by Sam Hall
“Are you OK?” I said. “Is there something wrong with your eyes? Do you need me to get the doc?” She just shook her head and then held out her arms. Oh god, did she want a hug? I came in closer, kind of edging towards her, not stepping in because maybe she was waving to someone else across the other side of the ward or was pumping the air in excitement at not dying. Evidently, I was wrong, she grabbed me as soon as I got close enough and pulled me down in a surprisingly strong embrace.
“Thank you so much.”
“Um… OK, so it’s great to see you looking better, but I ought to go and help these other people. Apparently, I have hot and cold running magic that the doc needs.” FML, I’m such a big ball of awkward now I don’t know how to friend anymore.
“Of course,” she said, swiping at her eyes. Oh my god, those were honest to goodness tears. “And Miazydar’s OK?”
“Yeah, nothing’s likely to happen to the goose that laid the golden eggs. Look, I’ll bring him by tomorrow when we visit. Sound good?” She nodded quickly, her eyes growing suspiciously dark and sparkling.
“I’ve heard of women playing hard to get, but this is ridiculous.”
My eyes snapped open to see Merlin the magician looking down at me. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Dr Acorn put it about the teacher’s lounge that one of the students had passed out trying to help heal the sick students and could someone come and get you. Imagine my surprise, finding the student I am supposed to be helping.”
Shit, Keel!
“One and the same.”
Fuck, I said that aloud.
“That too. You ready to go back home, cadet? I think that ‘friend’ of yours will be very pleased to see you. Well, more than when he saw me.”
Oh shit, Flea.
“That his name? Yes, oh shit indeed. Looked like he’d prepared quite the little spread for you.”
“God, no…” I groaned, slapping myself on the forehead.
“On the plus side, almost two-thirds of the sick students are now on the mend,” Dr Acorn said.
“I admire your zeal, doc, but debilitating one student to help others is not exactly ethical behaviour. You wanna be careful you don’t get written up over this,” Keel said.
Dr Acorn flushed red, her eyes dropping to the ground where they bore into the green tiles, “Unlikely, unfortunately. Bhechro has already congratulated me himself on my use of Tess and her current condition. He likes the idea of her weakened, that and not having to answer to angry parents.” She shook her head. “Tess, I do apologise. You felt like you had this immense store of magic, I thought I was barely skimming from the top of it. Practitioners are usually better at alerting their partners when their essential functions are being affected by the drain.”
“I don’t even know what half of those words mean,” I said, my head swimming slightly from where I lay on the hospital bed.
“No, I don’t suppose you do. Come and see me once you’ve got a little healing experience under your belt. You’d be an asset here, no matter what Bhechro says.”
“Come on, soldier,” Keel said. “Time to get you home.”
“If you wanted to spend the evening in my arms, you know there’d be easier ways of doing it,” Keel said.
We walked side by side, me leaning into Keel’s shoulder as we hobbled over to my place. My ears were ringing and my head ached, but I still had to assiduously ignore the redolent scent of amber, sandalwood and male coming off him.
“Flirting with a drained student. Whatever would the school board think?”
He snorted. “The ADC doesn’t care, just that we keep producing little dragon riders. Half the parents send their kids to Lorikham hoping to catch them a rider husband or wife. Climbing the social ladder and all that.”
“Well, if I’m keeping you from your sworn duty...”
“You helped a hell of a lot of merits today, ones who’d not hesitate to step over you if you were hurt. You earned my help.”
“Tess, is that you?” I looked up, my head swimming as I did so. When it cleared, I saw it was Flea and Jez. Her eye seemed a little better, but was still a Technicolour display of ugly colours.
“What the hell happened to you?” she asked, looking me over. “You look like shit.”
Flea’s eyes were on Keel, his biceps flexing, his hand straying to the back of his waistband.
“What did you do to her?” came his growl.
“He didn’t do anything, the uni doctor did this, accidentally.” That got their attention. They were very confused until I filled them in. “What about Miazydar? He should’ve been able to tell you where I was. He was being snotty about being a messenger, but I told him to get over that.”
“That’s just it, Tess. We haven’t seen Miazydar all afternoon,” Jez said.
“Where could he...” I said. Miazydar? I pushed the call out with my mind but received nothing back. It was not just that he wasn’t replying, it somehow felt different, like he wasn’t even there to hear me. A spike of fear shot through my chest. “He’s not answering me.”
“I’ll ask Caylin, my dragon,” he replied. Keel’s face looked distracted as he silently spoke to his beast. “He says he’s gone.”
“We know that! Does he know when, where?”
He shook his head. “No, I’ll get him to ask the others.” I called for Miazydar again, trying to keep my mental tone calm, but got no response. “They said he left sometime in the morning. Didn’t say where he was going. I’m going to have to notify Bhechro.”
“Damn straight you will! I want to talk to him as well. If he thinks he can steal my dragon away...” I said.
“You need sleep, Tess. You collapsed from magical exhaustion. The doc has given you a certificate for tomorrow. You’re not to get out of bed for at least a day,” Keel said.
“Fuck! But what about classes? My assignments?”
“Tess, it’ll be ok,” Jez said.
