by Jessica Gunn
It’s my duty.
What had Eli meant by that? Being Prince was a duty, sure. And as a dragon, I’m sure Zezza fell under his realm of responsibility. I guessed that was it, although that seemed almost too shallow an answer—one that might not even matter if I didn’t figure out how to walk on water in the next couple minutes.
What in the hells had I gotten myself into?
“Zezza,” I said, calling her to me as I lifted my arm. She immediately stopped her flying pattern and swooped down to land. Her talons dug into my arm, but not hard enough to break skin. “There’s a good girl.”
I stroked down her neck and thought to her, Any clues on how to pass this test?
She made some popping and chirping sounds deep in her throat that I couldn’t really interpret. It was almost like she was trying to talk. Instead, she flooded my mind with images of me walking on water.
Well, yes, I thought. That’s what I need to do. I still didn’t know how to do it. Although I supposed an idea as intricate as “how to walk on water” probably couldn’t be transmitted via mental images.
Instead, I pulled in a deep breath and tried to center myself as the white-sand beach and the cerulean ocean beyond came into view. Waves rose high before cresting and crashing down over one another. They were a lot larger than I was used to in Cape Cod.
For a moment, panic swelled in my chest. Rising and cresting like stormy ocean waves until I almost stopped walking altogether as I crashed down into the terror. What if I couldn’t do this? What if I didn’t pass their test?
Would they really imprison me here forever?
Zezza’s tail wrapped around my shoulders in a tiny dragon hug as if to say, “Don’t worry. It’ll be all right.”
“I hope so,” I said to her. As we crossed from the jungle path to the shore, I put Zezza on the ground. “Stay here. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
Zezza bowed her head a little before retreating backward, never turning her back to me. Almost as if she completely understood.
Of course she did.
I glanced over her to where Eli, Elena, and Tharin all stood on the sands about a hundred feet from me. An easy wind tousled the leaves of palm trees lining the beach as a warm sun beat down on us. “So I just go out there, walk on water some, and return?”
Eli opened his mouth to say something, but Elena interrupted with, “Something that should be easy for the Warden, no?”
I pressed my lips together, hoping I was far enough away from them to hide exactly how much she irritated me. I pressed on a big smile. “Guess not.”
Zezza looked at me with full attention and pride. I gave her a genuine smile before turning toward the water, shedding my sweatshirt, shoes, and socks along the way. If this baby dragon was so confident I could do this, then maybe I should listen to her. Zezza always seemed to know more than I gave her credit for.
Cool water lapped at my toes, causing them to curl into the sand. The salty mist of the ocean filled my nostrils and might have calmed me if not for the knowledge and weight of the task before me.
Walk on water.
That was all the Speaker had asked me to do.
Walk on water.
I closed my eyes and accepted the rhythm of the waves against my feet, slow and methodical. I slowed my breathing to be in time with ebb and flow. Then I waded deeper into the waves until most of the skin of my calves was covered. Over and over again, I inhaled and exhaled in time with the waves, almost afraid I’d fall asleep through it all. Sleeping inside a subway tunnel hadn’t exactly been comfortable, least of all with a baby dragon trilling nearby all night. Between those circumstances and the fight with Kristian and his vampires, I was already exhausted.
Vera! I chided myself as my heartbeat suddenly picked up and anxiety clawed at my chest. All sense of calm and focus was gone.
“This is not helping,” I said aloud, to no one but myself. There was no time for negative thoughts. No time for dwelling on the past, or exhaustion.
Shaking out my arms, I tried to center myself again. A slow inhale. Hold. Exhale just as slowly. That was the rhythm I needed to keep up, to focus on, to find peace.
To find this power that was supposedly inside of me but only previously brought on by apparent mortal danger.
Maybe that was the secret: I needed to be afraid.
Well, there was plenty to be afraid of. Keir, for one, and whatever fae group he had behind him to assist in his agenda. Kristian, for another. The gods only knew what his plans were.
The Speaker was pretty scary too. If I failed this test, there was no way he or Elena would let me walk away free. I was sure of it.
Earlier today, and even a bit last night, the only two things I’d been sure of had been this: first, I had gotten myself in way the hell over my head, and second, Zezza was mine. Not in a possessive way, but in a soul-deep connection.
That knowledge centered me, pulling my breathing and focus into place. Zezza was mine. And if she was mine, if she also had power over lightning and wind, then maybe I did too.
Maybe I really was the Warden of the Storm. Maybe I could walk on water.
It was time to find out.
I lifted a foot, still with my eyes closed, and took a step.
Solid ground. There was solid water beneath my foot!
Excitedly, I took another tentative step and found the same. I was doing it. Walking on water. I had to be. The sand beneath my toes had been fine and cushy, sifting beneath my feet with every step that I’d taken. The surface beneath my feet now was cold and smooth, and wavering.
Tossing like waves.
I gulped and slowly opened my eyes… and my heart dropped.
I hadn’t just walked on water. I’d walked a whole quarter mile out into the ocean while stuck in my endless cycle of thoughts. All around me was endless sea. But when I looked back over my shoulder, both the beach and Zezza were incredibly far away. Eli and the others too.
