Dragonfall

DAW BOOKSNEW YORKCopyright © 2023 by Laura Rose Lam.All rights reserved. Copying or digitizing this book for storage, display, or distribution in any other medium is strictly prohibited. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, please contact [email protected] is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.Jacket design and illustration by Micaela AlcainoInterior design by Fine DesignMap by Deven RueDAW Book Collectors No. 1939DAW BooksAn imprint of Astra Publishing Housedawbooks.comDAW Books and its logo are registered trademarks of Astra Publishing House Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataNames: Lam, Laura, 1988- author. Title: Dragonfall / L.R. Lam. Description: First edition. | New York : DAW Books, 2023. | Series: The dragon scales trilogy ; book one Identifiers: LCCN 2023000743 (print) | LCCN 2023000744 (ebook) | ISBN 9780756418410 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780756418427 (ebook) Subjects: LCGFT: Fantasy fiction. | Novels. Classification: LCC PS3612.A543285 D73 2023 (print) | LCC PS3612.A543285 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6--dc23/eng/20230113LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023000743LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023000744 For Robin Hobb and all the other fantasy authors whose books I gobbled up. Thank you for creating worlds that felt like home. I hope this world does the same for someone else. TABLE OF CONTENTSTitle PageCopyright PageDedicationPART 1: COLLISION1. Everen: The Fall2. Arcady: Do Not Fear These Bones3. Everen: The New Old World4. Arcady: Loc & Key5. Sorin: The Merchant’s Scion6. Everen: A Land of Fog7. Arcady: The Silver Setting8. Everen: The Dragon’s Heart9. Arcady: The Last Golden10. Everen: The Kiss of a KnifePART 2: CONNECTION11. Arcady: The Stranger12. Everen: The Prince & the Thief13. Arcady: The Feast of Storms14. Sorin: The Siren15. Everen: Lockpick16. Arcady: The Red Coat17. Everen: Larkin & Wren18. Arcady: The Rules of the Game19. Everen: The Stories We Tell Ourselves20. Cassia: The Silver PoolPART 3: COHESION21. Arcady: Cinders22. Everen: The Cote23. Arcady: Partitions24. Sorin: The Captain25. Arcady: The Question26. Sorin: The Wolf27. Everen: The House of Ikari Dwell28. Arcady: Widow Girazin’s29. Sorin: The Auction30. Everen: The TowerPART 4: CONVICTION31. Arcady: Blood, Feather, Bone32. Everen: Entangled33. Cassia: Hold Fast34. Sorin: Beliefs35. Arcady: Lay Down Your Weapons36. Everen: Half-Remembered Dreams37. Arcady: The Barrow Hill38. Cassia: A Veiled Storm39. Everen: Golden Bonds40. Sorin: Cold Metal41. Arcady: The Monster42. Sorin: Gods in Flame43. Everen: Starfire44. Arcady: Promises Broken45. Arcady: Promises Kept46. Sorin: Utterances47. Magnes: Relic of the Past48. Everen: Left in the DarkAcknowledgments Herein lies first-hand accounts from the dragon Everen Emberclaw and the human Arcady Dalca during the events of the Dragon Scales Prophecies. I have re-created additional perspectives via scrying and telepathy. In some instances, I have asked for added input from those still living or willing. Braiding a narrative is not so different from setting down a vision sent by starfire and fate. Many do not understand how strange it can be to dip a claw into someone’s life for a spell. To feel as they feel, to dream as they dream.There is a trick to emerging from it all, scrysilver falling from fangs and the taste of lightning on the tongue. It is difficult to pour oneself back into one’s own bones. To wonder if, each time, we might come back changed. All Seers learn this, to their sorrow.I digress.Pray humor me for taking the liberty of filling in some gaps, but I wished to create a complete and thorough account of this tumultuous period. The official reports are so very dry. A copy of these volumes is stored herewith in the archives for as long as they remain standing. Let us hope it will be a long time yet before fate reaches the tail and begins again at the head.—THE TWELFTH ARCHIVIST OF VERE CELENE PART 1: COLLISIONPray to the five gods:Kalsh, the blue dragon of the sea, who shifts luck, fortune, and form like waves.Piater, the strong god, metallic gray, who moves that which is heavy as stone.Zama, god of clarity, indigo-black, with power over wind, storm, and the magic best left forgotten.Jari, the green god of new growth and healing, who knits the world back together.Aura, the dragon red as blood and full of might, who burns it down again. 1. EVEREN: THE FALLI will share how I fell. But first, I must tell you what it is like to fly. Let me try, though it is still another thing I should have shared before it was too late. Most humans will never experience flight. Though I pity the creatures for many things, it is perhaps that most of all.Imagine running with all the speed your four legs can muster. Launch from the top of a cliff with a last push of talons into solid earth. There is nothing but the deep dip in the belly. The angling of your head toward gray-green water. The rocks grow close, impossibly fast. Wind whistles along your scales, ruffling the feathers at your wing and crest.There is a trick to drawing the eddies of your magic tight, holding it close as you sense the thermals as sure as the currents of the waters below. You will know the perfect time to spread your wings with a—Snap.Your chest muscles strain, but have faith the thermal will catch you. With a stroke of your wings, you can draw yourself, steady and sure, up into the sky. From above, any world seems so much smaller and larger at the same time.I remember other dragons circling the bone-pale cliffs, beginning their hunts. Their wings catching the fading glow of the sun. Purple, blue, green, gray. Some as red as my own scales. They all hoped to come back with full claws.(As I write this, I can imagine flying back to the pryde of Vere Celene to share my cuts with my mother and sister before claiming my own portion. Fire and stars, but I did not know how much I would miss it. Gliding over