a long, frustrated hiss. Great. Could Inniora or Flicker not have warned her?
When, groaning and quivering, Hualiama had forced herself to complete her twenty-eighth repetition, she dropped to the sandy cavern floor and accepted a cloth from Inniora to mop herself down. They knelt, attentive to the Master’s words.
“I’m sorry, zephyr,” he said, unexpectedly mournful. “I’ve been too preoccupied with trying to work out how to train you. You see, I’m a Master, but I am no master of Nuyallith. All I remember is the hours I spent watching my great-grandfather training here, in this very chamber, and trying to copy him. But thus far, our experiments have failed. You could polish your patience. What chews at the roots of your Island?”
“Minor things,” she said absently, fixated on what he held in his hands. “Ra’aba, the prophecy, my family’s fate, the inexplicable stirrings of my magic, and the Tourmaline Dragon’s misfortune …”
“Aye, such a pawful even an Ancient Dragon should struggle to hold.”
“Aye,” whispered Lia. “Those blades, Master … I feel them.”
Kneeling with considerable difficulty, the Master placed his burden on the ground between them. Two slightly curved blades, each just over three feet long, nestled beside each other in a double scabbard of an unfamiliar style–Lia noted plain leather and straps meant to hold the slender scabbards not upon one’s belt, but upon the back. The swords were unadorned, yet the craftsmanship of what she could see was exquisite. But it was their nature that made her heart gallop into her throat. It was as if the swords pulsed with an inner energy, yearning to spring free of their confinement, to sing in the wielder’s hands with a wild, lethal song.
“Tomorrow, you will start dancing with reeds,” said Khoyal. “But today, Hualiama of Fra’anior, I offer you these Nuyallith blades. They belonged to my great-grandfather. I would be greatly honoured if you were to accept them.”
“I am not worthy, Master.”
“Not ready,” he corrected. “Draw the blades–just a few inches will suffice.”
Reaching out, she grasped the two hilts as though expecting a shock, but there was none. The swords voiced a silky, metallic song as they slipped out of the scabbards. The blades were perfect, inscribed with a runic script that ran down the centre channel. The strangely dark blade in her left hand exhibited a slight sheen of blue, the right a ruddy hint, as though a living flame indwelled the metal.
“It is said that these blades were forged from the pure ore of a meteorite,” said Master Khoyal. “The metal is incredibly light and flexible, yet the blades hold their edge like no other. Seventy years on, you can still shave with these. Strangest of all, is what my great-grandfather told me of their forging. Can you sense it?”
Lia said, “It’s impossible. Metal cannot hold magic.”
“He said these blades were forged in a flame hotter than any furnace.”
“Dragon fire,” she said.
“Aye, zephyr. Forged in Dragon fire.”
Chapter 15: Dragon Grave
THE LOWERING SUNS slipped between layers of cloud, splashing rose highlights across the Cloudlands and enflaming the underside of the cloud cover overhead. Hualiama and Ja’al stood at the edge of the chasm. Lava seethed below. Hundreds of dragonets played in the dense bushes nearby, darting about with squeals of excitement as they chased their buzzing, crawling or fluttering dinner. Flicker’s hearts tripped along. How he wished to join his brothers and sisters! But his task was clear, and his purpose exalted. The trivial complaints of an empty stomach could wait.
The monk laughed apprehensively as he laid one hand on Lia’s vine rope swing. “So, this is your secret, Hualiama? This is how you stole into our monastery?”
She shook her head, golden glints of amusement dancing in her eyes. “Ja’al, you’ve all the patience of a rajal kitten mewling for milk.”
“Do you know what my lovely brother Hua’gon thinks of this venture?”
“Spare me.”
Flicker purred contentedly. His Lia still liked to show her teeth to the monk, and the monk still regarded her as though he wished to bathe in her fires. What did those silly vows serve, but to keep a female from a suitable mate?
Swinging across the chasm, Lia landed lithely on the far side. She swung the vine back for Ja’al, calling, “Come on, slow-slug.”
“This is the bit where the Dragons kill me, right?”
Remember the Great Dragon’s words, straw-head,, said Flicker.
With a crazed grin playing about his lips, the monk launched himself into space. In seconds, he gripped Hualiama’s left wrist and allowed her to assist his landing.