Dragon Brothers

By L.B. Lillibridge

Rhinen and his older brother, Laeb, were both born with dragon wings, assuring their eventual place on the throne. But the inequality between the magic-born Shaynen and the non-magic Klor has sparked a rebellion, and Rhinen’s easy life of glass blowing and swordplay takes a sudden change when he is kidnapped by a group of rebels inten

• Language: English
• Publisher: Furtive Grunion Books
• Release date: May 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9781951513016

L.B. Lillibridge

LB Lillibridge wants every child to be able to see themselves in a book. After publishing two memoirs and co-editing an anthology for adults, Lillibridge turned her pen to children's fiction. Zhe is the author of Globetrotting Grandmas, the founder of Furtive Grunion Books, and a mentors queer writers through AWP's Writer to Writer program.

Book preview

Chapter One

Rhinen sat sideways in his leather chair, one foot dangling over the chair’s arm, his wings drooping nearly to the floor on the other side. Bored, boring, bore. Bore a hole. Bored through—or was that gored through? Like by a unicorn. Or a bull. Or a narwhal. Has a narwhal ever gored a person? Rhinen’s thoughts wandered as he spun himself around in circles. His older brother Laeb was off doing something important. Not something interesting—of that, Rhinen was quite certain. Rhinen, as usual, was doing nothing at all. As second in line for the throne, there wasn’t much anyone expected of him. No one minded much how he spent his days, as long as he showed up on time for dinner.

At his feet, Puckhik, the cat sprawled on his back, one front paw extended in sleep. His fur slowly shaded from purple into deep magenta and back again as he breathed. Rhinen stroked the cat with his foot, and Puckhik looked at him with a scowl—if cats could scowl, that is—before stalking off to find a place to sleep without any feet in it.

Rhinen ran his toes over the giggle-petal throw rug, and the flowers twittered with laughter as they waved and caressed his toes. He might as well get out of the chair and get something done. Rhinen and Laeb were going to visit their baby cousins soon: Beck and Ber. Rhinen wanted to make them a present, and there was no good reason not to start on it today. It wasn’t as if he had anything else to do.

Rhinen stood and the rose petals released a tinkling whooooa! as he walked across the charmed rug. He stretched his arms overhead and unfurled his wings, giving them a stretch and shake. His wings were orange when folded, just like his brother’s. The similarities shattered, however, once you viewed them closely. Sure, they both had blue eyes, but Laeb’s eyes were the gray-blue of the lake at morning. Rhinen’s eyes, on the other hand, shone with the brighter blue of the noontime sky. Laeb’s close-cropped apricot hair turned gold at the tips, while Rhinen’s long, sun-streaked locks alternated between orange and a more pinkish-peach. Not that anyone noticed the hair on their heads too much. When the brothers spread their wings, their true colors emerged. The feathers covering the underside of Laeb’s wings were yellow as the sun whereas Rhinen’s wings glowed bright pink.

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Rhinen left the castle and walked down the pebbled path to the beach. Although his wings were nice to look at, they were not yet strong enough to carry him in flight. Wings started small, like chicken wings, and only grew to their full width in adolescence. Before then, they were a curiosity, useless for much more than a short gliding hop. Ma’Beth always said it was nature’s kindness to mothers; no flightless woman wanted to chase down an airborne toddler. As the dragon born aged, their wings broadened and expanded, but then they had to be strengthened. He wasn’t expected to fly until he reached Nochtis Dervax, the ceremony which recognized his rise to adulthood. Nochtis Dervax ceremonies were always celebrated on the first full moon following a child’s fifteenth birthday. Laeb’s ceremony was in a few months, so he would be able to fly two entire years before Rhinen, just like he did everything else. That was one thing that stunk about being the younger brother.

