Time Warp (The Brindle Dragon Book 7)

by Jada Fisher

  Eist raised an eyebrow. “That is a very specific thing to ask me not to turn into.”

  But Dille just stole one of Eist’s moves, shrugging noncommittally. “Hey, I have nightmares too.”

  Before Eist could press her for a further explanation, she was already pushing the door open and heading into the hall. She followed Dille, of course, Fior right behind her. The more she looked around, the more she recognized their surroundings, but there was also a strange sort of unfamiliarity to them. Eist guessed that it was that the halls were cleaner, the stones less worn. After all, they were at least five hundred years into the past. Nearly a half millennium of wear and tear was bound to have a visual effect on the academy.

  “I don’t understand how no one is here.” Eist said as they went down the hall, passing multiple other rooms, until they finally reached a set of stairs.

  “The last event happened right before the first-years arrived. It destroyed a whole wing of this place, but luckily it was already empty. I’m guessing we landed in the empty part, like I wanted.”

  “You say wanted like you weren’t certain of where we’d land.”

  “Of course I wasn’t. I can put as much as I can into our incantations, but there are still some variables that just can’t be accounted for. I’m just happy we didn’t end up inside of a wall or under the ground.”

  Eist’s eyes widened at that and her stomach dropped. “Wait, that’s a thing that can happen? You never said that.”

  “Because I’m good enough that it wasn’t that large of a risk.” They reached a door and Dille opened it, peeking out. “Ah, we’re in the main part of the academy now. Just try to look like an actual dragon rider and not…well, not us.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s very specific. Thank you.”

  They both stepped into the hall, Fior following uncertainly after them. He was sniffing something fierce, his thick brow bones furrowed low over his crystalline eyes. It seemed he knew something was off but wasn’t quite certain of what it was. Hopefully, he wasn’t too traumatized considering the circumstances of his last time travel.

  “Oh, right…”

  Eist looked sharply to Dille, who had stopped still in her tracks. “What?”

  “I can’t believe I forgot something.”

  Eist’s stomach dropped even farther. One would think that it was well below the basement that they had just come out of, but apparently, there was further it could go. “What? What did you forget?”

  “If I’m not mistaken, we’re in the generation before your parents.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m pretty sure that means we’re at war with Margaid. And I’m very clearly Margaidian.”

  “Oh,” Eist whispered. “What do we do?”

  Dille sighed and rolled her shoulders. “We’ll deal with it if it comes up. Oh, and thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For not saying I told ya so.”

  Eist smiled weakly. “That’s not really my style. Now come on, maybe we can get to the hatchery without catching too much attention.”

  “Somehow I doubt that,” Dille grumbled, slowing her steps so she could fall in line behind Eist. “I’m sure Fior is going to draw plenty of attention on his own.”

  “That’s true. They didn’t have brindles even now. Do you think they remember them, or has his kind already been pushed out of their common knowledge?”

  “Considering we’re meeting the workers who trained your grandfather and he had no idea about brindles, I’d guess that they don’t know about Fior’s kind either.”

  Eist shook her head in disbelief as they transitioned from the halls by the kitchen toward one of the side exits. The same one she and Dille had used to sneak around Yacrist once, back when they were first becoming friends and his affection had been a bit too intimidating for her.

  She frowned at the thought as she kept walking. If what Yacrist had told her was true, even then he’d been in love with her. Or infatuated, depending on if one believed such a young man could really know what love was. It seemed impossible to believe, but it certainly put her memories in a different light as she recalled his sometimes strange behavior.

  It also made her heart ache.

  “You alright there?”

  Eist just shrugged. This wasn’t the time to go into it for several reasons. “Let’s just get to the hatchery.”

  They made it to the tucked-away door that led out to a field. It was connected to the main camping and play area that visiting dragon riders used for their mounts, but it was almost always empty.

  Or…it was in her time. As Eist stepped into the sun, she remembered that if she was indeed in the past that there were going to be a whole lot more dragon riders.

  “Oh…” Dille murmured in shock as they saw a couple dozen tents sprawled out across the side-field, some more elaborate than others.

  “I guess we just pretend that this is normal,” Eist whispered before striding forward like they belonged there and had a mission to do.

  Well, one of those things was correct.

  For someone who had spent most of her childhood and her first couple of years at the academy pretending that she didn’t feel or notice all the stares, Eist realized that she had become pretty bad at it as of late. She could sense more and more eyes settling on her, and the farther she walked, the more their oppressive curiosity seemed to settle over her like a blanket.

  “Dille,” she whispered urgently when they were about halfway across the field, the small roof of the hatchery and the mountain it was built into just appearing at the edge of her vision.

  “Whatever it is, can it wait?” Eist barely heard her and had to crane her neck to watch her friend’s mouth.

  “I… I don’t know. It’s just, uh, I’m feeling things that I really shouldn’t.”

  Dille raised one full eyebrow. “What could that possibly mean?”

  “I dunno. It means that I’m just feeling things that I know I’m not feeling. You know how sometimes if someone close to you is feeling uncomfortable, you pick up on it and start feeling uncomfortable too?”

