Mother of Destiny (Chapter 1)

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Erdri was having none of that nonsense.

For the last couple of years, the number of creatures that migrated into their once-peaceful glade had seemed to steadily increase. Many were simple nuisances, like the pack of pixies that had passed through the month before and entertained themselves by setting fire to patches of grass and scaring Erdri’s dahu. Or the river sirens who had nestled into the lake, and whose midnight serenades called sleeping villagers toward the water—and certain doom. Or, at least, it would have been certain doom, had sleepwalking villagers the wits to use a doorknob. Those who didn’t wake up and go back to bed were found slumped against their front doors, dreaming crude and wonderful dreams.

Others, however, were truly dangerous, and sought to make a meal out of the dahu herd Erdri tended. Like the direwolves that roamed the Valley at night. All too often, she’d have to pull herself out of bed—staff in one hand, lantern in the other—to drive away a pack of them. But they weren’t as bad as the wyverns that swooped down from the mountains for a delicious snack whenever the cliffside prey became scarce. They never landed, flying out of reach of Erdri’s staff, so only the rifle could scare them off. And a lucky shot, at that; Erdri had terrible aim.

But dragons? Dragons were new, and they were the final straw.

“We have got to get out of this Valley,” Erdri grunted. With a heave, she drove the fencepost into the ground, which squelched loudly. Last night’s rainstorm had been so great, even that morning’s blazing sunlight had yet to dry the soil completely.

“Sure, Ma,” Brelane scoffed. She was kneeling beside one of the dahu, scratching under its chin. The goatlike creature’s eyes were closed as it warbled gluttonously in approval. Behind it, several dozen other dahu galivanted around the pasture, baaing and chewing on grass. It was a wonder there were any left, with the gap the storm had made in the fence. But Erdri wasn’t one to look upon miracles without gratitude.

“I mean it this time,” Erdri huffed, grabbing another post from the pile and hefting it a few feet further down the line. “I really do. If it’s not direwolves, it’s wyverns. If it’s not pixies, it’s gremlins. It won’t be long before they’re not afraid of me and my staff anymore. And the rifle isn’t a permanent solution, not with Krepsley gouging me on the price of blazegrit—”

“He’s just mad you won’t—er… court him.”

She grimaced. “Ugh. I’d sooner have an orgy with the pixies.”

“Saints, Ma!” Brelane covered her ears, mortified.

Erdri drove another stake into the ground and smirked over at her daughter. The girl was so brilliant and kind that it was often easy to forget she was still only sixteen. It had been just the two of them since Brelane was born, but there were some things a teenager simply didn’t want to hear her mother say.

“Anyway,” Erdri said, wiping some sweat from her brow, “It’s not as if anything could penetrate a dragon’s scales, if they really have come to the Valley.”

“It’s probably just rumors,” Brelane said. “You know how the villagers get. Hermain claimed he milked one, and tried to sell it to me. But it was just old dahu milk. Still in the bottles you’d traded it to him in.”

Erdri snorted with laughter. “Still, this place is getting more and more dangerous, dragons or not. Maybe after this month’s market, we pack everything up and take the herd to the coast. Settle down there.” The suggestion was met with a long silence. Long enough for Erdri to make it all the way back to the pile of fencing materials before it was filled. “What do you think, Laney?”

“Or…”

The way Brelane didn’t protest to being called Laney made Erdri turn to face her. The girl was still kneeling next to the dahu, but she’d stopped petting and her eyes had settled somewhere past the creature. Erdri knew what was coming, and sighed before the words were even out of her daughter’s mouth.

“…we keep going past the coast—”

“Brelane...”

“Commission a ship and—”

“Absolutely not!”

Brelane shook her head. “Ma, in all my life, I’ve only ever seen four places: the Valley, the village, the coast, and the forest. Three and a half, with how few times you’ve let me come with you into the forest.”

“It’s dangerous. And there are many kids who’ve seen less than that, you know.”

Now it was Brelane’s turn to sigh. She stood and with a grandiose wave of her hand said, “Don’t you want to know what’s out there?”

“I know what’s out there.” Erdri picked up a hammer and nails and started attaching the fencing to the post. “Ocean. Vast, dangerous ocean.”

“But past that—”

“More ocean. And beyond that? Countries whose people don’t know the difference between warfare and glory.”

