“Talk to me,” I say.
His jaw tightens, and for a moment I think he won’t. It drags on, slow, then at last he speaks.
“It’s hard to explain,” he says.
“Okay,” I reassure him.
“The bijass, it eats our memories, leaving in its wake bits and pieces.”
“I’m familiar with it,” I say.
Frowning he shakes his head.
“Except, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe that is what we tell ourselves. It’s a fog, in my mind, rising and falling, pushing forward then retreating. Bringing with it rage and primal desire, but when it retreats, sometimes, it leaves behind fragments. I can’t follow them blindly, not any longer.”
“It’s okay,” I say, tracing the line of his jaw with my fingers.
“No, it’s not. It goes against every fiber of who I am, but I can’t, not when it comes to you. You are… everything. I will not follow any order that leaves you in danger. No longer.”
Tension enters his words, rising, as anger rushes over him.
“Okay, Drosdan, I understand,” I say, trying to be reassuring.
“No, you don’t,” he says, voice harsh, taking a step back. “I won’t let them come between us. I won’t let anything happen to you. You’re my treasure, and if they can’t see that, then they can go back to space and not return. We don’t need them—we’ve given enough.”
He makes slashing motions with his hands as he speaks, growing more agitated with each word.
“Drosdan, please,” I say, trying to get through to him. I can see the bijass is overtaking him again.
A hot wind blows, picking up bits of sand and carrying it into my eyes. Clenching them tight as they water in reaction, I rub, trying to get the grit out. When I open them, he’s not looking at me but staring back into the distance where we’ve been heading. The wind is still blowing, much harder than normal, causing the fine grains of sand to pelt against me almost painfully.
“Oh no,” he says.
“What?” I ask, following his gaze.
My stomach sinks to the ground and bile rises in my throat. A dark, maroon-colored cloud dominates the horizon, rising from the ground what looks like hundreds of feet into the air. It’s moving towards us. Drosdan looks around before grabbing me. Sweeping me off my feet, he runs.
“Sandstorm,” he says, adjusting me in his arms.
“What are we going to do?” I ask, fear pounding with my racing heart.
“Survive,” he hisses.
The wind blows harder, bits of sand slamming against my exposed skin like tiny shards of glass. I squint and see that he’s running straight at the oncoming storm. A wall of dark clouds crawls toward us. It looks like some giant erasing everything in its path. I’ve never felt so scared in all my life. Even when Gershom grabbed power from Rosalind I wasn’t this scared. During that I felt at least a modicum of control. The oncoming storm is implacable. There is nothing I can do to stop it or even avoid it. The land around us is flat for as far as I can see, not even a rocky outcropping to use as shelter.
“How?” I ask, my voice cracking. “We need shelter!”
The wind is picking up even more, making it harder to talk. Carrying words away with it.
“I’ll find something,” he yells to be heard.
“Drosdan, you’re running into it, we should turn around.”
“No,” he says shaking his head. “Our only hope is to get through it.”
“Through that!” I scream, shaking in his arms. He pulls me tighter against him.
“Yes,” he agrees. “Otherwise we’re moving with it, we’ll never get out of it.”
It doesn’t matter that his words make sense. Every fiber of my body is on fire and screaming that we’re going the wrong way. Grains of sand are tearing at me, tiny cuts growing from irritations to serious concerns. Clenching my eyes tight I breathe through my nose and place all my trust in him. There’s nothing else I can do, but as resolve forms, peace comes with it. The light shining through my tightly clenched eyelids darkens and then the sand is no longer tearing at my skin. When I open my eyes in surprise, it takes a moment for me to realize he’s folded his wings around me, forming a protective cocoon.
A sudden gust of wind blasts, and he rocks backwards with the force, clenching me tighter to his chest. Leaning forward, he forces progress against the assault. The sound of sand blasting grows louder until it’s all I can hear. The dim light that was coming through fades until I’m enclosed in darkness. My heart pounds in my chest so hard it feels like it might explode. Minutes crawl by, but there is no way to measure the passage of time. There is only the ongoing roar of wind and sand.
