by A. S. Oren
Since I turned six. On that birthday everything started. Edgar theorises that my dragon blood finally overpowered the angel side and awoke the curse within me. It's probably the only reason I'm still alive today. If it had happened to me as a baby, I may not have made it through the first transformation.
Amr wipes a tear away from his cheek. “I’m sorry you had to go through that at such a young age, it must’ve been terrifying.”
It wasn’t fun, but I had Paden, Maverick, and Edgar there to help me out.
Amr peers back at the guys. "Thank you for being there for her when I couldn't be. I wish things could have been different." His gaze turns back to me. "I really do. I prayed to the Sun god every day that a Void would open up and allow me to find you, so I could stay with you."
I look to the nightstand by my bed. The ring he gave me the day we had to say goodbye to each other lays on the white wood surface, with the black string looped through it. I always take it off before I lie down. I'm glad I did today, or the strap would've broke when I shifted. I can't believe I didn't wake up until seconds before. Edgar's parents' marriage locket scale and flower are kept in a small box next to the ring necklace. I'll figure out how to fix it somehow.
I thought about you every day, too. But, I'm glad my absence kept you, mom, and dad safe.
Edgar probably would've kept him safe also, but one of us had to stay with our parents. They wouldn't have been able to deal without at least one of their children to take care of.
"Yeah, if it had been up to me, I would've kept running with you though."
I don't even know why we had to run and hide. We came to his domain anyway, and now, he's done something to me. I couldn't even fend him off for a whole month.
Paden rubs at his brow. "How were we supposed to know he'd hit you with something that only took a prick of a nail to infect you? We weren't trained for something so small. We should've been there, but they kept us from you on purpose, and Jer wouldn't have been able to do everything on his own."
Jericho. My heart falls into my stomach. For a brief moment, I hadn't thought about how much emotional pain I'm in over him. Maverick nudges Paden with his elbow. "Dude. Not cool."
Have you two talked to him? Of course, they know by now; if they didn’t know before, it wouldn't have taken them long to figure it out after Amr probably said something to him.
Dante shakes his head. "I don't think there's any way to talk to that guy. He only wants to hear his own thoughts. I'm pretty sure he wants me dead. I don't know why. As far as I know, I haven't done anything to him."
I move my front legs out in front of me, just barely touching him with the tip of my talons and lay my head down on top of them.
It's nothing you could've helped. He's angry you're a true part of my Fold, and he isn't. I couldn't get him to understand that it doesn't matter to me that the Fates didn't choose him, that I choose him.
Maverick huffs. "That should be more than enough for him. The jackass."
Horace shakes his head. "I can see where he's coming from. He'll never feel as if you love him equally since he isn't the same as the others. It will always be less for him, even if you yourself know your feelings are equal for all of them. This Fold thing is complicated. I know there's a chance I'm not the only person for Amr's Fold, and that I'll have to share him with possibly several other people. I'm oddly okay with that thought, but I don't know how an outsider would feel if they fell in love with Amr and learned that they would always have to share him with others who have essentially been chosen for him, but they weren't."
Amr strokes Horace’s cheek before kissing him. "I love you, Ace."
Horace rests his head on Amr’s shoulder. "I love you, too."
I can understand his point, but it doesn't make me feel any better Another part of me doesn't feel like it's true. Jericho needs to be with us, with me.
Dante nods. "To be honest, I still haven't been able to wrap my mind around this whole Fold thing or how it works, but I'm okay with it too. As if just being here, with you, gets rid of all the negativity I've felt for a long time."
Paden nods. "Mav and I felt like that in the beginning, when we were kids. It was like Yule every day. It's lessened over the years, I think because we spend nearly every day together, but I still get a happy sugar rush when I'm around you." He stares at me again.
Likewise, you guys know you take away the pain, especially when there's kissing involved. The effect lasts longer, I feel like my old self again. Do you ever feel the jolt when we touch? I've talked about this before with them. I know their answer, but I always hope it will change and that they will feel it, too.
Maverick touches at his eye, his fingers ghosting over the purple, puffy mess it’s turned into. “No, I do get a nice feeling though, like warm and fuzzy, it turns to a heat when we kiss.”
So they do feel something. At least I’m not draining energy from them. I don’t want to do to them what Mercutio does to me when he tries to touch me.
“Ace, tell Avvi about the project you’ve been working on.” Amr nudges the man on his lap. “I’m sure she’ll like the news.”
Horace grins before reaching into the pocket of his slacks and pulling out his P.A. He sends it into the air, and it shifts into an elderly man.
If we so choose, our P.A.s can look however we want them to; I never chose to do that with mine. I took her as she was. Why does Horace have an old guy for his? Did it come looking like that?
“Lenard, run program 4101316.”
The old man bows. “Yes, sir.”
