Mak and I left for the mountain that evening after dinner. Herald made a small fuss over “being left behind,” but I knew it was just for show. She was as invested in Mak’s happiness as she was in my own, and when we took flight from the yard she saw us off with a smile and a wave.
Flying with Mak was interesting. She’d gotten a little more used to it, but she was still clearly uncomfortable. Whenever I took her to our rooftop meetings with Sempralia, Berkia, and that traitor Soandel, she’d sit on my back for the sake of optics. Ironic, since I knew that she kept her eyes screwed shut the whole way. When we weren’t planning to make a spectacle of ourselves, however, she preferred to fly held tight in my arms. Like that she even took a peek now and then, and that night I knew that she did because of something odd that happened near the beginning of the flight.
I was happily flying along, eyes firmly ahead enjoying the view, when I felt a warm, invigorating sensation against my chest. It was not unlike when Mak or Kira healed me. When I looked down to see what was going on, I saw Mak’s eyes glow that way they did right after she cast her darksight spell before the magic really settled in.
“Did you just use your darksight?” I asked, slowing down so she wouldn’t have to shout. The question was perhaps a little pointless, since I couldn’t see what else it might be, but I was surprised enough that I wanted to hear it from her.
“I did,” she confirmed. “I thought I’d see if I can recognize anything from up here.”
“Right, yeah… did you do anything different from usual?”
“Not at all. Why?”
“I felt you do it.”
“Oh,” she said. “Can you not usually do that?”
“No. First time. Though I don’t usually have a magic user pressed right against my heart when they cast,” I said. I gave her an affectionate squeeze, and she laughed.
“Happy to be of service,” she said, and I didn’t need her tone to tell me just how much she meant that.
Once I picked up the pace, it didn’t take long to reach my mountain. Smoke rose from the chimney of the longhouse in Lady’s Rest — I knew that two of the adults had remained behind to hold down the fort, and I decided to check in on them in the morning. There’d be plenty of time before Mother came south, after all.
When I set Mak down by the lonely little tree on the ledge, she looked around with an almost religious reverence. It occurred to me that to her this was, in a very real way, a sort of pilgrimage. It was a journey to the place where I had first emerged into this world. She bent to touch the dust at her feet, rubbing it between her fingers. Then she looked into the cave before us, and when she turned to me, silently asking permission to enter, there was so much emotion on her face that I didn’t know whether to laugh at the absurdity of it or weep from the overwhelming mix of emotions that look brought out in me.
“Go on,” I told her. “Take all the time you want.”
I couldn’t quite call what passed over her face a smile. It was more like a spasm, like she didn’t know what to do with herself. Then she turned and walked into the cave, looking around intently, committing every detail to memory. She stared at the swallows’ nest in the ceiling like it held some profound significance. And I followed close behind, doing my damndest not to let her know just how goddamn disturbed I was.
Mercies, but I hoped she just needed to get it out of her system.
It took her somewhere in the neighborhood of forever to reach my hoard. She looked at absolutely everything. When she squeezed in through the crevice to the pit, I first thought I’d just wait for her, but when she didn’t return I got worried and Shifted to follow her. I found her on her knees, peering into the darkness with tears on her face.
“This is it, isn’t it?” she asked once I Shifted back. “Where it started. This is where you awoke.”
“This is where I died,” I told her, “and where I was imprisoned for hundreds of years, and where I was reborn. Yeah. This is where it started.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, then again in English. “Thank you for letting me see this.”
“Of course,” I said, gently bumping her with my cheek. “Now come on. You haven’t seen the best part yet.”
“Your hoard?” she asked, and this time I matched her excitement.
“Yeah. My hoard.”
