9. A Draeken Leaves a Gift
A Draeken Leaves a Gift
ISABEL
“ W hy isn’t the serpere turning back into a human?” Sapphira asks, facing off against the draek?n.
“Most Dracoreptilia aren’t shifters,” Isabel informs her. “Only a small percentage of their draek?n shifter population exists today.”
“Well, isn’t that great,” Sapphira mutters, and Isabel has to fight off her smile.
She feels safer now, as she approaches the draek?n at Sapphira’s side.
Though she may appear to be fearless, she is shaking inside.
Not of the beast, but that she might disappoint Sapphira, who judges her so highly.
And glancing over at Sapphira's smooth, dark skin and pinched mouth only make her heart beat faster. The woman looks fearless.
Isabel makes a cooing sound with her mouth, her lips pursed as she claps rhythmically to soothe the draek?n and let it know that she is there so it won’t be startled again.
She walks carefully around the head, Sapphira protectively at her heels, so they’re at the front of the draek?n. The large pupils constrict to track their movement.
“I’m going to help you,” Isabel calls up to the creature. She scans the large body, trying to find out why it went down, and she gasps when she sees it.
A Vacciom is attached to the back wing, and the night daemon’s many rows of teeth are lodged deep into the serpere’s tough hide, turning it a deep red with poison.
“How?” Isabel mutters. “Vacciom are nocturnal, and they shouldn’t target draek?ns . . .”
She turns to another side of the dragon, searching, trying to sort through all the information she is presented with as quickly as possible. Looking closer, she notices something odd. The Viaccom is dead and just latched on.
When she tries to get closer, the draek?n begins to rumble, the chest shaking and heaving.
Isabel puts her hands up. “Don’t worry. I’m going to help you.
Just sit tight.” Sapphira tries to stop Isabel, but she’s shaken off.
“Please, I have to help,” Isabel says, then she climbs onto the serpere’s back.
She grits her teeth, struggling to get up and secure her footing.
Thankfully, the serpere’s lumpy back gives her footholds for her strong leg.
Isabel surveys the draek?n, peering up over the hump of its back to check the damage. She tugs at a curl, worrying over how she will be able to quickly maneuver around the draek?n’s back. She needs help.
“It’s going to be tough getting these fangs out,” Isabel calls down to Sapphira, sounding uncertain. “I hate to ask this of you, but I might need your help.”
Sapphira looks up at Isabel in disbelief, and Isabel feels a weight in her gut.
She usually carries on regardless of how she struggles.
She doesn’t like asking for help or burdening people.
Sapphira takes too long to answer, and Isabel quickly adds, “I mean, only if you want to. I can do it myself—”
Before she’s even finished, Sapphira grabs the large scales and begins climbing. She shouts up to Isabel, “You know I hate heights!”
Warmth spreads through Isabel’s chest. She feels both proud and guilty for dragging Sapphira into this.
Once Sapphira is balancing beside Isabel on the serpere’s back, Isabel tells her they’ll need to remove thirty needle-like fangs from the draek?n’s hide. “When you get the first one, toss it to me,” she says. “I’ll need the venom to create the remedy.”
Isabel sees the bobbing of Sapphira’s throat as she gulps, her eyes widening a fraction. Isabel can see the fear there.
“No, never mind,” Isabel says. “I can do this on my own. I shouldn’t have asked.”
Sapphira shakes her head, steeling her shoulders, and says, “No, I’ve got this. Just focus on making the medicine.”
Isabel glows, her stomach tying in knots at the confidence in Sapphira’s voice. If Sapphira says she will do it, Isabel believes she will.
Sitting with a rippled scale between her legs to anchor herself in place atop the serpere’s large back, Isabel allows herself a moment to watch as Sapphira navigates the draek?n’s back, swinging across ridges and spikes with incredible arm strength and agility to get to the dead Vacciom.
When Sapphira makes it, Isabel lets out a relieved breath. As impressive as Sapphira looks doing it, the task is extremely dangerous.
Sapphira studies the Vacciom for a moment before unsheathing her sword. Isabel winces as Sapphira cuts away at the night daemon’s body, limbs shearing away and falling to the sand below. Once the body is out of the way, Sapphira reaches for the protruding fangs stuck deep into the serpere’s side.
Preparing for her task, Isabel pulls her eyes away from Sapphira’s billowing black locks and determined black eyes. She will need to stick the draek?n to get some clean blood. Right behind the ear in the soft spot will do, but it will be tricky.
