Luminosity

by Annabelle Jay

  “Not all humans are compatible with incubi,” Eads mused. “It can be hard to find the right host, but this time Wess has done all of the work for me.”

  He pulled my mother hard against his chest, and though she punched at him, he held her too close to do much damage.

  “I can’t stand by and do nothing,” I whispered to Jeremy.

  I know, but the plan was—

  “Screw the plan.”

  Before he could say or do anything, I slipped out of the bag attached to his back and let myself fall the fifty feet to the volcano floor. Dragon faces flew by, some startled by the sudden appearance of a human and others, the dragons from the Mansion, prepared to follow me down at a moment’s notice.

  Using my pencil, I hastily drew a net below me to catch my fall. Made of thick rope, the web swallowed my prone body and then spit it out onto the volcano floor. I landed behind Eads, so close I could see the red hairs on the back of his neck.

  “I knew you’d show yourself,” Eads said without turning around. “So predictable, you humans. Maybe it’s not fire that drives you, but stupidity.”

  “Get out of here, Lumi,” my mom begged.

  “No. I’m not leaving here until I’ve sent this monster back where he came from.”

  Eads released his grip on my mom and turned slowly to face me. His bare chest glistened from sweat or oils, and his horns shone even without much natural light to illuminate them.

  “You’re right about one thing, little girl. You’re not leaving here at all.”

  Everything happened so quickly. Eads lunged at me, but a large bird fell between us and pecked him backward. Egret, I realized, recognizing her lighter color. Guards attacked with hammers and swords, pushing Egret against the far wall, but dragons were joining the fight left and right. Igreefee soldiers had climbed up to optimal shooting locations, and they rained arrows down on the incubi below.

  The incubi outnumbered us, but only just slightly. The succubi, easily persuaded, had divided and joined both sides. They fought each other, while dragons and demons battled. Ice Dragons turned their foes to ice, while Earth Dragons and Bone Dragons breathed fire and scratched at their enemies. The Bone Dragons, much smaller and more nimble, ducked around the demons, while the Earth Dragons and single Sun Dragon used their mass to barrel right through a line of opponents. A few times the more reckless Ice Dragons almost accidentally froze an Igreefee on our side—at least I hoped the stray icicles were accidental—and the green people had to duck behind rocks to evade their icy breath.

  “Here, Mom.” I drew a shield large enough to serve as an umbrella and handed it to her. “This will at least protect you from the arrows, though you should really get out of here before Eads comes after you a second time.”

  “No, I won’t—”

  “I know you want to protect me, but the longer you stay, the longer he can use you as a weapon against me.”

  She nodded, though reluctantly, and one of the dragons near us took her shirt in his mouth and hauled her up away from the scuffle. Higher and higher they went, then back through the portal to the Mansion on the other side.

  On your left, Egret warned.

  I dodged just in time to avoid a hammer swung directly at my head. Unlike the Igreefee, I had no talent with hand-to-hand combat, and unlike the wizards, I had no magic to protect myself.

  Use your pencil. And for God’s sake, get to the portal and close it before these monsters can do any more damage.

  Already, dead bodies covered the floor. Most were Igreefee, wizards, or incubi, but a few were dragons from either side. Across the room, the sorceresses had formed a diamond shape and were fighting off attackers from all sides. In the air, Blair and King Grian fought side by side, leading the rest of the dragons in tactical maneuvers to avoid evil succubi fire.

  Quickly, I drew on some chain mail and gave myself a sword to fight with. My shoes became metal plates that went up to my shins, and the front of my shirt became a breastplate. One of the nearby wizards threw an enchantment my way, which made my sword glow and then swerve to find the closest target, and I followed its lead.

  “Not so fast.” Eads stepped between me and the portal. “If you want to imprison us again, you’ll have to do it by going through me first.”

  The sword attacked, but Eads blocked every blow with the hard skin of his forearms. Apparently, blades didn’t really work on demons.

