Snap. The collar released just as easily as it had beneath Zane’s touch. Around her, colors brightened, the air warmed, and her searching toes tapped into the thin skin of lichen that had formed even here inside the abandoned lab. For the first time in days, her chest expanded into a deep, even breath and Amber felt thoroughly alive.
Her relief was short-lived, though, because the Green was confused. Angry. Scared. It nipped at her skin and Amber hopped skyward as if the floorboards had become glowing embers beneath her feet.
Strange images rolled through her mind as she touched back down on the lichen-coated floor. Distance from the Green’s heart made the communication tenuous and baffling. Maybe once she was back in full contact with the earth, everything would make more sense?
Even as that potential solution danced through her head, Amber had already taken to her heels. She clattered down the remaining stairs and out into the open faster than she’d originally come up. And this time, the forest opened a path for her, leading her straight toward the invader—XM1007, a plant like none other.
“Save the human. Please,” she panted as she ran. The Green recoiled from her words, but continued sending images each time her feet made contact with the earth. A second gray dragon Fading in an instant. Flash. Sarah falling out of the sky, her eyes wide as she regained consciousness in time to see her death reaching toward her with thorny limbs. Flash.
“Please,” Amber repeated her earlier broadcast. Then she followed up with images of kindness, images of love, images of Sarah tending to a comatose Watcher even when Amber’s presence had appeared to be inimical to her foster sons’ survival. “Sarah is good,” she gasped as best she could while losing contact with the soil in between every step and hurtling as fast as she could toward the spot where the older woman would soon land. “Save her.”
It was hard to tell if the Green understood, but much easier to see how close Sarah was to perishing now that Amber could view the battle through a nearby squirrel’s eyes. On the plus side, there were only two dragons left, the others having either fled or perished. On the minus side, neither looked ready or able to save the human from splattering against the fast-approaching ground.
For his part, Baine hovered with mouth open into a draconic grin as he watched his living football plummet. Meanwhile, Nicholas winged upward away from the woman he loved like none other, flying as fast as he was able toward the clear blue sky.
He trusts me. Perhaps it was the realization that Zane’s foster brother had obeyed her desperate plea that gave Amber strength to run past the final remnants of the Green. She ignored her charge’s tugs on trailing sleeves, ignored tendrils twisting hold of unruly curls. Only when she reached the strange spiky plant she’d germinated in her own spit did she pause and plunge hands deep between green leaves until blood oozed from dozens of wounds piercing her tender skin.
“I need your help,” she told XM1007, broadcasting additional images toward the plant that seemed to share no resemblance to the tiny seedlings she’d handled only moments earlier. “I’m the one who pulled you out of your dormancy, who sprouted your seeds. And that woman falling out of the sky is the key to my happiness. Save her.”
Electra, the plant replied twining painful tendrils around Amber’s abraded skin. I’m Electra.
No wonder the Green was agitated. This plant wasn’t willing to be consumed by the sentience that had taken over the entire world in one fell swoop. It wasn’t willing to become a simple arm or leg for a colonial being that allowed no true individuality to sprout out of its subjects’ bark.
No, Electra was her own being. She spread like wildfire, secreted toxins into the soil that killed the Green’s messengers. But at the same time, she saved microorganisms that jumped ship and came over to her point of view.
She wasn’t only anti-dragon. She was also anti-Green.
But despite Electra’s independence, the new being paid her debts. She recognized Amber as her mistress and accepted the obligation implied by their relationship. So, reaching up with one spike-covered branch, the plant thrust forth soft flat leaves to slow the falling woman’s descent.
Gently, calmly, Sarah drifted to earth on a cradle of electrified greenery. Blood still flowed from her arm as the older woman twisted fitfully against her savior’s grasp. But she was there, she was breathing.
Zane’s heart was still alive.
And then, in a snake-like strike, thorn-covered stalk pierced black dragon hide. A shower of sparks, a flurry of ash. And the key to preventing Zane’s Fade—his one blood brother—perished in a puff of smoke.