“Drosdan,” I say but he doesn’t respond. He has his head tucked down between his wings, his jaw a hard line just over my head. When he doesn’t respond, I say his name again louder. “Drosdan!”
“Yes?” he says, sounding out of breath.
I feel him fighting for each step forward as gusts of wind push back. Unrelenting, he forces progress against impossible odds.
“Can we make it?” I voice the fear sitting in my belly like a cold hand grasping at my vitals.
He doesn’t answer for a long moment. My heart pounding in my chest measures the passing moments as I wait for him to answer. He draws in a deep breath then hisses.
“You are my treasure,” he says.
Warmth flares in my stomach driving out the chill of fear at his words. They say everything he needs to say, claiming me as his but it’s so much more. Back on the ship I don’t think any woman would have accepted a man saying such a thing to her, claiming her in such a primal way, but when Drosdan says it, it’s different.
He’s not just claiming me, he’s giving himself to me, fully, and he’s mine as much or more than I am his. Shifting my weight, I wrap my arms tighter around him. It’s not an answer to my question, but it is all I need. I am his. He will protect me.
The roar of the wind rises, and the sound of sand slamming against his protective wings is deafening. Sympathy pain aches, but I can only imagine what he must be feeling despite his protective scales. My own, unprotected skin would be shredded. Time crawls along measured only by Drosdan’s occasional grunt. I don’t bother talking because what can I say? I’m helpless in his arms. Even so, I’ve never felt safer.
10
Drosdan
Pain.
Sand rips across me, tearing and cutting. One step after another. It’s all I can do. Can’t look, can’t see, can’t stop.
Must save Sarah.
Her weight in my arms is my rock. Her head on my chest and arms around my neck are all that matters. Have to find shelter.
The bijass swirls around the edges of thought, swelling, pushing in. It offers a kind of respite. The sand tearing across me feels like its stripping everything off me.
Duty. I’ve run from my duty.
No, he failed me. Failed us. No leader should demand what he did. A leader respects his followers, cares for them. He sent Sarah into danger without backup. He was wrong. That he doesn’t see it isn’t my problem, it’s his.
The fog of the bijass pushes as anger flares white hot. The look on Visidion’s face, Rosalind nodding next to him. Betrayal.
There’s a lull in the wind, but then it slams into me, sliding me back. Leaning into it until I’m almost bent in half. Sand cuts my wings shielding her. The pain fuels my rage.
They can’t have this. They can’t have us.
I’ve given everything.
Images rise, unbidden, but no, I can’t look at them. Memories lost to the fog of the past where they have to stay. Glimpsing an emptiness that yawns like a massive black hole sucking me down. As my feet slide across the sand my thoughts mimic the motion into the clawing blackness.
“Fire!” the General barks the order.
“No,” I say, hands shaking, staring at his cold, empty eyes.
“Do as you’re told, soldier,” he hisses. “Now.”
The butt of the r
ifle against my shoulder becomes the center of my attention. My finger tightening on the trigger. Follow orders. Obey. Obey.
It pounds through me, interwoven into the very essence of what I am. The General looks down on the row of us, his soft yellow skin, dark eyes, and that evil toothy grin. My body betrays me, following his orders no matter how I fight it. I can’t stop it.
A woman screams, begging. The men next to me resist too, but we can’t fight it.
“NO!” I scream, pushing the memories away.
“Drosdan?” Sarah asks, her voice trembles.
I’m shaking, but I focus on her. Her weight, her arms around my neck, the softness of her body molded against my chest. I should answer her, I try, but can’t push words past the pulsing red fog pushing against my thoughts. The sand tears at the delicate membrane of my wings, millions of tiny cuts, each a flash of pain to be pushed past. The wind is so strong I’m taking three steps to make one step forward. Trying to dig my feet into solid ground, desperate for anything to push forward through the next step. There has to be shelter, somewhere.
