“Princess, it looks like you’ve had an accident.” The voice was unfamiliar. She wished her brain wasn’t so fuzzy.
“Who’s there?”
“I’m Doctor Corvin, I’m here to take care of you. Don’t worry, princess, let me help you back to bed.”
His arms were strong, and he lifted her off the floor easily. He placed her carefully into bed and pulled the sheet over her.
“Rest, a diplomatic envoy will arrive soon.”
“What do you mean? Why? I’m not here for a royal visit!”
“They will return you to Nidia where your father is waiting for you,” Dr. Corvin explained.
“H-h-he’s alive?” A torrent of mixed emotions tore through her system, but the main feeling was relief.
“Of course, he is. Don’t worry, some confusion is natural after trauma. Put recent events out of your mind and try to rest. Doctor’s orders.”
With that, Dr. Corvin left, and Alora stared at the white wall, wondering if this was all just a dream. How could her father have survived the blast? It must have been luck. Alora had wanted to ask the doctor if her dragons were safe, but he had very obviously been an elf, with his pointy ears, and it was unlikely he’d either know or care about them.
She gave in to sleep, hoping the situation might make more sense later.
***
Later came, and Alora was still more than a little confused when she awoke. How had the elves known where to find her? Why had they brought her here? She had no answers for anything. The door opened once more when a woman brought food.
“Silver soup, it’s good after an ordeal.” She spoke in gentle tones as if she thought Alora might suddenly decide to turn into a lion or something.
The woman put the tray down on a table that swiveled over the bed. Everything was designed to be so ordinary, but the materials things were made from were all so weird and exotic. Even the spoons were made out of some sort of pinkish wood.
“Can I get some coffee, please?” Alora wondered if such a thing even existed here. The planet was supposed to be eco-friendly, and she suspected they’d have something against an honest cup of Joe.
“We have acorn coffee if you would like to try it,” the woman offered. Alora shook her head.
“Thanks, but no thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” With that, the woman left.
Alora didn’t especially care if she’d come across as rude. She picked up the tiny wooden spoon and began eating the soup. After the first sip, she decided it was nothing like the silver soup she’d eaten at Telian Restaurants on Nidia. She was halfway through the silver soup when the door opened again.
“Ah, princess, you’re awake. Excellent. You have some visitors. Myself, for one.”
Alora’s spoon paused halfway to her mouth, and she stared across the room at the newcomer.
“Grand Vizier Devizes, how lovely of you to visit me,” Alora said, trying her best to be polite. Truthfully, though, the Grand Vizier had creeped her out ever since he’d made a pass at her during her fourteenth birthday dinner.
“I am here to accompany you to Nidia, to ensure you have a safe reconciliation with your father.”
“Now?” Alora stared at the soup. She didn’t especially want to eat it, and she had been about to put the spoon down because she really didn’t like the taste, but she’d eat three bowls of the stuff if it meant she could put off a long journey with Devizes.
“Yes, I am afraid you will have to forego the delicacies of Telian hospital food. My ship is waiting.”
“All right.” Alora set down her spoon with a sigh. “I’m coming.” She looked around the room and remembered she had nothing to wear. “Any idea where I can get some clothes?”
“You will be adequately attired in that hospital gown.” With that, the Grand Vizier held out a hand to help, but Alora insisted on standing under her own steam. She hoped he would let her sleep all the way to Nidia, but something told her she’d be listening to his anecdotes for however long the journey took.
***
The ship was luxurious, she gave him that. Perhaps the government was overpaying him because the walls were red velvet and all the door handles were gold, and in true rich people style, completely useless due to the automatic sensors in the ceiling.
Alora didn’t remember things like this grating on her nerves before, but now, the showy, pointless display seemed tacky. Turning away from the door to her quarters, she caught a glimpse of the bathroom. The toilet was made of rose gold.
She had to laugh.
There was one of the new miniature abundance devices embedded in the wall. She stood in front of it, wondering how it worked.
