Dragon-Ridden

by White, T. A.

  Ai’s puzzled, “I do not understand,” followed Tate as she wiggled back into place, her elbow and knees smarting from where she’d banged them against the rock.

  Umi’s laugh was ugly and mocking. Tate flinched from the sound. “Go back?” Umi snarled. “To a life as a pretty decoration where nothing ever changes. Where my talents are wasted simply because I was born female? Condemned to a pat on the head when I do well and the best opportunities going to those less qualified simply because they are men. Where each day is the same as the last? I thank you, but no, my dearest uncle.” She spat as she paced in a circle around the boy, looking down at him with hatred. “Don’t you see? We could change things. With the power of the fulcrum and the key we wouldn’t have to bow our heads to anybody. The Kairi people have never shown as brightly as when we were at war. Every advance, every societal change has come about during a time of turmoil.” Her face glowed with the fervor of her beliefs. “This peace has stagnated us as a people. The possibilities these people offer us could change everything.”

  “This will not end how you wish, grand niece,” the boy said calmly. If he felt pain or fear, Tate couldn’t see it. He looked as he had when they’d spoken in her room, accepting and unafraid. “If you had only gone to your father or one of your peers with your concerns I am sure they would have helped you do something. But this, niece, this is madness.”

  Tate shifted and squirmed as she tried to change her view’s angle to get an eye on where the Red Lady was in all the theatrics. Her eyes caught on a slumped figure sitting beside the Red Lady’s feet. He had the same shape and build as Dewdrop. When he lifted his head, her guess was confirmed. A gag had been stuffed in his mouth and a choke chain slipped around his neck. The Red Lady held his leash tight in her gloved hands.

  “Please,” Umi said scornfully. “They don’t want change. They want tradition, and anybody who goes against it is hidden like a dirty little secret. If I steal your power, dear uncle, then they’ll have no choice but to do what I want. To let me be with the one I love.”

  Tate stopped her furtive efforts for a moment. She couldn’t mean Kadien. Could she? That hadn’t been the sense she’d gotten from their interaction earlier, but perhaps she had simply missed it.

  The boy looked as startled as Tate, for the first time looking a bit disconcerted at what she’d revealed. He’d greeted every assertion with a bored acceptance, but this seemed to surprise him.

  Umi’s laugh was full of boundless mirth as it filled the chamber, pulling vacant smiles from the men around her. In a movement to quick to follow, Umi plucked one of her silver hairpins from her hair and plunged it into the boy’s side. Tate lunged forward and plastered herself against the rock and moaned softly, watching in mute horror as he touched his side and fell to his knees.

  “Foolish boy,” Umi said taunting him as she circled him. “Do you think you will be saved? That someone is going to come to your rescue? The Kairi, along with that meddlesome lord, have headed to the Lady’s former chambers.” Umi bent down and grabbed a handful of hair, forcing him to look at her. “When they get there, we’ve left a little present for them. Something to celebrate this momentous occasion. They’ll be the first to fall in this new war, but not the last.”

  Tate could only watch horrified, knowing she needed to move, to act. To slice that condescending look right off the traitorous bitch’s face.

  All she could do was watch as the boy clutched the wound at his side. Kadien moved out of the crowd to stand at Umi’s side.

  “My love,” she said achingly, her eyes worshipful.

  Kadien, for his part, didn’t even spare her a glance. Instead he watched as more and more of the boy’s blood slipped through his fingers.

  Tate snarled and pushed away from her crevasse, or tried to anyway. Her arms wouldn’t move, refusing to respond, to twitch. Every muscle locked in place making it impossible to move. She couldn’t even open her mouth to scream. The only thing she was capable of doing was blink. Rapidly.

  Since she couldn’t move outwardly, she screamed inside her mind. In rage. In pain. At her helplessness. A long drawn out scream as she struggled to move. She begged her feet to wiggle. Her arms to lift. Anything.

  A red haze filled her vision, and her heart sped up until all she heard was a pounding in her ears.

