Chosen: Book 1 in the Dragon Queen series

“We can’t cremate him. It would take days to find enough wood.”

The fae had died, but Brunna and I were very much alive and wanted to stay that way. When the sun rose we discussed what to do next.

“Should we bury him?” Brunna asked.

I crouched beside his body, trying to comb his hair into neatness with my fingers. I was assailed by the sudden guilt that I’d never asked his name. I didn’t know who had saved our lives – and given his own. “How?” I asked Brunna. The entirety of our worldly possessions was Brunna’s manacles, the scale the fae had given me the night before, and the clothes we stood up in.

“We can’t just leave him here.”

I didn’t mean any disrespect, but… I searched the trees for inspiration. “We’ll put him among the bushes, cover him over. It’s the best we can do.”

Brunna helped me move his body to a hollow beneath a leafy hawbush. Then we pulled low branches from the closeby trees and bushes, laying them and then handfuls of leaves over the body until he was fully covered. I pushed a branch into the earth above his head and sacrificed a ribbon from my hair to mark the spot decently.

I had no idea what funeral rites a fae might expect. I muttered a wish that he be reunited with his family and friends in the otherworld and hoped that would be sufficient.

“What do we do now?” Brunna asked. “Are we going to the mountains like he wanted?” Her jaw jutted as she asked the question. I heard the ‘we’ and my lips twitched. She didn’t need to prepare for an argument. Splitting up would be madness. We were safer together, whichever way we went.

On, or back. And I had nothing to guide me.

Was I supposed to zig, or zag? I looked up, turning until I could see the line of the Firethorn Mountains, a ridge of grey in the distance. It would take days to reach them, and the fae hadn’t actually told me which peak we should be heading for. I had a scale that would apparently assure my welcome, but we had no food, no transport, no equipment that would help with our journey.

Yet I still didn’t have a cure for Pa. And the dragon queen could give me one.

I couldn’t return home with nothing. I turned to Brunna. “If you’re prepared for the journey, I think we should pay a visit to the fae.”

Her face split into a grin. “Yes!”

~

For town girls, we managed well. Streams cut their way through the landscape regularly. We found berries to eat, and leaves that looked and tasted like cabbage which didn’t make either of us ill. The mountains were an obvious destination, always visible over the tops of the trees. Every night, we made a shelter and lit a fire. I wished we had weapons to shoot down some of the birds in the trees or trap a rabbit or two, but when I started to wonder if I was a fool, I remembered Pa and everything I had to gain, and picked up my steps again.

We passed three days like that, but on the fourth day, everything changed.

The first thing I noticed was that the birds were silent. There was usually a constant, chirruping background to our steps. Then I realised the birds weren’t silent. They’d vanished, forsaking their usual treetop homes.

I glanced at Brunna. She was humming under her breath and didn’t seem to have noticed anything. I looked more carefully into the trees around us. I hoped that was a sign we were nearing the fae – surely dragons would be ferocious enough to drive away birds. I tried not to reflect that we weren’t really in the mountains yet, and especially not to think that there might be other predators who kept the birds at bay in the forest. I couldn’t see anything worrying, and I hoped that meant there was nothing to see. My heart kept a faster beat, keeping me alert, although it was the afternoon before my vigilance was rewarded.

I gripped Brunna’s arm when something dashed through the trees on our left. She opened her mouth and I put my hand over it before she could speak. I let her go and pointed in the direction of the thing I’d seen. We both ducked behind a tree and peered around cautiously. An animal, brown and fast-moving. A bark sounded a moment later. Brunna sighed with relief. I was pleased to be able to identify the creature, but that didn’t help me relax. We were miles from any settlement. What was a dog doing this far into the forest?

A rustle sounded ahead of us, followed by voices. I grabbed Brunna and we stumbled in the opposite direction. Another shape sped through the woods in front of us, a grey blur. My brain shouted, wolf, but I told myself it had to be another dog. Dogs I could cope with, just; they were tame and might respond to our commands. Wolves that could tear us limb from limb ... not so much. Brunna’s fingers gripped mine in silent fear. We stumbled through the trees, trying to avoid the attention of either creature, desperate to get away.

A howl rent the air and we broke into a run, heedless of anything but the impulse to flee.

Our terrified flight slowed when a stitch knifed my side. I stumbled to a walk and Brunna slowed to let me catch up. “What was that?” she whispered.

“I don’t think we want to know.”

“Wolves? That was a wolf, right?”

I nodded. I had to swallow a couple of times before I could answer. “Let’s hope it got the dog so it won’t be hungry for a while.”

Brunna laughed, then gripped my sleeve.

I stilled, wondering what horror was upon us now.

She pointed. I followed her gaze. It took a moment to understand what I was looking at in the midst of the trees. I expected some terrifying beast, but what I found was a tent pitched in a small clearing. There was no fire, but a ring of stones marked where one had burned earlier, and a jerkin was hooked over a tree branch.

“The dog’s owner?” I breathed.

“It looks like no one’s home,” Brunna whispered. We hung back for a minute in case someone came out of the tent, or strode through the woods towards it. The idea that the owner might also have been eaten by the wolf made me shiver. I couldn’t stand around for ever.

“Hello?” I called, ducking back behind the trunk of the tree in case I actually caught someone’s attention. There was no reply. “We should have a quick look around,” I said.

I didn’t intend outright theft, I swear, but when we stepped into the camp and still no one stopped us, well, it was hunger that drove me mostly. I found a tin inside the tent containing strips of dried meat. I crammed one into my mouth and offered the tin to Brunna.

“Look.” She turned with a grin, showing off the slingshot she’d found.

“Can you use that?” I asked doubtfully.

She gave me a level stare. “I grew up with six brothers. Yes, I can use it.”

Next, she lifted the jerkin and tried it on.

“Brunna!”

Her eyes widened. “What? I’m cold. And it fits.”

After a fashion, once she rolled up the sleeves.

“We should go.” There were three packs in the tent, which meant three men along with the dog we’d seen. We couldn’t hope that the wolf would have eaten all of them. Spurred on by Brunna’s boldness, I grabbed a blanket and wrapped the tin of jerky in it. Brunna followed me, scanning the ground for stones to fit her new plaything.

That was the most comfortable night we’d spent so far, with Brunna’s new jerkin rolled up to make a pillow beneath our heads, the dried beef filling our stomachs and the blanket keeping us warm.

We set off at dawn the next day and it was a couple of hours later that we saw more evidence of the forest’s other inhabitants.

A roar made us duck instinctively. Reaching a clearing, we craned up. A dragon soared overhead, flying north. Brunna and I ducked out of sight and the creature didn’t notice us.

Another wheeled into sight after the first. Forgetting to be scared, I stood in the open and watched. I could tell from the colour and the size that it wasn’t Dragon – it was far too big. A pang tightened my heart because Dragon had been growing rapidly. Who was to say she wasn’t that size already? I couldn’t wait to see her again – and I might not have much longer to wait.

“Come on.” Brunna had looked away from the sky, checking the ground to find suitable-sized stones to wield her slingshot and test her aim. She’d been practising all morning, firing small missiles against trees and bushes. Now, we just needed some prey for her to down. But not a dragon.

I plucked at her arm to keep her moving. “We must be nearly there.”

She looked east, where the mountains filled the skyline. “How do you know?”

“Stands to reason. There are dragons, so we must be close.”

My steps were stronger that day. I didn’t even mind when dusk fell and we hadn’t yet found the fae or any more dragons. One more day would surely bring us to them, and then all our troubles would be over.

I should have known it wouldn’t be that simple.