by Celeste Raye
One by one I raised my gifts to her eye line. A bundle of grain wrapped up in a pouch, a sheathed knife, a canteen of water, a dark cloak, a roughly sketched out lay of the land on a scrap of cloth. And finally, her laser pistol. The one I had kept close to me all these cycles.
Athena’s breathing quickened noticeably and her brows drew into a deep frown. “What are you doing?” she whispered desperately.
“The D’Karr wants to torture you and the D’Sharr wants you dead,” I said quietly. “They believe you know where Tredorphen is.”
“So?” she spat.
“So he is their son; he disappeared with your sister. He abandoned us.”
“Yeah and she abandoned me,” she scoffed. “I think that makes us square.”
I ran my tongue along the underside of my top lip several times and looked at her with curiosity. “What… does this mean? Square?”
“It means we’re even,” Athena rolled her eyes and shook her head. “One for one, you know?’
“Right,” I nodded, but wasn’t sure I understood completely. I wrapped up the bag and gave it to her, save for the cloak, which I tossed into her cell.
“What’s this for?” she asked desperately as she slipped it on over her delicate curves. “Isn’t it a million degrees outside?”
“The cycles are hot but the nights will crisp your skin to ice,” I explained.
“Like a desert,” she said dismissively as though coming to a conclusion.
I shrugged, taking her word for it.
Athena shoved the gun in the band of her pants and quickly rifled through the bag I gave her before looking up at me with eyes as wide as saucers. It was the first time I’d ever seen fear in her.
“You’ll stand out,” I warned.
“There’s plenty of humans here now,” she argued.
“You’re not like them,” I smiled. “Besides, once they find out you’ve escaped, they’ll be on the lookout for you. As far as the D’Karr is concerned, you’re our biggest enemy.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
“They’ll send his army after you and shifters can fly faster than you can run,” I explained.
“Why are you doing this?” she repeated, unable to accept my dismissal of her question.
I swallowed hard, and she speared me with her gaze. A bittersweet euphoria crawled across my body like a mist, and I took one last selfish moment to see her in the cage. To see her where I had befriended her all these cycles. I took a last moment to myself; not knowing if she would run the second the door opened or if I would get to talk to the defiant blonde for just a moment longer.
Air filled my lungs and I blew it out forcefully as I held the lock to the door and watched as it unlatched. The barred entrance went ajar and Athena blinked in surprised.
“Aurlauc,” she said quietly and my heart lilted.
She stood back in her cage and stared at the door unsurely and I began to laugh. She was always so calculated, she couldn’t even accept a rescue properly.
“It’s not a trap,” I chuckled.
“Then, what is it?” she asked skeptically.
“It’s… a rescue.”
“Why?” came her demanding tone.
I let out a loud sigh and continued to chuckle at the girl, reaching my hand to hers. “Because I’ve lost my mind.”
She grabbed my hand and I began to pull her toward the door, but she seemed to have locked her feet against the floor. Instead, she pulled me into the cage. Her eyes flicked around the room unsurely and the skin around the corners of her eyes tightened.
“Why, Aurlauc?”
“Why else?” I looked at her and could feel the heat rising up my cheeks. “You are my chosen. And I know…” I raised my palms to her in quick defense, “that I am not yours. But I would do anything for you. You know that.”
“I do now.”
The orange hue from the fire reflected against the blue in Athena’s eyes and I could tell they had filled with tears. She swallowed and then pitched the satchel over her shoulder.
The honey blonde whipped her long hair behind her body and then smiled in spite of herself. She stepped up on the tips of her toes and used a hand on my bare shoulder to steady herself as she reached her lips up to mine.
I felt a spark ignite through my body and even though my wings were retracted for her comfort, I felt as though I was flying.
My eyes closed by instinct and I felt them press shut in a way that was deep and hard: like being in a dream. My lips moved softly against hers just twice before they parted, sticky and sweet.
“Thank you,” she said as sincerely as I’d ever heard her say anything.
“That’s it?” I asked in surprise. “No sarcastic quip? No defiant opinions?”
“No,” she smiled up at me. “Just thank you.”
I nodded. “You’re welcome.” Then I pulled her through the gate and told her exactly how to get out of The Tower and which direction to go.
“I can’t promise to get you a ship… but if you head north to Westfall, I might be able to meet you, find a way to get you back to Ceylara where your ship crashed.”
“Don’t forget about me,” she said as she pressed a testing hand to my chest, then she pushed me back playfully.
“Impossible,” I smiled. “Don’t die out there.”
She smiled as if it were a dare and said, “Impossible.”
Chapter 3 - Vaikrand
Athena
Don’t come back.
This phrase was never said to me, but it kept rushing through my head as my feet hit the sandy earth below. From the outside world, Dobromia was nothing like I remembered it to be. The soil below was all sandy and dirty: crisped a warm red from the double sun’s rays. Spires of rock stretched on into the vast field outside The Tower.
The heat was immense in my lungs, like swallowing scalding water. Because of this, it wasn’t long before I grew tired.
