“Crossroads of life,” I murmured. I hadn’t had the gem vision since receiving the sapphire. I couldn’t deny its importance—using it had unlocked my Gift.
So the First One gave me the gem vision so I’d accept Thorkel’s help? What about the vision of Thorkel himself? Or the dying man? There must be more…
I flipped through the book. The candle burned lower and wax pooled on the glittery black marble. My finger paused on a paragraph.
When Cylia saw the petals of the rose fall to the ground, she knew the moment the First One had warned her about had come. Her decision to fight or to flee would affect events to come. She prayed and meditated on the Record, and in the end, she decided to fight…
… The enemy had almost killed Cylia, but she had won despite overwhelming opposition. The section of land that she had defended became the founding of her estate. Her house emblem: the dying rose.
The more I read, the more I thought I understood. Visions were the moments when the Champion’s decision altered his or her life. Sometimes that decision affected all of Drageria.
“But you don’t say what to do,” I said, snapping the book shut. “Thanks.”
The candle flickered.
I sighed with frustration and stood. Every minute I spent with an aggravating deity was a minute I fell behind at the Quarters. I blew out the candle and pulled the door shut.
As it clicked, the vision hit.
The dragon’s hot, sulfuric breath fills the room as it roars, and saliva drips from its black teeth. A man in desert garb rides his back. He laughs, a cruel laugh without humor, and he raises a hand that glitters with rings and red fire...
Then nothing. My hand still clung to the brass door handle. Cold sweat slicked my back. I threw open the door and ran back inside.
“What was that?” I exclaimed at the altar. “You are the most useless—”
“Adara?” Soft knocking came from down the hallway. The opening of a door. “Trainee Adara? Very sorry, excuse me.”
I stepped into the hall. A Speaker tapped on doors, asking for me.
“I’m Adara,” I said before he interrupted the next person at prayer.
He startled. “Adara, you are needed at the Infirmary immediately. Wounded.”
The sweat from the vision grew colder. “You’re sure?”
He tapped his head—he’d been told by the dragons and his eyes were slightly out of focus. “Orrik thinks something happened to the courier dragons. They’ll be here any minute.”
I barely heard his last words. I was already running.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Infirmary swarmed with activity. Byron gave orders from memory to unknown mages, who half collided as they tried to prepare stations. Dragons—six of them—huffed in shifts on the beds. Sylvia threw herbs into bottles like a wild woman. Through the open doors, dragons flew against the blue sky. They were much too close.
Orrik, the serving Dragonmaster while Shamino was gone, entered right behind me. “What do I do?”
I opened the thin red notebook—instructions for the Infirmary—and waved it around helplessly. I’d never bothered to read it, because of course we couldn’t have wounded without Shamino. “Is Shamino on his way?”
To my horror, Orrik shook his head. “The courier line to the front is down. That is why we had little notice—the injured are exhausted and their telepathic range is short. The courier line to Dragonsridge is intact, so Shamino should be receiving a message from us as we speak, but our liaison in Dragonsridge hadn’t heard about wounded. Therefore, their line to Merram is down, too.”
“So it’s two days until Shamino arrives.”
“Maybe a day and a half. But yes.”
Rutting weasels in pigshit. I’d read a book on dragon healing, but I still couldn’t heal; dragon healing was something you were born with. Who but Shamino could diagnose internal wounds? “How bad are the incoming?”
“Eight dragons, all very bad. Two others died en route and were abandoned.” Orrik’s eyes grew hard. “They sent a message to Dragonsridge when they began flying, hoping Shamino would meet them here.”
“But the message never went through…” Thorkel’s timing with taking out the couriers was perfect, to have a message started but not finished. I said a few more curses in my head. The dragons would have died on the front without healing; that must be why they had risked flight. Now they’d die in front of me. I tried to picture the lake, but the real thing glinted in the sunlight, and above it listed flying dragons struggling with wounded.
“I need Mettalise—she’s an unbonded,” I told Orrik. Best to start with what I knew. “Tell her to restrain troublemakers, she’ll know what to do. Then get half of these mages out of here. They’re causing more chaos than they are helping.”
Orrik nodded and his eyes unfocused. I rushed through the book, trying to create order. On the second page, the wounded landed.
Dragon screams filled the air.
We weren’t only missing Shamino, we also lacked Raul, the healer’s dragon who assisted in getting the wounded to their beds. Shamino must have directed Raul during triage, for the Seneschal’s patients had never roared in pain as mine did. I tried to notice where the assisting dragons touched the injured, tried to guess what might have caused the pain, but there were too many dragons and too much pain…
Sylvia and I sorted the best we could. She had no draughts finished when Byron started on his first dragon; nothing to dull the pain as Byron began to clean the main wound. Dimly I heard a hysterical mage being carried away by Mettalise. My attention, though, was on my patient.
Bloody blankets wrapped the green dragon’s wings. I used Telekinesis to wrestle them off, but my clumsy magic made him thrash; a random dragon
