Chapter Thirty-One
Light surrounded me, piercing my eyes and making me shut them tight. Heavy. I felt so heavy, my shoulders pressed snug to the floor, my breathing labored. I twitched my fingers burdened by invisible weights. Breathing hurt. My arms and legs were bound so tight I had lost all sensation to my limbs. I would have been panicked if I wasn't feeling oddly disconnected from my body.
Once again I forced stiff eyelids open, only to find a cloud of pixies in front of me.
The cavern's roof had collapsed in one place, and outside a flash of lightning struck the lip of the cavern. A roar of thunder quaked the ground, causing a spray of soil to cascade down on me. I shook my head, knocking dirt into my hair. Craning my neck, I squinted in the sudden dark for the others.
A body lady on the floor next to me. It was Barnes. Panic went through my veins. His hair was matted, his mustache frayed, and his skin was a mismatch of wet and caked blood. He couldn't be dead. As I watched, he took a rattling breath and let it out again. I let out a slow breath of relief.
Where was Mordon?
A second roar of thunder answered my question. I saw him pinned to the ground by three large shadow beasts, creatures conjured by three still-standing sorcerers On his neck, a frenzied wendigo tore at his scales, ripping them off one buy one like a chef picking the scales off a fish with the tip of a knife.
Blood was everywhere. It coated the floor in a trail, smudged marks when Mordon had been on the ground, large drops when he had been flying or leaping. Some was boiled thick and syrupy next to scorch marks. A dismembered sorcerer's corpse sprawled over several feet, the man apparently having become a meal for the active wendigo.
The red dragon seized himself into a roll, tossing off his attackers. The wendigo dug his claws into Mordon's wounded haunch, and the dragon cried out in pain. The other creatures slammed against his shoulder, and Mordon crashed to the floor. One leaped and bit the tip of Mordon's wing, pinning it to the ground, while another trapped his tail and the third pounced on his head.
I couldn't believe this was happening. Not now, not ever. And here I was, watching. The wind and magic did not respond to my distress; I was floating over my body, unable to make it move even enough to avert its eyes.
So I had stopped Morgana and released the souls. That suddenly seemed a very tiny victory when compared to what Gregor Cole was going to become. With the deaths of Mordon and Barnes, he would have the strength to overcome any sorcerer—and keep on killing.
But this was worse than all that.
Mordon.
Gregor laughed, a choking hack coming through a mouth with a broken lower jaw and a smashed nose. He stood back, and looked at my body, looked at Barnes, then smiled at Mordon, a smile of sharp teeth and bits of flesh.
“You will be part of something far greater, don't worry,” the wendigo said, though it was nearly impossible to make out the words. He walked closer. Mordon struggled, flailing against the creatures. They held him down all the tighter.
I was not going to let this happen. I didn't know what I could do—no magic, no strength, nothing but the presence of mind. I had to do something. Anything.
A forgotten memory struck me, about how I swore I saw a dragon in the backyard during the crescent moon. Mother would deny it, then she would track down my father. The fable of the farmer and the dragon. The boy I thought was dead with Nest, but had actually gained a second form. And most pressing of all, the way I yearned to fly.
The wind was compressing about me, dust stirring together with rain drops to form a blob, wind pulling sections out on the front and back, wind cutting and shaping and molding. I couldn't see into what.
Words came to me. Creature. Dragon. You're part fey, but is that all?
I was still dizzy, but now I felt more solid. I took breaths, felt a heart thrum in my chest. It was happening so slowly, yet so fast. It seemed to take an eternity, but in reality it was a few seconds. My wings flared out and webbing spread between the bones. I clenched my claws, swung my head. My skin formed round patterns, turning into scales, then hardening.
I was fey, human, and drake. Mixed blood, the result of the Melting Pot
I embraced all of it.
Time broke back into motion again.
Gregor had his fist high above his head, claws curled, what might have been a grin on his face as he targeted Mordon's exposed throat. He brought his claw down.
