The open window let in vibrant sunlight, along with salt-laden breezes. Gauzy curtains flapped the walls of the room. The waves far below the castle complex made a soothing sound. Indeed, it was a castle, though it more closely resembled an upmarket skyscraper. Or—presently—a hospital. The fevered moans of sick patients overshadowed the serenity of the seascape.

An air-tram sped past the window, and Soleis stood back with a studied frown. The rush of wind in its wake ruffled the jersey fabric of his black shirt. He idly scratched the dragon tattoo that curled up from the collar, which he often did when he was lost in thought. He turned his imposing frown on the bedridden patient, as if the mere sight of his scowl would drive the virus away, but this was one battle Soleis couldn’t win alone. He wasn’t a Healer.

The haggard young man was his best friend. A suspended bag dripped amber medicine through an I.V. line, having little effect. Flev tossed and turned, wracked by pain and nightmares. It hurt to watch. He had been with Soleis since birth, as guardian and protector. Now, it was Soleis’ duty to keep the warrior alive. He just didn’t know how. This wasn’t as simple as defeating the dragon eaters in the Fire Realm.

Quiet footfalls preceded a nursemaid to the chamber door. She was in a light, airy white uniform—and she was beautiful and exotic—but Soleis hardly noticed. His worried gaze returned to Flev.

“Sorry, for the intrusion, Mr. Arkenson, but President Belzaan wants a report on your friend’s wellbeing.”

“Tell the president there’s been no change. I have the team of men he loaned me scouring the cities for Healers,” Soleis replied. Almost to himself, he added, “I don’t understand why there are so few of them in this realm. It’s unusual.”

“Yes, of course. I’ll inform the president.”

She bobbed a curtsy and slipped away, letting the chamber doors close behind her. Soleis sighed. He had half hoped for an answer. Nothing made sense in this Realm. All four worlds had Healers, Makers and Oracles—some more than others—but this place seemed devoid of magic. Maybe it was because time moved faster here. Technology was more advanced, superseding the need for sorcery.

Soleis and Flev had come to the Sea Realm for a vacation. Rumor was, the place was uninhabited. They discovered, however, it was covered with a thriving network of communities, peopled with strange mortals who could breathe underwater. The wealthy upper denizens lived in floating cities or on artificial islands, while the middle and lower classes made their homes in towns and villages on the surface of the ocean.

It was a utopia where everything worked together in harmony. Even the weather was eternally fair. With a benevolent president controlling all the developed world, there was peace. No starving masses or squalor or warfare. Disease of this magnitude was unheard of until now. In fact, it shouldn’t exist. Something about the sickness wasn’t natural.

That was why he was here.

Soleis’ booted feet whispered over the smooth mosaic floor as he crossed to the bed and touched Flev’s sweaty brow. “I’m sorry I got you into this. But, I’ll get you better,” he promised. “One way or another, we’ll complete this mission and find a cure.”

Flev’s eyelids briefly fluttered open. “You’re…not…a god, you know.” He smiled weakly.

Soleis chuckled, glad he was well enough to tease. “You’re right, but you’ll thank me for my so-called God complex later. Time for your medicine.”

“There are…other…destinies than saving…worlds.”

Soleis rifled through his bag. “Like what? Returning to the Fire Realm? Mating? Settling down? Sorry, but that’s not the life for me.” Flev’s painful coughing spell made him move faster to find the Tylenol.

His friend rasped, “I know…the famed Water Dragon prefers…traveling the Between to sticking to one world.”

“Mm-hmm,” he hummed absently. He didn’t like the sound of Flev’s breathing. “The virus is taking a greater toll on you than the natives, I’m afraid.”

Initially, they had underestimated the infection. Soleis had treated him with stolen medicine from the Blue Sky Realm. Unfortunately, it only helped alleviate symptoms. Flev had gotten sick before they could find a cure for the deadly, mysterious pathogen or parasite or whatever it was.