Holding the ridged spine with her thighs, she stretches to reach the serpere’s neck with a syringe made of a hollow bird bone and an animal bladder. When a loud bellow thunders beneath her, the syringe is shaken from her hand.
Isabel shouts as it falls and burrows into the sand with all of the creature’s thrashing. Sapphira looks down toward her, triumphantly holding up a fang.
Isabel has only one syringe left, so she’ll have to be extremely careful not to lose it. She catches the fang Sapphira tosses at her and stuffs it into her bag so she can focus on retrieving the serpere’s blood.
“Thank you, Sapphira,” she calls, and the woman beams in response.
Isabel is prepared this time when Sapphira removes another fang from the draek?n’s hide, and she braces herself against the jade-green, bone-tough ridge. She can’t ask Sapphira to stop pulling them because if the poison reaches the serpere’s heart, it will die. They both have to work quickly.
So Isabel holds tight and stretches to reach the draek?n’s neck. Her hands sweat as the syringe slides across tough skin, searching for the soft spot. She is holding her breath, not wanting to make any sudden moves. When the skin gives under the needle, she silently cheers in relief.
Using every ounce of her strength, Isabel pushes deep into the skin and draws blood. Removing the syringe quickly, she retreats to a stable position on the serpere’s back before the next roar shakes her.
“I’ve got the blood,” she informs a busily working Sapphira. Without missing a beat, she pulls together the ingredients needed to create the remedy for Vacciom venom.
In the small clay pot she keeps in her bag, Isabel adds ingredients from small vials: ground stardust, nectar, elven dew, salt, lemongrass, angel snail slime, Vacciom venom, and the blood of the serpere.
As she’s mixing, Sapphira shouts, but she doesn’t look. She can’t let herself get distracted. The knight is as strong as she is beautiful, and Isabel trusts she can handle herself.
When the potion begins turning a stormy silver, Isabel carefully pours it into the syringe and lets out a relieved breath. She finally looks at Sapphira, who is working on the final fang, and instantly notices when something goes wrong.
Sapphira slips, and the fang she is pulling digs deeper into the serpere’s shoulder. Isabel watches in horror as Sapphira slides down the draek?n’s back, the fang gripped in her hand, and leaves a long gash down the creature’s side.
The serpere goes wild, heaving its large frame up from the sand. Fang in hand, Sapphira slides down the tail and is whipped into the air with a powerful strike. Isabel inhales to catch her breath as Sapphira lands hard, sand flying up around her.
When the woman stands up, unhurt except for a scratch on her cheek and the gaining winds whipping her long hair around, Isabel unclenches her fist.
With one good wing, the serpere attempts to fly lopsided, and Isabel is taken up higher into the sky. The syringe slips from her sweaty fingertips and slides down along the draek?n’s back.
Sapphira shouts up to her, but Isabel is so focused that she can hardly hear the words. She has to get the syringe back, or the draek?n will die.
Letting go of the spinal ridge, she slides down the flailing draek?n’s back, trying to reach the medicine. If the small thing falls onto the sand, it will vanish into the endless depths and be lost to her.
Like an Aaelestis gymmastaí , performers in the northwestern shire, Sapphira pulls off some unsightly contortions, her body moving in grotesque ways. Her fingers grasp the syringe just in time.
Sweat trailing down the side of her face and chest heaving, Isabel closes her eyes in relief, leaning her head against the cold scales.
She rides out the serpere’s flailing flight until it crashes back to the ground.
Isabel calms the beast by clicking her tongue and humming rhythmically.
When the draek?n has settled again, she injects the antidote into a bulging vein behind the draek?n’s ear.
The serpere experiences immediate relief, the pain numbing it as the elixir works through the creature’s veins.
The draek?n clicks its appreciation, and Isabel tries to decipher the sounds. She knows only a few words of Draeɡ?n-tongue, but she thinks she understands woman of medicine and kindness .
Isabel maneuvers toward the serpere’s wing, rubs a salve over the Vacciom bite marks, and does her best to wrap the wing with cloth, securing it so the draek?n can at least fly home to rest while the punctures heal.
On the ground, Sapphira is waiting for Isabel with her arms out.
She catches the chimera as she slides down, then stumbles across the sand.
Isabel leans into the touch, her heart racing when strong arms wrap around her waist. She wants to bury herself in Sapphira’s pitch-black hair and breathe in her scent.
Isabel licks her lips, her voice hoarse and shy as she whispers, “Thank you.” Sapphira put herself in danger, racing after Isabel’s impulsive self. She conquered her fear of heights and helped rescue a draek?n. Not many people can say that.
Turning to the chittering serpere, who flexes its wing, Isabel pats its flank fondly.
