by Zara Zenia
“Nora would be a fool to kill her,” Yadav said. “I am certain that her biggest goal here is to brainwash Ariana into believing anything she tells her about you. Anything that will demean or demoralize you will be her ultimate plan. She will want to denounce your name and make Ariana disgusted with you.”
A shiver of angst rippled up and down my spine. It was a horrible concept to even think about.
“I can’t imagine Ariana hating me,” I said softly.
Yadav gave me an empathetic glance. “She is strong enough to resist Nora for now.”
“That’s just it,” I said. “For now. What happens when things fall apart, and Nora finds a way to weaken Ariana’s mind?”
Yadav’s expression was somber. “Hopefully we will be able to find her long before that ever happens.”
I rubbed my temples and propped my elbows up on the surface of my desk.
“I never expected to be going through this complication.”
David’s eyes shimmered. “It’s just a temporary setback.”
I sighed. “You are just trying to brighten the situation.”
“That’s my job,” he reminded me. “We’ll find her.”
“How do you think she got the word out to me in the first place?” I gave him a curious look. “I mean, if Nora is keeping her under lock and key as more or less a prisoner who is also being threatened by a looming dragon, then how in the world would she have ever found an opportunity to send me a message?”
I shuddered at the thought of poor Ariana cowering under the malicious beady eyes of a fire breathing dragon. If it ever attempted to harm her, I would run a stake through its head. I would make it my life’s purpose to kill it, should that assumption prove true.
“There are a few factors to consider here,” Yadav mentioned and leaned in closer to me. “She might be working with a rogue AI.”
“Pardon?” I pitched my eyebrows.
“A rogue Artificial Intelligence,” he clarified.
I narrowed my eyes and inspected him. “Go on.”
“She might have found a sentient AI in the virtual world that is willing to help her. One that would have to be self-aware of course in order to behave defiantly against Nora, the creator. With your brother’s research we’ve come to realize there are certain AI’s that evolve and some that do not. Perhaps she’s found one that’s evolved enough to think for itself, like Akrawn’s Hugh.”
“That makes sense.” I nodded.
“So, in theory,” Yadav said, “if Ariana has become lucky enough to find this Artificial Intelligence to help her, then that is probably how she is able to get messages out to you without them being immediately infiltrated by Nora or someone on Nora’s team.”
“Because the AI will know exactly how to get around the system?” I asked.
“Yes.” Yadav nodded.
I supposed he was right. We were closer than we were yesterday, even if it did seem like we were only taking baby steps along the way.
“I can send a web crawler to search for any new large-scale construction projects in the Baltimore area that might be traced back to Nora or connected to her in some capacity.”
“Good.” I nodded I approval of the idea.
Setting up a web crawler program to visit websites and read pages of information in order to dig up more dirt on Nora was exactly the type of intelligence that Yadav was capable of using to get a groundbreaking crack in this investigation.
“I trust you to be fully qualified at putting this together,” I said to David who beamed with pride. “You have the potential to get those ‘spiders’ out there lurking for information about Nora.”
Yadav grinned. “You know it.”.
I stood up. “We should get to work.”
Yadav pumped my hand enthusiastically. “Yes indeed. I’ll be in touch with you as soon as I know more.”
“Sounds great.” I gave his back a brotherly slap and walked him to the door.
I hoped that his web crawler would bring us one step closer to finding Ariana. Every little effort we could put out there counted because she was looking to us to use our resources to rescue her.
I walked outside. It was a brisk morning and a fog was in the air making the atmosphere appear misty.
“We are coming for you Nora. Make one single mistake. Watch out, we will be waiting.”
For whatever reason, I felt more assured at speaking the declaration out loud. I was determined to bring justice to Ariana. She was so sweet and didn’t deserve to be treated this way.
“Just cling to the hope,” I whispered to Ariana through the wind, hoping it would carry to wherever she was.
“We will be reunited soon enough. I swear it to the moon and the stars that I will one day hold you in my arms and blanket you in my protection.”
Chapter 10
Ariana
The fairies assisted me in more ways than I could have ever dreamed possible. Before they set out to send Jinurak my message, they looked at me with concern in their eyes.
I stretched, yawned and tried to keep my drooping eyelids open. They felt as heavy as a ton of bricks. My eyes stung with fatigue. The adrenaline of the last several hours had tapered and I was left feeling like a person who had just experienced a caffeine crash.
“You look sleepy,” Aine mentioned.
I chuckled. We were still at the edge of the castle’s property by the stream. “I am.”
“You need to rest.” Sage fluttered a few inches away from me. Her tone let on that it wasn’t up for debate.
“Where is that supposed to happen?” I didn’t mean to sound cynical, but there was a giant red dragon patrolling the property who would probably give anything to be able to destroy me in one flash of green flames.
“We can bring you inside the castle,” Rose said happily.
“You want me to go…in there?” I pointed warily at the gray stone structure behind us that loomed stately and slightly protectively as if it didn’t want me to enter it as much as I didn’t want to either.
