The spellfire barrier around the forest couldn't even repel his shadow. It was so weak now that it barely stung Lord Ash's hoof as he stepped into the thick shade of the Galefang. The Dark Moon was definitely here; he could sense its ancient magic pulsing like a second heartbeat! But his moment of exultance was marred by the hot pant of a large brown dire wolf that sprang from the brush in front of him, half a dozen of his flea-bitten underlings following close behind.
"Unicorns? Thought I smelled one of your prissy kind prancing about my woods," the brown dire wolf said with a leer as it licked its muzzle. "I heard a fresh unicorn shank tastes just like a tender horse foal."
Lord Ash stifled a chuckle. No doubt this dire wolf fancied himself a leader in the pride of his prime. His rich brown pelt shone sleek and healthy, muscles bulging thick as tree roots, and fangs gleaming sharp enough to crunch bones. A pity that was all of his strength.
"I don't mean to disappoint," Lord Ash said as he stepped into a slant of light so that the ribbon of blood dripping down his horn gleamed like living ruby. "But I'm afraid that we aren't merely unicorns. We haven't been for a very, very long time . . . ."
The brown dire wolf and his pack had the good sense to whimper and back against the brush with their tails between their legs, but it was much too late for displays of groveling.
"Let's teach these mangy curs proper manners, shall we?" Lord Ash said as his Inorog surged past him with glinting, red-rimmed spires pointing down. "But the brown one is mine—I want to ask him about the little prancer who dared arrive before me."
***
Kit decided not to tell the other orphans about Sheen, at least, not right away. He'd never kept back anything from them before and the feeling was like having a squirming eel stuck in his stomach. But the Mazak boy couldn't keep another's secret if his life depended on it, Tad would warn him not to trust Sheen, just forget her, Minnow would beg to ride the unicorn, and Lil and Vi, well . . . they'd probably try to capture her for snooping around Mt. Galefang. Yet Kit was most anxious about what Aerohim would do when he learned about the unicorn girl's wild claim:
Excuse me, sir, did you drop this heart?
Just sounding out the idea in his mind was ludicrous! But dragons were magical beasts—perhaps it was possible for them to cut out their heart and still survive? He finally mustered enough courage to ask Aerohim . . . sort of. That evening as the dragon groomed his scales, Kit perched on a coil of his tail.
"Aerohim, do you have a heart, like humans do?" he asked.
The dragon's talons paused mid-scratch. "A heart?" Aerohim repeated in a bemused tone. "Don't be ridiculous." He stretched his neck with a wide yawn. "Dragons have survived for millennia because we're invincible to the perilous whims and passions that afflict humankind." His scales rippled in a shudder. "We don't need that organ that allows all those tangled emotions to strangle your strength before you're even a hundred years old." He snuffled Kit's hair affectionately. "It's tragic, really. I pity your fragile species."
"I'm not made of porcelain, you know," Kit retorted, grabbing Aerohim's snout and hanging on until the dragon sneezed him off. Minnow laughed uproariously as he landed in a bolt of silk and came up swathed in yards of bright fuchsia. Even as Kit laughed with her, his own heart hardened in his chest. Was Sheen lying, then? Or was it Aerohim who wasn't telling the truth? The dragon had no reason to lie! Unless—he was lying to himself?
Kit needed more information before he made his final decision. While rubbing Lady's favorite varnish over her helm an hour later, he tried to drop the question as casually as possible:
"Say, is it true that some creatures can live without a heart?"
"Of course not!" Lady snorted, and for a moment Kit was instantly relieved. Too bad the moment passed as she added, "Not for long, that is. Only magic-born creatures can safely sever that organ, but without a doubt I wouldn't recommend it."
"Why not?" Kit asked, varnish dripping in dark amber tears from his hand as he squeezed the polishing rag too tightly.
"Thing of it is, that kind of wound never stops bleeding," she said, her timbers shuddering under his feet. "No scar marks the hollow, but spirit weakens, mind befuddles while body crumbles to dust from the inside out."
