Chapter 3
AMAIA
The pounding thud of my heart was all I could hear as I stood outside the gates of Dothik.
It was early enough that the sun hadn’t yet crested over Bekkar’s Shield. Though the air was crisp, sounds felt muffled, breaths held from the hundreds that had gathered, all anticipating the dark shadows that would appear in the lightening pink sky.
Waiting on the compact earth beside me were the other travelers.
Currently only two places accepted Dakkari for the exchanges: a territory in the south called Sarroth and a territory in the east called Grym—which apparently bordered an enemy nation, as my mother had hysterically pointed out to my brother when he’d broken the news to them over supper a few nights ago.
The supper hadn’t ended well. Kiron had left in frustration, and as I’d lain in bed that night, I’d listened to my mother cry, my father and Avis trying to console her, hushed through my bedroom door.
Kiron hadn’t told them about the “spy” part, curiously, which might have soothed our parents’ ire. If they understood I had no choice. But I’d been forced to tell them that it was a direct order from the Dothikkar, a high honor considering my position at the pyroki enclosure.
And it’s only for a season, I reminded myself now, dragging in a deep, slow breath, pushing back my shoulders, brushing my arm against the Dakkari male standing next to me.
It was as quiet as a gravesite. Behind me, the families of the travelers made a crooked line in front of the two towering steel doors of the East Gate of Dothik.
A neater line of guardsmen were off to one side.
And peering through the East Gate, I saw a massive crowd had gathered, all angling for the best view of the impending visitors and their mighty dragons through the steel columns.
My mrikro hadn’t come. Halna hadn’t said much when I’d given him the missive from the Dothikkar. He’d read it over with an expressionless face, and then he’d scanned my face afterward.
“Learn from them,” Halna had eventually murmured before continuing to shovel out one of the enclosures for another nest build. “They have much to teach us about these creatures.”
“They don’t have pyroki,” I’d reminded him. “As far as I know.”
He’d leveled me a stare, a slight quirk of his lips. “All creatures are made from the bones of Kakkari. Elthika too.”
Still, I wished Halna had come, but I knew that it was another birthing day, that he was preparing with his other apprentices.
I wondered if a new apprentice would take my place before I could return.
If anyone would, it would be Myre. He had been waiting for a chance to pounce at my position, and I’d successfully fended him off for years. My leaving probably delighted him.
Halna was retiring his position soon. He’d hinted that it would be mine to take over. Now? I wasn’t so sure.
But Kiron’s life was more important than any position on all of Dakkar. I would shovel pyroki shit for the rest of my life under Myre’s smirk if it meant my brother was safe. At least I would still get to work with the creatures I cared for so dearly. Not everyone could boast that.
Suddenly a rippled murmur went through the gathered crowd, and I caught a flinch from a young Dakkari male next to me. My gaze darted over Bekkar’s Shield, and there I saw them. At first they appeared like large thissie birds, silhouetted black against the sky.
But as my heartbeat built to a crescendo, they grew much, much larger than mere thissie and their wings became monstrous things.
I could hear the beat of them, like drums, as they worked against the air.
I could hear the crackle of joints, the whisper of their scales, the heaved breath from throats that I knew could unleash ethrall, a powerful deadly fog.
I’d been frightened stepping out onto this plain. Building up a monster in my mind, for I had only caught a mere glimpse of a dragon, once before, when it’d flown over Dothik. A flash of an image.
But now…
I counted a total of ten Elthika. When they reached us, half landed, while the other unit broke out to fly over the city. Patrolling, I figured, to make certain there was no threat against them.
I’d never thought of myself as a coward. So I was glad that it wasn’t only fear that rose inside me like a crawling, strong vine, gripping onto my lungs and twining around the cage of my ribs. Instead, it was awe—and I felt it spark inside me until it seared.
The fear was there too. How could it not be when faced with the mightiness of not one but five Elthika, stomping the earth as they landed, sending shock waves out from their weight that made my bones quake in my flesh?
But mostly it was awe, and I was glad for it.
To touch one…to feel them with my heartstone magic…to feel the essence of their souls…
A shuddered breath escaped me, and for the first time, I couldn’t wait to cross an ocean I’d only ever seen the shores of.
