really was a magnificent creature.

That magnificence was only slightly sullied when Alvaranox caught her staring at him and made a show of hoisting up his tail. Kirra burst out laughing and shook her head, waving her hand as if to shoo him away.

“Yes, yes,” Kirra giggled. “We’ve all seen your sour green apples.”

“Sour?” Alvaranox scoffed, hissing as he vanished into the next room. “Now you really aren’t getting any of my wine.”

Kirra leaned back against the wall, grinning to herself. She heard the dragon rattling around in the next room. Something loud thumped against the floor, and the dragon cursed in a language she didn’t recognize. “If you spill all your wine, I’m not getting you any more.”

“Get mounted,” Alv called back.

“It would never fit, Dragon” Kirra called back, her grin getting even larger. Bantering with and teasing the dragon always made her happy. She hoped it lifted Alv’s spirits just the same. “No matter how much you stare at my ass when you think I’m not looking.”

“I was only wondering where you were going to sprout hair next,” Alvaranox said, his words half muffed by the sound of wooden barrel rolling against wooden floor.

Kirra burst into fresh laughter. She wondered if the dragon actually thought it worked that way. That humans would just randomly start growing hair in unexpected place. Well, beyond the natural, that was. To a dragon it must seem extraordinarily odd. “Very funny! Don’t you dragons go through any changes when you reach puberty?”

Alvaranox returned to the room, rolling a barrel along with muzzle. “We call it maturity, and that is when a male dragon’s…”

“Besides the obvious,” Kirra said, smirking.

Alvaranox lifted his head and let the barrel roll along the floor. “I was going to say tail spines come in.”

“Sure you were,” Kirra said, not believing him for an instant. She slowly turned her head as the barrel rolled across the floor.

“I was,” Alvaranox said, padding after the barrel as it rolled right beyond his bed of furs. He walked around the other side of it, nudging it back towards his soft things. “Till your dirty harlot mind got all those ideas.”

“You know,” Kirra said, standing up to stretch her arms up over her head. “I was just about to call you something very nice.”

“Were you?” The dragon put a paw on the barrel to keep it from rolling away.

“I was,” Kirra said, letting the dragon wonder. She walked over to one of several crates filled with drinking vessels and other objects she’d brought in recently. She began to dig through it till she found a small mallet and the specially designed reusable spigot she was looking for. Then she padded over to the dragon. “Here. Use this, alright?”

“Very well Kirra,” Alvaranox snorted, smirking at her. “But what are you going to do with it?”

“I’m going to tap the bung…” Kirra started, blundering into the dragon’s trap before he could stop herself. “Oh shut up,” she snapped, glaring at him a moment as he laughed. “Gods, Alv, you’ve the sense of humor of a child.”

“Better than the mind of a child,” the dragon replied, positioning the barrel for Kirra. “Now. What were you going to call me?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Kirra said, kneeling next to the barrel. It took her a few tries, but she soon had the spigot installed and wine flowing into one of the dragon’s drinking bowls. The lush bouquet that perfumed the dragon’s sleeping chamber made her lick her lips. When the bowl was full, she cut the spigot off, and set it in front of Alv. “Here you are.”

Kirra moved back to her spot near the wall as Alv began to drink. His long neck held a graceful arch, spined tail flicking back and forth behind him. She smiled to herself. Their banter seemed to have put the dragon in a better mood as well, at least for a little while. She was glad. Maybe she could lift them a little higher still.

“Magnificent.”

Alvaranox lifted his head. Beads of red wine clung to his pebbly green scales. His copper eyes shone as he stared at her, caught off guard. “What?”

“Magnificent,” Kirra said, her heart fluttering a moment. “I was going to call you magnificent.”

“Oh…” The dragon licked his muzzle clean, then glanced away in a futile attempt to hide his smile. The inside of his ears darkened. Kirra wondered if that was how she looked to him when he’d called her beautiful. “Thank you, Kirra.”

“You’re welcome, Alv,” Kirra said, her voice soft. She knitted her fingers together over her suddenly twisting belly, swallowing. A few breaths and she’d calmed her heart and stomach back down. Ignoring the heat that rose in her cheeks, she stuck her tongue out at the dragon. “But that was before you flashed your fruit at me, you scaly pervert. Now I’m just going to call you Sour Apples.”

Alvaranox grinned at her. “You were the one staring at me. But if you’re not going to call me something so nice after all, then I’m not going to invite you to cuddle.”

“Cuddle?” Kirra lifted her brows, grinning. “You want to cuddle?”

“Certainly not,” the dragon said, flaring his spines. “But you looked cold, so I thought perhaps I should keep you warm.”

Kirra grinned at him. It was cute how the dragon would never admit when he wanted to have some company, or when he felt lonely, let alone when he wanted to feel another’s touch against his scales. It was as though admitting he wanted companionship and someone’s warmth against him would wound his otherwise impervious draconic pride. Kirra could not fathom the levels of loneliness the dragon must sometimes suffer, and that was one of the few things she’d never tease him about.

“I’ll let you keep me warm, Alv,” Kirra said, rising to her feet. She walked over to the dragon, and then settled back down to sit up against his chest. She pressed an ear to his chest plates, listening to the steady, comforting thump of the dragon’s heart. “Perhaps someday you’ll just come right out and ask me to cuddle.”

With hesitancy Kirra found adorable, the dragon draped his foreleg around her. “Perhaps I shall. Just don’t tell Nylah.”

---

Chapter Twenty Five

---

Nylah hurried through the rain, her rain cloak drawn tight around her. Though it was still summer, the rain held a chill that told her autumn was not far away. It would not be long now before the trees began to glow with red and orange fire. Cold would soon settle in at night, and with it her bones would start to ache. She hoped Alv’s wounds would not do the same as it grew colder, the poor dragon had enough on his mind lately. With any luck the cookies she’d baked him would help him cheer him up. She suspected an afternoon alone with Kirra would help his mood, as well. Though Nylah would have liked to stay with the dragon as well, she had other ways to help him.

Nylah’s destination was the Grand Hall of Asterryl. It was the seat of their government. The Council held all their meetings in the Grand Hall, passing down laws and regulations. It was also where things like taxes, permits and licenses were processed. In another wing of the same building, they held trials and criminal hearings. It was also were many of the city’s archives and records were held.

The Grand Hall sat a little ways off from the center of town. It was built upon the grounds of one of Asterryl’s original fortifications. The building was built almost entirely of stone, though it was more a boxy, utilitarian structure rather than some elegant castle or elaborate fortress. It was four stories tall, and designed in a the shape of a square, with an outdoor garden in the center. The first three stories were a mixture of granite and limestone, built over a number of years from whatever quarry was most easily accessible at the time. The top story was constructed of a rarer red marble flecked with gold. It made the building look as though it wore a flat, red hat. Nylah always assumed some new councilman must have taken over the project before it was finished, and demanded they use something more expensive and elaborate.

If it was up to Nylah, they’d never have built the damn place at all. The council could run the city out of someone’s house without spending all the city’s money on a building that was as fancy as it was ugly. If they’d needed a fortress at the time, they should have built a real fortress. Far as Nylah knew, there had actually been a fortress on these grounds before, but they tore it down in order to build something grander. Perhaps they’d just had too many council members over the years with differing ideas of what they wanted.

That was all before Nylah’s time, though. The Grand Hall was in place long before Alvaranox was ever brought to Asterryl. And the building certainly served its purpose well, it had plenty of space for just about every governing need. At least they got that part right. There was a time Nylah even had an office in the Grand Hall, though she’d gotten out of there as quickly as possible.

As Nylah walked down the path towards the entrance of the Grand Hall, one of the men standing guard approached her. The guard wore a sodden cloak over his armor and surcoat, and looked to be just as unhappy in the rain as Nylah was. Nylah pulled back her hood enough for the man to recognize her. The job might be Kirra’s now, but people still knew her as the Dragon’s Handler. Especially after Alv’s injury drew her back into the fold.

“Afternoon, Lady Nylah,” the guard said. He pulled his wet grey hood tighter around his ruddy face as if it would hold back the damp chill. “You here on business, or…?”

Nylah fought the urge to smirk. If she was the dragon, she’d spit biting sarcasm at the poor guard and then flash something indecent. Luckily for the guard, she had no intentions of flashing anything. “Yes. Need to have a look around the archives.”

The guard nodded, too sullen to dig any deeper. He waved a meaty hand towards the entryway, already moving back to his alcove to get out of the rain. “Go on in then.”

Nylah thanked him and scurried up under the raised blue and gold awning that protected the front entry. Wooden poles held it aloft, wrapped in ribbons of Asterryl’s colors. The blue and gold of both ribbons and awnings looked dark, soggy and morose thanks to the weather. The entryway bore three sets of double doors, each carved with a different set of symbols of Asterryl’s past. The only symbols Nylah paid any attention to where those that depicted a collared dragon in flight, and standing before the city gates.

The images made her scowl. One day that dragon would be free, and Asterryl would have to protect itself like everyone else.

Her gaze lingered on that door a moment before she pulled it open and stepped inside. Pleasant warmth rolled across her skin, the scents of rose and lilac hung heavy in the air. Flowery incense wafted from several braziers set near the door, with more further inside. Lamps hanging from curved brass poles on either side of the entry hall provided plenty of light.

Nylah unbuttoned the snaps of her black rain cloak. She shook her head, sending droplets flying through the air, then pulled it back. She tugged the cloak off, shook the whole thing once more, and then carefully hung it upon the one of many silver coat hooks protruding from the wall. A few other raincoats and cloaks already hung there. A small pool of water lay upon the floor where the day’s rain dripped from the garments.

Nylah wore a dark blue blouse with a sharp, formal cut. The sleeves flared out a bit towards the end, and spirals of silver thread ran down each sleeve. Nylah purchased a new pair of smart looking black breeches with a few golden buttons, and she wore those today. The sturdy, dark leather boots she wore to help keep her feet dry were also new. She was still breaking them in but she preferred uncomfortable to soggy.

As Nylah straightened out her blouse, she sighed a little. She’d come so close to spending the rest of her days in simple sundresses and warm comfortable clothing. But sundresses and comfort did not exactly scream authority. As long as she was going to be helping Alv, authority was what she needed. She ran her hands over her increasingly gray hair a few times, trying to smooth out the worst of the damage done by her hood. Then she straightened her back and strode through the lobby.

The lobby of the Grand Hall seemed designed to make up for the elegance the outside of the building lacked. The walls were all paneled in dark wood, with golden accoutrements. Lamps in hidden recesses provided soft light. Alcoves among the wooden panels held display cases with items from Asterryl’s history. Stone busts of previous council members were positioned here and there among clusters of chairs with leather bound cushions. The reception desk was composed of several carved sections of mahogany, nearly dwarfing the receptionist it wrapped around. On the well behind the desk spanned an immense oil painting of Asterryl from a century ago.

Nylah walked up to the desk and set her hands atop it. She leaned forward, giving the bored looking receptionist a polite smile. Her voice held a firm tone that belied the pleasantness of her smile. “I need to see the archives. I should also like a meeting with Councilman Burr, if he is available.”

The receptionist straightened at Nylah’s tone. She fidgeted with her own blue and gold dress, tugging at the sleeves. She flipped through a stack of papers, and then offered Nylah an apologetic look. “I’m afraid he hasn’t come in today.”

Nylah ground her teeth. Typical. A bit of rain and the old bastard couldn’t be bothered to hobble his way up here. Nylah felt a smirk twitching at her lips and she forced it off her face. She was starting to sound like Alv. Burr wasn’t all that much older than her, anyway. She took a breath, and made a show of giving a resigned sigh, acting a little more impatient than she actually was.

“Then who is in today?”

“Just Councilman Laan.” The receptionist smiled. “I’m sure he’d be happy to take you to the archives.”

“I’m sure he would,” Nylah muttered. She drummed her fingers against the desk. No doubt complaining the entire afternoon about how she was wasting so much of his valuable time. Why, he could be getting drunk, eating cakes, and chasing women. Actually, that sounded a bit like Alv, too. “That’s fine. I’ll go and see Laan.”

“I’ll summon you an escort to take you to his office,” the receptionist said, starting to rise.

Nylah grinned, already walking off. “I know the way, thank you.”

“You’re not really supposed to wander off on your own!” The receptionist called out behind Nylah. Nylah pretended as though she hadn’t heard the woman. Getting older did have a few advantages after all.

Nylah hadn’t been here for ages, but she still remembered the layout of the place. Unless Councilman Laan had moved his offices, he should be on the second floor. That was fine with Nylah, as that was the same floor that held the expansive archives. Councilman Burr’s office was on the fourth floor, as was the Chamber of Law where the three council members met. Perhaps it was a small benefit that Burr wasn’t here today. Ascending one flight of old stone stairs would bring about far fewer protests from her knees than three flights.

From the lobby Nylah took a long hallway down towards one of the corners of the building. It had four stairwells, each located at the corners of the square-shaped structure. Where the lobby was elegant, the hallway much more closely resembled the outside of the building. Simple gray stone walls, a small table tables and vases here and there. The floor was draped with rugs might have once been colorful but were now just worn out shades of gray. Those rugs looked the way Nylah felt some days.

Nylah ascended the stairs and walked into the second story hallway. She was surprised to find that though the layout was nearly identical the second floor’s hallways seemed in much better condition. They too were carpeted in a variety of rugs yet these were bright and cheery. They looked as though they’d only just been woven. The stone walls were painted a soft blue color, and a multitude of tapestries and landscape paintings adorned the walls. Nylah wondered if Councilman Laan was responsible for the pleasant décor. A shame they hadn’t paid the same attention to the hallways below. That seemed fitting for the Council though, couldn’t agree on anything even when it came to their headquarters. So they all just took care of their own section and left the others to fend for themselves.

Nylah followed the hallway around a corner, and eventually to Laan’s office. Along the way she passed plenty of other doors, and a few civil workers. She recognized one of them, a pleasant enough man about her age who handled taxes and tariffs. Though she had no time to chat with him, she did give him a friendly wave and promised him Alvaranox would file his taxes any day now. An inside joke they’d shared for quite a while. As if the dragon would ever part with his coin for taxes even if he had any money. Nylah suspected Alv would sooner burn his belongings than let Asterryl take a share of them.

Asterryl owned enough of the dragon’s life, as it was.

Councilman Laan’s door was simple and black, with gold letting that simply spelled out his name across it. It believed the sizable office beyond as well as the often self-important nature of the man who resided within. Nylah knocked on the door, and let herself in when he called for her to enter.

Laan jerked his head up, eyes widening when he realized who had come to visit him. Laan was the youngest of the three council members, and while Nylah wouldn’t go so far as to call him the laziest, he did spend the most time using his position to help himself to the best things life had to offer. He was little older than Kirra and when he’d first taken the position less than a decade ago he’d been fit and trim and seemed eager to better the city in which he lived. Best Nylah could tell he now pursued that last one with far less zeal then he pursued drink and woman. It certainly showed on his body, too. His clothing looked as stretched and overstuffed as the cushions the recliner he lounged in. His black hair was combed back over his head. The bleariness in his dark eyes spoke of a few too many late nights, and Nylah doubted it was hard work that kept him up. He’d probably been dozing till she woke him up.

“Lady Nylah,” Laan said, straightening up before bowing his head in greeting, struggling to adjust his official blue and gold tunic. “What a lovely surprise.” To Nylah, the feigned attempt as pleasantry was as sour as bad wine.

“How’s the investigation?” Nylah said, striding into the room. “Has it concluded anything yet?”

“Investigation?” Laan rubbed an eye with the heel of his palm. He’d definitely been napping. “Into what?”

Nylah sighed, rubbing her temples a moment. She pulled herself up an uncomfortable looking chair. While Laan’s desk chair was a recliner with enough padding for three sofas, the chairs he offered his visitors bore only the barest of cushions. Though Nylah wanted to flop into the chair, she forced herself to sit down gently so that she didn’t bruise anything against the stiff wooden frame.

“Do try and collect yourself, Laan,” Nylah muttered, folding her arms over her chest. She gazed around his office.

Laan held an expansive office and yet it still felt cramped. Tacky portraits of himself with women he fancied cluttered the walls along with shelves overflowing with books Nylah knew he’d never read. A dusty display case in a corner held a suit of silvery-gray armor that looked as though it had never been worn. Perhaps it would have fit him once but there was no way he could stuff himself into steel the way he did into cloth. His black walnut desk held a faint curve as though Laan wanted a wraparound desk but feared he’d one day grow to bulbous to fit behind it. The desk’s surface was littered with scattered papers and folders, a few pewter plates covered in crumbs, a half full crystal decanter of wine and a couple glasses and mugs.

Behind Laan, the back wall of his office was taken up by a sprawling set of floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the garden in the center of the Grand Hall. Marble-tiled pathways cut through the grass amidst stands of pine and oak trees. A few small ponds filled with colorful fish were set between the paths and wooden benches. The view would have been even nicer from the fourth floor, but it was still quite scenic. Laan no doubt liked the fact that on bright days the sunlight that streamed through the windows would half-blind his visitors, leaving him an imposing silhouette surrounded by beams of sunlight. However, as it was raining the cold gray light cast made Laan and his office seem as dismal as the weather. Beads of water ran down the outside of the windows.

Laan poured a bit of wine into a pewter goblet. He took a few sips before he held the decanter out to Nylah in offering. She declined it though her eyes fixed upon his goblet. It was an ornately carved thing and probably cost a hefty sum. A stylized dragon ran all the way around the cup so that his head nearly met his tail, and his four legs joined together to form the stem. The dragon cut into the pewter cup bore a thick collar around his neck. Nylah doubted Laan had selected that goblet now just to anger her, after all the man was a slob but he was not the sort to deliberately cause trouble. Nonetheless seeing Alv’s plight celebrated on a wine goblet of all things made Nylah want to slap the vessel from his hands, and then beat him over the head with it.

“I assume you’re asking about the investigation into the attacks on the dragon?” Laan glared at Nylah, irritable after having his nap interrupted.

“What other investigation would I be asking about?” Nylah forced herself to bare the stiffness and discomfort of the chair. She wouldn’t give Laan the pleasure of watching her squirm like some common page come to report to the councilman.

“There’s always an investigation into something going on around here,” Laan said, chuckling to himself. He took another sip of wine. Already the ruddiness was growing across his face.

“I wonder if they’re investigating the use of tax money to pay for fine wine and fancy goblets?” Nylah phrased it as an innocent question just to rankle Laan.

Part her actually pitied the man. She remembered him when he was first appointed to the position. One of the younger appointees they’d had in ages. Seemed so eager to do everything he could for Asterryl. Now he barely seemed to make time for the city in between his own pursuits. Somewhere in that increasingly sizable man there was once a good heart. Nylah just hoped it was still beating now and then.

“I see you’ve picked up the dragon’s wit in your years tending him.” Laan set his goblet down and began to rifle through stacks of papers and leather-wrapped folders.

“If anything I think he picked it up from me,” Nylah said, only half-joking. ‘When I first took over as his handler, he was a bitter, angry, fearful and quiet young creature.” She tugged at the sleeve of her blouse, memories dancing behind her eyes. It took a long time for Alv to get over the fears his first handler put in him. “I’ve fixed the fearful and quiet but I’m afraid that bitterness is going to linger as long as he draws breath.”

“Can’t blame him that,” Laan muttered.

The words were soft enough Nylah wondered if he hadn’t meant them to be heard. It was not a sentiment she’d have expected from Laan. Then again she would not put it past the man to slip some feigned compassion in there in an attempt to earn some sympathy points.

Nylah leaned forward to drum her fingers against the edge of Laan’s desk. “So, have you learned anything? Or are you just going to fiddle about with your documents and try to look busy until I leave?”

Laan gave her a hard stare. “I am trying to find the current results of the investigation for you.”

Nylah leaned back, cutting him a little slack. “Might be easier if you tidied the place up once in a while.”

