by K A Riley
“Oh, crap,” I muttered.
Even the tiger looked puzzled, as if she knew what I’d just tried to do.
I began circling the pit faster. My only option now was to open a Breach. I’d summon a door into the Grove, use the dragon key to open it, and slip through. I’d summoned enough doors by now to know I could to it anytime, anywhere, and quickly.
I reached for the dragon key and tore it off its chain, ready to lunge through the door the second it appeared.
But once again, when I pictured the orange tree at the Grove’s center and called forth the door, nothing happened.
I could feel my eyes popping open wide as more panic set in.
The tiger advanced, the muscles in its shoulders and hind legs twitching in preparation for a lunge. The black claws extended out and down, curving into the ground.
“What are you doing, Vega?” someone above yelled. “Do something!”
“I can’t!” I shouted back. “I’ve been…shut down or something.”
I looked up to see Callum and Merriwether standing side by side at the edge of the pit. Their faces were mostly in shadow, but I could see they both looked deeply concerned.
I darted around the pit, keeping as far from the tiger as I could, knowing I had no natural defenses against it. If Miss Carlaw decided not to play nice, I could easily end up in the infirmary.
My back to the far wall, I tried again to call upon my powers, but each time I was met with a wall of weakness.
I stared at the tiger’s slit-pupiled eyes. “I understand what you have to do,” I said, “so maybe you should just get it over with.”
As if in response, the tiger leapt at me once again, hurtling its large body through the air in front of me. I braced myself, thrusting my arms in front of my face and wincing as I awaited the painful moment of impact.
But it never came.
The tiger seemed to freeze in mid-air, its body going rigid. She fell to the ground, eyes open.
It took me a moment to see that something large was protruding from her side—a dart? Wait—had Merriwether tranquilized her?
“You didn’t have to do that!” I shouted. “She was about to win, fair and—”
“What are those things?” someone yelled.
I looked up, my pulse racing, to see a series of metallic, winged objects, each about the size and shape of a large hawk, hovering over the courtyard. At first there were only four or five, but they were quickly joined by what seemed like hundreds.
“What’s happening?” I shouted.
“Hunter Drones!” I heard Callum yell. “Everyone, get back!”
He raced around and dropped the ladder down for me, but even as I reached it, a series of large darts pierced the earth at my feet. I jerked my head up to see his eyes staring frantically down at me. Once again, he pulled his gaze upward, only to see another barrage of projectiles flying down toward the pit.
“Stay against the wall, Vega!” Callum yelled, positioning himself directly above me. “Don’t move!”
“But they’ll kill you!” I shouted.
“No, they won’t!”
Without another word, he leapt into the air. I couldn’t understand what he was doing or why. For a second it looked like he was going to belly-flop into the pit. But as he soared out over the large hole in the ground, darkness engulfed me from above, as though a protective ceiling had formed above Miss Carlaw and me.
But a moment later, the “ceiling” began to rise up, higher and higher, until it narrowed to a long series of golden scales. All of a sudden, a vast set of exquisite wings was beating at the sky above me.
The ceiling, it turned out, was no ceiling.
I was staring at the glistening, chain-mail underside of a golden dragon.
Danger
I watched the flying creature slice and bank through the sky, and I stared, open-mouthed, as it shot spikes of flame at every drone along the way. Too confused to think straight, I raced over to Miss Carlaw, who was lying paralyzed on the ground at the center of the pit. Within seconds, Merriwether had jumped down into the pit and was at my side, his hand on her neck as he hunted for a pulse.
“She’s alive,” he said. “Barely. We need to get her some help. Are you all right, Vega?”
I nodded. “I am, thanks to…” I pulled my eyes up to the sky.
“The drones kept you from casting. The queen must have done something to them—added a charm, or a spell of some sort. They kept my magic at bay, too. It’s a lucky thing that shape-shifting isn’t a suppressible talent or things could have been much worse.”
