Starlight

by Adrienne Woods

  He turned around and I couldn’t get away from his tail fast enough.

  It collided hard with my body and threw me against another wall.

  I fell to the floor and blacked out immediately.

  When my eyes opened the earth trembled again.

  Sounds of dragons snapping vibrated in the distance and then it grew louder and louder.

  They were still busy fighting.

  Blake was losing the battle.

  This isn’t right.

  It couldn’t be. If Blake wasn’t a match for the Saadedine, then what was going to kill it? What was the missing ingredient?

  I found a pool of blood and realized it was where Blake had been lying a couple of minutes ago. I looked back up, hearing the shrill sound of a dragon, and then back down at the pool of blood.

  Becky was right, and Blake was wrong—well, just with one part, saying it wasn’t something we could see or touch. It was us, he’d gotten that part right, but just not mentally, physically. It was something that made both of our hearts beat, it flowed through both our veins, give us life.

  My blood was magical, and so was his.

  Our blood, our blood mixed together. That was the missing ingredient.

  I felt for my axes but they were gone.

  I still had my gloves on and I lifted up my hand and yelled the command, “Return to me!”

  Nothing happened and I said it again.

  Blake was growling, it was a painful growl and I saw that the Saadedine had a good grip on his wing.

  It was busy tearing. “No!” I yelled the command as loud as I could and heard both my axes swoosh through the dark. They were making their way to me fast.

  I caught the one and the other one followed right after.

  I smeared both axes against my bloody leg and dipped them into the pool of Blake’s blood that was on the ground.

  Please work.

  A tearing sound filled the pit, and I turned around and released both axes just as something sharp connected with my back and the end exited my stomach. It was a spear.

  I looked in the direction it’d come from and saw Goran a couple of meters behind me. With a second spear in his hands.

  My one ax hit the floor, the noise broke my sight with Goran and I looked at the Saadedine just as my second ax hit him in the torso. He growled.

  “Noooo!” Goran screamed with anger.

  I kept looking at the Saadedine falling and Blake was gone.

  I couldn’t see him anywhere.

  Still the adrenaline in my veins made me walk forward. The Saadedine needed to die, and if Blake was dead, I didn’t care anymore. I couldn’t live this life if he wasn’t going to live it with me. This wasn’t the plan.

  The growls of the Saadedine grew louder, he was in pain.

  That had to be the missing ingredient. It had to be both our bloodlines together. It couldn’t be anything else.

  I saw his big body and then watched it growing smaller and smaller.

  Another spear struck me and I gasped, but pain wasn’t a factor anymore. My body was starting to give in.

  I fell to the floor as the Saadedine turned back into his human form.

  I fell hard to the ground and my eyes lingered on the man’s body. So Blake was right, it was a man.

  Just then a huge explosion went off. Boulders crashed to the floor, the walls were coming down as voices filled the air.

  The boulders were blasted away with spells coming from all directions, and not one of them hit me.

  Dragons and their riders filled the pit that was now streaming with light.

  Commands were shouted that we had to stop but it was too late. The Saadedine was dead, and even if I wasn’t going to make it, my people would be safe.

  The host of the Saadedine stirred. No, please. I was so tired. I couldn’t fight anymore. My adrenaline was busy fading, my eyes were so heavy.

  Tears lingered in them as I knew this world will never be safe. We should’ve never come.

  “Elena,” the host of the Saadedine barely spoke, but he said my name and his eyes locked with mine.

  This cannot be. Goran killed…. I gasped my last breath. “Dad.” And blew it out.

  Blake

  MY WING WAS busy tearing as I heard Elena yelling the command for her axes.

  I growled and spat my acid into its eyes as he released my wing. I crashed again into the wall and fell.

  I ducked as one of her axes smeared with blood came flying my way and crashed a couple of meters away from me.

  Why is it smeared with blood? It wasn’t her blood, the missing ingredient wasn’t her blood, we’d spoken about that time and time again.

  Elena.

  The Saadedine growled as the first ax’s twin connected hard with its body. It mimicked someone else’s laugh, Helmut, no, Goran’s. He was in this pit. A huge explosion outside made the pit vibrate again and I lost my balance just as I was busy making my way to where his voice had come from. The walls were blasted away. Light seeped through and I wasn’t close enough to Elena to save her from any boulders. Commands were shouted. It was dragons and their riders. A good sign, and not one of the boulders hit me. We’d done it.

  “Don’t!” my father yelled. He was deranged and I saw the Saadedine starting to shrink into the man he used to be.

  My father transformed and ran in his direction. What on earth was he trying to do?

  He blasted his acid and I thought it was a little overkill. But when I saw boulders being incinerated and he started to move faster, it all made sense. If they wanted the Saadedine to be good, a bad host, the worst there was had to be sacrificed to become the Saadedine. If they wanted an evil Saadedine, someone pure had to be sacrificed. The Saadedine was King Albert. Goran had lied. He was still alive.

  Elena.

  I got up and looked for her.

  I found her lying face down looking at her father. “Dad.” She was still alive and then I saw it. Two spears sticking out her back.

