The dragon roared.
Roan had never believed the rumors that Dragon’s Breath was guarded not only by a giant wall, but by dragons. Now he did.
Could this get any worse? Roan wondered, even as he peered over the exterior half of the wall. A thin stretch of land surrounded the wall. Enormous metal spikes rose up from the rock, each attached to thick linked chains secured to various parts of the dragon.
The dragon was a prisoner, too, forced to spend what remained of its life in this godsforsaken place.
Then things did, in fact, get worse. Much, much worse.
A second head rose up, opening its maw to reveal multiple layers of glistening black teeth. Roan couldn’t tell if it was three or four rows of fangs, and he wasn’t about to climb inside to count.
Something he’d heard echoed in the back of his mind, about how as dragons aged they grew additional heads, a fact that eventually drove them to madness.
Great, he thought. The empire sent the crazy dragons to guard Plague Island.
The second head roared, echoing the first. They were far too close together to have separate bodies. He followed their long sinewy necks down to where they connected to the same muscled torso. Four reptilian legs ended in razor-clawed feet.
Madness.
Roan began to run, although the effort would likely be fruitless. He felt more than heard the flapping of a set of magnificent wings, the displaced air buffeting him like a typhoon, nearly blowing him off the wall. He steadied himself and stopped to look back, immediately wishing he hadn’t. Heavy chains clanked as the two-headed dragon rose up, getting as high as the top of the wall before being yanked back by its tether, which groaned from the pressure. Four red eyes seemed to sizzle against the sky, smoke pluming from two sets of dark nostrils. The dragon was working itself up to something, and Roan suspected it involved him and breakfast.
A hopeful thought struck him, far too optimistic for the circumstances. If I can only get beyond the reach of the dragon’s chains…
He turned and bolted, gaining speed when the dragon released a war cry that seemed to cook the air around him. Sweat drained down his back and dripped from his nose and chin. Risking one more glance back, all he saw were two giant caverns filled with blade-like stalactites and stalagmites.
He dove, tumbling across the top of the wall, pain shooting through his leg. Dark scales brushed past, scraping the stone, which cracked under the immense force. The two heads rose up once more, staring down at him from above.
Warmth spread to the wound as he attempted to repair whatever injury he’d sustained. Beneath him, the wall rumbled, as if the earth itself was trying to tear the stone-and-mortar structure apart.
The red-eyed dragon unleashed the fires of hell, a wave of brilliant heat that washed over him like a tide. He screamed as the flames engulfed him, surrounded him, cooking his skin from both outside and in. The pain was beyond anything Roan had ever felt before, and yet he forced his body to react instantaneously, fighting back like it had against the plague, his tattooya pulsing.
For a moment the inferno reached a stalemate with his mark, but was then pushed back bit by bit as the dragon ran out of breath. Roan’s skin was scorched, sizzling like bacon on a spit, and he stared at it wondrously, trying to figure out how he was still breathing. On his chest, his mark was bursting with the light of angels through what was left of his burnt shirt—three leaves attached to a single stem. You bear the lifemark, his guardian had once told him. No one but his mother and his southern guardian ever knew about it, and they were both dead, taking his secret with them to their graves.
He looked down at his injured leg. A long bloody slash was etched from knee to ankle, tearing through his clothes. The blood was already drying, and his skin was knitting itself back together. Nearby, a dagger-like incisor lay, having broken from the dragon’s mouth when it narrowly missed ripping his leg off. Reaching over, he snatched up the black fang. It was oddly shaped and unwieldy, but it was the only weapon he had.
Only a moment or two was left before the dragons would attack again, and he wasn’t about to miss his chance. Though weariness threatened to overcome him, he pushed forward, scrabbling across the wall. He wouldn’t waste his mother’s sacrifice.
The dragon roared once more. Roan fought to his feet, moving as fast as he could, using the fang as a crutch whenever his legs faltered. The wall seemed to rise up as the dragon smashed into its side, crushing stone and mortar. Roan fell, clutching at rectangular blocks that were no longer attached to anything but empty air.
