The Hearts of Dragons (19 page)

Balear rose before dawn
and headed for Veliaf’s exit. The night guards no longer tried to stop him when
he asked to leave the village. They just opened the gate and let him out.

Once he passed
underneath Veliaf’s wall, Balear took off at a jog to warm up. It felt good to
work his body. As his muscles adjusted to the motion, he sped up until he was
sprinting as fast as he could. He then slowed to a more manageable pace and
held it for an hour, running east from Veliaf.

By the time he reached
his destination, the first peaks of sun had appeared on the horizon. They
cheered him. The past three days had been dreary with a maddening drizzle that
couldn’t be called rain yet had soaked Balear more than a thunderstorm.

As he had every day for
the past month, Balear started with a long round of stretches. He’d performed
these motions thousands of times during his tenure in the Castle Guard, yet
each one felt different now. He unconsciously leaned to his right as a counter
to the change in his center of weight. Several times he swayed like a raw
recruit, and twice in a particularly deep stretch he lost his balance and fell.

Balear considered it an
improvement. Yesterday he’d fallen four times during these exercises, and his
first day out, he’d spent more time on the ground than in stretches.

When his body felt
limber, he picked up the Auryozaki. Though the blade was weightless, Balear
still found it cumbersome in his left hand. He swung a few times, but every cut
was jerky and imprecise. He more closely resembled an apprentice butcher than a
swordsman.

His stance was off. It
felt backwards. No, it didn’t feel backwards; it was backwards. He was used to
holding a sword in his right hand and leading with his left foot. With the
blade in his left hand, his feet were wrong. His hips were wrong. His torso was
wrong. He tried to switch, to reverse everything, but his body fought him.
After six years of intense training in the Castle Guard, every stance had
become part of his muscle memory. He could drop into a flawless defensive
posture in a heartbeat. At least, it would have been flawless had he a right
hand to hold his sword.

With a frustrated shout,
Balear whipped his arm in a wide arc. The Auryozaki
whooshed
as it
slashed through the air.

Partway through the
swing, the awkwardness of Balear’s stance made him lose his footing. He
tripped, spun in a half-circle, and wound up on his back looking at the sky.

Balear raised his head a
few inches and then slammed it on the ground. He might be getting better at
stretches, but his swordsmanship hadn’t improved at all. He’d come out here
every day for a month and trained until the sun set. It was a brutal routine:
wake up before dawn, eat a hasty breakfast, run an hour, train all day, run
back to Veliaf in the dark, eat supper, and fall asleep.

He shuddered as he
realized he’d forgotten to include hygiene in that sequence. Back in Haldessa,
Balear had always kept his uniform well-trimmed, his face clean-shaven, and his
hair cropped short. Now he looked about as hairy as the Fubuki, and he smelled
worse.

Thinking of the Fubuki
made Balear struggle into a seated position. He had to get better. He had to
find a way to defeat that thing. Hana had wounded it, but she hadn’t killed it.
It would recover. When it did, it would return.

“Dad,” Balear whispered,
“how would you have fought that beast?”

The trouble, of course, was
that adjusting to his injury wasn’t enough. He and Iren together couldn’t stop
the Fubuki last time. Somehow, he needed to be better than the two of them
combined, and he’d have to do it with his off hand.

“Yo, Balear!” someone
called from his right. Balear faced the voice and saw a man running toward him.
It was Dirio.

The miner-turned-mayor
jogged up to Balear. When he stopped, he put his hands on his knees and took
several deep breaths. “I haven’t run that much in years!” he panted. “I’m
impressed you can do that twice every day.”

Balear stood. “They’re
just my warm-up and cool-down,” he said. “The real work happens out here,
although it isn’t going well.”

Dirio straightened
himself. “I guessed that from talking to the gate guards yesterday. I think their
exact words were, ‘He’s like a mad dog. Don’t get in the way of that one,
sir.’” The mayor laughed. “Please don’t tell them I told you that.”

Despite himself, Balear
chuckled. “No, they’re probably right. But what brings you out here? It must be
important if it couldn’t wait until I returned tonight.”

“Actually, it’s related
to what the guards said,” Dirio replied. “I’m sorry, Balear, but I can’t have a
mad dog in my village. With the civil war going on, we’re on a knife’s edge as
it is.”

All the feeling drained
from Balear’s legs. “What are you saying?”

The mayor looked Balear
in the eye. “I’m saying that I’m here to help you.”

“Help me?” Balear spat.
“How does booting me from Veliaf help me?”

Dirio lowered himself
into a fighting stance. The position was unprofessional, but Balear recognized
it from breaking up plenty of tavern fights over the years. “Prove to me that
you can stay in Veliaf,” Dirio said. “Prove it to me with your fist.”

Balear scowled. He might
only have one arm, but he could handle a politician twice his age. He set down
his sword and rushed Dirio.