It had already been established that the dragon was not in the castle. Queen Nora, however, was another story altogether.
The thought of encountering her again made me shudder.
As if reading my cautious thoughts, Aine smiled. “We can bring you to an empty quarter of the castle where you are sure to be…left alone.”
“Yeah.” Sage agreed with a nod. “Your chances of being disturbed will be diminished on the left wing of the castle.”
“Okay.” I thanked them again.
If it wasn’t for their assistance, I would feel overwhelmed and lost on my own.
They had a valid point. I needed to get some rest. It was important to recharge my batteries so that I would be able to stay on better alert with the dragon lurking around every corner outside.
The three fairies flew ahead of me a few yards as I followed behind them, carefully glancing to my left and right to make sure there wasn’t anything or anyone over my shoulder that aimed to harm me in some vicious way.
Once we made it to the back of the house, I began to grow a little more confident about the fact that we had outsmarted the temperamental dragon, at least for now. I knew it was territorial as well as trained to keep me inside of the castle grounds.
I still couldn’t come to terms how the dragon existed in the first place, but I figured that Queen Nora had something to do with its presence in this strange world.
“Go in through this door,” Rose purred. “It’s unlocked.”
Each of them gave me an enticing grin to coax me alone. I cupped my hand over the door knob but before I twisted it and pushed the door open, I hesitated.
“Wait…”
“What?” Sage frowned. “Is something wrong?”
“This isn’t a…” I trailed off and narrowed my eyes as I inspected them. “This isn’t a trap, is it?”
“Oh no!” Rose looked appalled that I would even assume that she or either of the other fairies would ever even remotel
y behave in a devious manner toward me.
“We would never ever trick you or trap you intentionally,” Sage said in a solemn voice.
I took a deep breath and glanced over my shoulder one last time before opening the door. “Okay. Let’s do this then.”
When we walked into the house, the first thing I noticed was that there was a thick smell of gardenias wafting through the air. It was so heavy that I instantly got a migraine and had to stifle a cough.
“It’s Queen Nora’s favorite perfume,” Rose said.
“It’s…choking.” I smiled as I followed them down a hallway lit with lantern looking lights on the walls.
I hoped that Queen Nora wasn’t anywhere around the premises. I peered down the corridor with a little reluctance to go any further.
“I thought you said that she wouldn’t be anywhere around this wing of the castle?”
“She just wants the entire place to smell like gardenias,” Aine whispered back.
“Oh.” I nodded in approval, but the little hairs on the back of my neck still stood at attention. I had a prickly feeling that something sinister might happen, but I followed behind the fairies, blindly.
I didn’t really have any choice but to trust them and putting every ounce of faith I had into the hope and prayer that they knew where they were going and what they were doing too. They were the only ones in this loony world who had offered any help to me.
There was forest green wallpaper on the walls and a chair rail going down the center of the hallway.
“Come in in here,” Aine said and she, Sage and Rose each slipped in before me. That’s how I knew it was safe to trail them inside.
I noticed a small twin sized bed with a metal headboard in the center of the room. The space itself was plain. There was only one window and the drapes were shut tight. I had to switch on the light in order to see anything inside.
The bed had a simple white bed spread on top and a single pillow wrapped in a white case. It smelled dusty in the room as if no one had been in here in months, possibly even years.
There was a single dresser on the opposite wall across from the bed that had a dingy mirror hanging on the wall above the dresser vanity. The mirror was a little rusty at the edges on the bottom.
I attempted to look at my reflection in the mirror, but the frame was too faded over time and neglect that my face looked more like a cloudy silhouette.
It was a little cold in the room and had a smell like a basement. I was just happy that the scent of Nora’s pungent rose perfume didn’t trek in here with us.
I rubbed my hands up and down my arms and did an assessment around the room.
“Are you cold?” Rose looked concerned again.
“I’ll be fine.” I smiled at her. “I already feel incredibly indebted to you for the rest of my life for helping me get this far.”
Rose blushed the same color as her name and her dainty little wings. “Thank you so much.”
“We want to make sure you get out of here as quickly as possible.” There was a sadness reflecting in Aine’s eyes.
“I wish that too,” I whispered softly.
I sat down on the edge of the bed. The box springs squeaked a little under my weight and the mattress sagged a little as if it was tired and not expecting company.
“Is it okay?” Sage asked and fluttered around the room.
“It will do,” I said. It wasn’t exactly accommodating, but as long as I was staying under the radar of Nora and her dragon, I could deal with a musty dark room to lay down and get some rest.
“We will get the message to Jinurak out while you sleep,” Sage said. “Hopefully he will receive it and respond quickly. Once that happens, we will bring it back to you on what is called an EMR.”
I frowned. “What’s an…EMR?”
“An Electronic Messaging Receiver,” Rose said. “It’s a device that we can use to get messages to the outside world. We can receive them back using fiberoptic technology that poured out wirelessly.”
