by Jada Fisher
Would I ever get back to a time like that? Where my biggest worries were if my sister’s lupus was getting worse and if we could pay the bills? I never thought I would say it, but I longed for when our days were so simple.
“Davie!”
Bron was at the bars of our cell the moment the door opened, and I was relieved to see him. I knew that pretending to be human and confining himself to the limitations of our form had to be difficult to him, but I appreciated that he was doing it anyway. I had a feeling that him being a secret dragon was going to be our ace in the hole, and perhaps the only thing I had on the prince and his crew.
The guards unceremoniously shoved me in, and then I was in Bron’s arms.
It was a bit funny. Before we came here, I knew there was a sort of tension between us, but we had both been playing coy. I guessed there wasn’t room for coyness after saving each other’s life a couple of times, hopping dimensions, and then ending up prisoners of dragons who likened abuse to saying a friendly hello.
I wouldn’t say that what was going on between us was a romance for the ages, per se, but I could say without a shadow of a doubt that knowing and having Bron beside me in this situation was a blessing and I took great comfort in his presence.
“Oh, hey there,” Mallory said, pushing herself up from the floor. “You look rough.”
I took inventory of her pale face and drawn expression, separating from Bron to hug her too. “You’re not looking so hot yourself.”
“Yeah,” Mal offered from her own corner. “You’re beginning to look a lot like me.”
“Heaven forbid,” Mallory laughed, but there was something behind Mallory’s expression that gave me pause. “So, what’s with these books?” she asked. “Did the dragons send you with homework? I knew they were cruel, but I didn’t think they were inhumane!”
“Well, they are literally inhuman so…”
“Fair enough,”
“But this is a book that I had a vision about when I was a kid. I think this is going to have exactly what we need in it.”
“Wow, a vision when you were a kid, huh? That’s some crazy foreshadowing.”
“Yeah, if only I could have remembered it before now.”
She let out a halfhearted chuckle and lowered herself back to the ground. I joined her, and then the three of us began to parse out the barest bones of a plan. But as we did, I could feel the presence of my sister behind me, cold and encased in crystal, waiting for me to release her.
Boy, talk about a lot of pressure. I hoped I wouldn’t crack. Because if I did, a whole lot of worlds might crack with me.
11
Needle in a Crystal-stack
Galvinod visited again with food, this time a touch earlier—or at least it felt earlier—and surprisingly, he asked polite questions about the books I was poring over. I still hadn’t had contact with my sister, and while I would try to meditate or controlled nap to talk to her, I couldn’t waste any time I had not studying the book in front of me.
I didn’t know what to make of the blond dragon. He was obviously both abusive, evil, and conniving, but he spoke to Mal with an almost sort of reverence. She must have some voice on her to have him so enthralled but trying to ask her about her former master just resulted in her shaking her head and clamming up.
So naturally, I was cautious in my answers around him, but I also didn’t want to tick off the one guy bringing us food and water on the regular. I was pretty sure the prince planned to starve us out to make us more compliant, and I wondered how he didn’t know about his underling subverting his plans.
Oh well, wasn’t my problem.
My problem was only literally everything else.
However, with knowing the schedule for most of my day, I found that it didn’t drag on in suspense like the previous one. I supposed it helped that I also had my books to pore through while waiting for just past noon.
I didn’t find anything conclusive, but I looked through the pictures. Which—while sounding a bit kindergarten—seemed a whole lot more familiar than they probably should have, almost like I had a memory attached to each one. Too bad I couldn’t actually seem to access the memory beyond the one on the hill. That would just be way too useful.
The guards arrived right on the dot and carted me off. This time, Mallory didn’t try to get out of the cell with me, instead sitting against the wall and giving me a weak good-bye. Even after sleeping and eating, her visage hadn’t improved at all, which certainly had me worried.
But there wasn’t much I could do. I had the feeling that human medical care wasn’t anywhere near where it needed to be, so it was just one more reason to get home as quickly as possible.
We made better time down to the annals, or at least it seemed that way to me, and I was relieved when Baelfyre wasn’t there. That relief was short-lived, however, as he arrived just as I was situating myself with all of our translation materials at the table.
“Don’t you look bright-eyed and bushy-tailed today,” he said, smiling brilliantly at me. I didn’t think I’d ever had the urge to kick someone so badly in my life, and I had met some real jerks.
“Thanks,” I said, awaiting some sort of violence upon my person. But instead, he just sat across from me and started arranging his own side of our work station.
“Did you find anything out last night? Any seer-ly revelations?”
“No,” I answered cautiously. Certainly, now was when he would lash out.
“Shame, but I wasn’t holding my breath. I feel that we may have used up all of our good fortune just finding you.” He cracked his knuckles. “I’m pretty sure hard work is what’s gonna get us through this and not much else.” Then he was pulling the books from me to look at himself, head bowed as he muttered to himself.
…was that it? No slapping? No threats? What was wrong with him?