  “Tatum Alegra Winters. You must remain calm,” Ai said.

  Tate had forgotten Ai was there, so intent was she on the boy and Umi. She tried to turn her head, but it, like the rest of her, was frozen in place.

  “Ai?” she whispered. She rolled her lips and wiggled her jaw, slightly surprised to be able to move. “Oh thank the Saviors. I can’t move. I don’t know what’s wrong but I can’t move. And the boy’s been stabbed and is bleeding out and I CAN’T MOVE!”

  It was like a dream. Being stuck, unable to move, to act, to live. This time though she could see and hear what was around her.

  “I know. I have frozen you in place.”

  The words were so unexpected that Tate stopped in the midst of her panic to think about what she said.

  “What?” she whispered, her mouth dry.

  “I used the traces of the phase field that stuck to your skin when you left my chamber yesterday, I have applied a charge to them to render your large muscle groups inert. You will not be able to move until I release the charge.”

  Tate blinked rapidly as she digested this news. “Why?”

  “You were about to go to that one’s aid,” Ai informed her. “I cannot let you do that.”

  “I have to. They’ll kill him.”

  “Still I cannot let you do that.”

  Kadien circled the boy, staying just outside the odd symbols.

  “Let me go,” Tate pleaded. “Let me go now.”

  “If I let you go, you will die. Your backup is not close enough to help you. You will have saved nothing. The boy will still die, and your friend from the cages will die.”

  “You don’t know that,” Tate said. If she could have, she would have stomped her foot. “I can save them. Please!”

  Light glinted off steel.

  “There is no string of events where you save all of them,” Ai said. “A choice must be made, and I can not let you die.”

  “Bullshit,” Tate hissed. “You don’t know anything unless you try. And sacrifice? Don’t be stupid. Only the weak spout that nonsense. Those that give up because it’s easy and safe and don’t have the stubbornness to find the solution.”

  “I am sorry.”

  Tate could hear in Ai’s voice her resolve and knew pleading with her wouldn’t gain her the freedom she wanted.

  “Why me and not them?” Tate asked.

  Ai’s face and body appeared in front of Tate, painting itself over her view of the other chamber. Her form half protruded from the stone. Tate struggled to move as Ai reached out to touch Tate’s face, stopping a mere breath away from skin.

  “What’s so important about me and not them?” Tate asked again when it didn’t seem like Ai would answer.

  Ai met her eyes. “Because he loved you.” She tilted her head a wistful look crossing her face. “They all loved you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. Not yet.” Ai dropped her hand from Tate’s face. “Maybe someday.” She shrugged, her shoulders moving sharply up and down in an imitation of a human emotion.

  “Please,” Tate’s tongue darted out to wet dry lips. Despair slid in and wrapped around her heart. “I can’t fail them.”

  “Why is it so important to you?” Ai asked again, her expression demanding.

  Tate struggled to see past Ai, back into the chamber and what was going on. The only thing worse than not being able to move was not knowing what was happening while she was paralyzed. The possibilities were throwing her mind further into panic.

  She didn’t really want to get into why she felt compelled to act. A big part of that was because she wasn’t quite sure why herself. She had as developed
a sense of survival as the next person. But not acting felt wrong on a fundamental level. Tate might not remember her past and what events shaped her into the person she was now. She did know that to walk away from someone in trouble went against every principle she had. Really, it all came down to the mirror.

  Finally she met Ai’s gaze. “When I look into the mirror every morning, I need to be able to meet my eyes and not feel ashamed of my actions. If I were to just sit here and let them do anything they wanted because I was afraid I might get hurt, I wouldn’t be able to face the person in the mirror.”

  Ai considered Tate’s answer, tilting her head thoughtfully as she seemed to turn in on herself. Tate held her breath.

  “You are just as stubborn and reckless as he said,” Ai told Tate. Though her features were still smooth and unmarred by emotion. It sounded almost as if she disapproved.

  Tate squelched her urge to ask once again who this ‘he’ was. Ai wouldn’t answer and Tate had more important things to focus on then this nebulous individual who evidently knew Tate so well, he could guess at her actions.

