by Lucia Ashta
I suddenly grasped the fact that we’d rejoined the blue and green dragons, who waited for the man and Luma to return. The forcers were close, but none approached. I noticed Traya at the front of them, but I could offer her no more than a shaky, blurry smile. I doubted it did much to reassure her, but it was all I had.
The world swirled. The trees at the side vibrated and blurred. Luma’s skin, wrapped around my arm, fluttered in and out of my vision. Even Rane, who’d been a solid presence my entire life, faded in and out of my reality.
“Something’s happening,” I said. My words were slurred, my tongue thick and unwieldy.
I sensed words crossing my mind, just beyond my awareness. They were mind talking, but I was no longer able to extract meaning from the words.
My knees grew weak. Rane and Luma held me up, Rosie pressed against my thighs, as if the little one were trying to lend me whatever strength she had.
Rane’s grip tightened so much it hurt, and he swiveled his head from me to those behind me. Who were they again? I’d forgotten. Rane’s concern slipped away from me until I no longer felt it.
The tips of my fingers tingled. Then my lips and eyeballs grew numb. My vision blurred and wavered.
Nausea rose up my throat, swift and unforgiving, like a wave of the ocean that pounded and churned relentlessly. I’d never experienced the ocean, but I’d heard stories, and I imagined this was what it must feel like to have so little control over one’s existence.
I closed my eyes against the dizzying sight they took in, and then I was being lifted in the air. Either that, or I was falling; I wasn’t certain I could tell the difference between the two.
I definitely wasn’t falling. I was floating. No one held me anymore.
Was I dying? Was this what it felt like when our minds no longer occupied our bodies? At least if I died here then Luma’s pa could do that nice magic where he’d send me on from my body, to join magic, or light, or whatever it was—something pretty. Something like that would be nice for my final moments on Origins.
Don’t you die on me.
Where’d that come from? Ah, Rane. So I was dying. A sudden sorrow for leaving my twin behind racked through my body, but it didn’t take hold. I wasn’t as sad that I was dying as I was that I’d force Rane to live a life without me. I didn’t know what that might do to a twin, but it wouldn’t be pleasant, and Rane didn’t deserve that.
I wanted to reassure him, but I couldn’t find the focus to do it. Besides, I wouldn’t have my last moments with him be a lie.
Rane’s energy separated from mine, and I prepared for the end. I couldn’t make sense how it had arrived so quickly, but it had.
The sun was bright. Even against my closed eyelids, a warm orange filtered through.
My arms and legs hung limply downward. My long braid hung loose and free, just as my eternality soon would. I wondered if the shadow people believed in the eternality, which lived on beyond the body. Maybe they had another name for it, another explanation. I wished for the chance to ask, but it wasn’t necessary. I’d learn it all for myself soon enough.
Then all movement stopped. I lay against something solid and tough. I tried to touch with my fingers, but the tips tingled too much to make sense of the slick feel of... scales. Perhaps dragons welcome our eternalities into the afterlife since we’re dragon protectors.
I sensed someone next to me. Not Rane, not Traya, not Dean or Shula. Rosie? No. Luma? Maybe.
Arms held me, lips whispered, and then whatever understanding I’d had of what was happening shattered—utterly and completely. Every single one of my efforts was directed toward keeping my intestines inside me, my brain from plopping out of my head, and my teeth from chomping off my tongue.
I squinched my eyes shut against the sudden wind. Tears leaked, until the harsh air dried them before they could drip.
I tried to hang on for my life, but it was fleeing. So I let go of the fight, and allowed life and death to do what they always did. Whether I lived or died was up to them... or something. Not me, that was for sure. My body released all tension, and I melted.
12
When I finally came to, I knew right away I’d been out for a long time. My mouth was dry, my head next to impossible to lift, and every limb leaden.
I shifted and realized I was laying in some kind of bed, though the bed felt nothing like the one Rane and I shared back home. It was firmer and rougher than what I was used to, though it’d done nothing to impede my rest. I felt as if I’d slept for days.
