Dragonhearted by Zoe Cannon

Author:Zoe Cannon [Cannon, Zoe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zoe Cannon
Published: 2022-08-22T00:00:00+00:00

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The heart-pounding thrill of leaving in secret in the middle of the night was spoiled a bit by Eli insisting on triple-checking all their supplies. “I don’t think we have enough food,” he said, staring doubtfully into the bag Meryn had hastily packed while he had finished his chores.

The chores—that was something else Meryn had to keep her mouth shut about, because it would make for bad luck and worse company to start their long journey with a quarrel. She would have understood if he had wanted to finish up the chores so his father wouldn’t be suspicious. But he had not only done the evening’s chores, but tomorrow morning’s as well, which was likely to rouse more suspicion, not less.

When she had asked him about it, he had told her he wanted to make sure he made their departure as easy on his father as possible, seeing as now his father would be left running the farm alone, and right in the middle of whelping season. Meryn had bitten her tongue to keep from pointing out that from where she was standing, he owed exactly nothing to a father who had wrapped his hands around his throat only a few hours ago, and that if he really cared that much about leaving his father to handle the farm alone, he wouldn’t be running away in the first place. Half a day’s chores wouldn’t make much difference one way or the other.

She had been too afraid he would take it as genuine advice and change his mind. Now that the possibility of going back was in her head, she found she couldn’t think about anything else. Even gathering the supplies had been difficult; her mind was already back in her old cave, setting snares and sewing clothes out of goatskin. What did they need with all this food—twice as much as the two of them needed for the journey, by her account—and a full spare set of extra clothes each?

She didn’t say that either. Fight him too much, and he would dig in his heels. She had learned enough of him to know he was as stubborn as the worst of the farm’s dragons that way.

“We have enough,” was all she said. She buttoned the bag closed and threw it over her shoulder. She cast a glance toward the farmhouse door, just to make sure Abe wasn’t coming after them. Her heart beat fast, and not only from nerves. In all her weeks shoveling manure, she hadn’t realized how much she had missed this. The sense of doing the impossible, of leaping off a cliff and praying she would survive. Even her walk here from her family’s home had been a leap. Working on Abe’s farm, for all she got to work up close with dragons, was more like one plodding step after another down a road that had existed for five hundred years.

Eli looked like he was missing the comfort of that old road right about now. He reached out a hand toward the bag, like he wanted to take one last look.

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