"Eating?" I tensed right up.
"Well, my father taught me to never hunt for the pleasure of killing. There has to be a reason. And my reason was hunger."
"Did my brother give you a bear's stomach, too?" I asked in a lighthearted way.
"He might as well have," Thord replied. "Because it is never, ever full."
"Oh," I said. "I see."
"No. You don't. I didn't always cook my dinners."
"Oh," I repeated. I didn't want to imagine him eating a raw deer. I mean, we'd had our share of recently butchered squirrels in assassin school. That was survival class. But I would never choose to eat uncooked flesh.
"Yeah," he said. "I seem to be past that raw meat stage, so I'm not as messy when I eat. Anyway, I think part of that massive feeding was needed to repair myself. To heal all my wounds and to—to get my heart to be one with my body."
I didn't ask what this meant.
"And I did that. I... I sated my hunger. And my strength, well more than my strength, came back. Your brother gave me a magnificent gift. I just wish I could understand how it is changing me."
I wanted to tell him that I knew what it was like to have strange new parts, but kept quiet. Now was his time to speak.
"And there I was sitting in a mountain cave, looking out across a barren snowy plain, when your spellbird came."
"It's a good thing you didn't eat him." The words came out before I thought about how insulting they might be. But I'd been around Brax too long and had learned to have a quick wit. It was a survival skill.
Thord was silent for several wingbeats and then he laughed. His laugh was deeper and rougher than I remembered. "You joke, but it crossed my mind. What saved the bird was that he spoke with your voice, and now I am here." He stopped. "Enough about me. Tell me why you asked me to come."
"Well," I said. "It's a long story."
"You keep saying that. You might as well tell it now."
I did again get the feeling we were travelling at a great speed. But said nothing. It had to be my imagination.
"We first saw the giants on an island to the east," I said. It already seemed years ago, when Brax and I came across the dead dragon. Thord was surprised at the strength of the giants and the speed in which they could travel from that island to Drachia. He also shook his head when I told him of the battle and of Kon's death. I ended with the war room discussion with Brenna and the deal I made with her for the mortals' freedom. I stopped talking and waited for a collection of questions.
"How is Brax?" he asked.
This question surprised me. He and Brax had never had a friendly relationship. "He has not awakened. I'm pretty certain he won't die of his wounds. But, well, he will die if the giants take the palace."
"You must be worried," Thord said.
"I am," I admitted. I wanted to shout it. Not in anger, but a part of me was being torn apart with every flap of Carnda's wings—every flap taking me further from Brax. It was so odd not to hear his voice. Or to see him.
"And you made a deal with the queen of all dragons to release every single slave in Drachia?" he asked.
When he put it that way, it sounded like it was an almost impossible thing to ask.
"Yes," I said. "It seemed the right thing to do."
"Only you would say that. You are always so honest and brave. And always so good."
"Good!" I said. "I was never good. I mean I—"
"It's a compliment," he said. "So don't take it personally. It's your nature. Your goodness is the one thing I admired about you. I mean one of many things, that is."
There were many things he admired about me? Maybe he could give me a list. They'd be nice to know. I'd put it in my breast pocket. Next to my heart.
I shook my head at this fanciful image.
"So we will have to figure out where these giants came from," he said. "And I assume..."
His voice trailed off, and I looked over at him to see why. Maybe he'd passed out. But he was looking down at the ground and what was revealed to us by the rising sun.
"It's horrible," he said, just loud enough for me to hear.
3
The Burning
There was barely enough light to see detail: The giants were burning the dragons. They had piled every dead body on massive wooden pyres and lit fires of such heat that the dragons were being turned to ashes. I didn't want to count how many pyres there were. But each was a death. I was certain this burning was not a sign of respect toward the dead dragons, but another planned poke in the eye for dragonkind. Kon would never enter the Hall of Ancestors as a statue, for he was likely already ashes. Not one body of a dragon would be returned to his or her family to be honored in whatever funeral ceremonies the dragons followed. Instead, the dead would soon be swept away by the wind.
"So those are the giants," Thord said. "They don't look so big from this height."
"They are. Imagine each of those pyres is the size of a dragon."
"Oh," he said, then fell silent.
Several of the giants were pulling out old trees from the earth and adding them to the pyres. Others stood in front of the fires, staring into the flames. They had the same dull looks on their faces—they were not angry. Just doing the work they had been asked to do. No, commanded to do. More and more I wondered at what Zarek had done to control them. Or whether the giants were always so obedient. It was hard to imagine such large and powerful creatures being meek. Anyone of that size could easily get whatever they wanted.
"It truly was a massive battle," Thord said. "Your description was correct."
"It was a massacre." I scanned the ground and spotted Zarek himself standing on a stone and staring up at us. My dragon eye, once it focused in, saw that he smiled a big, pompous smile. He was looking directly back at me. "I don't know if you can see him, but that smaller, purple giant standing on a stone is Zarek, the leader."
"I see the stone," Thord said. "But I can only make out a purple blotch on top of it."
"He's grinning like a devil."
"You can see that clearly with your strange eye?" Thord asked. Then he coughed as if he were choking on his words. "I mean your amazing, dragon eye!"
"Yes," I replied, choosing to ignore the "strange" comment. "Yes, I can. It's very handy."
"My eyes have changed," he said. "I see much better at night, but during the day it's about the same as before. And the colors are slightly off."
We were a strange pair. And I wanted to laugh about it. But even at this height, laughing would turn to coughing because the smoke was in my lungs. I was breathing in the dead: Dragons I had known, who mostly hadn't liked me, but didn't deserve to die.
"That's interesting that your eyes have changed," I said. "Here's one more detail I can see: he is waving at us now."
Zarek had lifted a hand to wave as he continued to stare directly at me. He grinned as if it were the funniest thing in the world that Thord and I were travelling across the skies looking down at him. He then lifted his staff and pointed it in our direction.