Authors: Rain Oxford
“You are to never speak with that boy again; he is a
bad influence on you. He will never have the right to ban the ceremonies.
Dragons have nothing if not our tradition, and the ceremonies are an important
tradition. You will understand them when you are older, like your sister.”
Dragon clutches are extremely protective of each
other,
Rojan supplied.
If someone messes with one of the children, the
entire clutch will fight to the death to defend them. However, when the child
grows up, they lose all family bonds with their parents and siblings.
My sister never had that protective instinct. She
has attempted to kill me many times by this age, and my mother was stubbornly
oblivious. If I were less strong, less fast, less powerful, I would have been
dead.
These were the days where dragons were well-known
on Duran, when we were free. All of the dragons except for me, that is. I had
to obey the promises made by my parents, just because of my blood. If it were
not for my exceptional skills, I would have thought I was from another family.
Where my sister and my parents loved the life of luxury, class, and tradition,
I wanted to fly.
I wanted to dive from cliffs and feel the wind in
my wings until I came so close to the water that I could feel the mist from the
waves that crashed against the rocks. Then I would pull up at the last possible
second so that only the tips of my wings would scale the water and soar
straight up towards the moon. When no one was around I would breathe not fire,
but lightning, just because I was the only one who could do it. I would fly in
the daytime, when the clouds were scattered and change my scales in time to
perfectly match the blue sky and the gray clouds. At night, I would disappear
in the dark and practice my lightning over cities.
As he spoke, more to himself than to me, I recognized
the feelings that crossed his mind from the memories. The feeling of being
free… completely and utterly free. I understood in that moment how much I had
in common with Rojan.
I was suddenly standing in a cave well-lit by the
fires all along the edge of the room. The warmth and flickering flames made it
feel extremely cozy, but the sound of the crying girl broke my heart. I did not
know the sound, but I recognized it. The cutest little girl in the entire
universe ran into the room and flung herself down on a pile of furs.
Following quickly behind was a man, tall and
imposing, but not obscenely muscular. His hair was black and his eyes were
deep, ice blue… Eyes that matched my blue eye… He sat beside the girl and
rubbed her back. “Why are you crying, Ueme?” I may not have known the girl’s
crying voice, but I knew his.
I was looking at Rojan, as an adult, in sago form,
and by the pain I could feel from Rojan inside me, I could guess this was his
daughter. God, she was adorable. She had hair the color of dark blood, but her
eyes were blue, matching her father’s.
“Ohonu. She said that her father was killed. She said
that hunters wanted to kill dragons and use our blood for dark magic!”
“Hunters will never make it into our clutch, child.
Quiet, now, and sleep. Your mother and I are always watching.”
“But Regar is still not home! What if the hunters got
him?”
“Your brother is fine, just out exploring. He will be
back in a few days.” Even as he spoke, I could feel the truth. Rojan, the one
sitting next to the child, was worried. The Rojan inside me was devastated.
Where is your son?
I asked him.
In this
moment, while you tell your daughter that her brother is exploring, where is
he?
I found him the next day. The hunters had trapped
him and drained him of his blood and left his body in the forest. They killed my
son.
Who did?
Sujike and his family.
I’m sorry for your loss
, I thought, knowing
there was nothing I could say to help him over his pain. This was a memory; it
had already happened. Rojan knew this, but he wanted so badly to try and save
his son. I could feel his love for both of his children as if it were my own.
I made him regret it.
Unfortunately, and
fortunately, the universe is a tangled web. It was his wife who killed my son,
so I killed her. I would never have killed their child, even as he was being
raised to hunt my kind. You will hate me when you know the truth
, he
warned.
We are in this together, so I will get over it.
What happened?
* * *
I was suddenly standing in the sun room again. Next
to me was the woman who had appeared in my father’s study, and she was studying
the people in the room closely. Sitting in the same chair as before was my
mother with no signs of pregnancy. My father stood beside her, comforting her
as she cried and glaring at a much younger version of our family doctor.
