Idling on the bed, he began tracing the shapes on the ceiling again. Cracks and lines which as a child, he used to imagine were creatures or objects, interpreting the squiggles in ways others didn’t. A small patch in the corner resembled the toothy snout of a dragon, or perhaps the wings of a unicirim. His mind continued to paint on top of that image, until he saw himself and a dragon flying through the air. A golden dragon, huge with wings blotting light beneath, jaws open wide, fire billowing from their mouth as they burned enemies in front…
Wait, no. He wasn’t the kind of person who’d be found in a battlefield. He was the person who scavenged from the dead after everything was over.
Still… it was a nice image. Even nicer when he imagined Elena straddling his back, her hands tangled in his mane. Urging him to fly faster, their magic blending together so they became invisible to all but themselves. Sharing his gift with someone else… how wonderful would that feel?
Halfway through his drifting thoughts, he heard a bang.
Jerking upright from the bed, adrenaline rushing through his veins, he listened intently for more sound. Surely that couldn’t be…
Bang.
He froze. Explosions. Yes, that was definitely something exploding.
5
Elena
They hadn’t locked her door. Elena didn’t know why, she didn’t care – her only thought was to venture upstairs to where the dragon was. In her mind it cried out in distress, having heard the loud noises as well, and the faint rumbling within the castle, as if a section of it was collapsing. Had people exploded their way inside? People after the dragon? Or enemies of the royals?
I’m coming, little one, Elena thought in response to the dragon’s increasing stress, noting how the guards just rushed past her, not paying any heed to the worn down prisoner in her sack of a top and loose brown pants. On the top floor, she encountered Helen, who hesitated in front, eyes wide as she took in the fact that Elena was unescorted. Still shackled by her magic, but perfectly capable of doing harm.
“Step aside!” Elena snapped, shoving Helen aside before she had a chance to protest. “The baby needs her momma!”
The red head swallowed a nervous lump in her throat, and again, Elena felt that strange push upon her emotions, even as she headed for the dragon. She didn’t know what kind of magic this woman had, but she felt oddly exposed under Helen’s scrutiny. Like every emotion contained in her physical body was up for scrutiny, to be picked apart like a lab experiment.
“Okay,” Helen said, as if she’d just confirmed something. “Just… be careful, okay? There shouldn’t be any problems, but if I can’t slow them down…”
Not that Elena knew how someone who could vaguely touch on emotions might be able to slow people down, but she nodded and passed several more guards, before making it into the nursery with the frantically pacing queen dragon. Upon sighting her, the dragon let out a low pitched whine, before rushing up to the pen, and scrambling over it – already big enough to do so. At this rate, if they didn’t move her out, she’d be too big to squeeze through the door.
“It’s okay, little one,” Elena said, though the dragon wasn’t exactly little anymore. She butted Elena in the stomach, nostrils blowing in discomfort, tail twitching, golden wings hunched up like the shell of a tortoise. The scaly frame was shaking, and it reminded Elena of a frightened dog, shivering and wet and terrified of every little sound that reached its ears. She sank onto her knees and cradled the dragon. It took them a moment to find a comfortable position, but eventually, the dragon rested her chin on Elena’s shoulder, and sprawled oversized on her lap, whilst she lightly stroked the wing joints, which seemed to bring the baby the most relief. “You’re gonna be too big for this soon. I’m not growing any taller, but you – you’re gonna be the size of a damn house.”
Meanwhile, Elena was thinking furiously to herself. Should they try and escape? Something was going on, some altercation, a fight, a skirmish. An attempt to take the dragon? Maybe taking the dragon out the room might expose her to even more danger. Or maybe they were sitting ducks, waiting abjectly for destruction if they didn’t move. She wished she could sneak outside to check, but the cuffs prevented her magic, making her feel like a useless sack of skin, vulnerable at worst. She loathed being separated from her magic; the thing that allowed her to escape whenever she wanted, permitted her to hide when other people and their problems became too much. Or if hers did.