  You will owe me, Ai whispered in her mind. Suddenly, the invisible bonds holding Tate in place snapped. Not expecting the sudden freedom, the tension in Tate’s muscles responded by sending her crashing into the roof of her crawl space. Her head thumped against the rock sending shooting pain radiating to her temples. She groaned and cradled it in her hands.

  “What’s this?” a voice asked from in front of her.

  Tate lifted her head to meet one brown eye peering at her from the crack in the wall. Her heart dropped to her stomach and for a moment she was paralyzed as the eye held her spell bound. For a moment she thought it was Ai, pulling another trick, but gradually she noticed details such as the fact the angle meant the eye’s owner had lain on the floor to get a glimpse of her.

  “A spy,” he said gleefully.

  Tate gasped and began pushing herself back.

  “Where are you going, little spy? You came all this way. Don’t leave right before the good part starts.”

  Tate squeaked and struggled to get away from the words. All the while taunting her, he kept his eye fixed unblinking on her. It took a lot longer to wiggle free, panic making her sloppy and hindering her progress.

  Freed, she eyed the small tunnel Night and her had found the chamber with. More than anything she wanted to crawl up there and escape. She could already hear the rush of pursuit while the eye’s owner taunted her in a low voice. Despite what she’d told Ai, she wasn’t a brave person. She felt fear and a strong urge to run. The only thing holding her in place was the knowledge that she’d hate herself forever if she did.

  She looked around the chamber, her heart pounding. She wouldn’t run. That meant she’d have to fight. Unfortunately the only weapons she had on her were a few knives. That was hardly enough to make a difference.

  Ai had disappeared as soon as Tate had been released. “It would have been nice if she’d stuck around to use that phase thing on these people,” Tate muttered.

  It would not work on them.

  There were no other weapons in the room. It looked like those knives were about as good as it’d get. She darted through the doorway and into a tunnel. Several men rounded the corner and gave a shout, alerting others. Tate sprinted away from them. Perhaps if she kept them busy, she could buy some time.

  How much longer until Night got here with backup? She’d lost all track of time but guessed it could be no more than an hour since he’d left. Moving fast and taking risks he might have cut away at the time, but there was no way of telling. If Ai was to be believed, it would take longer than either of them had thought. No amount of evading or fighting on Tate’s part would delay their enemies long enough for it to make a difference. Looked like she was on her own.

  An enemy turned the corner in front of her; Tate didn’t pause, drawing a knife and increasing her speed. She evaded his grab and plunged her blade into his throat, wrenching it sideways in a spray of blood. Another man grabbed her arm— she twisted using his momentum to pull him off balance and plunge her blade into his back, angling up into his heart. He dropped to his knees and flopped face down. Two down. Tate’s jaw was clenched as men ran down the tunnel behind her; she ran in the opposite direction turning a corner and was out of sight.

  The men closed fast, not even one of them stopping to check on their comrades. Guess there wasn’t a lot of camaraderie in the Red Lady’s gang. No matter though, it just made what Tate had to do that much easier.

  She dispatched three more men with the same ease as the first two. Each time she paused for the seconds it took to kill, her enemies closed in faster and faster. The constant movement and stress made keeping ahead of the men chasing her that much harder.

  She wondered how long since they’d started this game of cat and mouse. Had she succeeded in distracting them from their original purpose? Hopefully they wanted the key enough that they’d wait to act.

  She dodged down another narrow tunnel as two more men pounded at her from opposite tunnels. All of these tunnels were connected, creating a maze where sense of direction was quickly lost. She turned down three more tunnels, barely evading the Lady’s men who swarmed out of connecting tunnels. It dawned on her that she hadn’t had a direct confrontation in awhile. Her pace slowed as it occurred to her that they’d been avoiding cornering her or attacking her since she’d killed that fourth man. It was almost as if they were herding her.

