CHAPTER ONE

As late morning light filtered through the wilted leaves overhead, four dragonlings rushed through the brush and brambles of the tree-lined rockface. Few paths formed themselves in the woods surrounding Little Creek. Traveling wyverns preferred to fly where needed, only grounding themselves should weather prevent otherwise. Their dragonlings also possessed the habit of climbing anything and everything they could, as young ones do. Notched holes in the bark, perhaps the scraped face of a boulder, were left behind as evidence of dragons passing by. Even if they wished to form a path, the villagers only dared to break down what was necessary to reach their fishing grounds or gem mine, typically when foliage grew over already-established pathways.

Little Creek bordered the Awani Desert. The village was named for a nearby small river, their only source of water. It flourished and held ground thanks to the forest it in turn nourished. Its roots were old and thick enough to prevent the soil from washing away with every wet season and gave their village life.

As Yekk’i clambered over the roots with her one good wing, she pondered what came first: the trees and shrubs, or the water? The thoughts distracted her and she stumbled a bit keeping up with her friends’ pace. With an exaggerated breath inwards, Yekk shifted her three limbs before pouncing onto the next tree. Without clawing into the bark, she pushed off of that and landed on a dusty rock a further way up with a delighted laugh.

Dragons who did not know her often pitied her for her weakened wing, but she kept pace with her three-fingered claw and two hind legs when she put her mind to it. The others must have paused in their trek, as she heard their voices just ahead of her now.

“You got some gems, right?” asked Ti’Va, the eldest of the group. A young adolescent now, her authoritative role among them only became more solidified. It mattered little that her apprentice years would be spent learning the drudgery of mining. So long as she was the first to become Ti, she was the boss. The boy next to her, an older friend of her brother, opened his mouth obediently, and out came five, unpolished chunks of gemstone.

The gem-holder, Ruchka’i, coughed a little on his own spit. He scratched at a few budding horns along his jawline and questioned, “Do I hafta hold them again? It’s supposed to be your turn!”

Dws’i, the brother, snorted indifferently. The earth was dry and getting into his wide snout. “Nah, it was my turn last time, and then it’s you after me, remember?”

Yekk jumped and clawed her way to them, ignoring their audible groans at her entrance. “I coulda brought some gems, my mom polishes them sometimes.”

“We know you ain’t got gems, Yekk.” Dws teased, pronouncing her name as if something was caught in his throat. “Besides, we’re tryna keep this secret. You know what they do to gamblers, right?”

“They...go to the hut?” Yekk answered unsurely, thinking of the dank dome that drunken miners were pushed into if they got too rowdy. Va pounced in front of her, nearly startling Yekk off their little rocky cliff with a cackling smile.

“Worse! They get their clingers cut off.” She explained, extending her yellow-brown wing to push the single claw into the other girl’s face. “And they use the saw-tooth for it!”

“Slow and painful.” Dws whispered next to Yekk’s ear. She pouted and sat up on her good wing. Unlike the other wyverns, she had no clinger at the end of her limb. It was not a wide, strong four-fingered paw like her mother’s but it was enough to keep her steady. The thought of losing just one of them sounded torturous.

“It’s just bettin’. And it’s not like the races are anythin’ fancy anyway.” Yekk said with some childlike dignity to hide her discomfort. “Besides, you said I can come if I keep up. And I’m keepin’ up. So there.”

Va rolled her eyes and began leading them onwards again. “Whatever. Just don’t get us caught. We won’t slow down for ya!”

Yekk was able to keep up this time, staying behind Ruchka after he took the gems into his mouth again. From behind, she could better view the vivid blue line that was painted down Va’s spine and tail as it peeked out from her roughspun tunic. It indicated her role as an official apprentice and growing young lady, not that she ever acted the part. While Va kept up with her parents’ mining shifts, she did not hide her distaste for it. Unfortunately, it would be the only work she could learn and do, should Dws be chosen over her for village Ama. Sneaking out for a fun time gave her a thrill, from what Yekk saw, but she knew to keep it quiet. An exiled wyvern was one who struggled to eat.

Over-dramatics of punishment aside, Yekk found the dragonlings’ trips exciting. Other than her mother, Luavu’Yorn’s, occasional scouting, she often got bored helping her parents. Her father, Yorn’Luavu, did odd jobs wherever needed. They were varied, but not always exciting. Perhaps soon she could weave again with both of them, and make herself a new tunic and belt, given how frayed her old one was becoming.

