Mystic Dragon

by Jason Denzel

  “Great Mistress!” cried a woman, reaching for Shevia.

  A young man with severe burn scars on his face raced forward and dropped to his knees. “Heal me next, Great Mistress!” Tevon clubbed him on the back of the head and tossed him away from Shevia.

  Commoners stared and murmured, looking between Shevia and the ranger she’d healed. For two years, as the Oracle of Thornwood, Shevia had been one of the most acclaimed people in Qin, but during that time she had never known what it was like to receive adulation. It had always been a distant knowledge, told to her by other people, rather than through direct experience. Now several hundred pairs of eyes stared at her in amazement.

  “Great Mistress,” somebody begged, “tell us your name.”

  Bhairatonix’s gaze seared through her. Shevia kept her eyes on the ground. “I am nobody,” she said. “My master, the High Mystic, whose name is a song to our ears, has cleansed this man of his plague.”

  A hundred voices and more erupted at once, surging toward her. Shevia’s brothers hurled themselves in vain against the surging crowd of hands.

  “Heal me!” said a man.

  “Bless my child!” cried a mother.

  “Restore my eyes!”

  As the crowd came around her, Shevia saw Bhairatonix standing alone, forgotten.

  * * *

  That evening, back at Shenheyna, Shevia slipped into the first-floor washroom near the guest suites. Typhos followed her, carrying a wide basin of water and some towels. Their entrance caused the room’s lone candle to flicker, making the shadows dance like a tribe of mountain folk.

  The only other person in the room was the man she had healed from Yin-Aab. He sat on a high-backed chair with his back to her. He wore only a pair of ragged pants. His loose, long hair fell down his back.

  Shevia motioned for Typhos to set the basin down on a table resting against the wall. As he did so, she placed her Mystic staff against the wall and waited for her brother to leave. The door slid shut behind him, further darkening the room.

  The man hadn’t bothered to turn around at their entrance. Shevia’s gaze slid down his bare arms to the shackles chaining him.

  This was Bhairatonix’s hospitality.

  She had not wanted to see the man again. After what had happened in the plaza, the High Mystic had ordered her brothers to seize him and return to Shenheyna. Aside from that, Bhairatonix had spoken little of the incident other than to insist she “clean the filth from him.”

  Nervous tension clutched Shevia’s stomach. She stilled her nerves and stepped through the dim room to the table. The man looked at her sideways.

  “Your name?” he asked with that awkward accent.

  “You know more of me than I do of you,” Shevia said, not looking at him. “It is better if you speak and fill my ears with truth.”

  The silence stretched until she was unsure if the man had understood her words.

  “Called Sim, am I,” he said at last.

  With this small detail granted, Shevia allowed herself to study him. “Sim,” she echoed. “You are from Moth?”

  “Yah.”

  “I have been instructed to clean you.”

  The man named Sim rattled his shackles. “In chains?”

  Shevia walked behind him, relieved that he could no longer study her with those piercing eyes. It was strangely empowering to stand over a man who had no control over her. Ahg-Mein, Tevon, Bhairatonix. All men who manipulated her with intimidation and fear. But now the tides had shifted.

  Shevia reached a finger out and pressed into the back of the seated man’s shoulder. Such a small gesture, but it curled her lips in a smile.

  Freedom.

  No man would ever control her again.

  She gently tilted the man’s head back so that he was looking at the high ceiling. His long hair tumbled down. Shevia summoned a trickle of the Myst and floated the water basin toward her. It drifted smoothly through the air and hovered near her hands.

  She washed his hair in silence, glad that he did not find the need to speak. When his hair was clean, she reached into her silk robe and removed a small velvet pouch. Her heart thundered as she untied strings and withdrew a pair of shears. The blades were as long as her palm, and sharp enough to cut flesh. She snipped his hair away until its length was suitable for a commoner. He claimed to be a ranger, and therefore suited to the merchant-scholar caste, but he did not argue as she clipped it shorter.

