Vane

by Teshelle Combs

  Onna studied her for a minute. But her eyes filled with water again. “We can’t go in there.” Her voice trembled. The tears had their way, slipping down her cheeks. “He won’t forgive me, Ava.”

  Ava’s face was unchanging. Screw compassion. Screw understanding. “I. Don’t. Care.”

  Onna scrubbed at her runny nose with the back of her hand. She stood up, pulling Ava with her by the elbows. “Lean on me,” she said.

  Ava didn’t want to, but it would take her forever to make it to Cale with her busted bones. She held her breath as she clutched the red dragon.

  Onna opened the door and turned down the hall. They were still in the Cave, but in the back, where Victor spent most of his time, where Manuel slept.

  Reggie was walking down the hall, a six-gallon of water in her arms. She turned, walking backwards beside them. “I thought she wasn’t supposed to be out here,” she said.

  Ava wanted to tell her to go to hell. Go to hell. But Reggie wasn’t as important. Nothing was as important.

  Onna knocked on the closed door they stopped in front of and Ava tried to ignore the burning, searing pain of ruined bones and the gold flowing beneath her bruises.

  “Onna,” Karma straightened up in surprise. What—”

  “She’s very persuasive.” And Onna set Ava down beside a bed, meaning that must have meant they were in Manuel’s room. All the red did was sleep. Sleep and fight.

  Cale sunk into the worn pillows. But he didn’t look like Cale. The bruises, the open cuts, the swelling. He looked like someone who was dying. Someone who was already dead.

  “Ava, you ought to rest. I insist. The stress isn’t healthy for you and you need to focus on recovery,” Karma said in her clinical voice.

  There were other people in the room. Rory. His usually ruddy face was pale against his sandy hair. He stood beside Cale’s bed, his features pulled tight.

  And Mac. He hovered in the corner, nearly the mirror image of his eldest son. Ava didn’t bother to take the time to analyze what he must have been thinking, what he must have been feeling. Mac hadn’t been there for Cale. None of them had been there. Not even her.

  Still, she put her hand on her dragon’s. As she leaned closer to him, she felt the light touch of her scarlet dragonstone pendant against her throat. She’d made a promise. She would be his all her days.

  His fingers twitched, and his muscles relaxed. Everyone in the room could see him inhale easier. She knew he needed her, and now they all knew it too. Ava ran her hands over his arms, his chest. She waited, felt the beating of his heart slow down beneath her hand. It was beautiful, that rhythm. It meant he was still there.

  She touched his face. He was Cale, even when he didn’t look like it. She’d learned that. She was reminded of that every time he changed forms. Ava leaned over and kissed his forehead, his cheek, his busted lips, his chin. She didn’t care that everyone was watching.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. She didn’t know if he could hear her. But she tried anyway. “I should have stopped them.”

  “Should have?” Onna, her arms hugging herself, wrinkled her brow. “You did.”

  “What?”

  “Ava, you don’t remember?”

  But Ava just stared.

  “You don’t remember what you did?” Onna came closer and took Ava’s

  hand, pointed to her knuckles. Ava wanted to shrink back from the touch, even though it was friendly for once. It was a connection, another link in the chains that bound her to otherworld. She studied her own hands, saw what she hadn’t noticed before. They were so mangled, bloodied and swollen, that Ava couldn’t move her fingers. “How did this happen?”

  Onna let go of Ava and closed her eyes for a moment, as if her head was throbbing. “They had you. I saw how they had you…and you just,” she motioned as if she was miming fireworks, “you just lit up. And you took them down. All of them.” Onna gave a teary smile. “You were…. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Karma, who was fire-treating Cale, looked up from her work. “You shouldn’t be moving about, Ava. You could be bleeding internally. I will see to you as soon as Cale is stable.”

  Ava shook her head and immediately wished she hadn’t. She wanted to tell Karma that she’d had worse beatings when she first started out boxing, but the room kept moving even when she stopped, and she had to close her eyes and wait to keep from passing out or falling over.