“Sh! Wait.” Va hissed, crouching behind a thorny bush. Whatever vibrant plant life grew in the woods was now patchy and dried out. Before them, beyond the bushy boundary, laid the field of dirt and sand where the races took place. The land held sands of all colors, sometimes in patches, other times in linear formation when the wind blew over it just right. At the moment, the beating of wings and pounding of taloned feet mixed the colors together to make a near-blinding white that contrasted the sky.

A few racers were warming up above the field and practicing their elemental breathing. When one opened his mouth and let out a roar of rushing water, delighting the crowd, Va jerked her head to get them moving. They followed loyally, and eventually made it behind a stand made of rock piles.

“Everyone gets one gem. Just the one. If ya lose it, ya lose it.” She said with her chin raised and long head straight. Ruchka dropped the gems out onto the dirt, five in total. Their ringleader took two, and everyone received their take. Yekk landed a decent catch: beryl. She once saw their elder, Riv’Ama, use it to cure a waysided visitor after he ate rancid meat. No doubt the scruffy travelers here could see value in it.

The dragonlings went their separate ways, breaking up to spend their bartering goods how they wished. Some of the food being roasted in the fire’s ashes could be bought with a sliver of the gem, leaving the rest for making a bet. Yekk, however, was not hungry. Yorn made sure of that before she had left their cramped cave home. He had kept a watchful eye on her as she carefully chewed and swallowed every bite of a white-fleshed fish he roasted. She instead hobbled over to the main crowds, where various wyverns circled around a couple of bet collectors and spat out their own gems or other oddities, along with their name.

“Tyxa, jade on Lerka.”

“Jeben, fuschite on Yakar”

“Yekk’i, beryl on, uh, the big blue one.”

“Hittwa, malachite on--”

“Hey, hey! Shut up a second!” The collector ignored the protests and bent his head down towards Yekk. Wide-eyed at having been so obviously caught, she coughed a bit from the dust kicking up from the limbs of other betters. “You, dragonling, get your beryl and leave.”

“No, I’m placin’ my bet.” Yekk insisted, trying to stand up taller without faltering. She had little success, as her shriveled wing was smaller and almost atrophied from weakness of the flesh. The collector frowned.

“Look, do you know what they’d do to me if they saw me bettin’ with a dragon yer age?”

“Uh huh. They rip off yer clinger and then throw you in a stinky hut for bein’ drunk.”

The collector sighed and closed his eyes, a growl threatening to grumble in his throat. They opened again. “Look, I play it safe. You notice how no one uses their real names here?”

That was true. No one denoted their age or family ties when placing their bets. In the background, several wingspans the other way, the other collector was receiving names in the same manner.

“I guess they don’t wanna get in trouble…” Yekk finally relented.

“Exactly. So scram it.”

She pouted and picked up her beryl, accepting defeat, until he said something else.

“But if ya wanna bet, then take it to Durthen’Ama. He’ll take care of ya.”

“Weawy?” Yekk mouthed through her rock, perking her ears up in hope.

“Yeah, he runs the bets here. He’s been at it long enough to never give a damn.” The crowd grew anxious again and began throwing down their bets and names without care. The collector quickly added, before returning to his work, “And that ‘big blue one’ is Hurron. At least get the racer right!”

Yekk nodded and wobbled off, trying not to sneeze out her betting stock as she pushed her way to find the elder. She did not have to wobble for long. He sat in front of his own half-circle of dragons, his crooked grin almost toothless. The crowd was less excitable there, a few giving the Gambling Ama a gift in respect to his great age. He tipped his head in gratitude with a wrinkly grin between taking in the bets. His two pairs of horns and the others along his jawline were long rounded from age and erosion. The collector’s life was rough but not too rough, if his finely woven toga of Plains cotton were any indication. Finally, Yekk made her way to the front, dropped her beryl, and gave her name and bet. Durthen’Ama, like the junior collector, turned to her with interest at the sound of a dragonling’s voice at the races.

His half-closed eyes opened up a little more, staring into her green and yellow ones, before they rolled down to look at the half-arm, half-wing that held her up. Yekk felt her scales hitch in nervousness.

“I said Yekk, beryl on Hurron.” she repeated.

“Hm.” He finally replied with a gummy smile. “Not da on’y drake here today, are ya?”

“Uh-huh.” She answered, watching his wing bring in her stone before turning to the others. His eyes grew heavy as before, and seemed to forget that she was there. Yekk scrambled away to sit by the bush line to meet the others, and await the race.