  Next she trimmed his beard, before separating the shears into separate blades. She lathered his face with soap and shaved him clean. As she did, he opened his eyes.

  “Why?” he asked.

  Shevia continued to shave him.

  “Why?” he said again. “Why heal me?”

  “My master is a kind and wise Mystic who—”

  “No,” he said. “There is no truth in your … story,” he finished.

  No truth in your story. His awkward use of the Qina language resulted in a phrase that resonated with Shevia. His gaze bore straight through her, and she turned away, afraid he’d read her secrets.

  “You would have died,” she said.

  “I nothing to you,” he said.

  Shevia shifted the blade from his cheek to his neck. Sim stiffened.

  “Yah, you are nothing to me,” she said fluently in the Continental language. “I hold your life in my hands.”

  If he was surprised at her mastery of his language, he did not show it. “You won’t kill me,” he said in his native tongue. “You already had a chance. It would displease your master if you did.”

  Shevia’s eyes narrowed. “You do not know me.”

  “I see that you were broken,” he said.

  Her heart thundered. “How do you see that?” she said, but regretted it as soon as the words were out.

  “I’ve been broken, too.” He sat forward. “But I’ve been given a fresh start, in part because of you.”

  Shevia could not keep her hand from trembling.

  “You crave to be free of your master, don’t you?” he said. “That’s why you defied his order to kill me, and instead chose to heal me.”

  “You whisper lies in my ears,” she said.

  “Does he know how powerful you are?”

  The scent of sandalwood and holly filled the room. The Myst rose around Shevia. She wanted to burn this man alive, destroy him before he could tear her open further and pull out the secrets she so carefully hid away.

  “No,” she replied.

  The man named Sim nodded. “In the highlands, I came to the mountain where Sitting Mother lives. She revealed the silvery path that leads all true rangers. It led me to the place I could find healing. At first, I thought it led to your master, the High Mystic of Qin. But now I see that it led me to you.”

  The last words were a whisper, trembling across the dim room. Shevia forced herself to still her breathing. The room suddenly felt stifling.

  Sitting Mother.

  “My brothers will bring you clothes,” she managed. “Tomorrow you will begin your service to my master. In three weeks we leave for the island of Moth for an important gathering of High Mystics. You will accompany us.”

  This finally caused him to show surprise. Shevia used that moment to back away from him. She packed the shears into their velvet pouch and summoned her Mystic staff to her hand.

  At the door she stopped but dared not look back at him. “You were infected with the plague’s seed as a child,” she said, telling him the truth of the vision she’d had right before healing him. “But another Mystic came to you. He could not heal you. But he sealed the disease away. It could not hurt you, and so over time your body learned to keep its effects at bay. Then somebody healed you of a great wound. And when she did, the protective shell was shattered.”

  She waited for a reply, but none came. Shevia had only told him most of the truth from her vision. In every vision she’d ever received, she had witnessed a part of somebody’s future. But with this man, the young ranger from
the island of Moth, she saw no future.

  Without glancing back, Shevia left the room, trying to convince herself she was not fleeing.

  With her new power and confidence, she would never flee anyone again.

  TWENTY-ONE

  REBORN IN FLAME

  Shevia fled the chaos of the velten.

  An ocean of grassland surrounded her, but she hardly noticed. She ran as fast as she could, her lungs heaving like a blacksmith’s bellows. Nothing pursued her, yet she kept looking over her shoulder, fearful that something or someone would catch up. Pomella did not scare her. It was the unknown presence in Shevia’s life that she ran from. It was the secret she’d never dared to so directly face until now.

  It was her friend, who she’d always thought was Sitting Mother. But now Shevia knew her true name, spoken by the laghart wivan. The moment the creature had hissed it, a wave of energy had surged through Shevia’s tattoo. It was as though the serpent on her shoulder had heard its name and woken fully, and struggled to rip itself from her skin.

  Lagnaraste.

  The name roared in Shevia’s mind. She tripped over her Mystic staff and crashed into the knee-high grass. Gritting her teeth, she scrambled to her feet but stumbled again.

