by G. Bailey
“At least we know that the dragon is a she. We need to know for when we pick a name,” I say, watching as the dragon curls up on Livvy’s lap as she pushes the bits of egg away. The bottom of the egg drops to the floor, the water from inside it falling on the ground. I rest my hand on the dragon’s back and she lifts her head, resting it on my hand before falling to sleep.
“Why choose a name? The moment they let us out and see we have the dragon, they will give her to the king,” Livvy asks me.
“No, they won’t. I will create a distraction somehow and you need to throw her into the sea,” I tell Livvy, whose eyes widen as she shakes her head.
“They will beat you for that and she might not survive anyway. They would kill me for that. I’m nothing,” she says, looking away from me.
“She has a better chance in the sea than with the king,” I say firmly. I refuse to let him have my dragon. “Livvy, please do this for me. For her,” I beg, and she finally looks up. We both stare at each other for a long time.
“Name?” Livvy asks, not telling me what she is thinking or if she is going to help me. I look down at the small dragon, knowing the only name to give her.
“Vivo. It means ‘to survive’ in the old language I studied a little back home,” I whisper, and Vivo lifts her head, looking at me through sleepy eyes. “Vivo, don’t forget me when you escape. But live, have a life and I promise we will meet again one day.” I have no idea if she can understand me or if I’m making little sense to her, but there’s intelligence in her eyes. I have to hope she does understand.
“Vivo… I like it,” Livvy says, only seconds before we feel the ship stop and I try to swallow the fear I feel. I stand up after gently moving my hand, and walk to the edge of the cage to wait for them to come for us.
It doesn’t take long for the guards to open the door and walk down the steps. I look quickly at Livvy, who pushes Vivo down her top, hiding her and then pushing the remains of the egg into the corner. The guards have dark green uniforms, a dragon symbol on the breastplates, silver helmets that cover their faces so you can’t see what they really look like, and large heavy boots that pound against the floor with every step. I try to quickly search the guard heading towards my cage for weapons, seeing a large sword tied to his back and knifes in holders on his thighs. It looks like there might be more weapons hidden in his uniform, but my best bet is the knifes. I stay still as they unlock the cage doors, unlock our cuffs, and drag us out of the cages.
“Behave. I don’t want to have to handcuff you,” my guard growls at me when I try to pull my arm out of his tight grip. He tightens his grip on my arm, squeezing so tight that it brings tears to my eyes, and I bite my lip to hold in a scream.
“Fine,” I pant out. He loosens his grip and I take a deep breath, still feeling the pain and no doubt marks from where he grabbed me.
“Leave the egg here. We can take it to him later when he is done with this one,” the guard tells the other as he goes to walk into the cage, holding Livvy tightly in his grip. The other guard nods and Livvy is dragged behind me, but she doesn’t resist, just holds a hand over her chest where Vivo is hidden. The guard pulls me up the steps, and I try not to trip as he walks quickly towards the open door to the outside. The light burns my eyes for a long time when we get out to the top of the ship, so I lift my free arm to hold it over my eyes as they adjust. When I can finally see a little better, I look up at the giant cliff and the massive castle that sits on the edge of it. The cliff winds down to a garden full of cut bushes in the shape of a massive maze. Further in front of that are open green fields that lead to the docks the ship has pulled into. I look over at the Storm Sea, seeing the giant waves that crash against the rocks and the fierceness of them.
“The King wants the changed one sent straight to him. He doesn’t care what you do with the other,” a guard says to the one holding me.
“Send the other one to the dungeons and I will personally take the changed one to the king,” the guard holding me tells him. I take a quick look around at the ship, seeing the large green sails of our ship and the three ships docked next to ours, all guard ships. Everything on the ship is shiny and clean, and the guards are rushing off the ship carrying boxes and ropes. We stand quietly as all the guards, other than the two holding me, leave the ship. There are two guards in front of me, one on each side of the panel of wood leading to the stone dock. Time for a distraction. I look down at my hands, seeing no water this time and as hard as I try to make water appear, it doesn’t. I try to think of Ryland, but he feels too far away, like I can almost sense where he is, but he’s behind me, through the Storm Sea. I wonder if my power had something to do with Ryland. That would make sense, considering nothing ever happened before we touched and he got my mark. The guard tightens his grip on my arm and drags me towards the exit off the ship and I dig my feet in.