It was true that her mother was a drake. It was also obvious, even for a dragonling like Yekk, that the fact was supposed to be kept mum. She could not explain why, but her parents corrected her harshly, and more than once, over the issue. Whenever a traveler stopped by the village and she was loose with her words, as most dragonlings could be, they warned her that someone could grow angry about the fact, and take her away from them. At some point, Yekk became fearful enough to keep her mouth firmly shut.

Hurron was the only one skybound now. He flew above again, and this time she noticed his wing-free front arms as he did so. The other racers were, of course, wyverns. Many were fire-breathers from the area, and a few spouted earth or water magic, hailing themselves from the oasis villages not too far from Little Creek’s fiefdom. A few even bore similar traits of mixed parentage, as she did, now that she began to notice a three-fingered “wyvern” here and there. It helped Yekk relax, and made her all the more excited for the fun she hoped to have.

A white glint caught Yekk’s eye. At first she assumed it was the sand beyond her seat and thought nothing of it. Then the glint happened again, and much more harshly. She turned her head to see a grand white bird land on a dried up lilac bush, and looked away before doing a double take in delayed surprise.

Birds were a common sight near the forest. What was not common was for them to have feathers as white as a cloud on a desert afternoon, and to be as gleaming. Yekk pushed up onto her hind legs, her good wing off the ground, trying to get a closer look without moving.

Even if she wanted to, Yekk found that she could not move any more than she already had. The air, dry and losing the morning chill, grew eerily still, noise as dead as the windlessness of this new space. Her vision grew uncomfortably focused on this bird, whose proud head turned to look over at her with black eyes. Her mouth opened wordlessly.

Panic almost set in when a second bird flew in. And then a third. The second creature, a vivid yellow, was beaten by the third at the last second. Its proud blue feathers ruffled in satisfaction next to the white bird. Following those two were a red, a red-orange, and a green, in that order. All of them sat in this way on a shriveled lilac bush. The bush grew in fragrance as if it were attempting to match the intensity of that moment. Everything else blurred. They were all she could see. Her head could not turn away and she was not even certain that she could breathe.

“Whaddya starin’ at?”

Yekk sharply inhaled. Shaking her head rapidly and finally able to move, she turned to face the return of her group. They slowly made their way to her. She looked to the lilac bush again, only to find that it was no longer there. No birds, no perfumed lilac invading her nose, nothing but a dry forest border and the desert next to it.

Yekk turned towards them and put it away from her mind. Va was gnawing on an almost meatless bone she held in her jaws. Dws and Ruchka play-wrestled over another bone, slightly larger, kicking up more dust. Finally out in the open and no longer hiding, they freely sneezed as needed.

“Anyone make a bet, or did y’all waste it on food?” Va asked with disinterest. The boys were spouting fire at each other, so Yekk answered.

“On the drake.” She said. “They call him Hurron”

“I guess he’s gotta chance.” Va shrugged. After throwing her gnawed bone at the boys and agitating their little battle, she added, “But drakes don’t got wings like us. They use their arms too much. That’s their muscle.”

“Maybe.” Yekk replied. The conversation ended, but for the better, as a sharp roar from the announcer caught their attention. Finally, Va grinned.

“It’s startin’! Come on, let’s getta better spot.”

The better spot turned out to be a closed stall, packed away until the next trading caravan would roll along. It was just tall enough so that when the dragonlings sat on top they could be at the same height as the other wyverns and shorter drakes. Yekk had stood comfortably on her spot just as the race started. The bellow of the longhorn, and the rush of wind from half a dozen dragons rushing into the sky, almost shook her off her hind feet.

“YAKAR AT THE LEAD, HURRON FRONT RUNNER!” Announced the dragon who held the longhorn. Yekk followed along, a yellow blur just ahead of a blue one. She sat up on her legs with the others in anticipation.

Then a white streak flew in behind Hurron; a fierce, fiery orange not far behind.

“LERKA CATCHING ON THE TIPS! QUINARA CATCHING UP!”

Hollers from the crowd nearly overpowered the commentary. One wyvern, standing up in front of the dragonling’s spot, was moaning that his entire handle was going to be ruined.

“Shoulda known Durrit the Dimmed woulda been behind.” His friend mentioned, unhelpfully.

“MALDEKLIN BEATING LAST AND DURRIT BEHIND!”

