by L J Andrews
“Wait,” he said, all fear washing from his face when his grip surrounded my wrist. “Someone tried to kill you?”
“Yes, and you saved me,” I said gently, relishing the way he let me trail my hand back to the side of his neck. “That bag from the assailant at school, it’s called zomok pyre. The gas is poisonous to a royal wyvern—someone like me. Zomoks are a skittish type of serpent dragon, and they are banished from the Willows, but the most frightening thing about a zomok is the beasts can conceal themselves from other wyverns, humans, and most prey. You saw him when no one else could. You saved me.” I basked in his heartbeat pounding in my sensitive ears. He was silent, but wasn’t turning away from me any longer. Steadying my voice, I rested my hand in his, feeling connected in a way I never imagined possible. “The zomok clan answers to the higher lindworm race. Lindworms are terrible creatures that only wish to dominate other species. Teagan, the elemental dragons are what stand between the serpents from taking control. I am an elemental. I thought we’d always be safe here, but we aren’t. If a zomok found me, it’s only a matter of time before more serpents slither their way into Wyvern Willows.”
“This is insane,” Teagan whispered his face inching closer toward mine. “Jade, this can’t be real.”
“Seeing isn’t always believing. Even after what you just saw, it won’t be enough. I have no other way to convince you other than to ask you to trust me. Trust your feelings. You felt something when you touched the willow, didn’t you?”
Teagan’s eyes shifted toward the ancient tree, the muscles in his jaw twitching slightly before his magical eyes—that was the only way I could describe them—settled once more in my gaze. “I felt something. I’ve always felt something inside here,” he said, resting his fist over his chest. “I’ve always been different. When I told you I feel alive in the forest, it’s true. When I was a kid I used to believe the trees could speak to me—like you—nature has always felt like home to me. But,” he paused, brushing my hair from my face, sending my royal head into a spin. “When I saw you for the first time, I couldn’t breathe. I felt like I was being struck by lightning. They can’t keep me away from you—I’m not kidding. It’s starting to become physically painful. I worry about you, though I don’t really know you. When I stopped that…zomok, I guess…an entirely different instinct took over. I couldn’t have resisted going after him even if I tried. Do you think…do you think touching that pyre stuff brought these?” he asked me, holding up his arms.
I shrugged, drawing my fingers along the designs again as though they were a magnetic force for my touch. “I don’t know. The stories say the wards of the wyvern bear the marks. Bound with our people as defenders, loyal companions, and the truest warriors.”
“Do you know what the dragon stones in the forest mean?”
I cocked my head, lifting one brow as I slowly moved to sit on a fallen tree. “What dragon stones in the forest?”
Teagan swallowed hard as he took the spot next to me. My answer was notably not what he’d wanted to hear. “I stumbled into this weird place in the middle of the forest earlier. There were five large stones forming a circle, all with the head of a dragon, then from there rows of similar markers spread out—they had symbols on them I couldn’t understand. There was an energy there that burned me inside. I heard…things. The same things I feel from the willow. The strangest part,” he paused, clearing his throat as though he wasn’t sure he wanted to go on. “I couldn’t find a way out and then, well, a path opened up. I thought I was imagining it at first, but after what you just did with that twig, I’m not sure what to believe anymore.”
“I’ve never heard of such a place,” I said. We fell into a comfortable silence, embracing the connection between our hands and the soft peace of the willow. The sun was crowning on the horizon, and I sighed, wishing the moment could go on forever. “Teagan I blocked Sapphire from wanting to check on you, but only until dawn. We should go back.”
“You what?”
“It’s a gift of mine. I can block others. It’s more manipulation, I suppose. I have the ability to convince the mind it isn’t seeing what it is truly seeing. That’s why when you saw Konrad and I speaking I was flabbergasted. I’d made certain any prying eyes would be convinced there was an empty lawn.” The thought drew a laugh deep in my throat when I replayed Raffi’s lecture after the few classes Teagan and I had had together. “I was getting in the habit of blocking Raffi and Dash in Mrs. Tiddel’s class whenever we spoke. They didn’t appreciate it.”
