Chapter 2: The Others

Vito and I exchange a glance. My breathing comes quick, lungs full of the smoke and spice scent of dragons. We can still run, but they will chase us. They can report us to the dragons of Caelum.

I guess there isn’t a choice.

Rising to my feet, I spread my wings wide and step on top of the dune. The woman stands there, hands crossed over her chest, her clothes and hair as dull and dirty as the dust around her. But her eyes are a sharp green that I can make out from here, contrasting against dark bronze skin, darker than mine. But like me, her hair is cut short, almost to her scalp. A scar cuts straight across her face, but I can’t tell whether it’s from a blade or a dragon’s talon. The excessively large man has some muscle, and his sandy hair, grey eyes, and dusky skin could blend into the desert. So plain it almost seems like it’s on purpose.

Behind them is a centimare. The massive myriapod’s eyes gleam in the sun, hundreds of pointed legs pacing as it resists the urge to crawl underneath the ground. Its pincers click together in irritation—the noise from earlier. At least a half-dozen carts and tents are attached to the back of its long body, creating a giant, living caravan.

“Well, nice to see one of your types being reasonable, for once.” The woman arches an eyebrow.

Vito crawls next to me, head lowered, teeth bared, ears back. I place a hand on his cheek, trying to still my shaking.

The woman eyes him for a moment, then looks to my gloves, the same dull brown as his scales. “Not just a simple illusionist, but a dragon’s caretaker, and her dragon? Well, well, well. Brought to earth to spread your city’s righteousness?” 

I flinch at the last word. “That’s none of your business.” My voice is dying to bend and break, and I pray they can’t hear it. “What do you want from us?”

She smirks for a moment, crossing her arms. “What an interesting little illusionist you are. Tell me first: what are you doing here?”

“We need to get to a ground-dwelling town.” Maybe she doesn’t suspect us of anything, maybe we can just ask them for help and be on our way. “We would greatly appreciate your help in getting to the nearest one. We’re…lost.”

The man chuckles. Her glare switches to him for a second before flicking back to us. “I’m not going to give you anything for free, birdie. Maybe you’re used to getting your every whim on a silver platter up there, but you actually have to earn your keep down here.”

My fingers twitch. Illusionists earn their keep and serve as a caretaker, or hunter, or whatever else is needed, but telling a dragon no? My fear retreats as anger boils. “A ground dweller telling a dragon and his caretaker no? Denying us?”

“Oh, you wish I were a ground dweller.” She grins, letting her arms fall to her sides. Her teeth are two rows of incisors, razor sharp and gleaming in the desert sun. Along all her fingers curl wicked talons.

Another human-dragon hybrid like me. An illusionist.

And not just that—she’s a hunter.

I should have run.

She laughs, short and hard. “Oh, the look on your face! You all assume the same thing. No wings, but enough like the dragons to make us illusionists. The qualifications for becoming one of those monster’s soldiers, a hunter. That was the first word that popped into your head, wasn’t it?” She takes a step forward and my wings quiver with the urge to jump back. But hunters have ways to keep those with wings grounded. “Well, you’d be half right.” Her grin grows.

“What do you mean?” I ask, my voice a pathetic squeak. “Half right?”

She cocks her head slightly, reminding me of the dragons. “I told you, everything comes at a price. Including answers.”

A part of me wants to ask what the fee would be. Another is too afraid of the cost.

“Not jumping at the offer? I'm not sure whether to respect you or think you stupid. But come now, we can't keep talking like this. Get over here and have a meal to discuss it over, will you?”

Vito lets out a low, wanting moan and lifts a paw.

“You said everything comes at a price,” I snap. “What's the cost for this?”

Her grin comes back. “Respect it is, then. I haven’t decided on anything, yet. You'll have to take your chances.”

I scowl. I can go longer without food. Days, maybe. But Vito is many times my weight; he won’t be able to fly by tomorrow if we don't find something. And if he can’t fly, we might not find a town. And if we don't find a town…

If only he’d stayed. I should have fought him harder, made him go back. Maybe I shouldn’t have even run in the first place.

I shake my head. It’s too late now. And if I don’t accept her offer, we might die out here. I didn’t let Vito join me just to let the both of us starve within a week.

“Fine,” I manage, my jaw clenched. “I accept.”

She clasps her clawed fingers together in front of her. “Very good. Bricius, gather some things from the second caravan.”

“But Carita—” Bricius starts.

Her grin perfectly in place, she says, “Do not make me tell you twice.”

Bricius doesn’t hesitate this time, walking over to the irritated centimare. It makes to snap at him, and he smacks it on the back of the head. 