  Finally, she took a shaky breath. “Shiloh. And Rane.”

  Karma nodded. “I saw to them first, as their conditions were most dire. They have already gone.”

  “Gone?” How can they be gone? Ava had so many questions for them. About Juliette. About the grey dragons. About the so-called balance.

  “I suppose they will be taking the pregnant girl with them, as she is his

  mate.” Of course Karma figured it out. She was a genius, after all. As she worked, she lifted her eyes to Ava. “Have you heard from Cameron?”

  “Cameron?” The youngest Anders brother was so far from her thoughts she could hardly recall what he looked like. And she was too tired to tell Karma about the sky court, about Sirce’s plans and the prisoners they’d found, or about the siren attacks and the displaced dragons in Great Nest.

  Karma nodded. The subtle creases around her mouth angled downward. “Then perhaps Cameron is dead. Or at least incapable of responding for some unpleasant reason. I received a—”

  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  It was Myra, standing in the doorway. She hadn’t been at the Cave during the attack, but she looked exhausted, gray circles around her brown eyes, her blonde hair disheveled. “You can’t just say he’s dead like it’s some hypothesis. He’s your son.”

  “I said ‘perhaps’ he’s dead. It’s only a theory, Myra. Try to keep calm.”

  “You’re sick,” Myra said, her voice thick with tears and words she’d never said aloud to any of them. “That’s why he left in the first place. You never cared about him.”

  Onna turned to her twin, mirroring her stress for different reasons. “We can’t think about Cameron right now, Myra.”

  It was as if Onna had slapped her. “Yeah, because when have we ever thought about Cameron?”

  Onna expected her sister to storm out of the room. But Myra kept her ground, her cheeks and nose red as blood rushed to them.

  “I want an answer.” Myra took a shallow breath, as though something in her was about to crack. “When is it going to be okay for us to think about Cameron. When is it going to be his turn? When is it going to be our turn?”

  “We’ll find him,” Ava spoke up. She hadn’t talked to Cale about it, but she knew what he would want. “We’ll find him, Myra.”

  “When? After your grand adventures?”

  Ava thought about it for a moment. “The world is falling apart. We have to think of everyone, too. No one person is more important.” That’s what her dragon would say.

  “No,” Myra said. “Nothing in the world would stop you from getting to Cale.”

  Ava looked at Cale, at the peace on his face now that she was beside him, touching him. Myra was right. Even if the world was hurtling into oblivion, even if Cale wanted her to leave him behind and save it all, she’d be thinking about him.

  “If he’s you’re the one you’d give up everything for, if he’s your one person, why aren’t you with him, Myra?” Ava asked. “Why don’t you go find him?”

  Her eyes pricked with tears beneath her blonde bangs. “Because…maybe he doesn’t want me there.”

  “So?”

  She tried to blink her eyes dry. “So…um.”

  “Get on a plane and go anyway. You can’t yell at me for not being in love with your boyfriend. He’s yours to chase, Myra.”

  She bit her lip. “How…? I wouldn’t know where to look.”

  “I’ll help,” Onna said, shrugging, trying not to be emotional. “Someone reasonable needs to go.” She didn’t say the truth. That Cale didn’
t need her. Not when he had Ava.

  Myra nodded towards Rory. “You coming?”

  He had been silent, paler than usual, his brown eyes dark and sober. “I think Cale should go.” He crossed his arms, looked down at his unconscious brother. “Cale will want to see him.”

  “And you don’t? He’s your brother too, Rory.”

  Rory thought about that. “I’ll stay. Take care of Dad.”

  Mac was standing against the far wall, his arms crossed. He hadn’t said a word since they’d been there. Wasn’t even making eye contact with anyone.

  “I disagree,” Karma said. “It’s best if you go be with your brothers.”

  “No. I’ll stay.”

  Karma glanced at him. “Rory.”

  “Mother.”

  She looked between her son and his father, then turned her attention back to Cale. “I’ll never understand.”

  She stitched together some of Cale’s more gruesome wounds before she held the fire over them, allowing the skin to find its way back together.