Now, he was quarantined, which was holding Soleis up. As diplomats from another realm, they stuck together. He couldn’t do his job without his trusted companion. Hoping this would be the day the fever left for good, he opened the bottle of pain reliever, and a hint of a woman’s perfume escaped. It reminded him of the doctor. Soleis wondered what she would do in this situation.

But, thinking of her was distracting. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his head for weeks. He told himself he didn’t need her, specifically. Any doctor would be better than the staff he currently had at his disposal. The worst thing they ever treated was a stomachache.

Thus, the president had enlisted his help eradicating the disease because Soleis had a reputation for solving the unsolvable. Would this be the case that broke his success streak? Not for the first time, he wished he could leap to another world for answers, but realm travel was impossible, given Flev’s condition. No, they were stuck here, he thought glumly, and his friend was dying.

“Take these.” Soleis pressed two white pills to Flev’s lips, holding a cup steady for him to drink. The man gagged and sputtered, and Soleis clenched his jaw at the look of misery that clouded his face. “A little bit more water,” he said gently.

When a sudden, faint pop of air sounded behind him, Soleis tensed. He recognized that sound. He had heard it often enough when jumping into and out of realms. But, he was the lone gatekeeper of that mode of travel, wasn’t he? He turned around, and there she was, as if he had conjured her with just a thought.

“Dr. Cambridge?” he said in surprise.

The doctor stared at her hand. Her green eyes swept over his face and back to her ring. She looked down at herself. She was dressed in the garb of women of this world—white linen trousers and a coral pink halter top—but she didn’t belong here.

Soleis squinted in confusion, though a slow smile crept across his lips at the sight of her. How in the four realms had she found him? Had he somehow called her to him? That was the only explanation, and he knew better than to question the gifts of fate.

“Thank you for coming,” he murmured with relief.

“What in the entire fuck?” She looked like she would faint. He hurried to catch her before her knees gave out, but she recovered and darted away from him. “I’ll mace you!” she warned. He raised his hands.

“I was only trying to keep you from hurting yourself.”

Blinking several times, she gasped in recognition. “You’re the guy from the supply closet earlier today! You were—aren’t real. Yeah. Alright. I’m still dreaming. I must’ve fallen asleep in the tub, and…Why do I keep running into you?”

“My friend is sick,” Soleis replied, sidestepping to Flev’s bed. “He has a virus. It’s spreading through this city at an alarming rate, and scores have died. You work at the hospital. Can you diagnose this?”

He had her attention. Her skittish eyes bounced from him, to the bed, to a box of stolen gloves in his bag. Soleis slowly handed her a pair. She stared at his outstretched hand for a long moment before sighing and taking them.

“I’m not technically a doctor, yet. I’m finishing my residency at the hospital. But, disease, I can handle. Symptoms?”

“You’d call it flu-like symptoms. Fever, chills, weakness and malaise. Gradual inability to eat, increased lethargy. I’m not sure how he was infected. We were so careful, and from what I can gather, it’s spread through contact.”

“Good. It’s not airborne. Are you his primary care? Wait, what am I saying? Of course, not.” She stopped and shook her head, laughing self-consciously. “This is a dream!”

It feels like one for me, too, he thought. Gods, she was magnetic. From her striking good looks to her vivacious personality, she appealed to him.

“Um, I’ve been hired to investigate the illness,” he explained, getting back to the subject. “Those who are infected remain bedridden for weeks. Even the ones who recover don’t regain full strength. They’re left with some level of damage—either physical or mental. They don’t come back the same.”

“With the CDC, then?”

“What?” Soleis marveled at her deft, efficient inspection of the man in the sickbed. He was suddenly grateful he had stolen supplies she was familiar with—a thermometer, stethoscope—things that came in handy. She finished checking Flev’s vital signs and indicated the drip. “Nutrients,” he supplied.

“Are you with the CDC?”

“Oh! No, we’re not from…anyplace you’ve heard of. I think not being from here is why Flev’s immune system can’t handle this illness.”

“Yes, that’s normal,” she said. “This is normal. I’m dreaming a typical diagnostic mystery because I’m nervous about my performance at work. Luckily, because this is a dream, I don’t have to worry about being in a room with a deadly virus without PPE.”