Can’t look past the shield of my wings enclosing us. Her fingers twine in my hair, running through it, tugging down, then her lips are on mine. Soft, warm, plump and full of life. They pull me through the fog into her. Her tongue grazes across my lips, and I claim it with my own. The outside world fades as she takes her place as the center of my universe. She is all, my treasure. Pouring myself into the kiss, I give myself to her.
“We need shelter,” she breathes, breaking the kiss with a gasp.
“Yes,” I agree, able to speak at last, the grip of the bijass easing.
The wind drops suddenly, and I stumble. No more is the sand tearing into me. As fast as it hit, we seem to have come out of it. I open my wings just enough to peek out, and I see nothing but empty plains around us. After I fold my wings back, Sarah and I look around an empty, red world overcast with a dim brown light. There are angry, red-brown clouds in the distance. When I set Sarah on her feet, she takes my hand and together we turn in a circle. The clouds surround us on all sides. Overhead it is cloudy, blocking any view of the suns.
“We’re in the eye of the storm,” Sarah says.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“It’s the center,” she explains. “The way the winds blow is circular around a central point—we’re in that point.”
Closing my protective lenses over my eyes adjusts my sight so I can see further even in the dim light. In the distance are dark shapes. Squinting I try to make out exactly what they are but am unable to. Whatever they are, they will provide some shelter, which is the only hope we have right now.
“There,” I say, pointing towards the shapes.
Sarah looks but shakes her head.
“I can’t see anything,” she says.
“Shapes, something is over there.”
“Better than nothing,” she says. “We need shelter, anything, because there’s a lot more storm to come, I’m guessing.”
“I will get us there,” I say, sweeping her back into my arms.
I’m running before she can get her arms around my neck and spreading my wings to catch soft air currents that help carry us forward. There’s a constant pain from the thousands of cuts and tears, but I have to push that aside. Each time my foot sets down, I push off the ground, pouring everything I have into that step, leaping into the air. Moving my wings to best catch the air, gaining as much altitude as I can from the leap, then gliding forward. It covers a lot of ground fast.
The wind picks up again, twisting around us, shortening how far I glide with each leap. Jumping forward, wings wide, the wind slams into me with a circular force catching my right wing hard. Tendons tear, and I’m spun around, losing control. By swinging my tail I’m able to keep us upright, but I land hard twisting my left knee.
“Ah!” Sarah cries out as we spin and land.
Even though I hold her protectively to my chest, she’s jarred as we hit, and her head bounces against me.
“Ugh,” I grunt, pain flaring in my knee.
“Are you okay?” Sarah asks.
“I’ll be fine,” I hiss, pushing myself forward, but now my knee won’t take weight easily, and I’m forced to limp.
“Put me down,” she demands, shifting her weight.
“It’s fine,” I growl.
“No, you’re hurt!” she says, her voice cracking.
“We don’t have time,” I reply, each step forward sending a blinding flash of pain.
She wiggles in my arms then I lose my grip, and she drops to her feet. Stopping, I reach to grab her again, but she holds up a hand and shakes her head.
“Don’t be an idiot,” she says.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. She’s right. I can’t carry her fast enough, and we don’t have time. When I don’t move, she drops to her knees and leans close to my knee, feeling around it.
“Ow,” slips out of me when she grasps my knee between her hands.
“It’s sprained, at a minimum,” she says. “Can you walk at all?”
“We don’t have a choice,” I tell her.
“Yeah,” she replies, frowning. “Okay, but you can’t carry me. I’ll run beside you.”
“Okay,” I agree, a stabbing pain in my chest.
She’s right, no matter that I hate it. Anger rises and the red fog of the bijass grabs for control. It almost takes over. If Sarah weren’t standing there, eyes filled with concern, jaw tight, lips pursed, I might have lost myself to it. Holding on to her as my anchor, I’m able to resist, barely.