I ploughed into him, my teeth sinking into his chest. Gregor's claws dug at my eyes. I heard the buzzing of pixies coming for me. A cold mouth clamped over my tail. I flung the shadow creature into the wall. Two sets of claws dug into my back.
I tightened my grip on the wendigo, folded my wings to my sides, and rolled. The shadow creatures dispersed, reforming next to their casters just as the first pixies swarmed.
I wouldn’t think that needle-sized swords would do any damage to a dragon, but those pixies found every nook and cranny in between my scales. The sensation was comparable to sticking sewing pins underneath fingernails, except it was all over. My neck, my back my belly, even under my tail. With every prick and stab, I crushed harder on the wendigo. He did not bleed when my teeth punctured his dry hide; his bones would not break under my jaws, but rather flexed and bent.
“I've tried that before,” Mordon said behind me.
Tossing Cole against the wall, I stepped back and reconsidered my strategy. Since I was new to being a drake, I had to assume that Mordon knew better than I did. I also had to assume that he had tried everything that came instinctively to me in my dragon form. As Barnes was human, I had to assume that Barnes had done what a human would think to do.
I had to think like a fey. To think like my mother…and Morgana. Seeing a weak part in the ceiling, I jumped up and scratched it, sinking my claws deep until I felt a ridge, then I yanked. For an instant, the ground groaned beneath me. Then the roof fell and I scarcely darted away before debris trapped the wendigo.
“That won't last long,” Mordon said as a warning.
“It doesn't have to,” I said, aiming to land near Mordon. I, however, was on a path to overshoot him and land in a deep gulley which had appeared while I was in the vase.
Not sure how to stop myself, I brought my wings up sharply. I dropped like a stone, landing on so many pixie swords that it felt like I had fallen onto fire instead of ground.
“My hero,” Mordon said.
I twitched my tail and tried to grin. “You bet. Can you transfer me any energy?”
Even in dragon form, Mordon could cock his eye ridge skeptically. “Why would I do that?”
“Just do it!” I snapped, realizing that he did not recognize me as Feraline, just some random dragon who had appeared from nowhere. I had no time to explain. “Unless you want to unleash a wendigo the size of a fire drake on the world.”
“I'll have to shift,” he said, and now I noticed that the sorcerers were huddled together, planning a spell.
“Good. Take your friends with you. I don't want any more harm to come to them.” I was also wondering if I could chomp away on one or two of the sorcerers. There was probably a reason why Mordon either had not, or had not succeeded. “Just hurry.”
Mordon snorted—a much more intimidating noise when he was a dragon and I was a dragon. I realized I was still a mere third of his size, perhaps even less than that. Unlike him, my limbs were slender and willowy, covered in silvery gray scales with hints of blush underneath. Golden eyes marked some of my scales, making me curious to see what pattern they formed.
Mordon shifted, his body transitioning from dragon to human. As a human, he had welts up and down his arms and face. “Give me your nose.”
I lowered it down, holding back a cry as a shadow creature began ripping scales off my shoulder, like taking a clump of hair and pulling it out. Whipping my tail from one side to the other, I knocking a creature off my body, but earned a sharp reprimand from Mordon. “Down here!”
Mordon laid a hand with two busted fing
ers on my nose and closed his eyes.
This energy transfer was a razing jolt that seized every muscle in my body from the hook of my nose to the thin taper of my tail. For those three seconds, my senses were heightened. The sores from the pixie's swords throbbed, the pull of scales ripped as their tiny roots became dislodged from my hide, the wendigo stank of broiled skunk, and I could hear the pixies returning from their trip with a fresh batch of swords.
Another scale tore from my hide, roots snapping and releasing in a mix of pain and relief. My muscles let go and when the transfer stopped, and I kept from staggering.
“I've given you what I've got left, don't waste it,” said Mordon, looking me square in the eye.
