ONE
Silver Batal, World Water Dragon Racing semifinalist, dug her fists into her water dragon’s snow-white mane, set her jaw, and narrowed her eyes at the smooth, glistening slide of ice before her.
Ready? Silver thought to her beloved Hiyyan, communicating mentally with the Aquinder through their special bond. In response, the water dragon let out a roar and launched bellyfirst onto the icy slide. The fur collar on Silver’s cloak whipped against her ears and neck as the landscape around them blurred into a single shade of pale green. Hiyyan kept his head low and his limbs splayed out to the sides so that nothing slowed his speed as they raced over the ice on his smooth stomach.
“You’ll never catch us!” Silver yelled, knowing the words would carry over her shoulder to Mele, once a cleaning girl at an inn in the royal city of Calidia, but now a friend and companion-in-hiding. Mele replied with a wordless battle cry as her own bonded water dragon, a Shorsa named Luap, slithered down the slide, almost completely flat against the surface.
Silver laughed as Hiyyan added a triumphant cry of his own: “Huuunnnnrrrrggghhh!”
It was a moment to relish: Girl hearts sprinted in time with water dragon hearts; their breaths came fast, shrouding their faces in soft veils of mist.
Faster, Hiyyan, Silver urged her water dragon. We’re winners!
Hiyyan grunted in agreement, flattened his stomach harder against the slick surface, and lowered his nose even closer to the ice.
“Not too close. Your mane is sticking … slowing us down.” Silver glanced behind her. Mele and Luap were gaining on them. This was the first time Silver had raced against Mele, since the Shorsa had only just been freed from Calidia’s royal kennel, but everyone knew Shorsas were the fastest breed in racing. And even though they struggled to walk on dry land, Luap’s long, narrow body was aerodynamically suited for zooming through the water and, as Silver was now discovering, sliding across ice.
“Ha-ha!” Mele’s triumphant laugh echoed off stone walls. A flash of multihued, pastel dragon hit Silver’s peripheral vision. They were neck and neck.
Silver laughed back. “I’ve beat better racers than you before!”
“Kwonk!” Luap snorted indignantly and glared at Silver.
Hiyyan chuckled at the Shorsa and sent a happy wave of warmth to Silver.
“You won’t this time!” Mele waved her fist in the air.
The girls dissolved into giggles that bubbled up from their bellies.
Let’s finish this, Hiyyan bond-said to Silver, pressing his wings more tightly to his side to minimize wind resistance. Silver grinned, even though the cold hurt her teeth. Hiyyan’s limbs were healthy and strong, well-healed after all the run-ins with cave monsters and enemy water dragons, and after the exhausting races of their last adventure. That was thanks to Nebekker—the old woman was a master of the curative arts.
Yes! We are champions, my Hiyyan. No matter where we race.
The winter world they’d called home for the past weeks sped by, so unlike Silver’s desert city of Jaspaton. A wind so cold it froze Silver’s hair to her temples sliced across their skin. Sharp, cool light bounced off the snow, searing their pupils. And the dark, moody mountains rose into the sky on every side of the valley they raced through. There had been many downhearted moments of late: of wishing to build warm fires but fearing the smoke would give away their position; of worrying their toes would turn blue in their soft boots that were meant for scorching sand, not snow; of a darkness at night so pure and black that Silver marveled she was even still alive at all.
But none of those things mattered now. Today, the race thrilled Silver to her core, heating her belly like the great ceramic ovens Aunt Yidla baked bread in back in Jaspaton. The memory stabbed Silver with a pang of homesickness, but she quickly shook it off.
“Watch out!” Silver and Hiyyan caught sight of a rock bursting through the ice at the same time and, together, banked to the left, swerving majestically.
Scrisshhh. Silver’s heel grazed the solid surface of the icy river.
“Argh!” Silver heard Mele call out.
