Sun Kissed
The characters and world of Fourth Wing, Iron Flame, Onyx Storm, and Threshing Day belong to author Rebecca Yarros. I do not claim to own any of them. This short story was inspired by the Dragon Kind web game.
Red like dying sunsets. Red like burning ovens. Red like the ribbon in my hair.
My life has been marked by the color, so it wasn’t surprising when I dreamt of the red swordtail Kaori showed us in class. The sharp red a shade darker than roses. The deep red of dyed leather. The color poets dedicate to love. The color warriors dedicated to blood.
Running into the forest on Threshing Day, I keep the color at the forefront of my mind. Kaori said we would feel something if a dragon had chosen us. I hope the haunting hue is that something and not an omen of my death.
Heat still stings my face from Presentation when I started a little too long at the Red’s burning scales. Either from sunburn or his sulfuric breath, I can’t hide the permanent blush across my cheeks.
It’s another shade of red that’s claimed me.
The matching swords strapped to my hips offer me balance as I dart between the massive tree trunks. Their weight and size have become a second set of limbs during my training. I feel more naked without them than if I’d lost my leathers. I know dragons aren’t the only ones hunting cadets in this valley, and although they weigh me down, I’m happy to have them.
“Where are you?” I ask into the empty canopy. The riot of dragons landed almost an hour ago, and I haven’t seen any. The Red of my dreams included. Would he remember me from Presentation? Would he scorch me down to my boots for my disrespect, or would he offer me praise for standing in awe? Dragons love their egos, after all.
I’m prepared to carve poetry into the ground with my blades if that’s what it takes.
I’m prepared to lay fire to our enemies if that’s what he wants.
The Navarrians create weapons. But it won’t be their hands that guide my strikes. Something is hunting us on the border, and I think the dragons might have something to say about that. The war college has been just as silent as the guards who cleaned up the village after the attack.
A scream pierces on my left, and thick black smoke plumes from the treetops. Logic says to move toward the dragon to see whom it is, but the black smoke urges me away. I need to find red.
Red like the last sunset before my village was attacked. Red like the flames that devoured my home. Red like the ribbon I tore from my mother’s wrist as a nightmare creature ripped her from me.
A trail of fallen maple leaves snakes around several trees, and I follow. Something pulls me along. They crunch under my boots, and I enter a clearing glowing under the overhead midday sun. A Green Scorpiontail inspects the ashy ground where I hope someone I know wasn’t standing. It turns its attention to me, and I look down at my boots.
It stalks closer. My hair lifts around my face as the Green inhales my scent. I feel a prickle at the back of my head. It feels like coming home.
But not home to my little village on the border. Not home to my parent’s bakery. Not home where poetry and cookbooks filled the kitchen table.
“Not yours.” I mouth, willing the Green to hear me.
We’d be a terrible pair, and I think they realize it, because a heavy blast of air threatens to flatten me as the dragon takes off into the sky. I don’t have time to balance myself as the ground vibrates again.
Red drenches my vision.
Standing before me is the Red Swordtail. His name ripples through me as I remember the complete card Kaori projected. Thioch. He’s monstrous this close. His wings cover the sun above, making the leathery membrane look like a solar flare. His claws could crush a wagon like I could a ladybug.
He lowers his snout, and I make eye contact before I think better of it.
Eyes like the sun burn back into mine. If this is my last view before death, then it was worth it. Warmth floods my veins. My silhouette appears in his dark pupils. I see fires burning. I smell sulfur. I feel heat.
Real fire.
I drop to the leaf litter a second before his fiery breath blasts me to smithereens. The back of my leather uniform is uncomfortably stuck to my skin. The pommel on my swords glow like coals. The long hair I carefully coaxed into a bun that morning is now singed.
“I’m pleased that you aren’t always stuck in the clouds.” The voice fills my thoughts like bread dough tripling in size atop a counter. The deep sounds seep into every part of me.
I peel myself off the ground. Thioch is leering down, sparks still falling from his half-open maw. I glance over my shoulder. My leathers are smoldering, cinders still charring and glowing. It’s a terrible attempt to look like Thioch’s scales. I grit my teeth and relish the burn. I doubt any dragon would appreciate a cadet stripping down in front of them.
Thioch narrows his gaze, and the prickling I felt ignites into an inferno. “Perhaps I will let you write poems about me. Should you survive.”
I blink at him, half wondering if that fire blast melted some of my brain.
He scoffs. “As if I would damage my rider.”
“Your rider?” I ask, my voice bubbling with joy.
“If you can agree to my terms.”
“Of course.”
“I’ve seen your memories. You’ve seen what lies beyond the border.”
I nod, my mouth drying. He already knows about the monsters on the border.
“You’ve seen who tries to cover up that threat.”
The same people who I’ve signed my loyalty to. They told me it wasn’t monsters who attacked my home; it was griffin riders. They told me that what I remembered was only bad dreams and madness. I never believed them.
“You want the truth of whom to stick those swords into?” he asks.
“Yes.” My hands move to my pommels on instinct. I was powerless then. I refuse to be powerless now.
Thioch flexes his right foreleg. The red scales resembling the maple leaves I followed to the clearing, followed to him. “I want a rider not afraid to burn a light in the darkness of lies.”
I grin wickedly. “You’re a poet, too.”
He rolls his massive eyes. “To your seat.”
I sprint onto his black claws, etched with red coal veins, and launch myself up his leg. The gauntlet that should have prepared me for the climb did little to demonstrate just how big a dragon is. Or at least how big mine is.
I’m barely over his shoulder when he pushes himself skyward. The downward force almost knocks me down, but I dig my hands in between two scales until he levels out a hundred feet above the trees.
“I am not yours,” he corrects. “You are mine. Do not mix the two.”
I scramble behind the pommel scales and tuck my boots into position. “I’m not your pet!” I shout over the wind.
“You are my blade.”
Comments