I spun and launched back into the air, feeling out the current. It coursed under my wings, soothing the aches just a little. The shadow creatures couldn't keep up with me. Rocks from the rubble moved where Gregor was buried. I needed to hurry.
Mordon moved quickly, even with wounds, snapping the ropes to my human body and throwing it over his shoulder. Bending down, he grabbed Barnes by his collar and pulled him.
The sorcerers were not absent in their duty. A fire bolt struck me full in the chest and I hit the ceiling, bruising and scraping my wings against the rough surface. I hadn't even started to fall before a second bolt rammed my belly below the ribcage, forcing the air from my lungs. A third bolt—electric—slapped my face against the roof. I didn't even have the ability to let out a shriek.
A gaunt hand burst from the soil. A mound shook as a snarling Gregor emerged from the swollen earth. He howled and ran towards Mordon. The sorcerers raised their hands, shouting out the final words to a spell.
It was now or never, but would it be enough? Would it have the effect I needed, or would Mordon meet a gruesome end? How much energy had he kept for himself? My mind was too frazzled to gauge my own strength, but I knew it was fading very, very fast. It was the way all first shifts were, and this was one bad time to test endurance.
I took a deep breath and amplified the wind current, sucking it in one hole in the ceiling and blowing it out the other, letting it move in a large circle until it had built up momentum. No more than ten feet away from Mordon, the wendigo dropped into a launching position. I lowered the current down to the ground, the arc ripping at Barnes' pants and tangling Mordon's hair. Gregor dug his claws into the ground, fighting against the fullest brunt of the current.
The sorcerers shouted out a final word. Lightning struck, and the cavern gave a tumultuous tremble. Thunder punctuated the crack of the earth and the ravine opened up deeper, going down so far that the air pulled down into it and came back hot.
I dodged falling ceiling, managing well but for a rock that gave me a bloody nose, and Gregor jumped high into the air, landing safely on the other side of the ravine.
Sucking in another breath, this one tainted with my own blood, I altered the wind's course. It rushed down to the sorcerers, and one of them cast a shield. It slowed the wind, knocking them almost to the other side of the ravine, but they fell just short of reaching safety with Gregor.
A monster down below roared, followed by their pitiful wailing as they were eagerly consumed. The monster belched fire, flames reaching up well past the level of the floor.
Confused, Gregor paused before he went back to attack Mordon. The pixies, I was satisfied to note, had been sucked of of the cavern and into a natural air current, where they were fighting to maintain their position.
I dove, cutting through my wind tunnel to gain momentum. The wendigo leaned over the edge to catch a better sight of the lava tentacles finding footing as a giant octopus crawled upwards from the bowels of the earth, reeking of rotten eggs.
Adjusting my wings, I aimed myself squarely at Gregor.
My claws embedded in his chest, hitting him with a thunk that jarred my teeth and took the air clean out of Gregor. We rammed into a rock. I felt bones crunch. I bit his arm and yanked with ferocity, feeling muscles tear and ligaments strain. His fist met my jaw. I opened my eyes the next second with my wing contorted painfully beneath my side. My head throbbed. The wind died down to a lazy breeze.
Gregor kicked me in the jaw. Purple swam in my vision. I wondered how far Mordon had gotten. When I didn't move, Gregor stomped to the ledge, peering once again at the monster making his ascent. There was hunger in that twisted smile as the wendigo watched the monster.
He laughed, a gleeful noise. “Those infernal sorcerers have exceeded my expectations! Pity that at least one of them didn't survive, but such is life.” Then Gregor paused. He said, “You've exceeded my expectations, too. I wasn't expecting you to be a drake, but a weaker one I have never seen.”
I snapped my jaws. “I hurt you.”
Gregor kicked my nose. “As soon as I eat that thing, whatever it is, I will be well again, and stronger than if I had eaten you and your friends.”
