tumbled to the small of her back, as she tried to make sense of the day which had been. One question troubled her above all others. Best blurt it out before it burned a hole through her tongue.
“Grandion, did you murder that child?”
The Tourmaline Dragon heaved a sigh that raised such a gust, it almost snuffed out their campfire. “Must you ask?”
Hualiama wished she did not always feel she had to walk the narrow edge of her fears with him. In a small voice, she said, “Please. I must know.”
Grandion said, “That was the moment, Lia, when I realised matters had gone too far. Others had warned me. Would I listen? We stalked a child on Ya’arriol Island. I lay in wait in the densest part of the jungle, concealed, and she skipped right into my paw as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Singing, as you do.”
“Seeing me, she screamed.” Grandion’s digits curled as if he could still feel the child there, her heart fluttering in mortal terror; Lia could imagine the scene all too vividly. “Her eyes were wide, petrified, and so blue–like the child I remembered. Delicate, she quivered in my paw. Alive. A tiny fledgling, innocent of any wrongdoing. All of my murderous thoughts crashed in on me. I saw … the evil … and I asked myself, what had she done to deserve this? I was a hatchling killer, an egg stealer–not yet in deed, but certainly in my hearts. Most certainly in the dark fires of my Dragon hearts.”
Lia said, “Yet there is good in you, Grandion. You showed me mercy.”
“Aye. And I burned you.”
“You were feral.”
Grandion’s chuckle occupied a melancholy tomb beneath an Island-mountain of heavy thoughts. “Here we sit, Hualiama, representing the two great races of the Island-World. Human and Dragon. One young and vital, the other ancient and noble. Yet we Dragons have lost much. It is said we travelled from the stars. What calamity drove us hence? Have you ever asked yourself that? And what is nobility, if not a choice–not a birthright, as many Dragons believe, but the actions and choices of an honourable heart? Protect the innocent. Nurture the little ones. Stand against evil in all its forms. We must in all our deeds, exhibit integrity. We Dragons are the apex predators of this Island-World, for who dares hunt a Dragon? All the more, therefore, are these things asked–nay, demanded–of us.”
“Please, Grandion, tell me what happened to the child.”
His muzzle curved around until his lower jaw lay almost in the fire, and both of his eyes fixed on Lia. Though her question was plaintive, a tiny giggle suddenly escaped her lips.
“And what’s that giggle for, you green-eyed imp?” demanded the Dragon.
“I was just imagining what it might be like to have a neck like yours. I could look completely backward.”
“I see that Humans excel at barbed compliments, just like Dragons,” he smiled. “Well, let me put your mind at rest. I hid the girl in the leaves and bade her be as still as a mouse. When Yulgaz and Ra’aba arrived I attacked them and lured them away. That Human hatchling lives, as best I know. The Dragons chased me to Ha’athior Island, and the rest you know.”
“Ra’aba?” Lia echoed.
“Razzior. I said Razzior.”
“No you didn’t, I clearly …” Some unknown, poisonous quality in Grandion’s gaze corked the words in her throat. A soul-lost feeling swept over her, an awareness that if she pressed the point, the Dragon might tip over the edge of sanity. “I misheard.”
Flicker’s mouth was catching flies. He fidgeted with the splint on his ankle; Hualiama told him off sternly, while her thoughts raced off over the Cloudlands. No, it was an honest mistake–it had to be. Dragons could not be Humans, could they? Besides the impossibility of mixing Human seed with Dragon, the very idea was repugnant and physically unfeasible. Perhaps Dragons could change shape? But nothing in all the volumes of Dragon lore she had ever read, even hinted at the possibility. The engineer in her knew without a shadow of a doubt that the sheer size and physical volume of a Dragon could never be compressed down into Human size. Matter did not vanish into nonexistence, only to reappear. Magic itself operated according to laws similar to the physical realm. It did not arise from nothing–nothing arose from nothing! Magic existed intrinsically in the very substance of the world.
Just before he attacked her, Hualiama remembered thinking how strongly