I flew through the darkness, eyes open and vigilant for anything to indicate a way out. I turned, spun, flipped myself upside down, but the same void surrounded me at every angle. A breath of frustration whooshed out of my imaginary lungs. This was hopeless. The spriggans would keep us trapped here forever. Was this like the thousand years Gladius had spent deep within the earth, having visions of the other dragons’ torture, or had he really been sleeping?
After what felt like an eternity in the dark, I released a long sigh and let my eyes flutter shut. Stepping-stones the same size, shape, and shade of sandstone as the stair-stones of Mount Fornax stretched out before me. Hope surged in my chest, and I jumped from one stone to the next, following the path. The spriggans would probably step out of the dark, show me a vision of their side of the story, and try to make me side with them. I leaped forward, taking the stones two at a time. The sooner I confronted them in this dreamscape, the sooner I could rescue everyone from the ants and their dagger-sharp mandibles.
The final stepping-stone expanded into the kind of platform we had used in the mountain to travel down to the surface. I stared down at the piece of unmoving sandstone and said, “Do something.”
It didn’t move.
I stamped my foot. “Come on!”
The platform plummeted, making my stomach lurch. I widened my stance, spreading out both arms for balance. If I didn’t stop this free-fall, I would die!
I stamped my foot. “Stop!”
It just fell faster.
“Hey! Stop messing about and show yourself,” I shouted into the void.
As expected, there was no reply. I closed my eyes once again and found myself in the manicured front gardens of Father’s mansion in Mount Bluebeard. My shoulders slumped. The spriggans were deliberately wasting my time so they could resurrect the Forgotten King without anyone’s interference.
“You baby-headed monsters!” I shook my fist at the cloudless, afternoon sky. “Come out and fight me like a warrior!”
“Alba?” said Mother’s voice.
I rolled my eyes. This wasn’t her. Half of me hoped to see an ant’s head talking to me through clicking mandibles, but when I turned around, Mother’s beautiful, beaming face stared back at me. I grimaced. Of all the people to show me, why her? “Are you going to show me a way out?”
She tilted her head to the left. “What are you talking about, silly? You’re already outside.”
“You’re a figment of someone’s imagination, sent here to torment me. Eventually, I’ll battle my way out with fists and flames. Let’s save ourselves the effort and show me a way out of this dreamscape. There are ants out there trying to eat us alive.”
Her brows drew together. “Your friend has come to visit.”
An annoyed breath heaved out of my lungs. I’d never had any friends in Mount Bluebeard when I was growing up. Only Mother. None of the children on the estate knew how to deal with the leader of our Noble House’s half-fairy, bastard daughter. My cousins didn’t count, because the twins lived in a different country, and a younger Chrysus was too dangerous and troublesome to call down for playtimes.
Mother turned back toward the mansion and cast me a glance over her shoulder. “Are you coming to see your friend?”
I followed her up the marble steps, huffing my impatience. This had better lead to an exit or a fight with a spriggan because I was in no mood to revisit memories or perform for the wretched creatures’ amusement.
Mother held open one side of the triple-height, double doors, and I stepped into the mansion’s marble hallway. She walked ahead with brisk steps, reminding me somewhat of the acrobatic Captain Pristis, who taught us sword fighting. She paused at the parlor. With a smile nearly as wide as Ko-ra-kenn’s, she said, “Here’s your friend.”
Disgust rippled through my insides. It was one thing for the spriggans to use Mother’s image for their sick games, but another to twist her appearance to something grotesque. She continued down the hallway, waving at me over her shoulder. I turned my head away. If the spriggans were using my recent memories, they might place an eye at the back of her head like the one they’d likely given Asproceros, the poacher.
Unhooking my parched sword from its belt, I pushed the parlor door open. No matter what manner of foul creature I saw, I wouldn’t react. I would strike hard, strike fast, and get myself out of the dreamscape before the ants devoured us all.