“PPE?”

“Yeah, protective gear. Face mask and all that.” She smiled tightly.

Soleis stiffened, knowing this wasn’t a dream. “Perhaps you should wear protective gear anyway.”

“Good point. Get me blood, urine and stool samples and point me in the direction of the lab,” she said as she tugged a face mask from his bag, in no rush to put it on. “Have a tech do lateral and supine chest x-rays. I need a copy of the H and P and any case notes from the primary.”

“I’m sorry, but this place is more primitive, in some ways, than what you’re used to. It’s more advanced in others. I can only tell you what I’ve observed. The medical personnel here have never encountered anything like it.”

“Well, what have you observed?” she asked. She gnawed on her bottom lip. It was plush. Incredibly kissable.

Soleis snapped to attention. “The, uh, people who reside in the castle appear sickest. Those who leave get better within a matter of days. Even more perplexing, those who live furthest from the capital city don’t exhibit symptoms of the disease at all.”

“Then, it could be environmental?”

“…I doubt it…”

She took in the sumptuous accommodations with a skeptical eye. The floating skyscraper was constructed of stone, steel and glass of the finest quality. She stepped to the window and gazed out. Though advanced transportation systems crisscrossed the city, and motorized gondolas traversed canals too far below for her to see, pollution wasn’t the catalyst.

Soleis’ eyes drank up the sight of the sunlight outlining her curvy body. When she returned his bold stare, there was a glimmer of the same interest. It was curious and fascinating, but he didn’t have time to examine it. Whatever power had brought her to him could whisk her away at any second. Exactly how had he summoned her?

“The president,” he said in a distracted voice, “seems to think someone is poisoning people.”

“No, it wouldn’t be poison—not with symptoms like this. We’d see more problems with the GI tract, but edema, fevers and chills? Unless it was chemical, in which case we’d see respiratory inflammation, possibly dermatitis. Could it be biological…?” She faced him. “As in, biological warfare?”

Soleis quirked a brow that she had figured out what it had taken him weeks to discover. He glanced at the closed chamber door and lowered his voice. “The government has managed to keep things hushed, but my investigation indicates a faction of rebels in the lower classes could be stirring up trouble. When I brought my suspicions to President Belzaan, he suggested the Resistance is looking to show him weak on healthcare.

“Therefore, he hired me,” he went on. “I don’t specialize in healing. I’ve done work in several…countries…squashing rebellions and ending wars. I’m a very important person, Dr. Cambridge, and if my friend doesn’t make it out of this alive, I’m not going to be happy. I need him to complete my mission. Tell me there’s something you can do.”

“I have nothing to work with. I don’t have a case study, a patient history, samples to analyze. How am I supposed to conjure a diagnosis out of thin air?” She raked a hand through her hair. “Why am I dreaming this? Why am I making it so hard on myself?”

“You’re not—”

Her eyes widened in epiphany. “Backtrack! You said people who leave the castle get better? Then, that’s the solution. Get your friend out of here.”

“It’s not that simple.” Soleis hesitated, wondering how to explain their precarious position as outsiders. With a quiet rebellion in progress, Belzaan didn’t exactly trust them coming and going as they pleased. But, the doctor misunderstood him.

“Of course, it’s that simple. My dream, my rules. Just leave the castle,” she laughed. “See, I have this problem of over-complicating things. It’s a major weakness. So, what better reminder to keep it simple? This dream presents every imaginable complication, but an easy solution.”

He tightened his lips with no comment. She seemed more relaxed, believing none of this was real. Her face was open and light-filled when she smiled. She looked girlish, with large, innocent eyes and dimples piercing her full cheeks. He wanted to clasp her chin and turn her lips up to his. It was such an overwhelming impulse that he almost did, and she noticed.

Soleis knew what was going on, even if she didn’t. In reality, he had been so busy trying to figure out the mysterious illness for President Belzaan that he hadn’t taken time to handle basic, physical needs. Like sex. He wanted her. Sometimes it was just that simple, like she said.

