Luminosity

by Annabelle Jay

  The last thing I saw, as the portal swallowed us whole, was Eads plunging his staff into my father’s heart.

  Chapter Twelve

  “NO!” I screamed, but my words echoed only to the Council yard and the ears of the hundreds of dragons who slept. Scaly bodies stirred at the sound, and many raised their necks to see what the fuss was about. “No, no, no!”

  “What just happened?” Prince Jeremy asked Egret.

  “One-way portal. Wess probably made her do it.”

  I sunk to the ground, my knees immediately soaking from the dew on the grass. All I saw was the image of my father being stabbed, and all I heard was his words: “I’m proud of you.” How could he be dead? How could he make me leave him behind? Or, worst of all, how could I have listened to him?

  I must have beamed out an image of what had happened at the volcano, because those dragons I had woke rose and circled around me. Stirring others with their trampling and loud breaths, the dragons made their way to me one by one and pressed their cold foreheads against my bowed one.

  “What are they doing?” This time it was Egret’s turn to ask Jeremy.

  “Dragon death ritual. When a member of a dragon family dies or is killed, the surviving dragon does not move until every other clan member in town has done deteone. Old dragon speak for ‘in death, we are one.’ To do this for a nondragon is the greatest honor a dragon can bestow.”

  Over and over again, foreheads pressed into mine. Smooth like a water-weathered rock, they were a cold press that cooled my anger from fiery flame to glowing ember. I tried to blow on it, bring it back to life, but the foreheads would not let me. There would be a time for that anger, they assured me, but not right now. Right now, we mourn. For you, for your father, for us all.

  Tears streamed down my face, and I made no move to wipe them away with my sleeve. My tears were for a father I had not known nor even been kind to, and the most I could do now was give him those small drops of water.

  A familiar yellow dragon brought up the end of the line. Larger and more formidable than all of the rest, King Grian’s forehead was at least ten times as big as mine. With every step, however, he transitioned into a slightly more human form. It was beautiful to watch, that control, as though every part of his dragon body was linked to his human one and could be turned off and on at his bidding.

  “Justice will come,” King Grian whispered as he touched his forehead to mine.

  Justice, the other dragons repeated.

  As though finally giving me permission to get angry, his words brought a fury so great that I was almost sick from its sudden strength.

  “We will find the man who killed your father, and we will make sure he can never kill another again.”

  Never again. Never again.

  The wizards had heard the noises in the yard and come down in their nightgowns to see what the fuss was about. Since they could not hear the dragon speech, King Grian translated what had occurred, from the death of my father to the promise of vengeance.

  “As soon as we’re prepared, we’ll leave for battle,” Aaron said.

  “We must move quickly,” King Grian agreed. “There is no time to lose. If we give Eads time, he will come here and tear down all that we have built here on Earth. We must attack now, while we still can.”

  He’s right, Lettie signed to Aaron. Eads has been preparing for this battle for centuries; we’ve been preparing for a day. We must attack the incubi before they have time to regroup after Lumi’s escape. Ready the wizards.

  Aaron hesitated.

  Your wife will be fine, Aaron, Lettie assured him. This is the best way to protect her.

  I looked questioningly at the Council member, who explained that his wife was currently in labor in the Mansion hospital ward.

  “You should stay,” I told him. “Trust someone who never had a father around when she says that being with your child is the most important thing in the world.”

  “I agree with Lumi,” King Grian seconded. “Your wife and baby need you.”

  “Thank you,” Aaron said gratefully. He needed no further persuasion, and hurried back into the Mansion immediately.

  “Who will vote as acting Councilmember on his behalf?” Bert asked.

  “Lumi,” King Grian offered.

  “But—and I mean no offense here—she’s not a witch.”

  “So?”

  Bert didn’t seem to have an answer to that, so that was how I became the first and only nonwitch ever to sit on the Council.

  “Wings up in an hour,” King Grian ordered. “Wizards and witches, I suggest you change out of those gowns and into your suits or traditional garb. Somebody be sure to wake Shayla and the sorceresses. Egret, find the Igreefee and wake them. Lumi, come with me; we need an entrance strategy yesterday. Everyone know what they need to do?”

  Our part of the yard emptied in under a minute. In other sections of the field, Igreefee warriors on one side of the camp exited their tents and began strapping on bone armor, while the Ice Dragons on the other side warmed up their wings with feigned flight attacks. Every once in a while an Ice Dragons would fly particularly close to the Igreefee warriors and turn the grass under their feet to ice, causing the Igreefee to shake their spears in the Ice Dragons’ direction and then use their magic to bring up even more greenery. The Bone Dragons and Earth Dragons, who had also been put on separate sides of the field, flew at each other in the sky as they practiced clawing and biting moves on each other that seemed a little too threatening to be entirely faked.

  For an army with several centuries-long grudges, a unified front against the incubi was almost a miracle.

  “They needed those extra weeks to prepare,” King Grian said, and his words stung. I had been the one to go behind the Council’s back with my own plan, and now, our army was nowhere near ready for an incubus attack.

  Grian led me to his Sun Dragon canopy, where the leaders of the other clans had transitioned and waited for their leader’s orders.

