When I returned from feeding Tähti, though, he had something clutched in his hands, and a strange light in his eyes.
“I’ve been debating within myself whether to start this on the road, or wait till we arrive,” he told me. “But since you’re so bursting with health and strength, we can start now. You’ll probably survive it. And it will help you pass the tests when we get there.”
“What is it?” I demanded.
He uncupped his hands, showing me the little glass vial of red liquid. Red lit our faces, and the whole campsite. Sunset, I told myself. A few drops of liquid could never make that much of a glow.
“You should drink more,” he told me. “A drop every day, to give you strength and to speed the change.”
“Change?”
He wriggled his shoulders uncomfortably. “You are not simply born a dragon, Laela. Well, you are, or rather, you are born with the blood and the gift, but that is not enough. You have to undergo the training. You have to undergo the change.”
“What change?” He didn’t look very changed to me, but perhaps I was missing something. Perhaps it was one of those things where fancy people used fancy words to dress up things that weren’t very fancy or exciting or interesting at all.
“You...the training...you have to change...”
“Change in what way?”
“It will make you stronger,” he said, not looking me in the eye. “That’s all. It will make you stronger.”
“But it will make me weaker first?” I guessed.
“A bit. Sometimes. It can make you...sometimes you don’t feel so good...but you will be fine. I’m sure of it. You will be fine, and you’ll have it over with by the time we arrive, and that will make the training easier, and you’ll be ahead of everyone else. Come here, Laela.” He raised his eyes and looked me straight in the face. “Come here, Laela, and take it. It won’t be so bad, you’ll see.”
I walked over to him, why I couldn’t say. My feet no longer seemed like my feet.
“Only a drop,” he cautioned, holding the vial up to my lips. “One drop, no more.” He tilted the vial.
FIRE!
I was clutching onto the cart to keep from falling. Joki was watching me with dispassionate concern.
“Why does it do that?” I asked. “It was like...being suddenly squeezed all over...or struck by lightning...”
“It just does,” he told me.
“Will it get better?”
“It will. Once you stop taking it. Now come. Let’s see if you’ve left any food for us.”
I tried to get Joki to tell me more about the red liquid and its effects as he made supper—despite his dire words there was no shortage of food for the humans as well as for Tähti—but he put me off with stories that seemed to twist me around more and more as I felt odder and odder, till I accused him of poisoning me.
“No,” he said. “Not like what you mean. It’s the change, working on you. It makes you feel a bit sick at times, is all. But a strong girl like you, I’m sure you’ll survive. Now go to bed, and you’ll feel better in the morning.”
I wanted to argue with him, demand more answers from him, insist on promises that he wouldn’t harm me in the night, but none of the words would come out right, so I crawled over to the cart and made up my bed underneath it, where I lay for a long time, both sleeping and waking, dreaming and seeing, until the stars came out and the moon rose and set, dragging me down into darkness with it.
3
I expected to feel too sick to walk the next morning, but when I crawled out from under the cart into the early-morning chill, I felt lighter, lighter than I had ever felt before. I thought of the dragonbone wand and how light it had felt in my hands.
Nonsense! I told myself firmly. This is always how you feel after an illness! You won’t take any more of that nasty red stuff, no matter what Joki says or does, and that will be the end of it. I looked over to where Joki was sleeping in the cart. He hadn’t bothered to take off his boots, and an empty bottle of wine was lying beside him. I could just start walking back down the mountain, and by the time he came to and realized what had happened, I would be long gone. He probably wouldn’t even bother to try to come after me.
Tähti came over to me, pulling on his tether and whickering hopefully into my hands, looking for more grain.
“If I leave, what will happen to you?” I asked him, and set about starting up a fire for breakfast.
By the time Joki had roused himself and stumbled out of the cart, I had made a steaming porridge, most of which I gave to Tähti. Joki looked at what I gave him and made a disgusted face before feeding his portion to Tähti as well.
“If you didn’t drink so much each night, you wouldn’t feel so ill in the morning,” I told him sternly.
“I only accept that kind of nagging from my wife,” he said.
“So you do have a wife, then?” I asked, hoping he would say “Yes.” Somehow I felt that men with wives were more trustworthy, even though I knew they could be just as untrustworthy as any other man.
“No. Are you offering to take up the office? Because you already nag like one.”
“I’m not a wife. I’m a healer. I nag everybody.”
“True enough.” He took the tea I gave him, sniffed at it, and poured the last of last night’s wine into the mug. I bit my lips and deliberately said nothing. He smiled a little into the steam.
“Truth be told, it’s nice to have someone around who cares enough to nag,”
