Sir Callie and the Dragon's Roost, page 12
“You can go home,” I finish for him.
Willow winces. “Is it awful to want that, after everything?”
El says, “Yes!” just as I say, “Of course it isn’t.”
“Helston was your whole life,” I continue to Willow with a hard look at El. “It’s not always easy letting it go, no matter how bad they treat you.”
“It isn’t just that,” says Willow bleakly. “I’ve been thinking a lot, even before yesterday, for a long time now…Helston is my responsibility. Even if I’m not crown prince anymore, even if they hate me. If there’s a way to help, I have to do it.”
“You don’t have to do anything.”
“But I want to,” he insists. “I’m not saying I want to go home or I think we shouldn’t have left. I’m not saying I want things to go back to the way they were. But if there’s an opportunity to do some good—to be better—I want to take it.” He sighs. “Regardless, we need a direction, and this is the only one we have.”
“What about Eyrewood?” I ask. “It’s farther, but at least we know it’s actually safe!”
“Eyrewood’s a long way,” says Teo. “If you’re going to make the journey, you’re going to need supplies. Please, come back to The Roost with me. Let me repay you in food and shelter and supplies.”
“What’s the roost? Is that like a collective of dragons? Thought that’d be a ‘swarm’ or something.”
“I think the actual term is ‘horde,’ ” Teo muses, either ignoring my jab or not understanding it. “But there’s never been enough of us for that. Dragons are pretty rare. Or, at least, mostly unknown. It’s not a very…fun thing to be.”
Which sounds like the biggest lie of them all, because who wouldn’t want to be a dragon? To fly and breathe fire and shape-shift…to be the most powerful creature in the world. Unstoppable. If I was a dragon, no one would ever give us trouble again.
“Anyway,” Teo continues, “The Roost is home, the heart of Dumoor’s community. It’s the safest place in Wyndebrel, founded as a haven for the lost and wandering. Everyone is welcome.”
Teo’s assurances do nothing to make any of feel less uneasy. Things that feel too good to be true usually are. Like Edwyn said, there isn’t anything in this world that is truly unconditional, especially toward strangers.
It’s El who asks, “At what cost?”
Teo’s yellow eyes blink. “There is no price,” xe says with half a question in xir voice. “We help anyone who seeks it. There is no condition or obligation. No price.”
“But that’s not true,” I say. They all stare at me. “What? Remember, we know someone who got out of Dumoor. Who escaped and told me everything.”
Teo’s ears twitch. “Who?”
I suck my mouth shut. I don’t want to tell xem about Neal. It feels too risky, like a secret that isn’t mine to spill. “Doesn’t matter who,” I say. “But he told me all about Dumoor. He said that nothing is ever free and the price is never worth it.”
Hurt flashes across Teo’s expression. “Someone said that about us? Are you sure?”
“Yes?” But I can’t keep the question out of my voice. Maybe I’m not sure. Maybe there’s more to Neal’s story than he let me believe.
I give a rough shrug and scowl. “I dunno. Maybe you’re from a different bit of Dumoor. Maybe the Witch Queen is separate—”
“The Witch Queen?” Teo asks, perking up. “You mean Alis?”
“Yeah?”
The dragon grins, fangs flashing. “She runs The Roost! She’s in charge of all of Dumoor.”
My heart sinks like a thrown stone. That is exactly what I feared.
“I don’t think we would be welcome there,” says Willow carefully. “There’s a history…We’re not exactly on good terms.”
Teo’s ears droop. “But you’re different. You’re not Helston. And everyone is welcome, no matter what. Besides, she’s so busy she probably wouldn’t even know you’re there if you’re not planning on staying. Please, let me do this for you. Wherever you’re going, you’re going to need more than you have, and The Roost will always provide. The beds are the most comfortable, the fires are the warmest, and the food—” Teo groans in longing. “My mum, she was the best cook in our whole village, but hers is nothing compared to what I’ve eaten since I joined The Roost. I promise, it’ll give you all the strength you could possibly need for your journey and then some!”
