Heart of the Dragon King

by J Boothby

  Was that the Elhyra? And whose hand was I holding?

  I’m still walking. The wind and clouds whip over the mountain here, but I’m untouched, thanks to the lei energy. What did Xyr call it? The aether. In fact, I’m getting warmer the closer I get to the light.

  It’s like I’m walking towards a huge bonfire, even though the snow is still everywhere.

  It’s falling even harder now—a blizzard of gray.

  I come up to the glow. It’s some kind of large dome, buried underneath the snow.

  I brush away some of the snow, and I can see its rough, ridged surface is made from some sort of milky stone. It’s translucent, so the glow from inside passes through, but I can’t see in through it.

  I walk around it in a circle. There doesn’t seem to be any way to get in.

  The glow is brighter from the top of the dome, so I brush away more snow from the side nearest me, get a good handhold, and I climb up the side of it. I brush away more snow up here. Underneath, the surface is transparent.

  Now I can see down inside.

  It’s a circular room, protected from the weather. In it, I can see three things.

  The first is a casket, cut from some type of white stone.

  The top of it is carved in the shape of a woman’s figure, traced with inlaid gold and violet gemstones. The figure looks human, though the carving is abstract enough that I can’t make out specific features. Female. The way the casket is positioned, it would have an incredible view of the sky and all the stars here once the clouds cleared out.

  The second is a large mirror, as large as the one in the basement of Poe’s. It leans up against one of the dome’s curved walls.

  The last is a rock, about the size of my two hands put together.

  It’s roughly shaped like a heart—an actual one, not a valentine: something all twisted and lumpy that could be hooked up to veins and arteries.

  It sits on a white pedestal to the left of the casket. It’s beating, pulsing violet and red.

  As it beats, I can feel a rhythm in the aether too.

  If that’s not the source of all the aether here, it’s definitely got something to do with it.

  I put my hand on the clear part of the dome. Maybe I can pass through it like I do the mirrors?

  I hold onto the key around my neck. No luck.

  That mirror could be my ticket out of here, though. There has to be a way for me to get in.

  I slide down the side of the dome and walk around it again, brushing away the snow as I go and looking for anything that might seem like a door.

  Nothing.

  But the aether is so energetic here, pouring off of that stone, I wonder if I can work with that?

  I stand on the side of the dome nearest the stone, and I call up my fire.

  I feel it rising up through my feet, hot and wild.

  It feels great. I haven’t done this in a very long time. The last time I did was because I had to: Michael and I were surrounded and in trouble in the Utah desert.

  Now I’m doing it because I want to.

  It pours up my legs and into the center of me. It fills my chest, wraps my heart, my lungs—so very hot, I gasp for breath, and break into a sweat.

  My hair all stands on end. Lightning crackles between my fingers.

  I’ve never felt so much fire before. There’s so much of it, pouring off of that stone. That heart.

  I’m breathing hard, trying to remember everything my uncle taught me: stay focused, breathe steady, don’t let it get away from you. But my uncle never knew what this was like, not really. Not from the inside.

  The flames swirl around me, through me. I smell the spices, the woodsmoke—this energy is definitely from the Elhyra. I reach out my hand and the fire spills off my fingers. I gesture in the air and it spins in a circle.

  I can see the world start to crack open.

  I reach through the circle with both hands and spread it wide.

  It’s a doorway. A portal.

  I open it and step through.

  I’m inside the dome.

  I am standing right next to the stone.

  Standing’s the wrong word—I’m floating in the air, held up by all of the aether spilling off the stone.

  My heart is beating to the stone’s rhythm now.

  My pulse is pounding in my temples.

  The metal on the casket begins to melt and to pour off the stone in molten streams.

  Cracks spread across the clear part of the dome over me.

  The fire is wrapped all around me, fanning out from my shoulders now into wings, spilling out of my mouth, pouring off my hands in bursts of lightning that leap around the dome.

  And the heart sends me even more.

  I can’t hold it. I can’t breathe.

  But it’s incredible, wonderful, terrible and beautiful, all at once.

  I’ve never felt anything better.

  I want to burn.

  I want to rip open the whole world.

  But I can’t. I have to get control of this.

  I think about Sam, who needs me. I think about Poe’s and Zara and Max and my uncle. I think about Burning Man, and the friends I had there.

  I think about Russell, my truck.

  I breathe deep. I listen for my own heartbeat.

  It feels like my chest is going to crack open. Like my heart is about to burn. But I’m still in here. And I don’t give up easily.

  I imagine a still, smooth pond of water. Deep and dark.

  I’m sliding beneath the surface, where everything is cool and quiet.

  Slowly, I’m able to push the power back down.

  I lose the wings. I stop blasting everything from my hands. I get my breath back. I can feel the ground beneath my feet.

  But it takes a while longer to feel like I’m myself again.

  I look around. The stone, of course, is untouched—it pulses there on its pedestal, calling out to me. The inside of the dome has really taken a hit, though. The clear part of has big cracks across it, and looks warped outward on the side nearest to me.