Laan ignored her. Finally, he stopped searching the top of his desk and opened a drawer. When he immediately made a sound of approval to himself, Nylah shook her head. The fool should have looked there first. Laan withdrew the top folder from the pile and tossed it across the desk to Nylah. It hit the edge and nearly skidded right off till Nylah caught it. She began to untie the knotted leather bindings that held it shut. It felt awfully light.

When she opened it, she saw why. There more leather wrapping the thing than there was parchment inside it. Gritting her teeth, she slapped the folder against the desk. “There’s hardly anything in here.”

Laan poured himself some more wine. “You see why we haven’t exactly sent a runner to you with an urgent discovery. There is precious little to discover.” Laan sipped his wine, gesturing at her with his goblet. “Go ahead, read it all if you want. I can summon a archival page to have copies made for you.”

Nylah flicked through the pages, scanning the documents. There were descriptions of every man who died trying to kill Alvaranox in town. Yet dead man rarely yielded much information. Nylah almost wished they’d try and fail again, just so they could be sure to take one of them alive this time. Not that they’d had much choice.

“None of them had any sort of identification papers on them.” Laan took another sip of his wine, turning his chair to gaze out the window at the rain. “Don’t need any documents to travel the roads get into Asterryl, but you’ve got to get a permit to sell and trade in the markets. No real distinguishing marks aside from the obvious fact that some of them were from other towns, other parts of the world.”

“You can tell that by looking at them?”

“Sometimes.” Laan swirled his wine around in his glass. “Some of the other towns have heavier populations from different bloodlines. Features that are are heavier set or more elegant, curly hair versus straight. Obviously a person is a person but people look a little different in some places. Without being able to ask them, we can only guess at where they might have been from.”

“Have you learned anything useful?” Nylah thumbed through what few documents there were.

“Yes,” Laan said, then went quiet. He had a nugget of information, and seemed ready to enjoy holding it over Nylah’s head.

“And it is?” Nylah held her breath to keep from yelling at him. He did, after all, technically outrank her.

“We sent investigators around to all the inns, all the boarding houses and taverns, even to look around abandoned buildings. Asking if anyone had men like that staying there, or had seem in the area. Didn’t get much, so we expanded the search. Started getting some hits outside of Asterryl.”

Nylah quirked a brow. “Hits?”

“Am I going to fast for you, dear?” Laan smirked at her, sipping his wine. “A hit is a result.”

Nylah buried her face in her hand, grumbling. “I know that. Just didn’t expect you to try and impress me with your investigative prowess.”

“I’ll have you know I was directing this investigation!” Laan sat up straight in his chair, setting his goblet down.

“Were you?” Nylah asked, genuinely surprise.

Laan relented a little. “Co-directing.”

Nylah allowed herself a smirk. “What a feather in your cap that must be.” Then she shifted in her seat, glowering at Laan. “Are you going to go on or not? Your cheap chair is hurting my back.”

“As I was saying.” Laan began looking through the scattered pewter plates that littered his desk in search of something to snack upon. When he found nothing but crumbs he scowled and leaned back into his recliner. “We started to get some hits from the inns in the villages beyond Asterryl’s walls. Every one of those men stayed at a different inn, and they were each there for a number of days. Several of the inns also reported that whoever was staying there had a number of friends over one night whatever tavern was closest, be it attached to the inn or down the street.”

“And these friends matched the description of the others,” Nylah said, trying to put a puzzle together despite missing most of the pieces.

“Indeed.” Laan reached for his goblet and drained the last of the wine. “They were all in the area before the attack, getting together in a different location each night.”

“Putting their plans together to attack the dragon.”

“That’s the theory.” Laan poured himself more wine, though his decanter was nearly empty now.

“Don’t suppose any of these bartenders happened to overhear what they were talking about.”

“Rain.” Laan smirked. “They were talking about the rain.”

“What about it?” Seemed an odd thing to discuss.

“They kept asking other patrons about it.” Laan sipped his wine, then licked his lips. “When was the last time it rained? How often did it rain? Were any wise old farmers or sages predicting rain soon? They talked about other things too, but that was the only topic that they were actually asking about people about.” He set his mug down, leaning forward. “Do you know what I find odd about that?”

“I should imagine any number of things,” Nylah replied, half lost in thought.

“They didn’t ask anyone about the dragon.” Laan tapped a single finger against the desk. “Most visitors won’t stop asking about. Does your town really have a dragon guarding it? Is your dragon truly tame? I heard the dragon was injured, is that true? That manner of nonsense. But these people…”

“They already knew he was here, and they already knew he was injured,” Nylah summed up. Laan scowled at having his big point swept out from under his feet.

“Precisely. And they were just waiting…”

“For the rain.” Nylah turned her head to stare out the window again. It was raining now. That made her uncomfortable.

“Stop doing that,” Laan said, scowling.

“But why the rain?” Nylah spoke her thoughts aloud.

“For the cover I should imagine,” Laan replied, staring at his nearly empty decanter in dismay. “A heavy rain will chase most people back to their homes, and doubly so in the middle of the night. And the sounds of a storm will cover up a lot of things, including the sounds of a dragon calling for help.”

Nylah groaned to herself. Laan was probably right, and yet the idea didn’t sit well in her belly. “It seems an awful lot of effort to go to travel here from different places, meet up secretly in different inns, and then just…wait.”

“That’s not quite all, either,” Laan said, flashing Nylah a grin that showed far too many of his wine-stained teeth.

Nylah sighed, this conversation was starting to make her feel as fatigued as Laan looked. She’d keep playing his game for now. “What else is there, Laan?”

“Accents.” Laan grinned at her. “At least four of them sounded as though they were from Delverrix. And what few meager belongings we found in their rooms hinted at Delverrix as well.”

“Delverrix?” Nylah chewed her tongue a little. “Quite a distance to travel. But four out of six, that is a good…” She smirked. “Hit.”

Laan’s smirk grew so wide and so smug Nylah feared his unkempt teeth were about to come tumbling out of his head. “Four out of seven, actually.”

“Seven?” Nylah’s eyes widened. “You mean…”

This time Laan made sure to jump to her conclusion. “One of them did not die in the attack, likely didn’t even participate. Probably their facilitator, or the man who put them up to this. By now he’s probably back in Delverrix.”

“Putting new plans together.” Nylah squirmed in her seat though her discomfort had nothing to do with the bare cushion. “You should send men to find him.”

“We considered it. But it’s a long journey. Weeks of travel on horseback, at least.”

“Not on a dragon,” Nylah said, biting her lip.

“I rather doubt the dragon would want to carry my men all the way to Delverrix,” Laan said, snorting. Then he poured the last few drops of his wine from the decanter into his goblet. “Which brings me to my last point. This one having to do with the other part of our investigation, that of the men who wounded him in the first place.”

Nylah went still. She lifted her eyes to Laan’s. “What did you find out? I was never satisfied they were just dragon slayers.” Especially after what Alvaranox dug up out there.

“They are not, unless they’d stolen those uniforms.” Laan savored the last of his wine, swirling it around his goblet. “We interviewed as many travelers as we could. Merchants, mercenaries, monster slayers, farmers…”

“I know what travelers are, Laan.” Nylah set her jaw. Laan seemed to relish dancing around the point almost as much as his wine.

“One of things we asked them was about those men who attacked the dragon. The fancy silver armor, the black cloaks edged in red. Most of them had never seen such a thing, but a few of them? A few of them see it often. Apparently, there used to be some sort of…” Laan watched the wine swirl in his glass. “This is their word, not mine. A cult. Spouting some kind of pseudo-religious babble about some magical calamity. Of course when it didn’t happen, people lost faith, they lost influence, and they ended up traveling around, helping people protect their cities for coin. Mercenaries, really.” Laan waved his free hand. “Mind you, this is all from a traveler’s mouth, probably just some story he picked up on the road. The point is…”

“I was wondering when you were going to get there.” Nylah’s throat was dry. Right or wrong, she didn’t like the sound of some cult coming after Alvaranox. Cults meant fanaticism, and fanaticism meant Alv would never be safe.

Laan chuckled to himself. “Several travelers told us that this mercenary cult eventually settled into their only remaining fortress, and was eventually absorbed into the local guard force of one of the towns. As it turns out, that town’s colors were quite a match for theirs. So much so that their local guard force to this day bear cloaks with a striking resemblance to the ones your dragon reported worn by his attackers. Care to guess which town?”

Nylah’s stomach turned. “Delverrix.”

“Point to the Dragon Handler.” Laan downed the last of his wine, and rose to his feet. He gestured at the report. “As I said, have copies made if you like. I’m going to go and find myself some lunch.”

Nylah rose up as well, scooping the folder up in one hand. When Laan went to brush past her, she snatched his sleeve in her other hand. “Laan. I need you to do a favor for me.”

Laan gave an exaggerated sigh. “Perhaps after my meal.”

“Assign someone else, I don’t care as long as it gets done quickly.”

Laan scowled, but paused long enough to hear her out. “What is it?”

“I need to spend some time in the archives, but first I have to go see the dragon. While I’m away, I need someone to pull out every historical archive and record related to Alvaranox, and every historical account we have of the time he was collared. Say, the first ten years or so. And a few years before he was put in the collar.”

Laan sucked in a breath, chest inflating and eyes bugging out till he looked like an indignant frog. “That is a lot of work!”

“Please, Laan,” Nylah said, easing her voice to a more gentle tone. Getting angry with him would only make him more resistant. “It’s important.”

Laan slowly let his breath out, tugging his sleeve away from Nylah’s grip. “Very well. But you will owe me for this.”

Nylah clutched the folder to her chest. “Fair enough, Laan. I shall return tonight or tomorrow to have a look at what you’ve found.”

Laan opened the door, and held it for Nylah. He grumbled under his breath. “Don’t lose that folder.”

Nylah had no intention of losing it. She also had no intention of taking it anywhere in the Grand Hall to be copied. Nylah was taking it straight to Alvaranox. She had to show the dragon what they’d found. Nylah had a growing suspicion that if the collar let him, Alv was going to want to travel to Delverrix. Trust a dragon to want to fly straight into the lair of his enemies.

Not that she could blame him. Nylah certainly wouldn’t want to be Alvaranox’s enemy. They’d come for the dragon twice, and now it was time for the dragon to return the favor.

---

Chapter Twenty Six

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Nylah tightened down her black hood, squinting against the wind-driven rain. On her journey from the Grand Hall to Alvaranox’s home, the wind kicked up. The gusts turned the steady but gentle rain into something far less pleasant. Worse still was that she spent the last leg of the journey walking directly into the spray. At least her rain cloak was a reliable one. Though her face was getting wet where droplets blew into her hood, at least her clothing and the leather folder she’d taken from Laan were still dry.

Though it was still mid-afternoon, the day long rain left a lingering gloom across the city. The gray ceiling drifting above Asterryl and the constant rain made it seem as though they’d been caught in some perpetual, shadowy twilight. A few other people in rain cloaks hurried down the street, but most of the city’s inhabitants had chosen to remain indoors. Near Alv’s home, the guard station built after the attempt on his life had the tarps down.

As Nylah drew near, she called out. “Hello! Anyone home today?”

It only took Davan a moment to poke his head out into the rain. He gave Nylah a friendly wave as she came to a stop outside the guard station. “They’re still here, yeah. Only time anyone left was when the dragon had to visit his little grove of trees. Then he told me I should send out for some dinner so he wouldn’t have to go out into the rain again.” Davan chuckled to himself. “Cheeky lizard.”

Nylah grinned inside her hood. “Yes, that sounds about right.” She glanced at the heavy hides serving as Alvaranox’s doors. “You don’t think they’ll mind if I go in, do you? I’m not sure if they’ll hear me announce myself over the rain. I mean…I don’t think that they’re…well, you know.” Nylah cut herself off before she stumbled into the same sort of hole Kirra was always digging for herself.

Davan just shrugged, grinning. “I don’t know what the dragon does when he’s alone with his…” Davan cut himself off just in time as well when he realized Nylah was the dragon’s former handler. “When he’s in there with Kirra all day. Don’t much care, either. Long as it keeps them happy and us safe, it’s fine with me. Make her a fine tavern tale, I suppose.”

“How open-minded of you,” Nylah said, laughing to herself. “Thank you, Davan.”

Nylah turned away from the guard station as Davan pulled his head back inside the enclosure. She walked the short, muddy path to Alv’s home, and then hesitated. They probably weren’t…after all, how would…well, surely they could find ways…Nylah shook her head, laughing. She felt like a young woman trying to peek at the men bathing in the river and figure out how everything worked. She balled up her fists and punched the rain-sogged hides a few times to try and make some noise.

“Hello in there?” She lifted her voice as loudly as she could without shouting, wanting to be heard of the rain. “Anyone in there?”

“That had better be my dinner, and not just some old lady.” A familiar voice rumbled from within. “Unless its some old lady who’s brought my dinner.”

Nylah grinned, her polished topaz eyes gleaming even amidst the gloom. The dragon’s half-feigned gruffness still brought a smile to her face. “I don’t know any old ladies,” Nylah called back. “Only a dignified, mature woman.”

“I don’t know any of those,” the dragon said, laughing. A moment, a green scaled paw slipped through the doorframe and pulled the furs partway back. Then a wedge-shaped head crowned with spiny, membranous frills and ridged black horns poked through. Alvaranox glared down at her a moment. “So where did this dignified, mature woman go? All I see is some soggy old lady.”

“Do be a dear and let the soggy old lady in before she decides to try and braid your ears.” Nylah shifted herself a little, keeping the folder dry under her cloak.

“Oh, very well,” Alvaranox said. He stepped out of her way and held the furs open for her. “But only because that sounds profoundly unpleasant.”

Nylah hurried inside. Once she was out of the rain she slipped a hand out to stroke the dragon’s neck. Though she hadn’t really thought Alvaranox and Kirra were doing anything best kept in private, she knew the dragon hated having people barge in without asking for permission just as much as he hated being stared at through his windows.

“Thank you, Alv,” Nylah said. She stroked his neck a few more times, and then walked to the far wall where a few bronze coat hooks protruded. Kirra’s green cloak hung from one. Nylah pulled off her own rain cloak, shook it out, and then hung it from the wall. “How’re you two doing?”

“Fine, until you decided to get water all over my things.” Nylah turned to find Alvaranox glaring at her.

“Oh hush,” Nylah said, approaching him with the folder tucked under one arm. She rubbed the golden spot on his nose. “I’ve seen the way you come in out of the rain and shake yourself off like a dog. If anyone’s getting water everywhere its you.”

Alvaranox snorted, glancing at the red haired woman seated upon his soft things. “Actually I think it was Kirra.”

Kirra ignored the dragon for the most part. “So long as neither of you get water on my artwork I shall take the blame for whatever silly thing you want.” She smiled at Nylah. “Those cookies were lovely, by the way. I even got to eat one as well before Alvaranox hogged them.”

“I did not hog them,” the dragon said with a little growl. He padded back over to his bed of soft things and flopped down beside the younger woman. The wince that briefly crinkled his muzzle told Nylah he’d flopped a little too hard on his scar. “I consumed the majority because I am the largest creature.”

“That’s called hogging them, Alv,” Kirra said, giggling as she sketched a few more lines on her pad.

Alvaranox grinned at the older woman. “They were delicious, though.”

“I’m glad you liked them.” Nylah smiled as she looked around Alv’s home.

A few discarded sketches lettered the ground here and there. A wine barrel lay near Alv’s bedding, along with a bowl for the dragon to drink from and a small mug for Kirra. Seemed like everyone was drinking wine. She wondered if she could ever get Laan to accept a drinking challenge from the dragon. Might be fun to watch the Councilman get as drunk as…well…she’d gotten a few days ago.

“Looks like you’ve been busy,” Nylah said, carefully stepping over a few drawings left upon the floor.

“Oh!” Kirra chewed on her charcoal stick. “I forgot about those when Alv asked me to come snuggle with him.”

Nylah winced at the marks Kirra was leaving on her lips and tongue. Not that she’d point it out. Drawing her attention to the long-standing habit would only embarrass the woman. A few other marks on her face remained where she’d scratched her cheek and forehead with the charcoal stick still in hand.

“I did no such thing,” Alvaranox said, snarling. He arched his neck to glare down at her.

“You big scaly liar,” Kirra shot right back. Then she scooted closer to the dragon, leaned against his side, and went right back to her drawing.

“I merely suggested you should let me keep you warm.” Alvaranox opened his wing, stretched it out, and then draped it across Kirra’s face.

“Hey!” Kirra flailed, shoving at the dragon’s wing. “Cut it out!”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Alvaranox said, his voice dripping with mock sorrow. “Is that in your way?”

“You know damn well it is,” Kirra said. Then she slipped her hand up under his wing as well.

Alvaranox grunted and soon his wing began to twitch. “That tickles! What are you doing?”

“Drawing dirty pictures on your wing.”

“You are not!” Alvaranox turned his head around, and stretched his long neck to press his nose under his own wing. Then the dragon gave a little gasp. “You are! My, Kirra, what an imagination you have.”

Kirra giggled to herself and kept drawing. Nylah could make out only vague outlines of shapes through the dragon’s wing.

The dragon pulled his head back with a noise that was half-hiss, half-laughter. “Stop, I don’t want that on my wing you red-haired harlot!”

“Then get it out of my face, you scaly ass!”

Nylah smiled to herself. Oh yes. She’d definitely made the right choice when she named Kirra her successor. It may have taken longer than she’d hoped, yet now it seemed to be turning out even better than she’d imagined. The dragon was going to have a dear friend in Kirra long after Nylah was gone. Just the way Nylah wanted it.

While Alvaranox grudgingly pulled his wing away from Kirra, Nylah padded across the layers of soft things and settled in against her friends. “Room for one more, I hope.”

“Certainly,” Kirra said, smiling as she scooted over.

“They’ll be plenty more room when I kick Kirra out into the rain,” Alvaranox said, tilting his head back and forth, staring at his wing. “What else did you put on there? Is that a dragon?”

“It’s part of a dragon,” Kirra said, shrugging innocently.

“Kirra!” Alvaranox gaped at her a moment, then grinned, lifting his spines. “I’m not sure if I’m more shocked or impressed by your imagination…”

“Now I’ve got to see that…” Nylah bumped her elbow into Alvaranox’s scales a few times to draw his attention.

“Oh, very well,” the dragon muttered. “But only for a moment. Then I’m wiping it away. I don’t want those sort of images on my wings.”

Alvaranox stretched his wing out over the two woman again. Kirra lifted her hands, but Nylah grasped them and eased them back down before she could add any more dirty pictures. Nylah tilted her head, trying to make sense of the various chalk figures. All at once everything became all too clear, and she burst out laughing.

“My, Kirra. You’ve turned Alv’s wing into the wall of a tavern latrine!”

“That’s what he gets for trying to suffocate me with his wing.”

“I was not trying to suffocate you.” The dragon stretched his wing out, trying to wipe off the charcoal on some of his soft things. Then he pulled it back, licked his paw pad a few times, and rubbed the membranes. “I was only trying to get you to shut up.”

“Close enough, Dragon.” Kirra spun her charcoal stick around her fingers, grinning. “Just be glad I didn’t draw that sort of thing on your scales while you slept without telling you.”

Alvaranox fidgeted with his wing a little while longer before folding it back against his back, near the two women but not atop them. “Yes, well, don’t give yourself any ideas. That would earn you a toss into the lake.”

Kirra just smiled, and went back to drawing on her pad. Nylah leaned over, and when Kirra didn’t turn away, the older woman peered down at the images. Though incomplete, the image clearly depicted a female dragon perched atop the remains of a broken stone tower long since toppled to the ground. Nylah glanced up at Alv, then back at the image again.

“Rain,” Alv said, all the edges from his voice smoothed away. “I asked her to draw Rain.”

Kirra held it up to the dragon so he could see her progress. He nodded, smiled, and Kirra kept drawing. While she sketched, she spoke to Nylah. “I’d been working on his parents for a while. Have some good foundation sketches laid out. Now I’m working on Rain, as he said.” She drew an invisible line in the air with her charcoal stick. “Going to paint portraits eventually, for his wall.”