I nodded, my eyes shooting upwards once again. The dragon was now circling overhead, fire shooting from its mouth as it scorched the last of the drones to piles of flitting ash in the sky.
“Is that…” I began.
“You’re wondering if the dragon you’re looking at is our very own Mr. Drake,” Merriwether said. “And the answer is yes.”
“He’s really a Dragon shifter? Like the Crimson King?”
“He is,” Merriwether said. “Though he was trying his best to keep his gift a secret, for what should seem like obvious reasons. Now come, climb out of here, and run and tell the others that I could use some help down here with Miss Carlaw.”
I nodded and raced to the rope ladder, climbing out as fast as I could.
“Get help,” I told Meg and the others, who ran inside to search for the nearest faculty members.
My eyes searched the sky again, seeing nothing now but blue. Callum—the Dragon version of himself, anyhow—had disappeared from view. But, fortunately, so had the drones.
As soon as a few faculty members came running out to help Merriwether lift Miss Carlaw and carry her to the infirmary, I sprinted to the nearest bathroom, called up a Breach, and made my way into the Grove. Something told me that if Callum was to be found anywhere, it would be there. I was desperate to talk to him, to find out if he was okay.
I found him sitting on the grass at the Grove’s center, his legs tucked up under his chin. He looked tense, his arms wrapped around his shins, eyes focused on a spot on the ground in front of him. The look on his face was one I’d never seen before. He looked…tortured.
“You nearly died,” he said softly.
“But I didn’t,” I replied, sitting down next to him. “Thanks to you.”
He shot me a quick look before pulling his eyes away. “I took too long to react. I waited too long, all because I didn’t want…”
“Because you didn’t want everyone knowing who you are? That seems perfectly reasonable, actually. Word spreads fast around here, and it seems like no one can be trusted.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m so sorry, Vega. I wish I could’ve told you sooner. I wish I hadn’t kept such a huge secret from you.”
“That you’re the heir to the throne, you mean?” I asked. “So it’s true. You’re a descendant of the Crimson King. Like in the prophecy.”
He nodded again. “I didn’t want anyone thinking my agenda was to win the throne. That’s not why the Academy exists. That’s not why we need to fight the queen. I don’t care about taking charge. I never have. All I want is for the Otherwhere to stay peaceful and beautiful, as it’s always been. I don’t want my home corrupted by her ambition and cruelty.”
“Huh. That sounds like something a really good king might say.”
A crooked smile slipped over Callum’s lips as he turned my way, picking a piece of grass out of the ground and peeling it apart. “You’re really not freaked out by what you saw?” he asked.
“That you just turned into a huge fire-breathing monster who could barbecue me in seconds?” I replied with a shrug and a smirk. “No. Actually, it explains a thing or two. Besides, I turn into a smoke monster who calls forth doors to really weird places, so I’d say I almost have you beat.”
“Well, the cat’s out of the bag now, I suppose. Speaking of cats, is Miss Carlaw going to be okay?”
“I don’t know,” I said, my smile
fading. “I hope so. But those darts…they were meant for me, weren’t they?”
Callum nodded slowly. “I’m afraid so. The queen obviously sees you as a serious threat.”
“I thought she couldn’t reach us at the Academy. I thought we were safe here. Merriwether said—”
“We are safe—for the most part. But it would seem the sky is out of Merriwether’s reach. He can only cast so many protective spells. If I’d known what they were going to do, I’d never have suggested we use the courtyards.”
“You couldn’t have known the queen would send those drones. None of us could have. But now we do. She’s wanted me dead for ages, and today she nearly got her wish.”
“Perhaps not dead,” a deep voice said from somewhere behind us. Callum and I spun around to see Merriwether standing on the grass between two trees, a grave look on his face. “Those darts weren’t meant to kill. Only to get your attention. They were laced with a paralyzing poison. Painful, but it fades in a few hours.”
