Sword Mountain (16 page)

A few paintings remained. Dandelion stared at them, fuming, but she noticed that the one in the back looked different. In that painting she looked like a normal eaglet, her wings wide open against a background of sky. “Cloud-wing's,” she murmured, and she was right. She saw how with a few strokes of the brush, he'd made her look suspended in the breeze. Gazing at his painting, she felt he was sending a secret message to her: Fly now.

Dandelion dashed back to her room. She would not stay here any longer.

She sorted through the neatly piled dresses and robes, chose the ones she would need the most, carefully placing them into a towel. Then she added bits of bread she'd saved for a journey like this. And finally the braided leather rope with which Cloud-wing had taught her to fly. She tied the corners of the towel together, lifted the bundle, and approached the window.

But wait. She wouldn't take any of it, she realized suddenly. She dropped the towel and opened it again, looking at its contents. The lacy dresses of the elite weren't hers. She removed Cloud-wing's rope and hesitated. But now it made no difference whether she had it or not. This was the flight that she was going to do all alone. No other bird would be holding on to the rope; she would rely on her own strength.

With just a candle she had come; with just a candle she would leave. She checked to make sure it was still in her pocket, and left everything else behind. Turning her back to the hypocrisy and arrogance of the mountaintop, she opened the window, took a deep breath, and jumped.

 

Home is a nest of sweet dreams.

—
FROM THE
O
LD
S
CRIPTURE

I
want my home! I want my family! I want to be loved and be happy
, thought Dandelion.

The wind pulled at the feathers on her cheeks, and she opened her wings, feeling them catch the lift. Her muscles strained, and her bones felt brittle, like glass, but she wouldn't fall this time. No matter how long the journey was, she would make it home.

As Dandelion opened her eyes wide, the ring of mountain peaks around Sword Mountain resembled a gathering of hunched eagles raising their wings so they met in a triangle high above their backs. Waiting to take flight.

Yet even if every peak in the range soared high, Dandelion would still plunge down to where her heavy heart would pull her. She let herself glide lower and lower. The sensation felt familiar, as if she had flown back this way too many times. She strained her eyes, but her vision had already begun to blur.

Mama. Papa. I'm coming home. It will be just like before.

She opened all her senses to catch any murmur of reply. But the valley only brought her the scent of weeping rain—the rich sweetness of damp acorns on the ground, tucked under layers of waxy leaves; the smell of crisp white roots of clover; the fragrance of pine resin kissed by mist again. It was like the steam of freshly brewed tea, but it choked her instead of comforting her.

Dandelion compromised:
I don't need to see you, I don't need to hear you. I just need to feel your presence. The balm of your smiles. The warmth of your wings.

Only the orange fungi ears of fallen logs listened to her. In reply, wagging tongues of ivy leaves clattered softly against one another in the breeze.

I tried my best!
Dandelion said in her mind. Her eyes closed, and she hurled herself down the tree-lined slopes. She landed clumsily on the top of the cliff, and for a moment could only huddle there.
Am I still your little Dandelion?

Dandelion picked herself up and stumbled, digging her talons into the soft wax of her candle. There was a small hut built into a cave. There was her grand castle. She swallowed and edged forward. What did she want to see?

Dandelion stepped inside, her eyes closed. “I'm here,” she said. She sat down. In the monstrous silence she felt two hearts beating in time with her own. She held on to her candle and concentrated on their steady thumps, delighted to find that they grew clearer, louder, and more substantial. She was sure that one heart was her father's as he sat scraping skins, holding his blunt bone knife, next to the fireplace, and the other was her mother's, who was sitting across from him, content, weaving on a loom.

It was reality for a heart-wrenching second. Dandelion so wanted to touch her parents she leaped up and opened her eyes.

The vision blew away.

Tears dripped from Dandelion's face, making small dark furrows in the thick dust on the floor.

She got up waveringly and went outside. Without thinking, she spread her wings wide and glided down. Below her there was a space beneath a tree, marked with a ring of pebbles. Graves—how could she not have noticed them before? The memory of the archaeopteryx once again possessed her mind, but this time it flowed unchecked. The archaeopteryx leaping toward her, talons slashing. Her mother, furious, jumping upon the enemy; then both of them tumbling into the air.... Her father screaming in agony as her mother crashed to the forest floor.... Her father fighting maniacally, weaponless, against the archaeopteryx.... Dandelion leaping down, and in her fall, she already knew....

She had always known.

Dandelion landed by the graves of her parents. “Mama!” she whispered. “Mama, I can fly now. I found my strength: I flew to find you.”

Emptied by grief, Dandelion lay unmoving till nightfall, when she returned to the cave and curled up on the hearth of her old home. Frost was everywhere; winter was coming. A chill was setting in Dandelion's heart as she breathed shallowly, clutching her cold candle and looking at the empty blackness of the hearth.

“Dandelion!”

Dandelion hadn't heard anybird come in, but Fleydur stood behind her now, stooping over.

“Why do you think I am called Dandelion?” she shouted. “I have no place anywhere. I am unwanted. I am a weed.”

“Never. Never that,” said Fleydur quietly. He took a handkerchief, reached out, and gently wiped at Dandelion's eyes. “Listen to me. A dandelion is bright and noble, just like the sun. It's not haughty like a rose, not flamboyant like a jasmine, not feeble like a lily. Simple and resilient and wild,” he whispered. “Unlike the garden flowers, it calls no attention to itself, demands no care from others—it can depend on itself. Maybe it's not tall or big, but it can live, and thrive, in a crack of stone, trampled and uprooted, through drought and flood alike. Because it has inner strength. It has character. Underappreciated, but it is the best of flowers.”

Fleydur paused. “I am sorry that I hid from you the truth about your parents. I was waiting for the right moment to tell you. I wanted to be sure you were strong enough.”

“I know,” said Dandelion.

“What are you going to do now? The court agreed to let me begin my music lessons. Would you like to be one of my students?”

“I'm not sure if the eaglets will accept me,” said Dandelion. “Nobird from the valley goes to school on the summit.”

“There's nothing wrong with being a valley bird at all. It doesn't matter,” said Fleydur. “The summit can be your home as well. And you can be my daughter.”

Dandelion was stunned.

“How can I?” she said. “What about you? The court, the Iron Nest? The traditions?” Her gratitude was tempered by the gravity of what his offer meant and what it might bring.

“Don't worry so much,” said Fleydur. “The Iron Nest can't do a thing; this is a personal choice. The title of princess will protect you. I can't bear to leave you here, Dandelion. You're not well yet!”

“My wounds have scarred over already.” Dandelion pointed to her shoulders.

Fleydur traced the raised ridges beneath her feathers, and his eyes grew wet. “Physical injuries can mend in a guesthouse. But emotional hurts only heal in a home.”

He extended a wing. “Dandelion, will you come back?” asked Fleydur. “Will you make a new home with me?”

She cried.

“
To fly well, you have to fall first
.” She had fallen. But with Fleydur's help, she must pick herself up again. The rough wind was not over.
Fleydur doesn't really know what the mountaintop is like
, Dandelion thought. Maybe he'd been away too long; maybe he had never really known. But she did. She knew that the queen disliked Fleydur, and knew that eagles like Simplicio hated the idea of any change. She knew there were dangers Fleydur himself did not see. She would have to return. Not for herself, but for him. Once he had saved her life, and now she needed to look out for him.