by Lucia Ashta
“You don’t condemn twins as evil then?”
“There’s only one person I’m ready to condemn as evil at the moment. In time, we’ll discover all the truth we need to know.”
“I hope we do.”
“Oh, we’re beyond hope. We have something better.”
“What’s that?”
“We have faithum, we have strength, and we have a unity that Pumpoo tried very hard to strip from us. We’re a tribe, and now we can start acting like one, at all levels, for every one of our members.”
Dean was staring straight at me as he said it. He was bringing me into the fold of the Ooba people. He was all but promising me that I was about to become one of them, out in the open.
Which could only mean one thing...
I looked down. As we approached the cave’s opening, Shula put out her flame. But I could see all that I needed to see already.
I hadn’t noticed before in my gradual return to alertness. But Rosie was visible, in all her plump, red uniqueness.
And so was I. I looked battered and bruised, but very much not invisible. “What happened to me?” Awe took over any strength in my voice.
“You’re coming into your true self. There’s no more reason to hide who and what you are.”
I barely dared believe it, but I held my head high as we finally broke free of the cave. I stepped out into the bright light of the sun, low in the sky, ready to set. There I was, visible for all to see, beneath the rays of the golden sun.
Rane and Traya barreled toward me. Rane reached me first and almost took me down. Dean and Shula shot strong arms out to brace me.
“Holy crap, Anira” was all my twin said before Traya embraced me too. I sensed how much he wanted to say, but I also sensed he was overwhelmed—because so was I. Talking would have to wait. I released my arms from Dean and Shula and embraced first Rane, and then him and Traya together, with all the strength left to my shaken body.
I only released them when the sound of clapping rose around us. I looked out across the clearing to see nearly a hundred dragon tamers and charmers applauding me. They drew closer, and I grew rigid, even if I didn’t want to. A lifetime of experience was warning me to flee before they reached me, before I could really be seen.
But I drew on the strength of my brother and sister, and I didn’t allow myself to go anywhere. I tried to stand up fully as Rane announced, “Everyone, this is my sister, Anira.”
I thought maybe I should say something, but then, it didn’t matter. Hoots and hollers and clamors would have drowned out anything I could have come up with anyway. In the end, all I did was smile a shy smile while everyone clapped.
It was my first smile as a true member of the Ooba people. And there, beneath the rays of the sun and the fading smoke of the forest, I was very much a tribesperson. I sensed the strength of the ground supporting me, and the richness of the air caressing my battered flesh. I absorbed the heat of the sun and glowed beneath it, my caramel tones on display for all to see.
I smiled, and then I too hollered, declaring my power to my people and to the world around me.
I was Anira, an Ooba, and I was there to stay.
Invisible Rider
Dragon Force: Book Three
For my aunt, Susana,
who gave me what I needed when I needed it most.
I’m forever grateful.
Belief is the greatest power of all.
Chapter One
Shula set a relentless pace as she led nearly a hundred dragon charmers and tamers across the unknown. We ran as if we were escaping from dragons and our lives depended on our speed. But we weren’t actually running away from anything, we were hunting—and none of us wanted to risk our prey slipping away.
The former chieftain of the Ooba tribe, Pumpoo, who’d for years deceived his people, was particularly slippery. The Ooba had believed him their savior, when he’d turned out to be draining their life force to increase his own personal power. There was no guarantee we’d find him hidden among the shadow people, but it was our best bet.
If he wasn’t there, we’d hunt him down, across the vast stretches of Planet Origins, until we found him. His sins were unforgivable.
There was no path that connected the home of the Ooba to the shadow people, which none of us had known existed until Pumpoo escaped. We pounded across the trail Shula blazed ahead of us. Running wasn’t new to me, but running with multiple sets of eyes on me was. I could sense the looks and the speculations.
All the while I ran, my legs stretched impossibly long to keep up with the seasoned dragon forcers, who were tasked with protecting our people as much as the sacred beasts. Our pursuit wasn’t about punishing a man, who deserved everything we could unleash upon him—he’d transformed kind people into monsters—it was about preventing him from ever harming a single Ooba again.
We ran for our lives, for our safety, for the principles we held sacred.
Little about my life was settled, everything about it was in upheaval. I was a girl who’d always been invisible, until I met Dean, leader of the Dragon Force, and discovered an inner power I hadn’t realized I possessed. By a stroke of luck—or what Dean would probably call fate—I’d managed to join with the elite of the dragon charmers to stop Pumpoo. Rane, my twin, always my protector, ran next to me when there was enough space, when tree limbs and bushes didn’t narrow the path into nothing. Traya, my older sister, ran behind me. Even though she was slim and tall, I could hear her heavy breath as she struggled to manage her pace for the long haul.
“She’s doing great,” Rane said, his words clipped in time with his breath. He referred to Rosie, the dragon baby, who’d found me and had barely left my side since.
“She’s fully healed,” I said. She flew ahead of me. Her flight was clumsy compared to that of other dragons. Even though we hadn’t had the opportunity to study dragon babies before, already it was clear that Rosie’s body was what others might call deformed, and I liked to call unique.
