Heresy of Dragons

by Erik Reid

“I have to keep pressure on the wound,” I said. “She’ll bleed out.”

  “Let her,” Clara said.

  “No,” I said. “You may have a death wish, but she doesn’t. She wants to live this life, and I want to live it with her.”

  “I don’t extoll death,” Clara said. “I thought the Goddess wanted me to be a warrior. I was wrong. I should never have turned away from the path of light. Not when I have so many people here to walk that path with me.”

  “What are you saying?” I asked.

  “Selena’s wounds are grave,” Clara said. “She may die. I will accept that pain if I fail, but not as a burden. As the consequence of hope held impossibly high. Let me work.”

  I pried my hand away from Selena’s chest as Clara slid hers into the same place, covering the wound while snow powdered her short pink hair and the bridge of her small nose.

  Clara’s eyes flashed with carnation light, soft and reassuring. Energy gathered above her hands in a small sphere, casting the same pink glow over Selena’s features and all the white surfaces around us.

  Selena’s face contorted as if in pain, while Clara’s lips pinched together tight. For a full minute, neither girl took a single breath. I practically swallowed gulps of air to compensate, as if my own belabored diaphragm could pump their lungs for them.

  Clara’s whole body began to shake, and Selena’s along with it. Then, in perfect unison, they gasped.

  Selena’s eyes opened wide. The faint pink spark of Clara’s magic lit the inside of her pupils, and in a flash it was gone. She sat upright and threw her arms around Clara, whose breath came in short, sharp bursts now.

  “You held on,” Clara said. “You held on!”

  “I don’t understand,” Selena said. “She told me I had to turn back, that she gave up too easily when the time came to choose. Was she real? Did you see her too?”

  “I did,” Clara said. “She speaks to me at times. At first I resisted her presence, but she is a comfort now.”

  “Whoa,” I said. “Slow down a second. Who did you see?”

  “A woman with golden hair,” Selena said. “And wings the color of honey. She said the baby is doing well… Alexstrasza, I think?”

  “You saw Gretna,” I said.

  “I thought I was the only one that saw her,” Kaylee said. “Since it was my enclave she died in. She always says confusing little phrases and then calls them proverbs.”

  “Not just you,” Dani said, her eyes starting to tear up. “She’s been with us this whole time. Every one of us.”

  Selena let go of Clara and got to her feet, brushing the snow from her long, blonde hair.

  Ignoring the slick of fresh blood that wet the front of her shirt, I threw my arms around her and hugged tight. I buried my chin against her neck and breathed in the deepest sigh of relief the planet Earth has ever known. Or Silura, for that matter.

  “You smell like citrus and rose,” I said, her hair blowing in the wind and tickling against my face.

  “And you,” she replied, her face pressed up against my shoulder, “smell like a biohazard. What happened to you?”

  “A lot,” I said. “And it isn’t over. I think I may have unleashed a horde of feral vampire monkeys from another dimension who have a taste for human blood. And a demon, more importantly.”

  Selena laughed.

  I pulled away from our hug. “I’m not kidding.”

  “He’s really not,” Dani said.

  “You have wings,” Selena said. “Like the woman in my dream.”

  “And it’s not even cosplay,” I said. “We have a lot to fill you in on. But you first. What the hell were you doing in an abandoned theme park?”

  “I’ve been here every night since you disappeared,” she said. “Your car was still in the parking lot, so I knew you were in here somewhere. The police suspected the worst, since your terrible blind date disappeared too.”

  “She got less terrible,” I said. “When it really mattered, she came through for us, and I’m not giving up on her now.”

  “What’s a… car?” Dani asked.

  “Like a big horse,” I said, “that you ride from the inside. I wonder if we can all fit.”

  “And by all,” Selena said, “are you including… them?” She gestured toward the two dozen red-skinned kobold teenagers that encircled us.

  “Oh, them,” I said. “Yeah, those are my kobold givens. Think: indentured servant children I’m gonna have to feed for the next seven years. It might only take five trips if we can stuff some of them in the trunk. Hell, they may even prefer that.

  “We just have to make one stop on the way home.”

  “Are you kidding?” Selena asked.

  “I wish. My best friend was begging me to pick up popcorn on the way over. She can be a real pain in the ass.”

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  About the Author

  All Erik needs in life is a laptop, a bottle of whiskey, and a mountain view. The only problem? The damn whiskey keeps running out.

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