Having to walk wasn’t all bad, though. Rhinen liked watching the tiny, mouse-like vollards scamper across the path, emitting high-pitched eeps as they scurried away from his bare feet. The larger ground pigs snuffled and snorted just beyond his line of sight in the woods, and the air was full of flying rodents, large and small. Rhinen kicked at pebbles with his toes as he walked—he hated shoes. Actually, he hated all clothing in general but acknowledged the usefulness of garments with pockets. He wore a knee-length black and grey plaid kilt—ugly, but practical. Rhinen preferred vibrant pinks, reds, and oranges, but the kilt didn’t show dirt. His mother, Ma’Beth, had sewn several pockets into the folds so that he could carry more things. As he walked, Rhinen kept an eye out for interesting stuff. He spied a bright blue rock and slid it into his pocket where it rattled alongside his folding knife. Rhinen heard voices in the distance and stopped, his wings lifting and quivering slightly as he strained to make out the words. It sounded like men yelling, but it was too far away to tell what they were yelling about. After a minute, the voices faded, so Rhinen walked on.

When he reached the beach, he gathered driftwood along the shore—dried gray twigs, and larger pale-yellow logs that had tumbled in the waters for years, collecting bits of moonlight and forgotten whispers once wished upon a star. This wood burned brighter than the branches collected in the forest. Rhinen dropped an armload of kindling by the fire pit he and Laeb had built last summer. First, they had dug a good-sized pit, then layered the hole with smooth flat rocks. The stones now lay covered in gray ashes. Rhinen stacked twigs, then larger branches into the fire pit, getting soot on his hands.

As he laid the fire, he sang the song taught to him by his Aunt Kiki, who possessed the gift of music. Not only could she sing and play any instrument, but she also trained others to harness the power of music from inside themselves. His aunt’s ancestors were desert people who had lived close to the sun for generations, learning the power of heat and fire. Aunt Kiki taught Rhinen how to sing the fire to its hottest point, strengthening the flames with his voice.

Rhinen sang as he stacked the wood. He sang as he struck the black magnesium firestick, he exhaled his song on the coals to coax it to life, and he sang with all the breath in his lungs as he fanned the fire with his bright pink wings. A regular fire didn’t require so much singing, but Rhinen needed to create plasma—hot ionized gas where the positive and negative charges were in balance. Magic, after all, occurred in the intersection of science and spirit.

Once Rhinen finished singing his fire to the proper temperature, he filled a big iron pot with sand and nestled it into the flames. He was making glass. As the sand melted and fused, Rhinen swept off the large, flat rock next to the pit. He heated his blowpipe in the flames, then dipped it in the molten glass. As he gathered the glass around the blowpipe, he sang it an encouraging song. This song was nothing anyone had taught him, just something he felt welcomed the art into being. It was his secret, and he glanced around to make sure no one was watching. Singing to fire was something everyone did; singing to draw out the beauty in a piece of art was a little odd. He rolled the end of the blowpipe on the stone bench until the shape of the hot glass was right, and then he put the pipe to his lips and blew. As he exhaled, he sang one long note. It was a note particular to him, that he didn’t choose willingly; it was the lone note of his soul’s voice. Everyone had a soul-note; it was the sound people made when they didn’t mean to, such as in times of great wonder, physical pain, or despair. Each person’s soul-note was different, and once you learned their unique sound, it was like knowing their name.

Rhinen put his sound into the glass as the sun went down. Then he dipped the end of the pipe into the lake and captured the sunset’s reflection off of the water’s surface. He swirled the light into the glass and sealed the ball shut. Rhinen held the marble to his eye. The burgundies and oranges danced around each other inside of the orb. It would be a perfect gift for his baby cousins.

House colors were always secondary or tertiary blends. Orange marked Rhinen and Laeb’s house—a mix of Rhinen’s pink and Laeb’s yellow. Their cousin Beck’s aura was deep teal blue, and Beck’s brother Ber’s glowed red ochre. Together they made maroon, and once the mix was sealed, it became the color of the household—the color used to represent them in the realm. Historians would embroider their house colors into story cloths as they aged. The color would be used to mark their seating places at school or official festivals. No further children could be born into a family once the mix was sealed, which was a problem. More than anything, Rhinen wanted a little sister.

Inside the marble, orange, the color of the dragon brothers, danced with the maroon of their cousins’ house. Rhinen set the orb aside and made a second one for his other cousin.

Chapter Two

Laeb didn’t mind his lessons. He liked solving puzzles; that’s really what all subjects boiled down to. Solving for X wasn’t much different from learning a foreign language or writing a speech. There were rules, and once you knew how to apply them, you could figure anything out. What he hadn’t told Rhinen, though, was that he didn’t merely study all day. He spent afternoons in flight practice in preparation for his Nochtis Dervax ceremony.