  Watch out!

  Prince Jeremy blew a gust of dragon fire in Eads’s direction, and another Bone Dragon nearby joined him. Though the fire didn’t seem to have an effect on the demon, it kept him at bay long enough for me to sneak past and make a run for the portal. All around me the sounds of dying warriors tempted me to stop and help them, but I knew that what would help them most was to close the portal for good.

  “Stop her!” Eads screamed.

  Ten of the nearby incubi stopped attacking other people and circled around me. Others took their places, stopping any of my friends from stepping in and saving me.

  “Prepare to die, little girl,” the younger incubi who had brought my mother said. He seemed gleeful at the prospect of wringing my neck with his own hands.

  “After you,” I retorted.

  They all came at me at once. My sword moved valiantly, but even a magical weapon could not stave off so many enemies at once. The young man jabbed his knife into my arm, and warm blood ran into the crevice of my elbow and then down to the floor.

  I’m not going to make it, I realized. They’ll kill me before I can take one more step.

  Everything seemed to stand still as my eyes looked for one last face to gaze upon, one last friend to witness my last moments on Earth. There, through two incubus heads, were the familiar eyes that had brought me so much joy and pain over the past few days.

  “I love you,” I mouthed to Egret. There was no time left to worry about Prince Jeremy, or what Egret would think of my pronouncement. In a few seconds, none of that would matter.

  Maybe she would have said she loved me back, or maybe she wouldn’t have. I turned away before I could find out.

  Ten knives thrust into me at once, one finding a home between my ribs and another in the space above my heart. All of the noise in the room disappeared, becoming just the loud beating of my struggling heart. The pain was unbearable, but then it faded away as chemicals flooded my bloodstream.

  Too late, dragons descended on our group and ripped away the ten incubi to smash them against the walls. I struggled to stay upright and then took two steps toward the portal before involuntarily falling to my knees, from which I could not rise.

  Get up! Egret screamed in my head. You have to get up.

  But I couldn’t. My legs were numb, and though I balanced on my knees, I could not move them any farther. Instead, I allowed my body to fall and used my elbows to drag my limp legs behind them, inching the whole mess of limbs closer and closer to the portal. Too busy were the incubi and wizard warriors to notice my progress through their feet, and those incubi who did notice were picked off by dragons before they could say a word.

  Grian had cornered Eads, and the two were in a standoff unlike any display of physical strength I had ever seen. In the left side of my vision I watched them, watched Grian lunge for Eads and the demon punch away his face before Grian could spit fire, until my task distracted me and all I could do was focus on the portal. The medallion the size of a manhole was only two feet away, and I inched toward it despite the pain.

  Finally, after a journey that seemed to take a hundred years but was really only a minute, my searching fingers hit metal. I rolled my body over the portal, and there I lay, bleeding out, as I watched the battle waging on above my head.

  Memories took over. Some I knew well, but others were forgotten things that, in my last minutes of life, came up like gold sifted from water. Memories of my father, who I did not remember being present for any part of my life—playing with me in the backyard of our old house, finding me in my mother’s closet
wrapped in her scarves and telling me how beautiful I looked. Picking me up and holding me tight as he told me that he was going away for a long time, but that he would always watch over me.

  Tears ran down my face and mixed with the blood pooling in the crevices of the medallion. Beneath me the hard metal seemed to soften, but I could not turn to look at the change occurring in the portal.

  I could not do anything but stare up at the light far above me.

  Then everything went dark.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “LUMI?”

  A smooth voice coaxed me back into my body. The second that I became conscious, everything hurt, as though all of my limbs were being ripped off at the same time. Above me, Shayla sat with her hands pressed on either side of my forehead.

  “Oh thank goodness.” She smiled. “Welcome back.”

  “I don’t get it.” I forced myself up onto my forearms and looked around the volcano bed. Most of the dragons were back in their human form except those who had sided with Eads, who had been tied up to the stones along the wall and probably awaited further punishment, and those who guarded them. “I thought I had to die to close the portal.”