“Don’t mess around. We have been good to you,” the guard huffs, looking down at me, but he doesn’t hurt me this time.
“Kidnapping isn’t what I would call good,” I spit out, still trying to pull away from him. He lets out a long, gruff laugh.
“These men haven’t seen a woman in months, and both of you are very pretty, with pretty bodies and innocent faces. We were good. We paid the guards outside your doors to stop anyone from really hurting you,” he tells me, pulling me closer to him until I can’t look anywhere except into his face. “But you’re not really that innocent, are you?” he asks. I slap him hard across the face and his head snaps to the side. He yanks me closer, so my face is next to his, and I’m forced to smell how disgusting he smells as his horrible breath creeps down the side of my face.
“Or we could go back down there and you could show me a good time?” he suggests, letting me go and stepping away. I smile sweetly, moving closer to him and watching the shock appear on his face.
“Never,” I whisper, and pull my knee up between his legs and he drops to the ground with a groan. I don’t waste any time as I turn around and run straight at the guard holding Livvy. He goes to punch me, but I duck, punching him in his stomach and tackling him to the ground. I land on top of the guard lifting my hand to try to punch him, but he grabs my hand and makes me scream as he pushes me off him.
“Stop her!” I hear someone shout as the guard grabs hold of my wrists and pins me down on the deck of the ship. I watch as Livvy throws Vivo into the sea, just before a guard grabs her by her hair and she screams as he drags her away from the edge.
“You lost,” I say to the guard holding me down and I laugh, relief filling every part of my mind now that my dragon is gone and the king cannot use her.
“Knock her out. Enough,” I hear another guard shout, seconds before the guard on top of me punches me across the face and everything goes black.
3
Cassandra
My shoes scrape against the cold stone when I open my eyes. Both my arms are being held tightly in the grips of two guards and I look to the left, crying from the pain of every movement. My right eye hurts to open, and the entire left side of my face feels swollen and sore. I lift my head to look up at the long corridor we are in. The corridor is made of stone, with a green rug stretched down the middle of it. I can see five archways that lead off somewhere else and the guards stop at the one in the middle, which has large wooden doors inside the arch. There are five guards outside the doors, who look at me with a mixture of fear and indifference, an expression I presume they have gotten used to showing. I stand up, not letting them drag me anymore, and look around, but don’t see Livvy anywhere. There are only empty corridors, and an eerie silence that seems to be filled only with our footsteps.
“Where is my friend?” I demand, but neither of them answer me as two of the guards outside the big doors open them up. The guards drag me into the dimly-lit room and all I can do is stare at the empty throne at the top of the room. The throne is made from solid silver that shines, and it is shaped like a dragon with a seat cut into the middle of it. The dragon’s
head curls around to meet the end of its tail and the gap in the middle leads up to the seat that is covered in green fabric. On the wall above the dragon is a tapestry of a green dragon flying, with two swords at the bottom; it takes me a second to realise it’s the royal crest of the king. The room has five archways, which have dark green fabric hung over them to block the light, and there are ten or more lit fires in raised pots around the room. The fires are almost blue, and the heat from them is soothing.
“Stay here, and if you know what is good for you, don’t move,” one of the guards says before he throws me down on the floor as the other one lets go of my arm. I rub my arms, feeling how sore they are, and place my hand on the side of my face where I know it can’t look good. I wish Chaz was here. He could find something to place against my face, he could figure out a way to help me. The guards surprise me by walking out the door as it closes; their evil grins are the last thing I see. I pull myself up to my feet, standing still as a secret door behind the throne opens. The door is the whole wall, a wall that moves on a circle, and a man walks out.