Chapter 29
The airship seemed to plow rather than drift through the air during its long journey south, but Zane had little attention to spare for the laws of physics. Instead, he hovered by the starboard railing, wishing he was winged and headed in the opposite direction rather than traveling further and further away from his endangered mate.
“Set us down here,” Charlie called, drawing Zane’s attention back to the bow of the ship. There, the captain, a couple of her crew members, and two humans more used to living with feet on the earth all peered down at the sea of Green beneath the Intrepid’s curved flanks. “This spot is perfect.”
“Are you sure?” Sabrina asked, raising both eyebrows. “Things look different from the air, so you might not have realized we picked you up over there.” She gestured east, toward a hillside that Zane was pretty sure actually was the location where he’d recently emerged from a disintegrating cavern with three comatose humans and one terrified goat in tow.
And this was why Zane, rather than one of his brothers, had been tasked with escorting Amber’s compatriots back to their clandestine home. Striding across the decking on feet that dragged despite every effort to pick them up, he interjected himself into the grouping. “Charlie’s right. This is the spot,” he lied.
Across half a dozen heads, farmer eyes met shifter gaze. The former flared his nostrils challengingly, proof that he wasn’t a weakling despite his inability to shift and soar on wings of fire. Charlie didn’t trust Zane one bit, and he didn’t like accepting assistance from a competitor for Amber’s affections either. Still, when the shifter jerked his chin sideways in a request for a private meeting, the other male obeyed.
Behind them, soft female voices discussed holding back the Green while passengers were lowered to earth, but Zane ignored details of the upcoming descent. Because even though Jasmine wasn’t as strong as her mentor, the teenager would have no problem keeping the Intrepid out of harm’s way. Good enough was good enough.
Zane, for his part was more concerned about the future. About what might happen if the ash spiraling away from his skin with every current of air built to the point where it clogged his lungs and left him unable to return to his beloved mate.
Because he was dwindling fast, here far from those he loved while carrying out this final duty. Muscles fought against the slightest request, begged to simply lie down, curl up, fall into an endless sleep. Meanwhile, icicles pinched at inner fire, snipped off tendrils of magic before releasing energy into the air unused.
Only a few days earlier, Zane had played with his powers as if they were limitless, a toy and a tool that would always be ready to answer his call. Now, he fought to force enough breath out of his lungs to fuel speech.
“Amber...” he started.
“You don’t have to say it,” his companion interjected. “I get it. I’m not blind. She wants mystery, danger, excitement. I’m just a farmer.”
That wasn’t where Zane had been heading with this conversation at all. Blinking, he turned to face west, the descending sun warming exposed skin just enough to keep his sluggish brain moving. “You’ll take care of her?”
Now it was Charlie’s turn to be blindsided by the right-turn of his companion’s words. “I’m not the one she wants to have taking care of her....”
The farmer might have elaborated. Probably did, in fact. But awareness of his companion’s words faded into the
wind as a sharp pain bit into the left side of Zane’s chest.
Was this how his brother had Faded? Not a gentle descent into night, but a pull so intense that the yearning to reach the one he loved thrust him airborne in an instant.
Zane hadn’t thought he possessed enough inner fire to shift, but he found himself winged and rising even as shouts from below reminded him of the flammable balloon above his head. Pushing out from beneath the massive bulk, golden dragon turned for a moment and hovered outside the railing, looking in.
Goat, man, child. Amber loved these beings so much. If Zane failed to return, surely she’d come back to them...and Zane needed to know they’d let her into their homes and hearts when that eventuality occurred.
None of that turning-Greenwich-against-her bullshit. No more half-assed proposals that revolved around the needs of the colony rather than the needs of his dearly apple-scented earth witch herself. Charlie was bloody well going to step up to the plate and make Amber happy or Zane would waste his last breath blazing one grumpy farmer into a cinder here and now.
He couldn’t make that ultimatum aloud, of course. Not when scales coated dragon hide while fiery wings held him floating tenuously midair. But Zane could glare with all his might and wait for the unspoken question to be answered.