“Let’s go,” she says, rising up. She puts a hand on my cheek and lifts herself up to plant a fast kiss on my lips. “We have to hurry.”
No longer carrying her weight as well as my own helps, but each step is still excruciating. White-hot stabbing sensation from my knee every time I put weight on it. I hobble along, the only advantage is that Sarah is not having problems keeping up with me as we do our best to race across the desert.
Randomly, gusts of wind hit, pushing us off course, but we struggle on, making progress. As the frequency of the gusts increases, the blurs we’re heading for become clear. At first I had thought the shapes were rocks that I could only hope would provide us with some shelter but it’s more than that. They’re buildings. Low, squat ones, but buildings nonetheless. A light feeling swells in my stomach as hope blooms.
“Oh, wow,” Sarah says before we’ve gone much further. “Buildings!”
“Yes,” I say.
“Did you know they were here?” she asks, panting as we continue our run. Even with my bad knee, she’s having to take three steps for every one of mine.
I don’t answer her immediately. Did I? Something tugs from deep inside the fog of the bijass. Maybe? A sense of… something. A coldness is behind that feeling, almost a sense of something bad coming or going to happen.
“I don’t know,” I say, telling her the truth.
“How can you not know?” she asks.
“It’s vague,” I say. “A memory, partial. It seems familiar somehow.”
The closer we get, the more that sense of familiarity grows. Like an itch that’s under my scales and therefore impossible to get to.
“Deja vu,” she huffs.
“What?” I ask, the word sounding strange. It’s not something I’ve heard before.
“It’s a word meaning a feeling that you’ve been there before,” she laughs.
“Yes, that seems to fit,” I agree, wincing as I put my leg down wrong, applying too much pressure on my knee.
“We’re almost there,” Sarah says, touching my arm.
“It’s fine,” I lie.
The pain is getting worse. White-hot and stabbing with the slightest amount of weight on it. There’s no time to slow though, the wind is rising and picking up sand. The eye of this storm, as she called it, will not last, and we’ll be back in it again. We race in silence broken only by Sarah’s huffing. As we close with the buildings,
I see this was once a very small town. Probably there was some valuable thing found here that led to this settlement. Before the devastation, such were common, dotting the landscape between the large cities.
There are five structures standing in a row, while the ruins of others can be seen on either side of and beyond them. The walls of all of them are crumbling, and on three of them the roof has collapsed. One of the middle ones seems to be in the best shape, so I guide us towards it. The wind is blowing harder still, bits of sand being carried with it, abrasive against us. The building holds back some of it, but not all. As we reach the wall, pain flares in my knee and I trip, catching myself on it.
“Are you okay?” Sarah asks, having to shout to be heard.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
The pain is a white-hot ball, throbbing constantly, but I don’t have time to tend to the wound. Safety is all that matters—hers. Taking her hand, I lead the way around the building. They’re close together, forcing me to turn sideways to move between them. Even so, my wings and tail scrape along the rough surfaces as I slide past. We emerge on the far side into an open square blocked out by more of the small buildings. The roofs and walls of most of them are in states of disrepair with large holes through most of them. Some of the holes are obviously from explosions, while others appear to be caused by natural decay.
“There,” Sarah says, pointing at a dark opening.
Once there would have been a door over it, but only bits of hanging wood are left. As we step into the darkness inside, the wind blasts up to a high speed, whistling as it passes between the houses. The sky above darkens, making it clear we’re barely making it before the next stage of the storm hits.
The interior walls have collapsed, leaving rotting dividers rising about halfway to the ceiling. Once there might have been various rooms, now there is a single space with half walls. The door we entered through is the only source of light as there are no windows. Heavy shadows lie waiting in every corner, a perfect place for predators to hide. Turning to Sarah and grabbing her arms, I move her to stand next to the door with her back against the wall.
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