by J. A. Curtis
My heart slid to my gut. There were more of these guys?
“Caelm, help Mina,” the tall boy said without glancing at me. His jaw squared, and he charged toward the charred hole in the side of the burning house. He stopped in his tracks when the dragon burst out of the same opening. Wrapped in the dragon’s tail struggled the swordsman, pushing and twisting to no avail, his sword nowhere to be seen. Dramian stepped out, dragging Tily behind him. He flung her down on the ground in front of him. She struggled to push herself up on shaking arms.
I didn’t know this Tily girl, but she had protected me from the dangerous dragon boy. Was she okay? She didn’t look it.
The tall boy’s body hardened, his hands clenched at his sides. “Stand down, Dramian! You’re outnumbered.”
“Hello, Mina, my name is Caelm.” The blond boy’s calm voice startled me from the action. “I’m here to help. You won’t be needing that.”
He pried the cell phone from my hands. I was so out of it, I let the phone go without a fight.
“You stand down, Arius,” Dramian said, “or Tily here will fall.”
The dragon’s hold on the warrior man tightened. Tily groaned.
“If you make Tily fall, you will fall next,” Arius said.
Dramian smiled. “Then we understand each other.”
“There, all better,” Caelm said. I glanced at the boy. I had forgotten he hovered right next to me. He removed the napkins from my wounded leg and pulled blood covered hands away from my wound. How dare he touch me. I jerked back away from him, grabbed my leg, and glared at the boy.
“Let me leave with the girl, and you will get Tily back in one piece,” Dramian said.
“That’s not going to happen,” Arius said.
“Then we have nothing left to discuss.”
Another tattooed girl dressed in warrior clothes came running up behind Arius.
“Tily? Tily! NO!” she cried as Dramian’s dragon dropped the giant warrior man in the grass and released a direct blast of fire over him.
“Goodbye, Thaya!” Tily called before she collapsed motionless onto the grass.
I watched, unable to look away from the horrible scene playing out in front of me. Had Tily just—died? What about the swordsman who had been burned into nothing?
“How could you!?” Thaya yelled. I wasn’t sure if she directed it at Arius or Dramian, but the tattoos on both Arius and Thaya’s arms came to life. Arius’s monster unfolded taller than Nana’s house, entirely made of stone, towering above everything in sight. It looked like it could step on Dramian’s dragon and crush him to bits. Thaya’s tattoo was a female version of Tily’s, a warrior woman, except this woman had wings and carried a bow and arrow instead of a sword.
Dramian grinned. He jumped back and swung his legs over his head, performing a sideways somersault onto his dragon’s back. The dragon took flight, and Dramian ran up the ridge of the dragon’s back until he sat down, straddling its neck. The rock monster swung its massive arms, and the woman with wings flew forward, but the dragon easily maneuvered between their attacks and up into the night sky.
Thaya’s fairy woman rose into the air and took aim with her bow and arrow. Her fingers let go and she fired a streak of light across the sky. The dragon veered out of the way at the last second.
“I’m going after him,” Thaya said.
“No, Thaya, you can’t. We need your help here,” Arius said.
“You can’t stop me.”
I stared at Tily’s unmoving body laying in the grass of Nana’s backyard, uncomprehending.
“Mina, we need to leave.” Caelm reached for my arm, having wiped my blood on some napkins to clean his hands.
I stumbled back, placing more weight on my injured leg than intended, yet no pain shot up the limb. I touched my leg, but other than a few smears of blood, there was no sign of a cut. “What did you do?”
Caelm shrugged as if it were nothing. “I healed you.”
My head started to spin. The simple admission broke my last thread clinging to sanity for the evening. “Who are you? What is—Why are you fighting over me?”
Thaya and Arius stopped shouting. Arius looked at me, then turned toward Thaya. Her eyes flashed as she stomped forward, and I retreated from her approach.
“Don’t touch me!” I shrunk back like a cornered animal.