“You cannot be sure,” my father insisted.
“I am certain. Even she knew it; that is why she came
to me.”
“What’s happening?” I asked the woman, expecting her
to ignore me.
“She had a vision that she would die in childbirth,
so she went to Mokomo and he confirmed it. She has been very sick for a long
time,” she said.
Her voice was soft and sounded very similar to my
mother’s. I studied her face now that it was light enough to see her and
marveled. This had to be my mother when she was barely an adult.
“There is a very good possibility I can save her if
we start treatments now. However, she will definitely lose the child.”
“Do it,” my father demanded even as she screamed over
him. Her words were jumbled with tears, but she was obviously fighting for my
life.
“Even if you could survive long enough to deliver,
the unborn child will not.”
“He will; I can see it!”
“It is impossible. I’m sorry, but your only option is
to accept treatment and survive,” Mokomo argued.
“You are wrong.”
With ease and familiarity, as if entitled as my
father, Sujike-mor entered the room. When my father moved towards him, I
thought it was to attack. Instead, my father hugged him and my jaw just about
hit the floor.
“I know a way to save both her and the baby,”
Sujike-mor said.
“How?” Mokomo asked. My mother started to get out of
her seat, but Sujike-mor waved her back down.
“You stay put and relax, Lidin. Stress is bad for the
pregnancy. I know a treatment that would make give you both the strength to
survive the illness. I am afraid that if I told you what it is, you would
refuse to use it.”
“What would be so horrible to make me give up my wife
and child’s life?” my father asked.
“Not you. I know where your priorities lie. However,
Lidin loves the dragons.”
“You want to use their blood,” my mother concluded,
horrified. It made me feel sick inside as well. “That is disgusting. To kill
such a magnificent creature…”
“It is either a dragon, or your baby. The doctor is
correct that while you may come to term, your baby will not survive the birth
without the blood of a dragon. I can find an old dragon that has lived his
life. Dragons treasure offspring; one may even volunteer his life to save an
unborn child. But there is a cost for this treatment.”
My father looked taken back. “If you need money, you
only have to ask.”
“It is not money I need. My wife has become very
demanding about finding a wife for our son. I want to merge our families now
that my son and Anget are old enough to marry,” he said.
My father and mother looked at each other.
“Who is Anget?” I asked the young woman beside me.
“And since when did Sujike-mor have a son?”
The room dimmed and I was standing in Sujike-mor’s
main throne room. I knew the place because I had dragged several of his spies
back here. Despite his sneaky and manipulative attempts to disgrace my father,
steal his land and money, and sometimes kill him, Sujike-mor had always shown
politeness to me.
I knew the king once had a wife that had died, but I
had no idea it had anything to do with dragons. A woman dressed in royal
clothes managed to appear immaculate even as she carried a bag in her arm.
Sujike-mor looked at the sack, horrified.
“What is that?”
“The only dragon I could find.” She opened the sack
and I fell to my knees. Inside was a tiny boy, only a couple of years older
than Sammy, and his head was covered in blood. That was Rojan’s baby, but I
felt Rojan’s pain as if he were mine.
“You killed a baby dragon? You were supposed to find
an old one!”
“They are difficult enough to find. Who cares whether
it is a little one or a big one? They are all vermin.”
“We only hunt the adults. Kill an adult, and we will
wipe them out. Kill a child dragon and every single dragon in the world will
target us! You fool! Take the dragon to the lab and test his blood.”
Everything became black before my eyes adjusted. We
were in a dismal room that was something between a dungeon and a medical lab.
Sujike-mor stood over a microscope with his wife cowering against the wall.
“This will never do. The child’s blood is not
powerful enough.” He glared at his wife until she looked down in shame. “Young
dragons are not allowed too far from their clutch. Go back to where you found the
child and find the mother. Kill her and bring the body back. If you fail, I
will make sure our son knows just how much of a failure you are.”
