Chapter 10:
Vaikrand
“Who could do that to their own children? Aren’t parents supposed to do whatever is necessary to protect their young? Like, isn’t that a thing?” Athena raved. “Does the king know about this?”
We arrived back at our camp two cycles ago and all through the morning she would rant and rave about the conditions in the nursery. She’d stopped sleeping. She ate meals with a guilty hesitance. Everything seemed, different now.
“Most of them are his children,” I answered simply, a shrug threatening to crop at my shoulders. “He knows. He’s the one doing this, Athena. This is how desperate we’ve become.”
The beautiful blonde ran her tongue across her bottom lip, continuing to pace in an incensed rage. I couldn’t say I wasn’t happy to see her furious. She stopped pacing and shot me an annoyed glare. “You shouldn’t have brought me there,” she said, her voice thick with emotion.
“No, that’s exactly what I should have done,” I said with a victorious smile. “Now you get it.”
Athena watched me smile and rolled her eyes; an irritated smirk creeping up the side of her lips as well. “You’re sick,” she said factually and shook her head.
“Admit it,” I chuckled, crossing my arms.
“Admit what?”
“You want to help,” I said carefully, watching her face contort as she began scrubbing off our latest kill before tossing the strips she’d sawn off onto the grate she’d created over the fire.
She stared down for a moment and inhaled deeply. Then she looked up at me and said, “I want to help. You win.”
“Then help me,” I said.
“Vaikrand,” she rolled her eyes. “What? What do you want me to say?” I went to speak and she raised a hand quickly to silence me. “You want me to give you the coordinates for the Earth, right? You understand why I can’t do that, obviously?”
“We need you,” I pleaded. “We need it. Please, Athena.”
“I knew it!” She fumed. “This whole time you’ve just been… using me! Worming your way into my life so that I would feel sorry for you!”
“No,” I said firmly and approached her, unable to grab her due to the severe pacing she had resumed. “Athena, that’s just what happened.”
“So, what do you want me to do? Betray my people? Not just my sister,” she scoffed, “but my entire race?”
“No,” I shook my head. “It doesn’t have to be like that. We don’t have to include the D’Karr.”
She braided her hair back and fastened it with a knot at the bottom before throwing it behind her shoulder. She huffed and looked at me stubbornly. “What does that mean?”
“We get the dragonlings and we go to Earth. I shift to a human form and… and no one’s the wiser.”
She frowned deeply and walked over to me, placing a patronizing hand on my cheek. “Sweetheart, those kids can barely stay in one form. Now you want to ask them to pretend to be human? No, no way. Besides, once MILLIE gets ahold of them, seeing us coming in from Dobromia…” She shook her head, speaking of her strange Earth organization. “They’ll know right away. They’ll want to keep you for testing. No.”
My eyes were downcast and I pursed my lips, sitting down by the fire and reaching my claws in to turn the meat.
“Then what?” I asked.
“Well,” she brushed a hand up against her bare arm and shrugged bashfully. “Lenovius,” she said simply.
“What about it?”
She blinked. “You know where it is?”
My stomach flipped. “Yeah, why?”
“Aurlauc told me the D’Karr was planning on sending the shifters there on a mission. They think there’s food there. If you can bring it back, maybe… I dunno… Like you said, maybe they’ll accept you back. You can give it to the kids.”
My eyes brightened and then dimmed immediately. “You’ve known this the whole time and never told me?”
“You hadn’t convinced me to trust you or feel sorry for you yet, remember?”
“No, no,” I laughed. “I’m impressed.”
“We’d just need a ship to get there,” she said thoughtfully, looking skyward as I removed our prey from the fire, laying it on a strip of seagrass to cool.
I swallowed hard and sighed outwardly. “Okay, now here’s the part where I say I’ve also been…” I hesitated nervously.
She looked at me with quizzical eyes; darkening irises as she noted the guilt on my face. “What?” she asked grimly.
“I found something,” I said.
With a breath, I scooped her into my arms and we flew out to the northern point of Westfall. We walked through the slanted spires down the mossy path and soon it became clear there was a ship in the distance.
“Is that a ship?” she whispered.
