Glass and Ice (Elemental Dragons Book 3)

by Jessica Turnbull

  Isaac does a headcount. “We have enough dragons, including the Wyverns. We need to push them back.”

  “What if they come back?” someone asks timidly.

  “Then we fight again. And again, and again until we win or have no fight left.”

  People seem unsure, chattering quietly among themselves. Like it or not, they’re involved now. The Wyrms won’t let them just walk out of here.

  “Hazel,” Isaac pulls me to one side. “Can you do that shark thing again?”

  “I don’t really control it,” I confess with a shrug. “It’s just good luck that it helped us twice back there.”

  “Twice?”

  “It helped when we were getting the laptop and the scale.” I pause for a second. “But…”

  “But what?” he blinks in confusion.

  “It takes its toll on me. I coughed up ice when I used it. That’s never happened before. I think it’s a side effect of the serum.”

  He furrows his eyebrows. “That is strange – but didn’t Braith say the Wyrms wanted to wait until you were ripe?”

  “You heard them,” I nod towards the door. “I am ripe.”

  “Maybe that’s why you coughed ice up. Now that you’re ripe, maybe it’s changed you in some way?”

  I shake my head. “I have no idea. Maybe Braith can find something on the laptop.”

  “Once this is over, you take a look,” he answers me with a small smile. “It might give you some answers – plus it would give her a break.”

  The door creaks again, and a hole appears in the wood. A black tongue sticks through, hissing at the gathered crowd. Before the Wyrm can speak, Cyan the Wyvern leaps forward and rips its tongue off with her teeth. The Wyrm gurgles in pain and pulls away, screaming to its comrades.

  “The Wyverns are willing to fight,” Isaac says. “We’ve got to open the doors.”

  “As soon as they speak-”

  “We’ll be in trouble. Not the dragons. If they can distract them long enough, maybe your shark will come back.”

  “Or Braith’s bear.”

  His mouth drops slightly. “Braith can do it too?”

  “She didn’t say?”

  He shakes his head. “No. It seems important enough to mention, though.”

  “Braith has changed,” Marco interrupts the conversation from behind, his arms crossed. “She isn’t the same person we knew back in camp.”

  “Ignore him,” I snap as Isaac looks at me expectantly. “She’s stressed, like we all are. She has loads to mention; it doesn’t matter that she forgot one thing.”

  “Maybe we should have this conversation later.” Isaac flinches as the Wyrms start hurling themselves at the door again.

  “Agreed.”

  The dragons creep up to the front, crouching in the doorway, waiting for the Wyrms to enter. After a few minutes of banging, the door disintegrates with a creak. The second the wood touches the floor; the Wyverns surge forward. They attack the Wyrms from the side, trying to blind them by scratching their eyes or nipping their tails. This gives the Western Dragons the chance to attack face-on, as they’re better at close range with their bulkier bodies.

  Screams erupt as individual fights break out in the fray. Scaly bodies tumble everywhere as they get trapped in headlocks or stuck under feet. While this is going on, we have a bigger problem: the citizens. They come marching in, but their elements disappear as soon as they get too close to the Wyrms.

  “What do we do?” I ask Isaac.

  “They’re people; we can’t hurt them,” he hisses back.

  “What about if they hurt us first?” Marco argues as one man steps around the dragon fights to grab a kid by the collar.

  The blond boy sighs and bounces on the spot. “Fine, but no killing.”

  “We’re not murderers,” I argue, but Isaac doesn’t look at me.

  He knows about Jason. My heart sinks at the thought, but I don’t have time to dwell on it as more people file in.

  There must be something we can do to snap them out of the Wyrm trance.

  I spot Braith backing away from the door with the crowd, clutching the brown laptop bag in her arms.

  The scale.

  Maybe we can temporarily block out the Wyrms.

  “Braith!”

  My voice catches her attention, but she ignores me as Damayanti crushes a Wyrm under her feet. I motion her over with my hand, but she shakes her head furiously.

  “What are you doing?” Marco whispers in my ear.

