Stolen Secret

by Emily Kimelman Gilvey

  Her eyes were wide as she crossed the room to me. “You… with…” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “The dragon.”

  I covered my face with my hands. “My hunger made me do it.”

  “I hear that,” Megan said, glancing at the door. “I’d taste that for sure.”

  “Yeah, but the thing is…” My hands fluttered as I looked for some way to express the mess I’d gotten myself into. “It… well… apparently we bonded. I’m his queen.”

  Megan nodded slowly. I flopped onto the bed. Now who’s the drama queen. Queen. What have I done?

  “Well,” she started, “it certainly helps with our mission, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Emmanuel is dead at the moment.”

  I groaned. “I saw him.”

  “When?”

  “When we were sleeping. He came into my dream. Him and Slater. He basically admitted to doing something to my memories of Slater.”

  “Slater?”

  “That’s Dragon’s name.”

  “Slater? Huh?”

  I rolled over, looking at her.

  She sat on the side of the bed next to me, smiling. “The name Slater is kind of like Felix. Aren’t they silly names for such mythical creatures? Shouldn’t they have names like Thor or Zeus. Strong names. Not cat names.”

  I coughed a laugh. “Totally.” I covered my eyes with my forearm, my predicament weighing on me.

  “Hey.” Megan took my other hand. “Let’s deal with one thing at a time. We’ve still got to get through the valley of the pixies, etc.”

  I dropped my arm and looked at her. “Etc.”

  “Yeah, so, as of right now, you’re the queen of this realm. Your ex—”

  “Emmanuel is not my ex.”

  She grinned. “Darling Price has gone polyamorous. I like it.”

  I groaned again and rolled over, covering my face with a pillow. It smelled like Slater. I tossed it away, sitting up. “You’re right. I need to just concentrate on one thing at a time. And right now, being the queen of this realm is helpful.” I looked over at her. “Let’s end the zombie plague and then deal with my man drama.”

  Megan grinned. “Good plan.” I jumped up, pulling off my shirt. “You don’t think you need clothing for the plan?” Megan asked.

  I closed my eyes and spun my chi around me, creating clothing—a high-necked shirt and skintight pants that moved with me like a second skin. The green and gold scales, the hardest material in all the worlds, sparkled in the low light. My power manifests.

  I stood in a tower, surrounded by a castle created by my mate. Mate…

  Running my fingers over the smooth second skin, a sense of safety and rightness settled onto my shoulders—fitting as well as the clothing born from my own powers. Energy seeped into me from the world, from every living thing in this realm.

  “Whoa,” Megan said. “That is awesome.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “It is truly awesome.”

  Try biting through this, zombies.

  Not that there were any in this world. The queen of the only world without humans, I still desired to save them all. No one can hurt me again. A thrill of fear ran over me. I have the power to hurt anyone.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dimitri, Issa, Megan, and I flew back down to pixie valley on a carpet of my chi.

  “So,” Megan said as we settled onto the ground, “for the pixies, we can’t just fly over them, obviously, but do we have to kill them?”

  “No,” Issa answered. “We must travel through their valley by foot and at human speed. That is what the instrument demands of its player.”

  “I’m starting to think that your ancestor set this thing up so that only she could pass through the gauntlet,” Megan said to me.

  “Yes, Megan.” Issa looked at her like that was obvious. “Why would she want any other being to have the power to break the zombie spell?”

  “Consolidating power in one’s own hands is only wise if you have no trusted allies,” Dimitri said.

  “Also true. But Darling’s kind hardly needs allies,” Issa said.

  Dimitri growled a low hum of dissent.

  I laid my hand on Dimitri’s shoulder. “Of course I need you all. Issa, how would I even know about the details of the gauntlet or how to get here without your help? You’re my walking library, and you’re the first person who suggested I could stop the zombies.” I looked at Megan. “Without girl talk, I’d have had a complete mental meltdown by now.”

