by L J Andrews
The spell of Jade Drake took its full-force hold on my sensibilities again, and soon I was scaling the fence. I jumped from the top, landing on my feet without trouble on the other side. The air was different on this side of the barrier, at least a few degrees colder. And the trees sang a different song. A song of warning.
“You sense it too,” Jade said softly. Her smile was gone when she inched closer. “I can see it in your eyes.”
“Sense what?” I questioned, the back of my neck rushing in hundreds of tiny pin pricks. Jade furrowed her brow, studying my every expression, but she didn’t expound. I took the lead, though I didn’t know where we were going. I needed to stand between Jade and whatever was sending a chill through my blood.
Jade sighed, something burdening her even more. “Come on, this way.”
We walked in silence, tugging back endless brambles and branches in the unkempt portion of the forest. There was a strength in the soil. With every step, I felt an energy power my steps, like I was close to something great. Like I was finally home.
“There. The Wyvern Willow,” Jade said, tugging my arm so I would stop.
In a clearing surrounded by the wildness of the forest was a willow tree. Its branches were wild, and it had few leaves. Honestly, it wasn’t the most comely tree in the forest. The bark was tattered with huge gashes, and dead leaves hung like ghosts on the crooked boughs. Yet a soft whisper crossed my heart. The tree was unique in ways I didn’t understand, and it was trying to tell me something.
“What is this place?” I asked, scanning the forest and embracing the shift in temperature, the energy, and the pure power of the tree.
“It’s sacred to us,” she said gently. “I’ve found guidance here, it’s where I refresh. It’s my peace, and I knew I needed to bring you here, though I was hoping you could help me understand why.”
I glanced over my shoulder, hearing every word Jade spoke, though not comprehending anything. “I don’t know. You feel a connection with nature like I do. Maybe you just wanted to show me your spot.”
“This isn’t just my spot, Teagan,” she insisted. “I don’t feel a connection with nature. The spirits of life are mine to balance and call upon.” I crinkled my brow, stepping closer to the tree, sensing the call to connect with the strange force as Jade continued. “You really have no idea what I’m talking about? Yet you feel a connection with the willow? I just don’t understand.” Jade said, rubbing her hands on the sides of her head.
I turned away, staring at the battered tree, the pull of its vibrancy bringing the peace Jade had spoken of to my own tumultuous heart. Slowly, I reached out my hand, my fingertips hardly touching the bark. A familiarity kissed my insides. Like I’d been there before. The feeling Jade once spoke of—a familiar sensation not from a mental memory, but as though my heart remembered something about the tree. My palm flattened over the surface and my body was enrobed in radiant warmth and strength.
Jade placed her hand over mine as I connected to whatever bond was coursing through my body. Her touch sent my head into a spin, and cautiously, I squared my shoulders toward her, my free hand wrapping around her waist and finding rest on the small of her back. Touching her sent a dizzying rush through my head. I stared at Jade, whose eyes were a gilded green now, more golden as they shone beneath the impossible power of the area.
“Are you wyvern? Please tell me the truth,” she whispered, taking a shuddering step closer. I could sense the race of her heart when her fingers traced my chest. She was searching for answers too, but answers I didn’t have. Nothing made sense, but everything was clear in the same breath.
“Wyvern? What…what are you talking about?”
Jade’s brow furrowed deeper, the gold of her eyes shading to a rich amber. “I don’t understand. If you’re not wyvern then…how is the willow speaking?”
“Speaking?” My voice cracked, and I drifted my attention to the warm bark. I heard nothing, but certainly felt something. A new power, a connection to this place like I’d never experienced before. The spot where I kept my hand strong on Jade’s back sparked with that electric current. Jade was a missing piece to something, my anchor in all the madness. She was part of me, yet I had no idea how.