“Sounds confusing,” I said with a chuckle. “But I’ll take your word for it. Thank you all again. I seriously don’t know what I would do without you. I would be feeling completely lost by now.”
“Just put your feet up and relax,” Aine said. “We will return soon with hopefully good news for you.”
“Fingers crossed.” I smiled.
They floated out of the room with a promise to check in soon. I cracked the door so that in case I fell asleep when they returned later, they would still be able to get inside. I hoped that they would have a wonderful message to relay to me sent directly from Jinurak.
I closed my eyes and gently laid my head down on the pillow that was surprisingly softer than its stiff appearance.
I imagined running across the castle grounds with the plush grass tickling against my bare feet, feeling refreshing and cool. I pictured rushing into his arms. I imagined running my hands through his hair and roping my arms around his neck as he pressed me toward his chest, and I squeezed my thighs around his waist.
I smiled as I vividly imagined him twirling me around as we basked under the warm sunlight hitting our backs, laughing and kissing as I melded into his embrace, thankful to have him at last by my side.
A warm feeling of contentment, peace and security rushed through my subconscious and I heard myself audibly sigh.
But later as I opened my eyes again and was hit with the blaringly harsh overhead lamp of the ceiling fan above me, I realized that my fantasy had been nothing more than a dream that my brain had drummed up in order to make myself feel safe and happy.
I felt crestfallen and disappointed, blinking and yawning as I stretched and sat up in the bed. My back ached. As it turned out, the mattress was not as soft as I had imagined it to be and I felt a slight crick in my neck.
I drew my hand up to the tender muscles between my collar bone and shoulders and began to rub the kinks out of them. I wandered over to the door and felt myself relax after noticing that the door was still partially ajar just as I had left it.
I craned my neck and peered out the side. There was no unusual activity going on down the hallway and the only thing besides silence I heard was the sound of my own heartbeat drumming in my chest.
I walked back over to the bed and sat on the edge. Then I stood up and began pacing the room, wringing my hands together. I had no idea what time it was. I didn’t know how long I had been asleep.
I had no watch or phone to be able to determine either one of those things. I suddenly remembered the fact that there was a window in the room. I slowly peeled back the curtains and glanced outside.
It was dark. Okay, so I had probably been asleep for at least several hours. Where were the fairies? Had they come back and noticed me still asleep and decided not to disturb me, only to come back at a later time?
My stomach was flipping. I felt unsettled inside. I was filled with adrenaline. I was wide awake now and I wanted answers, or at least an update from the fairies. I couldn’t think about anything. My thoughts were scrambled. I couldn’t focus on anything in particular.
I continued to watch the night sky, wondering if the dragon was out there somewhere looming large and patrolling the skies or if Nora had some kind of stables, she locked her into during the night.
Then I realized that it would be utterly impossible to lock a dragon into any kind of a cage, especially one of that enormous size. She was simply too big. I suddenly remembered the stables that I had seen by the stream the day before with the fairies.
A quiver of fear raced up and down my spine like a bolt of lightning when I remembered the look of pure terror shimmering in all three of the fairy’s eyes at even the subtle mention of the stables.
What was in there? What were they hiding from? Surely, something atrocious. I would try to steer clear of that general area until I found a way to get out of here.
I sat back down on the edge of the bed. My leg began to involuntarily shake up and down. I couldn’t help it. It w
as like a nervous twitch.
Finally, after what had seemed like an eternity of sitting there, I saw three flashing lights. Blue, gold and pink. I knew without a doubt in my heart that it had to be my little firefly friends coming back to give me what would hopefully be some positive scoop on Jinurak.
My heart began to race, and my pulse was loudly swooshing through my eardrums. I stood up and clasped my sweaty hands together. I noticed that my fingers were trembling. I glanced down at my feet and tried not to tailspin myself into a panic attack.
I took slow, even breaths and walked closer toward the door. After another agonizing few seconds, Sage, Rose and Aine fluttered into the room. They instantly brought a bright and cheery aura to the place that soothed me.
“You’re back,” I breathed out with relief.
A look of inspiring tranquility was displayed across their rosy little faces.
“We have some good news for you,” Rose said in a peppy tone.
“You do?” I edged closer to her.
They had been carrying the EMR along their backs together. It looked like a clunky cell phone from the stone ages, but it had a couple of red blinking lights on the side.
“Is this the device?” I asked.
“It is.” Sage nodded as they dropped it onto the bed.
“Did Jinurak…get my message?” I could hardly breath as I waited for their response.
“He did, and he sent a response back as well.” Aine grinned.
I practically felt myself beaming like a spotlight into the dark sky.
“What did it say?” I picked up the device and thumbed it around in my hand curiously.
“Press that button in the middle to turn on the display screen,” Sage said and pointed.
I smiled and did as instructed. “Thanks.”
The screen lit up a few seconds later, displaying a series of words that much to my relief did not appear as if they would need to be decoded.
I stared at the words and the sound of Jinurak’ voice surged through my ears. I closed my eyes and opened them again and tried to keep the pool of tears collecting in my eyes at bay.