Teagan smiled widely. For the first time since my confession, his shoulders didn’t seem weighed down by the outlandish notions. “So, that’s why I challenge you. You can’t manipulate me.”
I smirked, though my cheeks flushed at the way he stared at me. “Yes, but there’s more that I find interesting about you other than your resistance to my charms.”
“I wouldn’t say I can resist your charms,” he whispered.
My pulse found its way to the sides of my head. I’d never felt so incredibly unsteady. Was this the emotion I’d read so much about? How could a wyvern—a direct royal blood wyvern—have such a connection, such a budding passion for a man who was anything but a dragon? My weak body wanted to know what Teagan Ward’s lips felt like, but instead I smiled and took his hand. “Come on, I think we need to get back.”
“Should I tell Sapphire I know he’s a dragon and a huge liar who’s punishing me for no reason?” Teagan teased. “I still can’t believe I just said that. This really can’t be real.”
I scoffed and nudged his shoulder. “It is real, Teagan. I know it’s shocking, but it’s real. I wouldn’t lie to you. And actually, I do think we need to speak with Konrad—out of anyone he’ll be the one to listen—but let’s wait just a little longer. I think we need to find out more about you. If we learn why those marks found you, it will fill in my own questions.”
“If you’re a powerful royal, why are they keeping everything from you?”
The bitterness wasn’t easy to hide when I spoke. “I was so young during the Wyvern War. I’m the direct descendant of our king. He was my grandfather. My parents were killed, so when the serpents were banished I was hidden and placed under the complete protection of Raffi and Dash and Eisha. Eisha was my mother’s closest advisor; she vowed to keep me safe and one day help me rise to my position. I was so young during the divide of the royals, I hardly remember what life was like before I was locked in this form. I hardly remember my parents. I’m still young comparative to others, so I can’t help but feel as though they shelter me—as though I’m still a child.”
“Seventeen isn’t crazy old, Jade,” Teagan said through a grin.
I curled my hand around his arm, leaning my head on his shoulder as we walked. “Oh, Teagan, I’m not seventeen. I’m eighty-seven in human years.”
Teagan stopped. I couldn’t help but laugh at the way his eyes widened like the moon above us. “Eighty-seven?”
I nodded, my grin crossing my entire face. “Quite young still. Eisha is nearly four hundred. Raffi is finally mature at one hundred and twenty. And don’t let Sapphire fool you. He may be nearing one hundred and fifty, but he still has some immaturities.”
“I can’t,” Teagan groaned, but he only tightened his hold on my fingers tucked around his arm, and I caught a small smile on his lips. “My head is exploding—how am I supposed to act normal around Sapphire after all this?”
We stopped at the front door of the house when the first ribbons of pink light were breaking across the gravel driveway. “Who said anything about acting normal?” I said, moving my lips close to his ear. Teagan was intoxicating, though I knew he was overwhelmed. All my strength supposedly flowing in my blood, and I was limp and weak when it came to resisting his gaze, his scent—everything. “Teagan, Sapphire won’t send you away. I won’t allow it. Despite my age, I am still the leading royal. Something dangerous is coming, and although my people have the best intentions, keeping me—and you—in the dark
is dangerous.”
“Then we should tell them,” he whispered.
“We will. Let me speak with Eisha first, okay? Then we’ll tell them everything you told me—about the willow, those stones you found. Everything. Just give me a little time.”
“Okay, but I’m not writing in his reflection journal anymore,” Teagan huffed, moving toward the door.
I laughed. “You know that’s how he’s come to understand how to behave like a human. Sapphire does have a gift though. Despite being a royal wyvern, he has helped a lot of people. He has a big heart and feels compassion for the human youth.”
“Do you think he knew something was different about me from the beginning?”
I shook my head, remembering Konrad brushing away my concerns. He wouldn’t have been able to conceal all his worries. “No, not until those marks appeared. Now he suspects something.” There were voices coming from inside the house, and I rushed Teagan toward the door. “Go, now.”