  “She has the scale,” I explain. “Maybe that could stop the Wyrms from controlling the citizens.”

  Isaac and Marco join in with me trying to call her over, but she doesn’t budge. I roll my eyes and make my way towards her. A nearby Wyrm tries to snap at me with its large jaws, but an unknown orange and pink dragon drags it away by the tail. As soon as I reach Braith, she eyes me suspiciously.

  “We need the scale,” I explain. “It might break the hold on the people.”

  She stares at the citizens, her eyes wide. “But…”

  I blink at her in confusion. “But what? We can help these people without hurting them.”

  Hugging the bag closer to her chest, she mutters: “You can’t have it.”

  “Why?” I go to snatch it from her, but she pulls away. “Braith…”

  That’s when I see it on her neck. A tiny, minuscule little thing. No thicker than a pencil, with a long black body. A Wyrm.

  “The scale is mine. Draca said I couldn’t trust you.”

  Now it makes sense why Marco thought she was acting weird. How long has that thing been there with no-one noticing? In hindsight, her disappearances and tantrums make sense. She’s got a Wyrm on her; she isn’t thinking rationally.

  “Draca is lying, Braith,” I tell her slowly, raising my hands in a neutral stance.

  “He wouldn’t lie to me. He says our lives are playing out exactly the same as the Original Elementals, which means that you will kill him,” she says venomously, her usually bright eyes burning with hate.

  “I don’t want them to play out exactly the same.”

  “Why?”

  My voice shakes. “Remember William? I don’t want that to be Marco.”

  For a minute understanding flashes in her eyes before the Wyrm flicks on her neck, burying itself deeper behind her collar. “I don’t believe you.”

  “You should. I don’t want to be responsible for any more deaths. Jason was a mistake that I deeply regret. I don’t want to kill anymore.”

  “Apart from Wyrms.”

  I shrug. “I don’t want to kill them either,” I admit, chewing my lip. “But I’m going to protect the ones I love.”

  Her face is still contorted into disbelief. “Whatever.”

  “How long has Draca been telling you not to trust me?” I ask, subtly trying to look at her collar for the Wyrm.

  “From the beginning,” she admits.

  “Are you sure you don’t feel this way because of the Wyrm on your neck?”

  Shock registers on her face and she looks down her shirt, giving me enough time to snatch the bag out of her hands. She screams in fury and lunges for me as I open the zip. The bag flies from my arms and skids towards Marco and Isaac, who look confused by the fight breaking out among all the madness.

  “The scale!” I screech, pinning Braith’s arms down as she tries to crawl towards it. “Get the scale!”

  Thrashing in my grip, Braith tries to punch me in the face, but when this fails she tries blowing icy cold wind in my face. I squeeze my eyes shut until she needs to take a breath by spitting water into her open mouth. Her face reddens as she coughs the water up. This gives Marco enough time to get the scale out and pass it to me.

  Please let this work.

  I press the scale against the Wyrm to see what happens. A tiny screech signals that it’s in pain as it drops off my friend onto the floor. Isaac squashes it with his boot as Braith goes limp in my hands, breathing heavily. She’s not passed out; I thi
nk she’s just run out of energy.

  “Braith?” I ask carefully.

  “What?” she snaps back.

  “There could be another one on her,” Marco warns. “Be careful, Haze.”

  “There’s no more on me. I’m just pissed off that I’m being interrogated! Let me go!”

  Meanwhile, the battle against the Wyrms rages around us, making me prickle uncomfortably. We’re vulnerable right now, on the floor pinning one of our own down.

  “He’s right,” Isaac says, his eyes widening at the realisation of the carnage around him. “We need to keep her safe while we figure out what to do.”

  The air crackles around me as Braith’s shoulders heat up under my hands.

  “Shit!” I jump up as I realise what’s happening. “Get back!”

  A large icicle forms on the floor in front of us before it shatters into the form of a polar bear. The bear rears on its hind legs and roars, deafening the room into silence. People scream at the sight of it, while the Wyrms that can flee at the sight. The ones that are left attempt to escape from their dragon captors but are quickly finished off before they can drag their scaly bodies away.

