by Jada Fisher
“Stop!” I cried, thrusting my hand forward, willing for the same spikes that I had hurt Baelfyre with to shoot out again and make him hurt. To spill his blood back so I could save her.
I’d come back from the dead. It was possible. I could do it to her. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t an oracle, wasn’t like me. I would turn the universe inside out to get her back.
Magic lashed out, sharp and hot, but the moment it touched his rotted skin, it turned cold, slithering back into me and making my stomach roil again.
And then his teeth were closing on my arm instead of her.
I screamed, because how could I not? Fresh pain bubbled up, adding onto everything below it, and everything went white.
The next thing I knew, I was being lifted. Mallory slid from my lap, falling gracelessly to the side. I felt my shoulder stretch and scream while it was pulled by my weight. Then I was rising to my knees. Then my feet, and then those were off the ground too and I was hanging by only a single limb, kicking weakly.
It was like fire was devouring me, wiping out my thoughts and replacing them with agony.
“I had hoped we could visit a bit before we joined together, but if you insist on hastening it, who am I to argue?”
He began to tilt his head up, and I could see it in my mind’s eye. He would flick me into the air like a ragdoll and then catch me in his open mouth. Maybe he would chew me up, maybe he would swallow me whole, but suddenly, all those dreams, all those visions of him absorbing me into his disgusting flesh, made sense.
“Together, we’ll remold this world. A new age is upon us, my dear, dear little lock-breaker. You’ve earned your rest, and then I’ll send your friends to join you.”
Then I felt it, the tension in his jaws, little lightning bolts of pain stabbing through my trapped limb. His teeth were so large that there were maybe only four of them buried in the middle of my bicep, two atop and two below, and yet I could feel every single edge ripping into me.
But not ripping enough. I thrashed, or at least I did the best I could. But my arm was well and rightly stuck with not a single trickle of magic going down into it.
I was empty, scraped raw. After all my fighting, all the loopholes that I had found, I’d tripped at the finish line. He was going to eat me. I was going to die again, and he was going to destroy the world while I digested in his belly.
But I had to do something. He had killed Mallory. Eating her from the inside out. Soaking up all the things that he needed before he could burst out of her.
If only I hadn’t been so angry. If I’d just paid more attention. Maybe she would be alive. It was all my fault. I was the leader of the oracles, somehow, but I had let them all down.
I’d failed them.
I had to do something. I couldn’t just hang there. Even if my magic wouldn’t pump through my arm, wouldn’t pump through any of me, it was still there. I’d seen the stream of reality and enchantment with my own eyes. I knew that I was always connected.
Heart thumping sluggishly in my chest, I reached deep down into myself. I wrapped my fingers around it and yanked, yanked as hard as I possibly could. I called upon the magic of all the oracles that came before me and any that might come after. I called upon all those who had made mistakes and deeply regretted them in the fight against the rotted dragon. I called upon all that was right and good and everything else I could feel connected to the deepest parts of my soul.
And something came out of me. Something I couldn’t name. It wasn’t an explosion or even a burst. But it was a cool sort of bubble up that rippled out from us. Giving the dragon pause.
“What are you trying to do, little one?”
I didn’t know, so I didn’t answer. Instead, I swung my lower half upward, trying to kick at his mouth. His response was to shake me viciously and I gagged again, my muscles going slack on instinct. I heard his laugh slide through my head, silent and yet so loud despite that. In the distance, I was aware of the elders saying something, or maybe cheering, but I didn’t want them to be the last people I heard. It was bad enough that I would have the rotted dragon’s strange not-voice winding through my ears, insipid, acidic, and oh-so-smarmy.
“Release her, Faeldrus!”
The voice came from nowhere, yet everywhere. Above us, behind us, I almost wondered hazily if it was coming from within us as well.
The dragon’s grip on my limb grew ever-so-slightly slacker as his head perked up a bit. “I… I haven’t heard that voice in ages.”
It was a bit of an incongruous moment, me just hanging there, him just looking around as if he was in a mall and trying to figure out if someone he knew had called for him or not. But then, as the tension mounted, it fizzled out after a few breaths when nothing happened.
Was that it?
I shouldn’t have doubted, because less than a beat later, there was a rush, and I could sense something hastening toward us almost too quickly to see.
Then…then it was like everything happened at once. Too many things occurred simultaneously. World-changing things. Impossible things.
From the corner of my eyes, I saw the spirit—the grim reaper that had been following me, who had guided me back to consciousness just minutes ago—pop into existence. She was carrying the same weapon she’d had when we’d first spotted each other, shining far too realistically for something that was supposed to be phantasmagorical.
Then she was launching herself upward.
“Let. Her. Go!”
There was a flash, and a surprised not-shout from the rotted dragon that almost made my brain fall out. Then it felt like someone lit my arm on fire, sharp and excruciating. Then I was falling.
Falling?
I hit the ground so hard that the breath was knocked out of me. I heard snapping, I heard popping, and then a crack as the back of my head connected with the earth.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even breathe. The events happening in front of me washed over me like water. Things I couldn’t stop. Things I could barely even comprehend.