The wall caved in. Several man-sized stones whistled past, nearly bludgeoning him hard enough that even his tattooya wouldn’t be able to save him. But luck was with him, and the projectiles missed him by a hairsbreadth. In a strange twist of fate or luck or something else entirely, Roan landed atop the dragon’s back. He cried out in pain as the rough muscled skin made for a less than ideal landing, and yet better than the bare, unforgiving rocks below. Somehow he’d managed to hang onto the dragon’s tooth in the fall.
The dragon’s twin heads wavered above him, searching for their prey. They hadn’t felt him land, his miniscule presence no more than that of a gnat to the enormous beast. The wall continued to collapse, and Roan was forced to dodge large chunks of stone. Several small pieces pierced his back and shoulders, but he fought on, making his way toward the slope of the monster’s tail.
Without any other choice, he dove forward, beginning a slide toward the ocean that became steeper with each passing second. Halfway down he noticed another problem he hadn’t realized until after he’d decided on this unstoppable course of action:
The dragon’s tail ended in a barbed mess of spikes long enough to impale him from head to foot and still have room to spare. Better and better, he thought, attempting to maneuver his angle of approach to avoid the largest of the spikes.
One spike whipped past, then another. The third caught his shoulder, which flared with pain as blood poured from a long gap between flaps of skin.
And then he was airborne, having reached the end of the tail, which served as a ramp, launching him toward the glassy waters of Dragon Bay, more aptly named than Roan had ever realized until now.
The ocean, which seemed so inviting from the air, smashed into Roan with an icy punch. He plunged into its depths, stopped only when his body glanced off the rocky bottom. The water was clouded by his own blood, but Roan managed to hang onto the fang as it drifted toward the surface. The long, thin incisor was surprisingly buoyant, pulling him upwards, where the place where the water met the air appeared as a sheet of white crystalline light.
He broke the surface, spluttering, feeling the familiar warmth spread through his body, repairing the injury to his shoulder, as well as the battering he took on the underwater rocks. Throbbing aches subsided. Splintering pain disappeared.
Roan was once more pulled under by weariness, and it was all he could do to clutch the fang and hold on as the currents guided him away from the island. His eyes at half-mast, he looked back. There was a huge hole in the wall, and he could see ant-like forms clambering over rock and debris, seeking escape. Plague victims.
The two-headed dragon stood waiting to feast.
Further around the island, Roan saw that the beast wasn’t alone. Other multi-headed dragons pulled at their chains, the metallic smell of blood in the air. As one, they roared.
Roan’s eyes closed and he slept.
Roan was getting pretty tired of waking up feeling like he’d been in a war. Then again, the alternative—not waking up at all—was far worse.
The sky was different, somehow. Less bright, more gray. The temperature was odd too. He felt…cold, a sensation he had very little experience with. Tall grass and broad green ferns tickled his skin as he rocked back and forth against a mossy shore. Ghostly vapors seemed to chase each other across the dark waters.
He didn’t know how he’d managed to cling to the tooth while sleeping, but sure enough the obsidian fang was
stuffed beneath his armpits, his fingers knitted together around the incisor in the center of his chest, as if collected in prayer.
“Where am I?” He’d spoken the question aloud, although he’d meant to keep the thought in his own head. Even more surprising was the fact that he received an answer to his rhetorical question.
“The Barren Marshes, I’d say,” said a man’s voice.
Roan whipped his head around, seeking the source. A boat drifted past, several sets of oars dipping idly in the murky water. The boat appeared to be made of…metal, rather than wood like the seafaring vessels of the south. Roan found himself wondering how such a heavy craft would stay afloat.
Four stern-looking men sat inside the boat, while a fifth stood at the helm, balancing easily. He wore a gray chest plate, although his arms were bare. He was young, but strong-looking, his muscles as taut as thick shipping rope. He had a handsome face, clean-shaven and free of scars. He was the one who had spoken, an amused sparkle in his chestnut eyes.
