Redeeming the Dragon (Into the Enchanted)

Chapter 6

M y heart quivered. My throat closed up. I could not swallow. The band around my chest tightened again. A blinding thrill of panic seized me.

Run, it urged . Run for the edge of the cliff. Jump, and this will end. You’ll not have to be devoured by a dragon or live your life as his slave. The pain will last a moment, and it will be over. Run…

Whatever devilish voice was whispering to me, urging me, I clapped my hands over my ears to block it out.

But only for an instant.

They are still there. They’re still looking to you. Be brave, Lorna. You must be brave.

Yes. I had to be brave.

Rather than succumb to fear, I slowly lowered my hands then turned to face my family, my village. Their faces were a blur to me, hidden behind the glow of their torches and lanterns. Were they waiting for me to speak? My throat was still closed off. I had no words .

A blur at the edge of the crowd as someone tried to step forward. I thought it was Mama. Another blur of movement as someone caught her skirts, drawing her back. Above the wind’s lament, I heard a croaky voice say, “Let her go, Avigale. Don’t make this more difficult for her than it is.”

The voice belonged to Hortinse, the old village midwife I sometimes assisted. I could not have been more grateful to her as I distinctly heard Mama release a sob. However, Mama obeyed, whirling and plunging into the crowd. I caught glimpses of my father and sisters, along with friends and neighbors, casting me final glances. Then they, too, turned and melted into the throng. Soon, the mass of Sanlyn had vanished altogether into the thick forest. All I saw was the receding illumination of their torches, and all I heard was the trudging of feet through the brush. Soon, even that was swallowed up by thick, encroaching darkness, and the sobbing of the wind.

Farewell, I thought sadly, battling the tears gathering in my eyes. Farewell, farewell. Oh, please be safe. Let my sacrifice count for something.

Invisible fingers of wind clawed at my clothing, turning me in place. Shivering, I gazed out into the vastness of the thick twilight melding with the sea and wished the dragon would arrive. I would rather face my fate and have it over with than stand there and wait, plagued with competing desires to flee into the jungle or to cast myself over the precipice. I restrained myself from both. The jungle might seem a safe place at present, but a dragon’s flaming breath could easily reduce the stout trees to charred twigs. And if I threw myself over the edge of the precipice, I might be gone, but my family and the villagers would still remain. Would the dragon choose to unleash his vengeance? Would he take one of my sisters instead?

I could not run that risk .

Drawn by a wily, impending force seeking to lead me to my doom, I crept closer to the edge of the Wailing Cliffs. Some perverse instinct willed my sandals to move one inch nearer. That same odd force beckoned me to lean over and look. To see the jagged boulders, bathed in the white foam of the waves crashing around them.

Jump, the voice in my brain whispered slyly. Jump. All of your troubles will be ended. No agony from a dragon. No fears on that score. Spread your arms and fly—fly into the sea.

My toes trembled on the dark brink. I stared downwards. Despite the upheavals in my life, the sea was unchanged. Insistent. Churning. Angry that she could not rise over this bluff. Swirling around the rocks below as if, by her fury, she could wear them away. While the rocks held, allowing her to have her furious say, the Wailing Cliffs loomed over them all, a silent sentinel guarding against the water’s wrath.

Jump. Free yourself of this burden.

Did I dare?

No!

Startled, realizing I’d been leaning over too far, I jolted back, my heart racing. I fell to my backside on the dank grass bordering the brink. Bracing my elbows on my knees, I covered my face with my hands.

No. No, I will not take the coward’s way out, leaving my family and island to burn. I said I would do this. I will do it. No more thoughts like this, Lorna. None.

I allowed myself a moment on the carpet of wet grass, damp not only from the perpetual spray rising from beneath, but also from the mist seeping from the heavy clouds, blanketing me with moisture.

He swore I would be safe.

I tried to comfort myself with that notion .

Well. My practical side asserted itself. Whether you are safe or not, you are here now. Better to have done with this ugly business than to sit here and weep.

Angry at myself, I thrust to my feet, stalking to the brink of the cliff. This time, there was no internal battle to cast myself over the side. Rather, mentally, using the same portion of my brain with which I’d communicated with the dragon last night, I shouted,

I am here! You said to meet you here. I upheld my end of the bargain. I came. Where are you?

No reply. Part of me felt baffled. Had I suffered this torment for nothing? Had that wily serpent made threats, coerced me into meeting him here, stirred up my family and village’s fears and grief, only to abandon me where he’d said to meet?

Was it all for nothing? I cried, balling my fists and lifting my face to the dank sky. Where are you, serpent?

A soft rush of wind whistled around me, tugging at my clothing. There was no sound—or else the sound was hidden by the crash of the waves. But there was a strange sight—an obsidian shape blotting out the ocean below. It rose seemingly from nowhere, practically soundless in its approach. If not for the passage of wind, created by the stirring of wings, I doubted that I should have sensed his appearance.

