To Risk It All

“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Once upon a time it was a kingdom of elves, beautiful, elegant. Now look at it. Nothing but a place of ruin.”

Kea hummed and leaned around her rock. The ruins of the so-called ‘kingdom of elves’ spread out before her. Whatever buildings had stood there had long since turned to rubble. Piles of rocks stood like tombstones, weather beaten and scored deep with claw marks. There were a few curves that might have suggested some sort of structure before. Now it was a wasteland of scrub grass and climbing vines, the occasional adventurous tree pushing out between the rocks. Nothing.

Well, nothing but the dragons above.

She ducked back behind her rock. The shadows swallowed her. Safe, unseen. For now, at least. She certainly had the time to send a query to Tanyel.

The fae answered almost immediately. Her voice reverberated through Kea’s mind. Old, that aristocratic lilt drawn out and slow, with just enough frost to make her anger clear. “It has been a long time since I lived here. Things have changed.”

Obviously.

Kea let out a faint breath, then pushed slightly off the rocks. She kept her voice barely more than a hush. “Yeah, well, please don’t take this as a good time to take over. I want a quick thing. In and out, no dragons alerted. You can go on a vengeance rampage against some training dummies later.”

Discontent stirred under Kea’s skin. Anger, disagreement. As many upsides came with sharing brain space with an ancient fae – magic and knowledge being only two – there were downsides as well. Tanyel’s long kept anger was one of them. She had once lived in this valley. She had ruled as queen, and when the dragons came, she died defending them from the dragons’ influence. Even after death, it hadn’t turned out well for her, raised by a necromancer and now stuck in the body of a half-elven sellsword.

But the anger was something Kea knew how to manage. She gently pushed it away to deal with later. There was no time to focus on Tanyel’s rage. They had an egg to steal, and that meant stealth, which meant no outbursts. And that meant no magic. Her magic was always finicky when Tanyel wasn’t happy with something.

Kea reached back and pulled her hair up, out of its normal long ponytail and twisted into a bun at the base of her neck. There wasn’t much she could do about her armor – pretty and shiny, because she was a sucker for pretty, shiny things – but the cloak that she had grabbed would hopefully be enough. Her short sword sat on one hip. Her crossbow was on her back, the quiver of bolts attached to her belt. A dagger pressed against her thigh where her boot held it snug. Tanyel’s long sword rested wherever she put it when Kea wasn’t using it.

That was everything. The extent of her preparations. Kea took a breath, let it out slowly. She knelt down. Her fingers brushed the ground, running over the gravel and dirt. The grit scrapped against her skin. Her eyes narrowed. She slowed down her breathing, until she could barely hear it leave her lips.

A shadow passed overhead. It couldn’t have been a cloud; it was gone too fast. She didn’t risk looking up, just waited. One second, two, three, four. Now. She lunged forwards, and her feet dug into the dirt, propelled her onwards. She stayed low to the ground, made towards another pillar, closer to her target. A second later, she was skidding behind it, back pressed against its surface and mostly hidden by the bush that claimed it’s right.

Her heart pounded in her chest, too loud, too loud. A breeze stirred, tossing tendrils of hair across her sweat soaked forehead. Her fingers pressed against stone, smoother than she had expected. Slowly, she shifted to peek through the branches of her bush.

There, half hidden now instead of fully hidden, was her target. A nest made of stone welded together by melted gold. Silk draped over the edges of the basin, obviously lining the inside of the bowl. Inside would be a brood of eggs, anywhere from three to four of the expensive, valuable things. Only a fool would dare rob a nest like this in broad daylight. Either a fool, or someone desperate.

Kea didn’t pride herself on being a fool, but she certainly checked off the second category. Still, she didn’t move. Her heart had found its way into her throat again. One hand rested light upon her short sword. The other wrapped tight around the branches of her bush. It was an effort to keep her breathing even.

A dragon was tending to this nest.

As dragons went, it wasn't overly large, roughly the size of the average house. Still, it dwarfed Kea. The sunlight played over the wash of blue scales. The horns shone bone pale, jutting out at odd angles and framing the face in a spiny mane. It crooned over the nest, nudging the inhabitants in with its nose, before settling in around it. Yellow eyes scanned the area, watchful, waiting.

Kea jerked back behind her rock, away from the fragile protection of her bush. Her breath stuck in the back of her throat. Her eyes squeezed shut, waiting, waiting. Silence tickled at her pricked ears. One breath, two. Nothing. It hadn’t spotted her. Good.

By all rights, she should abandon this nest. Stealing from a nest while a dragon was there was asking for a belly full of fire aimed towards her face. It would be stupid. Yet she couldn’t go further into the Valley. That would just be begging for more trouble on top of what was already layered on her plate. One dragon was enough for her, thank you.