Sure enough, the dusty green wyvern slipped ahead of Durrit, who was a deep red. Yekk followed the last of the racers, who obviously struggled; his right wing jolting oddly as the left one struggled to maintain a balance. The crowd picked up excitement again when three neared the finish line, turning sharply to make it. Yekk’s stomach tightened: none were the royal blue of Hurron. She had hardly processed her loss by the time Lerka zoomed past them as the winner. Hurron placed fourth.

“C’mon, let’s get our winnin’s.” Va said with a turn of her head. Ruchka noticed that Yekk did not jump down with the brother and sister pair.

“You comin’?”

Yekk sniffed. Crying now would only get her teased. “No, my racer lost. I don’t got any money now.”

“That’s not how it works, stupid!” Ruchka blurted out. “It’s based on odds, not who actually wins.”

Seeing the clueless look on her face, he sighed and motioned for her to follow. She did so.

“Who took yer bet?”

“The Ama with no teeth.”

“What Ama doesn’t?” Ruchka snickered, thinking of Riv’Ama; her teeth were still in place, but dragonlings gossiped that they were crafted from wood. “Just go to him and collect the money you won and make another bet. It ain’t much but it’s still fun.”

“Okay.” Yekk muttered as he wandered off for his own winnings. She wondered who would take his bet, as the other collector refused to work with a child. Then again, she only tried that particular one, and Ruchka did look big for his age; he rivaled Va in size and not much else.

Just as he promised, Yekk received her winnings from the Gambling Ama. She earned back her beryl, and a single drop of moonstone. Her eyes widened. Being just a dribble, the gem was not worth much, yet she knew it was not a currency typically used in her village.

“Anudda bet?” Ama asked. Yekk almost said no, unsure still of what to do with her moonstone, until she saw the racers standing by the starting line again.

Lerka, the previous winner, sat in the afternoon sun with a glimmer to her scales that cut through even the white desert dust.

She looked an awful lot like that bird…

As Yekk’s focus grew more intent, she found that they all resembled the birds she saw before. The same royal blue. The same fiery orange. The same everything.

The white bird landed on the lilac bush first. That meant…

Hurron, the blue one, would place first in the next round.

It was a silly logic that made sense to Yekk, and she pushed in her stones without a second thought. “Yekk, beryl and moonstone on Hurron.”

She almost turned away, before turning back to him and asking, “Actually, can I get the moonstone back? Just bet the beryl.”

“O’ course.”

Yekk grabbed the miniscule gem, maneuvered it to her weaker wing to hold it in the little fingers, and then rushed off to the food stands. A couple others were still serving, thankfully. She bought herself a savory organ sac. It was simple fare, but delicious. She lugged it over to her friends’ sitting place as she took some early bites. Va grinned, almost proud, as Yekk placed the food down and ate.

“Spendin’ yer stuff already? Looks good though.”

“Thanksh.” Yekk answered between chews. She pulled the sac open wider and ate the curdled blood and sweet moss cooked within it. Dws took another turn chewing on the leftover roast bone from last time, more out of boredom than hunger. Mulling over the meal, Yekk felt far from bored. If her guess was right, then she would get even more money this time and could potentially continue the bets. If not, well, Hurron was a decent enough racer and she would get her beryl back. Hopefully.

All she could do was watch once the longhorn blew and the next race began. Crowds cheered and jeered again with their hisses and yelping roars. Yekk drowned out the noises and kept her eyes sharply on Hurron; his darker blue was surprisingly simple to see contrasted on the bleached sky. He flew differently too: a draft of wind was caught in his favor, and used it to sail his lighter, more flexible wings along the turns.

“HURRON AT THE TIPS, HURRON LEADING! QUINARA FOLLOWED BY MALDEKLIN!”

Almost there. Almost! Yekk nearly danced on the edges of her back talons and begged The All that her bet would win.

“HURRON PASSED! MALDEKLIN SECOND AND QUINARA--”

Yekk stopped listening, rushing to her collector and beating the crowds by dashing around their ankles and wings. This gave her ample time to collect her new winnings of the beryl, three miniscule moonstones, and an unpolished amber. The yellow in her eyes glowed slightly in excitement. Her guess based on the birds she saw was correct once again. There was no resisting a third round.

“Yekk, all this on Yakar.” The stones were pushed right back. Durthen’Ama, for once, expressed surprise, the lines of his long mouth thin.

“Alla dem, yeah?” He confirmed, eyeing the dragonling again. Yekk confirmed it with a wild grin and rapid nod before limping past the growing crowds forming about the collectors.

