Burn(33)

“You have an actual Goddess? I thought that was just something the Believers made up—”

“But this particular prophecy, the only one clearly in my own tongue, has been coming true in pieces for decades. We kept it secret, again not for itself but for those lunatics, mostly among your own kind, who might act on it. Yet somehow it was found. As, in fact, it was predicted to be. And so here I sit, watching it unfold further, intervening where I must.”

“Why you? Who are you that intervention is your responsibility?”

He didn’t answer at first, clearly deciding how much he would. “Dragon magic is wild,” he finally said. “It is so untamable and dangerous it only properly exists beyond this world. The dragons you know are, in essence, safe containers of it. If the magic came here unfiltered, it would destroy everything.”

“I didn’t know that,” Sarah said, an understatement.

“Most humans do not. It would make our relations even more difficult if you did, but the truth is, we exist as a sort of safety valve between you and it. It is a balance that must be maintained or all is lost, for dragon and man alike. But much of the knowledge is forgotten. The blues are the guardians of what remains. The prophecy suggests that this place—and a girl within it—is the pivot of a war that could wreck that balance and destroy us all.”

“So they sent you—”

“To do what I can, if I can.”

“If?”

He ruffled his wings in a way she guessed was a shrug. “Our theology believes that everything that happens has already happened, somewhere, some time, and will happen again and again, somewhere, some time. In an infinite number of other worlds. We have felt echoes of this happening before where it went very, very badly. We have a vested interest in trying to prevent that happening again.”

Sarah swallowed. “And killing me is part of this particular prophecy?”

“You are the pivot,” the dragon said, and for the first time ever, he sounded kind. It was almost more upsetting than being told her death was coming. “If your assassin kills you, then there is no hope at all.”

Gareth Dewhurst watched his daughter and the dragon through his darkened bedroom window. He couldn’t guess what they might be talking about, but he didn’t believe it would hurt her. It had helped her with Kelby at least once and—as was seeming more and more likely—in a very final way a second time.

But another letter had arrived.

The time draws close, Mr. Dewhurst. By now, it is likely your dragon will have performed the first of his prophesied deeds, that of taking an action to spare your daughter’s life. We do not know the exact circumstances of this, but we suspect you know of what we speak.

How did they know? No one could tell the future, and those who believed they could were lunatics.

Do not be deceived. He protects your daughter for his own purposes. He will befriend her, but he will lie to her. He will appear as an ally, a confidant. He will not be.

Gareth Dewhurst was not a stupid man. He knew full well the letter could contain equal lies to the ones it was accusing the dragon of spinning. How could you possibly take an anonymous letter seriously?

There are larger issues at stake than your daughter, but we know that will not be true for you personally. We appeal to you through her then. She is in danger. The dragon will not harm her directly—we cannot lie, though it would be easier to convince you if we could—but he will, by his actions, cause her to be harmed.

And if this wasn’t true, if the dragon didn’t harm her . . .

We ask for action from you, Mr. Dewhurst. If not, we will be forced to take matters into our own hands, which would—through no fault of your own—cause great difficulties for you and your family.

There was the threat. If he didn’t do it, they would, and screw you, Gareth Dewhurst.

He was certain they would carry it out, too, for they had sent a delivery to his doorstep this very day.

“I don’t understand any of this,” Sarah said.

“There is no need for you to,” said Kazimir. “There is only need for you to prepare.”

“I kind of feel like I’m the one who decides what I need to understand. If I’m the one whose life is at stake.”

He cocked his head, watching her anger as if he were deciding something. “So be it. Very soon, Russian humans are sending a machine up into the sky, far higher than any other before. Higher than even your airplanes, which have made dragon flying so dangerous.”

“You mean the satellite?” Sarah asked. “How do you know about that?”

He didn’t answer. “When that happens, men believe dragons will no longer have dominion over their lives. That you will know all our secrets.”

Sarah realized how true this probably was. A side effect of humanity’s race to destroy itself, but—

“Oh, my God,” she said. “Dragons won’t put up with that. There will be war—”

“We have suffered the spies of men for centuries,” Kazimir said. “I would have hoped we could find ways to protect ourselves. But the prophecy says war, a war that will be the end of men and dragons. What occurs here in this very place, in a very few days’ time, will decide whether war happens or not. And because of where you are and when you are, you will be in a position to stop it.”

“But how could I possibly stop a war?”