“Wait, Jade. When can I see you again?”
I paused, each scenario of escaping Raffi or Dash running through my mind. “Tonight. Meet me tonight just beyond the trees.”
He smiled, and I thought I would collapse in that moment. “See you tonight.”
I watched Teagan rush back into the house. Part of me wanted him to confront Sapphire, but then I felt the need to wait. My smile faded quickly when I turned to return home. Eisha, my stand-in mother, had some questions to answer. If I had to I would use my rank—for the first time. I was ready to rise to my fate no matter how dangerous it might be.
Chapter 14
The house was chilled, the way Eisha and I enjoyed it. When your blood boiled inside and fire burned your lungs, a little chill in the air was calming. When I slipped inside, the thick wooden door creaked on the cast iron hinges. The house beamed on the hill above the town of Wyvern Willows. Eisha was careful in her selection. The house was fit for her royal charge, but it wasn’t the largest house in the town. If she’d purchased the house Doctor Schmidt owned a half mile down the private lane, it was possible unwanted lindworm attention could end up at our doors. Only ten years earlier, The Schmidts’ pool house had caught fire.
The gas that erupted from the blaze had forced me onto bedrest from the damage to my lungs, and Sapphire had ended up with a hacking cough. What I’m saying is, the fire appeared normal and accidental to the Schmidt family and the dutiful firemen, but to the elemental wyverns, it was clearly zomok pyre. Poison tainted the clouds for nearly two weeks. It was the first time regulations had been placed around me. The zomoks had slithered their way inside the town—and to my knowledge that was the last time they’d broken the protective barriers. Until now.
Eisha brushed away my concerns most days. Even after the attack at school, she said it was nothing to concern myself over. The warnings didn’t mean the lindworm, King Nag, was free from his exile. I shuddered remembering the greenish yellow glow of Nag’s eyes. Before the bloodshed of the Wyvern War ripped my family from my life, lindworms hadn’t always been defiant of the wyvern peace laws. All races of dragon lived peacefully on the earth. But I knew, after the havoc I’d witnessed from Nag and his minions against the peace of the elemental earth dragons, returning to unity was the furthest thing from the lindworm king’s mind. My only solace was that Nag was banished somewhere far away—and hadn’t been seen or heard from in decades.
Stomping up the spiraled staircase, I hardly took note of the beautiful canvases lining the walls. The forest landscapes usually brought me a calming satisfaction, but not this morning. My determination was set like a lead weight in my chest. Last night only sealed in my mind that there was something unique and powerful about Teagan Ward, and there were no longer going to be any more secrets amongst the wyverns in my life.
“Jade, is that you?” Eisha’s rich voice called out from the bedroom down the hall. Clearing my throat, my fists balled, though I wasn’t angry. It was more to hold my courage. Eisha may be shutting me out, but there was no denying she had saved me. I owed her my life, and though I remembered my own mother’s crystal eyes, Eisha had been a mother to me. I didn’t want to go against her wishes, but I also refused to allow the pounding warnings bleeding through my heart to simmer in disregard any longer.
Gently widening the door to the circular room, I looked around for Eisha, but she was nowhere to be found. “Eisha? Where are you?” I asked, turning back out of the room.
“In here,” she said. I caught sight of the light from beneath the bathroom door and eased my way inside. Eisha was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, her slender human legs dipped into the water. The nozzle was turned to the frigid setting of ice-cold, but there was steam bursting off the surface of the water. Eisha glanced over her shoulder and smiled. Her kind expressions had passed on to her human body. “Oh, I’m glad you’re here. Would you be able to get some ice from the refrigerator?”
“Are you injured?” I asked, checking her legs. Red blisters were wrapped around her ankles.
“No, of course not. I, well I had a meeting with the school board yesterday, I’m afraid I started to lose my temper with Abram again.”
