by Renard, Loki
“Tell that to Vilka,” Kate said. “He needs to hear it.”
“I will speak with my son soon. For now, come meet my wife, I believe she is about to land.”
He led Kate out of a balcony door that looked out over the landing. Looking into the sky, Kate saw the strangest dragon she had ever laid eyes on circling above.
“What kind of dragon is that?”
It really didn’t look like a dragon. It was partially see-through, structured in a way that dragons were not. It seemed to have struts and gears and… was it somehow mechanical?
The creature swooped lower and Kate strained to get a good look at it, leaning so far over the balcony ledge that Vyktor grabbed the back of her dress in order to ensure that she did not tumble out of it completely.
“Easy,” he rumbled. “You’ll see soon enough.”
Kate felt a rush of shyness sufficient enough to make her stand back and wait for the dragon to land. It did so on the landing a few dozen feet from the window, and with wide, stunned eyes, Kate saw that it was not a dragon, but a flying machine made to very much resemble one. It was the most sophisticated piece of machinery she had seen in all her time in the dragon realm—but what, or rather who was inside it was even more of a shock. It was a woman, wearing a silken flight suit. Even at a distance, Kate was certain that it was not a dragon who sat there, but a human.
The woman stepped out of the contraption and waved in Vyktor’s direction. Kate saw a broad smile establish itself on the older man’s face. The look on his visage was one of pure adoration.
Kate put two and two together and came up with the only solution that fitted: Vilka’s mother was human. Vilka was half-dragon, half-human.
He had kept that very quiet, and she couldn’t help but wonder why. Though perhaps, she did not have to. He had told her in some way, in the story of the events that had led up to him stealing the king’s crown—the reason he had been passed over for promotions, ostracized from the higher echelons of society. He was half human, and he was obviously still suffering for it.
Kate felt a wave of protective anger rush through her. No wonder he was so conflicted, and no wonder he was so insistent about holding on to her. She was the only human he had ever known that was not his mother. Maybe she was a lifeline to the world that he clearly rejected in spite of it being part of him.
There was a thin gangway between the landing pad and the room in which they were standing. Kate watched as the woman drew closer, and was puzzled to see that she had to be in her early fifties. Her hair was streaked with gray and her face was lined with the effects of the sun, but that in no way marred her beauty, or took anything away from the adventurous gleam in her eyes. She had a youthful demeanor, and as she drew closer, Kate could see touches of Vilka in her face.
“Kate, this is my wife, Aria. Aria, this is Kate,” Vyktor said. “She opened the portal and woke the world eater.”
“All by yourself, very impressive,” Aria noted with a smile.
“Um… thank you?” Kate was confused not only by the fact that a human seemed to have been living here for a very long time, but that she was the mother of the man she had seen take flight in the form of a dragon. How could a human mother a dragon? And how similar must the essential structure of dragons and humans be to allow such a DNA synthesis? Vilka had said that it was possible, but she had assumed that he was wrong.
“She’s looking at me like I’m a ghost,” Aria said to Vyktor. “Is she alright?”
“I think she assumed she was the first human here,” Vyktor said.
“Second,” Aria corrected Kate. “Well, third, but the first one did not last very long unfortunately. How are you managing? Are you already pregnant?”
“No!” Kate blushed bright red. “I certainly am not…”
“But you are not suffering the effects of the radiation?”
“I made a formula which protects human cells from the radiation present in this realm. It’s quite a different form than the kinds which are so dangerous on Earth. The particles are larger and don’t tend to penetrate the DNA, so it’s really a matter of shielding the cell proper and…” She was babbling and she knew it. Aria and Vyktor exchanged amused looks.
“You must be very smart,” Aria said kindly.
“Not smart enough to be able to get out of here.”
“Well, when a dragon takes a prisoner, he tends to do a thorough job of it,” Aria said with another smile at her husband. “Don’t be too down on yourself for failing to escape. I had little success myself.”
“How did you come to be here? Were you taken through a portal? How long have you been here?” Kate was full of questions, fired at rapid pace.
Aria smiled indulgently and answered them without hesitation. “It was at the very end of the dragon war. I was a rookie fighter pilot. I tangled with this lizard,” she said, nudging Vyktor affectionately, “and got more than I bargained for,” she laughed.
“The dragon war? But that was only three years ago. And you’re… well…” Kate’s voice trailed off. “More mature than I would have expected for a rookie fighter pilot.”
“Three years on Earth, yes, but I have lived thirty years here in this realm,” Aria said. “I have not left it, not even for a day, so I have aged in this world, not the one I came from.”
“That is incredible,” Kate said. “You have more knowledge of this place than any human, decades of research potential in a few short years.”
“Earth years, yes,” Aria agreed. “But as you see, time passes just the same.”
Kate nodded. There was a price to be paid for living in the dragon realm, and that price was to miss much of human history, for so little of it passed compared to dragon years.
“Mathematics aside, we have greater problems to worry about,” Aria changed the subject. “Like closing the portal. Can you do that?”
