by Riley Storm
“Yes. Out the doors.”
Again feeling the need to track him down and speak to him, Christine followed the pointed hand and went out after him. Why would he have left so soon? Was the dragon regretting his decision, perhaps?
The hallways were mostly empty. Nearly every witch was in the auditorium or up on the walls. Only a few had left, and so it was easy for her to spot the dragon shifter.
“Hey!” she called, hurrying to catch up. “Wait.”
At her second shout, he looked back over his shoulder, giving Christine her first good look at him. The rear of the auditorium was dimmed, and all she’d been able to make out at first were his broad shoulders and muscular frame, but all the dragons seemed to possess such appealing physical traits.
Now as she approached, she saw his bright blue eyes framed by a pair of thin eyebrows and a mouth that looked like it had forgotten how to smile.
“May I help you?” he asked. The words were polite, but the emotions didn’t extend up to his eyes.
Christine slowed, suddenly forgetting her words and why she had come after him. She was focused solely on his face and the barrier he had in place.
Something terrible had happened to this man. She didn’t know how she knew, or why, but her heart ached. He was…blank, seemed the best way to describe it.
“You’re the one who volunteered,” she said, coming to a halt in front of him. She could see now he had a thick nose and hair that was cropped short, just long enough not to be considered a buzz cut. Stubble lined his jaw, stopping a few inches below his jawline.
“I am,” he said, glancing at her up and down.
“Why?” she asked, suddenly wondering what his motive was behind everything. “That was a very brave thing to do.”
Now where did these words come from? Why did you say them? Christine’s mouth was moving faster than her mind could keep up.
“It was the right thing to do,” he said quietly, his eyes growing distant for a split second, before he got control of himself.
“You didn’t have to do it,” she pointed out. “We weren’t asking for dragon volunteers. The task force would have been all witches.”
His eyebrows narrowed. “Am I not wanted? Is that your purpose in seeking me out then? To tell me that I’m not allowed to join the team?”
Christine leaned back. “Not at all. I just wanted to know what kind of man you are to volunteer for the team, that’s all.”
“What is your name?” the dragon shifter asked abruptly.
“Christine,” she said, confused at the sudden topic change. “Why?”
“Are you involved in this response team in some manner?” he asked. “Or are you just a random witch inquiring into my reasoning?”
There was no malice in his question, no anger or suspicion. Simple curiosity was all that she could detect. Someone trying to better understand who she was, and why she’d chased him down to ask him these questions.
If only I knew the answer myself. It would feel silly to say that I just felt the need to seek him out. To ask him why he’d do this.
“I expect to be assigned to the team,” she said confidently. “I am an upper-year Apprentice specializing in combat magic. I am…I believe, if I can speak of myself for a moment, well suited to join this team.”
Christine stopped short of voicing her true desires, the one she she’d had since Circe had announced she was forming the team. It would sound silly to the dragon, who likely wouldn’t understand it. So for now, she kept it to herself. Until she could see Circe. Then she would let the head of Winterspell know what Christine was after.
Right now though, the dragon shifter in front of her didn’t need to know any of that. He seemed caught up in his own thoughts already, and they barely knew each other.
“So we’ll be working together, then?” he asked, sizing her up anew.
“Something like that, I hope,” she said, nodding. “What is your name? I’ve not had the pleasure of doing much interacting with any of your kind yet.”
“I am, Altair.” The dragon shifter stuck out his hand.
She’d heard him speak his name earlier but hadn’t been quite sure she’d gotten it right.
Christine took the offered hand and shook it, feeling the restrained power in his grip. She was used to men naturally being stronger than her, though her interactions with them were limited, but this…this was different.
Men were strong—though often weak-willed—but Altair was powerful. She’d seen his muscles, his frame, but that was just a cover up. He felt like nothing short of corded steel, tougher than she’d been expecting. Yet his skin was soft, and warm, and—What are you doing?
Christine abruptly dropped his hand, not having realized she was still holding it.
“Uh,” she said awkwardly.
Good job. Way to make things even worse.
“Altair,” she said, repeating his name, trying to recover. “Thank you for volunteering to join us. It was unnecessary.”
“On the contrary,” he said softly. “It was most required of me. Nobody else will die because I’m not there.” His eyes blazed with fervent belief as he spoke. “I look forward to working with you, Christine.”
She opened her mouth to reply, to address his first comment, but before she could speak any of the dozens of words and questions that sprang into her mind, Altair leaned to the side slightly, his gaze focusing on something behind her.
Christine turned to see a small contingent of dragons approaching. They didn’t look happy. One in particular, whom she knew to be some sort of leader of the dragons, looked downright pissed.
“Ah, I think I should probably go now,” Altair said uncomfortably. “This isn’t likely to be much fun.”
He stepped around her, visibly bracing himself. Christine looked at him, then at the other dragons, then back to Altair. Suddenly, she wondered if his volunteering wasn’t exactly approved.
“All the best,” she said quietly. “But you had better be at the first training session once it’s announced.”
