Dragonfell Read online

  “Ah! It is just as I warned,” Mister Flitch declares. “Beware! The dragon is evil and dangerous!”

  At his words the villagers, the people I love best in the world, back away, their eyes wide. They are not frightened of Mister Flitch or his men, they are afraid of me.

  And I can’t even explain.

  Dragons don’t get tired easily. Flames can’t burn us, cold doesn’t affect us. We are strong. Even the pain of the wound on my flank barely bothers me.

  But this hurts with an ache that settles in my heart. It hurts me worse than any weapon that Mister Flitch could build.

  “Oh my goodness.” Maud’s hands are clenched into fists, and she stands in front of her father, glaring at him. Then she shifts her glare to the villagers. “It’s not an evil dragon, it’s Rafi. Can’t you see that?”

  “It’s not Rafi! It’s a dragon!” Lah Finethread answers, and the others nod, agreeing. “It wants to destroy the village!”

  “Oh, he does not,” Maud says, as if she’s all out of patience. “How can you be so stupid? Rafi is a dragon. Just because he’s different doesn’t mean he’s dangerous! This is his lair, and he will protect it with his life. That is what dragons do.” And then she pulls her trusty red notebook out of her pocket. “I,” she announces, “am not only Mister Flitch’s daughter, I am a dragon scientist.” Seeing the villagers’ confused looks, she adds, “That is a person who knows all that there is to know about something, and in this case, it is dragons.” She hands the red notebook to the nearest person, who happens to be Old Shar. “Tell me, old woman,” Maud says grandly. “Is this not the notebook of a dragon scientist?”

  Old Shar blinks and then raises her eyebrows and opens the book. She studies the page as if she is reading, but I see her sneak a glance in my direction.

  I know what she sees. A young dragon not much bigger than a tall man. His scales burn with the color of flames. His wings are battered from the fight with the dragon-engine, and he has a wound on his flank that drips with blood. And his eyes. She should know his eyes, shadow dark with a spark deep within them.

  Old Shar snaps the book closed. “Miss Flitch is absolutely correct,” she says briskly. “She is an expert on dragons, and this dragon is Rafi. Our Rafi.”

  The villagers mutter with surprise, but they don’t look convinced.

  “Whether he is your Rafi or not,” Mister Flitch puts in smoothly, “the fact remains that the world has changed.” His sharp eyes survey the villagers. “The world no longer needs dragons. It needs factories, and coal to run them, and people to work in them.”

  My da is still standing at the gate leading to our cottage. Now he hobbles out to the road, leaning heavily on his crutch. He does not so much as look at me. He nods at Mister Flitch. “That may be so,” says my da, who isn’t used to speaking up in front of this many people. But he speaks clearly, so everyone can hear him. “But there’s no cloth so fine as the cloth I weave. And,” he goes on, as the villagers nod in agreement, “there are no smiths who make weather vanes as well as our John Smithy, and there are no sheep that give wool stronger or lighter than Old Shar’s longpelts do.”

  “That’s right,” somebody says, and I see nods all around.

  Da takes a deep breath and goes on. “And there are no cheese creamier than the cheese Lah makes, and there are no shepherd dogs bred better than the ones Ma Steep raises.”

  More nods and murmurs of agreement.

  “So I’m thinking, Mister Flitch,” Da says, “that you can keep your mines and your factories. We’re not cogs and pistons up here on the fells. We’re not parts for keeping the machines running.”

  Mister Flitch is scowling. His men grumble and lift their weapons again. I narrow my eyes, and tense my muscles, ready to fight.

  Then Maud steps up and points at Mister Flitch. “This man,” she announces to everyone in the village, “is my father, and I know him better than anybody. He doesn’t want to help anyone here. All he wants is power. Coal power, or a spark to drive his machines, because that gives him gold, and more gold, and another kind of power.

