by Jada Fisher
“Anyways, I thought it might be prudent to talk with you about forgiveness. Maybe mercy, even.”
“…uh huh.”
“You see, I’ve been kind enough to extend a sort of olive branch for you. You’d think that you might be more…amenable to forgiving others.”
I let out a disbelieving sound. “Wait, are you really here to try and patch up my teenage friendship?”
“You’re in your twenties. You’re well beyond teenage friendship.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. You know what I mean.”
“Well, it’s important. The two of you have been together for ages. She was the one who saved you when you were first kidnapped. Got you to safety. She’s helped you multiple times before that, more than you could ever know, and she wasn’t aware of what her parents did. Couldn’t you give her a little wiggle room for the shock of seeing her best friend trying to rip her parents apart?”
“I just don’t get why this is important to you.”
“Well, call me a softie.”
“The only reason I know you exist is because you tried to reap me, and Krisjian rammed into you with a car.”
“Yeah, that shouldn’t have worked, by the way. Watch out for that young one, he’s got some surprises up his sleeve. But stop changing the subject. Why won’t you forgive her?”
“Who says I haven’t?” I crossed my arms and sat back so hard the booth practically rocked.
“Um… That, for one. But also the massive, gaping wound right above your heart there.”
“What? I don’t have a wound.”
“Oh really? Look down.”
I did, letting out a yelp as I saw a deep slash right over my heart, blistered and tinged green with a bit of pus bubbling out of it. I leapt to my feet, gagging a bit.
“What the hell is that!”
“I told you, you’ve got a wound. That’s what happens when you let all those nasty things fester inside of you.”
“That’s supposed to be metaphorical! Not a literal… Oh my god, it smells. Are you doing this?”
“No, it’s all you.” She shrugged and sat back, still slowly sipping her coffee. “You just didn’t want to see it before.”
“Alright, well, now that you’re my new therapist, apparently, do we want to go over all my traumas or are you just obsessed with this particular one?”
“I’m not obsessed. I’m just saying that it’s a bit hypocritical to ask for me to extend mercy to you, but you can’t afford your best friend in the entire world the same courtesy?”
“The difference is that I wasn’t a party to genocide.”
“Yeah, and neither was she. She didn’t defend them at that trial, you know. She just needed a minute to find out what the heck was going on when her friend suddenly started whaling on her much smaller parents.”
“Why are you so invested anyways?”
“Who says I’m invested?”
“This whole entire meeting.”
“Okay, fair enough. I just want you to think about it, okay? While I’m out trying to find a loophole for you, maybe you can try to find a loophole in that anger of yours.”
“Fine. Whatever. I’ll do my best.”
Her grin was blithe as she faded away. “That’s all I can ask.”
4
Just Like Old Times
Teleporting to a bathtub in the middle of the dragon’s manor was possibly the most impossible way I had ever gotten myself out of trouble, but the unintended consequence was that it certainly made me leery of soaking in the brilliantly deep and wide tub.
And lavender was pretty suspect too.
In the grand scheme of things, that probably wasn’t a big deal, but my tension was certainly mounting, making my shoulders turn into earrings more than anything else as the days went by.
And they did seem to be going by impossibly fast, with the rest of the city being cut off from the rest of the world. They had to notice by now. It’d been over a week. Whole cities couldn’t just drop off the face of the earth and have the rest of existence go on obliviously.
Supplies were drying up and people were beginning to panic. What local channels that could air were talking about the apocalypse and the fact that a mountain range had an avalanche of snow and rock while giant beasts were cutting through the sky. It was slightly less panicked than it had been at first, but even more outlandish with every passing hour.
I wanted to just climb to the roof and scream that they were all shapeshifting dragons, a holdover from a dimension that wasn’t ours. Technically, I wasn’t from this dimension either, but rather some sort of kinda-descendant of elves, who used to be the only people that oracle magic was ever born through, but that all changed with aforementioned otherworldly dimension things.
Except that definitely wasn’t possible. Even if someone didn’t sniper-shoot me off the top of the building, I’d have to use magic to broadcast that across the space and who knew who would overhear and how they would react.
Besides, maybe I was hoping for somehow, when everything was said and done and if I somehow survived, that I might be able to sink back to being an anonymous college dropout that was only noticeable because she wore one glove all the time.
…who just happened to have a relationship with a dragon prince.
Actually…were we in a relationship? Had we ever discussed it with words like ‘dating’ and ‘relationship’? I didn’t think so. Maybe we had but…no. I was pretty sure we hadn’t. Sometimes it was hard to keep everything straight in my head. Not exactly a priority to think about.
“Hey, lil sis. Wanna snack?”
I blinked, looking away from the window I had been staring out of and glancing to the doorway, where Mickey was standing. She was holding a fancy tray with some very un-fancy snacks on top of it. I saw chicken nuggets and pizza logs and maybe some mozzarella sticks.
Nice.
“Only if those are the snacks.”
“Yup. They are. You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to get some actual junk food in here. Apparently, the cook is only serving it because they’re low on fresh ingredients.”
