Smoke & Mirrors

by C. L. Schneider

  “Aidric is that old? I had no idea.”

  “Few lyrriken do.” He crouched to examine the bottom half of the door. “The Guild and their half-teachings have warped your perception of many things, including history and time.” Finn abandoned his search with a frustrated sigh. “There’s no seams, no bolts.”

  “No way to get in.”

  “Not that I can find.” Stepping back, he wiped the dust from his hands. “We could try ‘open sesame’. It worked for Aladdin.”

  I winced. “Unless that’s a magic lamp in your pocket, I think we’re going to need another option.”

  Missing my innuendo, he shrugged. “Blast it.”

  “Won’t that be a little obvious?”

  “What’s more important to you, Dahlia? Seeing the door, or someone knowing you saw the door?”

  “When you put it that way…” Finn backed up a few feet, as the crimson plates on my hands warmed like hot coals. Unsure how thick the slab was, I let the heat collect a moment, then shoved out a hefty burst. As the fiery blast struck the center, the stone cradling the frame rattled and shook. Pebbles came loose and sprinkled down. The metal grew hot, forming a wide circle of red as the top layer burned away. The second layer was much less cooperative. No matter how much I upped the temperature, or the force, it remained intact.

  I cut off the flame and dropped my hands. “It’s Drimeran metal. I could keep trying. But depending on the density, I could do this all night and not make a dent.”

  “What now?”

  I adjusted my aim and attacked the stone beside the door. Worried about collapsing the ceiling, I dialed the intensity back. I paused between each strike, listening for rumbles or any indication I’d gone too far. Within a few minutes, I had an opening large and (hopefully) stable enough for us to crawl through. I went first.

  The cold air hit me long before I reached the other side. The floor was pebbly beneath my boots, but I couldn’t see a thing. Even with my lyrriken sight, the dark was impenetrable. I turned on my flashlight, but there was too much dust and smoke.

  Finn came in behind me. “Let me try.”

  A moment later, moisture landed on my skin. Using his ability to generate water, he’d created a fine mist. As it washed the air clean, I shined my light around. This place was nothing like the tunnel network. It was more cave-like, with rough, rutted, stone walls and a low ceiling. An empty, grime-coated fixture hung from a beam wedged above our heads. The walls on either side were far away, hiding behind the dark pockets at the edge of my vision. Closer, cloudy, thick, puddles of trauma rocked languidly back and forth. They had an old, tired quality, like an afterthought in someone’s faded memory.

  I followed them.

  After another sixty feet or so, my light landed on a rickety table and chair. Both were caked in dust, but someone had sat here once, a long time ago—keeping watch over the door on the opposite wall. I nearly gasped, how much it resembled the one in my dream. The relief that I wasn’t crazy was closely followed by a building apprehension that went beyond a sense of familiarity or déjà vu. The decaying wood, the padlock and rusted chains, the bitter cold seeping through the pinholes and knots; it was all here, even the encroaching ghosts.

  Many last breaths had been taken beyond the door. The bloodshed was done long ago. Yet, the psychic impression leaking through was as strong and pungent as the day it was spilled.

  Softly, Finn asked, “Aren’t you going to open it?”

  I looked down. I was less than an inch from the door.

  I hadn’t remembered moving so close.

  “You’re trembling,” he said.

  My heart was pounding, too. My mouth had gone dry. Goosebumps layered my skin. But I didn’t come here to stare at the damn thing.

  I sat the flashlight on the table and went back. Gripping the chain over the door, flecks of rust came loose to stain my skin. As it drifted to join the black sea of trauma, I half-expected the links to magically dissolve. But this was real life. All the chain did, as I gave it a shake, was rattle. The door didn’t shimmer and liquify. There was no dream version of me reflected in the surface. No ghosts reached through to grab hold.

  None of it was real. Except my fear.

  “You shouldn’t,” he said. “If you’re not ready.”

  “Not ready for what? What happens if I open the door?”

  “Honestly? I have no idea. Probably nothing.”

  “But maybe something?” I spun to face him. “I should know. I should remember. But I can’t. Because there are gaps in my memory. But Aidric probably didn’t spill that secret to you, did he? That he fucked with my head?” I let out a weary breath. “Just go.”