“May I have a sleeping shot, please?” Was that how these machines worked? In the six months since small abundance devices had exploded into the high-end market, Alora had left the operation of hers to her servants. After all, it was their job, right? Now, though, she was regretting it.
“Specify chemical composition.”
She tried to remember what was normally in sleeping shots.
“Caldenamine Hydrochloride, please.”
“Sorry, we do not have a molecular structure for “caldenaminehydrochlorideplease”. Please try again.”
Alora sighed. “Caldenamine Hydrochloride.”
“Select dosage. Five, ten, or twenty-five milligrams.”
“Twenty-five.” She wanted to be dead to the world if the Grand Vizier decided to pay her a visit.
“Stand by.”
Before her eyes, little sparkles of yellow light appeared in the dispensing tray. They got brighter until finally, a syringe of liquid sat, ready for her to use. Alora picked it up quickly, in case the machine changed its mind about giving her a restricted substance and walked over to the bed, perching on the edge.
Looking at her bare arm, she wondered how best to do this. She’d never had to give herself a shot before. Did she need to get it into the right place for a vein or something? She found a long greenish-blue line and decided that was probably the right place. Before she could change her mind, she placed the needle tip against her arm and pressed the button at the other end of the syringe which jabbed the needle into her vein and dispensed the sleeping concoction.
She would be asleep in a few minutes. Excellent.
Alora dumped the used syringe in the trash and lay down on the bed, closing her eyes, willing slumber to take her away from the land of superfluous door handles and rose gold toilets. As she was sinking into sleep, the door to her room opened.
Ha, I knew it, she thought. Devizes wouldn’t resist the opportunity to talk to her while she was on his ship.
“It appears she’s fallen asleep. That will make this easier, I was expecting a struggle.” He was clearly talking to someone else. His words made Alora try to wake up, but the sedating effect of the injection was just too strong to fight. “Kurzon, take her down to the cargo bay and put her in a cage.”
Wait, what? Kurzon was here? The disgraced former something-or-other in the diplomatic corps? And Grand Vizier Devizes wanted her in a cage? What was happening? She wanted to panic, wanted to scream and fight them and bite someone’s fleshy parts until the stupid golden accents were all covered in dark red blood, but all she could do was twitch her hand slightly.
Her brain assured her this was a perfect moment to fall asleep, and she knew nothing more.
Chapter 12:
Sharpe was pacing up and down the cavern while his brothers all handled their emotions in their own way.
“We have to do something!” Brynn said for the fifth time in an hour.
“How can we fight the elves?” Canavan demanded. “It’s not that I don’t want to, but we’re outnumbered, and those spaceships have serious firepower.”
“Are they flame retardant?” Brynn persisted.
“They’re made of metal, so probably,” Sharpe replied. Ever since they’d awoken from the tranquilizers to find Alora gone, they’d been going around and around in circles trying
to figure out a plan of action.
“It depends on the melting point,” Argon observed. “Brynn or I might be able to liquefy the metal.”
“To what end?” Sharpe threw up his hands. “We don’t know where she’s been taken.”
“Indeed. For all we know, she’s been convinced this whole thing was some sort of captor-bond. Hence my reluctance to act.” Argon was being cool and calculating, as usual, looking at all angles of the problem.
“The only way we’ll know is if we find her and ask her,” Brynn countered.
“Are we putting this to a vote?” Canavan asked.
Sharpe looked at Argon and waited for him to nix the idea of voting.
“All in favor of searching for our princess,” Argon said.
Canavan and Brynn put their hands up.
“Sharpe? Are you against?” Argon asked.
“What? No! I want to find her!”
“Then why didn’t you vote?”
“I was busy being surprised that you allowed us all a moment of democracy.”
Argon punched him in the arm. Playfully. That was new, too.
Apparently, the princess had a profound effect on all of them.
“Then it is settled. We shall leave right now.”
Argon’s authoritative words turned the cavern into a flurry of hubris as the dragons lined up and shifted, one after the other, before leaping off the ledge and gliding through the air.
