Twinchantment

by Elise Allen

  Sara didn’t fight her on that. She knew she’d be more of a danger to the group if she put herself at risk.

  Flissa scrambled a little lower and grabbed a heavy chunk of loose rock. She hurled it at the nearest dragon with all her might and smacked it right between the eyes. It fell down, tumbling into three other dragons along the way. All four pinwheeled to the ground, but Flissa didn’t watch to see what happened after. Sixteen more dragons still flapped their way toward them, spitting venom she dodged to avoid.

  “Good shot,” Galric said, and Flissa realized he was right there next to her, a heavy rock cocked in his hand. “Let’s keep playing.”

  He hurled the rock hard, and it hit the next-closest dragon, knocking it out. That beast also took out another as it fell, and Galric grinned. “Only two points for me. I better catch up.”

  Flissa smiled, and together they grabbed rock after rock, always careful never to touch the ones that were red with venom, and hurled them down at the dragons. Then Primka soared past with an impossibly large boulder grasped between her tiny feet. “Incoming!” she shouted, and Flissa and Galric pressed themselves closer to the side of the mountain as Primka dropped the boulder, taking out five more.

  “Down and to your left!” Sara shouted. “Two getting close!”

  Galric and Flissa threw their rocks at the same time and knocked both dragons out.

  Together, the two of them and Primka hurled and dropped rock after rock until all twenty dragons writhed and moaned at the bottom of the mountain. The beasts were down, but they were very much alive, and there was no telling when they’d perk up and charge again.

  “Let’s get to the cave,” Galric said.

  Flissa was happy for the direction. Together they scrambled up to get Sara; then all three of them maneuvered their way to the crevice Primka had found, and squeezed their way inside.

  “Now what?” Sara asked, but Flissa put her hands to her lips. She had heard the dragons screeching. The ones who had been knocked out were starting to get up, and like the vines of the Brambled Gates, they were not happy. She wordlessly urged Sara as far back into the cave as they could go, and Galric and Primka joined them. Nitpick peeked out of Galric’s shirt for just a second, then ducked back down again as the loudest dragon shriek yet echoed outside the cave. Flissa grabbed Sara’s hand and saw her sister exchange a glance with Galric.

  They all froze, not even breathing. Barely moving, though Flissa felt Sara tense up as the FWOOF FWOOF FWOOF of wings drew inexorably closer and closer.

  Flissa shut her eyes against the sound and only listened as the wing beats passed their cave entrance, blowing in dust and fetid air that smelled like old meat.

  She held back a sneeze.

  The sound died away, and Flissa’s body relaxed—until she heard a thump. She opened her eyes and saw the long scaly feet of the last dragon perch on the rocks just outside the crevice. Its legs and lower body filled the entrance. Then its long toothy beak lowered, and Flissa heard the hideous sound of poison-wet snuffles as it tried to sniff them out.

  Could Flissa pull out her sword and lunge for it? It might spit acid venom and destroy her as it died, but at least she’d save Sara and the others. Then Sara could go on and save Mother.

  The snuffling got louder, and Flissa moved her hand to her pouch.

  Suddenly she jumped as a monstrous roar caromed through the cave—a deafening bellow unlike anything they’d heard before, followed by a river of fire that flowed past the cave opening and baked their skin.

  Flissa smelled burned flesh, and for a second, she thought it was her own.

  Then the flames outside their cave faded away, and Flissa heard only massive wing beats, then beautiful silence.

  She was fine. Sara, Galric, Nitpick, Primka…they were all in one piece too. It seemed like they’d survived, but none of them trusted the silence. They waited, breathlessly hoping all would stay calm, until finally they all let out their breath in a giant whoosh and collapsed to the floor.

  Sara knew she shouldn’t relax. Yes, they had shelter, and they had made it past the dragons, but they were in a cave high on a mountain. Sara had just seen an entire mountain—a mountain that looked like it was full of people who lived there—implode into dust.

