Zandra's Dragon: Dragons of Telera (Book 6)

by Lisa Daniels

  “Oh!” She let her face change, spreading into a wide grin. “Haven’t you heard? The latest medic found a cure for the plague. They are tending to–”

  The man threw a water skin to her. “They have a cure you say?” There was a desperate hope in his eyes.

  She nodded and smiled at him. Without another word, he snapped the reins and took off. Zandra stood with the water skin and watched the cart speeding down the hill. The witch’s smile faded a little, but not entirely. The man clearly had family who were afflicted by the plague, and this was probably the first ray of hope he had seen since the whole thing started.

  Turning to the road, Zandra decided to stay on the path. As much as she craved time to herself, the word clearly had not gone far. There was no telling how many people were still unaware. She knew that most of the people who had fled had died soon after escaping the city, but there were still people who lived in and around Melzi who would be affected. Making a mental note to say something once she reached Derbe, Zandra kept to the path.

  Once she reached the city, she greeted the guards with the news. One, a young man named Evan, had immediately asked his superior if he could be allowed leave. Having gotten permission, he took off. Zandra smiled as she passed into the town and headed toward one of the inns. If there weren’t any medics in town, she could leave the letter with a few innkeepers, possibly request that one or two be sent north to one of the cities. Word of a cure would spread much quicker through the inns, and that meant getting the attention of any medics even remotely close to the town.

  A few hours later, Zandra walked out of Derbe feeling a small sense of accomplishment. As she turned to head south, she decided she had done everything she could and that it was time to start taking care of herself. The sun was setting as she slipped into the woods and disappeared in the beautiful greens and blacks that would offer her a temporary reprieve from the horrors of two years.

  Chapter 2

  The Unexpected Encounter

  Having walked several hours into the night, Zandra finally decided to stop and set up a place to rest for the night. She found a little clearing and set up several wards at each of the directional points, then quickly connected them with a small barrier that spanned over the small area. If it rained that night, which seemed likely, she would have ample warning to find better shelter. The wards weren’t very strong, but they did provide her with what she needed to get relatively comfortable. Two years ago, she would have chosen to stay in an inn – she hated camping with a passion – but after two years without anywhere to hide away, Zandra craved time to herself more than the comfort of an inn.

  As she looked at the area that was her current resting place, the witch felt pleased with what she had accomplished. It felt so good to use something other than healing magic that she started doing the smallest things just to experience the sensations of being free to use magic. She began to dance around, waving her hands and making food whiz around her, spitting and cooking as it did. The feel of the dance began to seep into her subconscious, and the witch soon forgot about everything except for the exhilaration of being alive.

  Losing track of time, she danced and sang, her heart feeling lighter than it had in a long time. Zandra knew that she needed to grieve, but that was why she was heading to Sukhothai. If she could just keep it penned in until then, she might be able to bear the pain a little better. Falling down on the ground, Zandra laughed until a few tears trickled from her eyes. She gave an unsteady hiccup as the laughter faded.

  “Well, this was certainly not what I expected.” A familiar voice burst into her thoughts, causing Zandra to sit up quickly. She looked around but saw nothing. Even as caught up as she was in the moment, if anything had stepped within the wards, she would have been immediately alerted. But knowing that voice, her eyes soon turned up.

  Sitting in a tree just over her little area was the one person who could bring her crashing back into the moment. It was ironic given what he was and his general tendencies to lose track of reality.

  Zandra simply blinked as her eyes met the beautiful greyish-blue eyes of Anani. Unsure if she should smile or apologize and move in, she waited for him to say something else.

  “Not even going to say hello?” His head tilted to the side. His hair swayed, creating a hypnotic effect, like watching clouds. It was slightly longer than when she had last seen him, although that had been a couple of decades ago. The way the whitish ends swayed, blending into the black roots, caused her heart to skip for a moment, but she quickly stomped out any of the other sentiments. That kind of thinking about Anani had already caused her more than enough heartache – heartache that she knew she had deserved.

  “I’m sorry, Anani. I didn’t realize that you were in the area.” She stood and began manually packing up her things.

  A small breeze blew through her hair and she knew that he had landed just outside of her wards. “I’m so sorry.” She waved them away and continued to pack.

  “And yet you still haven’t said hello.” His voice had no malice or anger in it, which was strange.

  Zandra stopped packing and looked at him. “Are you feeling alright?”

  As if in slow motion, he began to fall to the side. Rushing over to his side at an inhuman speed, she kept him from hitting the ground.

  “Gods! Anani, what happened to you?” In her rush to start packing up, Zandra hadn’t noticed the blood stains covering most of Anani’s shirt. He leaned heavily on her as she muttered a few incantations. “Anani, Anani!” She tried to help steady him as his eyes threatened to close.

  “No, no, no. You can’t do this. Anani, so help me–” She stopped talking and immediately began chanting to create a little cushion to prop him up so she could recreate the wards. No matter how much he was bleeding, getting the wards up was the priority. This far into the forest meant plenty of creatures that would be attracted to the smell, especially of a shifter.

