“Was it all for nothing?” I asked Joki, looking at the smooth tan skin of my wrists. “Was all that pain and fear and change for nothing?”
“The blood is still within you, Laela,” he assured me. “Something like that always leaves its marks. The change has already taken place, and you will never be the same person you were before, even if you no longer bear the signs on your skin. It is still within you, and you will carry it with you forever.”
“I will,” I agreed, and got out of the cart and walked beside it on the uphill in order to spare Tähti my weight.
We climbed and climbed and went over passes where winter had long left autumn behind, and down into deep dark valleys that had an evil shadow to them even at midday, and wound back and forth on serpentine paths barely wide enough for our cart, watching as the rocks we dislodged went tumbling down into the depths below.
One day, when the air was keen and thin and smelled of snow and danger, we came to a little stone settlement in a small cleft between high peaks. There was a gate across the path, and a man stepped out of the squat tower that was guarding it.
“Joki,” he said. “Whom have you brought us?” He squinted at me. “Pretty isn’t enough,” he said. “They have to have the blood too, to be allowed up there.” He waved at a long line of stone stairs, leading off into heights hidden from our eyes.
“Show him, Laela,” said Joki, and handed me the dragonbone wand. I twirled it between my fingers, feeling its warm lightness, like a living feather, straining to fly away and take me with it.
“I see,” said the man. This time his squint had an air of respect, and he stepped back and opened the gate. “Welcome to Dragon’s Forge,” he said.