I flinch.

The woman—Carita—raises an eyebrow, and I regain my composure. Now isn’t the time to harp on how badly people train their beasts. No one treats them like my father taught me to. It’s no wonder I recognized the noise. My father gave me a centimare larva as a pet when I was eleven. I took the little thing to show Vito, after I’d trained it for a few months, fully intending to show it off.

But the hunters caught me with it. Creatures from the ground weren’t allowed in our floating kingdom, they said. They took it from me and made me watch as they stomped on it until it finally died, the creature’s innards sprayed against the cobblestones. The memory crawls up past seven years of forgetting, reflected in the many eyes of the beasts as it clicks its pincers and twitches.

My father was never much one for the rules, barely ever speaking of them, much less following them. He didn’t like to talk about the dragons, like he was afraid to. He would explain his experiments, but he never explained what he knew about Caelum, or where my mother went when she disappeared. All he ever gave were warnings, like how I don’t have to follow their rules but I shouldn’t be rebellions like my mother, or how I should be more careful of my tongue or I’ll end up like her. Where she ended up, I’ll never know. Every time I asked about her, he’d distract me with chores and tasks. Like he’s one to talk, with his not-so-hidden collection of illegal books, and his habit of making messes of experiments and studies gone wrong, which kept the dragon’s eyes close on him and his work. I always considered myself more careful than either of my parents. The only rules I broke were small ones and I did so carefully. It never hurt anyone.

At least until now.

The man comes back out of the caravan, arms laden with cheeses and meats tied in stamped parchment and twine. Vito slides down the dune to the rocky ground, ears pressed back against his head and scaly crest half-raised but unable to resist.

I glide after him, eyes on Carita. Vito starts eating but I pause.

“How did you know we were still here?” I ask her. There’s a price to this question, too, of course. But I need to know. I can't have other hunters finding me.

She raises an eyebrow. “Well, you have a brain at least. Don't find many smart ones who still wear their gifts.” Then her gaze wanders to my gloves.

The scales itch against my skin, but I won't take them off. Never. Vito gave these to me.

“All right, I’ll tell you as a reward for being otherwise sharp. Look at the water.” Carita kneels next to the surface, turning her back to me. Doesn’t she see I have a knife? Maybe she's just that confident.

“Okay.” I cross my arms. “I see the water.”

She clucks her tongue. “How observant, birdie. Any illusionist out of the cradle would be able to find a body of water. But can’t you see them? The ripples, coming from where you stand?”

What? I kneel next to her. They're faint, but there they are, a slight disturbance in the calm water. But only from me. 

“Why aren't they coming from you?”

“Because I fell from Caelum a very long time ago, and you tend to learn how to deal with these things.” She pauses. “I saw the clouds light up. The alarm. That was you, wasn't it?"

Something inside me wants to yell out, “Yes!” Scream to the world what I did, receive my punishment and end it all.

But I won’t. Another part, a louder part, won’t leave Vito to be left defenseless down here. After fighting so hard, I won’t give up so easily.

“You really do learn quickly. I’m afraid that I have nothing to pay you for that answer at the moment. Now, you should eat.”

I turn to find Vito gnawing on a hunk of cured meat. “I’m not hungry.” He needs all he can get.

She shrugs, rising to her feet. “All right, then. Bricius, muzzle him.”

Vito’s head snaps up, lips drawn back, a growl ripping through his long snout.

“Ah, ah, dear beast.” Cool, sharp metal presses against my neck. “You don’t think I’d threaten a dragon without a plan, do you?”

Vito roars, a snarl that vibrates through my bones, but he doesn’t attack as Bricius approaches.

I need to do something. I need water. The oasis is so close but too far—she’s an illusionist, too, and obviously trained more than me. She knows water as well as I do.

Except, she doesn’t know the hidden techniques. The tricks written in languages long since dead to this country. She doesn’t know how to manipulate blood.

I bite the inside of my cheek, the pain shocking my system, clearing out the worry and the anger and bringing the water around me into sharp focus. I feel my pulse. I feel the flow of my blood, the flow of the water behind me. And I feel Carita’s blood flow, too.

I grasp onto that flow and press into it, pushing spikes into her veins, crawling up her arms, her—

Pain blossoms in my arms, my legs. My torso’s on fire and I scream.

Carita laughs. “Remember that you aren’t the only illusionist here, birdie.”

Disbelief slides from my thoughts, my grip on reality slipping into pain and darkness.

But I can’t look away from Vito; I have to make sure he’s okay.

