“Coyotes!” Polly yelled. “You won’t take me twice, fuckers!”
I looked up and saw them—coyotes weaving quickly through the tall grass. Some as animals, some as naked men with spears. At least a dozen of them were closing in on us.
“You should go!” I yelled back to Polly and my dad. “Both of you.”
But I couldn’t go with them. I wouldn’t leave Celedon here like this. Any second the coyotes would reach us. I needed him to wake up.
I bent my head down, so that my lips were nearly touching his ear, and I whispered a plea. “Celedon, I need you.”
Three coyotes leaped toward us. As soon as their back paws left the ground, Celedon rose.
In an instant he was up on one knee.
In the hand that had once held the cube was a wooden staff. Celedon drove the bottom of the staff into the earth and columns of rock shot up from the ground, knocking the coyotes midair. They fell back, crumpling to the ground.
The other coyotes hesitated for a moment, then resumed their attack. Celedon closed his eyes and gripped the staff with both hands.
The ground shook. Between us and the coyotes, a massive earthen wall rose from the ground, at least a hundred yards across and two stories high.
I stared in awe at this amazing man. He could do anything, how did I not know that already? And he was okay. He was going to be okay.
“Stay back.” Celedon ground his teeth together, and his voice was barely recognizable. “I can’t—”
The ground ripped apart, huge vines breaking up through the soil and whipping around. They smashed the blue grass and the coyotes.
“I can’t control it.” Celedon lifted up into the air, vines coiled around his waist and carrying him, another lashed against the ground only a foot from where I was standing.
“Astra, we need to go.” Dad touched my shoulder. I hadn’t realized how close he still was. I’d thought he’d run when I told him to.
“No.”
Celedon fell to the ground, and the vines withered. There was no sign of the coyotes, only devastation.
Celedon turned to me. His brow was lowered in concern, and I wanted to reassure him that everything was fine, that I was glad that he was okay, that everything would go back to the way it had been before this.
But something had changed.
I stared at him, and I was afraid. I was afraid that he had changed, that the staff had done something to him.
He took a step closer, and I flinched. I wished I hadn’t.
A white light enveloped Celedon, and he didn’t say a word. It grew and changed in shape until standing before me was a dragon.
Even if Celedon was losing control, even if the staff had changed him, the coyotes were the immediate threat.
I climbed onto his back, wishing that we were alone, wishing that we could talk about what had happened. But he couldn’t talk to me when he was like this, and we weren’t alone.
“Come on,” I yelled to Dad and Polly.
They just stared. I understood how they felt, but we didn’t have time.
“No, no way am I getting on that thing,” Dad said.
“Just come on.”
Polly shoved him and came at me running. She had a spear in her hand that I hadn’t noticed before. She vaulted onto Celedon’s back like she had done it a million times. Dad sighed, ran and leapt, arms out, belly flopping onto the dragon’s ribs. Polly and I each grabbed an arm and hoisted him up. As soon as Dad was onboard, Celedon beat his massive wings and lifted off.
Polly threw the spear down to where the coyotes had been. “Yeah! Eat a dick, fucker!”
Celedon banked to the left and she nearly lost her balance. Polly crouched down and held onto the dragon’s back, still smiling.
Even Polly was quiet on the flight, and soon we landed not by the entrance to Celedon’s cave, but in the center of a village.
There were small huts and more homes up in trees. Everything was interconnected with vine bridges and ladders. Along the walls that surrounded the homes, there were vertical gardens full of flowers and fruits. It was a beautiful place, and it belonged in paintings instead of reality.
People flooded from their homes as soon as we landed, circling around to see the dragon. Part of me was still pissed that they’d tried to kill me, while part of me wanted to like them because they were Celedon’s chosen people. I could give them a chance, or at least try.
Dad jumped off first, followed by Polly. I was last. When my feet hit the ground, Celedon transformed. Two women rushed forward with one of those little loin cloths he fancied, but he shooed them away, instead pulling one out of his magic portal pocket and putting it on himself.
