The Kiss From a Dragon

by C. D. Pennington

  It seemed a near-perfect day to Cerana; at least it would be if she did not feel such a weight on her shoulders and a worry in her mind.

  Last night had spooked her more than she realised, and that worried her even more. She wondered if the odd event had troubled her more because of the situation with Esteri and the ephylaxon. She was already on edge, so was she making too much of what happened? Surely there could have been no link, but it did seem odd to her that this was the first time she could remember that anyone had been spotted prowling around their cottage, and just a few days after her sister had been diagnosed with an ancient, incurable disease? It could be just coincidence, she thought, but who was the stranger peering into her sister’s bedroom at night? What were they doing there, what were they looking for? What if it wasn’t a coincidence?

  She knew there was not much she could do about it as she had nothing further to go on. Walking to the window of the bedroom where the stranger had been spotted, he or she had certainly made sure that they could not be traced. There were no visible footprints, no signs or clues. It was as if no-one had ever been there, but of course, they had both seen someone.

  As Cerana walked back to the front of the house, she was met by Esteri, who had just emerged out of the front door.

  “Hey,” Esteri said, yawning. Her eyes looked like they had not yet fully opened, and her curly blond hair was all in a tangle. She was still in her nightwear but did not seem to mind the chill of the early morning. “Lovely day. Is Jana due back today?” she asked.

  “Yes, I think so,” Cerana confirmed. “If all has gone to plan they should be back at some point, but I don’t know when exactly.”

  “I hope she has been ok. I missed her in the night.” It had been the first time that Esteri and Jana had not shared the same bedroom since Esteri was a child, Cerana realised. She felt a little hurt that even though Cerana had spent the night with her, Esteri still missed Jana, but soon realised that she meant nothing against Cerana by the comment. It was just so unusual for Jana not to be there, and they both had missed her, in truth.

  “Me too,” Cerana replied. “She’ll be back soon though, don’t worry.”

  Esteri smiled, stretched and yawned again. “Want some breakfast?” she asked.

  “Yeah, that sounds good.” Cerana was hungry, so she took her youngest sister in her arms, kissed her forehead and led her back to the kitchen where together they prepared a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs and bread. The bread was a little chewy as they had not had the chance to get to the market for a couple of days, but was edible at least, and the rest of the meal was delicious.

  Over breakfast, Cerana decided to tell Esteri about her decision to try to find another job. “When Jana gets back, I am going to go out and look for some work,” she announced, mopping up some egg yolk with her bread.

  “Oh? You mean more leatherworking?” Esteri sounded surprised.

  “No, not leatherworking,” Cerana said, shaking her head. “There is little demand these days. I have no real work on at the moment. I thought about trying the local tavern, getting some regular shifts.”

  “Is this because of me?” Esteri asked sadly.

  “No of course not! We need money to live, and our savings won’t last forever.”

  It was mainly to pay for Esteri’s treatment, but Cerana did not want her to feel troubled and guilty.

  Cerana had initially planned to go to the tavern today, whilst Jana was still out. She would only be gone for an hour or so, and if she gave Esteri her treatment, she would have been ok on her own. But after the events of last night, she decided that Esteri should not be left on her own, so she changed her mind and would go tomorrow when Jana was back.

  So far this morning, neither of them had mentioned the incident of the previous night until Esteri, seemingly content with Cerana’s reasons for wanting work, suddenly changed the subject.

  “Who do you think she was?” she asked.

  “Who?”

  “The girl at the window.”

  “Girl? You could tell it was a girl?” Esteri had not mentioned this before now.

  “Yes, she had her hood up, but I could tell it was a girl. She was pretty.”

  “I…I don’t know, my love.” Cerana decided not to tell her sister about her fears of a connection between the stranger and the disease. “Could you tell how old she was?”

  “Not really, I didn’t see her for long, but she wasn’t old. She smiled at me.”

  This shocked Cerana. What the hell was going on here? She was not entirely sure if the knowledge that their uninvited guest was a female made matters better or worse, but it certainly did nothing to help solve the mystery.

  “I wonder if she will come back,” Esteri mused.

  Cerana thought about this for a minute. She hoped that it was just a coincidence, a chance occurrence. But a pretty young girl they did not know, peering into the bedroom of a diseased girl, and smiling at her before running off into the night? This whole situation was just not making any sense to Cerana whatsoever. And she did not like it. That feeling of deep unease had crept back into her. Somehow, she knew that they had not heard the last of this mystery.

  “I sure hope not,” she said, nervously. But deep down, she suspected that their paths would cross with this young female stranger again.

  CHAPTER 18 – Kept in the Dark

  Jana’s eyelids slowly opened, and she blinked as consciousness returned to her. She thought it must still be night as she was in almost total darkness, and for a few seconds, she remained perfectly still, her mind not quite functioning as it should. She felt groggy, as if she had just awoken from a deep sleep. It was when she unsuccessfully tried to move that she shockingly realised she had not woken up in her own bed.

  Her mind was still hazy, but she was suddenly wide awake, the horror of realising why her movements felt restricted had just become apparent to her.