Lola backed away and made a show of taking off her gloves, finger by finger. “You know, they say every face we see in a dream is a face we’ve seen somewhere in real life. I wonder where I’ve seen you before.”

“The supply closet.”

She rolled her eyes. “That was a dream, too.”

“Maybe not,” he murmured.

“People don’t just disappear into thin air,” she giggled.

“What’s your given name?” he asked, curious.

“Lola Cambridge. And you?”

“Soleis, Son of Arken, and I’m not a figment of your imagination, Lola, although perhaps you’re a figment of mine. I’ve never known anyone else—outside of my family—who can travel like I do. How did you manage?”

The lust swirling between them was thick enough to cut. It made his voice a quiet purr, his eyes hooded, his pulse quicken. He took a step toward her, wishing what he said was true. That she was a figment of his imagination. Someone with whom he could do whatever he willed. He could take her on the floor, unleashing the wildness his hybrid dragon/human nature kept chained beneath the surface.

“I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she laughed nervously. “I think I should wake up now. This is getting weird.” She fidgeted with the ring on her finger, and he studied it. The red stone was familiar.

“Where did you get that?” he asked.

She held up her hand and started working the ring off her finger. “Oh, this? It’s nothing. I picked it up at a—” The pressure in the room changed, and Soleis stared at the place where she had been standing.

She was gone.

Uneasiness washed over him as he tapped the air and opened a portal from this realm to the Between. Slipping a hand inside, his fingers grazed the cool surface of the red diamond entrusted to his care. The Heart of the Dragon was a mystical talisman that provided protection and allowed him to travel realm to realm.

He knew its history as surely as he knew his own unique origin. The stone had been extracted by a powerful sorceress and gifted to the dragon race in the Fire Realm. It had passed through his father’s lineage, eventually ending up in his hands. No one else was supposed to possess such power. Yet, Lola Cambridge had been wearing a ring with a remarkably similar stone.

Soleis looked at Flev in the sickbed. Lola had shown up precisely when she was needed. He had a haunch her advice was right and her rambling about dreams was white noise. He needed to take Flev and leave the castle.

President Belzaan might take offense, but Soleis had no other choice. He didn’t need to remain at the castle to provide a service. He crossed the guest chamber and eased open the door. His eyes swept the hall. Aside from life-size portraits of the handsome, middle-aged benevolent dictator lining the walls, no one was in sight.

Soleis quickly gathered his belongings and scribbled a formal letter to the president, asking him to be patient while he investigated the disease further away from the main city. Then, he trussed Flev in bedsheets to make him easier to carry. Hefting his companion to the large window, he sat on the sill and gazed at the city a dizzying distance below.

He concentrated his consciousness. He expanded it until it seemed to stretch the seams of his being. A bright pulse of light emitted from his body, and a shockwave visibly rippled out from him. Anyone watching would’ve been awestruck.

Where Soleis had been, a gigantic blue beast dropped from the window. He spread massive iridescent wings that caught the sunlight and sparkled like jewels. Curving horns that shifted colors in the light crowned his oversized head as he gracefully turned in the air. He reached teal claws through the open window to collect his ward. They were off.

The city stretched out on a sheet of blue glass down below. Elegant glass walkways connected some of the skyscrapers, and a swift-moving air-tram hugged rails that wove throughout. He flew over all of it. It was an odd world full of progress and regressions, but he liked this place. He liked these people, and he wanted to help them.

Suddenly, something whistled past Soleis’ ear. He looked back at the castle, and he was surprised to discover there were men atop the tall steel and glass building, firing at him. They weren’t the king’s men. Rebels, he thought.

He gained elevation and flew faster. The steel missiles were harmless against him with the Heart of the Dragon in his possession. His nostrils flared, and the wind smelled like ozone, like storms coming, like the first hint of war. Much more was going on in this world than sickness, and it was his destiny to find out what and fix it.

Just how, he wondered, did Lola Cambridge fit into things?