A green light shines behind his eyes. “Program 4101316 has been activated. Decoy actions in place. The room is secure.”
“What did you do?”
Horace smiles before he plays with adjusting his glasses. “I like computers and hacking. As soon as I got my hands on a P.A., I began to tinker with it. Breaking through firewalls and creating new programs for him to run that would not have been available for student P.A.s. The program I just used blinds the Watchers from recording us. They instead see something made up that the program deems acceptable.”
“How do you know it’s working correctly, or that it isn’t sending them something that shows us doing something that would go against the rules?”
Horace shakes his head. “I uploaded the rule book into the program, it can’t put anything that would go against the rules. As for if I know whether it’s working or not,” he taps at the frame of his glasses, “my glasses have a sensor in them that picks up on the program. The walls change to a different colour when it’s in effect.”
“That’s cool”.
Amr nudges Horace. “Tell her about our plan on using it to help us.”
“I’ve been modifying it so that your P.A.s can download the program to use it. I have a 2.0 about ready to launch that’ll allow us to create bubbles of protection around us at any time, so we can explore the forests on the edge of the school without being detected by the Watchers.”
Paden nods. “There has to be something out there they don’t want us to see. Otherwise, why would it be off limits?”
Even with this program, it would be best to explore it at night, but I don’t know how well my dragon form would fit in there. Got any programs that would nullify my curse?
Horace stares at my golden eye. “No, but I do have a program that will work with witch magic to put your mind temporarily into a computer. In this case, your P.A. should work.”
Have you ever seen or actually tried it yourself?
“No, it’s still in the testing stage, I’ve been trying it out with the lab mice. So far it’s about fifty-fifty.”
I lift my head back up. Yeah, thanks for the thought, but no thanks. I don’t think I could stomach being in the computer brain of my P.A.
Dante shifts his legs to stretch out next to mine. “Maybe the shaman crystal could help? I have a piece of it.”
What are you talking about?
His amber eyes widen. “What? You’re the on
e that’s cursed, and you don’t know about the shaman crystal?” He looks back at Paden and Maverick, who are just as clueless as me.
Obviously not. What do you know that I don’t?
Dante laughs. “Well, it’s mainly just a legend. Nothing has ever proved it to be true, but the story and jewellery continue to be passed down through the Royal families." He lifts his right hand to show the large ring on his finger. A pink stone glints in the light coming from the living room. "It's said that the shaman stone can nullify the curse, as long as a female wears it. But long ago, one of the Ancients broke it into many pieces. I have no idea what its power is in this state."
Probably nothing. Those legends never turn out to be true. They say the Shaman woman is still alive, but wouldn’t someone have found her by now to get rid of the curse?
Amr shakes his head. "Dad always said she's still alive, but she doesn't want to help us. Even after thousands of years, she holds a grudge against our ancestors for killing her mermaid lover."'
Dante pulls the ring off his finger. "There's only one way to see if the crystal holds any truth to it. Again, I don't know if it has any power due to it being broken up, and if it does work, how long it will last. It could be half the night or just twenty minutes. I doubt it will permanently work though."
He leans forward to touch the stone to one of my scales.
Wait. Don't do it yet. If I turn back into my human self because of it, the ward alarms might go off with you guys in here. Have Amr stay, there should be no reason for him to set off the alarm, we are siblings after all.
Horace stands from Amr's lap. "I'm going to leave my P.A. in here so that the shield stays up. I don't think it's a good idea if they know the crystal has power to it. Who knows what they would do with that information."
He does have a point. Dante hands the ring off to Amr, and the other guys leave the room to stand just behind the threshold of my bedroom doorway.
Amr looks at the thick silver band of the ring. "There's runes in here, I don't know how they will affect the power of the stone. Mom only ever taught me the basics of how to read them, and this is beyond my level of understanding."
Just try it. The worse thing that could happen is that it doesn't work at all.
He nods and walks forward to press it against one of the scales on my shoulder. My body warms at the touch and shifts in an instant.
I lift my hands. "It worked. It really worked." Tears cloud my vision. This has to be a dream. I never thought some little stone would help me be normal. I turn to Amr, breaking the contact the stone had with the skin on my shoulder. In that second, my body burns with the warning of another shift. "Hand me the ring."
Amr places it in my hand, and the warning stops.
"I have to be touching it in order for it to work. I was about to shift back when I stopped touching it." I wrap my arms around Amr's neck and hug him. He hugs me back. At least I shifted in my school uniform, or this would be awkward with me being naked. I don't normally shift in the uniform, it feels rough and strange. I slip the ring on to my left thumb, where it has a better chance of not falling off. "Now, we have to see how long this will last. I'm hoping for all night, then I'll never have to shift again."
Maverick motions with his hands. "Come out here so we can hug you already. We haven't seen you in your human form at night since before your birthday all those years ago."