I opened my eyes and startled just a bit, though really I shouldn’t have been surprised to find Rane’s face hovering over mine, peering at me. “Oh thank the oasis,” he said. “I was so worried about you, Nir. You’ve been sleeping forever.”
I smiled as much as I could manage. My brother was no more patient than I was. The wait must have been torment.
Umph. The air was knocked out from me. “Rosie,” I said, trying to bat her away. She licked at my face and wagged her tail; the combination of movements made her whole body waggle as she tried—unsuccessfully—to climb on the bed.
“It’s all right, girl. I’m here.” I placed my hand on her head and tried to calm her. “It’s lovely to see your squirmy, scrunchy face.”
I looked from her to Rane. “It’s—” I stopped to clear my throat. “It’s good to see you too. I missed your handsome face.”
He grinned. “I primped just for you, didn’t you notice?”
I chuckled so softly that only someone as connected to me as Rane would hear. “Not really. Your primping skills must be going soft since Yana hasn’t been around.”
I predicted that he’d rise to my ribbing, but instead his face fell. “I have no idea when I’ll see her again.” The if that went along with that statement hung in the air as heavily as the fog from my prolonged sleep.
“You’ll see her again,” I said, even though, of course, I couldn’t guarantee that he would. I reached for his hand clumsily. He grasped mine. “You scared me, Nir.” Rane piled a whole heap of concern in that one short sentence. Guilt pinged at me, but I wasn’t sure what I should feel guilty for.
“What happened?” I asked, running a hand along Rosie’s head. I didn’t have much more in me than that, but I needed to do something to calm the dragonling who seemed as if she was ready to crawl out of her forming scales for the joy of seeing me awake.
“I don’t really know. You just... passed out. You started acting all wobbly, like you’d had too much to drink, and then, poof, you were down.”
“Why though?”
He shrugged, but the nonchalance didn’t reach his eyes. “The shadow guy thinks it was an aftereffect of all the magic you used. Helping him send off his brother, well, according to him that process uses a whole lot of faithum. You’re sending an eternality on to a specific place.”
“What place?”
“I asked Luma, because I wanted to know too, and all she said was the place where the eternality belongs. Something about light and faithum, that the eternality deserves to join its essence, I don’t know.”
“All right... So I used more faithum than usual—”
“Which isn’t saying a lot when our supposed chieftain forbade us from ever exploring it.”
“Right. So it was just too much for me to use.”
“I don’t think the shadow guy was suggesting it was too much for you to work with, just that it was a lot for someone who wasn’t used to it.” He let a beat pass. “I think you can probably do a lot more than what you already did.”
“I think so too,” I said, before I could wonder where the response came from. It just felt... right.
“I think I can do a lot of what you can.” Rane wasn’t timid, especially not with me. He rarely sounded shy, but he did then.
“Of course you can, Rane. Whatever I can do, certainly you can too.”
“But you’re the only one who can become invisible. Or visible, it’s kind of hard to keep track of who the normal
you is anymore.”
Tell me about it. “But we’re twins, Rane. Twins. Just because I’m the only one of us who becomes invisible doesn’t mean you aren’t capable of doing it as well. It actually makes a whole lot of sense that you and I would be able to do the same things. Maybe you can turn invisible too and we just don’t know it yet.”
He stared at me. “I never thought of that.”
“That’s why you should leave the thinking to the twin who does it best.”
Fast as a Vikas viper, he reached out and slapped me against the thigh.
“Ouch!” I said. It was all for effect. He hadn’t hurt me. Rosie turned to glare at him, though the effect was more comical than scary. Rosie’s features were simply too soft and round to have the effect a normal dragon would.
“I’m so sorry, Nir, I wasn’t thinking. I forgot that you’re hurt, I just reacted like we always do.”