“So Miss Carlaw will be okay?” I asked.
“Yes. She’ll be fine.”
“Thank God.” I rose to my feet and faced him. He didn’t look as relieved as I’d hoped. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
Callum pushed himself up to stand next to me, attentively waiting for the answer to my question.
“Come with me. Both of you,” Merriwether said. “I have something to show you.”
Once we were inside, Merriwether led us down a series of halls until we came to his office, where he shut the door and locked it behind us.
“Sit down, Miss Sloane, Mr. Drake,” he said as he stepped over to his desk and took a seat. “What I have to tell you is of the gravest importance and needs to be kept secret in order to avoid mass panic. Is that understood?”
Callum and I exchanged a look and nodded our heads. “Understood,” we said in unison.
Merriwether reached under his desk and pulled up an object I’d seen before in the Academy’s library: a sphere swirling with purple.
The Orb of Kilarin, he’d called it.
The last time I’d seen it, it had been flickering with the image of a grim-looking castle at its center. Now, I couldn’t entirely make out what the image was, other than a couple of oddly moving shadows.
“While the drones were attacking, a message came to me via the orb,” the Headmaster said, sweeping a hand over the sphere. “Sent from the Usurper Queen.”
As he pulled his hand away, the image became clearer. Inside the orb was the image of two silhouettes floating in a swirling green liquid. They looked like a boy and a girl, each of their bodies suspended helplessly inside a large cylindrical tank. I leaned in to look more closely, but even as I did so, I could feel Callum’s hand reaching for my arm as if in warning. His grip tightened.
“What is it?” I asked. “What am I seeing?”
A moment later, the answer came to me with a tsunami of nausea swept through my insides.
Will…
Liv…
Floating suspended somewhere, unconscious, unmoving.
Prisoners.
“Where are they?” I asked, my voice rising with panic. “What’s happened to them?”
“She’s taken them,” Merriwether said. “The Usurper Queen has taken them as a means to persuade you to leave the Academy and the competition.”
“How do you know?” I asked. “I mean, how do we know this isn’t just some trick of hers?”
Merriwether sat back and turned his attention to the far wall, where a screen sprang to life and a letter, handwritten, began to scroll across its surface.
“Vega Sloane,” it read, “must willingly surrender the Dragon Key to my agents. She must then return to Fairhaven, never to return to the Otherwhere. If my demands are not met, her brother and her friend will die.”
A choking sob made its way up to my throat. Callum’s hand was still on my arm, and I reached for it, digging my fingertips into his skin as I looked for comfort. But he wasn’t enough to protect me. Not this time.
My brother and my best friend. Both would die if I didn’t meet the queen’s demands.
“We have to save them!” I shouted. “We have to get them away from her!”
“They’re in her castle,” Merriwether said. “And I’m afraid it’s not exactly the sort of place you can just wander up to. She has an army of thousands of Waergs. They prowl the woods all around the palace. And if Mr. Drake flew up in dragon form, they’d see him coming from ten miles away.”
I took a deep breath, telling myself to calm down, that freaking out wasn’t going to help anyone or anything.
“So what do you suggest?” I asked, shooting a look at the orb. I stared at the floating image of Liv and Will, who seemed to be suspended in giant glass tubes in the middle of a room of stone. Carved dragons perched like gargoyles above them, guardians put in place to ensure they couldn’t escape.
“We have two options,” Merriwether said. “One is you do as she asks—which would put the Otherwhere at risk, because it would mean losing our most promising Candidate.”
“There are eleven other Candidates chomping at the bit to be the chosen Seeker. Why is she so worried about me? Surely it can’t all be because there’s some prophecy making the rounds.”
“She’s worried because she knows who you truly are,” Merriwether said. “She knows where you come from. She knows who your grandfather really was.”
