by Jada Fisher
It was embarrassing, it was gross, but the woman let out a curse and threw Eist again, sending her sailing down the hall. She found herself hitting like a little cloth doll and sliding several feet before coming to a stop.
She was bleeding, she was covered in her own mess, and the pain was beginning to leak into the corner of her mind. She couldn’t stand, but Eist pushed herself up onto her elbows, trying to at least sit.
There was a door just a foot or so from her. Perhaps, if she could just get inside, there would be some place to hide.
Crawling to the door, she could hear the woman’s loud footsteps behind her. How could a slight human be making so much noise? Normally, Eist could only feel the vibrations as people’s feet hit the ground, but this woman seemed to be making sure that the girl would hear her coming doom.
She reached for the door latch and was relieved when it swung open. Crawling forward, she found herself in some sort of supply room, with blankets, pillows, and cot straw-mattresses stacked all around her.
“You’ve ruined everything, you wretched little beast,” the woman snapped, walking into the doorway. There were shouts behind her, people rushing forward around the curve of the hall so they could see what was happening and maybe stop it, but they wouldn’t get to her before the healer had a chance to snap Eist’s neck and run.
Eist took the strongest breath she could, although her lungs were wheezing, and her mouth was so, so dry. If this was how she was going to die, she was going to do it with her head raised high. Or…as high as her neck could hold it.
The woman rushed forward, time seeming to slow down as she closed in on Eist. But before she could quite reach the girl, a brown and black shape jumped between them.
Fior!
His back was to Eist, but she saw his mouth open. There was a slight moment where nothing happened, but he let out a high-pitched, reedy sound that just barely made it into Eist’s hearing range.
But that sound quickly grew on itself until a mighty roar issued from his tiny frame, and the woman blasted backwards and across the hall.
Stone crumbled all around the entrance, the wall falling away and the door nowhere to be seen. Eist watched, confused, but Fior was bounding forward again, a slight limp to his back legs.
The healer stood, snarling, but he roared again, and she slammed back into the stone wall, which started to crack behind her. Eist didn’t understand what was happening, or how a simple roar could physically move the woman through the air.
Finally, others reached the scene. Eist could see them through the bits of partition that were blasted away by Fior’s first shout. They surrounded the healer, watching her with concerned or shocked expressions.
“Persinnia, what are you doing?”
The woman looked around her, realizing that she was surrounded, and a strange sort of calm came over her face. She looked to Eist, her lips curling into a smile.
“Clever girl,” she murmured, her eyes darkening until they were just a deep, dark, almost black-green. “But that will only get you by for so long.”
And then she ran straight for Eist.
Fior scrambled to grab her robes, yanking backwards, but the woman was unstoppable. But instead of diving for Eist and ending it all before she was apprehended, the woman launched herself right out of the window behind the girl.
Eist sat there, staring at the place the woman had once been. Even with her limited hearing, she would have heard screaming as the woman plummeted through the air. They were quite high up in the academy—not enough to dash her body across the ground like paste, but enough to certainly end her life.
But there was nothing. Not a whimper, not a shout. The woman was utterly silent all the way down until a dull thud barely graced Eist’s ears. How inhuman.
It was done.
Over. It was over.
She had survived.
Fior tottered over to her, his limp increasing, and Eist used the last of her strength to pull him to her. He curled into her side, wuffling in fear, concern, and relief. Eist rested her head against him and finally let herself cry.
People were surrounding her now, asking if she was alright, what happened, or if she could even hear them. But her mind was now moving as if she was stuck in a bog and she couldn’t answer them.
She just held onto Fior as she slipped off into the darkness that she had so thoroughly earned. At least now, if she succumbed to the embrace of The Grandfather, she would finally get a chance to see her own.
12
The Nightmare After
Life came flittering to her in pain-soaked little fractals, spinning through her consciousness before she slid back into darkness over and over again. At first, she heard frantic voices above her as she was being carried somewhere. When she next fluttered upwards, someone was cutting her tunic from her. She tried to push them off, her modesty flaring, but then a damp cloth passed over her face and she was down again.
People bandaging her, repositioning her leg, spooning broth into her mouth, sitting around and staring. Always staring. When she did manage to open her eyes and glance around them, she couldn’t make out their faces, but she could always make out their eyes.
Wide. Open. Never blinking. Tinged in darkness like the healer that had tried to kill her. Were they all trying to kill her too?
Eist didn’t know, and she let herself sink down into sleep every time, unable to bring herself back to the world of the living just yet.
She had no concept of time as it passed, but she knew that it was indeed passing. She began to dream after the first few dips back into slumber, but they were just as fractal and confusing as reality.
She was flying through the sky, Fior below her. He was a full-grown dragon now, so broad that she couldn’t see from the tip of one wing to the other, clouds obscuring most of his body.
