The Last Ember

An original dragon tale from the Saturday Lantern.

For ten thousand years, a dragon has carried the first earthly fire behind her ribs. When that ember begins to fail, she sets out on one last flight to find someone capable of keeping the world's flame alive.

Far below, a child has a much smaller problem: the woman next door has no fire.

—

The child had been told not to spill wax on her hands.

She had already failed.

A bright drop ran over one knuckle and hardened there. She tried to scrape it away with her thumb, then remembered the flame and quickly put both hands around it again.

The wind came down the street in cold, rude bursts.

“Stay,” she whispered.

The flame leaned almost flat. She turned her body against the gust.

Behind her, from the open doorway, her mother called, “Quickly now.”

“I am.”

“Don't run.”

“I know.”

“Cup it properly.”

“I am.”

The neighbour's house stood only six doors away. It had never seemed far before.

Tonight every lamp on the street had gone out, first one, then another, and finally the hearths. Her mother had managed to coax one candle alight from the last red part of their own fire and pushed it into her hands.

“Take this next door before ours goes too.”

“Why me?”

“Because I'm trying to save ours.”

This had seemed unfair.

It still seemed unfair.

The stones were cold beneath the child's bare feet, and the wind kept finding the gap between her sleeves and wrists. But the old woman had no fire.

So she walked.

One door.

Two.

The candle guttered.

“Don't.”

Three doors.

Something passed across the stars.

The child looked up. At first she thought it was a cloud.

Then the cloud moved against the wind.

A sound came over the roofs.

Slow.

Deep.

Like a sail snapping, except that no sail had ever been large enough to make the air move like that.

A shutter banged open. Somewhere a dog began barking.

The child stopped.

The candle flame flattened.

She bent over it.

Then the night came down.

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