I don’t even need details—my mouth is like a waterfall already, and once I start thinking about food, there’s no hope of stopping.
But still—
“How’re you gonna convince us this isn’t a trap or a trick?” I demand, crossing my arms tight. “For all we know, this could all be a grand conspiracy. Why should we believe you?”
Teo hesitates, gaze flicking between us. Then xe bows xir head and holds out xir hands, one cupped within the other. “By the feathers that fly and the rain that falls, by the end of days and the rise of the moors, I swear it.”
The spell is a softly spoken incantation but the magic is sharp, a true and tangible thing as it wraps around my wrist and pulls.
I try to jerk my hand back but the dragon holds on.
“From my heart to yours and all the truth in my soul, I swear it. Break my word, break my heart.”
The magic that presses into my skin, into my veins, into my blood, is warm and reassuring. It feels like Neal’s arms wrapped around me. It feels like Papa’s kiss on the top of my head. A truth I can trust.
“I will not lead you to danger,” Teo intones. “I will not ask anything from you that you are not willing to give. You have my oath, my life, myself. By the moors which bind us, it is done.”
And suddenly the magic isn’t just Teo’s. It is the moor’s.
Ancient power stirs and shifts in the ripple of grass and the brush of wind, turning the air bright and hazy around us, like sun through fog. Around me, the others rise almost as though an invisible hand is coaxing them up. Elowen sits forward, fascinated, and Willow’s eyes go huge with wonder. Even Edwyn stares, more intrigued than afraid.
And me…This promise feels like the first true thing to me in far too long.
“What was that?” I breathe when the spell is complete and I feel the magic release me.
“An oath,” the dragon replies. “And the moors will hold me to my word. We do not make promises lightly in Dumoor.”
I rub my arm where the remnants of the spell still tingle on my skin. I’m surprised it didn’t leave a mark. “You didn’t have to do that. You don’t owe us anything.”
“It’s not about owing or having to,” says Teo earnestly. “I want to help because I believe in you. And I made the oath because I understand how hard it is to trust a stranger.”
My breath loosens a little, then a little bit more. Xe’s not telling me what I want to hear just for the sake of it. Xe’s not lying. Xe’s giving us the best truth xe can. And I believe xem.
I believe a dragon.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I will never not be thankful that it isn’t winter, nor the cool spring we get down here, full of surprise snow and bitter chill. I’m also pretty relieved it’s not the middle of summer, when the air is thick and sweltering and every step brings a new bucket of sweat.
I count the things I’m thankful for as we start our trek in earnest, trudging up and down hills and across barren moorland, eyed by the soaring falcons, which wonder if we’re prey.
I keep my hand on Satin every step, endlessly thankful that I had the forethought to bring her with me. We don’t have much, but together we can do anything.
Ish.
We do our best, and every one of us is determined and stubborn, but I know my friends. Their little tells of weariness and pain, hunger and fear, as we walk farther and farther away from the only home they’ve ever known. Even if it was a home that hurt them.
Only the dragon has a spring in xir step.
Teo grows a little stronger with every mile we get away from Helston; ears pricked and eyes bright, there’s a smile always twitching across xir lips.
I still can’t decide how I feel about trusting a dragon.
My heart is all in, but my head won’t shut up—going over and over everything anyone’s ever told me about dragons, and I can’t find anything good. Not a single detail.
But even if all dragons are bad, there’s got to be exceptions, right? And why shouldn’t we find ourselves friends with the single exception?
Even if it does seem impossibly unlikely.
“You okay?”
I startle out of my grimace at Teo’s voice. “Yeah. Sure. Why?”
“You look like you have a stomachache.”
“Wow. Thanks. You know, walking a hundred thousand million miles without breakfast will do that.”
“You had breakfast.”
“Barely.”
