Draka

It was well into the afternoon when I reached the lake. I approached from the forest but the campsite was empty, like it always was. In fact, I had not seen a single person there since meeting Guy. That was… three weeks ago, maybe? Keeping track of time with no calendar and no obligations was hard.

For most of the shoreline the forest grew right up to the edge, with the cleared part near the camp being the exception. The lone tree was large enough that it had been spared, out of respect or because it was too much of a hassle to cut it down., who could tell? There was no one there, anyway, so I settled in among the trees, in the ferns and other undergrowth that grew thick near the water. There I curled up and dozed off.

I could only hope that they’d show up and that I hadn’t missed them. We hadn’t said anything about times, after all, but Herald and I seemed to have the same idea about this cloak and dagger stuff and I thought that we’d understood each other. When else could we meet but at night? Where was the drama in meeting while the sun was still up?

I woke to moonlight and the sound of horse’s hooves. In the dark I could see a single rider approaching, tall and wearing a hood that hid their face in deep shadow. They rode up to the tree and dismounted, then uncovered a lantern and started inspecting the bark right where the earring had been. As she turned I could see her face clearly. It was Herald. Of course it was, I thought to myself. I wasn’t sure why she had come alone, or if I approved of the risk, but if only one of those three was going to come it would be her.

Looking satisfied that the earring was gone, Herald let the horse wander while she sat down against the trunk of the tree, looking out across the lake. I considered messing with her, but decided that was a bad idea. She looked nervous enough as it was, and I was determined not to mess this up.

Instead I rose from the ferns with a rustle. Herald’s head snapped around, and she half rose into something like a sprinter’s stance, her hand on the handle of her short sword.

“Hello, Herald,” I said, stepping out of the darkness.

Herald visibly relaxed. “Oh, good,” she said with a relieved sigh. “Hello, Draka.”

“I was starting to wonder, you know,” I said. “Where are the others?”

Herald looked back the way she had come, her face scrunching a little, as though she was worried about getting caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to. “They do not know that I am here,” she said.

“Makanna?” I asked.

“And Tamor,” she confirmed.

“How is he?” I asked, more to be polite than because I actually cared.

“All went as well as we could have hoped,” she said, her worry shifting into a smile. “We could not get him out the same night, but first thing in the morning we paid his fine and the fee for his licence. He is unharmed but thin, of course. They do not feed you well in the cells.”

“A happy reunion, huh?”

“Yes, especially him and Val. They were… I am happy Mak and I have a room across the hall, and not wall-to-wall with theirs,” she said, and I could see her darken in a blush even in the lantern light.

“So,” I continued quickly, throwing her a life line, “what are you doing here if the others were against it?” I knew the general answer, which was that she was, like, 16 or 17 years old and her older siblings had told her ‘No,’ but I wanted to hear what she’d say.

Herald was silent for a moment, and then blurted, “You are completely wrong!”

I blinked. I wasn’t sure what to say about that.

“You are too intelligent, and you do not behave the way you should–” she continued quickly, and I could see a ramble coming on.

“Wait, wait, stop!” I broke in. “What are you on about?” I wasn’t even offended, just very confused.

“Dragons!” she exclaimed, throwing her hands out. ”You are not at all like how the books say you should be!”

Okay. That was interesting. “Let’s get back to that later,” I tried, “Where are–”

“Nobody ever mentioned a dragon with black scales, do you know that?” she went on, not even listening to me. “Red or brown or green or even pale blue, but never black. Why do you have black scales, Draka?”

“What?” I said, completely thrown. “What does that have to do with anything? Why do you have black hair?”

“And you are too small!” she accused. “Makanna was right, you should be bigger! You should still be lying in a nest somewhere begging your mother to feed you.”

“I can feed myself perfectly fine, thank you very much!” I was on the defensive. Somehow she had completely grabbed the initiative, and I didn’t like it.

“You look different than a few days ago,” she said, suddenly changing topics and ruining my attempt to get my balance back.

“Oh, nah, yeah. I got a, you know. Threshold.” That felt bizarre to say out loud.

“You have grown. Not much, but you have.” She closed in and squatted in front of me, and touched one of the scales on my shoulder. I let her. She was in control, and I was just along for the ride. “Your scales have little ridges on them that were not there before. It is subtle, but I can see them. And they are less black, somehow? But still completely black. It throws the eye a little.”

I was bigger, and my scales were different. That made sense. But it wasn’t important at that moment. What was important was that Herald had paused to look closer at my scales, giving me an opening.

“Herald!” I said in my most authoritative voice, which I had reserved for misbehaving newbies at the gym and, very rarely, my boyfriend. “Hi! It’s nice to see you. Why are you here alone?”

Herald looked at me, face turning sullen. “They do not know,” she said. I waited. “They went on a job without me,” she continued after a long silence.

Ah. There it was. They’d ditched her. I still didn’t say anything, waiting for her to get it out.

“Makanna got scared because I got hurt on the gremlin job,” she continued after a while, standing up and beginning to pace. When she stood I noticed that when I sat my head actually reached her breast bone now. I really must have grown!

