by Halie Fewkes
“I’ve been wondering, Allie, what in the world happened to your hair?”
I grimaced. “Goodnight,” I said, heading to Liz’s room rather than my own. I needed to make sure Liz was alright before I went to bed to face my own emotional firestorm, but I only found her door blocked shut with all sorts of junk.
“Can I come in?” I asked her. When I heard a small moan of agreement, I pushed past the barrier. Lying on her bed with the blanket pulled over her head, not moving or making any sound, she stirred when I sat next to her. From under the covers I heard her mutter, “Everything’s over.”
I felt the same inside, but in seeing her suffer, I gained the strength to disagree. “Everything isn’t over,” I told her.
“Everything’s over,” she repeated. I heard her relapse into sobs and I rubbed her shoulder through the blankets. A part of me wished I could be out escaping from Escalis again, rather than comforting my sister as she sat up with puffy red eyes. I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t good at this.
“It’s my fault,” she said, her lip quivering on the brink of more sobs.
I put a hand on her shoulder and told her, “Liz, there’s no way this is your fault.”
“It is. You were putting yourself in that danger because I wanted the old you back, but I didn’t want this. I never want you to risk yourself again. I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose you too.”
Unexpected and unannounced, the door opened and Leaf entered, shutting it softly behind himself. I couldn’t imagine why he had shown up, but he had brought a tiny red dragon with him. He crossed the room, set the dragon on Liz’s lap, and jumped up on the bed between me and her. He wrapped his little arms around her as Liz hugged him back and just cried. The baby dragon nuzzled against her tummy, then released a contented cross between a squeak and a sigh before curling into a sleepy ball in her lap.
Everything stayed that way for a while. Liz held Leaf as though he was the only thing left in the world, and Leaf didn’t seem to mind. After a little while, Liz quieted down again and even let a laugh escape as the baby dragon hiccupped and choked on a wisp of smoke.
“He isn’t gone until you let go of him,” I heard Leaf tell her.
“No, Leaf, he’s gone,” Liz said, wiping her eyes.
“We’ll get him back someday. You’ll be the one to find a way, unless you lose hope. Losing hope is always the first step in losing everything.”
Liz and I both looked at him in surprise. I never expected to hear something so meaningful come from little Leaf. “I think he’s right,” I said, meeting Liz’s gaze.
“Yeah,” she hiccupped too. “Maybe he is.”
I stayed for hours before retreating to my room, giving Liz time to process the situation alone. I tied my annoyingly short hair back before bed because it bothered me. Every part of me was tired, and I still felt sick from seeing Liz in such a state.
My pre-sleep thinking time that I usually valued so highly was nothing more than distressing. If I wasn’t thinking about the Escali, I was thinking about West. Thoughts of West put me back in Liz’s room. I refused to cry, but a few stray tears did find their way down my face. It was strange to know he might still be alive and we would all have to hold on to hope.
I barely managed to fall asleep and only slept for a few restless hours before I woke to the faint sound of my door clicking shut.
Chapter Sixteen
That was what I thought it was, at least. I snapped my eyes open and listened intently, yet all was silent. Even if a monster loomed over me, I wouldn’t be able to see it. Why was there no light? Oh great, I hadn’t lit the fire. Getting up in the morning for sparring was going to be a bear.
I let my heart slow its pace as I realized I had probably been dreaming. Why had a dream scared me so badly?
I heard something again, a small shuffle next to my bed. My abruptly woken muscles wanted to freeze and play dead rather than face the unknown intruder, but I reached slowly and silently for my short swords on the ground next to me. My fingers brushed against a sheath, and I reached my other hand silently around to take the sword out without being detected. My bed made the tiniest squeak as my weight shifted, and that was when I heard a growl very close to me.
Somebody grabbed my wrists to keep me from getting to my short swords and a second person had a hand over my mouth before I could scream. I tried to break free by jerking my whole body to the side, but they were far too strong to squirm away from. Then I felt something brush against my shoulder that meant it was all over.
Arm spikes.
“Quit moving!” one of the Escalis hissed. I felt a blade come into gentle contact with my neck and I froze, struggling to take short breaths through my nose and stay calm enough to think.
“Let’s kill her now.” This second whisper was interlaced with a growl.
“Not until she tells us how they got out of the Breathing Sea.” I recognized this terrifying sharp voice as the Escali from the bridge — the more lithe of the two monsters who kept tormenting my life. “And I have other questions for her.”
Well I didn’t have any answers! I caught them by surprise this time as I jerked my pinned arms in front of my face and rolled to the side, straight off the bed. The sword cut into my neck, but it wasn’t deep. The grip the Escali had on my wrists had been relaxed enough to yank free, and I was away from them as soon as I hit the ground.
“She’s mine!” a snarl came from the more aggressive of the two.
I backed up to where I knew my wardrobe stood and squeezed in next to it to hide. Where were my short swords? I needed something to defend myself with! I hoped they could see as little in the dark as I could, because knowing the layout of my room was my only advantage. I considered screaming again, but I couldn’t bring myself to let them know where I hid.