His green eyes were set on me. Villagers pushed to get close to him. He said a few words to one of the men, but his gaze never left me. I was frozen, stuck in a trance. Everything replayed in my head, the cube, the light, the staff. The violence. My fear.
I’d been afraid of what he was doing, but more than that, I was afraid for him. It was the staff that had made him lose control of his power, I was sure of it. And he had it still. He wasn’t holding it, but I didn’t believe for a second he had left it behind, either.
It had to be in his pocket. And it was dangerous.
Someone slipped their hand over my eyes. I blinked hard and turned.
Polly stood behind me. “Hey. That was crazy, huh?”
“Yeah.” I looked around a second, for my dad. He was missing. I needed to talk to Celedon, but I needed to see him, too. I hadn’t even had a chance to tell him how glad I was that he was okay, or to ask him what all he had been through.
“Did you see where my dad went?” I asked Polly.
“Yeah, he went that way.”
I spared a final glance for Celedon, who was completely surrounded. I couldn’t even see him through the crowd. We’d have time.
I headed the way Polly had said, and found Dad crouched down behind one of the buildings, flipping through his journal.
“Dad?” I knelt down beside him and wrapped my arms around his neck.
He set down his journal and hugged me back. “Astra, I’m glad you’re alive. That dragon—”
“His name is Celedon,” I said.
His eyes sparkled with interest before narrowing. “How well do you know him?”
Well enough to have kissed him. Well enough to be touched by him. Well enough to think I might be falling in love with him. I pressed my lips together.
“Did you have an opportunity to examine the staff?” Dad asked.
Not yet. Polly would appreciate the joke. My dad would not.
“No,” I said, answering the question he had intended.
Dad flipped pointed to a page in his journal. There was a drawing of a wooden staff, with a dragon head on the top. Maybe it was the same thing, I couldn’t be sure.
“The Staff of Terra,” Dad said. “The relic we came here for.”
I was at a loss for words. None of this was supposed to happen. We were maybe supposed to find hidden treasure at the bottom of the sea, but likely there would be nothing at all.
But then we’d crashed, and we’d made it to shore.
On an island full of magic.
“I don’t know, Dad,” I said. “But either way, I think it’s past time you told me everything, not just about where in the ocean we’re supposed to go.”
“Yes.” He nodded, then his eyes flicked up to something behind me.
I turned, and I found Celedon standing a few feet away. He had his wings curled in behind his back, and he reached a hand out toward me. There was sadness in his eyes, sadder than the smile he’d shown me before the light had surrounded him, before his collapse, before the destruction.
“Hey.” I went over and took his hand.
“Hi.” I turned back to ask my father to give me a minute, but he’d already disappeared.
I sighed and turned back to Celedon. I grabbed both of his hands and looked him right in his soft green eyes. “That st
aff—”
“I have to go.”
“What?”
“The power is too great. I cannot control it, and I won’t risk harming you. Ever. You will remain here.” And just like that we were back to him giving me orders and me getting left behind.
“No, whatever you have to do—”
“I will come back for you.” He let go of my hands, and shot off into the sky.
Leaving me at the village seemed like it should be better than trapping me in a cave. So why did it feel worse?
Chapter 14
Celedon
Fear—Astra had been afraid of me. I hadn’t seen her pupils dilate like that since she’d been bound to my father’s dais. Even then, she’d held tight to defiance. I hated to see her afraid, worst of all afraid of me.
The truth was, I too was unsettled by the power that had surged through me when I’d opened the cube.
I sat on the forest floor in darkness, examining the source of it all. The staff appeared unassuming, created of wooden shoots twined together like vines. The only decoration was near the top, where there rested a carved, blackened dragon head with emerald eyes. The surface was smooth and cold, hard as polished stone. I rolled the wood across my palms, riding the storm of energy that surged from within.