While many citizens of Fettpotem had magical abilities—like Beck’s ability to breathe underwater or Ber’s talent for communicating with animals—dragon children were rare. Unlike eye-color, wings weren’t inherited. No one could predict when or to whom a dragon child would be born, and their rarity meant that they were destined to rule.

The story of Laeb and Rhinen was known throughout the land. When Laeb was born, still wet from the womb and blinking his big, blue eyes at this cold, bright world, the midwife gasped as he wiggled his wings and looked around. She ran to the town square, picked up the great mallet chained to the large golden gong and struck it as hard as she could, announcing the birth of this generation’s dragon prince. Two years later, Rhinen shook his wings out, howling with rage at being thrust into the cold morning air. This time, instead of running to ring the gong, the midwife collapsed to her knees. Never had two dragon children been born to the same family. The brothers moved with their mother Ma’Beth into King Tateh’s castle, both for protection and for training. They visited their father Fa’Red as often as possible, though. He was an astronomer who spent his nights studying the skies; his work required him to be away from the village lights, and thus he couldn’t move with them.

King Tateh—also a dragon man—gave Laeb and Rhinen their lessons. He had long, unruly black hair streaked with blue. His eyes were amber, but what everyone focused on were his cobalt blue wings. In addition to their general subjects, he taught them music. Laeb played the lute, and Rhinen the wooden flute. He taught them how to conduct themselves in both business and society: how to dance, how to shake hands and address their elders, and of course, table manners. But moreover, he was the only other person in Fettpotem with wings—the only person who could teach them how to fly.

Flying wasn’t quite as simple as people thought it was. Babies learned to hold themselves up on all fours, then crawl, then walk along the edges of furniture until they had their balance and strength. Flying didn’t have a lot of steps in-between—either you were airborne, or you weren’t. At Laeb’s Nochtis Dervax, he was expected to take flight, much like Ber would call the animals at his ceremony. Laeb was determined not to embarrass himself when his time came.

King Tateh stood next to Laeb in the secluded field, far from anyone’s sight. Tateh flapped his cobalt wings, sending dried leaves and twigs scattering across the meadow. You try, he said.

Laeb spread his gold and orange wings and flapped as hard as he could, his shoulders burning.

Hold your stomach in tight! Tateh ordered.

Laeb clenched his jaw and tried to flap harder. His right wing was just a tiny bit stronger than his left. This threw him off balance, and he staggered to keep his footing.

Remember your physics lessons. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction! Your wings are pushing the air forward, and your body wants to go backward. You need to tighten your belly to hold yourself in place!

Laeb let out his soul-note cry as he went heel over shoulder in an awkward roll.

Tuck your wings! Tuck your ever-loving wings! Tateh yelled and chased after him.

Laeb’s face was hot and tight, but he said nothing. Anger focused some people, but not him. It just made him wild and uncontrolled, and one thing Laeb hated more than anything else was losing control.

Have you been doing your sit-ups every night? You need to work on your core strength! Tateh said. He caught up to Laeb and extended a hand to help him up. Laeb wanted to ignore it, but Tateh had drilled manners into him, and he knew that he couldn’t disrespect the king.

I did engage my core. That wasn’t the problem. There was a downdraft.

It’s a poor flier who blames the wind. Tateh brushed crushed leaves from Laeb’s tunic. You need to be able to manage the drafts, hold your stomach tight, and flap your darned wings.

Laeb’s eyebrows drew in and his mouth tightened. He didn’t say anything at all.

Listen, Tateh said, his voice softer now. He looked out, over the edge of the mountain at the clouds on the horizon. You know how I learned to fly? My father just took me to a ledge and pushed me over it the minute my wings grew fully in.

What happened? Laeb asked, aghast. He forgot to close his mouth for a minute, then remembered and shut it.

I went careening down the side of the cliff and had to grab a bush to keep from ending in a smashed heap at the bottom. I broke my shoulder and wasn’t supposed to attempt real flight for a year. While I was healing, I did all the exercises I am teaching you. Tateh flexed his fingers and made a fist. He flexed, and tightened his hand over and over as he remembered.