The dark spirit was standing in front of the rotted dragon, her scythe raised. Her clothes were rippling more than usual, the dark smoke that often surrounded her, made her, was thick and churning.
The rotted dragon was staring down at her like she was a ghost, which I supposed she was, but I was too removed from everything to laugh at my own mental joke. There was a strange sort of energy between them, something that felt familiar, but I couldn’t gather my thoughts enough to figure out how.
“Maedryell?” he asked, sounding bewildered. It was a tone I didn’t think that I had ever heard him use before, and it stuck out within my mind as something interesting. But I couldn’t think of why. “Ah, my sweet girl. I had missed you terribly.”
“I need not your words, Faeldrus. You have no right to be here. Leave this world while you still can.”
“I must admit, your vim and vigor are still just as virulent as it was when we first met. But we both know you cannot affect any of this. Part of your curse, yes? That was set upon you by all your brothers and sisters who you betrayed?”
Instead of answering, she swung her scythe across him. Despite everything my weary, drifting mind expected, a wound opened along the front of his proud, broad sternum, revealing more pus and pestilence that began to pour out.
The rotted dragon took a stumbling step back, his head tilted to look down at himself.
“Well, that was unexpected.”
“You underestimate us, just like you always have. You know in this form, I am more powerful than you, especially before you’ve had a chance to feed. So, leave now, run while you can, or die before anything can start.”
Instead of being intimidated, the rotted dragon just laughed. It was even more horrible with every interaction, burrowing into my skin and sending darkness spreading through me. I felt like I was going to get dragged down into the nothing. That all that was Davie was going to be erased and all there would be was his cold, cruel laughter.
“My lord! We are here to help you! Let us through that we may fight this apparition for you.”
If I was myself, if I wasn’t slowly growing colder and colder by the second, unable to move, then maybe I would have rolled my eyes at the elders. But I couldn’t. I could only lay there as these mythological people fought over me. It would be rather ironic if I just died there, wouldn’t it? All this hubbub, and I just slipped away to be with Mallory and my parents.
The rotted dragon looked behind him, then back to the grim reaper before his tail slapped into the ground. I felt the results almost instantly. There was a sort of cracking at the base of my shield, one that rolled along it until it was well beyond my sight, and then the fissures latticed upward. I knew what he was doing.
He was breaking the shield.
I couldn’t stop him—I didn’t have the ability—but what I could do was take all that power back into myself before he destroyed it. Maybe then I could fight back. Maybe then I would be able to move.
The intricate pattern of breaks made it nearly to the top. I had a breath, maybe two, to act. It was a gamble—some might even say it was selfish—but it was the only thing I could think to do.
So, I opened myself up, letting my natural walls and defenses fall, and called all that magic back to me at once.
It was…a lot.
Even after all the cracking, even on the verge of being shattered, it was just so much. Especially considering how hollowed out I had been. How I’d barely been able to connect with what made me an oracle. All of it hit me at once, diving into my core and spreading through me, waking up all the parts of me that had gone numb.
Ow.
The only thing about suddenly being alive enough to feel was that I was feeling everything all at once. It was a tsunami of pain and anguish, and for a few moments, that was enough to wipe out the entire scene in front of me.
By the time I came to, it was woozily but I felt less like I was about to die in just a minute or two and more like I might make it ten.
I blinked blearily, and my eyes slid to where the elders had been standing. They were no longer human, but rather three brilliant beasts that would have truly been massive if they hadn’t been standing next to the gargantuan rotted dragon.
They let out a roar each, celebrating—no, reveling—in their leader’s bellow, and they stepped forward into the line in the grass that no longer existed.
It was like an era of my life done and over. I had resurrected that shield in my new life and now it was gone. Gone in a flash, with only the remnants inside of me.
The three dragons moved forward proudly. One a shimmering, blinding white. Another a deep, deep red that was almost black. And lastly, an azure dragon with dark green scales rippling along him, his joints tinged with gold. They really were beautiful and radiated a sinister sort of power that spoke of ancient times and old wisdom.
No wonder they were elders. Their heads were raised high, all of them sporting so many horns, with what was left of the afternoon sun shining along their hides. Maybe I would have liked to draw them, were they not my mortal enemies, cheering at the death of all I loved.
They marched, a formidable line, but then the rotten dragon turned and snapped the red dragon up in his mouth.
It was as if there was a thunderous record-scratch as we all realized what happened, but the rotted dragon didn’t even pause. He ignored the shrieking and flailing of the red dragon, chomping violently several times. Blood and viscera were everywhere, shocking, horrifying, and then he was swallowing everything down.
When he was finished, his jaws snapped closed several times as if he was smacking his lips, and then he looked at the remaining two elders.
Unsurprisingly, the white dragon hissed and took to the air, fleeing so quickly that they were barely a streak in the sky. If I had to guess, I would say that was Valirie.
The blue dragon was clearly the more surprised of the two and spun around to run. The rotted dragon was faster, however, and his teeth closed around the azure tail.