  The translucent sections are blackened and melted.

  The casket has burn marks across it, too. The gold inlay lies in puddles around the base, and the gems look cracked and discolored.

  I feel pretty bad that I’ve wrecked what was a pretty beautiful resting spot.

  I look for writing or any clue to who might be inside it, but there’s nothing.

  The mirror is fine.

  It’s actually in much better shape than the one out on the ridge. The frame is polished, the glass spotless. It has the same carvings of the snakes—that I know are orrex now—moving between the branches of the trees.

  I check my reflection. I can see a large black crow on my neck, now, stretching across my collarbone. It’s perched on a branch, beak open.

  If this keeps up, soon I’ll be covered in birds everywhere.

  I have to get back.

  I take one last look around the dome, and then I put my hand to the glass of the mirror.

  It ripples.

  I draw the dagger, and I get ready to run.

  I take a last good, deep breath, and I step through.

  21

  I crouch as I come through the mirror, ready to attack or jump or run. That fiery dagger burns hot in my hand.

  But I’m in a basement. The basement of Poe’s.

  What the hell?

  I turn around.

  I’ve just stepped out of our mirror.

  It shimmers, and for a minute I can still see the crypt and the dome. They flicker in the light of the pulsating stone. The clouds part for a second, and there’s the curve of that asteroid belt moving through the sky. Then the mirror ripples closed, and it’s just my shocked reflection staring back at me.

  That’s nuts. Sam was right: there was a heart behind the wall. How did he know?

  The lights are off here. The fire of the dagger flickers around the basement. I use it to find my way over to the stairs.
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  It’s only then that I hear heavy footsteps upstairs. Someone shouts, and I don’t recognize the voice. What’s going on?

  I sheathe the dagger. I run up the stairs two at a time and burst through the door into the kitchen.

  It’s night. The kitchen is dark. I crack open the door that leads to the bar and restaurant.

  Dark here too, but through the windows I can see flashing lights coming from the tops of three cars in the street.

  The sounds are coming from upstairs in the apartment.

  Heavy, booted feet. Yelling.

  I hear Zara’s voice.

  I hear what sounds like Sam, crying.

  I fly up the stairs and throw open the door.

  “What the hell is going on here?” I yell.

  Three guys in riot gear spin around, with guns in their hands.

  They raise them in my direction. “On the ground!” one of them yells. “Now!”

  I try and take in everything as quickly as I can. Three guys on me. Three other people in front of Zara.

  Zara stands protectively in front of Sam and looks royally pissed. One of the people is holding some paperwork in front of her.

  Sam is clutching his stuffed dog, with tears streaking down his face.

  The policewoman with the paperwork is one of the agents who initially questioned me.

  Blackstone Institute. I don’t remember her name.

  I do remember that I don’t like her, though.

  “What the hell are you people doing in my house?” I yell.

  Zara’s eyes flick to me. Behind her official pissed-off face, I can see she’s pretty scared.

  “Get down!” the guy yells again. He lifts the gun up higher, pointing it in my face.

  “She’s armed!” another one of them says, seeing the dagger sticking out of my waistband.

  The three people who were talking with Zara spin around at that, and grab for their guns too.

  One of them is Devon, the other agent. He looks afraid.

  He probably should.

  Six guns pointed at me now. I hold up my hands high in the air. “I just want to know what’s going on,” I say.

  My hands start to feel hot.

  “Kylie Walker,” the Blackstone woman yells over the commotion. “You’re under arrest for being an unregistered agent of the Elhyra.”

  Sparks crackle between my fingers. “I’m not a—”

  But I don’t get to finish.

  “Take her now!” the Blackstone woman yells.

  The men leap forward.

  But they’re too slow.

  Sam is way ahead of them.

  He’s made his way around the edge of the room to what is my left.

  As the men jump, he drops his stuffed dog, and he screams “Nooooo!”

  Then he throws his arms high in the air, and he explodes into flames.

  22

  Sam’s aether blasts out of him in a wave, like the denotation of a bomb. All of us are flung backward.

  I hit the edge of the door frame. Zara is blown back over the couch. The Blackstone people go flying up against the walls.

  The windows of the apartment blow out onto the street.

  My ears ring, and I can’t hear anything for a minute.

  Sam steps into the middle of the room, his whole little body wrapped in violet fire.

  He stands between me and everyone else. “You won’t hurt Kylie!” he yells.

  He gestures at the three men who had their guns in my face, and his fire leaps out.

  They burn like torches.

  He points at the guy who stood with Devon and that woman, and a ball of fire slams him out of the broken windows, down onto the street.

  He points to Devon, who’s trying to get something out of his belt, and Devon is blasted up against the wall again.

  Then he points at the woman.

  Only she’s quicker.

  She has her gun out. She has him in her sights.

  She pulls the trigger.

  “No!” I yell. My fire leaps into my hands, and I try and jump in front of her.

  But I’m too late.

  The gun coughs a large white projectile at Sam. It flies through the air, expanding as it goes.