“Fine,” Brelane said, barely holding back the frustration in her voice. She moved to the other side of the fence and crouched in front of her mother, looking at her through the frame of wooden slats. Her eyes were pleading and hopeful—Saints, they were always so hopeful. Just like Rondo’s had been.

“Then we travel inland.” This prompted a derisive laugh from Erdri, but the girl spoke through it. “Past the mountain. Learn more about our own country than what’s in the Valley.”

“Inland!” Erdri scoffed. One of the nails bent, and she straightened it with the hammer before pounding it in and moving on to the last one. “And where do you think these monsters are coming from in the first place?”

“Let’s go find out!” Brelane stood and threw her hands in the air. “Maybe something’s causing all these creatures to come this way, and it’s putting a lot of people in danger. Maybe we could find it and… and…”

“And what?”

She let out an exasperated growl. “I don’t know! But I’ll never figure it out if I’m here.”

Erdri’s thumb caught a missed blow from her hammer, but she barely felt it. Brelane’s words had hit her harder. She’d sounded so much like Rondo.

Brelane had inherited so many things from her father. The blonde curls that bounced and swung with every gesture. Those eager, hungry green eyes. That slight and springy frame. And, worst of all, that unrivaled need to find something greater, something grander, than whatever they had in front of them. That one was newer, and it cut Erdri to the core.

Erdri hadn’t passed on much to her daughter. Not her long, dark hair. Not her larger stature, which had only grown more pronounced over the sixteen years spent maintaining herd and home. Not her cool, calculating eyes. In fact, sometimes it seemed that the only thing Brelane had gotten from her mother was her rather plain features—and even then, there was enough of Rondo in there that Erdri was sure she would become just as beautiful as he was in a couple more years. It was unfair enough that Brelane shared so little in common with the parent who’d raised her, but to have taken Rondo’s drive, his dream, when it was that very trait that had made him abandon them? Where was the justice in that?

Rondo had ventured off to seek his destiny. All he’d found was shipwreck and death. And by the Saints, there was no way Erdri would allow for Brelane to meet the same fate.

Erdri stood and stuck her throbbing thumb into her mouth, thankful for the excuse to gather her thoughts. Brelane was the one person she usually remembered to do that with. Most of the time, she’d speak too plainly and make trouble—hence the reason blazegrit had flown so far out of her budget. But she wasn’t the only one who recognized an opportunity and seized it.

“You can’t keep me here forever, Ma,” Brelane said, forcing her voice to soften.

The thumb left Erdri’s mouth with a quiet pop. “I don’t intend to.” She wondered if that was a lie. “I just—I just want you to be prepared first.”

“I can hold my own. You’ve trained me. And if we’re together—”

“And what the Depths do I know?!” Erdri flung her hammer to the ground, along with any thoughts she’d gathered. “How to beat away little beasties with a stick? I’ve only managed that due to dumb luck and a home field advantage, and out there we give up half that!”

At some point, she didn’t know when, Erdri had stepped forward and clutched her daughter’s shoulders. “You think you’re prepared? That you’re ready?” She shook her once, then again. Brelane’s curls bounced with each desperate jerk. “You know nothing. You know nothing because I know nothing!”

Erdri finally took in the look on Brelane’s face, the way she winced in pain and shock, and quickly released her. She took a few steps back. Her feet tangled in the pile of wood, and she stumbled slightly. As she righted herself, she took a few deep breaths.

“Ma…” Brelane murmured. She was rubbing at her shoulder, but beneath the distress in her eyes, Erdri could see an understanding that made her stomach twist. If Erdri’s mother had grabbed her like that, there would certainly be no soft-spoken empathy. Where had Brelane picked up such kindness? And why did she think that Erdri deserved it?

“You—We—” Erdri’s heart was calming, but she still fumbled over her words. “It’s just not the right time. I mean… what about the dahu? Who would watch the herd?”

As Erdri gestured toward the herd, she noticed something. One of those things you only notice when you’ve been watching the same batch of furballs for years on end: The herd had gotten smaller. Some were missing. Her eyes darted around, looking for some kind of beast, some predator that had snuck up on them—as she was sure they one day would. But there were none to be found. Instead, she caught a glimpse of two dahu tails disappearing into the forest.

