by Zara Zenia
I glanced down at my phone as it began to buzz. My brother Akrawn was calling me. He was also a Trilyn prince, ruler of the continent Magai. It was a rocky, mountainous region where most of our planet’s mining and refining was done.
Out of all my brothers, Akrawn was the one who delegated the most trickle-down effect of tasks to his laborers. He wasn’t cruel by Trilyian standards, but before he was married, his temper was feared by our own people.
Of course, that’s not the way he viewed it. He had viewed it as getting respect from his subordinates, which in his opinion, was everyone, until he met Cat, a San Francisco police detective who took on the job of Earth Ambassador for us after their joining.
Akrawn was smart. He might have been greedy and found any way to work the system and scheme to get his way, but at the same time, his conniving conspiracies have gotten all of us out of trouble more than once.
He had a strong sense of honor and pride in his family. He was a tech savvy genius. He was brilliant when it came to working with and operating both Trilyn and Earth computer systems.
Akrawn was also an inventor. He had several out there that had patents pending. He wasn’t satisfied unless he was creating something new.
So, naturally, when I saw that he was calling me via FaceTime, I felt both inspired and wary at the same time.
“Hello, Akrawn.” I smiled into the screen.
“I heard about your female problem.”
“It’s…” I sighed. It was pointless to even argue with him. “Yes.” I finally nodded. “It appears as if the woman I aimed to court has disappeared and no one can find her.”
“What do you want me to do?” Akrawn jumped right in with a serious expression on his face.
"I honestly don’t know yet,” I said. I looked up at the clouds rolling by.
“I can have Hugh try to infiltrate the security systems at the airports. Or I have monitoring software on my computer that might work in cracking through the surveillance systems.”
“Maybe,” I said. I contemplated, but I didn’t want to get Akrawn in trouble. He was devious and sneaky, yes, but I didn’t want to call attention to us going against the law, especially if it would get him in trouble with his wife.
“I know what I’m doing,” Akrawn stated dryly as if he could read the doubtful thoughts drifting through my mind. “I never get caught.”
“I have a few people working on things,” I said gently. “Let me see where that leads first.”
“Fine.” He raised his arms as if he didn’t want to step on any toes. “I’ll be here if you need me.”
“Thanks. I have to go. Yadav is calling on the other end.”
“You got him involved?” Akrawn cackled.
“He’s good at his job and he knows what he’s doing too,” I countered.
And Yadav was far more professional to boot. He did things the legal way, not weaseling his way as he tried to navigate and cheat the system.
“Well when he fails, call me.” Akrawn smirked.
I rolled my eyes. “Will do.”
I hung up and answered Yadav’s call with an exasperated greeting. “Hello?”
“Jinurak?” Yadav sounded far away as if he was talking to me from the other end of a tunnel.
“It’s me,” I confirmed.
“Good. I wanted to talk to you about something. I’ve been looking into anti-Trilyn terrorist activity. I have a potential suspect that I think might be worth looking into.”
“Okay, go ahead and spill.” My heart drummed nervously.
Yadav took a deep breath as if gathering his thoughts.
“Remember Nora Morse?”
“Yes,” I said and waited for him to elaborate. It wasn’t the first time that her name had come up during the discussions of Ariana’s disappearance.
“I have reason to believe that she might have some involvement in this case,” Yadav continued.
“Explain?”
“Well,” he began again with an ironic chuckle. “We have had issues with her before, as you recall, she attempted to murder your brother Lortnam and his wife Kelly.”
“Yes, I believe she is also the one who altered the genetic scanners ability to detect a genetic match, but we figured it out and Akrawn was able to repair them, ” I said.
“That’s correct.”
“Why are you suspicious of her now?” I asked.
I wanted to keep an open mind, but I’d personally had little to no contact with this Nora Morse. I had no reason to believe that she would try to sabotage me or Ariana, who I was certain she didn’t know and to my knowledge, had never met.
“Nora has been the main suspect behind several attempts to sabotage your brother’s relationships as you well know, and also the genetic scanners. She can’t be trusted, and her track record is less than exemplary.”
“Hmm.” I touched my finger to my chin and pondered. “Have you been able to locate her and rule her out as a suspect in this suspected abduction?”
“That’s the thing about her.” Yadav’s voice sounded peculiar. “She went underground and we haven’t been able to find her since she got away from us after trying to murder Lortnam.”
“Interesting.” I felt a buzz of adrenaline tingle through my bones.
“Are you interested in investigating Nora Morse under the suspicion of kidnapping?” Yadav asked. His voice was high pitched and excited. He lived for these kinds of matters.
“Yes.” I nodded. “Absolutely. Let’s get it underway. Let’s get the ball rolling. We can’t afford to waste any more time. Ariana could be out there suffering.” It pained me to even mull over the possibility.
“Good.” Yadav sounded pleased. “I’ll be in touch.”
I hung up and looked at the sky. I wondered if Ariana was out there somewhere doing the same thing.
“I’m going to find you,” I whispered into the wind as a promise that I hoped would carry across the distance. “Whoever did this to you will pay for their crimes.”