  She was tightly bound, hardly able to move a muscle. Her eyes bulged in terror as her senses returned to her, and she tried to scream, but the gag in her mouth silenced her cries to soft muffles.

  In sheer panic, Jana thrashed around as best she could on the cold floor where she lay; although bound as she was, it took all her effort just to roll over onto her front. Her wrists were bound tightly behind her back, and she clenched her hands into fists as she struggled to get free. Ropes were secured around her upper body, pinning her arms to her sides. Her ankles were also tightly bound, and more rope secured her legs just above her knees.

  The ropes bit cruelly into the bare skin of her arms, wrists and legs, which already felt painful from her useless efforts to escape her bonds. A length of cloth or linen – she could not tell which – had been thickly knotted and placed in her mouth, forcing her jaw open before being tied at the back of her head.

  She was helpless in the darkness of her prison, wherever that may be. She thrashed around again on the floor, but tied as she was, she was getting nowhere fast.

  After the initial panic, she paused for a second, breathing heavily, her eyes darting around the darkness of the room. It was so dark she could only just see the wall edges as her eyes began to adjust to the gloom. It was a small room with no windows, the only light source coming from a small slit in the roof where a shaft of what she thought must be daylight shone down onto the floor beside her.

  The adrenaline from waking up in her dire situation had made her oblivious to her injured foot, but now that whatever they had drugged her with had almost totally worn off, she was able to recollect her last memories. She was once again aware of severe pain in her foot, and slowly the horror flooded back to her, numbing her senses.

  Alleran! Oh, Gods, they killed Alleran! The two men, the thugs. They must have kidnapped me, brought me here and tied me up and left me in this room. Will they come back for me? Have they left me here to rot? Surely they will come back. Do I want them to come back? How can I escape? Can I escape? What have they done with Alleran’s body?

  She st
arted to cry; whether it was through fear, frustration, shock or terror, she knew not. Tied tightly, sobbing into her gag, she lay on the floor for several minutes, thinking of Alleran, Esteri, Cerana.

  Must think, need to calm down. But that was easier said than done. A rush of blood filled her head, and she wildly thrashed around again on the floor, heaving herself from side to side, testing every one of her many bonds for a weakness.

  But there were none. Her efforts were futile and only succeeded in exhausting herself. She was out of breath and sweating profusely from her efforts to free herself, but all she had managed was to chafe her skin where the cruel ropes bound her so tightly.

  She managed to calm herself down again, quickly realising that it was pointless trying to free herself. She needed to think of another way to get herself out of this situation. She took a few minutes to allow her breathing and heart rate to return to as normal as could be expected, given the situation. It took an almighty effort, but grunting through her gag, she slowly managed to turn herself around and sit straight up with her legs stretched out in front of her. This alone took effort, and she just sat there for a moment to regain her strength before looking down at her useless body.

  The room was very dark, but she could just see that although her boots had been removed and she sat barefoot, the bandage around her injured right foot remained intact. Mercifully, the ropes that bound her ankles did not quite touch the wound. However, the chafing to her ankles was currently just as painful as her injury.

  From her newly seated position, she could get a better view of the small room. The incoming brightness from the slit was around seven feet above her and gave off just enough light to see around the room, albeit she had to squint. It was a square room, she guessed about twenty feet square, and had a damp and earthen smell to it. Jana figured that she could well be in an underground chamber, maybe a cellar or basement. Scattered around on the floor were small patches of straw but this did not cover the whole area. A few lengths of timber and some old wooden barrels sat in the corners, but otherwise, the room appeared empty.

  With no obvious doors or windows, she figured that the only way in or out was given away by the slit of light, possibly a trapdoor in the ceiling. Any hope she had quickly began to fade as Jana realised that even if she were not bound, she probably could not get out of the room anyway as the trapdoor would be too high to reach. She may be able to use the barrels, but only if she were free.

  Her back was starting to ache from propping herself up, so she slumped back down onto her side with a thud and began to sob again. Her whole body ached, and the skin around her bonds was sore. Her jaw ached from the gag, due to the large knot that forced her mouth almost wide open. Jana wiggled herself into the most comfortable position she could find, which she discovered to be on her side. However, she did have to roll over onto her other side periodically when her shoulder began to ache too much. It was useless to struggle, so she just lay there and began to think. There was little more she could do.

  Her thoughts turned back to Alleran, and she closed her eyes tightly as she recalled how the thug with the glass eye had just butchered him in cold blood, seemingly with no remorse. As difficult as it was to force the vision from her mind, she tried her hardest to do so. There would be time to grieve for the apothecary later, but right now she had to pray that she would somehow escape this bleak situation she found herself in, and live to mourn him another day.

  She took some comfort from the belief that if they had wanted her dead, she would almost certainly be dead already. With Alleran already dead, they could have quite easily killed her at the same time. Surely if they planned to kill her, they would not have made so much effort, so maybe they had other plans for her. As much comfort as it gave her just to be alive right now, it scared her to think what they might do to her – and as helpless as she was, they could do to her anything they liked, and there would be nothing she could do about it. Nothing that anyone could do about it. She was totally at the mercy of the thugs who had kidnapped her and left her here.

