The Last of the Dragons

Chapter One - The Awakening

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. But now, they were growing out of control, blanketing what used to be our village.

There was little left of it. They took over the streets, crept up the walls, and grew through our stone floors. We fought to stay, of course. Fought hard, with magic and sweat, ripping up what we could of them. But the dragons were too strong. We could no longer fight off the invading vines and their power. Many members of our clan fell ill; even their thick gloves couldn't protect them from the toxic flowers.

And it was all for nothing; within days they grew back even thicker.

Then, when people started getting sick without touching them–from merely breathing the pollen–we realised we had no choice but to leave. So we fled. We set up camp on the hillside above our Valley.

It was late afternoon, and I found myself again at my favourite lookout spot. I'd often sat there and gazed out over the Valley. Those who don't accept me say women shouldn't hunt, but I quickly proved them wrong. A cool autumn breeze prodded my brown braid as I looked down. The lookout was my favourite not because I could see our lost village in the Valley below, but because I could see far past the distant mountains and hills. On moonless nights the lights from the distant city lit the sky. It would be easy to become invisible in the city's crowds.

The Valley below was calling to me again. I had decided to go down there. Not lightly, of course. If there was anyone who didn't already think I was an abomination, seeking out the dragons was sure to convince them. But in a rush to leave our village, my mother had lost her necklace, and it wasn't just any necklace; my father had given it to her shortly after they married, and it was one of few memories she had left of him. I desperately wanted to retrieve it for her. We had our disagreements, but she'd always been my most ardent defender against those who labelled me an atrocity. I needed to do this for her. No one else would dare go.

Making my way down the hillside, I kept out of the setting sun's orange fingers dancing through the trees, careful not to be seen from the camp. As I approached the Valley, I tied my scarf around my face to cover my nose and mouth; that and the rain should help against the pollen. If dragon pollen behaves like normal pollen...

There was a ledge overlooking what used to be our village. Balancing on it, I could see most of the village. It was now home to a field of dragon flowers. They'd grown so much thicker since I was last here. It was so quiet. No bird song. Goosebumps flashed over my arms.

The dragon flowers were too dense to see through, and the gathering darkness didn't help. I was about to return to camp when my boot must have hit a moss patch as I stepped from rock to rock. My foot slipped. It happened so fast, yet I seemed to be in mid-air for so long. My head was thrown back, and I hit the ground hard. I felt the mud on the back of my head, the wet coldness on my back. Mud squelched between my fingers. I opened my eyes to the sky framed by a dozen dragon flowers towering over me. My breath caught. Shit!

I sprang up and scurried back onto the rocks. I frantically brushed myself off, but the wetness made the pollen stick to everything, including my hands. My scarf had fallen around my neck, and a stench filled my nostrils. I tried to pull it up to cover my nose, but my hands were slippery with pollen-filled mud. It took several attempts, leaving me with mud all over my face.

'Liss Liss, the magicless. Here I'll die and never be missed'. The stupid rhyme echoed in my head.

My hands were covered in mud and pollen, skin tingling already. My throat felt tight. I looked back towards the camp, but there was only darkness.

Run!

My feet slipped again as I clambered over the rocks. I felt the rough surface cut into my hands as I caught myself; my muddy braid slapped me in the face. I pushed myself up and kept going. Maybe I could get there in time to die in the camp rather than on the hillside. My poor mother. I'd made it worse for her. I could only hope she wouldn't be the one to find me.

I had to stop to catch my breath, my chest on fire from running uphill. There was no rash on my hands. Usually, the effect of dragon poison was pretty quick. I felt my face. No rash there either.

Still shaking, I hurried toward the camp, my wool jumper sticking to my wet back. Maybe I had time. I would wake the medicine woman, and she would be annoyed with me for being stupid enough to go down there, but she always did her best to save lives. Even mine.

As I raced up the hill, the woods around me slowly returned to normal. I finally reached the camp, my chest heaving. The only lights were inside the tents, where muted voices and some distant singing could be heard. I rechecked my skin, and there was still no rash. And now, even the tingling was gone. I slowed my breathing and filled my lungs. My throat was dry from the cold air, but my breathing was fine. Maybe I didn't need the medicine woman.

It was late. With a bit of luck, no one had seen me running. No one needed to know where I'd been. I snuck around the back to the rudimentary showers, which were just pouring buckets behind privacy curtains. It was a relief to peel off my wet clothes. My fingers and toes felt numb. The cold water shocked my skin, making me gasp, but I couldn't get the pollen off fast enough.

When I had scrubbed my skin red and was satisfied there was no pollen left, I rinsed my clothes, wrapped myself in a towel, and tiptoed to the tent I shared with my mother and two younger brothers. I stopped to listen before pushing the flap aside to enter. They were asleep. I got dressed, and the dry nightshirt warmed me. I rechecked my skin. No rash. Why? Even the slightest contact had made the other villagers sick. I laid down in the bed I shared with my mother, cocooned in soft warmth. I lay awake, listening to my mother breathing for ages. Eventually, my hands stopped shaking. The image of lying amongst dragons replayed endlessly in my head. I felt… a strange sense of tranquillity?

