Sable's Arc

Chapter 4 of 18

Three days after the burial, a barn burned on the edge of the fishing quarter. Sable ran toward the smoke with the rest. The barn was black by the time she arrived. A man pointed a shaking finger at her. "The pact," he said. "You promised us peace. There is your peace." The crowd turned. They saw a girl with a sling and no way to prove the dragon had not done this. "The dragon sleeps at night," Sable said. "It hunts nothing." Her words meant nothing. They wanted proof. A knocked lantern, a careless spark, none of it mattered against their fear. By nightfall they would climb the cliffs again. She needed to show them, without doubt, that the beast stayed calm even when Birchrot did not. She went to the crossroads. Edna Mull sat at her folding table under a moth-eaten velvet coat, her ledger open, her smile flat. Sable had trusted this old woman's advice before, when no one else would help her. "They blame me for a fire I didn't set," Sable said. "I have no witness but a dragon." Edna traced a line in her ledger. "Then give them eyes on the beast when the fire is fresh. Let them watch the roost at the very moment they smell smoke. A dragon that stays gentle through a burning is a dragon keeping its word." Sable climbed to the goat ledge at dawn and worked. She carried the small living things up in a sack. She loosed the baby rhino on the wide shelf below the roost. A pink flying hamster darted above it, wings buzzing. Butterflies rose in an orange cloud and settled on the rock. Then she lit a signal fire of green branches. Black smoke climbed straight up, the same smoke that had frightened the village. Below, at the mossy watchtower, the lookout rang the bell. Villagers spilled out and pointed at the smoke on the cliffs. Sable had told them where to look. They climbed, spears ready, certain they would find the dragon raging. The dragon woke to smoke. Its great eye opened. It smelled the burning and did not roar. It watched the rhino nose the grass. It watched the little pink creature spin above the butterflies. The low purring sound rolled from its throat. The smoke drifted past its snout, and it only blinked. The villagers stopped at the ledge's edge. They saw fire and a dragon that did not care. They saw the beast lower its head to the butterflies while smoke curled around its horns. The man who had pointed at Sable let his spear drop. "It doesn't burn," a woman whispered. "Even now." Sable stamped out her signal fire. "The barn was your lantern, not its breath. Now you've seen it." The crowd came down quiet. The blame lifted off her shoulders. But as she coiled her rope, she knew the peace held only while the dragon slept above a hoard of gold that someone still wanted.