46. Hollow Heart #2
I continued to creep through the trees, trying to get close enough to the other side of the clearing to see clearly—eventually able to hear voices, and once, a deep, resonant snort.
“…just said to be ready for tomorrow. Daylight hours. Before the lunch bell. When the sun is up, so he’ll have the heat.” That was the footman, his voice tight and high.
“But did she mention the gold?”
“Do I look like they speak to me of gold?”
“Waiting like this could get me killed!” the second voice said, a deep, gruff male voice, but not one I recognized. “I’ve half a mind to simply leave. We’re already two days late!”
“Certainly,” the footman sneered. “Off you go, then. I’m sure that will work well when you show up without her.”
“But the go—”
“Shut up about the bloody gold—your choices are to do as you’re told, or not. Don’t look to me for assistance when she stops your heart with a look.”
There was a pause, and the heavy whoosh of a dragon’s breath and the breeze changed, carrying the low voices away for a moment.
With a curse, praying I’d remain silent to the dragon’s senses, I darted between trees again, keeping the wide trunks between me and the men, my feet finding the soft dirt.
As their murmurs turned to hisses, I found a thicket of bushes and smaller trees, and could draw closer by crouching behind them.
But it was Kham who groaned in my head and stopped my feet before I’d even grasped what they spoke of.
‘My brother… my brother!’
‘Kham, what is it?’
Crouched behind the bushes, I hadn’t yet caught sight of anything beyond movement in the dark, but Kham provided a view from his position high in the sky, though his sight was crystal clear. And what he saw broke his heart.
A tall, healthy dragon, harnessed, though with additional straps circling his belly and looping around the base of his tail, which seemed excessive. But it wasn’t his size or the harness that made my dragon groan.
The poor creature stood in the open darkness, his tail flat and lax, trailing in the grass. His wings drooping away from his spine, falling so loose, the tips nearly dragged on the ground. And his head…
His neck was extended and his head low. A posture Kham might use with me when offering his eye-ridges for scratching, or to meet my gaze with purpose.
But this poor dragonfury stood, chin nearly on the grass, slumped, as if all life might seep out of him at any moment.
The light under his scales was barely perceptible. Somehow, despite his size and weight, his skin seemed ready to sag from his bones.
‘Is he sick?’
‘In his mind… my poor brother… my brother, so much death!’
I asked Kham what he meant, but the men were suddenly raising their voices—not loudly, not shouting, but enough for me to hear clearly.
“—she isn’t my Mistress!”
“If you’re here, she’s more than that! She orders your master!”
“I already stand in defiance of my master if I wait another day!”
“Didn’t he tell you to—”
Both men startled as the dragon groaned, and I froze as the clearing went silent, my heart thudding in my chest, thumping in my ears.
‘Kham… did he hear me?’
‘I don’t believe so. He is empty. Hollow. A shell. Voski, this dragonfury has no will. No heart. His spirit… dear Creator, have mercy. His soul echoes. What have they done? What have they done to my brothers?!’
I’d never heard Kham so agitated. Yet, it wasn’t in fear. My dragon grieved, with compassion.
‘What is going on?’
‘I don’t know, but these men stink of fear, and mistrust. And that dragon is being used as surely as a handkerchief. He has no will left.’
I remained in my hiding place while Kham watched and showed me what he saw, as the two men both eyed the dragon warily. The stranger touched its snout briefly, but only shook his head while the footman began backing away.
“I’ve told you the orders. You’re to stay and await her. They’ll come to you in the morning. You’ve waited this long, might as well continue—at least then you won’t have broken two orders.”
“But—”
‘I’m going to try to reach him. To bolster him. Hold on,’ Kham sent. My eyes widened—it was very risky for a dragon to enter another’s mind without permission. It could cause all kinds of offense. But before I could mentally warn him, the men spoke.
“Give the monster some meat. He looks exhausted. Are you even sure he can fly?”
“He’s plenty strong. He’s just quiet. That’s what they’re all like. They aren’t wild like the others.”
I saw a flicker in my mind—dragons flying in a horde, scales glowing and gilded by rosy sunset. Calling for each other, turning heads and—
Kham reared back in his mind, and for a moment, he opened to me in a new way—a way that sent the frigid chill of unease spearing through me in a bolt of pure revulsion.
A hollow, aching heart. A mind that barely whispers, and knows nothing of itself. A soul darkened with despair. Sick, sick, sick… on the edge of death. Yet body, brimming with life—
I almost lost my feet. The world seemed to lurch. Nausea spiraled through my stomach and I clapped a hand to my mouth, praying, swallowing, barely able to breathe.
On the other side of the bushes, the footman gave a halting farewell, and a hissed warning not to leave without his Mistress, then jogged back across the clearing away from me, while the stranger cursed, but turned, his footsteps trudging in the opposite direction.
And the dragon’s heavy steps following him.
‘Kham, what was that?’
‘His mind… his broken, empty mind. Empty heart… oh, Creator. Help him!’ Kham sounded like he would weep. But even the memory of that dank, emotionless well turned my stomach again.
I turned, doing everything in my power to gag without sound, covering my mouth as my body heaved.
But either the dragon didn’t hear me, or it didn’t care enough. Because there was no sign of the man growing wary, or even turning to look behind him. Kham circled, high overhead, and the dragonfury didn’t seem to notice.
I was in the dirt on all fours, fingers clawed into the damp, cold earth, begging my body to stop trying to expel whatever that sensation had been.
But it couldn’t.
Because I knew it. I knew that feeling.
While my dragon wanted to weep, I wanted to flee. I wanted to turn, leap to my feet, run as fast as I was capable, and never, ever stop. Never return to my mother, or that house. Never set eyes on any of these people again.
Because I knew that feeling. I’d lived that feeling. And I was desperate never to be near it again.
‘Kham—’
‘I’m coming. Start moving. He won’t notice. He won’t care. What have they done? What have these evil people done to my brothers and sisters?’
But the only answer I could conjure was the same thing they did to everyone else. And I hated it. Loathed it. Everything around me was sick, and dark. Everything destructive and selfish and repulsive.
‘Yet, we are here to help,’ Kham reminded me. ‘It’s the same answer as it was seven years ago, Voski.’
‘But even you said he was broken and empty and—’
‘And so were you, once. Life is power. That dragon doesn’t need our pity. He needs our help.’
‘If we’re with her I’ll have to ride him tomorrow—’
‘You didn’t do this to him. Your mother did. These men did. And we will sit with him in the darkness—and any others we find. We’ll find a way to save them all.’
‘Kham…’ I balked. Truly balked. Not out of malice, or selfish intent. Out of genuine fear. ‘I don’t know if I can be near him, and feel that—’
‘You can, and you will,’ Kham growled. ‘We do not leave a broken soul to die alone. You of all would know that.’