  Finn took my hand. “I’m not leaving.”

  “Why? Does he want you here, to make sure I don’t learn too much?”

  “No. I want to be here, Dahlia. I want to be here for you. We all do. We’ve tried to be patient, to wait, but…” With a shake of his head, Finn leaned in and kissed me. It was a bold move, but the caress of his lips was surprisingly tentative.

  Finding his uncharacteristic timidity attractive, I kissed him back. And my acceptance, or perhaps, my permission, was like the strike of a match. His demeanor altered. His mouth moved with urgency. His sizeable arms came around me in a tight, protective hold. Gripping and demanding, Finn’s hands traveled down my back. I pressed closer; enjoying his show of strength and the spirited invasion of his tongue; the unyielding contours of his muscles; the warmth of his body.

  Except, heat wasn’t all he was radiating.

  Finn’s desire was clouded by a veil of anxiety and a dose of bittersweet sadness. This was a defining moment for him. As if he needed to touch me now, to kiss me now before he lost the chance. Before it all changed.

  Startled, I pulled away. “You’re spooked. Is this about Aidric? Are you worried he’ll find out you went against him?”

  “Aidric didn’t specifically forbid us from bringing you here.”

  “You’re hanging your relationship with him on a technicality? For me? I’m not sure that was a good idea.”

  “I’ve haven’t betrayed him. And I won’t. The king has provided us with a connection to Drimera I’d never felt before, and one to the human world I never thought to find. We’ve gained much since coming here. Opportunity. Identity. Purpose. A flat screen TV,” he grinned. The expression dulled as Finn added one more item to the list. “You.”

  “You don’t have me, Finn. It was a kiss. That’s all.”

  “I know.” He waved at the door. “Are you going to—”

  I turned and shot fire at the padlock. The links exploded. The chains fell. I took a single, deep breath, gripped the handles, and yanked. A definitive smell permeated the darkness.

  “The exit,” I said. “It’s nearby.”

  “Wait.” Finn put out a hand to stop my advance. Stepping back, he retrieved the flashlight off the table and shined it into the next room. A few inches in, was the lip of a sudden drop-off.

  We inched up. The chasm had the suspicious appearance of an elevator shaft. I might have accepted the shape as an eerie coincidence, if not for the old, rusted rigging alongside it. Though bent and broken, its purpose was very much identifiable. The only thing missing was the elevator itself, and the space to run one. Someone had taken care of the latter by wedging an immense boulder into the shaft. It was a tight fit, resting about twenty-feet down, with only a few, tiny gaps around the edges. There was no way to tell if more rocks were piled underneath, but since this one amounted to a small mountain, it was enough.

  I glanced at Finn. I was itching to accuse him of knowing it was here. But I held my tongue at the genuine surprise on his features. Disregarding his sound of warning, I jumped down on top of the boulder.

  Finn squatted at the edge. “Are you sure it’ll hold?”

  I stomped on the rock, making him cringe. “I’m sure.”

  “The exit must be at the bottom.”

  “And the scar it was born from.�
� I’d felt it stirring. My empathic presence had woken it. Now, it was moving swiftly up the shaft to seek me out. The dark cloud was seeping in around the cracks. Streams of trauma were running over the pitted boulder, flowing toward me like trickles of black blood. They were frigid and needy. Ancient. I put my hand into their center, and Finn’s voice shrunk into the background. My vision grayed, and the years zipped past.

  The cave was alive, once, long before the boulder and the door were erected.

  Luminescent creatures skittered over the rocks. Tiny fish with glowing fins swam in the current of an underground stream. Moisture dripped and streaked the walls, beading on a bed of vibrant moss. Its thick softness embraced the dragon lying on her side in the center of the chamber, bloody and breathless, and dying.

  Her great body was torn open in multiple places. The end of her tail had been severed. One wing lay shattered against her flank. Mud and the fluid of countless creatures smeared her cherry-red scales. Exhaustion and pain kept her eyelids half-closed. But their position wasn’t enough to hide the stunning amber of her eyes. The color was the same. The shape.