But it did mean she wasn’t getting an egg without distracting it. She’d have to use her magic, even with the possibility it would backfire. And that meant seeing if Tanyel would be cooperative. Hopefully she would sense the danger and play nice. With that hope at the forefront of her thoughts, Kea gave her a little nudge.

Tanyel stirred, slow. Her power roiled under Kea’s skin in a wash of cold prickles. “I thought you didn’t need me.” She murmured, and her voice was ice, so cold Kea’s brain felt like it was freezing.

She flinched away at that feeling, then tipped her head around the bolder. The plan had changed. She needed a distraction. An illusion would do quite nicely, something like prey, or an intruder. It would just have to capture the dragon’s attention for a few minutes, just long enough for Kea to grab the egg and get out of dodge.

For a second, Tanyel didn’t answer. The sun beat down on Kea in thin strips and spots wherever the shadows of her rock and bush couldn’t protect her. Her shirt clung sticky to her skin. Each breath shifted her leather armor. She half expected her sword to bang against the rock for the faint breeze that pushed at her.

“Very well.”

Tanyel’s agreement was a rush of cold air across Kea’s back. She closed her eyes and let out a faint breath, resting her head against the rock. Her mouth shaped the words ‘thank you’. Tanyel didn’t deign to answer. Her magic rolled through Kea in a slow, frigid wave. The hairs on her arms lifted. The tips of her fingers went numb.

Once again, she shifted so that the dragon became visible through the web of branches. It hadn’t moved. Still it curled around its nest, a gleaming surface of scales and spines. Those eyes fixed watchful on the gaps between rocks. Waiting. Guarding.

Kea’s hands lifted. Her lips moved, numb, the words that fell from them silent to her ears. Her hands moved through the air, trailing the faintest haze of blue and purple behind them. The lines formed patterns she didn’t know, looping and knotting into a symbol that hung there before being destroyed by the breeze. The cold that had infused Kea’s limbs began to thaw. Tanyel’s power resided. Pins and needles followed it, and Kea shook her hands free of the pain as she waited.

Rocks clattered and clacked against one another in a skid. The dragon’s head jerked up, pupils red slits, gaze focused on where the noise had come from. Another shift of pebbles. Someone's breath, loud in the sudden silence. The dragon began to lift itself away from the nest. It was a sinuous movement, slow. For a wild second, nobody moved.

Then something bolted out from behind one of the rocks. It was human sized, a dark, fleeting shape. Each step sent it skidding across dirt and rock in its mad scramble for freedom. The edges of its cloak fluttered behind it like the wings of a broken bird.

The dragon lunged, a thing of barely identified movement and a rush of blue scales. It was far faster than the fleeing figure. Still, it was unable to catch up. The form managed to stay right outside of snapping range. Red began to tinge the undersides of its belly, light glowing and spilling out from beneath the scales.

“NOW!”

Kea didn’t need Tanyel’s warning. She was already moving. Two steps and she was around the bush. The third took her forwards, towards the nest. The ground seemed to rumble from where the dragon chased the illusion. It made running trickier than it already was. Her stomach sloshed from side to side with every step.

The nest loomed above her, too tall to jump over and in. She’d have to climb. Her next steps were quicker, and she used them to launch as high as she could. She hit the side of the nest hard. Her hands scraped against rock. Her knee jarred against stone, her poleyn scraping across it with that high, shrill sound of metal. She could only hope the dragon’s roars had covered it. Wincing in pain, Kea hauled herself up, hand over hand, feet digging into the few purchases the nest gave her.

Gasping, she hauled herself onto the lip of the nest. Her arms shook. Her hair stuck to her forehead and strangled down before her eyes in thin, white strands. All she could hear was the pounding of her heart and the rasping of her breath. She whipped her forehead once quickly, then swung her legs over the edge, fingers digging into the stone as she gazed down at her prize.

As she’d thought, the nest was full of silk. But that wasn’t the only fabric used to adorn and soften its curves. The dragon had used fur too – a lot of it. It lay in varying clumps, the colors bleeding together until it was a patchwork carpet of animal fur. And nestled in it sat the eggs. They were larger than Kea had been expecting. Smooth ovals of cerulean blue, small swirls of lighter colors drifting through them. Just as beautiful and expensive as any gemstone, with just a bit more danger attached.

Kea closed her eyes and let loose a soft breath. It left her in a whistle. She slipped off the lip with it. Her knees bent with the impact, the furs absorbing her fall. Her hands reached up to unclip her cloak. She moved to the closest egg and sank to her knees. Within a second, she had swallowed up that blue with the dingy fabric. She wrapped it up tight and then twisted the edges of the cloak, clasping them at her shoulder in a makeshift sling.

