Black Dragon

by Jada Fisher

  Ukrah recognized when Eist was sinking into her plans and only half-listened. She was beginning to think that the woman took comfort in sussing out every little detail, considering that the baby growing inside of her was a complication all on its own. And while Ukrah hadn’t seen the woman once express excitement for her coming child verbally, it was easy to see in her actions, and how she protected it, that she loved whoever was being made by her body.

  Suddenly, one of the doors on the far wall of the room slammed open, and Ukrah glimpsed bookcase upon bookcase as Dille strode in, scroll in hand.

  “I thought it seemed familiar, like the ghost of a memory of a sensation, but I couldn’t put my finger on it,” the governess said as she practically thrust the scroll in Eist’s face.

  “You have far too much energy. You know that?”

  “Read this. Read this and tell me that it doesn’t remind you of your charge.”

  Like usual, Dille spoke of Ukrah right in front of her like she wasn’t there. She found that she liked it even less now than she had when she first met the woman. Ukrah knew that she and Eist were thick as thieves, having traveled through time and realms together, losing allies and friends, but the desert girl didn’t think she liked Dille very much.

  Eist finished with the scroll and rolled it back up, tapping it in her palm several times. Ukrah felt like her own heart was syncing with the rhythmic thumps, one right after the other.

  “I can see some parallels, but what’s your point? This is old, old magic. Dead magic from before even your oldest life. Are you trying to say you think that it’s coming back and Ukrah is just particularly sensitive to it?”

  “You’re focusing on the wrong part. We already know that old magic is coming back, but what we didn’t think about is the void you created when you absorbed the Three and banished the Blight.” Dille’s eyes flicked from Eist to Ukrah. “M’baya knew a lot about the old spirits, had a sort of connection to them. They were barely hanging on by a thread back in your parents’ time, and in the five hundred years or so since, they’ve disappeared completely.”

  Oh, is the little witchling finally getting it?

  Ukrah’s head snapped to Tayir, not realizing that he had perched himself in her window. She wanted to ask him what he could possibly mean by that, but of course she couldn’t without arousing the suspicion of Dille and Eist. And the last thing she wanted was for Dille to turn her intense gaze onto her.

  “Actually, I feel like we talk about that void all the time. Over and over and over again. It's not like we had a choice, so I don’t see what the point is in going over it yet again.”

  “Then you’re not following me.”

  “By all means, then, Dille. Enlighten me.”

  “I think that it’s not just the old magic coming back, but also the old spirits themselves.”

  There was a beat of tension between the three of them, and Eist swallowed. “Alright, that’s an interesting theory. But let’s say they are, what does that have to do with Ukrah?”

  “They’re spirits, Eist. They can’t just reanimate as they please. You know how magic is. They’re scattered throughout everything you freed from the veil, across all of time in a way that we can’t see. If they want to manifest themselves, they need a host.”

  Ukrah tensed at that. A host? She was pretty sure that nothing good ever started with being a host for something unknown.

  “Say it plainly, Dille.”

  “I’m saying that I think they’re either channeling their power through Ukrah to give themselves root or they’re using her as a vessel entirely.”

  The desert girl pressed her lips into a thin line, her stomach twisting. Vessel? Host? Old spirits? She felt like an entirely new vocabulary had been thrown on her and she didn’t know what they meant. All she knew was those words carried a strange sort of weight. One that hung deep in her belly with dread.

  “That’s a pretty heady theory,” Eist said slowly, her tone surprisingly casual considering how Ukrah felt. “Walk me through your reasoning.”

  “It didn’t really click until just now. I mean, I knew there was something familiar about it, but I couldn’t identify what it was ‘til I saw how she channeled magic today. In her magic test, you remember how the magic she was channeling wasn’t coming from her core, but rather seemed to erupt from something else inside of her? We discussed catalysts or maybe some sort of savant syndrome, but I’m almost certain that what she tapped into then was the force that’s inside of her.”

  “You think an Old Spirit is inside of me?” Ukrah asked unsteadily. It made sense, especially considering how she often felt detached in those moments, or like something else was driving her body.

  “Yes,” Dille answered plainly. “Or multiple. Maybe all of them. I’m not exactly an expert on how this works. Or maybe it’s only just a tiny fraction of one that manifested inside of you.”

  “What about the party today made you put it together?” Eist said, leaning forward with a concerned expression.

  “Because the magic that was used today came from a completely different source inside of her. I could feel it, and if I had to guess, I would say that was her actual magic instead of whatever is inside of her.”

  Ukrah didn’t know what to say, her heart was pounding, and she felt like she was beginning to sweat.

  And finally, you’re starting to realize exactly what you are, aren’t you? I told you, you were created for a glorious purpose.

  “What do you even mean by that?” Ukrah snapped, thoroughly frazzle by the bird and everything that she had just learned.

  Of course, Dille took it to be addressed to her, and Ukrah didn’t object. It was enough to find out that she was potentially housing some sort of parasitic power within her, it was another to also have to explain how she had a bird following her around that only she and Crispin could hear who also had a knack for encouraging the power within her.