I debated allowing him to wallow in his mislaid guilt for a moment, but the truth was, he didn’t deserve that, not even in jest. “You didn’t hurt me. I was just playing with you.”
“Aw, Nir,” he said, sitting back. I noticed for the first time he was sitting on a stool that he’d drawn near my bed. From the look of him, he’d been there the entire time I slept.
“What your slap did do, however, was show me how much I have to pee. Help me up, will you?”
Immediately he stood and leaned over me. “How much help do you need? Want me to hook my hands under your arms?”
“For now, I think yes.”
He started sitting me up. “You know, I was kind of waiting to see if you’d pee the bed. I figured, as the days passed, you’d have to.”
“And you sound like you would’ve enjoyed that far too much.”
He chuckled. “I had to find ways to occupy my time.”
“Let me rest for a sec.” I leaned against a cold wall behind my back. I was relieved to see that while I was visible, I was dressed beneath the thin blanket that covered my body. “How long was I sleeping?”
“Almost two full days.” All the play was gone from his voice. He’d been worried, as I would have been.
“I’m so sorry I worried you.”
“Aye, me too.” He ran a hand across a tired face. “It was nerve racking, not knowing what was going to happen to you.”
“But you knew I’d wake up.” When he hesitated, I added, “You knew that, right? I wouldn’t leave you.”
“I knew you wouldn’t leave me if you had a choice, but Nir, it didn’t look as if you did. I mean, you didn’t even wake up when you rode the dragon.”
I’d been in the middle of scooting toward the edge of the bed. “I did what?”
For the first time since I woke, a bit of the usual liveliness twinkled across his eyes. “Aye, here’s my sister, my secret twin, and she’s the first in our entire people’s history to ride a, what, people of the Ooba tribe? Oh that’s right, a dragon, and she isn’t even awake for the experience.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Not even a tiny bit.”
“Damn.” Then I started laughing. “Only I would ride a dragon and not know it.” I choked on my own laughter, and asked for water.
When I finally stopped choking, he said, “Aye, only you.” But the way he said it was full of the affection we had for each other despite all our ribbing. “I’m not sure you can take all that much pride in being the first dragon rider of our people. It seems like you should at least remember the moment.”
“Not only that, but I can’t imagine I deserve much of the credit for charming the dragon enough to let me ride it. Who took me on the dragon?”
“Luma. You rode the green dragon, and get this, Nir. The green dragon is a girl. Not only did you ride a dragon, but you rode a she dragon.”
“Damn.”
“That’s right. Double damn. You rode the fiercest of all dragons and you don’t even remember the ride.” Then he really started laughing as if he might never stop.
I smiled at first, but then scowled. “I hope some of that laughter is mixed in with relief for your twin’s well-being.”
“Of course it is, of course,” but he wasn’t convincing.
I slapped at him. “Come on, get a move on. I have to go.” He helped me stand. “If I rode with Luma, am I right in thinking we’re in the village of the shadow people?”
“You are. Once Dune realized we were twins, they welcomed us as if we were royalty.”
“Who’s Dune?”
“Sorry, I forget. A lot has happened since you’ve been sleeping.”
“I thought you never left my side.”
“Well, I did a little. I was far too curious to remain inside with your passed-out self the whole time.”
I harrumphed and made it to the door of what looked like a small, modest hut, not entirely unlike the one my family shared back in the Ooba village. “So... who’s Dune?” I asked impatiently.
“Luma’s father, who turns out to be the chieftain of their tribe.”
“Of course he is. And I passed out after trying a little bit of faithum. I must have made quite the impression.”
“You did. Just wait and see. They’re freaking out over our being twins.”
“And the forcers? What do they have to say about it?”
A shadow fell across Rane’s face. “There are mixed reactions about it.”
“Let me guess. Yoon isn’t happy about it.”
“Correct.”
Well, Yoon can just go stub a toe.
Rane smiled. “Indeed,” he said aloud to the thought that had apparently reached his mind. “He can stub both toes, and hard.”