  “There is a book,” Maud goes on loudly. She glances at Old Shar. “I think you may have seen it. It was supposedly written by a person named Ratch. There’s a line from that book that tells about a certain kind of creature who is”—and she quotes the Ratch book from memory—“destructive, sly, thievering, greedy, foul, unnatural, selfish, contemptible, parasitical, and an entirely treacherous beast.”

  She glares at Mister Flitch.

  “The words in Ratch’s book do not describe dragons, Father,” she shouts. “They are describing you!”

  She turns her anger on the villagers. “Now, listen, you people. Which one of these would you rather have protecting you?” She points at her father. “Mister Flitch, who is turning your village into a coal mine and who has shown himself to be a treacherous beast?” And then she points at me, and the entire village is looking, maybe seeing me as I really am for the first time. “Or will you choose Rafi? This village is his lair—it is the place of his heart, and he will protect it, and the people who live here, with his life. So choose, people of Dragonfell. Which will you have?”

  Chapter 33

  The Ratch book said that dragons are evil, malicious creatures that turn all the land around them to waste.

  When the villagers insist that Mister Flitch leave the Dragonfell, his men leave a waste behind them. Poisoned water, and a gaping pit in the side of the fell, and broken machinery.

  The villagers are happy to have him gone, along with his men and his coal mine.

  They chose me, but still, they’re not so certain sure about me.

  I am a dragon. So I go to my lair, high atop the Dragonfell. I settle there among the shards of blue-painted teacups that the first dragon hoarded. From that spot I have a good view of the vaporwagons leaving the village, trundling down the road toward the valley. I can see what’s left of the mine and the heaps of slickens where sheep used to graze. They’ll graze there again, I think, once spring comes.

  Maud climbs the fell to say goodbye. She’s going back to Skarth to deal with her father, she tells me. To put things right. “He’s not a good man,” she says. “But he didn’t kill me when he had the chance. So it could be worse.” And that’s one of the things I love best about Maud. She’ll always find something to be cheerful about. But then she frowns. “I’ll have to get rid of his dragon collection. If he gives me any trouble, I will let you know, Rafi, and you can come and set him straight. And I’ll make sure the other dragons are resettled in their lairs, and left undisturbed.”

  I don’t have any doubt that she’ll manage all of it. She is a dragon scientist, after all.

  Maud sighs, leaning against my flank and admiring the view from my lair. “Rafi, you’re the best friend I’ll ever have,” she says with a contented sigh. “I’m going to miss you.”

  I’m going to miss her, too.

  “I’ll probably come back in a few weeks,” she goes on. “Once I get things settled in Skarth.” She rolls her eyes. “My father is a very smart man, you know, but he is very stupid about some things. And I was thinking . . .”

  If I was a boy, I would laugh at that. Maud thinking is when things get dangerous.

  She casts me a sidelong look, as if she knows that I’m laughing inside my head. “No, seriously, Rafi, I have an idea. Your friend Old Shar isn’t wrong. Things are changing. There are factories, and vaporwagons, and they run on coal, and the thing is, coal mines make a terrible mess, and the smoke from coal-burning engines makes a mess, too. What if there’s a way for dragons to . . . I don’t know, to lend part of their spark to make those things run, instead of coal? It wouldn’t be like Mister Flitch taking your spark, you’d be giving it, just a tiny piece of it. It would be different.”

  Trust Maud to come up with an idea like that.

  “Think about it while I’m gone,” Maud says brightly. Then she gives me a brilliant grin. “And I know you won’t be lone
ly.”

  Yes, I will.

  She points, and I can’t believe she saw them first. Coming up the path from the village is a line of goats. The billy goat, Gruff, is leading them, and Poppy and Elegance, and all the others, even the babies Cloud and Coal. The sight of them fills me with a deep feeling of rightness. My hoard.

