Chapter 4
A cold, misty rain coated Katra’s face the instant she appeared on the other side of the mirror, and she stared in awe at the jagged, step-like cliffs and the vast, dark ocean beyond the little brick cottage that sat before her. Glancing behind her, she saw in the distance what looked like a small village, and beyond that, a large mountain dominated the landscape. She thought she even saw a castle on the mountain, though from this far away, it was hard to say for certain.
Shuffling came from beside her, and she turned to see that Marclan, Finley, and Kaster had arrived with her father. They took in the scenery only momentarily before they silently moved down the dirt road leading away from the distant village.
Why were they helping her?
She was no one to them.
They were mercenaries. Mercenaries didn’t care…right?
She followed them a short way down the road, around a hill and out of sight of the village before they stopped. Kaster gently placed Jakob’s body on the dirt road. They gathered around him in a semi-circle, and Katra waited a hesitant moment before she stepped up to complete it.
“I don’t know if you are aware of this, but a dragon shifter can only be born to another dragon shifter. For other shifters, the animal belonging to the child born is a toss-up—wolves can give birth to falcon shifters, tigers can give birth to bear shifters. But for dragons, the community stays small, because at least one of the parents has to be a dragon shifter. More often than not, both parents are dragon shifters. This is what allows for the dragon funeral that has come to be traditional in the dragon community. When a dragon shifter has passed, the family and community come forward to bestow blessings upon the deceased in the hopes that these blessings will call forth the spirit of the first dragon. The Dragon Spirit will help guide the soul of the dragon shifter to the next world. During the traditional dragon shifter funeral, after the blessings have been bestowed, the dragon shifter’s body is laid out in a clearing. A fire dragon, ice dragon, air dragon, and dark dragon come forward and, combining their fires, they transform the body into a diamond-like material. They are then placed in the dragon catacombs.” Finley recounted the dragon shifter traditions in a soft, reverent voice, and he glanced up at his brothers briefly—an action that went completely unnoticed by Katra as her eyes remained glued to her father’s still form—before continuing on quietly. “Seeing as how we do not have all the necessary dragon types present, I was thinking—and this is entirely up to you—but did your father…would you be okay with him being cremated? I don’t know what his last wishes were, or if you were even able to talk about it at any point, but…I’m a fire dragon, and if it’s what you would like, I would be honored to perform a cremation ceremony for him.”
It was oddly surprising to Katra that, in all their time on the run, the subject of her father’s last wishes never came up. Undoubtedly, it was a subject no father would ever want to discuss with his daughter, but her father had always been relatively practical (it was probably the historian in him, capable of seeing and learning from the people and things that came before), so the realization that he’d never once mentioned his burial wishes came as a dull shock for her, cutting through her previous shock with just enough force for her to recognize the thought and question it.
“Um…yeah. I guess. I mean…I don’t really know what he wanted. So…I guess he just…” Her throat closed up as her mind filled with memories of her dad and what he was like, what he wanted, and what meant the most to him. “I guess he would have wanted whatever I wanted. I don’t think he would have cared what happened to him after death, so long as it’s something I’m okay with. I think cremation will be okay—er—good. Yeah.” Actually, if she were to really consider the question, she’d say her father would most likely have been thrilled to be honored with a dragon shifter funeral, even if it was altered some. He had always called dragon shifters living legends, the only living legends left from the world of mythical shifters.
Aside from her.
But as it was, she simply didn’t know what she wanted. The shock was too fresh, the sudden abruptness of his departure too painful. Perhaps she would regret this in the future (though it seemed unlikely), but for now, she would gratefully accept the dragon shifter’s offer. Or at least, as gratefully as she could considering the state of shock she was in.
A heavy arm fell over her shoulders, and she gave in to the slight tugging as Marclan pulled her back a few paces, with Finley stepping up to take their place. Kaster moved back even further, as if separating himself physically from the situation would help to separate himself emotionally from it—or perhaps, from her. It was clear that, of the three, he seemed most disinclined toward accepting her in any way, shape, or form.
Finley cleared his throat hesitantly after staring down at Jakob’s body for a few moments. He glanced up at Katra hesitantly, almost with a touch of fear, before speaking quietly. “Katra…have you ever seen a dragon shifter shift into his animal form?”
The tiny shake of her head was almost unnoticeable.
“Well…it can be a little…jarring. A dragon shifter’s dragon form is dependent on what kind of dragon they are. As a dragon shifter, I am roughly the size of a city bus. Now, please understand—it has been many years since my first shift, and I am in full and complete control of my dragon. I will never, in any way, shape, or form, harm you. You will be perfectly safe at all times. Basically, I’m trying to say that, you might be afraid at first, but don’t worry. I won’t hurt you. I swear on my life.”
Katra couldn’t do anything more than nod her head a second time, and, after another hesitant moment, Finley finally nodded as well before taking a step back.