Not just a man, the king. The king has long black hair that is going grey at the top, and dark blue eyes that could almost be described as black. He has on black trousers with a smart green shirt, which looks silky and made from something expensive. He looks familiar and nothing like I expected the most evil man in the world to look. He looks nothing like a man who kills my kind, a man told to be evil enough to kill a baby. His large crown sits on his head, the green swirls holding a green stone in the middle, and it’s beautiful.
“Tut, tut, tut. Did you not behave on your way here? That looks painful,” the king says. His voice is deep and has an almost seductive quality. I imagine a lot of people would do anything he told them. I stay still as he walks over to me, each step seems to be calculated as he spends his time looking up and down my body. I don’t move as he walks closer, until he stands directly in front of me and slowly tilts his head to the side.
“Are you not going to speak to me, changed one? Are you really that frightened?” he asks, his voice almost gentle, but I know it’s a ruse.
“I am not frightened of you,” I tell him, matching his gentle tone, but I tilt my lips in a small smile. “Why would I be afraid when death is certain for everyone, and you have promised me death my entire life?”
“Maybe you are just brainless,” he chuckles, a slow chuckle that sounds familiar to my ears. I look over the king’s face, seeing the light marks on his right cheek, the way his hair is kept off his face, the perfectly groomed appearance he has. I wonder why he looks so familiar.
“No. I just do not care. You will kill me either way,” I say, and he laughs, a large laugh that echoes around the room.
“You think I will kill you? That it will be that easy?” he asks me, but I doubt he wants an answer as he steps even closer and grabs hold of both my arms. I don’t move, keeping my face as blank as I can so I don’t give him a reaction. This is a game to him and I won’t play it.
“I haven’t seen a female changed one since I met my queen,” he comments, staring at me and making me more uncomfortable by the second.
“Your queen is a changed one?” I ask him, and he laughs.
“And I’m her only chosen,” he says and smiles. I look down at his hands on my arms, feeling them getting hot seconds before they set on fire. A deep red fire that gets bigger as I watch, speechless for a fraction of a second before I let out the loudest scream of pain I’ve ever done. The fire burns my arms and I scream and scream, my legs falling out from under me, but he holds me up. The pain is overwhelming, the smell of my clothes and skin on my arms burning are all I can focus on and then he lets me go, and I hit the floor with a loud smack. I roll on the floor, putting the fires out on my arms and holding in the tears as the king looks down at me.
“This is the child he chose to protect, he chose you and look at you,” the king says, kicking my stomach and I roll over as all the air leaves my lungs. The king kneels, leaning forward and moving a tiny bit of my hair off my face before pressing his finger into my forehead, right above my mark. The pain from my arms prevents me from doing anything but stare up at him, hating him with every tiny bit of me.
“The Sea God made a mistake with you and yet he told me I was the mistake, that I was weak.” He laughs, “But here is his changed one, the powerful one he chose to kill me, and she rolls on the floor, unable to save herself,” he says and sighs. The king pulls a piece of white fabric out of his pocket and wipes his forehead. The mark in the middle of his forehead slowly appears, a black circle with five black lines in the middle of it that cross over each other. I’ve never seen another changed one’s mark, and it is strange to see this one. I don’t know what “chosen” means, but I take a guess that the same thing happened with his queen and him, as it did Ryland and me. I wonder if Ryland could use my power?
“You will die here, Cassandra, that is certain…but only after I am done with my games. When I am done with you,” the king tells me, his voice dark and full of menace.
“Are you that scared of me? That scared that you feel you have to warn me!” I shout at the king’s back as he walks away from me. “I will not play your games!” I shout.
“I am not scared of anyone, especially not a clueless child. But I do like to listen to you scream, Cassandra, and you will scream, I will make sure of it,” the king sneers at me.
“How do you know my name?” I ask him.