Sharpe went last, but he caught a strong thermal soon after jumping into thin air and quickly caught up with the others. Out in the air, he savored the wind rushing through his spines, making his scales ripple. It was icy and bracing. Lowering one wing and raising the other, he turned in a corkscrew flight pattern, just for the fun of it.
When they soared out past the mountains, the dragons converged into a tight diamond-shaped formation. Out here was forest which meant they were in elf country. With the threat of enemy fire, the dragons needed to stay alert and remain in an easily defensible position. Sharpe remembered Argon explaining it to them so many times, it was now almost second-nature for the four of them to take this formation with Brynn at the head and Argon at the rear because they had the hottest flames.
Flying as a group was very different from flying solo, and Sharpe preferred the company of his brothers. The steady sound of wings flapping, the visual cue of seeing Brynn change the shape of his body a moment before Sharpe needed to do the same... it was all a lot easier. Required less thinking.
They reached a long, glimmering gash in the earth—the River Falter which led straight to one of the elf cities, Elaria. It was a dangerous path for any dragon as the city was rumored to have numerous technological defenses to kill dragons on sight, but Sharpe also knew it was the most likely place to find Alora.
The four dragons circled the city, searching over rooftops and marketplaces in a bid to find their lost princess. Sharpe was beginning to lose hope as they went around a third time.
“There!” Canavan bellowed. He dropped into a dive, clearly aiming at the nearest yard, and the others followed, but Sharpe grew worried at the speed at which Canavan was losing altitude. He took a slightly slower route to the ground and was still thirty feet in the air when he saw Canavan slam into a big pile of manure with an almighty crash.
So much for being inconspicuous.
Once they’d all landed and shifted into their humanoid forms, they followed Canavan around the corner into a plaza.
“What are they doing?” Brynn demanded in horror. It was testament to their concern that none of them had touched their tattoos to retrieve their clothing, yet.
“Putting her on a spaceship,” Sharpe said grimly.
“Why? Where would anyone take her?” Canavan asked.
“Those men accompanying her are off-worlders. It is probably safe to presume they are returning her to Nidia,” Argon said.
“But we’re following, right? Right?” Brynn’s voice cracked as he spoke. It mirrored how Sharpe felt about this.
“I believe we should. But if she doesn’t want to hear from us, we have to let her go,” Argon said.
“Ever the voice of reason,” Sharpe said.
“Where will we find a spaceship?” Canavan wondered. “Can we use the one we’ve been working on?”
“DRAGONS! DRAAAAGOOOONNNNNNS!” An elf stood stock still, pointing at the four dragons, his mouth wide in a scream as he gave them away.
Sharpe froze. His blood turned icy.
“Shit. I think they’re onto us,” Brynn remarked.
“Anyone got any bright ideas?” Canavan asked.
“I’m done with this.” Sharpe rolled his eyes, shifted into his dragon form, and fired a burst of cool flame in the direction of the hysterical elf. The stupid plant-eater fled to what he thought was a safe distance.
Sharpe flapped his wings and took off, heading straight upward. He figured the city’s defenses would be focused on the perimeter, so he pointed his nose and tail, and just kept going until he was above the clouds where the elves couldn’t aim at him.
Behind him, he sensed his brothers copying his maneuvers. As one, they turned back in the direction of their cavern, none of them slowing down until they were past the last tree and flying over the mountainous ice sheet near their hideout.
They veered upward and landed on the plateau above their cave. Once the brothers stood side-by-side, Argon touched a tattoo of a rocket, and their battered, stolen spaceship slowly returned to this dimension from the mysterious place where they stored things.
“Whew, this old thing needs more work than I remembered!” Brynn’s words were cheery, but the disappointment was obvious.
“This isn’t going to keep up with an imperial ship,” Canavan said quietly.
“I’m not sure it will hold together for take-off,” Sharpe added.