“You’ll be all right, girl. But my magic couldn’t do as much on you as I’d like, so no long flights for a while.
I’d wish for you to stay so I can give you regular checkups until you’re healed.
But I know that’s not in your hard-wearing spirit, so all I can say is be careful. May the stars guide you safely home.”
“Why didn’t your magic work?” Sapphira asks, looking concerned.
Isabel shrugs. “For some reason, immortal creatures react differently to it. It doesn’t work as well.”
The serpere huffs, chittering more words Isabel can’t understand, but she picks out the word offering .
Isabel’s eyes widen. “You’re giving me a gift?”
She hadn’t known for sure, but she heard Dracoreptilia bestow gifts as thanks for acts of bravery and diplomacy. They’re a flashy and proud species, and their offerings are said to be things of legend.
“I’ll have to add this to my journal,” Isabel mutters, trying to remember every detail of the draek?n’s external anatomy for her sketch. She bounces excitedly.
“What is that?” Sapphira exclaims as the draek?n’s talon reaches for the pouch in its soft underbelly.
“A present,” Isabel whispers, awed as the item falls to the sand. She scoops it from the ground and cradles it in her palms.
Something else falls to the sand—a hollowed draek?n tooth—and the draek?n rumbles, which Isabel deciphers as, Danger . . . blow .
The serpere lets out a roar and takes off into the sky, a bit shaky as it flies off into the sunset.
Isabel watches it go before stuffing the horn tooth in her bag and returning to the gifted item, turning the rune-covered egg over in her hands.
The opaque ovoid shines a spectrum of colors onto the sand.
“What is it?” Sapphira asks curiously, looking over Isabel’s shoulder. Her silken hair brushes the side of Isabel’s neck, causing her to shiver.
“I’m not sure—”
Before Isabel can finish, Sapphira pushes her back, her sword sliding quickly and smoothly from her sheath with a SLINKKKK .
In the blink of an eye, they’re surrounded.
A group of tall, lanky figures in cream and ivory cloaks emerge from behind the butte next to the two women.
The figures are twice their height. Sapphira’s heart leaps to her throat as her eyes travel up impossibly long legs that drag a path into the sand, and her gaze ends at the tip of spears.
A shudder runs down Sapphira’s spine as an elf steps forward, dropping his hood. Golden scars mark night-black skin, and a dog-face mask covers his mouth.
“What are they?” she gasps.
Isabel, who has a weapon pointed at her back as Sapphira guards her front, whispers back just as hoarsely, “Elven-fae.”
Through the mask, the creature rasps, “Heal our q?nsol, or your friend dies.”
Sapphira’s head whips around to look at Isabel, who meets the elves’ eyes without wavering. “No hello?” Sapphira snaps.
Isabel steps forward, hands balled at her sides. “No!” she shouts. Her voice is thunderous, and her face marred with deep lines of rage. Sapphira nearly stumbles back at the force of the chimera’s anger. “You will not threaten her.”
The elf looks unmoved by Isabel’s fit of passion, head high as its eyes stare, unwavering, down at her. “We saw you heal that draek?n,” the elf clicks, golden eyes boring right into Isabel. “You will do it.”
With a subtle flick of the elves hand, the other elves are moving, and Sapphira is held suspended between two large figures. She growls, jerking her limbs to try to break their hold, but to no avail. They’re large, and they’re stronger than their sylphen bodies look.
The elf to the right of Sapphira hisses something to the masked elf in a broken speech mixed with a foreign tongue.
Sapphira catches only “. . . take . . . girl . . .” and replies again, her tone harsh.
“We aren’t going anywhere with you elves,” she spits.
“And Isabel’s abilities won’t work on your species.
Nor is she versed in your herbal remedies. Your plan is useless!”
She kicks up her sword from the sand at her feet, and the golden sand sprays in a fan as she slips out from between their thin, startled arms. She scoops up the sword and spins, brandishing it at an elf with a smooshed, dog-nose mask and growls, “Fight me.”
Sapphira hears Isabel’s gasp from behind her and the sound of the chimera trudging through the sand. She startles when she feels cool wood through her clothes as Isabel’s staff hooks around her. She lets herself be pulled to the chimera’s side.
“No! Sapphira, you cannot fight them.”
Sapphira’s eyes dart to Isabel. The woman is trembling, her hands clenched tightly around the staff like she is trying to keep herself together.
Isabel takes a deep breath and says, “I will do it. I will help their q?nsol.” She meets Sapphira’s startled eyes, and her expression softens. “It’s that, or you’ll die.”