"I'll be careful."
"At the first sign of trouble, hide the knapsack and duck inside. If we have to, we can defend the mouth of the bag."
"Okay."
"Less talk, more Yahtzee," Bubda griped. Warren started rattling the dice again. "Be careful."
"I will." Kendra went back up through the top of the knapsack.
The rocky floor of the gorge made her footing treacherous, so Kendra took her time picking her way up the gradual slope toward Stormcrag. As the sun climbed higher, neither wall of the gorge offered much shadow. The faint warmth felt good, but she also felt exposed. Any unfriendly eyes gazing down into the gorge could not miss her. Nevertheless, she made good progress. And she saw no creatures, except for a trio of large dragonflies.
Kendra was getting ready to break for lunch when, coming around a corner, she gained a view of where the gorge abruptly ended. Now she not only had impassable stone walls to her right and left but a new one, as insurmountable as the others, directly in her path. There was no way out of the gorge in the direction she had headed all morning.
At first Kendra wanted to scream, but she realized the noise could attract predators. She wanted to punch the nearest wall of the gorge, but decided it wouldn't be worth cutting up her knuckles. Instead she sank to her knees, bowed her head, and cried.
Once she let them start, the tears came hot and fast. Her body shook with sobs. She was glad her brother couldn't see her grief. He would have laughed over her tears. But she didn't want to think about her brother. That just made it worse. More tears flowed.
"Don't cry," a kind voice said behind her.
Kendra rose and whirled, wiping tears from her wet cheeks, and found herself staring into the eyes of a dragon. Legs numb, she backed away. It was the smallest dragon she had seen yet, with a body the size of a large horse, although the long neck and tail added greatly to its length. Its gleaming armor of silvery white scales reflected a glimmering rainbow sheen, and the head was bright as polished chrome. Overall, the dragon had a lean, sleek build, as if designed for speed. Strangely, Kendra realized that she felt none of the paralysis she had experienced when confronted by other dragons.
"Don't worry," the dragon said. "I won't eat you." He had a male voice, somewhat like a confident teenager, but the words came out richer and fuller than any human could have managed.
"I don't feel scared," Kendra said.
"I've never inspired much terror," the dragon replied, almost sadly. "I'm glad you're not afraid."
"I mean, I don't feel paralyzed like with some dragons," Kendra explained, not wanting to belittle him. "I'm plenty startled. I'm sure you could rip me to shreds if you wanted."
"I mean you no harm. You shine like a fairy. More than a fairy, to be accurate. And more than a fairy friend. I've actually been looking for a chance to meet you."
"What?"
"You've been surrounded by other people." The dragon swung his head away. Was he shy? "You caught my eye right when you entered Wyrmroost. I've followed you from Blackwell Keep."
Kendra scrunched her brow. "You're a little too shiny to blend in much. How did we miss you?"
Suddenly the dragon was gone, as if he had been wiped from existence. Then he was back. "I can go nearly invisible."
"Wow. That would explain it."
"Luckily, I have a few talents besides being a runt."
"You'll grow."
"Will I? Hasn't been going very well the past several centuries."
"Centuries?" Kendra said. "You're not young?"
"I'm a full-grown adult," the dragon said with an edge of bitterness. "Dragons never completely stop growing, but the process slows down as you get old, and I'm well past the age when it slows down. But enough about me. You were crying."
"I'm having a bad day," Kendra said.
"I saw. The griffins carried off your friends."
"One of them was my brother."
"Seth, right? I've been eavesdropping a little. I'm Raxtus, by the way."
"Nice to meet you." Kendra glanced up at the walls of the gorge. "I'm trying to get out of here, but it looks like I'm boxed in."
"You really are," Raxtus agreed. "Only winged creatures can access this box canyon. If you head the other way, you'll hit a huge drop-off, the top of a cliff. There is no way to climb down. A stream used to cut through here. Sometimes it comes back and makes pretty waterfalls, but mostly the water runs a different way now."
"So I'm trapped."
