The Sorcerer's Dragon (Book 2) (13 page)

“That had to hurt,” Remi groaned as Olivia grit her teeth and sheathed her blade, her arm shaking the entire time. She reached out with her free hand and grabbed Remi’s wrist. Remi winced and tried to pull her up but she was already beginning to feel exhausted.

“Livi, you got to do more,” she cried out as she felt her grip around the eidolon getting slippery.

“What exactly?!” Olivia yelled. Her arms were quivering violently.

“Drop!” a cracked high-pitched voice cried out from below them. Remi strained her neck to see who had said it, but she couldn’t see anything through the fog. “It’s okay!” the voice said again. “You’re right above the town!”

“You believe this?” Olivia asked.

Remi clenched her jaw and considered their options. “Well, it’s not like we have much of a choice. We’re not going to fly out of here.”

She wretched her arm from Olivia’s grip and her friend screamed as she fell below the fog line. Remi grabbed the hilt of the eidolon with both hands and waited, trying to scrunch herself into a ball so that she could fight against the breeze. After a few seconds went by, she began to hear a familiar voice through the wind.

“You can drop!” she heard Olivia yelling. “It’s safe!”

“Okay!” Remi yelled out as she let go completely. It was a short fall, but still high enough to make her legs tingle when her feet hit the platform below—a large slab of red rock sticking out of the mountainside. She glanced behind her and saw Olivia and a very short man standing in front of a cavern entrance.

“Friend of yours?” Remi tried to act cool, but she felt like she was going to faint.

“Don’t know yet,” Olivia said, crossing her arms. “But he helped me to my feet so he can’t be too terrible.”

“No, I’m nice,” he said, scratching his exposed belly. “But the Mistress is still pissed. I can’t speak on her behalf.”

“The Mistress?” Remi asked, slowly gaining feeling back in her legs. She slowly stood to her feet.

“Yes,” the little man with no shirt replied. “The Mistress—the dragon you fought.”

“The name is Lain,” he replied, giving her a curt bow. “Welcome to Darkheart.”

“Never heard of it,” Olivia replied, staring down at the little man. He was no taller than a few feet and he appeared to be as old as forty. His hair was red and disheveled and he was barely wearing any clothes despite the chilly weather. He wore a pair of ripped shorts and a necklace that was composed of pieces of the mountain. There were nothing fancy to look at, but they must have had some relevance to him.

“This is a hidden place,” he said. “And most people don’t survive here. You still may not.”

“You said your Mistress was the dragon?” Remi asked. “Did I hear you right?”

“Not my Mistress,” he replied. “
The Mistress.
That’s what she likes to be called amongst us.”

“How many of you are there?” Olivia asked, looking down the cavern. They couldn’t see inside from where they stood.

“Nearly a hundred. But you won’t get to see them if the Mistress doesn’t approve it, and I doubt she will. It looks like she hurt you.”

“She better not have hurt our friends,” Olivia said. “The boys down below. Did anything happen to them?”

“Boys? I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“I do,” she heard a woman’s voice echo off the cavern walls. Remi and Olivia snapped to attention as they heard the sound of heels clopping against the ice. Soon, the Mistress came into view. She was wearing a gigantic fur coat that was so big it made her shoulders look like that was the only part of her body that she worked out on. Her hair was made up of tiny curls and colored silver and an icy blue. Her skin was dark and her almond shaped eyes were as green as emeralds. Her lips were full and her skin was thick but not at all fat. It was apparent that she was constantly honing her body. As soon as she had taken a few steps outside the cavern entrance, she kicked her blue heels aside and stepped onto the ice with her bare feet. The cold didn’t appear to bother her at all.

“We want to talk,” Olivia said but the Mistress didn’t listen. She cocked back her arm and punched Olivia in the face before she could counter it. Olivia went sliding on the ice as she clutched her jaw. The Mistress kept walking forward, heading straight for Remi.

“Listen!” Remi said. “We’re not here to fight.”

“Uh-huh,” she muttered, swinging at Remi’s head. Remi ducked under the blow but her chin caught the Mistress’ uppercut. Remi fell onto the back of her head and the world started spinning before her eyes. The Mistress bent down, picked her up, raised her over her head, and then slammed her back down onto the ice. Remi nearly blacked out.

Olivia jumped up to her feet and started running toward their enemy, but the Mistress pivoted at the last second and leapt up into the air, kneeing Olivia in the face. Olivia cried out and went sliding on the ice again as their enemy turned her attention back to Remi. Remi rolled out of the way of her hands but not completely out of her reach. Remi’s eyes widened as a ball of fire came shooting out of the Mistress’s hand, hitting her square in the chest.