I thought that was maybe the end of him, but then the entire tail released just like a lizard, and he was flying off too.
The rotted dragon paid that no mind, however, tilting his head back and greedily gobbling the entire tail right up.
He didn’t even hesitate once it was all swallowed. His head lowered and turned back to the spirit, his nostrils flaring and more green gas billowing out. “You were saying about not feeding?”
“If you want a fight, I’ll give you a fight. One I’ve owed you for a very, very long time.”
He smiled, mouth full of row after row of jagged teeth. Had he had that many before? I hadn’t felt that many biting into my arm. Then again, it had been such intense pain that I couldn’t really feel much at all beyond the blinding agony.
“Come now, let’s see just how strong that curse made you.”
And then they were at it, the rotted dragon flying into the sky, his chest filling with air, and her leaping after him. He breathed gas and fire, and it would have been almost awe-inspiring if it wasn’t the end of the world in real time.
A gentle, hardly-there rumble tickled down my head and spine, the tiny vibrations reminding me how much pain I was in. It wasn’t welcome, and I assumed it was just the world responding to the cacophony above me, but then it began to grow stronger.
And stronger.
What was happening? The rotted dragon had already crawled its way out of the earth, what else could come out of it? A kraken!?
The rumbling became almost overpowering, and that was when my hazy mind finally understood it wasn’t coming from the earth at all. It was a car.
What was a car doing out here?
“There she is! Grab her!”
I… I knew that voice. But that was impossible. Valirie had done some sort of magic to the manor and made almost everyone sleep.
But then hands were on me. They made me scream. Even just the light pressure from them made pain stab through my entire being.
“I’m sorry, Davie, I’m sorry. It’ll be okay. I got you. I’ve got you.”
What was it about trauma that made people repeat things? I had done the same things with Mall—
Mallory!
“No!” I managed to mutter, trying to wrest myself away. “Mallory, you can’t leave Mallory!”
I couldn’t imagine a greater indignity than laying there, cold in the dirt, witness to a fight between supernatural beings. I had come back from the dead, who was to say I couldn’t do the same to her?
“Davie, come on, let’s go. We have to get you out of here.”
They were dragging me back, making my stomach roil. “No, you can’t leave her! You can’t—”
I recognized Krisjian’s face above me. “Davie, she’s dead.”
“I know, I know, but I can change it. I can. I know I can.” I was desperate, breathless. The edges of my vision were both red and black. That was impossible, and yet that was exactly what they were.
Krisjian’s soft hands came up to either side of my face, soft and cool. They felt like heaven against my heated face, but when I pressed into his palm, there was just more pain. There was always pain. The whole world was pain, and it wasn’t stopping. Soon it would swallow me up, but I wasn’t going to give up on Mallory!
“Hey. Hey, look at me.” I tried not to, tried to flick my eyes towards where Mallory had rolled. Where was she? I couldn’t see her. I couldn’t feel her. But Krisjian persisted in his gentle, comforting hold. “You’re so tired, aren’t you? You should just close your eyes and go to sleep. We’ll take care of you. I promise.”
“But… Mallory. I…”
“We got you back without your body, right? It’ll all be fine. Just let yourself rest.”
…rest? That sure did sound nice.
My eyelids grew heavy, weighed down by everything that had happened. He had a point, actually. I was very tired. I had gone through too much for one human. I deserved a rest. Surely if I closed my eyes for ju
st a moment, it wouldn’t hurt anything.
“Just sink right down into that warm, cozy place you feel inside you. It’s so nice and welcoming. There’s really no reason to resist it, right?”
“No…reason…”
“Come on! We need to get her out of here now!”
The other hands holding me gripped tighter, pain trying to bite into me but unable to get through the warm, syrupy contentment. I was dragged backward, then lifted and slid onto a seat. It was far too similar to what Baelfyre had done to me, and I tried to kick out.
I didn’t get any traction, however, and fell into the comfortable dark just below my feet.
13
It Doesn’t Get Any Worse than This
I’d been unconscious so many ways that I thought I had experienced pretty much all of them. And yet, as I wavered up toward the world of the living, I found myself plunged right back down again into the welcoming dark.
It didn’t cross my mind to fight it, so I just let it push and pull me, drifting up to almost the surface of the force I was under, then sinking right back down. It almost might have been fun if I could understand it. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t able to think at all, really.
But then, after an indeterminable amount of time, whatever was pushing me back waned, and my ascent didn’t falter.
Once I crested the thick layer that was my sleep, I wasn’t greeted by anything that made sense. The walls around me were jagged, aged, and leaking. It wasn’t anything like the manor or the palace. Where was I?
I tried to look around, but my eyes wouldn’t move. Nothing would. My thoughts were muddled together and slipshod, sliding past each other too fast for me to grasp. So, I just laid there, only able to stare up at the ceiling and see the wall in my peripheral vision.
Not for the first time in my life, time didn’t matter or make any sense. Some moments it went on forever, sometimes it rushed by. I couldn’t say whether it was minutes or hours before there was a noise at the door followed by footsteps.