One of the things I loved about Mak was that she held nothing back. Not with me. With people outside the family she could be stoic, even cold. With her siblings and close friends she was usually warm, but her position as the eldest sibling, surrogate mother, and head of the House meant that she had to be strong and inspire confidence. At least she believed so. With me, though, she could be completely open. She didn’t try to hide the childish glee that filled her when my hoard came into sight. She didn’t hold back her tears when I showed her the box with the first few dragons I’d taken, from a tent belonging to one of the dead Grey Wolves when I’d met Garal, or my collection of native silver that I’d taken from the gremlins in that mine where Mak and I had met. She smiled through her tears when I found the silver earring that Herald had used to let me know the first time she wanted to see me, the act that had truly made me a part of their lives instead of some one-off encounter. She treated every coin, every gem and silver candlestick with the care afforded to a relic, and she was completely unashamed to do so.
When she’d finished — or rather, when I decided that she’d had enough — I curled up on my mat of precious things, leaving a space for her among my limbs. There she made herself a little nest with some pillows to make herself comfortable, and once she’d settled in she cried softly for a long while, pressing herself close to me.
“Thank you,” she sniffled, over and over. “Great Lady, dear sister, Mistress, thank you. Thank you so much.”
“You’re very welcome,” I told her, no more comfortable with her calling me “mistress” than I’d ever been, and still working just as hard to make sure she’d never know. “You’re only the second person to come this deep, after Herald. I hope that tells you how special you are to me. No one else. Only my little dragons.”
Once I’d said that, Mak’s overwhelming joy and gratitude suddenly made sense. Of course she was melting down! What could a dragon possibly do that showed their trust in someone more than to bring that person to their hoard? And with Mak’s dependency on me, with her constant need to be reminded of her value to me, how could I not have known how she’d react?
I’d forgiven her, and I’d told her so. I’d tried to make sure that my feelings were clear. But now, I thought, with this ultimate sign of my trust in her, she finally, truly, understood.
Mak didn’t speak. She only kept crying silent, happy tears until sleep took her.
When my dreams found me, Mak was right there. Not in the sense that she was a part of the lucid dream, but I could feel her right beside me, as close to me metaphorically as she was in the real world. She wasn’t dreaming, as such, but she glowed with safety and contentment.
I marvelled at the sensation for a moment. It was new. In the real world I could sense some emotions or mental states from people, especially fear and anger, quite easily — I was pretty sure it had to do with pheromones or something, because I experienced it as a smell or even a taste if it was strong enough. And in the dreamworld, the range increased considerably, but it was usually more that I simply knew through my power what the tone of a dream was. This, though, with Mak… I felt what she did. Not in any metaphorical sense, either. I didn’t merely know that she felt safe; I responded, feeling safe myself.
This must be what it’s like for Mak, all the time, I thought. It was wonderful, and it terrified me. It was like she was a part of me, as much as Instinct or Conscience, closer than anyone had ever been, closer than even Herald.
Herald must never know, a small, mad part of me whispered before I silenced it. Yes, Herald could be jealous and possessive. She was more of a “little dragon” with each day. But that had never extended to Mak, and I refused to entertain the thought that it ever might.
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And I had a man to talk to. I left Mak to her dreamless sleep, but not before injecting it with as much of my appreciation for her as I could muster. I watched as her contentment deepened into absolute bliss. Then I left to find Onur before I myself felt that bliss too strongly to want to go.
Onur was not dreaming, either, but I found him easily enough. And getting close to him confirmed that nothing had changed about my power — it was Mak who was special. I felt nothing from Onur. I could tell the general tone of his dreamless sleep, one of duty and satisfaction, but in the same way I always did.
In his case, I had no compunctions about forcing him into a dream. I didn’t think he was bad, as such, but he’d arranged for an attack on my people — on my home away from home. Kira had been terrified enough to hurt someone, and an innocent girl had been stabbed. Onur would have time and opportunity to show his character, but for now he was a tool. One I had use for.
He was shocked and confused as I dragged him from his dreamless sleep, but he impressed me by getting his wits about him quickly. I’d only visited him in his dreams once before, a few days earlier, but that was enough. “My lady Draka,” he said, bowing, the picture of politeness. “I did not expect you so soon.”