I chuckled. “You’re the epitome of wearing your emotions on your sleeve.” The true wyvern form was stronger than the human shell—sometimes the heat of the heart could break through the skin. Scurrying away to help calm her heated tissues, I second-guessed my demands. She could destroy her entire self if she got angry. But then again, Eisha hadn’t ever lost her temper with me.
“Ah, thank you,” she sighed, splashing the frigid water along her toes when I dumped all the ice into the tub. Her skin soothed slowly, even the tips of her dark hair no longer looked ready to ignite in flames. “So, where have you been? Raffi and Dash couldn’t find you. I know you don’t like to hear it, but I must insist you stay on this property.”
“Will you order me, Eisha?” I muttered, my jaw setting tight as I straightened my shoulders.
Eisha narrowed her eyes and cocked her head—she was reading me. I could always tell when my guardian used her gift to judge emotion. No one was better at recognizing deception or valiant hearts than Eisha.
“You know I cannot. I hope out of genuine respect for one another you will order yourself to protect yourself. Something has upset you—what has happened?”
Clearing my throat, I studied my own reflection in Eisha’s oval mirror. The gold fire in my eyes was flashing. The traitorous color was what gave away my emotions, and I paused long enough to bury down the flurry of thoughts flapping through my mind. “Eisha, you have protected me well. I trust no one more than you,” I began slowly. “I hope to expect the same courtesy.”
“Jade, of course I trust you. You will become a beautiful, honorable leader.”
“I cannot become that any longer. Eisha, I must be that leader now.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked, gently lifting her icy legs from the water.
“Something is happening in Wyvern Willows,” I said. “There is something coming, and no matter how much you, Raffi, Konrad, everyone assures me, I know something is happening. I also believe my own people keep me protected from truths I deserve to know.”
“Jade, no, you have us wrong—”
“I wasn’t finished.” Eisha looked stunned at my abruptness, but I had to continue or I would lose all my nerve. “I may be young, I may not even know how to rule or properly protect the stone’s power, but I cannot deny what my instincts are telling me for a moment longer. The willow is warning of something. That zomok nearly ended my life, Eisha. Raffi and Dash still have not been able to find it. How long until more lindworms find a breach in our barriers? We don’t even know how the zomok found a way in.
“I know you…I know you feel we can protect our own. I understand that Raffi and Dash are charged with my protection, but I believe you and the others are making a mistake keeping what you know of Teagan Ward from me. What don’t you want me to know, Eisha?”
Eisha was s
ilent for a long moment. Her obsidian eyes burned, and for a time I thought she might burn through her skin and shift in the tight bathroom. Eisha shifted only a few times a year to meet with the elder council, but never in front of me—I had always appreciated the gesture since my greatest desire was to taste the euphoria of the sky or the strength in my step again. Closing her eyes, she drew in several deep breaths before brushing past me back into the bedroom.
“I thought we had already discussed this,” Eisha said softly. “He is not safe, Jade. For any of us. Even Konrad agrees.”
“Then why does Konrad allow him to stay?”
“Trust me, I have asked the same question myself,” she snapped.
“Eisha, I am asking you to explain what you’re so afraid of—but if I must, I will not ask.”
Eisha’s brow furrowed tight, forming a ridge over her nose. “Are you…commanding me to answer?”
“I hope you would trust my instincts and feelings enough to not force my hand.”
Eisha scoffed, and I could sense her hurt. We’d never used our positions in the wyvern court against one another, and I never dreamed there would come a day when I would use my pure royal blood against her. “Alright, my Queen, I’ll explain what I know.”
“Eisha, I don’t want there to be bitterness,” I said quickly. “But I can’t ignore what my heart is telling me.”
“Follow me,” she said, briskly stalking down the hallway toward the library. Eisha stepped into the room, but I was hindered, the energy against me holding firmly as she dug through the back bookshelves and removed a tattered, leather book that had a musky smell when she returned to my side.
Eisha tossed the book into my hands, her eyes sharp and direct when she leaned against the wall. The symbol on the cover was gold and formed a strange triad made of numerous spheres. There was no end or beginning to the design. “What’s this?” I asked.
“Read it,” she snapped.