by Jada Fisher
“It’s okay, Mallory. We’re on the right side of the shield. I’ll get you to safety and into a medical room and we’ll both be right as rain soon enough.”
She was still covered in sweat and it was mixing with the blood on her to drip in gory little rivulets down her face and arms. Suddenly all our fighting, everything else, seemed so stupid. So clumsy. Wasted time that we would never get back.
“No, Davie, I…” She paused, a rattle going through her. “I’m going to be sick,” she said in one breathless rush, leaning to the side and retching horribly. “Let me go!” she cried, sounding panicked.
“Mallory, I’m not holding you.” Panic rose inside of me, punching through everything else. “What’s wrong? Let me help you.”
“I just… Something’s wrong. Something…” She crawled away from me, swaying heavily. I tried to rise to follow after her, but I lost my footing, nearly falling completely over. “I’m gonna be sick. I’m gonna…”
She was two yards from me, maybe a touch more. She was heading toward the shield, toward the elders, and the panic somehow doubled within me.
“Mallory—”
My words didn’t quite make it out as Mallory wretched so hard I saw her spine bend, then suddenly, green bile was pouring out of her mouth.
I couldn’t help it, I fell back on my behind, staring at her. The first thought that crossed my mind was that she had a head injury and the nausea was getting to her. But then the green liquid kept coming and coming, almost seeming to glow as it spattered across the dirt.
Dirt that was…melting?
I blinked. My head was full of the awful sounds she was making. Green gas was rising from wherever the liquid touched, coiling and swirling like wicked fingers trying to bite into the very world.
“Mallory? Mallory, are you alright?” What a dumb question. She was throwing up what looked and smelled like acid, and the ground in front of her was rapidly sinking like quicksand. How many times had I said my friend’s name in just the past few moments? It was starting not to sound like a word at all.
“Verlarius, is what I think is happening actually happening?”
“I… I think it might, Valirie.”
But the voices of the elders didn’t matter to me. I crept forward again, struggling to move but needing to get closer to Mallory. To comfort her.
But the smell… It was awful. Acrid and like death. Something unnatural. Something that wasn’t supposed to be in our world but definitely wanted it. There was an outright hole in front of the small woman now, pouring virulent green steam up and into the air. The afternoon sun was starting to be blotted out, covered by a malevolent layer of lime.
I’d never thought of lime being particularly intimidating, and yet I knew that it couldn’t be good. That nothing that would benefit us could come out of something that reminded me so much of nuclear waste.
“Davie!” I heard my name, barely squeaked out, and then more vomiting. She was putting out so much liquid, more than a single human possibly could, and yet she just kept going and going, and the air grew worse by the minute. I couldn’t see the edges of the hole anymore, only green, green, green steam blotting everything out.
“This is history being made. Right in front of us.”
I continued to ignore the elders. They were on the other side of the shield. They didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was Mallory.
“I’m coming. I’m coming. It’s gonna be okay. I promise. I promise, okay? You’re going to be okay.”
I was repeating myself and I knew it, but the words were just bubbling out of their own volition, fueled by my damaged brain. I crawled toward her, finally reaching her, my shaking hand landing softly on her back.
Oh geez, my hand was covered in blood and dirt and grossness. I was so startled for a beat that I just stood there, my brain desperately trying to supply me with a solution but mostly just coming up empty.
Mallory groaned, more awfulness coming from her, more horribly wounded sounds, and I was drawn back to the moment.
She was wet, outright wet. She’d gone from being damp with sweat to being outright soaked through, and she was shivering to the point where it could be a seizure. It was like the world was spinning around us, everything flinging this way and that way, completely out of control.
We were so close. I thought we were gonna make it. That we were going to beat the anti-humanists and finally get to live our lives.
I was an idiot.
There was a thunderous clapping sound below us, and the ground fell away in a gaping wave. I barely managed to grab the back of Malloy’s shirt and yank her back into me. To safety.
Once more, we clashed into each other, falling backward, her in my lap and me right back on my butt. She was like a flash-heater against me, but my arms wrapped around her anyways, wanting to hold her to me. Wanting to let her know that I was there for her. Despite everything that had happened, I was going to be there for her.
She let out a horrible gurgling sound, like something was climbing out of her, and then she let out an absolutely horrendous wheeze as a thick, coiling cloud of black slipped from her mouth like a demon escaping. We both watched, our voices stolen, as it swirled up for a moment then dived right into the hole that was turning into more of a chasm by the second.
“I… I’m sorry, Davie,” Mallory rasped, her whole body going limp against me. “I think I’ve done something terrible.”
I opened my mouth to comfort her, to tell her that it was fine, just a bad spell passing through her. But then the ground began to rumble, shaking so hard that I could feel us slipping down into the melted fissure.
Reaching back, I grabbed the first thing my hand found—a root—and gripped it for my dead life. I tried to scoot us backward, to get us to safety, but I was just so exhausted. It felt like every muscle in my body was both torn and beaten to a pulp. Violently abused and battered, stretched to their absolute limits, and yet I was demanding more of them.