Mele and Luap weren’t so fortunate. Hiyyan’s large body blocked the rock from view until the last second, and the Shorsa didn’t see it. Luap bumped against the edge of the rock and ricocheted across the flow of the ice-stream toward the riverbank before finally righting herself once more.
When one quick look assured Silver that her friends were all right, she faced forward again and pumped her fist in the air. “This race is ours.”
They were almost to the marker they’d set as the finish line: an evergreen tree so harassed by wind that it leaned all the way across the frozen stream like an arch.
“Go, go, g—aaahhh!” Silver lurched out of her seat as Hiyyan hit a rough patch in the ice, his belly sticking long enough to pull down his head and send them both sideways. One dragon wing pitched skyward as Hiyyan scrambled to regain balance. Silver slammed into the ice as Hiyyan’s weight dragged her across the frozen river.
“Unnggghhhh!” The ice scraped painfully along her thigh, but Silver held on tightly. She would not give up so easily, not even during an unsanctioned race between friends in the hinterlands.
“Let go!” Mele shouted.
“Never!”
Using all her strength, Silver clawed her way up Hiyyan’s mane. His claws, in the meantime, scraped against the ice, emitting a screech that sent shivers up Silver’s spine. She didn’t know which was worse: that sound or the way the sharp ice continued to slice away at her upper leg.
“Knawwwnk.” Luap reached Silver and honked at her. Mele and her water dragon scowled at Silver.
“I’m not letting go!”
From Luap’s back, Mele leaned over, her hair whipping behind her, the strands nearly frozen together. “Silver, stop!”
Silver gritted her teeth even harder. Mele could be more stubborn than a lazy herd animal, but when it came to racing, no one was more motivated than Silver. After all, hadn’t it been Silver’s love of racing that had gotten them into this mess—hiding in the mountains from Queen Imea with a supposedly extinct breed of water dragon plus one stolen Shorsa?
Despite living in fear of being found, Silver had been watching this particular spot in the mountain-valley wilderness for the last two weeks, ever since the first thin slivers of ice appeared at the edges of the narrow, steeply south-running stream that was an offshoot of the main river. As winter marched on, those icy ribbons had widened until Silver could walk across the frozen water one bank to the other. On this day, though, clouds had rolled in, bringing a slight warmth, along with a brief drizzle that had slickened the ice until it looked like hard candy. They’d never get another chance like this to race.
“No way! This isn’t over until the finish line.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“Keep racing!”
Mele’s eyes flashed, but with anger or mirth, Silver couldn’t tell. “Suit yourself. Enjoy losing!”
The Shorsa and her rider sank low to the ice again and sped forward, leaving Silver and Hiyyan behind in their mound of ice shavings.
“Grrruuullll,” Hiyyan growled after them. As Mele and Luap slid past the finish line, Silver finally released her hold on her Aquinder and flopped onto the ice, breathless.
“Some champions we are.” A shadow fell over Silver as Mele returned. “Go ahead, gloat all you want.”
Mele shook her head. “You are so competitive. Here, let me see your leg.”
“It’s fine.” But now that the thrill of the race was over, the sting of scraped and frozen skin was settling in. Silver gnawed on her bottom lip, and Mele winced as she peered at the raw spots through torn cloth.
“Let’s get back to Nebekker so that she can tend to this.”
Silver scrambled to her feet. “No, let’s go back up. I want a do-over. We would have won if not for that rough patch.”
“Obstacles are part of racing.” Mele shrugged.
“I know we can beat you!”
“You lost, Silver. I guess a desert fox like you isn’t suited to these frozen lands.” Mele raised an eyebrow loftily and turned away. She and Luap continued down the ice stream toward the mountain caves the renegades had been hiding in.
“Rude!” Silver scooped up a handful of snow from the stream bank and tossed it in Mele’s direction. The wind, with its own infuriating little laugh, blew the snow back into Silver’s face.
Even Hiyyan had to chuckle at that.
“Thanks, you overgrown lizard,” Silver muttered.
Copyright © 2020 by Kristin Vincent