“Like you were supposed to be,” Erdri sighed. “They must have gotten past while we were…” She trailed off; there was no need to revisit the subject when it was still so fresh.

“I’ll go get them,” Brelane said.

“No,” Erdri shook her head. She made her way over to the cottage and picked up the rifle that leaned against it. “You stay here and make sure no more get out. Finish fixing the fence, if you can.”

Brelane looked like she wanted to protest; once again, she was being told to stay put. But Erdri shut down any coming argument with a look that was more pleading than anything else. The girl pinched her lips together and nodded. Her mother picked up her staff from the grass and took a few steps toward the forest.

“You’re more capable than you think.”

Brelane’s words stopped Erdri in her tracks. Her jaw went slack, and tears pricked at her eyes. She whipped around to say something, to dispute the claim, to explain to Brelane how wrong she was. To tell her that her father had been the clever one, the brave one. To make her see that she was just doing the best she could with what she had.

But Brelane had already turned her attention to the fencepost, back to her mother, and was tapping away with the hammer. Any words Erdri could muster simply shriveled and died in her throat. She resumed her trek across the field.

Soon, the rustling of grass was replaced with the crunch of leaves and roots. The sunlight on her back blinked with more and more frequency as the ceiling of branches above her grew denser. Erdri thanked the Saints that the forest wasn’t dense enough to block out all light. That was just asking for the forest to be haunted, and the last thing they needed atop all their other troubles was a ghost or ghoul.

Erdri slung the rifle strap over her shoulder, letting the weapon hang from her back. She cupped a hand around her mouth and let out a loud warble—the closest facsimile to a dahu mating call she could get. If those horny little idiots were within earshot, it should get them to come running.

As she wandered through the trees, letting out the occasional squawk, the argument with her daughter pressed against her shoulders like a lead weight. Why had she snapped like that? That was more than just the stress of all these dragon rumors. More than the way a mother and daughter usually end up at odds. It wasn’t like this was the first time Brelane had brought up leaving. That was a natural part of growing up. And Erdri had been right: sixteen was too young to be thinking that way. Brelane wasn’t ready.

But the way she had sounded so much like Rondo...

Without even realizing, Brelane had said almost exactly what Rando had the night he left. When he’d told Erdri he was leaving to find his destiny, Erdri had asked what destiny could be out there for him. “I’m never going to find out if I’m stuck here with you.” It hadn’t been cruel, not spoken with spite. Merely a statement of fact. Erdri would simply hold him back, drag him down—and, by extension, so would the child they didn’t yet know they were going to have.

Brelane hadn’t said, “with you.” She’d even included Erdri in her adventure. But how long would it be until she, too, realized she was being held back? Maybe that’s what she was really worried about. Not the danger, but being left behind yet again by someone she loved.

Erdri shook her head. No, it was definitely the danger. She was sure of it. Not only that, but she was right the whole time. The girl was sixteen, and not ready for an adventure.

But in a couple of years, when Brelane was ready… would Erdri be able to let her go?

Erdri wandered into a small clearing, lost in memory. her foot caught a root. Erdri stumbled mid-call, and her squawk turned into a yelp. There was a hill of what looked like mud and other forest debris, which Erdri reached out for and managed to interrupt the imminent faceplant.

“You stupid fuzzballs!” she yelled, pushing away from the rough hillside. The dahu seemed as good a target as any for all the frustration roiling in her chest. Something in the debris must have cut her hand, as a large gash across her palm had started oozing red. She dropped her staff and put pressure on the wound. “Just get back here so I can go home!” She let loose with one more angry dahu-call.

The forest growled in return.

Not just growled, it rumbled. It started on her right, but soon the sound enveloped her completely. Amid the thunderous din, trees began to groan, branches snapping here and there. Something moved behind her—no, everything moved behind her. The world itself heaved and shook. Erdri turned to see the hill begin to unfold. It grew double—triple its size, until Erdri had to crane her neck back just to look up at it. Dirt and mud fell away from it, and she had to take several steps back to keep it all from getting in her eyes and mouth, which were both wide with astonishment and fear.

Silver scales shone from beneath the grime that remained, reflecting the sunlight into haunting rainbows. Something unfurled from the rest of the hill—long and snakelike, but as thick as a tree trunk. At its end, a long maw bared endless rows of pointed teeth. Above this were two horns, not unlike those of the dahu, but massive in size. Long enough to curl once or twice before reaching the point. And between those and the teeth were eyes of navy blue, like the ocean at night and just as deep.