  Zandra focused on the wards so that they would be as strong as she could make them. If they could do a bit more than warn her of something coming, it would give her time to do more. Sending a quick flash of fire at the weakest place, she was satisfied that it would hold for an initial assault. Quickly mending the damage from the fire, she turned to Anani. His eyes were following her, but she wasn’t sure how much he was actually seeing.

  Ripping part of her dress, she drew water from the air and soaked the middle of the rag. Her hands worked furiously on the wound, and she did what she could to help stem the flow. The fact that most of it was dried gave her mixed emotions. On the one hand, it meant that it had been a while since he had sustained the injuries, but the fact that some of it was wet meant that the wounds had not fully closed.

  “What have you been doing to neglect yourself so badly?” She muttered this without expecting an answer.

  “A little bit of this. A little bit of that.” His voice sounded like a breeze on a cool day, and she looked up into his face. It was impossible not to smile at the reminder of the mischief she used to cause him with that answer.

  She shook her head. “Well, you ought to know better than anyone that is never the right way to go.” Pressing on the wound with her bare hands, Zandra began to recite a chant she hadn’t used in a very long time, not since she had last been reckless enough to injure Anani. Watching and mentally praying to any gods listening, Zandra waited for the skin to start stitching together. It took a few minutes, but with a little coaxing, the skin finally started to close over the wound.

  “What happened that you were so badly wounded? I mean, I’m not the strongest witch, but it shouldn’t have taken minutes for this to heal, not with your abilities.”

  Anani pressed a hand on hers, which still rested on top of the wound. He simply closed his eyes.

  Shaking her head, Zandra pressed a little more. “Minutes, Anani, minutes, to close. That means that you were really torn up inside too, and I cannot say that what I did will be enough.”

  “It’s fine. I can feel that
it is fine. Just a little rest and my body will take care of the rest.”

  “I don’t know if I trust your judgment at the moment.”

  He gave a faint laugh, then rolled over and fell asleep.

  For the next few minutes, Zandra watched over him, waiting to see if he was going to be alright. When a faint sound of breathing echoed within the wards, she felt sure that he would be alright by the time he woke.

  With a heavy sigh, she leaned back against the ward. The two had a really rough history, and it was mostly her fault. She had no idea what had caused him to finally choose to speak to her when he was clearly in dire need. There were plenty of his kind around who could have done so much more in much less time. She was a complication that he had told her two decades ago was unnecessary in his life.

  So what had happened?

  Part of her wanted to pick at the edges of his mind to find out what he had been thinking, or at least to read his aura. But she couldn’t. He had blocked her from reading anything about him, and any attempt now would wake him up and possibly cause him more harm. All she could do was stare and hope that it wasn’t anything as serious as it looked.

  No longer tired, she picked up her lute and began to strum a lullaby. After a few bars, she began to sing, her voice winding its way through the notes as they hung in the air. On his cushion, Anani relaxed a little, a small smile gracing his lips for a moment. From where she sat, Zandra did not notice. For an hour or so, she sang into the night until she was tired enough to finally rest.

  The bard rose and placed the instrument gently on top of her few belongings. With Anani sleeping so close, it wasn’t a good idea to use magic. Any disturbance in the air current caused by magic would affect him. It was one of the things about his type – they were incredibly sensitive to changes in the air. Not that she would have magicked her lute over to the spot anyway. It had been the first gift Akeno had given her, and the entire reason she had chosen to become a bard. He had built it in a way that it enhanced her voice and tugged at the heartstrings.

  Unsure of how to feel about the odd twist in her situation, Zandra turned her back to Anani, and pressed up against the barrier. With so much blood loss, it was entirely possible that he hadn’t realized that she was actually there and not a hallucination – not that he was likely to have hallucinated her.

  It was strange, and she slept fitfully into the early morning, the pain of the last two years and uncertainty of her current situation mingling together in a haunting dream that kept her from feeling like she slept at all.

  Chapter 3

  Weathering the Storm Front

  A strong gale stirred Zandra from her dream. Her hair was whipping into her face so hard that she could not see what was happening at first. Had a hurricane or some other natural disaster brought further death and devastation to the city?

  Throwing a hand out, she realized that she was in a forest, and the events of the evening flooded back to her. “Anani! Anani! Wake up!” She crawled over to where he was slightly lifted off of the cushion she had built him. His eyes were open, but it was obvious that he was not seeing the world as he continued to strengthen the winds.

  The wards began to shatter around them as Zandra tried to stand up beside him. She pulled him into a hug, begging him to wake up. Still she seemed unable to reach him.

  The wounds that had been healing were opening again and new blood began to spring from them. Zandra immediately began to mutter over them, working her hands as fast as she could, trying to close them as fast as they opened. He had lost too much blood to sustain any further injuries. A small part of her realized that the quick healing meant that the deeper wounds were not coming undone, but there was no time to celebrate. If he continued, Anani was going to kill himself with the effort of conjuring a storm. It was something that was usually easy, requiring little more than a few thoughts, but he wasn’t meant to do it while on the ground. It took far more effort as the ground elements fought against him.