“Yes,” she said cautiously. “The willow has a power, Teagan. A spirit that ripples through this community, that protects us, and warns us in times of danger. I felt the warning weeks ago. Something was coming, even my own dormant power started to awaken. Then, I met you. It was the first moment I felt at peace, I could feel my strength again, and something whispered to me that you were my answer.” Jade slowly rolled back my sleeves, tracing the green tinted tattoos. I flushed, but she pulled my hand away from the tree and joined my second hand with the first around her waist so she was entirely wrapped in my arms. “Then you saved me. No one else saw the zomok, but you did. So I’m curious, what sort of wyvern are you, and why haven’t you said anything before?”
This conversation made little sense, but the way Jade’s fingertips traced my jaw kept my brain locked in its haze. “Jade, I…really have no idea what you’re talking about,” I whispered, feeling my heart stop when she wrapped her hand around the back of my neck. “What’s a zomok? How did I save you? I’m just Teagan, not wyvern.”
Jade eyed me funny and stopped her traveling fingers for a few breaths, which was a disappointment. “You don’t remember saving me? What did they do to you?” she whispered, her hand cupping the side of my face. Jade closed her eyes, drawing both her palms to either side of my head. Her expression was one of total concentration, and under her breath she was whispering. It wasn’t long before my body trembled lightly, a wave of heat ripped through my organs. I coughed, feeling my throat constrict and my foggy mind fumble for reality. The sensation grew in intensity the longer Jade held my face. I grimaced, groaning in discomfort as agony stabbed across my skull. The skin boiled again on my arms, trailing to my shoulders. Then my eyes shot open.
Everything flashed back: the day on the field, the hooded assailant, the glowing bag that burned my palm. I remembered Raffi, Dash…I remembered Sapphire now.
“What is happening?” I gasped, clutching the sides of my head and pulling away from Jade. “Raffi and Dash—they took me to Sapphire. They did something to me and…then just put me in my room. Why did Sapphire lie? Who was that guy in the hood and that…stuff? And what are these?” My voice rose as I ripped my sleeve up revealing the entire tattoo on one arm.
Jade was close again, her hand gently brushing across my cheek and bringing an immediate calm. “Teagan, something is happening, and it involves us both. Look at the color of your marks,” she said. “They’re my color.”
“Your color? What?”
“I’m the jade stone bloodline. Your marks are green. My full name is Ariana of the Jade Stone, but we’ve always used the stones as our nicknames, I suppose.”
“We? Jade, just tell me what you’re talking about.” I knew I was panicking and tried to back away, but something always pulled me back.
“The five royals. We are the keepers of the stones of wyvern. And we’re all in danger. Me most of all. Our enemies are desperate to take control of the stones. Teagan, if they take the stones, the human race, the world as we know it, will be destroyed.”
I swallowed hard, a suffocating foreboding freezing me in place. My skin tingled like sparks flickered along the surface when I spoke so softly I wasn’t sure she heard. “Are you trying to tell me you don’t think you’re human?”
Jade sighed. “I’m not, Teagan. I’m of the wyvern race. I thought you were too, but no, you’re something else. The willow carries a different power than me, but it feels the same as the power flowing inside you.” She paused, letting that sink in, but my brain refused to understand. With another step, Jade’s body was pressed against my chest, and her hands tangled with mine as if her touch would brace the blow of what she was about to say. In reality, it helped when she spoke again, because what she said took my breath away.
> “Teagan, I’m a dragon.”
Part Two
The Wyvern
Chapter 13
The power bursting from Teagan Ward had been what first drew me to speak to Konrad. The willow had been pouring its warning for weeks, and yet I was the only one who seemed to care. Eisha continually paraded her assurances that our haven was well-protected. The elemental wyvern’s greatest enemies were the serpentine lindworms. The lindworm-hired killers were zomoks, but at least Wyvern Willows had protected us from all serpents thus far. Despite being a royal, I had yet to be schooled on what powers were responsible for protecting our haven. Eisha was skilled in the earth arts and had a keen sense of the true hearts of others, but she couldn’t speak to the willow the same as me. In fact, Eisha tended to avoid talk of the willow’s power altogether.
