by Jada Fisher
We were quite high up, I counted at least seven different staircases that we traveled down. I had thought that the mansion of the pro-human dragons in my world was massive, but this was a literal castle, and it was far from ancient. In fact, guessing from the familiar construction materials, and the fact that it wasn’t cold and drafty, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had built this shortly after their takeover.
When we finally stopped on a floor and headed toward a room in the middle of the corridor, there were still staircases leading down. Were we even remotely near the floor level? Or did this castle have some sort of super bunker underground? Did dragons even need a bunker? They were kinda like walking bunkers, weren’t they?
They pushed the doors open and I was greeted by a library even bigger than the one from my reality. It definitely was intimidating, but it lacked the sort of welcoming aura, that friendly sense of wonderment, that had made the first one so impactful.
“So, where’s the ‘secrets of our elders’ section?” I asked, putting my hands on my hips and facing the guards like I wasn’t scared for my life.
“These are all of our ancient texts. You job is to search through them.”
I looked at the massive shelves lining the walls, then the freestanding ones other than that. I could read ten books a day and not even clear one of the massive structures. “I’m supposed to do this on my own?”
The same one that had spoken before raised his eyebrow. “Aren’t you a seer? Just fortune tell your way to the right book.”
I rolled my eyes. “It doesn’t work like that, but thanks for your ever-so-helpful input.”
He shrugged, and they all moved to stand around the door, window, and any other escape points. Like I would ever try to run away now. My friends and my sister were depending on me.
I walked a full circuit around the massive room, wasting precious minutes, and I felt my adrenaline start to ramp up. This was no good. I needed to be calm and collected, I needed to visualize my success, or something like that.
Before I worked myself up into a stressed little ball, I forced myself to stop and breathe. Maybe that guard had a point. Ever since we had arrived and our following run from the hounds, I had been missing my sort of sixth sense that I had been relying on much more than I realized as of late.
Sitting on the floor, I crossed my legs, closed my eyes, and narrowed my concentration to only my breathing. In, and out. In, and out. Count of seven. Count of seven.
Emptying my head was never easy, and I supposed it was never truly devoid of thought, but if I slowed down enough, I could sometimes manage at least a dull roar instead of the roiling maelstrom that normally was my mental landscape.
I reached deep inside of me, wrapping my fingers around whatever it was that bound me to my past, my present, and my future. Slippery and undefined, it squirreled around in my grip, climbing through me until I almost felt like myself. Then, once I was fully imbued, I slipped down into the pool of swirling purple.
“So, tell me about your latest episode.”
Wait, what? I blinked several times, and realized I was in a therapist’s office. It was threadbare and fluorescently lit, which told me it was one from my earlier years, back when my sister and I were wards of the state.
Why was I here? That wasn’t what I was reaching for. I wanted to go forward, not back!
But that was exactly where I was, and before I could pull myself out of it, my mouth was moving, and I was speaking the words little Davie had said all those years ago.
“I was in math class, and then suddenly I wasn’t. I was standing on a grassy hill, surrounded by at least a hundred people. I was speaking some sort of strange language. It made me feel kinda sick to my stomach.”
“These people, did you know them?”
“No. They were all…strange.”
“Strange? Strange how?”
“I dunno. They were human, kinda. But also not.” Geez, little Davie, read a fantasy book, huh? But even as I ribbed my past self, I could feel her emotions returning to me. I had been so scared. The things I saw were often terrifying, and when I came out of them, people didn’t treat me very well either. I had just wanted to be normal, to not have my messed-up hand and arm perpetually wrapped in gauze, or a sister who was still in the hospital because her burns were over too much of her body to risk infection in the outside world.
“Can you describe it more clearly?”
I didn’t answer for several moments and I wondered if I had suddenly gotten control of my mouth again, but then I was speaking. What a strange sensation to be in my body, and yet have a different me, a past me, controlling it.
“I…think.” A shuddering breath. “The skies are grey, I don’t know if its smoke or storm clouds. The faces of everyone are…upset. Scared. Some are determined. No one is happy.
“It’s tense. I’m tense. I’m holding a book and the words are all blurring. I can’t read them.”
“What does the book look like?”
“What?”
I looked at the therapist again to find that he was no longer there. Instead, it was me. Well, a copy that looked like modern me, but she was wearing a full suit, with her hair up in a bun and glasses on.
“I said, what does the book look like, Davie?”
Abruptly, I could control my mouth again, and instead of being young me, scared and lost in a big world that didn’t make sense, I was myself. …scared and lost in a big world that made a cruel sort of sense.
“I…I don’t know.”
“Close your eyes. Concentrate. Feel it in your hands. Put yourself back on that hill with all of those scared faces.”
She was so intense, I did what she asked automatically, but instead of feeling like seven plus years since I had that scene force its way into my head, it felt like yesterday. Yet a vision inside of a vision seemed a little farfetched.
Oh well, I supposed it wasn’t the craziest thing to happen to me, so I let myself slip right back into it.
