by Kym Dillon
17
Daya opened her eyes at the door to Marco’s house. For one disorienting moment, she thought she had returned to the situation she had left. Then, she realized it was daylight out. The auction had been at night. She clearly wasn’t hanging from a roof. Never mind the police tape crisscrossing the door.
Memories of her time in the Fire Realm came rushing back, and she crumbled. Arken! Strong arms caught her. She glanced over her shoulder and saw through a haze of tears that the Healer and guard were still with her. Like her, they had been re-outfitted in the Between to best suit the realm in which they arrived. Kenna was wearing jeans and an Oxford shirt. The young dragon shifter was in shorts and a t-shirt.
Daya covered her sob and tried to stand tall. Her future depended on quickly assessing what needed to be done next. Something else occurred to her. She was months further along in her pregnancy. Her stomach swelled over the stretchy yoga pants she now wore. She gasped and tucked a hand into her bra. Her phone! Daya looked skyward in a silent prayer of thanks.
“Your Highness?” the dragon guard whispered uncertainly.
“Hang on. I think it still has battery.” She held up the phone, eyes squinting at the date on the screen. There was something wonky about the device, and where the date should have been was a garbled mix of numbers. Her gaze flew from the phone to the surrounding landscape. It wasn’t her imagination. The place looked years abandoned. She couldn’t tell if she had been gone for days or months or years.
“Your Highness, a storm seems imminent,” the guard replied more insistently.
She looked up at the cloudy gray sky. “I know. I feel it. Come on. Let’s see if we can get inside.”
“What is this place?” asked the Healer.
“It’s a house in…the Sky Realm. This is where I’m from. I don’t think anyone is here. It looks abandoned, and we should be safe for a while, as long as we lay low. From what I can remember, the city is miles away.” It was funny how her mind seemed to grasp that much more time had passed. Things from her life here that seemed to have happened only yesterday were now like faded memories.
Daya used her shoulder to try to force the door to open. When that didn’t work, the dragon shifter took a turn. “Your name?” she asked.
He tossed a lock of bright red hair out of his face and smiled shyly. “Flev, Your Highness.”
“There’ll be none of that ‘Your Highness’ business in this realm,” she muttered. “Besides, I’m not the queen. Not yet, at least.”
She lifted his gun—which had been a sword in his realm—and blasted the doorknob. The door swung open with a loud creak just as thunder crashed over them and it began to rain. Daya hurried inside. Flev closed the door behind them, though it wouldn’t latch with the shattered locking mechanism. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked for all the world like a lost teenager.
“This is unbelievable,” she sighed.
“Yes,” said Kenna. “You look ready to pop. Let me take a look at you.”
“I’m fine. I’m—” A fresh wave of tears overwhelmed her as she shooed him away, turning her back to the both of them. Daya struggled to compose herself amidst her flood of maternal hormones. “Ahem. We need to figure out how to get in touch with him. Do either of you know a way?” Her companions shrugged and she shook her head helplessly. “What are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to know what happens in the war?”
Kenna stepped forward and ushered her to a dust-cloth covered chair in a corner of the foyer. He tugged away the sheet and forced her to sit. It was shadowy and dark in the house. She worried about spiders—or worse—but she couldn’t argue with him. She was too tired.
Kneeling before her, Kenna took her hands. “I don’t think there’s any way for us to know. In fact, I don’t think the king wanted us to know. From what I heard, he just wanted you and his child tucked safely away from the dragon eaters. Oedaya, this is difficult. For all of us. But, you must not get worked up. There’s a life inside you that requires your calm and reserve. I think you need to eat and get rest. Tell me how to find food in this place.”
As he spoke, she felt a tightening band of pressure wrap around her waist. “Check the kitchen. No, better yet, I’ll check it.” She rose laboriously to her feet and absent-mindedly whispered the power word that normally lit the candles in Arken’s keep. The lights flickered to life, and she gasped.
