Chapter Fifteen
“I feel burned out,” I told Boutros when he asked the next day. I was in my apartment, in my bed. Under orders not to rise. “Like I don’t have any energy left.”
Boutros nodded. “You had a lightning bolt pass through you. You are lucky you did not die.”
I couldn’t agree more. “I …”
“Yes?” he prompted when I failed to go on.
Thankfully I knew Fin had left for school, so I was free to speak. “I tried to heal myself and … couldn’t,” I said. “Have I… lost it?”
Boutros shook his head, lifted his chin, and rolled his eyes. “You had a lightning bolt pass through you,” he repeated “You are lucky you did not die.”
“I know, but—”
“Do you have a hearing problem?”
“No.”
“Hmm, are you sure?” His tone dripped sarcasm. “You had a lightning bolt pass through you! You are lucky you did not die!” he said, louder this time.
“You’re telling me I need some recovery time?”
“Thank the Gods!” He clapped his hands together as if in prayer, but loudly. “He can be taught!”
“Thanks.” If he wanted to deploy sarcasm with his healing, he could take some in return.
“Flight Sergeant Segast,” he said carefully, “your colleagues say you are something of a powerhouse for keeping going. If your abilities are half as impressive as your son’s, then I suspect they, rather than luck, are the reason that both you and Flight Captain Shi remain alive.
But there are limits to all healing powers, and right now you need to finish healing naturally.
I am certain that once you are recovered, your healing magic will recover as well. We will see next week.”
“Next week?” I asked. “I can’t not work for ten whole days.”
This time his eyebrows went up and his chin down.
“Last time I had to take that much time off duty, I was in deep trouble.”
“You mean when you overextended your abilities to save your son, attacked a monster of a Stable Master, got your face and nose sliced opened, and healed yourself to the point that there is only the most minimal of scars on your cheek before you collapsed in exhaustion?”
My eyes narrowed at him. “How do you know all that?”
“I am adept at interrogation,” he said. “I know all the right pressure points.”
“You’re scary.”
His grin seemed to contain too many teeth. “Glad you think so. Because I have questions.”
Every hair on my body stood on end. My skin felt like it wanted to walk away from me. “I’m not sure I’m up to that.”
“Tough.”
I reared and blinked at Boutros. “Aren’t you the healer who’s supposed to be helping me?”
“No, I’m a Rider who’s pissed off with being lied to and more pissed off with being consigned to this particular level of hell. Something I believe you understand.”
I did.
“I’m going to take your silence as acquiescence,” he said. “You were stationed in Pasaocea for a while, weren’t you?”
“Six years.”
Boutros glanced at the open door, then back to me. “Was it really silver?”
I blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Was the dragon you saw really silver?”
I had to take a breath. “Wingman Boutros, be very careful, the Church is very clear on the matter. While they accept that there was once a golden dragon, the mention of a silver dragon is blasphemy.”
“And that was the blasphemy that sent you here, wasn’t it?”
“This really isn’t a conversation I want to have. Now or ever.”
“Tough,” he said again. “Growing up in Terrusia, I heard stories, they called it the Glittering Dragon. Because the sun glittered from its scales. Then I was stationed north of Mount Ailast, one of the tallest mountains in the world, in the Forbidden Mountains. That is where the stories of Flying Stones come from. Only they aren’t stones, they’re…
” he stood and started pacing. “They’re flying men with grey skin and wings.
And tusks. No hair.” He shook his head. “Strange things. If they exist.”
He returned and sat back on the bed at my side. “Even in the foothills of the Forbidden Mountains of Tengoseki, they are just a rumour. But the stories say they are awaiting the ultimate warrior. One who will appear in multiform. Man and dragon. A silver dragon.”
“What exactly are you suggesting?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Boutros said. “But when I got to Pasaocea, eighteen months ago now, I heard that there was a dragon who appeared there. It did something marvellous and was never seen again. When I asked about the dragon, I got nothing much beyond people wittering, ‘I’m not ending up like the Segasts.’ That’s you and your son. Right?”
“Boutros, you’re trying to hold water in a bucket made of paper.”
“Then it must be clay-coated paper, because it’s holding water just fine.” He stood up. “If you won’t answer my questions, I’ll go ask your son.”
“No.” I was probably too quick with that answer. It pretty much screamed I had something to hide. I sighed and sank back into my pillows. “Ask what you want.”
Boutros sat back down, ran his hand through his thick blond hair.
He licked his lips. “I’ve travelled from the deepest south to the furthest west, now I’m as north east as it gets, and if rumours are true, never likely to get posted away from this fortress.
In every other region I have lived in, I have heard stories of a silver dragon.
Hidden, archived, and suppressed stories.
Some just out and out censored. Every alleged appearance of the beast in the last three hundred years has been followed by a …
cleansing. Often a whole town or village just gets wiped off the map.
The only incident I have found where that didn’t happen was with the one in Pasaocea, the one that you and your son witnessed.
” He sighed. “So? Did you see a silver dragon?”
I took a breath. “Yes.”
* * *
Eventually we got back to work. Ang was ahead of me in that department, but he was apparently used to being struck by lightning. And my healing powers came back, with a little kickstart from Boutros. If ever there was a man who knew too much, it was him. You could see it in his eyes. Haunted eyes.
After another soaked patrol, I commanded the Wing to enter the nest from the leeward side launching area and used Salvadora to tell Fin to warn Fenwick. I didn’t know what we’d do when we lost that ability to advance warn.
We on the other hand had no warning that Flight Captain Ang Shi would be waiting there for us. He was braced in his usual waiting stance, hands crossed behind his back. As Flight Sergeant, I dismounted and walked up to him. Stood to attention and saluted.
“Nothing to report, sir,” I answered his query. “Just more sea all around, full of rain but no seafarers.”
I was not convinced Ang knew how to frown, but his look gave that impression.
“And Seven Rise Island?”
It was a small island, maybe a legion wide and long, that had, as the name suggested, seven rises. And all of them so jagged that it was a nightmare to land on.
“Empty, sir,” I said. “I managed to get Dora to land and scouted the interior as best I could while Jimny and Evanov flew the shores. None of us saw any signs of habitation, recent habitation, or even possible destruction thereof.”
“And you are certain of this?”
I nodded. “I trust Jimny completely, and though I wouldn’t trust Evanov with a sack of heavy rain—” – otherwise known as dragon waste – “—I do not believe he would lie to a superior officer.” Mostly I didn’t believe that because a couple of months after his son’s indiscretion, he had himself been punished for lying to Ang.
He had come to me for healing, but I’d made sure to leave the scars.
Ang nodded. “Thank you, Flight Sergeant, that will be all.”
“Sir?” I paused to ask. “What’s going on?”
Ang glanced around. The dragons were back in their nests, Fenwick was in his office, and the others had gone up to the fortress. “I cannot tell you. Because I do not know myself. But I am glad to know the truth is as I suspected. Thank you, Flight Sergeant.”