“A lovely idea.”

“I thought so.” Alvaranox lowered his head, gesturing with his nose towards the leather folder. “So, what have you got there?”

“This,” Nylah said, trailing her fingers down the unmarked, brown leather cover. “Is the results of the investigation into the attempts on your life. Such as they are.” She pursed her lips, staring at the dragon’s bookshelves. Flowers and plants still took up more space than books and trophies. “There isn’t much, but there is an important lead.”

Alvaranox tensed up under the women resting against him. He pulled his head back, neck curling. His copper eyes flickered with sudden fire. “What sort of lead?”

Nylah tapped her fingers against the cover, unable to meet the dragon’s gaze. “The kind I am hesitant to tell you about.”

“Nylah,” Alvaranox said, the single word hanging in the air.

“I’m going to share it, Alv,” Nylah said. She turned a little to rest a hand upon the dragon’s forelegs. She began to stroke his scutes a bit. “I would not have brought it here if I didn’t intend to share what they’ve learned.”

“So share it already,” Alvaranox said. A growl crept into his voice as he lifted his spines.

Nylah chewed on her tongue a little. “First, promise me you won’t rush off on your own as soon as I tell you where it leads.”

“It leads somewhere?” The dragon growled again, tail snaking against the furs.

“It does.” Nylah handed the folder to Kirra, giving her a quick look. “I’d like you to copy all that information for us, Kirra. Better you than some archivist in the Grand Hall who might pick and choose what bits to include. And that’s Laan’s personal folder so I will need it back.” She turned her eyes back to the dragon. “Without any claw and teeth marks.”

“How do you know Laan has told you everything?” Alvaranox cocked his head, lifting an ear. “The Council is not always forthcoming.”

Nylah sighed, leaning her head back against the dragon’s side. She closed her eyes, gray hair and green scales framing her face. She could not blame the dragon for distrusting the Council. Not that he trusted many humans, but the Council were essentially responsible for his continued enslavement. She rubbed his scutes a little, taking her time to collect her thoughts.

In the end, she had to admit the dragon might be right. “I don’t. I don’t think he has any reason to hide anything from us, though. The reasons you have to hate the man are the same reasons I think he would wish to be honest with us now. These people are clearly trying to kill you, and you protect his city. I think he’d want us to know everything that they know so that we can help protect you.”

“So you can keep the Guardian Slave doing his job.” Alvaranox snorted, tossing his head.

“Yes,” Nylah said, patting his foreleg. “But let’s try and see the good in this. It means he’s willing to tell us everything they know, and cooperate with us for us once.”

“Oh yes,” Alvaranox said, snorting. “I can tell you’ve really got him by the balls, now.” The dragon tossed his head again, rustling his wings. “How nice to have finally turned the tables, after all these years of the Council and the caller having me by the balls.”

“Your sarcasm is appreciated but not especially helpful, Alv,” Nylah said, tapping a fingernail against one of the protective green plates over the front of his foreleg.

“Delverrix,” Kirra said as she scanned the contents of the folders. Both Nylah and the dragon looked over at her. Kirra tucked a curl of red hair behind an ear, grinning. “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt your discussion of who has who by the balls. But it looks like you finally get to visit another town with me.”

“With both of us,” Nylah said, nudging Kirra. “Assuming you can convince the collar to let him travel that far from Asterryl.”

“Delverrix is a town?” The dragon licked his nose, glancing back and forth and them.

“Delverrix is one of the other towns, yes.” Nylah reached for Kirra’s sketch pad and one of her charcoal sticks. She began to draw out a simple map. “Our part of the world is essentially a free land filled with city states like Asterryl. Meaning, each town governs itself and the land around it, rather than having a central king or other entity in charge of everything. Asterryl is here.” Nylah drew a large dot on the map. “And here’s the lake of teeth, more or less…” She drew a curvy line that stretched on past Asterryl. “The wilds are here, and what we’re calling the dying land is further this way…” She filled in a bit more of the map. “Then back this way are the other towns and plenty of wide open land.” She drew a few more dots and added a couple simple lines indicating roadways. “Delverrix is here.”

Alvaranox turned his head trying to make sense of the map. “Looks like a bunch of squiggles and dots. How far is it to travel?”

“It would take weeks by horseback,” Kirra said. She set the folder down and picked up another charcoal stick. “This is the town I was thinking of taking you too, at the far eastern end of the Lake of Teeth. It’s called Venoria. If we can get there, I can only assume the collar will let you fly on to Delverrix. Especially with my help.”

“Suits me,” the dragon said. “But why Delverrix?”

Nylah tightened a fist around the charcoal stick. “Because almost everyone who’s tried to kill you has come from there.”

“As good a reason as any,” Alvaranox said, baring his fangs. “Maybe I should just burn down the whole town.”

“We must be cautious,” Nylah said, placing her palm on the dragon’s nose. “The guard force in Delverrix wears cloaks like those worn by the people who gave you this.” Nylah twisted herself and gently ran a few fingers against the dragon’s belly scar.

Alvaranox snarled, unsheathing his claws against the furs. “Do they.”

“Yes,” Nylah said, stroking Alv’s neck. “But I doubt most of them have anything to do with it.”

“According to this, they used to be some kind of cult,” Kirra said before Nylah could put it more tactfully.

“There’s a cult trying to kill me?” Alv pulled his head back, hissing. “Wonderful. Some kind of dragon slaying cult, thinks we’re all evil-monsters or demons?”

“The cult is only hearsay,” Nylah said, resisting the urge to run Kirra through with her eyes. Making the younger woman feel bad wasn’t going to help anything. “From some babbling travelers. But it is possible.”

“It says here…” Kirra began before Nylah squeezed her arm hard enough to get her to fall silent.

“What we know for certain, Alv,” Nylah said while Kirra kept her mouth shut. “Is that the men who wounded you wear cloaks like the Delverrix guard force, who previous integrated a group of warriors with some interesting beliefs into their city.”

“So they might be sleeper agents,” Kirra said. “Hiding amongst the guards and waiting for their chance to strike out at another dragon.”

“Kirra,” Nylah said, her voice life a knife poised to cut Kirra long and deep. If a sharp squeeze wouldn’t do the trick she’d use sharp words. “Please keep your theories to yourself. We’ve put enough worrisome thoughts in Alvaranox’s head as it is without making up our own ideas to scare him.”

Kirra gulped, flushing. She looked down at the folder, nodding. “Sorry.”

Nylah patted her hand, then looked up at the dragon. “It seems unlikely that the entire Delverrix guard force is actually involved, because that would be mean they were declaring war on Asterryl. More likely a few men among that force took it upon themselves to come and find you.”

“The box,” the dragon said, his voice flat. “They were looking for the box.”

Nylah grit her teeth. “That is one possibility.”

“You said they’re a cult, right?” Alvaranox glanced at Kirra. Nylah grit her teeth as the dragon spoke. This was exactly why she didn’t want Kirra blurting things out before she had a chance to walk Alv through the facts. “I have seen them through Guardian’s eyes. She saw them put that box in the ground, and her memories showed me where to dig it up. They’ve come back for it, and they knew I would come to defend it. Killing me was just going to be a bonus to getting back their box.”

“Then the question is, why would they want that box in the first place?” Kirra rubbed her chin, narrowing her eyes in thought.

Nylah pressed her face into her hands, sighing.

“I don’t know,” the dragon admitted. “But I’m starting to think the collar didn’t send me out there to protect Asterryl. It sent me to protect the box. As soon as I was healed enough to fly, it made me move it somewhere safer.”

“I’m not sure that place is safer,” Kirra said, hunching her shoulders. “Maybe for the box, but not for Asterryl.”

“There’s more,” Nylah said, lifting her voice. “If either of you conspiracy theorists would like to hear it.”

The dragon turned his head towards Nylah, waiting. “Yes?”

“Six men came to kill you while you were injured. Many of these men came from Delverrix.” Nylah lifted up a finger to silence the dragon before he could speak up. “But there was a seventh man, who did not participate in the attack. He was also from Delverrix, and we assume he’s gone back there after the attack failed. We think he was the one who recruited the attackers.”

“Then I think it is time we go and pay him a visit.”

Nylah worked her fingers together. “I don’t disagree.” She lifted her eyes to stare at one of the dragon’s windows. Beads of rain ran down it in rivulets that gleamed orange in the lamp light. “But not when its raining.”

“What?” Alvaranox pulled his head back.

“They were waiting for the rain.” Nylah turned her head to let her eyes meet the dragon’s she. Lifted a hand and stroked his cheek. “I don’t know why, but we know they were waiting until the rains came before they made their attack. They were all here days before they made their move, but they waited for the weather to change. For the rains to come.”

“That makes me uncomfortable.” Alvaranox drew his paws up against his chest plates, hissing under his breath. “They were all here, why not attack me right away? Every day they waited was another day for me to heal and grow stronger.”

“We don’t know,” Nylah admitted. “But we’ve reliable reports indicating they were asking all about the weather patterns here. Rain, specifically.”

“That does seem odd.” Kirra fetched a feathery quill, a small wooden inkpot and some drying sands. When everything was collected lay down upon her belly on some furs while Nylah remained lost in thought. Kirra spread out the documents and began to duplicate the information. Now and then she crooked a knee and lifted a foot in the air. Without stopping her scrawling, she spoke up again. “It’s too bad the collar didn’t warn you earlier. We could have sent guards out to stop them before they ever came for you.”

The dragon growled. He lifted a paw and unsheathed a single claw to tug at the collar with. “Damn thing is useless. I suspect it did not warn me about them because they were not a threat to Asterryl or its outlying villages. It only drew my attention to them when they began to make their way into the city to attack me.”

“Once they were an active threat,” Nylah said. She nestled into the crook of the dragon’s foreleg, and drummed her fingers against his forest green scutes. “And even then, it give you vague warnings, did it not?”

“Much of the afternoon and evening, yes.” Alvaranox lifted his head, glancing down at her. “Flickering images of travelers in the rain. I sent the guards to find them but by then they were gone. I was still getting used to actually focusing on the collar, using it to tell me things.”

“It almost sounds like it had trouble seeing them,” Kirra said, sprinkling a little sand on the words she’d just written. She set that page aside and moved to another. “Has it had trouble seeing threats in bad weather before?”

Alvaranox snorted, tossing his head. “It is not a bleary-eyed old man, Kirra. It does not ache when the storms move in and it does not squint against the rain. It doesn’t even have eyes. It is…” The dragon waved his paw, hissing again. “Magic.”

“Which none of us understand in the least,” Nylah muttered, folding her arms. She glanced at Kirra, smiling. “There are no bad ideas, Kirra. At this point thinking beyond the norm is probably our best bet.”

Kirra nodded, copying the next passage. She turned her head to smile at Nylah. “I was just thinking out loud, anyway. They must have had some reason to wait for the rain.” Laughing, Kirra shook her head. Red, curly tresses swayed back and forth. “Maybe they just heard that Asterryl has lazy guards who don’t like patrolling in the rain.”

“Kirra,” Alvaranox said, smirking at her. “Perhaps you’d best focus on your work.”

“Excuse me, Grumpy Scales.” Kirra rolled her eyes, and looked back at her parchment to find the ink smeared and spread across the page. “What the hell happened here?”

“You dragged your hair through your writing,” Nylah said, trying not to laugh at the younger woman’s misfortune.

“Oh, damn,” Kirra said. She caught a few strands of hair in her hands. Black smears now marked the end of the red curls. “I’ve got to get this out right away.”

Kirra rose to her feet, and dashed for the exit. “Be right back!”

Kirra vanished into the rain, and Alvaranox turned his head down to Nylah. “I can see why you’d trust her over a trained archivist.”

“Shut your snout, you old lizard.” Nylah reached up and tweaked Alv’s frilled ear. He yelped and pulled his head back.

Alvaranox glared at her for a moment, but the dragon’s gaze soon softened. Nylah reached up and gently cupped Alv’s chin. Hints of fear and pain began to shine through the cracks in the copper walls of Alv’s eyes. The loneliness she knew he often tried to hide from here was not near as strong anymore. She knew a deep friendship was developing between the dragon and Kirra, and it was doing him a world of good. Perhaps there was even more than friendship there, as there nearly once was between Alv and herself. Yet though the loneliness inside him was not so great now, there was a growing fear within the dragon’s eyes. Though he’d never say, Nylah suspected he was afraid to lose what few good things he now had to cling to.

“Be honest, Nylah.” Alvaranox pressed his chin against her palm. Nylah knew she could not lie to him now even if she wished too. The dragon wanted the truth while Kirra was not there to hear it, and whatever he asked, Nylah would give it to him. “Do you think Kirra’s right? Do you think there is a cult trying to kill me? Trying to get that box?”

Nylah stared into Alv’s wounded copper eyes. She tore her gaze away, and looked down at her own hands instead. A few dark spots marked her skin that she couldn’t recall seeing before. She was getting older, and worrying for her dragon was not helping. Alv’s question was a hard one to answer definitively, but it seemed as reasonable a possibility as anything else she could think of.

“Yes, Alv,” Nylah said.

“Then I hope you will not hold it against me if I say I plan to kill them first.”

Nylah shook her head. “I would expect nothing else, Alv. And in your place I would do the same. If it were my life they were after…”

“It is.” The dragon leveled his burning copper gaze with her. “It is your life they want. And Kirra’s.” Alvaranox unsheathed his claws, and sunk them into a patch of bare wooden floor. With a snarl, he dragged his claws back towards his body, cutting little lines. “They wish me dead, and you and Kirra protect me. We both know you two would stand between me and a sword if it meant saving my life, and we both know I would do the same for you.”

The dragon’s spines rose as he spoke and the anger in his voice rose with them. “These monsters have already come to our home, and have already slain good men trying to claim my life. They showed no hesitation in killing men just trying to defend their homes, and they will not hesitate to kill you, and Kirra to get to me.” Alvaranox tipped his head back, and with a clipped roar, spat fire into the rafters of his home. Nylah winced, hoping nothing caught alight. “I will not let them, Nylah!”

“I know, Alv,” Nylah said, reaching out to stroke the dragon’s jaw line. He sighed, lowering his head into her hand. Nylah could almost feel his anger melt away. “I know. But you cannot just go burn down half a city because our enemies live there. We have to be certain first.” She pulled his muzzle closer so that she could peer into his eyes. The fire in her polished topaz eyes matched his own. “We have to find the head of the viper so that you may cut it off.”

Alvaranox continued to relax, closing his eyes as Nylah held his muzzle. “You are right, of course. It would not do what is left of my people any good if I added to our monstrous reputation by burning down an entire guard barracks.” The dragon’s muzzle twitched with a tiny smirk. “Even if it does sound fun. But…thank you.”

Nylah kissed the golden spot at the end of Alv’s nose, smiling. “You don’t need to thank me, Alv. You and Kirra and I are all in this together. And just think. If these people truly do know more about the collar and the box, perhaps they will know a way to get that collar off of you.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Alvaranox murmured. He sighed, and twisted himself a bit, stretching his long neck to lay his head in Nylah’s lap. “So, when do we take our vacation to Delverrix?”

“When we’ve made proper preparations,” Nylah said, stroking his muzzle. “When the rains have stopped. Tomorrow I’ll go back to the archives.”

“What for this time?” The dragon sounded drowsy, worn out from bearing the weight of so much worry upon his wings.

“To see what I can find out about the day you were collared,” Nylah said, running her fingers in little circles across one of his sensitive ears. Then she lifted her free hand, and pointed to the sketches Kirra had been working on earlier in the day. “And to see what I can learn about your family.”

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Chapter Twenty Seven

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The rain continued throughout the night. The whispering patters against the windows could not soothe the dragon’s mind, and sleep eluded him. He dozed a few times but his sleeping mind was even more unsettled in slumber. His dreams were a swirling cauldron of broken memories and fresh fears. Wet green grass beneath hatchling paws. The smells of rain and rent earth. Fear in his belly. Men with no faces, wrapped in cloaks of shadow and blood. Whenever he awoke the images twisted together, garbled and unrecognizable yet they left him with cold dread lingering in his belly.

“Alv, you’re shaking.” Kirra murmured alongside the dragon. She lifted her head, red hair stuck it in all directions around her face. She tugged her blanket up around her shoulders, snuggling in. “Are you alright?”

Alvaranox lifted a paw. No moonlight shone through his windows but he could see his fingers trembling in the darkness nonetheless. The dragon set his paw back down. “I’m fine, Kirra. Go back to sleep.”

“Was it a nightmare?” Kirra worked herself up against the dragon, stroking his scales. Before Alv could deny it she asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“What’s to talk about?” The dragon licked his nose, looking around. Gods, he was tired. “It was just a dream.”

“Things aren’t always just a dream with you, Alv,” Kirra replied, snaking a hand up his neck to tap the collar.

Alvaranox pulled his head away before Kirra could press her fingers to the collar to try and soothe him. “This one was. I was a hatchling, and I think people were after me.” The dragon shivered, his scales clicking together.

“You sound scared, and cold,” Kirra said, leaning her head against his chest. “We’ll have to start lighting a fire in here at night, I think.”

Alvaranox tilted his head. “You make it sound like you’re planning to spend the night in here more often.”

“Would you rather I left you alone to sleep by yourself?”

Alvaranox growled, his frills flaring out. It was not a sound or display or anger, but one of frustration. Admitting he preferred a human’s company to solitude was not an easy thing for a dragon. Especially a dragon who had spent so much of his life cursing the very humans who bound him here with the collar. But the warm comfort he once found to solitude had long since died out and turned to cold, lonely ash. Though the dragon feared where it may lead, he knew he was happier now whenever Kirra was beside him.

“No, Kirra,” Alvaranox said, lowering his head to brush his muzzle against her cheek. “I would rather you stayed.”

Kirra wrapped her arms around the dragon’s neck, hugging him best she could. She kissed his frilled ear, smiling. “Good. I’d rather stay with you, as well.” She pulled back and rubbed the golden spot on his nose. Even in the darkness Alv could see her smirk. “Besides, someone’s got to protect you from that cult.”

“And I’m sure you and your little knife will be quite the obstacle in their fanatical path.” Alv chuckled to himself.

“Not everyone can squish their attacker beneath a door!” Kirra giggled, and then hunkered down under her blankets. “It’s awful chilly in here. Do you want me to drape some blankets over you before you go to sleep, like we did when you were hurt?”

“No, but thank you.” Alvaranox lifted his head, peering out the window. “I think I’m going to go flying for a bit.”

“In the middle of the night?” Kirra sat up again, the blue and gray blanket wrapped tightly around her. “In the rain?”

“Yes.” Alv licked his nose, rustling his wings. “It’s not storming or anything, only rain. I don’t think I’ll be getting much sleep tonight, anyway. I’d invite you but you’d be better off staying here, warm and dry. My scales get a little slippery when they’re wet.”

“I noticed that when we were swimming.” Kirra slipped an arm out from under the blanket to stroke the dragons foreleg. “Just be careful, alright?”

“I will.” Alv snaked his head around to lick her cheek. “Go back to sleep.”

Kirra laughed and pulled away, scrunching her face up. “Cut it out, Alv!”

The green dragon just laughed to himself as he rose to his feet. He stretched his fore paws out in front of himself, yawning. Kirra giggled, Alv knew she liked the way his pink tongue curled in his muzzle during his yawns. When he was finished stretching, he padded over to the stone hearth built into the wall. There were a few spare logs sitting nearby, and Alv crammed a few of them into the fireplace. The dragon took a breath, squeezed his fire glands and sprayed flame across the logs.

“What are you doing?” Kirra called out from across the room.

“Keeping you warm till you can shelter under my wing again.” Alvaranox turned to smile at Kirra. The woman’s red hair glowed like embers in the growing firelight. “I’ll be back later. Going to go with Nylah to the Grand Hall in the morning.”

“Alright,” Kirra said, scooting across Alv’s bed to curl up amidst the large warm spot the dragon left behind. Before she wrapped herself up tightly in her blanket, she waved at the fire. “Thank you, Alv.”