Errant spark in dragon belly dwindled as his opponent remained silent, the energy that had carried him aloft failing. And yet, shifter held human eyes with an intensity that spoke more to will than to strength, communicating everything he could within the seconds remaining.
Chest pain expanded outward, morphed into streaks of agony running up and down forelegs, wings, hindquarters. Something had happened way up north where Zane should have stayed rather than escorting errant humans home. Something was sucking both magic and fire out of his hide now, every bit as quickly as if he’d parked himself beneath a waterfall and allowed his own flames to be quenched down to the last spark.
Hurry up, he wanted to say. Was it possible that he’d misread the situation? That Charlie boasted no love for Amber after all, the farmer’s coal-flecked eyes holding not a single flicker of passion to warm his cold, hard heart?
But, at last, Charlie stepped closer until the wind from Zane’s wings streamed over the farmer’s face and brushed hair back from furrowed brow. The previously land-bound human had been aloft long enough by that point that legs spread instinctively to buffer the roll as airship dipped and rose beneath his feet. Charlie was more than a mere mudslogger now. And, when he spoke, that flame Zane had sought now glinted in the farmer’s eyes.
“Yes, I’ll take care of her.” Charlie took another step forward, face grim as fingers clenched together around metal railing. “If she comes to me. If she wants me. I’ll give Amber everything. She’s always known that.”
Good enough. A sharp gust of wind prodded at Zane’s failing fire then, and he allowed himself to be carried away from the ship’s bobbing bow. Away from the final connection tethering him to the woman he loved.
Vision dimmed as pain enfolded him. The sun hadn’t set, but he could no longer feel its warmth. He couldn’t feel the wind that buffeted him like an autumn leaf or the descending cold that sought to sap his fleeting vitality.
All he could do was to spread his wings. Close sightless eyes and fly blind into a virtual night.
***
Sarah’s voice was the first thing Amber heard as she drifted back to consciousness. Somehow, in the excitement of battle, the earth witch had neglected to notice the way blood streamed down her arms to be sucked up by the newest plant on the block. She hadn’t realized that she was feeding Electra with her own vitality until vision dimmed, ears rang, and she collapsed into a tangled heap atop the soft, warm earth.
“Yes, I know you like her,” Sarah said now, her voice grimly authoritarian as if the older woman was speaking to a troublesome child. “But if you keep sucking her dry like that, then there won’t be anyone left for you to like.”
Amber’s body swayed gently, making her wonder if she’d ended up back aboard ship. But when she opened her eyes, she found that Electra had instead lifted her up until she hung suspended fifteen feet above the ground. And like a parent soothing a grumpy child, Electra was rocking her mistress gently to and fro until Amber’s stomach sloshed emptily beneath her rib cage.
Down below, Sarah appeared much more spry than she had any right to be after her recent dragon-induced traumas. The woman’s shirt was shorter by several inches, the resulting rag tied around one arm to cover a still-oozing gash. But otherwise, the old woman might as well have spent the day going about her ordinary business rather than being kidnapped and tormented by a group of feral shifters.
“Are you alright?” Amber croaked. Only then did she realize that her throat was so dry she was pretty sure she had no spit left and her eyes felt like someone had rubbed sand beneath the lids. Yep, Electra had sucked blood like crazy while her creator slept.
“I’m fine,” Sarah answered, gracing her companion with a smile the latter wasn’t so sure she deserved. “I had to send Nicholas away, though. He circled for hours but your new friend won’t let him land.”
For hours? No wonder Amber felt so parched.
And now, as the earth witch peered around her, she finally understood why Electra had needed to consume so much blood. There was no Green in sight. Well, there was plenty of greenery, but the leaves were all spiky and remarkably similar to the ones curling around her arms and stroking her bare skin. Somehow, her new pet had spread to cover several acres during Amber’s nap, the former inhabitants of the land either perishing or being pushed out in the process.
