by Zara Stark
Despite the pain he was feeling, Raiden bore down on Raiden and eye again. I stared up as his massive jaw opened wide and a ball of lightning-sparked to life between them.
He reared back to shoot the lightning at us and I winced, bracing myself for impact. Raiden was right above us, there was no way Cobalt could dodge. I squeezed my eyes shut, clenching my jaw just hoping I wouldn't bite my tongue when I got electrocuted. I heard a screech overhead and opened my eyes. Azar had swooped in from above and launched himself at Raiden, sinking his fiery claws into Raiden’s side. I screamed in pain, feeling the pain of my insides getting shredded. I frantically deactivated my card. Azar had reared away from Raiden when I screamed and that was all the distraction that Raiden needed to clamp his jaw down on Azar’s back. Azar fought back, slashing his burning claws into Raiden’s side. Azar was more immune to Raiden’s lightning than Raiden was to Azar’s intense flames. Azar’s dragon form was emanating so much heat, the rain around Azar’s body was evaporating into sizzling steam
Cobalt hung back from the squabble even though I could practically feel how badly he wanted to join in but I knew he wanted to protect me and not risk us getting electrocuted again. I held my side where I had felt Azar’s claws slash into Raiden through my cards link. The Justice card was a double-edged sword. My enemy might feel my pain but I felt there’s too. See why I was afraid of the Tarot cards? There was always a catch, a dangerous one. This card just happened to be a bit nastier than the others.
Disconnected from Raiden, I screamed at Azar. “Get him, Azar!”
Dragon Azar glanced at me and gave me a sharp-toothed grin. He jerked out of Raiden’s hold and swung his body around in an oddly flexible mid-air flip that a dragon shouldn’t be capable of doing and jumped onto Raiden’s back. He sunk his claws into Raiden’s shoulder joints and raked them down his back. Raiden flailed around, trying and failing to get Azar off of his back.
Blood poured down Raiden’s scales falling from his body like the rain. He was losing more and more blood by the second but he still flew in the air and fought back. Raiden in any form was tough bastard. He wasn’t easy to defeat and didn’t have many weaknesses and whatever they were, he kept them hidden. Maybe we really should have gone to find Nevada first, at least he was weak to fire. Cobalt finally started to recover from Raiden’s attack, the flapping of his wings finally growing strong again. Fighting mid-air in a thunderstorm against a lightning dragon was not a good idea. We needed to get him on the ground. I needed to take out one of his wings somehow, get him on the ground. That would be our only chance. I reached for my deck holster, hovering my hand over the cards, willing whatever card would work the best to come to the top. I felt the red pulse of my magic send the card I needed to the top of my deck. I pulled it, examining it between my fingers. An upside down man hung from a tree branch by his ankle, sun rays shined behind the man’s hand and he wore an enigmatic Mona Lisa smile on his face. My heart lurched. The Hanged Man was one of those cards that people tended to fear. I didn’t use my cards for divination, wasn’t my thing but the meanings people used tended to reflect what power they had or they could be completely off. The Hanged Man was associated with biding time, imprisonment, change, uncertainty or it could mean sacrifice. There were honestly no evil Tarot cards, people always got scared of cards like the Hanged Man, Death or the Devil. But they weren’t all ill omens all the time, all cards had positive and negative connotations. Except for the Tower card, fuck the Tower card.
Wishing for the best, I twirled the card in my fingers, activating the magic. I willed for something to take Raiden’s ability to fly but not permanently injure or kill him. I repeated it in my head like a prayer while the magic swelled from the Hanged Man in bright red waves. My heart rate rose, thumping wildly in my chest.
Crack! I heard the crack before I felt the pain. A moment later an immense pain shot through my arm and I howled in pain, tears streamed from my eyes. I looked down at my arm. My forearm was twisted into a weird angle, both my ulna and radius had to be broken. Raiden howled a second later, his wing snapping and twisting. He plummeted toward the earth in free fall and my heart sank. Damned Hanged Man card, damned tarot cards, I wanted my old deck back!
“Save Raiden!” I yelled into the wind, hoping Azar and Cobalt heard me. Both guys took a nosedive toward the ground, beating their wings to catch up to Raiden. I managed to hold on to Cobalt’s spikes with my good arm, cradling my broken arm to my chest. This was far worse than my last break, I really hoped that one of my guys could set it for me.
We caught up to Raiden. Azar flying under Raiden to slow his fall. Raiden was a bit bigger than Azar but Azar held his weight with ease. Cobalt flew next to Azar, ready to help if something happened. Raiden screeched but didn’t fight back, even in dragon form he was smart enough to not turn away the help that was saving his life. If Raiden had hit the ground from the height we were at, it would’ve killed a human but probably only broken dozens of bones in a tough dragon’s body. Azar’s feet landed on the ground and he tossed Raiden off his back into a heap onto the ground. Raiden landed on his bad wing and screeched in pain. I was filled with guilt, I knew he had been hurting Cobalt and I but I had literally dewinged one of my loves.
