Free A Shard of Sun by Jess E. Owen Page B

steps and pondering. Privately, he thought that Hikaru might be a seer, like himself, that they weren’t memories but visions. But dragons were very different, and who was he to say?
    “What songs do you remember?” Amaratsu had said that the songs of the Sunland would be in Hikaru’s blood. Shard hadn’t realized he would actually remember them, from a past life, through what power he didn’t know. If he was remembering them at all, and not hearing them through some power in the wind. It had happened for Amaratsu, and for Shard himself.
    Hikaru’s warm voice broke the silence like a deep birdsong.
     
“ The noble draw wind from the water
The brave will call fire from stone.
The foolish seek gold in the mountain
The last know that wood grows from bone.”
    “It’s beautiful,” Shard murmured. “I’ve never heard it before.”
    “It’s a dragon song,” Hikaru said, certain of himself. Shard wasn’t going to argue. “Where are we going?”
    “Nightward.”
    “Yes.” Hikaru trailed him through the ferns, up a long slope through the hulking, ancient cedars. “But where?”
    Shard climbed, opening his wings and checking the position of the sun that glinted through the pine needles high above. “For now, just away.” He pondered whether to tell Hikaru his true destination yet, for he wasn’t certain how to get there, or if it was the best idea. At that moment, it was the only idea he had. “Away from the Winderost,” he continued, “away from the wyrms, and the Dawn Spire.”
    “And then?” Hikaru rolled and hopped after him, seeming to enjoy the freedom to stretch and work his growing body.
    “And then…” Shard wove around a tumble of moss-covered boulders. Perhaps, if they crested the slope, they’d have a good view of what lay beyond the forest. He paused, looking at Hikaru.
    I promised myself I wouldn’t keep things from him.
    “We can’t speak to the wyrms. I have more enemies than friends in the Winderost now. We know that the wyrms are angry with gryfons and Sunland dragons alike, so—”
    “You want to go to the Sunland,” Hikaru said eagerly. “Yes, I think that will be a good plan. There will be answers there, and friends.”
    Shard chuckled, relieved. “Let’s hope so. But I don’t know the way.”
    “I’m certain I can find it, when I remember more.”
    “It may be a very long flight.”
    Hikaru fluffed his wings. “I’m growing strong.”
    Shard stepped forward to butt his head affectionately against Hikaru’s shoulder. “I knew you wouldn’t be afraid.”
    He was glad Hikaru agreed with his plan, though he couldn’t shake his own feeling that he was just running away.
    It’ll be best for Hikaru to see his homeland, and he’s right, Shard tried to convince himself, we may have friends there.
    Together they turned and trekked up the remainder of the slope, where a line of trees marked a low ridge. Shard paused at the top. The ground swept back down in a wash of shale, toward yet more forest. Beyond, in the blue haze, he made out a long, flat plain with marsh grasses, and beyond that, more forest. He didn’t want to walk through a marsh, and Hikaru had eaten an entire deer. He looked up at the dragon.
    “Ready to fly?”
    Hikaru laughed and launched from the ridge, shooting ahead like a serpent. Shard leaped and glided after, soaking in the warm sun after the chill of the woods. Every so often he checked over his shoulder. The wyrms must have been hunkered down away from the sun. There was another possibility, though Shard guarded his hope. It was possible that the wyrms may have lost them completely when the volcano erupted, and hadn’t followed at all.
    “Let’s race!” Hikaru challenged, looping back around Shard.
    “Ha! All right.”
    Without hesitation, Shard narrowed his wings and shot ahead, twisting his body like a falcon to streamline his muscles and feathers. Hikaru took a sharp breath, then loosed a warbling shriek of glee. They raced.
    Shard