That must have been what had happened to the dismembered sorcerer. Gregor had used him to regain his power. I snarled, “You will not!”
I pounced on him, pulling him away from the ledge, filling my mouth with his burnt skin and muddy blood. He hit me with two fists, knocking me on my back.
I opened my eyes and held my breath.
I watched Gregor jump. When he reached the monster, it opened its mouth and Gregor extended his claws.
Out of strength, I let the illusion fail.
Gregor fell straight through the monster, emitting a howl of shock and fear as he tumbled head over heels down and down the sheer rock face, his nails scraping the rocks but not gaining any purchase as he plummeted towards bubbling lava. He broke the surface, screaming.
A foul stench of burning hair reached me.
For a minute, I stayed where I was, taking in slow breaths and resting, hoping beyond hope that the lava would keep the wendigo out of my hair for good. If he emerged from that crevice like something out of a bad horror movie, I was going to laugh myself to death before he could kill me himself.
It wasn't a funny thought. Not by a long shot. I just preferred laughing to crying.
My body was so heavy again. The tiny needles under my scales no longer hurt, they just spread a warm feeling of numbness across my body. For all I knew, the things could be poisoned.
I needed to get up. I needed to find my human body and do whatever I needed to do to join my two forms. And I needed to do it soon.
A whistle, a tune from a long gone era, caught my attention.
A ghost, a boy about the same age as Railey but wearing colonial clothes, standing in the doorway called, “Your friends are outside, come along! That girl Railey told me to get you on your feet.”
At his words, I rocked back and forth twice, then pulled myself up. I had to fly over the cavern, my back leg slipping on the other ridge when I landed. I pretended to have not slipped.
I walked next to him, not wanting to fly even though I was sure he could keep up. We talked, and I tried to not think that this body had been a part of the shadow dragon that enslaved Railey and tried to kill me.
We approached an opening into a backyard. The boy said, “She'll come to say farewell.”
“Who?”
“You know who. The girl.”
I entered the light of day, the sun drying rain drops on grass, and behind me was the back porch of 613 Ferret Drive. The yard on this side was as thriving and as manicured as the drake's farming fields. Five spirits stood on the back porch and watched me.
I turned my attention to Lilly putting away her last healing scroll, to Leif holding her, and Mordon cradling my human form with his back to me. Barnes nodded.
I didn't know if he understood who the dragon was before him, but he motioned to Mordon. Mordon set my human body down. A deep, red furrow formed between his eyes and I expected him to breathe fire. He bolted to his feet and yelled, “What are you doing here? Go before I make you.”
I must have reminded him of the doppelganger from ages ago. I couldn't help but curl my mouth into a smug
grin. Why had I ever been jealous?
Trying to remember how the child had joined his two forms back together, I sidestepped Mordon, then reached to touch my human body.
A fire bolt flung my claw wide, missing Lilly only because Leif pulled her away in time.
“I won't let you force a joining with her!” snapped Mordon. Force a joining? I didn't know that was even possible, and I was merely guessing at the meaning of the phrase. It was yet another thing I needed to learn about.
“Barnes.” My voice startled me with the way it rumbled through the air. “I'm tired. Can you keep Mordon from going crazy?”
Barnes shrugged. “Mind your manners, Mordon.”
I snorted. He grinned. No one else noticed him.
Lilly's tiny hand slapped my nose. “I won't have you take Fera's body, either.”
It was nothing more than a bump to me, something to make me blink, but her hand was scraped and starting to bleed—not that she cared.
I couldn't sense anyone's magic in my exhaustion, but I guessed that they were on guard. Folding my legs under my belly, I laid down in one smooth motion so I would be a little less intimidating while refusing to be chased away.
“Leif,” I said. He looked up at me, listening. “I really did see that dragon land in Mother's rhododendron.”
Leif stood in front of me, put his hand on one side of my face and pushed it lightly to turn my head. I let him nudge me this way and that until he found a feature which triggered recognition.