  “What I mean is that you’re definitely a witch, with your own power and receptions to the magic refilling our world. But there’s something else within you, a power much greater than anything you could ever produce on your own.”

  “Let’s say that you’re right,” Eist cut in, her face grim. “And Ukrah is housing some part of an Old Spirit or even multiple spirits that want to return to our world. What does that mean for us? What are the consequences? What would we need to do?”

  “…that…I do not know.”

  At that, Ukrah felt her frustration peak and she jumped to her feet. “Then why tell me this? You say I have something inside of me, but cannot tell me if it’s dangerous, or if I might hurt someone, or anything?”

  Dille rubbed her temples, a habit of hers. “This isn’t exactly something that we’ve had experience with before. I have a lifetime of M’baya in my mind, but memories bleed together, mix and melt into each other. I need time to research. To have you do tests. There’s so much information that I need, I don’t think I can…” She shook her head and composed herself.

  “I know you have the academy going on, but I’ll need you here for at least one day for every week break that you have. Understand?”

  There were very few times in Ukrah’s life where she whined, but she heard herself do exactly that as she responded. “But that’s my study time! I need it in order to keep up with all the classes!”

  “You’ll have to find a way to make it work.” Dille looked to Eist, and Ukrah’s sponsor sighed before nodding.

  “I hate it, but I think Dille’s right. We need to follow up on this theory of hers if we want to figure out why I was able to sense you and how you were led to me.”

  Ukrah felt her heart fall, disappointment flooding her as she sat right back down.

  Aw, cheer up, little girl, this is just the beginning. There is so much more you’ve yet to learn.

  7

  Dark Wings, They are Descending

  She was surrounded by fire, blinding and choking. It singed her hair, filled her lungs with smoke. She fel
t like she was drowning and being boiled alive all at once, but no matter how she flailed, she could not break free.

  Ukrah cried out, but the noises that escaped her mouth weren’t human. They were eldritch and tortured, making her ears ring.

  But she wasn’t alone in that screech. She heard another cry, and then another. Another and another. Four in total, all crying out in anguish.

  The only thing that rose from her pain was the need to save them. Those cries cut her down to her soul and that need to protect filled her once again.

  But how could she protect anything in the blaze that was devouring her? Turning her to ash even as she twisted in pain this way and that. She had to do something, but she was powerless to do anything but sob, her tears sizzling off her face the moment they rolled from her eyes.

  Conflict churned within her. She just wanted to do something, anything, but she was stuck in her own torture.

  Or at least she was until a shriek rattled her entire frame. Glancing up, she saw a dark shadow diving toward her, plummeting closer and closer until dark claws wrapped around her and wrenched her up from the ground.

  They spiraled upward, and the dark shadow sprouted wings, which flared wider and wider until they eclipsed her view of the sky.

  The coolness was a blessed relief on her skin, slicking away the burning pain, but as they took to the sky, she saw all the carnage that laid below her.

  The whole world was engulfed in flame, molten and terrifying. Those same points of golden light shone at her, sparkling in the horror, and Ukrah could hear the cries issuing from them too. She had to save them, but how?

  As if the fire wanted revenge, the entire hellscape below her shook, more fissures cracking through the ground and sending pillars of liquid fire shooting up. The shadow holding her, her dragon, screeched and hauled her up. Toward safety.

  But she didn’t want safety. She needed to save them. There was no point if she couldn’t save them!

  An anxious chittering drew her attention, and she looked to the sky above. There, she saw a familiar shape, beaming with copper, bronze, and golden light.

  “Ukrah…”

  “Eist!” she called, reaching for the god-woman. She was dressed in that same perfect white that the desert girl had first seen her in. “Eist, we have to save them!”

  “You have to put the fire out,” she answered, her voice sounding far away and right next to her at the same time. “I found the key, but you must unlock the door.”

  Unlock the door?

  Ukrah didn’t know what that meant, and she was consumed with fire before she could figure it out, the inferno swallowing her cries.

  Ukrah woke up and promptly rolled off her bed, stomach heaving so hard that she lost what was left of her dinner right there on the floor.

  “Oh, hey, hey!” She vaguely heard Crispin in the back of her mind, but she didn’t pay him much attention. Her mouth filled with bile, and her stomach squeezed painfully. “Here, I’ve got you some water. Can you drink? You need me to get you some bread?”

  She made a faint gesture with her hand, not really knowing what she meant by it, but Crispin seemed to understand. He patted her back gently, gripping her hair and holding it back so it didn’t fall into her mess.

  “You all done?” he asked when she was finally still for a few minutes. Ukrah nodded, sitting up and leaning against her bed, while Crispin busied himself with cleaning up the mess.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she panted weakly, sipping the water he had gotten her.

  “What, like I’m going to let you sit here in your sick? Not on my watch. You seemed like you were having a pretty hard time of it.”

  “Nightmare,” she answered weakly. She could still feel her blood rushing through her veins, so sure that she was about to die. The pain of her dream was still vivid to her, and when she looked down at her hands, she almost expected to see burned flesh.

