Lyra Stormwing's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Lyra reached the base of the split cliffs by dusk. The two peaks rose above her, black against a cold sky. She found the first handholds and started to climb. Then she stopped. Climbing was the easy part. She had studied the bones of dead riders. Every one of them had reached the nest with empty hands. The dragon read empty hands as an enemy or as meat. She could not arrive with nothing. She hung on the rock and thought. What did the dragon want? Not daggers. Not fear. It wanted the one food no other beast could bring it. The glowing moths from the high cliffs. If she carried one, she would come not as prey, but as something that fed it. Lyra climbed to a shelf where cold air pooled. Faint light drifted through the dark. A single moth floated past her face. Its wings held blue, gold, and pink light, like scattered stars. She had seen its kind once, at the stream below. This was the dragon's prey, and it lived only here. She reached for it. The moth slipped sideways. She grabbed again and missed. Her boot skidded on ice. She caught the rock with two fingers and hung there, heart pounding. Snatching would kill her before it caught anything. Lyra went still and let the moth choose its path. It settled on a wet stem near her hand. She cupped both palms slow, the way she would gentle a spooked horse. She closed them soft. The moth beat against her fingers, then went calm. Warm light leaked between her knuckles. Now she had a new problem. A cupped hand cannot climb. She needed both hands for the rock above. She pulled a small pouch from her belt and eased the moth inside, loose enough to breathe. The light glowed faint through the cloth. She tied it to her chest, over the three claw marks she had cut herself. She climbed the last stretch with the pouch glowing at her heart. Wind tore at the leather. Her fingers went numb. But she did not stop. The offering was made. She would not arrive empty-handed like the men whose bones she had studied. Lyra pulled herself onto the high ledge. Ahead, the nest opened in the rock, wide and dark. Something breathed inside it, slow and huge. Two eyes caught the moth's light and opened. She had her offering. She had reached the nest alive. But the dragon was awake now, and it was looking at her.