Her horns had grown forks and the sharp scythe on her tail, which would be as long as a person was tall once fully grown, was already several feet long.
As they sat in the garden and watched the dragons take to the air, Kalai couldn’t help a sting of anxiousness. So much time had passed, and they’d gotten nothing done. “How is the Eldest?” Kalai asked Jinhai, who accepted a glass of water from Kalai.
Tauran raised his head, glancing between them, then returned his attention to cleaning Arrow’s saddle straps draped across his thighs.
Jinhai tapped his fingers against the glass, pursing his lips. “Not well. She isn’t recovering.” He dropped into the seat beside Tauran. “They don’t want to tell us much, because they don’t want us to be distracted from our studies, but I get the sense she’s getting worse.”
Kalai sighed softly. “If we can’t get her help to call Ibi-shao, we’ll have to find another way.”
“How? I’ve never seen Ibi-shao come anywhere near the town.”
“I don’t know,” Kalai said. “But there has to be a way. We’ve already wasted so much time.”
“One of the masters said he’d seen Kykarosi dragon riders in the distance,” Jinhai said. “Told us that if we see them, too, we must try to call the wild dragons away.”
“Good,” Kalai said, gaze drifting to the dragons twisting playfully in the air.
“Are they really bad people?” Jinhai asked quietly.
Kalai hesitated. “Not all of them.” He glanced at Tauran, who was watching their interaction. “But they’re being led by a bad man. They have to do his bidding, even if they don’t want to.”
Jinhai squared his jaw. “That sounds horrible.”
Kalai sighed softly. It was horrible. Even if they managed to send the wild dragons somewhere safe, Falka would still be in power. Tauran’s friends, the young recruits and all their dragons would still be subjected to his tyranny. Kalai could tell by the hard set to Tauran’s jaw that it bothered him, too. Even if he didn’t speak of it.
* * *
“The Eldest passed away this morning,” Kalai said.
Tauran looked up from his Sharoani scrawlings. Kalai stood in the doorway, Jinhai a few feet behind him with his arms wrapped around himself and his head bowed.
“Shit,” Tauran murmured. He rose from the dining room chair and went to Kalai.
“I had so hoped this would work out.” The sadness in Kalai’s voice was profound.
Tauran wrapped an arm around him, opening the other to Jinhai. Jinhai raised his head, looking stunned for a moment before stepping into Tauran’s embrace. Jinhai clung to him.
It was difficult not to be disappointed. It seemed every time they took a step forward, they were pushed right back.
“The funeral is at sundown,” Kalai said.
“That soon?” Tauran released them.
Kalai nodded. “They will feed her body to the dragons. They can’t let the meat spoil.”
Tauran raised an eyebrow. It sounded gruesome, but Tauran supposed it wouldn’t be a bad way to leave the world. “What happens then?”
“They’ll elect a new Eldest within the week,” Kalai said. “But they’ll be a stranger to Ibi-shao. The bond can take months or years to build.”
They crowded around the small table and talked. They couldn’t attend the funeral. It was held at the top of the mountain, too high for Kalai to go. As the shadows grew longer, Jinhai returned to the mountain. Kalai went for a flight with Arrow, the first since he’d fallen ill, and Tauran wished more than anything that he, too, could bask in the open sky for just a few minutes. Iako did her best to convince Kalai to stay on the ground, but Tauran talked her into letting him fly, so long as Kalai promised to stay low and not stray far. Iako inspected the saddle and Kalai’s flight harness with a critical eye and relented, and the gratitude on Kalai’s face was enough to lighten Tauran’s mood at least a fraction.
As the sun sank low, they climbed the shed roof to watch the lights at the top of the mountain. Tauran watched the sky. As morbid as it was, the Eldest’s death brought with it a slim chance that Ibi-shao might show. But it didn’t take long for his gaze to drift to Kalai, even with all the colors of the brilliant sunset around him.
“I’ve been thinking…” Evening shadows highlighted the sharp angles of Kalai’s jaw when he spoke.
“Hmm?”
“It takes two dragons to make an egg.” Kalai smiled a little. “Which means there has to be another wild titan somewhere out there.