“No, it won’t! I’m already so behind!”
“You can catch up on your reading,” Flea said.
“It’s not…” my voice began to waver and I hated the sound of it. I looked up into the night sky, trying to scour the dark shapes in it for signs of my dragon. I coughed and tried to clear my throat. “It’s not enough.”
“Look,” Keel said, “I have a couple of classes first up, but I can come by in the afternoon if you like. I could do those introduction units in my sleep.”
“I guess that’ll have to do,” I said.
“Good, now feed her up and put her to bed,” Keel said. “She needs food, fluids and lots of rest. She’ll be much better in the morning.”
“I’ll be better when my dragon’s back,” I mumbled.
“Expect me around one,” Keel said over my head. “If she’s asleep, just leave her. She needs the rest to recuperate.”
“Not a child,” I said.
“Well, stop acting like one and get into bed after you’ve eaten.”
19
I saw it as soon as the others helped me inside. The table was covered in a pretty hand-embroidered cloth and on top of that was a dizzying array of dishes. It was antipasto Aravisian style: lots of small plates of pickled and preserved vegetables and meats along with cheeses. “I’ll clear some space for you,” Flea said, moving to start putting the food away.
I looked over at Jez who nodded quickly. “This was a date,” she said in a whisper as she passed by me. “You want me to leave?”
“Look guys, just sit down. It’s been a big day and I need to eat and catch you up. Did anyone from the VCs office come by today?” We all sat around the table and began to pick at the food. Flea got up and grabbed me a drink, not Shay thankfully. It tasted like some kind of juice, a bit like a combination of mango and guava.
“You mean the people trying to catch us red-handed with poison? They came, Jez’s boyfriend had planted something under the bathroom sink at some point in the night, but thank Christ, Miazydar removed it just before they turned up
. Wouldn’t have found it without him either.”
“Sorry,” Jez said sheepishly. It was a weird look on her, she never felt guilty about anything. “I thought he was here to get laid. I had no idea he was going to go all Game of Thrones on me.”
“We need to be extra careful,” I said. “Did he come back after disposing of the poison?”
“I think so? We were kind of busy cleaning up here, so I didn’t really take any notice,” Jez said. “He usually sits up in the eyrie, so we never know unless we go out to look.”
“We found another nest of those spiders in one of the wardrobes, so we were mostly focussed on that,” Flea said.
“Which wardrobe?” I said. No one answered me. “The one in our room?” Slowly, they nodded. “Why didn’t you just use Miazydar?”
“He doesn’t listen to us. Anyway, the mother was easy enough to dispatch, it was the…” Jez said.
“The what?”
“She had a massive sack of babies and they went through all our clothes,” Flea said. Jez shot him a look, but he just shrugged. “We spent most of the day washing everything by hand to get rid of the little bastards.”
“God, I hate this place,” I said with a shudder. “They don’t have massive spiders in Damorica. So, Miazydar took off with the poison. How much was there?”
“A fair amount,” Flea said, showing me with his hands a rectangle about the size of a paperback.
“God, what if that was enough to hurt him? It might have been really concentrated and seeped into his skin while he was carrying it, or he might have inhaled some.” What had I fucking done? I’d led everyone into danger again. We were being persecuted irrationally by some dickhead in power, again. People I cared about were going to get hurt, again. Why did I go through that bloody portal? Why didn’t I fight the dragon riders on my home turf? How useful would a plasma spear be against a human SWAT team? What would’ve happened if the guys had been caught with the plant of poison? How did they have that big a package to plant on us in the first place? Was this all part of some scheme? The university kills or hurts a third of the student population, then blames it on us? The parents baying for my blood would’ve pulled the sundering sword off the wall and done the job for Bhechro. A hand grabbed mine, giving it a squeeze. I looked up to see Flea watching me, obviously worried, and under my fingers was a shredded piece of bread.
“If you’re anything like Ash, right about now you’re blaming yourself,” Jez said. “Don’t. We all came here, including Miazydar, by our own choice. Admittedly, those spears were really fucking scary. Are they like some kind of lightsaber or something?”
“Similar.”
“Right, but we all chose to come, we all chose to stay and we are all going to choose to work together to get through this. You focus on getting better, then the study. We can’t do that for you. I was out of school the moment I was allowed to and working for your Nan.”
“I dropped out halfway through Year 11,” Flea said.
“So that’s your focus because you’re the most educated. Sneaky arse shit like planting poison? That’s right up our alley. We’re home most of the time, we need to start thinking like soldiers protecting camp on enemy turf.”
“Can you shoot?” Flea asked Jez.
“A bit, it might be time to get a little practise in though, do you have much ammo?” He nodded. “Not too much practise though, we need to be prepared for Waco level crazy. Patrol the house, check to see if there’s any more planted evidence. No one comes in except us three.”
“And Keel,” I said. Both of them went quiet, then came the side-eye. “Look, he’s about my only chance of passing these assessments right now. I have to be able to ride like a dragon rider, including fight on dragon back. I can’t read my way to doing that. Someone has to show me.”
