Snowflakes fell on Fauve’s
face. She pulled me along, her freezing hand stealing any trace of heat from
mine. I didn’t mind and followed her through the snow, which was coming down
harder each second. Our walk ended with a hard cave floor underneath my feet
and stone over my head. Fauve turned back to me and laughed, pulling me farther
inside.
Both of us crept forward and
stopped when we saw the fire in the middle of the cave. Dragon backs were
arched around it, their voices whispering, careful not to let them echo outside
if Fauve and I should hear. We weren’t supposed to be here, in the sacred cave,
even if one of us could speak dragon. Fauve cocked her head to the side, trying
to lean in and listen . I jerked my head up, pretending to have heard something
she didn’t. Fauve looked at me, suddenly nervous. I pulled her around the cave
wall and back to the entrance silently, still pretending that the dragon we had
rescued had sensed us. I knew I couldn’t keep pretending, though, ; Fauve knew
things like that.
“Why did you–”
I just smiled down at her and
leaned in closer, about to kiss her, when a shadow crossed before us. It was a
human shadow. I looked up, pulling Fauve into me, and waited as the shadow took
a step inside the cave. I froze, feeling as cold as Fauve’s hands had been. My
brother stood in front of us, a half smile on his face and a chained dragon
behind him. I could feel Fauve’s heartbeat speed up and heard her scream,
summoning a flap of wings from behind us, when the dragon behind my brother
reached out a claw and slashed through me.
“Peasant?”
Fauve’s voice found my consciousness and ripped me out of the nightmare.
“Skander?” I sighed with relief and opened my eyes to find her leaning over me,
staring at my face. “Skander, what happened?” She looked into my eyes,
concerned. “You were crying in your sleep again, and I hate it when you cry in
your sleep. I also hate it when you steal the blanket.” That made two of us. She
was wrapped up in the blanket I had been sharing with her; I was freezing.
“Can
I have the blanket back?” I reached towards it, and she gently swatted my hand
away.
“What
happened?” She looked at me inquiringly. I sat up and told her, hearing an
unusual silence from her compared to the last few times I had told her my dreams.
“Fauve?”
I watched her carefully. I wasn’t sure she had ever been this quiet. She even
talked in her sleep. It had been two weeks since I met her, and saved a dragon
with her. A dragon that we were now camped out with in the woods. We were on a
mission to find the Circle of Four—the four most powerful dragons in Everest. They
had been searching for a Dragon Speaker for years, and I happened to be one.
“Fauve?”
I asked again. She looked up from the snow and scooted next to me, sharing the
blanket.
“Your
brother knows you can speak,” she said. “When I was in the castle, Larissa
would sometimes ask him if he had found anyone to talk to the dragon yet; he
always said no. But you can, and you’re his brother.” Fauve looked down at the
snow again. “Skander, Larissa’s going to send him after you. She wants a Dragon
Speaker, and now that we’ve set the dragon free, she knows one of us can do it.
And it’s certainly not me.” She was staring at me with her barely blue eyes.
“What?”
I stared right back at her.
“Peasant,
you know you can kiss me if you want to, right?” She smiled, and I opened my
mouth when someone else spoke.
“I
told you two to be up by sunrise. The sun comes in four hours.” The dragon’s
voice circled around us, and I looked to his spot a few feet from us, by a
circle of trees.
“What
do you care? You’re nocturnal,” Fauve retorted, looking at the dragon. He had
spoken slowly and carefully, so his was one of the few times she had understood
what he said. It didn’t change the fact that she was scared to speak to him; I
could tell by the way she was now gripping my hand with her nails.
“Yes,
and you two are not. But since you’re up anyway, I suppose we should move on. The
Circle is waiting.”
“How
much farther is it?” I asked, standing up with Fauve and walking to his back.
“We
should get there by nightfall.” The dragon eyed us as we climbed on his back. I
felt Fauve’s arms around me as the dragon started flying. The air was bitterly cold,
and her hands weren’t doing much to help. Neither was the fact that she once
again had the blanket tightly wrapped around herself.
“Have
you told her you love her yet?” the dragon asked me, speaking faster now.
“What
do you think?” I told him, glad that the dragon was the one animal Fauve
couldn’t speak fluently with.
“What
are you waiting for?” The dragon had a trace of laughter in his voice.
“Time.
I can’t just tell her I love her now.” And she might think I was just trying to
get the blanket. Why were her hands so cold? I shivered and felt Fauve lean
against me, resting her head on my shoulder.
“Your
ever-so-painful love story is killing me to watch, Dragon Speaker.” The dragon
flew higher and then slowly dipped low. Fauve made a small sound in protest and
hugged me tighter. “Aren’t you going to say something about my flying for her?”
“Yes,
you are an awful flier who shouldn’t get into other people’s love lives.” I looked
back at Fauve, who wasn’t paying any attention to our conversation. She reached
up and moved my hair from where it was falling into my eye. I shook my hair
back into place and shivered when she purposely rested her frozen hand on my
neck. She smiled and leaned back on my shoulder.
“And
you,” the dragon responded, “are a Dragon Speaker who might not have all the
time in the world to actually get a love life.”
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