Raiden hopped onto his hind legs, scrambling backward from us, gathering a ball of lightning in his mouth again. He struggled to take flight again but he couldn’t even flutter his broken wing.
I forcefully dislodged from Cobalt’s back, sliding down his hide to the wet earth below. I slipped in the mud, trying to right myself on my feet. I cradled my broken arm, bracing it on top of my belt. My whole body felt sore but almost like jello from being shocked made it hard to balance in the mud. It rose up back my ankles, completely covering my sandals in goo. I didn’t care, pushing forward to Raiden.
“Raiden!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. Cobalt swept his tail out trying to stop me from running toward the enraged lightning dragon. It had to be the adrenaline coursing through my body but I managed to jump up, knees to my chest, over his tail. I couldn’t even feel my arm now, I was so pumped on the powerful neurotransmitter.
I sprinted toward him, the brilliant white light of the lightning ball he was forming in his mouth nearly blinded me.
“Stop Raiden! It’s Octavia!” I screamed. “Please!”
I stumbled towards him, tripping but large arms wrapped around my waist from behind. I recognized that heat.
“Azar! Let me go!” I screeched, kicking my legs out to keep moving forward. Azar didn’t budge, he held me tight, lifting my feet off of the ground so I couldn’t drag us anywhere.
“Raiden stop, it’s us!” I screamed. The lightning crackled in front of us and the rain poured. The droplets pouring down Azar’s muscles, sizzling off his skin as steam. Azar squeezed me tighter and somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew my arm was hurting even worse but I still couldn’t feel it.
“Stop Tavia! He’s not turning back! We need to get out of here!” Azar cried against my back. “We’ll try again later, we’ll try again any other time I promise but we need to get out of here now! We’re losing! We’re all hurt.”
“No!” I screamed, trying to kick my legs back so he would let me go. It worked on Azar and it worked on Cobalt, it had to work on Raiden. The adrenaline was starting to wear off and I could feel the intense adrenaline fatigue starting to set in.
He tried to pull me away but I was starting to feel the pain in my broken arm again. I let out a whimper and then everything stopped. The rain stopped and the sky cleared. I looked up with hopeful eyes, blinking away the tears.
“Ray?” I whispered. The glow of Raiden’s electricity faded and standing in the dragon’s place was Raiden the man. Small sparks of purple lightning danced over his skin, his blonde hair wild and his blue eyes glowed. He cradled his left arm, the same one that I had broken. His expression was shell-shocked.
Azar let me go and I stumbled toward Raiden, my eyes welling with happy tears. Raiden reached tow
ard with me with his right arm outstretched. I was almost to him when Cobalt rushed past me and slammed his fist into Raiden’s face. I could hear the crunch of metal on skin and bone. Raiden’s head jerked to the side and he wobbled on his feet but didn’t fall. Cobalt raised his fist again, the rest of his skin was his regular deep bronze but his fist was completely silvery metal, probably his favorite titanium alloy. Cobalt punched Raiden again.
“You fucking asshole!” Cobalt growled. “You hurt Octavia!”
Raiden looked up at me, the glow fading from his eyes. He looked at me horrified.
I nodded to his broken arm. “I got you back though didn’t I?”
Azar stepped in front of me, looking down at my arm. “Oh my Gods, I think I grabbed your arm when I grabbed your waist! I’m so sorry.”
“Zar, don’t worry, the Hanged Man did this, I did this, not you,” I gave him a small wobbly smile.
“Why did you do that?” Raiden stomped over to me. Already being a bossy, rude prick. “I’ll heal from this in a week or so, you’re arm is going to be broken for months!”
“Excuse you?!” I stared up at him, my crying had stopped, my tears drying on my cheeks. “It’s not exactly like I knew what the card was going to do. I’ve been flying blind with my tarot cards after my regular deck was taken away.”
That stopped Raiden’s tirade. “What do you mean your cards were taken away?”
I stepped closer to him but Azar stepped around me and between us.
“Seriously, you heartless asshole? She needs her arm treated before you start in on the interrogation,” Azar glared up at Raiden. “I thought Cobalt was supposed to be the heartless one of the group.”
“No he’s the secret softy that looks like heartless on the outside but it really a sweetie,” I chimed in, looking around Azar to gaze up at Raiden. “I need one of you guys to set this. It’s really bad, not surgery bad but it needs to get set and splinted. I think my radius and ulna are both snapped.”
All three of them just stared at me and I swallowed a sound of irritation. “The bones of my lower arm. Geez, where’s Nevada when you need him?”
“I can make a cast out of metal for you,” Cobalt offered weakly.
“I can set it,” Raiden whispered, looking down at me with sad eyes. “Look, I’m sorry Octavia. I didn’t mean to launch in questions right away, it’s just my way I guess. I can’t wait to hear what happened after we won our thousandth and I somehow became a dragon.”
The rain had stopped but the ground beneath us was a slushie mess. Just past the beach in a muddy plain, there was nowhere for us to sit to fix my arm and my guys were naked.