  It strikes Sam square in the chest and throws him back against the wall.

  All of his fire goes out, like a snuffed candle. His little body folds into a pile on the floor by his stuffed dog, wrapped in white webbing.

  I can’t believe what I’m seeing. “No no no no!” I yell. “You fuck!”

  My fire spreads across my chest and arms, hot and wild. I throw up my hands in her direction. “You’re going to pay for that!”

  “No,” she says, smugly. “I’m really not.”

  She turns to me and pulls the trigger.

  “Yes,” Zara yells, climbing up from behind the couch. “Yes, you really fucking are.”

  And as the white projectile leaps across toward me, I watch as Zara leaps through the air at the woman.

  Only she’s not Zara anymore.

  As I go down wrapped in slime, I see she’s the biggest, baddest wolf I have ever seen in my life.

  23

  Everything is dark.

  It's actually been dark for a while now, but I have no idea how long.

  An hour? A day?

  A year?

  I hear voices whispering. What are they saying?

  They're talking about me.

  Someone is shouting.

  And then it's quiet. Mostly quiet, anyway. There's a low hum, and a beeping sound now.

  There's a faint breeze on my face.

  I have a face. Well, that's good anyway.

  I can breathe. That's good too. Damn, that hurts, though.

  I have a name.

  It's Kylie Walker.

  Whispers again. “She's coming around,” someone says.

  “Kylie,” someone else says. “Can you hear me, Kylie?”

  Sure, I can hear you. Who are you?

  “Kylie, if you can hear me, I want you to open your eyes.”

  That sounds like a perfectly reasonable suggestion. Only my eyelids seem to weigh about two tons each, so I think I'm going to wait awhile here.

  “You gave her too much,” someone whispers.

  “You saw what they can do,” someone else says. “We needed to be sure.”

  “The kid is still out?”

  “Yes.”

  “The wolf too?”

  “Definitely.”

  The kid: Sam.

  The wolf: Zara.

  My eyes snap open. The crowd of people standing in front of me all take a sudden step back, even though they're behind some kind of glass.

  “Kylie,” one of them says into a microphone. “Stay calm.”

  Her voice comes over a speaker. I don't recognize it.

  I don't recognize any of them, except Devon who stands in the back of the crowd. He's still wearing his riot gear. Most of the rest of them are wearing lab coats.

  Devon looks guilty. He sees me looking at him, and he mouths I'm sorry.

  A lot of good that will do.

  I'm in a dimly lit room. I'm strapped to a stretcher that's tilted up, almost vertically, in front of the glass.

  I can't move. My arms and legs are in leather restraints.

  My chest and my right side are really sore.

  “Where's Sam?” I say. “Where's Zara?”

  My mouth feels dry. My tongue is thick.

  The woman behind the microphone nods. “I can tell you they are safe,” she says.

  She has large round glasses with thick white frames that make her face look small. On her chest is clipped some kind of ID badge.

  I hate her already.

  I can see a faint reflection of myself in the glass. I'm wearing some sort of hospital robe. “Where am I?”

  “You're safe too, Kylie.”

  “Great. Fucking great.” I take a deep breath, even though it hurts my lungs. I can move my head. “That's really re
assuring.”

  I look around. The room is some sort of laboratory. There are two IVs on a pole next to the stretcher, and tubes that run into each of my arms.

  The tube to my left arm is red. The tube to my right arm is yellow.

  Fluid drips into the red tube.

  All around me, on the floor, are gray metal boxes. They look like some kind of portable heaters or speakers you might see at a rock concert. Each one is about three feet tall. Each has a metal grid on it on the side facing me.

  The metal grids glow redly like a heater might. I don't feel any warmth coming off them, though.

  In the corners of the room, near the ceiling, are cameras.

  Behind me is a heavy metal door.

  Enough of this.

  I open my hands to call up some aether.

  Nothing.

  “That's not going to work here, Kylie,” the woman with the big white glasses says.

  Definitely hate her.

  I swallow hard. Except for that short time in the Whisperlands, I've never not been able to feel aether before. Even when there wasn't much, there was a least a faint trickle.

  Here there's nothing at all.

  And I realize I've been where a while. I feel a twisting sensation in my gut. I think I might be sick.

  Being without aether, I realize, is almost like being without air.

  “We need you to answer a few questions for us, Kylie,” Glasses says. “It will help us keep your friends safe.”

  I want to spit on the glass between us, but my mouth is too dry.

  “How long have you been an agent for the Elhyra, Kylie?”

  I shake my head. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

  “See, we think you do.”

  “I can—” I say. I swallow. “I can do things, OK? I have abilities. Small things. But I'm not an agent for anyone. I'm just me.”

  The woman with the glasses takes her hand off the microphone's button, and they all talk to each other. Then she presses it again. “What did the smaug ask you to do for them in the desert in Utah?”

  I shake my head.

  “What did the smaug want from you on the street in Richmond?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “Nothing!”

  “How did you bring them weapons for the riot? What did they leave for you in their house afterwards? Kylie, what do you know about the Narrow King?”