  It reminded Ava of the moments after their plane had crashed off the coast of Peru. She thought he was dead then. His skin was cold and clammy, his body so still. Is that how he feels when I leave him for ownworld?

  She held his hand and tried to ignore the throbbing in her head and the swelling of her busted bones. But even worse, the pain of the gold surged just beneath her skin and burned like acid sizzling through her veins. Everything in her called her towards death. No, I won’t go. I won’t go.

  “Ava, I think you should lie down,” Karma said, startling Ava away from the grasp of her thoughts.

  “Huh?” Ava said, her mouth dry, her head pounding.

  Karma’s careful eyes took Ava in. “You’re mumbling to yourself. Have been for quite some time.”

  Time? Ava had lost sense of it. The sweet solace of death was calling to her, screaming for her to go.

  “When’s the last time you had something to eat?” Karma asked.

  “Umm…last Thursday, maybe?”

  Karma put down her suture and crossed the room so she could look at Ava. “Dieting in such a drastic manner is very dangerous. Are you concerned about your appearance? Because there are healthier alternatives.”

  “What?” Her head was bursting. I’m dying. I’m dying. “No, I’m not starving myself. I just...haven’t been hungry.” It still hurt to talk. Hurt to think. Hurt to breathe.

  “You are losing consciousness. You should lie down.”

  Ava was indeed losing it. She knew it. The aching, the pressing, the pressures of being needed. She looked at Cale, his blank face against the pillow, and squeezed his hand tighter. She couldn’t leave him. Not now.

  “You’re crying, Ava.”

  She nodded. The tears were slipping down without her meaning them to. “I can’t leave him this time. He’ll die.”

  Mechanically, Karma wiped Ava’s tears with smooth hands, because that was how reds and humans consoled each other. “You don’t have to go anywhere.”

  The tears burned her nose. “I have to go. I can’t help it.” And she almost wanted to sob. “I’m dying.”

  Onna stood by, her eyes wide as she looked on. No one knew what to do, what to say. Ava looked at the people around her. The family that had turned Cale away. The friends who hated her for what she meant to Cale.

  It was true. Mac was right. They were all right. She was all wrong for Cale. All wrong. A phoenix and a dragon could never be together. Not for long. And because she’d been selfish, because she’d been stupid, because she’d needed him to love her, he’d picked her out of the crowd. He’d pacted with her. And he would die right alongside her.

  She pulled away from the world and leaned in close to Cale, her tears falling to his pillow. “Wait for me.”

  Then she looked up, not seeing anything, but knowing they were all

  watching. “Don’t let him go,” she said to no one, to everyone, to herself.

  And with a torrent of golden, spiraling pain…she was gone.

  ***

  Before, in ownworld, Ava had simply appeared, somehow awake in a magical place of calm and solitude. But this time, she hit the ground her mind had created with a thud.

  She sprung up, still fully clothed, her bruises and cuts stinging, but most of the pain gone.

  “Water.”

  And there it was. A babbling river of it.

  “Water.”

  It turned into an ocean, waves lapping against her feet. She could do it. She could make an ocean with will alone. And if she was really a phoenix—if she really was meant to be immortal, free—then she could do anything.

  “I want my bones healed.”

  And they mended, calcium deposits reforming out of thin air. Her soul hummed, begging for more, for her will to be used.

  “I want to know what I am.”

  There was nothing.

  “I want to know what I am.”

  Not even a breeze whistled by. Ownworld was different somehow, as though she was fighting against it. “I want to see a phoenix.”

  A blinding flash of light, and Ixora appeared, a demure smile on her shimmering face.

  “Hello, Little Egg.” She looked around at the crashing waves and the overcast sky. “I see you are feeling tumultuous today.” She kicked bare feet in the wild ocean, floating on nothing, her white wings flapping slowly to keep her suspended.

  “Tell me why you call me that. Egg. My name is Ava.”

  She nodded. “Finally. The right questions.” She smiled. “You’re not yet hatched, Little Egg.”