“You’re welcome, Kirra.” Alv dipped his horned head in a nod, then padded to the door. Black claw tips clicked against the wooden floor. Alvaranox hadn’t realized he’d started to unsheath them.

Kirra called after him just before slipped into the rain. “Fly safe, Sour Apples!”

Alvaranox smirked to himself. If that was what Kirra was going to call him, the dragon was going to have to make a point to hoist his tail and flash her his namesake. Which he did just before he went outside. Kirra’s laughter made him glow inside.

Alvaranox launched himself into the air from the muddy road. Droplets of mud flew off of his paws as he leapt into the sky, rain swirled beneath his wings as he pumped them. He flicked his flight membranes closed to protect his eyes from the rain. Though it fell gently, the droplets were cold and hit much harder as he accelerated through them. The dragon rose above Asterryl, ascending in a lazy circle. Street lamps looked faint and flickering through the curtains of rain. The city below shimmered, blinking in a thousand places.

Alv had to admit, Kirra was right. Asterryl did have its own strange sort of beauty. If he’d not been bound here as the city’s slave for most of his life, he would have appreciated that beauty a little more. Much of the city was dark, but light from late night taverns painted the wet streets with shining golden auras and promises of warm fires and dry clothes. Alv even considered descending to one of the taverns to squeeze his way under an outdoor rain tarp and demand a few barrels of wine.

For once, the dragon did not want to turn to drink. Instead he simply flew. In his youth, he took to flying as a way to burn off the anger he could not direct towards those who caused it. He could not hurt the people who put the collar on him, he could harm the ones who bound him to a life of slavery, and he simply flew. On and on until his wings were ready to give out, until his anger melted into fatigue, until his sorrow was swallowed by hunger. Then he hunted, he drank, and for a time, he slept away his pain.

It was an empty life for so many years, into he came to call Nylah friend. Until Rain found her way into his life. Until he came to trust Kirra. Now, when he had more good things in his life than he’d had in ages, everything seemed ready to crumble around him. The collar was hiding the real world from his eyes. It made him dig up a box that spewed the wasteland in his dreams. A cult was trying to kill him, possibly to get that same box.

Alvaranox laughed at the ludicrousness of it all. “Never thought I’d miss the days when all I had to worry about was how early the collar was going to wake me to go kill bandits again.”

Besides stress relief, the dragon also used to go flying when he had something to think about. Alvaranox once thought that all dragons went flying when something was on their mind. He could have sworn some other dragon told him that. But Alvaranox also once thought dragons naturally preferred solitude, just as he once thought that dragons came from some beautiful, wild green place. That place had not existed for many years. More and more Alv was realizing that he knew little more about his own people than Nylah and Kirra did. Most of Alv’s knowledge of dragons was little more than his own personal experiences filtered through his assumptions and the perceptions the collar fed him.

“I know nothing about my own people,” Alvaranox said to the rain. The rain did not listen, but neither did it judge his habit of talking to himself. “Do I know anything about dragons? Or do I only know myself?”

He had Rain’s scales in his home on the island, and she had taken some of his. Alv remembered the pain when she’d plucked a fresh one from his neck when he wasn’t looking. Alv had scales from his mother, too. Had she taken a few of his? He could not recall. He’d always thought that was a dragon tradition. That dragon lovers and family members took some of each other’s scales. But was it really a dragon tradition, or just something he’d learned from his mother? Was Rain surprised when he asked for a few of her scales?

Alvaranox snarled into the rain. If only the female he’d nicknamed after the weather were still around, he could ask her. But ten years now she’d been gone, and Alvaranox could only hope she was still alive. If she was, she must have gone east, fleeing the wasteland and human expansion. Or perhaps north, beyond the Va’chaak swamps. He hoped she hadn’t run into the men of Blood and Shadow. Then again, were they hunting all dragons? Was it a cult of dragonslayers? Or were they just trying to kill him?

“Blood And Shadow,” he murmured to himself, repeating the name he’d just thought up. It seemed a fitting moniker, no doubt far more appropriate than whatever they called themselves. “If you have hurt Rain, I will hunt each and every one of you down and…” And what. What would he do? Whatever the collar told him to do?

Alvaranox supposed he’d find out once they reached Delverrix. A faint bell tolled in the back of his mind. Alv reached up with a paw and rubbed the collar. His pink and black paw pads glided across the wet surface. The collar felt warm against his chilled pads.

“Yes, I doubt you like Blood and Shadow any more than I do.” The dragon chuckled to himself. “Tell you what, Collar. Point them out to me when we get there, and for once I shall be glad to do your bidding.”

Alv tucked his foreleg back up against his body and flew on. When he realized he was somewhere over the lake of teeth he dipped a wing and turned back towards Asterryl. After that Alvaranox simply flew. The dragon had a hundred questions in his mind he wanted answers. Why couldn’t he remember his mother for so many years? Why did he barely recall his father? Why did the collar hide the world from him? What was that damn black box and what was going to happen if Kirra became more to him than just a friend?

Alvaranox blinked. That last one sort of snuck in there. If only she was a dragon. Though, he’d once felt the same about Nylah. In truth he still did, but they had both moved on and done the best with their lives that they could. Nylah was getting old now, but Alv was only into his adulthood. Just like Kirra. Kirra, of course, would age and choose a new Handler and eventually die before Alv’s scales were turning gray. But did that matter?

Dragons often said, you love who you love. Alvaranox did not think he loved Kirra, but he could not say if that would last. Then again, did dragons say that? He’d heard that somewhere, from Rain perhaps. Or even something he’d heard his mother say in his youth? As far as he knew, dragons did not care what gender another dragon loved or lusted for. Perhaps they did not even care what race, so long as it was consensual.

Perhaps it was all just in his head, and too many years chained to a human town had twisted his mind into unexpected ways.

Alvaranox sighed. He could fly for months on end, and not even the wind could answer his questions. Better if he just tried to forgot them for a little while. The dragon folded his wings and went into a dive. He let the wind’s fingers caress his scales, tease his flesh. As the dark wet earth rushed up at him through the rain, Alvaranox flared his wings and the wind caught him. He swooped back up again, and gave a roar of pure, primal emotion.

For over an hour, Alvaranox danced with the wind. Her hands massaged his outstretched wings. Her fingers glided across his underbelly, tickled his jaw. She poured over every inch of him as he dove, pushed against him as he ascended, and stroked his membranes as he glided. Teasing updrafts caressed his belly scales, swirling currents ran against his back. Her breath blew the rain across him in cold rivulets along his green body. Were the rain not so cold, the feeling would have nearly been erotic to the dragon. Even so, every dive still sent electric shivers down the dragon’s spine.

The wind did not bring him answers, but it did bring him comfort.

Lately, so too did Kirra.

Alv decided to catch himself some breakfast. Soon enough, the sun would rise and the rain clouds would lighten from black and unreadable to gray and swirling. Nylah would get out of bed and go see what she could find out about his parents. Alv held his breath as he swooped low over some stone-capped rises. Somewhere out there, his mother once roamed whatever was left of the wilds. Alv just hoped they would not discover she died trying to save him from being collared.

As Alvaranox circled over stretches of rain-shrouded farmland, an obnoxious bleating rattled around in his skull. The dragon flattened his ears back, trying to squeeze the sound out. Neither his ears nor the rain were enough to cover up the irritating noise. Alv dipped a little lower in the sky, and spotted a single, gray-furred goat standing atop a stacked pile of high bales. The rest of the animals were in barns or huddled under trees leaving just the single bold goat up in the middle of the night, yelling at the rain. Stupid thing should know when to shut up.

At least he’d found his breakfast.

With the sound of steady rain covering his dive, Alv snatched the goat off the hay bale before it even knew he was there. Its last terrified bleats rang out through the rainstorm before sent it hurtling into a hillside. Alv spun back around and touched down on the hill. His paws skidded on wet grass but he caught his balance before he injured himself in any embarrassing way. Which was good, the last thing he wanted to do right now was return to Kirra to have her splint the ankle he’d broken with a careless landing in the rain.

Alvaranox extended his wing, using it as a green and black-mottled umbrella to shield his head and his kill from the rain while he ate. He ate quickly. The dragon didn’t want to give the farmer a chance to wake up and come yell at the dragon feasting upon his animal. Not that Alv felt any sort of guilt. It was only a single goat, and if it was that important to the farmer, he could go and have the council buy him a new one.

Not like it was the first time Alv helped himself to someone’s livestock.

When he’d reduced to goat to little more than bloodied bones, the dragon leapt back into the air. Rain swirled under his wings, dripped from his scales as he flew back to town. He felt a little better than when he’d left, his mind was a little more settled. As always flight helped calm him, even if it was just because he’d expended so much energy. As he neared the outer walls of Asterryl, the dragon felt fatigue settling in against him. A bit late for that now, he thought. Perhaps he’d take a nap later, after seeing what Nylah discovered in the Grand Hall. He knew the old lady would be rising with the sun and wanted to be there when she did.

At a distance and from the sky, Asterryl looked like flickering, gold-painted lines on the ground. The walls that encircled and cut odd patterns through the midst of town were lined with lamps and lanterns. The larger walls had walkways atop them and guards on patrol. A few freshly constructed watchtowers kept sigil over the outer most walls, mirrored lanterns cast more focused beams of light across the muddy roads leading to Asterryl’s gates.

In any other town a dragon swooping in just before first light would have raised a panic. Guards would have cried out calls to arms, men would have rushed their families to shelter. And then things would have burned and blood would be shed. Hopefully not the dragons blood. In Asterryl Alvaranox’s return barely even registered with the guards. A man in a tower waved at him, another flashed his lantern at the dragon in greeting. People in the streets were more concerned with staying dry on the way to work than the were with the dragon flying overhead.

In this instance, Alvaranox supposed it was better to be seen as the guard dog returning to his post than the monster come to bring ruin upon the town. It was far too early and he’d had far too little sleep to bother fighting anyone. Besides, he’d taken a sword in the belly before and could not say he was keen to repeat it. Though it did raise an interesting question.

How would they deal with the population of Delverrix, or any other town they stopped at? Surely they’d heard that Asterryl claimed a guardian dragon among its ranks, but would they actually recognize Alvaranox as such? They might simply assume he was yet another monster come to burn their city down. If they started to pepper him with arrows and try to stick their blades in his belly before he had a chance to explain himself, things would get unpleasant in a hurry. Especially for the city they were visiting.

Hopefully the fact he was going to have riders would give them a clue that he wasn’t there to cause anyone any trouble. Perhaps he’d have to land outside the town and send Nylah and Kirra in first to explain that yes, Alvaranox was a dragon, and no, they were not allowed to try and slay him. Then he’d invite himself into the garden of the nearest tavern and ask for their best wine. Yes, that would show them he was a friendly dragon.

Alvaranox snorted to himself, tossing his head as he swept in for a landing outside his home. Friendly dragon. As if. He just wasn’t the sort to kill anyone if they weren’t trying to kill him. That generally counted as friendly by the standards of a dragon. At least as far as he knew the standards of a dragon.

Alvaranox was hardly an expect on his own species.

The dragon growled to himself as he touched down upon the road that lead to his home. He trotted a few steps through the mud, and tucked his wings against his body. Before heading inside, he walked around his home to the copper water collection funnels and troughs to check on stupid fish. The day before he made sure the fish’s trough was covered again so Stupid Fish wasn’t flooded out of his home. Then again, if the fish was lucky, the waters might wash him all the way down the lake and set him free.

If only Alvaranox could be flooded out of his barrel so easily.

Then again, did Alvaranox still want to be free of his barrel? The beautiful, wild land he had yearned to return to for so many years did not exist. Though his memories of it remained clear, Alvaranox now doubted he had ever truly seen such a place. It was a veil of falsehood stretched across his mind by the collar. The wilds he remembered sharing with his mother was nothing more than a dream set before him to keep him reaching, yearning, and hoping. A mule would endlessly pursue a carrot that dangled just out of reach, turning a millwheel. And a dragon? A dragon would protect the town that enslaved him in endless pursuit of a chance to return home to the wilds.

But there was no wilds. There was no home beyond Asterryl. There was nothing left out there for Alvaranox. Asterryl was his only home now.

For the first time in memory, the thought of leaving Asterryl frightened the dragon a little. If he was set free, where would he go? He still saw the carrot they dangled before him, but Kirra proved to him that carrot was rotting from the inside out. If Stupid Fish was truly freed from his barrel, then the dry land beyond it would suffocate the fish. If the barrel broke it would liberate the fish, but the fish would soon die. If the collar’s hold on Alvaranox broke, he could return to the wilds, but the wilds were now an un-survivable wasteland.

Then why did the Collar keep showing him something better? To keep him hoping. He keep him doing his duty to Asterryl.

When the time comes, you will complete your duty. And you will be free again.

Words from some forgotten dream came to him, drifting through his mind in his mother’s voice. Alvaranox took a deep breath, his emerald chest plates expanding. He held it till his lungs burned then heaved it back out as though expelling rotten, diseased air he wanted to clear from his body. What freedom was there left to him now? A hungry life in a dying world? Even if the collar was removed, he would have to live close to Asterryl just to have access to hunting grounds.

The dragon protected Asterryl almost all his life. Now, even if he was freed from the collar, Asterryl would still have him by the balls. He doubted they would slay him, but he could not go far enough into the wilds to leave their influence without also leaving behind any semblance of plentiful prey.

Maybe he could go east. Maybe Rain had gone east, fleeing from human inhabited lands. She lived to the northwest, before. A little beyond the Va’chaak swampland. She’d never much liked humans. As far as Alv knew she did not hate them, but she did fear them. Fear of humanity was a humiliating thing for a dragon to admit. As an individual, a human was so much smaller, shorter, and shorter lived than a dragon. But en masse, they were quite good at taking the lives of dragons. Hell, even one clever bastard with a lucky shot could slay a dragon. Alvaranox’s scars were reminders of that.

Alvaranox pulled the boards covering Stupid Fish’s trough aside and dropped a few pawfuls of grain into the fish’s barrel. Silver whiskers probed at the surface as much of the fish reminded hidden in the darkness and murky water. Once the fish was fed, Alvaranox put the boards back in place to make sure the trough was not flooded out. He rather doubted Stupid Fish would be happy to exchange a few final moments of freedom for the rest of his life.

Alv could not blame the fish. He would not have traded a few moments of freedom for his life, either.

The dragon padded through the mud back towards his home. Firelight glowed upon the window panes. Every droplet of rain that clung to the glass shone as a flickering golden jewel. It had been several hours since Alvaranox left, but the fire seemed just as strong. Kirra must have gotten up to stoke it. If not for the layers of clouds obscuring the sky and cloaking the impending sunrise, the horizon would be brightening from black to purple and indigo. Alv wiped the mud from his paws on the doorframe of his home, and pushed through the wet hides covering his entrance.

Kirra was wrapped up in a blanket, sitting in front of the fire. A few sketches littered the floor around her, and she seemed intently focused on what she was drawing. She lifted a hand to wave to the dragon when she heard him enter but did not take her eyes off the page for a few moments. Alvaranox shook himself, water sprayed in all directions to and ran down the logs that made up the walls of his home. A bit more water hit the rafters, and a few droplets then dripped right back down onto the dragon’s nose.

Alv scrunched his golden spot, then padded towards Kirra. “I thought you’d still be asleep.”

“I went back to sleep for a little while after you left,” Kirra said, putting the finishing touches on her latest sketch. “But then I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep, either.”

“Ah, I see,” the dragon said, settling down upon his haunches. He curled his tail around himself, rustling his damp green wings. “We share a common affliction then.”

“Indeed we do.” Kirra giggled to herself. She tilted her head back and forth, looking her drawing over. This time she was careful not to drag her hair across the charcoal marks. “Did you enjoy your flight?”

“I did,” the dragon said, licking his nose. He gazed around his home. The sight of potted plants and flowers donated by the town during his convalescence still struck him as odd. Though it was still gloomy and dark outside, the fire cast a cheerful, orange glow across everything. It made everything seem warmer. Kirra glanced back at the dragon, smiling. Her green eyes glittered in the firelight. She made him feel warmer, too. “I came to a conclusion, though.”

“Oh?” Kirra smiled at him a moment longer, and then set down her charcoal stick. “And what is that?”

“That whatever happens in the future,” the dragon said. He lifted a forepaw and tapped at the collar with a single, unsheathed black claw. “Whether you get this off of me or not. You are going to be stuck with me for the rest of your days. You and this whole damn town. There is nothing out there for me to return to, Kirra. I have no home to go back to, no wild lands to roam.”

Kirra sighed to herself. She pushed herself to her feet, cradling her blanket around her body. Alvaranox caught glimpses of bare skin beneath the blanket. She padded over to him, and draped her body, blanket and all, against the dragon. Then she lifted an arm to hug him around his neck when he lowered his head.

“Well, I for one will be happy to have you here for as long as you wanted to stay, Alv.” She leaned her head against his chest. “And after all you’ve done for us, the least that Asterryl could do for you is give you food and shelter. At least you won’t be a slave once I’ve got that collar off you.”

“At this point I wonder if being Asterryl’s slave is all that different from being its citizen.”

“You’d have to start paying taxes,” Kirra said, giggling. “Here. Look what I’m making for you.” Kirra pulled away, her blue and gray blanket swirling as she turned with a flourish. “I had another idea while you were out flying.”

“Are you naked under there?” Alvaranox smirked to himself as she walked back towards the fire.

“I’ve got my under things on,” Kirra said, laughing. “Haven’t we had this conversation?”

“Yes, I suppose we have.”

“Not that you haven’t already seen me naked.” Kirra knelt down and picked up her latest drawing. She held it up to the firelight, inspecting it.

“Indeed I have.” Alvaranox flicked his spined tail tip against a green pillow with lacy golden frills. The pillow careened off a nearby wall and skidded a few feet across the ground. “I cannot say I did not enjoy the sight.”

Kirra rose to her feet. “I seem to recall you enjoyed it even more than I expected you to.“

“I did not,” Alvaranox muttered, glancing away.

Kirra stuck her tongue out at him. “You had to slosh your way out into the deeper water to hide the fact your spear was showing!”

“It was not,” Alvaranox said, snapping his jaws. Then he smirked, chuckling a little. His wings shook. “Not all the way, anyway.”

“I wouldn’t have thought a dragon would be interested in a human woman that way.” Holding her blanket closed with one hand, she walked back to the dragon.

“I have spent most of my life among humans,” the dragon said. Waves of uncertainly rolled across the ocean of his voice. “I am sometimes not sure what I like, anymore. And you do have a very beautiful body.” He smirked to himself, though at this point it was just to dull the edge his sudden seriousness. “For a human.”

Even in the firelight, Kirra’s blush was obvious. “Thank you,” she said, her voice a whisper that was nearly lost among the sound of rain against the windows. “You’ve told me that before, and yet every time it catches me off guard.”

“It shouldn’t,” Alvaranox replied, his smirk growing into a far more genuine smile. “Because it is the truth.”

Still wrapped in her blanket, Kirra leaned forward to kiss the golden spot on Alv’s nose. “Thank you, Alv.” She rustled the parchment in her hand. “Do you want to see what I’ve drawn you now?”

“Of course.”

Kirra held up her latest image. Rolling hills covered in swaths of wildflowers, capped with undulating lines of rock were drawn all across the parchment. A stream flowed between two of the hills. Patches of heather looked to be waving in the wind. Trees were in blossom. Several dragons circled in the distance sky. Beneath them, the hills seemed to roll on forever into infinity. Though it was all done in shades of gray, the detail was nonetheless stunning, the image of a familiar wilderness no less beautiful.

“Oh, Kirra.” Alvaranox did not know what to say. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s only charcoal,” Kirra murmured, her face growing even more heated as the dragon complimented her art. It made her happy just to know he liked it. “But like the images of your parents, and of Rain, I’m going to do you a full size landscape of this place. Filled with green hills and gray rocks, blue streams, blue-gray heather…everything you told me about. And some of what I saw in your mind. You think you’d like that?”