“I don’t even know who my grandfather was,” I said miserably. I pulled my eyes to Callum’s for a moment before saying, “Well, it doesn’t even matter, not anymore. I have no choice. I’ll have to drop out of the Academy. I will give the key up and head home to Fairhaven. I’ll sacrifice myself for my brother and for Liv. Anything else would be selfish.”
Merriwether nodded. “Very well. Your decision is, of course, yours to make. Might I suggest, though, that you sleep on it for one night before turning the key in? You may find that morning brings a change of heart.”
“Morning? I’m not going to sit around while some nutjob of a queen tortures my brother and my best friend!”
“She won’t do anything to them while she knows she can use them as leverage. If you go charging over there now, she’ll have all three of you, and your world and ours will be as good as over.”
“Of course,” I said, rising to my feet. “I’m sorry—this has been a lot to digest. I’m going to head to my room and lie down, if it’s all right. In the morning I’ll turn in the key, unless anyone can think of a better plan.”
“As you wish.”
Without another word, I made my way to the tower where I climbed the narrow, dizzyingly tall spiral staircase until I arrived at my floor. Once inside my room, I perched on the edge of my bed, my face in my hands. It felt like years had passed since my seventeenth birthday. Years since I’d awoken to find my Nana’s card. Years since I’d hugged Will goodbye and told him I loved him.
Now he and Liv were prisoners of the Mistress. The awful woman who’d stolen Callum’s rightful place on the throne, who wanted to destroy this beautiful land and to ransack my world along with it. Will and Liv were puppets inside her grim castle. And unless someone did what she asked, they’d never be set free. I’d never see Niala again. I’d never see Merriwether, or the pristine fields of Anara.
Worst of all, I’d never see Callum again.
As I pondered the wretched thought, a knock sounded at my door.
“Come in,” I moaned.
“You okay?” Callum asked as he pushed the door open and stepped inside.
“No,” I replied. “I’m so far from okay, I’d need a passport to get to okay.”
He frowned and walked over to sit on the edge of the bed next to me, putting an arm around my shoulder.
“I just wanted a chance,” I said. “I wanted to prove to myself I could succeed. That I was worth something. That my parents hadn’t died in vain. I wanted to beat the woman who destroyed my family. But now she’s beaten me. She’s taken eve
rything from me.”
“You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, Vega. You are worth everything. As for the queen, she doesn’t matter. She’s cruel and manipulative. She’s trying to break you, but she doesn’t know how strong you really are.”
“Maybe I’m not,” I said, wiping a tear away from my cheek and turning to look into his eyes. “Maybe I’m too weak for this place.” I pressed my palm to his face and kissed him. “I need to go,” I said, pulling myself to my feet.
“I understand. You want Will and Liv back.”
“That’s not what I mean,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not going to Fairhaven.”
“Then where…?” he asked as I closed my eyes.
“I need to go see someone,” I said, opening my eyes again to see the door I’d summoned standing in front of me. “I need some answers.”
“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Callum said, thrusting himself between the door and me. “Whatever you’re intending to do, you should think about it first. If you leave—”
“If I leave, then what? I’ll be kicked out of the Academy?” I said with a laugh, wiping a tear away. “I’ll never see you again? Those things are already becoming reality. But maybe if I can get my answers, I can figure out a way to save Will and Liv, and to keep you.”
Throwing his hands in the air in surrender, Callum stepped aside.
I reached for the dragon key and tore it from its chain.
I shot Callum a final look. “You told me last night that you care about me. I care about you too. So much that it hurts.”
A second later, I was gone.
Through the Door
The smell of seaweed met my nose as I stepped through to the other side. Long, brownish grass swept across the ground, tickling my legs, and a familiar sense of calm filled me, replacing the anger and despair I’d felt only a moment ago.
In front of me stood a little stone cottage, a series of colorful potted plants hanging from its porch roof. Despite everything that had happened, a smile worked its way over my lips. Seeing the cottage was like a homecoming. It was familiar, comforting. And, best of all, the woman inside might help me to save Will and Liv.