Kit couldn't imagine what kind of dread agony would drive someone to make such an appalling choice. He asked very quietly, "But what if you change your mind? Can you take your heart—"
"Take it back?" Lady guffawed. "No creature that cuts its own heart out has ever willingly restored it. I'll tell you plain—magic and life weren't meant to be rent one from the other."
That settled it.
Aerohim's life was at risk as long as there was a half-chance that Sheen was telling the truth, no matter how horrid. The only way to find out was to bring the unicorn girl her blasted healing charm. But after pouring through each treasure indexer's list of catalogued items, Kit was forced to admit that none of them included a dragon horn encased in crystal. That would be too easy! Hours slid by in a glittering haze as he scoured the dunes for Sheen's elusive healing charm.
It surprised him just how many things were shoved into crystal; scarab beetles, poison vials, human skulls and even a withered goblin hand. But none of his discoveries remotely resembled a bone that had belonged to a dragon, except for—Kit's mind wandered back to the dark black bone buried in the underground chamber. True, it was curved like a dragon's talon, but much too big. It was nearly as long as Aerohim's forearm. Kit shivered at the memory of pain that had lanced through him when he touched the bone's smooth surface. At least he could eliminate that bone; it was bare of any crystal casing.
Kit stopped to rest, laying flat on a pile of coins, wishing that he never had to rummage through another blasted shiny piece of gold ever again . . . .
"Digby. Dedrick. Damian. Dominic—"
"Huh?" Kit opened his eyes groggily. The Mazak boy paced beside him, his brows furrowing as he listed off a string of names beginning with the letter "D."
"I'm trying to pick my new name for this week," Rufus said as he stopped before him with an impatient sigh. "But nothing feels right. I have to pick a really good one, the best name ever!" He squatted beside Kit, lowering his voice. "I might keep it this time, seeing as we're, well . . . ."
Home. Neither of them spoke the word aloud. Kit swallowed hard, wishing he could still feel the sense of warm security that Sheen had stolen away from him. He almost wished he'd never met the unicorn girl. But he had to keep pretending for the others!
"How about 'David'?" Kit asked, picking the first name that came to mind as he sat up and rubbed the sore spots on his arms where coins had pressed into his skin.
Rufus wrinkled his nose. "Nah, too ordinary—"
"Oh? I know a plethora of names that begin with that noble majuscule," Aerohim interrupted, his head swinging between the two and knocking the Mazak boy over.
"Majus-what?" Kit asked, trying to ignore the dull patches of red on Aerohim's skin. The dragon looked more haggard than ever.
"Why, the capital letter 'D,' of course," Aerohim said, sounding a trifle annoyed. "I ate an admirable knight named Deveraux once." Dry scales sloughed off as the dragon absently scratched his snout. "Or was it Deangelo?"
"Pshaw!" Lady cried from her perch on the highest dune. "Both fancy names for a dandy, I'm sure, but my crewmate needs something worthy of a swashbuckling explorer."
"How 'bout Dempsey the Dreadful?" Minnow cried. She swung off the main mast of the Ladyslipper in close pursuit of Tad as he swooped down from the crow's nest.
"I read a book about a Dastardly Dugan once," Tad said dryly as his rope tangled with Minnow's and spun them both into a knot. "He was a robber minstrel—"
"Absolutely not," Rufus interrupted, shaking his head. "Do I look like a 'Dugan' to you? And if anyone suggests 'Dirk,' I'll stuff you in Lady's brig!"
"It's more of a storage closet, really—" Kit pointed out, but he shut up as the Mazak boy shot him a withering glance.
A wind buffeted gold dust into Kit's eyes as Aerohim twitched his wings irritably. "Fine. 'Diego,' then. That sea rover had a private armada and ruled six of the seven seas. Beat that."
Lady gave a condescending laugh. "Oh please, Diego was a two-bit pirate with a fleet of rat-infested tugboats."
Both Kit and Rufus froze as Aerohim's muscles bunched tight and a low growl emanated from deep within his throat. Was the dragon truly angry over their little game of name play?
"You're mistaken, Madam," he snapped. "Diego was a first class corsair; I battled him myself!"
Lady sniffed. "You've been in this stuffy cavern a wee too many centuries, Aero. I think you've forgotten true class. Now Donavan Redblade," she said with a gushing sigh, "he was a proper marauder. Take his name, boy," she urged Rufus.
