Violet Stormwing's Arc

Chapter 38 of 46

Violet found Theo waiting at the ridge above her brood's hollow. He had ridden hard from the fortress. His fine vest was dusty, and he did not lean in with his easy smile this time. He gripped her arm the moment she landed. "Kael's riders are combing the northern mountains," he said. "They think a wild dragon fled north. Their search line moves west each day." Violet pulled out her map. She traced the line Theo drew with his finger. It pointed straight at the pale wolf's valley. In three days the riders would reach the narrow crack in the rim. She thought of the crystal in the silver tree, the marked deer, the wolf. None of it would stop armed men who searched on purpose. "They'll find it," she said. "Unless I give them a reason to turn." "They chase what they were told to chase," Theo said. "A dragon that flew north. If they see one flying north, they'll follow it." Violet looked at her pink dragon, resting in the grass. It carried her willingly now. It could fly where she pointed. She could not risk the wild dragon, and she would not risk her hatchlings. But the pink dragon was fast, and it knew the mountains. "Then they'll see one," she said. She flew the pink dragon east that night, far from the valley. At dawn she climbed high where the riders could not miss her. She let them spot the dragon against the pale sky, then turned it north and drove it fast over the peaks. Shouts rose from the slopes below. Torches swung toward her. The whole search line broke and followed. She led them for two days. She let them close enough to keep hope, never close enough to reach her. She scorched a far ridge so smoke marked her trail. She dropped scraps of meat on the wrong slopes. Each mile pulled the riders farther from the wolf's valley. On the third morning she flew over a deep gorge, banked hard behind a stone spire, and vanished into a cloud. When the riders rounded the spire, the sky was empty. They milled at the gorge's edge and found no way across. Violet circled wide and landed beside a tree with heart-shaped leaves, pink and red, where Theo waited with the horses. "They've lost you," he said. "They'll report the dragon flew the gorge and died in the far range." He almost smiled. "Kael will believe it. For a while." Violet leaned against the dragon's warm side. The valley was safe. The riders were chasing a ghost far to the east. But she had shown Kael's men a dragon in open sky. Now Kael knew for certain another one lived, and he would send more riders, and next time they would not chase blindly. She had bought weeks, not safety. She mounted the pink dragon and turned toward home to warn her brood.