These things weren’t designed to fall off at the click of a finger, after all.
The door softly clicked open, and she stiffened, turning and only relaxing when she registered the newcomer as Garek.
“I felt her,” Garek said, approaching them instantly, without hesitation. “She’s frightened.”
“Wouldn’t you be?” Elena snapped, eyeing Garek as he crouched down next to them and rested a hand on the dragon’s left wing joint. His fingers lightly brushed hers, sending a strange, warm heat flowing under her skin. Like his touch would leave a mark similar to a branding iron. .
Different from the nausea of before. His eyes widened as well. “What?” he whispered, and they held eye contact for one breath-stopping moment. Searching for why he felt so familiar. Why sometimes his presence repulsed her and why sometimes it reeled her right in. But that moment of almost clarity snapped like a band when another muffled blast shook the walls of the nursery, and the dragon let out a puppy-ish whimper.
“Shitballs,” Elena said, feeling the dragon tense up and resemble driftwood against her body. “Do we need to escape? Do you have any idea what’s happening?”
Garek clenched his jaw, glancing away to the floor as if he could see everything happening below them. “I’m not completely certain, but I have a… suspicion. I think my former employers are coming for what’s owed.”
“The dragon,” Elena whispered. “They want her back.” She clutched the dragon a little tighter. “Is it… wrong, they do? I mean… she was… taken. Right? They just want their little one back?”
“They don’t,” Garek snapped. “They want her dead.”
Elena’s jaw hung open, speechless for a moment. “They’re coming to kill her? Your employers? Why?”
“Yes. I… received news earlier on that since she’d hatched, the dragons are less inclined to take her back. It’s a belief that she’s been tainted by human presence. Which means her making it to adulthood and being sympathetic to humans is the worse thing they can possibly think of for a future leader of their society.”
Cuddling the unnamed dragon in her arms and lap, Elena couldn’t really envision this trembling ball of youth as a leader. Surely, it’d be years and years before anything happened. Unless dragons grew up fast, and learned fast. “That sounds so messed up. Now she’s born, suddenly she’s useless to them. How awful.”
The dragon squeaked in apparent agreement. Footsteps banged outside the nursery, and skidded to a halt outside the door, before a red-faced, panicked Yvonne dashed in, taking in the sight of the chained shadow witches crowding the dragon, and the four guards on either side, stiff and alert for trouble.
“Okay,” Yvonne panted, her wild dark hair a mess, her black eyes frantic. “I don’t care how you ended up here, but I need you right now to get the dragon out. We’re moving her to a better location. Thorn’ll be here shortly as well.”
Garek and Elena exchanged a meaningful glance to one another. “Did you manage to stop whatever’s happening?” Elena asked, hoping the witch would tell her, not really expecting her to.
“Barely. They weren’t expecting a wanderer in our arsenal, or a pissed off wife to start shooting flaming arrows at them.”
“…Right,” Elena said, thinking it wouldn’t entirely be pleasant if someone started shooting flaming arrows at her. Remind me not to get on these people’s bad side again. “Where we going?”
Yvonne beckoned at them, not bothering to explain with words. Elena sighed, disentangling herself from the dragon, wondering how to usher the dragon
into a new place when she likely hadn’t left this room in the length of her short life. So she tried words. “Hey, little one. We need you to follow us out of here. We’re taking you somewhere safe.”
Elena stared into one of the dragon’s great golden eyes. The dragon’s mind seemed to push into hers, clearly trying to work out the words, the connection and meaning. The words, however, didn’t help, so instead, she tried visualizing a safe place. She pictured taking the dragon outside, following Yvonne away from something scary and dark, to someone nice, safe, quiet.
Images flicked back into her mind, and she heard Garek give a soft gasp. The baby sent a picture of the two of them together in the safe space Elena had visualized, cuddling her, with the hint of a question. It was shunted softly into Elena’s mind, hovering like a dewdrop on a leaf, waiting for confirmation.