Raffi and Dash were the greatest warriors I had encountered—they could sense danger like it was part of their seven core instincts—yet neither saw the zomok at school. Teagan had. My youth had something to do with the reluctance of my people to open themselves to the truth. Even Konrad, who had carried the burden of the Sapphire stone for nearly sixty years longer than I’d been alive, treated me like I was an infant or a foolish human girl who had no instincts.
Of course, I naturally understood the basics of our world: the willow was filled with all the energies of the earth. It was the wyvern beacon, where we could feel connected to our true selves. The tree would help us in times of trial, offer guidance, and warn us of danger. I knew it was planted at the end of the great Wyvern War—the divide—to protect the royal elementals from the serpents, and had served us well for nearly seventy-seven years. For as long as I could remember, the willow was a blessing, but it never emitted the same power I felt in my own blood. Of course, I brushed the strangeness of its energy away; the others taught me not all powers will feel the same, and just as all wyverns were unique, so were the powers that be. So, naturally, I’d never believed there were other mystics in our world until Teagan came to Wyvern Willows.
Something beckoned to me when he’d been dropped off at Wyvern Reform School, but I never imagined it would come in the form of a young man. Konrad had been little help. He hadn’t understood why I’d been so distraught about my reviving strength. That day was the day I’d finally felt like my old self, not the weak state I’d been locked inside for nearly my entire life. Konrad took the change as my human body accepting more of my wyvern blood. Konrad, Eisha, and even Raffi assured me they sensed nothing unusual in the area. Then I’d seen him at school.
The moment his pale eyes connected with mine, a broken piece of myself began repairing. I hadn’t even known it was broken. I suddenly felt even stronger. I’d always doubted my abilities as the jade stone keeper, but when he was near I finally believed I could face any challenge.
Now, as I stood near the beloved willow tree, he stared at me as though I was a lunatic.
“Teagan, please say something,” I whispered. My true self breathed fire, was the master of the sky, yet I felt my knees tremble as I feared for what he might say.
He shook his head, gently easing his hands from my hold. “Jade, I don’t know if you’re playing with me or what, but I need to get back. I’m not willing to get locked up for a joke.”
My rapid heart thumped wildly, threatening to pound a hole in my weaker body. The thing about wyverns, we’re incredibly sensitive to emotions. We bleed for compassion and true heart in others, but in turn wyverns have incredibly powerful emotions themselves. And now I imagined my heart was chipping painfully away the more distance he placed between us. In my young life I’d never been drawn to another lifeforce the way I was with Teagan Ward. Romance wasn’t something I cared for—most wyverns were paired by the elders anyway, love was for lesser species. My destiny didn’t have love in the stars. My calling with the jade bloodline would be to form an unbreakable wyvern union of strength to lead my people in continued peace. It was expected, purposeful, and the right thing.
Or so I’d thought.
But the way my molten blood surged through my head when Teagan glanced at me, I knew it would be impossible to yoke my fate with another. The willow screamed at me that our destinies were interwoven through the universe, through the very soil I was atop, and though he didn’t want to see it now, I know he’d felt something too.
“I’m not joking,” I insisted, feeling ashamed by the way my sure voice was breaking. “I wouldn’t put you at risk of losing your freedom.”
He chuckled, but I wasn’t deaf to the quiver in his own voice. “You expect me to believe you’re a dragon?” His eyes scanned my body, but not in an inappropriate way. “You don’t look like you’ve got wings, a spiked tail, and breathe fire.”
I sighed and took two paces closer, hoping he’d listen. To my relief, Teagan didn’t back away. I could smell the sweet masculine scent of soap on his skin, I could taste his unusual power, I could understand why humans swooned when his eyes pored into mine. “That’s not all true,” I said with a soft smile. “I don’t have a spiked tail.”
He dared laugh. It was less stressed, but still reserved. “Oh, but the rest all checked off on the dragon list.”
“Yes,” I said sincerely. “This body is my human form.”
“Really? Okay, well turn into a dragon then.”
