The Girl Who Drank the Moon(57)

Odd, thought Luna. She didn’t turn around, so she didn’t notice her footsteps behind her, each one now a garden blooming with flowers, each flower bobbing in the breeze, the large, lurid blooms turning their faces toward the disappearing girl.



A swallow in flight is graceful, agile, and precise. It hooks, swoops, dives, twists, and beats. It is a dancer, a musician, an arrow.

Usually.

This swallow stumbled from tree to tree. No arabesques. No gathering speed. Its spotted breast lost feathers by the fistful. Its eyes were dull. It hit the trunk of an alder tree and tumbled into the arms of a pine. It lay there for a moment, catching its breath, wings spread open to the sky.

There was something it was supposed to be doing. What was it?

The swallow pulled itself to its feet and clutched the green tips of the pine bough. It puffed its feathers into a ball and did its best to scan the forest.

The world was fuzzy. Had it always been fuzzy? The swallow looked down at its wrinkled talons, narrowing its eyes.

Have these always been my feet? They must have been. Still, the swallow couldn’t shake the vague notion that perhaps they were not. It also felt that there was somewhere it should be. Something it should be doing. Something important. It could feel its heart beating rapidly, then slowing dangerously, then speeding up again, like an earthquake.

I’m dying, the swallow thought, knowing for certain that it was true. Not right this second, of course, but I do appear to be dying. It could feel the stores of its own life force deep within itself. And those stores were starting to dwindle. Well. No matter. I feel confident that I’ve had a good life. I just wish I could remember it.

It pressed its beak tightly shut and rubbed its head with its wings, trying to force a memory. It shouldn’t be this difficult to remember who one is, it thought. Even a fool should be able to do it. And as the swallow racked its brain, it heard a voice coming down the trail.

“My dear Fyrian,” the voice said. “You have, by my last count, spent well over an hour speaking without ceasing. Indeed, I am shocked that you haven’t felt the need even to draw a breath.”

“I can hold my breath a long time, you know,” the other voice said. “It is part of being Simply Enormous.”

The first voice was silent for a moment. “Are you sure?” Another silence. “Because such skills are never enumerated in any of the texts on dragon physiology. It is possible that someone told you so to trick you.”

“Who could possibly trick me?” the second voice said, all wide eyes and breathless wonder. “No one has ever told me anything but the truth. In my whole life. Isn’t that right?”

The first voice let loose a brief grumble, and silence reigned again.

The swallow knew those voices. It fluttered closer to get a better look.

The second voice flew away and returned, skidding on the back of the owner of the first voice. The first voice had many arms and a long tail and a great, broad head. It had a slow bearing to it, like an enormous sycamore tree. A tree that moved. The swallow moved closer. The great many-armed and tailed tree-creature paused. Looked around. Wrinkled its brow.

“Xan?” it said.

The swallow held very still. It knew that name. It knew that voice. But how? It couldn’t remember.

The second voice returned.

“There are things in the woods, Glerk. I found a chimney. And a wall. And a small house. Or it was a house, but now it has a tree in it.”

The first voice didn’t answer right away. It swung its head very slowly from side to side. The swallow was behind a thicket of leaves. It hardly breathed.

Finally the first voice sighed. “You were perhaps seeing one of the abandoned villages. There are many on this side of the woods. After the last eruption, the people fled, and were welcomed into the Protectorate. That’s where the magicians gathered them. Those who were left, anyway. I never knew what happened to them after that. They couldn’t come back into the woods, of course. Too dangerous.”

The creature swung its great head from side to side.

“Xan has been here,” it said. “Very recently.”

“Is Luna with her?” the second voice said. “That would be safer. Luna can’t fly, you know. And she is not impervious to flames like Simply Enormous Dragons. That is well-known.”

The first voice groaned.

And, all at once, Xan knew herself.

Glerk, she thought. In the woods. Away from the swamp.

Luna. All on her own.

And there was a baby. About to be left in the forest. And I have to save it, and what on earth am I doing, dilly-dallying here?

Great heavens. What have I done?

And Xan, the swallow, burst from the thicket and soared over the trees, beating her ancient wings as best she could.



The crow was beside himself with worry. Luna could tell.

“Caw,” the crow said, and meant, “I think we should turn back.”

“Caw,” he said again, which Luna took to mean, “Be careful. Also, are you aware that rock is on fire?” And so it was. Indeed, there was an entire seam of rock, curving into the damp and deeply green forest, glowing like a river of embers. Or perhaps it was a river of embers. Luna checked her map. “River of Embers,” the map said.

“Ah,” Luna said. And she tried to find a way around.

This side of the forest was far more rageful than the section that she usually traveled.