Plight of the Dragon

by Debra Kristi

  33

  IN SIGHT

  Marcus

  Wind slipped over Marcus’s wings with the force of a firestorm. Kyra was in his sights, and Bolsvck at his back. He’d burned for the Moorigad for so long, he didn’t know how to want for much else. Only her, and the power. The power to destroy those who had devastated his life. His mind swarmed with words, all the things Bolsvck had said. He didn’t want to hear them, and yet he couldn’t stop. What don’t I know?

  With each second, Kyra came into clearer view. She was watching him and didn’t appear to notice the approaching Water Dragons, or the Reapers. Her sights were fixed on him, and his on her. It was a moment of connection that stirred his belly with the sultry seed of desire. An unexpected desire that had bloomed the first time he’d seen her in action, fighting the fire in her trailer. Now, she stood upon the frozen lake, hair flapping in the breeze, curves caressed by the wind, and he longed to run his fingers through the brilliant strands of ruby. Slide his palms along her soft…blue skin?

  Marcus’s speed curbed, then resumed, pushing to top his fastest velocity yet. Blue. Why is she blue? Something dark and weighty dropped in his gut. He should have bound her with another dragon already. Or maybe not. Whatever he felt for her, his need to be accepted and desired by her made him weak. All he needed was the Moorigad. He could let Kyra die. Let her go. Problem was, he couldn’t fully convince himself of such a notion enough to make it true. But if she died, it would be good, liberating, for him.

  Kyra shivered and stared back at him, and then disappeared from view. Damn Water Dragon. Coiling around her like a cocoon.

  He dove, bringing the lake surface ever closer. Yard by yard, foot by foot, inch by inch, they all shrank into nothing in a blink. In a nanosecond, he’d have her.

  Something yanked at his tail. All his momentum shifted. He went from flying forward to soaring backward, and then to the side. Kyra was gone, and the carnival lights swooshed past him.

  34

  SWIFT DEATH

  Kyra

  He was coming for her, she had not a doubt. She would kill him and end all the suffering. Save her family, save the carnival, and protect all dragons, of all types and clans, from his traitorous actions. Sweat trickled along her brow. Her palms were damp and fingers, anxious. Anxious to wrap their grip around Marcus’s throat. But that wasn’t an option. She was human, and he was a dragon. In constant motion, her fingers curled in and out against her palm. It didn’t make a plan materialize any faster. Time was fleeing, and she had no idea what to do, only knew what she wanted to do and was determined to make happen.

  Without taking her piercing stare from Marcus, Kyra called to Talia. “Can you b-bestow some sort of m-m-magic upon me that will t-t-turn me into death for anything that b-b-breaks my skin?”

  “What?” Kyra heard the balk in her voice.

  “A bomb of s-s-sorts. Fire alone won’t do. I’m not even s-s-sure venomous gas would be enough.”

  “Are you crazy?” Talia’s voice spiked. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

  “My t-t-time is about up, anyway. M-m-might as well do some g-g-good with it.” Kyra bit her lip. She had to hold strong, not show the slightest sign of a waiver.

  Talia screamed.

  Kyra jumped and turned to find Ryhuu in dragon form. His long, serpent body slithered past Talia and reached Kyra in a nanosecond. He moved in a circle around her, curling upon himself until she was trapped within a tiny dragon well.

  He glared down at her from the top of his coil and hissed. “Where have you been, Kyra?” His head moved to and fro. “You play a dangerous game, act like a foolish child.”

  Kyra took a deep breath and reigned in her rage. It would be so easy to blow up in his face, punch him with her dissenting opinion. But that was not the Kyra she wanted to be, at least, not anymore. She would think her situation through and manage it by wit, not impulse. “I am n-n-not acting the f-fool,” she said, opening her eyes. “I am standing up for what I believe must be done. You w-would do the same, if you b-believed in anything besides my mother.”

  “I believe in you, and in us,” the long Water Dragon hissed.

  “Would you st-st-still believe in us if I decided n-n-not to embrace the Water Clan?” she countered.

  “You would choose Fire?” His coil loosened, and his head pulled back.

