High Maiden Crystal's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The soil went still under Crystal's hands. Whatever had stirred below sank back down and did not rise. She dug with her fingers and found only cold seeds and packed dirt. No guardian. She had poured her magic into the ground, and the ground had swallowed it and given her nothing. She sat back on her heels and understood how thin her luck had worn. She had escaped the scouts once. They walked this road every day. They would return, and next time no trick of light would save her. She pulled the cracked necklace from her throat and held it in her palm. The pale gem had a split running through its heart. It could not hide her again. Without it, one glance from a returning scout would expose her whole garden, every seed, every refugee she meant to shelter. She had planted a fortress with no walls yet grown. Her hands shook. Two tears fell before she could stop them, and they ran into the crack in the crystal. The gem drank them. Light burst from the split, so bright Crystal shut her eyes and turned her face away. Heat rolled off the stone in her hand. She heard a sound like ice breaking on a river, sharp and long. When she looked again, the necklace was gone. Something stood in the furrow where the light had been. It was the size of a horse and growing. Scales covered it, white and blue and purple, and they threw back the morning sun like cut glass. Wings unfolded, thin as frost on a window. The creature turned its long head toward her and breathed out. Blue fire curled from its jaws, warm against her cheek, and did not burn. Crystal did not move. The dragon lowered its head to her level and looked at her with eyes she knew. The same pale shimmer the crystal had held. Her husband's gift had not died in the crack. It had changed. She reached out one hand, slow, and laid it flat on the scaled snout. The dragon leaned into her touch and made a low sound in its chest. "You'll hold this ground," she said. It was not a question. This was the guardian the soil would not give her. Not a thing she called up from the dirt, but the last gift her husband left, remade. The dragon lifted its head and swept its gaze down the empty road. Its wings settled over the planted rows like a roof. Crystal stood and pressed a new seed into the dirt beside it. She no longer had to hide from the scouts. She had something now that could meet them. But a dragon could not stay hidden. Its scales caught every ray of sun for the whole valley to see. She had traded a thing that concealed her for a thing that announced her. The regime would not send three scouts next time. They would send an army.