  Son of a bitch. It was hers. The eye around my neck belonged to Yaslynne, the executed queen who opened the first exit—right here.

  It must be her, I thought. What other dragon would come here to die?

  Dead or not, though, Yaslynne’s connection to this place, and to the eye, was still very much alive. The residue of her mental abilities contained within the organ had put this place in my dreams. It lured me here. It wanted me to see, to know. But the eye held more than the former queen’s power. It held her pain, compressed and preserved, and waiting for someone capable of recognizing it.

  But why? What was Yaslynne’s ghost trying to tell me?

  I moved closer, studying her wounds. They were fresh and severe but not fatal, not for a dragon. Only, Yaslynne didn’t want them to heal. Her sad acceptance said she was done fighting. Done hurting and grieving. Done running. The one avenue she had left besides death was to use the exits and flee. But what life would it be, to leave all she knew and loved behind?

  I’d asked myself that very same question once.

  Two male lyrriken stepped out of the dark. Blood darkened the full armor covering their muscular, scaled forms. Scimitar-like swords with bone handles rested in their grips. The bulkier one spoke. “I will finish it here. I won’t make a spectacle of her. She is Queen, after all.”

  The older, smaller one disagreed. “No, Bayard. A public execution is required.”

  “She is my mother,” he shot back. “The decision rests with me.”

  “Does it, now?” the other seethed. He gestured to the semi-conscious elder with his blade. “Your mother nearly destroyed us. We haven’t even begun to see the ramifications of her actions. Drimera may never recover from the choices she made.”

  “Don’t tell me the cost of her treachery. It’s my name that will be forever associated with her crimes—not yours.”

  “Then follow the command you were given. Or should I inform the tribes your change of heart was false? If you’ve lied about turning your back on this bitch of a queen, what else have you lied—”

  Bayard pivoted and swung, cutting clean through his companion’s neck. “Far more than you will ever know,” he said, as the head hit the dirt. With a forward thrust through the chest, he destroyed the heart and let the body fall. Throwing down his sword, Bayard knelt at the great dragon’s side. “I’m sorry. For the things I said… What I did to you… I had no choice.”

  Yaslynne blinked at him. Tilting her head, her cheek brushed his hand. She seemed too weak for much more.

  “The only way to gain the trust of the tribal leaders, was to make them believe I’d abandoned you,” he said. “I hope you know, I never would.”

  “Nor I.” From the shadows emerged another, larger lyrriken figure. Bound in scales of a shimmery silver, the three heads of the balaur stared down at the bleeding dragon with a sorrow so deep, it chilled the room. The center head dipped and twisted around to face Bayard. Pain softened his voice. “We don’t have much time. They will come for her soon.”

  When the present settled into place, I was on my back, lying on the boulder. Finn was beside me, fussing and asking questions. But realization had me too preoccupied to address his concern. “Aidric wants me to have the eye. He always did. He wants me to keep it safe. To use it. Because my ability is like hers.”

  There was no doubt in my mind now. Safeguarding the eye was the mission he spoke of in my recently-recovered memory. But how did he know to choose me? When Aidric came to me that day on the riverbed, my empathic abilities hadn’t yet emerged.

  “My escape to this world must have spoiled his plans,” I said. “I had retrievers on my tail. The eye wasn’t safe with me. So, he gave it to his selkie lover, who passed it down to their daughter, Ella.”

  I glanced at Finn as I stood. Unease dented his brow, but he said nothing. I didn’t care. At the moment, getting it out mattered far more than his confirmation or denial.

  “The first time I saw the necklace was at the crime scene,” I went on, “in a vision of Ella’s death. I barely noticed it, until I saw it again, on Brynne. I pulled the necklace off her. I touched it. After that, my dreams started changing. The eye must have left a psychic imprint on me. It must have sensed my abilities were similar—like Aidric knew it would.”

  Is that why I was assigned to investigate Ella’s murder? I wondered. Did Aidric learn I was in town and saw an opportunity to get the piece into my hands? If so, then…

  Son of a bitch. Oren.

  Did he put me on the case for Aidric? Had Oren known, all along, who the necklace belonged to and what it could do? Had he lied to me this whole time?

