Isle of Dragons: The Dragon Sanctum, #2

By Constance Roberts

To keep Celestia and her new friends out of the clutches of the devious ringmaster, Ivy left her dragon behind at a sanctuary across the sea. Reluctantly, she returns to the circus, claiming the prized dragon has been slaughtered at the hands of ruthless hunters. Without Celestia, Ivy's place in the circus is no longer secure. In her dragon's absence, a dark chill begins to snake through Ivy that even a new paramour's arms cannot warm. When the circus embarks to a new land, Ivy must work quickly to foil the ringmaster's plans before her chance to return to the dragon and the boy she left behind is ripped away forever.

Titus has plenty to keep him busy getting the Sanctum ready for winter, but his mind is consumed by thoughts of the orange-haired circus girl. He'd promised to stay put and wait for her return, but when outside threats appear on shore, and the dragon he'd vowed to protect goes missing, he may have to abandon the sanctuary in order to set things right.

Neither are prepared for what they find at journey's end. Ivy and Titus will have to trust each other and improvise, or see their dreams reduced to ashes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Constance Roberts
• Release date: Jun 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393368298

Constance Roberts

Constance Roberts is a retired flight attendant who turned in her wings to stay at home with her wildlings and to write. She is the author of a set of gender-bent fairytales and The Dragon Sanctum series. She and her husband live in St. Louis, Missouri where they spend the weekends playing board games with friends.

Book preview

ISLE OF DRAGONS

The Dragon Sanctum #2

By

Constance Roberts

1

Ivy

Ifloat amidst the Stars.

No, not float. Soar.

Celestia glides through the night sky, her scales warm beneath my thighs. The wind sings and caresses my hair as we sail through the sea of diamonds.

I do not feel the touch of late Autumn prickling my skin. I do not hear the uproarious laughter and merriment that surrounds my caged prison. I will only succumb to reality if I open my eyes.

Tonight, the Circus of Scales is in full swing, and I sit perched in the center of it all. Covered from head to toe in shimmery gray paint and little else, I pose as a frozen tribute while winter blue ice hatchlings perch on my shoulders, limbs, and anywhere else they can gain footing. The little dragons can’t fly yet, but they flit about the cage like pet finches.

This is my penance. Night after night, this is what I must do to keep Celestia out of the ringmaster’s reach.

I must remain perfectly still. I cannot flinch as the hatchlings’ filed claws grip my skin, as their wings whip me in the face, their icy touch sending shivers through my exposed skin. I hardly blink for fear a patron might notice, dispelling the illusion. I’m allowed to shift my pose every hundred heartbeats, relieving a working leg or shifting a heavy arm.

Occasionally, for a small reprieve, I’ll stand with my eyes closed, and retreat into the dreams of my mind. Celestia is always waiting for me there. Her imagined presence is bright and radiates warmth. Sometimes we soar through the sky. Sometimes we lounge by the stream. Occasionally Titus is with us, on those nights I pretend I never left the Sanctum.

I was right to believe Gorio would be furious. Right to believe the ringmaster wouldn’t stop searching for Celestia until I’d returned without her. Though, he did not concede without a fight. The ringmaster questioned me relentlessly while his men hung me upside down and poured freezing water down my nostrils. I don’t know how many hours passed before he was finally satisfied with my answers. My lungs and airways burned. My head felt like it was going to burst, but I stuck to my story of Celestia being skinned and harvested. I told him I was beaten and left for dead before the thieves took her fire crystal and set sail for the Ruby Continent. Now, if Gorio ever goes looking for them, he’ll search in the opposite direction.

I didn’t have to pretend to be devastated. The tears came on their own, knowing it’s likely I’ll never see my dearest friend again.

My new act in the circus is to perform as a living statue. It’s tedious and makes my muscles ache in ways I didn’t know possible, but at least it keeps up the farce that Celestia is gone and I have nowhere to run off to. As far as anyone knows, the Circus of Scales is all I have left.

Most days, that feels all too true.