“Lucky us,” I said, striding over to her and grabbing one of the mozz sticks. Only to immediately drop it from the sheer molten temperature. “Yikes, what are these? Filled with lava?”
“You got it. A special dragon ingredient.”
“Yeah, yeah, how about we go upstairs and actually enjoy these once they cool down enough for human consumption?”
“Sounds good to me. You know that half of the staff are afraid to go near where the scary oracles live. They killed a dragon, you know, with just a plastic spoon!”
I snorted. “They really aren’t saying that, are they?”
“Oh yeah. And that’s one of the less wild things. For us being a bunch of very squishy weaklings, we sure do put the terror into some of these folks.”
“I guess we need some line of defense.”
“I mean, to be fair, you did disappear with their prince once, killed another prince, and then teleported across the city—which, by the way, you erected a giant shield around.”
“Okay. Fair.”
We laughed, bantering as we went up the stairs, and it was almost like old times. Just with nicer clothes and even more trauma—which I hadn’t even thought was possible.
Maybe if there wasn’t a whole war on, I would be able to enjoy the finery around us on a more consistent basis. But usually I was so busy running from one world-ending thing to the next, I didn’t get to think about the fact that we now had a billion thread-count sheets and beds that felt like clouds and tubs that I could—had?—drown in.
But as Mickey and I settled into Sokhanya’s medical room, wanting to keep the girl company even if she was passed out from her medicine, we were able to snatch a moment away for just ourselves.
We kept our voices relatively low, not wanting to bother her, but that didn’t detract from it. We ate a bit, talking and joking around, reminiscing about our old place and wonde
ring what the landlord thought about us suddenly abandoning our lease after living there for years. Who knew, maybe Bronn’s family was still paying for it for when everything one day went back to normal.
Or…maybe it was bombed out and destroyed in the dragon attack on the city. Because that was a thing now. Every hour, there were different reports about rebuilding efforts and damage control. Even with my shield, the anti-humanists managed to wreak quite a bit of havoc.
“Man, you know what we haven’t made in forever? Empanadas,” Mickey said suddenly, leaning forward to set our now-empty platter to the side. “I would kill for an empanada.”
“I mean, I feel like I’ve probably killed for less.” I answered, probably a little more morosely than I should have, resulting in my bigger sister giving me a sharp look. “What? I’m just saying, I’ve done some…stuff.”
“You’ve done what you needed to. And, ya know, saved the world a few times. You worry too much.”
I snorted. “Oh yeah, because saving the world is no pressure, right?”
“I’m not saying that. I’m just saying you don’t have to hold all that stress inside of you. Come ‘ere, I bet your shoulders are like rocks right now.”
“Mickey, you don’t have to give me a shoulder massage.” Because I knew that was what she was about to do. When I’d suddenly shot up about four inches in a single year, my back and shoulders had throbbed every day. Despite everything on her own plate, despite the pain that I knew she was in, she always tried to soothe me.
“Come on, I haven’t been this healthy and rested in years. With you basically being the savior of our realm, I mostly just have to sit around a lot.”
I wanted to tell her no, maybe get some lotion and rub it into her scars like I used to, but she was kinda right, and I did feel so tightly wound that I might pop at any moment.
“…alright, well, if you’re gonna be a bully about it…”
“Yup. That’s me. A real bully. Now get your butt on the floor.”
She sat up, throwing one of the pillows on the ground between her legs for me to settle on. I did, groaning a bit as I lowered myself. Apparently, my knees weren’t too happy with me either.
“So, I probably should get some lotion, but I don’t really wanna get up.”
I paused in the middle of my decent. “Alright, I’ll get it then.”
“It’s fine. I—”
“No, if we’re doing this, we’re gonna do it right. One sec, I’m sure there’s something in the bathroom.”
I got up with a bit of a grunt and headed to the bath connected to the main part of our suite and not the one directly in our room. I could have stopped in one of the general restrooms, but I figured they wouldn’t be as stocked with all the frou-frou goo that our fancier ones had.
Sure enough, there were more than enough different types of lotions. I chose a lavender one, because I definitely could use some calm, and then I was heading back to Mickey.
“Nice choice,” she said, holding her hand out. I finally settled down and leaned back against the couch, feeling comforted as I was bracketed by my sister’s smaller thighs.
We were a strange mix, her and I. She’d been the protector, larger and stronger than me, for so long. And then she got sicker and I got taller and I was mostly taking care of her. And then she was gone, I was searching for her, and then I found her, only to die and leave her completely alone.
Yeah… We were a pair, that was for certain.
I heard her open the lotion and place some into her palms, rubbing them together to warm it. Then, softly at first, she pressed them against me, gliding along the sore muscles of my shoulders and working up to my neck.
She worked away, not putting much pressure on until she was able to warm me up. Then she started to press into me a little, coaxing my knots to relax maybe a little. I reminded myself to breathe through it, to relax and just let the pain go—
And just like that, the two of us were falling through reality.