  Ahead of her to the west, rising above the mountains, the Mystic Star shone bright red, burning on her face as hot as the sun.

  Shevia clawed at her arms and face. “What are you?” she screamed.

  Her friend slowed her writhing and Shevia felt a soothing, calm sensation wash over her. Do not fear, the voiceless presence seemed to say.

  “Why do you consume me?” Shevia said.

  The valley and mountains and sky tore away from reality. Shevia burned as if surrounded by an inferno. The scent of sandalwood and holly mingled with the acrid taste of sulfur. Less than a heartbeat later the pain vanished. Surrounding her now was a world made entirely of silver. In a single moment she saw plants and trees rise and fall, animals grow and die and give way to their descendants. Whole generations cycled through an eternal ecosystem within a location she recognized. The Thornwood. No matter how time shifted, she would recognize those rolling hills anywhere, and would know the forest of bushes that blossomed and died in the same timeless moment.

  This was a vision, like the ones she’d had in her time as the Oracle. It was both a dream and the certain truth, layered together in a weave as elaborate as one of her mother’s formal gowns.

  As Shevia stared at the shifting landscape, a little girl, glowing silver, skipped down the hill toward the thorns. Shevia recognized herself in the girl’s face, although her hair and clothes trailed wispy smoke. She watched the apparition slip into the Thornwood and vanish. A chill crossed over her. Her younger self did not emerge. The Thornwood shifted, a girl’s scream echoed through the shrubs, and Shevia’s heart clenched. She knew what it meant. Like all her visions, the images she witnessed were not literal, but the meaning was always clear. Left alone, without her friend, that little girl would’ve died in the Thornwood.

  The world tore away again and now she was in her parents’ banquet hall, watching the silvery form of the fat merchant-lord Obai rise above her silvery body that lay on the table amid scattered dishes. His face was blank like a polished glass, without eyes or mouth or nose. Her faceless mother screamed as Obai drove a knife into Shevia’s chest.

  Another scream, another inferno of time.

  The looming figure of Bhairatonix, face as blank as the others, hurled her across his secret laboratory onto the cold stone lair. Shevia watched as he picked her up by the hair and then shoved her against the far wall like a canvas sack.

  Again and again Shevia witnessed her own death, and every time the message came through, wordless and clear: You live because of me. Alone, you are fragile. Together, we are mighty. I love you, as though you were my own.

  The inferno of imagery flickered out, and with it, the visions vanished. Shevia’s whole body shuddered. She wrapped her arms around herself. She understood that she’d come to a crossroads in her life. But the path before her wasn’t simple; it seemed more like she’d come to the edge of a cliff, leaving her only with the options to slink back to the safety of land or join the being that ruled her by leaping from the ledge.

  The choice was hers. Her whole life, Shevia had done the bidding of others. Her life was not her own. Until now.

  Her voice trembled as she voiced the question she’d been too terrified to ask for years. “Why did you choose me?”

  The presence soothed her, stroking her mind as gently as a mother cradled a newborn. Anger boiled within Shevia. She pulled at the Myst, commanding it to gather to her like a queen summoning her armies beneath the banner of the Mystic Star.

  She lifted her Mystic staff and punched it to the ground. “Why me?”

  The grass around her erupted in flame. She tightened her grip on the staff and the flame roared higher. She would have her answers or she would incinerate the whole valley. Whether she burned with everything else or not did not concern her. “I will have my answers, Lagnaraste!”

  Come to me, and you will have them, the voiceless being whispered.

  Since childhood Shevia had thought of the presence within her as her friend Sitting Mother and now a being with the name Lagnaraste. What was the truth? Perhaps they were both true.

  Regardless of her name, she had never let Shevia down before. Through her power and guidance, Shevia had found the strength to break away from Bhairatonix.

  If she rejected Sitting Mother now, everything she’d gained would vanish. Bhairatonix would hunt her down and break her completely. But by embracing Sitting Mother, Shevia could overcome her master when he inevitably came for her, but at what price?

