Dragon Master by Alan Carr Page A

Asworn,
    O’nine by nine a’Dragonborn,
    Twelve a’one bevoke benixt Blood Tear,
    Speaker beswamp a’Seer besear.”
    ***
    This page had stuck with me because it contained my last name, Jade. When we first learned it, I had spent several weeks in conversation with Boe trying to unravel the poem and figure out what it meant for me. “Silver a’Jade befix Asworn?” Boe wasn’t very helpful. When I tried to ask Magnilda about it she just asked me what it meant to me, which was even less helpful than Boe had been. I eventually decided it probably didn’t mean anything. Most of the words were complete nonsense words anyway, though Boe claimed that they were just archaic Lævenish.
    When I finished writing, I examined my work, then wrinkled my brow at it. It looked terrible. Maybe I could recruit Boe to write the actual letter for me, and I could just tell him what I wanted it to say? No, I wasn’t going to get Boe involved in this, no matter what. Daija was his twin sister and, as much as he used to tease me about her, he’d seemed now to want to avoid the subject whenever anything even slightly related was brought up. He didn’t even want to talk about the Stoneflame festival or what happened the morning I ran off and left him to make up excuses for me. I didn’t even know what excuses he’d made up. It didn’t matter, I’d explain for myself.
    That was what I had to write, or at least part of what I had to write. I would tell Daija that I was sorry I wasn’t there to say goodbye, and that I tried to get her the tapestry but that I was too late. Or maybe I shouldn’t tell her about the tapestry, maybe I should just surprise her in five years, earn another one and give it to her then? If I was even still alive in five years. So then all I would say was that I was sorry I didn’t say goodbye and not explain myself? Argh.
    I still wasn’t ready to write anything, bad penmanship or not. I cleaned the quill, then I set my crazed drawing on top of the penmanship exercise and then moved both off to one side, pulling another blank parchment from the dwindling pile.
    I needed to step away from the desk and clear my head, maybe think about what I wanted to write without the pressure of the blank parchment in front of me. I began to pace in my row of books, then started wandering aimlessly through the book stacks when I got bored of pacing in the same place. The study was larger than I’d ever known. I’d always stayed in the front room of the study, where class had been held, or else I’d dodge into the rows of books near the front room if I wanted to hide out, as I was doing today. But there were more rooms deeper in the study, and I saw that each of these was also filled with rows and rows of books. I saw giant tomes, wrapped in leather bindings heavily coated with dust and grime. I saw rickety wooden ladders propped up in stacks against a stone wall. Beside those lay a pile of crudely dipped candles, partially melted together, their blackened wicks poking out in many directions. None of this was helping me figure out what to write to Daija. I retraced my steps and returned to my desk, trying to keep focused by constantly repeating in my head, “Daija, Daija, Daija,” though that just made me picture her, laughing as she hovered upside down beside me. Shyly smiling when my hand had covered her hand. Waving goodbye.
    When I got to my desk, I saw the blank parchment paper, the quill pen and uncapped ink well, the small stack of extra blank parchment pages. My writing exercise and drawing, though, weren’t there. I felt a prick of alarm at the back of my neck. I spun around, looking to see if I could catch whoever had taken the pages. Nobody was there. I decided that I was far too creeped out to try writing a letter to Daija now, and walked briskly back into the front room to see if someone there had my pages. There was nothing incriminating on the pages, sure, but I still wanted to solve the mystery and maybe that