I’d had such an itch to leave The Tower that I hadn’t made a plan for what to do once it happened. Part of me wondered if I should have bit the bullet and cozied up to one of the shifters after all. Flirted and pressed my breasts together to get their attention; become a breeder or a caretaker for their dragonlings like the rest of my crew had done.
I reached into the satchel Aurlauc had given me and referenced his makeshift map. He had highlighted some landmarks to let me know I was going the right way. Head north.
My legs marched until the sun rose and fell and then I came upon a wall of stone. I tried my best to walk around it, but the cliffside was immense and I knew I had to scale it. It was probably a cinch for the dragon’s, considering the wings and all. But I just looked like an idiot.
I attempted to scale the mountain and continually alarmed myself as my screams of, “Whoa!” and “Gah!” echoed through the rocky field every time I lost my footing.
As daylight cast over the sky I grew exhausted from the immense scaling. I took shelter on the side of the mountain. There was no way I would risk sleeping and falling to my doom on the side of the cliff, but there were enough crevices that I figured I could protect myself from any creatures that might be lurking nearby.
The cave I crawled into was only tall enough for me to sit in. I stretched out against the wall behind me and opened my bag of supplies with a loud sigh. I picked at the grain to fill my empty stomach and it groaned and bubbled as the solids hit the acid in my body.
I was already running low on everything.
My ears perked up without my will and my eyes quickly darted to the distance below the mountain. I searched the sky for any sign of a shifter and couldn’t see anything. Just a deep aqua sky.
I grit my teeth together and stood from the crevice. Obviously, this was a bad resting place. I stepped out from the deep red rock and set a slippery hand on an outcropping rock.
“What are you doing?” came a voice that was so sudden and jarring, it nearly knocked me off the mountainside.
I pressed my eyes shu
t and took a moment for myself. Just one moment where I was still free. Where no shifter had come to return me to The Tower. Then I opened my eyes and looked immediately to my right where a shifter was flapping his wings, floating next to my body.
“Climbing,” I snapped my answer and the shifter tilted his head back with a smile.
“I can see that,” he said slowly, his eyes casting over my actions as I climbed up a step higher.
“Lost?” he asked, a hint of something smug in his breath.
“I am obviously from here,” I said with little enthusiasm, barely acknowledging the shifter.
The sarcasm was as thick as a fog.
I must have looked strange to him, I thought. Out of place. Like seeing a bird land on a motorcycle.
“Where’s your wings, then?” he asked with a laugh as his brow cocked skyward.
“Retracted,” I said as though it were entirely true. “Problem?”
“Just that you’re lying,” he said casually.
I looked over at him and watched the irritating smile creep up his thin lips. He had short blond hair, a strong face, and deep-set blue eyes. He would have been handsome, I thought, if it weren’t for his eyes. They unsettled me by looking so out of place to the rest of his body. Like there was a darkness behind them.
“Think what you like,” I dismissed and focused on my task. I took another climb upward and grunted with the effort.
The broad-shouldered shifter had yellow scales that traveled down his body and bare chest and I stole a simple glance. He squished his lips to the side of his square jaw and casually informed me, “If you were a Weredragon, you’d be able to sense the tentacle coming out to grab you.”
My eyes went wide as saucers as I looked down and watched as a slithering orange tentacle emerged from the wall and grabbed me hard around the calf.
I screamed as I lost my grip and whipped my gun out from the band of my pants, aiming it fiercely at the creature wrapped around my leg. I hesitated as it pulsed it suckers against my skin, a hot white pain rushing through my body in a panic. If I shot the stupid thing, it’d drop me and in the best case, I’d have a couple broken limbs. Worst case, death.
I continued letting out embarrassing exclamations as the creature began sucking me toward the mountainside.
The yellow shifter flapped his thick, bony wings so they shimmered against the light and he reached down to grab my arm.
“Hold on,” he said with little emotion as he pulled my body up toward him, his free hand grabbing the tentacle and ripping it from the wall. Thick, white goo spewed from the flailing limb of the creature and the shifter tossed it to the far ground below. The blood, or whatever it was, burned against my leg and I breathed in through clenched teeth.
“That hurt!” I screamed and slapped the dragon across the face.
He blinked in surprise and then busted out into laughter as he hoisted me across his shoulder, flying us both up to the top of the mountain at terrifying speeds.
Dobromia was a planet that worked like a staircase. There seemed to be endless mountains that, once scaled, simply led to more flat grounds. The higher we went north, the more abandoned cities I spotted.
Setting me on the ground, the yellow shifter backed away from me and watched me like an insect.
“That was graceful,” he quipped and crossed his arms.
“Thanks for nothing,” I spat and fell to my knees, inspecting my leg with a bruised ego. The blood of the creature must have been acidic in nature, because it left a sweltering ring of bubbling burns across my calf.
I looked down at it with narrowed brows and then shot daggers at the shifter. “Look what you did!”
“Hey!” the shifter yelled defensively; angrily. “You’re lucky it didn’t eat you alive! What were you thinking, scaling those ridiculous mountains, anyway?”
I seethed. “Well, obviously I don’t have wings, so what else would you have me do?”