  “You did die.” Shayla helped me up, and I found that my arms and legs worked again. “But someone else’s sacrifice saved you from the ultimate death, and I was able to revive you.”

  “Someone else?” I searched for Jeremy’s face, which I found on my right. Who, then?

  “Yes. Someone who loved you very much, as it turned out.”

  I circled the crowd, and then my eyes found Chova’s. He looked away, but not before I saw the pain in his eyes.

  “No. No!”

  I spun wildly, but Egret was nowhere to be seen. Not among the humans, nor the few dragons tying up the last succubi. Then, finally, I saw the familiar green hair and pale skin on a body that must have been moved off mine after the blood drained out.

  “We have to bring her back!”

  “I’m sorry, Lumi. That’s impossible. Egret made the ultimate sacrifice, and I cannot put her back in her human form.”

  Prince Jeremy grabbed my arm to keep me from falling again. She loved me, I wanted to scream at him. She really loved me. And now she’s gone. I’ll never have the chance to be with her. But my lips could not form the words, perhaps because I was in shock or perhaps because I knew how much it would hurt him.

  “Wait a minute.” Something about Shayla’s words had stuck with me, and I tried to remember them. “You said you couldn’t put her back in her human body, right? What about a different one?”

  “A different one?”

  “A bird.” I looked at Chova, and he nodded his approval. “Egret once told me she would rather be a bird than a human, and I think she meant it. If you could put her spirit into a bird….”

  Shayla moved to Egret’s body, and we all followed her. She bent down and pressed her hands to Egret’s forehead the way she had done to me, and I went with her in order to find Egret’s hand and hold it. The skin was stiff, but I kept our fingers interlocked anyway.

  Please, I begged, though with the creator right next to me there was no one left to ask. Please let this work.

  Egret’s entire body glowed like a star, and then it disappeared. In its place was a white dove, just like the one on the medallion except with green eyes instead of gold.

  “Thank you,” I told the bird, though whether the Egret that was inside could understand my words or not, I did not know.

  Perhaps it was my imagination, but the dove seemed to bob its head in acknowledgment. Then it spread its wings and, without a second glance, flew up through the vent and out of the hole into the sunlight.

  NO ONE wanted to bury the dead in that terrible place, so after I drew fifty shrouds, we used them to wrap up the Igreefee, wizards, and dragons who had fallen in battle. Their bodies were heavy, and even the lighter Igreefee required three of us to carry them.

  Once the wizards used their magic to secure the shrouds, Shayla sent the bodies back to the Mansion, where later that day we would place the wizards in the catacombs under the buildings, along with the live wizards who would begin the preparations for burial. The sorceresses went with them too, though whether they would stay long with the Council, I did not know. Finally, the Fire Dragon prisoners went through her invisible portal, though she left the good Fire Dragons in the volcano with the rest of us.

  “What about the Igreefee?” I asked Chova.

  “We bury our dead.” He lovingly tucked another shroud over a deceased Igreefee’s chest. “That way, they can become one with the Earth again.”

  “I’m so sorry about what happened,” I said, looking down at my blood-soaked and ash-caked shoes. “She sacrificed herself for me, and….”

  “You were right to ask about the bird. Egret loved to fly more than she loved anything else in the world.”

  We stood together until Shayla sent the Igreefee dead back to their camp, and the live Igreefee with them. That left only the dragons and me.

  “Listen, my children.” Shayla indicated that we should all come closer. “There is one way to close up the portal so that no Artist can enter or exit. It’s called pentalock, and it only happens when a dragon from every clan breathes fire on the incubus portal at the same time. All of you—Fire, Ice, Earth, Bone, and Sun—must do this together to secure the safety of all dragons to come.”

  And can it ever be opened? King Grian asked.

  “Everything that is closed can be opened,” Shayla said, “but to do so would require another five dragons, plus an Artist.”