I stepped inside. “What—”
Sitting on a silken chaise was a young woman who looked exactly like me. But where I had platinum hair and pale, blue eyes, her hair was the brightest, emerald green, and her eyes burned like crimson flames.
My brows furrowed. “Fyri?”
Chapter 12
The green-haired young woman sprang to her feet, crimson eyes wide. As she raced across the parlor, she stumbled over the burgundy, silk rug. Most people would have paused to see what had been beneath their feet or turned back to straighten whatever they had disturbed, but she continued running. “A-Alba, is that really you or are you in my head?”
I stepped back, examining her from head to toe. She stood six-feet-tall, just like me, and wore the same cadet’s uniform, but the piping on the lapel was gold like Phoenix’s, instead of burgundy like mine and my classmates. Was this some kind of indication that she would become the first female master dragon?
“I’m real, but I think you’re a figment of the spriggan’s imagination. Why aren’t you a dragon?”
Fyrian glanced down at her body. “I don’t know. When I woke up, I was human… Sort of. What do I look like?”
“A green-haired version of me.” I turned to find Mother leaning against the door jamb with her arms folded across her chest. With a scowl at her over-wide smile, I asked, “Is this a game? Like how you’re the dark-haired version of Aunt Cendrilla?”
She smirked. “Or she’s the light-haired version of me?”
Fyrian frowned, making my features look more ferocious. “I say we flame her until she lets us out.”
“I’m not sure they’d make it that easy.”
“We won’t know until we try.” Fyrian pushed past me, sucked in a deep breath and blew it out. Then her shoulders slumped. “I can’t breathe fire in this form.”
Mother stepped aside and swept her arm down the hallway. “Good luck, girls.”
I hooked my arm through Fyrian’s and led her out of the parlor. “What made you think you could?”
“Gladius can,” she muttered.
“But he’s the oldest and most powerful dragon in existence.”
“And I’m not,” she said in the usual, sad tone she had whenever someone reminded her of being so young.
I smiled. This had to be my Fyrian. The spriggans wouldn’t conjure up this minor personality quirk. Their version of Mother was a grotesque caricature. She smiled a lot, but not to the extent of the being portrayed in this dreamscape. Our combined footsteps echoed down the marble hallway, something that didn’t happen when I had followed Mother inside the mansion.
Giving Fyrian a little nudge, I said, “You’re doing really well for someone who was a dragonet less than two months ago. How many dragons can say they saved Mount Fornax from ruin four times?”
“Five, if you include the time I nearly got executed for a crime I didn’t commit.”
A laugh huffed from my chest. This could only be my Fyrian.
When we stepped out through the mansion’s double doors, night had fallen, and a silvery moon hung in the sky, casting the manicured garden in black and white. I flicked my head upward. “Look.”
“At least we know what the challenge is,” muttered Fyrian.
I drew back. “See if you can turn back into a dragon.”
Fyrian closed her eyes and jerked her head forward, but nothing happened. Then she rolled her shoulders and balled her fists to no effect. She twisted her features in an exaggerated expression of annoyance, then huffed. “It’s not working.”
“Do you know how master dragons
transform?” I asked.
She raised a shoulder. “I don’t know any well enough to ask such a personal question.”
“I’d bet Gladius would explain it to you.”
“But he’s not here, is he?”
“He’s always butting into our conversations.” I raised my head and turned in a slow circle, looking out for signs of a dragon flying through the skies. “Somehow he’s latched onto our link and won’t let go. I’ll bet we’ll find him somewhere in this dreamscape.”
She stretched out her hand. “Let’s hurry up and find him, so we can escape. The last thing I remembered was the skin under my scales being nipped and tickled by those horrible ants.”
I took her hand, and we ran around the gardens, past a line of honeybees drifting from flower to flower in a straight line, and around to Mother’s garden at the back. Not even the silvery light of the moon could suppress the colorful display of flowers. Peonies, tiger-lilies, and red carnations bloomed around a series of bird boxes, little wooden stands and, swings set up around the perimeter for her amusement. In the middle of her garden lay a lawn of chamomile flowers whose petals shimmered like blue silk in the moonlight.
