Page 23 of Kingdom of Dance

Zinnia’s voice came out sharper than she intended, and she saw Violet look up quickly as well. Violet hadn’t been privy to any of the confrontations between Idric and Zinnia during their time underground. Was she remembering that first night on the clifftop, when Idric had informed Zinnia that her spark was unusually strong?

“I said your spark is as strong as ever,” said Dannsair, the hint of a scold in her voice. “But I was speaking to Rekavidur, not to you.”

Zinnia decided not to comment on the humor of having her manners criticized by the dragon who had just spoken of her in front of her face. She had much more important matters to pursue.

“What is that?”

“What is what?” Dannsair asked. “Your spark?”

“Yes, that,” Zinnia said, unable to keep the eagerness from her voice.

Elation swept through her as the words came out cleanly. She had tried to ask about the spark in the past, but the magic would never let her. Now that Dannsair and Reka had raised it, however, she seemed to have found an opening she could exploit. She’d discovered no reference to the concept in any of her research and had begun to think it was a phrase used only by Idric. Was she finally about to get some answers?

“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?” Reka answered, sounding amused. “No one knows what it is.”

Zinnia frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“Neither do we,” Dannsair assured her. “That’s why it’s a subject of some fascination to dragons. We are always intrigued—and in many cases even piqued—by the discovery of anything we do not understand. And the human spark is certainly one such thing.”

Reka nodded. “I had never heard it called by that name before coming to Solstice, but in my own colony, it was a matter of interest as well. Particularly once we started to once again mingle with the humans.”

Zinnia disregarded what would ordinarily have been a very interesting detail. She would have to press Reka for information about his own mysterious land another time.

“But what is it? Whatdodragons know about it?”

“We know very little,” said Dannsair. “Simply that all humans have it, and dragons do not.”

“How do you know humans have it?” Violet asked.

Dannsair’s scales rippled in a shrug that passed from her neck all the way to the tip of her tail. “We can sense it. We can feel it burning inside each of you, even now. It is like a tiny, unquenchable flame.”

“Unquenchable?” Zinnia repeated, thinking of Idric’s lack of progress with whatever he was trying to achieve, and his mounting frustration over it.

“It seems that way to us,” Dannsair said. “But we do not claim complete knowledge, as I’ve said.”

“Surely if someone dies, though, their spark would be…extinguished,” said Violet skeptically.

Reka shook his head. “I’ve seen men die,” he said. “Their sparks leave their bodies, but they do not extinguish.”

“Where do they go?” Violet pressed.

“Another mystery which is a source of great fascination to dragons,” said Dannsair.

Zinnia was silent, thinking it all over. She felt a bubble of excitement, the tantalizing possibility of information that might be a weapon to use against Idric.

“What do these sparks do?” she asked eagerly. “Can they be used for any purpose?” She deflated slightly. “Wait, when you say spark, are you talking about the magic inside enchanters? Is it something only magic-users have?” Perhaps this spark wasn’t the same thing Idric spoke of after all.

“No, all humans have it,” said Dannsair. “And no other creatures. It is not magic. It is…part of who you are. I do not know how to explain it, because I do not understand it. No dragon does. It is perplexing, because while the spark is a tiny speck against the power of a dragon’s flame, it has a persistence and a permanence that the hottest fire of our kind cannot match. It cannot be removed from your bodies except by death, and as we’ve already said, it cannot be actually destroyed by…well, by anything, to our knowledge.”

“As for what it does, who can say?” Reka added. “I don’t think it can be wielded, the way a dragon wields its flame, or an enchanter wields his magic. At least, I’ve never seen it used in such a way, and I’ve seen humans do some extremely remarkable things.”

“Why have we never heard of this spark before?” Violet asked.

“It is a concept only dragons consider, I suspect,” said Dannsair. “All humans have it, so you would not notice its presence. And most dragons would never mention it to a human, because that would involve admitting that there is human lore that is beyond our understanding.”

Zinnia thought again of Idric’s experiments, of the terrible sensation of his magic trying to rip her apart, of her very essence being under assault, and the question slipped out before she could stop it.

“What do you think would happen to a person if their spark was removed? If such a thing was possible, I mean?”

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