…
I was on the hill, dressed in clothing that spoke of sorcery and the arcane, but ripped to shreds and burned like an action movie. My hands were shaking, and I could feel desperation tinging every word out of my mouth.
Just like before, words came out of my mouth that weren’t English, but unlike when I was a child, I could feel the rise of energy within me. Coiling and churning, it coalesced into a circle in front of me. It was trying to do something, but I didn’t know what, until a strange sort of tug tried to yank me forward.
Oh. My. God.
I was trying to open a portal. Little me had seen it all those years ago but never knew what it was. How many of my terrifying nightmares had been warnings of what was to come?
I had no idea, but I couldn’t waste much time pondering that. My mind went to the book in my hand. That was the answer.
I couldn’t see the cover, but the edges were all leather-bound in a tawny-colored material. There was a teal, decorative binding all around the edges, and the papers were already an aged yellow.
I wished more than anything that I could turn the book over, but the vision wasn’t letting me change what happened. It was just a video, that I could smell, taste, and feel. So, I concentrated on my fingertips, what they could make out, what sensations they provided. There was embroidery on the cover, tight-stitched and soft to the touch. There were different textures to it at well, not that I knew what that meant.
I tried to use all of my power to change the vision, but it was already slipping away from me. The words of whatever spell I was chanting faded, and I was left sitting in the therapist’s office, staring at a professional version of myself.
“Did you see it?” she asked, looking at me far too intently.
“Yeah,” I answered, standing up. “I know what to do.”
I fell back into my body so hard that I nearly lost my breakfast. It took several seconds of even more breathing and staring at the ceiling before I got control of myself again. Of course, once I d
id, I realized that I couldn’t have been staring up at the ceiling if I was still in the position I had started in.
A strong rock to my side told me that I wasn’t, and that I had somehow ended up laid out on the floor. Wow, I didn’t think any of my visions had ever done that to me before, but then again, that was before this vision inside of a vision baloney.
I sat up, my head pounding slightly, and it was only then that I noticed the guards had all gathered around to watch me. Hah, I wonder if their little hearts had almost exploded when they saw me pass out, wondering if they had just killed the prince’s new favorite pet.
But, as fun as it was, I couldn’t dwell on that. I had that vision for a reason, and it was to find exactly what I needed.
Stumbling to my feet, I just walked. I didn’t try to think of where, or why. I just let my body move, and it did. Slowly, shakily, it led me to a random shelf, not too close to the entrance, but not tucked into the back either. One that didn’t stand out from any of the others around it.
My hand came up, traveling across the tomes, feeling for that same sensation I’d had in the vision. I let all of it flow over me like water, not holding onto stimuli, just letting them rush. Until my fingers hit it, and all of the feelings from the vision surged through me again.
My eyes snapped open and I grabbed the tome that my fingers were on. Looking it over, I saw a beautifully embroidered image of a lake and a tree growing directly out of the center of the water. It looked like it had taken ages to make, and no doubt years of skill, but that hardly mattered over what was inside.
Hastily, I flipped it open, hoping for the whatever that powered me to have me magically open to the most useful spot, but instead, I ended up on what I guessed was the table of contents.
And I say I guessed, because it wasn’t in English.
Well of course it wasn’t in English! I had seen as much in my vision, but I guess that I had hoped it would somehow be translated…
I sighed and marched over to the closest guard. Shoving the book into his face, I pointed to the words. “You. What does this say?”
But she just gave me a ‘really?’ expression and shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Now that I hadn’t been expecting. “Wait, you can’t read this?”
“Was that point not communicated to you in my previous sentence?”
I ignored the barb and shoved the book into the next guard’s face. “What about you?”
“I’ve never seen any example of that language before.”
“Are you kidding me?!” I cried, throwing the book across the room. Except the room was so large that it didn’t really make it across the space. “I found the one book that might be able to help us and you’re telling me it’s unreadable?”
“Seems like it.”
I let out a frustrated cry, marched over to the book, and took it to the guards at the door. “You two. Find someone who can read this or at least tell me what language it is, or your prince isn’t going anywhere. Capisce?”
They exchanged looks and I was so over this camaraderie the dragons shared. I just wanted to rub their smug faces in something gross and stinky. But after nearly half a minute, they nodded to each other and one of them headed out.
I went back to the table and opened the book, staring at the words like they would mean something to me. Maybe, if I was exceptionally lucky, they would magically just translate themselves with some sort of seer magic.
Then again, when had I ever had luck like that?
10
In All Actuality, Assigned Partners are the Worst
I was starting to get a headache before the door opened and the guard marched back in. I wasn’t quite sure what or who I had expected them to bring, but it certainly wasn’t Baelfyre, dressed more casually, but still incredibly fashionable and opulent. I didn’t even know that was a possible combination, but he was somehow pulling it off.
“I hear you needed my assistance?” he asked, strolling forward as if this were some leisurely conversation and I wasn’t his prisoner.