"And I say his name is DIEGO!" Aerohim roared, unleashing a massive fireball straight at the Ladyslipper.
"Look out!" Kit cried out, pointing to where Tad and Minnow still hung tangled fast in the Ladyslipper's rigging.
The pirate ship bucked so that the front of her hull took the brunt of the fireball. Lady coughed as smoke curled over her soot-blackened, cherry wood curls and stray embers caught in her sails. She spat a line of flaming wooden darts less than an inch from the dragon's claws.
"Torch me again, and I'll blow off every last one of your stinking scales, Aero," she said.
"I think I'll stick with 'David,' thanks," the Mazak boy said with a squeak.
The ship's hatch opened with a bang as the near cousins burst out. They stared in horror at the smoking ropes entangling a whimpering Minnow and silently trembling Tad, and the charred wood and patches of fire still burning on the deck.
Lil glared at Minnow. "You were playing with that fire-beam mirror again, weren't you?" she demanded.
"Hand it over," Vi ordered with a stern frown.
"It's not her fault," Kit started.
"No, it's mine," Aero interrupted softly, backing away and blinking as if disoriented. "I'm deeply sorry. I think—I need to take some sky."
"Don't—" Kit called, but Aerohim twisted away. "Go," he finished in a whisper.
Opening his wings, Aerohim vaulted into the air and quickly exited the cavern. The parting whoosh of air swept an aching void into Kit's chest. Aerohim wasn't the same magnificent dragon who'd rescued them from the Fairchilds anymore. Kit couldn't bear to watch the dragon shrivel smaller, both mind and body growing sicklier each day. He had to find Sheen's healing charm and trade it for the dragon's lost heart, fast!
But what would the price be for stealing from the hoard, even if it was to help the dragon? In his moody, confused state, it would be all too easy for Aerohim to kill someone. Not even Lady was safe, and if she realized the true danger behind Aerohim's behavior, she didn't let on. She broke the stunned silence left in the cavern.
"Forgive the irascible beast, mates," Lady said. "Old age fells us all, none harder than a dragon that has winged sky for millennia."
No! Aerohim wasn't going senile in his elder years, he was just sick—and never getting better. Though Kit desperately wished he could share his secret with the others, he didn't dare risk their lives on his hunch that Sheen was right about the missing heart. As the orphans put out the remaining fires on Lady's deck, Kit threw himself into searching the hoard for the dragon bone encased in crystal once more. But though Kit's nails glittered with gold dust and his fingers bruised from rummaging through the endless gleam of the trove for hours, he found nothing.
Nothing but acres of worthless gold.
Kit finally surrendered to an exhausted sleep in his bunk shortly before midnight, but Sheen was waiting for him. She pounced on his dreams the moment he closed his eyes, drawing him back to their meadow. Water rippled in his ears as he strode to the babbling creek on two strong feet; how he hated leaving them behind at the end of their conversations here! Yet Sheen didn't even bother glancing at him as he stopped on the sandy shore. She stood on the boulder, her back to him as she faced a pale moon gliding overhead.
"I've completed my end of the bargain. Do you have what I want yet?" she demanded.
"Yes," Kit said, shocked as the lie left his lips so easily. But he needed that heart.
Turning, the unicorn girl beamed as she leapt from her perch on the rock and skipped over the brook into the meadow. "Excellent!" she said. "I knew I could count on you, Foxtail."
"Foxkit," he corrected with a weary sigh.
"That's what I said." She tossed her head, black hair rippling over her shoulder. "Meet me at the base of Mt. Galefang with my healing charm tomorrow morning."
Kit's shoulders sagged with a tiredness that leaked even into the dream. "Can't you meet me outside the cavern again?"
Sheen's silver eyes dropped away. "No! I—the aura of all that gold makes me sick. I used up too much magic just standing near it."
Kit knew that was only half the truth, but he didn't understand why she feared Aerohim's wrath with such fervor.
"The Inorog are closing in on us, I—I know it. Don't be late," she snapped.
"I won't," Kit started to say, but she severed their shared dream abruptly.