Barren Marshes. Although Roan was no scholar of geography or maps, he was certain there were no marshlands in the burnt territories of the Southern Empire. Which meant he must be somewhere in the east. How could I have drifted so far? he wondered. But as he inspected the young man standing before him, he knew it must be true, for his armor bore the royal sigil of the Eastern Kingdom, twin crossed swords on a field of black.
“Who are you?” Roan managed to ask.
The young man laughed, pushing a hand through his reddish-brown hair. “Aye, that is a question that deserves an answer first. Halt.” As one, the four men churned their oars forwards, stopping the boat’s movement and angling it toward Roan.
“What answer?” Roan asked.
“A name for a name,” he said, extending an oar in Roan’s direction.
“Roan,” he said, eyeing the oar with mistrust. These were strangers, and foreigners at that. In this never ending time of war, surely they wouldn’t be particularly kind to a southerner.
“Roan With-Only-One-Name,” the young man said, laughing again. His laughter is infectious, Roan thought, but then just as quickly chided himself. The man pushed the oar closer, nodding at it.
With no other choice, Roan grabbed the tip, and allowed himself to be reeled in. While the young man, who was clearly the leader, watched, two of his men helped pull Roan inside, not unlike the manner in which a fisherman would land a particularly large fish. The leader bent down and scooped up the dragon’s tooth, holding it with both hands and examining it.
“This is a strange piece of driftwood,” he said.
It wasn’t a question, so Roan didn’t see reason to answer.
“What is your surname?” the man asked.
“You said a name for a name, not two names,” Roan said, delaying.
The man, who seemed unflappable, said, “No matter. I am Prince Gareth Ironclad, eldest son of King Oren Ironclad, known abroad as the Juggernaut. Which makes me the heir to the eastern throne.”
It took all of Roan’s effort to appear unsurprised. “If you’re a future king, then that’s a dragon’s tooth,” he said, gesturing to the object in Gareth Ironclad’s hands. He does look rather princely, he thought.
“I didn’t say I would be a future king, oh Waterlogged One,” Gareth said with a smirk. “Only that I am the heir to the throne. I plan on dying honorably in battle well before my father reaches death’s doorstep. One of my brothers are much more likely to inherit the east. And now, if I’m not mistaken, I’ve given you many names, so you owe me your last.”
Gods. Royalty. He wondered whether he’d escaped the skewer only to end up in the fire. “That’s a fine high horse you’re resting your royal arse on, Your Princeliness,” Roan said, “but I am known by nothing but Roan, and occasionally ‘Born From Dust’.”
Gareth’s smug expression faltered slightly, but he recovered quickly. “You would think someone relying on the kindness of strangers would be more well-mannered.” He turned toward his men. “He’s clearly no easterner. Bind him!”
Two of the men raised a rope, but Roan shoved them back. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I have come from Dragon’s Breath, and I have been through hellfire to get here.”
“Plague Island?” one of the men said, nearly tripping as he backed away. “He touched me. The diseased fellow touched me.” He looked stricken with fear.
Gareth, on the other hand, did not waver. “This man shows no signs of the plague. Rudeness, yes; disease, no.”
“I am strong, the toxins move slowly through my blood,” Roan said. “Now I’ll be on my way. You can keep the dragon’s tooth. I’m sure it will fetch a royal price.”
He started to climb over the side of the boat, but stopped when the prince said, “The only way you’ll survive is if you can outswim my arrow.”
When Roan looked back, Gareth had placed the tooth in the boat and nocked an arrow in his bow, pulling the bowstring taut. The bow itself was a work of art, sheathed in metal that curved gracefully at the top and bottom like it had grown that way, rather than been shaped.
Roan chewed his lip nonchalantly. “I’d hate to break a sweat, Your Highness. I’m not much for swimming, but luckily I have a less strenuous manner of escape.”
Before the prince realized what he was doing, Roan dove for his legs, hearing the twang of the bow and the whistle of the arrow as it whizzed overhead. Thrown off-balance, Gareth tripped over the side, entering the water with an impressive splash.
