Thorn's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The road to the Sunken Vaults ran through dead country. On the second morning, Thorn pulled the blossom from his coat to check it. The petals had gone soft. The gold veins in them had dimmed to a dull brown. He touched the water in the little jar and found it warm and thick. The flower was dying again, and faster now. Solara stopped beside him. She looked at the blossom, then at his hands. His fingers had begun to shake. That was how the pain started, before his magic broke loose. "It won't last the day," Thorn said. "When it dies, I lose control. You don't want to be near me then." "How long do you have?" she asked. "Hours. Maybe less." Solara knelt and studied the wilting petals. "The water's gone bad. You need clean water and a fresh cut. Both. Now." She said it like a fact, not a comfort. That was her way. She had taught him to preserve the flower once. She had also stood between him and a bounty hunter. He had learned to trust the flat sound of her voice. But there was no stream in the dead country. Thorn turned in a slow circle and found only cracked ground and gray brush. Then he saw the small dragon. It had followed him from the crystal garden for two days, a blue hatchling no bigger than a cat. Stars glittered across its scales. It landed on a rock now, wings spread, and dipped its head. Water beaded along the edges of its wings. Clean water, cold and bright, dripping from every feathered scale. Thorn moved fast. He held the jar under the hatchling's wing and caught the falling drops until the glass ran full and clear. Then he drew his knife and cut the blossom's stem clean, the way Solara had shown him. He slid the fresh-cut flower into the new water. He waited. His hands still shook. Solara watched without a word. The brown veins in the petals warmed. Gold crept back into them, thin lines catching the morning light. The petals firmed. The shaking in Thorn's fingers eased, then stopped. The pain drained out of his chest. The hatchling chirped and climbed onto his shoulder. Solara stood. "It saved you. You should name it." "Later." Thorn wrapped the jar in cloth and held it close. The flower would hold a few more days. But he had watched it nearly die on open road, and clean water would not always fall from a dragon's wing. "One flower still runs out," he said. "We need the tree before this one goes for good." "Then we don't stop again," Solara said. She turned toward the low country ahead, where the ground fell away into dark. The Vaults waited down there. So did the wardens, and whatever Solara meant to take back.