“I have never been wounded before,” she went on. “A few cuts and scrapes, but nothing like that. And now she thinks that I should not go out on anything remotely dangerous, and Tam listens to Mak because she is the head, the older, responsible one, and Val listens to Tam because Val is a brilliant fighter but he becomes a lost puppy around my brother. And I think that we should work with you, because I think that it is stupid to waste an opportunity like this. You. Are. A. Dragon! A dragon who is friendly and wants to cooperate with humans! How can they not see… Augh!” Herald screamed with frustration, and drifted into a tense silence.

In the distance her horse whinnied.

“Do you feel like they don’t respect you?” I asked carefully.

“They respect me,” she said heavily. There was much less confidence in her voice than she probably intended. “But they do not think that I can take care of myself. That I am a child, and that anything that happens to me is their responsibility.”

“You’re their baby sister,” I pointed out. This was a mistake.

“I am not a baby!” Herald snapped. “I am seventeen years old and then some. I am an adult, and have been for over a year. I can drink at a tavern or get married without anyone’s permission, or join the army if I so choose. I can make my own mistakes and get hurt for them, and it will be my own damned responsibility.”

I raised a clawed hand placatingly. “I know. I know all about being babied and needing to show that you’re your own woman.” That got a strange look from Herald but she let it pass. “But… okay, let me ask you this: Makanna, she is quite a bit older than you, isn’t she?”

“She is twenty-five,” Herald admitted.

“And Tamor?”

“Two years younger than Mak,” she said. “Though his birthday is a little earlier. He is twenty four.“

“Right. So, there’s the problem. Herald, they have loved you as a baby. That is not going to go away. I had the same problem with my oldest brother. God, the dumb shit I did just to show him…”

Herald was quiet for a time after I trailed off. “So, I should do some ‘dumb shit.’ Is that what you are saying?”

“Officially, no,” I told her with a smile, “but I had some bloody fun doing it. And you know, a teenage girl riding through a bandit infested forest at night to meet up with a dragon, well… I’d say that qualifies as some dumb shit.”

“Makanna is going to be furious,” Herald said with a little laugh, and I laughed with her.

“You have brothers?” Herald asked after we wound down.

“Two of them,” I told her honestly. “One much older, one a bit younger.”

“I thought dragons were hatched several at a time,” she said.

“I don’t know what to tell you. I have two brothers and that’s it,” I said. And that was the truth. I had no idea about how many eggs a dragon laid at a time, and I had no plan or desire to find out. I just prayed that I wasn’t like a chicken, laying eggs whether I wanted to or not.

“Does that mean that there are more dragons here?” Herald said, sitting forward with growing excitement.

“Sorry,” I told her sadly. “They’re… I dunno. Somewhere else. Far away, I guess.”

“Then why is it that you are here?” she asked.

I couldn’t see any harm in telling her. “I wish I knew,” I said. “I woke up here a couple of weeks ago. One moment I was somewhere else, the next I was here.”

“Oh,” she said, her expression turning soft with sympathy. “That must have been very confusing.”

“Yeah, you have no idea,” I told her. I had a sudden impulse to tell her the whole truth, about being a human trapped… no, that didn’t feel right… merged with? Yeah, merged with a dragon. But that would be a step too far, at least until I was totally sure that I could trust her.

“So you just wanted to talk?” I asked. “Show that you can do what you want and not always listen to your sister and brother?”

“I guess so,” Herald said, rubbing at the back of her neck. “It sounds childish like that. I wanted you to know that at least one of us is interested in working with you.”

“Well, I appreciate it,” I told her.

“Is there anything you need?”

“Well…” I said, and told her about my trouble with the tinder box. I left out my tantrum.

“Oh, that is easy,” Herald said. “Instead of the improvised garbage you had, you need a proper fire striker. I could get you one of those easily, and you can get a bigger piece of flint or chert from any stream around Karakan.”

“Seriously? That would be great,” I told her. “Honestly, there’s a bunch of other stuff I want, but I think that can wait. Pillows and rugs and stuff are nice, but I don’t know how I’d get it home, anyway.”

“Well,” Herald said. “If transporting things is a problem for you there are a few bag makers in the city. They make custom pieces all the time. I might be able to ask around a little? Something like a backpack or, uh… saddle bags?”

I couldn’t imagine how I’d strap a backpack to myself, but it would be useful. “You know,” I said. “If you don’t mind and have the time, that’d be great.”

“I do not know what it might cost, though,” she said carefully. Right. Money. Paying for things. Giving money away. “A few eagles at least.”

The idea of parting with silver made me feel sick to my stomach. I fought it down.

“Let’s deal with that once you have a quote, alright?” I told her, suddenly a little short of breath.

“Yes,” she said, with an odd look. “That is reasonable.”

“Speaking of money,” I went on, forcing some cheer into my voice. “I bet there’s a bounty on bandits, yeah?”

“There is…” Herald answered, inviting me to go on.

“Well,” I said. “I happen to know where a bunch of the murdering bastards are hiding out.”