I want to do more than hug him, but making out with Paden, Maverick, or perhaps even Dante right now would be too weird with my brother in the room. And, I'm not going to ask him to leave during this joyous celebration of me being human while the moon hangs in the sky.
I cross the threshold and give them all a hug. I linger on Dante. "Thank you for having the ring. I didn't know such a thing existed or that it worked."
After hugs, I step back over the threshold. "Just in case I shift back. I want to be in the room that's big enough to house my form, and the living room isn't going to cut it."
Paden runs a hand through his hair. "I can't believe this actually worked.”
"Lenard, set a stopwatch and come stand over the threshold to cover both rooms." Horace orders with a point of his finger.
He has a good idea. At least this way we'll know how long this cure works.
I take a seat on the floor and cross my legs. "Pull the loveseats over here, then we can talk about this plan to explore the forest. I'm dying to see what creepy things lay within its trees.” Maybe if we don’t talk about the possibility of me changing back, it won’t happen.
Together, Dante, Maverick, and Paden move the two couches to sit across from me.
Amr and Horace take one couch whilst Paden takes the spot in between Maverick and Dante. "Well, since the stone worked for you, Lon, I think we should stick to exploring at night. It will give us the cover of darkness as an added bonus to Horace's program. We're all sufficient in basic elemental magic for protection against anything bad that may lurk in there."
Amr nods. "We should also have some way to track our path. It'll be dark, so how will we see?"
"Fire, and I can use our magic to light the way.” He shoots a wink at me for before igniting a fireball in his hand. “Unless you guys know how to use night vision?"
We all shake our heads. That wasn't something Edgar taught us. He said we were too young to learn a magic that could put a lot of strain on our eyes.
I shrug. "The fireballs should work, right? They won't be so powerful that someone could spot us from Spearwood, but they also won't be so weak that we will be tripping over every rock and tree root that stands in our way."
Maverick rubs at his face before wincing; he must've forgotten about the purple bruise swelling up his eye. "What kind of monster would live in a place like that? Do we have to be ready for, like, a werewolf or something? ‘Cause I don't know how that works, since we are already shifters, but I don't want to become all hairy and angry once a month."
Horace snorts. "Tomorrow isn't even the full moon, and I didn't hear any howls out there the last full moon, so I doubt there's werewolves out there.”
I nod. "Regardless, we still need to be ready for anything."
Paden stretches. It's getting late, I should make them go to bed soon. "I think we have things covered, there's six of us with different kinds of magic."
"If worse comes to worse, I can just shift back into my dragon form again. I doubt there's a lot out there that could defeat me in that form, except for maybe another, better skilled, dragon."
Dante slaps his hand against the arm of the loveseat. "Then it's settled, we're actually going to go out there and explore."
I rub at my own eyes now, they kind of burn. "I think it's a good idea. I want to know if there's anything hiding in there for one. I don't care what my dad said, I don't trust Perlow. He didn't send Ed the blueprints for the tunnels that run underneath the mountain, there were never any blueprints for the layout of the land either. I bet he’s keeping something in the forest he doesn't want us to know about."
Amr frowns. "Dad trusts him though. There has to be a reason for that after so many years. We should believe there’s good in people, and Perlow doesn't give off the same bad vibe that Rosemen does."
I run my fingers over my knee. "Just trusting the good in people isn't smart, Amr. Anyone can hurt you at any time, no matter how well you think you know them. Everyone has two sides, and they never show both at once." Just like Jericho, I never saw the bad, jealous side of him until he was walking away.
A pregnant silence falls over the room. Is this always going to be a touchy subject?
Maverick clears his throat. "I really am sorry, Lon. I wish there was something we could do to change everything back to how it was."
I stare at the ground. I can't look into any of their eyes right now. "I offered that option, he didn't want it, so we'll just have to respect his wishes and keep our distance. I have faith he will want to be friends again." I shake my head, trying to banish the bad thoughts that he may never d
ecide to be by our side. "You guys should get to bed. I won't have you being zombies on my account."
They all nod and stand. Paden moves to stand on the edge of the threshold. "I think that is a good idea. We will need our strength for tomorrow." He holds out a hand, and I reach over the line to take it and stand. He pulls me into the living room and tilts my chin up with his finger. "I'll always be by your side no matter what happens. Do you understand me?” He leans down and places a simple kiss on my lips. A warm joy floods me. “Goodnight.”
He pulls back and Maverick steps up to take his place. "Ditto what he said. We need an anime day soon, just you and me.” Another simple kiss, nothing fancy. My brother doesn't stand more than six feet away.
Maverick moves to the side and motions for Dante to take his place. My heart picks up. I don't know if I can kiss him yet. Guilt washes over me. It's too soon.