But, her surprise at having lights (or residual use of power words) diminished when she realized the oversized kitchen at the back of the house was empty of food. She leaned against the marble-topped island and planed her face in her hands. “I’ll have to go to the store,” she mumbled.
Not only that, she would have to get back on with life. She would have to find them a suitable place to stay, and she’d have to get a job to pay bills. She might also have to worry about Marco’s colleagues finding her. Or, the cops. It felt like too much to consider. She slumped to the floor, and Kenna was immediately beside her.
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m hurting, if that’s what you mean,” she winced. The band of pressure squeezed her again, and she realized what it meant. However, she didn’t want to consider that, either. “Let me just lie down. Can you get me to the living room?”
“How far apart are the contractions?” the astute Healer asked.
She sighed, “Minutes.” Instead of walking, Flev carried her. Daya ignored the possibility the couch the dragon shifted deposited her on was crawling with bugs. She closed her weary eyes and listened to Kenna murmuring orders. Hot water. Thank god for electricity. Towels. She doubted there would be any. The only thing left in the house was furniture. A knife. Maybe that could be found somewhere. She vaguely remembered stories of women in the wilds cutting the umbilical cord with their teeth, a thought that made her shudder.
She wondered if her baby would even have an umbilical cord. Maybe she’d give birth to an egg. Daya cried out as a much fiercer contraction enveloped her, interrupting her muddled thoughts. “I can’t have this baby here,” she whimpered. “I want to go home.”
“This is your home,” Kenna replied.
She adamantly shook her head. This wasn’t home. Home was with Arken. This was hell. She screamed again. The baby was coming, and there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing.
She named him Soleis. He was fair-haired like her own late father, but had Arken’s mysterious black eyes. When he was born, he was already six pounds and growing—and smart. Daya didn’t think she would ever get used to it.
She powered on her laptop and beckoned for the rambunctious child to attend to her. “Lessons first,” she chuckled. “After that, you can do flight practice with Flev.”
“But, Mom,” he whined, “I already know this stuff. It’s for kids.”
“Well, you are only two,” she teased. He looked closer to thirteen.
Her eyes swept over him. He would be tall and handsome. Although boyish, his face already had the angles and lines that made Arken unforgettable. The boy’s tanned skin was freckled from plenty of sunlight, and his mischievous grin reminded her of her photographs from grade school. He was such an amalgam of them both. Her heart ached to see him.
And, every precious moment passed too quickly. She had only mere weeks of holding him as an infant. She remembered the smell of the top of his head and his soft, drooling kisses. He had sprouted into a toddler, getting into everything. Then, he’d been a free-spirited little boy. All in the course of a handful of months.
Not only did his body mature faster, but so did his mind. She was astounded by his pace of learning. The complicated trigonometry he was learning in homeschool was completed within half an hour so he could rush off and practice simulated flights on the VR headset with the dragon shifter.
Daya leaned back in the recliner in the living room of the cozy little house she shared with the Healer and the guard. She stared out the window at the grassy field rippling like an ocean. Their home was cut off from most of the rest o
f civilization. They received deliveries once a week, and they kept to themselves.
She worked from home as a sales assistant, using the meager funds to cover their basic needs. What they couldn’t afford, they did without. Between her Maker skills and Kenna’s healing, they had made a comfortable life since arriving two years prior. The only hardship was boredom.
Kenna peered into the room. “How are you holding up?” he asked.
“The same,” she sighed. “He gobbles up information so quickly that I hardly feel useful any more. When do you think he’ll stop growing and start being more like me? I sucked in math at school.” She grinned. Kenna settled in a chair across from her.
“I think he’ll plateau soon. Give it some time.”
“That’s all we have is time,” she mused aloud sadly. Time. She wondered how long had passed in the Fire Realm where that slippery slope trekked much more slowly. Had the war been won? Was there a home to return to? How would she ever know? She gnawed on her bottom lip miserably until Kenna tapped her knee.