“Mina,” Thaya growled. “We are friends. We will not hurt you.”
The way she spoke sounded angry and harsh, but for some reason, a calmness rushed over me. Friends. My friends wouldn’t hurt me. Everything would be all right.
“Will you take me home?”
“We will take you where you will be safe.” Thaya’s voice broke a little. “Follow Caelm. He will show you the way.”
Home. They’d take me home because they were my friends. I smiled, the terror of the evening forgotten by Thaya’s reassurance. Caelm led me out the side gate and down Nana’s front lawn. The wail of sirens floated over the night air. Caelm opened the back, passenger door to a silver sedan.
“Get in,” Thaya said.
“I’m going home,” I whispered to myself. Thaya settled next to me inside the warm safety of the back seat. She pulled her legs against her chest and buried her face in her knees. Arius started up the car.
“Relax now. Go to sleep, and we will be there in no time.” Thaya’s voice came muffled, and she sniffed.
The heat of the car wrapped around me, resistance seeped from my body, and I snuggled deeper into my seat. I could go to sleep now, and when I woke up, I’d be safe. I’d be home.
2
Confusing Revelations
“The world has many mysteries, things you’ve never dreamed about.”
SMOKE. THE SMELL IN my hair woke me gradually. Nana’s house was destroyed. My parents would be so mad. Not as mad as Nana had been though when they’d told her to leave the house she had been living in for the last fifty years of her life. The woman had fought back with her normal stubborn spitfire, denouncing my parents for taking away her freedom and accusing them of wanting to make money off her home. But my parents had won in the end. Or so they thought.
Don’t worry, Nana, I showed them.
The image of an angry, blood-red dragon flashed through my mind. That part wasn’t real. What was it? A dream? Someone spiked the Mountain Dew?
My eyes opened and came into focus. The room was bright—the ceiling crisscrossed with an intricate design of branches, not carved but like they grew that way. I lay in a row of beds, on the last one, next to a large bay window which let in a fresh afternoon breeze. The sheets, soft and warm, made me want to snuggle deeper under the covers and try to regain that blissful feeling. Except for one problem.
None of this looked familiar.
“Good morning, Your Highness,” said a voice, “or is it the great general I am talking to?”
What? I sat up and I searched the room for the television. Instead, a woman stood at the end of my bed. Tall and commanding, she had short, dark curly hair and—I rubbed my eyes—something was wrong with her arm. Daylight from the window glinted off a dark silvery color. Was that—
“Don’t act all confused. I daresay you foresaw this day and are well aware of how it is to play out.”
The woman’s sharp, discerning eyes and expectant quirk of her mouth insisted on something. Was she trying to disorient me? If that was her goal, it was working really well. Where was I? Who was this woman with a metal arm who assumed she had a right to ask me confusing questions?
“Then again, maybe you haven’t,” she said. “Either way, with fifteen years to develop your ability, I am sure you know who I am.”
“Yes,” I said, angry she kept talking like I knew what she meant. “You are the person who had me kidnapped.”
The woman’s eyes flashed. Her metal hand balled into a fist, and I wondered how bad it would hurt if she hit me. “Who are you?”
The sheets wrapped around my sweaty hands. This question again—the same one t
he boy demanded of me when he cornered me in the room at my Nana’s house. My stomach twisted with the sheets. What if the dragon wasn’t a dream or a hallucination?
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Take me home. I don’t know what this place is, and I don’t really care.”
She stepped toward me, and I leaned back, unable to look away from her metal fist. “How do I know you are not attempting to deceive me?”
My eyes widened. I was a terrible liar. I didn’t think I had ever told a straight out lie. Something always stopped me. I sat there without a response. She must have read my face a little too well because her fist relaxed, and she stepped back.
“But—you must have at least known we were coming.”
I snorted. “It’s not like I can see the future.” Careful, don’t antagonize the cyborg.
