Dreamslinger, page 13
They were her friends.
“Snort!” she managed finally. And she really hugged them back.
And yet… Could friendships be built on lies? If they found out why she was really here in the Trials, would they still want to be her friend? The guilt ate away at her, feeding on her fear of losing them.
Tui abruptly pulled away from the group hug. “Guys, look! The petals!” she exclaimed. “Aria, I swear I just saw them twitching!”
Aria’s breath hitched as she turned to stare at her plant. Tui was right. The overripe bud had started to tremble.
Tui and Lion squeezed Aria’s hands as they all watched the flower uncork itself, like a camera lens being twisted open. Then layer by layer, the petals began to unfurl, each one unsheathing another piece of the surprise hiding inside.
Aria slammed her eyes shut. It was all too much. She couldn’t bear to look.
“Aria, she’s beautiful,” Tui breathed, squeezing Aria’s hand harder.
“Really,” Lion echoed in a whisper. “You can open your eyes. She’s perfect.”
Aria opened one eye, then another, and felt the blood rush to her head. There, sitting on the open flower was a small bloom dragon, coiled tight, its petal scales a bright, gleaming coral. It stirred awake, then yawned, as if waking from a long slumber.
The seedling turned to gaze up at Aria with big, intelligent eyes, and Aria whimpered. She felt like she’d been punched in the solar plexus, and an entire river of emotions was now flowing from the broken dam.
The seedling sniffed her hand. And just like that, Aria felt the final jigsaw puzzle of herself be slotted into place. It was in that moment that she knew for sure there had always been a hole the exact size of this creature in her soul. She exhaled, and realized for the first time in her existence that she felt full and anew. She felt complete. Profoundly whole.
“Rio,” she decided on the spot. “I’ll call you Rio. It means river, just like the one you’ve let flow in me today.”
The coral dragon seedling let out a small purr of approval.
Lion chuckled. “Thank gods it’s not Liver or Larva.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Or Areola.”
Tui groaned. “Duuude, why do you keep making that weird? We all have areolas, okay? Nothing to be embarrassed about.”
Tentatively, Aria reached out a trembling hand, and the seedling stood and stretched. It was then that she realized something was wrong.
The dragon didn’t have a tail.
Aria gasped. Bloom dragons were known for her their long, serpentine bodies. They needed their tails to glide between the water molecules in the atmosphere. That’s what gave them the appearance of flying. But Rio only had a little stub where her extended elegant tail should’ve been.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Lion murmured as he put a hand on Aria’s shoulder. “The important thing is that she’s here and she’s safe. And you’ve passed the second Trial now. Everything else we can tackle later.”
“She probably just needs some time to grow,” Tui added in that grounded way that made everything in the world seem all right.
Aria nodded. But her mind was spinning. Was it because Maxwell had cut her stalk that this had happened? Was it her punishment for having come to the Trials with ulterior motives? Or was there something fundamentally wrong with her soul?
She took a step back, withdrawing her hand from Rio before the seedling could climb onto her palm. A primal fear ripped through her.
She wanted to take care of this seedling with everything she had—to nurture it, to protect it, to help it grow, and to love it unconditionally, faults and all. But stepping into this new responsibility felt like jumping headfirst into a black hole. She knew if she took this leap now, there’d be no turning back. She’d be overcome by the duty, all-consumed by her love for the seedling, and there’d be nothing she wouldn’t do for for it. She suddenly realized she’d even pledge her loyalty to the League if she had to.
And she wasn’t prepared to do that right now. She still had a job to do. She was severely behind on her last few reports, and even her dad was sounding less relaxed in his butterflymails with the commissioner breathing down his back. She still had to find proof of the League’s true intentions. And to do that, she needed objectivity. She needed to be able to look at the facts without being clouded by her bond to her seedling.
She took another step back. Restrain, contain, maintain. She couldn’t fall apart now. She had to keep herself together. She’d made a promise to her dad, and to her mom—and she wasn’t going to break her word.
