THE THIRD REALM: YELLOW — Among the embers

The inhabitants of the Yellow Realm were beings of fire. They resembled the salamanders who tended the flames in the dragons’ village, though their movements were far more abrupt. Helio had told her they were called fugaíns.

They looked reddish to Skyblue, some glowing almost like embers. The realm’s name puzzled her.

She had little time to think about it. The creatures around her were so busy fighting that they barely noticed her. They hurled themselves at one another, trying to snatch each other’s fire and add it to their own. The dragon made her way forward with her wings tucked in, dodging their shoves.

Her resin protected her from the flames, but not from the blows. A fugaín rushed past and sent her stumbling. Another sprang at him before Skyblue could protest. The two disappeared in a shower of sparks.

The fighting reminded her of the quarrels over treasure in her village. When two dragons found a gemstone at the same time, each declared it his alone. The neighbors had to step in. If no one pulled them apart, they were quite capable of burning everything down rather than giving up a single stone.

Skyblue had witnessed only a few such fights. Afterward, the village spent days repairing the damage. Here, though, the fighting never seemed to stop.

“Keep watching,” she heard within. “You still don’t know why it’s called the Yellow Realm.”

She looked for a tree where she could stay. She found scorched trunks, exposed roots, and the remains of crowns that must once have been thick with leaves. The farther she went, the harder it became to look.

She thought of Ernesto. In a dream, he had told her that trees communicated through their roots, and that when one suffered, the others felt its pain. She imagined that sorrow spreading beneath the earth.

‘We dragons are better. At least we respect trees.’

The thought gave her a brief satisfaction. Then a strange heaviness settled over her, as though a cloud had come between her and the landscape.

At nightfall, she found shelter among the ruins of what seemed to have been a temple. A few leaning stones formed a small cave. She decided to spend the night there and look for something better in the morning.

She opened Evarista’s satchel. She was so hungry and tired that she began eating without thanking the place that sheltered her or the earth. She wolfed down the first few mouthfuls and was surprised that the food didn’t taste as it had before.

‘Well, nothing’s perfect,’ she thought, and kept eating.

Her dreams changed, too. Instead of finding herself among the blue beings, she was in a dark forest filled with figures she couldn’t recognize. Then came her schoolmates, the adults who singled her out, her teachers’ stern faces. Once again, she felt small, watched, and out of place.

This time, however, she had a torch.

She raised it at those who mocked her and watched them retreat. A searing fire awoke in the pit of her stomach. The more she frightened them, the stronger her foreleg seemed. The flame grew as she imagined more and more people to blame for her suffering.

She woke exhausted. For the first time since her journey began, she had no desire to get up at dawn. She rolled over and went back to sleep.

By the time she emerged from her shelter, the day was well underway. She gathered her things in a hurry, checked that the torch was still in the satchel, and left without saying goodbye to the place. Touching its handle gave her a sense of safety she couldn’t feel anywhere else in her body.