  “Do you have a plan to get us into the volcano?” King Grian whispered when we were just a few steps away.

  “No.” I stopped, and he stopped with me. “I have a plan for vengeance.”

  THE IDEA came from Norea’s recent deceit, as well as the source of my artistic inspiration: fashion. One by one I called the dragons forward, and one by one I transformed them into Fire Dragons using a set of magical colored pencils and sketchpad I had drawn into existence for just this purpose. First I colored them red, and then I added small details like yellow claws and fiery eyes. Like cars in a wash line, each dragon moved forward ten feet until he or she stood directly in front of my easel, then waited, unmoving, for the makeover.

  In addition to color and design, I also added a pouch onto the back of every dragon. This pouch, the size of a small sleeping bag, would house a wizard or Igreefee warrior until the fighters could find a safe way to disembark. Since the Ice Dragons had feuded with both the Igreefee and the wizards and no human would agree to ride one, they received only color but no pouch.

  The Bone Dragons were more difficult because I had to bulk them up before coloring them. They moved unnaturally with the extra weight, like cows bumbling around a pasture, until I came up with a better plan of a hollow shell hooked in two places to their bone structure.

  “Well done, my child.” Shayla had walked up behind me, and I’d been too focused on getting a tail’s color just right to notice her approach. The sorceresses had come down too, all wearing travel clothes that looked like they’d survived since King Arthur’s time. “You’ve truly embraced your powers.”

  “Thank you, Shayla.” I noticed her white nightgown. “Are you going to lead the attack in that?”

  “No, my child.” She laughed. “But can you imagine the look on Eads’s face?”

  “He’d be furious. The Maker finally comes to challenge him, and she’s wearing her nightgown.”

  Once our laughter died down, Shayla put her hand on my shoulder. “I’m not co
ming with you, Lumi.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t fight by your side. If I go with you, Eads will not stop until he kills me. Remember, once I’m dead, nothing else matters. There will be no portal, no lock, no Earth as you know it. The incubi will rule all. Why fight a game of chess when you can murder the king for the same result?”

  “So you’ll just sit here and wait for us?”

  “I have other matters I must attend to.”

  I couldn’t believe how nonchalantly she said it, as though anything else could matter when the fate of all of humanity was at stake. But I also knew she was right; if she came with us, she would die. We all would.

  “Good luck, my daughter.”

  Shayla pressed her forehead to mine like the dragons had done. At her touch, however, a string of images filled my mind. Earth, rolled off of Shayla’s palm and into the atmosphere like a ball of dough. Dragons, folded into existence like origami from the paper of life. Humans, pulled from the Earth like candles dipped and ready to dry. Incubi, slid from the dark shadows of humans so that their souls could be pure again. All of this from one pair of hands, busy in their work like a granny with her needles.

  “From you we were born, and for you we will die,” I whispered.

  “No.” Shayla put a finger to my lips. “Today, you do not die for me. You die for them.”

  She waved her hand over the crowd of eager dragons who waited for their coloring, and the wizards who practiced getting in and out of the sacs on the other side.

  After Shayla returned to the Mansion and the dragon line emptied, I found Egret strategizing with the other Igreefee. She had changed into her battle garb, which included a sash of thorns across her chest that looked dangerous for both her and her enemy and bone spikes in her hair. A pile of knives, bows, and arrows lay in the middle, still untouched by their nervous makers.

  “Are they ready?” I asked, nodding at the others.

  “They’re afraid. The Igreefee do not fear many things, but demons are at the top of the scary list.”

  “Rightfully so. In all honesty, I don’t know how many of us will return.”

  “Well, you’re a great motivator.” Egret began to tuck weapons into her outfit, starting with a knife into either leather boot and working her way up to a fifth knife in her messy bun. “How about you? Are you ready?”

  How could I be? I was exhausted, scared, and worst of all, about to be sacrificed for the good of all mankind.

  “Yeah, I’m ready.”

  “Liar.”

  We joined the others. Each human had found a dragon or Igreefee partner, someone who would carry them into the volcano but also fight by their side. The dragons could repel certain spells and weapons with their scales, while the wizards were more adept at firing in small spaces. We didn’t want dragon fire accidentally engulfing our whole band.

  Using my pencil, I drew a large portal in the grass about twenty feet across. Then I swirled the pencil like a wand, and the ground turned on the point.

  “One at a time,” I reminded them. “Once you get in the volcano vent, join the real Fire Dragons flying around the top of the room. Soon there will be too many to fit, and Eads will notice, so stay alert.”

  The dragons and birds, accompanied by their wizard riders, flew above the portal and then barreled in at a speed consistent with the flyer before. We didn’t want any accidents during the portal journey, nor in the sky on the other side. Eventually, only Prince Jeremy and I stood staring into the portal, surrounded by an empty yard. He hadn’t transitioned, though he should have been in dragon form by then.

  “I’m scared.” The words left my mouth before I could stop them.

  “I know.” He wrapped me up in a hug, and I let myself relax against his chest. In that moment his heart, pounding loudly, seemed to be the heart of every dragon and wizard and human on the entire planet.