There was a spark, the opening to a well of magic identical to my own. When I’d used my power to open the cube, those magics became one. The energy that had surged through me was tenfold. Before I could return to Astra, I needed to understand that connection. At the very least, I needed to be certain of my control. Her safety trumped any selfish need I felt to keep her close.
Blackened leaves brimmed over the top of wicker baskets on the ground in front of me. At a glance, I noted there were samples from various species originating in the plains, desert, and forest regions. Thorn had exceeded my expectations.
I rose to my feet and approached the vessel spilling blackened grasses that belonged to the plains region. Moonlight slipped through cracks between the branches above, illuminating the forest in soft swaying light. The gift of dragon sight allowed me to see finer detail in the dark wash of blue and green than Astra would have seen had she been by my side.
I set the staff against a tree and reached inside the basket. Blight pricked at the edges of my magic, stabbing and stinging with a thousand invisible thorns. Slowly, I curled my fingers in, clenching strands of brittle grass in my fist.
Life energy flowed out from my touch. Dry black strands softened, holes mended, and roots regrew on the ends of the grass blades. The disease retreated from the strands in my hand, but it wasn’t enough. Blight remained, a plague on the island, and it was my duty to eradicate every case of unnatural rot, every speck of disease.
I reclaimed the staff, and with it, my power surged. The pain of the world around me grew more pronounced. I could feel the tears of a million blades of grass, the anguish of distant ivy, the suffering of the trees. The hurt echoed through me, not just awareness, but empathetic transference. I squeezed the staff, welcoming the connection to its well of magic.
What felt like a world of power was only first a trickle, then a downpour of energy coursing through my veins. My body grew hot. Magic tendrils thrashed around me like vines. The power suffocated me, tightening its grip. I fought for control, loosening my grip on the staff. Like trying to catch a flood in cupped hands, the power rushed wild and free. I focused on squeezing the link, lessening the connection.
My senses dulled. It was working—I could still feel the plague, but also I could breathe.
I lifted my hand over the basket of grasses and allowed myself to be not the source of power, but the conduit. I eased my mind and let the energy of the land flow. It was electric, it was wild, it was life itself.
The weaving cracked and split, as the basket itself changed from dried leaves to living, blooming branches of the sassafras plant. The grasses within burst between the branches, and spread across the forest floor in a flourish of life.
I tightened my grip on the magical link, slowing the flow. Blue grass spread over the mossy ground and reached for the moonlit sky. It was too much growth, too far displaced.
I focused my attention on the staff, on my fingers curled around it. I willed my hand to open. With great force, I used my left hand to pry loose my trapped right hand. My fingers bent, and the staff dropped to the ground.
Light faded from the forest, and my body grew cold. Insects chirped in the darkness. Leaves rustled overhead, breaking the bands of light that glittered against the forest floor. I breathed in the cool evening air, expanding the rigid muscles in my chest.
With every breath, the tightness lessened. With every still moment in the quiet forest, I felt more in control. Leaving the staff where it lay, I spoke to the grass with a wave of my hand. The blue blades began to shrink. As the grass became less dense, I caught a glimpse of a soft glow.
I waded through the slowly shrinking blades and stopped before a single glowing orange blossom. I held onto the bloom as the rest of the grass shrunk slowly down into the earth, allowing the moss to thrive as it was meant to.
The waxy flower opened in my palm. I’d promised Astra we would return to the glowing fields. We were meant to be there now.
Soon I would make it up to her. Soon I could return. I had finally found the advantage I needed to not just slow the blight’s advance, but to eradicate the infestation once and for all. Soon I would control it.
Chapter 15
Astra
My father was alive. Polly was alive. We were reunited—as prisoners.
I stared up at the live vines that were woven together to make a ceiling over Thorn’s hut. The mattress was soft, and the room was lovely, but it was still a cell.
I couldn’t hear Celedon’s warrior wolf, but I knew he was still somewhere in the hut, possibly right outside my bedroom door. My father, Polly, and I had been split up as soon as Celedon left us here. He left me.