  “I would ch-ch-choose neither.” Kyra kept her gaze steady upon his. Felt the truth in her words. For so long, she had struggled with the choice her family pressed upon her, and all along she’d known, she always knew, all she needed to do was accept it. But she wanted nothing to do with either clan. She was Moorigad, and she wanted to be Moorigad forever, for however long or short of a time span that ended up being.

  “But you would die!” Ryhuu’s head motion quickened, to and fro, to and fro.

  “So bbbe it, then. It’s who I am, and I’ve decided I never want to c-c-compromise myself for someone else’s superstition.”

  Ryhuu hissed and said nothing. With a whip of his head, he took in the surroundings, and then roared, his stare locked on something outside of Kyra’s range of sight. She couldn’t see anything beyond the big, irritating dragon wrapped around her. She pushed her hands against his body and shoved. He uncoiled with a snap of his tail, and roared again.

  She had expected to see Marcus and his monstrous hide blocking out the moon, bearing down on them. He wasn’t there. He was… She turned to search and found him smashing into the ice—and her father. The oncoming line of Grim Reapers Ryhuu had roared at didn’t concern her, even bringing with them death at their touch, or breath, or however they did what they did. She figured she was as ready as she ever would be. Life without Sebastian and her dragon didn’t seem like a life worth living.

  Her body shivered, an uncontrollable wracking straight to the bone. She half expected to see ice crystals forming on her fingertips, but there were none, merely skin frozen stiff in a deathly shade of blue. Pounding like the rapid beat of a dragon’s wings, Kyra’s heart took off in a sprint. Bile churned in her belly and threatened to rise up her esophagus.

  Time was running out. She had to get to Marcus.

  Busy sneering at the Reapers, Ryhuu didn’t appear to notice when Kyra dragged her body past him. Stiff and cumbersome, she moved forward, keeping Marcus in her sights. “Marcus,” she called out. Her voice was weak, yet her soul hummed with the fire of purpose. He would hear her. She had to believe he would.

  “What are you doing?” Ryhuu suddenly stood before her, no longer a tremendous Water Dragon. He grabbed hold of her as a man would a woman and peered into her eyes with glaring incredulity.

  She tried to smile, a mild attempt to soften his temper. “Like I s-said. I’m putting an end to th-this.”

  A wisp of dark smoke whisked around them, headed straight for Marcus and her father, but then misty substance paused and hovered on the other side of Ryhuu, directly in Kyra’s line of sight.

  From the smoke, Leila materialized. “I heard your thoughts, dragon girl,” she said. “Proceed.”

  “Who is this?” Ryhuu spun around. “What is she talking about?”

  “Now, now, pretty dragon boy.” Leila approached him and placed her hands on the sides of his face. He stared into her dark, obsidian eyes, his face glazing over, all fight leaving his body.

  Kyra stepped away, turning her back to the scene. She didn’t want to think about what a Mara did or what would become of Ryhuu. She had to stay on task, no matter the cost. Taking another step forward, she called Marcus’s name again. The dragon brawl had taken a turn in Marcus’s favor. Bolsvck lay in a heap on the ice with Marcus standing over him.

  This time Marcus heard her call, turned his head, and, in a flash, spread his wings and stood before her, stripped of his dragon form.

  “Kyra, no!” her mother called out from the frozen lakebed. Kyra didn’t respond, although she imagined her mother shifting into serpent form and coming to her rescue.

  A breath away, M
arcus stood in front of Kyra, his hand moving to caress her cheek. His eyes, his cold, blood-thirsty eyes, softening and his mouth twitching. “Kyra,” he began, “I…”

  She feigned a faint. Marcus caught her before she hit the ice. She hoped he didn’t notice her hand slip to the edge of her boot, didn’t see her pull the blade, saw nothing but her glazed-over eyes. Then she blinked and met his gaze with clear deception in her reflection. “May you have a swift death,” she said, and plunged the blade deep between his ribs.

  Marcus roared and dropped Kyra to the frozen ground. Standing, he stumbled several steps back and yanked the blade from his chest.