  She set her jaw. Never again would she be powerless.

  “So be it,” Shevia said.

  In response, a crawling sensation crept across Shevia’s arm. She held it up and caught her breath. The serpent tattoo walked along her skin, stretching as it moved. Scaled foreclaws flexed as though digging into her skin and pulled the rest of its body forward. Shevia rolled her arm and tried to glance at her shoulder as the serpent twisted across her back, chest, and arms. The back and sides of her neck burned as the serpent sought fresh skin.

  With every inch that the serpent took, more power flooded into her. Her spine burned as the searing heat of the Myst took over her body. She arched her back and gaped at the sky, arms spread wide. The wind tore at her dress and hair.

  The story that Grandmaster Faywong had told her of the ancient dragons resonated within her. It triggered dormant memories Shevia never realized she had. Memories of another time, another world, where the skies and land were united and ruled by great serpents embodying the Myst. Centuries had passed since the last dragons roamed the land. But now, wreathed in a nest of fire, she would at last be reborn.

  “Shevia?” came a hesitant voice from nearby.

  The trance ripped away from Shevia like old sackcloth. For several heartbeats, the world spun around her. She touched her forehead to steady her vision but couldn’t remain upright. She stumbled, still not quite remembering where she was. But rather than hitting the ground, she fell into strong arms that smelled of leather and the dusty road. She opened her eyes and Tibron’s blurry face coalesced in front of her. Two other figures—her brothers?—drifted behind them. They were speaking, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  “Are you well?” Tibron said.

  Shevia nodded, and Tibron lifted her easily to her feet.

  Tevon strode forward, and in the dim light Shevia could see the rage playing across his face. Memories of her childhood flashed to her mind as she recalled the eldest triplet’s temper. Behind him, Typhos watched with intense focus. His hand rested near on his belt, beside his sword.

  “Whatever game you play at, Sister, you disgrace yourself and our family,” Tevon said.

  “Leave her alone,” Tibron said. “She’s not well.”

  “By the ancestors, sh
e’s not well!” Tevon yelled. “She’s not a child any longer. You can’t protect her.”

  Tibron held his ground. “I believe, as a ranger in service to a Mystic, it is my duty to protect her.”

  “Then you’ve forgotten your duty to your family!” Tevon snapped.

  “I can speak for myself,” Shevia said.

  “You attacked a grandmaster and another Mystic,” Tevon said. “Where is your mind at?”

  Shevia’s skin warmed from the power still within her. “Keep your questions behind your teeth,” she said.

  Tevon straightened. “You may be a Mystic, but your actions reflect on us.”

  “I am a Mystic,” Shevia said with searing intensity. “I stand above you and your family.” She spit the last word.

  Like lightning from a clear sky his hand struck at her.

  Shevia did not flinch or blink. Her brother’s intended slap halted mid-swing, inches from her face. Tevon’s expression changed from surprise to fear as he tried to retrieve his hand, but it did not move.

  “Really, Brother?” Shevia said. “Am I still a little girl you can beat whenever I say something your delicate ears cannot stand? Do my years and power and rank mean nothing to you now? Who disgraces the family now by attempting to strike a Mystic?”

  “Sister,” Typhos said, his hand now wrapped around the hilt of his sword. He so rarely spoke that it was a surprise to Shevia to hear his voice. He managed to make his single word seem like a plea.

  Shevia ignored Typhos and kept her attention focused on Tevon. His palm remained just a breath from her cheek. “How many slaps did I receive by this hand?” she said. “One might wonder where you learned such manners. Perhaps you deserve pity because that’s all you learned from Mother and Father.”

  Her skin warmed as the Myst radiated from her. She could feel it reflected back to her from Tevon’s palm. “Poor, poor Tevon. Do you bully your sister because Mother hurt you? Did you become a culk because they were? Is that the family you choose to honor?”

  “Sister, I—” Tevon stopped and stared at his hand. “What are you doing? It burns. Shevia—”