“Nighty night,” she whispers, pressing a thumb against my forehead.

Vito’s vibrant wings fade from my vision, his amber eyes blurring into the landscape.

And he’s gone.

I— I failed.

“No, you didn’t.”

Vito grins at me, the skin around his eyes crinkling, not unlike his scales do in his other form. He’s turning fifteen tomorrow and I know that I won’t see him for a week. It makes my chest hurt.

“Yes, I did. I couldn’t stop them when they called you…you know.”

He purses his lips, cocks his head. “No, I don’t know.”

I have to look away, my face getting hot. “Dirty. From the ground. They even called you a ground dweller, Vito. And I couldn’t do anything.”

He reaches out and takes my hand. His other hand brushes my forehead where the blood still lies, thick and sticky. “You did more than anyone else.”

But is that enough? I bite my lip, trying to find the words. “Most of the other dragons get rid of their first caretaker not long after they turn fifteen. I know you might not need me, or have the time, I just— Will you— Are you going to—” Tears burn up my throat, welling in my eyes. I knew this day would come. The dragons told me I would only serve my master until this time came. I thought I’d be happy for this day, to be able to discover the life lying beyond this servitude, but I’ve never been more wrong.

His hand squeezes tighter around mine. “Ava, I…” He clears his throat, and I glance up to see his eyes shining with unshed tears. “Before I had you in my life, it was something I wouldn’t even call a life. You gave me something worth living again, even in the bleakest times. I won’t let them take that away from me. I would rather spend the rest of my days living on the ground than follow those ridiculous customs. So long as that’s what you want, of course”

For a second, all I can do is stare, watch as the tears fall down his face. Then I jump forward, wrap my arms around him, and grin bigger than I ever have before. “As long as you want me next to you, I’ll stay at your side.”

He pulls back, meeting my eyes. He starts to grin, too. “Then you’re gonna be stuck with me for a long time.”

A door slams open. 

We fly apart, just before a set of eyes almost catches us in our taboo.

“Vito, it’s time.”

No. Not her.

I try to pull my hand back, but Vito grips tighter.

“Are you really still hanging around with that half-blood?” Vito’s sister growls at him, eyes narrowed on me.

He flinches minutely and I remember the bruises I’ve seen on his skin, the ones he tries to hide from me after he confronts his sister. Dragons are so odd in that they aren’t raised by their biological parents, rather every generation raised by a single dragon nest-mother to free parents from the tedious process of childrearing. So I know they’re not related by blood, but… They still grew up together, lived together, shared a mother of sorts. How can she hate him so much? 

“I can stay with her as long as I want to.” He always sounds so calm, collected. I want to know his secret.

“Oh, really?” She gives a smirk full of sharp teeth. “Wait until tomorrow. Let’s see what you say then.”

It’s not like we don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Vito turns a year older. I have to spend less time with him as he progresses into the higher circles, one day leaving me.

But that wasn’t how it went. It didn’t go as it was supposed to. He went in as a human, a fully powerful dragon, and came back only a beast. He will never turn back again, they say. We’ll never talk again, or hold hands or…

“No…” I whisper, looking back and forth between Vito and his sister. “No, this already happened.”

They both smile at me, like a mother to their idiot child.

“Did it?” they whisper, their voice one.

“Did it really?” they murmur, blood seeping from their eyes, pooling around them as the drops hit the floor.

I scream. I try to pull back but Vito’s hand is a vice around my wrist and I —

Pain sears across my face.

I gasp, raising a hand to my cheek. It’s wet. Tears?

It’s dark all around me, the ground jittering under my body, rhythmic clicking echoing from outside.

Sitting up from the rough, wooden floor, my head nearly bounces against Vito’s snout.

“Did you slap me?”

He whines, an apologetic tone to his voice. He’s crowded into the small quarters, all his sharp corners poking at the walls, his slim body twisted as he looks toward me.

“It was a nightmare.” It’s kind of a comfort to say it out loud, admit it.

He puffs in my face. I laugh, leaning forward to press my lips to his snout. “Thank you.”

A door opens, showing a pitch-black landscape. A figure hops in.

Carita.

Vito growls and I reach for my knife, surprised to still find it there.

“Calm down. I came to give you this.” She tosses a bundle of fabric at me.

“What?”

“A shirt. I don’t know what destroyed yours, but you’ll need one that isn’t as…flamboyant, anyway.”

“For what?” I dare to ask.

A new noise sounds from outside, the sound of hundreds of little legs tapping against a hard surface.

“Welcome to Mercatus, your first ground-dweller town. This is your home now, Fallen.”