“Really?” she said, her eyebrows shooting up. “The Grey Wolves or the Herons would pay well for that information, if it is right! Grey Wolves would be easier since we’re friends with some of them. How did you find these bandits?”

“They torched a village today,” I said, repressing the anger that flared up at the memory. I’d make them pay one way or another. “Killed some people. Hurt a lot more. I saw the smoke and went to check it out. One of the dead was a little kid.” I paused as Herald’s face went from sombre to sad.

“Yeah,” I continued with a sigh. “Like… a toddler. So I tracked them, and found their camp. It’s hidden pretty well, but easy to get to if you know how.”

“Where is it?” Herald asked. There was anger in her voice, but also a growing excitement that was way too familiar.

“Okay, so from the main road… wait, I should get a stick or something…” I said and started looking for something to scratch in the dirt.

“No, show me!” she insisted. “I will need to be able to lead the soldiers there or they will never trust the information. Or pay us.”

“Are you sure that’s safe?” I asked. But on her face I could see the moment when she decided to do some dumb shit. Slowly she grinned, and I grinned back.

We agreed to go at sunrise. I worried about the horse, but Melon, as the mare was called, was surprisingly chill about the whole thing. I sat down in the open by the lantern while Herald slowly brought her closer and, while Melon was obviously nervous and doubtful about the whole situation, Herald finally coaxed her close enough that she could have touched me with her nose if she wanted. She didn’t, but she also didn’t run off when I stood and took a few steps in front of her. I could only assume that I had been classified as some kind of strange but tame dog: big, with claws and teeth, but unlikely to do anything.

Herald tied Melon to what was effectively a tent peg. When I expressed my doubt about how well that would hold Melon if she decided to take off, Herald agreed. It wouldn’t. But Melon knew that the peg meant that she wasn’t allowed to wander off, and that was apparently good enough. Herald wrapped her cloak tightly around herself and sat down against the tree, while I curled up among the ferns where I could keep an eye on her.

“Hey, Draka,” Herald whispered as I was drifting off.

“Yeah?” I answered sleepily.

“Do you have my earring?” she asked.

I thought about it, then got up and walked over to her. After some lingual gymnastics I presented the little piece of worked silver to her on the tip of my tongue, where it gleamed softly in the moonlight.

Herald leaned forward and looked at the earring, then at me.

“You keep it,” she said finally, and settled back.

We headed out early. Herald had been prepared to wait all night, and she ate a light breakfast on Melon’s back while we moved. I stuck to the edge of the trees, and she was on the edge of the road, so we could talk as we went. Not that I added much to the conversation. I wanted to trust her, but there were things I wasn’t ready to tell anyone, and that limited the topics I could bring up.

I discovered, to my relief, that my increased Fortitude apparently extended to plain endurance as well. I had no problem keeping up with Melon’s pretty energetic pace, and we made good time.

“So, magic,” I said after we had walked in silence for maybe twenty minutes. Or five. Keeping track of time with no phones is hard. “It’s rarer here than I thought.”

“Really?” Herald asked. “Is it more common where you came from?”

“No, I guess not. It’s just that you were all so casual when Makanna used it.”

“Well, not everyone gets magic, that is true,” Herald began thoughtfully. “Mak did, of course, and so did Tam, though his is different. The limiting factor is that not everyone can learn it. As far as I have heard, magical talent can only come at a major threshold. And most people never reach their second major. Some unfortunate people… or very fortunate, depending on how you look at it… they never even reach their first one, even if they live a long time.”

“Because their lives are too easy?” I asked.

“That, or because they never learn anything from their struggles, I suppose. Not everyone does.”

“So not everyone gets a major advancement, and of those that do not everyone gets magic. That would cut down the numbers, sure.” I said. “It still feels like I should’ve seen more.”

“Oh, not everyone who gets the option chooses it,” Herald said casually.

“What? Why?” I was completely thrown by this revelation. Utterly flabbergasted. “Why would anyone not choose magic?”

“Fear, mostly, I think,” Herald said. “It can put a lot of pressure on you, and using magic can be painful and exhausting. We are very careful about letting anyone know that Makanna can heal, for example. Can you imagine the stress she would be under if everyone with an injury came to her? You saw how much it took out of her to heal your fairly minor wounds.”

“And the worse the injuries, the more exhausting it is to heal?”

“Just so. Now, the money can be good, and I think she might have tried that if we had not found the gremlin job. She has her licence, just in case. But right now it is not worth it.”

“It still seems like something that would be better to have than not.”

“But you also have to consider the options! Imagine that a terribly sick man reaches his major threshold. He has two paths before him. On one, he can heal others, or fuse stone, or empower himself with magic to fight better. On the other, he will live in perfect health to a ripe old age. He would choose health, would he not?”

“I guess,” I agreed.

“You rarely meet someone who would tell you what their choices were. Neither Makanna nor Tamor have told me, for example. But I believe that the choices, however many you get, are usually equally valuable, if in different ways. And so, we end up with few magic users in the world.”

“Would you pass, if you got the chance?” I asked.

Herald smiled. “I will have to see the options first, do I not?”