by Serena Rose
“He was.”
Myrik raised an eyebrow but kept his face otherwise impassive. “I would prefer to confirm that with my own sources, but your observance is noted. I will return you to the breeding pens now. Keep your head low and try not to cause any more violent fights to the death.”
“I think I’ve reached my maximum on that for today.”
“Good.” He held his arms out and I just stared at him dolefully. I was actually slightly impressed at how long he maintained the pose before sighing in aggravation. “It is either in my arms or over my shoulder, but you are far too slow to travel by foot.”
“Fine. Whatever.” I stood and stomped over him, not caring if I looked somewhat petulant.
Like the cover of a harlequin novel, one arm supported my back and the other swept under my knees, and he pulled me up in a bridal carry. I hadn’t thought through how he was going to get down from the craggy ledge we were on so encumbered, but I was still startled when we took a running leap on the edge!
A scream punched its way out of my throat, but I managed to cut it off when we landed safely on the ground.
“How,” I gasped, completely breathless. “How did you do that?”
I could just feel that his smirk was superior, even if I couldn’t see his face. “I’m a dragon.” He must have heard the curses I muttered under my breath because he laughed lightly. “You need to stop thinking of things in your own human scope. You’ll find your transition here much smoother that way.”
“And what do you care about how smooth or not my transition is?”
He shrugged, which bounced me a bit in his hold. “As the one who brought you here, I am invested in how this plays out.”
“You ever heard the phrase, curiosity killed the cat?”
“No. A curious idiom.” He continued running and jumping, navigating the maze of streets that had taken the Prince and I an hour to peacefully navigate in just minutes. “Considering that curiosity is the only thing that leads to discovery and greater knowledge. Without curiosity, we never would have found this land. Or fire. Or much of anything, really.”
He had a point, but I didn’t want to admit to that, so I just crossed my arms and said nothing. If he thought anything of my silence, he didn’t remark upon it, and we didn’t speak until he was dropping me in the same place we had first met upon my arrival.
“Perhaps it would be better if you walked the rest of the way to the pens of your own volition,” he said, setting back onto my feet.
I pushed my wind-swept fair out of my face and gave him what I hoped was a stern expression. “You know those make you as bad as the royals, don’t you?”
Once more, his face was impassive as he answered me. “A Queen’s order is a Queen’s order, we must obey. And the Queen can only be a Queen as long as her subjects believe she has their best interests at heart, and this is what they believed was in their best interest.
After all, humans rape, burn and pillage with a tenacious sort of glee, and their numbers flourish. I can see the reasoning, even if it is particularly short sighted.”
“But if you know it’s wrong, how can you just stand there? You brought me here! You perpetuated their short-sighted reasoning!”
There was a mischievous sort of glint to his eyes as he began to shift into his greater form. “Perhaps I brought you here, because I sensed you might be an alternative to the barbaric solutions.”
I had a comeback, I swear I did, but by then he was already cloaked in scales and taking to the sky. I comforted myself instead by muttering a long list of curses against both him and whoever birthed him, before turning and walking to the pens I had escaped from just hours earlier.
Some of the captives were just beginning to wake up, while others sat huddled in a circle, burned, bruised and very frightened. I couldn’t blame them. As far as they knew, dragons were giant, winged creatures not capable of the workmanship needed to create the straw-filled pen that was holding them. Let alone trying to puzzle out where they were, why they were there and if they were about to be eaten.
It was a redhead who noticed my arrival first, and I did not recognize her. It made me wonder if other villages had been attacked, or if she was someone I had somehow overlooked on my stay in Leryk’s care. Her mouth dropped open and she stood, with a shaking finger pointed towards me.
Everyone else followed her wordless gesture, and once more I felt all eyes on me as I slid through the fence again. It was right about then that I realized I was still wearing the beautiful dress that the Prince had picked out for me. That was definitely going to make things even more confusing than they were already.
I held my hands up and slowly walked forward. “Hey there. Is anyone injured? Does anyone need urgent medical attention?” I didn’t know what I was going to do if they said yes. It wasn’t like I had gauze stuffed into my cleavage or anything beyond your basic Girl Scout first aid knowledge.
“Mercedes, is that you?”
I looked over to see one of the young shepherds that I had met in my first moments in this world. For the briefest of moments, I was confused as to why he was there, but I guessed maybe to make future humans after the current ones passed? Dragons lived for centuries, it would be wise to create a self-sufficient stock.
The thought made me shudder, and I banished it from my mind.
“Avros! Yes, it’s me.”
The group seemed to relax at the approval of one of their own, and the young man swept me up in a tight hug. “I thought I had seen my last moments. But if we have a lightning rider here, surely this cannot be the end.”
“Lightning rider?” another asked, and a murmur started to go through the crowd.
There were at least twenty humans, mostly women, in the pens. All of them were wearing the garb that had become familiar in my times in the village, as well as a gaunt look of terror on their faces. “You’re a lightning rider?”