But she could tell it was him, his copper, black, and brown scales below her. She could feel the strength of him between her thighs as she squeezed the riding saddle to hold on. Each beat of his wings made her heart lift, and for a moment, she was absolutely free.
She threw her hands up, laughing, but a shadow soon fell over them. Looking into the distance, Eist saw an inky darkness climbing through the sky until there was no light. And it was into that blackness that she and Fior fell.
They tumbled through the nothing, head over heels, wings over feet, until suddenly they weren’t falling at all, but standing on an obsidian sort of abyss stretching out as far as she could see.
And then back to reality. It lasted only a second, and she was aware of someone gently pressing a damp sponge to her face and upper shoulders. It was nice, and she wondered if she was feverish, but she fell back into sleep before she could ask.
She was still standing in the black, but she wasn’t alone. There was a woman sitting in an ornate throne in front of her, Fior back to his baby self and sitting in her lap. Her long, long hair was almost down to her knees and so dark that it almost blended into the nothingness that she was surrounded by. Her dress was simple but elegantly cut, done in a stunning red with silver details. She wore a simple circlet around her head, and pearl earrings, but they didn’t draw attention away from the fact that she had no eyes.
But there weren’t bloody wounds there either. Rather, her eyes glowed with a strange sort of blue light, one so pure that it almost hurt for Eist to look at them.
“Hello, my little one. I’ve been waiting for you to be born for ages, yes, I have!” the woman cooed, stretching out to touch Fior’s scaled cheeks and making silly faces at him. “And who is this human that you have chosen?”
Her head lifted to regard Eist, and it was quite strange to be regarded by someone with no gaze. “Come closer, child. I wish to see you.”
Eist didn’t point out the impossibility of that request and edged close enough for the woman to touch her, which she did, her hand rising to gently caress Eist’s face. Carefully, the strange woman’s fingers traveled over the young woman’s face, not missing a s
ingle feature.
“Goodness, you have the features of a warrior, don’t you?”
Eist took in a breath, surprised by that description. She didn’t think anyone had ever told her that before.
“But there is something about it… Ah, yes. Your eye. You’ve been blessed, haven’t you?”
“That’s what they told me,” Eist gutted out. Goodness, even in her dreams she couldn’t get away from the constant comments about her blown-out pupil.
“Yes, I’m sure they tell you that. What do they call it now? A witch’s eye, yes? That makes sense, considering you have witch blood in you.”
“Wait, what?” Eist stammered, completely off guard. “Witches aren’t real.”
“Oh, we are real, my child, as is the line that spawned you. I can see it now, stretching out for ages. Your parents, both of them, carried the gift. They died, did they not?”
Eist didn’t know what to say to that. What could she say to that? So, she remained silent, looking up at the woman with a mix of wonder and suspicion in her belly.
So far, she didn’t have the best track record with strangers.
“Yes, they did. Against it, didn’t they? And this was their last gift to you. The only sort of protection they could do in their last moments. They must have loved you very much.”
“It was from a fever,” Eist objected, finally pushing the woman’s hand away. It was tolerable for the woman to touch her when she was just being strange, but talking about her parents as if she knew them made anger begin to churn in Eist’s belly. She had no right. “I almost died. And so did my grandfather.”
“Aye, I would not be surprised if that great evil tried to follow them, to snuff out the last of their light. You know it doesn’t like witches or sorcerers, people who tap into the same power source it wants to consume.”
None of this was making any sense! “Who are you? And why are you talking to me?”
“Why...” the woman trailed off as if pondering that very question, but Fior chirped in her lap. “Ah, it seems my little one misses you very much. Return to your realm, young one. I am sure we will speak again.”
“What are you talking about? Who are you?”
“Me? I’m just a dream. A specter lost to time and apparently to memory, along with our little brindled boy there. However…” Her head turned to Eist once more, having been bowed towards Fior. “You already know my name.”
Then Eist was being yanked backwards, thrown up through the darkness until there was finally light. And when she hit that light, she slammed into her own body with a start.
Or at least it felt like a start, but it took several moments for her eyes to open, and when they did, she was surprised to see many faces around her.
“Eist! Eist, are you really awake?”
That was Dille, of course, who was sitting closest to the cot that Eist was on. The slight girl threw herself forward as if she was going to wrap Eist up in a proper hug, but Yacrist caught her before she could make contact.
“Perhaps we should leave off bodily embracing until Eist has a chance to recover from her injuries.”
“Oh… Right.” Her hand did slide forward into Eist’s and she squeezed ever-so-gently. “We were worried sick about you.”
“How long have I been asleep?” Eist asked, her tongue feeling like sharp rocks against the dry roof of her mouth.
“A little under two days. Can we get her a glass of water?”