It was a dragon. A real dragon. And Erdri was just standing in front of it, staring. She managed to gather just enough of her senses to shrug her rifle from her shoulder and take aim—for all the good it would do. Even if a shot could penetrate the scales, her shaking hands would guarantee it never met its mark. Still, it was better than her staff, which lay half-buried by the dirt at her feet.

The dragon blinked a few times. Its head swung left, then right, then finally downward toward her. That great maw opened, and the dragon... spoke? Growled? Roared? It was some combination of those three. It might have been the panic, but Erdri couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. Granted, she didn’t try very hard; she was too busy trying to convince her legs to carry her out of there.

Slowly, its head lowered, neck curving unnaturally, until it was eye level. Or, rather, as eye level as it could be. It had quite a long way to go to get to that point, after all. Its legs and belly were still buried in the earth, but the beast was almost as tall as the trees that surrounded them.

The cut on Erdri’s hand throbbed, but she barely noticed. Her whole body was shaking now. This was it, she was sure of it. This was how it all ended. The dragon opened its mouth again and drew in a long breath.

Sure that she was about to be roasted alive, Erdri’s instinct took over, and she squeezed the trigger. The shot echoed throughout the forest, almost as loud as the dragon’s emergence. Its breath was interrupted, and there was a flash as the iron ball ricocheted off the dragon’s nose. The dragon huffed a bit, blinked, then pulled a claw from beneath the earth to scratch at the spot the shot had hit. She had inconvenienced it, at most. Given it an itch. The dragon returned its gaze to her and drew in its breath once more.

Erdri dropped the rifle with a clatter and fell to her knees. Her legs had given up. What was the point? What could she do against a dragon? Even escape was hopeless. It would surpass her in two steps, if it needed to move at all. The dragon’s head lurched forward as it exhaled, and Erdri prepared herself for the dragonflame to consume her.

Dragonflame that never came. The dragon’s breath was hot, but it was just that: breath. It washed over her, into her. Invaded her nose and mouth, made her ears pop. Erdri didn’t die. In fact, she felt quite good. Energized, like she’d just woken from the best sleep of her life. Her cut didn’t even hurt anymore. More than that, it was gone completely.

“What the...?” she breathed, staring down at her hands in bewilderment.

“Ah, there we are!” exclaimed a booming voice above her. “Sorry about that. Been a few centuries since I’ve had to deal with humans. Forgot you little folk can’t understand us without the dragonbreath.”

The dragon was speaking to her. The dragon—was speaking—to her!

Erdri wanted to scream. She wanted to run away. She wanted to pray to all the Saints for forgiveness for whatever terrible thing she’d done to be put in this situation. But Erdri couldn’t do any of that.

All Erdri could do was let out a very eloquent “Whaaa—?!”

“Yes, yes, it’s all most bewildering, I’m sure,” the dragon said. Clearly he had done this before, and the rust was coming off. “Now, before you panic and run off babbling and screaming, I have two questions for you. Yes?”

Erdri nodded, though she could barely comprehend what was happening. The dragon’s voice was a prim and proper baritone. He reminded her of her headmaster, back in the few years she’d spent at the academy with Rondo. The type of fellow who always sported a bushy mustache and wore his spectacles too far down his nose.

“Excellent. First, will you please stop making that squawking sound. I’ve been hearing it since you first came into the forest, and it is absolutely the worst.”

The dahu call. It hated the dahu call. Did she... have something in common with a dragon?

“Sorry,” she muttered, finding one word in the slurry that was her mind.

“Very good,” the dragon nodded. “Second, could you tell me where I may find the Chosen?”

Erdri’s brow furrowed. “C-Chosen?”

“Indeed! The Seal has weakened, and only the dragons’ Chosen may restore its strength.” The dragon puffed with pride, and in the back of Erdri’s mind she pictured the headmaster’s mustache bristling whenever he smiled.

“Sorry, I don’t...”

“Ah, yes, of course. Much of this is likely beyond your simple human mind.” The dragon chuckled and shook its massive head. “Simply point me in the direction of Brelane Adair. Her destiny awaits!”