It happened all at once. One moment, we were sitting there, sharing a moment that seemed too tender to be possible, and the next, we were standing in the middle of an ornate room, so gilded with gold and gems it was practically blinding.
Mickey looked at me, her eyes wide. I didn’t think we’d ever been in a vision together like this. The last time we’d done something similar was when she’d been locked in crystal and trying to warn me about where she was, but that was more about our sisterly bond than being sucked into a vision together.
I opened my mouth to say something, but then the people in the room began moving and talking and my attention was whisked toward them.
“Sagittarius has been stolen from us. This is unacceptable.”
It was an older man who was speaking, looking like he was somewhere in his fifties with streaks of gray through his dark, dark hair. His face seemed like it was carved from stone, all hard edges and classic masculinity. He had bright, glimmering eyes that felt like they were looking right through me, predatory and intense.
“I think that we need to start taking these upstarts as an actual threat instead of a quaint faction.” It was a woman who spoke next. She seemed to be around the same age as the man, but with long, long, platinum hair that went almost down to her knees, with dozens of intricate braids entwined around her head and back. Unlike the man, her eyes were dark as coal, and it was clear that her teeth were impossibly sharp within her mouth.
“But what of our compromise? We agreed to it for the reason. We need to complete the great ritual so we can put an end to all of this foolishness and return the world to as it should be.” That was yet another voice—a younger man, maybe in his thirties or forties, with blond hair that was very specifically styled. He was dressed like he had walked off some fancy runway in Europe, unlike the others who could easily slide into a Renaissance festival and be right at home.
“In due time. We’ve lost our only reason to wait, to play the long game. For now, we must journey to the outlands and extinguish this coup.”
“All of us? That seems risky, doesn’t it?”
“Perhaps. But we have one within them, and they’re crumbling apart at the seams.”
“Then let us go. It’s been so long since I was able to spread my wings.”
The woman stood, tall and elegant and so strikingly regal, and then the vision faded away, melting like wax candles across a heat board.
I looked at Mickey and she looked at me, both of our eyes wide, the lotion on her hands having long since grown tacky.
“We need to talk to Bronn,” we said together. Our very, very brief demi-reprieve was clearly over.
5
Dig Deeper, That’s Where the Secrets Are
Bronn looked between the two of us, flanked by his closest generals. “The two of you had a vision, you said?”
To his credit, as soon as we had come to him—interrupting his supply meeting with several of his runners—he’d finished what he was doing and sent for his advisors. Less than ten minutes later, Mickey and I were standing across from the trio, words heavy in our mouths.
“Yes. And it felt important, but we don’t really know what it means.”
“And you think we can be the ones to interpret it?” one of the generals asked. I recognized him from our having clashed in the past. God, he was such a jerk. At least he had managed to rein it in since my coming back from the dead thing and reviving the castle shield.
“We’re pretty sure.”
“What was it?” Bronn asked, as patient as ever.
“We were in some sort of old-fashioned room, but it seemed really fancy. There were three people there. Two middle-aged folks, a man and a woman, and then a slightly younger guy who was blond.”
That seemed to have the three of them stiffening. “The woman, what did she look like?”
“Really long, borderline ridiculous hair,” Mickey answered quickly. “And yet she kinda worked it. Her black eyes definitely pushed her more towards the creepy zone thoug
h, but in a really pretty way. Creepy-pretty? Pretty creepy? Either way, certainly distinctive.”
“And the men? One with hair as dark as night and the other with the yellow of the sun?”
I blinked at the second description. “Well, that’s a really poetic way to say it, but yeah. A brunette and a blond.”
It didn’t seem possible, but our own trio of shapeshifters stiffened further, all exchanging glances. I waited for several beats for one of them to say something, but they remained quiet.
“Well?” I said after my patience ran out. “Who are they? It’s clear that you know them just on description.”
Bronn licked his lips, and I tried not to follow the movement of his tongue. Down, girl! “That sounds a lot like the elders of the anti-humanists. The ones who originally agreed to the ceasefire and compromised on who could be in the new lands.”
“Uh… That makes sense, considering some of the things they were saying.”
“Things? What do you mean?”
I repeated most of what I could remember, making sure that I didn’t miss the part about ‘one within them,’ even though I hated the implications of it. When I finished, none of the three looked any happier for knowing.
“They have someone on the inside,” Bronn muttered with resignation, rubbing his forehead with one of his large hands. “Again.”
“Another mole?” one of the generals asked as if he didn’t believe it. “But after the kidnapping we staged, I was sure we got every single tendril of their influence out.”
“Clearly we haven’t,” the other supplied. “But we have done such a thorough sweep of things that I do not believe we missed anything. With one single exception.”
“Hmm? What’s that, General? What did we miss?” Bronn asked, sounding far too exhausted. When was the last time that he had slept? Like really slept?
“Your oracle will not like it.”
“Huh?” I ignored the whole your part and skipped right to the meat of what he was saying. “Why wouldn’t I like—”
