“The One’s seat is there,” said one Guardian to Dorrin. He pointed not to her but to the empty center of the pattern.
Now, O Queen.
“How can I—I cannot walk on that—” The design would be ruined.
Let me go. Set me free.
“Be what you are,” Dorrin said. Where the words had come from she could not have said. “Be what you are and where you should be … I set you free.”
Familiar weight lifted from her head; the crown rose and floated above the pattern, then settled on the empty center. Within its brilliant circle, the bare clay showed white.
“Your water there,” the Guardian of Guardians said.
The goblet hung in the air at her heart-hand. She took it, reached far out over the design, and poured. Water fell in a silvery ribbon, sparkling as it fell, into that circle … and rose, contained by the frame of the crown, to reach the jewels.
One by one, they burst, exploding with water, a river from each jewel, it seemed, water rising so fast that Dorrin and the Guardians were knee deep in a moment, the careful design on the sand covered … but still shimmering beneath the water, undisturbed. The jewels she had walked on, sat on, lain on, dissolved into more water; the water rose steadily, thigh-deep, waist-deep, still clear as crystal.
The light dimmed; Dorrin looked up to see clouds gathering overhead, blotting out the sun, dark as the summer rainstorms in the north, and in the next moment rain roared down to join the water rising up.
The water had motion now, tugging at her white robe; she struggled with it and got it off, the better to stand, to try to wade back to the distant wall of rock, but the current strengthened, pulling her into deeper water, and the rain fell so heavily she could not tell which direction to go. It pounded her head, her shoulders; she was soaked to the skin in the first moments; she could scarcely breathe. She would drown if she fell; she might drown standing up.
When the rain ceased to fall on her, she looked up to see a vast dark shape hovering over her like the roof of a house hanging in the air … beyond its protection, rain lashed the water, but here not even a drip fell from the creature above her. Staring at her was one large flame-colored eye; she realized, blinking water out of her eyes, that its sinuous neck had twisted around to watch her even as she sheltered under it.
“Are you wise, Dorrin Verrakai?”
The same question a dragon had asked Kieri, Arian, Mikeli, Arcolin. The same dragon? Who could tell?
“I have tried to learn wisdom,” she said. “But I would not call myself wise.”
“Did you know what you were bringing to this place? What would happen?”
“I knew the jewels were water enchanted into stone, the water that once nourished the land. I thought—the jewels told me, and I believed—that here they could restore the land, make it beautiful.”
“And is dry land always ugly?”
This was ridiculous. The water was up to her chest now, her feet almost lifting off the ground beneath, and she was discussing beauty with a … a dragon? But under the gaze of that eye, half the height of her body at least, she could only go on, ignoring the chill tugging of the water, the sound of the rain beyond.
“It may be beautiful,” Dorrin said, “if it was made by the gods to be dry. And such land may exist. But this land was made dry by error, by stealing its water to make jewels, baubles to decorate a crown or a box or a goblet. To make bracelets and rings and other decorations. That, I believe, was wrong.”
“I have heard of you,” the dragon said. “I have heard of you from those you know: Half-Song and Sorrow-King and two other kings. Have you heard of me?”
“You are the dragon,” Dorrin said.
“Yes, I am Dragon. Do you know what dragons are?”
“Elders,” Dorrin said.
“Transformation,” the dragon said. “A dragon changes what it touches; it is our nature to change … and that nature requires wisdom not to ruin the world. Those jewels were transformed from water to stone by magery—the magery of your ancestors. You say it was wrong. I say it was not wise. But did you think what would happen to this land? Touch my tongue with yours and I will show you.”
The dragon opened a vast maw edged with gleaming teeth longer than swords, and out came a tongue shimmering with heat. It came toward her a few fingerwidths above the water. The heat of it dried the water on her face, her hair. Touch that with her tongue? But Kieri had. Arian had. She opened her mouth and touched.
Warmth no more. The fragrance and flavor of spiced bread. The tongue withdrew an armslength.
“You should see. Come onto my tongue and I will show you.”
Dorrin reached, and the tongue advanced again, this time sliding under her arms, curling around them, and drawing her into the dragon’s mouth, into that dry warm space like a small cave. The tongue she sat on now felt as firm as a plank, warm as wood in the sun. She looked out the dragon’s mouth, past the teeth, into the maelstrom.