Well, this is not how I had wanted this interaction to go, but I guessed there wasn’t a better way to win their trust.
“Yes. I am Mercedes, and I came to you in the storm. We are not in danger here, at least not directly, but I must explain. What I am about to tell you will probably sicken you. Maybe even enrage you. But you must remain calm. I am working on a plan towards all our freedom, but for now it involves a temporary peace.”
“What’s happening?” Avros asked, thick brows furrowed in concern.
I motioned for everyone to come in, then slowly lowered myself to sit among the hay. I figured it would be harder for someone to tackle me in a raw fury if we were all seated and talking like civilized folk.
“First, you must know that dragons are not entirely what you think they are. Yes, they are the great, winged beasts we see, but they are also shapeshifters.” A murmur of shock went through the group and I waited for the worst of it to settle. “They can take on a form not too dissimilar to our own. Although, the older the dragon, the less human their two-legged body is.”
I paused, steadying my breath and prepping my words. This was the big jump. “They are intelligent, sentient people, just like us. They want to live, and be happy, and have no lust for violence beyond defending their home and people.”
“If that’s true,” a middle aged woman with straw-gold hair murmured, “then what are we doing here?”
“Well, that’s the awful part. You see, our royalty has been so set on wiping out the last of the fey, that they have reduced the dragon’s numbers down beyond their hope of repopulation. It takes many years for an egg to hatch, and a youngling to grow to maturity. They can’t replace their forces as fast as we are depleting them.
“So, in their desperation, they hope to use us to, to…” I faltered, the words I had to say clinging to my tongue. “Bolster their numbers.”
The uproar I expected happened, but it wasn’t as loud or as violent as it had been in my head. Everyone was exclaiming some sort of horror, or vows for revenge, and I was pretty sure I heard several women start to cry, but the
re was no riot. No punching of me or anyone else, for that matter.
“Please,” Avros murmured, slipping his callused hand into mine. “Tell me that’s not true.”
“It’s a desperate law made by a desperate people. So, I am trying to get them to see the error of their ways, and stop this barbaric practice before anyone can be hurt.”
“But how? You’re a human like us. You were brought here to be bred like cattle, or spoils of war, just like we were.”
“And why are you wearing such fine clothes? Those are not from any village I have encountered.”
I held up my hands for the questions to stop, and after a few moments they complied. “I managed to win their trust, albeit a tiny modicum of it.”
“What? How?”
“I used information given to me by the lightning to convince them that I am a seer, touched by dreams and able to warn them of future slights. I hope to use this to our advantage and fully convince them what a terrible mistake they’re making.”
“And what would you have us do in the meantime?” a young girl asked. My heart broke as I looked at her. She couldn’t be older than eighteen, and had stunning, auburn hair that had broken loose from its braid in her capture. There was a crusted over scratch down her arm, and a good part of her dress was burned to ash. “We cannot just sit and wait for a solution to come. If they are so anxious to sire, they will divvy us up and put us to bed within a few sleeps.”
“That’s a very good point,” I admitted. “I think what we’re going to need here, is a sickness.”
“Sickness, what do you mean?”
“Well, if all of you are ill, they certainly won’t be anxious to get close to you. But it couldn’t be a serious illness, otherwise they could just decide to cull us all and start anew.”
“And how are we supposed to trick them? You said they were just as smart as us. Surely they won’t fall for just coughing and pretending our stomach has turned?”
“I…I think I have an idea.” I reached into my knapsack and pulled out my little pencil case that held a couple of permanent markers and pens. Holding my breath, I pulled out the green, orange and red ones. “Who’s up for a couple good, old-fashioned sores?”
“What are these?” Avros asked, as I uncapped one and pulled his arm into my lap.
“Think of them as a type of paint, but in a specific container. We lightning riders use them so the paint doesn’t dry while we travel through the, uh…clouds.”
He nodded, as if that made all the sense in the world, and I got to work. Now, I was not an artist by any means, but the small speckles and welts looked fairly realistic when combined with the dirt and hay that everyone was covered with. It took me several more hours, and the glow stones above began to fade into what had to be the artificial version of twilight.
I got to know the captives as I doodled on them, and that was probably a mistake, but I couldn’t help it. Each one of them had their own stories, their own legacies and families just as I did. Just because they didn’t get swept here by some weird portal in a lake didn’t mean they were somehow less important than my ‘destiny’, whatever the hell that was at this point. I mean, I felt like I was here to save the dragons and restore peace. But it was hard to want to be the savior of a people who were turning to impregnating others without consent as a survival strategy.
And then again, I was approaching it with my twenty-first century moralistic standpoint. A standpoint that might not be possible in these primitive, war-torn times. I mean, we were talking about the genocide of an entire people. That was definitely a big deal.
The answers to my quandary didn’t come, even as the twilight faded to almost pitch darkness. Exhaustion was apparent in all of us, so we set up little nests of hay where we all clustered together.
