Page 36 of The Heart and the Hawthorn

‘I wasn’t young, but I was arrogant,’ Fireheart told her. She had hunched up against the wall as she spoke, her voice emptied of all of its fire. Her spine arched tensely, her wings locked. She positioned herself between Frida and the Jewel, blocking the Jewel’s fragile glow.

‘I thought I couldn’t be bested,’ Fireheart sighed. ‘I was wrong.’

Frida sat with her knees against her chest, the monkeys arrayed around her in a loose circle. She wondered whether Fireheart had ever told anyone this story before.

‘What did they do to you?’

Fireheart was silent for a long time. Twiglet crept over, extending a small paw to the dragon’s heaving chest, before slinking back to her place next to Cream Pie. ‘It was some kind of weapon that stunned me first,’ Fireheart started haltingly. Her wheeze seemed to be greater now, whether from extended speech or emotion. She looked down at the rocks, dragging her claws along their surface with a painful, elongated screech. ‘I didn’t understand. I’d never seen anything of that ilk before. None of us had, although there had been rumours, rippling through the worlds. Of wrongness. Can’t you feel it, zookeeper? Can’t you feel the way your magic shrinks from it, whimpering in pain?’

Frida slowly lifted a hand to touch her temples, where the burn of a headache still lingered. She didn’t have time to consider what Fireheart meant though, before the old dragon went on brokenly,

‘When I woke up, they’d sawn off my wings.’

There were no words for such a thing. The pain was so raw, so visceral, Frida felt the ghost of greedy hands, sliding knives down her own back, cutting tendons, slicing bone. The crack of sinew, the blinding grief.

‘My home was taken.’

The lights of desert stars, winking out one by one by one.

‘My mate was murdered.’

A silhouette against a rock face, the dark shape of another cat-like dragon covered in blue blood, teeming with the tiny shapes of humans using those same knives to carve pieces out of dead flesh. Frida wanted to beg Fireheart to stop, it was too much, too painful, too private, but there was no pause, no mercy in the telling. Fireheart continued, low and unyielding, as though she were a storm, a roiling tornado of flame.

‘The world that I was part of, and that was part of me. They took everything from me. They shattered me in every possible way. From then on, I didn’t have the energy to fight. You will ask why I have stayed.’ Her eyes were ancient and weary. ‘But where would I go?’

Frida felt a deep and helpless sorrow etched into her chest. Fireheart was right. There was nowhere for her to go, not with her wings like that.

‘But that’s why the LEZ is so precious,’ Frida said emotionally.

Fireheart just looked at her, the ink in her milky eyes scarred with fire.

‘Please,’ Frida beseeched. ‘You have to help me save it.’

‘I will help you,’ Fireheart answered, her voice a deep puff of smoke.

Frida was so surprised, she reeled backwards. She hadn’t expected it. ‘Truly?’

The small, ragged frill around Fireheart’s neck shivered, and she raised her snout imperiously. ‘Yes, I will help you, but there is a cost. You must help me first.’ She glanced behind her, at where the broken Jewel smouldered. ‘Find the rest of my Jewel, the rest of my soul,’ her voice broke, causing Frida to sway, ‘and I will help you put your world back together. Find my Jewel,’ she said roughly, ‘and I will do what you ask, azizam.’

Frida’s head rang, a high hollow hum that deafened her. Like the beat of distant wings. Find Fireheart’s Jewel. She rose up to her feet, her hands in fists. ‘I will do it!’ she exclaimed. Although, as the wingbeats faded, she realised she had no idea where to start. As if reading this on her face, Fireheart gave a low chuckle, like rocks shifting, and for once, there was a shadow of sympathy on her lined face. Frida almost heard her maligning the small brains of humans.

‘Go back to the beginning,’ Fireheart said, her filmy eyes surprisingly kind. ‘Only there will you find the knowledge you need.’

‘The beginning?’ Frida asked, furrowing her brows. The beginning of what? Her first thought was to go back to the Hawthorn, for that was where this whole nightmare began, but she wouldn’t find the Jewel at the tree. This had to be something different. Fireheart’s beginning, then? The Jewel’s? The beginning of the very world? ‘Please, I need more–’

‘The hatchling,’ Fireheart cut her off, her moment of patience evaporated. ‘He knows where. Go and bother him. It’s his turn now.’

Frida was shaking her head though. ‘No, he’s asleep! I already tried–’

‘Oh, azizam. Dragons do not succumb to mere sleep spells. If he’s napping, give him a sharp poke in the belly. Now go away.’ Fireheart punctuated this with a massive, jaw-cracking yawn. ‘I’ve done my part. You can figure out the rest. This plot has so many twists and turns it makes my head ring, and I grow tired of you.’ A sulphurous wind rushed through the cavern, making Frida choke. When it cleared, Fireheart’s scales were ablaze, like ribbons of lava pouring over her bones. ‘Come, little-storms,’ she muttered to the monkeys. ‘There is much to do, and we do not want to distract the zookeeper.’

Jellybean gave a little peep of complaint, but when Fireheart levelled a scathing look at him, he hung his head, marble-storms frothing. He looked at Frida with his round yellow eyes.

‘Pink crackles,’ he trilled desperately. ‘Free, pink crackles.’

Then he leapt away with a shriek.

Frida didn’t have time to call after him in dismay before the dragon roared.