Remi screamed as her clothes caught fire. She ran toward a snow mound by the cave’s entrance but she found herself picked up in the air and held in place. Remi saw that the Mistress’s right arm had turned into a miniature dragon’s tail, and she had wrapped it around her so tight that it felt like her organs were going to be crushed.

Thankfully, the press of the dragon’s skin against hers smothered the flames but Remi still couldn’t find the air to breathe. Her lungs were being crushed and she could already hear her ribs cracking. She closed her eyes as she tried to focus. An eidolon shot out her back and into the dragon’s scaly skin but it didn’t cause any damage. Remi groaned and clenched her jaw as the Mistress kept squeezing.

“We’re not your enemy!” Olivia cried out and the Mistress decided not to crush Remi just yet.

“Then what are you?” the Mistress asked, glaring straight into Olivia’s eyes. “No one but enemies come here.”

“We…we’re here to find one of the Sorcerer’s weapons.”

“Yes, that is what my enemies do,” she said, turning her attention back to Remi. “That’s all they do.”

Remi took a deep breath and dug into her pants pocket, searching for what she needed. The Mistress glowered at her and began squeezing again but Remi found what she was looking for in time. She couldn’t stretch her hand out of her pocket by much but it was enough to touch the red shard against the Mistress’s dragon tail.

Immediately, the Mistress dropped her and Remi fell on her feet. She didn’t have time to worry about the state of her body though. She sprinted forward and unsheathed her eidolon from her shoulder, fusing it with her power. Remi rolled underneath the Mistress’s retracting tail and sliced through the right side of her abdomen, nearly cutting her body in half. The Mistress lost her glazed over look and roared in pain as her brain registered Remi’s attack. Remi prepared to touch the red shard against the Mistress again when it was suddenly smacked out of her hand. The Mistress grabbed Remi’s collar and pulled her close.

“What did you do?” she growled, her breath smelling like ash. It was so hot that Remi had to turn away. It felt like it was going to burn her skin.

“Let me go and I’ll tell you,” Remi groaned but the Mistress wasn’t willing to forgive her prey for the wound she received. She took a deep breath, cocked her head back and then breathed out a wave of fire toward Remi’s face. Remi stuck her eidolon between them and widened the blade as much as possible, but she could already hear the cracks in her eidolon beginning to appear.

Olivia jumped onto the Mistress’s back but the tail reappeared from under her fur coat, wrapping around Olivia and squeezing her just as tight as she had with Remi. There was little they could do to stop the assault. They were pinned down.

Remi reached into her pants pocket frantically with one hand as she kept the eidolon with the other. The force of the fire was so strong that she fell down to one knee, and the crackling sound of her eidolon breaking was getting louder. Remi knew that the red shard had been cast aside, but she had to try another. If only to see if it would have an effect on the Mistress. It was a desperate ploy, but she was out of ideas.

The Mistress was too strong, too resourceful, and far too durable. Remi thought about activating her armor form, but she was sure the Mistress could find a way in if she wanted. She had to end the battle quickly if at all possible.

She continued to sift through the shards in her pocket and then she remembered that the blue one was also in there. It had been her turn to carry the shards after all.

But it was too late.

She accidentally brushed her fingers up against the blue shard and it was like the world around her had been transformed. She was back in the darkness, but this time, there was a small end-table standing in front of her. It was barely staying together. It creaked without any outside influence, and a lone candle stood in its center, not being held up by anything but its own will.

Remi stared at the little fire flickering at the top and she wondered what was happening to her body now that her mind had been taken away. She couldn’t be dead. Otherwise, wouldn’t she no longer be aware of herself? Or would she only be with the darkness now?

“Give up,” she heard a man whisper in her ear. She turned around quickly but there was no one there, and she felt no presence around her. The flame on the candle suddenly went out, and she was cast in utter darkness once more. She waved her hands in front of her eyes in the pitch black but she saw nothing.

She was about to speak when light flooded her eyes.

Or more like…one of her eyes.

She couldn’t see out of the other. That one was still cast into the black.

But the other. The seeing one—that one saw Olivia bending down and hovering over her. She was saying something, but she couldn’t hear the words. Wait…yes, she could. Her other senses were beginning to return. But it was terribly slow. As if they had to be woken up individually from their slumber.