“Stay on the ground?” he snapped as though it were the simplest answer in the world. “What are you doing here anyway? Shouldn’t you be back at the palace underground with the rest of the slaves?”
I blinked and snapped my eyes open quickly at the sentiment. “We are humans. Not slaves.”
He shrugged playfully. “Not here.”
I shook my head and averted my gaze back to my leg before rifling through the satchel of supplies. Aurlauc was kind enough to include several salves and I immediately began spreading one over the burns, cursing and yelling as I did so.
The cream hit my wound like alcohol on a fresh cut and I let out a guttural cry.
The shifter watched me silently and must have wondered what the hell I was doing to myself.
“Where were you going, anyway?” he asked, his eyes never leaving my salve.
I didn’t look at him, nor did I answer his question. For whatever reason, this made him laugh. He walked circles around me and finally crouched down beside me to inspect my leg.
“You’ll live,” he said as though I were making too big of a deal out of the burn. “Wrap it up and you’ll be good as new.”
I breathed in deeply and let out a loud breath, indicating I would no longer be speaking to him. I wrapped my leg in a ripped piece of my cloak and tied it tight. I stood shakily and tried not to apply pressure to the wound, but even the weight of my small frame caused me to collapse back onto the ground.
“You can’t walk like that,” he said simply. “Make camp with me,” he offered as though it were nothing. “I’ll make sure nothing eats you.”
A wave of sick crawled through my stomach at his phrasing and I looked up at him as though to ask if he were being serious. He was.
“Absolutely not,” I scoffed and looked away from him.
“Ah, just make camp with me,” he laughed and scooped me up in his arms. “You have no idea what you’re doing. Let me help.”
“No!” I screamed and began pushing against him.
In a rude attempt to give me what I wanted, the yellow shifter dropped me to the ground and began to laugh. “Happy now?” he asked.
I steeled a gaze up at him with utter hatred and scooted on my butt across the scorched earth below so that I was several feet away from him.
“Oh, come on; I’m just trying to help you.”
“Why?” I said, narrowing my eyes scornfully at the man.
He raised a brow in surprise and watched me carefully. “Because I don’t desire you to die?”
“Look,” I said with a breath. “That’s super nice and all, but I’m not big on the whole Weredragon race, got it?”
Then he snapped his fingers, as though it was all coming to him. He ran a hand through his short blond hair and pointed my way. “You’re the girl from The Tower.”
“My reputation precedes me,” I snorted.
“We should come to an agreement, you and I,” he offered.
“Should we?” I repeated with disdain. “Well, obviously you are deaf. Because I don’t make deals with shifters.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because, by your very name it should be clear that you shouldn’t be trusted. You shift to whatever you have to in order to accomplish your goals and you don’t care who you’re taking advantage of in the meantime.”
“Actually,” he said emphatically, crouching down before me once more, “my name is Vaikrand, but I understand you’re embellishing for dramatic effect. That’s what humans do, isn’t it?”
I turned from him, pulling my legs up to my chest and then whipping around quickly to grab my belongings and hold them to my chest as well. “Go away,” I snarled.
“You might die here if I leave you,” he warned, fluttering with his wings so he now stood in front of me in the blink of an eye.
I turned my head to the side and said nothing.
“Don’t let a stubborn streak cost you your breath,” he said with a raised brow.
I stared off into the distance. This guy doesn’t give up. It was like being at a bar w
ith a guy who kept insisting he buy me a drink. I remembered a time where my sister Marina and I had gone to a nightclub where a tall man with long brown hair kept trying to buy us drinks. I had rolled my eyes and declined, where Marina tried a more polite approach to send him away. Eventually we told him what we wanted to drink and then slipped into the bathroom and out the back door, laughing the whole way.
The memory of her made my stomach drop and I had the sudden feeling like I was falling.
“Suit yourself,” came the final words from Vaikrand before he brought his wings in tight to his body and flew off into the distance. I watched him stubbornly until his body became a spec in the distance and mustered the strength to stand once more.
“Now what?” I whispered to no one.
Chapter 4 - Vaikrand
Vaikrand
Suns and hot days and endless cool nights crawled by until I had been following the blonde human for seven cycles. I watched her from afar and made sure to leave food scraps by her makeshift campsites. At first they went ignored, but as the days got longer and the food became scarcer, eventually I would find them taken.
She must have known I was still following her, but she never tried to speak to, or even look for me. She was fiery: that was certain.
Enemies circled her and she wasn’t even aware of it. I found myself fending off night predators like the Sala’kem: the smooth-skinned green amphibians that crawled out from the deep waters during the dark hours. They had mouths large enough to envelop the human: half of her at least. The saliva in their mouths would melt their feed until they could swallow the rest of it. Full and satisfied.
Dobromia was a very acidic planet, which I suspected the woman didn’t know.
Watching her was boring at first and she made many mistakes that I sought to correct. But, soon it became amusing to watch her traverse my land and it made me curious as to where she was going and for what purpose. Most of the human females had either been killed by now or made into slaves and caretakers.