“Issa, please get some help for Lotian. He’s barely breathing,” I said strangely calm.
The dragoness snapped out of her trance and stood up a little straighter, becoming a little taller. Taller than Rox. She was stronger than him. More dragon’s blood in her veins.
“It’s already on its way here. As for you, captain, I can’t let you take Flare. Without Saaron in the building, I’m in charge of the Dragon House and all its students. Flare stays with us.” Suddenly, I understood what was going on. Sympathy? A fucking fairy tale for naïves. Issa had to keep me in the academy for Mirenne, while Rox wanted me out for Atrax. I was an object for them. The object they badly wanted. And now, they were about to clash.
“With Pirsteels sent back into a toddler state, you are the purest dragon blood around here, Verax. For this alone, I’ll let you go free. But get in between me and—”
I felt a terrible need to help her, no matter what motives stood behind her and so I said, “How’s your nose, Rox?”
From the acute glare Verax shot me, I knew I fucked up. Rox started to boil with rage. His face darkened. He moved quickly with decisiveness, his armored hand fell on my shoulder. I pacified a grimace of pain.
“Captain, you cannot do this!” Verax said.
“Then stop me! I am a captain of the Dragon Corps that guards this city. I am in charge. Now step aside.”
“Listen…” she began saying but moved out of his way.
Rox practically dragged me as I refused to walk. Watermane finished her conversation and looked up at me. I thought I found there a mix of satisfaction and concern. Oceania surged forward Lotian. She paid me no more heed. Seeing this I twisted and slapped Rox’s hand. Only because he’d thought I would not dare to attack him, he let go of me. Then his rune-enhanced baton was out and swinging. With all these soldiers around I knew there was no running away.
“You fucking bitch!” Rox snapped. “I will beat you until nothing but a pulp remains.” These words made a change. Big enough even for Watermane to raise her voice, though her words should never leave her fucking mouth.
“Be careful. The ex-captain is her boyfriend.”
Luckily, Verax stepped in between me and Rox. I turned and shot toward Lotian. Oceania was ready for me.
“Leave him alone!”
“You’re done, bitch!” Oceania snarled. “I’d never known a more insane person. You do not deserve Lotian!” Maybe in different circumstances her words would hurt. But not now and not here. Instead, I lunged for her. A mistake. A blunder I quickly regretted. Oceania even after the fight against Perses was stronger than me.
My fist met a block of water as Oceania’s body turned translucent. She possessed the same ability as Watermane. Their flesh was water. I didn’t see a small torrent that hit my jaw. I dropped on the floor, feeling blood in my mouth.
Oceania stood tall above me, readying herself to an attack.
“Are you mad?” Verax’s voice cut clear. “Stop it right there, Rosa. And you, captain. If you want—”
Her words cut so quickly, it hurt because I already lived through such an experience. A shock on her face, blood on her red lips, and a bright arrow jutting from her chest, they all made it clear what had happened.
Issa Verax dropped on the ruined floor. At first, I thought it was Rox who had killed her, then I saw five soldiers in black liquid armors. They entered the place as if owning the floor.
The moment of confusion was quickly exploited by the five figures. They threw balls that coiled black smoke.
“This … was is this?” Rox mumbled, dazzled.
“What have you done?” Watermane asked as she readied her attack. “Oceania to me. These are the Black Dragons. They answer directly to Atrax. Is he mad?”
I watched the light go out of Verax’s eyes and felt like crying. Whoever decided to make its move didn’t care about delicacy and pretending.
The Dragon Soldiers in the room, more than two dozen of them, looked at each other. What happened here must be a crime. Finally, one of them stepped forth and said, “we cannot allow this, captain.”
This soldier died the next second.
And as more of them reached for the weapons, the enchanted arrows flew out of hands of the five Black Dragons.
Watermane shoved Oceania behind her.
Rox was stunned to the core. It even overrode his hatred for me. He dropped his weapon on the floor and raised his hands then said softly, “these aren’t the pure dragon Atrax’s soldiers, Waterman.”
The Black Dragons moved then. I believed that they wanted to leave someone alive. Someone who could testify against Atrax and his Black Dragons. With Rox’s statement, that plan failed. Maybe they hadn’t anticipated that someone in the City Guards would see through their deception. They would fool me if they only wished to leave me here. But I was the target.
As Watermane, Rox and Oceania attacked the five, it quickly became clear that the fake Black Dragons have been prepared to deal with the Academy’s powerhouse. I hadn’t thought, I’d see Watermane bleed from so many wounds. Oceania fought with insane fury.
The fake Black Dragons’ armors were made of black liquid metal that morphed and transformed, either to minimize damage or enhance their attacks. They were terribly fast, agile and understood the combat. Without killing, they incapacitated Rox very quickly. The captain wasn’t a threat to them. After a while, neither was Watermane or Oceania.
The intruders didn’t seem hurt. It was hard to say with their armors rippling and shifting constantly.
“Both,” an unfamiliar voice commanded.
Darkness slammed me.
Chapter 16
Without unlocking the last piece of a puzzle that was the flesh of Titan, I’d likely go down right there. As the darkness hit me I turned into a living flame.