He awoke in a cold sweat a few hours before dawn. Except for Lady's snoring and David's mumbling in the bunk above him, all was quiet. Stubborn determination flexed through Kit as he sat up and reached for the oakenstaff in the dark. Perhaps he didn't have Sheen's crystal-bound dragon bone, but he knew where at least a half dozen other healing charms were scattered across the golden dunes. Slipping down the Ladyslipper's ladder, Kit grabbed a jar of sunleaf salve, a box of blue hornet honeycomb and a blessed pearl from some mystic's shrine. He stuffed them into his empty pillowcase and wondered if Lady would make him walk the plank for stealing one of her precious linens. He'd gladly risk it if Sheen would accept one of the other healing charms in exchange for the dragon's heart.
His own heart stunned in his chest for a beat as he confronted Aerohim hanging upside down from a stalactite, his tail swinging like an idle pendulum as he slept. The dragon must've returned late in the night when he knew there would be no one else awake.
"Wait for me," Kit whispered as a fierce surge of protectiveness ran through him. Whatever was wrong with the dragon, he wouldn't shun or abandon Aerohim just because—because a part of him was damaged. Their friendship wasn't worthless.
He dodged the dragon's razor spikes and snuck out of the cavern with all fingers accounted for, just a minor tear to his tunic. Striding forward, Kit peered over the edge of the frost-laced ravine. Streamers of mist twisted in a moaning wind over the peaks below and reduced his visibility to zero. There was no Hollow Knight to leap-frog him down the mountainside this time, and Kit wasn't crazy enough to try stumbling down the slippery rocks on his twisted leg.
Stepping behind a boulder bordering the cavern entrance, Kit pulled a small golden box from his pocket and set it onto the ground. He stomped on it once. The box inflated to knee-height with a loud bang. Kit cringed at the noise, but no grumbling dragon erupted from the cavern. Raising the gold-gilt lid, he pulled a second, palm-sized silver box from the bottom and tossed it over the ravine. The silver box tinkled as it hit the rocks far below, making a popping noise as it, too, increased in size.
The Phantom Box had been one of Minnow's favorite toys as it had allowed her to escape bath time—until Vi got wise to her greasy locks and added it to the growing stockpile of treasure items that Minnow was not allowed to use. Kit didn't particularly want to use the Phantom Box either; the thought of all his bones and muscles dissolving into thin air and knitting back together somewhere else made him shudder. But there was no "safer" way to get down the mountainside.
"Safe," he repeated as he slung the pillow case of healing charms over his shoulder and took a deep breath just in case—an undone body might still need air, after all. Kit swung his twisted leg and crutch over the golden box's edge. As both feet hit the cold metal base, an intense sucking force spread up from his toes to the crown of his head. His ears popped as Kit burst out of the silver box perched precariously on a ledge forty feet below. Scrambling out as it slid towards the ledge, Kit reached into the silver box and pulled out a tiny copper one, tossing the third box as far as he could. He had just ten more chances to get down the mountainside before he ran out of Phantom Boxes.
His head grew dizzy as he tumbled out of three boxes made of different colors of pearl, three of semiprecious stones of jade, emerald and opal, and three wooden boxes of mahogany, bamboo and fine sandalwood. Wiggling out of the final glass box, dismay filled Kit as he realized that he was only two-thirds of the way down the mountainside. A deceptively pretty blanket of mist swallowed the base, veiling hidden crevices and pitfalls. Kit leaned heavily on his crutch as he picked his way through the rocky terrain, wondering just how long it would take before he slipped, cracked his skull and rolled the rest of the way down. But a meager hope for his survival sparked as he caught sight of a faint silhouette twisting in the shadows—a lithe animal with a familiar grace.
"Sheen?" Kit called out. He froze as the shadow of the creature thundered closer, hooves cracking against stone with the sharp tinkle of shattering glass. The beast must be twice as large as Sheen, and instead of her silky blackness, it loomed fiery red, staining the swirling mist like a bloody fallen sun.
Maybe it was friendly? Sure, and maybe the Galefang was a bunny sanctuary!
*Song Credit: "Free Bird" by Forest Elves. I chose this song because it reminded me of Aerohim.