To Touch A Dragon (Venys Needs Men) Page 2

  It’s been quiet between us. The mermaids lost their playfulness after the chilling screech, and I know we’re all thinking the same thing. What was the thing in the jungle? What’s stirring now with the comet soaring across the sky? The moon has risen by now, and it glows as red as the comet, as if the comet’s light has changed it too.

  The comet appeared several weeks ago, but I almost didn’t notice it because of the moon. I’d never seen the once-silver moon anything else but a dull yellow before—and red… the shift was startling and abrupt. Only the sun has ever been red.

  Thoughts run through my head like whirlpools. But there’s no time to spend my energy talking about it—we all want to make good time to our destination.

  As the sun dips below the horizon, the skies turn a deep blue-gray and wafts of torch-smoke appear in the distance, lighting up the shore. Torches.

  Sand’s Hunters. Thank the crystal waters below. Now all I can think about is the cot they’ll have made up for me and the sleep I’ll eventually enjoy. But first, they’ll celebrate Leith’s arrival.

  A murmur of collected relief echoes around me, and I know we’re all having similar thoughts.

  As we row toward the sandy enclave and the rising cliffs, two women come forward to greet us, helping us from the raft. I feel my limbs quiver in the woman’s grip. Her fingers tighten around me, giving me strength.

  Once I’m on steady ground, we press our brows together in greeting. Then she moves to attend my brother with the other woman, and they begin to carry the gifts we brought and my brother’s items to a nearby lift.

  Sand’s Hunters doesn’t have the walls of a lagoon to protect them like my Shell Rock. They have a series of landmasses that have long ago fallen away from the jungle cliffs. The landmasses, like the cliffs, rise far above the water, and so, the only way to get to their village from the beach is by climbing or by lift. There are three sky islands in total, all covered in shady jungle trees and huts, and they are all connected by rickety driftwood and rope bridges. A final, single bridge connects them to the jungle.

  And I know, from my previous visits, that they keep a hunter stationed at the jungle bridge at all times. Just in case something emerges from the trees.

  I turn to the mermaids lounging on the beach with a sagging breath. “Thank you for your help. We never would have made it here so quickly without you.”

  “Most welcome, friend,” Jye’s voice says in the waning gloom. I squint to make out her face.

  “How long should we wait for your return?” Elae asks.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “So soon?”

  “It’s for the best,” I whisper. “Leith will be made a man tonight, and my duties will be done.” I try to keep the sadness from my voice, but I know the mermaids hear it.

  “We will be waiting,” Jye hums softly back to me. “Sing our names if we’re in the water.”

  I nod, and they slide into the shallow waves like eels, disappearing without so much as a sound.

  The women and Leith are waiting for me by the lift. My brother and I ascend first with our gifts.

  Bonfire and laughter await us. The light of the flames nearly chase back the red glow of the comet—the moon, which when I glance up, is like a beady evil eye staring directly down at me.

  It’s just the moon, I remind myself, forcing my thoughts away from it.

  As I watch Leith being introduced to Sand’s Hunters’ chosen bride, quiet pleasure takes away my eerie unease.

  I stiffen when I see her.

  She is a beautiful, curvy girl his age with thick dark braids tossed over her shoulder and kept in place by a heavy-looking band of gold shells, gifted with slanted dark eyes that are heavy with kohl. She wears a snakeskin over her breasts with a skirt to match. Braided threads and many more gold shells dangle from her hair, her neck, her wrists, and her ankles.

  Recognition hits me. Delina. Beautiful child Delina. My friend Aida’s younger sister. It’s not Aida. My eyes hurry over the villagers but don’t see my friend. I expected to see Aida presented to Leith, not Delina.

  The light of the bonfire at Delina’s back makes her skin even darker as it also makes her eyes and shells glint provocatively.

  Checking Leith’s expression, I find him priming and smitten, with a grin on his face bigger than I’ve seen in weeks. A lightness lifts my weighted heart. He grabs Delina to him and plants a kiss on her lips.