  “I can’t help it that I’m uncom—”

  “I don’t mean you specifically, Dille. I’m just saying… I’m feeling some not-nice things and I know they’re not coming from me.”

  “Oh.” Finally, she seemed to get it. “What kind of not-nice things?”

  “The bad kind of surprise. Feelings of territory being invaded. There are some pleasant surprises in there, some gentle curiosity, but they’re not the ones that make my stomach twist.”

  “I see. I’d put that in the category of more of your magical abilities manifesting. Makes sense that the gift of sight might also include insight as well.” She sighed, rubbing her face. “Perhaps we should walk a bit faster.”

  “Agreed.”

  They picked up the pace, and Eist was pleased to see that they were almost over the last knoll that would have them nearly on top of the hatchery. Maybe the foreboding and worry building in her gut were nothing. Her body just reacting to far more magic in the air than she was used to and her senses getting all crossed.

  But just when she thought that they might get out of the whole situation without a disturbance, a shadow passed over and a large, purple dragon landed in front of her with a thud.

  Both of its heads snapped forward, as if they were going to try to intimidate her by snapping close to her face, but then Fior was in front of her as quick as a shadow, snarling loud enough to have them jerking back in surprise.

  But Eist just stood there, heart pounding as she looked at the large, glittering beast in front of her. Of course it would be a purple dragon. Of course. Her eyes flicked up its neck, hoping to somehow see Yacrist perched there even though she knew it was impossible. But it was so easy to imagine, seeing him astride Alynbach, all smiles and smooth words.

  Her eyes reached the saddle atop the beast and of course it wasn’t Yacrist. It was someone she didn’t know at all.

  �
�Calm down there, Vil’darhyn,” the tall man said with a smile that was both saccharinely sweet and far too sour. “You wouldn’t want to upset our fellow riders now, would you?”

  The dragon let out identical huffs from each head, their four eyes watching Eist, Dille, and Fior with interest. It was right about then that Eist wished Dille would have been able to bring either of her massive red dragons, but neither of them would have been able to fit into their ramshackle ritual room—or the spell circles, for that matter.

  Eist ducked her head and tried to move around him, best not to cause a scene and all that, but it seemed that in the short moments that he had delayed them, several more riders had come to stand beside him on foot. They made an informal sort of wall, and Eist didn’t need years of bullying in her childhood to understand exactly what was happening.

  “I don’t recall ever seeing you around here,” the man said, sliding off his dragon. He was clearly into his thirties, or at least that’s when his dragon had stopped his aging. It was always hard to tell with riders. “Or your dragon. Or your servant.”

  “She isn’t my—” Eist cut herself off. Dille didn’t have a dragon and certainly couldn’t call on either of her mounts to come to her, so the best thing would be to have people believe she was some form of help. But Eist didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all.

  But of course, the man caught it. “She isn’t your what?”

  “None of your business,” Eist snapped, moving to push past him.

  For a moment, she hoped that her direct approach would surprise him. They weren’t far enough back where female dragon riders were scoffed at or repelled from the academy, but she was small enough that most people didn’t expect her to go right to confrontation. It had been one of her go-to tactics back when she was bullied relentlessly by the town children after her parents’ death, and it had worked pretty well when the whole Ain situation was happening.

  Sadly, he didn’t seem caught off guard at all, his arm coming out to block her since she was much too short to shoulder-check.

  “What kind of dragon is that, anyway? Doesn’t look like any I know.”

  “He’s a copper dragon,” Eist said flatly, looking right up in the man’s face. He was fairly standard looking, with nondescript features and a beard that covered anything that might be interesting.

  “Don’t look like no copper dragon I ever seen.”

  “His egg got rolled when it wasn’t supposed to,” Eist lied as easy as anything. When they had been preparing to go into the past, they’d come up with several handfuls of explanations to explain her bronze, gold, black, and brown dragon. “He has a few defects, but they’re nothing that’s held him back.”

  “That so?”

  “That’s so.” Eist hardened her gaze and stared him straight in the eyes. She wasn’t going to back down. She wasn’t going to show weakness either. She had faced far stronger, far more terrifying opponents than the peon in front of her, and she refused to be intimidated.

  Even if they were surrounded.

  Sometimes she wondered if she was really brave, or just really, really stupid.

  “I’ve never seen a dragon grow up full-strong after being rolled in the egg. Maybe we all could have a look at him. And your pretty servant girl there could clean up our tents while we’re at it.”

  Eist moved on instinct, and within a blink, her dagger was pressed up against the man’s throat. “Let us pass,” she ordered firmly. Even with her damaged hearing, she could tell that her tone was low and threatening.

  “Eist…” Dille warned from behind her. “We can’t make too much trouble.”

  “Oh, we don’t want trouble,” the man said with a lopsided grin. “We just wanted to say hi to the noble-born rider that none of us have ever seen before. What, your cushy position at the palace or in the court need you to come down and visit us common dragon riders?”

  Eist snorted. “Since when is there anything like a common dragon rider? We’re what almost every little child dreams of being. We’re what legends are made of. Whatever fight you think we have here doesn’t exist, so let us be.”