"You would be trapped, yes, but I have wings. I could carry you, no problem."
"Really?" Kendra said.
"Where are you going? You guys always speak low when you discuss your plans. Not a bad idea, by the way. But bad for eavesdropping."
The dragon seemed nice, and he was clearly her only hope. Would he object to taking her to the fairy shrine? Only one way to find out. "The Fairy Queen has a shrine here," Kendra said.
"I knew it!" the dragon exclaimed. "You're fairykind, aren't you? I could tell. Well, I thought I could tell. I wasn't a hundred percent sure, but I would have bet on it. Too bad I didn't."
Kendra was not normally open about her status as fairykind, but there seemed to be no point in trying to hide it from Raxtus. "Yes, I'm fairykind. Do you know where the shrine is?"
The dragon laughed softly. "You can't begin to guess how familiar I am with the Fairy Queen's shrine, I'm probably the only dragon in the world who can go there. I don't mean near the shrine, in the vicinity, I mean actually right up to the shrine itself."
"Other dragons can't?"
"No. Almost nobody can. The Queen would strike them down. I'm guessing you can, though."
"Yes. I mean, I have before, but only at the shrine at Fablehaven. A different preserve."
"I'm familiar with Fablehaven," Raxtus said.
"But I'm not sure if I can visit the shrine here. If the Fairy Queen doesn't want me there, she might turn me into dandelion seeds."
"Right. You have to be careful. You don't just hang out at the shrine without a purpose."
Kendra chuckled. "You don't talk like a dragon."
"I'm unusual. I'm not a dragon of Wyrmroost."
"You're not?"
"I'm at Wyrmroost, but not of Wyrmroost. I was never admitted formally. I'm under no obligation to remain here. I come and go. I'm at Wyrmroost a lot, though, partly because my dad lives here. But I travel all over, mostly incognito, you know, invisible. I really like drive-in movies."
"I've seen a dragon outside of Wyrmroost," Kendra said. "I've heard of many others. I've never heard of one like you."
"There are no other dragons like me," Raxtus admitted. "See, when I was still in my egg, a cockatrice got into the nest. My dad wasn't around, and my mom had just gotten herself killed, so there was nobody to protect us. Three eggs were eaten. Had they hatched, they would have been my siblings. But before the cockatrice got to the last egg, some fairies intervened and rescued me. By the way, I don't remember any of this; it was told to me later. Even for a dragon in an egg, I was young when this happened. The fairies who saved me brought me to one of the Fairy Queen's shrines for protection. I was incubated and hatched by fairy magic, and I came out... unique."
"You're beautiful," Kendra admired. "And nice."
The dragon gave a snuffling, annoyed laugh. "I get that a lot. I'm the pretty dragon. The funny dragon. Problem is, dragons are supposed to be fearsome and awe-inspiring. Not witty. Being the funny dragon is like being the bald mammoth. Being the pretty dragon is like being the ugly fairy. Get it?"
"You get teased?"
"I wish I only got teased! Mocked would be mote accurate. Scorned. Berated. Shunned. Who my dad is only makes it ten times worse, although it also explains why I'm still alive."
"Who is your dad?"
The dragon didn't answer. He looked up at the sky. "I've known you for like five minutes and I'm already confessing my problems. Laying out my whole life story. Why do I always do this? It's like, I want to get it out there at the start so I don't get hurt later on. But I just come off as needy and pathetic. Here you are with real problems and I keep turning the conversation back to me."
"No, it's okay, I'm interested, I want to know."
Raxtus pawed at the ground. "I guess I have to continue now that I've led you on. My dad is Celebrant the Just. He's basically the king of dragons. The biggest, the strongest, the best. And I'm his greatest disappointment. Raxtus the fairy dragon."
Kendra wanted to give him a hug, but realized that might prove his point. "I'm sure your dad is proud of you," Kendra said. "I bet most of this is just in your head."