  My head full of disturbing questions, I started back through the dark chamber.

  Finn followed close behind. “Where are you going? If we work together, we can clear the way. Don’t you want to see what’s on the other side?”

  “Why? Is that what Aidric wants?”

  “Dahlia, you’re acting paranoid. Aidric doesn’t know we’re here. You were going to find it, eventually. I thought showing you was better than letting you search for months on your own. I was trying to help.”

  “You’re right. I would have found it. Because it wanted me to. All this time, the eye was pulling me here. Pulling me toward…” I stumbled to a stop. It was all so clear now; our unexplained attraction, Coen’s unwavering loyalty—the things we did together in my dreams. “She had a balaur watching over her. That’s why Aidric recruited you. Because he thought your presence might accelerate my connection to the eye. Because he loved her, Finn,” I said, meeting his gaze. “He loved her so much.”

  Uncertainty slowed his voice. “I thought you couldn’t read love.”

  “I can’t. But the depth of his agony, the grief at knowing she was about to die, could only come from one place”

  “Did she love him the same way?”

  There was so little light. But even in the dark, Finn’s gaze shined with possibility and hope. “I don’t know. She cared for him. That’s all I can tell you.”

  He nodded, accepting my answer. If he was disappointed, I couldn’t detect it. All I could feel was the tension forming between us. Sudden desire gripped my body like a vice. It was painful, how much I wanted him.

  But did I, really? Or did she?

  “You knew, didn’t you?” I said. “Aidric told you their story. He encouraged you to get close to me, to form a bond. Did he give you something? Some piece of her dead lover, to trick the psychic residue in Yaslynne’s eye into thinking you were her balaur and—”

  Not mine, I thought. You were never mine.

  “You’re upset. I understand. But…you’re wrong.”

  “About which part?”

  I waited for Finn’s reply. I needed one, badly enough, that I gave him a full twenty seconds to tell me the truth, before I walked away.

  Twenty-One

  My
phone went off as I exited the coffee shop. Bumping the door open with my hip, I noted, first, the name on the screen: Evans. Then the time: 9:15 AM. And the message: At Norman Key’s apartment with Harper. Where are you???

  I hunched down inside my jacket against a fierce morning wind, as I sprinted to my car. I tossed my bag on the passenger seat and closed the door with a shudder. The chilly air on my face had woken me, but I wasn’t happy about it. Taking an eager sip of coffee, the warmth spread throughout me. My next swallow was less enthusiastic, as another message came through.

  You need to get here now! We have a problem.

  “What else is new?”

  Evans sent the address, and I activated the microphone as I started the engine. “New rule,” I replied. “No cryptic messages until I’ve had coffee. What’s up?” I hit send. With a glance behind me, I did a swift U-turn and headed toward Key’s apartment.

  At the red light, I glanced at his reply.

  Creed’s here. I’m sorry. I couldn’t hide it.

  My stomach dropped. I glared at the stop light and hit the steering wheel. I hit the horn next. As red turned to green, and the cars crept forward, my thoughts drifted from whatever crap pile I was about to step into, to the one I’d created during my early morning excursion into the tunnels. What I’d learned about the eye, how I’d left things with Finn; none of it was good. Lashing out at him with no proof he’d done anything wrong was stupid. It reflected my own insecurities, my own trauma. Better than anyone, I knew how ghosts twisted our perceptions and influenced our actions. Yet, I’d let mine slide right into the driver’s seat.

  Only, my anger hadn’t been solely directed at him. I was angry for him, too. The balaur believed his part in Aidric’s mysterious plan was noble. I was more inclined to believe the king had used us both.

  After sixteen minutes of stop and go traffic and two more, Where the hell are you?, texts from Evans, I pulled over three cars behind Creed’s sedan. Harper’s black SUV and a patrol car were also in view.

  Whatever Evans found in Norman Key’s apartment, I had zero info and no time to craft an explanation. I’d spun stories on the spot a hundred times. It wasn’t anything new. But I wasn’t spinning them to strangers anymore. Lying to my fellow team members was getting harder every day. I told Creed what I did on my off hours to smooth the wrinkles. All it did was tangle our relationship in more knots.