She understands, Elena thought with a shiver of amazement. She’s so young, and she understands.
“Yes,” Elena said, and Garek watched as the dragon clambered upright, and padded eagerly after Yvonne, checking to make sure Garek and Elena followed.
“That was easier than expected,” Yvonne remarked, entering the corridor and flagging down Thorn. The older woman hurried up to them, shaking her head.
“They’re using antimagic charms, which stops Helen’s power from working on them. They know about her.”
Yvonne cursed softly, and another explosion wracked the castle. Parts of the ceiling began to topple. “Follow me. Keep yourself and the dragon invisible.”
Thorn nodded, her scarred face hard, and Elena’s heart began to pick up in pace as she realized her new predicament. She and Garek would be trailing behind Yvonne, whilst a ghostly dragon and shadow witch walked with them. And without magic… Helen felt ridiculously vulnerable.
Garek seemed to feel the same. “Um… won’t we be disguised, too? Since we can’t protect ourselves, and if we die, the dragon might die of a broken heart?”
“Yeah, about that,” Yvonne said. “I just can’t risk you both disappearing on me. I’ll try to keep you alive, anyway.”
To be fair, Elena probably shouldn’t have expected a different response. It didn’t reassure her much, and she kept looking at her back, waiting for something to go wrong, for… angry, twisted people to charge down the corridor, swords in hands, magic forming to strike out at them. No one came, but the corridor was eerily empty, aside from the four guards that trotted after them, determined to protect their assigned charge.
Panic teased Elena’s mind when Thorn and the dragon vanished from view – panic that originated from the dragon. Elena beamed a soothing image into the dragon’s mind – that Thorn was wrapping her in a blanket, so that the demons she pictured as the enemy couldn’t see them at all. It was strange, communicating visually, but to an extent, Elena’s brain worked with visual memory anyway. She merely associated words with those images, those memories. Here, she was associating feeling with the images, rather than words. Since the baby didn’t quite grasp the intricacies of human language yet.
Out the corridor, into a small study next to what seemed like an old, decrepit room, full of tarnished grandeur and relics gathering dust, as if the room had once belonged to someone important. Perhaps back in Bastion’s convoluted history, a guest of great importance lived in these walls. Maybe even a royal, though Elena was aware enough to know most of the unicirim royal bloodline used to shack up in River’s End. Bastion was a more uniform, well plotted city compared to the rabbit warren lanes and buildings of River’s End, in the brief moments the Realm Market had parked itself nearby River’s End, and they had entered the quarantined city for potential new buyers.
A tapestry of a female unicirim with a male rider depicted the two fighting against some monstrous, distorted foe. In the wall next to this threadbare image was a tiny crack. Another image entered Elena’s mind – of the baby dragon studying the faded-out picture, radiating unease when studying the formless monster, and curiosity with the Bonded pair. When touched, the wall slid with a rumbling groan, revealing a dank, dark passageway that buffeted her with a rancid wind, as if the air had been trapped and staling for centuries.
“There must be a lot of secret passages in this place,” Garek said, coughing profusely, fist in front of his mouth. “And they probably all smell like death warmed up.”
“Ugh, please don’t say that, I’m already having a hard enough time as it is processing.”
Garek gave her a mischievous grin, and Elena smiled back, some of the breath freezing in her lungs. “Let’s go in, shall we?”
“After you,” Elena said, mostly because she didn’t entirely trust the passageway to be completely abandoned. Who knew what sort of creatures hid in the shadows?
“Guards,” Yvonne told the four protectors, “we’ll take it from here. Please try to find one of the royals and protect them.”
“Yes, ma’am,” one of the guards said, and all four of them did an identical, sharp salute, before trotting off, each bracing a hand on their weapon in case something turned up.