  On the ice, Kyra rolled to her hands and knees, attempted to push herself up, but her strength refused to respond. Beneath her, beneath the ice, something moved, and she peered down intently, ignoring Marcus. Down in the depths of the lake’s water, below the ice-covered surface, a monster stirred, and he had shown his face to Kyra.

  She gasped.

  “Do you think a tiny blade such as this would stop me?” Marcus said, dropping the weapon as one might discard a piece of trash. Then Queen Shui crashed into him, dragged him away, and he was gone.

  Kyra knew she should care, should follow their conflict and try to finish what she’d started, but her mind was crammed with thoughts of ginormous lake monsters. The ice shook, and Kyra fell to her side. The impact had come from below.

  In those moments of chaos, multiple things happened. Marcus and Kyra’s mother roared. Her father called her name. Ryhuu cried out in a blood-curdling scream, and a deafening screech came from the sky. Drakhögg and Keahi were inbound. She imagined the Reapers smiling from ear to ear at the mess she had created by saving Marcus from drowning that day. A memory she preferred to forget. Her heart raced with anger, anguish, and anxiety. If only I’d let Marcus die that day.

  A feeble sob, Talia’s, came from somewhere behind Kyra. She couldn’t see the witch; her sight was abruptly blocked by the arrival of her parents. They got in her face like they had done far too often before she’d run away to the carnival.

  “Quickly, Kyra. Make a choice,” her mother said, grabbing hold of Kyra’s hands.

  “You’re freezing, girl. Choose fire,” her father said.

  Kyra raised her gaze to them and shivered. The ground beneath them rocked unsteadily, and clinging to the ice only chilled her deeper to the bone. The surface shook again, this time cracking and breaking. Large sections shifted, lifted, and tipped at angles.

  “I am dying.” She closed her eyes. “And I have no dragon within me for a choice to matter.” She sighed and laid her head upon her folded forearms. She wanted to fight. If only she could gather the strength.

  “You are dying a Moorigad’s death.” Her father dropped beside her. “Make a choice, and you will live to see another day.”

  Was it true? Had she finally reached the point of choose or die? She didn’t believe them. Dying was her fate for being dragonless, and nothing more. Even so, if it were true, she refused to choose.

  “I am forever Moorigad.” She gazed at them groggily.

  The ice cracked open, a wide hole sliced by the thump of a colossal hide cut with spurs and spikes. Glacier-like sheets skittered and flew in all directions, and the frozen surface of the lake spider-webbed with cracks, separating everything into shifting chunks—islands of floating ice. A tail swept up from the hole, and then disappeared below.

  “Choose now!” Queen Shui yelled.

  Kyra balanced on the wobbling ice and stared at the space where the giant tail had been. She’d thought she’d seen a person hanging on. Blinking the hallucination away, she glowered back at her mother and yelled, “No! Don’t you hear me? I am Moorigad!”

  Above, the sky quickened into a maddening swirl. Orange and red and blue blending into one muddy mess, and then, zap, out of the sky, like a beam of light in the form of a diving dragon, the colors rocked toward the lake. Orange, bleeding with red, blending into blue; the wildly welcomed colors of Kalrapura—Kyra’s dragon half. Then the colors slammed her in the chest. A tiny yelp escaped her lips, the glacier chunk tipped, and Kyra slipped into the water.

  35

  DOMINANCE

  Marcus

  Bitch tried to gut me. Irritating. They’re all so irritating. I cannot be part of this family, be it through blood or marriage. It would be humiliating. Winning control of Kyra had failed, but that was no longer his primary concern. Marcus’s mind struggled with the revelations Bolsvck had dropped upon him. He didn’t want to believe in twisted plots or the royal redemption. Sure, he hated Davies. The man was a relentless thorn in his side, always trying to kill Marcus. But what would that man have stood to gain from destroying Marcus’s family?

  Prying his arm free from the cursed Water Queen’s clench, Marcus kicked her under the chin, then burst into the form of his mighty dragon. Claw swinging wide, he caught Bolsvck across the chest. Stupid bastard had come to the queen’s aid. He should have stayed away, stayed safe while he could.