“I would love that, Kirra.”

Kirra beamed at the dragon. She turned and used the image to gesture at an empty spot on his wall. “I’m thinking right there. So when you wake in the morning, you can look up and see your own wild land, right there. It might not be out there for you, anymore. But at least it won’t be gone completely.”

“Thank you, Kirra.” Those were the only words the dragon could find in that moment. His eyes began to burn, and his throat tightened up. He swallowed to try and dislodge what felt like an entire mountain wedged in his throat. “Thank you.”

Alvaranox did not know how much longer he could continue to tell himself this was only a friendship. It felt as though it was growing into so much more. It frightened him, and yet it also made him happy. Whatever they may be together, he was glad to have her by his side. Alvaranox may be stuck here for all his life, but as long as Kirra was here with him, it would not be so bad.

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Chapter Twenty Eight

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Nylah woke to cold, gray light filtering through her curtains. The steady, whispering patter of rain against her roof told her that no matter how high the sun rose, the world would remain shrouded in gloom. It was a good day to sleep in, and she fought the urge to do just that. She lay curled upon her large bed that took up much of her room, warm and cozy beneath layers of soft gray blankets and multi-hued quilts. It would be so easy, and so pleasant just to close her eyes and let the soothing sound of rain lull her back to sleep. Nylah’s eyelids began to droop.

“No.” Nylah spoke aloud, forcing her eyes open. She stared up at her ceiling, her head framed by gray hair that fanned out across her pillows. Nylah preferred to call it graying, but at this point there was little black left. Alv’s injured had turned what few swaths of ebony that remained the color of the rainy sky. “Alv needs me.”

Alv had always needed her. Nylah knew the dragon would never admit it, and that was fine. In his many years enslaved to the service of Asterryl the dragon had little more to cling to than his pride, and Nylah would never beseech him that. Yet Nylah knew whether Alv cared to admit it or not, that he had always needed her.

When Nylah first became his handler, Alv was damn near broken. He was terrified of his first handler. The man could hurt the dragon any way he wanted and the dragon could not hurt him in return. Alv was at the literal mercy of the town that taken him from his home, from his mother, and put him in collar. Alv was bitter, angry, and resentful. If the collar’s power had lapsed for but one moment, the dragon would have torn Asterryl apart. He’d have ripped the Grand Hall to pieces, hurled his first handler to his death, and then set flame to anything that would burn. This place had taken everything from him and never given anything back. He would have watched it burn to the ground, and then he would have gone home. Only, there was no home for him to return to. In his younger days, it would have pushed Alv over the edge.

He teetered on that edge often enough when Nylah was young. Nylah saw it in his eyes when she was first made his Handler. There were days it was all Alvaranox could do just to keep from folding his wings and diving head-first into his ruined hideaway upon his island. A final act of defiance to end his pain and loneliness in such a way as not even his body would be recoverable for the butchers and armor-makers in Asterryl. If he knew back then that the home he remembered, the beautiful place he longed to return too was nothing but an illusion, that would have been the end of him. The collar might not have left him kill himself, but he would have withered away from the inside out until not even the collar could keep his heart beating any longer.

Nylah tightened her fists up against the blankets. Alvaranox needed her.

Oh, how he had needed her.

Nylah pitied Alv in her youth. She knew him not as Alv back then, but as the Guardian Slave, the monster brought here to protect their city from all the threats that would ever face it. Yet even then she felt sorrow for the creature. He may not have truly lived in a beautiful home, but he did have a mother, and Nylah was sure she loved him very much. Though he was brought here before Nylah was old enough to remember it, there was no denying the pain in the young dragon’s copper eyes. As a girl she saw him shying away from people, she saw him gazing at the skies. A few times at night she heard him roar in fury, she heard him howl in anguish, but never did she hear the answer she knew he was hoping for. Once, when she was no more then a girl, she snuck out at night and crept close the stable they kept him. Close enough to hear the dragon crying.

She knew then that one day, this dragon would need her.

When Nylah first took the job, she felt great joy welling up in her heart, great pride at being granted such an important position in the city of Asterryl. There was a ceremony, just as there was when Kirra took the position, where she was declared the handler. They all stood in the middle of the central plaza, where Alv was first bound. The previous handler cut her palms with a black-bladed knife. Then Nylah wrapped her hands around the collar. It had to know the new Handler’s blood. Nylah had done the same to Kirra when it was her turn.

Nylah still remembered the strange, tingling rush that poured through her body. The first time she had truly felt magic. It was such a rare thing. No one in Asterryl knew of any other real magic besides this collar, and only the Handlers ever truly felt it. It was as though the dragon’s life was connected to her own through the collar’s powers. Whispers of thoughts, echoes of heartbeats, and the distant chiming of a bell. It all seemed so mysterious, so amazing to a woman who was still quite at the time.

Her joy was shattered as completely as the dragon’s memories the first time she shared a room alone with him. Alv cowered before her, trembling. He thought she was going to beat him, and he knew he could not stop her. Young Alv still remembered his first few nights with his original handler, and that man made sure the dragon knew who was in charge. Nylah did not realize how badly Alv had been mistreated over the years until that first night, until she realized Alv was shaking because he was waiting for her to torture him.

Torture. That was what it was. Beating something into submission to make sure it would listen. Physical beatings at first. Later, using the dragon’s natural defiance to trigger the collar’s pain response. If Alv refused to comply, it used pain to force him into action. If he still refused, it simply took control of his body and made him do as was required. If he fought against that, it hurt him further.

Any pride Nylah felt in her job melted away when she realized Asterryl was praising a sadistic beast who had bent the dragon to his will through pain. What was there to be proud of in that? That night, watching Alv cower in his corner, Nylah knew her job as handler, her only job, was to fix this broken creature. She dedicated herself as Alv’s handler not to the collar, not to Asterryl, but to Alvaranox himself.

It took her years to undo the damage that man had done. He had broken Alv, shattered the dragon into a thousand pieces and scattered them to the winds. There was little left in Alv but fear, sorrow, and rage. Once, early on, he tried to attack Nylah when his fear bubbled over into anguished fury and defensive instincts. The dragon tried to sink his teeth into Nylah’s face, only to collapse at her feet in screaming, sobbing pile of green scales. Nylah did not flee, nor ask if he’d learned his lesson. Nylah settled onto the floor, pulled Alv’s head into her lap, and cradled him until the Collar’s punishment had passed and the dragon’s fear began to abate.

Nylah knew that was the moment Alv began to trust her. It was a tiny thing at first, a droplet of trust in an ocean of fearful hatred. But it was a start, and Nylah spent her life building upon it. Piece by piece, year by year she put the dragon back together until he was whole. Until he was no longer afraid her, or Asterryl. Until his heart beat with purpose. Until he felt safe and secure even in his enslavement. By the time Alv was no longer shying away from people but instead trying to frighten them, hurling crude insults at everyone he passed on the streets, Nylah knew she had succeeded. From there it was up to Alv to build himself as he saw fit, for his natural personality to develop.

Nylah hadn’t expected the dragon to turn into a foul-mouthed, acid-tongued wine-guzzling bastard, but she would not have him any other way.

Alv had needed Nylah, and Nylah had needed him.

The dragon even needed her to protect him from himself. In their early days together, Alv was still going through adolescence. The surge of hormones made everything worse for the dragon. All his fear and rage and lonely sorrow were amplified ten fold, and had no outlet for it. He could not fight the humans who enslaved him, he could not funnel his growing aggression into battles with rival dragons like Nylah imagined he would have were he still free. He had no females with whom to learn the ways of mating, or slake his sudden urges.

When he grew too angry, he took to violence. It was no surprise to Nylah, after all human youths were often the same way. Hell, humans of all ages. The dragon could not hurt anyone in town, but he could break things. He smashed walls, hurled carriages, tore the roof off of a tavern when those inside seemed to be laughing at him. So long as he intended no harm to a resident of Asterryl, it seemed as though the collar would allow him to cause damage. His older Handler would beat him for any such damage he caused, but Nylah pressed the Council to pay for repairs, and then did what she could to soothe the dragon.

Sometimes he hurt himself trying to expend his anger and energy. He broke a few digits in his forepaw punching a hole in a wall. He fractured some ribs throwing his body into a building to break it down. He cut himself in a few places smashing windows. Nylah took care of each and every injury, and she never grew angry at him for what he did.

As he aged, and his hormones grew more and more rampant, Nylah encouraged him to expend his anger outside of town. He tore up fences, knocked over trees and flipped over empty carts outside a village. With a little more coaxing, she was able to get him to turn his anger onto things not related to people. Best of all was when the dragon took to flying for hours on end. Then there was no destruction, no energy, just an exhausted dragon with a much clearer mind.

The dragon’s adolescence brought with it desires to mate, and with those desires came plenty of embarrassing moments. Alvaranox was a male like any other, and there were times the dragon had grown aroused. With not clothing, such times were more than obvious, and also of great embarrassment to the dragon. Nylah herself was more than a little embarrassed at first as well, but she forced herself to get over it. Alv was far more humiliated, and it did him no good for her to go red-faced like some sheltered debutant who’d never heard of a such a thing. It was not the dragon’s fault if he woke and stretched before her when his spear was showing, and making him feel bad for it would not help his emotional development. So she laughed it off with him, and left him to do whatever he needed to do.

When she’d gotten over her embarrassment, she suggested to the dragon that he search the lands beyond Asterryl to find a female friend. That was when Alv first lamented to her that he missed being wild and mating. That was also when Nylah realized the dragon did not recall everything the way it truly was. When he was first brought to Asterryl, first put in the collar, Nylah was sure he was not yet old enough to mate. Yet when Alv trusted her enough to talk about his life, he claimed to have learned to mate with a female or two that he came to know while wandering the wilds before his capture.

Nylah tried to press his older handler on it. The man claimed he did not know much about it, though Nylah had not believed him. In the end he’d told her that there were simply some things the dragon did want to know. That the collar was not hiding the truth from him, it was protecting him from it. Nylah never really knew the extent to which the collar falsified his memories. She wondered why it would feed him false memories yet not block out those of his terrible mistreatment. She tried to talk to Alv about it, tried to tell him once that in fact, he had not yet mated. That he had been here since before he was old enough to mount his first female.

At first Alv seemed confused, then horrified. Then he asked her to leave. Nylah complied, and the next day she returned to ask him how he was coping with it. He could not even recall the conversation. When she tried to tell him again, he acted as though she were speaking gibberish. To her great dismay, Nylah realized the collar was actively filtering what the dragon could remember. Though, looking back now, Nylah realized she had no idea the scope of it. She knew it falsified a few things, but she had no idea it was hiding the real world from him.

In the end, she stopped trying to tell the dragon that the collar was altering his memories. Every time she managed to get through to him, it broke his heart all over again. What good did it do to tell the dragon the truth if he could not recall it for long? At most it brought him a night of painful uncertainty, before the collar banished the rearranged his memories as he slept. Nylah eventually decided it was best to let the dragon remember things as he wished. If he recalled pleasant times with other dragons, let him find comfort in those memories.

Nylah continued to encourage the dragon to explore the lands around Asterryl to the extent the collar would allow him. She’d heard of other dragons being spotted in the past, and she grew to know Alv she began to hope that no ill had befallen them. They were no longer just beasts in her eyes, even if the rest of Asterryl did not see the truth so easily. In time Alv did find other dragons, including females. It brought great joy to her heart the first time she saw Alv dancing in the sky with another dragon, heard his voice lifted by happiness when he spoke of his friendships and tried to avoid calling them his conquests. Typical male.

Rain would have him by the balls if Alv ever called her his conquest.

Nylah laughed as she lay in her bed. Rain was not Alv’s first, as far as she knew, but she was the female Alv was most infatuated with. Rain was the female that Alv would have spent his life with, if things had been different. Alvaranox had told Nylah about Rain a number of times, and Nylah truly wished she could have gotten to know the female. She sounded like an excellent match for Alv. Quick-witted, sharp-tongued, and not at all the sort to let Alv get away with his usual antics. Yet she also sounded as though she were exceedingly kind by the standards of a dragon, and tender when she needed to be.

She also sounded as though she were quite frightened of the collar, and of the town that put it upon him. Alv once confided in Nylah that when they played and wrestled, when they mated, and even when they lay together at night, Rain refused to touch the collar. Alv was careful not to brush it against her scales because it caused her to draw away. Alv had always assumed she’d returned to her home in the west, but just like Alv, there was no home for there her to return to. If she went anywhere it must have been east, or far north.

Now Alv knew it.

For the first time since she had known him, Alvaranox was remembering things he wasn’t supposed too. Not only had he seen the vast wasteland that had washed away the land he thought he grew up in, but he remembered it. He remembered it when Kirra told him there was no green wilds. He remembered the dreams of other dragons who once bore the collar. Whether it was by Kirra’s hand, or the dragon’s near death, the collar was losing its hold.

Nylah suspected it was both. Somehow, Kirra had reached through the collar into Alv’s soul in ways Nylah had only imagined. There were times when she’d used the collar to help calm him, but even with her hands upon it she’d never heard the dragon’s thoughts. Nor had he heard Nylah’s. It was as though there was a chasm there not meant to be crossed, and Kirra built a bridge across it without even knowing how.

It was Alv’s injuries that had brought it all about. By some Gods-wrought miracle, Alvaranox lived just long enough to make it home. But that wound had nearly bled him dry, and by the time the two of them had done all they could, the dragon’s heart simply gave up. Alv was dying, and they both knew it. Then Kirra took hold of the collar, and somehow she made it save him. Kirra forced the collar to keep the dragon’s heart beating until his body could recover. Yet for a short time, the dragon’s heart had stopped. Alv had died.

It will bind him to our protection for all his life.

That was it, wasn’t it. That was what the first handler told her, when she took over the job. That the collar would bind Alvaranox to Asterryl until his dying day. Alv’s dying day had come and gone, and the collar was losing its hold. Whatever magic wrapped that terrible thing around the dragon’s heart let him go the moment his heart ceased beating. And when it began again, when the dragon took another breath, it left the collar in a frantic struggle to grab hold once more.

It was as though Alv’s death had freed him, and now the collar was fighting to bind itself to him all over again. Memories were breaking free. Alv was seeing things he wasn’t supposed to see. The dragon was fighting against its influence in ways he hadn’t even realized possible before. Nylah smiled to herself as she lay in bed.

“Not so easy to bind an adult, is it Collar.” She smiled, not at all concerned that she may have picked up Alv’s habit of talking to herself.

All his life Alv was wrapped in a black shroud of lies. Now, the seams of that shroud were fraying and stitch by broken stitch the dragon was breaking free. The dragon’s eyes were truly opening for the first time, and Nylah could not wait to help tear that blinding hood from his head. Men had come to slay the dragon, and instead they had set him on a path to freedom.

Nylah threw the blankets from her bed. Alv needed her.

Nylah paced around her room. She pulled her nightdress off and tossed it at the foot of one of her mahogany dresser. She opened a drawer, and pulled out a set of dark green breeches with copper stitching down the seams. Then retrieved a simple tan blouse with darker leaf patterns across it from another drawer. She might have to boss Laan around again today, and wanted to look at least moderately formal.

Alv needed her.

Nylah crossed to another room where she had a washbasin filled with rain water. She’d brought it in the night before. It wasn’t hot but it would do to clean herself up. She washed and considered her day’s priorities. Laan or his assistant should have all the books from the archive she’d requested already laid out for her. It was time to find out anything she could about Alvaranox’s family. In the past, she had considered doing some research for her own interest, but decided against it. It seemed unfair of her to know more about the dragon’s family than he did, and she did not know what the collar would let him remember. After all, considering that Alv had never before asked if she knew what happened to his mother, Nylah assumed the collar would not let him think about it. Nylah did not know the answer, but she had to assume the worst. No mother, dragon or not, would give up her child without a fight.

Nylah just hoped that she did not have to report that Asterryl had killed her to take her son. Nylah herself assumed Alv must have been orphaned. After all, he seemed to have plenty of memories of his mother from when he was a hatchling. He remembered her love and her golden markings, and the green places they wandered together. In years past, Nylah assumed those places were north, past the swamps, or east towards the other towns. She’d always thought perhaps Alv’s mother had died from some illness, or that Alv had escaped after his mother had been killed by dragon slayers. Part of that was because she did not want to admit her once-beloved home might well have killed her themselves.

In truth, she hadn’t wanted to know. If she found out one way or the other, she’d have felt obliged to tell the dragon. Such knowledge would have broken the stitched-up heart she’d worked so hard to piece back together. The dragon might not have remembered it the next day, anyway. Oh, but he could remember it now. He was ready to know the truth now. He needed to know. Nylah hoped she would uncover something that would bring him comfort, but she suspected the truth was anything but.

But Alv was ready. And Nylah was ready.

Alv needed her and Nylah would be there for him.

When Nylah was clean, she dried herself and pulled on her breeches and blouse. She hadn’t worn the green pants in some time, and she remembered having to squeeze into them the last time she put them on. Seemed she’d gotten thinner recently. It seemed age and stress had at least one benefit. Nylah chuckled to herself as she dragged a brush through her frizzy gray hair. It took a bit of work to tame it but she’d soon calmed the angry beast atop her head. Nylah worked her feet into her boots with a bit of effort, laced them up and then went for her cloak.

Nylah’s front room was filled with well-worn furniture that remained quite comfortable. A few paintings adorned her walls. She’d painted them herself just like those in her bedroom. Nylah was proud of her efforts though she would be the first to admit Kirra was by far the superior artist.

Nylah was also happy to admit that Kirra was superior at a lot of things. Her fascination with the dragon was not why Nylah picked her as successor, after all. Many people were fascinated with Alv. Many more of them were also excellent healers who did not make the sort of silly mistakes Kirra so often made. Yet all those silly mistakes she’d were nothing more than a mental block. When she was focused, Kirra knew herbs and mushrooms and blossoms and medicines as well as anyone else in town. She’d learned such things in her youth, and from Nylah she’d learned much more. There were better healers in town, but Nylah herself preferred Kirra’s instinctual style to those who would follow a book to a fault. These days Nylah suspected Kirra could stitch a man’s belly shut with her eyes closed if it was forced upon her. Saving Alv was proof of that. Obviously Kirra had never seen the guts of a dragon and yet she knew which organs were injured, and how to sew him back up. Nylah would tell anyone who listened it was Kirra who saved the dragon’s life. If Nylah was the first to respond, she doubted Alv would have made it.

Yet even beyond her abilities, Nylah chose Kirra for her empathy. She knew Kirra would grow to understand the dragon and his plight like no one else in this town would. Nylah was not going to be around forever, and Alv had grown to depend upon her. Nylah wanted to ensure that Alv had someone else here he could call his friend, and she knew in her heart that Kirra was the brightest star this little village had to offer the poor dragon. He needed a companion to keep him centered, a friend to keep his loneliness at bay. When Nylah was gone that loneliness would only grow, and so Nylah had chosen the woman she thought would make the greatest friend for the dragon.

Seeing that budding friendship blossoming into a vibrant flower before her very eyes was reward enough. Yes, Alv needed her, but soon enough, he would only need Kirra. Nylah smiled as he wrapped her green rain cloak around her shoulders and pulled up her hood. She walked out the front door, and turned to lock it behind herself before pocketing the key. Though she was happy to pass the torch, she would be here for as long as Alv needed her.

Alv…was right behind her. “Good morning, Old Lady.”

Nylah screamed, startled so badly her feet left the ground. She’d been so lost in her thoughts and turned to lock the door so quickly she’d not even noticed the green dragon lounging on her wet grass not far away. She clutched her chest with a hand, whirling around. By then Alv was already on his feet and nearly shoving his gold-spotted nose into her hood.

Nylah slapped the smirk right off his snout. “You scaly bastard!”

“Ow!” Alvaranox yelped and jerked his head back, his neck arching. He rubbed at his pebbly scaled muzzle with his scarred forepaw. “What was that for?”

