Draven Ashborne's Arc

Chapter 2 of 17

The collar sat heavy in Draven's pack for three days. He walked the dragon's trail east, and the closer he came, the worse his blood grew. The change took him twice on the second day. It took him three times on the third. Each fit came faster than the last. He knew the pattern now. If it kept shortening, he would turn and stay turned before the dragon ever came into view. He needed to slow the change, not cage his power. So he turned back for the one person who might know how. Seraphina found him at the edge of the trees, on his knees, smoke leaking from his mouth. She was half dragon like him, but she had never lost herself. She had pulled him back from the change once already. She dropped beside him and pressed her cold hand to his neck. Ice spread from her fingers. His blood cooled. The scales sank. "They're coming closer together," he said. "Your frost only lasts a moment. I can't stop every mile to freeze myself." "No," she agreed. "You can't." She stood and looked east, where he had come from. "There's a place. Come." She led him to a cave where a waterfall fell from the high rock into a still pond. The water glowed pale blue. Along the pond's edge grew a plant Draven had never seen. Frost coated its leaves though the air was warm. Seraphina knelt and cut a handful. "Frostbloom," she said. "It grows only where my kind cools the water. Chew it. It slows the blood the way my hand does. Longer." Draven put a leaf on his tongue. Cold spread down his throat, into his chest, into his arms. The constant heat under his skin dulled. For the first time in days, his hands did not shake. "How long does one leaf last?" he asked. "Half a day. Maybe less, near the dragon." She filled his palm with more. "It's not a cure. It buys you time. Ration it." He closed his fist around the frost-touched leaves. The waterfall filled the silence. Then a wolf with sweeping antlers padded to the pond's edge and drank, and a black cat with shadow wings watched him from a rock. They did not run this time. His blood was quiet enough that even the animals stayed. "This is enough to reach it," Draven said. "To reach it. Not to fight it." Seraphina met his eyes. "The herb keeps you human. But a human can't kill an elder dragon. You'll get there calm and weak." Draven looked at the leaves in his hand, then at the collar in his pack. Slow the change, and he lost his strength. Keep his strength, and he lost himself. He had traded one problem for the next. He wrapped the frostbloom in cloth and stood. "Then I reach it first," he said. "And find my strength when I'm standing in front of it."