  Braith rises to her feet and cracks her knuckles, her eyes glowing a light blue. “C’mon, Hazy: let’s see who’s better.”

  “We shouldn’t be fighting,” I warn as I can feel heat rising on my back.

  “You seem to have taken over our little group,” she hisses through gritted teeth. “I’m sick of it. I challenge you to leadership.”

  “Leadership?” I shake my head. “I’m not our leader; no-one is. We’re all equals.”

  “I wish that were true.”

  She commands the bear forward by pointing her finger at me. Before it has a chance to move, the shark explodes from my chest, landing in a puddle of water at my feet. The shark descends into the water until just a fin pokes out above the glowing puddle. Its tail lashes, sending droplets of cold water in all directions. My breath catches in my chest as the bear roars and leaps forward, icy claws outstretched. The shark leaps from the water and collides with the bear, chomping off an icy paw. Dazed, the bear misses me by inches, flicking its paw until it grows back as a thin spike. The shark coughs up the paw, swatting it across the room. It slides across the floor until it hits a dragon’s foot and melts.

  My breathing grows heavy and forced, but Braith is perfectly fine opposite me. With a flick of her hand, the bear charges for me again. I step into the puddle that the shark has left behind. I’m immediately swallowed by the water, while the bear swats at the puddle above me, unable to get through. The shark approaches me, allowing me to get a good look at it. It’s a great white made entirely out of water. Its gills flare with each breath, and its beady eyes stare at me as I float alongside it.

  Up above, the bear thrashes in the puddle, trying to break through the barrier to reach me. The shark must have the power to keep it at bay, as it keeps cracking its paw on the concrete below. The shark must have its only little pocket of life in whatever puddle it creates. I guess because I create it, I can enter it too.

  “Hazy!” Braith cries from above, kneeling over the puddle to stare at me with an unnatural grin on her face. “Come out, come out wherever you are!”

  The shark and I both look up at her and surge to the surface, knocking her back with a wave of water. Everyone in the room gasps as I resurface with the shark at my feet. For the first time it rises completely out of the water, swimming in the air. I point at the bear, and the shark shoots forward, its wide mouth opening to show off layers upon layers of teeth. It collides with the bear’s head, smashing it with a chomp of its powerful jaws. The bear disintegrates into icy shards in all directions. It only takes a second for the shards to start moving, however, sliding back to the biggest chunk of ice to reform.

  “Enough!”

  * * *

  When I next open my eyes, I see a roaring fire. I jump back in surprise until I look up, noticing Draca staring down at me from on top of a jagged rock. His tail is curled neatly around his feet, but his gaze is burning and full of hatred.

  “I am disappointed in you,” he starts with a growl.

  “For defending myself?” I snap.

  “For fighting.”

  A cough makes me jump as Braith clambers to her feet next to me, blinking and dazed. Her eyes look brighter now, more like they used to.

  “She’s covered in Wyrms, and you knew about it,” I snarl up at him.

  He rolls his eyes. “Every scale is covered with them. Every time she touched me one would transfer to her.”

  “But you said nothing.”

  He smirks. “I didn’t think they would take her over so easily.”

  “Why are you talking about me as if I’m not here?” Braith asks.

  I ignore her. “You let this happen.”

  With a shake of his amber head, he replies: “No I didn’t. I interfered.”

  “When I was gaining the upper hand. You didn’t interfere when that bear was inches away from chomping my head off.”

  “Hazy…” Braith says, swaying on her feet. “I’m so sorry…”

  Small black bodies drop from her hands like flies, curling up and drying out on the ground. Thank God they’re dropping off.

  “How are you feeling?” I ask, cupping her face in my hands to look into her eyes.

  “I’ve been better,” she admits with a shrug.

  Draca snorts and steps down from his ledge. “I don’t like you at all, Marine. It’s only natural that I would want you to die.”