“Holy. Crap.”
Glancing down, I was met with a clear view at least twenty feet down to the bottom. The water here wasn’t like back home in Boston Harbor or Cape Cod. Where we had seaweed and murky water, the dragons and dragon shifters’ home had clear views to white sandy bottoms littered with coral reefs, shells, and fish.
Incredible.
My chest warmed, my heart swelling. This was utterly insane and every bit unusual. Crazy. Ridiculous.
But it was beautiful. So was Zezza and the promise of any semblance of a life here. It was like I’d lived here all my life.
Which was why when a gigantic, bone-shattering roar sounded from ahead of me, it cut me right on through to my core.
Waves crashed, sending me off-balance. I pulled on my connection to the sea and barely remained standing as I wiped salty sea water from my eyes. The coolness of it felt good against my sun-warmed skin. The sun shone brightly and I shielded my eyes, trying to see past it into the ocean to find the source of the roar. It was too loud and menacing to be Zezza’s. And way too close.
I glanced around me in a circle as the waves threatened to knock me completely off-balance. It was only then that I realized water had spiraled a pattern around my feet as though I were wearing sandals made from water. Curiously, I inspected them. Inside the water was a thin line of gold shimmering… kind of the same color as Zezza’s eyes.
“Zezza?”
My footing gave out and I slipped through the magical surface previously holding me up. Water filled my open mouth as it took me too long to recover. Waves thrashed around me, pushing me farther out into the sea and beneath the surface as though I’d been thrown into a horrifying carnival ride. Once, twice, my head broke through to air and I sucked down the biggest breaths I could manage.
Gods. This was how I was going to die. Drowning in a dragon-owned weave.
Joke’s on me.
My mind started going blank, my vision darkening as I was thrown about like a rag doll beneath the sea. It was then, on the last dark edges of
consciousness, that one solid, gigantic eye appeared before me.
A draconic one.
Horror spiked anew. There was zero chance I’d die a victim. I threw out my arms and started swimming as fast as I could, trying to right myself and discover which way was up. My body was sent crashing between waves, then plunging down into the coral below that cut deep slashes into my arms and legs. I cringed beneath the water, unable to cry out in pain as the sea water turned red with my blood. Closing my eyes, I reached out with my awareness as I had before, scanning the ocean in my mind’s eye the best I could.
Turn. Then up.
They weren’t exactly words imposed into my brain, but a gut feeling. One I needed to desperately trust if I wanted any chance of making it out of this trial alive.
On that thought and the last bit of hope I had, my body began to rise toward the surface. I stared down the draconic eye watching me, too scared to follow the scales surrounding it to the rest of its body. As it was, the center of this eye was as tall as I was, which meant…
Whatever dragon this was, it was enormous.
How had I not sensed its presence in the water? If not because I was this Warden figure, but because the meteor strike had made me and humans like me prey?
As I rose, so did its eye, following me to the surface as I broke for air. My lungs screamed on the first clean inhale, pulling in as much oxygen as they could. I wiped water from my eyes and stared as the length of this dragon’s massive head was pulled from the ocean. Its long body rose like a curious snake and blocked out the sun until I was swimming cold and heaving in its shadow.
This was no dragon. This was a sea serpent right out of pirate lore.
A scream tore at my lungs and made its way out of my lips as I turned and began swimming back to shore.
No, no, no, no, no, no. Dread filled my lungs on every exhale, making it impossible to breathe in deeper. As if every new second brought with it a new realization about my current situation: being a quarter mile out into the ocean, in another weave, within direct biting distance of a behemoth sea serpent.
The monster roared again and all I saw ahead of me—along with figures on the beach standing there unmoving, including a little baby dragon one—was the building of a massive shadow as, presumably, the creature swung down to eat me.
Warden, my ass. I was nothing but prey. Never had been anything else, never would be. This wasn’t a trial, just some sick way of executing outsiders. Just tell them they’re the “Warden of the Storm” and hell, they’ll believe anything.
Crap.
I was going to die here, and my family was never going to know. They’d find out I’d worked at a casino once they kicked me out of the house. They’d find out I’d joined a game full of Boston’s top supernaturals. They’d find out I was, as they’d instilled in me, good at nothing except thinking of myself.
I stopped swimming.
I was nothing. Connected to no one back home. For so long now after finally being estranged from my family after months of our relationship falling apart, I’d been on my own. Sure, I had work friends and Halley. But if I died, I wasn’t sure any of them would come to my funeral. I liked to think Maddie would. Maybe even my parents and Rachel.
But not a single one of them knew where I was right now. Or the truth about everything that had transpired since starting work last night.
It felt like I was connected to no one. Except for that baby dragon on the shore.
Warden of the Storm.
Maybe it didn’t matter what I wanted or didn’t want. If I was born as this Warden, if I had magic and it was tied to dragons, then maybe, just maybe, that included this ferocious, ginormous beast wanting to make me its next meal. This sea serpent was a dragon, was it not? Scales, check. Creepy eyes, double check.