Hanging from an archway of trumpet-roses was the pond-side swing where she used to sit and cry when she thought I’d gone to bed. I pushed those memories aside. Mother had been genuinely happy for Father and Aunt Cendrilla before the quadruplets’ naming ceremony. It was clear that she no longer pined for him. Returning to the Fairy Fighting Force had given her something else to occupy her thoughts.
Fyrian raced ahead to a magnolia tree and picked something up from the foot of a gooseberry bush. “Look at this!”
I stood at the edge of the lawn and folded my arms across my chest. “A broomstick?”
“We can use it to fly to the moon.” She raised it over her shoulder and beamed.
I shook my head. “I’m not a witch.”
“And I’m not an ogre-hybrid, but this place has made that possible. Let’s try the broomstick. If it doesn’t get us to the moon, we’ll look for something different.”
I trudged to the other side of the lawn, trampling chamomile flowers underfoot. “It’s not going to work.”
“It won’t with that attitude.” After placing the brush end of the broomstick on the ground, Fyrian straddled its shaft. “Remember Asproceros?”
I mounted the broomstick behind her. “A dragonet in your breeches might come in handy in a situation like this.”
“Push your power into the handle and stop moaning.”
I closed my eyes and exhaled, moving my magic from my inner core, out through my chest, down my arms, and into my fingertips. My palms heated, causing sweat to seep into the wooden broom handle. “It’s not working.”
“Try harder.”
I pushed more magic through the palms of my hand and down my fingertips, but nothing happened. Letting go, I shook my head. The old me might have wasted time on an impossible task as I had done in the Magical Militia, but that was before I knew my place in the world. I was a dragon warrior, not a witch. “Come on, Fyri, let’s try something else.”
“How else are we going to travel to the moon if not by broomstick?” she muttered.
Closing my eyes, I willed myself to float into the sky, but my feet remained firmly on the lawn. I opened my eyes and scowled. “There’s probably only one way out. Something impossible and dangerous and maybe even a bit of a riddle. It looks like the spriggans want us to find it.”
“Do you have any ideas, because I’m still thinking we could have made the broom work.”
With a smile, I continued around the moon-lit garden, pushing aside the shrubs and checking the ground. Whatever the spriggans had left for us might have been hidden further away, but I had a feeling they would hide it in the grounds. An orange-sized bubble lay beneath a hibiscus shrub, reminding me of the mare-raeda we’d received from the fin-men.
I bent down to pick it up, but footsteps, much heavier than Mother’s or Fyrian’s, over the gravel path made me turn around. Niger strode toward me, concern etched on his features. Instead of casting him in duller colors as it had Fyrian, the moon made his long, wild beard and locks shine like burnished copper.
Straightening, I narrowed my eyes. “Are you a figment of our imagination?”
He stopped on the path and shook his head. “Gladius appeared outside Master Jesper’s lab, saying he could not wake anyone. We all put on the leave-no-trace cloaks, and he transported us here. Master Jesper cast a diagnostic spell over you. He says the ants injected a dreaming elixir infused with dark magic.”
“Is there an antidote?” Fyrian straightened from where she had been kneeling at a rosebush.
Niger’s face dropped. “W-who are you?”
Her brows drew together. “Fyrian-Lacerta… Why?”
He bounded across the chamomile lawn and fell to his knees at her feet. “You are the most exquisite creature I have ever seen.”
I rolled my eyes. This couldn’t be real. My Niger wouldn’t make a comment like that in front of me. Even if this green version of me was striking in the moonlight.
A blush formed on Fyrian’s cheeks. “I-I look just like Alba.”
Niger cast me a dismissive glance. “But so much more.”
She stepped back. “Why are you saying these things?”