But your Nochtis Dervax ceremony—what did you do?

I gritted my teeth, leapt into the air, and hovered for the ceremony. I circled the village once in spite of my broken shoulder. I did it, but I ripped my rotator cuff. That’s why one side has always been stronger than the other.

Why didn’t you just postpone the ceremony? Laeb asked. Never mind. I get it. A ruler can’t look weak and broken.

Right. I just want you to have every opportunity to get it right the first time.

Chapter Three

Three-year-old Haia sat on a wide, gray rock three-quarters of the way up the mountain. Her pink and purple hair hung in matted tangles that just grazed her shoulders. She wore a ripped tunic that used to be pink, but was now a dirt-encrusted combination of gray and brown. She picked some gooseberries; they looked like blueberries, but darker. Blueberries were a lot sweeter, though, and had less gritty seeds. There was brown dirt under her fingernails and in the creases of the palms of her hands. Haia shoved as many berries into her mouth as she could fit. Dark purple juice mixed with saliva ran down her chin as she chewed. She wiped her mouth with the back of a hand and glanced over her shoulder just in time to see the net flying towards her. Haia scrambled to her feet in an attempt to flee, but skidded on loose gravel. Stones careened off the boulder and bounced down the side of the mountain. The rope net settled around her shoulders and over her head, weighed down by rocks sewn around the edges. Haia clawed at the rope. Her small orange wing feathers poked through the net, bending back her wingtips. She cried out a clear soul-note of pain as the bearded men laughed down at her. No escape for you, dragon girl!

Miles away, Rhinen awoke with a gasp, his hands grasping claw-like at the sheets, the sound of her soul-note echoing in his dream.

Chapter Four

Rhinen joined his mother in the art studio as he often did while his brother was off in lessons.

When he entered the room, Ma’Beth stood and brushed his hair from his forehead. Rhinen’s pink bangs hung to his chin. Although he didn’t mind his hair hanging in his face, his mother was always tucking his bangs behind his ear.

Here, Ma’Beth said. I made you a clip. She took a small butterfly set with sparkling pink stones and clipped his bangs back from his face. Now you can work without singeing your hair.

The art studio was in the lowest level of the castle. A sizeable wooden workbench sat below a large bank of cobwebbed windows to take advantage of the light. In the middle of the room was a trap door. Beneath the door was a small stream, handy for cooling hot irons or washing off gemstones. When Rhinen and his mother were working, they pulled the trap door open so that they could hear the water. When he was little, Rhinen used to dangle his feet in the stream and watch Ma’Beth work. He would yank up his feet the minute a minnow brushed against one of his toes. Now he worked alongside his mother, learning how to shape stones and set them in various metals: copper, gold, or silver.

Rhinen donned glass goggles to protect his eyes and pulled a leather apron over his bare chest. Ma’Beth never made him wear a shirt, unlike Tateh and Laeb. But it had only taken a few hot metal shavings landing on his skin for him to see the wisdom of an apron. Rhinen wanted to wrap the marbles he had made in bands of copper, so his cousins could wear them around their necks at Laeb’s Nochtis Dervax ceremony next month. The blue flame from the small blowtorch made a soft whooshing sound, like the wind but steadier. He teased the metal out with the flame, stretching it like taffy. Then he laid the web-like strips around each marble as it cooled.

Rhinen watched Ma’Beth show Laney, her new apprentice, how to heat the kiln. Laney was only a year older than Rhinen but already two heads taller. Laney hadn’t found her magic yet.

Some people’s gifts were visible from birth. Wings didn’t just sprout out anytime they chose—either they were there, or they weren’t. Other forms of magic developed during childhood. Everyone knew that if you hadn’t discovered your magic before puberty, you weren’t going to. When your Nochtis Dervax came around, you had to prove that you had magic to become one of the Shaynen—the ruling class. Otherwise, you joined the Klor and chose a trade. Ma’Beth told Rhinen that plenty of Klor people still had satisfying lives, but Rhinen didn’t believe it. If he were Laney, he’d be getting more worried with every month that passed. He kept his wings folded when he was around her, so as not to rub it