  “We should go.” Faced with the portal, my body had gone into fight or flight mode, and I could barely speak the words, let alone make them sound convincing. All I wanted to do was run to somewhere very far away, where I would never encounter an incubus, succubus, or dragon for as long as I lived.

  Prince Jeremy tilted my chin up.

  “I need to tell you something before we go. From the moment I met you, you were all I could think about. When I learned about your past, it made me like you even more, because you took the Dramanian path and listened to the gender that ruled your heart. I know that I’m not exactly what you’re looking for, at least on the outside, but I have to ask… if we weren’t about to die, would you give me the chance to prove to you that I could be? That I can be more than just a man; that I already am?”

  I didn’t answer right away. I owed Jeremy the truth, but what if I didn’t know what the truth was yet? I knew I was in love with Egret, and that she was not in love with me. She was not in love with anyone. I knew that I was attracted to Egret because she was a girl, and that on the outside, Jeremy would have never fit that requirement. But he made me feel calm, and safe, and beautiful. And beneath his robes, he might have been a better fit than I realized.

  “Absolutely,” I said, and I meant it. “You have a good heart, and you make me feel seen. I can’t promise that when things progress, they will work out, but I hope they do.”

  “Those sound like good odds to me.” He gave me a huge smile, so full of happiness that I forgot all about the portal and what waited on the other side, and then he leaned down and kissed me. Unlike the forced encounter with Rochelle, or the breathtaking (but fake) connection with Egret, this kiss felt real. It felt like love.

  “Now stand back,” he said after he pulled away from me. “Things are about to get skeletal.”

  Pencil at the ready, I waited to transform my last warrior. Then I slipped into the bag on his back, tucked the end over my head, and watched the world spin through the tiny slit of light. My heart pounded stronger and louder than the dragons wings on either side of me, and my vision blurred.

  Chapter Thirteen

  AFTER WE plunged through the portal, we swept down into the mouth of the volcano and joined the other real and fake Fire Dragons in their endless circling. Eads, who stood in the middle of the volcano floor surrounded by his advisors, was giving orders to his guards. In the corner, mostly covered by an overhang, were the familiar feet of my father’s dead body.

  “They will attack,” Eads was saying, “in order to weaken us while their little Artist finds and closes the portal. Whatever happens, we cannot let her get to it.”

  When I looked below his feet and focused, I saw a round thing shining through the ground. It looked like a medallion, only supersized. The part of its markings not buried resembled a dove holding a snake in its mouth.

  “I see the portal,” I whispered to Jeremy. “It’s under his feet. That’s why the Fire Dragons and succubi wanted to meet me here. They said they wanted to find another way to close the portal, but if worse came to worst, they were probably going to sacrifice me anyway.”

  Nice people, Jeremy said sarcastically.

  “Desperate. And can you blame them?”

  I guess not. When do we attack?

  “Not yet. I want to hear more.”

  Prince Jeremy took us closer, spiraling through the dragon bodies to the lowest part of the column. Whether the Fire Dragons themselves could tell our costumes from their real markings, it was impossible to tell; even if they did identify us, they wouldn’t want Eads to suspect anything.

  “Who else have you brought me?” Eads asked one of his groveling red cronies. This one was short with a protruding red belly covered in thick red hair.

  “Many people, sire. One could be particularly useful.” He waved to an incubus lower on the totem pole than him who looked no older than sixteen but was probably thousands of years old. “Bring in the woman.”

  Sounds of a struggle echoed up through the cone, and then a familiar face came into view. My mother was wearing her NASA pajamas, as though she’d be
en snatched from bed. She twisted and wriggled in the arms of the boy, but then she recognized Wess’s feet and went limp.

  “No,” she muttered. “No, no, no. What have you done to him? What have you done to Wess?”

  “Helen, isn’t it?”

  “Mrs. Hawthorne to you,” my mother said before spitting at Eads’s feet. She was like a wild animal, unrecognizable to me as the nerdy astronomer who had sat across the dining table from me for seventeen years.

  “Very well.” Eads was humoring her, but I didn’t know why. “I’m sorry about what happened to your boyfriend, but it had to be done. You see, he betrayed me, and those who betray me must be punished. Just like your little Lumi, who we captured today and are holding right downstairs.”

  My mother looked at the demon hard. She was an excellent lie detector, almost uncanny, and she didn’t seem to buy Eads’s story for one minute.

  “Show her to me,” my mother demanded.

  “Now Mrs. Hawthorne, you must understand how these negotiations work. You do something for me, and then I do something for you.”

  “Let me guess. You want another child so you can eat him up like a cinnamon bun?”

  “And you want your little Lumi back. So do we have a deal?”

  My mother struggled out of the younger incubus’s grip on her arm and walked very slowly up to Eads, as though considering his proposal. When she was just a few inches from him, she suddenly reached up and slapped him across the face. The sound echoed through the chamber, and every dragon swirling above their heads found a perch from which to watch what happened next.

  “Feisty,” said Eads. “I see why Wess loved you. You’ve got a fire in your heart, just like we do.”

  “I’m nothing like you.” My mother moved to slap Eads again, but this time he grabbed her hand and kept it at arm’s length.