  “Wow, such a pretty speech. Trust someone of the Auber court to spout out whole speeches at the drop of the hat. That whole family is a bunch of silver-tongued shysters. How the council picked them over the Monteliones is beyond me.”

  It was silly. Eist had heard many worse insults without ever losing her cool. But to hear Yacrist’s family name tumble from the lips of the man in front of her set her off in a way that she didn’t know was possible.

  Fingers curling, she slammed her fist up into his jaw as hard as she could, only barely managing to flick her dagger out of the way before she did something much worse.

  Then, everything was happening at once. His purple dragon snarled, both heads trying to snap at her, but Fior tackled it with a bellow. The line of people around the man surged forward, while both she and Dille drew their blades.

  Great. They’d been around for only a few moments and were already in a fight.

  Eist saw the glint of scimitar in the corner of her vision and whirled, catching it on the hilt of her shortsword and pushing it off. She had to remind herself not to strike any lethal blows, her mind and body automatically wanting to sink into the routine that had kept her alive after a month of fight after fight on the battlefield.

  These weren’t abominations. They were just cads. And as much as she might have believed it when she was younger, being a cad was not a death sentence.

  Someone’s fit slammed into her back, sending her stumbling forward. She was glad it wasn’t a sword considering that she was the one who made this into a bladed brawl, but she didn’t give herself time to sit there and be grateful.

  Pressing one of her hands to the ground, she used her momentum to flip herself forward until she was back on her feet. It brought her face to face with two riders who seemed to be both too surprised and impressed by her move, and she responded by kicking one of them in the stomach and flipping the other one over her back as she turned.

  Eist felt the displacement of air and she ducked just as Fior’s thick tail swept over their fight. From her crouch, she could see that more people were running toward them, and they were very quickly going to be overwhelmed.

  Especially since they couldn’t use magic or Fior’s roar.

  She rolled forward, centering herself toward Dille and surveying the field again. Her fist lashed out to cuff a man as he started to rise, but the situation was looking grim.

  That was when a loud gong-like peal rang over their fight, and Eist looked to see a woman standing just a bit away from them, a large pot in one hand and a club that she was beating the bottom with.

  “What in the name of the Three are all of you doing here?” she shouted, her face clearly showing how unimpressed she was by the wild antics. Eist looked her over, taking in the woman’s thick, raven curls, her pale, almost translucent skin, and her one green and one blue eye.

  That was definitely who she was looking for.

  The same man who had started the whole problem rose to his feet, no doubt about to spill out some lie or another that would make him seem innocent. But then the woman’s eyes went to Eist and she threw her pot at him before stalking right to Eist.

  “You,” she said, grabbing the girl’s hand. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Me?” Eist asked, so surprised by the sudden turn of events that she didn’t know what the appropriate thing would be to say in response.

  “Yes. You,” the woman answered, sounding tired and relieved and disbelieving all at once. “It’s about time you showed up.”

  9

  Unto the Children

  “What do you mean you were waiting for us?” Eist asked, looking around the hatchery common room they were in.

  It was far too similar to how it had been with her grandfather. Sure, some of the decorations were different, and the blankets and pelts were different, but other than that, the rooms could have been id
entical, even so many centuries apart.

  “I mean exactly that. It wasn’t very nice of you to yank me out of the middle of battle and then plop me here without so much of an explanation besides to wait.”

  Eist blinked at her, gobsmacked and more than a little confused.

  “I what?”

  “You…” The woman paused, taking in both her and Dille’s expressions before sighing. “Let me guess. That hasn’t happened for you yet?”

  “What hasn’t happened for us yet?” Eist asked.

  “I told you,” Dille murmured, entirely inaudible if Eist hadn’t been able to see her lips. “Time things always go a bit funny.”

  “I’m not sure funny is the word I’d use for it,” the woman said, taking a long drink of what was in her tankard. Which definitely was not tea. “But to make a long story short, I was in the middle of a battle, about to defeat the Blight with all of my sisters, when suddenly a spell opened up above us and I was ripped to here. I thought that I had died and was just experiencing some sort of spell effect from the Blight when suddenly there was this girl with me.

  “You, by the way. I mean you. I’d never forget those eyes, or the power that I could see written all over you. You told me to wait for you, and that I had a greater purpose to serve. You also told me to take care of the dragons and to watch out for an injured man who would come along and have a knack for comforting them.

  “Then, just like that, you were gone in a wink, and I’ve been here for about two hundred years.” Her eyes narrowed accusingly. “You ripped me out of a fight we actually had a chance of winning, so I hope whatever your plan was is worth it. Or, uh, will be worth it whenever you actually find your plan.”

  “Thanks,” Eist said slowly. “I’ll keep that in mind for whenever I come up with it.”

  “Please do.” She finally set down her drink, her mismatched eyes staring them down. Eist didn’t think she’d ever met anyone with a gaze more unsettling than her own, but Brunillde of the Hatchery seemed like she could take the crown. “So, if you’re not here to explain to me why you yanked me out of my time and stranded me here, then why are you here? Judging by how none of those other riders seemed to know you, and the fact that I’ve never seen such garishly out-of-style clothes, I’m guessing you’re not from this time either?”