“The portal I made, the first one, it was a small one which needed continuous power. That’s how I made something stable. These huge portals, they’re self-sustaining, but they’re also unstable. A significant electrical charge can destabilize and evaporate them, but I can’t really figure out how to generate one of those over here. I probably could with time, but the elements are sort of out of phase and electricity doesn’t seem popular, so there’s no infrastructure, and besides, that massive dragon is still on the wrong side…” She trailed off. “You know you’re the first person to even bother to ask me if I know how to close the portal?”
“Dragons tend to act first and ask questions later,” Aria said. “I’m surprised Vilka is still in this realm at all and hasn’t flown through to deal with Avastias himself.”
“He’s worried I’ll escape if he takes his eyes off me,” Kate shrugged.
“Which you probably would.”
“Of course,” Kate agreed. “Though I have no idea how I’d get that high into the sky. Maybe you could drop me off through it?”
“And who is going to stop you from falling to your death on the other side?” Aria shook her head. “I think that plan may need a little more thought.”
“That plan will have no more thought given to it,” Vyktor interjected. “Do not give her ideas. We did not come here to create more trouble for Vilka.”
“Yes, dear,” Aria said. “Best behavior, I promise.” She flickered a little wink at Kate, who couldn’t help but smile.
Aria made Kate feel as if perhaps she were not such a terrible person. Vilka had never said that she was, of course, but the sense of guilt had been building for quite some time and as much as she had tried to resist it, it had crept up inside her soul. This was all her fault, and she knew it. She just couldn’t bear to admit it, any more than she could bear to think what was going on back in New York with a dragon on the loose that made the Empire State Building look like a toothpick.
It occurred to Kate that out of all those who had come to the fortress, only Vyktor and Aria were real elders. They were the only ones who had spoken to her directly, and they
were certainly the only ones who had made the situation feel containable and who seemed to be prepared to offer some assistance, even if it was only of the moral kind—quite unlike the others who seemed to have made an appearance to leer at the misfortune of the unfavored son.
Chapter Twelve
“You’re human! At least, halfway human.” Kate burst into Vilka’s chambers with the accusation. She found him sitting naked on the bed and stopped dead a few feet into the room before turning and pushing the doors closed.
“Is it true? Are you part human? Is your mother a fighter pilot from the first war?”
“Yes,” Vilka admitted. “That is true. My mother is a human. She’s lived here for the last thirty or so years with my father after she was arrested for treason in the first war for helping the dragons.”
“And you never figured that might be worth mentioning?” Kate put her hands on her hips and cocked her head at Vilka in a sassy fashion. She couldn’t believe he had kept so much to himself. It wasn’t as though she’d felt that she knew everything about him, but she’d at least assumed she knew what species he was.
“We have not precisely had a great deal of time for self-revelation,” Vilka pointed out. “You have created chaos from the moment we met. It is not strange that I did not mention my parentage. You have not mentioned yours.”
“That’s because I don’t have any,” Kate said.
“You were spawned without parents?” It was Vilka’s turn to give a look of disbelief.
“I lost my parents when I was really young,” she said. “So that was that. I wasn’t hiding anything from you. Not like you, hiding the fact that you’re human !”
“You didn’t have parents?” Vilka seemed genuinely concerned by the revelation.
“No, well, I mean, there were people who looked after me for a few years at a time, but not in the way most people do. It doesn’t matter. I turned out fine.”
“You turned out on another planet,” Vilka said. “So much makes sense now… you poor little thing.”
“Don’t you dare pity me,” she growled. “I don’t need your pity.”
“Maybe you don’t need my pity, but you definitely need my palm meeting your butt,” he growled right back at her. “Lack of discipline has been your problem from the beginning.”
“I’m self-disciplined.”
“That’s only half of it,” Vilka informed her. “You need to be externally disciplined as well. It can’t be all one or the other.”
“Says the crown thief.”
“I was punished for that, and I accepted my fate. You never accept yours.”
“Damn right I don’t! To hell with fate! And to hell with you and your perfect parents. Your amazing mom and your dragon dad. You don’t know a damn thing about me,” Kate snapped defensively. Meeting Vilka’s parents had made her feel a strange sort of very uncomfortable jealousy. Both of them were obviously amazing, outstanding people, and they both supported him unconditionally in spite of everything that had happened.
“I may not know the particulars,” Vilka said. “But I know you. I know how lonely you are at your core. I know how far you came to find something that might fill the hole inside—and I also know you’ve found it. You’d know that too if you could stop fighting me for five seconds.”
“Shut up, Vilka,” she said unhappily. “You lied to me.”
“How did I lie to you?”
“By omission. You could have told me any time that you’re half human. But you didn’t want me to know you, so don’t bullshit me and tell me I could fill some hole inside myself if I would just trust you. You haven’t exactly given me much to trust, have you?”
“You’re upset,” he said, stating the obvious. “Was it so important?”
“Yes! Yes, it damn well was! You never told me anything , Vilka! You never told me about the massive dragon underneath the mountain. You never told me who you really were. You never told me anything that actually mattered.”