As her friends called after her, Aria turned her back on her seedling and ran. She ran all the way out of the Dreampanion Nursery, not looking back once. And it felt like she’d ripped a part of her own soul right out of her chest.
THE FOLLOWING FEW WEEKS PASSED in a numb sort of blur, as the last dregs of summer finally clocked over to fall. Maxwell had promptly been disqualified from the Trials and sent home, having been forbidden to return to Royal Hanguk for the rest of his life. Poor Antoni Kowalski had also been sent home and, thanks to Maxwell, had lost his one chance to meet the missing third of his soul. Unsurprisingly, the League started implementing lockdown drills, in case an anti-slinger attack took the kingdom by surprise.
There were only forty trialeers left now, officially fighting for a spot in the final twenty, provided they passed the third and final Trial—the Endearing. And later this morning was the first day of training. Aria was not looking forward to it.
For now, the crisp autumn sun streamed through the paper doors of Aria’s bedchamber as Rio snored peacefully on her bed. Aria, on the other hand, sat hunched over in a blanket at her floating desk, her brush clenched tight in her hand, frowning deeply with every muscle in her face. She’d woken early because a butterflymail from her dad had arrived at dawn with an ultimatum from the Commissioner of Dreamslinger Relations: If Aria couldn’t deliver a report with at least some proof of the League’s misdeeds by the end of today, then he would call Aria back to the US. She would be pulled from the Trials, effective immediately, and the mission would be deemed a failure.
Aria could almost feel her dad’s relief in the message. Despite what that would mean for his career, Aria knew he was eager for her to come back to Texas. Where she belonged. Where she was safe…
But was it really her home?
Aria looked over at Rio, still snoring, none the wiser, and her body began to tremble uncontrollably. No, no, no. She couldn’t go back. Not without Rio. Not until she and her dreampanion were endeared at the final Trial. Not to mention her friends—the ones who’d jumped in front of a machete to save her dreampanion. How could she leave them behind? The guilt of lying to them was hard enough to bear.
It was in that moment that Aria realized something she probably should have figured out weeks ago. This was no longer just about passing the Trials to send intel back to the commissioner. She genuinely wanted to stay in the kingdom.
But where did that leave her unwritten report? She had to send something back today, and she hadn’t yet found concrete proof of nefarious intentions. In fact, she’d started to question what it was she was even looking for. Could it be that the evidence she was after didn’t actually exist?
Desperate and out of time, Aria resorted to summarizing all the random, slightly suspicious things she’d picked up so far. How newspapers covering any dates after the Great Outburst had been moved into restricted stacks for the duration of the Trials. How Ko Iseul, the mudang’s older sister, was the one who’d convinced the king to open the kingdom’s borders ten years ago, only to die in the Great Outburst. How there was a creepy bleeding flower hidden inside one of the Holy Trine statues whose blood flowed down into the secret underground tunnels, and how the mudang had chased them out. And of course, how an anti-slinger had secretly infiltrated the Trials and attempted to sabotage it from the inside.
It was insufficient, Aria knew. None of it really proved anything concrete. But it was all she had for now. Hopefully, it would be enough to keep the commissioner from recalling her back.
Hoping for the best, she burned the folded butterfly report in her lantern’s flame, thinking of her dad as its intended recipient. Then, wanting to get a head start on the next report, she decided to drop by the Library of Scrolls on the way to the first simulation training at the Pavilion.
After what Lion had told her about the mudang’s older sister, Aria wanted to learn more about her. If she’d been the catalyst for the world tour ten years ago, maybe learning about her would give Aria a clue as to why they’d reopened their borders this year.
“What do you have in here about Ko Iseul?” Aria asked Librarian Yong, who was sporting food stains on her pink cowboy hat today, the physics of which baffled Aria.
Yong frowned and pointed at the gravitygrass pumps locked behind her desk. “Trialeer Love, you have a habit of asking questions I am not permitted to answer.”
Aria sighed. Of course they were restricted, too. She should’ve guessed. She’d just have to find a different way of learning more about her, then.