  “Oh, and there’s one more thing, before I go.” Maud reaches into her pocket and takes out my spectacles, which she sets on the rock beside me. Then she takes out the dragon book and waves it at me. “I have to take this back so the Skarth dragon can add it to its library hoard. But I read something important that I have to tell you about.” She pats my leg. “It’s like standing next to a furnace, Rafi. I can see why you’ll never get cold up here. Anyway, I finished reading the book, and I know all the dragon secrets now. And the best one is how the dragon-touched can be a dragon, and how he can be a person, too.” She gazes up at me, her eyes shining, and then she tells me how.

  The next morning, the boy named Rafi heads down from the dragon’s lair on the Dragonfell, followed by his hoard of goats. It snowed during the night, but I’m only wearing a ragged shirt and trousers, and no shoes. My human shape never fit me all that well, and it feels strange to be wearing it now. I can feel the flame that burns inside me. I never was a boy, really. I was a dragon who was stuck in his boy shape for his entire life, until he found out what he really was.

  All dragons, Maud told me, are dragon-touched to start with, and have a human form. And then, when their human body gets very old, they stop being able to shift, and they stay in their dragon shape for the rest of their lives, which is a very long time. This must be true, because she read it in the dragon book.

  The goats follow as I walk down the path, past the wreckage of the mine, and then past John Smithy’s house. He’s hard at work at his forge, banging away at something. Seeing me, he sets down his hammer and holds up the iron weather vane he’s working on. It’s a new design. It’s shaped like a dragon, and it looks a lot like me.

  I feel a wide grin break over my face. “If you ever need help getting the fire in your forge started,” I call, “I can help with that. Just let me know!”

  He blinks, and then nods. “I will, Rafi,” he calls back. “Certain sure I will.”

  Still smiling, I continue on my way. In the middle of the road is a channel made by the water pumped out of the coal mine. There’s a film over the water that’s left in it, and a lingering smell of sulfur. When the snow melts, it’ll wash it all away, I hope.

  As I reach Old Shar’s house, she comes out to meet me. She folds her arms and leans on her gate and looks me up and down. “Well now, Rafi.”

  “Good morning, Old Shar,” I say politely, just like my da taught me. My voice sounds rough, like I’ve been gargling fire. Which I guess I have.

  Old Shar fixes me with her sharpest look. “Schooling tomorrow,” she says. “You will be coming, won’t you?”

  “Yep,” I say. I can’t wait to show her my reading spectacles, and tell her that I never was as stupid as I thought I was.

  The goats catch up to me. Maaah, Poppy says, complaining about the mud and snow on the road. They don’t like getting their hooves wet.

  “You can leave the hoard in your lair when you come, Rafi,” Old Shar says. “But you tell that delightful friend of yours, Maud, that she’s welcome anytime.” And then she turns and goes back into her house.

  As I pass through the village, Tam peers at me from the doorway of his father’s bakery. “Mornin’, Rafi,” he calls.

  “Mornin’,” I answer, and stop walking.

  “Sorry about before,” Tam says, coming to his gate. He’s shivering a little in the icy wind. “Telling about you touching the fire with your hands, about what I saw that time.”

  I feel all wound up inside. “It’s all right,” I say.

  “No, ’tisn’t.” He shakes his head. “I shouldn’t have said it. But I was thinking just the same.” He glances quickly up at me, then away. “I was thinking,” he goes on slowly, “that it would be useful.”

  Tam looks ready to run away screaming if I so much as twitch, so I hold myself very still. “Useful?” I repeat.

  “Yes. Not getting burned. For a baker especially. My da has burns all over.” Tam pulls up his shirtsleeve and shows a healing burn on his wrist. “I got that one when I brushed up against the bread oven, and I was thinking, maybe I should touch you for luck. To keep me safe from being burned.”

  I blink, surprised. “I don’t think that’ll work,” I tell him.

  “Might as well try it.” He opens the gate and crosses the road to me, and holds out his hand, and he only flinches a little when I take it in mine. “It feels funny,” he says.