My eyes fell and I gave a nod. “That’s a ship.”
“Are we going to steal it?” she whispered, peeking ahead at the green hull.
“Why are you whispering?” I asked in a normal tone, my heart racing and the adrenaline catching up with me as I spotted an army of shifters in the distance, crowded around the ship.
“Shit,” I whispered and signaled for Athena to duck down. I crouched down to her and grabbed her by the shoulders, a terrified breath escaping my lips. “Run.”
She locked eyes with mine and we stayed like that, gripped by fear for just a moment before she nodded, obeying obediently and taking off back toward our camp.
I swallowed and felt a shake run through my core. I took to the sky and approached the ship carefully. The D’Karr’s army, just as I thought. I landed in front of them and saw my sister among them.
“Nephra,” I said coarsely as I landed.
The army of shifted Weredragons looked ready for a fight, but Nephra stepped out in front of the group.
“My brother!” she announced loudly to the D’Karr’s representatives. “See! He has found the prisoner in honor of our D’Karr’s wishes!”
My heart sank.
No.
“Nephra, what are you doing?” I seethed in a whisper through my gritted teeth.
She approached me with watchful eyes. “It’s the only way to get you back,” she snapped silently. “Now give the girl to us.”
I stared out over the array of colored shifters and felt a nervous energy form among them due to my silence.
“He has the girl in captivity,” my sister called out before the crowd. “Right, brother?”
I swallowed and imagined the ways in which they would kill us both if I admitted she was with me: how they would kill my sister if I lied. My stomach flipped and I felt still as a stone.
“He has her,” came the sure tones of Khrelan, the navy shifter who had once been a dear friend of Aurlauc. Surely, he must have known this ship was there because of his friend. He must have known Aurlauc had tried to free her. And now he, the D’Karr’s favorite in lieu of his son, would get the glory for returning Athena to The Tower.
Without a word, Khrelan took to the sky and began flying south, back toward Athena, and I followed him quickly.
Within an instant the skies were darkened with shifters splaying their wings wide in an attempt to gain speed before the rest.
Khrelan was the first to land: navy scales buckling against the ground and a loud laugh forming as he grabbed Athena by the hair.
I roared out and my sister dug her claws into my shoulder in the air. I spun around to face her and she saw the pain in my face.
“Don’t do this,” she whispered. “You are all I have.”
“And she is all I have,” I struck back, throwing her away from me mid-air.
Athena fought against the navy shifter’s grasp and screamed a harrowing call as he whipped her around, grabbing her by the neck and raising her to the rest of the shifters.
A roar of applause formed among the crowd as they began to land, one after another like fallen stars. I set myself down in front of them and Athena looked at me with dead eyes, a false knowledge that her fears of betrayal had been right all along.
“Athena,” I said firmly and she set her jaw.
I watched as she reached for her weapon and screamed, “Athena, don’t!” just as the laser blasted into Khrelan’s side.
The shifter’s eyes went wide with a rage and a flurry of wings spread out before me as Weredragon’s swooped in to restrain the girl. They all knew that she was no good to them dead and so kept careful grips on her, even as she kept firing her weapon. A purple dragon grabbed her hard and finally let a claw release into her shoulder.
Athena screamed in shock and dropped the weapon. I raced forward toward her only to be held back by the soldier’s.
Khrelan nursed his abdomen and spat to the ground, a silent rage washing over his eyes. Though she was completely restrained, he charged Athena so that she fell from the other shifter’s grasps.
“It’s enough!” one of the soldier’s called out, but Khrelan didn’t listen.
Athena scrambled for her gun and began firing wildly into the crowd, hitting two more shifters and Khrelan once more before taking off into the darkness.
The navy shifter followed after her, swooping down and grabbing her by the leg with his feet, bursting his claws down into her leg until she howled in pain and fell to the ground.
I jerked away from the shifters who held my arms and flew to her side, crouching down beside her. Blood spewed from her thigh hard and fast, her beautiful caramel skin turning a cold white.
Khrelan spat toward the ground and I could still hear his skin sizzling from the laser. I looked up at him with disgust and the only thing he offered me was a smile.
Tilting his head back, he said, “I win.”