The fakes didn’t anticipate that.
Instantly, they jumped back in five different directions. I didn’t know their orders, but they wanted me alive. That posed a threat to their agenda. None of them was prepared for this. They could kill me, sure, I didn’t doubt that. Catching me alive while my body remained ephemeral as fire, was way harder, if not impossible.
I danced between them, wishing that Lotian remained unconscious. He would not lay down and watch me fight. Twice their liquid armor touched me and twice I heard the sharp hiss coming from the liquid, and in my mind, I heard a piercing scream. This fucking thing they wore was alive. What scared the shit out of me was the fact that I couldn’t gauge the flavor of their magic. I had no clue who they were, which Prime Power stood behind this attack.
I stood down, for a split of a second attaining my human form. It was bait. I needed to run, get some help. Where was fucking Saaron when I needed him? Another vomit-inducing thought hit me then. What if they came here because of him? What if Saaron had ordered them to come here, kill Verax for she knew too much, then grab me and Lotian and leave the mess for the Academy to sort out? He showed today that he didn’t work for Mirenne or Atrax.
It was my mistake. The notion that Saaron was capable of doing this, killing the woman that loved him, not to mention the dozens of the Dragon Soldiers who happened to be in the wrong place and time. Atrocious. Though they spared Rox and two elementals.
Learning from their mistakes, weapons appeared in their hands. Five blunt maces. Did they just have a change of heart or did they receive a new order?
One of the maces scuffed my arm. In an instant, the arm went numb. Except for the pain, I wouldn’t mind that. The bait failed and I changed back into the fire form, burning away the numbness. The killers hissed in fury seeing my elusive form.
Perhaps, I could escape, get some help, and even survive. Perhaps. But Lotian’s body on the charred floor shone like a beacon I couldn’t abandon. And I didn’t. I had no goal in mind, no ace in a sleeve, nothing that could see me and Lotian safely out of here
. The months in the Academy haven’t taught me how to fight against this sort of creatures. And so I stalled.
But their minds were sharp and saw through me too easily. Realizing they couldn’t catch me without harming, one of them crossed the chamber and lowered by Lotian’s body. The black forearm morphed turning the right hand into a sword. The tip of the black liquid-like blade stopped less than an inch from Lotian’s throat.
I jerked enraged, then reconsidered. Didn’t they know about the bond?
“I’m bonded with him. If you kill Lotian. I’m dead, too.” In the eyes of most strategists, being bonded to another person was a huge weakness. I gave no shit. I’d do anything to save my demi-dragons.
The five figures exchanged glances. I couldn’t tell if they saw each other’s faces but some kind of understanding bloomed between them. The swords shifted, moving to Lotian’s hand. And then the figure’s liquid helmet receded, revealing a handsome female. Blonde hair, spiked ears, chromatic eyes. She looked like a fairy but purer than any fairy in the Academy. Not even Ignelion or Vesalius Black were close in terms of blood purity to her.
“Snap out of the elemental form or I will sever his hands. It won’t kill him,” she sounded amused and mocking. I knew that the second I assumed a human form they would attack, but at that moment, I wasn’t in a position to negotiate.
I changed back and two maces grazed my arms right away. My arms dropped useless and numb. They didn’t waste time. Spells lifted Lotian’s body, others tied up his power in case he would wake up too early. One of them put cuffs on my numb wrists and momentarily I felt their draining effect. The only magical thing I was able to do, was to send a plea for help to Rebecca.
The attackers added another building block to my suspicion that they worked for Saaron as a secret door appeared at the back of the office. The blonde gestured and the liquid returned to her face, covering her mesmerizing eyes. They left Watermane, Oceania and Rox alive, though I sniffed a spell that blocked the entrance to the office.
The secret door led to a small black-bricked tunnel that quickly turned into natural gray rock and then even that faded away, leaving a mass of earth on all sides. The runes that held the place intact seemed weak. My mind returned to the conversation with Vesalius Black, and the later one with Nix. These runes needed a constant source of magical energy to function at their fullest potential. Cut it and they would eventually fade to nothing. If Perses was Saaron’s secret source of magic and these runes fed on him, it meant that the tunnel might collapse any moment. Fuck. I didn’t like the odds on this. At least we would take five fuckers with us.
At some point, the tunnel began widening until it eventually opened onto a large hollow cavern filled with stalagmites and stalactites. In the faint light of magical globes, it looked like the mouth of a giant monster.
“Who do you work for?” I asked, being bored and a bit more courageous after the long travel through the potential death trap. Being buried alive didn’t sound like a good way to go.
Obviously, they didn’t answer and even more obvious was that none of them had been here before. I was left by a natural column next to floating Lotian, while the four of them searched for the way up. From the distance, I could see that the cavern took a sharp turn upward.
Some time later, one of them returned, its helmed receded showing another fairy with chromatic eyes, the brunet spoke in a deep voice that didn’t fit his young age.
“Drillers and chimeras ahead.”
I shivered. I have heard legends about drillers. Earth worm-like creatures, thicker than a bus and thrice the length of a football field. I’ve never met a person who had actually seen one. Chimeras were a hit or miss. Some could be ignored due to their passive nature or no threatening abilities, while the others belonged to the deadliest caste of predators that walked on the surface of this planet. The issue here was you couldn’t know to which category a chimera belonged until it was too late.
