Chapter 17
Cosima
My heart was racing in my chest from the moment that Zsekhet pointed out a silhouette in the distance.
Beneath Ses lay an endless desert, sands as white as snow glittered harshly in giant dunes.
It stretched out as far as I could see in every direction, leaving me completely disoriented.
For three days we’d been flying over these sands with not even the smallest hint of plant life or water.
Now I understood why Zsekhet had pulled out several large water skins and filled them up before we started the final stretch of our journey.
I squinted against the glare of the light to try and figure out what it was that Zsekhet had seen.
A dark smudge against the sand, and the closer we got, the more it resolved itself into a streak of purple.
An oasis of tall, front-heavy trees that offered lots of shade over a large shimmering lake of water.
Above it, I saw winged shapes take to the skies, coming and going in several directions.
Dragons in all kinds of jewel shades, many of them not nearly as massive as Sesethul was.
“Ses is an older dragon,” Zsekhet explained.
“Not like, senior or anything, just a fully matured male. When I was allowed to go to the dragon nesting places to let a dragon choose to bond with me… no one expected it to be Ses. A bond is nearly always initiated by a dragonling just leaving the nest.”
I touched the golden scales of Ses’ neck just in front of me; each scale was as big as a dinner plate or even a hubcap.
They were hard as stone, probably bulletproof, so it was no wonder he’d flown through a hail of arrows and come out unscathed.
What had made a mature dragon like Sesethul decide to bond with Zsekhet?
“How old were you?” I wondered and was startled when he answered that he’d only just gotten out of his fourth molting.
I knew enough of the Naga by now to equate that to about seven years of age; he’d been a tiny little boy when he’d faced a whole nest of dragons, and this giant golden beast had singled him out.
“My parents were both killed in the outcast attack on Serqethos. I begged my trainers to be allowed to bond with a dragon, they figured the dragons would find me too young and pass me over. But Ses and I… We just clicked right away.” I tried to imagine a seven-year-old with a giant dragon for a companion and found the image rather frightening, even if imagining Zsekhet as a young boy was cute.
But any further thinking on what that might have been like fled my mind when we got closer to the oasis.
Now I could see the shapes of buildings of stone in the far distance of the lake, curving and round, they flowed with the landscape.
Many of them were at least partially buried beneath the white sands, but just as much still stuck out above ground.
The bustling activity was happening on this side of the lake’s shore, however.
I saw tents of pale lavender and tan rising like little domes beneath the lush trees, and golden Naga hurried every which way between them.
The trees themselves were a surprise too, reminding me of date trees and tamarinds.
We’d come at the right time too, I could see them bowing beneath the weight of the heavy fruits hanging from the branches.
Zsekhet had explained more than once that the Naga females in his Clan did not fight to the death like those of other Clans did, yet it was still a surprising sight.
Maybe it was especially shocking after I’d seen what had happened at Bitter Storm.
Here, the females seemed as numerous as the males and they bustled about, equally as busy.
On one side, next to the tents, I saw round buildings, and excitement thrummed through me.
I recognized those shapes from one of my architectural lectures, and I was shocked to discover that someone on another planet had conceived of the same design.
A yakhchāl, an ancient Persian design to cool, store, or even create ice.
I spotted two of the sharply domed, nearly triangular roofs, connected by a long, thick shade wall, beyond that was a large stone basin in which water could freeze during the cold desert nights.
Ice that was then moved into the yakhchāl to store.
I nudged Zsekhet with my elbow, unable to contain my enthusiasm for the discovery.
“You’ve got a yakhchāl! I can’t believe it!
” I pointed at the distinct shape of the nearest building, bouncing on Sesethul as much as the riding harness allowed.
“Look! Is it fully functioning? Do you know how to build one? We should make one at Haven too!”
Zsekhet chuckled, leaning forward to rest the side of his head against mine, his long black hair sliding silkily along my skin.
“You mean the nylarashé? The ice pits? I should have known that those would catch your fancy.” His hand stroked along my belly, up toward my breastbone where he pressed with warm, gentle firmness.
“I have helped mix the clay for restoration once or twice, but other than that…”
He didn’t realize just how good that information was.
The clay mixture they’d used here had to be different from what was used on Earth in ancient times.
They didn’t have eggs or goat hair here, for example.
I knew how to construct one, the basic elements were all quite simple.
I couldn’t help but squeal in excitement when I discovered that he had the missing piece of the puzzle!
“That’s good enough!” I leaned back to peck his cheek, my excitement for a short while overshadowing my nerves at meeting his Clan.
When we started a descent, I realized that what I’d taken for a pile of shimmering rocks at first was actually a pile of slumbering dragons.
I knew Ses liked to sun himself, he was a desert creature who eagerly soaked up the sun.
But the sheer amount of dragons just lying there, sleeping, was stunning to see.
It was even more exciting to see the dozen or so darting through the sky.
When we got closer, cries went up, and some of those flying dragons circled to come toward us.
“Breathe, my flame-haired mate. That’s just the welcoming committee.
” I hadn’t even realized that I’d sucked in a breath and hadn’t let it out.
I couldn’t help it, there was just some primal instinct that struck me at the sight of those dangerous creatures winging toward me.
They got close far too quickly. There was a red one only half as long as Ses and far more delicate, its rider a golden male with slender shoulders and a youthful face.
A shimmery pink one with a grizzled snout full of scars that was nearly the same size as the golden dragon I was on.
That one’s rider was a male Naga with hair as white as snow, and his grizzled face matched his dragon.
Below us a small green one soared in aerial acrobatics, tumbling through the sky with twirls and curls. It was showing off, though it had no rider but it was clutching a huge parcel between its front paws. It reminded me of little Kiwi who could flit through the sky in much the same, daring manner.
We came in for a landing on the sands just outside the oasis, surprisingly little dust flying into the air when half a dozen dragons touched the ground.
Not far off was the pile of sleeping dragons but they weren’t all asleep, I saw several large eyes blink open in various spots; staring at us with their strange, slitted pupils.
The older Naga male with the bright pink, but grizzled dragon was the first to reach us.
He leaped from the back of his beast so fast that he had probably unhooked his riding harness before his dragon even touched the ground.
Zsekhet on the other hand was taking his sweet time to unbuckle each of our straps.
“Zsekhet! Boy! You’ve returned!” the male called out, a gruff kind of warmth filtering through his voice.
His scales were not a bright shimmering gold in some places but dented and scratched.
Zsekhet said he molted once a year, which removed any sign of damage or scars from his body unless it went deeper than his scales.
Once they got very old though, the intervals between moltings became much longer and with how grizzled this male looked, I figured he had to be ancient.
“Hello, Arakash,” Zsekhet answered, coiling himself around me so he could safely carry me down to the sands. It meant I was mostly obscured from this male until we were both on the ground; then, I was close enough to be able to see the shock form on his rough features.
“What is that?” the male hissed, his hand going to the hilt of a short, curved rapier-type sword hanging from a belt at his hip.
“It looks… Bizarre!” His eyes were a darker shade of gold than Zsekhet’s but they still looked similar.
He didn’t sound particularly kind as he appraised me, hitting a little close to the reception my presence had brought forth from the Bitter Storm Clan.
Zsekhet bared his teeth, his upper fangs long and sharp as he displayed them to this elder.
“That, Arakash, is my mate, a being from the sky! You will treat her with respect. Do you understand?” The older male reared back, rising on the thick base of his tail, his eyes growing wide and shocked in his face.
Then he settled, his expression smoothing out as he nodded.