Altair nodded, his eyes remaining focused on the other dragons. “I will be,” he said quietly.
“No matter what.”
Then he left her behind.
Christine watched him go, seeing him visibly flinch as the first dragon laid into him, his tone clearly visible from the snarl on his face even if she couldn’t make out the words.
She thought for a moment about staying to watch, to be of help, but this wasn’t her fight. It wasn’t her place to interfere in dragon affairs after all.
Besides, she had something else that needed her attention.
Chapter Four
Altair
Rokh was speaking, the volatile fire dragon laying into him, though Altair wasn’t truly listening to the words. He caught the gist of it based on the tone of the other shifter’s words. After an initial flinch at the vehemence, he tuned him out.
His focus was on the woman. Christine, the witch who had seen fit to seek him out, to chase after him. All to ask why he was volunteering to go fight a demon lord.
Pausing in his steps, he looked over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of the woman as she headed down the hallway in the opposite direction, long hair swinging from side to side, still reaching her mid-back even in a ponytail.
He could remember her dark brown eyes, the way they sparkled with intensity, with drive. The woman was so vibrant and alive in a way he only faintly remembered. Something about that spoke to him, arousing something in him that Altair had not felt for some time.
Curiosity.
There was more he wanted to know about this woman, about who she was, and why she was so interested in his reasoning for volunteering. Something more might have niggled at his consciousness, tiptoeing around the very edges of it, but Altair simply was no longer aware of such things.
He could see her beauty, of course; he hadn’t gone blind. To see something, and to truly appreciate it, however, were not one and the same, and he could only
do the former. His brain wouldn’t allow him much else.
Her confidence was something his dragon approved of. It liked that she believed in herself enough to assume she would be a part of such a team. Then at the end, she’d told him he had better be at the training session.
Witches were filing out of the auditorium in massive droves now, and the hallways were filling with noise as they talked nervously of what was to come. Altair had never truly realized how many of them there were in Winterspell, but as he watched now he came to the conclusion there were hundreds upon hundreds of them.
“Are you even listening to me?” Rokh snarled, grabbing Altair by the arm and dragging him down a side corridor that was mostly empty of traffic. A pair of witches turned the corner shortly after, but a glare from the fire dragon sent them back into the main hallways with exclamations of “excuuusee me”. Clearly, they weren’t happy at the treatment.
“There was no need for that,” Altair said, keeping his calm. He very much disliked dealing with the fire dragon, finding him far too unstable for his liking. “They were just trying to walk past.”
“Oh, so you do hear.”
“Of course, I hear,” Altair said. “I’m not deaf. You’ve been yelling at me about volunteering without asking for your explicit permission, I’m sure. What do I need to listen to the specifics for? It’s all the same.”
Rokh’s eyes bulged.
Altair watched more of the witches file past the opening of their corridor. So full of life. Hopefully, his sacrifice would keep many of them from dying. Who knows what sorts of great and incredible things they would go on to do for humanity? But they would, and that was what mattered the most to him.
“Explain yourself then,” Rokh demanded. “If you won’t listen to me, then you can do the talking.”
“It was the right thing to do, Rokh,” Altair said bluntly. “It’s what we’ve always been taught to do. If something needs doing and you’re able to help, you do it. Easy as that.”
“We can’t afford to send anyone on the team,” Rokh ground out.
“Can’t afford to?” Altair asked, genuinely surprised at the fire dragon’s attitude. “What is that supposed to mean? Are we above the witches and the other humans now, is that it? You think we’re superior, so we shouldn’t get involved in their affairs?”
“No, you thick-skulled moron,” Rokh snarled. “We can’t afford it because it’s a death sentence. The demon-lord Berith is too powerful, and any dragon that goes along is likely to be more of a hindrance than able to actually help.”
“That wasn’t the impression Christine gave me,” Altair countered.
“Who is Christine?” Rokh demanded to know.
“The witch I was talking to when you came to find me, looking for an excuse to blow your top. And for your information, I will be a help to them, Rokh. Despite your lack of belief in me. Besides, I’m going. The Circe already said so.”
“You can’t go,” Rokh said. “You’re needed here.”
Altair looked up at the arched stone ceiling high above him. Even the side corridors had tall ceilings in Winterspell. “Why?” he asked, not wanting to give Rokh the satisfaction, but not seeing any other way out of it.
“Your people need you,” Rokh said, trying to inflict maximum guilt. “In case you haven’t noticed, there are only fifty of us here at Winterspell. Fifty Dracians. Who knows about the others that made it? They’ve been out in the mountains for over a month now. Are they still alive? We need to focus on rebuilding our race, Altair, which means you need to be here.”
Rebuilding the race. Something that would be easier if they had more young, more children to carry on the legacy. But they didn’t.
Agony stabbed at his chest, and Altair swallowed a hard lump in his throat.
“I can’t stay,” he said quietly.
“Why not?” Rokh wanted to know, his tone softening ever so slightly, as if he could recognize the anguish his earlier words had caused in Altair. It was unlikely the fire dragon felt sorry, but perhaps he was easing up on him, even if just for a moment.
