by Kallysten
Already slipping the apron over her head, she stepped away. Chris watched Isolda wipe the tears from her face with her hands, and wished he had a tissue to offer her.
“How long has it been since you last saw her?” he asked quietly.
“Two years,” Isolda said, her voice breaking a little. “I’ve missed her so much.”
Two years… And she looked like she was ten or eleven, maybe… No wonder she was such a small child in Marigold’s mind. No wonder Marigold was so terribly scared and intent on protecting her. How had Isolda even gone on after finding herself alone in that forest? Chris wanted to ask, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer, or at least not now when he remained too focused on Marigold to give Isolda the support she might need.
The woman soon returned, minus the apron, a couple of young children peeking out of the room she’d just left. She introduced herself as Julie. When she told Chris she was in charge of the foster program in Sanctuary, it sounded to him like she was warning him—Isolda was her business, and she would make decisions for the child, at least for now.
They climbed into her minivan and she followed Chris’ directions to the cottage. Other than those sparse indications to turn here or there, none of them spoke until the minivan stopped in the driveway.
“Listen,” Chris said then, turning in his seat to look at Isolda. “As I was telling you earlier, her mind is a little messed up. Don’t be surprised if she doesn’t talk to you or if she acts a little strange. She’s going to need some time, I think. Okay?”
Confusion flashed over Isolda’s features, but she nodded impatiently.
“All right,” she said. “Okay. Can I see her now?”
They went in. Zita looked less than happy about the cottage being suddenly so crowded, and even when Chris explained who Isolda was she remained skeptical.
“It took me ages to calm her down after you left,” she protested. “Maybe we should wait a day or two to—”
Before she even finished, Chris looked at Isolda and met her gaze. Understanding flowed through them, and they both pushed past a floundering Zita. She tried to call them back, but they were already at Marigold’s door. Chris walked in first; he didn’t think Marigold would hurt Isolda, at least not on purpose, but if anything did happen he would be responsible.
Marigold was on her bed, sitting as she so often did with her back to the corner of the wall. Her eyes remained a little unfocused and she looked at neither Chris or Isolda as they came in, at least not until Isolda said softly, “Mari? Can you hear me? It’s me.”
After two slow blinks, Marigold’s eyes turned to Isolda and finally focused on her. Chris held his breath, but the look of recognition he’d hoped for didn’t come. Even when Marigold’s nostrils flared and she inhaled through her nose, maybe taking in Isolda’s scent, she looked more confused than anything else.
“It’s me,” Isolda said again, her voice wavering a little. “Don’t you remember me?”
She rested her hand on top of Marigold’s, but it didn’t make a difference. Couldn’t Marigold understand who she was? Had Isolda grown too much, changed too much maybe, for Marigold to recognize her? Chris could think of one way to help her see her sister for who she was, but did he have a right to show Isolda the chaos that reigned in Marigold’s mind? He’d grown used to it, but how distressing would it be for a child to witness?
“She doesn’t know who I am,” Isolda said, and the pain in those words gave Chris the answer he needed. Seeing the inside of Marigold’s mind couldn’t be worse for Isolda than thinking her sister had forgotten her.
He laid his hand across Isolda’s, so that he touched both her and Marigold. He could feel at once the knot of pain and fear that were Isolda’s emotions, and he spoke to her gently within her own mind.
Don’t be scared. I’m taking you inside Marigold’s thoughts so you can talk to her.
When he entered the familiar, fiery landscape where the dragon hid, he drew Isolda’s consciousness with him and helped her take a solid form at his side. She looked around her for a second or two, and he could hear the questions form in her mind, but she didn’t voice any of them. She’d just noticed the dragon crouching at a small distance from them, and pure joy exploded through her. Before Chris could caution her, she started running to the dragon—to Marigold.
Chris hurried after her, afraid the dragon might react to this unexpected person approaching her by lashing out as she’d once lashed out at him. But the dragon didn’t move when Isolda tried to throw her arms around the too thick neck. She stayed very still except for a light trembling in her entire body.