That was the hard part over with. All she had to do was escape.

Kea stood with a sigh. Shadow fell across her. Steam rushed hot against her hair, rustling the strands and pulling more from her bun.

She froze.

Something dripped and splattered against one of the eggs. It hung there, gleaming, before it ran down the side to soak into the furs.

Slowly, Kea looked up.

To where the dragon waited for her. Its jaws hung open, and strings of saliva roped between its teeth. The flesh of its mouth and the slope of its tongue were a purple shadow against the brilliant scales that lined it. In the shadows of its brow, the eyes burned like embers. Its breath rustled against Kea’s hair, hot and moist, fighting with Tanyel’s frigid anger for control.

“Shit,” she breathed.

The dragon descended. It was lightning fast, maw snapping down to bite her in half. Kea barely tossed herself away in time. She scrambled across the blankets and furs in desperate escape. The walls of the nest stretched above her, all the rough surfaces hidden behind soft silk. Trapped. She was trapped, and there was nowhere she could go.

The shadows shifted, her only warning. She threw herself to the side again. The egg banged against her rib cage, driving the breath from her. Her feet found no purchase on the furs. She fell. Something snagged her around the middle, scales pressing through leather and cloth, tight against her belly. She was lifted, high into the air, above the nest and before the dragon’s maw.

Dragon regarded the sellsword.

Sellsword regarded the dragon.

Kea smiled, something tight and strained. “You wouldn’t eat your egg, would you?”

In response, the dragon struck. Its jaws opened wide, hot breath rolling over her in a fetid wave. Its last meal had been caught between its teeth;the smell of rotten meat was obvious. Teeth flashed white at the edges of her vision. Purple raced to meet her.

Cold engulfed her, sharp as being plunged into an icy bath. Tanyel’s magic rolled over her in a violent wave. She seized, and ice burst from her skin and armor, sharp shards that shattered against its scales and buried into the soft flesh of the dragon’s upper mouth. It howled and reared back, ripping some ice cycles free from its mouth. Others broke in half with loud cracks. Blood splattered against Kea’s hair and face.

Tanyel didn’t let go of her. Cold numbed the tips of her fingers and toes. She couldn’t feel her nose. The tips of her ears stung. Her breath left her in a cloud of ice. Frigid, Tanyel’s voice rolled from her lips, that royal lilt sharp with her anger. “Witless worm, I shall flay the scales from your skin and wear them into battle.”

The dragon reared back with a hiss. Blood leaked across its jaw and left streaks of gold across its scales. Its eyes burned. Something else burned, lighting the scales from inside, bright red light playing off the insides of its mouth. The broken off ice cycles melted.

Spellcraft poured from Kea’s lips. The words twisted in midair, spread frost over the scaly paw that held her. It cracked in sheets as the dragon pulled back to let loose its belly full of fire. Then Kea’s dagger – something she had been able to grab with Tanyel’s distraction – plunged into the soft scales that covered its joints.

The threat of flames broke with the dragon's howl. Its fingers loosened, the paw jerked. The movement sent Kea flying backwards, away from the dragon, away from the nest. Spinning, the ground rose to meet her. Rocks stretched out in welcome, only for her to plunge into a pool of cold instead. She hit the ground on gentler dirt, rolled, and came to a bruising, painful stop.

Warmth flooded into her body again. Pin and needles replaced areas numbness had laid claim to her. Kea gasped for breath, before rolling on her back, staring at the sky above her. The egg thudded to the ground beside her. Her rib cage was one massive bruise.

“Hope our employer likes scrambled.”

The words were a broken attempt at humor. Her voice cracked halfway through, and she winced, wheezed. Her whole body hurt. She could still feel the threat of the impending flames against her face.

“You are welcome.” Tanyel murmured. Her voice still had that chill to it, anger clear, but controlled. “Although, you might want to run. I did not teleport you too far, and I doubt it has given up.”

Shit, she was right. Kea sucked in a slow breath, then let it out in a rush. Slowly, achingly, she pushed herself to her feet. The sight made her gut drop.

Tanyel hadn’t been exaggerating. The place of Kea’s landing was a hill thirty feet from the spot she’d almost smashed against rocks. Thirty feet was not a lot of distance for a house sized dragon to close. It was already recovering, shaking its paw in a way that was almost human, head swinging around from side to side. Steam rose from its nostrils. Gold glinted on those blue scales.

There was no way Kea was going to stand around long enough for it to spot her again. She spun on her heel, and ran. Down the hill, feet skidding across dirt and gravel, sun picking out her path in stark shadow. Success gave her wings. Terror gave her speed. And through it all, the egg pressed against her, held close by its sling, thrumming in tune with her heartbeat.