Feral Magic

by Nicolette Jinks

  “Everyone else has one but you.”

  She sighed. I was taking up her time, and she was annoyed.

  “A name,” I said. Before she could find a way to dismiss the idea, I rushed,”It will be a trade because it will be my name, not some random thing I appoint to you. Unless you like being called the Lady of the Vase.”

  The Lady of the Vase bit her lip and stared into open space. It was a contemplative gesture, cold and moody instead of being cute like when Lilly did it.

  “I want to know the name before I commit,” she said.

  “And I want out of here. Will you take my word that it is a fitting name?”

  “Perhaps. But once you give it to me, you may no longer use it.”

  “I already don’t, but if you would prefer I can change all legal documents to have it removed.”

  The Lady shrugged. “I don’t care much for legality. Very well, tell me what it is and I will consider it.”

  I shook my head. “None of us chose our given names. Do we have a bargain or not?”

  The Lady turned cool eyes to me and let out a long sigh. “Very well. We have a bargain, and I expect you to inform the world that from now on, I am to be referred to as...”

  “Hope.”

  The Lady—or rather, Hope—smiled like she had won a bet. “It is fitting, and a tad cryptic, is it not? For your services, I have a gift for you. It is something you have always had, but never known it. Be wise what you do with it.”

  Hope touched my forehead with one skinny finger, and I felt a strange crawling sensation overtake my skin. My pulse quickened, then seemed to grow stronger, pulsing with more force. In an instant I was dizzy and yet not weakened. My bones ground together and my skin stretched, pulling taut but not painfully.

  “What is happening?” I asked, but there was no one around me anymore. I was alone, and I was swimming in air; not falling, just swimming, held suspended in nothing as a breeze soothed over my aches and made me shiver in pleasure. The wind shifted and blew me this way and that, but I was not afraid of it, rather I took delight in the sensation. I wasn’t swimming, I was flying, flying through this strange dreamland and back towards reality.

  Light surrounded me, piercing my eyes and making me shut them tight. Heavy, I was so heavy, my shoulders pressed snug to the floor, my breathing labored. I twitched my fingers burdened by invisible weights. Breathing hurt. My arms and legs were bound so tight I had lost all sensation to my limbs. I would have been panicked if I wasn’t feeling oddly disconnected from my body.

  I forced stiff eyelids open, found a hoard of pixies directly in front of me. The cavern’s roof had collapsed in one place, and outside a flash of lightening struck the lip of the cavern. The roar of thunder quaked the cavern, causing a spray of soil to cascade down on me. I shook my head, knocking dirt into my hair. Craning my neck, I squinted in the sudden dark for the others.

  A body lay on the floor next to me, and for one panicked second, I thought Barnes was dead. His hair was matted, his mustache frayed, and his skin was a mismatch of caked blood and wet liquid. As I watched, he took a rattling breath and wheezed it out again. Where was Mordon?

  A second roar of thunder answered my question. Straining against my own body as well as the ropes, I saw him pinned to the ground by three large shadow beasts, creatures conjured by three still-standing sorcerers. On his neck, a frenzied wendigo tore at his scales, ripping them off one by one like a chef picking the scales off a fish with the tip of a knife.

  Blood was everywhere. It coated the floor in a trail, smudged marks when Mordon had been on the ground, large drops when he had been flying or leaping. Some was boiled thick and syrupy next to scorch marks. A dismembered sorcerer’s corpse sprawled over several feet, the man apparently having become a meal for the active wendigo.

  The red dragon seized himself into a roll, tossing off his attackers temporarily. The wendigo dug his claws into Mordon’s wounded haunch, and the dragon cried out in pain. The other creatures slammed against his shoulder, and Mordon crashed to the floor. One leapt and bit the tip of his wing, pinning it to the ground, while another trapped his tail and the third pounced on his head.

  I couldn’t believe this was happening. Not now, not ever. And here I was watching. The wind and magic did not respond to me; I was floating over my body, unable to make it move even enough to avert its eyes.

  So I had stopped Morgana and released the souls. That suddenly seemed a very tiny victory when compared to what Gregor Cole was going to become. With the deaths of Mordon and Barnes, he would have the strength to overcome any sorcerer—and keep on killing.

  But this was worse than all that.

  Mordon.

  I couldn’t believe I felt love for him, or at least, the foundation for love. And he was in big trouble.

  Gregor laughed, a choking hack coming through a mouth with a broken lower jaw and a smashed nose. He stood back, and looked at my body, looked at Barnes, then smiled at Mordon, a smile of sharp teeth and bits of flesh.

  “You will be part of something much, much bigger, don’t worry,” he said, though it was nearly impossible to make out the words. He walked closer. Mordon struggled, flailing against the creatures. They held him down all the tighter.

  I was not going to let this happen. I didn’t know what I could do—no magic, no strength, nothing but the presence of mind. I had to do something, anything at all.

  A forgotten memory struck, about how I swore I saw a dragon in the backyard during crescent moons, and Mother would deny it, then track down my father. The fable of the farmer and the dragon. The boy I thought was dead with Nest, but he had gained a second form. How I yearned to fly.