“Then we need to fix it. Or have you all changed your minds about finding Alora, now there’s some hard work involved?” Argon’s no-nonsense remarks snapped the other brothers into action. “Brynn, sort out the navigation. Sharpe, Canavan, you’re both on hull integrity. I’ll examine the engine.”
And just like that, their plan was back within the realm of possibility.
***
Alora awakened with aching shoulders and hips and a cramp running down both legs. She tried to stretch out, but her feet hit bars. That got her undivided attention—she was pretty certain she’d fallen asleep on a bed.
Her eyes snapped wide open and warmth rushed through her body as her heart pounded. What was going on? She took in her surroundings. It was near-darkness with just auxiliary lighting faintly illuminating the room, but she was almost certain this was a cargo bay.
She picked out crates in the dim light, and the ceiling was high and metal paneled, just like the walls. The floor was that horrible metal with lots of holes in it, for easy cleaning. Very uncomfortable to walk on with bare feet. Even if she got out of the cage, it would be almost impossible to run on that floor. Anyway, she reasoned, all the metal strongly implied she was on a spaceship, so where would she run to?
She tried not to panic. Her mouth was so dry, her tongue stuck to the roof. Scrutinizing her immediate environment, she saw an upside-down water bottle with a long metal tube at the bottom, like a giant version of the type usually given to hopping binkies and other small, caged pets.
Alora crawled over to the water bottle and stared at it for a long minute. This was, by far, the most degrading and humiliating thing she’d ever had to do in her life. She wouldn’t even consider it if she wasn’t so thirsty. At least no one was watching, she reassured herself. The last thing her father needed was for it to get out that his daughter had been put in a cage like common livestock.
She moved her head forward and opened her mouth, uncertain about how to do this. First, she tried sucking on the metal tube, but nothing happened. The bottle was clearly full of liquid, why wasn’t it working? She stuck her tongue out and licked the bottom of the tube to check if it was w
et. Almost immediately, a big drop of water landed in her mouth. Licking the tube some more, she figured out how to drink from the bottle. It only dispensed drops of water, and it took lots of licks before she had satisfied her thirst.
Scared and alone, she laid back down on the floor of the cage, curled into a ball, and wished she could return to sleep, but she was far too stressed.
Why couldn’t the elves simply leave her alone? She’d been happy with the four dragon brothers. They had taken wonderful care of her and ensured she felt loved. Had anyone done that before in her entire life? Even her father, despite his best intentions, had generally been too busy to make her feel cared for.
Would they even remember she’d been taken, or would they think she’d left of her own accord—or worse, would they remember the elves showing up, but assume she’d told them where to find her? Sorrow grasped her heart and refused to let go. She’d had a chance to be a part of something wonderful, and it had been taken from her because of who she was. It wasn’t fair at all.
***
Alora had no idea how much time had passed when the cargo bay doors opened, and two men strode across the metal floor, their hard-soled shoes clinking against the floor.
“How much do you think we’ll get for her, Devizes?” It was Kurzon’s voice, but the words didn’t fit anyone who had ever worked in Prime Government. How had such people been allowed to help run the galaxy?
“Enough to ensure we do not need to be gainfully employed hereafter. Hopefully, enough to ensure I can turn the wheels that will get the emperor-paramount dethroned.”
Alora pressed her lips together to avoid gasping in horror. She didn’t want these men to know she was paying attention.
“I’ve always said, women are like animals. Selling them to the highest bidder is far better than listening to their incessant whining.”
“They have their uses,” Devizes pointed out.
“Yeah, for a few minutes every so often.”
Kurzon’s ensuing snorts of laughter put Alora in mind of a bog-boar, the dirty brown, fat creatures that Earth-human pioneers had once tried to eat until they had discovered that bog-boars were deathly poisonous and carcinogenic, and that they tasted nothing at all like the similar animals they’d had on Earth. Nowadays, all humanoid species avoided the disgusting creatures. Apart, it seemed, from Kurzon’s father, who appeared to have mated with one to produce such obnoxious offspring.
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