I didn’t know, and I certainly didn’t ask. Instead, I just took a book that he handed me, as well as a sheet of paper. “Hey, can you find me all the different instances of these two symbols in this book when they appear next to each other? I’m having some issues surmising the less literal use of them.”
“What do they literally mean?” I asked.
“Dreams and cold. Or maybe…ice? Like I said, I’m not exactly sure.”
“Right.” I bent my head down and got to the task at hand, wondering what kind of change had come over him or whether this was one of his tricks.
The hours slipped by and I barely got through a quarter of the book he had given me before Baelfyre sighed and sat up, rubbing his eyes. “Alright, I feel like my brain is about to be mush. Want to trade?”
“Uh, sure,” I answered uncertainly. “But I can’t translate, so will I be any help?”
“You can look over my notes and take a crack at it or try some of that seer stuff again. I take it by the fact that you ended up our prisoner at all that it’s not exactly foolproof or constant.”
“You would be correct.”
The corner of his lips curled. “Sounds inconvenient for everyone. What’s the use of possibly the most powerful weapon in the world if you can’t rely on it to actually function?”
“I’m not a weapon,” I responded sharply.
Baelfyre just raised his eyebrow, seemingly amused at me. “You have the ability to start or end wars, to encase people in crystal and change dimensions. If that’s not a weapon, I’m not sure what you would consider one to be.”
Oh... He had a point. I didn’t like it, but it was definitely a point. Despite all of the people fighting over me, I had never thought of myself as a weapon. Just more of an…advantage? A tool? I guess I had just been naïve before. What else would I be but a weapon?
That was disheartening.
“Aw, cut it with that crestfallen face. We have too much work to do for your faux-moral high ground. Now get to doing whatever it is you do so we can put these study sessions behind us.” He shifted uncomfortably. “All this research and no blood makes me anxious.”
I had no idea how I wasn’t popped one for that, but he just chuckled and looked back at the notes I had written and where I had left off in the book. When it was clear that no violence was coming my way, I concentrated on the leather-bound tome he had given me.
I guessed I could try the whole seer thing again. Closing the book and laying it in front of me, I placed my hands on the cover, breathing in and breathing out. Just like before, I focused on the energy deep, deep down inside of me, hoping it would show me something that could help.
Nothing happened, and after long enough, I could feel Baelfyre’s eyes on me, but I forced myself to shut that out. There was no one but me in the world. Me, and the age-stained pages below my fingertips.
Eventually, I felt a silvery sort of coolness rush over me, followed by a purple surge. I fell down, down, down, deep into the energy within me.
I stood on top of a battlement, dozens of soldiers beside me. All of us were weary and battered, and I could feel myself teetering on the edge of total exhaustion.
A screech sounded from above us, great and terrible, reverberating through my frame like an earthquake. I let out a furious cry in response, and suddenly, the people around me burst from their forms, taking to the sky as full-sized dragons.
I marveled at them, completely taken by their beauty. They came in all colors and forms, some that were almost all wings, some with long jaws, and some with longer, gangly legs, but even their massive bodies, easily as big as Bron and Baelfyre combined, were nothing compared to the shape that was blotting out the sun.
Its shadow swept over us, and when I looked up, I saw an all too familiar adversary.
The rotted dragon.
Except he wasn’t rotted at the moment. No, he was a resplendent gold with copper accents, his scales reflecting the sunlight almost like that was a weapon in and of itself.
The dragons around me were no match for him. His great jaws snapped and gnashed, seeming to take out one of my allies with every bite.
His claws were just as lethal, slashing and scouring and sending blood raining down on us.
I fired arrow after arrow, my aim true, but most of my bolts were bouncing off. I felt so useless!
It wasn’t long until there was only a handful of us, all firing arrows from our bows as quickly as we could. We could tell it was all for naught, but we didn’t relent. We had to keep fighting. Hold the line.
The great, golden dragon was lowering itself, trying to land on the battlement we had made our stand on. I knew that it would, and that soon, fire would come pouring out of his mouth in a rush of agony and then death.
But maybe… Maybe there was hope. Something I had been taught oh so long ago…
One of his feet touched down, and then the other, the downbeat of his wings causing all of our hair to go wild and dust to kick up in our faces, but I kept my eyes locked on him, as he did on me.
“Hello, little one. Curious that they would risk one of your kind, considering how few of you there are?” His voice was just as terrible as it had been in the hub, making my skin crawl and my stomach lurch.
“Perhaps,” was the only answer I gave him before summoning everything I had in me. I couldn’t let him get past this line. I couldn’t let him get to the center of our stronghold where those who were working on our final escape were gathered. I had to stop him.
Whatever way I could.
The power within me bubbled, trying to reach up and out into a vision, but I held onto it as tightly as I could. It bubbled, bucking against my grip, but I forced it to stay within the confines of my skin. It bubbled and fizzed, crackling like a firecracker, until I felt like my head would literally pop off from the pressure.
Then and only then did I release it.