  Those sound like better odds to me, said Blair.

  King Grian, Blair, Norea, Prince Jeremy, and an Ice Dragon all circled around the portal. They opened their mouths wide, and five streams of different dragon fires engulfed the metal in flames. Their colors melded together to create one glowing, white light, and this magic sealed the edges of the medallion to the volcano floor. In the metal itself, in addition to the dove and snake, were five clan signs.

  Should we keep this a secret? Prince Jeremy asked.

  “No. Nothing comes from secrets except pain and sorrow.” Shayla did not look in my direction, but I knew that her words were meant for me. “Tell your offspring about the lock, and tell them of the bloody battle today. Hopefully, they will learn from our mistakes.”

  Once the fire died down, Shayla asked us to join hands with the other dragons so that no one would get left behind. The next second, we were back at the Mansion.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I ATTENDED every funeral of fallen fighters from that day. Twenty-one Igreefee burials, nineteen catacomb plots, and ten dragon displays. The last involved flying the dragon high into the air, then lighting up the body so that it burned and rained back onto the Earth as ash. Sometimes the land below was the icy mountains, or sometimes the remaining fertile land of the west, or even the ocean where certain dragons had loved to play. Only the Bone Dragon who had fallen was not buried; King Grian declared that he would be carried home.

  Once the burials and traditions were over, the various clans began to drift away from the Mansion. Every morning, fewer and fewer tents and canopies remained standing among the too-bright sky. Only the dragon footprints in the grass spoke of the armies of Ice Dragons, Earth Dragons, Bone Dragons, and Fire Dragons who had trampled their blades.

  “We’re going too,” Prince Jeremy told me a week later over breakfast. The Council had been kind enough to grant me my own apartment in the Mansion, good for as long as I lived, though I missed my VAM system greatly when I went to my dresser every morning. Eventually I would need to return home and finish school, but I couldn’t imagine facing astronomy without Egret.

  “So soon?” I asked as I played with a sliver of banana in my fruit salad.

  “We’re needed back home. Don’t forget I am not the only sibling, and though I want to…,” he trailed off and took a bite of pumpkin pancake.

  “Want to what?”

  “Nothing.”


  Things between us had been strained since the battle—to say the least. Neither of us had said more than two words at a time, and even those short exchanges filled me with guilt. Egret had died only three weeks ago, and I had to respect her memory.

  The next morning I woke to the sound of large ships moving from the parking area to the main field in front of the Level Five building. After throwing on a pink hoodie, I ran downstairs and out across the grass to where King Grian, Prince Jeremy, and two of the Council members said their goodbyes.

  “You weren’t going to say goodbye to me?” I asked Prince Jeremy, who avoided my gaze.

  “I thought it would be easier.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be.”

  “I’m sorry. Goodbye, Lumi.”

  He turned and walked briskly into the spaceship.

  “Ignore him,” King Grian said. “He doesn’t want to leave you, but as you know, the duties of a prince are numerous and great. His people need him. And besides, it seems like maybe you don’t feel the same way about him?”

  There was no accusation in King Grian’s tone, just fact. Prince Jeremy was in love with me, and I didn’t know if I loved him back.

  “King Grian! Blair! Lettie! Look at this!” Aaron ran across the Council yard screaming. He carried a beautiful baby boy in one arm, and waved a piece of paper in the other.

  “You almost missed Grian’s departure,” Bert scolded. “I know you have a newborn, but protocol must be followed—”

  “To hell with protocol,” Aaron replied, and Bert gasped. “Look at what my son just drew.”

  There, in the crooked letters of a small child, were three words: I AM MERLIN.

  For a long time, we all stared at the baby in silence. As though he had no memory of drawing those words, the little boy cooed and giggled and played with his feet like a normal baby would. True, he was far beyond the intelligence and strength of a typical three-week-old, but according to that piece of paper, he was even older than he seemed. About a thousand years older, in fact.