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m having a fascinating time in your world. Did you know there are medicines here for diseases that would kill a man in a week in the Fire Realm? Seriously, I don’t even think my services would be needed here.”
“Don’t undercut yourself. You do wonders for my mood.”
“When you allow me.”
“Yeah, well, there’s that. But, trust me, there’s not a shrink in all the land that can do what you do. How’s Flev? Has he talked to you?”
“Humph! All he does is talk, talk, talk. He talks about his new online job as a security consultant. He talks about some girl he met on the internet. You know, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that technology, by the way. He’s enamored with her, and he wants to meet her. Soleis, I’m afraid, is encouraging it.”
“He still wants to run away,” she whispered with grim understanding. Above all, it was her son who hated their isolated existence. He knew there was a world beyond their four acres, and he wanted to see more of it, but Daya couldn’t risk it.
Anyone who got to know him would instantly wonder at his rapidly advancing age. He’d be hooked up to wires in some government agency before she could say boo. He had never been to school, never been to the doctor. He hadn’t even gone with her to the store before.
As heir to the throne, it was her duty to keep him safe. Her, with the mafia probably still after her and her face likely on a Wanted poster. Since her return, Daya had adopted a fake identity. She lived in obscurity, and she liked it that way. It was too bad Soleis didn’t. This wasn’t his world anyway.
“He’ll come around,” she brightened.
Suddenly, a loud thump interrupted their chat, and Daya lurched to her feet in a panic.
“What was that?” Kenna asked.
“Soleis?”
“I’m fine, Mom,” her son called back sheepishly. His voice sounded an inflection deeper than it had just an hour before. Daya sighed and rubbed her temples as she marched to his bedroom to see what he had gotten into now. When she entered the room, she saw cracks in the wall and ceiling and shook her head in disbelief.
“What did you do?” she gasped.
Flev piped up. “He shifted, Your Highness. It was an accident, I’m sure.”
“Soleis, how many times have I told you, you have to control yourself! How am I supposed to pay for this?”
Soleis rolled his head in annoyance. “Well, maybe if you let me fly outside this wouldn’t have happened.”
“You know how I feel about that. You know why that’s not possible.” She cut a hand across the space between to signal her answer was final, but Soleis slumped to his knees and clasped his hands.
“Mom, please! I’m going crazy in this accursed house! I feel like a prisoner.”
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled.
He stared at her plaintively for a minute more before pushing to his full height and trudging out the room. “No, you’re not,” he said over his shoulder. “You’re just scared. You think I’m not ready, but I am. I can feel it in here.” He touched his chest.
She looked away. “The problem, son, is that you have no idea what it is you think you’re ready for…”
Daya knew she had to do it. She didn’t have a choice. Another year had passed, and Soleis was more restless than ever. She studied the travel brochure as she stood in the strip mall in the middle of the nearest Nothing Little Town. She gnawed on her bottom lip as she stepped to the travel agent’s desk.
“Uh, I was looking to find out about a trip to the mountains,” she smiled weakly. “I want to take my son hiking, but I’m not sure I can fit something like that into my budget.”
“Absolutely! Why don’t you have a seat and let’s start planning your adventure!” the agent beamed.
Two hours later, Daya pulled up to her house in the used car she had bought for a steal when she’d first arrived in the Sky Realm again. She stared at Soleis’ window with a frown. She saw the curtains drawn and wondered what he and Flev were up to. The rebellious teen had already convinced Flev to take him to the city once. That was why she was doing this. To keep him from repeating that reckless move.
She shuffled together the stack of contracts and pamphlets from her travel plans and got out of the car. Trudging into the house, she found Flev and Kenna sitting at the kitchen table. Kenna rose quickly. “We need to talk,” he said.
Daya dropped the pamphlets in dismay. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“It’s Soleis,” Flev said nervously.