“Remi, talk to me!” she said, shaking her. Remi parted her lips and licked them. They were so dry and…they were bumpy. It hurt to the touch. What had happened?

“Don’t get up too fast,” Olivia said, patting her shoulder. “Your face is burned pretty bad. But don’t worry, the Mistress said that she can fix that. Just hold on. We’re getting you a hammock to lay on. They’re going to take you to their infirmary.”

“The Mistress…” Remi whispered. “She…help?”

“Alicia,” she heard the Mistress declare behind her. Remi couldn’t move her neck to confirm the exact location.

“Whatever!” Olivia snapped at her. “All you should be caring about right now is whether she survives this or not!”

“I told you she will. Calm down.”

“If she dies, so do you. Get that?”

The Mistress stayed silent but even Remi knew that threat couldn’t be carried out. Her eyes closed on their own and she felt the sweet hands of sleep beginning to take her into its arms.

She allowed it with no regrets.

*              *              *

“I. Am. Tired. Of. Waking. Up,” Remi said before she even opened her eyes. She heard Ian chuckle nearby and she sat up to attention, scanning the room around her. They were all there, sitting in chairs and waiting for her to wake up. “Are you all okay?” she asked them. She noticed that they were all staring at her intensely, but not one of them was willing to answer.

“Just take it easy,” Olivia said, rising from her chair. Remi looked behind her and noticed that the room was very small. She had been laying on the floor with a thin white sheet placed over her. The walls were made of the mountain rock—it wasn’t smooth at all, and parts of the wall jutted outwards. The floor under her was metal and cold, and there were only the chairs that her friends were sitting on for furniture. It looked like they were all in a holding cell.

Remi blinked and realized that she was still only seeing out of one eye.

“What’s wrong with me?” she asked. No one leapt up to answer her question which only made her more nervous.

“Alicia should be on her way to retrieve you,” Ian said. “It will all be okay.”

“Why are you talking like that?” Remi cried out. “What’s wrong?” She reached up and caressed her face and her hand dropped the moment her fingers brushed up against it. It was bumpy and sore, as if her face had recently scabbed over, and there was a sticky substance spread across her cheeks that made her skin tingle. She waved her hand in front of her blind eye. Something was definitely wrong with her face. It didn’t hurt when she touched it, but it wasn’t smooth like she remembered.

“How long was I out?!” she demanded. Again, no one answered. “Fine. I’ll get the answers myself.”

“Wait!” Olivia shouted just as Alicia burst through the door. She was breathing heavily and her eyes scanned the room as if she was looking for a traitor. She finally settled on Remi who was still frozen in fear.

“Let’s go, girl,” she replied. “And don’t touch your face.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you without some answers.”

“I have them,” she huffed. “But we need to take care of those burns first.”

“Burns?” Remi cried, feeling a tear running down her seared skin. “You mean the ones you caused? Weren’t you the one blowing fire in my face?”

“Don’t test my patience,” Alicia sniffed. “Now, it’s up to you. We can get your face fixed, or you can stand there and get your answers while it permanently turns that way. It’s up to you.”

“It’s okay, Rem,” Ian said. “Go with her. And we’re okay too. Alicia picked us up after you went unconscious and she’s treated us well. We’re not prisoners here.”

“Well,” Remi glared at him. “As long as we’re all on a first name basis…” She turned to Alicia. “Let’s go...Alicia.”

Alicia nodded and began walking back down the hall. The guard that was standing at the door outside closed it behind him, locking in Remi’s friends. Remi noticed that even the guard was a small man.

“What’s with the little people?” Remi asked.

“They’re Langorans,” Alicia replied, striding forward with her powerful legs. Remi could barely keep up. “Rejects from before the Great Collision. Back then, there was an organization known as R.A.W. Only its highest ranked members knew what the acronym stood for, but their mission was clear: orchestrate civil unrest and distrust between the Kingdoms so that they could control the outcomes in secret. Though Languor had its King, he was only a figurehead for what was really going on behind the scenes. R.A.W was what dictated the laws and determined who was fit to serve. Many of the Langorans you see here were banished and cast out of their home. I took them in.”

“As servants?”

“No. Though it’s hard to say otherwise. They’ve been trying to repay me for giving them a home ever since. Given that I have a temper, it seems like I’m ordering them around when really I only have the best of intentions.”

“You said that they came here even before the Great Collision…how old are you?”

“You shouldn’t ask a woman her age,” she said, glaring at Remi out of the corner of her eye.

“I was just wondering.”

“I’m old enough,” she muttered.