  “NOOOO!” I yelled and ran as fast as I could to her side. I fell down on my knees and yanked them out her body without thinking. I picked her up and turned her around.

  “Keep your eyes open, Elena, it’s all you have to do!” I yelled while I slapped her. She didn’t open them. “Help, get Constance.”

  Emanual transformed back into his human form and came rushing to my side.

  “Constance will not make it Blake,” he said and laid his head on her chest. I knew what he was doing, He was listening for a heartbeat, but there wasn’t one. My healing didn’t want to come either. I was too tired.

  Tears streamed down my face but no sobs came. She can’t be dead.

  “Blake!”

  “Don’t say it!”

  I put my mouth onto hers and started to do CPR. Blood poured from her wounds and pooled onto the floor.

  “Blake.”

  “No.” I didn’t even sound like me, as I carried on with the CPR.

  “It’s too late, you have to let her go.”

  “How do I do this?” I yelled at him.

  Emanual squinted.

  “The Essence, Emanual, how do I do this?”

  He closed his eyes.

  “TELL ME!”

  “You have to give her literally a piece of your heart, Blake. There is only one way to do that.”

  My fire started to spring to life. I pressed my finger against my chest. It fucking hurt but it was nothing compared to what I would feel if she didn’t make it.

  I screamed as blood poured out. How could any one of them survive this? But I didn’t give a shit about that part. If she dies, I’m dead too.

  I pushed my hand inside my chest and broke off a piece of my heart. I screamed off the pain and Emanual shredded open Elena’s shirt and cut her chest with one of the spears that’d hit her a couple of minutes ago.

  Blood didn’t even pour out this time. Another bad sign. I finally got a piece of my actual heart in my hands, and I put my hand gently into her open chest, p
ressing it against her heart.

  Her heart was so tiny and not beating. But my piece of heart was like a blood sucker and it squirmed in my hands. When it connected with her heart, it attached itself.

  I pulled my bloody hand out her chest and fatigue like I’d never felt before washed over my body and I collapsed right next to her.

  Don’t leave me, please.

  ELENA

  I OPENED MY eyes and sunlight blinded my sight. Birds chirped close by. There was no wind, only sun.

  Tree tops were hovering over me and I didn’t fear them like I used to anymore as I knew I was safe.

  I turned my head and found Blake lying next to me, on a bed. How he’d gotten a bed out here underneath the trees was beyond my knowledge.

  A smile sprawled over my face as I saw him sleeping.

  He looked so peaceful.

  I pushed a string of raven black hair that’d fallen on his face away and he opened his blue peacock eyes and smiled.

  “Hey, Princess.”

  I laughed. “I told you not to call me that, where are we?”

  He closed his eyes and smiled but didn’t answer me.

  “Blake?” I asked and he opened his eyes again.

  “Does it matter where we are? We are together, Elena.”

  I squinted. He’d never answered me like that before and I tried to remember the last thing we’d done before waking up here. I couldn’t.

  His hand touched my chin. “Hey, why the worried look?” He turned my head to look into his eyes and all the worry seemed to vanish, it just disappeared.

  It was such a weird feeling: nothing that had happened before mattered at all, not even the stupid day, the one I couldn’t remember.

  “I think it’s time.” There were tears lingering in his eyes.

  He scared me. “Time for what?” My voice broke.

  “To show you, Elena.”

  I knew what he was talking about. I’d waited for that a long time. Was our bond finally healed? I couldn’t remember. “What, the trees don’t have ears this time?”

  He laughed. “I’m really getting good at this. So good that….” He closed his eyes and shook his head.

  “Good at what?”

  “Nothing, this is where I want to be forever and ever.”

  I just look at him. What was he hiding? What wasn’t he telling me?

  “Close your eyes, Elena.”

  I did and his head rested softly on mine. It was very similar to what Cheng showed me and I thought at a stage that Tanya may have shown him the same things, but I knew it wasn’t possible. She was dead.

  The images stopped and we were both standing inside a white room.

  “Okay, what is this?” I asked him but he didn’t answer.

  “Blake,” I tried to touch him and my hand just went through him as if I were a ghost. I didn’t like this.

  My heart started to stammer a bit.

  “Blake?” I asked again and again and realized fast that he couldn’t see me.

  I looked around me. It was pure white everywhere I looked and I felt a dizzy, spinning sensation and the outline of a room appeared. It became clearer and clearer. I saw Lucian and I sitting in a corner. The me sitting with Lucian was looking up and staring right at me, or at Blake. Lucian and I disappeared and the corner was empty again.

  I remembered that day. I’d seen something quick, it was fast but I didn’t understand it then. It just didn’t make any sense, it still didn’t make any sense.

  I looked at Blake who just stared at what was happening in front of him.

  I knew where we were. I was back in the room with my mother and father. Back to the day I was born, but it was after I was born.

  My mom, the queen was on the bed with my tiny body lying next to her. My dad was walking around in the room. This was the day they’d discovered I was sick. The day that Tanya came to tell them that she could help, by sacrificing Cara.

  I looked at Blake who just stared at my mom and I.

  He didn’t say anything.

  What was he doing here? That poem.