The group of Elthika held back. Three Elthika, I noticed, had different saddles strapped around their backs. Ones with strong leathered sides, built up to form half walls, like a sturdy basket. Instead of one rider, they would carry five or six, easily.
Behind me, I turned to look at my parents.
My mother’s face was pale, my father’s arm wrapped in support around her hip.
My heart squeezed, wishing I could tell them I would be okay.
I settled on a smile, hoping it wasn’t like a grimace.
I wished I could open my soul to her, so she would know that I was not afraid, that this excited me.
My gaze cut to the line of guardsmen. Kiron was looking directly ahead, hand on the hilt of his sword, his expression impassive, cold. A replicant of all the others. I wished he could look at me.
My belly swooped low when a large shadow cut across us, blotting out the rising sun. When I looked up, I caught a flash of red. Human-blood red, like mine.
The Elthika landed in front of all the rest. And suddenly I did feel a sharp, momentary bite of pure terror. My hand flew up to my pendant, a nervous habit, as if I could pour my fear into the gem enveloped in the metal.
This Elthika was the largest I’d ever seen, with maroon scales like dried blood. The flare of its wings alone could decimate my entire block. I even doubted it could land comfortably within the large paddock of the pyroki enclosure.
When it lowered its head, I saw that the eyes were a blazing red—a striking color matching its scales. Given the Elthika’s size, I couldn’t make out the rider on its back, if there was one. It studied each and every one of us, slow like an inquisitive serpent might.
Next to me, the Dakkari male’s tail twitched uncontrollably, batting at the back of my calves repeatedly. He made a sound when the Elthika’s eyes cut to him, a cross between a choke and a gasp.
Dropping my pendant, I snatched up his hand, giving it a squeeze. Though we didn’t even know one another’s names, he gripped it for dear life.
There were four of us going to Grym, and we were separated from those going to Sarroth. They were a group of eleven, a stark difference. I wondered how many of them were spies for the Dothikkar.
The guardsmen—who would go into rider training at Grym—looked like all the rest I’d ever seen patrolling the city.
Standing tall, chins held high, eyes narrowed, as if anticipating the worst. One of them was a handsome male with black hair and hooded red eyes.
He sported the look of someone afraid who could not show it…
and so he overcompensated with a look of indifference, though I could see the way his lips were pulled tight around the corners.
The other was unassuming, a male with brown hair that shone russet in the sunlight, slightly leaner and taller than the first.
The male whose hand I held…I assumed he was the one who’d be working the croplands, to gain intel of the Karag’s food supply for the capital.
He was no trained solider. He looked to be around my age and he was strong.
I felt the callouses on his palms from farm work to prove his reason for being here.
He was a farmer. And I had only ever worked with pyroki. We were the outliers here, the weak links in the armor the Dothikkar had patched together for this ridiculous mission.
The thud of someone landing on hard earth made my pointed ears twitch. The red Elthika’s wing raised…
And there was its rider.
Vorakkar.
That was my first thought, which whispered through my mind like a certain thing.
A horde king, like one of the ancient kings who’d roamed our wildlands, a fearsome leader, a merciless warrior.
Though he was no horde king. How could he be?
He was a Karag, who rode on the back of a terrifying Elthika, who had come from across the sea. And I wondered who was insane enough to try to claim an Elthika such as this one.
Its rider stepped forward, his wide palm pressed against the scales of his dragon. I wondered if they felt like pyroki scales, like unyielding metal.
The hush that drenched the crowd was almost too intense. The silence was only broken up by the thud of wings of the patrolling Elthika still flying overhead…and by the booted footsteps of the rider as he approached.
His hair was silver, though his age seemed at odds with the color.
The top half of the silky strands was pulled back from his angular face, and the rest fell past his wide shoulders.
His jaw was a hardened line, cut so sharply as though with a whistling sweep of a sword, and a long scar ran down his face, curving to his neck.
The scar, however, did nothing to diminish his otherworldly beauty. It only made him more menacing, and I had to fight the urge to flinch when I saw his gaze sweep over us all.