“You’re not very good at this, are you?”
That was the farmer, assessing Yla’s work in the garden. Currently, that work amounted to a ten yard long trench, separated from the surrounding earth by a gravel barrier and full of rich soil. Down at the far end, a single, sickly, wilting fig tree wavered just inches above the ground.
“No,” Yla admitted. “It doesn’t look like it.”
“You did everything right,” remarked farmer Dovan. “Lotsa work went into that planting. Laid that gravel thick for a nice good barrier. Got the packing just right on the soil. Watered diligently.”
“You pick up a knack for it, right?” Yla asked hopefully.
“No, no. Well, yes. But not this way. You do the planting this well and there’s not a whole lot better to get. You’re just not cut out for this line of work, I wager.”
“Oh.”
“Naw, naw, no need to fret now…”
“Well,” Yla said, “you’ve been kind enough to me. You let me try planting and not a thing has grown. You had me at the goat and she fled from me rather than be milked. You put me to weeding and nothing would come up clean and I had to spend three extra hours digging up the roots. I shan’t waste more of your time.”
“No, no, I think I might know just the job for you,” said Dovan. There was a glint of understanding in his eyes. Yla was afraid it might be pity, too. “Come back here with me.”
They left the mournful toft and stepped into Dovan’s one-room hut. It was a humble living: a handful of pots here, a straw bed over there, and a fire pit in the middle of the room, which would be burning or smoldering the entire winter.
“Now, smoking’s not what we busy ourselves with in spring,” Dovan was saying. “But humor me, miss.”
Yla scanned the hut, looking doubtful. “No meat?”
“No, we won’t hang any meat just yet. Won’t need to, I wager. Just, ah… here.”
Dovan handed her a dry stick, suitable for a drill, and started walking her through it.
“There’s some tinder just over there on that shelf. Grab that. Forget the flint for now, I want to see you do without it. Now kneel down here, set the tinder in this little notch in the log. Good. Now, drill… right, just like that, and…”
There was an audible fwoosh as a plume of fire sprung eagerly from the log at the first twist of the drill under Yla’s hands.
She stared at the bright, dancing little thing. For a few long seconds, its gentle crackling filled the hut and its light filled Yla’s eyes.
“Miss?” asked Dovan.
“… Yes?” replied Yla, distantly. Her eyes remained fixed on the fire.
“Yla, please.”
Dovan waved his hands over the fire and it shrank from him, smoking as it did. It hid, deep in the logs of the pit, glowing embers awaiting their rebirth. Yla tore her eyes from it to look up at Dovan, faintly comprehending that something unusual had just happened.
“You ain’t farmin’ material, miss,” Dovan said gravely.
“I, uh… we were in agreement there, I thought.”
“You were made for something altogether different.”
Yla and Dovan, Dovan explained, were kin. Distant kin, but kin nonetheless. One of Dovan’s ancestors, forty-three generations up the tree, was a red dragon. One of Yla’s ancestors, Dovan was sure, was a dragon, likely either a wrathful and greedy red dragon of legend or one of the glittering golden dragons of yore. Fire and fury ran through her family tree.
“Shouldn’t I… we have scales, then? And how…” Yla asked.
“Well, naw. That’s the thing about dragon ancestry. The Eld Folk don’t work quite the same as we mortals.”
“We… mortals,” Yla repeated, her brow furrowing.
“Right. You are one of their mortal heirs. Think of it like a king’s sons. They can stay in the family home and fulfill their birthright as the next king. Or go questin’. Retire to a monastery. Run off with a commoner girl. Some of these sons are more like daddy. They can order soldiers around like daddy, collect taxes like daddy, wear fancy mantles like daddy. Some are… less like daddy.”
“So I can choose?”
“You’re catchin’ on. It’s your inheritance. Make it yours or cast aside. But mark my words: you may choose, but you have also been chosen. Don’t forget that.”
“I’ll always be this way, you’re saying.”
“The lordling who runs off with the serf girl… well, family tends to catch up with him.”
“I think I see,” said Yla. “So… the fire.”
“Not just the fire you set, miss. The heat of your heart does all manner of mischief. Poor figs didn’t take well to it. And you can’t blame little Betty for bein’ a bit skittish.”
“Oh,” said Yla, feeling a little worse for having given the goat the fright of her life. “But you?”
“I’ve had many years to make my way here. If farming is what you really want, farming you can get. But I wouldn’t recommend that for you.”
“No? You seem to like it.”
“It’s a long story,” Dovan mused. “I do. But for a youngster like you, I’d say you oughta do something you’re good at.”