The fight ended before
it started. Balear threw a kick, hoping to take advantage of Dirio’s shorter
reach, but his body was used to moving with a right arm. As his empty shoulder
instinctively twisted to provide counter-balance, the lack of weight made him
slip. He hit the ground without Dirio throwing a punch.

The mayor looked down at
him. “I said ‘with your fist.’ Try again.”

Balear climbed to his
feet, his vision as red as his face. He wouldn’t let some bureaucrat humiliate
him! He charged and swung his left arm at full strength. A few missing teeth
would teach Dirio to toss him out.

Dirio was ready. He
shifted his head a few inches to his right, which put him outside Balear’s
attack. At the same time, he brought his own left hand up and swept Balear’s
arm across his body. The motion again put Balear off-balance, and Dirio took
advantage to punch Balear’s exposed kidney.

Balear dropped to his
knees. Dirio thrust his right hand at Balear’s nose. He stopped an inch short.

“I’m no soldier,” the
mayor said, “but Veliaf’s not a soft town. If you want to lead here, you have
to stand up to a few bullies. I’ve probably ended more brawls than you have,
and I know that doing so sometimes requires more than force. Sometimes it
requires restraint.”

“Restraint?” Balear
howled. “You want me to have restraint against that Fubuki? Do you think it
will show restraint to you and your town when it comes back?”

Dirio cocked an eyebrow.
“Are you telling me you want to become the Fubuki?”

Balear had his mouth
open to rebuke the mayor. He shut it without a word.

“If you stay in the
village, that would be as bad for Veliaf as having the Fubuki there,” Dirio
said. “It might not happen today. It might not happen a month from now. But I
know that at some point, you would snap and lash out like you did just now. I
asked you to prove your worth with your fist, and you did. You attacked with
reckless abandon. I can’t have someone like that in my village, especially when
that someone has a seven-foot sword and a dragon at his beck and call. So stay
out here. I’ll have my men bring you a tent and some food. When you’ve put this
madness behind you, you can come back. I hope that for all our sakes, that time
comes soon.”

Dirio spun on his heel
and left.

Minawë rose with the
dawn and stretched. She loved it here.

She’d spent three weeks
in Aokigahara, and she now wondered if, once she rescued Iren, they might live
here instead of Ziorsecth. The rainforest was so alive, and there were so many
Kodamas. It was as if Saito’s curse had never happened.

She walked to her wardrobe
and rooted for something to wear. Her uncle had searched the village to find
the best clothes to fit her. A month ago he hadn’t known she existed, yet he’d
dropped everything to see to her happiness.

At least, that’s how
he’d behaved the first week. Since then they’d barely spoken, and that was only
during the evenings. He always left before she woke up, and he usually didn’t come
back until after dark.

He was of course always
friendly when he saw her, and his loud, winking laugh cheered her spirits.
Still, Minawë had the impression that her uncle was being evasive about
something. He asked a lot of questions about Ziorsecth and her parents, but he
refused to divulge much of his own past.

It wouldn’t have
bothered Minawë, but Narunë was the only person around to talk to. Rondel was
still in the hospital, and her uncle refused to let Minawë wander the village.
He’d even stationed guards at the base of the lift to his tree house. He’d
claimed that Minawë’s presence might provoke the other Kodamas.

Minawë had believed her
uncle at first, but as she’d thought about it more, his explanation made no
sense. Why would her presence upset the Kodamas? She had been excited to learn that
more of her race survived. Surely they would feel the same way.

Whatever the reason was,
Minawë couldn’t stay cooped up inside. The forest was too amazing. She had to
see it.

That was why, for the
past week, she had adopted a different approach. This morning, as she did each
day, she grabbed the Chloryoblaka, transformed into a sparrow, and flew out her
bedroom window.

Through her travels, Minawë
had learned to spot her uncle from the air. No matter where she went, she kept
an eye on him during her wanderings. That way, she knew he wouldn’t discover
her missing.

Minawë flew across the
settlement toward the Kodamas’ hospital. Narunë went there daily, so Minawë had
quickly figured out where it was. She couldn’t see inside it, but she would
occasionally catch sight of Narunë and Rondel standing together out on the tree
house’s deck. Sure enough, that’s where they were today.

It bothered Minawë to
see them like that. Whenever she asked her uncle about Rondel, he insisted that
she was healing but not well enough to receive visitors. Minawë knew Narunë and
Rondel were old friends, but that was no excuse for her uncle to lie to her.

Something else was going
on. Minawë was certain that Rondel hadn’t told her everything about their
mission to rescue Iren. Perhaps whatever the old Maantec’s secret was, Narunë
was in on it.

Minawë’s curiosity got
the better of her. She fluttered to a branch within earshot of the hospital’s
deck. Several leaves overhung where she stood, so it was easy to see what
Rondel and Narunë were doing without them noticing her.

