Silver Dragon Codex Read online

CHAPTER SIX

  he massive dragon rose above the burning school, braving the thunder and lightning of the downpour with a resounding clarion cry. The wolves that surrounded the plaza fell back in surprise. Jace could hear the old hag’s voice crying out, trying to rally her servants, but chaos was overtaking the ruined village square. Jace felt a stab of panic followed by a warm glow. Belen really was a dragon!

  She was even more beautiful now than she’d ever been before. Terrifying, yes, but beautiful. Her scales shone like molten steel in the firelight, her eyes wide and filled with righteous anger. Wings like silken sails unfurled behind her, catching the firelight and reflecting it back in a mirrored prism to illuminate the dark smoke that rose from the building below.

  With a buffet of her wings, the dragon rose to her rear legs, stretching out her neck over the square. She released another blast of cold dragon breath, snuffing the worst of the flame beneath her. Jace could see the werewolves leaping up to savage the dragon with their teeth and claws, but they did little more than scratch at her heavy silver scales. The ring of claw against metal echoed amid the clamor of thunder. The dragon—Belen, Jace forced himself to acknowledge—snapped at them, catching one in her teeth and hurling it aside against the broken stones of the village. It got up a few seconds later, healing swiftly and limping away. Many of them started fleeing, frightened by the massive jaws and swift swipes of the dragon’s feet.

  “She’s going to kill them!” Cerisse cried out.

  The silver dragon roared, spreading her wings and stepping out from the wreckage of the school building. The old woman stood her ground, clutching her battered staff despite the wind of the dragon’s beating wings and the rain. Around the hag, wolves began to scatter, raising howls of terror into the night. Watching the scene, Jace imagined he could see the night five years ago when the dragon landed amid the village. Villagers had screamed and scattered like the wolves, unable to defend themselves against her rage.

  The dragon arched her neck, eyes wide and dark. Lightning flashed, illuminating her sharp ivory fangs as she bent toward the old woman in the center of the plaza. Jace could hear the hag shriek, “By Chislev, you will not hurt this village again! I will give my life to stop you!”

  The wolves around him had already fled back into the shadows, their eyes wide with haunted memories of the dragon’s first attack. Cerisse was right behind him, and Ebano strode a short distance beyond. Cerisse yelled, “We have to stop her! Belen, don’t hurt these people!” A single stroke of the dragon’s tail, one strong buffet of wing or swipe of claw could tear down a building, much less kill the woman who stood before her in those ragged robes. Belen’s head swept forward, and the old woman dropped her gnarled staff.

  “Oh! She’s going to bite the hag’s head off!” Cerisse gasped.

  Despite the fact that Jace privately thought it would serve the woman right for setting the school on fire, he couldn’t let Belen do it. But they couldn’t get close enough to stop her in time, and the whipping wind and crashing thunder drowned out their shouts. The dragon struck out with her fore paws, blocking the hag’s retreat first to one side, then the other, drawing her claws closer and closer together around the old woman until she was caged in. The old woman screamed, terrified, and stepped back within the cage of the dragon’s claws. She prayed to Chislev in gasping breaths. Belen’s head sank down until it was only an arm’s length from the shivering old woman. The dragon’s silver lips curled, revealing vicious-looking fangs. Jace could see the lines of panic etched on the old woman’s face, her white-rimmed eyes wide with horror.

  “Fear not, forest warden,” the dragon said softly, and Jace could hear the echo of Belen’s voice within the words. “I shall not hurt thee”—her eyes narrowed—“though you would have taken your vengeance out upon my companions when your anger is with me.” The old woman huddled back and cowered low to the ground, shivering at the dragon’s anger. “Whatever happened here all those years ago has been stolen from my mind. I have no memory of attacking your village. I do not remember your blessed stone. My mind has been erased. But this I know: I wish to help you, not harm you.”

  “Lost your memory? Ha! Just like my wolves—the villagers. They know nothing but the hunt and the forest now, that and a terrible need for revenge. The stone has cursed them. I think it has cursed you too, for your arrogance and greed, stolen your memory so that you cannot enjoy your victory.” The old woman rose, shaken, snatching her staff off the ground and clutching it close. “You brought this on all of us!”