“I know plenty,” he says, an evil grin on his face before he turns and keeps walking away.
“Get her out of here,” the king shouts, and the doors open behind me, but I don’t look away from the king as he walks up to his throne and sits down. The king leans back in his seat as I struggle in pain with my arms on the floor in front of him and he stares down at me.
“Oh, and Cassandra…Welcome to the nightmare court,” he says coldly, vindictively, as the guards pick me up and I don’t fight them. They don’t touch my burnt arms, choosing to hold me under my armpits instead, but every brush of air or their bodies against my arms is like a slow torture. They drag me out the room, but the pain is all I can focus on as I hold in a whimper when they turn down the corridors. I don’t even look where we are going, I just keep my head down, tears falling down my face and dripping onto the green carpeted floor. They take me down the long corridor, to another one, and then to a metal door opened by another guard. The guards carry me down the wide steps that seem to just go down and down in a straight line until we get to a row of dungeons. The dungeons are split with rows of cages on each side, cold stone floors, and the middle path between the cages lit up by fires in thin metal cages shaped like towers. Even seeing the fire makes me feel sick, it makes me want to run and, for the first time, nothing but fear fills me as I look at the fire.
“This one,” one of the guards says, one of them who is holding me. I look up in time to see him open a cage door and throw me in, my body hitting the cold floor and pain shooting around my left arm that I land on. I cry out, rolling onto my back and lying in the dry room while pain shoots through my arms. Thankfully, sleep takes me before I can hear myself scream.
4
Cassandra
“Who are you?” I ask the man who stands at my side, while we stand in a waterfall. The water falls around us, but doesn’t touch us. I can’t look at him, only feel him standing next to me. There’s a relief to being here, the pain in my arms is gone. There’s no pain, only silence as we sit next to each other.
“The Sea God, the one who blessed you,” the man whispers gently.
“My mark is no blessing,” I whisper back, feeling the urge to keep my voice quiet.
“You feel that now, my child, but not forever. Time is drifting and time will make -,” he starts what I’m sure would have been a long sentence, but I interrupt him.
“Stop with the riddles of how everything is fine and let me look at you!” I demand, and he laughs, a soothing laugh that makes me want to calm down
.
“Riddles are what will save you. That and love,” he says, and I watch as a gap in the waterfall appears, a bright light making it impossible to see what’s on the other side.
“Love?” I ask as I stare at the light.
“The love of pirates,” the Sea God whispers, and then the light shines brighter and brighter until I can’t see or feel him anymore. I feel only soothing water as it runs over my body, and it feels like it could wash away any of my pain and worry if I chose to just stay here.
“You can stay, be something more and watch time.”
“Can I leave?” I whisper back into the water towards the bright light.
“Never,” he whispers. Then a feeling of love spreads through my body, and my mind fills with images of my pirates and our time together. Hunter. Ryland. Dante. Chaz. Jacob. Zack.
“I choose them,” I whisper back, and even though I cannot see the Sea God, I feel his deep disappointment and longing. I just choose to ignore it.
“I can’t reach her,” I hear a female voice say, but I struggle to open my eyes as a haze spreads over my mind. I try to reach out to the voice, but all I can see is the water, and then it all suddenly stops. The water disappears from my mind, from my thought, and then there’s pain, a shooting pain in my arms that I can’t help but cry out to. My eyes feel crusted together, from my tears I suspect, as I try to blink them open, feeling the cold stone floor I’m lying on. It smells awful in here, a mixture of rotting and damp, mixed in with dust. When I crack my eyes open, the first thing I see is the burning fire on the other side of the bars. The fire, the burning, and the king as he stared at me fills my mind and makes me sharply close my eyes again as I try to push the memory away. The pleasure in his dark eyes sticks with me no matter how many times I try to force myself to forget it, to put it behind me and move on. I try everything, but it doesn’t work. It just stays in my head and floats around like a distant dream. But it’s no dream, it’s a nightmare, a terrible nightmare filled with evil and fire.