Her heart leapt into her throat as she threw off her purse and started briskly to his room, but Kenna reached out and grabbed her before she made it to the door.
“He’s not harmed! But, you should be prepared when you see him.”
“For what?” she growled.
Flev cracked a grin. “He gave himself a tattoo.”
“Oh, for god’s sake! I thought it was something major,” she sighed with relief, chuckling.
“There’s something else,” Kenna interjected. “He tattooed himself to mark his transition to manhood.”
Soleis stepped out of his bedroom. “Hi, Mom.” He flashed a wan smile as her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. He had grown. Matured. He had—She was looking at the spitting image of Arken, but with blond hair.
“What the hell? I will never get used to this.”
“I have to admit, it’s a bit of a shock to me, too.”
“Daya, this is even unusual by dragon standards,” Kenna interjected quietly. “I think Soleis’ extraordinary precociousness has more to do with who he is, rather than what he is.”
“You think it’s because…?” She arched a brow.
Soleis tightened his lips and lifted his chin a fraction. “You guys can stop talking in code, you know. I found out months ago what you’ve been keeping from me all this time. The reason I could never leave the house. Why I’m like Flev, but not like you and Kenna. It’s because I’m the dragon king, isn’t it?” he asked boldly.
Daya swallowed and studied the floor. “No,” she whispered. When she lifted her eyes, they were filled with the glassy sheen of tears. “There is but one, true dragon king, do you understand me? He’s still alive. Now, go to your room.”
“I’m not a kid anymore.”
“You’re my kid!” she yelled unexpectedly. She covered his lips and turned away, suddenly feeling less in control. What Kenna was saying was that her son was being molded by forces of destiny. Whether she was ready or not, he would soon be snatched away from her, too. A broken sound escaped her, and she found herself kneeling on the floor.
“You’re my kid,” she whispered again, softer. “I won’t let anyone take you away from me. I had to give up our world and your father, but I won’t give up anything else.”
The tall, handsome man who was really her three-year-old little boy lifted her by the hand and drew her to his chest. “Mom, I don’t think any of us have a choice…I keep havi
ng these dreams. I feel like…leaving is something I must do. But, don’t you understand? I’ll always return.”
“When we leave,” she sniffed, “we’ll all go together.”
He shook his head and set her away. “No. We won’t. I’m leaving today. You’re staying here. This is the way it has to be, Mother.” His dark eyes darted to Flev as Daya stared at him in confusion. “Tell her.”
“Your Highness, the young prince has seen the signs. He’s asked me to accompany him. I’m not at liberty to deny his request,” Flev said reluctantly. Daya refused to believe it. She clutched her son’s shirt, but he gently shook her off.
“What are you talking about? What is he talking about, Soleis?” She gradually became aware of the suitcase in his grasp and the duffle bag on the kitchen table in front of Flev. “Please, you have to take me with you. Kenna, Flev, please. You know it was Arken’s plan that I come with you.”
“I tried to talk them out of it, but my hands are tied,” Kenna said apologetically. “I’ll stay here with you until they return.”
“I’ve been preparing for this for years, Mother. I wish I could’ve prepared you. I’ve always known I’d have to go it alone. I’ve stayed with you as long as I could, but this can’t wait any longer. I have to do what I was sent to do. I’ll be back for you. I promise,” Soleis said as he headed to the door. “It’s my destiny.”
18
The war had been raging for two grueling months. As a blood-red sun set on another heartbreaking day, the dragons were on the run again, and the king was losing all hope. Arken gazed longingly at the islands becoming specks in the distance behind them. He was surrounded by his remaining warriors and the last of refugees.
Misery clawed his chest as he realized how badly he was failing them. The flew through an ironically blue sky studded with white fluffy clouds—an entire race made homeless. He didn’t know where he would take them, but he would fly until his lungs gave out and until his body would go no more. He had to get them out of harm’s way.