If it was in fact Nora Morse at the other end of this abduction, one thing was certain. She wouldn’t get away with her ploys to crumble other people’s relationships any longer. If she was at the front and center of this abduction, I would expose her as if my life depended on it. I wouldn’t let her destroy my life or Ariana’s. I was on a hot pursuit for justice. Nothing and no one was going to stand in my way.
Chapter 6
Ariana
I peered up at the dragon. It hovered overhead again, glaring down at me with black, beady little eyes. It puffed its snout and gave me a menacing, taunting shriek.
I jumped at least a foot in the air. The woman who called herself a queen began to cackle loudly.
I turned to look at her, baffled and appalled by her behavior. What kind of queen was she to instill fear into the people of the village? But more importantly, why in the world was I considering myself to be one of these people?
I stared at her. She did a twirl and gazed with fond admiration at her horrific pet that loomed as a giant threat in the sky.
“What am I doing here?” I asked. I couldn’t believe what she had said about Jinurak, but how would she know about him in the first place?
“I already told you, my dear girl,” Nora said with sinister pride. “You are a prisoner of the notorious Prince Jinurak!”
“Notorious prince?” I shook my head as if my scrambled thoughts would somehow piece themselves together. “I’ve never heard of him.” What kind of weird world was I in?
Nora frowned skeptically. “You’ve never heard of Prince Jinurak or his brothers from the planet Trilyn?”
“I’ve heard of Jinurak and I knew that he was from Trilyn, but I had no idea he was a prince,” I admitted.
Nora let out a scornful laugh. She swirled her wrist through the air and dabbed at her mouth as if adjusting her lipstick. “I find that hard to believe.”
“It’s the truth,” I countered, although I still had no idea what was truth and what was fiction in thi
s strange environment, I had been seemingly planted in. I was still hopeful that this was all just a fictitious dream and that I would soon wake up and be ready to deboard the plane.
“No, I’m serious.” My voice sounded defensive outside of my thoughts. “I was just going to Baltimore to meet with him and…” I trailed off as confusion muddled my brain. I couldn’t remember anything after the plane took off.
Nora gave me a vindictive smile as she edged slightly closer to me. “What did you think was possibly going to happen to you when you met him?”
“I thought we would get to know each other and that I would have fun with him,” I said.
I was still in disbelief that the polite and sweet Jinurak I had come to know over phone calls, texts and FaceTime could really turn out to be a cruel alien who hunted women for sport and held them in captivity after tricking them into agreeing to meet him.
Something just didn’t sit right with me about the situation. Jinurak seemed too genuine to play a trick like that on me.
But at the same time, how did this woman know him? Where were we? Why was she being so evasive with my questions?
“I’m dreaming.” It was more of a statement to reassure myself than another question directed at Nora.
Nora narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips into a humored smile. “You are not dreaming. Everything you see in front of you is real.”
I pointed up at the sky. “A dragon?”
“Why is that so hard to believe?” Nora raised her eyebrows as if she was offended by my comment involving her precious dragon.
“I’m sorry,” I scoffed and shook my head. “But dragons don’t exist on the east coast where I live.”
“You aren’t on the east coast, sweetie,” Nora said through clenched teeth.
“Then where am I?” I demanded.
We stood a few inches apart, about arms-length. We had reached a stalemate. Nora wasn’t going to yield. She wasn’t going to bend and tell me where I was.
I was just going to have to find Jinurak myself and ask him what was happening. If I was his prisoner, he had to be around here somewhere, right?
I spun on a heel after giving Nora one last angry glare. With my back turned away from her, I began walking away from the castle and in the direction of the gated property.
“I wouldn’t do something I would regret later, dear,” Nora called out sarcastically behind me.
I refused to look at her. I was getting the hell out of here one way or another. She obviously wasn’t going to enlist herself as my helper or my guide out of the castle, so I would have to take matters into my own hands.
I couldn’t hear Nora following me, so after several minutes of wandering, I glanced over my shoulder and expected to see her still standing in the same spot watching me go around in circles, but much to my surprise she was gone.
I turned around and huffed. “I didn’t need that stupid old queen anyway.”
This Nora person couldn’t be telling me the truth. I didn’t even want to mull over the possibility that I might be the captive of a rival alien who wanted to hurt me. If that were the case, then where was he? Why wasn’t I locked in some dungeon of the castle?
There were factors of this story that just didn’t add up to me. Nora hadn’t mentioned anything about a plane. I looked behind me again and opened my mouth, then quickly clamped it shut again. Nora was still nowhere to be found. There was no point in asking my questions of the wind. I would never receive the answers that I wanted.
I was starting to believe that I wasn’t in a dream, and that maybe I was sent to some kind of alternate dimension. Would I find Jinurak here? What would happen if he presented to me? I didn’t know how I would react. I didn’t know who to trust anymore.
I kept walking, trudging along until I got to a thorny hedge at the property line on the castle lawns. I glanced up and tried to determine if there was going to be a feasible way for me to climb these hedges and reach the other side.