I tried to focus on the positive. At least the wolf shifters weren’t trying to kill me this time. Thorn had assured me we were all under his protection and that no harm would come to us. He’d said we were his guests, but being separated and contained didn’t exactly give me the warm fuzzies.
The first glimmers of morning light trickled through the tiny window beside the bed. The opening was too small a space to climb through, and even if it hadn’t been, I wasn’t sure if I would have wanted to leave. As ridiculous as it was, my plan was to wait. Celedon had said he’d come back for me. Just like he’d promised we’d go back to the field with the glowing flowers.
But that was before he’d opened the box. Things had changed.
There was a gentle rapping on my door. I climbed from the bed and opened it.
Thorn filled the doorway. Something about him reminded me a bit of Celedon’s brother, the sky dragon. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. He was huge, ripped, and had a boyish quality to his face that suggested he had a playful side. I hoped he didn’t also hate humans like the sky dragon.
“Good morning, Astra Rhodes.” Thorn offered me a warm smile and a pile of clothes and toiletries. “I thought you might like a shower and a clean change of garments.”
“Thanks.” I was grateful, really grateful, but more than a shower, I wanted to know about Celedon. “Any word yet?”
He shook his head. “The Guardian of Land does not come often. I wouldn’t expect him back right away.”
I squeezed the fresh clothes and soaps to my chest. Of course Celedon didn’t come here often. But I thought he’d make an exception for me.
“I’m sure it’ll be sooner with you here,” Thorn said.
I looked up at met his gaze. What was it I saw there in his hazel eyes? Pity?
“I’m fine,” I said. “Don’t worry about me. Also, I’m not staying inside your house forever. I’m going out and talking to my dad and my friend.”
He just looked at me, his expression unreadable.
“Today,” I said. “
Right after my shower.”
“Today.” Thorn nodded.
I’d expected a fight. Maybe this wasn’t as prison-like as I’d thought. He waited for me to say something else, or for me to do something else, I couldn’t tell. I gave him a small wave before shutting the door in his face.
Feeling a little better, I stripped down and headed into the small bathroom. Dominating the space was a large, metal tub. The shiny orange color suggested it was made of copper. Aside from the beauty of the piece, I found myself comparing the tub to a cauldron. All the better to cook me with. I set down my towel and clothes, climbed in, and looked around. There didn’t seem to be a faucet or knobs or anything. It was just smooth wooden walls, and the same rainforest-like ceiling above.
Thorn hadn’t said anything about the tub, and I specifically remembered him mentioning the word shower. Perhaps slamming the door on him wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done, but it sure had been satisfying while I was doing it.
I looked up at the ceiling. Thorn probably had to heat up water over a fire and bring it in from outside. That’s how this kind of thing used to be done. Even with all of the island’s magic, there was no equal to the conveniences of modern technolo—
Water droplets hit my face, seemingly out of nowhere. I closed my eyes and tilted my head down, letting the warm rain wash over me. When the surprise faded, I moved to the side and looked up to find the shower head I’d missed. There was none.
Instead, there was a mass of gray—a tiny rain cloud. I raked my fingers through it. The water kept on coming, and the cloud remained in place. The cloud felt strangely like nothing.
Maybe magic was all around better than technology. Rain cloud showers probably never ran out of hot water.
Once I was clean, I looked back up at the cloud and climbed out of the tub. As soon as I stepped out, the cloud disappeared. Poof.
I dressed in the new clothes Thorn had given me, which were pretty much exactly the same as the ones Kaelestis had provided except for the color and the fit. These ones were green, and actually woman sized. When I opened the bedroom door, I found a pair of shoes waiting for me. They were little sandals like the ones everyone on the island seemed to wear. My clothes weren’t mine. My hair and skin smelled different, from someone else’s soap. It was a pleasant scent, like passionfruit and wildflowers, but it wasn’t mine. I would stick with my boots, the only piece of me that felt like me anymore.
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