  The wind was compressing about me, dirt stirring together with rain drops to form a blob, wind pulling sections out on the front and back, wind cutting and shaping and molding. I couldn’t see into what.

  Words came to me. Creature. Dragon. You’re part fey, part human, part something else.

  I was still dizzy, but I felt more solid. I took breaths, felt a heart thrum in my chest. It was happening so slowly, yet so fast. It seemed to take an eternity, but in reality it was only a few seconds. My wings flared out and webbing spread between the bones like dough rolled very thin. I clenched my claws, swung my head. My skin formed round patterns, turning into scales, then lightening as they hardened.

  I was part investigator, part inventor, part ally. I was a daughter, a sister, a friend. I was determined, confident, loyal.

  I was fey, human, drake.

  And I needed to embrace all of it.

  Time broke back into motion again. Gregor had his fist high above, claws curled, an evil grin on his face as he targeted Mordon’s exposed throat. He brought his claw down.

  I ploughed into him, my teeth sinking into his bony chest. His claws dug at my eyes, and I heard the buzzing of pixies coming for me. A cold mouth clamped over my tail, and I flung the shadow creature into the wall. Two sets of claws dug into my back. I tightened my grip on the wendigo, folded my wings to my sides, and rolled. The shadow creatures dispersed, reforming next to their casters just as the first pixie swarm attacked.

  I wouldn’t think that needle-sized swords would do any damage to a dragon, but those little things found every nook and cranny in between my scales. The sensation was comparable to sticking sewing pins underneath fingernails, except it was all over. My neck, my back, my belly, even the underside of my tail. With every prick and stab, I crushed harder on the wendigo. He did not bleed when my teeth punctured his dry hide; his bones would not break under my jaws, but rather they flexed and bent.

  “I’ve tried everything,” said Mordon from behind me.

  Tossing Cole against the wall, I stepped back and reconsidered my strategy. Being new to being a drake, I had to assume that Mordon knew better. I also had to assume that he had tried everything that came instinctively to me in my dragon form. As Barnes was human, I had to assume that Barnes had done what a human would think to do.

&n
bsp; I had to think like a fey. To think like my mother...and Morgana. Seeing a weak part in the ceiling, I jumped up and scratched it, sinking my claws deep until I felt a ridge line, then I yanked. For an instant, nothing happened. Then the roof fell and I scarcely managed to dart away before the debris trapped me with the wendigo.

  “That won’t last long.”

  “It doesn’t have to,” I said, aiming to land near Mordon. I, however, was on a path to overshoot him and I couldn’t figure out how to stop myself, other than by bringing my wings up sharply. I didn’t hoover in time and dropped like a stone.

  “My heroine.”

  “You bet. Do you have any energy left to transfer?”

  Even in a dragon form, Mordon could cock his eye ridge skeptically. “Why would I do that?”

  “Just do it already!” I snapped, realizing he did not recognize me as Feraline, but rather he saw me as some random dragon that appeared from no where. I had no time to explain. “Unless you want to unleash a wendigo the size of a fire drake on the sleeping world.”

  “I’ll have to shift,” he said warily, and now I noticed that the sorcerers were huddled together, planning a group spell.

  “Good. Take your friends with you, I don’t want any more harm to them.” I also was wondering if I could chomp away on one or two of the sorcerers. My bet was there was a reason why Mordon either had not, or had not succeeded. “Just hurry.”

  Mordon snorted—a much more intimidating noise when he was a dragon and I was a dragon, and I realized I was still only a third of his size. Possibly even less than that, actually. Unlike him, my limbs were slender and willowy, covered in silvery gray scales with hints of blush hide beneath. Golden eyes marked some of my scales, and I was curious to see what patterns they formed.

  Mordon shifted, his body transitioning gracefully from dragon to human, but as a human, he showed raised welts up and down his arms and face. “Give me your nose.”

  I lowered it down, holding back a cry as a shadow creature began ripping scales off my shoulder, like taking clump of hair and yanking them out at once. It wasn’t life-threatening, yet, and I needed energy for my magic. Mordon laid a hand with two busted fingers on my nose and closed his eyes.

  It was not the soft tingle like when he had given energy to me before; it was a razing jolt that seized every muscle in my body from the hook of my nose to the thin whip of my tail. For those three seconds, my senses were heightened. The sores from the pixies’ swords throbbed, the pull of scales ripped as their tiny roots came dislodged from my hide, the wendigo stank of broiled skunk buried in sulfurous sludge, and I could hear the pixies returning from their trip rearming with swords. Another scale tore from my hide, every little root snapping and releasing in a mix of pain and relief. My muscles relaxed and I sagged, stopping when tiny swords started to become further embedded in my skin.

  “I’ve given you what I’ve got left, don’t waste it,” said Mordon, looking me square in the eye.

  I spun and launched back into the air, feeling out the current. It coursed under my wings, soothing the aches just a little; the shadow creatures couldn’t keep up. Rocks from the rubble moved where Gregor was buried. I needed to hurry. Mordon moved quickly, even with wounds, snapping the binds to my human body and throwing it over his shoulder. Bending down, he grabbed Barnes by his collar and pulled him behind.