Under normal circumstances, I would have found the tight proximity uncomfortable. But considering the situation, it was quite easy to find solace in the contact. It was there, nestled between Avros and the young brunette woman, that I wondered what had happened to the Prince and Cyphus, as well as what the Queen would decide of my fate.
I could only hope that I had wedged in there solidly enough that they would let me into their circle of trust. I didn’t know quite exactly why I had been pulled here yet, but I was determined to save every human I could while I figured it out.
And who knew, maybe this was exactly why I was brought here.
It would take time to know if that was the case though, and time was about the last thing I had.
The last thing any of us had.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Since I had arrived I had grown so used to waking with a jolt, or in dangerous new surroundings, it seemed odd to float up to consciousness without any sense of alarm. But as I drifted back to the world of the waking, I heard faint whispers towards the edge of the pen.
That was odd. What need would any of us have to whisper. We were all allies in this together.
Unless they were just trying to be courteous and not wake those still in the gentle grip of sleep. I wish some of my previous roommates had that kind of thoughtfulness…
“I am telling you, I saw it with my own eyes. If it were not for her, the dragons would be all but defeated and we would be free.”
I knew that was definitely not a good sentence to be uttered, and I risked cracking open my eye. Instantly, my heart dropped into my stomach and I had to swallow hard. Two of the few men were at the fence of the pens, conferring with someone outside of the barrier. It took a moment for my vision to adjust, but I was able to make out the visage of a raven-haired human woman, who happened to be very, very pregnant.
“That cannot be. She says she is a lightning rider.”
“So?” the woman hissed. “What responsibility does a lightning rider have to us? They come and go with the wind, and who can say what their fancy is? They have won battles just as much as they have turned them against us.
“But I am telling you what I saw with my own eyes. She saved them, and doomed all of us in return.”
Now I had two options here. I could stay, basically in perfect mob-territory, and try to reason this out. I could hope they would understand that it was all part of the plan and not turn on me. Or, I could get the hell out before they noticed I was gone and get proof of my commitment to save them and avoid risking possible death.
I decided to go with the latter. I didn’t trust other people to be reasonable. Slowly, and carefully, I slipped out from between my new bedmates and crawled towards the far fence opposite of the gossipers. It was surprisingly difficult to make any progress in the fine dress I was in, but I managed. Bit by bit, looking back occasionally to make sure that they weren’t onto me yet.
I could no longer hear the conspirators, and had no idea if they were still whispering of my perceived sins. This in and of itself was pretty terrifying, because I had no idea if they had moved on from whispering to planning my death.
“There! She’s trying to slip away!”
Ah, it looked like they had jumped right to the planning my death part. Great.
I jumped to my feet and risked a glance over my shoulders. The men were running for me now, with a couple of others with them. Most of the humans were just beginning to sit up, trying to groggily understand what was going on.
Well I wasn’t about to stick around and explain it to them. I sprinted forward, but my dress was not making things easy on me. I picked up the glimmering layers of loosely draped fabric and put everything I had into reaching the fence.
My pursuers were gaining on me, and I had the abrupt realization that there was nothing to stop them from vaulting over the fence to go after me. The only thing that kept them within the widely-gapped pieces of wood was their fear. Finding and destroying a traitor was plenty of motivation for them to overcome that very fear.
I would have sworn to myself, but I needed every single bit of breath I had to keep pushing my feet forward. Although I wasn’t wearing any sort of corset or stays, the tight lacing
at the bodice of my dress made it hard for my diaphragm to expand how I wanted it to, leaving me panting, sweating and generally fearing for my life.
I could hear shouts behind me, and arguing, but I couldn’t spare the thought processing to iron them out. I just had to go. Go, go, go—
My thoughts were cut off as something slammed into the back of my head, and I went down. Hard.
Groaning, I tried to get back to my feet, but only could manage to rise to my hands and knees before dizziness swamped me. I just needed a second. If they could give me a second, I could be fine.
What had even hit me?
My eyes drifted to a rock a few inches away, part of it splattered with dark red blood.
Well…someone had an excellent arm on them.
My vision cleared, and I tried to push myself to my feet. But before I could make any progress on that front, a foot connected with the back of my thigh and I went sprawling forward again.
“Traitorous whore!”
“Wow, you just went straight to the insult there, didn’t ya bud?” I hissed, rolling onto my front, away from the next kick that he tried to land on me. I lashed out with my own foot, striking at his weight-bearing shin, and he went down.
I scrambled up, just in time to see another person launch themselves at me. I didn’t have time to move, but could only brace myself as a body slammed into mine.
We went tumbling, both of us trying to come out on top, only to have my attacker manage to get the upper hand. It was a larger woman, one from the next village over, that I hadn’t talked to much the night before.
“Did you sell us out to those winged devils?!” she screeched.
I shoved at her, trying to get her off of me. “I told you, I needed to win their trust! That was the only way to do it. And killing children is wrong!”
“Lies.”