Because even though I had told the spirit it was worth dying to take down Baelfyre and to save Mallory, even though—for a moment—I had been ready to die, I had no intentions of letting us slide into some sort of hellhole while the elders gleefully watched like kids at a candy shop.
“Push with your feet if you can,” I wheezed, trying to pull harder. I needed two hands, but I couldn’t let go of Mallory. And when I tried to bring my legs up to hold her that way, one of them just wouldn’t move the right way. Like whatever muscles moved my knee were gone, leaving me with just a flopping limb.
I didn’t know if she helped me, but the world shook again. A cracking sound filled the air, dirt shooting up in random geysers all around us. It was catastrophic and fell right in line with any number of disaster movies that I had seen in the early aughts. But it wasn’t nearly as entertaining as it was in the theater. In fact, it was downright petrifying.
“It’s happening! He’s rising! He’s rising!”
…who was what?
Another violent shake, reminding me of the potholes in the car. It built into a crescendo that was impossibly intense and then, just as suddenly as it had started, silence settled over everything.
I drew in a breath, wondering if somehow we had survived it, but then there was another strange sound. A sort of deep, heavy breathing drifted up from the hole. Almost like a heartbeat. Albeit from a heart that was only just remembering how to function.
And then, like something out of a horror movie, a single hand rose up from the chasm—except it wasn’t a human hand. It was a dragon’s. Brown and massive, with splits in the old, black-edged skin to reveal pestilent wounds and yellowed bones below it. Claws that were nearly the size of my upper torso. Bigger than Bronn. Bigger than Baelfyre. My greatest nightmare, right there in front of me.
Another hand joined the first, claws digging into the earth as anchors. It was just as off-putting as the first, green and yellow liquid oozing from the boils and blisters. The decaying smell of it all forced its way into m
y nose. Down my throat. Burning me, corrupting me from the inside out.
A spike came up. Then another. Then finally a head. The same head that had been taunting me, lurking as a threat in the background of my life since everything started.
The rotted dragon.
His wings finally made it above the fissure he was crawling out of and he flared them, casting us in shadow. The only rays of light that made it through were those allowed to pass by the holes and wounds in the leathery expanse, dotting the ground around us almost like the target sights of a rifle.
Finally, his back legs came up, leaving him towering over us in all his vile, disgusting glory. He truly was a beast. A great and terrible beast who had been so dangerous to all the worlds that he’d had to be locked away in his own pocket dimension of ruin. The creature that had been so hungry for power that he had destroyed several civilizations. Killed millions. Devoured and devoured in his thirst for more power.
He was the reason all the oracles were wiped out. He was the reason shifters and dwarves and any of us ended up on earth.
And now he was on earth with us too.
His form rippled, as if all his muscles were acclimating to our reality at once, and then he let out a bellow that I swore scored me right down to my soul. And in that moment, I realized the cold, bitter truth.
We had already lost.
12
The Difference Between Sacrifice and Loss
Time stood still, as if it too was cowed by the demon towering over us. I felt cold in his shadow, and I didn’t know if that was from the terror or just him already draining the life and power from everything around him.
I had to get away.
“My lord! Our lord! Great One, we are humbled that you would choose us to witness your uprising! We have been waiting for centuries for—”
The rotted dragon didn’t even turn toward them. He merely slapped his bony, decrepit tail against the ground right against the edge of the shield, causing them to jump back. I could have sworn that he smirked as well, his jagged, chapped, and yet somehow also dripping lips curling ever-so-slightly.
“Davie…”
It was the faintest of whispers, barely audible, and I looked down. Mallory was looking up at me with wide, bloodshot eyes, her face paler than paper, tinged gray under all her bruises, cuts, and scrapes.
“You have to go,” she wheezed, almost too quietly to hear. Her breath was a rattle within her chest, rasping past her ashen lips with hardly any force. And yet her chest was rising and falling rapidly, almost like a flutter rather than a steady cadence.
“I’m not leaving you,” I said, pulling us back a little father, trying to get us away from the hole.
“Davie… I’m… I’m not gonna—”
“Save your energy. Just breathe. I’m going to get you out of this. We’ll get away and then we’ll get you doctors and then—”
A roar interrupted me, full of violence and terror and grating on my ears like a cackle. It split the air, and then the dragon’s head was lowering so he was looking right at us.
He was just a yard or so away, a giant compared to us, the shadow of his head a stark outline that made me feel so much colder than what should have been possible. His eyes were about as big as my head, yellow and orange and swirling green. It reminded me of toxic sewage and malevolence all at once.
And those eyes were right on us, staring down, unmoving as he observed. His gaze drifted down until it settled on Mallory, and then something truly terrible slid past my ears, cold and cloying with spindly, rotten fingers.
“Thank you, little one. You have been a most gracious host. Rest now, your purpose is done.”
Mallory was shaking as she looked up at him, growing grayer by the second. I was suddenly reminded that she was barely in her twenties. She had so much more to do and say and experience. I had to get her to safety. Get her medical care. She had a whole destiny stretching out in front of her.
“Go screw yourself,” she hissed, lips pulled back from her blood-smeared teeth. She drew in a shuddering breath and then spit out a scarlet wad of saliva right at his face.
