“What is it?” asked Lord Hei, leaning over my shoulder with bright-eyed interest.
“A dragonbone wand,” I told him. “Only those with the blood can touch it.”
“Oh...” Lord Hei clutched at my thigh in excitement as I unrolled the faded piece of velvet and took out the wand.
“It is beautiful, but we will make it more beautiful,” he told me. “So that it will be fit for you to wield.”
“Truly?” I asked. His eyes were shining. I let my eyes shine back at him, and bit my lip. My teeth were sharper than they had ever been, sharp enough to draw blood just from their touch. “Truly? Then kiss me, my love. You have given me so much; I would repay you.”
He bent his head closer and pressed his lips eagerly to mine, his tongue seeking to part them. I let him, and then, when he stiffened, held him hard against me. When he tried to pull away, my sharp fingernails dug into his arms and pulled him close, and when he tried to scream, I kissed him harder. The others in the hall laughed and cheered at his passion.
When I released him, he fell to the floor, his mouth scalded and blistered, blood running down his chin. “Kissing dragons is a dangerous business,” I told him. I stood. “Come, Joki. Let us leave. I have somewhere I must be.”
Lord Hei tried to shout orders with his burned and bitten tongue. The two men tried to grab me, but I pressed the dragonbone wand against them, and they fell back, skin blistering. Servants came running up, looked at me, and stopped, making no move to detain me.
The wand felt so right in my hand. Warm and alive and an inseparable part of me, as hot as the rage inside me. I thought about spitting the blood that was still filling my mouth onto Lord Hei, onto the men who had held me down and hurt me, onto the servants who had fetched and carried and done nothing to help me. The rage said that would be right. The rage said there was more than dragon blood rising within me: there was dragon fire too, and the wand would help me unleash it. I could point the wand wherever I willed, and fire would leap from blood to bone and then explode into air, burning all in its path. I would burn down this keep of Hell and all those who lived inside it, till there was nothing left but ash that would float free in the wind.
“Run, Laela,” said Joki. He had gone down on one knee, and was clutching at his side. He spat blood on the floor. His blood was not the shimmering, glowing red of mine, but it was red nonetheless, red as fire as it slid over his sharp teeth. “Don’t wait for me, just run. Run, Laela, RUN!”
“You run too,” I said, and grabbed him by the collar and hauled him to his feet and ran, dragging him behind me, down the keep and out the door and across the yard and out the gate to the cold, free, clear open air.
“To the left,” he gasped as we cleared the gate. A guard made to stop me, but I raised the wand, and he jumped back behind the wall before I could even attempt to use the wand against him.
“To the left,” Joki gasped. “Tähti is waiting for us there.”
We ran down a small slope to a grove of trees, where Tähti was waiting for us, still harnessed to the cart.
“I came for you, Laela,” Joki said. “I came for you.”
“You did,” I said. I lifted him up into the cart and thrust the reins into his hands. “Now drive! And I will keep up with you.”
10
We went as fast as Tähti could go, with me easily keeping pace beside the rattling cart. We stopped only when Tähti’s sides were heaving, and dark had settled over the road. I found us a resting place, and unharnessed Tähti and rubbed him down and fed and watered him, and prepared food for Joki and myself, and treated Joki’s wounds as best I could.
“You know,” he told me as I cleaned his bruises and bound his ribs, “dragon blood has healing power.”
“You already have dragon blood within you,” I said.
“But you could give me more. Do to me what you did to Lord Hei. For me it would be healing, not burning.”
“Where’s the vial?” I asked. “The one you were using on me. Take some for yourself.”
“There’s not enough.”
“There’s still a swallow or two left, surely.”
“No. I mean in the whole world. There’s not enough dragon blood left in the whole world for me to waste what little we have on me. But you could change that, Laela! I saw your blood as it ran from your mouth. It shimmered like the true blood of a real dragon, not the watered-down version that I and the rest of us are.”
“So what?” I asked. “Are you going to milk me for my blood?”
There was an uncomfortable silence. “No, of course not, Laela, of course not!” said Joki, a little too late.
“Very well,” I said, after another uncomfortable silence. “Hand me that knife.”
My wrists were still only half-healed, and I did not want to give Joki more than a drop of my blood anyway. I pricked my thumb and placed it in his mouth, and he sucked it as eagerly as a babe at the breast until I pulled it away.
“Go to sleep now,” I told him, binding up the cut. “Sleep is healing. I will keep watch in case they come for us.”
Joki fell asleep without even attempting to object. I sat by the fire and looked out into the darkness.
11
When morning came, Joki arose fresh and hale