  The villagers cheer and a sneaky tear falls from my eye. I wipe it away before anyone notices.

  Part of me wishes, covets deeply for a celebration like this of my own. Of dressing up in the village’s finest to offer myself to a male who has traveled from afar to be mine. To lead him by hand to my bedding and take his manhood into me…

  I clench at the fantasy.

  The same way I clench and moan late at night as my body hollows out with emptiness. I’m longing, desperate to be sated by this shadow male who doesn’t exist. This other half of me who would forever be missing.

  I sigh.

  Then, like always, the loneliness settles through, filling my void like a chilly breeze, and I hide my face.

  Tulia noticed when my first blood came, when my breasts grew, and when my eyes began to linger on the mermen who would sometimes come to visit and smile at me. They liked luring me close with the promise of a simple kiss, only to laugh at me and go toy with their playmates. How I gazed upon them with the envy nipping at me now, wishing I could do the same as them.

  Tulia was as a mother to me during those years as I tried to grasp what was happening to my being, why I cared so much for a mate of my own. She helped me understand that all my nights would be lonely. And that there were other ways of finding satisfaction… Like caring for my tribe, helping the elders, and protecting my brother so another may not long as I do.

  I lift my raw palms to my mouth and blow on them again, cooling the burn.

  Delina leads Leith away into the dark. Goodbye, brother.

  His nights will never be lonely. And because of that, there may still be a good future for our people. There’s pride in this as well, I note. I helped make this happen.

  Aida appears out of nowhere, joining me now that our siblings are gone.

  Her fellow tribesmen begin dancing around the bonfire as a freshly cooked feast of fish and fruit is passed around.

  “I thought it would be you,” I whisper, dropping my hands, facing her.

  “The elders think Delina will bear more and healthier young than I,” she murmurs back.

  Pain laces her voice. Aida’s been looking forward to this celebration for years, believing Leith would be hers. We both thought my brother would be hers.

  Aida doesn’t look much like Delina, having inherited the paler brown skin on her mother’s side. Unlike Delina, Aida is tall, lean, and sharp of features. She does not follow her younger sister’s style in heavy braids but keeps her curls pulled taut, away from her face, to tumble wildly down her back. Bracelets line her arms, and feathers adorn her tied-back hair in a wild array. Aida wears a small headdress of shells. Her eyes are just as slanted as Delina’s, but Aida uses the kohl on her face sparingly.

  She and I couldn’t look more different.

  She’s so beautiful it hurts.

  Whereas I have pale blond hair almost the same length as Aida’s, though mine can not hold a curl unless it was dried with ocean-water, and even then, a curl it wasn’t but a weak bump. I keep my braids loose—if I even put the time in to fix them—and kohl isn’t something my tribe utilizes. We live away from the jungle’s shadows, and our camouflage was that of mute coloring and white shells to reflect like the sands. And though my skin is gold from sunlight—my hair the same—it’s still light compared to Aida’s richness. Sand’s Hunters wear mainly snakeskins and croc hides, where Shell Rock weaves shells, fish scales, and seaweed nets to cover our skin. We take after the mermaids that play in our lagoon.

  Aida once told me her father’s people came east from the dry wastes t
o settle and join in unison with a tribe already established on the Mermaid Gulf.

  “Will you be okay?” I ask. My loneliness and longing are nothing compared to Aida’s.

  “Yes. I’ve had my time to mourn.”

  She lies.

  This isn’t only a bleakness of a dwindling future for our people, but so much more. We see the elder men of our tribes and wonder why there aren’t as many now as several generations ago. We see the love and care and stoicism they share with their mates, with their children, and wish we can have that for ourselves.

  The red comet above casts its muted red light atop us.

  I exhale. “Do you want to join me in Shell Rock and stay with us for a season?” It’s the best I can offer: a reprieve from the mating courtship that was soon to happen here. I raise my palms back to my mouth to blow on them again.

  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 lost you?”

  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 see hope—such a rare thing to witness—it’s catching. I want to be caught. I need to 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.

  If what Aida says is true, a single touch upon a dragon’s hides is all that is needed for our salvation?

