Katie Cross - Freedom

S anna Spence drew in a deep breath, feeling as if she were stirring a grave.

The ancient houses that stood in front of her paled in comparison to the soaring backdrop of Letum Wood. Mammoth trees grew out of sight, blocking canopy and sky, allowing only a muted sunlight to creep as far down as the forest floor. Directly behind Sanna stood a tree so large the roots towered over her head. Five houses stacked next to each other could easily fit across its girth. Eleven other such trees formed a circle around her.

This is it, she murmured.

Whoa, Jesse said, sliding all the way down his dragons front leg. Elis snorted and stretched his wings. This place is real.

Real, Sanna said with a sigh. And very, very old.

One hundred and fifty years separated them from this old Dragonmaster village, deserted after poachers from the Southern Network massacred the dragons and Dragonmasters almost to extinction.

The semicircle of dilapidated houses lay quiet, as if sleeping. As if no one had abandoned them over a century before. Sanna stared with a sense of disbelief. After three months of slowly picking their way through the forest, teaching their dragons to fly, and mending wounds sustained in the battle against the mountain dragons, their rag-tag group of Dragonmasters had finally arrived.

This part of Letum Wood felt like sweet balmshed been here before, but no one else in the group had. The familiar, sprawling trees settled an agitation in her chest, as if something here recognized her. A bird twittered by, rustling a bush as it landed.

Jesse stepped closer to the houses. Behind them, the distant sounds of the other traveling Dragonmasters whistled through the trees. Only a few more minutes before all of them would spill in.

Sanna soaked up the quiet majesty while she could. It might not be this quiet ever again.

Everything seemed as safe as shed imagined. The lowest branches on the soaring Ancients were so high up they were almost indistinguishable from each other, which ruled out a drop attack from a forest lion. Even the nasty, tree-infesting beluas could get lost in the grooves of the trunks here. Most beluas nested in the folds and crevices of the bark, but not here, in the circle.

No animals lived here.

The houses dont look that different from Anguis, Jesse said, pointing to the half-dead structures. Theyre the same, arent they?

Talis couldnt erase everything, Sanna said. The survivors of the massacre would have started Anguis shortly after they left here. This sort of building was all they knew.

She strode toward the closest house and stepped inside. Dust motes drifted from the half-open ceiling, which theyd have to repair. This house had been a lifesaver when shed first come here with her dragon, Luteis, and had great need for a dry place. But theyd have to fix it up if they were to live here through the winter.

Dark stains of pooled blood on the floor briefly caught her attention as she exited the house again, moving onto the porch. Her shoulder brushed the doorframe, and she grunted.

You all right? Jesse asked.

Fine, she mumbled, rubbing the sore spot.

She kept goingmore carefully this timethinking of Daid and the old dragon sire, Rubeis. Shed never seen either of them here, but she couldnt get them out of her head. Daid, killed by a mountain-dragon spy months ago, would never see this place.

Something cracked beneath her foot. She bit back a curse and withdrew with a wince. Jesse leaned down, then straightened back up.

Old acorn. Are you sure youre

Im fine, she ground out. Her nostrils flared. The shooting pain up her leg began to fade.

Is it worsening? her dragon asked. Luteis peered at her from just outside, seething hot like a ball of fire. Burnt orange weaved through his all-black scales, as if a glittering jar of paint had been overturned on his back and dripped down his shoulders until he glimmered like a coal.

Shall I escort you elsewhere? Concern laced his tone. She swallowed hard, ignoring the silent question in his words, grateful that Jesse couldnt hear it.

No, thank you.

Lets go in here, she said, gesturing to the next house. This is the biggest one. I think it should go to your family.

Jesse opened his mouth to say something, then paused. No doubt he was thinking of his mother. Babs had died in the battle three months before. The lack of life in his fathers eyes was reflected in the despair of all the Dragonmasterswhich was only part of the reason it had taken so long to find the Ancients.

Yes, he finally said. That would be appreciated.

He stepped inside after her. The room sprawled open, a gaping hole in the thatched roof allowing rays of blunted sunshine to stream in. Jumbled wood covered the floor. A dragon must have fallen on the structure to cause such enormous damage.

They just... died here, I guess, Jesse murmured.

Sannas nose wrinkled as she gazed around. Had time paused here?

Left. With Talis, she murmured. Those that could, I imagine. The rest would have died, yes.

Jesse ran his fingers along a table. Do you think well ever know what really happened?

Perhaps.

Sanna dropped her bags onto the floor, then knelt down to pull them open. They had a few leafy greens and some bulbous mushrooms left over, but hardly enough to satisfy her ravenous stomach. The leto-nut crop had been poor this summer.

As if hed read her mind, Luteis said, I will hunt and scout out the area and return before evening. My old home is not far from here. I should like to visit it again.

Sanna glanced outside. Shed forgotten that Luteis used to live close to here, alone. The ruins had been the first place hed brought her after saving her from Taliss wrath, back when the old dragon sire still lived.

Thank you, she said.

Jesse began to walk through the house, looking at old objects, sorting through pinecones and damaged pieces of wood. Sanna made her way to the next house, a smaller one. Likely an old woman had lived here, if the dusty, heavy quilts and threadbare slippers meant anything. Had the forest goddess Deasylva kept all of this from moldering away? Some kind of magic, perhaps? The ghosts of those who had passed?