Misti and the Dragon Egg

Spiced lentil soup, rice in tomato and onion sauce, and cloud bread made for the perfect last meal before a deadly adventure. Misti’s stomach was still full when she boarded Captain Crane’s ship. It was still full as she hid inside a crate on the cargo deck. Inside her box, there was no light, only the musty smell of mold. She could hear the footsteps of crewmen above her on the deck who had no idea she was there. She could hear faint breaths and muffled cries. She was not alone in those crates, but she knew she would never find out who was on the cargo deck with her.

One night. Misti just had to survive one night in this crate. It was large enough that she could curl up into a ball and close her eyes. Maybe she’d do that. With her paws joined together, she recited a silent sindur prayer, then her paws glowed. This was a small blessing of light to soothe herself. Misti didn’t speak the sindur language fluently, only a few words from the traditional tongue of scriptures and mantras. Soon, for the first time, she might hear Sindawr be spoken. In her short life, who would have thought she’d be headed to Ailura so soon. Kotma Ata of all places, the sindur’s centuries-old capital.

Misti had spent her life—her three lives—living as a nun inside the temple. Her parents had died during the war in Bravoure nearly two hundred years ago. She had no memories of them, nor of her past two lives, only figments of emotional connections she’d made. She knew she’d carried her lessons learned with her in this next life, but what those lessons had been, she had yet to discover. The Mother Superior had raised her this time. In her previous life, Misti had raised Mother Superior. The old sindur nun had told her all the lessons she’d learned from Misti, and Misti was proud to have once been so wise and knowledgeable.

Sometimes, Misti wondered if the voice from her vision had spoken to her in a previous life. Misti wondered why she hadn’t acted sooner if that was the case. Perhaps it was the very first time the voice was speaking to her. Perhaps she’d tried and failed. Her paws joined, Misti heard the voice again. She could play the music of its words exactly how she’d heard them sung in her dreams.

The Siyliq does not belong. It must be returned whence it came. For freedom is about. From the Siy will soar a saving force. An army of lynx and gods will rise, and the land will be free at last.

And on that last note, Misti fell asleep, hugging her backpack.

The lid of the crate slid off and made a loud thump when it hit the ground.

“Get out,” a giant human in overalls blurted.

Misti opened her eyes. She quickly realized the boat was standing still. No more heave of the ocean. No more wind. The man, impatient, grumbled something. Misti quickly looped her backpack over her shoulders and climbed out of the crate.

The ship was docked at the harbor’s edge, away from a fleet of large galley ships painted black. Misti looked around, up and down, trying to localize herself. It was early morning, but the sun was already so bright. Around her, more docks. Beyond the docks, burrows? Misti squinted to see better. It looked like hills at first, but she realized those were dwellings when she looked better. Houses with round roofs, covered in grey clay, stuck to each other like cells of a chaotic beehive. There was still order in the constructions in front of her. A street, a street sign, different aisles of those superposed dwellings. But everything was so...cluttered. Was this what sindur homes were supposed to look like? Misti sighed in disbelief. How could she not even know what sindur homes looked like?

Reality pulled her out of her stupor when she saw, a few feet ahead, Captain Crane facing a creature whose sight instantly chilled her blood. That creature, undeniably a sithrax guard, was a Misti taller than the human. He wore plate armor painted brown like the flag on those black galleys. And just seeing him brought a deep, intrinsic sense of fear down Misti’s gut.

She couldn’t see his eyes. He was grey. His jaw was large and finished with downward-pointing spikes that looked like external teeth. He had thin lips that stretched across his scaled, elongated face. The crest on his head descended right into the back of his plate cuirass.

Misti had to hide quickly. She opted for shade behind the nearest rounded house, where she still had eyes on the harbor. She peeked into the street. Two more guards in brown armor appeared and marched in unison towards Captain Crane. They all looked the same, same crest, same long and spiky tail, same thorns above their eyes. They breathed the same way and grunted simultaneously as they walked. Captain Crane’s crew dragged and deposited a massive crate by the first guard’s feet. He inspected it, grunted, handed Crane a pouch of something, and that was it. Within minutes, the captain had boarded his ship again and prepared to leave. The other guards carried the large crate away, victorious, like they’d hunted it themselves. Whatever was in there was something they craved. Misti was relieved it wasn’t her inside. They didn’t notice the girl-cat in the shadow of the house. They walked past her, their steps rolling like three heavy drums.

Now came a whole new challenge. Misti had to stay in the shadows and still make it to the market, to that place the Fixer had mentioned. She looked into the street. Besides those three guards, it was empty. The next street, opposite the street sign, was empty as well. Misti waited for the guards to disappear from earshot to sneak to the sign. Maybe it pointed to the market?

Well, gods be damned, she couldn’t read any of it. The markings clawed into the wood made absolutely no sense. One thing was sure, the sign wasn’t written in Sindawr. Misti had to take a gamble and pick a street. She’d definitely not pick the one the guards had come from.