  The tunnel around her seemed lighter than the ones she’d been traveling down earlier. It wasn’t a big difference, just an infinitesimally lightening of the dark. Tate looked behind her at the sound of labored breathing. The men stopped when they noticed her still figure, not daring to approach but not retreating either. With a sick sense of certainty, she advanced on the last intersection. Two of the tunnels had men stationed at the end of them, watching her avidly. Feeling numb she turned down the third tunnel, sure of what she’d find.

  Clapping greeted her as she stepped into the chamber. “Wonderful. Wonderful. It was so kind of you to join us,” Brown Eyes said. He turned to the Red Lady who regarded Tate with a covetous expression. “I told you she’d run right into your arms.”

  “So you did,” the Red Lady murmured. The heavy throne looked exactly like the one in the last room Tate had seen the Lady in. She wondered if they’d carted it all the way down here or if it was a replica. Perhaps there were similar chairs in all the Red Lady’s hide-a-ways. “We meet again, little dragon.”

  Tate held her silence and watched the rest of the room. There were more people than last time. Too many to fight, she realized with despair.

  Tate’s attention strayed to Dewdrop, who kept his head down, his hair falling forward to cover his eyes. The woman, noticing where she was looking, jerked harshly on Dewdrop’s collar, bringing his head up sharply. “Say hello, pet.”

  His eyes were full of terror as he said softly, “Hello.”

  “I really must thank you for bringing this one back to the fold,” the Lady stroked her red fingernails down Dewdrop’s cheek, leaving bloody furrows in their wake. “I was at a loss when he escaped. You won’t be doing that again, will you, pet?”

  Her fingers tightened sharply on his neck. His thin body quaked with fear as he answered her with a shaky, “No.”

  Tate bit her lip, knowing any words or emotional response from her would only result in greater attention being turned Dewdrop’s way.

  “I know where the key is,” Tate said quietly.

  “Of course you do,” Umi said turning to Kadien. “You have it.”

  Tate took a deep breath. This next part was a definite gamble. In a quick move she drew a knife and held it to her throat. “Yeah and if you don’t want it to disappear in a wash of blood I suggest you let Dewdrop and the boy walk out of here.”

  Tate glanced at the Red Lady who watched her with amusement. “I want my friends released.”

  “Do you?” she asked in a bored tone.

&n
bsp; Umi’s glance was sly when she turned her back on Kadien and strode to face Tate. “Perhaps you’re bluffing.”

  Tate tried to back up but found she was hemmed in when the crowd closed around her. She was, but hoped they would focus on her rather than the others.

  “There has been only two instances of the key being transferred to a living person and neither was to an outsider.”

  “Guess I’m just lucky,” Tate said. She didn’t in fact know if she really had the key. She was just spewing nonsense in the hopes of stalling everybody until the backup could get there.

  Tate would have liked to say that Umi had lost some of her poise and ladylike exterior when she showed her true self. That wasn’t the case, however. Her movements were graceful and refined as she clasped her hands in front of her at waist level.

  “I do not think so. One must be a descendent of the Saviors for the key to attach to them. It is more likely that it found a host in an object you had on your person.”

  Tate was seized from behind, the knife knocked from her fingers. Someone clasped her under the arms before bending their arms to lace their hands behind her neck. It left her back arched and her arms useless unless she could reach behind and unclasp her attackers hands from her neck. She struggled briefly before determining she was caught.

  Ten minutes had passed since she’d entered this place.

  “Did she ever tell you why she handed me over to Lucius?” Tate shouted at the Red Lady.

  The lady sat up in interest, her glance assessing Umi and then Tate. “No, as a matter of fact she didn’t.”

  “Don’t you find it a little odd that she accused me of having the key and all along she knew that Lucius had me.” Umi’s face was beginning to flush a splotchy red and take on a murderous cast. “You were supposed to get the key, though.”

  “Yes. I was.” The Red Lady waited expectantly for Umi to explain.

  Umi hid trembling hands in the folds of her skirt as she turned to the Red Lady with a placating smile. “My lady, I didn’t know she had the key until after she escaped Lucius.”