“Yeah, OK…” Flea growled at this but Jez shook her head. “It’s not him specifically, it’s just y’know, Merlin, you’ve got a bit of soft spot for him. Like, I know he’s a separate guy, and who saw that coming, but…”
“What she’s pussyfooting around is, can you trust him? If the university’s determined to see you cut off from Miazydar and the government is determined to see you cut off from Miazydar, what’s his agenda?” Flea said.
“He’s a dragon rider, they don’t like seeing another rider being threatened with separation,” I said.
“He’s a soldier, they follow orders,” he shot back, “and he’s on the make, you gotta see that.”
“He’s kinda flirty, but it’s hard for me to know whether he means anything by it or that’s just him.”
“C’mon Tess, you know what he means by it.”
“Like I know what this means?” I said, gesturing to the food. “If we’re going to put everything on the table, both literally and metaphorically, is this up for discussion too?” I said, flicking a finger between him and me.
“And that’s my cue to retire to my little cupboard,” Jez said. “Sorry guys, but I’m allergic to relationships.” I watched her dig through the pantry, retrieving a bottle of Shay and pouring herself a glass. “Fight fair, no weapons allowed and if you start screaming, make it really obvious if it’s the ‘I want to kill you’ versus the ‘oh give it to me, big boy’, because I don’t need to see either of you naked.”
We both watched her disappear up the hall and when he looked back, Flea’s eyes were on the table, his face set in that weird shuttered expression guys get when they don’t want to talk. I sighed. Everything hurt, I didn’t have it in me to fight him to discuss our ‘relationship’ or whatever was going on between us. I glanced down at the dragon tattoo on my arm, the scabs having healed over. It shone bright red now. I ran a finger down the spine, wishing it was the real one I was touching. Miazydar, I hope you’re safe, I said, as much to myself as to him.
“What do you want me to say, Tess? That one minute we’re fucking like crazy and the next you’ve gone through an inter-dimensional portal? I tried not to take it too personally, you’d never even looked my way before that night, but I’d looked yours plenty. I had no idea what the fuck was going on between us, but I wanted a chance to find out, so I went with Gabe and we came after you. You didn’t want to talk to me, to your own bloody sister, while she barely escaped being raped and Gabe had gotten beaten into a coma.”
“I know I fucked up,” I said, my chin sinking to my chest. The heavy weight that Jez had been able to cut through began to settle back down, pressing me down into my chair.
“It’s not that. You keep us all at arm’s length all the time. Then it was in the name of adventure, now it’s the bloody dragon or this school. We’re here, with you, for you, but you don’t let us in.”
“I let you in plenty when you did this,” I said, pointing to my arm, “and look where that got me.”
“Because in he waltzes again, the guy I’ve had the fucking pleasure of watching you pine over. Why would I stay? No bloke wants to see the woman he’s been cosied up with go to pieces over another guy, especially the one that got away.”
“I didn’t even want him there. Ash was meddling, yet a-fucking-gain.”
“So, did you tell him to leave?”
“No, but I made it plain I wasn’t happy. We sat and talked about how I’d been feeling, since…”
“Yeah, y’see that’s the shit that kills me. I’m balls deep in you, watching you come on the end of my cock, but it’s him who you share what you’re feeling and thinking about. If you just want a fuck, just say so,” he said, getting to his feet and tearing his shirt off over his head. His hands go to his belt. “I’ve got a big cock and you feel damn fine on it. We’ve got three months, let's fuck this out of our system and then we can go back to being professional at the shop.”
I get up, reach out, trying to stop him from unbuckling his pants, but he’s too strong for me. My hands land on bare flesh and he stops, we both stopped still. I heard his breath coming in hoarse, our eyes lifting to meet. “How do I have this conversation, Flea?” I sa
id, flattening my hand on the hard surface of his abdomen. “How do I admit out loud that I was crushing on a guy who was completely oblivious to me? How do I tell you that the sex between you and me was fantastic, that being in your arms gave me a measure of peace I haven’t felt in what feels like ages? How do I tell you I’m attracted to Keel? Not because he looks like Merlin, but because he seems funny and a good guy. That when I woke up this morning I was watching you move, hoping to catch a glimpse of your naked body as you slept, but when I’m on the field with him, I’m smelling his scent and wondering what he’d taste like.” I pull away. “How do I say that I don’t know either of you well enough to decide whether I want a relationship with you?”
He grabbed my hand and pushed it down his pants where I found him hard and ready, “You just did.” His mouth silenced any future conversation, but I’d probably said enough. His lips were hard but slow, giving me all the time in the world to pull away, shut him down. I’m bone tired and feeling woozy, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. “All I want is a chance, Tess,” he said. “You don’t owe me an outcome, but I need to know I’ve got a chance.”
Being freed from expectation made me feel so much better. Suddenly I didn’t need to question what he’s doing or what I’m doing, I could just be in the moment. I celebrated that by drawing his head down, kissing him over and over until we’re both breathless. “Yes,” I whispered against his lips.
His mouth smiled against mine and he started to manoeuvre me down the hall. “We’ve got to store all this food. We can’t afford to waste any if Miazydar is AWOL.”
He gave me one more long kiss, then pulled away. “Go, lie down. I’ll be there in a minute.”