Closing my eyes, my fingers trailed along the beautiful, ancient language wrapping his arms. Teagan didn’t know what the marks meant, but I recognized them as the marks of guardians. The mark of a ward of the wyverns. I’d thought they were legends, fairy tales for wyvernian youth, but when Eisha and Sapphire had whispered in the house late at night, I’d made it my personal mission to study the legends completely. That was until Eisha placed her own energy against the library doors to keep me away, and forbade Raffi and Dash to let me exist alone in any fashion.
I shuffled my feet, glancing sheepishly to the ground. “I can’t,” I finally said.
“That’s convenient,” he muttered. Teagan was soft-spoken to me, but I could hear the sound of betrayal in his voice. I was losing his trust the longer we spent away from the reform house.
“I’m not permitted to change my form. All the royals are locked in their human shape; we can’t shift to our wyvern body without the enchantments controlling our change being lifted.”
“Enchantments? Like magic?”
“Not the kind you might think. I only know what Eisha has told me,” I sighed desperately. I wanted his hands to wrap around me again. There was safety in those hands, there was fuel for my strength in his hold. He had no idea what a simple touch had ignited inside. “Wyverns are connected to the elements of the earth, and by such we can use the energy to create certain spells, if you will. I don’t know the specifics of the enchantment over my ability to change forms, I was too young when I was locked in my human form. Believe me, I’ve tried to change many times through the years.”
“Jade, listen, you’re really cool,” he said, but I could hear the change in his tone. He thought I was stark-raving mad. “But this is nuts. I don’t believe in magic, or dragons, or whatever energy power you’re talking about. I need to go.”
“Let me prove at least some of it, Teagan,” I begged. “I’ll show you what I can do.” This was forbidden. Showing power in front of humans could converge the council of elders on me, but then again, I wasn’t so sure Teagan Ward was merely human. Glancing once more at the beautiful writings on his arms, I took heart that this needed to be shown.
Slowly, with my gaze never leaving his, I knelt onto the cold earth near the willow, my palms hovering just over the twigs and soil. Closing my eyes, my command bled into the veins of the ground. The whispers of energy obeyed my call—as I knew they would. Who was the one who protected them, after all? Smiling, I nodded at the suggestion offered by the surrounding trees. “That is a good idea. It will certainly impress him.”
I smirked when Teagan glanced at me with his mouth slightly open. His brow furrowed, and his eyes shone like
the stars above, making it difficult to turn away. Of course, I could have answered the call of the forest in my personal thoughts, but I thought it more dramatic to speak out loud—and Teagan already thought me mad, so what was the harm of having a little fun?
“Who exactly are you talking to?” Teagan whispered.
“The trees. I feel they’ve come up with an excellent idea. Will you hand me that broken branch please?” I replied in a sturdy tone.
Teagan’s eyes followed my pointed finger. Though he moved cautiously, he obeyed and gently placed the branch in my hands. The thrill of warmth blossomed inside my powerful heart when I beckoned to my abilities. My palms burned, but I welcomed it. For too long my power had remained dormant, each passing year leaving me discouraged and feeling like a worthless member of the royal court. Each rumble of hot power broke and split the bark until it took the sleek shape I’d formed in my mind.
Teagan backed up, his eyes wide when the aura of energy formed a subtle glow between my hands and the branch. Graciously, the wood bowed to my every command, and in a matter of moments it was done. My eyes flicked toward Teagan, whose shoulders were heaving in terrified shock as I held out the branch.
But it wasn’t a branch any longer. With expert craftsmanship, the once dead thing had smoothed, sanded, and shaped into a stunning wooden dagger fit for a king. Teagan’s gaze shot between my hands, the dagger, and my eyes for at least three solid breaths before he dared touch the weapon.
“How…how did you…do that?” he gasped.
“I asked,” I whispered. “I connected to the energy of the forest, as I said. Teagan, I haven’t been able to connect so purely in years—not until you came here. Those tattoos, as you call them,” I said, touching his arms once more—mostly because I’d felt distant for too long. “These are ancient wyvern markings. They’re supposed to be fiction, but here you are. My power is alive, someone tried to kill me, and now the wyverns want me to stay away from you. I need to understand just as much as you do.”