Page 28 of A Matter of Dragons

There was no response. I took to the air and descended gently, straining to hear anything beyond the hiss and sputter of the fires.

“B’shelath, are you there?”

A moan. A single low moan drifted past the shattered pine and rose in the air around me. I lowered myself slowly to the forest floor, tucked my wings in tight, and held my breath. Silence. Then a low, deep hiss. And then the sound of sobbing.

“B’shelath?” I said.

“Go.”

The voice came from the dark, huddled mess beneath the trees. It looked like Mad Scarlett had dragged herself into the shadows.

“Are you... injured?” I asked.

Another low, horrible moan.

“I will never be whole again,” a broken voice rasped from the shadows.

I shivered. Out of all the ways I’d envisioned my little meeting with Mad Scarlett going, I’d never expected to feel this. Pity crept up on me, an emotion I’d never before felt for an older and more powerful dragon. All at once, the reality of her loss forced its way into my consciousness.

The huddled, sobbing dragon before me had lost a hatchling. That didn’t happen; hatchlings were nigh indestructible, and they were guarded fiercely like the priceless, precious treasures they were. Female dragons could have two, maybe three, eggs in their very long lifetimes. Many had none, their short and erratic bursts of fertility never quite overlapping with the right sexual partner. Others laid eggs that slowly faded and died over the two years of constant care it took to birth a hatchling. Dragons fought and killed each other all the time, but no dragon would ever harm a hatchling. The entire species depended on that one sacred precedent.

But it had happened to Mad Scarlett. And, in some ways, what had happened to her must have been worse than death. Death could be mourned, I supposed, although that kind of loss would leave scars for the rest of the dragon’s life. But Mad Scarlett’s daughter hadn’t been killed; she’d been stolen. And only the Great Mothers knew what had happened to the poor hatchling, if she were still held captive in some miserable dungeon or if her bones had been scattered to the seven winds.

“B’shelath Ygtishla,” I whispered, addressing her with her full Draconic name. “I’m... I’m sorry.”

The wind howled in the trees above us. My words felt pathetic, an utterly useless conduit for the strange emotions currently twisting my chest. The dragon before me groaned again. Her wings rustled against the pine needle duff of the forest floor.

I moved closer to her, urged on by some nameless instinct. My eyes adjusted to the low light beneath the pines, allowing me to see her limp body. Her wings lay splayed out against the rocks and bushes, but she seemed unharmed. Physically, at least.

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

I raised my foreleg and let my talons rest atop hers. The wind rustled above us, carrying smoke and the crackling hiss of the fires she’d lit. A few sparks drifted through the pine branches to wink out of existence above us.

“B’shelath, your daughter—”

I hesitated as she moaned again. Her claws twitched against mine.

“I’m sorry, but she isn’t here,” I said. “She isn’t in Cairncliff.”

Mad Scarlett sucked in a long breath and let it out as a low, pained sigh. “But she is. I followed her.”

“No.” I shook my head. “If there were another dragon in Cairncliff, trust me, I would know.”

She made a sound like a rusty gate squealing in the wind. It took me a moment to recognize it as laughter.

“Trust? You?” she spat.

Her claws tightened beneath mine.

“I— I wish I could help,” I stammered. “I do.”

Her forearm pulled away from my touch. Twigs snapped as she pulled herself upright.

“I’m sorry,” I offered again, my words insubstantial and meaningless.

Mad Scarlett drew herself up tall and then narrowed her eyes at me as if she hadn’t just been huddled at my claws in a sobbing, undignified mess. “You’re an odd one, Doshir Who Claims Cairncliff. You came here to make apologies?”

“Uh, no, actually.” I cleared my throat, only realizing after the fact what an oddly human thing that was to do. “I came to formally request that you find another den. This mountain range is unsuitable.”