  The ground quaked. Marcus’s wings flattened to maintain balance. The Water Dragon Queen slipped and slithered across the changing landscape like it was second nature. Wrapping around Bolsvck, she pulled him a safe distance from Marcus and the fracturing ice. A crater the size of a small coaster appeared beside Marcus, and the ‘berg beneath his feet hissed and moaned, dropping with the massive dragon’s weight. He lurched for the royal pair, but Bolsvck and Queen Shui were a claw-length out of reach. And then Leila was there, standing in front of him, manifested as dark and hallow as ever.

  “I shall finish what she started.” She tipped her head back, and it was like the world around her was being sucked into a void. An ever-expanding void. Horror, depression, and anxiety assaulted him. His chest tightened, heart accelerated, and desire and strength plummeted. Nightmare upon nightmare melted into his every thought and feeling.

  And just a quick as she had appeared, she was gone. He was him again, angry and irritated as ever. Why did she leave?

  A sound drew his gaze upward.

  From out of the sky, in the timespan of a wing’s flap, two dragons dropped upon him, turning his battle for balance and struggle for sanity into a wing-flapping fight for dominance.

  36

  BLEEDING

  Kyra

  Biting harder than ice, scorching deeper than fire; agony, anger, sorrow, and fever raged through Kyra’s veins, moving like an unchecked dragonling. She slipped beneath the water, welcoming Death into her embrace.

  But Death did not come. I can’t feel my toes. Her dress dragged at her, pulling her like a weight. Not what she’d expected; dark, turbulent, and scratchy was the water. Frigid temperatures fought to squeeze the life from her body. Only, life did not depart. It lingered, struggling in a constant state of flux, causing her muscles to ache and her belly to churn with nausea.

  Folds of fabric wrapped around her, confining her movements, and deeper into the lake she sank. And although she struggled for the surface, she discovered a water-free supply of oxygen she never craved. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew the lack of need held significance, but her mind was far too consumed with reflection. Maybe it was her life flashing before her. Or maybe it was nothing more than obsession, her eternal desire to succeed. She had failed to defeat Marcus. The outcome nagged at her, yet she was ready, eager even, to hesitate no longer and join Sebastian in death. If only her body would comply. What had that bolt of light done to her?

  The current spun her in a circle, and something hard and rough cut across her side. Mother, she thought, peering after a large tail swinging around her. Except she knew better. This creature was different, larger, and far more battle-scarred. And then the voice began. A subtle vibration in the water, the whisper crowded everything else from her mind.

  “Child of water and fire, why do you drift to your death?”

  Drained by her internal change, Kyra did not answer, and so the voice continued.

  “Death is a coward’s r
esignation. You are above such action. You are Moorigad. Choose life, and put an end to our persecution.”

  The word our rang out above the rest. Was this creature calling himself a Moorigad? His scales were old, visibly worn, and his eyes spoke of years beyond reason. Ancient was the term Kyra would attribute to him, millions of leap-years older than any dragon she’d ever met. If he was indeed a Moorigad, that meant everyone she knew had lied. A choice was not required, merely desired. Heat exploded across her skin at a heart-stopping raw fever, and Kalrapura roared. Understanding filled Kyra and sent her blood soaring. She was on fire, internally on fire, and she love it. Craved it, even. Scales shifted across Kyra’s skin and then disappeared again. Her heart thrummed double-time and sudden, sharp awareness had her logging everything within her perimeter.

  She had her dragon back. Kyra and Kalrapura were finally complete. And not only that, the change was still ongoing, fire and water bleeding into each other. Bleeding into one, becoming something different, something whole, something truly Moorigad. All the pain and suffering no longer felt important; it was the end result that held significance.

  “You feel it now, don’t you?” the old dragon asked.

  Before Kyra could answer, her mother appeared, and then both dragons disappeared in a mirage of bubbles and sediment.

  A scream lodged in Kyra’s throat and exploded in a growl. Her body was shifting and transforming, leaving the girl behind and becoming the dragon. This time, the change was unlike any she had previously endured. Blood boiling, skin and scales shivering. The lake water around her bore the reflection and glow of the magical bleed.

  Grumbles and growls in the water around her stilled, and the sense of isolation set in. Her mother and the old dragon were gone.