“She can tell us later!” The Escali searching for me grabbed me by the shoulders and threw me with his unnatural strength into the wall.
I screamed but found myself back in my bed. The two were on either side of me now as I thrashed and threw my covers off, bolting upright.
“Allie! Calm down!”
“You’re alright!”
These voices were different and I froze to snap my head to either side. Terry on my left. Michael on my right. My neighbors.
“It was just a dream,” Terry said. “We’re the only ones here.”
“No no no, not a dream,” I said, swinging my feet off the bed and standing up to check around my room for danger. Everything looked the same as when I had gone to bed, but it couldn’t have been a dream. It had been too real for that. Unless…
“You scared us both to death,” Michael said, his hands shaking in his night clothes.
“It was the thistleweed fever,” I replied, sitting back onto my bed. “It all looked so real. It must have been because I was asleep.” My thoughts were disjointed from the confusion and rude awakening, but I knew the fever must be to blame. “I’m so sorry.”
I could see both of their relief that I wasn’t being attacked. Terry asked, “Do you want us to stick around for a little while?”
“No, I think I’m alright,” I said, finally feeling embarrassment creep into my cheeks. “Thanks for the offer though. And thanks for coming to help me. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”
After they left, I lay back down and took a deep breath, the thrill of fear still fresh in my chest. When I finally began to doze off, my dreams were strange and vivid. The Escalis dragging me outside, a fight between them and a group of others, a horrible black falcon, teeth biting into the back of my hand, running, stumbling, back to the Dragona’s caves. They wanted what I knew, and I knew for a brief moment what they wanted. The dream-Escalis forced me to drink something horrible and burning, and I sat straight up with another shriek.
This time only Terry came to my room to make sure I was alright. I wasn’t alright. “It was real,” I told her. “I know it was real. I need you to take me to Anna.”
“Allie, you just had
the thistleweed fever,” Anna said as the wakeup trumpet began to sound through the hallways. “I’m sure that’s all it was. You’re still recovering.”
“I know I had it, but I hadn’t seen anything weird all evening. And I’m telling you, this was real. Look at this!” I held my hand up, where teeth had ripped into the back of it. The marks they left were in the shape of a symbol, one that looked strangely like it said Everarcs.
“Allie, they’re teeth marks. You have teeth. I know you’re afraid right now, but this doesn’t mean anything. The Escalis don’t know where the Dragona is, and have even less knowledge about how to get inside.”
I tried to argue my point to her. We had just had the Eclipsival at the Dragona, and the Escalis had surely seen, heard, and smelled exactly where we were. When Anna told me we had mages keeping an eye out for the Escalis all through the Eclipsival, I reminded her of the Escali who had just found me down by the lake. When she called that a fluke and reminded me that he was now dead, I left.
This was horrible. The Escalis definitely knew where the Dragona was. Anna needed to take that seriously! Who else could I talk to? Sir Darius?
The details of my dream started to slip back to me through the emptiness. Somebody had helped me. I couldn’t remember who, but I just had a nagging suspicion it was Archie. With no evidence whatsoever, I was convinced.
He had brought a group with him too, so he must have known of the danger ahead of time. I knew I shouldn’t be back to my theory that he was an Epic, but I was. Premonition was just one more power he had used that I needed to add to my growing list.
It even made sense with Sir Avery’s resentment of Archie. These family issues Archie spoke of were probably just father and son issues. What could Archie have possibly done to become so estranged?
My feet carried me unthinkingly to Sir Darius’s study, and I pounded on his door, which he opened in the midst of pulling on a warm cloak.
“I was just about to leave, Allie. We can talk later.”
“Wait, I just have one question,” I said, as he grabbed a bag from the nearest table.
“Anna has already told me of your suspicions. We can talk later.”
“Then I just have one thing I need to ask. When you recruited Archie to come to the Dragona, where did he come from?”
Sir Darius scowled as though I wasted his precious time. “You’re asking the wrong person. Anna was the one who brought Archie to the Dragona. Not me.”
Sir Darius leapt into the air, and I flipped around in the direction of Archie’s room. I hadn’t misheard anybody. Archie had, without any doubt, told Anna that Sir Darius had recruited him. And apparently vice versa as well.
This needed to end. Either Archie needed to tell me what was going on, or I needed to involve Anna and Sir Darius to find out.
I heard running footsteps behind me and whipped around in paranoia, only to see Liz. “Come on, we need to talk,” she said, leading me off.
“Where are we—”
“Shh. We’ll talk in a minute.”
What I think Liz actually meant to say, was we need to walk, because she took me straight to my room without another word. I sat down on my bed as she closed the door, and I motioned for her to go ahead. She had my full attention.
Liz tried several times to say something, but never made it past one word before deciding there had to be a better way to say it.
“I…” She sat next to me. “I listened in on one of Anna’s conversations, and I heard what you told her.”
“I know it sounds crazy, but it was real, Liz.”
“And I believe you, but that’s what I’ve come to talk to you about. See, I need to warn you about something.” She stumbled on her words, nervous to say them. I moved over to sit with our shoulders touching, giving her encouragement.