It rocketed from my core in an explosion of blue crystal, eating up through my body like a voracious virus. But I let it rage, swallowing up my form and racing for that of the dragon.
It caught one of his feet, then the other. He tried to flap away, but it was already licking up his scales.
Ancient and rarely used curses escaped from his mind, shouting in my own like a storm. But I bore it, letting it roar into my mind, the desperation almost dulling the pain shooting through me as I was swallowed whole.
Bit by bit, my body went cold, my senses dulling as hard rock devoured me. The last thing I thought, as blue surrounded the two of us, was that I wished I had visited my brother one last time. Hopefully, he knew I had given my life for good reason.
For hope.
I fell back into my body coughing and gasping and otherwise feeling like I was just returning from orbit. My eyes were still closed, but I felt someone pressing a cup of cool water to my lips.
I gulped it down, greedily, my vision clearing as I did to reveal Baelfyre looking down at me with concern. That was…not what I had been expecting.
“You alright?” he asked, brushing my hair back from my face. I noticed then that I was covered in sweat, which was unusual. The last time I’d had such a physical reaction to a vision had been during my first ones. Maybe I was pushing myself too hard again? Not like I could stop.
“Yeah,” I breathed, trying to get a hold of my thundering heart.
Baelfyre set the cup down and walked around to the other side of the table. Once he sat, he looked at me with a strange sort of expression somewhere between shock and admiration. “Huh, I had thought this whole oracle thing would be a lot more graceful and ethereal.”
“Was it not?” I joked, trying a wry grin but ending up with something more akin to a grimace.
“Not at all. Your head jerked backward, and your hands were rapidly turning through pages while you were grunting, groaning, and whispering. The whole thing was pretty unappetizing to watch.”
I didn’t comment on how unsettling it was to hear a dragon use food-based adjectives to describe me, but at least I was now on the un-tasty side of things. Then I realized what he had said, and a spike of hope shot through me. “What page did I even end up on?” I asked, looking down at my hands.
It was a picture of a woman descending into a pool of water. What was with this book and water? Was it a metaphor for dimension hopping? Or seer power? I didn’t know. I didn’t know what use looking at a woman skinny-dipping in an ancient tome was going to help me.
“Look closer, Davie. It’s not water.”
I nearly jumped at my sister’s voice, and I looked all around for her, but I couldn’t make her out anywhere.
“Relax. You look like your head is going to twist off.”
I settled, trying to calm my breathing. My sister had said something about it not being water? Looking closer, I saw that while it was shimmering and rippling for most of the circle, there were angular pieces creeping up her thighs, and her eyes were glowing the same color.
“The crystal,” I murmured.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly. This was the info I needed to free Mickey, I was sure of it, but I didn’t want Baelfyre to know that I had found it out. I had a feeling if the dragons thought I had more of what I needed and not enough of what they needed, they would get a whole lot more hostile. Of course, the dragon in front of me wouldn’t just accept a blatant lie like that, so I modified my response.
“I mean, the page thing was nothing. The seer thing wasn’t. I saw a battle a long time ago where a seer was outmatched, so she froze an entire castle wall in defense.”
Baelfyre scoffed. “I see where your sister got the inspiration. A coward’s tactic, if you ask me.” He stretched again and plopped back into his seat. “Well, that was a nice break. I’ll take the translation back for these last couple of hours if you want to find the rest of those symbols. I only have a couple of chapters left.”
“A couple of chapters?” I parroted. “How long was I sitting here in a trance?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It took me a while to notice.”
“Three hou
rs,” the closest guard blurted. Both of us looked to them, but they kept their face absolutely impassive. “That’s when your head started bobbing and I heard your heartrate slow.”
“Huh, three hours,” I repeated, looking back to the book. “It certainly didn’t feel that way.”
“Interesting…” Baelfyre murmured. “But not enough to distract us from the task at hand. Let’s get back to work, shall we?”
Surprisingly, the remaining couple of hours passed quickly, and I was being marched upstairs again. I kept the books I needed tucked tightly to my side, my heart hammering away at the thought that I was sneaking incredibly valuable info to my friends and I, but the dragons had no idea.
Or did they?
That thought sent shivers down my spine and I almost dry-heaved. If the dragons knew what I was up to, we were all dead. Period. I just had to hope that their constant underestimation of my people would work to my advantage.
When I arrived, Bron was waiting against the cell doors for me, while Mallory was still sitting against the wall, her face peaked and a thin sheen of sweat across her brow. I hoped… I hoped that she was alright.
As soon as the cell door slammed shut, Bron was hugging me again, breathing deeply as he buried his nose in my hair.
“I hate this,” he whispered, voice so quiet that I barely heard it. “Every time you go out those doors, I’m afraid that you’ll never come back and then everything would have been for nothing.”
Wow. That was…surprisingly honest. For being the eternal optimist, I had never seen Bron be so intense about a situation.
“Don’t worry,” I answered softly. “They need me.”
“For now,” Mal said, curled in her own corner. “How’s that escape plan coming?”