  One thing was clear – Anani was trapped in some sort of nightmare and he was trying to ward something off.

  Desperate for some way to wake him without having to leave his side, Zandra’s eyes tossed around, looking for anything that could wake him. Her lute had been flung too far to reach. Even if she could, the neck was shattered, and the body had several deep cracks running the full length. Choking back a gasp, Zandra turned to look at the shifter. She ran a hand over the elegant dragon tattoo that appeared to be crawling over his shoulder and down his chest. It stirred, but did nothing to wake him. She sent a small jolt down her hand, but the dragon just lazily yawned at Zandra as Anani continued to increase the wind speed around them.

  “Gods damn you, shifter!” she screamed at him, but her voice was barely more than a vague noise in the wind.

  At a loss for what else to do, she leaned over and kissed him, gently at first, but then much more forcefully when he didn’t relax.

  Suddenly his eyes shot open. Zandra watched and as soon as he was aware, she backed away.

  “What in the infinite hells do you think you are doing?” His eyes flashed in anger as he registered the kiss.

  “Waking you up.” She pointed to his side where a small bit of blood was starting to trickle down his shirtless body.

  He growled at her as he pulled one of her blankets from the small pile of belongings now pushed up against the cushion. “You could have just fixed it.”

  “I tried, but you wouldn’t wake up. You’ve destroyed the – You know what, never mind. You seem like you are back to normal. Just go.” She turned her back on him and began picking up her stuff.

  “I am currently residing in this area. You are the one who needs to leave.”

  Zandra was about to respond with a cruel retort, but she swallowed it. He had every reason to hate her, so she wasn’t about to argue with him. “You are right. I will be gone as soon as I finish collecting my things.” She waved her hands and everything except the lute returned into the bag. Picking up the bag, Zandra refused to turn and look at the shifter for fear that the tears would start to flow again. Walking over to her lute, she couldn’t prevent the inevitable. Biting her lip until it bled, she reached down and held back her tears. The taste of metal, mint, and sweetness mixed in her mouth as she tried to pick it up without Anani seeing what had happened.

  “What are you doing? Why are you dragging this out?” His voice was like the howling wind before a hurricane.

  “I’m trying to...” her voice cracked. Clearing her throat, she tried again, “I’m just a little… tired.” There was nothing she could say that wouldn’t sound accusatory.

  “Then all you have to do is–” Anani had moved beside her as quickly as a gale, but as soon as he saw what she was trying to do, he stopped. “What happened?”

  “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.” She tried to step in front of him so that he wouldn’t see that the instrument was completely destroyed.

  “What happened? Did you throw that against the tree?”

  “I would never–” She bit back the words. “I said don’t worry about it.” She let the anger boil up to the surface so that the tears would stay at bay.

  “If you didn’t do it, tell me what happened.” He stood so close to her that she could feel the currents coming from him. The way his presence radiated small jolts of electricity caused her pain, but she fought back the urge to say anything about it.

  It had the desired effect. She knew that he wouldn’t leave her alone if she didn’t talk. “There was a storm, and it blew my lute against the tree before I could stop it.”

  “How could a storm possibly get through the–” His eyes were flashing until he realized what had happened. “I did this. Oh gods, Zandra, I’m so sorry.” The currents radiating from him subsided and he stepped away from her. “I was – I’m sure Akeno can fix it for you. He would do anything for you, so I’m sure–”

  “No. It’s my fault, I’ll deal with it. I should have…” Her voice trailed off beca
use she had no idea what she could have done to prevent the incident.

  There was something like smugness in Anani’s voice as he replied, “Ah, has he finally gotten sick of you, too?”

  Zandra’s eyes flashed as she looked at the shifter, but it left her nearly as fast as it had flared. Unwilling to go any further in the discussion, knowing how Anani would feel after learning the truth, she couldn't do that to him, especially not in reaction to her own anger. Turning her attention to the lute, she gently wrapped it in an ethereal blanket, and tucked it into a small void where she could retrieve it later. The lute would never play the same, but she could slowly fix it over time so that it was at least whole.

  “Good luck, Anani. I hope you finish recovering.” She did not look at him as she turned and moved at an impossible speed away from him.

  “Running away again? At what point are you going to learn that doesn’t work? How many decades? You do realize that you don’t have centuries like Akeno, right?” He appeared beside her, easily moving backwards at a speed that matched hers. He swerved and veered around trees and other obstacles without being able to see them. It was one of the useful things about currents – Anani never really had to look at his surroundings.

  “You know, Anani, I am really trying to make this easy on you by getting away. Why don’t you let me?”

  “Oh, but I would much rather hear how things ended between you and Akeno. I always knew he was smart, but when it came to you, he was a complete moron. I want to revel in how he finally figured you out.”

  Zandra bit her lip again, and immediately regretted it as a few flecks of blood dripped into her mouth again. “He left me. End of story.”

  “Oh, all stories are longer than that. Now that I’ve had a chance to recover, I could use a good story.”

  “You recovered because I helped. Why the hell didn’t you go to one of your many friends? They could have done a lot more for you a lot faster.”