Aida pries my hands from my face and scowls as she sees my wounds. “Come with me.” She doesn’t give me a choice as she drags me to a nearby tree-hut and sits me by a shallow fire within. Settling with a pout, she collects a bowl and fills it with herbs, smashing them soon after with a rock. “You always put yourself at risk for your brother.” Her voice is thick with accusation. “Have you ever thought what would happen to your tribe if they lostyou?”
I shrug. “You didn’t answer my question.”
She tugs my hands toward her and rests their backs on the floor, exposing my palms in all their ruddy glory.
Aida pulls her lips back to speak when a very chilling, harsh shriek fills the air, eclipsing the laughter outside, the crackle of fire, the whistling of the night breeze. It echoes between the rock islands even after it ends. We look at each other when the flaps of bird wings and their cawing cries ends the assaulting call.
This mating call was far closer than the last.
To my shock, Aida smiles excitedly, as if all thoughts of Leith and Delina had vanished from her thoughts. Her giddy grin stops me from pulling back with alarm and rushing out to the villagers, where their anxious whispers now join the sea breeze.
“Why are you smiling?”
“You haven’t heard the rumors?” she asks instead.
I’m beginning to think she doesn’t like answering any questions lately.
“What rumors?”
“A messenger from one of the northern coastal tribes came to visit us a week ago. She brought news.” Aida stops as she gathers ointment onto her fingers.
“What news?”
She spreads the ointment on my palms, and I wince, trying hard not to curl my fingers and pull my hands back.
“The shrieks, they’re from dragons. They stir during the red comet to mate.”
My eyes narrow. “How is that worth grinning about?”
My heart is still pounding from before, but now it thunders. A dragon hasn’t been seen since before my grandsire’s generation, and they only spoke of them as frighteningly giant monstrosities of legend. They were beasts that filled the sky, could manipulate the weather, and reap destruction across the land, changing it at whim.
But then…the red comet hasn’t driven across our skies in as long.
“Several huntresses from one of those tribes went out to gather food, and they came across a sleeping dragon deep in the plains near their home. A lumbering brown beast with teeth as long as our arms, with a tail that could lash the clouds, and a body that spanned a hundred of us lying down.” Aida massages my palms a little too roughly as she speaks.
I pull them from her grip and hug myself. “I still don’t understand your grin. How can we protect ourselves from such creatures? Especially if they’re in heat? If they’re out to create young?”
“Apparently, one of the huntresses offered herself up as bait to drive the dragon away from their lands. And in an effort, she tried to rouse the beast with a touch, overcome with the need to feel it—”
“Idiot,” I mutter.
“Perhaps but what happened next was truly wondrous. The dragon turned into a man, Issa, a man!”
I gape.
“Not just any man, a virile one, a strong one, as powerful as the beast it was. He took the huntress who touched him and filled her with his seed. She is with young as we speak, and this dragon man has not left her side since.”
I can scarcely believe what she is telling me. But her excitement, her smile is so hopeful it’s hard to deny. Aida was never one to dally with stories and superstition. Never one to take unnecessary risks or leave her village without every supply she could hold to ensure her survival. Belief in such a thing is hard, but looking into her face and wide, dark eyes, I seehope—such a rare thing to witness—it’s catching. I want to be caught. Ineedto be caught.
“How can you believe in such a thing?”
“Issa!” My name bursts from her throat like I’m not getting it. “The messenger was scouting for a potential future mate for the babe. A future alliance.”
My eyes widen. “How? The comet has only just begun. How do they know this huntress is pregnant, that it’s a boy?”
“The dragon knows,” Aida breathes, eliciting a chill across my skin. Then she pulls inward, thoughtful. “I’m going to find myself one.” She’s serious.
Her words stay with me into the deepening night. Long after I leave her side for the cot reserved for my stay, I lie awake staring up at the starry night sky and the comet.