Descending into cobwebby darkness, sliding the secret passage shut behind them, the shadow witches, Yvonne and the dragon fumbled along. Elena braced one hand against the side of the wall and listened to echoing footsteps, taking deep inhales of the musty odor, and the mingled scents of the others. Garek had a strong, earthy odor to his, and he walked with a heavy clump on the floor, like he was trying to break through the stone. Not a stealthy shadow witch. Not that Elena was much better. Yvonne was the quietest, and of course the dragon and Thorn were blanketed by additionally layers of darkness.
Her mind drifted to the confusion of Garek. Of the mystery linking them together and pushing them apart. Of the notion that she should be feeling something for him, but there was something intangible in their way, an emptiness that stopped their connection from finalizing.
A connection her mother had stolen from her. Now, there was nothing between them. No memory of whatever past they shared. Forced together because of this dragon, and restricted to careful conversation whilst surrounded by guards, isolated in other moments. She didn’t know the man in front of her. Only surface level things. Only knowing she liked his smile, wasn’t sure what to think about his humor, since she suspected he’d be at home blurting ribald jokes in front of a crowd of eager drunks. There was something softer about him, too, under those rough edges.
Something she liked seeing, hidden under his blonde hair and caramel brown eyes. Which didn’t get much chance to show itself in their current environment. She wondered, though, if there’d be more softness if they had time to themselves. If no one overheard them and no one condemned them.
Then again, given their circumstances, she doubted they would be allowed time to themselves. The Bastion dwellers couldn’t trust them. The dragon was their first priority. And Elena’s mother intended to save her. She hoped her mother succeeded, but also worried she might. It was strange to be in two states of mind. Because she hated being a prisoner and so vulnerable, but at the same time, she was curious about the dragon’s fate. Curious to see how things would go, because to be honest, stuck in the middle of a war where she happened to be a kind of mother to a dragon that might change the future was a little bit exciting. The sort of exciting that someone planning to settle down didn’t want.
Yes, she wanted her quiet hut in the mountains. But… she also wanted bustle. Intrigue. Working as a thief, she never got to be a true part of anything. She just briefly stole into other people’s lives and took away things that belonged to them. She was never involved in anything. When traveling a lot as well, friends were made and lost by the dozens, because what point was there in making some if you were likely going to leave them behind in less than a year anyway? She always had the stability of her mother and father and their Knick Knacker stall, and her mother to teach her how to be a better shadow witch.
Now these people were yanking her by the chain into this mess, now that someone else was lumped in the same situation
as her, forced to be a parent to a creature neither of them dreamed of in a million years, frankly, the curiosity ate her up. More than all the other desires, though they still lingered there in some degree and form.
Another image pulsed in her mind from the dragon. An image of her and Garek standing together, holding each other by their marked palms. The mood accompanying the picture wasn’t one Elena could be certain of identifying, so her brain interpreted it as a tightness in her lungs and stomach instead.
Garek let out a quiet chuckle. Her other hand brushed something that felt like an arm, and something warm and crackling shot through her arm, like electricity. “Are you seeing this, Elena?”
“Yes,” Elena said, her hand still feeling along the cold wall, noting the air get staler and staler. Once her shoes crunched on something, which sounded horribly like bones, and she barely held back the unwarranted scream. She was very proud of keeping it in, but noticed other incidents of crunching sounds.
Shit, this was horrible. Her breathing picked up in pace, the tightness in her lungs and throat felt worse.
“Seeing what?” Yvonne said sharply, and Elena, breathing through her nose, sighed.
“The baby dragon sends images instead of words in my head. Me and Garek can see them at the same time. It’s how she communicates.”
“Images?” Yvonne’s tone went from suspicious to interested. “You’re able to communicate with each other in a way that can be understood?”
“Sort of,” Garek rumbled, letting out a brief curse, along with a sound that might have been him stumbling over something. Elena’s foot nudged potentially that same something, and it seemed soft under her leather shoe. I’m sure it’s nothing weird. Sure this is just fine. “She doesn’t think in words, yet. If I do, I don’t think she quite gets it. But when I – we,” he added, referring to Elena, “think in images, she seems to understand better.”
Captured By The Royals Page 6