Isolda said her name, babbling about how much she’d missed Marigold, how scared she’d been, and little by little the dragon’s form shimmered, then changed, until a human Marigold knelt on the ground in front of Isolda, her arms wrapped around the girl, tears falling silently from her eyes.
She didn’t speak other than to repeat Isolda’s name, over and over, a murmur that sounded like a chant.
If Chris knew one thing for certain, it was that he shouldn’t intervene now. At the same time, he wanted to remain close, wanted Marigold to understand that, far from being a threat to Isolda and her, he was the one who’d brought them back together.
He was aware of Julie and Zita standing on the threshold of Marigold’s bedroom, talking quietly, then leaving, aware that time passed, though he couldn’t have said how long. At some point, Marigold’s eyes closed, both in her mindscape and in the real world.
Time to go, kiddo, he thought gently, and lifted his hand from Isolda’s and Marigold’s.
Isolda looked very pale, but she hadn’t cried, and after one last look at her sleeping sister she turned to Chris and threw her arms around his neck, the same way she’d hugged the dragon.
“Thank you. Thank you for finding her.”
Chris hugged her back and said nothing. Her bare arms touching his neck were enough to form a connection between their minds, and even without trying to peer into her thoughts he could sense how lonely she’d been, how scared, how much she’d been angry with herself for flying away when Marigold had told her to. She, too, had been hurt, and maybe now that she’d found her sister again, she’d be able to start healing.
After another few seconds, Isolda released him, and they left the room together. They found Julie and Zita outside, talking quietly, though both fell silent when Isolda and Chris approached.
“So, what happened?” Julie asked. She raised her arm as though to invite Isolda to come to her, but Isolda stopped a few feet away and shrugged.
“She’s my sister,” she said simply. “I haven’t see her in a very long time.” She paused for a moment, then looked back at Chris. “When can I see her again?”
He didn’t have a ready answer for her. He thought and hoped seeing Isolda would be beneficial to Marigold’s mind, but just because things had gone well today, it didn’t mean they always would. The last thing he wanted was for Isolda to get hurt.
“I’m not sure,” he started saying. “We’ll have to—”
But before he could finish, a roar split the air around them. He thought at first it must have come from a dragon, but Marigold soon came stumbling out of the cottage and made that sound again despite being in her human form. Her wild eyes looked all around before falling on Isolda. The briefest look of relief crossed her features before she rushed forward toward her. She transformed mid-step, in just the blink of an eye, and her transformation pushed Chris and Zita to the ground on either side of her, along with denting the side of the minivan.
She screeched again, the sound deafening, and used her long neck to draw Isolda to her before nudging her to help her climb onto her back.
“She wants me to get on,” Isolda said, and her foot was already finding purchase on the edge of Marigold’s wing, her hand resting on her muzzle, as though she’d done this countless times before.
“Get down!” Julie cried out at once. “Isa, no, it’s too dangerous!”
Marigold didn’t like this interruption in the least. With Isolda halfway up and no longer needing support, she brought her head above Julie, her nostrils flaring. With fear gripping his guts, Chris realized how close Marigold was to lashing out toward a woman she probably considered an enemy after those few words; anyone trying to come between her and Isolda would be an enemy in her mind, he had experienced it himself. Hurriedly sitting up, he rested a hand against her flank and pushed out his thoughts toward her as hard as he could.
She’s been taking care of Isolda while you couldn’t. Don’t hurt her.
A frisson coursed through the dragon. She shook her head, then angled it to look at Isolda, now sitting securely across her back. Next she looked up. When she started raising her wings, it was all too clear to Chris she meant to take to the air. Just like it was clear there was only one thing for him to do.
Following Isolda’s example, he put a foot near the joint of Marigold’s wing before she could beat it down again, and hoisted himself up as well as he could onto her back and behind Isolda. The next second, Marigold was beating her wings hard and flying up into the late afternoon sky.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Where is she taking us?