  “And I don’t like you!” I snap. “But I wouldn’t stand by and watch you fight a battle like that.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Stop arguing!” Braith shouts, staggering back a few steps. “I’m sick of you two hating each other!”

  “She will kill me!” Draca growls, flicking me away with a large claw. “She is meant to do what the old Marine did.”

  “That doesn’t mean you had to use Wyrms to turn her against me,” my friend argues, starting to sound more like her old self. “I’ve known her longer than you; she wouldn’t do that.”

  Draca rolls his orange eyes. “We’ll see. She’ll track me down to kill me and will kill her lover as well.”

  “I won’t hurt Marco!” I scream, my anger making his eyes light up.

  “Enough!” Braith separates us by waving her hands. “This has gone too far! Wyrms? You really thought using Wyrms to turn me against her would work? And Hazel, you knew Draca hated you but kept quiet about it anyway! You’re as bad as each other.”

  “Can’t we have this group therapy session another time?” I huff, folding my arms. “There is a battle going on right now!”

  “They have fled,” Draca says. “As soon as they saw you use your animals.”

  “And why should I believe you?”

  “Fucking hell!” Braith sinks to the floor with her head in her hands. “I’ve had enough! This is stupid! Send Marine home, Draca; we have to talk.”

  “Don’t touch him!” I manage to cry before I black out.

  27

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I wake up with a gasp, feeling as if a rock has been weighing down on my chest. The room around me is unfamiliar; it isn’t the warehouse. I’ve been tucked into a bed and wrapped with blankets. The floor is plush red, with walls covered in various photos. I squint to look at one across the room and recognise Isaac’s blond hair. This must be his room.

  How did I get in here?

  Shakily, I swing my legs out of bed, my chest hurting. Looking down my shirt, I see my chest is completely covered in a single blue bruise that starts at my collarbone and ends just above my bellybutton. How did I get it?

  The carpet feels soft and warm under my bare feet. [It’s much nicer than having to wear shoes all the time.] I open the door and step out into an unfamiliar hallway, which is lit up by candles and small fires in pots. Someone at the other end of the corridor spots me before scuttling away.r />
  Where am I?

  I try to recognise something, anything, but my brain is mush. Maybe I’ve never been here before.

  “Haze!” Marco rounds the corner at the other end and rushes up to me, trapping me in a bear hug.

  “Where are we?”

  “The old Aislados town,” he says. “After you and Braith collapsed we brought you here.”

  “Is she…?”

  “She woke up days ago, Haze.” Pulling away, he rubs my cheeks. “I was scared you wouldn’t wake up.”

  “Days?” I mumble back to him; my eyes focus on his face.

  Draca kept me behind for days, he must have done. But I don’t remember any of it. Why didn’t he let me go sooner?

  “Are you okay? Why did he keep you so long?”

  “I can’t remember anything. I blacked out after Braith said she wanted to talk to him.”

  “Well, he kept hold of you. Even she was getting worried.”

  I stagger backwards a step as he steadies me. I’m feeling more awake, but feel sick to my stomach. Draca has stolen days of my life, and for what?

  As I sigh my chest throbs painfully, making me groan. My boyfriend steadies me again, his eyes darting back to my face.

  “My chest…it really hurts,” I manage to get out between breaths.

  “Shit – are you having a heart attack?”

  I glare at him and pull down my collar slightly, letting him see the painful bruise hidden under my clothes. His mouth drops and he takes my hand, squeezing it roughly. “We need to speak to Braith, now.”

  “Why?” I ask as he pulls me down the corridor.

  “While you were out, she gave me the laptop. There was an article about serum failure, and…” he pauses, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m scared you have it.”

  “Can it be cured?”

  His breath catches in his throat. “I dunno, but I’m going to damn well try.”

  The corridor branches out to a stairway, which Marco practically jogs down while dragging me along behind him. We pass several people who mutter and stare as we go past. More rumours must be swirling, especially since I’ve been out for a few days. The stairs lead out to some sort of hotel lobby, complete with a shiny reception desk and comfy chairs around the room. Isaac rises to his feet upon seeing me, his face lighting up.