  Jana could not tell how long she had been down in the dark prison. She tried to think how long had passed since she awoke – was it a few hours? Or did it just feel like longer, with nothing more to do than wiggle around like a worm on the floor? There was also no way of knowing how long she had been out cold as a result of being drugged – she may have been in here for a day or more. Her sisters may or may not even realise she was missing, and they were the only ones who would notice she actually was missing. She had, somewhat understandably, been so preoccupied with her own dilemma that she had not given any thought to Esteri’s predicament, and Jana would be expected back with the ingredients for the medicine her sister required. It seemed very likely that she would now be returning empty-handed, that is if she ever returned at all. And with Alleran dead, they would have to look after Esteri alone. The thoughts of her sisters saddened her, and she quietly wept again.

  Softly weeping into the horrid gag, a noise from somewhere above alerted her senses. It was the first noise she had heard since she had first awoken, and she held her breath and strained her ears to pick up any more sounds.

  It was a creaking sound, like the opening of a large old door. Footsteps. Someone was coming. Was it her captors, or a potential saviour? She wondered if she should try to attract attention, but quickly dismissed the idea as folly due to her awful gag – her muffled cries for help would probably not be heard anyway.

  As the footsteps grew louder, her heart pounded faster. The footsteps then stopped. They were right above her. Another creak, and a large shaft of light illuminated the floor of her cell as the trapdoor opened. She squinted at the new light source, but her eyes were so accustomed to the dark room that she could only make out a silhouetted figure at the opening in the ceiling. A shuffling sound, and a ladder descended into the room. The bottom of the ladder landed close to where she lay, propped up to allow its owner to climb down. She instinctively tried to get away from the ladder, wriggling around as best as her bonds would allow, but she did not get far. Someone began to climb down the ladder, backwards. She was terrified, breathing hard and making soft grunting noises through her gag in her efforts to squirm away.

  Her eyes had finally adjusted to the change in light, and she saw it was the stocky man from the inn, one of the two who had followed and ambushed them on the woodland path. The other man, the scruffy one with the glass eye who had killed Alleran, was not with him.

  He said nothing, causally climbing down the ladder and walking to where she lay, bound and helpless. Her bulging eyes followed his movements intently until he walked behind her field of vision, and she moaned through her gag. She felt his strong hands grab her upper arms and she was lifted from the floor, leaving only her bare heels on the ground. He easily dragged Jana to the wall and propped her up against it. He moved round to face her and bent down, his expressionless face regarding hers closely. Jana moaned softly, shaking with fear. Then he smiled at her.

  “I need to ask you some questions,” he calmly said. “If I take that gag out of your mouth, will you promise to behave, and not make a sound unless I tell you to?”

  The prospect of having rid of the horrid gag was enough for her to comply. Unable to speak, she slowly nodded her head in agreement.

  He smiled at her again. “Good girl.”

  CHAPTER 19 – Covert Surveillance

  Cerana winced as Esteri ran a comb through her damp hair, her sister none too gentle at removing knots in the dark blonde tangle on Cerana’s head. After they had both bathed, a peaceful and pleasing aroma of lavender filled the air, leaving both women sleepy. It was late evening, and the sun had long since set. Esteri would typically be asleep in bed by now, but she had wanted to stay up until Jana came home. Jana had been expected since lunchtime, but as it was now dark outside, the likelihood of her returning today was looking unlikely.

  Esteri was disappointed that her sister was still away, and becoming more and more worried with
each hour that passed. So was Cerana, but she hid it well from Esteri. She could not possibly think why Jana was not back yet, and dark thoughts began to invade her mind as to why this may be. With all day to gather the rest of the herbs, go back to Alleran’s shop, gather his supplies and get back here, they should be back now. Surely they had not stayed the night at Otterley? It was true that Esteri was not, at the moment, desperate for the ingredients because of the medicine supply and knowledge that Alleran had left. Still, Cerana knew that her sister would not want to be away from home any longer than necessary.

  It was probably nothing, and all was fine after all. They were worrying for nothing, and there was little Cerana could do except wait. Jana would return, and she needed to stop fretting. It just looked likely that now it would be tomorrow instead of today, as they had all hoped. It was the first time that either of Cerana’s siblings had been away from home for any length of time, and she was just worrying needlessly, so she told herself. Jana was a big girl now, and perfectly able to look after herself without her big sister mothering her. Cerana’s justifications did little to ease her growing anxiety, though.

  They sat in silence as Esteri continued to comb through Cerana’s hair. Stood behind her sister, Esteri was in a world of her own, paying no great attention to Cerana’s hair. She stared transfixed at the fire burning in the hearth, her hand moving up and down, up and down with the comb.

  “I think you might have done enough to that bit now,” Cerana said after Esteri had gone over the same area of hair for about five minutes.

  “Huh?”

  “There won’t be any hair left if you continue to do just one part!”

  “Oh, sorry,” Esteri stopped combing. “My mind is not quite with me tonight.”