Yekk followed this pattern. She would wander back to the waiting place, watch the race, collect her winnings, and bet it all again on the next racer. As Yekk won, again and again, Dws noticed that she looked rather pleased with herself. She continued her winning spree with bets on Durrit, the reddish one, and Quinara, whose scales sparkled with flaming orange. When making her last bet on Maldeklin, Yekk decided to keep the bits of moonstone she earned over the course of the races. Her father had a fondness for the legends of moons in the mortal realm, and she felt a surge of pride at being able to give something back to her family.

Dws finally broke the silence as the competitors prepared for their last race in the dim light of the dimming daylight. “What’re you smilin’ about?”

“Just stuff.” Yekk said with sparkling eyes. He frowned but let it be, watching her from the corner of his vision while half-listening to the others chat. Dws knew she was up to something, but he did not know what. The feeling confirmed itself when Yekk’s bet won again, and she was almost galloped away for her final winnings of the day. He finally shared his worry with Va and Ruchka, as all three of them watched her from their perch.

As for Yekk, she was exuberant. Images of emeralds and pearls swam in her mind as she waited patiently in the crowds to approach Durthen’Ama. Perhaps nothing that exotic would edge into her winnings, but Yekk had never felt so alive. She rarely gained anything on her own merits. Today’s wins felt all the more satisfying, if just to know that it brought her some way to earn more treasure and wealth for her family. All they ate were fish and foraged mushrooms, usually in cramped caves that barely kept out the wet season’s rains and the dry season’s dust storms. The village did not do much better. The villagers could barely push together their meager resources to pay the annual tithe to their feudal Ra. They did so, just so they could continue to sleep in the too-small caves and eat the sparse fish from the creek. Maybe they would not have to, at least not for this cycle’s turn. Maybe Yekk could be the reason why.

“I’m here for the winnings!” Yekk announced once she reached the Ama. “What’d I get?”

Green-yellow eyes bounced up to the elder, her sparkle finally dimming down when she saw the look on his face. It was indifferent. Sitting up allowed Yekk to realize that the other collectors were returning from their giving and taking of bets from the other crowds. They began to circle around her; some others were stumbling and flying away to avoid detection as they returned to their homes. Any racers left behind her at the other end of the makeshift market.

“Didn’t I win?” Yekk finally asked. The stern collector from before stepped forward.

“No. Pay up.”

She huffed out her nose, irritated. “I know I won, Maldekin soared right over me! I would know if I lost!” Yekk was interrupted as she was pushed over onto her belly, the moonstones rolling out of her shriveled fingers. “Ouch, hey!”

Durthen’Ama took a wing out to bring in the stones while another threw the beryl at her head. Yekk yelped in pain as she shook for a moment in anger.

“That’s not fair, give it back!” She snipped at one of the collectors hind claws as they turned to walk away. The offended wyvern, a muddy-colored female, snarled, whipped her tail and struck Yekk. Her head throbbed as she struggled to get up, her vision settled slowly. She heard more than saw Va, Dws, and Ruchka surround her, snarling in turn.

“Try that again, worm-grubber!” Va challenged. The muddy-colored collector whipped her tail again; she did not anticipate the younger wyvern to be daring enough to catch it with her mouth and chomp down as hard as her jaw allowed. A pained howl echoed and quickly the others descended on the dragonlings.

Yekk shook her head as her sight returned and, before she could step in to protest, a wing knocked her back again, though this time by accident. Her good wing scraped against the sandy rocks to push her up, and she strained to look through the dust that kicked up from the scuffle. The dust finally settled, and she gasped at the sight of Dws biting at approaching dragons over the limp body of his sister. Tears prickled at the edge of his eyes and his voice cracked.

“STAY AWAY, STAY BACK!” He bared his still-rounded teeth in a higher-pitched growl that came out more like a whine. Ruchka snarled, crouched but ready to pounce. Yekk limped over quickly.

“It’s fine. We’re done. I give up. Take my beryl if you want, I don’t care! Just go!”

Durthen’Ama bent his head down to her. He had been eerily still and quiet the entirety of the one-sided fight. He breathed hot air out of his nose over Yekk’s face. “No mo’ a dat. Go home now.”

Yekk froze. She wanted to, but out of instinct found the overbearing presence of the others too frightening to make a move. Groans from Va filled her ears, the smell of blood faint but wafting upwards in the air. Her element, fire, filtered out with it: sending up wisping, smoke-like fumes as her blood slowly burned away.

“Go.”