“I can catch more—”
“We don’t have time to waste.”
“Eating isn’t waste.”
“It is if we get caught and killed.”
“You think that’s what’ll happen?”
I shrug up to my ears. “Dunno. Not worth finding out.”
We continue in silence. I glare at the scrubby grass beneath my feet, at the bracken marking a crude path beside the trickling river, and I feel Teo’s eyes upon me. I grit my teeth. Neal told me about Dumoor. He warned me about dragons and their unkeepable promises, and the deals the witch demands of anyone fool enough to get sucked in.
But everything Neal told me—everything Papa told me—feels like it’s crumbling to sand in my fingers, and the harder I try to grasp it, the faster it trickles away.
“So…how’d you get yourself captured? If you’re a super-powerful dragon, I mean. If I was you, I’d have obliterated them the moment they touched me.”
Teo’s shoulders sag on a long sigh. “I’m not a proper dragon yet,” xe admits. “What happened at the bridge…I’ve never done anything like that before in my life. I didn’t even know I could do that yet—I just knew I had to try.” Teo offers a guilty smile as I gawk at xem. “Yeah, I know. It was a risk.”
“No kidding…” I don’t want to think about what would’ve happened if Teo’s magic had given out. If the soldiers had managed to make their way across the bridge and run us down. Our fate hung on a thread so fragile, one breath in a different direction could’ve snapped it.
“I’m still learning how to be”—xe makes a vague gesture to xemself—“me. With all my dragonish potential. And it’s all still new to me.”
“Yeah?” I look at xem with interest. “Tell me about it? How’d you become a dragon?” Because, not gonna lie, I wouldn’t mind taking those lessons myself.
“Oh, that’s easy,” Teo chirps. “Dragons are born, not made.”
“Like out of an egg?”
“That’s a common misconception.”
I grimace. “Sorry. I thought I knew about dragons. All the stories make out like they’re lizards.”
Teo laughs. “It’s okay. I didn’t know about dragons either until not so long ago.”
“But you are one…”
“But I didn’t know what I was,” says Teo. “Only that I was different. I didn’t know I was a dragon until these came in.” Xe touches a finger to the sharp tip of one horn. From a distance, they look pale blue, but up close they shimmer with a whole spectrum of colors, pearlescent in the sunlight. “My parents didn’t know what I was either. They took me to see a healer in the city of Fairkeep who specializes in curses. They thought I must’ve upset a powerful witch and got myself in trouble.”
“Wait. Your parents aren’t dragons?”
Teo shakes xir head. “Nope. Just me. No one knows how it happens, just that some people are dragons.” Xe glances away. “The healer…she told my parents it would be safest to kill me. Safest for them and a kindness to me. No one looks kindly on dragons and, fully grown, we’re the most dangerous beings in existence.” Teo gives a crooked smile, fangs poking out. “Wouldn’t think that to look at me, I bet.”
I shake my head numbly. On the outside, Teo looks just about as dangerous as Willow. Though I guess that’s an illusion too.
Teo continues, “But my parents weren’t going to be scared off. They told her they didn’t care. They loved me and would help me, no matter what I was.” Xe sighs. “They should’ve lied and promised to do as she said.”
“What happened?” I make myself ask, because of all my guesses surely the truth can’t be worse.
“She told our village leader that my parents were sheltering a monster,” says Teo. “And one day they came for me. My parents protected me. I escaped. I shouldn’t have. I should’ve stayed. I should’ve been the one protecting them. But I didn’t know what to do. I ran. I hid. And when I came back—”
I dig my fingernails hard into the soft part of my palm. “They died?”
Teo nods, tears dribbling down xir face. “They were killed. Because of me.”
“No,” I say fiercely. “Not because of you. It wasn’t your fault.”