“And frankly, I find this frustrating,” the librarian continued, “because I usually abhor most humans, but your presence strikes me as more palatable than most. I find myself not wanting to disappoint.” She plucked a clam-shaped leaf pocket off her snackpan tree. “Can I offer you a snack instead?”
Aria took it gratefully and smiled. “You’re not so bad yourself, Librarian Yong. Thanks for the chips.”
“Honestly, Tweak, you’re hungry again?” Tui chastised her seedling as she and Aria stood in line to collect their slumberbrews.
The forty trialeers left in the cohort had gathered in the slumbersanctum, on the second floor of the Pavilion, for their first day of Endearing training. Because trialeers were on the Pause and unable to go to the real Asleep, they needed to drink slumberbrews and enter a simulation of the real place in order to train.
Tui threw a handful of candied pecans at her technicolor bloom dragon, who wolfed them down before sniffing Tui’s hands in the hopes of more.
“Okay, fiiine, you can have a bit more,” she relented, throwing Tweak another heaped handful. “Guess a seedling’s gotta grow.”
Aria laughed. Dreampanions didn’t need to eat to grow. In fact, they didn’t need to eat at all—they got all the nutrients they needed through regular exposure to sunshine, water, and in due course, to the Asleep. But that didn’t stop them from being absolute snack fiends. And it didn’t stop them from growing at an astonishing speed, either.
Within two weeks of the Unfurling, the seedlings had grown to be the size of miniature ponies, just big enough for their dreamslingers to ride. Too big for the Nursery, but not yet trained to be housed in norigae, they now shadowed their riders wherever they went. It was expected that they would keep growing until the slingers became full-fledged Fellows. If they became Fellows.
As Tweak worked through her second lot of candied pecans, Rio slyly nudged her in the side with her snout, grunting expectantly. Instead of getting protective of her treats, Tweak spat out a mouthful of saliva-covered nuts, dropping them at Rio’s paws. Then she gave Rio an affectionate lick for good measure. Rio’s stub of a tail trembled happily as she munched on her treats.
Aria bit her lip and looked away. Tweak and Echo had a closer relationship with Rio than she did. And even though she’d created that distance herself, it still hurt to witness a bond she didn’t share with her own dreampanion.
They had just collected their three vials of slumberbrew when Lion finally joined them.
“You’re late,” Tui commented. “You know, you do that a lot.”
“Do what?” Lion asked innocently, as Echo greeted Tweak and Rio with a lick and tail flick.
“You disappear for a while and then randomly reappear again.”
He shrugged. “I’m just not very punctual. What can I say?”
“Stop dillydallying, trialeers!” Head Scholar Byun from Summer Palace barked across the slumbersanctum. “Lie down and uncork your vials posthaste! We will reassemble at the Heart of the Heartsglade in two.”
Aria and the rest of the cohort chose a recliner each and pulled on the lever to make it lie flat. And then they swigged the swirling silver contents of the vial and closed their eyes.
Despite knowing it was a simulation, Aria was caught by surprise when the cohort reassembled inside Treehenge, welcomed by the four-seasons-pizza coven of trees.
The cohort broke off into their four gajok, and Head Scholar Bobby-Uma guided the ten Spring Palace trialeers through the valley, around the creek, and across the woodlands toward the eastern sea of poison.
“This is where the final Trial—the Endearing—will take place in three weeks’ time,” the head scholar explained. “In order to pass the Endearing, you and your seedling will need to fly to the sacred archway of Spring. We call this the Journey. Only those who successfully complete the Journey and return from Spring with their seasonbilities awakened will be deemed endeared.”
Aria looked over at Rio, who was trying unsuccessfully to chase her stub, spinning round and round in circles. She frowned. Without a proper tail, how in the world was she supposed to fly Rio to the archway? It seemed an impossible task.
“But for today, since it is our first day of training, let’s begin with mounting our bloom dragons,” the blue-streaked scholar suggested. “It may look easy, but without a saddle or harness, it requires a certain amount of balance, strength, and practice. Not to mention trust.”
