“Agreed,” said Anders. Rayna had always been good at assessing risks, whether they were pickpocketing on the streets or trying to avoid the wrath of the Dragonmeet. Hopefully once they reached Cloudhaven itself, they’d be protected by the clouds that gave the mysterious peak its name. First, though, there was something he had to say to the others.
“Anders?” said Rayna, reading the look on his face.
“Before we go,” he said, “there’s something I’ve been thinking about. To do with what happens next, when we go after the final piece of the scepter.”
They were all silent, gathering around, waiting for him to continue.
“I suppose what I want to say,” he began, “is that once we start out, we can’t go back. I mean, I know we can’t go back already, the Dragonmeet’s after us. But... what we’re doing is more important than anything. To be honest, when I began, I was thinking about Rayna, about Lisabet, and then about the rest of you as I got to know you. I wasn’t trying to do anything to change the world. I felt too small to do that. I just wanted to keep my part of it safe.”
Small nods told him he wasn’t alone in feeling that way.
“But now it’s bigger than that,” he continued. “Hayn’s been arrested, Leif’s being undermined by the Dragonmeet. Dragons are sick, and so are the people of Holbard. If the cold continues the wolves will attack eventually, and terrible things will happen to people on both sides—but things will get much worse even before then. It’s not about how we keep ourselves safe anymore. It’s about how we keep everyone safe.”
“It has to be,” Rayna said quietly, and the others made soft noises of agreement.
“So I think that means,” said Anders, “that no matter what happens at Cloudhaven, we have to put getting the scepter before anything else. And then using it, no matter what happens to us.”
“No matter what happens to any of us,” Lisabet said softly, “the others have to use it.”
“No matter what,” echoed Ellukka, making the words a promise. And one by one, the others whispered them too. Quiet, determined, and—Anders knew now—of one mind, ready for whatever lay ahead.
They finished packing up their supplies, and Mikkel and Theo closed the door of the cottage firmly behind them while Anders and Lisabet helped Rayna and Ellukka with their harnesses.
“We’ll be back,” said Lisabet, looking at the door, echoing Anders’s earlier thoughts. “One day. When this is over.”
Anders didn’t say what he knew both of them were thinking—that they only hoped that one day itwouldbe over, and that they’d all make it out the other side.
The flight away from the island was as treacherous as the approach had been the night before, with icy winds snatching at Anders like so many fingers, determined to drag him from his sister’s back and send him tumbling to the dark-blue sea far below. Eventually they reached the coast, and the big white lighthouse and small stone village of Port Tylerd, and they flew out across the Uplands.
Here the clouds cleared a little, and the golden green plains beneath them seemed to glow; silvery, mirrored streams ran across them in endlessly winding patterns, hills cast long shadows, tiny sheep and cows gathered together in flocks far below. But too soon—or perhaps not soon enough, to the tired dragons—the Icespire Mountains loomed up ahead of them, dark stone rising from the grassy plains like huge creatures shaking off their velvet cloaks and reaching for the clouds.
Anders could tell Rayna was weary—she hadn’t slowed, but there was a different quality to her wingstrokes, as if she were pulling herself along like a tired swimmer—when they finally reached the far side of the peaks. Whether lookouts at Drekhelm had seen them or not, he didn’t know.
Now they were approaching the permanent clouds that surrounded Cloudhaven, and the winds were falling away to a breathless quiet. Anders strained every sense as Rayna flew through the clouds, occasionally calling out in a fraction of her usual roar, and receiving replies from Mikkel, Theo, and Ellukka, though the others were all invisible in the perfect white, except for the occasional flicker of a nearby wingtip or tail.
The four dragons were flying as slowly as they could, the still air strangely dead around them—Anders realized he’d become used to the updrafts and downdrafts, the crosswinds and playful tugs of the weather. Flying was usually like swimming through moving water, but suddenly everything around them was thick and heavy. Everyone was being careful not to fly into one another, or worse, into the rock of Cloudhaven’s spires, which must be somewhere inside the mist.
Just as Anders was beginning to wonder if they’d flown past the spires—if they were about to come out the other side of the clouds having missed Cloudhaven altogether—something dark loomed up in front of them. It wasn’t quite a mountaintop—it was an impossibly high pillar instead, at least as big in circumference as Drekhelm’s Great Hall, or Ulfar’s dining hall—the sides jagged enough to look natural, but far too steep to ever climb.
He thought for an instant he saw something like a staircase carved into one section, and then it was gone again, and he was holding on tight as Rayna angled up, up, up, heading for the top.
And then he saw the buildings.
Crammed on top of the huge natural pillar of rock, clinging to one another like they might fall off if they didn’t hold on, were dozens of small buildings, each built from stone slabs, each topped by a domed roof. They looked like a crop of mushrooms all growing close together, except they were far too dignified for such a comparison. A couple were much larger, and the rest all clustered around them, each supporting the next, their windows just little black slits in the smooth stonework.
Rayna wheeled away to their right and followed the edge of what had to be Cloudhaven until the buildings gave way to a landing pad clearly designed for dragons. It was a large, smooth stone courtyard, though there was no wall around the edges to stop the careless from simply tumbling into nothing.
One by one the four dragons landed there, the fog swallowing up the sound of their claws hitting the stonework. Mikkel and Theo shifted back to human form immediately and came over to help with Rayna’s and Ellukka’s harnesses.
“This place is incredible,” Lisabet whispered, dragging the leather straps along Ellukka’s side and over her head. “Do the stories say anything about it being... like this?”
“The stories just say it’s forbidden to come here,” Mikkel replied, keeping his voice to a whisper as well. “It’s so powerful here, though. The air is cold, but I can feel... something, deep under the rock.”
Theo nodded beside him. “The Icespire lava is down there somewhere.”
“But the air is so cold, and the mist is so strong, I still feel good too,” Lisabet said. “This place is unique.”
They stepped back, and Rayna and Ellukka both transformed, shrinking in a couple of heartbeats down to a pair of girls crouching, then pushing up to stand.