“Well, Onur, I hadn’t planned to visit,” I said. “Though I expected to have heard from you by now. Is there a reason why I haven’t?”
His answer was matter of fact. “My lady, a report takes time. Especially if it’s to be put together in secret. If you wish, I can have something I would not be embarrassed about sent to Lady Drakonum by this coming evening.”
“That’ll do. Now, I have a new task for you.”
“Yes, my lady?”
“First, if possible, I want you to try and get hold of some of Soandel’s hair, nail clippings, things like that. Skin would probably work as well.”
That got me an odd and uncomfortable look, but he just nodded and said, “As you wish.”
“More importantly, I want you to set up a meeting with him. A private one, just the two of you. I don’t care what excuse you use; it won’t matter anyway. Once you do, inform me of the time and location.”
As I spoke I could sense his growing apprehension, and I realized that, yeah, there was one pretty easy conclusion to draw from what I’d told him. Rather than keep him guessing I clarified, “Soandel will walk out of that meeting, alive and well. As long as the meeting itself is in a private room, he can have all the guards outside that he wants. Make any concessions you need, as long as no one can see or hear what happens inside that room. Clear?”
“As spring water, my lady,” he said, relaxing. Then he drew the other obvious conclusion. “Do you intend to…?”
“Yeah. The lord exchequer has been misbehaving,” I said with a bit more malice than strictly necessary. “It’s time to put a leash on him.”
In the morning, Mak finished her exploration of the cave system, all the way to the sheer drop some distance past my hoard. While she did that, I hunted a goat for the first time in ages. I ate my favorite bits — the insides — and brought the remainder to Lady’s Rest. The man and woman there, whose names I had no idea about, thanked me for the visit, for the news of their kind, and for the meat, reassuring me that all was well. Duty done, I brought a leg with me back to the cave for Mak’s breakfast. She was waiting at the ledge, taking in the view a healthy distance from the edge. She grilled the meat — the firewood was running low, I noticed — and ate while we talked about some properties she’d looked at with Tam and Val. All in all, it was a good, relaxed morning.
It didn’t get worse, as such, but the relaxed part ended when a giant shadow flashed past. I looked outside and saw nothing, but only a few seconds later she passed again, farther away this time. She was enormous, she was fast, and she was graceful, and the sun stood high enough to catch and glitter off her scales, turning them into fiery brass.
Behind me Mak’s breath caught, and I couldn’t help but grin. Mother had arrived.
She was hours ahead of schedule, but I suspected that I had myself to blame for that. I’d come here because Avjilan said she’d arrive in the afternoon. But by coming here I might have alerted Mother that I was on the move, making her leave earlier than she otherwise would have. Avjilan had told me that he thought his spell told the most likely future, not a certain one — if I messed with a bunch of variables, I had only myself to blame.
Whatever the reason, she was here now. And there was no way that she would land on the ledge — even with her wings folded, she was simply too wide to fit comfortably. I’d just have to go out and meet her.
Inside me, Instinct blossomed with an almost giddy excitement and strained to be allowed to call the shots again. She’d loved it back in Old Mallin when I let her lead us in just being a dragon, and she was clearly hoping for the same again. But more than that, there was something like childish affection that bled through when I looked at our Mother. A sense of safety and admiration that I couldn’t help but be swept along by, and which made me want to just let go for a while.
I couldn’t do that. But I saw no reason not to give Instinct what she wanted, if only for a little while. I’d barely invited her to the front before she was there.
“Well, Mak,” we said, turning to look at our awestruck sister. “Are you done eating?”
“Yeah,” she breathed, eyes still locked on the fiery dragon flying circles before us.
“Get your things, then. There is a lovely little stream nearby, with plenty of room for my mother to land. Let us have a drink and get the two of you introduced.”
“So,” Mother said, “this is the other one. The other ‘little dragon’. Your other human sister.”
She sounded reserved, not at all how she’d been around Herald. Fair enough, I thought, though I felt a little offended on Mak’s behalf. Mother doesn’t know her like she knows Herald. It’ll be fine.