  “Sing it, sister,” Megan said, crossing her arms and staring daggers at Issa.

  “Dimitri, you’ve saved my life repeatedly, offered yourself willingly, and helped me discover the depths of my powers.”

  He nodded acknowledgment of his importance.

  “Point taken,” Issa said. “But now that you have bonded with the dragon, we are superfluous to this mission. Pixie’s hate vampires and can end us.”

  “I told you, rip off their heads,” Dimitri said, his voice even, as if he’d said, “I told you, put a stamp on the envelope and mail it.”

  “Yeah.” Megan rolled her eyes. “Just decapitate them.”

  Issa’s lips thinned. “You two may be used to decapitating living creatures, but that is not something I can see doing without regretting it. While pixies are not the most likable of beings, they are sentient herd animals with loving connections to one another.”

  I held up a hand. “Hopefully, no one is going to have to lose their head.”

  Tentative footsteps crunching over the forest floor drew our attention. The sound stopped as our focus shifted. “Hello,” I called out, reaching out with my chi. A child-size being stood motionless behind a tree. Fear pulsed from it.

  Gently, I wrapped the pixie in my chi. They let out a squeak of alarm, but I soothed their fears away as I picked them up. Carefully, I maneuvered the pixie through the trees until it hung suspended in front of us.

  Like Ophelia’s familiar Pinky, this pixie wore her bright yellow hair in cornrow braids. She was barefoot and wore a pair of pale green pants and a white turtleneck.

  “Hi.” I smiled. “What’s your name?”

  Fear pulsed in the small woman again, and I soothed it, forcing goodwill into her aura. “I’m not going to hurt you,” I said.

  “My name is Daisy.”

  Megan snorted. “That matches.”

  “We just need to pass through your valley,” I said, ignoring Megan.

  “No one may pass through the valley who is not allied with us,” Daisy said in a monotone.

  “How do I become your ally?”

  “You must speak with the king.” Another king. Awesomesauce.

  “Take me to him.” She shook her head. I could make her.

  “Perhaps,” Dimitri said, “it would be better to have the king come to us. If we go to him, it could be misunderstood as an attack.”

  “Yes,” Issa agreed. “Pixies in most worlds have a strict hierarchy. And it is patriarchal.”

  “Okay.” I spoke to Daisy in a soft tone. “Please request that your king come here so that we may discuss an alliance.”

  “I will.”

  I lowered Daisy to the ground and unfurled my power from her. Her wings beat furiously, and she darted away through the trees in a streak of yellow.

  “Now what?” Megan asked.

  “We wait,” I said, glancing toward the volcano. An orange glow illuminated the tower of ash rising from the top. Rivers of lava flowed down the sides of the mountain. Getting past the pixies couldn’t be harder than climbing the Mountain of No Return dodging lava. Right?

  “They are coming,” Dimitri said.

  I glanced around the dark forest. It looked the same to me—deep shadows between the trees, a canopy of leaves above us, diamonds of moonlight shuddering on the forest floor.

  “I hear them,” Megan agreed.

  A distant buzzing reached me then. “It sounds like it’s coming from all around us,” I said.

  “It i
s,” Issa said.

  A zing of fear tightened my hands into fists. “Hopefully they want to talk.”

  “They don’t,” Dimitri said.

  “How can you tell?”

  He dove in front of me, grabbing something out of the air before dropping to the forest floor, dragging me with him.

  He held up a small dart. “Poison.”

  I threw up a shield of protection. Darts pinged against it. Scanning the forest, I saw no signs of our attackers. I reached out my chi, discovering energy fields miles away. “Those darts can really fly,” I said. “I mean you no harm,” I called into the forest.

  “They can’t hear you,” Issa said. “Pixie’s eyesight is legendary, but their hearing is only just above a human’s.”

  “So we wait?” I said.

  The shield of magic shimmered gold with each strike of a dart. When, minutes later, the darts stopped hitting the shield, I stood, dusting off my scaled pants, waiting for the pixies’ arrival.

