Marin was less thrilled. Ilreka was a several-day sail from Alyssium and even farther from Flicker. And her sailboat was stuck on a mountain with a “huuuuuge” dragon curled around it like it was cuddling it.
As Perri approached the island, Marin sat up higher and craned her neck to see it all. The mountains towered above the sea. With sheer cliffs and jagged peaks, they looked painful, as if their sharp edges were capable of slicing open the sky. She also saw dark patches on nearly every ledge and every fold of the rock—dragon caves, farmore than she would have ever imagined. There were, it seemed, alotof dragons here.
“Um, Marin?” Dax said.
He’s finally noticedSilver.
“I see it,” she told him.
“See what?” Ree asked. And then: “Eeee. How did it get up there?”
“Magic storm,” Marin spat out. It didn’t require much more explanation. Frankly, they were lucky that the storm and its kraken hadn’t done anything worse than fling them ridiculously far off course. She’d heard stories of people who had emerged from storms transformed, the raw magic adding or removing limbs, changing their shapes, and stirring their minds. At least this was better than spending the rest of their lives convinced they were crawfish, wasn’t it? Staring up at her boat, she was having difficulty seeing herself as lucky. “Any ideas how to get it down?”
All of them were quiet as Perri swam closer.
“If this is Ilreka,” Dax said, “which it clearly is, becausedragons, but if this is Ilreka, then according to the ‘Ballad of Ilreka,’ there should be a village—the home of the dragon-tenders. They might be able to help?”
“Perri, is there a village?” Marin asked. “Can you swim us there?”
He switched direction to circle the island.
Dax said, “Even trickier than getting the boat down from the mountain will be getting it away from the dragon, ideally before it’s crushed into a thousand pieces.”
Yes, she realized that. “I’m open to ideas.”
Ree began, “The dragons on Belde—
“You have dragons on Belde?” Marin asked. It wasn’t a large island. No mountains. No obvious lairs. Lots of buildings made of glass.
“Tiny ones,” Ree said, holding out branches to indicate size. “They’re pollinators in the sunflower maze. Anyway, they have a hoard, and if you trade them something, they’ll give up a piece of their hoard. Maybe this dragon will give upSilverin exchange for better treasure?”
Marin thought of the heartsinger ruby.
No. There has to be another way.She couldn’t sacrifice it, especially since she hadn’t yet even attempted to find Rijes Velk.
We’ll try talking to the dragon-tenders. Maybe they’ll have an idea.
Worst case, she could try talking to the dragon itself.
Somehow she didn’t think it would be nearly as friendly and cuddly as a marmoose. She hoped it didn’t like the taste of sailor.
The village of dragon-tenders was tucked into a cove framed by a thick forest of spruce and fir. Gray stone mountains rose up behind the trees, shadowing them. A few patches of blackened, burnt trees scarred the forest, but the rest was unbroken evergreen.
Various fishing boats were tied off to glass moorings, and a dock stretched out into the harbor. It had a sign at the end with the island standard word for “welcome” above a carving of a dragon. Marin wasn’t sure if it meant “welcome, we have dragons” as a threat or an enticement.
Close to the edge of the water, sandwiched between the sea and the forest, the houses themselves were packed together, each narrow and tall, made of gray stone as somber as the mountains, but the people between them, going about their business—they were as bright and bejeweled as the dragons themselves. Their clothes were rich gold and scarlet and sapphire, and they wore scarves wrapped around their heads and piles of jewelry.
Several who were closest to the cove halted in their tracks and stared as the iridescent sea serpent carrying two people and a plant swam into the harbor.
As Perri swam past the first mooring, a glass orb floating on the water, blue smoke swirled inside the orb, and the mooring called out, “Eh? You a boat? Want to tie off here?”
A nearby mooring, this one made of red glass with red smokeinside, shouted, “Are you trying to steal my turn, Mauris? It’s my turn to have a boat!”
“It’s not been my turn for ages, Flari!”
“Hardly my fault. Told you plenty of times—you’re too needy! You scare captains away,” the red mooring said to the blue. “Also, you need to clean your glass because that isnota boat.”
Perri trilled in agreement.