I am here, answered the soft, sibilant voice. Time to depart.

Depart? Then he did not mean to devour me! At least, not here on this high, lonely point.

My damp shirt clung to my torso as I twisted for a final glance at the jungle with its hidden path back home.

Come, bid the dragon sternly.

I looked back at him. I could see little to nothing of him in the gloom, save his gleaming golden eyes. I forced myself to swallow, tasting raw fear on my tongue .

Dare I trust a dragon?

Nay. Nay, I did not trust him, but…go with him?

I had no choice.

Gingerly, I approached the verge. The dragon hovered there in space, gently flapping his leathery wings to keep himself aloft. When my feet were on the brink, with nothing between me and the ocean below save this mighty beast, I drew a breath.

This was it. No turning back.

Ready to have it over with, I propelled myself forward in a jump. A jump that jarred as I landed heavily onto the beast, half on his back, half on his wing. I yelped, my hands scrabbling for purchase. My left hand found the row of spikes on the back of his neck, and my right seized his thick spine. There was no saddle. No blanket. Nothing to make this ride more comfortable. The dragon raised his wing, as though I weighed no more than a fly, helping me fumble onto the broadest part of his back. I swung my other leg over his spine and wriggled about until I found a relatively comfortable position. In so doing, the bag slung across my shoulder caught on his scales, forcing me to wriggle further to remove it before settling back into place with it tucked against my waist.

Hold tight, urged the voice in my head.

Would I do anything else? I challenged.

I did not know dragons could show humor, but I swear the sound in my head was him laughing. I had no time to be offended because his wings flapped strongly—once, twice—and then we were soaring away from the Wailing Cliffs and out towards the open sea. I heard myself scream at the awful and peculiar sensation of moving at such remarkable heights, so quickly, and into the deepening night.

I leaned low against the beast’s back, pressing my thighs tightly against his sides to maintain my seat. I could not shake the knowledge that, were there a stiff wind, were he to twist unexpectedly, roll upside down, or jolt—I could easily drop. Drop like a pebble thrown idly off a cliff, to be consumed by the cold waters far below.

Please don’t let me fall, I pleaded inside my head.

I did not even think I was speaking to the dragon, but it was he who answered, promising,

I won’t.

He won’t? I echoed, bemused. Why? Why is he keeping me alive? Where is he taking me? And for what purpose?

I attempted to reign in my scattered thoughts, to swallow down the rank taste of fear. To trust that, if the dragon had kept his word so far, he would continue to. Leaning so far down that I could rest my head against my hands, which continued to cup one of the spikes on the back of his neck, I strove to tear my awareness from the uncertainty of where we were going, and why, and concentrate on the physical sensations around me.

The beast’s smooth scales, which I could feel through my thin clothing.

His rough spikes, like the bark of the wood I stacked for the stove.

The rhythm of his mighty wings. Up, down. Up, down. Endless. Ceaseless. Perpetual. Somehow…oddly comforting.

The sound of his great breaths, pumped in and out of his lungs, like bellows on a furnace. In, out. In, out. He was not winded. He was doing what his body was naturally meant to do. Fly. Fly for hours and hours through a sky that soon lost all traces of daylight, to be replaced by millions of twinkling stars.

I had never seen such stars. Of course, on a quiet night when we sat on the beach before a small fire, the stars would peek through the black canopy above the sea, but they were never like this. Truly, it was a glorious sight to behold—nothing except stars for miles and miles. For infinity. For endless eternity. Stars that never ended as the dragon flew and flew, wings rhythmically pumping up and down, in a quiet tempo that slowly became a lullaby.

The fear of being devoured dissipated. The terror of falling and plunking into the sea disappeared. Even the dread of the unknown, of living as a slave to Aerisia’s mightiest beast, gradually receded. I wriggled a bit on the serpent’s back, readjusting my hold until my cheek rested comfortably on the back of my hands. I allowed the grip of my thighs to loosen ever so slightly. As I leaned into the dragon’s strength, trusting him to keep me aloft and alive, I noticed that deep within his body I could hear a stern, slow thumping. After a moment, I realized it was the pounding of his heart.

I couldn’t say why, but that ceaseless pattern enveloped me with an odd sense of peace. Above me were the stars. On either side were the dragon’s wings. Beneath me, in the cavity of his great body, was his heart.

Pounding. Beating. Slowly. Incessantly. Soothingly.

If I am to die soon, I thought, resting my cheek on my hands, at least let me enjoy these final moments of life.

My eyelids drifted close. Unbelievably, even though I soared into a future full of mystery, on a beast capable of ripping my flesh to shreds, or devouring me in a couple of bites, I managed to fall asleep.