“Calm down Liz. It’s all ok,” I said, although I could feel my own breath increasing in anticipation.
“Anna is worried you might be right. What if it really was the Escalis and not the thistleweed fever?”
“She doesn’t believe me,” I said, noticing Liz shaking.
“She just doesn’t want to believe you.” Liz threw her arms down and declared, “They’re going to run a blood test on you and hope you’ve still got a hint of the fever. There.”
“Hey, that’s not too bad,” I said, so relieved that I had to let a laugh escape. “You scared me, Liz! From the way you were talking, I thought something horrible was coming.” I stopped talking when I saw sympathy in her eyes mixed with horror across the rest of her face.
“Do you know what a blood test is?” she breathed.
“No.”
She held out her hand and pushed the sleeve back to reveal the skin of her forearm. Several deep scars ran from her wrist to her elbow.
“They take a knife, Allie, and they run it all the way up your arm,” I could feel the color draining from my face, “they have a mage who can tell exactly what’s in your blood, but they won’t tell you what’s happening until it’s over.” She quickly looked up to see my reaction and it was apparently what she expected. Mortified.
“I’m sorry,” she continued quickly, “it’s just that the first time they did it to me, they just grabbed me from behind, and I was so scared. I thought they were going to kill me.”
I lost myself in thought for a few seconds, which Liz broke with more talk.
“Please don’t be mad at me. I had to warn you—” she trailed off mid-sentence as I pulled her into a hug.
“I’m not mad at you. Thanks for telling me.”
She looked around nervously. “Just please don’t tell anyone. I’m dead if they find out I told you. In fact, I’m dead if they find out I was listening outside the door.”
I laughed. “I won’t tell, I promise.” She hugged me back and then jumped off the bed.
“I guess I’ll talk to you later then,” she said, appearing confused as to whether she should be sad or happy. “Have a good life.” She was out the door and gone before she had to decide.
Great. Just great.
I got lost trying to find my way to Archie’s room, only to find it empty, and nobody in the Wreck had seen him. I didn’t know what to do with myself.
Leaf. I would go visit him. He wouldn’t be the one to surprise me with this blood test, and maybe he could take my mind off the situation. I crawled out of the Wreck entrance and set off toward the hatchery, ready to draw my short swords at the first sign of an Escali.
Of course I wanted to know whether I had imagined the Escalis in the Dragona, and I was immensely glad Liz had forewarned me of the blood test, but that knowledge couldn’t get rid of my anxiety. They could at least warn me before they cut my arm open! How stupid. All of this was stupid. Stupid Escalis, stupid war, stupid magic—
“Hey Allie, are you ok?” Archie was unexpectedly next to me, matching my fast pace. I was glad to see him, because I was getting my answers. Right now.
“No, I am not. Archie, last night with the Escalis, you were there, weren’t you? You helped me?”
He searched my face, probably to guess at how much I knew, then said, “Yes.”
“What happened?” I exclaimed. “How did you know they were coming?”
“I… Listen, I need to tell you something.”
I had never seen Archie so nervous. He kept glancing about and didn’t walk with his usual light step.
“You should have more than one thing to tell me!”
“I do…” Archie took precious time to find the right words as we walked, making me want to explode as the trees began to thicken around us.
Wait, I didn’t even know where we were going! What was I doing, walking alone with this stranger? Did I even know anything true about him?
Archie was just as entangled in thought as Liz had been, so he didn’t notice as I stopped. A gap grew between us as I thought quickly.
We were somewhere close to the lake and definitely out of earshot of everyone back home. From a pile of rocks near m
y feet, I reached down and withdrew one weighty conversation starter. Here went everything!
I hurled it at him, and two things happened at once that finally made sense. First, the rock stopped just short of hitting him as it rebounded off an invisible barrier — yet another power for my now undeniable list. Secondly, I startled him into snapping around in an instinctually defensive stance, his teeth bared in a snarl.
This wasn’t Sir Avery’s son.
He was Prince Avalask’s.
Everything from time to my beating heart instantly stopped. Neither of us moved. Neither of us spoke. The entire forest had been muted, except for the one snapping twig I heard behind me, where I had just come from, accompanied by the very quiet and controlled breath of a predator. The next time my heart beat again, it was only to pump fear through my veins, just to make sure I knew my beloved life had reached its conclusion.
The only direction I could dash was toward the lake. The only movement Archie made was a tiny shake of his head while his eyes told me, don’t do it.
Of course, I bolted. I had to hurdle a moss eaten log, scramble up a crumbling embankment, and tear through a thicket of briers, all without any plan. Ok, I would get to the lake, stand with the water behind me, so nobody could get me from behind, pull out my short swords, and try to defend myself.
I wasn’t nearly there yet when another Escali simply stepped in front of me. No way was I fast enough to veer around him, and I skidded through a pile of rotting leaves in my attempt to change direction.
Archie collided with me from behind and I tried to throw him off. He grabbed both of my short swords and discarded them, a betrayal that stung like the death of another friend. He wasn’t about to let me go anywhere, and attempted to pin my arms to my side, saying, “Allie! Listen to me. I promise you’re going to be—”