I don’t speak much about what supposedly happened to me while I was kidnapped. It’s better if no one knows the truth; that I sacrificed my freedom for Celestia and chained myself to Gorio for her sake. The more people there are that believe she’s dead, the safer she remains in the care of the Keepers of the Sanctum, enjoying her freedom. Sable and Luna, the aerialists and my closest friends in the circus, are kind enough not to raise questions. Everyone else has probably forgotten already, absorbing new gossip and washing out the old with every new town we pitch tents in.

The name of the town we are in tonight escapes me. I rarely pay attention to such trivial details. It’s hard to focus on much of anything when my eyes are open. I live for sleep, those precious hours when the world falls away and I exist only in whatever world my mind conjures. Most always a world with Celestia.

I shouldn’t worry about her, I know that. I left her at the Sanctum because I know she’ll be safe there. Titus and Greta and the other Keepers will take care of her, treasure her like I do. I think what I’m more afraid of is that she’s angry with me. Hurt, believing I abandoned her. I swear to the Stars, I’ll find a way to get back to my dragon one day, just as soon as I can be sure Gorio won’t follow.

Three loud gongs shatter my thoughts. I’m pulled back to the shivering cold, blunted talons on my shoulder and frosted colored lanterns outside every tent. The circus is closing, and the few patrons that are left in the late hour reluctantly amble to the exits. By the time the last wandering shadow blends into night, I hear a jingling of keys.

Cyrill, the hatchling handler, has come to unlock my cage. He pulls along a hay-lined wagon where the baby ice dragons will spend the night. I watch as the handler’s gloved hands carefully take each hatchling from one cage to another. Then, as if I’m not just another specimen on display, he gallantly holds out one of his gloved hands to help me step down from the silver enclosure. He even has a wool blanket waiting for me. The shabby fabric does little to warm my bones, but at least it blocks the biting breeze.

Bet you’re ready for some warm stew. Cyrill attempts polite conversation while I stand shivering in his wool offering.

I haven’t quite figured out the new hatchling handler. Gorio hired him after Celestia scorched half his men when they chased after her stolen caravan. Cyrill seems more sincere than the last handler, but I can’t bring myself to trust him just yet. The large man has plump, rosy cheeks and a grandfatherly face, but I notice most of the time his cheery smile doesn’t reach his hazel eyes. Experience tells me that someone is either hiding something or covering up a part of them that’s broken.

Which are you, Cyrill? I wonder as he locks up the cage.

It’s not really Cyrill’s fault. I have a hard time trusting anyone in the circus I didn’t know from before.

Thank you, I say through chattering teeth. I do my best to excuse myself from his company to wash up. 

In some towns, we camp close to a stream or river, but this place has a spigot pump just a few yards away. Since my vardo was given to Gorio’s new lead act, I go behind the dining tent where I stashed my pail, washrag and street clothes. I fill up my pail and mindlessly scrub the gray paint from my body in the light of the cook-fire.

Most of the crew are making their way inside, their voices blurring together as they joke and laugh, recounting the highlights of the evening, which could be anything from peculiar patrons or acts that went wrong, to rumors of those who’ve wandered off in search of companionship for the evening.

Sometimes I ache to be a part of their warmth, but tonight—like so many nights before—I haven’t the appetite nor heart to join them.

I slip on my dress and lace up my boots. It’s the same dress Greta lent me before I left the Sanctum. I’ve stitched in a secret pocket in the breast that holds a tiny vial of the last of Celestia’s harvest, as well as the note Titus left for me on my bedside table that one morning. I take out the note and unfold it, the creases beginning to thin from my touch. I study the dark, curvy writing that means both nothing and everything to me. The message is short, and from my best guess is probably an invitation to meet him in the courtyard. One day I hope to know for sure. There aren’t many in the circus who can read. Even so, showing the note to someone else feels like the breaking a promise. Whatever the message says, it could expose the Sanctum and in turn put Celestia in danger. I’m happy to tuck the secret close to my heart, perhaps never unlocking the mystery, if it will keep my dragon hidden from the world that wishes to exploit her.

The moon has begun its descent by the time I finish dressing and washing behind the dining tent. The meaty aroma of Nix’s stew wafts through the canvas but does nothing to arouse my belly. It’s late, and I want what I always want: sleep.

Still, fatigue doesn’t keep me from lingering outside the dragon cars on my way to bed. Most of the dragons in the circus have turned nocturnal by habit, so the atmosphere around the cages is lively and clamorous. The cacophony of snorts and screeches, the racking of claws against metal—it is a symphony that soothes me like nothing else.