  “Perhaps I did. Perhaps my actions were as terrible as you say. For my part, I cannot say. But no matter what has occurred in the past, I am here now to make amends and bring what peace I can so that we may all heal. This was no victory. It was a tragedy—for us all.” The dragon’s long silver tail coiled about her feet, hiding the sheen of perfect steely claws. It was hard to believe that this was truly Belen, though something in the dragon’s grace and poise spoke of Belen’s dancing, and her steady gray eyes held the same soft strength. The dragon stood in the stone plaza, keeping her claws spread in a fence around the shuddering, huddled forest hag that had defied and threatened her.

  Summoning her courage close like the rags she pulled tight around her shoulders, the hag faced the dragon despite her quavering knees. “Return the stone, dragon,” she spat. “Only then can you repair what you have wrought.”

  The dragon shook her head gracefully. “I do not have your stone. Whoever has done this has wronged us both. In either case, I will return it to you if it can be returned. You have my word on that.”

  “Your word is worth nothing to me or to this village. Your death would mean more,” the old hag spat.

  The dragon settled her shoulders lower, her neck bowed. The she uncurled her claws and set the woman free. “Go.” The silver dragon raised her shining head, folding her wings back against the sinuous length of her body. “Care for the people who have been cursed by this misfortune. We will speak again.” The dragon drew in a deep breath, lifting her head to release a gust of snow and cold wind that soared above the village. Snow fell all around them from the blast, icing over the last of the fire and driving the monsters farther into the forest.

  The old woman staggered out of the dragon’s grasp. Two faithful wolves slipped out of the shadows of ruined buildings, crawling close enough to tug worriedly at the hem of her ragged robe. At another roaring cry from the silver dragon, the old woman turned and stormed away, one hand on her withered staff, the other twined into the fur of one of the werewolves.

  The dragon’s snow fell, cold and white, throughout the village. It hung in the air, shadowed the ruined walls, and turned the storm into a hazy drift of cotton. Belen stared up at it, watching it fall. She was frozen like a statue amid the drifting stars of ice. As the wolves slid into the shadows, baring their teeth but afraid to risk the dragon’s wrath, the village fell into silence. Even the voice of the storm slowed and quieted, the thunder muffling its voice into a hesitant peace. The school’s fire turned to smoke and ash, and a few crumbling boards fell from the wrecked ceiling. Jace stepped onto the plaza, the stone beneath his feet wet and slick, and stared up at her. The dragon was magnificent, glowing with strength, power, and grace, her gray eyes bright and cold. Cerisse and Ebano came up behind him, gazing at her with awe and wonder.

  Belen lowered her head, closed her eyes, and lifted her wings above her shoulders. She gave a little shake as if she were casting away the faint fluff of snow that had landed on her broad shoulders, and her form dissolved in a shimmering wash of magic. Her scales shone briefly as they turned to soft skin and silver hair. Her size was simply no longer epic, drifting like melted ice into a woman’s slight form. Only a soft breath later, Belen stood before them as calm and recognizable as if she’d just stepped off the third ring of the circus into the shelter of the velvet curtains backstage.

  “Belen,” Jace said, trying to keep his voice from shaking. “Are you all right?”

&nbs
p; She nodded. Cerisse reached out and took her hand as the light glittered on tears frozen to the dancer’s cheeks. Belen squeezed her fingers gently. “I’m fine. I didn’t think it would be”—she paused and cleared her throat—“easy.”

  “Turning into a dragon?” Cerisse looked back at the ruined schoolhouse.

  “You were in trouble. The building was burning. I knew I had to do something, and then I just … did.”

  “Large problems require large solutions.” Despite the tired cliché he quoted, Ebano’s voice was soothing in the darkness.

  The storm was passing, the clouds gently opening here and there to allow moonlight to reach through the forest leaves. Snow from the cold dragon’s breath still trickled down, slinking through the shadows of the ruins in pale memory of the wolves that had fled the dragon’s wrath.

  Belen tried to smile. “For a moment—when I changed form—I remembered something. I did attack this place. I know I did. But I didn’t steal the stone, and I didn’t kill anyone.” Her voice had the ring of certainty.

  “I’ve been thinking about that, you know,” Cerisse said.

  “What, while you were fighting the werewolf?” Jace said, grinning.