The blob landed, almost imperceptible due to the sheer scale of him, and then she collapsed back into my lap. Her eyes flicked to me, and she managed a crooked, oh-so-Mallory grin.
That was my girl. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to bend down and kiss her forehead. I wanted so many things. But nowhere on that list was for her to lest out the tiniest of gasps and then her face to go slack, drifting to a neutral sort of expression, her gaze drifting past me before the light left her eyes entirely.
No.
No.
That wasn’t possible.
She was just unconscious. That was it. She was unconscious from all the trauma, and she needed medical help. And I would get it for her. She would be fine.
“Mallory!” I snapped, using the last of my strength to pull us until we were finally caught up to the root that I was gripping. “Just hold on, Mallory. It’s going to be alright. You stay here. You stay here with me, right now!”
I was shouting, I was pretty sure, but it still wasn’t loud enough to drown out the fear within me. She would be fine. She had to be fine. I would drag her all the way to the castle if I had to. I didn’t let my friends die. I hadn’t lost anyone since my parents and honestly, that was enough for a whole lifetime.
With no more root to pull us, I had to drag us back with one arm, my other holding her body. She was so stiff, growing colder compared to my fevered touch. I wished that she would wake up and help me along, maybe be a little less dead weight, but I knew she couldn’t help it.
But it was okay. We could joke about it later, about me needing more upper body strength. It would be hilarious and ironic and become a memory for us. Because there was a future for us. We would forgive each other and heal our wrongs and then everything would be okay. It didn’t matter that the rotted dragon was in our world. It didn’t matter that everything that we had been fighting against was happening. What mattered was she would be alright.
“Stay with me, stay with me, stay with me.” I chanted it like a mantra, over and over again. It was like breathing, something I had to do to function. Because she had to be alright. Her story didn’t end this way, cold and dead in a field, our enemy having ripped his way out of her. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t how it should be.
I had no idea how long I crawled backward with my eyes locked on the dragon. I didn’t know whether it was a minute or five minutes or an hour. Time didn’t exist. There was just the three of us and the path to safety.
But then the dragon finally moved. His giant foot came up, slamming into the ground above my head. His massive face swung down, coming to a pause just inches away from mine. His breath washed over me, rancid and entirely too hot. It made me want to retch, want to roll over and vomit just like Mallory had, but I didn’t have the energy in me to do so.
“Aren’t you happy to see me, little one? I did work so hard to come and meet you.”
Curses bubbled past my lips, heated and angry and full of fear. I tried to crawl past his foot, but he just raised a claw, sinking it into part of the fabric of my overly long nightshirt.
“I’m almost hurt by this. Surely you must have sensed me, after all this time? I’ve been inside of her ever since that day she crossed dimensions, when you altered the rules of reality to blot an entire realm off the maps.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, my sweet. My little oracle. When you rip away so much from a tapestry, you leave threads to hang. Even though you didn’t mean to, you opened a window for me. A window where I could make a nice…” He lifted his claw from my shirt and gently tapped Mallory’s sternum. His nail looked comically large in comparison to her short torso, but instead of being funny, it just made me feel powerless. Small. “…soft…” He trailed the claw up lovingly, gently. Like Baelfyre, it was a cruel mockery of affection. “…warm little nest where I was able to grow, and take root, unti
l finally I had everything I needed to be birthed.”
“Don’t touch her!” I snarled, batting at his paw. But it was like slapping a statue for all the good it did.
“It was so easy drawing power from your world. It flows so freely here. Freely from you. But as you know, gain cannot be had without loss. Sacrifice. It took the blood of two royals—two cherished, valued sons from my descendants—to break the final bond. For a bit there, I was worried you didn’t have it in you. But you did it. You spilled their blood and then my chains were broken. I have to admit, I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“And I’ll spill your blood too. We’ve beaten out everything that’s been thrown at us. You really think you’ll win?” I was talking out of my own behind. I knew we couldn’t beat him. That was the whole reason he was locked away. He was unbeatable. But maybe, if I could just get Mallory to safety, then I could think of one of my deus ex machinas and everything would be alright.
“My dear, my little oracle, I already have. Now let go of your friend here and let me send her from this world with honor.”
“No! You don’t get to touch her! I’ll send you back. You don’t belong in this world.”
“It’s sweet how you protect her, but she’s already gone. Blood from my side, blood from your side. To gain there must be loss. Now let’s finish this, shall we?”
“No! She’s not gone. I can save her. I can save her.”
“Look down, child. See the truth.”
Despite how much I wanted to tell him where to shove it, I found myself staring down into my lap. Mallory was there, stiff and gray, her eyes dull. Lifeless.
“No, no, no, this isn’t real. No, no!”
I reached down to stroke her face. It was cold to the touch, without the same pliable sort of indent that live flesh would have. She made no motion that she had felt me, and no air bubbled past her lips.
No.
No, that couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t be gone. She couldn’t!
But then his face was lowering the rest of his way, his mouth opening in a wave of putrid output. I yelled something at him, furious and heated, but he didn’t pause, his teeth closing like he was going to snag her front.