“I just can’t.”
Altair ignored the questioning glance that came his way. Rane and Damien hadn’t informed Rokh of the waking nightmare he’d experienced, where he’d attacked Rane while asleep, reliving the experiences of his past. The two other storm dragons had banded around their brother, and he appreciated their trust.
It wasn’t something he wanted others to know he was dealing with. It was Altair’s job to handle his own demons, not someone else, and he wasn’t about to let it get out to everyone, because Rokh wouldn’t be able to keep it to himself.
“You’re going to need a better reason than that,” Rokh said quietly.
“No, I don’t,” Altair countered, almost telling Rokh that he wasn’t really his boss.
That would have been unfair though. Altair knew that the fire dragon had been doing his best to keep some semblance of order and function among the dragons, taking upon much of the responsibility himself. It was wearing at him though, and if he didn’t learn to relinquish control soon, he was going to face an internal revolt before much longer.
But that wasn’t Altair’s responsibility either.
“Going is a death sentence,” Rokh said, as if that was the end of the argument. “We cannot spare one of our own for this.”
Altair shook his head slowly. “I’m already dead, Rokh, you just don’t know it yet. Stop worrying about me.”
Before the other dragon could respond, he pushed off the wall and wandered out into the flow of witches. The smaller and shorter women parted for him and he moved like a shark through a school of fish as he wandered aimlessly past.
His brain was elsewhere. Focused on a driven brunette, whom for some reason, Altair didn’t want to disappoint.
I’ll be at that training session, he vowed mentally. No matter what.
He would make her proud. Her and the rest of his kind. They would see what he was going to do, and they would finally think of Altair in positive terms again. He would be rid of the stench of failure, once and for all.
All he had to do was kill a demon lord.
Chapter Five
Christine
The door whispered open, silent as could be.
She lowered her hand, having only knocked once.
“Come in,” a voice said from within.
She walked into the room, marveling again at the beauty of it all. Though she wasn’t a regular visitor to Circe’s office, it wasn’t unknown to her either.
The room was bright and airy, windows lining the sides, sunlight pouring in through them. Of course, they weren’t real windows. Circe’s office was located in the depths of Winterspell, cut deep into the mountain itself. They were instead rifts, rips in reality that served to light the room.
Greenery and sitting chairs and couches filled the space to her left, while off to the right was the Circe’s personal library, bookcases filling the space between window-rifts, and low-slung bookshelves on the ground in between, so as not to block the view.
A metal wire-frame staircase occupied the center of the room, leading upstairs to the Circe’s private quarters. Christine had never been up those stairs, though one day she hoped to perhaps ascend them.
As Circe herself.
But that was a long time off, and she needed to focus on the present.
“Apprentice Sinnclare,” Circe said, her voice sounding happy to see the other woman. “It is good to see you again, Christine. How are you?”
“I’m good, Circe,” she said, following the path around the staircase and approaching the large circular desk behind which the head of Winterspell sat.
She spent a moment admiring the massive thirty-foot-wide rift that was centered behind the desk. The endless swells of the ocean were visible, sunlight glittering off the water tops. No land in sight, just endless water, it truly was a beautiful sight to behold.
Not just a beautiful sight, but a testament to the power of
the woman in command of Winterspell. Even Christine, one of the stronger witches in terms of natural magic, was continuously awed by the things the other woman could do.
“It is good to see you as well, Circe,” she replied politely, bowing her head respectfully. While the two weren’t friends, as such, the Circe, and the Coven as a whole, tended to take a much more invested role in the success of the upper-year apprentices. The two had talked on several occasions before, and she felt the woman was looking forward to seeing how far Christine would push herself.
“What can I do for you today? I wasn’t expecting to see you. Was I?”
“No, Circe. This is an unplanned visit.”
“I see. It must be important then. Go on, speak your mind,” Circe said, sitting back from her desk to look at the Apprentice with interest.
At least, that’s the way Christine interpreted the body language. The slight relaxed lean to her upper body, what might have been a head tilt under the hood. It was fun for a moment to know that she had the full attention of the head of Winterspell, but Christine wasn’t about to play any dramatic games. She was here for a reason, and one reason only.
“I want it,” she said bluntly.
Circe didn’t react. There were many benefits to constantly hiding her face under the shroud of her hood, including not betraying her thoughts with her facial expressions.
“You want…what?” Circe asked.
“The response team,” Christine clarified, fairly positive Circe knew, but wanted to confirm. “I want to lead it. I’m strong enough, I’m high-ranking enough and have demonstrated before that I am more than capable of leading other teams.”
“You make an interesting point,” Circe said calmly. “I wonder, though, how you will fair with a team not entirely composed of witches.”
“The only way to know how any of us would fare, is to find out,” Christine pointed out, not backing down.
She knew where Circe was going with the conversation, and she’d already thought it over in her head. It was why she’d sought out Altair right after the meeting. She’d wanted to get a feeling for the dragon, for how he might best integrate with the team.