  And the screech… it means—I can barely form the thought for fear of disappointment—there could be one of these dragons nearby.

  4

  The Hunt Begins

  I wake the next morning shortly after sunrise, aching from the vigorous trip the day before. My tribe isn’t expecting me to return for several days, and I entertain falling back to sleep.

  But I told the mermaids I’d meet them and Aida’s tale of dragons, men, and transformations niggle at me.

  I cup my hand over my eyes to shield them from the sun as my gaze lingers on the sky. The red comet has barely moved further. While studying it, the smell of cooking fills my nose and makes my belly grumble. After cleaning and airing out my cot, I don my clothes, weapons, and shells. Afterward, I head for the central fire.

  Aida and Delina’s mother, Shyn, is roasting fish as I approach. We share a smile and she offers me a spit. She exudes pride; the crinkled laugh marks around her mouth and eyes are telling. She wears her dark hair short and cinched around her head.

  I can’t help but envy her and the life she’s led.

  “Will you tell Aida and Leith that I left?” I ask. “I don’t want to wake them.”

  Her face falls. “So soon?”

  “With the red comet high and the world stirring—” I know she heard the screech last night. We all did. “I think it’s best I’m with my tribe. Leith is well protected here.” Trying to smile, it falls short. I tear into my fish instead.

  Shyn glances at the sky. “Mmm. I understand.”

  “Leith looked pleased last night,” I quickly say, doing my best to keep her mood high. She deserves it.

  “Oh, yes! Thank the waters. Delina has been near impossible these last weeks with worry.”

  Nodding, I can only hope Shyn’s aware of Aida’s unhappiness as well. But my friend is good at masking her emotions. Silence falls between us.

  When I finish my breakfast, I turn to leave.

  “Issa!” Shyn stops me. “If you or Shell Rock need anything, please just let us know. We have always been allies to you, and we owe you a great debt.”

  My smile is genuine this time. “We owed you one first.”

  A short time later, I’m loosening the rope pulleys on the lift with the help of one of the scouts below. When I make it to my raft, I pull out my supplies and check them over. After I’m done, I scan the coastline and crystalline waters.

  Where are the mermaids?

  I begin humming and singing their names when they fail to emerge
, but my voice stinks like rotting fish. You’re going to scare them off, Issa!

  But I continue anyway. I’m in for a day of teasing, I pout.

  Minutes go by—they don’t show.

  Frowning, and pulling out a spear in the raft, I walk down the beach, singing louder. If they’re playing with me… they’ll just have to suffer my voice.

  The sun steadily rises, and nothing. No glittering tail, no giggles. I’m wasting time. Hoping they’ll show when I return to the raft, turning back, but when I place my spear within it a few minutes later, nothing moves in the ocean waves.

  Odd.

  But I push the raft out into the ocean and jump in anyway, lifting the oars and turning southward, thinking they’ll make their appearance at any minute. As time goes by, and Sand’s Hunters becomes a distant dot behind me, they still don’t show.

  They’ll join me later, I hope.

  I’ve made this journey alone before. It’s okay. Unlike the day before, I stay close to the coast, just in case. But as the hours slip by, more oddities come to my attention.

  There are no crocodiles lounging, no fish swimming beneath my raft—not even the occasional curious dolphin. The swing monkeys are absent, their howling missing from my ears. Now and then I see a bird, but even still, nowhere near the number there were yesterday.

  Twisting around, I scrutinize everything, searching for the culprit. I’ve never seen anything like it, and with the mermaids absent as well…

  My stomach hollows and tightens, and the sweat on my brow builds a little faster. Maybe it’ll be better closer to home.

  Hours later and it’s all the same. I see the waters clout below and know I’m close to the estuary and the mouth of the jungle river. Once I get to the isles, I can take a break and rest—

  Before I can finish the thought, a shrieking scream-like pitch blasts my ears, so close now my eyes rush to the trees. The crack and split of trunks—like fire consuming dry wood—accompanies it. Only several birds fill the air, the rest long gone.