I pursed my lips. This was obviously some kind of play on the situation with Mother and Aunt Cendrilla, except the spriggans had turned the closest thing I had to a sister into a more colorful version of myself. Shaking my head at the clumsy work, I strode across the lawn toward this effusive, grotesque version of Niger. It was too obvious, and I’d already come to terms with the strange relationships between Father, Mother, and Aunt Cendrilla.
I gathered his ear between my thumb and forefinger. “Could you stop distracting us?”
This obsidian eyes widened. “Alba, this is no distraction.”
“Right. Step aside then and let us find a way out of this dreamscape.”
“B-but I came to see you.”
Fyrian snorted and jabbed his thigh with the toe of her boot. “That’s why you’re at my feet instead of Alba’s.”
A roguish grin spread across his face. “You cannot blame me for having a way with women.”
“No.” I yanked him to his feet. “That’s what everyone else says about Father. The real Niger isn’t like that.”
Niger grinned and stepped back, holding his palms high.
“Can you believe that?” I turned to Fyrian. “The spriggans wanted us to fight over him!”
She shook her head, making her long, green locks dance over her shoulders. “They’d have to try a lot harder to get me to choose you over anyone else. Come on, let’s find the way to the moon.”
Niger followed Fyrian around from plant to plant, trying to convince her to listen to him and give him a chance. My nostrils flared. Did the spriggans believe him to be a younger version of Father, who fell for two sisters? Despite my Niger’s roguish exterior, he was a kind, thoughtful person who wouldn’t relegate me to the sidelines if he found someone more to his liking.
“Will you shut up?” Fyrian snapped. “I’m trying to concentrate.”
His shoulders slumped. “Is it because I am not a dragon?”
With a snort, she crawled between a clump of raspberry canes. “I’ve found something.”
I shoved Niger aside. “What?”
“This.” She held up a glistening, white pearl.
“Let’s try it.”
I stepped back, giving her space to stand, then she placed the pearl on the grass between us and said, “Take us to the moon!”
When nothing happened, I bent down, picked up the pearl, and slipped it into the pocket of my flying jacket. “It was worth a try.”
She sighed. “I suppose.”
My eyes narrowed. Niger had only appeared when I had found that black bubble under the hibiscus shrub. What if his presence here was a distraction from the only thing that
could fly us to the moon?
He harrumphed. “Because if it is a dragon you want, I can be that dragon for you.”
Fyrian placed her hands on her hips. “Can you go to the other side of the garden, please? You’re in the way.”
“Actually, he might have a point.” I tapped my bottom lip. “If you’re a girl, why can’t I be a dragon?”
Fyrian’s breath caught. “Go on, then.”
I closed my eyes and jerked my head forward, just as Fyrian had done when she tried to transform, but nothing happened. When I opened them, I stood on four legs several feet off the ground.
Fyrian tilted her head back and beamed. “You did it!”
I bared my teeth in a grin, letting out a satisfied curl of smoke. “It was all thanks to imaginary Niger! Hold on a second.” Ignoring the half-ogre trailing at our side, I walked to the edge of the pond. “I want to see what kind of dragon I make.”
I glanced at my reflection. A silver dragon stared back through eyes that shone like aquamarines. Around my head stood a crown of platinum horns that glinted in the moonlight. I turned my head from left to right, marveling at the sight. I looked just like Fyrian, only metallic instead of emerald.
She rested a palm on my foreleg. “What do you think?”
“I-I’m breathtaking.”
“Come on, then. Let’s fly to the moon.” Fyrian climbed on my forepaw, up my foreleg, and settled herself between my wings. “Do you know what to do?”
“Ummm…. Jump high and spread my wings?”
“Fill your lungs first,” she said. “That might help you stay airborne.”
“All right.” I sucked in lungfuls of air. Instead of filling like mine usually did after taking a deep breath, the air rushed into a void. No matter how much I inhaled, my lungs wouldn’t fill. I kept breathing in more and more until I became light-headed and had to exhale a plume of smoke. “Have you ever filled your third and fourth lungs?”
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