***

Two uneventful days passed. I was unnerved by the close encounter and worried I might break out in a rash, so I didn't leave camp at all. My mother kept looking at me, appearing concerned, but I pretended everything was fine when she asked. She would only worry. But, I couldn't neglect my traps any longer. Finally, I left camp with my bag of supplies. As I walked out of the camp and into my forest, I felt like a weight had been lifted.

A few hours later, I was sitting on my rock overlooking the Valley. I couldn't use magic to make chores quicker and easier, so I'd learned to hunt with no magic, and I'd gotten pretty good at it. It meant I was away most days, but my family was always well-fed. Besides, leaving the village meant no one could deliver little barbs about how abhorrent I was.

I still couldn't stop thinking about the incident with the dragons. Why hadn't the pollen affected me? I'd been lying in a field of death and was covered head to toe in pollen. I breathed it in. Yet here I was, not dead. Or even sick.

I had avoided looking into the Valley, but I couldn't resist any longer. Of course something so evil would try to draw me in. That's all it was. I averted my eyes, forcing myself to look at the distant mountains instead.

The smell of cooking fires called me back to camp, but I stayed and listened to nature. The whispers of leaves, the birds calling. Just a little longer. Time seemed to slow down and wait for me here. Even the cold sting of the air on my face was almost unnoticed as I smiled. A distant haze was getting closer; rain was coming.

With a sigh, I realised I really should get back. I collected my forage bag and rabbits off the ground and headed toward my clan's camp. The narrow track had turned to mud along the hillside. A steep drop to my left, a sharp rise to my right. A light drizzle shone on the plants edging the path and the moss-covered stepping stones. Don't slip! My boots and deer leather coat ensured I'd stay warm and dry. I could still see the evergreen trees and the wild creek snaking through the Valley through the watery haze. The dull rooftops of our abandoned village dotted between.

Stop looking!

I pulled my hood up as the rain increased. The breeze brought more golden and brown leaves silently to the ground, hiding the deer tracks that flitted here and there. Of course, hunting would become more difficult as the seasons changed. Even so, it was my favourite season. The pitter-patter of rain on my hood was immensely satisfying.

I entered our tent, and the warmth enveloped me. I held up the rabbits I carried. My mother smiled at me, but it was a tired smile. And it didn't hide her worry. Her hand went to her neck, but there was no necklace there. I felt a tightness in my chest and looked away. My brothers burst through the tent flap to drink some water in a flurry of activity and noise. Then they disappeared back outside to continue playing in the rain.

I put the rabbits outside to be dealt with later, hung my wet coat by the entrance, and joined my mother in the dim lantern's light. I grabbed some socks from the pile of clothes she was mending.

"Why don't we leave all this?" I asked, pushing a needle through a tired sock.

"Please don't start this again," Mother sighed.

"They don't appreciate you here, And I'm sure they wouldn't mind me leaving... I just think we'd be better off somewhere else. Somewhere no one knows us." Somewhere I would fit in.

"Stop it, Liss. It's crazy talk. Where would we go? Who would support us? The Valley is our clan's place; it gives us our power. We're connected to it. What would we be elsewhere but homeless?"

I made sure she heard me sigh. I knew where this conversation was going.

"I'm sorry," she continued, "I didn't mean... You know you need to ignore people's comments. They don't matter. This clan, this is our home. You will find your place here."

She managed a slight smile as her cold fingertips cradled my cheek. I worried about her. She seemed to be a shadow of who I remembered.

"But…" I began.

"No. We're not going anywhere," she pulled her hand back and stabbed a piece of clothing with her needle, "especially not now. The world is about to become a dark place."

"The dragons are a reason to leave! They've appeared in our Valley. We'll be safer anywhere that isn't here! You know the stories!"

Mother shot me a stern look. I put the sock down and stood.

"Liss, don't be like that."

I opened my mouth to say something but closed it again. It was pointless. It seemed my mother would rather waste away amongst people who disliked us… me… than take a risk on something new. Something that could make us both happy. My cheeks burned, but I refused to get upset. We'd done this too many times. Instead, I turned on my heel and left the tent, grabbing my coat in passing.

"Liss!"

I kept walking. She couldn't understand what it's like to be a disgrace amongst your own people. I couldn't blame her for being worried about the dragons, though. I was concerned too. The dragons were considered a dark omen of things to come. The people in my clan were worried, especially the elders. They'd been gathered in one of the tents arguing for days and only came out when nature necessitated it.

I didn't exactly know where I was going. I walked through the camp, make-shift tents on either side of me. The rain meant few people were out. Some sat outside with a fire going. The scent of a familiar casserole cooking somewhere reached me. I took a deep breath. I was still thinking about dinner when I spotted Sessly sitting outside her family's tent, quite noticeable with her long, red hair. Oh, great. She had a particular dislike for me.

"Liss Liss, the magicless," she sang, "she's the one that none'll miss". Her mother cackled next to her.