“If you had obeyed, I might have had the chance to…”
“Oh, no.” Kate shook her head. “Don’t try to act like this is my fault. You’re half human and you hate it because the other dragons are cruel to you. But to hell with them! Who cares what they think? And hey, to hell with this place! You don’t have to stay here on this rock at the end of nowhere! You could have come to Earth and fit right in. You don’t have scaling on your body, your eyes aren’t slitted. You’d pass for human easily. Aren’t you even curious about what’s on the other side of that portal?”
“Of course I am,” he said. “And that curiosity will be sated soon enough.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I intend to go through the portal and lure him back here by acting as bait,” Vilka said. “Then I will do battle with him and defeat him.”
Kate stared at Vilka. “You’ll do battle with a dragon a thousand times your size? Do you want to die? That thing could swallow a small village. It could inhale you, Vilka!”
“There are ways of battling Avastias which do not end in death,” Vilka said. “It is difficult, but it is not entirely impossible—and it must be done. It has always been this way. When the world eater wakes, it must either feed or be defeated. I am the lord of this fortress. It falls to me to do battle with the beast.”
“No,” Kate said, shaking her head emphatically. “I won’t let you.”
He was an overbearing dominating meathead who broke things with rocks, but she cared about him and she definitely didn’t want him to die. They were bonded now, for better or worse and she couldn’t imagine her life without him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t have a choice anymore. The moment Avastias woke, this was my fate.”
“I won’t let you!”
Vilka reached for the obsidian black collar and leash. “You won’t have a choice, Kate. You will be chained here until the outcome is settled one way or another.”
“The hell I will!” Kate struggled as he reached for her and clapped the collar about her neck. There was nothing she could really do to stop him, but she wanted him to know just how furious she was. “I will break out of here, Vilka! I always do.”
He shook his head. “Not this time you won’t,” he said. “Not until I have done what I have to do.”
“Vilka!” She shouted his name as he turned and walked out of the room. “Vilka, don’t you damn well leave me here!”
The doors of his chambers closed, and Kate was left alone once more, swearing furiously to herself.
Chapter Thirteen
Vilka went to his father. The old man had given him many speeches over the years, and he had never appreciated a single one of them. Now he was anxious to hear whatever wisdom Vyktor might have for him. He was beginning to feel exceptionally lonely, knowing that he would face the world eater by himself, and knowing that the odds of besting the creature were minimal. The prospect of the end was very real, and nobody knew that better than his father.
“You have chosen a fine mate,” Vyktor said, the first words out of his mouth ones of unexpected praise. “I am proud of you, Vilka.”
“Proud of me? For making myself a pariah and now unleashing a world eater? You have little to be proud of.”
“I have pride in you because you have never shied away from the consequences of your actions. You could have fled with your human mate through the portal and left Avastias to the elders to contain.”
“That didn’t actually occur to me,” Vilka said thoughtfully. “That’s actually a very good idea.”
“It did not occur to you because you are honorable,” Vyktor said with a chuckle. “It did not cross your mind, even for a second, to run from the beast. Many would have taken that option. There was a giant exit in the sky. Your mate could likely have closed it from the other side, and yet you did not even think to flee. You have courage enough for an army, my son, and it will stand you in good stead. You should be proud of yourself, and your mate.”
“Mate? I call her tha
t, but she hates the very notion,” Vilka said. “She hates me.”
“She certainly does not. I have seen that look she wears in her eyes before. It is the look of a woman who hates what she desires. It was necessary for your mother to briefly be a prisoner of mine. I will spare you the details, but she was fierce.”
“Kate is not just fierce, she is relentless,” Vilka said. “Every chance she gets she tries to escape. If she cared for me at all, she would not do that. Even now, she curses my name.”
“Women are more complex than you might imagine,” Vyktor said. “Her desire for freedom is understandable and I do not doubt it, but it is likely made stronger by your refusal to grant her it. If you had forbidden her from setting foot in this realm, you would likely never have been rid of her. She is contrary, like so many of her kind.”
“What are you saying, Father?”
“I am saying, if she wishes to be free, perhaps you should allow her to be free.”
“What? She cannot go free! She will run at the first chance. I have enough trouble to deal with already without letting the agent of chaos loose!”
“I suspect she does not truly desire her freedom as much as she once might have. Keeping her chained allows her to continue to deny what is between you,” Vyktor said. “You cannot keep her on a leash forever, and if you try you will eventually destroy what you love about her.”
His father’s words rang true, evoking thoughts that had occurred to Vilka, but that he had pushed away. There was an ancient beast to do battle with, and yet he was talking about the problems with his love life, like a teenager.
“There is another more pressing matter, Father,” he reminded Vyktor. “I must do battle with Avastias.”
“I do not know if one matter is more pressing than the other,” Vyktor said. “I think they are one and the same. You have grown strong, my son, and now you are a warrior and leader in your own right. You are everything I hoped you would be. You have a legion of your own, and a mate of your own. My time was the first war. Yours is now. I know you will do what is right. I know you will bring this matter to a peaceful conclusion and I know, no matter what, that you will make me proud.”