“For startling the life of out me!”

“You haven’t dropped dead yet,” Alv said, lifting his spines. His smirk soon returned to his stinging snout. “Though at your age…”

“Very funny!” Nylah went to snatch his ear, but Alv pulled his head back. “Here I was, just thinking about how much you needed me…”

“Need you?” Alvaranox tossed his head, flaring out his wings. Rain pattered against them. “I don’t need you for anything, Old Lady.”

“You’ll need me to get you some pain-killing herbs after I kick you in the stones!” Nylah pulled her cloak tightly around herself, grinning beneath her hood. “But you’d have to go to Kirra for those, because I have an appointment to keep.”

“Yes, I’m aware.” Alvaranox licked his nose, and began to walk alongside Nylah as she made her way down the muddy path. “That’s why I’m here, after all.”

“I don’t think you’ll fit through the doors of the Grand Hall.” Nylah glanced over at him, still grinning.

“I could stick my head in and hurl insults.”

Nylah laughed to herself, happy to have Alv at her side. Yes. All these years later, and he had turned out magnificently. Nylah did not think she would have recovered half as well were she in the dragon’s place. She stuck a hand out from inside her cloak and stroked the wet green scales of the dragon’s neck. “Yes, you could.” She rubbed his neck a little more, and gave a sigh. “I am ever so glad to have known you, Alvaranox. You have made my life so much better.”

Alvaranox walked alongside her in silence. For a moment, Nylah feared she had perhaps said too much. The dragon rarely liked to talk about such things. Then again, that might be what lead to complete breakdowns like he’d had the day his stitches came out. After a little while, the dragon turned his head and smiled at Nylah. His copper eyes shone with warmth even in the cold rain.

“And you made my life worth living again, Nylah.”

That was all Alvaranox said about it, but the words would have kept Nylah warm in the coldest winter. The rest of the walk to the Grand Hall was spent in silence. Nylah smiled the entire way.

---

Chapter Twenty Nine

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Nylah was glad to see Laan was already waiting for her inside the Grand Hall. He did not look happy about it. The portly councilman was pacing up and down the second floor hallway when Nylah first arrived. He wore a purple shirt with silver buttons that ran down the front, as well as each sleeve, and a black and gold vest over the top of it. He’d matched it with a pair of black and golden breeches. Usually he wore the blue and gold colors of Asterryl, but perhaps he wasn’t officially working together. How unfortunate for him. A bit of overpriced perfume clung to him. His dark eyes seemed even more bloodshot and bleary than usual, his dark hair messy rather than fastidiously combed back.

“Late night, Laan?” Nylah asked as she strode down the hallway.

“Early morning,” he muttered, glancing at her.

“Is it?” Nylah smiled, and shrugged. She looked out the hallway window as if just noticing the time of day. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Did you have to bring him?” Laan thrust a finger at the window.

Nylah made a show of slowly following Laan’s finger towards the window, then outside to the garden below. Her eyes settled upon a man in a simple blue and gold uniform, braving the rain to do some tree pruning. “The Gardener?” Nylah acted as innocent as she could. “He was here when I got here, Laan. Would you like me to go ask him to leave?”

“Not him,” Laan said, sounding as though he’d just discovered someone had just swapped his rare, expensive wine for something cheap and common. How horrible. “Him!”

Nylah stared out the window as if trying to determine just who Laan was talking about. She looked everywhere but the actual place Laan was pointing until at last her eyes settled up on the large, green-scaled form lounging beneath the sheltering boughs of one of the taller trees in the garden. From the looks of things he’d already recruited that garden to trim off a few of the more bothersome low-hanging boughs to make more room for him.

“Oh, the dragon,” Nylah said as though she finally understood. Then her voice grew firm. “Yes. I did. I’m here on his behalf, after all.”

Laan grumbled under his breath, and turned away. He stalked off down the hallway towards the archive. Nylah smiled out the window at Alvaranox for a moment before she followed Laan. Laan vanished into the archives. Nylah heard some shouting, and a few moments a few frightened looking servants and apprentices came scurrying out. They bowed their heads to Nylah before vanishing into another room.

“You’re not the most pleasant person first thing in the morning,” Nylah said as she followed Laan into the archive room.

The Archive was filled with the scent of parchment, ink and old vellum. Layers of dust coated many of the old books and tables. Other areas seemed freshly cleaned, though more dust hung suspended in the air, motes still fluttering in light around freshly lit lanterns. It seemed as though the archive was hardly ever used these days, and a flurry of activity had finally stirred the air. The musty smells were hardly pleasant, but not surprising. Perfumes and incense smoke might damage the books.

“So, what have you found for me?”

“Not much,” Laan muttered, sounding as though that in and of itself was suspicious to him. He made his way to one of the far tables that had recently been cleaned off. “What little we’ve found of interest to you is here.”

Nylah took her time, looking around the archives. The large room filled with row upon row upon row of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. They were all cut from the same dark wood, and all wearing the same cloak of dust. The walls were lined with more shelves filled with yet more books. At least they all seemed neat and tidy. The books were organized by topic and date, and each shelf had a sign explaining in the contents. Some shelves had other signs indicating that the books were old and fragile. Lamp light was at a minimum, as a premium was placed upon keeping the various tomes in good condition. Trails of footprints on the dusty floor lead to each of the shelves and back again.

“Been busy, I see,” Nylah said, walking up behind Laan. “Looks like the first time anyone’s been here in ages.”

“I’m sure it is,” Laan muttered, folding his arms. “Not a big demand for historical knowledge in Asterryl. Probably only gets a visit a few times a year at most, when the latest year’s tome is unveiled. There’s other things here too, tax information, city codes and laws, historical prints and images, old maps, just about everything really.”

“So,” Nylah said, glancing down at the table. There were only a few books upon it. She’d expected more. “The historical archives for the year when the dragon was collared, and the years following?”

“Are not here,” Laan snapped, gritting his teeth. He sounded as irritated by that fact as Nylah was surprised.

“What do you mean?” Nylah looked around at a few of the shelves as if expecting to spot something they’d all missed. “They must be.”

“That is what I thought,” Laan said, waving his hand. “Yet we have looked through every shelf, and they are not here.”

“Then where are they?” Nylah glanced at the ground, following the trails of footprints upon the dusty floor.

“If I know that,” Laan said, his voice stretched taut with exasperation. “I would not be so damn irritable right now.”

“Irritable?” Nylah quirked a brow, careful to keep her expression blank. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Laan simply glared at her. He jammed a thick finger against the dark blue cover of one of the few books laying upon the table. “This is about all we’ve found that relates to your request. An omnibus of historical images relating to Asterryl’s history.”

“I suppose that’s a start.” Nylah folded her arms, heaving a sigh. Laan was infuriating sometimes. “So which of your ill-mannered associates might have stored the books I want in the wrong place?”

“I fear you’re missing the point, Nylah.” Laan strode away from her, passing between rows of shelves. “This way. Let me show you where the books should be and why this is growing increasingly suspicious.”

Dread prickled at the back of Nylah’s neck. She’d assumed the books were simply misplaced but that no longer seemed to be the case. Laan was easily irritated in general but now he seemed agitated by something aside from the early hour. Nylah glanced between every row of shelves they passed. Several sets of footprints in the dust told her two things. It had been ages since anyone had spent much time in here, and Laan and his associates really looked through every shelf. Probably twice. Until then she wasn’t sure the man hadn’t just been too lazy to do a proper search.

“Here.” Laan swept his hand towards a shelf stuffed with tomes.. Some were newer than others, with bright gold or silver letting across red, black or blue spines. On others the binding was creased and worn, the lettering faded and scarcely legible. The books on this shelf were all relatively uniform in size, with years and dates emblazoned down the spine. “You see?”

Nylah scrunched her face. Much as she hated to admit it to Laan, she hadn’t exactly caught on yet. “No.”

Laan growled, and snatched a book from the shelf with little care for its age. A neighboring book toppled from the bookcase and only Nylah’s quick reactions saved it from the floor. She gently eased the book back onto its place on the shelf, and gave Laan a stern, disapproving look. She might not be his superior and she was no archivist but she wasn’t going to let his carelessness damage Asterryl’s history.

“Now Laan,” Nylah began, only to have Laan shove the book he held into her hands.

“Look at it.”

Nylah looked down at the book. The binding was a faded red color. Each of the four corners of the cover was embossed with an old symbols of Asterryl. There was a rose, symbolizing peace, a wall, symbolizing protection, clasped hands which symbolized friendship, and an add sigil she was not especially familiar with. Looked a bit like the disproportioned walls around the Market when viewed from above. Probably symbolized trade or something.

“What about it, Laan?” Nylah leveled her gaze at Laan. She knew Laan must be enjoying this. Yesterday he’d not gotten a chance to really hold his information over her head before she jumped to the proper conclusion. Today he had a chasm too wide for her to leap, and she was sure he was going to savor making her ask him to bridge it for her. Only she saw no gleam of enjoyment in Laan’s eyes, no knowing smirk tugged at his lips. That made her nervous.

“Look at the date.”

Nylah glanced at the spine, and read the year aloud. “Two hundred thirty seven.”

Laan thumped the book with a finger. “For two hundred and thirty seven years, Asterryl to existence as a small trade hub. Increasingly beset by bandit attacks, roving packs of monsters, threats from larger cities looking to conquer us, and so on. Our roads were dangerous, travelers had to have armed guards at all times. We were a frontier town ringed by walls and struggling just to protect our own farmlands and quarries.”

“We’ve come a long way since then,” Nylah said, feeling a little subdued. It has cost Alvaranox his freedom to give Asterryl a chance to develop into something more than just another roughshod frontier town eking out a difficult existence.

“That’s because in two hundred thirty eight we put a dragon in a collar that made him protect us.” Laan dropped a second book into Nylah’s hands atop the first one. “This is the next book in the sequence. All these archives are in chronological order. Look at the date.”

Nylah turned the book to peer at the spine. The book was blue, rather than red, the lettering was silver, rather than gold. Confusion and uncertain fear coiled together in her belly like amorous serpents as she read the date. “Two hundred forty seven. Shouldn’t it be…”

“Yes.” Laan cut her off, waving his hand at the book. “It should be two hundred thirty eight. There are ten years of archival tomes missing from our archives. From the year your dragon was first collared, through his first decade here. It’s all gone. And, given the coating of dust on the floor, has been for quite some time.”

Nylah stared at the books in her hands. She ran her fingers over the blue cover. It bore three of the same four emblems, but the fourth was now a dragon’s head. Ten years after he was made to serve Asterryl, and Alvaranox was one of their symbols. Nylah didn’t think they even used such symbols now, it seemed an archaic practice. Now Asterryl simply had colors of blue and gold, like the other major towns had. That was all they needed. Everyone in these lands knew Asterryl. All thanks to Alvaranox.

“It’s not just the collar,” she murmured out loud.

“What do you mean?” Laan stared at her, drumming his fingers against his arm.

Nylah considered lying to Laan. The Council didn‘t need to know everything, after all. But as far as she knew he’d been truthful with her so far. It only seemed fair to return the favor. At least in a limited capacity. “The collar hides some of Alv’s memories.”

Laan blinked, scowling. “Why?”

“I’ve asked myself that question since I first discovered it.” Nylah turned and eased the books back into place on the shelf. She scanned the dates. The ten year gap seemed obvious when she was looking for it yet at a quick glance she wouldn’t have noticed anything amiss. “I suspect it is to keep him…compliant. His first handler once told me there were simply some things the dragon did not need to know. It hides things from him, erases some of his memories. But this?” She ran her finger across the spines of several books. “This isn’t the Collar. Some else did this. It’s not just the collar hiding things from the dragon. From us.”

“I’m starting to think I know who it was.” Laan turned and walked away, heading for another set of shelves. “This way.”

Nylah followed after him. She felt like some lost puppy wandering the streets, hoping if she followed someone long enough they’d drop a few crumbs of food for her. She hated the feeling, but she had little choice but to continue following Laan’s lead. Laan came to a stop before another set of shelves, running his fingers over dusty spines. There were small trails in the dust where the councilman had already carefully combed through the books.

“Here.” Laan pulled a smaller book with a gray spine from the shelf, and handed it too her. “Recognize anything?”

Nylah spotted her own name on the spine. Scowling, she thumbed through it. It seemed a chronicle and record of not only her job as a handler, but also her life in general. Where she’d lived, where she lived now, other jobs she’d held. There were even assessments of her performances as the dragon’s handler. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised by the extent to which they kept tabs on her.

Something caught her eye. Nylah smirked as she read aloud. “Extremely high ability to soothe the dragon and control the beast’s anger overrides issues with inappropriately willful behavior and recurring disregard for Council instructions and etiquette.” Nylah grinned at Laan. “I think it was less inappropriate over the years.”

“Yes, yes,” Laan waved his hand, snorting. “Your sterling performance record speaks for itself.” He took the book back, and shoved it into place on the shelf. “Your chronicle is here. Kirra’s is here, put together after you nominated her. It’s incomplete, obviously, but somewhere in this Hall someone is probably writing something about her right now. And we’ve plenty of files on everyone else with an important position in Asterryl. Hell, there are multiple books on the dragon consisting of notes we’ve gotten from the handlers, damage he’s caused, people we know he killed, fees for his upkeep, hiring of workers for his various shelters and so on. Do you know what we don’t have? Do you know what should be located right here?” Laan tapped a book near Nylah’s file. “Do you know what is suspiciously missing?”

The sinking feeling in Nylah’s stomach made her groan. “My predecessor?”

“Correct.” Laan spun on his heel and returned to the first desk where a few books lay out. “We should have a large file all about his life here and his performance as the dragon’s first handler. Yet it is gone. Much like your predecessor himself.”

Nylah chuckled, shaking her head a little. She couldn’t say she missed the old bastard. “He took his family and left, as I recall, a few years after I took over the job. He was far older than I, I’m sure he’s aged himself right into the grave by now.” Nylah couldn’t help a moment of regret that Alv didn’t get to put the old bastard in the ground himself.

“You know,” Laan said, opening the largest of the books containing the historical images. He began to page through detailed drawings and reproductions of Asterryl’s past. “It struck this morning that in a way, you Dragon Handlers are all the same.”

“Meaning what?” Nylah asked, her words grating against each other as though she were sharpening her voice like a knife. “If you are implying that Kirra and I have anything in common with that sadistic, cold-hearted…”

“I’m implying that you all waltz in here and stroll around as though you’re part of the Council yourself!” Laan snarled at her a moment, anger flashing in his eyes. It wasn’t truly directed at Nylah. He took a breath, and let his boiling rage return to a gentle simmer. “My point is, you and Kirra and your processor have always done that. You walk around the Grand Hall without escort, and no one bats an eye because you’re the Dragon’s Handler. Did you even check in at reception today?”

“No,” Nylah admitted. “I walked right past the desk. The receptionist did give me a little wave, though.”

“My point exactly.” Laan’s tone fell flat. “Why, you could walk right into the archives, all by yourself, and stroll out with a bag filled with books and no one would even bother to ask you what you were carrying.”

“Are you insinuating that I took those books?” Nylah felt hot rage burning in her eyes, reddening her cheeks. A moment later, and both the heat and color drained from her in an instant when she realized what Laan really meant.

“No. I’m saying your predecessor took them.” Laan let his eyes burn into Nylah’s for a moment. “Right before he left town with his family. For Delverrix.”

Nylah took a step back, feeling light headed. There were too many pieces to put together, and all of them were suddenly whirling in her head, caught in some maelstrom of confusion. Nylah felt as though the answers to the puzzle were all right there in front of her, and all she had to do was fit those pieces together. Yet every time she grasped for one it was pulled from her hand and replaced with another. She may as well have been trying to piece the damn thing together backwards, in the broken shards of a shattered mirror.

Nylah pressed a hand to her head. She took a deep breath. She wobbled a little bit, and Laan quickly pulled a chair for her.

“Sit,” he muttered. “If I have the former dragon handler pass out and crack her head open while in my care, I shall never hear the end of it.”

“Your chivalry is astounding, Laan,” Nylah said. Nonetheless she settled in the chair, then scooted it closer to the table. She took a few more deep breaths. “What are in those other books?”

“These are bills of sale, tax records, itineraries for guard-escorted carriage routes, and so on. The sort of things your predecessor probably didn’t think to steal when he tried to snatch up the dragon’s past.” Laan thumbed through a few of the smaller books. “Through them we discovered that his destination from here was Delverrix. That was where he took his family after he retired. Obviously, we cannot say for certain he stayed there, but the coincidence is…”

“Too much to be just that.” Nylah rubbed her forehead.

“Agreed.” Laan picked up the thicker tome, flipping through a few more images of Asterryl’s history. “Which leads me to this.” Laan plopped the book down in front of Nylah. “Notice anything?”

Nylah was too confused and unsettled to even feel angry over Laan’s lingering inability to get to the damn point. The image he put before her took up both pages. It was a detailed ink rendering of a street in Asterryl. She recognized a few of the buildings as they still stood not far from the central place. In the same people lined the road, watching a procession that strode down the street. Men with armor and cloaks walked in several lines, surrounding a small dragon being lead by a chain.

Even in an ink drawing, even in his youth, Nylah recognized Alv in an instant.

Nylah pressed her hand to her mouth, her throat tightening. Gods. Poor little Alv. He already wore the collar and those men were leading him by a chain like some beast. Those men in…cloaks. She glanced up at Laan who simply shrugged, leaving her to draw her own conclusions for the moment. She looked at the men again. The image was only black and white, there was no way to tell for certain, but something seemed familiar.

“The image is titled, The Arrival Of The Guardian Slave.” Laan flicked his fingers at the book. “There is an addendum on the next page, giving context. That was the day the dragon was first brought here to be bound to Asterryl.”

“So that was right after they put the collar on him.”

“That is not what it says.” Laan flipped the page over, pointing something out to Nylah.

Nylah quickly scanned the text, written in an old scrawl form. The dragon who will evermore protect Asterryl is lead to the plaza by men from The Circle Of Blood And Shadow. There, the beast would be bound in blood to Asterryl’s protection.

Nylah flipped the page back, staring at the image. Alv was already wearing the collar. “He’s…he’s already…”

“Look closely.” Laan’s voice was a low growl. “You may notice something else.”

Nylah stared a moment, trying to focus her mind long enough to search the rest of the picture. She gasped, and rose to her feet. “I have to show this to Alv.”

---

“You know, Jug, you could stand to prune a few more of these boughs.” Alvaranox stared at the human in the gray cloak working in the central garden. The dragon shifted his wings, brushing a few of the lower hanging branches. The movement shook droplets of cold water down onto his scales and sensitive membranes. “They’re still bumping me.”

“Then stop lifting your wings.” The gardener tossed a bought cut from the tall oak tree into a pile with a few others. “And my name isn’t Jug. It’s Juug.”

Alvaranox peered at the man, narrowing his golden eyes. Even beneath his hood, his skin looked pale. His hands looked heavy and calloused. Probably not from Asterryl, the dragon had seen a few people from one of the northern towns with skin that would not take a tan no matter how much time they spent in the sun. And from the look of his hands, he did just that. Damn Council was probably too cheap to hire him an assistant, made him do all the gardening and landscaping himself. Typical.

Poor Jug.

“That’s what I said. Jug.” The dragon flicked his tail against the wet grass, tearing a few chunks of sod up with his spines.

“Stop doing that!” Juug snatched up his sturdy shears, waving them at the dragon’s tail. “Or I’ll blunt those spines.”

“You will do no such thing, Jug!” Alvaranox hissed at him, curling his tail just in case.

“And stop calling me Jug. I keep telling you, it’s Juug.” The man stuck his shears into the wet earth to glare at the dragon.

Alvaranox swiveled his frilled green ears, snorting. “I don’t hear a difference.”