  Different. Strange. I know.

  “It’s like . . .” He wrinkles his nose, thinking. “It’s like when a loaf of bread comes out of the oven. When it’s cooling, you can touch it on the crust, but on the inside it’s still hot and steaming.” He lets go of my hand.

  “So . . . I’m like bread,” I say.

  Tam offers me a corner of a smile. “Well, you’re more like a dragon, Rafi.”

  And that’s all right? Are we friends again? Is that what Tam is saying?

  “See you tomorrow at Old Shar’s house for school,” he says, and hurries back inside the warm bakery.

  “Huh,” I say, and I go on down the road until I get to my da’s cottage.

  From out on the road, I can hear the swath and whirr and thump-thump of Da’s loom. When I get to the gate and open it, the sound of the loom goes quiet.

  I stand there, half afraid to go in. I have so much to tell my da. He’s always been afraid of fire, and afraid of dragons, and that’s what I am. I don’t think I can stand it if he’s afraid of me, too.

  The cottage door creaks open. Da stands there, leaning on his crutch. He looks thinner, as if he didn’t get enough to eat while I was gone. His face is etched with the pain of his burned leg. For a long moment, he doesn’t say anything. Then, “Rafi,” he says, and his voice breaks on my name.

  I stand there, half ready to run back to my lair on the Dragonfell.

  Da looks at me, and I don’t know what he’s thinking. “There’s something,” he says slowly, “I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

  I nod.

  “There’s something that I fear more than fire,” he says.

  I nod again. I remember him saying that before, when I left the cottage. My heart drops. “Dragons,” I say sadly, and I know how lonely I’m going to be without him. “You’re afraid of dragons.”

  “No,” Da says firmly. “That’s not it. The one thing I fear more than anything, Rafi, the thing I’ve always been most afraid of, is losing you.”

  And then he opens his arms, and a second later I’m across the yard and standing on the doorstep before him, and his arms wrap around me in a hug, and I’m home, in my place, where I belong.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to:

  My BFFs, Jenn Reese, Deb Coates, and Greg van Eekhout.

  And my dear pal Michelle Edwards.

  To the team at HarperCollins Children’s Books, especially Alyson Day.

  To my agent, Caitlin Blasdell at the Liza Dawson Associates agency.

  And to everybody who’s a little bit dragon.

  About the Author

  Courtesy Sarah Prineas

  SARAH PRINEAS is an acclaimed author of both middle grade and teen whose books include the Magic Thief series and the Winterling series, as well as The Lost Books: The Scroll of Kings; Ash & Bramble; and Rose & Thorn. She lives in the midst of the corn in rural Iowa, where she wrangles dogs, cats, chickens, and goats, goes on lots of hikes, and finds time to write. She is married to a physics professor and has two kids.

  You can visit Sarah online at www.sarah-prineas.com and on Twitter @SPrineas.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  Back Ads

  Books by Sarah Prineas

>   The Magic Thief Series

  The Magic Thief

  The Magic Thief: Lost

  The Magic Thief: Found

  The Magic Thief: Home

  The Magic Thief: A Proper Wizard, a digital novella

  Winterling

  Summerkin

  Moonkind

  Thrice Sworn, a digital novella

  The Lost Books: The Scroll of Kings

  Copyright

  DRAGONFELL. Copyright © 2019 by Sarah Prineas. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  www.harpercollinschildrens.com

  Cover art © 2019 by Jim Madsen

  Title art and cover design by Joel Tippie

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Prineas, Sarah, author.

  Title: Dragonfell / Sarah Prineas.

  Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2019] | Summary: “When a factory owner comes to Rafi’s village and accuses the boy of being ‘dragon-touched,’ Rafi sets off on an adventure to save his home and discover the truth about dragons, and himself”—Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018025424 | ISBN 9780062665553 (hardback)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Dragons—Fiction. | Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. | Fantasy.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.P93646 Dr 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23