Someone handed her a goblet of water and she took it gratefully, trying not to gulp it down too fast and make herself sick. When she finished, she looked up to see who the hand belonged to and was surprised to see none other than Ain!
She gave him a confused look, and he shrugged.
“I still hate you,” he said, his voice a low, dangerous sort of rumble. “But if anyone is going to best you one day, it’ll be me. Not some no-account healer who attacked you when your back was turned.” His eyes softened by the slightest hair. “I’m glad you showed her how difficult you can be.”
How utterly bizarre. Apparently, it just took almost dying and having the absolute mess beaten out of her to earn a little respect from the annoying boy. But she was sure that things would go back to normal once the shock of everything wore off.
“I knew you would be fine,” Ale’a said, drawing Eist’s attention to the back where she and several healers stood. Eist recognized them as the same blue-sashed folk that had first examined Fior.
Speaking of which, where was the little guy?
She craned her neck, looking for him, only to hear a slight chirp behind her. Tilting her head backwards, she saw that he was sleeping peacefully behind her, the end of her braid resting in his mouth.
Ugh, it was going to take forever to wash all the spit out.
But she didn’t mind. Cooing to him, she saw his crystallin eyes open almost immediately, and he stumbled to his legs to nuzzle with her.
“How’s your leg, little guy?” she asked, trying to reach up to pet him but still finding herself too weak. He responded by sitting back, raising the limb and giving it a little shake to show that it was much improved.
“Good. I’m glad.”
The conversation stalled as another healer came running up, her eyes wide with excitement. “Is she awake and lucid?!”
“I don’t know, am I?” Eist retorted, feeling a bit of her humor return. And how could it not? She had survived an impossible fight with an impossible woman. If there was ever a time to indulge her sarcasm, this was it.
“You have a visitor!”
Eist smiled wryly. “Everyone I know is right here. Who else could there possibly be that would trudge all the way here to—”
She cut herself off as the healer stepped to the side, revealing another worker pushing a wicker-and-wood chair on sturdy wheels towards the cot. And in that chair was none other than her grandfather. Gaunt. Pale. But alive.
“Grandfather!” Eist cried, trying to sit up but finding that her body would just not allow it.
“My dear, stubborn little girl,” he replied as the healers pushed him right up beside her bed. Gently his hand reached out, resting on her still-bruised one, and she swore she saw tears in his eyes.
“I missed you so much,” Eist murmured, hardly believing that this was real. After weeks of imagining seeing his face, it was finally happening. He was there. He was real.
“I missed you too.”
“But you were asleep,” Eist whispered, looking up at the lines of her face as she memorized all of the lines crossing his visage all over again. She reached up to him, her fingers just caressing his face, and his face turned grey at the touch. “What is it?” Eist asked. “What’s wrong?”
He looked past her, his eyes somewhere far away. “I dreamed of it.”
“D-d-dreamed of what?” Athar asked, leaning forward. Eist hadn’t even known he was there.
“The Blight.”
THANK YOU
Thank you so much for reading Awakened, the second book in the Brindle Dragon series. Eist and Fior have won the day, but there are dark days coming. I look forward to sharing more of their adventures in the next story.
I really enjoy hearing what readers think so if you could leave a review for me on Amazon, that would be really cool.
The next story in the Brindle Dragon series will be published soon. In the meantime, I have included a preview of Oracle at the very end of the book. It is the first book in the Dragon Oracle series which features a normal girl trying to live a normal life. The only problem is that she has visions of the future and finds herself mixed up with shape-shifting dragons. After you read the preview, you can download the book on Amazon.
Get Oracle here:
amazon.com/dp/B079KXS1SR/
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Bonus Content: Story Preview
Preview: Oracle
I sighed, closing the book and thus ending the adventure I had been reading for the week. I was going to need to pick up another book from the quaint shop next to work, if they were still open. The owner had really been struggling with the flu lately and had closed early several times. I felt terrible for him. Being self-employed and the owner of your own business seemed to come with a whole lot of responsibility.
Ugh. There was that word again. Try as I might to escape it, it seemed my life was bound up in all sort of adulthood.
I turned to put the book in my messenger bag only to realize that it wasn’t there. That was odd. I never left home without my supply bag. Not only did it carry my wallet and phone, but also my sketch pad, drawing pencils, and inking pens.
I looked around, trying to remember if I had tucked it under my seat, and that was when I realized that I was absolutely alone.
That wasn’t right.
I jumped to my feet, whirling in a full circle to make sure I wasn’t going insane. But no, I was on a completely empty city bus in the middle of the day.
“Hey, driver?” I called, walking toward the front. “Did I miss my stop?” It wouldn’t be the first time I had been so engrossed in a book that I had shut out the real world. I tended to get hyper-fixated whenever I read, or drew, or watched a good movie, or… Actually, it was a pretty extensive list.