  “Yes, actually. Unlike boys, I can do two things at once.” The juggler pouted for a moment, shaking her head so that her auburn braid wagged past her waist. “I think I know why Belen attacked the village—sleight of hand.” The other three stared at her, confused, and Cerisse continued in a huff. “Oh, come on! It’s obvious. She didn’t steal the stone, did she? Well, if she didn’t, then someone else did. What’s the best way to move something big without anyone noticing? Distraction! It’s the oldest trick in a magician’s book.”

  “Dragons are very distracting,” Belen said seriously, drying the last of her tears.

  “They are! And best of all, you wouldn’t even have to hurt anyone. All you had to do was cause a ruckus—and then they’d take the stone. Of course, whoever it was didn’t expect everyone to turn into cursed werewolves.” Cerisse frowned. “Nobody I know could trick a dragon, though. It’s a lot harder than one of Ebano’s mind tricks, or Worver’s fluffy shell games. Maybe a wizard …”

  They all paused, considering the same thing without saying it.

  “It’s possible,” Jace said at last, trying not to shiver in the cold. He wiped the blade of his short sword clean and resheathed it. “But there wouldn’t be any proof here, would there? None that we could find, anyway.” The black scar in the ground where Chislev’s stone had stood was dark despite the touch of frost that layered the ground elsewhere.

  “Whoever did it,” Belen said, stressing her uncertainty, “would have had to convince me to attack. Threaten me,” she said, “or offer me something I couldn’t refuse.” She struggled to remember, releasing Cerisse’s hand to rub her temples. “I don’t know! It seems so foolish. Why would I endanger all these people? Why would I hurt so many innocents?”

  Ebano took her arm, gazing down at her. “So sad, dragon girl,” he clucked. “You are stream.”

  “I think the cold’s gotten to his head.” Jace shivered, wishing just a bit that the school was still on fire. At least that would have been warmer. “He’s not making any sense.”

  “Stream?” Cerisse shook her head, making strange, exaggerated gestures as she spoke. “We … don’t … understand … you, Ebano!”

  “He doesn’t know the language, Cerisse, he’s not deaf,” Belen snapped. She turned to Ebano and searched his eyes. “What do you mean, Ebano? Stream? What are you trying to say?”

  Ebano smiled and bent down, sketching a wavy line in the frosted earth. “Stream,” he said. “Belen stream.” He pointed at her, and then tapped the line. “Here.” He pointed at the top of the line, where he had begun the drawing. “Belen,” the mesmerist said again, reaching up to grasp her hand and pull her down. He placed her palm over the area, pressing it against the earth. “Belen here.”

  “What is he saying?” Belen stared, puzzled.

  It took three breaths for Jace to realize Ebano’s message. “The beginning! That’s what he’s saying. Streams don’t just come from nowhere, Belen, they have to start somewhere. Whoever talked you into doing this, whether it was blackmail or a threat, must have been able to find you before you came to the village. This had to start somewhere! Can you remember if you had a home somewhere? A cave … or … or …” He fumbled. The idea of Belen living in a cave was preposterous, but he had no idea where dragons tended to live. “Maybe a tower?”

  “I … I remember a mountain surrounded by forest. The sun was setting behind it when I flew to the village.” Belen’s mouth dropped into a little O. “It must be to the west of here! Once it gets light, I could fly in that direction until we found it.”

  Ebano looked animated as he stood and helped Belen up. Jace chuffed the taller man’s shoulder, congratulating him as Cerisse pulled Belen into a hug. “Er, that is if I can remember how to fly.” Belen sighed, engulfed by the eager half-elf’s premature celebration.

  They passed that night amid the ruins, finding a spot that had been sheltered enough by a fallen roof that they could crawl beneath it and stay dry. Ebano managed a second fire, and they warmed tea by the flame when the cloudy morning sky turned pink and orange. Belen walked away from the others and stood in the plaza, staring at the scar in the earth. Jace left her alone, struck by how much the image called up the memory of the dragon staring up through the snow toward the stars. He could hear Ebano and Cerisse chattering, communicating in a strange dance of words and gestures, and laughing when they couldn’t understand what the other one had said.