Mordon was well past any of that, obsessively clinging to my faintly breathing human form.
Satisfied, Leif stepped back and mused. “Yes, I see that now. It makes sense why your father was awake at the hour, and the dragon mysteriously disappeared right before he showed up. Mordon. Let your guard down.”
“No,” Mordon said.
“Mordon,” I said and sighed. “I'd like to walk again on the streets at Merlyn's Market. And it would be hard for me to fit in the antiques shop like this.”
“Antiquities,” Mordon corrected. He blinked at me, staring. “Fera? But you're…you're…you should have remembered the dreams, too.”
“It would have helped if you had told me your real name. I thought I had an invisible friend named Thessen,” I said, reaching forward again to touch my body. This time no one stopped me.
Skin and scales blended, smoothing into one another, the bones lining up, my wings folding in on themselves, disappearing into a human back. My low hips shifted into a higher position, my nose shrank. Disoriented, I closed my eyes and listened to small pops and creaks of my skeleton reforming, feeling the stretch of muscles. Aches spread through my body, then abated as my joining completed.
I lay facing skyward on wet ground.
Mordon's harried face filled my vision, too close to come into focus with my spinning head.
“Let me sit up,” I said when he just stared at me.
Mordon pulled me in close, cradling my face in his hands. My vision dimmed to black and purple, then color came back. Several days ago, I wouldn't have thought him to be a worry wart; now it seemed like I had a knack for making him concerned.
“I'm going to want a thorough explanation for your actions, Lady,” Mordon said, but his voice was soft.
“Sometime,” I said, taking his face in one hand. I brought his cheek to my lips, and planted a light kiss on his rough skin. “Later.”
“Hey, now,” Leif said. “All of us need to have a long meeting to piece this all together.”
I had a feeling he also meant what had Mordon and me swooning, but that could wait. I was alive, Mordon was alive. We all were alive.
Nice as it had been to have scales for armor, I did enjoy being back in my own skin—would I come to accept the dragon form as being “me”, too? I dropped my hand down to the grass, and the sapphire ring fell off.
Confused, I picked it up again—it looked the exact same as it had before, and wasn't broken.
Mordon sighed. I couldn't tell if it was of relief or heartbreak. He said to those around us, “Her ring isn't just a ring—it's a family heirloom, a trinket that customarily was presented to potential mates. The ring wouldn't fit if someone was unsuitable, and the ring wouldn't come off if the candidate was a good match. Well, it would come off, but only once the two people had enough of an understanding of each other to decide where to take the relationship from there.”
“Sounds handy,” Lilly said, twirling her hair around her finger.
“Hardly novel,” Barnes said, twitching his mustache in annoyance.
Leif was looking between us, thinking.
Barnes said, “Fera might take a day or so to consider. She's such a tough character, throwing a man into the mix will be a challenge.”
Stringent officer as Barnes was now, I would bet he had been the neighborhood boy who caused all kinds of havoc. Perhaps he was not only jesting Mordon, but giving me advice.
I nodded, and put the ring on my pinky finger. The ring tightened its tail until it held comfortably.
Mordon looked away so I wouldn’t see the pain in his eyes. It was like being proposed to and delaying an answer, but I needed time. Unlike my brother, I had had enough whirlwind romance. I needed to let my brain catch up.
Mordon was raised in an utterly different culture. Though I had enjoyed my time in it, making our relationship work would take a lot of effort and understanding.
Barnes caught my eye and nodded. We knew what my answer would eventually be, but also that I needed to acclimate with my choices.
I gathered my strength and wobbled to my feet, accepting the offered hands and shoulders until blood flowed into my limbs again. I shook free of everyone and took three steps forward. I stretched out my lithe body, letting a zephyr swirl by me, tugging on my shirt and tousling loose hair.
I smiled.
I was a creature of the woods and sky, unafraid of the darkest shadows, thriving in the light and open horizons.