Prologue

Malosi watched breathlessly as his son, Ala, grabbed on to the single root protruding from a ledge along the golden cliff above him. The boy clung to the bluff as he climbed, his tan arms and legs sprawled across the rock much like a spider weaving a web. If Malosi were not confident in Ala’s abilities, he’d never have let him continue this quest.  But Ala was coming into manhood and had been preparing for this day.  Ala had scouted the location of the nest alone and had primed his hands and feet to adhere to the slippery bluff with sap from the pinions. The boy had watched the dragons for weeks, rising from his bed before sunrise. In those misty hours before the light of day, the horned creatures hovered over their breeding places and fed their young. Ala would hide when the dragons blocked out the first rays of the sun with their majestic wings shadowing the land, and then as if cued by the wind, the dragons disappeared beyond the clouds to unknown skies, leaving their hatchlings in shallow caves along the southern shore. Now the boy was finally reaping his reward, and Malosi refused to interfere.

Not to say observing the task wasn’t nerve wracking. Ala was his son, his flesh, and blood. He would die if anything happened to him. He breathed in deeply when Ala reached a safe ledge and waved.

“Just find the nest,” the father whispered as he gritted his teeth.

The ocean roared, sending sprays of foam into the air whenever it crashed against the rocks at the base of the bluff. Soon high tide would break against the precipice, making Ala’s mission perilous on his way down, unless he should decide to climb to the precipice. Were Malosi’s wife, Dai, here, she’d be calling out for her son to be careful, though her voice would be lost in the wind. She had a right to be nervous. An island boy who had climbed the same cliff last year had fallen; his body washed away by the angry sea. There had been no Atanda for him, the afterlife where the dead live forever with the dragons.

Fortunately, Dai was not here. Her presence would have added to Malosi’s anxiety. She had taken the day’s journey inland to tend to the Unfortunates and would not be back until the evening having left with just one goodbye. “I cannot watch,” she had said.