  Jace wondered how long it had been since this ruined village had heard laughter. He looked up toward the west and tried to imagine the spread of silver wings against a blazing sunset. She’d probably come right through that gap in the trees, snowy breath flaring in great sweeps of mist and ice against a sunset sky. Jace shivered despite himself, imagining the terror of the villagers in the face of such an attack—even worse, to feel a curse take hold, changing their form and erasing their minds so that they remembered nothing but the feral, animal existence of wolves. Was that worse than losing the hundreds of years of memory that Belen must have had, being a dragon? The feeling of power, the deep mysteries of magic and enchantment that were native to such noble creatures, all of that was lost to her, shed like a cloak on a warm day.

  Did she feel small? Did she feel unbalanced, standing on two legs instead of four? Did she struggle to remember the feeling of her wings against the clouds? Standing there, staring at the torn ground where the stone of Chislev must have stood, did Belen have any memory at all of what the village looked like before she tore it apart?

  What was she thinking, standing so very still?

  “Belen?” Cerisse called from the campsite. She was standing over the ashes of their little cooking blaze, knocking the charred wood over with her boot, burying the signs of their fire. “Sun’s full up over the edge, even if you can’t see it through the forest. Ebano told me that he doesn’t sense any more storm in the sky. Well, he either said that or he said he wants to turn into a bird, I’m not sure. But I think the wing thing means he’s ready to fly.” She turned warm brown eyes on the girl in the plaza. Behind her, Ebano twisted his thumbs together and flapped his fingers up and down on either side in good imitation of a bird.

  Jace walked to Belen’s side and shared a smile. “Think you can do it?” She met his eyes directly, and Jace felt his heart skip a beat.

  “Turn back into a dragon? Yes.” She nodded. “I have that part figured out. It’s the part that comes next I’m not so sure about—the flying part.”

  “Don’t worry.” Jace laid his hand on Belen’s arm. “Cerisse and I are acrobats. We fall just fine. And as for Ebano, well, if you really want, we can tie him to your leg.” Despite herself, Belen had to laugh. Ebano smiled, but Cerisse’s mouth tightened and her eyes narrowed grumpily.

  They gathered around Belen—not too clos
e—while she shifted into dragon form. Once again, Jace watched the strange misty shiver of the air around her body, the feeling like a drawing in of breath as if the world itself pulled close about her form and draped it with silver scales. There was no stretch of flesh, only a quick blur of motion, like a magician’s thin scarf passing before the eyes, coating her in silver and steel, great dragon’s wings, and a massive, graceful neck that flowed and moved like the thick silk of her hair.

  Belen lay down upon the ground, poising her foreleg so that they could easily climb up to her back. Jace and Cerisse managed it easily and helped Ebano along. The hypnotist settled his thick purple robes about him, muttering softly in his foreign tongue as he patted the dragon’s scales. Running his hand along her neck, Jace noticed she was softer than he’d thought. The scales looked as hard and cold as metal shields, but they were soft to the touch, like buttery leather, and the thin ruff of silver hair that trailed down the back of her neck was finer than spider silk. “Everyone aboard?” Belen twisted her head around to look, and Jace gave her a thumbs-up.

  “If you need to land along the way, feel free,” he told her. “You haven’t done this in a while.”

  “Don’t worry, Jace. We’ll be fine,” she rumbled, stretching her wings. “You’re not the only one who can work without a net.”

  Belen rose to a crouch, lifting her wings high. Although Jace and the others were ready, he’d never felt anything like the massive weight of force when Belen hurled herself up from the ground. A single pumping beat of her wings propelled them high into the air, over the trees and ruined buildings in a tremendous leap. Cerisse squealed in sudden panic, clutching Jace, and Ebano laughed aloud. Jace grabbed the silver frill in front of him and hung on for all he was worth. The world swung and pitched beneath them, then fell away to mist.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  lying on a dragon’s back was a lot like the first time he walked alone on a tightrope, Jace thought, as the wind streamed in his hair. There was the rush of adrenalin, with one foot on a thin wire and one hovering a hundred feet above the ground, shifting in the winds of chance. Balance shifted unpredictably, tilting with each swoop of the dragon’s wings. Sometimes, when Belen went down to avoid a gust of wind, it felt as if there were nothing keeping him aloft—but then, with a startling rush, gravity returned, and the thick solidity of the dragon’s body lifted him up again.