  “Hey, Dimitri,” Megan said, walking toward the edge of my protection bubble. “Remember how you were pretty sure that the pixies here would not be able to control a vampire.”

  “Yes,” he said, his eyes following her as she neared the edge of the magical dome.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “You were wrong.” She stumbled into my magic, slipping through to the other side. As my familiar, she could pass through my shields.

  And now a pixie had control of her… great.

  The buzzing came toward us like an ocean wave rushing over sand. The pixies moved quickly, darting around us, brushing up against my shield and then shying away. A figure wearing a thin gold crown that shone softly in the darkness handed Megan a knife.

  Her eyes met mine as she gripped the dagger. “They want me to kill you. Kill you all,” she said. She stepped forward, her gait disjointed, as if she fought against an invisible force controlling her limbs.

  I wrapped my power around her, cocooning her body with the dragon chi, trapping her. She banged against it but could not escape.

  Issa shifted, and Dimitri disappeared in a blur of motion, pinning the younger vampire to the ground. Their upper bodies were on the other side of my protection. The crowned pixie zipped down and slashed at Dimitri with a small sword.

  Dimitri rolled off Issa, completely out of my protection, and grabbed a different pixie out of the air. “Stop!” I yelled. Dimitri held the small creature by its neck, his hands primed to rip off its head. The pixie’s wings thrashed at Dimitri’s chest.

  I extended my protection, pulling Dimitri and the pixie into it.

  “Release her!” one of the pixies yelled.

  “I just want to talk,” I said, keeping my voice calm. If heads start coming off, negotiations are going to be impossible. “Please.”

  Issa launched himself at Dimitri, freeing the pixie. The two vampires rolled. Dimitri came out on top, punching Issa in the face twice, knocking him unconscious before sitting back on his heels and eyeing the freed pixie who buzzed at the apex of my protection bubble. It bumped against my magic like a moth smacking into a lamp shade.

  “I wish you no harm,” I said, resting my hand on the hilt of my sword. The pixies continued to dart around my magic bubble. “As you can see, I am very powerful. I could destroy you all if I wished. But I don’t.”

  “You cannot use your magic on us and get the instrument,” a small voice said. I searched the darkness, finding a bright pair of eyes in the gloom. A pixie stepped forward, her wings folded behind her. Long gray hair fell over her shoulders around pointed ears. A face creased with age came into focus as she stepped into the clearing we stood in.

  The other pixies slowed, still swaying through the air but no longer zipping at blinding speed. “You can control my vampires,” I said.

  She gave a small nod. “You seek the instrument. But are you worthy?” her voice creaked like a tree in a stiff wind.

  “I am.” I straightened my shoulders, the gleaming cloth of my own creation weightless.

  “The descendent of the one who hid it…” She wet her lips, stepping barefoot across the forest floor, her long skirt catching leaves.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “But you wish to stop the zombies.” She shook her head. “This is of no consequence to us. We have no humans here.”

  “I ask nothing from you but safe passage through your lands.”

  Laughter rose up from the other pixies, sounding like a gust of wind whipping through a canyon. I gritted my teeth, keeping my annoyed words locked down. “That is not nothing to us,” the crowned pixie said. He flew to the older pixie, hovering above her and to the left. She did not glance at him.

  Nothing, nothing.

  That gave me an idea.

  I drew the Sword of Ultimate Power from its sheath. The pixies recoiled, their fear shivering off them. My power liked it, and so did the sword. But I pushed back at the desire of wanting to scare them. I wanted peace with these creatures.

  Raising the sword, I cut through reality like a hot blade melts butter. Space ripped open, exposing the void.

  The pixies screeched, their high-pitched voices making the vampires wince against the sound. I held up my free hand, stopping the void from sucking anyone through. It wanted to take us all. But I just wanted one little taste of it, to form that nothingness into something…

  A rainbow iridescent ball swirled into existence in front of my outstretched hand.