The roar of the wind around them, on top of the harsh beating of Marigold’s wings, was so loud that Chris didn’t even try to speak the words. Resting his hand on Isolda’s arm, covered in goose bumps because of the cool air, he spoke them directly in her mind.
I don’t know, she projected toward him. Can’t you see it in her mind?
Chris had tried, and he tried again now, but if Marigold’s thoughts had seemed chaotic to him before, it was nothing compared to what they were now. Flashes of fire and blood red lightning seemed to burn her mind.
Following an air current, she dipped suddenly, losing a few dozen yards of altitude in a matter of seconds. Chris’ stomach lurched unpleasantly. He’d never enjoyed roller coasters much, but at least when riding one he’d always known he was secure. Here, on the back of a dragon, there wasn’t anything to hold on to. Isolda was leaning all the way forward, pressed against the base of Marigold’s neck. Chris tried to stay curled up close to her, but he didn’t feel like he ought to get too close to this little girl he barely knew.
The sun had begun to set. For now, Chris could still see the landscape below them, but it wouldn’t be long, he thought, before everything became too dark. It wouldn’t matter though, because he could see the only landmark that mattered right now: the tall, thick walls that surrounded Sanctuary. Whether on purpose or by coincidence, Marigold was flying straight toward them. What would happen once she went beyond them, once they were flying over lands where dragons—or any other paras—were hunted?
Holding his hand flat against the leathery scales of her flank, he tried to project his thoughts toward her, tried to think as clearly, as strongly as he could, You are safe and Isolda is safe, but if you fly too far both of you will be in danger again. People will try to capture you.
His words had the opposite effect of what he’d hoped. Marigold seemed to take in only the last sentence, and roared her defiance.
After a second or two, it was echoed by two more roars, far in the distance. Chris looked around as best he could, and soon he found two large winged beasts ahead and to the right, on an intercept course with Marigold. He knew some of the people guarding the walls were dragon shifters; could it be they’d been alerted to the presence of a rogue dragon in Sanctuary’s skies?
Marigold clearly noticed the other dragons too. She started angling her flight to the left, still flying toward the walls but away from the incoming dragons. Trying once more to enter her thoughts, he realized that she didn’t see those shapes as creatures similar to her. Instead, in her mind, they were helicopters, and she wanted to escape them at any cost.
They’re friends, he tried to tell her. They only want to help.
But she still wasn’t listening.
And then, the walls weren’t ahead of them anymore. They were below them. Then behind.
They’d flown straight out of Sanctuary. And as dread seized Chris as to what it meant, he realized that, if Isolda was shaking, it wasn’t from the cold.
“Mari, we have to go back,” she shouted again the wind. “We’re not safe out here!”
Marigold didn’t appear to have heard.
Chris advanced his hand to the side of Isolda, palm out. She seemed to understand and clasped it at once, while he pressed his other hand to Marigold’s side again. Once more, he ushered Isolda into her sister’s mind, but as much as she called out for her, and begged her to turn back, thunder drowned out her words.
I’m going to jump and shift, she spoke into Chris’ mind. She sounded scared, but resolute. I’ll fly next to her, and try to make her follow me back.
It sounded to Chris like a terrible idea, and he tried to push that thought toward Isolda, but already she was sitting up, then swinging her leg over Marigold’s back, Chris tried to hold on to her, but she shook herself free and soon she was slipping to the side and off Marigold’s back. Chris’ shout of fear went unheard in the sky. He leaned to the side as much as he dared so he could see below and—
He heaved a sigh of relief when he caught sight of a white dragon that seemed to attract every last bit of light still bouncing around in the sky. Isolda’s call could hardly be called a roar, but it was distinctive enough that Marigold’s wings stilled for a moment as she looked around for her sister. When she found her, she let out a plaintive call that only redoubled when Isolda looped around her and started flying back toward Sanctuary—back toward the two dragons that had been pursuing them.