The hedge was made of rows of thorny, razor sharp looking prickly leaves. It didn’t look like it would be impossible to climb the row of hedges, but it would probably be extremely painful to maneuver to the top.
I squinted under the harsh light of the sun. All the colors in this weird world were extremely vibrant, almost unrealistic. It was winter everywhere in the northern hemisphere. Why was it so warm here?
I took a deep breath and glanced back at the castle. I still couldn’t see Queen Nora, or whoever she claimed to be, anywhere. Was she watching me from a location where she could see me, but I couldn’t see her?
I still couldn’t figure out why Jinurak was missing. Was he a true born prince of Trilyn just like Nora claimed him to be? Why would he want to kidnap me and hold me captive if I had agreed to visit him in the first place? It just wasn’t adding up.
Determination rippled through me. I gazed up at the prickly hedge one more time and decided that I would take my chances. I could heal from scrapes and bruises I might obtain on the way over, but it was worth the risk.
Jinurak was obviously not here, nor making any attempt to show his face to me. It was out of character for him. Even if he had taken me as a prisoner, then where was he to loom over me in a dominating sort of way?
The perspective was skewed. The further I mulled over the reasoning in my mind, the more I didn’t believe Queen Nora. She wasn’t telling me the truth about something. She was leaving out a major detail, a missing link to the puzzle.
Either way, I couldn’t stay here and wait to find out what was going to happen to me. I couldn’t see much in the village outside of the hedge walls, but I knew there was something out there and I was bound and determined to find out what it was.
I lifted my leg and placed my fingers on the hedge, prepared to make the first attempt at climbing up to see how far I got.
That’s when I felt an intense heat on my back, almost like fire several inches away from my skin. I shrieked and jumped off the hedge. I glanced behind me and immediately cowered into a ball onto the ground.
I dared to peek through the cracks of my fingers to see what was happening. I heard the enormous roar of the red dragon as it loomed large overhead, giant and threatening.
Its coal black eyes were slits of sinister malice. I gulped and began to tremble involuntarily.
“Don’t hurt me,” I squeaked, blinking up at the vicious monster as it sprayed waves of electric green fire in my direction.
It flapped its mighty wings and puffed out its snout, huffing and billowing steam and smoke from its flared nostrils. It continued to fire out a line of flames near me, but it didn’t attempt to actually strike me with the lava hot flames.
They hit the ground and instead of bursting into a wildfire, the flames disappeared. I was confused but wondered if somehow there was a spell on the dragon’s flames that made it not able to destroy any part of the castle grounds.
The dragon loomed closer. The wind from its flapping wings waved my hair around, fanning my face. I continued to quiver violently as the enormous beast glared at me through narrowed, suspicious eyes.
“I won’t try to climb the hedge,” I said.
The dragon didn’t back off as I had hoped.
“I promise,” I added.
Was I sure that I would keep that promise? More importantly, could the dragon even understand what I was saying to it? It appeared to be very territorial about guarding the castle walls.
I scanned the area. There had to be another way out of here. Jinurak had never mentioned a dragon. Of course, that’s because up until now, they hadn’t existed in our world. Did they exist on Trilyn? I supposed that was a possibility. I had never been to the planet, nor had I explored any other intergalactic area of the world either.
Could he have imported this dragon from his home? The millions of questions inside my head were still swimming around and muddling my thoughts.
The dragon let out another roar and a plume of smoke along with it. I screamed and curled myself into a
protective ball, snaking my arms around myself inside of a giant, personal bear hug.
Where was Jinurak when I needed him? Or was he the source of this chaos? I didn’t know enough information about the situation to determine what was going to happen to me. One thing was certain, I wasn’t going to let this dragon seal my fate.
I stood up and looked at the dragon. I made eye contact with it and I was flooded with dread. I had to get away from it. I needed to find some place to hide and pray that the dragon would eventually forget about me.
That was wishful thinking of course, but I wasn’t going to stand here and let it burn me to a crisp with its rain of green terror seeping from its slimy mouth. It bared its teeth when I moved, exposing razor sharp teeth that looked as long as my fingers, yet threatening enough to slice right through me with one bite.
If I made a break for it, would it try to eat me or engulf me in flames?
“I’m not going to jump over the hedge,” I said. “I’m just going to go back to the castle.”
The dragon flapped its wings and glared at me. Then it flew down to the ground with a thunderous crash. It stood on its hind legs in front of me, moving ominously to the right and left as if I was going to have to get past it if I wanted to escape.
It seemed utterly impossible. The dragon was three times my size with a wingspan that was as long as the airplane I had boarded early today. Or was that all a lie too? Nothing made sense anymore.
Hot tears of frustration began to pool in the corners of my eyes and a few spilled over and ran down my cheek, plummeting off my chin to the ground below. I choked back a huge sob. I didn’t want the dragon to see me broken down like this, distraught with fright over its very presence.
I didn’t want the dragon to win. Where was Queen Nora? Was she sitting back watching this exchange unfold? Was she cackling with entertained laughter? I was angry and scared. I balled my fists.
Every time I moved, the dragon moved too as if it was prepared to be on the defense.