“You don’t know, do you?” She sat on the end of my bed. Her brow creased in thought. “You know nothing.”
She must have realized she had kidnapped the wrong person. Good. They’d take me home...
Or they’d dispose of me.
“Look,” I said, my mouth dry. “It was an honest mistake. I have no clue who you are or where I am. Put one of those head bags on me—”
“You’re right. I was mistaken to assume—but I had to check.” She rose. “Forgive me for the confusion.”
I wanted to shout, Forgive you? Next time maybe you should think twice before kidnapping innocent girls and dragging them off to your secret lair, psycho! But I figured I should be gracious. “It happens. You can send me home, and it’ll be like none of this ever happened.”
“I’m sorry, Mina, but you will not be going home.”
Nausea gripped me as the shock of her words coursed through me. My eyes whipped to the window then to the door as I tried to determine which would serve as the better escape route.
“You will not be going home because you belong here. You are one of us,” she said.
“One of what?”
“You are not human. You are a member of a near immortal ancient race. The noblest and most powerful of all creatures. You are faeriekind.”
I must have misheard. Very kind?
But as she continued to speak about “the faeries” I realized she meant every word. She told me I had been kidnapped as a baby, stolen from the faeries, and switched with humans. Now they had found me and brought me home.
As if my life couldn’t get more bizarre.
“You may call me Nuada,” she said. “I must go. I will send Arius to explain more. You don’t know how long we have searched for you. It is a pleasure to finally welcome you home.”
Home. The word was like a slap to the face. I wasn’t home. If she thought she could convince me otherwise—this was so messed up.
Caelm entered the room. About my age, his leather muscle shirt stressed his thin, pale arms, and the tattoo on his arm looked like some sort of white furry monster. I stared at him like a puzzle piece that almost matched but in the end didn’t fit. If he was real, could I keep believing that the dragon that destroyed Nana’s house was a dream?
His eyes flitted to me, away and then back. A nervous smile came to his face.
“Glad you’re awake,” Caelm said. “I am honored to welcome you home, my lady.” He bowed low. “The faeries of the Haven have long awaited—”
“The Haven?”
He hesitated. “Yes, we call this building and the surrounding grounds the Haven. This building we call the manor—”
“You said you would take me home,” I interrupted again. “You lied to me.”
Caelm’s hands clasped behind him. “Technically, we promised to take you to a place where you would be safe.”
I jerked back the covers, walked up to Caelm, and stuck my nose in his face. “Let me make this clear, Caelm. You and your freaky friends are going to take me home. My home, the place I’ve lived for the past fifteen years of my life. No more lies. No more tricks.”
It was a total show. I wanted to dive under the covers and pretend I was safe. I wanted to be the one to cower in the corner like the boy was doing. But I’d spent years learning to hide my feelings from those who tried to frighten and control me.
Caelm descended closer to the floor. “Can’t, my lady, you belong here.”
“Is she giving you trouble Caelm?” a female voice said from behind.
I turned. The girl who had calmed me last night and promised me home walked in. Her light brown hair cut short, streaked with black, spiked highlights, and her wiry frame reminded me of Tily. What was her name?
“Thaya, what are you doing here? Where’s Arius?” Caelm shrank further into his corner.
“Out calming the troops. Can’t let them see Mina here falling apart and crying like a child. Wouldn’t be good for morale.”
Her eyes fell on me, and her expression grew cold.
“You lied to me,” I said.
“Did I? What are you going to do? Cry and scream, throw a tantrum? Please do. You’ll just grant me more power over you.”
These people needed to lay off the attempts at intimidation.
She walked right up to me and pushed me back onto the bed. “Oh, not angry, are you? Frustrated? The more out of control you are, the more control over you I have.”
“What does that even mean?” I said.
“Pretty much exactly how it sounds,” Caelm said. “Alright, Thaya, you’ve had your fun—”
“You think this is funny?” Thaya yelled at Caelm. She jumped on the bed, pinned me down, and pressed her leathered arm against my throat.