Chris could feel sheer terror ripple out through Marigold as she veered and turned to go after her sister. Yet again he tried to project toward her reassurances that she and Isolda were both safe, that these were people who only wanted to help them, nothing more. That they were dragons, like her, and that they wanted to take her back where she and Isolda would be protected.
Hesitation and confusion started growing in her mind. Better those, he supposed, than the overwhelming fear that had threatened to make her lose control. He was beginning to think he might just be able to convince her to go back to the safety of the walls when two things happened at the same time.
In the sky, Isolda reached the two dragons, and after veering on each side of her to let her pass behind them, they grew closer together once more, blocking Marigold’s path toward her. On the ground, a strong light, the likes of which might have been used during past wars to find enemy planes in the night sky, suddenly came to life. Its beam swept the sky for a few seconds before settling on the brightest thing up there: the small white dragon now watching Marigold, calling out to her from behind two larger forms.
A wave of something as dark as it was powerful unfurled over Marigold’s mind, so strong that it stunned Chris. Suddenly disorientated, he lost track of what was in Marigold’s mind and what was really happening. Fire, lightning and beams of light, thunder, screeching and sirens, all of it mixed together in a cacophony that filled his mind. It was all he could do to hang on to Marigold when she suddenly plunged down toward the ground, so fast he was sure they were about to crash. But she angled her flight at the last second, and released a long stream of fire toward the heavy duty projector on the ground. The projector exploded. Chris wasn’t completely certain, but he thought he saw a human figure nearby, enveloped in flames.
With a roar of triumph, Marigold regained altitude again, going straight for the three dragons. Now that night had fully fallen upon them, everything was more difficult to see. Only when Marigold let out another stream of fire did it become apparent that Isolda had flown back in front of the other two. She let out a piercing shriek at the same time as she breathed out ice. It met Marigold’s fire and extinguished it—or most of it. The last of it did reach Isolda, singeing her left wing, and when she cried out again, it was in pain.
Confusion returned in Marigold’s mind, strong
er than before and immediately followed by grief and horror: she’d hurt Isolda. All her life she’d done her best to protect her, it had always been all she wanted to do, all she had to do, her one and only purpose, and now…
One of the other two dragons was supporting Isolda as well as he could and guiding her back toward the walls. The other dragon let out a short burst of flames. Would he—or she—wait for reinforcements? Or would it try to herd Marigold back to Sanctuary on its own?
Chris took advantage of the sorrow weakening Marigold’s thoughts and pressed in deeper, projecting toward her those things which he knew to be true without the slightest bit of doubt.
We have to go back. We’re in danger here, but we’ll be safe behind the walls. Isolda will be safe, and so will you. Go on. Follow Isolda and the other dragons. We have to go back.
After another moment of indecision, Marigold finally started forward. Her wings weren’t beating as fast anymore, or as steadily. Still skimming the surface of her thoughts, Chris realized she was exhausted. Of course she was; she’d barely left her room for a year, she’d been jailed for maybe up to two years before that, it was no wonder that the way she’d exerted herself tonight had tired her to this point.
Stroking her neck, he encouraged her forward. When he could see the long line of the walls beneath them, he told her they were safe, and she could go down, now. She breathed out a quiet whine of protest; she wanted to follow Isolda, whom the other dragon was guiding deeper into Sanctuary. Soon though her endurance gave out, and she had to land. She shifted back to her human form as soon as she touched the ground in the middle of a wheat field.
Chris tumbled upon her, so that for a moment he was on top of her naked, trembling body. He hurriedly pulled back, and whipped off his shirt before tugging it over her head. He had to thread her arms through the sleeves, like he might have done for a child. She didn’t help, too tired, or maybe too out of it to do more than allow him to put the shirt on her. When he was done, she let her body fall to the ground, like a puppet whose strings have suddenly been cut. Sitting next to her, Chris drew her onto his lap, into his arms, and rocked her gently as she fell asleep, tears drying on her cheeks.