  “So you’re sure? I’m a phoenix.”

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t look anything like you.”

  “You’re not hatched, Little Egg. I just said that.”

  “Tell me how to keep form hurting my dragon. Tell me how to keep from hatching.”

  Ixora frowned at that. “You have a dragon?”

  “A red. We’re pacted.”

  “How did you manage that, Little Egg? Red dragons only bond with humans, usually of the same gender.”

  “I don’t know how I managed it, Ixora! Just tell me how to fix it!”

  Ixora shook her head with a grin like the sun. “You are amazing. Even more powerful than I thought, despite being in otherworld for so long. That, Little Egg, is how you managed to pact with your red friend. It was your will.”

  Ava felt that in her soul, tightening her chest, her throat. “You mean…I forced him?”

  “I can’t say that. But you may have caused the pact to take hold. You are certainly forceful enough for that.”

  “If I’m so strong, how can I keep from coming here? How do I stop hurting him? I can’t keep dying and leaving him alone to survive it. Tell me how I can use my will to stay with Cale.”

  She frowned. “Little Egg, you have to come here. It is the only thing a phoenix must do. You must become who you were meant to be.”

  “No. There’s a way. I’ll make a way.”

  Ixora grew stern, though she was still pleasant, wrinkles creasing her perfect white skin. “You die. You come to ownworld. You can go back to otherworld if you’d like, but ownworld is where you belong. No one can change that. And trying to argue with God is like begging for a curse when you should receive a blessing.”

  “I don’t want anyone’s blessing. I want to be with Cale.” And even as Ava said it, she could feel the will in her soul buzz with life. She could do anything. Because she was a phoenix. And for the first time, she chose to believe. “You said I could do anything.”

  Ixora, for once, did not look on the verge of smiling. The corners of her mouth turned down, her brilliant eyes dampened a bit. “You sound like your mother. You are nothing like her, except for that defiance. It will bring you to ruin, Little Egg.”

  “I could care less what my so-called mother was like. I know what I want. And it’s not here.”

  “But you love it here, in ownworld. You are at peace here, happy here. You w
ill hatch into a beautiful phoenix. Why don’t you stay? Why don’t any of you ever want to stay?”

  It was true. It was so true. Ava had never felt peace before she’d come to the strange place. She’d never felt that kind of rest before. But she bit down on her lip to distract herself from it. She had to convince herself that pain was better, that loving Cale was better.

  “I’m never leaving him again.” And she took a deep breath, forced her molecules to jump towards life.

  Otherworld hit her like a blow to the stomach. She doubled over as she landed and took a moment before she could see straight. Being ripped from ownworld had hurt her more than she expected. But she didn’t care. She’d done it. She’d left it behind. She was in the room once again and scrambled forward to reach for her dragon’s hand. She held it too tight, pressing it to her lips. It was still warm. Barely. But he was there.

  “Ava—” Karma began.

  But Ava didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want to hear how she’d almost killed him by leaving. She didn’t want to hear that she was selfish. She finally understood why Cale hadn’t wanted to talk about her dying. It didn’t matter. What happened happened. She was who she had to be. But she would fight it. She would fight it every single day, because all that was good and right and whole was Cale.

  “Give us space,” Ava said, not even bothering to look at the gathering of ex-family. “Get out.”

  And she wasn’t sure if they listened or if they were still watching, but she climbed up beside her dragon and kissed his shoulder before she rested her forehead against it. “Never again,” she said to him. “I won’t risk you ever again.” It was strange for her, being close to him, being physical. But she didn’t care if she had to reteach her body how to be human. She’d do it for him.

  “Hmm?”

  Ava sat up, shocked at how badly she wanted to cry in relief.

  He squinted at her, adjusting to the dim light so he could see. He looked better. Slowly, his body repaired itself. “What’s wrong?”

  “Pretty much everything.”

  He licked his lips. His voice was dry as dust. “No kidding. Worse landing ever.” His swelling had gone down. The bruises were less discolored. The stitched wounds were beginning to mend. “Shiloh and Rane?”