"I wish you were right," Raxtus replied. "It's no delusion. Celebrant has basically disowned me. I have two brothers. Half brothers. They came from a different clutch, obviously. Each of them rules one of the other forbidden sanctuaries. I look way more like Dad than either of them do--going by shape and color, I mean. I'm the miniature version of Celebrant. He has these glossy platinum scales, a lot like mine, but harder than adamant. On him they look awesome. He's built thicker than me, all muscle. He has like five breath weapons, and knows tons of offensive spells, but he's no thug. His mind is keen as a razor. He has it all. Dignity. Majesty."
"He can't hate you just because you're small!" Kendra asserted.
"Small is only part of it. Guess what my breath weapon does? Helps things grow! You know, makes flowers bloom. And the only magic I can do is defensive stuff like hiding, or else healing. Again, like a fairy. It doesn't help that I look so much like my dad. I know it shames him. He hasn't utterly disavowed me, though. Somewhere deep inside, he feels guilty that my siblings were killed, that he wasn't there to stop the cockatrice, and that he didn't know I had survived until years later. For that, I remain under his protection, which means that as much as other dragons shun me, none of them want to fight me. No dragon on Earth is eager to risk the wrath of Celebrant."
"See! He loves you."
"No. Guilt is not love. Dad has made it clear he doesn't want me near him. And he's right. My presence discredits him: the humiliating contrast between the most magnificent dragon in the world and his absurd jester of a son."
Kendra could think of nothing to say. Again she resisted the urge to hug him.
"Anyhow, now you know my sorry background. The full confession. I don't want to be feeble and useless; I'm not proud of it. I love action movies. My fondest dream is to be a hero. To be fierce and brave, to somehow prove myself a real dragon. But when the opportunity arises, I cringe. Like when the griffins took your friends. I could have charged to the rescue. Come on, they were griffins! But there were a lot of them, and I knew who must have sent them. I decided to lie low for a minute, and before I knew it, the opportunity had passed me by."
"Who sent the griffins?" Kendra inquired eagerly.
"Thronis, the sky giant up on Stormcrag. He keeps griffins like people keep hounds. The dwarf was Zogo. The giant's dwarf."
"You know where Thronis lives?"
"Sure."
"Here's your chance for heroics!" Kendra said. "We can rescue my brother and the others!"
"You're right, that would be valiant. Too valiant. I'd get us both killed. If I was lucky, maybe I'd invigorate some of his houseplants along the way. I'm barely half a dragon, Kendra. The rest of me is glitter and fairy dust. Even the bravest dragons stay far from Thronis. He is both giant and sorcerer. Powerful spells protect his stronghold atop Stormcrag. True, I yearn to be a hero, but I'm a coward at heart. Want an example? I followed you all morning trying to work up the courage to say hello. I only found the nerve once you started crying."
"But you could go invisible," Kendra suggested. "Sneak up there in the dead of night."
"Spells," Raxtus said. "Thronis would know. He'd slay me before I could help anyone. Look, as a friend, I'm the ideal dragon. As a hero, not so much."
"Can you turn into a human?" Kendra wondered.
"Like an avatar? A human version of myself? Not really. I mean, I've tried. But it doesn't work out well. I can't manage to look like a person."
"What do you look like?"
The dragon glanced away. "Maybe we should change the subject."
"What?"
Raxtus looked back at her. "I look like a boy fairy with butterfly wings."
Kendra did a poor job stifling her surprised laugh.
"Like a foot tall," Raxtus went on. "You can laugh, I know how it sounds--believe me, I know--just don't spread that one around, please. It isn't common knowledge."
"It just caught me off guard," Kendra apologized.
"Caught me off guard too. For years I took consolation that one day I could escape to human form, once I learned the trick, and maybe become part of a community. No luck. I'm a freak in any form. I'm polluted by fairy magic down to the core."
"You're not a freak," Kendra said firmly. "You're the coolest looking dragon I've ever seen. You're like a sports car. The only dragons I've seen or heard of are harsh and mean. It's easy to be mean when you have sharp teeth and claws. It would be much harder to be likable. I've never even pictured a likable dragon until right now."