Scarlett Meris's Arc

Chapter 8 of 15

Scarlett flew Rivilin back through the pines with the mother's cry still in her ears. She landed in the yard behind the healing house and slid down before the dragon folded its wings. Brynn met her at the door with a lamp and a clean cloth for the blood that wasn't Scarlett's. "She's dead," Scarlett said. "Thorn shot her while Kieran stood under her jaw." Brynn's mouth went tight. She set the lamp down. "Then the others saw it too." "What others?" "The ones still in the peaks. Look up." Scarlett stepped back into the yard. Above the ridge, three shapes circled high and wide, keeping the cloud between them and the ground. A green. A rust-red. A smaller blue that flew crooked, favoring one wing. They had come to answer the mother's cry and found her body on the shelf with a fae standing under it. "They won't land," Brynn said behind her. "They saw a rider let it happen." "I have to reach them before they scatter. If they scatter, the king's men pick them off one by one." Scarlett looked at the light blue dragon in the yard. Rain had carried her for two years. Rain knew her weight and her voice. "They'll trust a dragon before they trust me." "Then send her up alone." Scarlett unstrapped the rune-sword from her back and laid it on the step. She unbuckled the saddle next and dropped it in the grass. Rain watched her, yellow eyes steady. "Go," Scarlett said. "Tell them what I am. Bring back whoever will come." Rain pushed off the ground. Wind flattened the herbs by the door. The blue climbed in a slow spiral, calling once, low and long, the sound a mother uses for a lost clutch. The three circling dragons broke pattern. The green dropped first, matching Rain's climb. The rust-red followed. The small blue held back, wing trembling. Brynn came to stand beside Scarlett. "The little one's hurt." "I see it." They watched Rain lead the two down the sky toward the eastern peaks, away from the healing house, away from any road a soldier could ride. The small blue turned and flew north alone. "Two," Brynn said. "Out of how many were left?" "I don't know." Scarlett picked the sword up off the step. Its runes had gone cold. "The rest won't come near a rider now. Not this season. Maybe not ever." "You saved two." "I lost the sky." She looked north where the injured pup had gone. "And there's one out there bleeding that won't let me close enough to help." Brynn didn't answer. She picked up the lamp and went inside to boil water for the two dragons who would land, and the one who would not.