“—looking a lot better,”
Narunë was saying. “Is your hand back to normal?”

“Yes, I think so,”
Rondel replied. She flexed her fingers. “Remind me not to punch any more
rocks.”

“As if you’d take my
advice!”

“Well, maybe just this
once.” Rondel smiled briefly, but then she became serious again. “By the way,
thanks. I didn’t think I’d ever use my left hand again.”

“Not at all,” Narunë
said. “Now that you’re healed, you’re free to go after Azar whenever you like.
He shouldn’t be hard to find; Fire Dragon Knights tend to be conspicuous.”

Minawë jumped on her
branch. Fire Dragon Knight? So Hana and Melwar had reforged the Karyozaki after
all. Minawë had no idea who this Azar was, but based on her uncle’s tone, he
wasn’t anyone pleasant.

“How’s the work on my
Liryometa going?” Rondel asked. “I should have it before I hunt for Azar.”

Narunë sighed. “I wish I
had better news. My smith is one of the best, but so far your weapon’s stumped
him.”

“In that case, you know
there’s a good chance I won’t come back,” Rondel said. “What will you do then?”

It took Narunë a long
moment to respond. His fingers clutched the deck’s railing. “I don’t know,” he
said at last. “I had all but lost hope for my people when you showed up. If you
can’t defeat that monster, it will only be a matter of time before he kills us
all.”

Rondel frowned. “That’s
what I thought. In that case, can you promise me something? If Azar comes, make
sure Minawë gets out of this forest alive.”

Narunë set his jaw.
“Even if I have to drag her to the cliff at Eregos, I’ll make sure she
escapes.”

From her listening spot,
Minawë felt her sparrow lungs breathing faster and faster. What were Rondel and
her uncle talking about? Rondel sounded like she was going off to die. If there
was a Fire Dragon Knight out there, why would the old Maantec face it alone?
Minawë was the Forest Dragon Knight. She could help.

She was about to fly
down there, transform, and tell them that when Rondel said, “By the way,
whether I come back or not, it doesn’t change our agreement. You still can’t
tell Minawë.”

Minawë stopped, her
wings open. Couldn’t tell her what?

Narunë held up both
hands in a placating gesture. “Please, Rondel, I have more tact than that.
You’ve held up your end of the bargain; I’ll keep mine too.”

“That’s good to hear,”
Rondel replied. Lightning Sight sparked in her eyes, and she pointed to them
with her thumb. “If I do come back and find out that she knows, you’ll have
these to answer to. I won’t show you any mercy.”

“I wouldn’t expect it!”
Narunë said, bellowing his laugh.

Rondel glared at him for
several more seconds. Finally, though, she ended her spell and headed for the
door that led inside the hospital.

She had almost reached
it when Narunë said, “By the way, while I won’t reveal your secret, I do think
you should tell Minawë. She deserves to know.”

The old woman shook her
head and smiled sadly. “She deserves to be happy.”

Narunë cocked an
eyebrow. “Aren’t those the same?”

Rondel paused as though
considering. For a moment she looked like she might respond, but then she
opened the door and stepped inside.

Minawë was certain the
strange conversation was over, but then Narunë said, “Actually, I’m surprised
she hasn’t figured it out. Even if I didn’t know about you and Otunë, it was
obvious when you two were standing together the morning you arrived. She has
Otunë’s height, but she has her mother’s good looks, not to mention her eyes.”

Minawë’s heart skipped.
No way. She looked at Rondel, who had stormed back onto the deck. With her keen
bird sight, Minawë saw the Maantec’s emerald eyes. Minawë didn’t often look at
her own face, but she’d seen it reflected in water enough times. Narunë was
right. They were the same.

In her shock Minawë
twittered a call. Rondel made no movement, but Narunë’s brow furrowed. “That’s
odd,” he said.

“What is?” Rondel asked.

“I heard a song sparrow
just now, but they don’t live this far south. There can’t be one here.”

Minawë swore inside her
mind as Rondel swore aloud. The old woman shoved Narunë out of the way as she
ran to the edge of the deck. “Where? Where is it?” she demanded. Lightning
Sight flashed.

Minawë had to get away.
She couldn’t face it. She couldn’t face her. She took flight, but she knew
Lightning Sight would detect the motion. She had to fly far and fast, somewhere
Rondel couldn’t follow.

“Rondel, come back!”
Minawë heard her uncle cry as she spun away from the hospital. “Azar is out
there! He’ll kill you! Stop, Rondel!”

Minawë ignored the
shouts. She ignored everything except the pain in her wings as she pumped them
as hard as she could. Pain was good. When her mind focused on pain, it could
fool itself into believing that it had never heard the terrible truth, the
secret Rondel had kept from her all this time.

Aletas wasn’t her
mother. Rondel was.