Mother leaned in, and I wondered for a moment if Mak would fit entirely in her mouth. If she curled up, she just might.
Mak might have been thinking along the same lines. When Mother sniffed her, hard enough to make Mak’s braid sway, Mak’s eyes remained locked on that gigantic mouth only a foot away from her. To her credit, she didn’t flinch, cower, close her eyes, cry, straight up piss herself, or try to flee. Any combination of those would have been perfectly understandable, but she stood her ground. She was rigid as a board and her hands clenched hard enough that we wondered if we’d be smelling blood in a moment, but she stood her ground.
We were so damned proud of her.
“Hrrm…” Mother mused. “This one… this one is yours entirely. Mind and soul. Good. Good! Yes, I approve. Human, you are Makanna, correct?”
“I—” Mak swallowed hard before trying again. “I am, Great Lady.”
“Sister of Herald, and apparently of Draka, my daughter?”
“I am, Great Lady. Both of those. I adopted Draka into my House, and she accepted.”
“You rule this House?”
“I do, Great Lady.”
“But despite this, you serve Draka.” It was not a question.
“I do, Great Lady. Happily, and to the best of my ability.”
“Hrrm… very well. So long as that is clear. Human laws and customs mean little.” Then Mother got a glint in her eye, and she said, “But if my daughter is your sister, would that not make me your mother as well?”
Mak’s eyes went as huge as I’d ever seen them. “I would be honored, Great Lady, but… I serve Draka. Only her. Never any other, until my last breath.”
“You are a dutiful sister, little Makanna. Very good.” Mother turned to me again. “I smell power in her. I know that you are sentimental, daughter, and while I quite like your Herald, Makanna here is likely far more valuable. Or,” she corrected as Mak and I both bristled, “far more useful and capable, perhaps. Take good care of her. Such a servant must not be wasted.”
“I will, Mother,” we said. I quickly changed my plans. Part of why I wanted her to meet Mak was that I’d hoped to ask her about the dominating bond I had over her, and if there was any way of weakening it. With how pleased she was at Mak’s complete submission, though, now was definitely not the time.
“I expect nothing less. Well, then, Makanna. I am Sower of Embers, Reaper of Flames. It is an unexpected pleasure to meet you.”
“Thank you, Great Lady,” Mak said, finally relaxing again. Not entirely, but enough that I wasn’t worried she’d pass out from locking her knees. ”It is an honor and a pleasure to meet you as well.”
“I am sure. Now, daughter, with the pleasantries out of the way, do you know of any caves near here that might suit me? I seem to have outgrown the one I used previously, and you are using it in any case.”
The reason she’d come was as simple as that. Much like I’d suspected, Mother had decided to take my advice and find a place closer to Karakan. I was sure she’d still return to Old Mallin every so often, with or without me — once you got used to the air there, the atmosphere of the place, it was hard to leave. But she openly admitted that she hoped I’d visit more often if it was only a short flight to the mountains instead of hundreds of miles north, and so here she was.
Instinct was as pleased as anything, proud and flattered that Mother wanted to be closer to us. I couldn’t help but agree.
We spent hours looking for something that would suit her, to little success. Finally, perhaps an hour after noon, she called an end to our search. “Thank you for your help, daughter,” she said. “But it seems that if I want something serviceable, I shall have to carve it myself. Let us return to that deep, wide ledge we found, with the cave that turned out to be a mere shadow. The location, at least, will do nicely.”
There, on a mountainside a few miles from my own lair, I saw firsthand why dragons were the fear of cities and nations. Mother focused her flame into something blinding, and stone popped and bubbled and ran like… honestly, cheese was the best comparison that came to mind. But that was not how she shifted most of the material. No, her claws dug into the glowing stone like she was sculpting sand, tearing out great lumps that she flung carelessly into the valley below, where they set great swathes of grass ablaze.
As we looked on in wonder, the little girl inside me who’d been drilled year after year on how to prevent bushfires screamed.
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