  I lowered the sword, and space resealed, leaving no trace that I’d ever cut into it. Holding out my hand, the bubble lifted on a bed of my power, and I carried it over to the pixie king, dropping my bubble of protection.

  He raised one lip in a snarl, exposing purple fangs and black gums. The king’s wings beat, holding him in midair, our eyes at the same level.

  “An offering,” I said.

  His pointed ears twitched under his blue hair. The simple gold crown braided into the long tresses tilted to one side. The battle must have sent it askew.

  “You wish to control your territory. I do not want to take that from you.”

  “But your dragon does,” the king said, his deep voice dissonant with his small, wiry frame. The rest of them sounded like children.

  “No.” I shook my head. “He respects your autonomy. I offer you this gift to show you that I do as well.”

  The king focused on the bubble. “What is it?”

  “Nothingness.”

  He huffed. “You offer me nothing in return for safe passage. That is not a very appealing offer.”

  “What is safe passage? It is nothing. I will not disturb your lands. Nor will I seek to rule you. I offer you the very substance of the beginning of everything in exchange for nothing.”

  The king rose up higher, his wings zinging as he zipped to me. I left the ball of nothing—encased in a bubble of chi—floating where the king had been, above the witch pixie. She stared up at it, her eyes glowing, seeming to recognize the value.

  The king’s subjects watched him, though several darted glances at the offering.

  The king hovered above me. His pants, a dark blue embroidered with a gold floral pattern, reached his ankles, exposing feet with six toes and long nails. He smelled like fresh-turned soil and crushed spring leaves. “You have tamed the dragon.”

  “Yes.”

  A murmur went through the crowd of pixies. “You wish to tame us?”

  I shook my head. “Absolutely not. I wish to end zombies.”

  The king lowered to the ground five feet from me. I was a good foot taller than him.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I lived amongst the humans for most my life and do not like to see them suffer.”

  “So do not look.”

  “Would you turn away from the suffering of your own people?” I asked.

  His wings buzzed with annoyance. “You question my loyalty?”

  “As you have questioned mine.” I kept my voice low and even, refusing to let ang
er enter into this conversation.

  “You are not human.”

  “The best parts of me are.” His eyes narrowed. The king did not get it. “Music, art, love. These are human.”

  “We have those things. We have existed as long as the humans, some say longer. But we do not destroy the earth. What do I care for the suffering of a species that, given its head, destroys everything in its path. No music is beautiful enough to wipe clean that history.”

  “But what about the suffering that zombism causes?”

  “I ask you the same. Humans make every other animal suffer, pollute the waters, clog the air, torch the earth. They create the suffering. They brought the zombies upon themselves.”

  “That’s not true. It’s a spell.”

  Another murmur rippled through the pixies. “What kind of magic?” the king asked, glancing back at the ball of nothingness still hovering in the air.

  “Powerful shifter magic.”

  “We do not wish to be disturbed.” I got that. “With the end of the zombies will come the rise of the humans. How can you assure me that my valley will remain pure for my people forever more? How can you guarantee they will not enter this world in time?”

  “I can’t.”

  He nodded. “An honest answer.”

  “But I can offer you my protection. As long as I live, I will be your ally. I will fight to help protect you.”

  His gaze traveled up and down my body. “You are a powerful ally.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the dragon king, he will join in this treaty.”

  “I believe he will.”

  “Call him now. We shall celebrate tonight if peace can be reached, an alliance formed, and the valley protected for eternity.”

  A hurrah went up from the pixies. Slater didn’t mention a war with these guys… but they seemed a little too excited about an alliance with him.

  “Call your king,” the pixie leader encouraged.

  I glanced over at Megan, still held by my chi. She raised one brow—a subtle message that she controlled herself again. I released her, dropping the shell I’d created onto the forest floor. It melted into the dirt, as if it had always been a part of it. Cool.