The other men cried in protest, but seemed loathe to get too close to Roan, still fearing the plague. Roan took advantage of the opportunity, diving off the opposite side, swimming desperately for shore. “After him!” he heard the prince cry.
Somewhere behind Roan, oars splashed into the water and creaked with the sound of rowing. He reached the marshy shore, grabbing a thick handful of grass to pull himself up. In moments he’d be gone, disappearing into the dense undergrowth. They’d never find him.
But it wasn’t meant to be. Just as he was about to plunge into the swamp, strong arms yanked him back, slamming Roan onto his back. A hammer rose above him and his eyes widened.
When it smashed into his skull, he saw stars and then nothing.
The nightmare was, in fact, a memory, one Roan had been forced to relive many times in the last eight years:
He was ten years old. His guardian, Markin, had gone out to buy food in the Calypsian marketplace. Young Roan was looking out the window at the children playing barefoot in the sand, their faces dusty and their long hair windswept. He longed to be out there with them, to join the game they were playing, where they kicked the leather sack through the barrels.
But he knew he could not. You are different, his guardian told him again and again. Each time the gray-skinned man said it, the words were pounded further and further into his head, like a tent spike driven into hard-packed dirt. “But why?” Roan always asked. “Just because of my pale skin?” “Not just that,” his guardian replied. “Your tattooya.” Roan still didn’t understand. He also didn’t understand why he couldn’t tell anyone about it. Why he was only allowed to use his talents for himself. “What you have inside you is dangerous,” Markin had told him. “Not everyone will understand it. There are those who will harm you if they know what you are, the power you possess. They will try to use you to save themselves, and then you will die.”
Roan wished he’d been born the same as everyone else. Maybe then he could play with the other children. Maybe then he could be happy.
One of the children kicked the sack in front of her, long dark hair trailing behind like royal streamers. Roan had seen her before, and he could never take his eyes off of her. She ran like the wind, outdistancing the defenders. She had an open lane to the barrel, and Roan found himself holding his breath in anticipation of her next kick.
Then he saw the last defender swooping in from the side, tall and muscular and older than the other children. Roan wanted to shout a warning from the window, but hi
s voice lodged in his throat like a whole walnut.
The girl didn’t see him coming, not until he crashed into her side, knocking the leather sack away. But Roan wasn’t watching where the sack went, his eyes locked on the girl, who flew into the air, her body twisting awkwardly. Strangely, after a full rotation, she landed on one foot, which buckled under her. She cried out in pain, her knee bending in the wrong direction.
Roan was already climbing from his window, sliding down the canvas awning that marked the front of his guardian’s home, dropping to the cracked, dusty landscape, and sprinting toward the girl. He hadn’t considered the alternative—doing nothing—which is what his guardian would’ve counselled.
When he reached her, she was clutching her leg and sobbing, tears painting lines in the layer of dust on her smooth cheeks. Most of the kids had continued playing their game, trying to reclaim the ball from the tall boy. However, one child—a boy—huddled around his fallen teammate.
Roan said, “Don’t worry,” and laid his hands on the girl’s leg. He felt heat rush through his body, emanating from a single white-hot point in his chest. The power flowed into the girl, who stopped crying, her eyes flashing open in surprise. Her leg kicked out once and made a popping sound, and then laid still once more.
“Slithering snakes,” the boy said.
“Thank you,” the girl said, her eyes wide. “But how?”
Roan reached out to touch her sweaty brow, to brush the hair from her eyes, but he was ripped away from her by a strong hand.
In that fateful moment, Markin had returned from the market, and he’d witnessed everything. “Come with me,” he growled. At first Roan thought he meant only him, but the girl and boy gathered themselves up and followed along obediently, perhaps stunned by the command in the large man’s voice.
“I’m sorry,” Roan pleaded. “I was only trying to help her.”
“You’ve risked everything,” was all Markin responded, ushering the three children inside.