  The sorcerers were not absent in their duty; a fire bolt struck me full in the chest and I hit the ceiling, bruising and scraping my wings against the rough surface. I hadn’t even started to fall before a second one rammed my soft belly below my ribcage, forcing the air from my lungs. A third bolt—electric—slapped my face against the ceiling. I didn’t even have the air to let out a shriek.

  A gaunt hand burst from the soil, and a large mound began to shake as a snarling Gregor emerged from the swollen earth. He howled and ran towards Mordon. The sorcerers raised their hands, shouting out the final words to a spell. It was now or never, but would it be enough? Would it have the effect I needed, or would Mordon meet a gruesome end? How much energy had Mordon had left? My mind was too frazzled to gauge my own strength, but I knew it was fading very, very quickly. It was the way all first shifts were, and this was one crappy test of endurance.

  I took a deep breath and amplified the wind current, sucking it in one hole in the ceiling and blowing it out the other, letting it move in a large circle until it had built up momentum. No more than ten feet away from Mordon, the wendigo dropped himself into a launching position. I lowered the current down to ground level, the arc ripping at Barnes’ pants and tangling Mordon’s hair. Gregor dug his claws into the ground, fighting against the fullest brunt of the current, holding his ground.

  The sorcerers shouted out a final word, lightening struck, and the cavern gave a turmoilous tremble. The crack of thunder punctuated the crack of the earth as it burst open into a deep ravine racing across the cavern floor. I dodged falling ceiling, managing well but for a rock that gave me a bloody nose, and Gregor jumped high into the stream to avoid being drawn into it, landing safely on the other side.

  Sucking in another breath, this one tainted with my own blood and dust, I altered the wind’s course. It rushed down to the sorcerers, and one of them cast a shield. It slowed the wind, knocking them almost to the other side of the ravine, but they fell just short of reaching safe haven on the other side.

  A monster down below roared, followed by their pitiful wailing as they were eagerly consumed. It belched fire, the flames reaching up well past the cavern floor. Confused, Gregor paused in his preparations to leap over the ravine back at Mordon. The pixies, I was very satisfied to note, had been sucked out of the cavern and into a natural current, whisking them far away.

  I dove, cutting through my current to gain momentum. The wendigo leaned over the edge to catch a better sight of the lava tentacles finding footing as the giant octopus crawled upwards form the bowels of the earth, reeking of rotten eggs. Adjusting my wings a little, I aimed myself squarely on Gregor’s body.

  My claws embedded in his chest, hitting him with a thunk that jarred my teeth and took the air clean out of Gregor. We rammed into a rock and I felt bones crunch. I bit his arm and yanked with ferocity, feeling muscles tear and ligaments strain. His fist met my jaw, and I opened my eyes the next second with my wing tweaked painfully beneath my side and my head throbbing. The wind had died down to a lazy breeze, and my connection with magic was slim.

  Hissing, Gregor stomped to the ledge, peering once again at the monster making his ascent. There was hunger in that twisted smile as he watched its slow progression. “Those infernal goons have exceeded my expectations! As have you, in that you are a drake. But a weaker drake I have never seen.”

  “I hurt you.”

  “And as soon as I eat that creature, I will be well again, and stronger than if I had eaten you and your friends.”

  That must have been what happened to the dismembered sorcerer. “You will not!”

  I pounced on him, pulling him away from the ledge, filling my mouth with his burnt skin and muddy blood. He hit me with two fists, knocking me on my back.

  Panting, I opened my eyes and held my breath.

  Gregor jumped. When he reached the monster, the illusion evaporated and he fell straight through, emitting a howl of anger and frustration, tumbling head over heels down and down the sheer rock face, his nails scraping the rocks but not gaining any ground as he plummeted towards bubbling lava. He broke the surface, screaming. A foul stench of burning hair reaching me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  For a minute, I stayed where I was, taking in slow breaths and resting, hoping beyond hope that the lava the sorcerers had found would suffice to keep the wendigo out of my hair for good. If he emerged from that crevice like something out of a bad horror movie, I think I was going to lose it and laugh myself to death before he could crawl over to do it himself. No, it wasn’t a funny thought. I just prefer laughing to crying. My body was so heavy again, and the
tiny needles stuck beneath my scales no longer hurt, they just spread a feeling of warmth and numbness across my body. The things could be poisoned for all I knew.

  I needed to get up. I needed to find my human body and do whatever I needed to do to join the two forms. And I needed to do it very soon.

  A whistle, a strange sound with a tune from a different era, caught my attention.

  “Outside,” said a ghost, a child, a boy about the same age as Railey but wearing colonial clothes, standing in the doorway and waving me on. “Your friends are outside, come on! That girl Railey told me to get you on your feet!”

  At his words, I rocked back and forth twice, then pulled myself up. I had to fly over the cavern, my back leg slipping on the other ridge when I landed. I pretended to have not slipped, and the boy looked the other way. I began to walk beside him, not wanting to fly though I was sure he could keep up. “How’s my friend?”