Maybe the disconnected feeling was only in my head.
I turned once more and faced the oncoming titan as its mouth neared my head, its jaws opened and teeth the size of eighteen-wheelers glimmering pearly-white in the sunlight.
I was not nothing.
I was the Warden of the Storm. If Eli and the Speaker were to be believed, if I trusted Zezza as much as she seemed to trust me, then I was the Warden. And no matter how big this ugly creature was, how angry and monstrous, it was my charge.
I lifted my hands as though climbing over a wall and pushed myself onto the surface of the water, concentrating on the way it had felt before. Soon, I stood on top of the waves as though perching on a solid surface.
I held out my hand. “Stop.”
The creature kept heading for me. It opened its mouth wider.
“I said, stop.” My voice wavered, my hand shook. Either this would work, or the waves would be further stained with my blood.
Either way, what’s done is done. I was here, in the Lair. Accepting my fate.
“I said, stop! You will not attack me.”
A strange tone took over my voice, almost twisting it to not be my own. Golden energy seeped up from my lips. My outstretched hand began to glow copper and cobalt, the magic there swirling together the way the color of Zezza’s scales did.
The beast’s mouth shut, but the mighty creature still rushed toward me. Slowing down, sending massive waves towards shore as it slowed and stopped before me. It dipped its monstrous head down to me, gently getting closer until I could rest my palm against the very end of its snout. The creature was so large that from this angle I couldn’t even see the top of that snout.
My chest heaved from exhaustion, panic, and a sense of rightness. Of simply knowing.
The beast stopped moving save for bobbing in the water to stay afloat. My hand was barely the size of a single leathery scale.
“Hi there,” I said to it. A laugh bubbled its way past my lips. This was insane.
For a moment, the beast shut its giant eyes as if to say hello back.
“Hello.”
The deep voice wasn’t mine. And it wasn’t spoken aloud… but in my head.
“Warden,” it said again.
The beast. It was the sea serpent!
“I guess so… How…?” My brows twisted at the thought of this thing speaking directly into my mind. Zezza had done it with pictures. Maybe when dragons were older they could send full thoughts?
“You have passed this trial.” Each syllable reverberated within me like mini-earthquakes shaking off the Richter scale. Still, I managed to keep shaky balance on the ocean as my water-sandals reappeared, tiny golden and blue anchors holding me safe.
“I did? Good! I thought you were going to eat me.” I tried to laugh. Would a sea serpent find my negativity funny?
Did a sea serpent laugh at all?
The barreling response came a moment later: “If you hadn’t believed in yourself, finding yourself as my next meal would have been the least of your worries, Warden. You bleed.”
I glanced down at my stinging arms and legs. In the panic, I’d almost forgotten. Deep gashes marred my skin from the coral. “Oh, gods.”
“Head for the shore,” the sea serpent said. “They will aid you. You have my loyalty, and my honor.”
Then, slowly, the serpent sunk back beneath the sea, sending my water-walking stance wavering along the surface of the water.
Unsure of what had really just transpired—it seemed like a dream, honestly—and slowly bleeding out into the ocean, I made my way back to shore striding on the tops of waves and into Zezza’s waiting wings. I hugged her to me, ignoring the way her talons almost slipped across my wounds.
“I did it,” I told her.
She sent me the same image as before: me walking on water. As if to say, “I told you so!”
“You did tell me so,” I whispered. “You did.”
Eli’s strong form appeared before me. I glanced up at him. He was smiling.
“Well done, Warden,” he said. “Well done.”
Chapter 14
The walk from the beach back into the dragon shifters’ village was painful and slow. Zezza stu
ck by my side the entire time, but I couldn’t bear the thought of picking her up until at least my wounds were bandaged. She seemed to understand that. Zezza never wandered far from my side but didn’t whine to be carried, either. Instead, she chose to fly beside me at shoulder-height, peering over at me with her golden-cobalt eyes and toothy dragon grin.
“Here,” Eli said as we approached a much smaller building than the Speaker’s place had been. The same dark wood mixed with stone and metal was present here, including more stained-glass window panes telling more tales of dragons and the skies.
I pointed over to one. “Do those windows tell a particular story? Or are they just decoration?”
Eli followed my line of sight, smiling warmly when he saw what I’d been looking at. “Some, yes. They speak to dragonkind and their creation. And the Ancient One, the first human who was gifted their dragon form. It is from her that we are all descended.”
“That’s… really cool, actually.” The stained-glass on all the windows in this village had now taken on a different meaning. Now, I studied them closer and tried to discern their stories without explanation.
“She was the first Guardian,” Eli continued after a few moments. His tone was even, but his words firm. When I met his eyes, they shone with curiosity. “The first shifter.”
I blinked, processing the full meaning of that slowly. “As in Warden? So… I can shift into a dragon too?”
He chuckled some, and the sound of it completely didn’t match his hard warrior exterior. I kind of wanted it to in that moment. I wasn’t sure why, aside from the fact that he seemed to be the closest thing to an ally besides Zezza I had on this island. And surely the only one.