“You want me to fight a fully grown dragon on my
own?”
“I demand it. Get out of here and do not come back
until you have the dragon’s mother.”
Everything grew black and the air became warm.
He
sent his wife to kill mine. I was out hunting for the murderer of my son,
leaving my mate and daughter unprotected. After tracking her scent back to
Sujike’s home, I returned to my clutch to find my mate of a hundred and twenty
years dead and my daughter screaming, covered in her blood. I caught Sujike’s
wife before she made it back to her husband and took revenge. Then I buried my
mate and son. I was content in the death of the woman who killed them; I would
never have gone after Sujike or his son. That was my mistake.
When the light returned, I was standing on the
balcony of a guest room in my father’s estate, and so were the young woman and
a man I had never met. He looked familiar, though, as if I had seen a painting
of him before, but now he appeared to be in emotional agony. The woman could
not see me this time.
“What has you so upset that you came to me in the
middle of the night? The night before our wedding even?”
“My mother was killed.”
“By who?” she asked, horrified.
“By a dragon. The dragon that lives in the mountain
by the red lakes. He killed her!”
He was devastated by his mother’s death, and I could
feel Rojan’s misery at being the cause of the man’s pain.
She killed your
son. You should feel no regret for killing her.
He is not the only one I left motherless.
“Rojan? But he never leaves the mountains. Why did
your mother go to the mountains?” the woman asked.
“The cure. She needed the dragon’s blood to cure your
mother’s illness. Now my father cannot help her and she will die, too.”
“Wait, her mother?” I asked. They couldn’t hear me,
but I didn’t really care at that point. “Whose mother?!”
Did your father tell you that you were an only
child?
Rojan asked me.
Yes. My mother had too much trouble with
miscarriages and I was the only one that made it.
Your father lied
, Rojan growled.
“I need you to help me. Together we can kill Rojan
and bring back his blood to save your mother and brother,” the man said. Rojan
and I both knew he wasn’t being brave to save my mother, he just wanted
vengeance. When the woman, my sister, hesitated, he grabbed her by her
shoulders. “Anget, we can save your mother! You have to help me do it.”
She nodded. “But Rojan leads all of the dragons on
the land. If he is killed, other dragons would come after us.”
“My family is not the only family that hunts dragons
to keep their population down.” He pulled her into his arms. “We can save your
mother and your baby brother.”
Where is your daughter?
I whispered to Rojan.
They’re
going to find your cavern. Where is your daughter?
At home sleeping
, he said.
The room darkened and I could feel the heat of
Rojan’s home. “No!” I yelled out loud. “I don’t want to see her die! Please
don’t make me watch this!” Rojan may or may not have been controlling what we
saw, so I could only wish with all I had that I wouldn’t be able to see Rojan’s
daughter dead like I had seen his son. I may not know those children, but I
could feel Rojan’s love for them as if the feelings were mine.
The heat vanished, but it remained dark.
Sujike found his wife dead and told his son, then
returned to hunt me down. I was packing up my cave to move my daughter and me
to the desert where we would be safe. I am the oldest dragon I know, with the
most powerful bloodline, so other dragons looked to me for leadership. I only
ever wanted to live in peace with my mate and children.
Sujike cornered me and tried to fight me. I led
him into the woods where my daughter would not get in the way and I let him
take his frustrations out at me. When he realized I was so much stronger than
him, he retreated.
Sujike’s son and your sister did find my cave.
When they found me absent, they killed my daughter, but not before she could
inflict mortal wounds on them. I found all three of them dead.
He finally stopped talking, possibly because I
couldn’t breathe. My misery was so potent it was a wonder I didn’t just die. I
was the reason Rojan, his children, his mate, my sister, Sujike’s family, and
my own mother were dead. If it weren’t for me, my mother could have been
treated by her doctor and Sujike wouldn’t have needed the dragon blood.