  “You’ve been having those a lot lately.”

  “Have I?” she asked, using the corner of her sheet to wipe her face. But Crispin just tutted at her and snatched the fabric away, replacing it with one of the cool cloths he had run to fetch.

  “Yeah, you used to have ‘em maybe every other week, then once a week, but now you’re to every other day. Sometimes they wake you up, sometimes they don’t, but they don’t seem to be very fun.”

  “They’re not,” Ukrah said with a sigh. She thought of all the ways that she’d been burned, dropped or otherwise tortured in her dreams since she had found out that she might have some sort of ancient entity inside of her. Obviously, it was messing with her mind. “Not even remotely.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  I told you, you need to accept what you are. You’re still fighting it. The longer you fight, the more unrest your spirit will have.

  “Now is not the time, Tayir!” Crispin snapped. “I like you a lot better when you’re condescending to the know-it-all teachers here.”

  And I liked you better when you weren’t around to dramatically yell anytime anyone dares to affront our friend.

  “You know, if we were actually friends,” Ukrah muttered, “I’d think that you’d be a little nicer to me.”

  The feathers on Tayir’s chest puffed out and it looked like he was about to say something, but he froze before anything came out. Wings fluttering, his pebbly little eyes flashed a curious look.

  Do you two hear that?

  “Hear what?”

  I… It’s… More wing fluttering. When was the last time you checked on your baby-to-be?

  “My wha—” Realization hit her like a sandstorm. “The egg!” She scrambled over to his little nest at the foot of her bed, and sure enough, a ripple went through the little scaled thing.

  “Is what I think is happening actually happening?” Crispin asked in excitement, rushing around to sit at the other side of it.

  “I think it is!” Ukrah cried, all the fear and exhaustion being replaced with sheer excitement. She was going to meet her little guy! Finally!

  She placed her hands on either side of the egg, feeling its rough texture press into her palms. She knew that plenty of people had been cut by his sharp little edges, but he’d never once hurt her.

  “By the spirits,” she whispered the moment they touched. Her heart felt like it swelled to twice its size in happiness and her eyes grew a bit damp. “He’s doing it! I can feel him!”

  It was a rhythmic sort of pulse, going through him like a heartbeat. Thump, thump, thump. She felt her own body syncing with its rhythm, making them one.

  “Uh, how long is it gonna take?” Crispin said, nearly surprising her out of her skin. She had forgotten that he was even there.

  “Shhh,” she hissed, not taking her eyes off her little guy. “He’ll come out when he’s good and ready.”

  She’d waited plenty of time already to meet him, what was a few more minutes, or an hour? What mattered was that she was going to see her dragon. Her soulmate. Her companion that she had dreamed about so often, with his great wings that covered the sky and entire continents.

  She could see it in her mind’s eye right then, her perched on his back, both decked in armor and shimmering in the sun. They were mighty and strong, there to help the weak, the mild, and the hurting. They would protect them all.

  She was so caught up in her fantasy that she almost missed the first crack. But the sound affected her viscerally, making her anticipation spike that much more.

  “It’s happening! He’s coming out!” Crispin cried, clapping his hands.

  Ukrah nodded eagerly, feeling like she was already soaring. Another crack formed, then another, until they were lacing through the entire shell.

  “Come on, little man. Come out and say hello.”

  The tiniest squeak of a sound reached her ears, and she almost squealed. She managed to control herself, and that turned out to be a good thing as the first little piece of shell tumbled down to the ground.

  If Ukrah wasn’t abso
lutely out of her gourd with excitement, she might have been embarrassed by the sound that had escaped her throat. But as it was, she felt like she might just pop right then and there like a goat bladder.

  A bigger piece broke next. Then a bigger one. And the next thing she knew, a little snoot was poking up out of the thick, viscous yoke.

  “My spirits! Little guy! You’re here! You’re really, really here!” Words tumbled out of her mouth as more of the head pushed forward, until finally blazing opal eyes were staring up at her.

  In that moment, the rest of the world vanished, all of it falling to ash because none of it mattered. The entirety of existence was in the blazing orbs right in front of her, and nothing else.

  “My baby!” she breathed, holding her hand up for him. To her absolute delight, a delicate, breathy little sound escaped him as he wiggled farther.

  “Oh my god, I swear I’m gonna implode if he keeps on going.” Crispin said, hugging himself and rocking back and forth. Ukrah had the feeling that he was resisting the urge to just reach in and grab her little guy to haul him out of the egg. First of all, Ukrah would not take kindly to that at all, but secondly, the hatching was a vital process to a baby dragon. They needed to go through the act of breaking through their little shell or their growth could be stunted.

  But she didn’t mind. It was a beautiful, glorious process to watch. Every breath was a new experience, a new revelation. That feeling of protection surged inside of her so strongly she almost choked on it. She suddenly understood why Eist wanted this for her. Why the god-woman had fought for her to have such a beautiful soul in her life. She knew, she had to know, what it was like to have struggled and battled on her own for so long to know that she would never have to feel that way again.