The assassin, who was left to keep an eye on me, revealed his almost identical face to the one who has returned.
“Drillers we must avoid. What about the chimeras?”
The first one shook his head. “A mix of a snake, mole and bat. Mard surveys their abilities.”
“Hey, assholes,” I called. “I need a toilet.”
The twin brothers looked at each other, then snickered. “Pee in your pants.”
“I will pee on your head.”
They wrinkled their noses, making disgusted faces, but other than that I didn’t sense any hatred from them. Looking at them was hard to imagine that they’d killed people with cold blood.
“Humans,” one of them remarked.
“She has not a drop of that inferior race.”
“Inferior?” I snapped. Maybe I had no human blood, but humans were my friends and being a human was a proud thing. “I’d pick it any day over being one of you.”
Some retort brewed in their expressions, but the return of the blonde cut the intention out of their faces.
“Get ready, we are doing it the hard way.”
“When we fought a driller the last time?” a brunet asked.
“Wasn’t it when we disarmed that earth bitch?” the other answered.
“Yeah—”
“Gear up,” the blonde interrupted. “Keep an eye on the girl. She has the Titan’s blood in her. It may ease the beasts.” Ease the beasts? In what sense? Was I going to be sacrificed? That made no sense. Whatever they meant, it quickly became irrelevant as some of their words filtered through my thick skull. They said ‘earth bitch’, could it be? Did they stand behind Sol’s disappearance? I needed to know.
“What was the name of the earth bitch?” I asked, trying to sound curious but no too obsessed. I started to believe that they wouldn’t answer. But they simply waited for the blonde to move farther away.
“She goes by the name Gaia,” he smiled.
“Goes?” I could hear my heart hammer my chest. I was all too aware of the kind of sound my constricted throat could produce and so I kept quiet as much as I could. It hurt. It fucking hurt.
“No one kills Titans. It’s a waste of resources.” They bumped their fists together.
“We suck them dry instead.”
“Where … is she?” My voice betrayed me and the two fairies picked it up effortlessly.
“Did you know her? That’s a good one, Ara.”
“We must assure you then that she has suffered terribly and has been since.”
I screamed, my mouth frothed with curses and untampered anger. They stood too far to reach without breaking a leg on the uneven ground. The echo of my scream returned a few moments later and the cavern shook.
“The fuck is this?” one of the brothers asked.
I heard and felt the tremendous energy of spells that have been discharged in the farther part of the cavern. The other three kidnappers fought there. It could be my chance to break free and attack these two. Except, I didn’t know how to get out of this cave. There couldn’t be a straight path. Things never were that easy.
They rushed forward, and with them Lotian. I followed the last. My bare feet stepping on sharp stones and gravel. The light globes flew faster than I could keep up and so the ground ahead of me was carpeted in darkness.
The ground inclined and realized how freaking hard was climbing with power-draining cuffs and partially number arms. The effect of the weapons retreated reluctantly. I pushed harder, afraid of being left out as much as losing Lotian. Each step hurt and brought me closer to the source of booms and sharp hisses. They fought behind the ragged crest that cut across the cave. Several light globes floated in the air casting their, now, bright glow onto the thick sinuous bodies of what must be drillers. Three of them entwined each other, blocking the way ahead. Their bodies disappeared into walls on both sides. Their stop here caught the five fairies off guard.
�
�And now they tried to harm them with spells, except for a little detail. Drillers appeared to be resistant to magic. At least, the chimeras were gone. I knew I shouldn’t cheer up these murderers, but our lives depended on them.
Drillers occasionally twitched when a stronger spell has hit their thick earth-stained skin. The fakes were growing restless with the lack of progress. It made me smile a little.
The twin brothers left me and Lotian both behind and joined the fray. It was the opportunity, though I couldn’t determine what to do with it. Could we fight them? They beat two powerful water elementals as if they were nothing. These five fairies, assuming the two that haven’t revealed their faces were fairies too, showed formidable strength. They defeated Sol! Something I couldn’t comprehend. She was a Titan of Earth. Drillers shouldn’t be an issue for them.
I dropped on the flat rock that appeared to be relatively dry. The condensation in the cave was substantial, which I attributed to the fact that the Academy was located on the island and there was a chance we were beneath the bay. Just by imaging that the mass of the black cold water shifted above our heads, I felt chills creeping along my spine. I closed my eyes, banishing the horrifying visions.
I must have dozed off because when a sharp curse pulled me out of darkness, the five fakes shared something between them. From the distance of forty feet and poor light of the globes, it looked like food.
“We can’t return. By now the Pures have every room shaken and searched. If we are lucky, they will blame each other. But don’t get your hopes high. The Pures are careful. They won’t start a war without understanding the odds and being sure about her identity.”
My breath caught. Something concrete. If they didn’t work for either of the Pures, it left the angel. Why would Saaron side with an angel? But this fitted his confidence and strong position in the Academy. After sex with me and a subsequent lie to the director, he should have been removed.
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