  The room spun again and it stopped on another scene. It was night. We were following a hooded figure and a baby dragon. She was purple and I knew it was Cara.

  I was walking, fast. Blake, Blake protested all the way, he sounded upset and it looked like he had no control over his movements at all. He didn’t want to go, and fought against it. But an invisible force pulled him to stay close to Cara and Tanya.

  He always had to fight against everything.

  He panicked as he didn’t understand any of this. I didn’t either.

  Tanya transformed close to the wall that was near a forest. We all went through and only found sea on the other side. It didn’t make any sense, at first I thought I was going to drown but everything spun again and the picture changed when the spinning stopped. We were all inside a hotel room, me, Cara, Blake and Tanya.

  Cara was playing with a ball, just like a cat, and Tanya was pacing up and down.

  Blake screamed at Tanya, asking questions about why he was here, all sorts of profound things, it was as if he’d lost his own memory before this happened. I could see it on his face, the words forcing him to remember something as he hit his head. When he opened the door to leave, the invisible force pushed him back and he came landing a few feet from Cara.

  He grunted, got up, and tried again.

  The same thing happened over and over. It was as if he couldn’t leave.

  The spinning came again and the next scene was the day my dad, Herbert came.

  He was so happy to find Cara. Blake tried to get through to him too, but he couldn’t hear him. I knew how it felt as nobody, not one of them could see me either, but I discovered it much sooner as I’d gone through this before with Lucian. Blake still had no idea what was happening to him.

  The image changed again.

  The room was different. It wasn’t the motel room anymore, it was a home. I looked outside. The backyard was big, had trees, and was open. The countryside popped into my head.

  My dad sat on the bed. It was so good to see him. I wished I could go to him and just talk to him. Tell him that I was sorry for everything I’d done. But I knew he wouldn’t hear me.

  The door opened and Tanya came out. Herbert and Blake looked up at her. He wasn’t trying to leave anymore.

  “What does she look like?” My father had a huge grin on his face. Tanya didn’t. She had tears in her eyes and walked out of the room.

  My father just looked at her and then at the bathroom. He got up and walked in. I followed him.

  A one-year-old baby was inside the bathroom and my father started to cry. He fell to his knees and broke down.

  I knew who that was. It was me and I knew this was the day he realized that Cara was no more.

  He swallowed his tears and looked at baby me with so much hatred.

  He then shook his head and pushed himself up and walked out of the room.

  I didn’t follow and heard how he fought with Tanya as he knew what she’d done.

  Blake listened too, got up with a jolt and ran into the bathroom.

  He just stared at Baby Elena, sitting naked on the floor in the bathroom.

  “What is this?” he asked and Baby Elena looked up straight at him.

  She smiled and looked back down.

  We both stared at her.

  “Whoo hoo,” Blake said and she looked up again, smiled at him and looked back down.

  He did it again and each time he got the same response.

  He went down on his haunches and came closer to her. “You can see me?” She looked straight at him again and smiled one more time as baby noises left her mouth. A faint curve appeared on his lips.

  I saw him? No, I would’ve remembered. Blake would not have been a stranger.

  The room started to spin around. We were in the living room. I found myself at the window and I looked out. It was twilight, but it was the same house as before.

  Blake w
as sitting on one of the chairs. Baby Elena was standing right in front of him, clutching his legs to keep her balance. There were a couple of men on their knees on the carpet, kneeling in front of Tanya.

  “We pledge with our lives to keep her safe. That is our dragon oath,” they said and I looked at Blake and myself as a one-year-old again. He raised his eyes at her playfully and she cackled with laughter.

  The image swirled again and we were still sitting in the living room, it was a different day as Baby Elena was wearing different clothes and her hair was slightly longer. Blake was sitting on one of the opposite couches. Little me was playing with one of his bracelets.

  Jako was reading a newspaper on another chair.

  I talked, it wasn’t clear, and they both looked up when I said the word bracelet.

  Tanya got up and walked over to where Blake sat. He tried to take the bracelet out of my tiny hands but touched nothing. It made him worry.

  Tanya took the bracelet out of her hands.

  “Who’s is this?” she asked my dad and he just looked at her, got up too and took it.

  “Don’t say my name,” he spoke to baby me as my father picked me up.

  “Whose bracelet is this Bear?”

  He’d called me Bear.

  I laughed, and he smiled. Asking me the same question again with a friendlier tone.

  Tanya just looked at it very strangely as I giggled again but I never said Blake’s name.

  Blake blew out air and sat back down on the couch.

  My father gave the bracelet back to me and put me down.

  “Find out,” he said to Tanya and walked out the door.

  He was still angry with her. She just stood there, staring at me and then at the couch as if she could see Blake. Blake saw this too and he stared straight at her.

  She closed her eyes. “She is your only chance at getting claimed one day, please, I’m begging you don’t hurt her. Protect her with your life. Please.”

  We both gasped, and he stared at me again still playing with his bracelet. He nodded after a while as if she could see him.

  She bent down and looked at me.

  “Is this Blake’s baby?” she asked. She knew. And then I got it. She shared a Dent with my mom. This was the procedure. The poem, it was about the Dent.