“Hey if you guys want to get dressed, I’ve got your clothes in my bag,” I told them.
Cobalt came over and pulled the messed up lump out of the satchel. He tossed Azar his red fabric and detangled the black and gray fabric from his piled and tossed the black to Raiden. Raiden caught it with his good arm.
“We’re going to have to go shopping in the next town aren’t we?” I asked them.
Raiden quickly wrapped the fabric around his waist and knotted it, not caring how it looked and looked down at my arm. A grimace overcame his beautiful face when he took in the large lump on my arm and the weird angle it was bent at.
“How are you going to do that with your own arm messed up?” I asked him.
“Mine, I think, is a smaller, hairline fracture. Yours is so much worse,” He gaped at it.
“It’s okay, I’m sorry I broke your arm,” I looked up into his sky blue eyes, trying to convey all the happiness and guilt I felt at the same time to him.
“Don’t apologize, I’m the one who should be sorry that I made you feel like you had to resort to that card,” He shook his head.
“No wonder you don’t use Tarot cards. I think that the first one you used was making him feel the pain he was causing you right?” Azar asked, fully dressed in his red toga, the fabric popping against his deeply tanned skin and his sopping wet copper hair. I could see right through what he was doing though. He was getting me to talk to distract me from what was coming. Fine by me.
I nodded. “Yeah that was the Justice card, pain for pain, I guess my deck has a weird sense of justice. The second one was the Hanged Man, I think it can do whatever I want to an enemy but it does the same thing to me.”
“Sick,” Azar winced. “Tarot cards are nuts.”
“Ye--” I started to agree when Raiden slammed my bones back together. Cobalt rushed over and started to wrap excess fabric around my arm tightly and then locking a large metal cuff from below my elbow to my wrist. “Ow!”
“Thanks,” I whispered, trying not to cry for the millionth time that day.
“Are you okay, O?” Raiden asked, running a hand through my wet hair.
“I am now or I guess I will be soon,” I smiled up at him and he smirked back. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself,” Raiden huffed, his smirk stretching into a smile. “Alright, let’s get to the nearest town and get some dry clothes for Tavia and some food for all of us. Then you all owe me an explanation.”
I looked down at myself, I was covered in dragon blood, mud, tears, and rainwater. “I’m not going to argue with that.”
“Closest town is Genua, it should just be over the hill,” Raiden walked north and gestured for us to follow him. He was already taking the lead again. Azar fell into step next to me with Cobalt following behind us, looking all around. I’m not sure why he was worried. I was surrounded by three dragons and had scary Tarot cards on top of that. I was sure we were safe for the time being.
Genoa was much like any other Roman city I had to see so far, a Ligurian seaport. We had come so far north of Rome that the people were even more terrified of my guys and, by extension, me that people ran for refuge inside their homes and hid under their carts as we passed by. I’m sure it didn’t help that I looked injured and was very literally covered in blood. These people probably thought they had battered me, that I was their human slave. I tried to smile at people as we walked past, to comfort them and let them know I was safe and they would be too but if anything that made it worse. The pain in my eyes evident for all those to see. If I had broken my arm like this at home, they would’ve doped me up and probably knocked me out to set it. I sort of felt like a badass, a soldier with their wound treated in the middle of a battle that just kept on trucking. Though I was in pain, knowing that I wasn’t falling apart right now made me feel like some badass war goddess.
“First we need to find something that can help the pain or swelling in that arm, it looks rough,” Raiden said in front of us without looking back.
“Alcohol,” Cobalt and Azar chimed in at once.
“No guys, I don’t want to be drunk right now,” I shook my head. “If I was back home and I had a swelled up twisted ankle, I would have some turmeric tea. Do you think one of the spice merchants will have it?”
Raiden looked back with a quirked eyebrow. “I don’t know what that is but we can check.”
“It’s a bright yellow spicy spice, Azar would love it,” I smiled at Azar next to me.
“I do love spicy spice,” Azar laughed.
I swatted him with my good arm and giggled at him. “Shut up.
We found a spice merchant or the cart of one at least. Her son was the merchant but the wizened old woman was the one who ran the cart. She didn’t look terrified of my guys but her eyes were also heavily clouded over, cataracts maybe? Perhaps she couldn’t even see them.
I was wrong though, she looked directly at me and back to Raiden and began to speak in a dialect of Latin I didn’t know. Luckily, I didn’t need to use my cards to translate because Raiden was able to communicate with her in very rough Latin.
“Where is Nevada when you need him?” Azar whispered and I sighed. Nevada would have known right away what bones were broken, how to set them right, the correct dialect to speak and exactly what herbal remedies would help me. I read a lot of nonfiction and studied a bunch
of random subjects in college but I wasn’t the human encyclopedia-- or probably more accurately the walking, talking Google search engine that Nevada was.
“Right?” I agreed with him.
“She doesn’t have the yellow spicy spice, Taves, anything else?” Raiden blinked at me.