“I don’t know. Are you some sort of linguistics guru who knows what this could be?” I held up the book so that when he reached me, he could take it from my hands. Which he did, turning over pages with a bored expression.
“Huh. What a curious book you chose. Out of all of the ones here, what led you to this?”
I didn’t feel it was necessary to explain that whole situation, so I rolled my eyes. “Seer, remember? It comes with the territory.”
“Right, of course.”
He handed the book back to me, and I set it down on the table to open it back up. But the next thing I knew, something gripped the top of my head and my face was slammed down into its binding.
I tried to groan, but my body froze when I felt breathing right by my ear. “Listen, the prince may find your bravado amusing, but I am far less gracious than our reigning royal. You will treat me as a lowly, worthless slave should treat a master, and that will be that.”
His grip in my hair loosened ever-so-slightly, so I turned my head just enough that I might look in his eyes. Despite being the same as the Baelfyre from my dimension, they were still quite different. Like the malice and contempt within them had been allowed to go unchecked and unhidden for far too long.
“Are you sure the prince would appreciate you manhandling the lynch-pin to his entire plan?”
“He needs you in working order, not unscathed, and I’m sure there’s plenty of punishments you could endure that wouldn’t take away from you accomplishing everything he needs. Besides…” His lips curled into a wicked grin and I realized he truly was loving this. “You and I both know that if you dare stop for any reason, you and your precious little friends are as good as dead.”
He let go of my hair and stood back up, allowing me to straighten as well. When I did, I gave him the best glare I could manage, but he just laughed.
“This is an old elf fairy tale book, from before your kind went extinct. Their language is dead, much like them and their magic, yourself excluded of course.”
“Is there anybody who does understand this? Some kind of scholar?”
“Unfortunately, no, not fluently. For quite a while, such books were banned because they were thought to be dangerous. Of course, now I’m beginning to wonder if our ancestors were right.”
He let out a charming little sigh and sat on the edge of the table like he was some high school jock flirting with me. The situation was really anything but. “I know bits and pieces as well as the alphabet. There’s a book in here that also works as a sort of elven dictionary and grammar book, so I think if the two of us put our heads together, we’ll be able to figure things out.”
“Wait…” I murmured, eyes wide. I was saying that phrase far too often lately, especially since I knew all too well that the world didn’t like to wait for anybody. “You want us to work on this…together. As in every day spent in this room? In close proximity to each other?”
He smiled at me and I swear I saw fangs. I missed the Baelfyre from my dimension. At least some of the time, he didn’t look like a predator.
“Yes. It sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Now, why don’t you help me find that book?”
Working with Baelfyre was about as awful as one could imagine. He whipped between manically dangerous and flirtatiously charming so fast that I was always off-center and on my toes. Naturally, that made concentrating kind of difficult, but if it seemed like I was struggling too much, he would set in on me again.
And how he set in was always different. Sometimes it would just be a too-warm hand on my back or shoulder or playing in my hair. Sometimes a pinch or a prod. When I was sitting down, he’d kick the chair out from under me or hit me over the head with a book. Once, he even tickled me. The stress itself was enough to make me want to pull out my own hair, and it was only the first day. And of that first day, four hours were spent just finding the dictionary he was looking for.
We worked until the sun had long set, a
nd I guessed that I had spent somewhere between eight and ten hours in the one room. I was ready to just keep going through the night when Baelfyre stretched while yawning.
“I think this is a good stopping place.”
“But we haven’t even translated anything!” I objected, feeling anger surge through me. It was bad enough that I was going to have a difficult time finding out how to save my sister with Baelfyre hovering over me, but it was another thing to leave entirely empty-handed.
“That’s because we’ve been busy trying to figure out the mother language. I’m sorry my translation skills aren’t as instantaneous as you would like, considering that the elves have a completely different alphabet that has a conditional rotation.” His eyes narrowed at me and he gave me a condescending expression. “Do you even know what that means?”
“No…” I answered slowly.
“Exactly. So, when I say we’re done for the night, I mean we’re done.”
I couldn’t argue with him, and it wasn’t like I would get anything done without his leading the way. Sitting back, I told myself to stand down, until an idea came to me. “Can I take these to my cell? There’s a lot of time in the morning where I’m just sitting there, so maybe I can learn something.”
He shrugged and stood. “I don’t see why not. You’re almost passably cute when you play a good student.” He ruffled my hair, his rings catching and ripping at the strands. “Take her back, and make sure she’s here just after noon meal tomorrow. I need to update the prince fully on our progress.”
The soldiers let out a series of affirmative and respectful sounds that I didn’t really care to repeat, then Baelfyre strolled out. As I watched his back go, I couldn’t help but envision several violent ends that I absolutely wanted him to meet.
But then the guards were rounding me up and taking me back upstairs, wordless but ever-present. I tried not to be bothered by them, it wasn’t like they could hurt me or anything, but I found myself longing for one of my quiet mornings in my room, with nothing but soft music and the sound of my pencil against my sketchbook to keep me company.