I never even knew what that meant, 'The one none'll miss'? She was so dumb.

"A bit like your singing then?" I replied.

I kept walking without acknowledging her further. I had already checked and reset my traps but decided to leave camp again anyway. I'd be out past curfew, but I didn't care now. It wouldn't be the first time I'd snuck home after dark. I knew how to handle myself alone in the dark woods. Still, I wasn't supposed to be out. They'd never make an exception for me, Liss the magicless…, and they would crack down hard if I were the one caught breaking curfew.

We were a forest magic clan. But I was the only person in my magic clan who wasn't magic, and no one knew why. For a while, when I was very young, they'd given me the benefit of the doubt and assumed I had undetectably weak magic. But the elders tested me and found no trace of magic. Some people have strong magic, and some have weaker magic, but to be entirely without magic… is unheard of. And people don't like it. Don't like me.

I looked down at my very not-magic hands while walking. I liked the calluses and various scars accumulated through hunting and hard work. But, of course, no one in camp appreciated that. I made fists, then opened my hands with palms up as if to summon a spell. I sighed and shoved my hands deep into my pockets.

I made my way through the woods back to my lookout. The path was slippery, but the clouds were thinning. It was too cold and wet for me to want to sit on my rock, so I sat in the little nook that had formed on the hillside under it. I pulled out my flask and sipped the warm mulled apple cider, thanks to mama. She'd known it would be cold today. I was too hard on her. My eyes drifted toward our Valley, where the spreading darkness wasn't just from the sinking sun. It was incredible how dense the dragons had grown in only a few days.

Dragons are ancient dark magic. Powerful. Magic is defeated with magic, but the clan would need their most potent spells against them, magic which could only be practised in the Valley, the one place we now could not be.

It's as if they knew.

The dragons hadn't grown there for at least one hundred years, long before my clan discovered how concentrated our magic was in the Valley and decided to settle there. We occasionally heard stories of dragons popping up in other provinces, and they were always a bad sign. The last time I heard of dragons growing was in Rowallan. It was one month before a new sickness arrived on a merchant ship; a third of the town died horrible deaths.

And the time before, dragons appeared only a couple of weeks before insects ate most of the crops in Begrana. They had a terrible winter. I was only a little girl then.

Some say the dragons merely respond to imminent death; others say they bring death.

Wrapping my cloak tighter around me, I pushed the dragons out of my mind. The sun would set soon, and I should get moving. I was close to camp when I spotted Sessly and her friends outside one of the tents. I stopped and stepped behind a tree before they could see me. Damn it. I was tired. I wanted my warm tent and a warm meal. The promise of food drifted from camp. But I was in no mood to deal with her right now. I changed direction and inexplicably headed into the Valley.

I again found myself at the edge of the field of dragons. The sun was setting fast, but the bottom of the Valley was darker and quieter than it should be. The increasing darkness revealed a faint red glow coming from the dragon flowers as they answered the dusk. I never knew they glowed like this. A red glow of death. And there was that smell I had noticed before. Like sulphur, but not quite. Something burnt. I thought I saw movement from the corner of my eye, and my head whipped around. Is someone watching me? I stared into the darkness, but there was only stillness.

I turned my gaze back to the dragons. It was almost as if they were looking back at me, beckoning to me. Were they… breathing? How ridiculous, Liss, don't be stupid. I shook my head. They're flowers. Flowers heavy with dark magic, but still flowers. Looking at them up close, they were beautiful. Disappointed, I wanted them to be ugly. I wrapped my arms around myself. The air seemed cooler than it should be. The woods around me were now in complete darkness, the red glow the only visible light. The trees were too thick and the dusk too dark to see my camp. Not even a moon tonight. But the red glow had a warmth to it. I moved one finger toward one of the dragon flowers. I stopped, hesitated, and then very lightly touched the flower. The petals felt thin and delicate, like the flowers they grow deliberately in gardens in the city, too frail to survive in nature. My finger left a ripple in it.

A slight tingle started at the tip of my finger and moved along my hand. I withdrew my hand and looked at my finger. The tingle stopped. No rash. I waited, just to make sure. I took a deep breath, my nostrils filled with pungent dragon odour, and I fought the urge to vomit. I reached out and put my hand around the flower and cradled it for a moment. The tingle was back. Now that I wasn't freaking out, the tingle was actually pleasant. Even the odour seemed sweeter. Sickly sweet. I pulled my hand back, the flower seemed to relax a little, and the tingle stopped. The palm of my hand had the same red glow as the flower. It was enchanting. I couldn't explain why, but I focused on the light, and it became brighter and formed a swirl in my palm. I gasped, jumped back from the flower, and shook my hand. I stared, unblinking, as the glow faded. This is impossible.

Then I did it again.

I let the swirl in my palm last a little longer, willing myself not to shake it off. It formed a glowing, spinning spiral. The glow felt warm. I felt stronger than I'd ever felt. My breathing quickened as I blinked away wetness. I clenched my fists and opened them palms up. They glowed even brighter than before.

Is this… magic?