But that’s not 100 percent true, is it? In all the epic ballads and sweeping stories of knights chasing down the evil dragon who terrorized the villages and stole the princesses, slaying the beasts and bringing bits of their bodies back as trophies…I always imagined them the way they’re stitched onto tapestries—fearsome, bloodthirsty beasts who hatch out of their eggs already murderous. Who should be destroyed on sight before they even get the chance to live up to their reputation.
Papa’s slain dragons.
I wonder if any of them looked like Teo.
And if a human had stood between the sword and the dragon, what would’ve happened?
I know what would’ve happened.
The same thing that happened to Teo’s parents.
“You couldn’t fight back?” I ask in a breath. “You could’ve destroyed them, just like you did the bridge—”
“I didn’t have my magic then,” Teo replies. “At least, I didn’t know how to access it. Metamorphosis is a slow process. My eyes changed first, then my horns came in and my scales developed. I didn’t learn any magic until The Roost found me.”
I stare at xem, unable to even pretend not to. Some moments xe looks totally human, others I can’t believe I could ever mistake Teo for anything other than what xe is.
“If I had learned about myself sooner, I would’ve been able to hide,” Teo continues. “The first thing I was taught was how to change my body, to pass for human. No one ever needed to know. But there’s no school for dragons. No books to learn how to be one. Only ballads that call us monsters, where the hero vanquishes us. Maybe there’s more of us, everyone’s just hiding and no one dares admit it.”
I gnaw my lip until the tang of blood slicks across my tongue. I know those ballads. I grew up on those tales. Papa told them as though they were true. And—right up until this moment—I believed them.
I should know by now that there are two sides to every story.
“If you can change your shape and hide your dragon-ness, why don’t you?” I ask. “You could live a normal life as a normal kid and no one would ever know—” I stop short at a particular look from Teo.
“Is that what you would want, Callie?”
I flush heavily. No. It isn’t. A life pretending to be something you’re not is no life at all. Why should that be any different for a dragon?
Teo gives a small smile. “I learned how to hide, but I also learned how to be myself. I learned how to fit into the person I was made to be. Not a human hiding, not a monster to be defeated, just me. And I’ve found a home that accepts me as I am, where I can be useful as myself.”
“But aren’t you mad?” I ask. “About what happened to your parents? If you’re getting stronger and stronger…Do you ever think about revenge?”
Teo’s ears flick. “Revenge?”
“Yeah…” I try to gather my scrambled thoughts together in some semblance of order. “I mean…If anyone hurt my dads, I’d be mad. I’d want to pay ’em back. Hurt them like they hurt me.”
The dragon balks, shaking xir head hard. “No, not once. It wouldn’t help. It wouldn’t bring them back. It wouldn’t make things right. I…I figured the best thing I can do is live.” Xe blushes, turning xir scales a blue-green-pink gradient. “I know that sounds selfish, but that’s what they wanted for me. And that’s why they…did what they did. Yes, I’m mad, but the most effective form of revenge I can take is to be myself, 100 percent. There’s nothing humans hate more than the thought of a dragon living their best life.” Teo gives a crooked smile. “That’s what Kensa says, anyway.”
I stop short. So fast, Willow nearly barrels right into my back. I don’t care. Every nerve on my body is on fire. “Kensa. You know Kensa?”
“Of course I know Kensa! Xe’s my mentor!”
It makes sense. Obviously it makes sense. But that doesn’t stop my head from spinning or my stomach from roiling so hard I’m pretty sure I’m about to puke on my boots.
“I know it was bad, when you met before.” Teo’s voice is distant through the buzzing in my ears, like there’s a hundred feet of water between us. “But Kensa’s not like that. Not normally. Xe told me about you. About all of you.”
“You didn’t tell us,” says Elowen. “You should’ve told us.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t know how. And I thought, if I did, then—”
Edwyn’s voice is brittle with anger. “Then we wouldn’t come with you?”
Teo gives a tiny nod. “I’m sorry.”
“If Kensa told you about us, you know xe tried to kill us!”
