Page 93 of Spellcast
I decide to press for more details. “What happened out there...exactly?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing new. Two armies killing each other. As they do.”
I take a bite of my bread, hungry to know more. “Do you know who they were? Where they were from?”
“The soldiers from Veturland were coming south, trying a new route apparently. They’ve never been this close to our cave before. They clashed with warriors from the Borderlands, if their armor and the colors they carried were any indication.”
“Lord Dryhten’s army?” I ask, hoping he prevailed.
“I don’t know if he led the warriors, but they carried his colors.”He shrugs as though it matters not at all to him where the armies came from. “One human is much the same as another. I’ve seen brutality from both sides.”
I stare at him intently, my stomach churning. “AmIthe same as any other human?” The question escapes me before I can consider his answer might not be one that I want to hear.
He stops chewing and looks at me a long moment. “You’re something...else.”
I swallow hard. Looking away, I stir my spoon idly around the stew. “Your guest, right?” I quickly supply the answer, too afraid for him to elaborate on what he might mean—or not mean.
After a long moment, he agrees with a slow nod. “A guest.”
We resume eating. After a while, I ask, “Does that happen often? Soldiers from Veturland cutting through the Crags, encroaching south?”
It’s a human matter, but I’m human. Penterra is at war with itself. The north battling the south. Invasion from Veturland would only weaken the north further, and Henrik and Meya and the children live in the north. Of course I care.
“Been happening as long as I can remember. Even before I left the skelm.”
I think about that, about the boy he had been. Lost and alone...even more than me. He couldn’t sit in a room with other people like I did, listening to their conversations, pretending to belong to their world. “As bad as they were, it must have been hard...leaving the only home you ever knew.”
“Easiest decision I ever made. I don’t remember my parents. I had no real family. The alpha, Kaldr, found me just as he had found most of us. We were all born to the dragons of old.”
I shake my head in confusion. “Dragons of old...”
“The original pure dragons, the last remaining after the Threshing. They gave birth to us, but we were born human. At least outwardly. We were not true hatchlings.” He waved a hand as though dismissing a complicated story. “We were aberrations, the products of a curse...the shadow witch, Vala—”
“I read about her. There was a book in the schoolhouse. It had an illustration of her.”
He nods. “Yes, well she cast a curse on dragonkind for the old king, to appease him and end the war between dragonkind and humans...with humans the victors, of course.” His tone took on a bitter edge. “Kaldr only wants vengeance. He collected me, all of us, to build a pride.”
“The way you’re building a pride?”
“Not the same way, no.” He shook his head decisively. “I’m nothing like Kaldr. He wants to kill as many humans as possible. That is his mission. I won’t do that. I won’t have a pride like his.” His jaw clenches, and I know he must be thinking about Cyphus and how abysmally he treated me in his absence. If not for Tage and his innate decency, his pride could easily fall into the same habits as the skelm. “Whatever curse created us, it is for us to decide how we live.”
I turn that over in my mind, thinking about how big and scary the world is beyond Isstad. So big and scary that it came for Isstad, devoured it, crushed it, and all those within it.
I’d so badly wanted to be a part of the world beyond Isstad. Perhaps naively. Now I am part of that bigger world, and it equally terrifies and...exhilarates me.
“This is the first time I’ve ever been away from home.” I wince, realizing I speak of this as a vacation...a trip to a neighboring city, perhaps a seaside town where we might go for a sail, and a home is still there, waiting for me to return.
He considers me, his expression unreadable. “Did you never want to leave?”
A rough laugh, short and harsh escapes me. “I wanted to leave so much and so badly that I threw it all away.” I tossed my whole life away—Da and Jens and Henrik and Meya and my friends. An ache builds in my chest as the truth of that settles over me in a crushing weight. I bow my head, suddenly intensely fascinated with the contents of my bowl.
“Everybody must go out into the world. That is normal, is it not? Even among humans?”
I nod jerkily and breathe through the sorrow, the guilt.
He points to my mug. “Drink the verdaberry tea. It will help heal you.”
I take a sip. “So we have both been cursed by a witch.”
