I was lying on the floor, and my entire body shook and ached as if from a fever – but the only pain came from the pounding headache between my ears and the rushing noise inside of me.
“Nari, breathe deep. Calm!” Tamin’s face hovered into view, as he scrunched something dry between his hands, holding it up to my face. Sweet-grass, I thought. From the Plains. We used it as a restorative, and as a wash to clean wounds – my Uncle must have harvested some on our march back from the Shifting Sands. That felt like an age ago, but it made me remember where I was, where I had come from – who I was.
“I – I’m okay…” I whispered, my voice sounding croaky as I took another breath of the distant Daza and sank back into the world of the Stone Crown.
Ssssss! Again, came the rushing sound of a hundred different dragon voices, melding and merging into each other so that I could no longer tell where one dragon-song ended and another began.
‘Quiet! QUIET!’ a part of me said—
No. It wasn’t a part of me. I could feel that now. I could tell the difference.
‘Rise, child of the western wind! Rise to the glory destined for you!’ the voice exhorted me, sounding so close to my own voice, and so nested within my own pains and angers that it was – almost – a part of me. It was that constantly furious, prideful, greedy facet that came alive whenever I used the Stone Crown.
But I wasn’t her. I was Narissea of the Souda. I had never wanted glory. I had only wanted the free skies—
‘And that we can have! We can have all the skies! Every reach of the sun and the stars, the lands over, forever and ever and—’
We? I thought to myself, struggling to hold onto my own true thought as the pain buffeted and shook me. Why did I think ‘we’?
“Urgh…” My body let out a low moan of pain and discomfort. I had no idea if I could withstand much more of this… Would my body give up before my mind did? Would I be trapped down here, in the pain, in the dark? Trapped with – something – else?
‘This can all stop – all stop!’ that other, angrier me announced, but there was something that had given me space between my thoughts now. I remembered the smell of the Sweet-grass, I remembered the scratchy feel of Abioye’s stubble against my lips. These things were mine. They belonged to Narissea of the Souda, not anyone else…
And I, Narissea, did not want to command or control or rule over any dragons. I only ever wanted freedom. I only ever wanted to feel the Soussa winds on my face…
“Help me!” I cried out in the depths of the Stone Crown, and I felt as though I were flinging myself out into the fast-moving currents of a Plain’s river. I could see them now – the flickers of embers of a hundred-hundred dragon souls, each one a tiny bonfire that cradled its own light against the darkness. They swirled and moved and buzzed, and I knew that if I concentrated on but one, then I would be able to feel the rest of the dragon it was; its size and shape, its color, its history—
Red. Blue. Green. Orange, White, Brown and Gold and Bi-color and Tri-color and Black… Each ember of dragon soul was particular and unique. I could tell from the way that they flickered how each one was different…
Sea Dragons and Mountain Dragons. Cave Dragons and Earth Dragons. Crystal Dragons and Sand and Snow Dragons…
“There are so many of them!” I gasped, partly in delight, and also partly in an overwhelmed type of terror. How could one young woman from a small tribe of the Daza ever hope to hold them all in her mind!?
The Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Broods were here, even the miniature dragons that I now knew were called the Small Families, thanks to the power of the Stone Crown – and my bond… There were so many groups and nests and affiliations. I could even feel the smaller, less-bright but still strong bonds like golden threads that stretched from some of these dragon souls towards humans, even other animals. Bonds, I knew. I was feeling the dragon bonds like a multi-layered, multi-directional spiderweb stretching out in so many directions, all at once—
The wild dragons, the lone dragons, the slumbering dragons and even the First Brood…
How was this possible? I knew that there was only one of the First Brood left – and that was Fargal – and yet, somehow I could sense the dimmer, shadowy shapes of still others of their number standing beside them.
“The dead dragons,” came a much more familiar voice. It was Ymmen, and his dragon soul blazed strong and bright around me. Of course, I too was bonded, wasn’t I? I was never alone in this place…
“Please, dragons – help us!” I repeated into the net of dragon souls.
Sssss! The sound swelled around me, surrounding me with pain. But Ymmen’s hot soul was all around me, guarding me from their intrusion—
“Please, all dragons who can hear my voice – I am Narissea of the Daza, a child of the Western Wind – I mean you no harm! I am a dragon-friend and a friend to all true-hearted dragons!” I cried out, aware that my grasp on sanity was eroding. I could feel the panic rising through me like a geyser about to erupt…
“I am sorry! I am sorry for this vile Stone Crown! I am sorry for every hurt it has done to you –please, please, come help me put a stop to it!”
It would have been so easy to turn towards the Stone Crown in the face of such pain. To give myself over to the angry darkness of that ‘other’ me. If I wanted to, I could have commanded all of these many voices in their many and far-flung corners of the world to rush to my aid…
But I didn’t. I couldn’t, once I had seen and understood what it was that Fargal and Ymmen had been telling me. Once I had seen that radiant net of all dragon-kind, and all bonded-kind too, and even beheld the ghostly forms of all of those who had moved beyond… How under the stars could I treat them with anything but awe? How could I ever seek to enslave them, as I had once been enslaved?
“Daza woman.” One of the glittering, flaming sparks was growing larger as it approached my mind. It was a dragon voice, one whom I could tell was unbonded, and whom I knew already. It was the Lady Red.
“Daza woman. You dare to ask this of us? Of all of us!?” I felt the Lady Red breath fire and stamp her feet. Of course, I had no right to expect anything of them – of the Lady Red or of any dragon, especially after I had used the power of the Stone Crown before to fend off Inyene’s forces at the Masaka Pass. But this time I was asking, not telling – I had to hope that the dragons, too, honored that difference.
“Please…” I managed, but it was all I could do. I couldn’t hold on anymore, not during such pain, and not under such scorn—
I reached out with my mind towards the Lady Red as the pain grew too much to bear.
“Little Sister!” I heard Ymmen croak, distant and far away once more.
“Nari!” Another voice, a human voice this time that surely had to be Uncle, was trying to get through to me. But it was no good. I let go and felt myself plunging into darkness…
Chapter 21
The Metal Queen
“Little Sister! Little Sister!” There was a voice getting louder and closer coming towards me.