“She’s keeping pace.”
“Better than I thought she’d do.”
“She has faithum,” Rane panted out before dropping back when the gap between the encroaching forest dwindled to nothing.
I ignored the grabbing limbs and plowed through. My arms and legs were covered with scratches, a few more would make no difference. If we managed to snag Pumpoo, none of this would matter.
Pumpoo had wanted Rosie for his experiments. He was convinced dragons possessed a connection to faithum, one he could somehow appropriate. I had every intention of exploring this connection, but not for my own purposes. The dragons had been special to the Ooba tribe since we first left the royal city of Origins and its tyrannical monarch. To us, dragons were sacred. There was more to that connection than our respect for them, and I intended to discover all there was about it.
But later; everything would have to wait. Nothing we might achieve would matter if Pumpoo was out there, plotting to wipe us out, after stealing our power. We’d never be at peace if we didn’t find him.
So when Dean called from behind for Shula to draw to a stop, I wanted to keep going. My lungs heaved, and my legs burned, but I would have run forever if that’s what it took.
Dragon charmers and tamers came to a stop as best they could, bumping into each other with pats to the back, before bending over to catch their breath. We might be taking a break, but it wouldn’t last long. Dean was as desperate to reach Pumpoo as any of us. Dean carried the weight of responsibility for the entire Ooba people, even if he alone decided it was his to carry; I was glad he did. I suspected every one of the hundred was glad. Dean was the leader Pumpoo should have been.
Dean’s voice came from far away at first. “Sit if you need to. We won’t be long.”
Many of the dragon forcers sat, but I paced and stretched instead. If I sat, I wondered how hard it’d be to find the strength to stand back up.
Rosie settled back on the ground, trying to crowd against my legs as she always d
id. I reached for her. “Sorry, girl.” My breath came fast. “I need to keep moving.” I patted her, but she wanted more. She started to whine. “Fine.” I didn’t sit, but I stopped moving, and she pressed against me.
Rane caught my eye. I smiled a small smile. “She’s a baby.”
“I know.” His hands were at his waist, and he paced back and forth, keeping his muscles moving. “It’s just... so strange... to see you.”
I wouldn’t receive any more eloquence than that while our breath came so heavy, but I understood all that he meant in those few words. “If it’s weird to you... imagine what it’s like... for me.”
He smiled, the expression reaching his dark brown eyes, making them twinkle. “I guess you’re going to... have to start primping.”
I scoffed. “You do enough for the two of us.”
Traya drew next to us and plopped on the ground at our feet. Her caramel-toned face was redder than I’d ever seen it, and her chest heaved as though it was about to break.
“You all right?” I asked.
She nodded, her eyes closing against the sun’s rays.
“You sure?” Rane asked. “You don’t look so great.”
Traya didn’t say a thing, which was a sure sign she felt as bad as she looked.
Rane and I shared a look. Rane was the fastest boy in the village, and I was his equal in nearly every way. We spent our childhood racing across the plains of the Ooba, him in the light, me in the shadows. Traya was long and limber, but she’d never had reason to run and give chase as we had.
Dean’s voice grew closer as he wove his way among the Dragon Force. He was checking in with his team, and when he reached us, I made eyes at him. I widened them and then looked pointedly at Traya. He laughed silently, mocking that I’d think it necessary to point out the obvious when the man missed nothing.
Staring me in the eyes, he announced, “Let’s take a longer rest. Catch our breaths. Get water, eat. We’ll move again in an hour.” Dean offered me a quiet smile. I nodded my thanks. He moved up the line to confer with Shula, I imagined. The woman was as fierce as Dean was, and as capable of leadership.
I took a seat next to Traya, and patted her thigh. Her muscles pulsed and twitched beneath my touch. I gave Rane another look, but there was little we could do to help our sister. He took a seat on her other side, and Rosie nestled into me.
I nuzzled her. “You’re doing a great job, Rosie girl. Flying like a big girl.” Her ability to fly had been a surprise. Her body was rounder and plumper than that of a normal dragon, and her wings much smaller. I didn’t think the proportions would work, but they had, and I was grateful. A dragon was only half a dragon if unable to fly.
“How’s her tail?” Traya asked, her eyes still shut. She always thought of others before herself.
“It looks basically healed. I can’t even see the line where it almost ripped off.”
“Good,” she said, and pushed herself up to seating. “What? Don’t look at me like that, I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine,” Rane said.
She glared at him. “Thanks for the sweet words, brother. What would a girl do without your encouragement?”
“Hey, I’m just worried about you.”
“Well, don’t bother. I’m fine.”
Rane and I exchanged another quick glance. Our sister wasn’t usually this testy.
“Is there a reason you think I can’t see the looks you’re giving each other? Because I’m right here, with two working eyes, you know. And now I can see Anira too.”
“How crazy is that?” I said. “After a lifetime of invisibility.” I still hadn’t managed to wrap my mind around that fact. For a time, I’d forget that I could see myself—that everyone else could see me too—and then the realization would crash down around me all over again.
“It’s amazing,” Rane said, “absolutely amazing. To think you were so beautiful all this time, gorgeous, and we didn’t even know it.”