I reach my hand through the bars of a cage housing a pair of luck dragons, their beautiful golden scales like a heap of sunken treasure. Gorio hopes to breed the couple, but in the meantime, straps them with matching saddles and lets children ride them for a coin.

Midas, the bull, nudges his head into my hand and coos when I scratch him behind his golden horn. The female, Aurum, only flicks her tail in my direction as she munches on her share of their daily goat ration.

The dragons Luna and Sable use in their aerial act are here as well. Apparently, the light and shadow mares finished their training while I was gone and are now a part of the act. Roaming about their own cage, Lava and Citrine don’t look a bit tired after supporting the dangling aerialists in their strenuous act.

The last cage is the hardest to pull myself away from. Ashby, an earth dragon that’s been with the circus longer than I have, sits chained in a small crate. Ashby’s act was to sprout flowers from his breath onto empty dirt beds, but his magic has grown weaker this past season. Dr. Rupert says there’s nothing to be done for him, so Gorio plans to sell the dragon before his magic completely fails, rendering the bull useless.

Ashby’s best hope is that whoever purchases him will keep him as a pet, though I don’t know many people that could care for a house pet that’s almost as big as a plow horse. If not, the poor creature will likely be slaughtered for his crystal and his meat. It doesn’t matter that the bull is old and his magic is dwindling. The possibility of ingesting residual power makes dragon steaks a rare delicacy.

Ashby is sleeping, curled up with his back pressed against the bars. I reach through and stroke his moss green scales, reminded of the color of Titus’s eyes when sunlight hits his pupils. How heartbroken he would be of this poor sight. It nearly kills me.

With my heart weighted in familiar heaviness, I leave the dragons to their nocturnal rituals.

AS FURTHER PUNISHMENT for allowing Gorio’s prize dragon to be stolen, I now sleep among all sixteen stagehands in a cramped, windowless caravan.  Most nights the door is left open—even on a frosty autumn night such as this. Rarely would anyone turn down the cold breeze over being suffocated by the stale air made up of everyone’s snores and gas.

Mostly, the stagehand crew consists of young men, save for Beth, who all but considers herself one. They are harmless enough, though some of the boys seemed all too excited to learn they’d have a female in their midst. If it weren’t for Zeke, one of the only stagehands I’d befriended before my journey to the Outer Isles, my arrangement here may have been far worse.

Zeke is already waiting for me when I step into the car, his long, lean body scooted to the edge of our pallet to make room for me. I spot the bulge of an ember pot beneath the tattered blanket, already warming the straw mattress. Thank the Stars.

I didn’t think you’d be here already, I say as Zeke opens the blanket so I can snuggle up next to him.

He shrugs, flashing his signature smile that’s a bit playful but also sincere. I didn’t see you in the dinning tent, so I figured you wanted to get to bed early.

He’s right, I do. Even though the circus doesn’t move tomorrow, and I can sleep in, I want to stay in my dreams as long as possible. Slumber may sometimes be treacherous, but it’s better than the dull emptiness that has become my reality without Celestia.

You are too good to me, I tell Zeke, sliding beneath the blanket. I nestle my back against his chest and let the warmth of the ember pail wash over my aching legs. There are only four available in the stagehand car and I can’t imagine what sort of wager Zeke won in order to obtain one tonight.

Someone has to be, he replies quietly into my hair, which is likely to still have flecks of gray paint in it.

Zeke and I have somewhat of an unconventional relationship. I know what people must assume when they see the two of us sharing a bed, but Zeke has never touched me beyond the boundaries I allow; an arm around my waist to keep me warm, a sleeping head on my shoulder—but only in the dark and solitude of our pallet bed. When the subject is broached in the dinning tent by other performers or jested about from the other stagehands during set up, Zeke, the usual chatterbox, simply shrugs and takes a spoonful of stew or hammers the next stake in the tent.

There is no mistaking his want for more than snuggles to keep us warm, or his tests of delicate kisses to my temple in the dead of night when he thinks I am sleeping, but he has yet to ask for more. I dread the day he does. I sense it coming, like you might feel