Juug muttered and walked away from the dragon. Alvaranox grinned at his back, spines lifted just a little. Perhaps he shouldn’t tease the man. After all he had been kind enough to do a bit of tree trimming on the dragon’s behalf. He’d cleared out a few of the lowest boughs so Alvaranox could squeeze beneath the tallest tree in the garden to get some shelter from the rain. Droplets still hit him there and there, but at least he wasn’t sitting around in the steady, cold rainfall.

Alvaranox peered around the garden. It was set in the center of the building, as though he’d decided to build the Grand Hall itself up around an existing garden. It was very carefully sculpted. Gentle grassy rises replicated the wild moors that surrounded Asterryl. Paths laid with rounded, gray and red pebbles ran between the little hills. Wooden benches sat near flowerbeds dotted with broad, purple and blue blossoms. Tall cone-shaped pine trees and wide-canopied oaks shaded much of the garden. The flowers and pine sap perfumed the air. Emerald moss clung to the edges of the flat gray rocks lining little fish ponds. Alvaranox had to admit that the fish were more colorful than Stupid Fish, though he doubted they had half his witty personality.

The walls that surrounded the garden were lined with windows to allow the workers inside to gaze down at the garden. Today, most of the faces Alv saw through the windows were fixed upon the large green dragon lounging in the garden. Before he’d settled under the tree, he’d interacted a bit with some of the people. He smiled, and if they seemed friendly he waved a paw or flared his wings for them. If they seemed to disapprove of the dragon, he’d hoist his tail and flash his emeralds.

“Have you got any food, Jug?” Alvaranox called out to the human.

Juug was busy clearing out some dead lines from a drainage channel that helped to keep the ponds from overflowing in the rain. He didn’t even look back at the dragon. “Not for you.”

“Can I eat the fish, then?” Alvaranox licked his muzzle.

“Only if you replace them.” Juug tossed a clump of dead leaves and muck onto the grass.

“Can’t you just say they died of natural causes?” Alvaranos sneered, baring a few fangs. “Surely the council will replace them. And dragons are, after all, natural.”

Juug sighed to himself. He turned to watch the dragon a moment. “When I’m done out here, I’ll order you some food, alright? But you’re paying.”

Alvaranox grinned. “Of course. Thank you.” Not that the dragon had any money with which to pay. He’d just get Nylah to pay.

The dragon settled in beneath the tree to wait for Juug to finish his work and go order him some food. As it turned out, Juug had a lot of work to do. Alvaranox began to consider going off to hunt, but before he could think too hard about it, Nylah emerged from inside the Grand Hall. She stood under the awning that protected the entryway to the garden, holding something bundled up inside her cloak.

Grand Hall indeed. It was far too big a building for a so-called three person council. And yet despite its size the dragon couldn’t see a single thing grand about it. It looked like a big stone box that no one could decide which color it should be. If it were up to Alvaranox, they should just paint the whole thing green. After all green was clearly the most magnificent of colors. Alvaranox rustled his wings a little, growling to himself in amusement.

Nylah spotted him, and waved at the dragon. Alvaranox waved back, waiting for her to come and see him. Nylah peered beyond the awning, and then gestured at the dragon again. Alvaranox blinked a few times, flaring his spines. What, she wanted him to come to her? Wasn’t that just like the Old Lady. Bring something delicate from the archives and expect the poor dragon to brave the rain and get soaked again.

Alvaranox heaved the biggest sigh he could manage, pushing himself to his paws. As the dragon slunk out from beneath the tree, he flicked his tail spines into the sod again just to irritate the gardener. Cold, steady rain drummed against the dragon’s scales, chilling his sensitive wings. Not that he wasn’t used to it the last day or two, but he’d just gotten nearly dry under that tree and had warmed his wings up again.

When Alv reached the back entryway, he settled himself down upon his belly in front of the sloped wooden awning that protected the doorway. Rainwater ran from gutters on either side of the awning and into drainage channels nearby. The dragon lowered his head to push it the protected space, hissing at Nylah.

“Oh, sure, you get to stay nice and dry.” He snorted at her, blowing her gray hair back a little. “Make the dragon get cold and wet again.”

“I need to show you something.”

That was not the sarcastic retort Alv expected. The unusually subdued nature of Nylah’s voice twisted the dragon’s belly. The cold rain against his wings was forgotten in an instant. His own voice tightened in turn. “What is it?”

“An image.” Nylah withdrew an old book wrapped in blue-dyed leather from within her cloak. “I would rather not tell you just what it is lest the collar block the words from your ears. I would rather you set fresh eyes upon it with no previous knowledge, anyway.”

“Show it to them then,” Alv said, his words picking up speed till they nearly ran together. “Is it about my mother?”

“Not exactly,” Nylah said, her face twisting a little as though someone were pinching her neck. “More about you. Alv, this is the sort of thing you may wish you hadn’t seen.”

“Show me.” The dragon let his eyes burn into Nylah’s. The topaz fire he often saw there was replaced by smoldering hazel concern.

“As you wish, Alv.” Nylah opened the book to a page she’d marked with a slip of paper, then turned the book around to hold it out to Alvaranox.

Alv found himself staring at an image of himself as little more than a terrified hatchling being lead through Asterryl by a chain. He looked slender, even by hatchling standards. At that size he was sure he’d been growing but had not yet reached the edges of draconic puberty. The men who lead him bore familiar armor and cloaks. Even in black and white he knew those cloaks. The dragon’s eyes drifted across the image, back and forth till he fixated upon himself.

He already bore the collar.

“But…I was not…” He wasn’t collared then. Not till later in life. Was he? Had they put it on him when he was that young? The image swam, the links swirling together. Alvaranox hissed, focusing his head, forcing himself to sort through his thoughts till the image stabilized again. “Collar is…trying…”

“Fight it if you can, Alv,” Nylah said. She balanced the heavy book on one hand for a moment to rub Alv’s nose before cradling the tome with both hands once more.

“I can.” Alv snorted. He stared at the image, then glanced up at Nylah’s face. “I’m already…collared. I was so young…I don’t remember it…that way…”

“I know,” Nylah said. Her voice radiated pain like hot light. Alv could practically hear her throat tightening with every word. “I tried to tell you, Alv. When I was still young. I tried to tell you. The collar wouldn’t let you remember. I gave up because…every time I told you…it was breaking your heart, and…” The book shook in Nylah’s hands. She struggled to put her words together. Nylah sucked in a breath, clenching her jaw. “I’m sorry, Alv. I tried to tell you, I swear to you I did. I’m so sorry…”

Alv stretched his neck to press his muzzle to Nylah’s cheek, offering her his warmth and comfort. His breath rolled across her ear. Alv felt the wet heat of the woman’s tears brush his scales. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Nylah. I never knew anything from you but kindness.” He nuzzled her cheek again, then gently pulled his head away. “Please. Do not apologize and do not blame yourself for something you could not control.”

Nylah sniffed, nodding a few times. She stared down at the image, her hand still trembling. Her voice shook just as much. She wanted to curl up in her bed and cry. Or better yet, curl up beneath Alv’s wing for a while. But Alv needed her. “I need you to look at this closely, Alv. While the collar‘s hold is not so great. While you can remember what you see.”

Alvaranox nodded, peering down at the image. Shards of memory pierced his mind like flickering light reflected in broken glass. He remembered being lead. So scared. So many people. Where was his mother? The dragon groaned as his head began to throb. He closed his eyes and shook his head. Memories rattled in his brain, and he found the shards replaced by a full image. He was older than in the picture, bound in chains in the plaza while they put the collar around his neck.

“No,” the dragon groaned, shaking his head again. He opened his eyes, and fixed them upon the image. “I remember them…binding me to the collar. In the plaza. But…I thought I was older. That image. Was that…after they put the collar on? Leading me away from the plaza, to show me off?”

Nylah swallowed. Her hesitancy to reply was almost as frightening as the words she finally forced from her mouth. “You were already collared when they brought you here, Alv. They took you to the plaza to bind your life to Asterryl, but you already wore the collar.”

Alvaranox slowly lifted his eyes, his mind whirling even as his heart nearly stopped. When his heart did beat it pumped cold blood, sending ice through his paws and his tail. His wings shook, and soon his whole body followed them, trembling. “No.”

“Alv, it says that…”

“No!” Alv shouted, backing away. Cold rain splattered his head, and he hissed. “NO!” The dragon shouted, then threw back his head, and roared to the skies. The windows of the Grand Hall rattled. Juug clapped his hands over his ears, and Nylah cringed. When his breath gave out and his roar died, Alv flopped to his belly in the rain. “Noooo….”

If Asterryl had not collared him, then half of his life was a lie. He could not remember the things Nylah told him in his youth. He could not remember his youth. He remembered it before he was collared, only…he’d been collared all along. None of his memories for all those years…roaming the wilds after leaving his mother, hunting, learning to mate, meeting other dragons…years spent on his own, wandering the wilds. Before they finally caught him and put him in the collar when in his adolescence curiosity, he drifted too close to humanity.

All of that was a lie.

Then how had he spent those years? He remembered his first handler. Remembered the cruelty and the beatings and the torment. But he remembered himself as an adolescent. Angry with the world and unable to strike out. He remembered Nylah there to comfort him, but that was….that was…only ten years or so after his first handler. But, if he was that young, then…that man…that man had him under his control for decades….

Nylah set the book down on dry ground, and rushed out to the dragon. She sat down in the rain, and in full view of everyone who began to watch after his roar, pulled the dragon’s head into her lap. Alvaranox did not cry, but he did take comfort in her touch, her warmth, her presence. He tried to bury his head against her, squeezing his eyes shut. Nylah stroked his muzzle and his ears, rubbed his cheek. She leaned forward to press her forehead against him, murmuring how sorry she was for him.

It was worse than he’d imagined. How much of his life was a lie? How much of it was an empty hole where his memories should be? How could he have been so young when they collared him? They must have taken him from his mother. Murdered his mother. Put him in the collar and made him forget it so he could not seek revenge. Alvaranox began to growl. The sound was low, threatening, and dangerous. It was a sound he rarely made around Nylah or Kirra because it was a sound that put fear in humanity. It was a sound made by the monsters they thought dragons were.

“How long did he have me?” The dragon’s voice was a beast about to break its chain.

“Alv, I don’t…”

“How long, Nylah!” Alv jerked his head up to stare at her. None of his anger was directed at Nylah but did not want her to spare his feelings now. “How long?”

“…Thirty nine years, Alvaranox.” Nylah took a shuddering breath. “Slightly less than how long I was your handler. I had you forty two years, my lovely dragon.” Nylah folded her hands in her lap a moment, glancing at down at them. “I was very young when I took over as Handler. Younger even than Kirra was. But I fought and clawed and proved my worth until the gave me the position. I would not have let it go, Alv. You needed me.”

“Then…how long have I…”

Nylah knew the question was coming. She’d already done the math, and it had surprised her. She had not realized until today. “Almost eighty three years.”

“Eight decades…” Alvaranox grit his sharp teeth, growling. “Eight Gods-be-damned decades? I cannot remember it, Nylah. Not the way it was. I remember…I thought…fifty years, perhaps. So much of my childhood is a lie. Hell, look at the waste. Eight decades of my life are a lie…I don’t even know how old I am, Nylah. Or how long I will live. I don’t even know where they got me. I have always thought they caught me in the wild, dragged me here. He was…so cruel, I was so young! I would…I would…kill him!”

“Alv,” Nylah said. “Try and stay calm.”

Alvaranox rose to his feet, trembling. “I would kill that piece of filth!” A bell flashed in his vision. “I would tear him apart and burn his home to the ground!” The bell rang. Alvaranox snarled, lashing his tail against a bench so hard it shattered into broken bits of frame and splinter. “I would…”

“Alv!” Nylah shouted at him. The bell vanished from his vision. “Get ahold of yourself.”

“Nylah,” the dragon murmured, grabbing his head behind a horn. “I need…to fly, or something. I am filled with anger.”

“Alvaranox,” Nylah said, using his full name to make sure she had his attention. “If you can handle it, I need you to look at that image one more time.”

“Why? What new pain must I endure now?” The dragon snapped his jaws, his heart hammering in his chest. The look of anguish that washed over Nylah’s face pulled the dragon back to his senses. His own heart settled into the cold pit his belly had become. “I am sorry, Nylah. I am glad you brought this to me. It is just…”

“I know, Alv,” Nylah said, gently stroking his cheek. “After I show you this last thing, that will be it.”

The dragon slowly lifted his head, narrowing his copper eyes. “Is there not more you have fun?”

Nylah turned to fetch the book. “What we have found, Alv, is that someone went to a lot of effort to remove anything related to the time you were first brought here.” She picked up the book, and beckoned for the dragon put his head beneath the awning again. “We believe they took it to Delverrix.”

“Of course they did.” The dragon growled, and lowered his head to peer at the image once more. “What is it you wish me to see?”

Nylah held the book with both hands again. “Are those the cloaks of the men who attacked you?”

“Yes,” the dragon muttered. “Blood and Shadow.”

Nylah froze, her hazel eyes widening. “How did you know that name?”

“What do you mean?” Alvaranox cocked his head.

“According to the book, those men called themselves The Circle of Blood And Shadow.”

Alvaranox rumbled, dragging a single paw down the pebbly lane. His claws tore deep ruts. “I must have heard it before. Remembered it. Or heard it in some other dragon’s dream. I thought of it last night, when I was flying. Thought I made it up but, it seemed a natural fit.”

Nylah nodded, chewing on her lip. There was one more thing she had to show the dragon. After his last reaction, a bit of added fear caused her to hesitate. “The man in the upper left. The one holding the chain.”

“What about him?” Something prickled a dark recess in the dragon’s memory. It coiled there, hissing and threatening his mind with envenomed fangs. Some toxic thing he should not remember lest it poison his life.

“Look at his face,” Nylah said. “Do you recognize him?”

Recognize him? The dragon fixed his eyes on the man’s face. At first he saw nothing but a swirl of inky lines, a jumble of features no more defined that some child’s painting. With a hiss, Alvaranox forced himself to focus. Forced his mind to peer through the collar’s increasingly threadbare shroud of lies. All at once the man’s face came into being. The sharp nose, the scarred chin. The cold eyes. Even from the page they burned into Alvaranox, and sent a terrified chill down his spine.

The realization punched through the dragon like a sword in his belly.

That man was Tavaryn, and he was Alvaranox’s first handler.

“It’s him, isn’t it,” Nylah said, closing the book.

The collar seized the dragon’s heart and squeezed it. Pain shot through his foreleg as he lashed out and smashed the book from Nylah’s grasp. She yelped and stumbled back, her eyes wide. Alvaranox lashed out again, sinking his claws into the book. He dragged it out into the rain, then lifted it. Grasping it in both paws, the dragon tore the book in half. He spun around, hurling each half of the book into a different pond. The splashes startled Juug who dashed away.

“Alv!” Nylah was nearly as startled as the dragon.

Alvaranox stared at his own paws in horror. He hadn’t meant to do any of that. For a moment, he was terrified, but his horror soon melted into twisted amusement. He began to laugh, a bitter, growling sound poured from his tongue like fire from his throat. Oh, that made the collar angry. Alv liked making the collar angry.

“Tavaryn!” Alvaranox roared the name to the rain clouds. “Yes, Nylah, that is Tavaryn, and the collar did not want me to know he was with them.”

Nylah peered at one of the ponds the ruined book had sunk into. “That explains why Tavaryn took his family to Delverrix after he retired. I am…” She took a few cautious steps towards the dragon. “Sorry to put through that, Alv. I thought that was him, but I had to be sure. I did not know him until he was much older.”

“It was him,” Alvaranox muttered. “I am sorry to frighten you, Nylah.” The dragon snaked his head forward to nuzzle her cheek again. “And I am sorry to ruin your book.”

Nylah laughed a little, hugging the dragon’s head with arms that felt bonier than ever to Alv. “Don’t worry about it. They have plenty more priceless historical tomes left.”

“So. This cult. This Blood And Shadow.” Alvaranox rested his jaw against Nylah’s shoulder, murmuring to himself and into her ear. “They were there when Guardian was alive. They put me in a collar and brought me here. They stole that information when they left. Then they tried to kill me and claim that box. Yet, with all that, do you know what rankles me the most, Nylah?”

“I suspect I do,” Nylah said, gently stroking his neck.

“The fact that they took me from my mother.” Alvaranox began to grow again, the threatening sound building in his throat till it rattled Nylah’s. “If they killed her…”

“Alv,” Nylah said, working her fingers against his scales. “Those people are all long dead.”

“Not all of them.” The dragon knew what Nylah meant, but in his mind, in his heart, they were still very much alive. He lifted his paw to show off the scar that reminded him every day that these people were now trying to kill him. “They have a presence in Delverrix, right? And some kind of fortress or something?”

“They have something there, yes.”

“I want you and Kirra to get packed.” The dragon slowly pulled back from Nylah, unfurling his wings. “Rain or no rain, we are leaving for Delverrix tomorrow.”

“If the collar lets you,” Nylah said, not wanting the dragon to get his hopes up too far, just in case. “Otherwise Kirra and I will go in your stead.”

“The collar will have to fly me into the ground if it plans to stop me.” Alvaranox’s growl grew louder, and louder till he sounded like a cornered beast about to unleash tooth and claw and fire against anything that dared stand before it. “I am going to Delverrix, and this cult, this Circle. They will tell me why they put me in this damnable collar, and what they did to my mother, or I will burn their fortress to the ground.”

“And if they killed her?” Nylah asked the question they both knew the answer too.

Alvaranox leapt into the sky, wings stirring broken wood from the shattered bench and torn pages from the book. “Then I will burn it down anyway.”

---

Chapter Thirty

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Alvaranox paced in front of his home. His heart and mind struggled to outrace each other. Thoughts swirled in his head no matter how hard he tried to quiet the raging maelstrom in his mind. His heart pounded against his sternum, nearly rattling his scales. They were leaving for Delverrix and though the trip would take more than a single day, the dragon could not help but be filled with fear and anticipation. If only Kirra and the Old Lady would get their soft-skinned asses here so they could leave.

Kirra, in her infinite wisdom, had packed the day before but left her gear at home. So she had to go and fetch it first thing in the morning. Nylah was supposed to getting her own packs and gathering Kirra in the process. Much as he had come to care about Kirra, Alvaranox was certain she was the reason for their latest delay.

Despite being so eager to get this trip underway, the dragon had one regret. They were finally installing his new door, and he was going to miss it. Already a few workers had gathered to set up a tarp in case the rain returned. It had drizzled that morning but for the most part the weather had improved just a little. Alvaranox hoped he’d get a chance to catch a glimpse of the door before they left. It should be there any moment. The dragon hoped it came out as beautiful as the sketches Kirra drew as a basis for its carvings. At least it would be there for him to look forward too when he got home.

Alvaranox glanced down at the road. Though the rains had stopped, the path that lead to his home was still wet. He was getting mud all over his paws. Sighing through his teeth, the dragon padded into his meadow. Now that he walk and fly again, he was able to spend his days in more places than just the meadow. So the grass and wildflowers were beginning to reclaim the trails cut by paws and boots. Alv strode through damp grass, trying not to trod on any patches of flowers.

Though the weather was starting to turn, the rains had coaxed yet another batch wildflowers into bloom. They had small yet vibrantly colored blossoms referred too in Asterryl as autumn stars. A outer ring of rounded yellow petals surrounded an inner circle of red petals while the very center of the flower was white. They seemed to thrive in the cooler weather, springing up all over Asterryl even the other wildflowers were setting seed and dying off. The whole meadow was covered in autumn stars, a blanket of sun and fire stretched across the grass. A few vines smothered in tiny blue flowers remained. Several large red blossoms poked up here and there on thin but sturdy stalks.

Alvaranox wiped the mud that caked his paws onto a few patches of grass near the wooden table where Nylah and Kirra spent so much time sorting his herbs while he was hurt. A few bundles of herbs tied with twine still sat upon the table. They’d been there for weeks now. Alvaranox stretched his neck and sniffed at them, scrunching his gold-marked snout. They were halfway between dried and rotten.