The ten trialeers began cajoling their seedlings, preparing to jump onto their backs. Tiare Taina leapt on her seedling gracefully on her first go, while Hiroto Günther and Philippe Choi both slipped off theirs a handful of times before getting the hang of it. Jaxon Campbell, an Australian trialeer with a mullet mohawk, cowered in the corner, complaining of his crippling fear of heights.
Tui and Lion were both preparing to mount Tweak and Echo, so Aria turned to Rio.
“Sooo, I guess we should give this a go?”
If Rio had heard her, she showed no sign of it. Instead, the seedling plopped herself on the ground and decided this was a good opportunity to give her paws a clean.
Aria approached, placing a hand on the seedling’s back. “Come on, Rio. Get up. Everyone else is trying it.”
The dragon hissed at Aria in return, making her jump in surprise. Aria shrank back. It was obvious these trainings were going to be hard work.
“I’ve heard lots of Fellows say it took a while for them to bond with their seedlings,” Lion said, trying to be helpful.
Tui nodded as she managed to mount Tweak on her third attempt. “I wouldn’t worry, Aria. Just give her some time.”
Rio didn’t play ball for the rest of the training, which didn’t surprise Aria one bit. Bobby-Uma had said that trust was required, and it wasn’t like she’d given Rio any reason to trust her. Still, it annoyed her something rotten.
She went to bed that night still frustrated about training and was only more flummoxed when she realized her dad had not yet responded to her first formal report.
On all fronts, things were not going great.
ARIA WAS SO DISPIRITED BY the daily training sessions that when a butterflymail arrived one morning inviting her and her friends to Driver Nam’s house for lunch, she almost cried with relief. Finally, a distraction from the torture of simulations!
Driver Nam and Saemi lived in a suburb called Sangju, which was in the northwest of the island kingdom, between Winter Palace and Autumn Palace. Their house was a simple hanok, but what it lacked in furnishings or opulence was more than made up for by the buzz and chatter of its inhabitants.
“Is it someone’s birthday?” Tui asked as Driver Nam ushered them through the door. “It looks like a party.”
“We didn’t bring a gift,” Lion remarked with embarrassment.
“Oh no, this is just a normal Wednesday at our house,” Driver Nam answered jovially, his big belly jiggling. “Saemi and I are quite fond of hosting. And here she is! Saemi, I’d like you to meet Trialeer Aria Love, Trialeer Tui Walker, and Trialeer, uh, Lion Lee-Hendrick.”
A bright-eyed girl, about eight years old, waved at them, then blushed like a cherry when Lion smiled at her.
“I think someone’s got a crush on you,” Aria teased Lion.
“At least someone likes you,” Tui pointed out. “By the wide berths everyone else here is giving you, you’d think you were carrying cholera.”
Aria and Lion raised their brows at each other, surprised by her bluntness. Tui had an open yet rooted, down-to-earth nature about her that often reminded Aria of an ancient tree—solid and real and unaffected by the winds or whims. But today, for some reason, there was a slight edge to her words that seemed uncharacteristic.
Saemi offered Rio, Tweak, and Echo some dried squid, and they eagerly loped off after her as Saemi excitedly introduced the dragons to everyone she passed. “Samchon, look! Imo, over here! It’s a school of seedlings. Or is it a dungeon of dragons? Aaah, it’s a dungeon school of dragon seedlings!”
“Is everyone here family?” Tui asked, her voice sounding a little off. “Samchon means Uncle, and Imo means Auntie, right?”
Driver Nam smiled, and his ruddy cheeks shone. “We may not be related, but we’re all family here.”
He led them to the table piled high with food and introduced them to a man with delightfully crooked teeth. “Joon here runs my favorite dreambakery in the kingdom. You have to try his famous bung-o-bbang. They’re famous for their spontaneously changing fillings.”
Joon passed them each a fish-shaped pastry, and Aria bit into it. The first bite tasted like sweet red bean, followed by chocolate custard. The third bite was tart rhubarb, quickly chased by the rich warmth of spiced pumpkin. Every mouthful was a surprise, and Aria squealed in delight. She wondered if Librarian Yong’s snackpan tree could grow these.
