“I did not say that all Daza should leave the Plains. Only the Stone Crown. Only you!” the red dragon said. “You have three days to leave the Plains, with that accursed thing on your forehead. Three days!”
“Three days or…?” I felt my anger leap up into my throat.
“If you are not gone from these lands in three days, I will have to ensure that you do not present a threat to my brood.” The Lady Red’s eyes flared a deeper blood-gold. It was clear what she meant. She would come for us – for me – with fire and tooth and with claw…
Oh, it was like that, was it? I thought. Well, I could easily show her who had the power to order others about! I opened my mouth, feeling the buzzing sensation rise in my ears and seep into my mind as the Stone Crown gave its power so easily to me—
“Nari! Little Sister!” It was Ymmen’s voice, now sounding faint as the noise in my head threatened to drown everything else out. He sounded so quiet and distant – but I could still hear him. Just.
“Nari! No – don’t use the power of the Crown!” he was saying, and I realized that I was shouting and hollering and wailing abuse at the red dragon, so consumed was I with rage.
“You stuck-up, outrageous, cowardly wyrm!” I was shouting, all pretense at diplomacy forgotten as I turned my ire towards the red. I fixed her burning eyes with my own, and I held her gaze, forcing her to see me. “Get out of here! How dare you tell me where I can and cannot live! Do you have any idea what I have been through to get here? What I have suffered for your kind!?”
“Little Sister!” A shadow eclipsed my vision, and I saw that it was Ymmen, springing lightly before me as the pony underneath me trembled and shook. I turned my ire towards him, daring him to knock me down or stand in my way—
“Breathe. Calm,” I heard Ymmen say in my mind, and his voice was as soft and as light as spider silk in the morning. It was also quiet, as if he were talking from a great, great distance to me.
I think it was that tenderness that I heard in his voice – not the previous bluster and frustration of a Bull Male dragon in his prime – that eroded my boundaries and eased my heart. I gasped and panted, feeling like my ribcage was constricting as the powerful emotions tore through me and evaporated, leaving behind them a buzzing tension headache that made me feel weak, wobbly, and ill.
“Narissea!?” It was Abioye, having dismounted from his own pony and now jogging across the darkening land to my side. He carefully put a hand out for my pony’s neck, calming her as he offered me a hand to dismount. I accepted through sheer exhaustion more than anything, and felt the young lord’s strong arms hold my own as I hit the dirt.
There was a hiss of reptilian voices and a reverberation through the ground as the red dragon heavily hopped and leapt into the sky, whipping her tail from one side to the other behind her. The red dragon was still incensed with anger, I could dimly feel – especially at my outburst – but she was too proud to stop and trade insults with a human. In the skies above, the storm of dragons swirled one more time, before they broke apart with hoots and calls that sounded almost mocking to me as they followed their Den Mother northwards.
The spectral glow that Montfre had laid upon Ymmen’s scales was fading now, and with it came in the shadows and glooms of the night. The sun had been setting during out confrontation, and I felt as though I was being plunged into a darkness so deep that there might not be a way to climb back out of it.
“Little Sister, you did well.” Ymmen lowered his snout over the pair of us humans, Abioye and me, to gently huff his sooty, frankincense breath over us.
“Well? Huh!” I lowered my head in shame. Everyone had been right after all. The power of the Stone Crown was too much. I couldn’t control it. It made me feel ugly emotions that I didn’t want to feel – anger, outrage, pride.
“But I am proud of you,” the great black dragon huffed gently over us, as Abioye wisely said nothing, just held me against his taller form. I had never realized how broad his shoulders were until now.
“You almost used the power of the Crown. But you didn’t.” Ymmen was congratulating me. But it was hard to accept his praise, as I could only remember how absolutely certain I had been that I would force the red dragon to feel shame, and to accept me as – what, her queen!?
“It’s getting dark,” I heard Naroba muttering, sounding annoyed. Which I couldn’t really blame her for now, could I? Because of my actions she had almost been thrown under a cloud of attacking dragons! I could only presume that Naroba was now only too happy for me to leave the Plains for good in three days’ time.
But Mother… I thought of my mother, somewhere out there and wandering the Plains in search of a little spiritual medicine for her broken heart. Naroba had told me how erratic my dear mother had become after I had been kidnapped for Inyene’s mines. My mother had her heart broken, and could no longer do anything but walk into the wild places alone.
I have to find her, I thought once again, as the first wracking sob coughed its way past my lungs.
But how can I find my mother now, after the red dragon’s challenge? I thought, as I felt the warm pat of Abioye’s hands between my shoulder blades. I didn’t know if the lord even understood what it was that I was going through, but he didn’t say anything as he waited for me to cry it out.
For a second, I had the wild intention to ignore the red dragon. To go searching for my mother anyway – and if she came back, then maybe I really would use the Stone Crown against her?
“Nari…” Ymmen’s careful, warning growl was louder this time.
No. He was right, after all, I sobbed. To do so would mean to make an enemy of all dragon-kind – and perhaps to even lose my only dragon-friend! I felt caught and compromised, and unable to decide a way forward. I couldn’t abandon my mother, and I couldn’t stay here and bring fire and destruction to any more of my people.
“Get it off!” I hissed, suddenly feeling the weight of the Stone Crown on my brow. I pushed myself away from Abioye, to see his large, worried and concerned eyes gleaming in the dark of the night. Past his shoulder, I could see the trudging, weary shapes of the Daza tribespeople and the Westerner guards, and Red Hounds. Our warband looked tired and stressed at everything that they had witnessed tonight – and I didn’t blame them at all!
“I don’t want it anymore!” I hissed, turning to hide my face from our warband, and my friends – and pretty much everyone. My fingers found the edge of where the cool stone met the skin of my temples, and I pushed as hard as I could.
Once again, the Stone Crown wouldn’t budge. Couldn’t budge. “Urgh!” I growled this time in frustration, this time scratching and pushing harder.
“Nari!” I could hear Tamin’s worried voice, coming towards me.
The Stone Crown wouldn’t move despite anything that I could do to it. I was half convinced that I should reach for my belt knife next – but then my god-Uncle’s old and weathered hands were calmly enfolding over mine. “I know,” he said, before repeating the words again and again, “I know, I know…”
Slowly, and unwillingly, I gave up my attempt and slowly lowered my shaking hands under my god-Uncle’s direction. The Stone Crown felt just as heavy and as solid as it had done before – as it had done the very first time that I had set it upon my head. The weird thing was, that the Stone Crown didn’t pinch or hurt, either – it just seemed to sit upon my head like any other hat or crown or helmet – only it just wouldn’t be moved, either.