The dragon gazed around his meadow. His eyes settled upon the trio of goats at the far corner, grazing on grass and wildflowers. As always, the shaggy, mottled gray and brown animals paid the dragon absolutely no attention. Alvaranox snarled loud enough to draw the guards attention. Davan called out, asking if everything was alright, but the dragon waved a wing at him. The goats didn’t even look.

Alv hissed. “When I return from Delverrix, I am going to eat one of you. We shall see how much other two fear me after that.”

“Alv!” A familiar voice called out to the dragon. Alv blinked, then shook his head. “Alvaranox!” No. She wasn’t here. “Alvaranox, you silly lizard! Don’t you want to chase me?” No, because you aren’t real. “Would you rather I chase you?”

Alvaranox grit his teeth, flaring his spines. He turned towards the road again, gazing at the town. He was hoping to see Nylah and Kirra making their way past the outer walls. The stone structures were nearly finished now, and they were installing a gatehouse. But there was no sigh yet of either of the. The dragon turned his eyes down, staring at a patch of autumn stars. He struggled to ignore the voice he knew was only in his head. The red and yellow blossoms waved in the breeze. Alv felt the wind tickling hi wings, as though it were calling him to play.

“I’m the one calling you to play, Alv!” The voice chided him.

“Shut up, Rain,” Alvaranox said, hissing. “You aren’t real.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I seemed real enough when you were on my back.” Rain’s voice drifted through his head. He could almost feel her breath against his ear. He felt the pebbly scales of her muzzle brush his ear frill. Her velvet purr rolled over his brain, making him shiver so much his scales clicked together. “When I let you put your teeth in my neck.”

“You were real then.” Alvaranox growled, unsheathing his claws. He dragged them through the grass, digging ruts, uprooting some of the flowers. “Nylah saw you. Kirra saw you. I have your scales.”

“Which proves I’m real.” The smug satisfaction in Rain’s voice seemed too familiar.

“It proves you were real, once.” The dragon snorted, unwilling to lift his eyes from the grass. “Now you’re…some twisted illusion spawned by the collar. Its hold weakens, and so it turns to cheap illusions and desperate ploys.” Alvaranox lifted his head, snarling his words loud enough to make all the guards and workers nearby turn and stare at him. “But you are not real!”

Rain certainly looked real. She stood across the meadow from him, smirking. She was just beautiful as he remembered. Her scales dusky blue across most of her form, darker near her back and pale along her belly. Purple edging marked many of her scales, with lilac highlights across all four paws, and edging her wings. Raynarilis was a stunning vision in reality, but when he knew she was not truly there he just wanted to shatter the illusion and be done with it. Yet she was not a reflection now. There was no water for him to slam his paw into, no way for him to simply dispel the illusion.

For a few moments, Alvaranox just stared at her. The dragon’s heart ached at the sight. How he missed her. She was a hole in his heart he had never quite realized until long after she was gone. And yet…yet that hole was being filled. Bit by bit, day by day, that hole in his heart was shrinking, because Kirra was filling it up.

“Go away, Rain,” the dragon muttered. “Wherever you are, surely you are happy. I don’t need you haunting me. I have someone else now.”

“You do not,” Rain said, her voice taking on a chiding, taunting sneer that was so unlike the real Rain. “You have a girl. A human girl. Do you think she loves you, Alv?” Rain snorted, tossing her head, then murmured a mocking coon. “Aww, do you love the human Alv?”

Alvaranox growled at her. If she was a real dragoness, he’d smack that sneer right off her snout. Instead, he grabbed the collar, tugging at it. Rain’s image twisted back and forth, laughing at him. “I told you to go away!”

“Don’t you want to be with dragons, again?” Rain’s voice hardened into something less familiar. “Don’t you want to live free again? Don’t you want to hunt and fly and mate?” The female’s voice softened again, dripping with warmth. “Don’t you want to come and find me Alv? I miss you, you silly lizard. I miss hearing you talk to yourself. Come and find me.”

“Why are you doing this to me?” Alvaranox groaned and set his paw back down. The collar was losing its hold. Reaching to his memories. His real memories, using them to try and further cloud all the things he had forgotten.

“Because I once cared for you, Alv,” Rain said. Sorrow swirled in her voice like dead leaves in a cold stream. “I miss you.” The blue and purple dragoness turned away from him. She took a few steps, wildflowers flattening her paws. Gods, she seemed real. She paused, grinning back at him. “Come find me, Alv.”

“I can’t,” Alvaranox murmured, trying to steady himself. “Because you’re not real. I may find the real Raynarilis, but you are not her.”

“Wouldn’t your human girl be jealous, anyway?” The dragoness tossed her head, flattening her ears back. “You’d be better with a female dragon, anyway. I’d give you this.”

Smirking over her purple-edged wings, Rain lifted her tail for Alv. The green dragon had a very clear view of her curvy, lilac tinted haunches, and the pinkness of her sex between them. Alv stared, unable to tear his eyes away. Gods, how many years had it been? He took a step towards her as she held that inviting pose. Warmth tingled between the dragon’s hind legs, he felt himself swell within his sheath. Then he stopped himself, closing his eyes. He growled, shaking his head.

“You’re not real!”

There was no reply from Rain. The breeze shifted, warm against his wings. It would be nice if the sun came out and warmed the cool air. He took a few deep breaths, trying to clear his head completely. Bad enough the touch of the wind did things to him after all his years alone. Now the collar was teasing him too? It would have to do better than that if it just expected him to come crawling back to its blissful ignorance. The more Alv remembered, the more he wanted the damn thing off.

Sun warmed his back. The scent of water tickled his nostrils. He heard the stream burbling nearby, and padded towards it. He opened his eyes. His mother smiled down at him. The sun sparkled on the golden stripes that marked her limbs, shone like loving beacons upon her copper eyes. His mother licked his little snout. Alv giggled, purring and nuzzling at her. He loved his mother.

Mother walked towards the water, and Alv followed. He was thirsty. Alvaranox bound ahead across sun-warmed grass and springy moss. He skidded to a halt, tiny black claws tore minute trenches in the moss. He liked the moss. He pressed his paw pad against a patch with red tendrils, then lifted it to watch them spring back upright. He could play that game all day.

“Come on, Momma!”

Mother was slow today.

“Go on, Love,” Mother said, gesturing with her muzzle. Her snout looked skinny. “Go drink your water.”

Alv turned away from mother. Mother was slow. He bound towards the stream, and once more skidded to a halt at the last moment. He nearly toppled into the water, his front paws splashed down as he caught himself. The water was cold. He stared at his reflection for a moment. His tiny golden spot looked as though it was sparkling upon the water’s surface. Alv lowered his head to drink the water. It was cold and fresh and sweet.

Yet no matter how much water the hatchling gulped down he could not seem to quench his thirst. He drank more water, and still his throat felt dry. “Momma, this is dry water!”

“Drink your water, Alv,” was mother’s gentle reply.

Alv pulled his fore paws from the water, and turned towards his mother. Momma was skinny lately, and she kept walking funny. And today she was so slow. Alv giggled to himself, calling out to her. “Come on, Momma! You’re a slow-snail!”

Alv turned away from his mother and back to the water. The water was gone, and in its place was a muddy stream bed. All along the banks the moss was dry and dying. The red tendrils had all shriveled to withered brown stalks. Alv hopped down into the mud. Some of it was still wet and squished under his paws. In other places the ground was dry and cracked. It looked like brown scales.

“Look momma!” The thirsty hatchling pointed a paw at the dry earth run through with a network of cracks. “The dirt has scales too!”

“Yes, Alv,” Momma said, laughing to herself. Her voice was soft today. She sounded scratchy. Momma must be thirsty too. “Come down here.”

Alv ignored his mother as she picked her way into the stream bed. Instead, he focused on the patches of cracked ground. He waggled his little green and black-speckled haunches, then sprang. Alv pounced the dirt scales, digging tiny claws into them. “Raaahhrrr!” Alv roared the ground. “I’mma get you!” He dug a hole in the ground, shredding through the earthen armor of his unseen foes. Then he pounced another big patch of cracked earth. “I’mma get you too!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Alv saw his mother digging. Digging in the dirt. She dug in the mud till her green paws turned brown. Bits of red flecked the ends of her fingers. Alv emulated her, digging through the earth. Beneath the mud was rock, and it hurt his paws to dig any further. Alv stopped but mother kept digging. More red flecked her fingers before she stopped.

“Come, Alv.” Mother waved at him with a muddy paw.

Alv padded along the streambed towards the hole mother dug in the muddy patch. As he approached her, mother turned away from the hatchling. She stretched up and stood over the bank of the dry stream. Then mother wiped her paws off on the dying moss. Trails of wet red mingled with the mud she left behind.

“Momma,” Alv said, staring at her bloodied paws.

“Drink your water, Alv,” mother said, gesturing with her tail tip towards the hole she dug. “Now.”

Alv padded to the edge of the hole she’d dug. Beneath the top layer of still-wet mud lay cracked stones, and beyond that, a pool of brownish water had filled the bottom of the hole she dug. Alv stared at the water, then stretched his neck. He sniffed at the water. It smelled like fetid earth, like the foul bottom of the nearly dry lake they had trekked across. He did not want to drink it.

“It’s muddy,” he whimpered, staring up at his mother.

“Drinking your water,” Mother said. Mother was sad. Mother was scared.

Alv didn’t know why his mother was scared and sad. He only knew he didn’t want her to feel that way. If she wanted him to drink the muddy water, he would drink the muddy water. He pushed his little green muzzle down and lapped at the tepid pool. It tasted stagnant and foul like rotting leaves. But it eased the burning in his throat, and it brought a measure of relief to the hunger in his belly he had not realized he felt.

“I’m hungry momma,” Alv said, lifting his muzzle from the water. He licked away the last brownish droplets.

“I know,” Mother said, heaving a great sigh. “I know. Finish your water.”

Alv stared up at his mother, then back down at the pool. He lowered his muzzle and lapped once more at the rapidly shrinking puddle his mother worked so hard to uncover. It occurred to him, even in his youthful hatchling mind, that his mother had not yet drank. He backed away from the puddle, and butted his head against her foreleg.

“Drink your water, Momma.”

Mother stared down at him. Tears brimmed in her copper eyes and she looked away. Alv did not know why Mother was crying, but it made him sad too. He licked at the scutes of her foreleg, whimpering. Mother lowered her head and lapped up the last of the muddy water while Alv nuzzled and licked her scales.

“It’s okay, Momma.”

“I know, Love.” She lowered her head to lick her son. Mud that clung to her scales soon clung to his instead. She laughed to herself, and licked him between his eyes. “I won’t let you go hungry, Alv, I promise you that. Come. We shall find some food.” She lifted her head, and began to walk away from the dry stream. “I could find an antelope in the dessert, you know.”

“I want three horn!” Alv giggled, bouncing on his paws as they trod across withered grass, passed alongside dying trees. The land seemed to slide by in an instant.

“I do not think I can find you three horn here, Alv,” Momma said, chuckling to herself. “But if I can find water in this dying land, I can damn sure find my son something to eat.”

Mother left wet paw prints on the dry grass. Mother’s paws bled. Alv stared at the bloody marks. Mother’s voice fell away. The blood began to swirl upon the ground. Alv’s copper eyes widened. An eddy formed in the dead grass, a crimson whirlpool sinking into the earth itself. The whirlpool grew, and the ground beneath Alv’s paws began to slide towards it. Dead grass and dry earth pitched into the writhing maw of the bloody, twisting chasm. Alv backed away, whimpering. He yelled for his mother, but momma was gone.

The whole of the earth seemed caught in the throes of some cataclysmic landslide. Everything lurched towards the bloody chasm. Dying trees clinging to their last leaves toppled over, the tremendous crack of splintering wood hurt the hatchlings ears. Hills crumbled into rolling tides of earth, carrying the broken trees towards the scarlet maelstrom that grew and grew. Alv turned and ran, but he could not escape. The hatchling screamed as crumbling, roiling earth carried him back towards the gaping chasm. He clambered over a tumbling boulder, sprang from it towards the limbs of a downed tree. Yet the further he fled, the faster the earth moved into the swirling sinkhole. The earth itself was swallowed up by a growing blackness. Alv leapt into the air, stretched his tiny wings, but it was too late. He tumbled backwards, down the whirlpool spawned of blood, and into the darkness.

The hatchling screamed as the chasm swallowed him. He felt himself falling, his stomach lurched and twisted. Then he simply found himself on the ground again. The maelstrom churned in the sky like an angry storm, but it dissipated by the moment. It spun itself into threads of shadow that stretched towards the young dragon. He backed away, yet they lashed out and coiled themselves around his neck.

“It’s alright, Alv.” His mother’s voice was soothing, and Alv relaxed.

The world around him moved. Broken trees reassembled themselves. Cracked boulders were put back together. Waves of green washed across dead grass, painting the world with new images of life. Wildflowers sprang up as toppled hills rose once more. Water suddenly flooded dry stream beds, clear and fresh. Whatever had frightened him was gone. Nearby, his mother stood. She did not look skinny any more. She looked healthy. Alv was happy with her. Alv was always happy here in the wilds, with his mother.

“Momma!” Alv ran towards her.

Something red caught his eye. Alv skidded to a stop. A single speck of blood upon her paw. Something was…wrong. Alv backed away. This wasn’t right. There was…blood…Alv turned away, and found men standing over him. Men with cloaks of shadow edged in blood. Men with silver armor coated in dust, grime, dried blood. They reached for him, and Alv turned to run, only to find his mother’s forelegs blocking him. She grabbed him, pulled him against her scales as she lay on the grass. Alv blinked, and the world was dead, his mother was weak, yet the men remained. They held swords. They advanced.

“When the time comes, you will complete your duty.” There was sorrow in his mother’s voice like he had never heard. It broke the hatchlings heart, and he began to cry. “And you will be free again.”

No! NO!

“NO!”

Alv screamed, and in the dream he attacked the men with tooth and claw and tail. He fought them, bit them, scratched, fought to protect himself. Fought to protect his mother. Fought for his freedom. It would not be enough. It was never enough. They fell upon him, grasping him, grabbing at the collar that already encircled his neck. Cascades of memories poured through him. Blue paws. A burning city. His mother’s love. A hungry child. His mind felt torn and twisted.

“Alv!” Another voice called to him.

Alv was suddenly alone. He stood atop a hill of cracked red earth. Broken stone littered the ground beneath him. His paws were blue. There was a tree in the distance. Somehow it still bore leaves. Shelter. All Guardian wanted now was shelter. A quiet place to lay. To end this once and for all, and leave it where it would never be found.

“ALV!” The voice called again. Insistent. Who was Alv? Guardian just wanted to lay in the shade for a while.

“ALVARANOX!”

Alv jerked away with a piercing scream. He jumped to his paws, and found himself in a meadow. His meadow. His breath came in heaving pants, his heart hammered his chest plates. His heartbeat echoed in heavy pulses of blood through the minor heart chambers near his tail. The dragon’s copper eyes were wild and unfocused as he gazed around, unable to see anything more than green grass for long moment.

Something red caught his attention. Blood.

No. Fire.

No. Kirra. “Your head’s on fire,” Alv murmured trying to force himself back to his senses.

“Alv, are you alright?” Kirra stepped towards him, but someone else grabbed her arm, and held her in place.

Only then did Alv realize that Nylah and Kirra both stood beyond the meadow, on the road. Alv blinked a few times. Why were they so far away? His tail ached. He flicked it a few times, then turned to look at it. The picnic table where they’d sorted his herbs lay strewn across the area in broken pieces and shattered wooden splinters. The ground all around him was muddy and torn. Mud caked his scales. He looked up again. An assortment of guards were all watching him from behind the fence.

“Did I…” Alv trailed off. He must have.

“You were thrashing in your sleep,” Nylah said. “Kirra and I wanted to wake you, but it was too dangerous. Your tail smashed the table, and you’d been tearing up the ground. Pawing at it. You looked like you were in a fight for your life.”

Images flickered through Alv’s memory. His mother was there. There were men. He tried to snatch at the images but the collar yanked them away. This time Alv could nearly feel the barriers being erected between his real life and that which the collar showed him. He pressed a hand to his head, behind his horn. His head ached.

“My mother’s life, I think.”

“What?” Kirra pulled away from Nylah, easing towards Alv.

“I was dreaming.” Alv set his paw down, taking in a slow breath. “Some of it was just…twisted dreamscape. Some of it was…falsehood, and some of it, I think, was real memory. I think…” Alv swallowed, flickering images his mother haunted him. “I think she was sick. Or starved. I think they took me from her, when she was too weak to defend me. I tried to protect her…”

“Oh, Alv…” Kirra ran across the meadow to the dragon, throwing her arms around his neck. “Oh, Gods, Alv! That’s horrible. I’m sorry!”

Alv lay his head against her shoulder, careful not to put too much weight on her. She hugged him best she could, stroking the scales of his cheek and the top of his neck. Alvaranox squeezed his eyes shut, but tears squeezed their way out anyway. His voice shook. The dragon’s wings trembled as he tried to hold back an entire ocean of sobs threatening to topple his carefully built walls. “She was…she seemed so weak. She was…I was thirsty! She…she was ripping her paws apart trying to find me water! Gods…what happened to her?”

Alv struggled against his emotions. He did not want to give in. Yet a few sobs forced themselves from his throat, and more tears wet his scales and Kirra’s clothes. The dragon stretched out his wings to hide Kirra and himself. He did not want half of Asterryl to see him sobbing against her.

Nylah walked up behind Kirra, gently rubbing the outside of the dragon’s wings. Her voice was soft, calming. Nylah was always a calming influence. “Alv, my dear dragon, it’s alright to cry.”

“Not here, Nylah,” Alv whimpered, words muffled by wings and Kirra’s clothing as she hugged his muzzle to her chest.

“Do you want to go into your house for a while?” Kirra stroked his jaw.

“No,” Alv said, lashing his tail into the earth. A chunk of sod toppled through the air. Bits of dirt fell from it before the whole thing crashed back to the ground. “No. I want to go to Delverrix. I want to go now.”

“Alright, Alv,” Kirra said.

Nylah scowled, stroking the outside of his wing. “I don’t suppose we can talk you into remaining here and letting us go in your stead.”

“No, Nylah,” the dragon murmured. “No, no. They are going to tell me what happened to my mother one way or another.”

“No one can fault you that, Alv,” Kirra said. She placed a kiss between the dragon’s nostrils. “We are both ready to go.”

“There may be a silver lining to this, Alv,” Nylah said. She walked over to the fence where her pack was leaning up against a post.

“And what might that be?” Alv lifted his head, swallowing a few times. He licked his nose, trying to quell the flood of emotions that threatened to wash him away.

“You remember.” Nylah offered the dragon a bittersweet smile, patting his neck as she walked up alongside him. “Not just what the collar wants you too, but that which it tries to hide from you. It was not that long ago, you couldn’t recall anything like this.”

Alvaranox lowered himself onto his belly without a reply. As the two women began to strap their packs against his body, he murmured his mantra to himself. “My father was a black dragon. He had blue eyes.”

Once their gear was in place, Nylah and Kirra helped each other up onto his back. Alvaranox glanced back at them to make sure they were settled before he rose back to his paws. Nylah was right, he was starting to remember bits and pieces. Yet that knowledge frightened the dragon. The further he tore through the collar’s veil of lies, the more it seemed to fray the edges of his sanity.

“My father was a black dragon…” He had to keep hold of what was real. Rain was gone. All he saw of her now was a waking fever-dream.

“Alv, are you sure you’re up for this?” Kirra leaned forward, rubbing his neck.

“He had blue eyes.” Alv had to keep track of his reality. There was never a vortex of blood. But the collar had stripped away his memories and remade them as it saw fit.

Alvaranox snarled to himself, and leapt to the sky. The men in cloaks, though. They were real. His mother was real. They would answer for her death, one way or another. Alvaranox beat his wings against the air with growing fury, flying east.

“My father was a black dragon…”