  She wasn’t safe. She should have been as terrified as she’d been when she first saw all those horrible mouths in the ground, opening and closing. Instead, she felt more alive than she ever had in her life. They had escaped those mouths. And dragons. Dragons! And she hadn’t gotten them in trouble like she had in the Brambled Gates. When no one else had known what to do, she’d come up with the plan to throw the newly broken rocks. And it had saved them. She had saved them. Sara took a deep breath and savored the moment.

  When she felt like an eternity had passed with no signs of danger, Sara got up and tried to check out their surroundings. She almost immediately walked into a wall. The crevice of the cave opening wasn’t big enough to let in much of the purple sunlight. Sara reached into her pouch. “I need light!”

  She had no idea what she was looking for specifically. She knew she and Flissa hadn’t packed anything that would help, but Katya seemed to have thought of things they hadn’t, so it was certainly worth a try.

  SMACK! Something large and round slapped into Sara’s palm. She pulled it out. The thing was whitish in the cave’s dim light, but it was just—

  “A ball,” Sara said aloud.

  Primka flitted over and hovered in front of Sara. “It does seem that way,” she admitted, “but you reached into a magic pouch and told it what you need. There has to be a reason this ball came to you.”

  Sara smiled. “It’s magic.” Then she frowned. “But I’m not magic. So how do I make it work?” Primka opened her mouth to answer, but Sara cut her off, excited. “No, I want to figure it out. Katya knows I’m not magic, so she wouldn’t have put it in my pouch unless I could use it. And the only magic thing I know how to use now is the pouch, and that gives me what I want when I ask for it, so…”

  Sara grinned. She’d figured it out. She cupped the ball in her palms and said, “Give us light!”

  She squealed as the ball glowed blue. Bright enough that they could see, dim enough that it wouldn’t shine too brightly and attract unwanted attention. “I did it! It works! We have a magic light!” She was so excited she tossed the ball into the air but completely missed when she tried to catch it. Flissa rolled across the floor and caught it seconds before it would have smashed to the ground.

  “It’s perfect,” Flissa said. Then she scrunched her face. “Are you limping?”

  “A little. I kinda twisted my ankle when we were running from the dragons.” Sara blushed and felt silly admitting it. It was ridiculous that after all the running and climbing and stone throwing Flissa and Galric had done, she was the one who’d gotten injured. “It’s not a big deal.”

  Sara took the light back and held it up to illuminate their little cave. “Hey, look at that,” she said. There was an opening in the back, a space between two rocks that had been hidden in shadows. When she leaned into the space and held the blue orb toward it, she realized what she’d found.

  “It’s a tunnel,” she said. “A long one. I think we should check it out.”

  “I don’t think going into the mountains is a good idea,” Flissa said. “Did you forget about the collapse?”

  “I don’t think going back outside is a good idea,” Galric said from his spot against the cave wall. “Did you forget about the creature-digesting ground?”

  “No, I did not,” Flissa said pointedly. “I think the intelligent thing to do is figure out logically which path is the safest, then—”

  Primka flittered over to Flissa and landed on her shoulder.

  “Flissa,” she said gently, “there is no safe path. We’re in the Twists. It was created from magic. Its sole purpose is to punish dark mages and make sure they never come back to Kaloon. Anything can happen here, none of it good.”

  “So
me of it good,” Sara countered softly. “The land and the dragons were all really pretty…until they tried to eat us.”

  “That’s a pretty big ‘until,’” Flissa said.

  “Indeed,” Primka agreed. “And the path I saw to the marketplace was filled with even worse. Fires, and tornadoes, and—”

  “And that’s why we should explore this tunnel!” Sara said. “It might bring us out somewhere with a better path to the marketplace and Dorinda.”

  “Or,” Flissa countered, “it could bring us to a dead end. At least Primka got a look at what’s along our path out there. So we can prepare.”

  “Prepare how?” Galric asked. “Things change out there. Whatever Primka saw, it won’t last. It doesn’t even matter. No offense, Primka.”

  “It’s all right,” Primka said. “You’re correct.”

  “Yes, but we have to get to Dorinda in the marketplace,” Flissa said. “If we don’t…”

  Flissa didn’t have to finish the sentence. They all knew what would happen if they failed. But there was no way Sara wanted to go back the way they’d come. Sara couldn’t explain it, but she knew—she knew in her bones that if they went back out there something horrible would happen, and they wouldn’t succeed.