“And what of Pumpoo?”
“He fled. Dean and Shula went after him.”
“Alone?” I realized Dean and Shula were the best of the best, but Pumpoo was a trickster, and I’d grown fond of the insightful Dean and reserved Shula. They truly were starting to feel like family.
“No, the entire Alpha Team went with them. So did Dune.”
“Which means we’re left here with Yoon?”
“And a bunch of tamers and charmers.”
“Dean must really trust the shadow people to leave us with them like this.”
“I think he does. And I think they deserve his trust.”
“Tell me.”
“I’ll do you one better. Come see. Everyone’s waiting for you to wake up.”
“All right then,” I said, preparing myself the best way I could to meet a shadow people I knew little about, when every one of my secrets had been revealed. I breathed in whatever strength I could, leaned on my twin to borrow some of his, and took the first step outside of the hut, and toward whatever might await me in the unknown.
13
The unknown wasn’t nearly as intimidating as I’d feared it was. The shadows, which I’d always feared hid the worst, even as they concealed invisible me from my own people, resolved themselves into suggestions of friendly gestures and faces.
There you are! Luma was the first to spot us as we emerged from the hut. As if she’d shouted the words instead of spoken them through mind waves, everyone around her turned to look at me. For someone accustomed to not being seen, I couldn’t keep from squirming at all the attention. But it wasn’t in the least bit menacing. We were complete strangers to these people, yet already I could tell they wanted to welcome us into their fold.
I’ve been waiting forever for you to wake, haven’t I, Rane? The quiet shadow girl was anything but, her energy nearly ebullient. She bounded over to us, and Rane smiled at her.
Wait a minute, that was the kind of smile he gave Yana, not just anybody. Was he...? One look at him told me he was into Luma. She might be a shadow person, but I wasn’t sure I could blame him. It proved impossible to make out the features of her face with any real definition—they vibrated too quickly for my eyes to make sense of them, leaving me dizzy. Still, she felt beautiful. Her energy was warm and pleasant, the kind I wanted to surround myself with all the t
ime.
I didn’t say anything to Rane, knowing she’d hear it too, but shelved it for later. I supported Rane in liking Luma, but I didn’t want him to suffer. Eventually, we’d have to return to our tribe. That meant leaving Luma behind.
I wouldn’t allow Rane to go down a path that would leave him with a broken heart. We’d suffered too much loss already.
It’s great to see you up, Luma said, and I realized suddenly that I hadn’t yet responded to her, lost to my thoughts.
It’s good to see you, Luma. I wish I hadn’t rested as long as I did. I feel like I’ve missed out on so much. Never one to like people moving on without me, I would have liked to be a part of the initial wave of discovery.
Oh, don’t worry about that. You haven’t missed anything you can’t still experience.
I smiled a genuine smile at the girl, glad she was able to see it. Thank you. I appreciate it. And I really did. I had the feeling this girl and I would fast become friends—if we were given the chance.
I was tempted to worry about what would happen to Rane and Traya now that my secret was out, but it was difficult to fall to this particular temptation. The feel of the village was light and unburdened, nothing like what it was to live among the Ooba. Though Pumpoo had been the only true rotten one among us, his presence had colored life for all. Already I was drawn to the shadow village in a way I’d never been to ours.
Luma took the arm Rane left open, nudged Rosie behind me, and said, Come on. I’ll show you around.
That’d be great, as long as the first stop involves relieving my bladder.
She chuckled. You were asleep a long time. Rane, I’ll take it from here.
Rane hesitated, searching out my eyes to see what I thought about being left alone with who, after all, was still mostly a stranger. In his eyes, I read that he trusted Luma, but it was one thing to trust her with himself; it was a greater challenge entirely to trust her with me. From the start, since we first came kicking and screaming into this world, Rane and I had balanced each other out. That was probably why only one of us had been visible. We opposed each other in just enough ways to bring true balance to our... what should I call it? Twindom?