Yla’s gaze drifted back to the fire pit.
“Good,” Dovan said, from a cozy distance twenty yards away. “Now this time, where you pushed? I want you to pull.”
“Pull!?” Yla said. She stood, drenching her shift in sweat, across from a mound of earth atop which was mounted a well-singed and still smoking scarecrow. A little column of smoke drifted off over Dovan’s field. “That sounds bad.”
“It won’t hurt, miss. The fire is yours, never forget. And what it will do is… well, you’ll see for yourself.”
“Okay!” Yla turned and faced the scarecrow. She eyed, and then she saw it: what it was, what it meant, what it would ever be. And the fire welled in her heart and belly, it coursed through her limbs, and instead of hurling it forth through the world at the scarecrow, she pulled, whipping with the cords of flame in her body.
Pushing had sent a gout of white-hot flame rushing across the field, doing considerable damage to the scarecrow, not to mention the spring grasses in the flame’s path. But pulling did something altogether different. There was… something in the world out there, near that scarecrow. Whatever it was, Yla’s fire had wrenched at it and dislodged it, creating a void… and a channel. Flames erupted from the base of the scarecrow. The shockwave shook her chest and rang in her ears.
“WOOOOOOOO!” she shouted, as woodchips rained down around her.
“I’ll be damned,” Dovan muttered.
“You were right! I am good at this.”
“You sure are. Take a breather and come over here, miss.”
Yla did so, sitting cross-legged beside the old farmer and former dragon sorcerer. Dovan offered her an apple, which she took. They said nothing for a minute.
“You, ah, like blowing things up, miss.”
“Yeah. I mean… yeah.”
“You can see why that might be worrisome, right?”
“Hmm. I think so. You have nothing to worry about though. I think you know that.”
Dovan frowned. “I do know that. But I can’t articulate how.”
“You trust me,” Yla pointed out. “We’ve spent enough time together. I treat the people around me with respect. I’m good to you, your friends, and your animals. I’d never hurt anyone who didn’t have it coming. You know I’m one of the good ones.”
Dovan stared into the distance, saying nothing.
“You did offer to teach me about my draconic heritage. You weren’t surprised when I showed a special talent for fire and force. You kept teaching me. Wouldn’t have done that if you didn’t trust me.”
Dovan still said nothing.
“But!” Yla continued. “You find it strange that someone decent—someone like me—could so enjoy blowing things up. You maybe were hoping I’d treat it as some sort of solemn duty.”
Dovan nodded soberly.
Yla turned to face him. “You know someone else who went down this path.”
Dovan shook his head. “Too smart for your own good, miss. Pipe?”
“Nah, never liked smoking.”
Dovan looked at her like she was a talking fish while he packed the pipe. “Suit yourself, miss.”
He puffed at the pipe for a bit to get it going.
“It was me,” he said.
“Hence the farming life.”
“Right.” He puffed on the pipe some more. “I don’t think it matters much how it happened.”
“As you will,” Yla said. “I won’t ask it of you. But can I assure you…?”
Dovan sighed, scratching his head. “I don’t know, miss. You know how it is, right? When your mind says one thing and your heart tells you another.”
“Yeah.”
“My head says you aren’t me. No reason to think you’d do what I did. But my heart…”
“Your heart aches for someone who was chosen for a life of violence, like yourself.” It was Yla’s turn to stare off into the distance.
“Yes.”
“Well, there’s not much else too it, I guess. I am good at this. Did I tell you about all of the other things I tried before coming to you to try being a farmhand last spring? I was not a good porter. Lousy washerwoman. Useless at carpentry.”
“Any of it ever catch fire?”
“Surprisingly, no. But the wood would always warp on me. Maybe a heat thing.”
“Huh.”
“I am good at this. It satisfies me in ways nothing ever has. I’ll be dreadfully unhappy doing anything else now that I know about what it feels to hit the peak of a fire surge and let it fly. And the world needs warriors, doesn’t it?”
“Does it?”
“Fair. But I know you know how the world is. Villains and blackhearts and tyrants and predators. The world will be better for having one more person who specializes in blowing them up.”
Dovan tapped out the pipe. “Promise me, will you?”
“Already have. But I will again. I promise you won’t regret teaching me about this gift.”
Dovan nodded. “Hmm. Gift.”
“I know, I know. I haven’t forgotten: I was chosen. Even if I tried to live a normal life, like you have, trouble would find me, like it has you. But I figure I’ll meet the trouble head-on.”
“On its own turf?” Dovan asked.
“Don’t have to blow up my own furniture that way.”