“You’d better be her.” Her teeth bared as she spoke, and her arm cut off my air. I tried to struggle, but her weight held me down. “She’s gone because of you, and if she sacrificed herself for some protector, I will have to be restrained not to dispatch you myself.”
“Are you crazy?” Caelm grabbed Thaya about the waist and pulled her off the bed, causing Thaya to lose her balance and land hard on the floor. I rolled on my side, coughing through the burning in my throat and sucking in precious air. Fear and confusion roiled though me, but I pushed it down. Don’t show it. Don’t let her win.
Caelm glared down at Thaya more frightened and exasperated than I had seen him since I woke. “Do you realize who this could be?”
“I know who it better be.” She climbed to her feet.
“What is going on?” a new voice demanded.
“Arius, Thaya just—she just attacked Mina,” Caelm said.
I turned to see Arius, tall and strong in his own sleeveless leather, standing in the doorway, frowning.
Thaya strode toward Arius without looking the least bit remorseful. “Not like I could have hurt her. I wanted to make sure we understand each other—a little faerie girl heart-to-heart.”
My body trembled, and my fingers dug into the sheets of the bed. Since when did holding a person down and choking them count as not hurting someone? As for understanding, I hadn’t understood one thing Thaya had said since she entered the room.
“I relieve you from guarding Mina. From now on, I will have Docina help me with guard duty,” Arius said.
“Whatever you want, oh great leader.” Thaya brushed past him out the door.
Arius stopped next to my bed. He stared down at me, his eyebrows furrowed. The intensity in his dark eyes unnerved me yet seemed somehow familiar. I stared back. I couldn’t help it. His eyes drew me in and made me curious to know what he wanted to discern. Perhaps if I let him stare long enough, he would figure out the answer.
Arius broke eye contact and turned to Caelm. “What have you told her?”
“Are you kidding me?” Caelm shook his head. “Between Mina attacking me and Thaya attacking Mina, I haven’t had a chance.”
Arius’s eyes widened. “Mina attacked you?”
“Might as well have,” Caelm muttered.
Arius looked down and licked his lips the same way my father did to hide his smile when my mother was angry at me for something that he thought
was funny. “Take a break. I’ll explain things to Mina.”
Caelm gave a relieved, “Yes sir,” and left the room.
Those dark eyes rose to meet mine. “I don’t think Caelm, of all people, deserves your intimidation.”
I pushed myself up and rubbed my still sore throat. “I’m sorry, next time I’ll save it for Thaya. Or you?”
Arius leaned against the windowsill, his arms folded across his chest. “I thought you would know more, but it’s obvious from your conversation with Nuada that isn’t the case.”
The disappointment in his voice aggravated me. Why did everyone keep expecting me to know stuff? I’d never met these people before in my life. I had no clue what was going on. I’d been freaking kidnapped! “Are you in charge here? What happened to that Nuada lady?”
Arius shifted, uncomfortable. He must not like his authority questioned. “Nuada is our leader. I am charged with explaining the basics about who you are.”
“Who I am—a faerie?”
Arius nodded.
“And you know that—how?” I asked.
“Nuada’s ability allows her to perceive certain things. She would not have ordered us to bring you here if she wasn’t certain you were one of us.”
Sure, if Nuada wasn’t insane, which I seriously suspected she might be. Then again, what would that say about Arius for following her? Still, the more I learned, the more likely I might find a way to escape. “She said I’m immortal. I’m going to live forever?”
“Near immortal. When faeries fall, we go through a rebirth process. There is only one way a faerie can die.”
“Did that Tily girl fall?”
He scowled. “Yes. Tily is now a baby being tended in our nursery.”
This was unbelievable.
“So, if I am fifteen—”
“You fell fifteen years ago,” Arius finished. “There was a great battle between us and the dark faeries. Nuada and a dark faerie named Margus were the only survivors.”