I reached across Traya and shoved him. “You only say that because I look just like you.” I hadn’t been able to see it. We hadn’t come across any reflective surface yet, but they were all saying it—too much, in fact.
He shrugged. “Hey, I speak the truth. I can’t help that I’m gorgeous too.”
Traya laughed. “You two are incorrigible,” she said, and I thought the usual Traya was making a reappearance. But as her breathing slowed, she grew wistful. “Ma would love to see you, Anira.”
Rane put a hand on her shoulder. “She’ll see her. She just has to wait a little while.”
Traya didn’t say anything, and I realized what she must be remembering, mostly because I’d had to work hard to get the image from my mind—and there it was again. “She’ll be fine, you know. I asked Dean, and he said all the villagers returned to normal, even better, he said.”
“But did you see her?” she asked, and I assumed the images were looping through her mind as they were mine. “Did you see how terrible she looked? What Pumpoo did to her?”
“I saw, and I wish I hadn’t. Pumpoo did that to all of them.”
“I understand, but Mother? She didn’t deserve that. She does nothing but help us in the absence of Pa and Shean.”
“No one deserved what Pumpoo did,” Rane said. “That’s why we’re going to get him and keep him from doing it to anyone else ever again.”
“You think we’ll manage it?” I said. I hadn’t wanted to admit it aloud before, but the truth was that I was afraid. Now that I’d shown that I could tap into a good supply of faithum, I suspected that Dean and the rest of the dragon forcers were relying on me to do it again to take down Pumpoo. What I’d managed had been by chance. I had no idea if I’d be able to do it again. I wasn’t even sure if my visibility would be permanent. I didn’t understand what I’d done to change things, beyond what Dean suggested. According to him, I was stepping into who I really was, and so there was no more need to hide. It was a nebulous explanation. I chewed at a nail.
“We’ll manage it,” Rane said with a level of compassion that signaled to me that he was reading my energy. As twins, we’d always been able to sense things about each other no other could. “Dean and Shula know what they’re doing. It wasn’t only you who broke Pumpoo’s spell over the villagers, it was the elite charmers too. It’s not just on you to take down Pumpoo. We’re here with a hundred charmers and tamers. We’re not alone.”
“Then why do I feel alone?” As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted them.
“You’re never alone, you have Traya and me.” Rane’s words weren’t enough to cover up the flash of pain I’d caused.
“Aye, and how much risk are you in for being here with me?”
“It’s a risk I’d be taking with or without you.” This time, Rane’s words stung me, and I wondered if he’d meant them in retaliation for what I said. “I’ve known I’d be a member of the Dragon Force since Pa was.”
“And Pa’s dead. So is Shean. The work of the dragon forcer is dangerous.”
“And this is something you think I don’t realize? But you see how vital it is. If not for the dragon forcers, Pumpoo would still be in control of the Ooba.”
“When you interfered as I was streaming faithum or whatever, it almost killed you.”
“It did not.”
“You blacked out from the force of it.”
“As did you. What’s the difference?”
“The difference is that I caused it. You did it only to save me.” My argument was weak, I knew it, but I couldn’t get myself to back down yet.
“I did what I had to do, just as you did. You and I aren’t much different, Nir. Now that we can see you, we discover just how alike we are. We’re both doing what needs to be done, and there’s nothing that will change that. And now Traya’s doing the same.”
“I don’t want anything bad to happen to either of you.”
“Neither do I. So the best we can do is look out for each other, something we’ve always done.”
I didn’t say anything for a beat.
“Right?” Rane said. “You can’t take on the weight of it all on your own, Nir. That makes no sense and isn’t fair to Traya or me. We make our own decisions, we’re not just your little dragons trailing you around wherever you go. We’re here to make our own contributions.”
“I have no doubt about that,” I said, wondering what had happened that it now sounded like I’d been undervaluing them.
“Then don’t act like you’re the only important one here.”
“I’m not. I never—”
“You’re not the only one who can make a difference. So stop protecting me.” He pushed to his feet. “I’m going to find us water and food.” Then he stomped off.
“What’d I do?” I asked Traya, staring at the annoyed stance of my brother before he faded off into the forest that lined this particular patch of our path.
“You did what you always do,” she said.
I snapped my gaze to hers.
“You two always go at it like this.”
“No we don’t.”
“Nir.”
“All right, maybe we do, but he turned what I was trying to say into something else.”
“Again, you two always do that. He’ll be fine.”
“But I think I hurt him.”
“He’s a big boy, almost a man. He’ll get over it.”
But I didn’t want him to get over it. I wanted everything to be well. I was tired of trying to fix things without understanding how to fix them. And I had the niggling feeling that the worst of it was just beginning.
Traya studied me before saying, “Don’t worry, he won’t be long. Food and water is never too far away. When he returns, he’ll be back to normal.”
“What is normal anymore, Tray?”
She chuckled. “Who knows? Normal’s boring anyway.”
“What? You? You’re as normal as they get.” When her face started to fall, I backpedaled. “I mean, you’re just wonderfully perfect, all that I’m not.”