Which made their current predicament significantly stickier than it ought to have been. After all, XM1007 was so anti-dragon that none of Sarah’s foster sons would be able to fly close enough to rescue their mother. And yet...succor might still come from the sky if Amber was clever.
Fumbling with Momma’s locket, it took several seconds for her aching fingers to pop the latch. When the front swung open at last, though, a brilliant blue butterfly willingly fluttered aloft. Perhaps a wind witch could succeed where a dragon had failed?
Amber wasn’t willing to wait in a tree until Sabrina arrived, though. So she disentangled her legs from the spiky plant’s anxious grasp and spoke directly to her savior at last. “Okay, Electra. You did good. You saved the day. Now put me down.”
Electra pouted. Despite lack of wind, the being waved her fronds so dramatically they threatened to take out an eye. She squeezed Amber’s wrist more tightly as if her mistress might try to flee without permission. And she most definitely did not lower her captive back toward the protective earth.
“Electra, eh?” Sarah offered, as unfazed by the tremendous plants’ temper tantrum as she had been by preceding events. Then the dragons’ foster mother proved that her own experience trumped Amber’s when faced with a newborn sentience in the shape of a tangle of leaves, thorns, and stems. “Well, Electra, how about this. You let Amber down onto her own two feet so she can eat and drink and go to the bathroom. And if you do...then I’ll promise you a treat.”
Afternoon-old plants apparently had the mental capacity of toddlers. Because Electra didn’t ask the obvious—what kind of treat? She didn’t argue in favor of prize first and release later, nor did she threaten either woman with violence to expedite her gift.
Instead, as gently as the fall of a spring raindrop, Electra bent her trunk and set Amber back onto solid earth. And as Watcher descended, toes automatically dug into earth, searching for her long-time companion.
But the Green was missing. Perhaps Amber’s betrayal had been enough for the older sentience to descend into silent treatment, or maybe the forest was simply unable to push tendrils of roots and fungi into earth now ruled by Electra’s iron fist. Either way, the only being that met Amber’s questing skin was the one who had so recently cradled her up above Sarah’s head.
Well, there’ll be time to deal with that later, Amber thought, swayi
ng like a newborn colt on feet that no longer seemed as well-rooted as they had a few hours earlier. For now, she needed food, water, a safe place to rest, and perhaps a first-aid kit to treat her companion’s wound. Everything else was optional.
Chapter 30
They holed up in the laboratory for two nights and a day while Electra grew further and faster than Amber had considered possible. The plant’s special treat turned out to be another XM variety, this seedling germinating into a being as gentle and malleable as Electra was stubborn and bone-headed. As far as Amber could tell, XM5691 did nothing particularly interesting from a human standpoint, but its milder influence did seem to make Electra a little easier to manage.
Which was a good thing since both food and water would have been impossible to come by without the latter’s help. Any snacks the scientists had once stashed inside their desks were long since eaten by mice, and the surrounding buildings offered no better source of sustenance. Once Electra figured out what they were hunting, though, the being hummed ominously for a moment before sprouting a branch entirely unlike any of her others. In short order, bananas were ripening in fading sunlight...and then the ground twisted aside to reveal a brand new artesian well.
Food, water, shelter, and even companionship—Amber had everything she needed except for the pesky first-aid kit that stubbornly refused to materialize out of thin air. So why did she spend the entire next morning with her nose pointed toward the clouds and her heart pounding far more rapidly than it should have done every time a shift in light suggested a flier passing overhead? Why did she flinch when a crow cawed welcome, then forget to sample the grapes Electra dangled in front of her nose upon sighting a hovering bumblebee out of the corner of one eye?
“He’ll come,” Sarah said softly, laying a papery-skinned hand atop Amber’s shoulder. The latter blushed and looked away. She shouldn’t have been obsessing over Zane’s absence, not when there were far more important matters to consume her time and efforts.
Verdant Magic: A Standalone Dragon Shifter Adventure (Dragon Mage Chronicles Book 1) Page 19