  But without a logical way to explain that, how could she convince Flissa?

  Then it hit her. “Let’s flip the coin.”

  “Yes!” Flissa agreed. She eagerly pulled out her locket.

  Sara smiled. She’d made up her mind that if she needed to, she’d lie for the second time. No matter what the coin said, she’d tell Flissa it wanted them to go down the tunnel.

  Sara held out her hand for the coin, but Flissa shook her head. “I’ll do it,” she said. “I don’t want it to get lost in the cave.”

  “Are you sure?” Sara asked, her heart beating faster. “I’ll be careful.”

  “I have it, thank you. King, we go out the way we came; queen, we go down the tunnel.” Flissa balanced the coin on her thumb, flicked it expertly into the air, where it spun around and around and around; then she snatched it and held it in her right fist. She smacked her right hand down on the back of her left, closing her eyes as she slowly lifted her right hand away—she didn’t want to see the verdict until she was ready.

  Sara, however, saw the coin the second Flissa’s hand lifted. It was their dad’s face. King. They go out the way they came. Sara’s heart sank and she closed her eyes, devastated. She wished with all her heart the coin had come up the other way.

  “Queen,” Flissa said. “We take the tunnel.”

  Sara’s eyes snapped open. “What?”

  “Queen.” Flissa held out her left hand. Sitting on the back of it was their mom’s face, smiling on the back of the coin.

  “Really?” Sara asked. “Did you…flip it or something?”

  Flissa looked confused. “You mean after it landed? Of course not. Why would I ever do that? That takes away the whole point of having the coin.” Then Flissa’s eyes widened. “What are you saying?” she asked nervously. “You think the coin’s wrong?”

  “No-no-no!” Sara said quickly. “I see it now. Queen. Totally clear. Sorry, it was the blue light. I saw it weird for a second. The coin’s right. The coin’s always right. We take the tunnel. Come on, everybody.”

  As Sara led the way holding the blue-glowing orb, she couldn’t stop thinking about the coin. Did she see it wrong? Had it been queen all along?

  No. It wasn’t. It wasn’t the light, or her eyes playing tricks on her. The coin had come up king. But by the time Flissa looked at it, it was queen. And the coin hadn’t moved. Neither one of them had touched it.

  There was only one answer, and Sara didn’t know if she loved it, or if it scared the living daylights out of her.

  Magic.

  The very sound of the word in her head thrilled her, but she wasn’t sure what it actually meant. It’s not like she flipped the coin on purpose, so it’s not like she’d found a power she could harness again. It just happened. She wasn’t even sure how she could come up with a way to test it, even though she’d love to.

  She was so lost in her own thoughts, she didn’t pay attention to the walk. She barely registered the drippy, moss-covered walls that pressed close around them, didn’t listen to anyone talking or what they had to say. She just kept thinking about the coin, and how it flipped, and what it meant.

  Then she realized it was cold. She wrapped her cloak more tightly around her.

  THUD.

  She turned around and saw Galric had toppled forward. He lay sprawled out on the ground. Sara knelt down next to him. “Are you okay?”

  Her breath came out in white plumes. When did it get so cold?

  Galric nodded, but it was more a violent tremble. “C-c-c-can’t feel my feet. D-d-d-do you have any more cloaks in that bag?”

  “I th-th-think we need more than cloaks,” Flissa said through chattering teeth. “Look.”

  Hands shaking, Flissa pointed down the tunnel, back the way they’d come.

  As Sara watched in horror, a wave of whiteness pushed its way through the tunnel. It moved slowly but inexorably, and everything in its path froze solid.

  And it was heading their way.

  “Flissa!” Primka squealed.

  Primka plummeted, her wings at an odd angle to her body. Flissa dove and grabbed her a second before she’d have hit the floor.

  Sara had never heard a chattering beak before. Primka’s sounded like castanets, and she could barely get the words out between clacks. “My wings f-f-f-froze.”

  The chill tore into Sara’s face. The wall of white was getting closer. She still held the blue orb in one hand, but she reached out the other to Galric. She wanted to pull him to his feet and run, but when he grasped her hand, she felt nothing. Her hand was a cup-shaped wax slab, not her own at all. Even when she concentrated and tried to grip him back, her freezing fingers wouldn’t listen.

  “I c-c-c-can’t move, F-F-F-Flissa!” Sara cried. “I’m too f-f-f-freezing.”

  “We have to m-m-move,” Flissa said. “The w-w-w-wall of cold…it’s m-m-m-magic. If we don’t move before it reaches us, we’ll f-f-f-freeze like everything else.”

  “We’re alr-r-r-eady freezing!” Galric retorted. And from the depths of his shirt, Nitpick mewled and agreed.

  Flissa shook her head. She took a single determined stride, but her legs buckled under her and she dropped. Amazingly, she tucked Primka in the crook of one arm while catching her fall with the other. She wasn’t hurt, but she was next to Sara and Galric on the ground now, and Sara saw her sister’s lips were as purple as her eyes.

  Sara looked down the tunnel. The wall of whiteness was only a few feet away. Even if they had their footing, they couldn’t outrun it now.

  This was her fault. She’d done something to the coin. It didn’t want them to come this way, but she’d changed it somehow, and now they were going to freeze to death.

  She cried, but the tears froze in the corners of her eyes.

  The cold was seeping into her brain. She could feel her thoughts moving slower. They weren’t connecting. She squinted to try to see Flissa through their steamy breath.

  The wall of whiteness was very close now. They only had moments.

  “F-F-F-Flissa,” Sara whispered. She held out her hand to her sister, then looked at it curiously. The orb was still clutched there, even though Sara couldn’t feel it at all. It glowed blue. A pulsing blue. Almost lulling and mesmerizing, but something about it tugged at Sara. Like it was trying to get her attention.

  She looked back at Flissa. Flissa was staring at the orb too. And even though the cold froze out all sound, all feeling, all hope…when Flissa’s eyes flickered back to her, she felt a spark.

  It might not work, but they both felt it. They had to try. As the wall of magical, freezing whiteness oozed toward them, they both muscled a numb, lifeless hand on top of the orb.

  “Give us heat!” they cried in unison.

  The or
b glowed bright orange. Brighter and brighter until Sara had to squeeze her eyes shut against the glow.

  She felt warm. Gorgeously warm, like she was lying out on the palace lawn in the middle of summer, the sun caressing her from head to toe. She melted into the sensation, felt the pleasant prickle of pins and needles as her fingers and toes came back to life. The heat was so delicious, she forgot everything else. She was alone, and she was warm, and she was glowing, and all she wanted to do was bask in the moment forever.

  Then she remembered everything. Her eyes popped open.

  She saw orange. No longer so bright she had to squint against it, but everything around her was tinted orange. Even Primka’s yellow feathers glinted orange-gold as she flitted around in a small circle.

  “Primka!” Sara cried. “You’re flying!”

  “I’m not frozen anymore!” Primka cried happily. “You saved us!”

  Sara looked at Flissa, who was on her feet, turning in slow circles as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Sara was so happy, she jumped up and threw her arms around her sister. “We did it!”

  “Katya did it,” Flissa corrected her. “She packed that magic ball. We’re just lucky we figured out how to use it in time.”

  Sara scrunched her eyebrows. They were lucky, she supposed, but it felt like more than that. Putting their hands on that ball at the exact same time, saying the same thing in perfect unison…it felt like magic. More than just Katya’s magic. It felt like maybe she and Flissa had something to do with it too.

  Of course, her brain had been practically frozen solid at the time, so maybe what she’d felt didn’t matter all that much. She should probably just listen to Flissa.

  Suddenly she frowned. “Where’s the orb?”

  “We’re in it,” Galric said behind her.

  Sara wheeled around and laughed. He was back on his feet, but Nitpick was perched right on the top of his head. The kitten had reared back on his hind legs, and batted at something just slightly too high to reach—the edge of a spherical, glowing orange wall. It was transparent, and now that Sara looked, she could see through it to the long tunnel stretching behind and ahead of them, completely frozen solid.