When a shifter first shifts, usually around the age of puberty, it is usually a long, drawn out, painful ordeal. It’s not until after many years of shifting that the process becomes almost instantaneous, and it quickly became clear that dragon shifters were no exception, even though the size of their animal drastically differs from other shifters. The entire process of Finley shifting—from start to finish—was perhaps no more than four or five seconds, and in the space of a few breaths, Katra found herself staring up at a long, sleek, deep red dragon. His neck was roughly as long as her whole body, and his tail was twice that, adorned with blunt spikes that travelled all the way up his spine to the top of his head, where they ended in six spikes that ringed the top of his head like a crown. His snout was long, lean and wolf-shaped, and little puffs of smoke drifted in mesmerizing swirls from his nostrils. He stared down at her with the same deep ocean blue eyes, only the pupils of his eyes were now in the shape of a slit, like a cat’s eye.
He stared at her for a few breaths, the tendrils of smoke continuing to drift up from his snout, as if he was waiting for her to freak out. To be fair, any other person probably would have based on his massive size and the sheer number of massive, razor-sharp teeth lining his mouth, but, previous shock aside, Katra found herself oddly unperturbed by his dragon, so she simply stared back at him without an ounce of emotion as she waited for him to get on with it.
Finally, as though satisfied by her reaction (or lack thereof), turned to face Jakob’s body.
“I don’t know if you want to watch this.” Marclan said softly behind her, and she nearly jumped as she had completely forgotten he was still there, even though his heavy arm continued to rest across her shoulders.
“I have to.” This was really the only response she could muster.
“Did you want to say something first?”
Katra gazed down at her father’s body, at his brown hair, his lean form, and his closed eyes that she would never see again. She tugged at the bracelet on her wrist, mapping out the shape of each of the little star charms with her fingers as she tried to think of what she could possibly say.
“I’m sorry. I wish…I’m just sorry.”
She could see Marclan watching her out of her peripheral vision, and she was vaguely perplexed by the unidentifiable emotion on his face. Marclan, though not as intense as Kaster, was nearly as unreadable as the other dragon, but where Kaster was all simmering intensity and heated power, Marclan was withdrawn, almost shy, but with a veiled power all his own. She almost found herself craving his quiet strength, though she gladly wrote it off as post-trauma behavior.
A rush of bright, white-hot fire burst forth, drawing her attention back to the moment that was unveiling itself before her. She watched in awe as Finley’s fire enveloped her father’s body, to the point where she could no longer see him. It was bright to the point of blinding, but Katra did not look away. Perhaps it was her own affinity to fire, but what should have been a retina-searing sight was nothing for her. She simply watched, until the fire stopped and there was nothing but a pile of ash sitting before her.
Moments later, Finley stepped up next to her in his human form.
Everything about this moment in time seemed strange, as if reality itself had been laced with some kind of hallucinogenic, giving it a fuzzy, dreamlike feel. Even the three dragons surrounding her, towering over her tiny form, felt unreal. They were strangers, mercenaries hired to bring her in to some creepy employer, but no wait—now they don’t want to bring her in (well, two out of three didn’t want to bring her in). They want to help her, of all things. If she didn’t know any better, she would have believed that she was dreaming and would wake up at any moment to regale her father with her strange and bizarre dream as he sat at his desk with a historical volume open in front of him and his attention only half on what she was saying.
But this wasn’t a dream, and Marclan’s heavy arm suddenly felt suffocating as she shrugged it off and turned to face the dragon shifters.
“What do we do now?”
Apparently, the three dragon shifters really seemed to care about her.
Well, two did. One seemed to tolerate her.
This thought circled around in her mind as she sat in the small cottage. Daromir had said that the only people who could go through the wards were people who meant her no harm, and sure enough, all three brothers had stepped into the cottage without any trouble whatsoever.
It was quite possibly the most perplexing issue to come into Katra’s life, phoenix shifter status notwithstanding.
The little cottage itself was, simply put, completely quaint, and also completely not what she was expecting from the extravagant and quixotic Daromir. He was odd and quirky and anything but ordinary, so seeing the interior of the tiny cottage decorated with a few, small pieces of handmade furniture and not a single decorative vase or painting or mirror was downright bizarre. She would even go so far as to say there was no way this place could have really been Daromir’s. It just didn’t fit.
But she really liked the small sofa she was currently curled up in, with a mug of tea steaming away in her hands. It was Marclan who had put the kettle on the gas stove to boil, not even asking if she wanted any tea, simply taking the initiative as soon as his eyes fell on the kettle beside the stove. He had then begun shifting around in cupboards until he found a box of loose leaf jasmine tea, the same tea that was currently wafting its soothing scent into Katra’s nose, easing her addled mind.
“I think the first order of business is to find out as much as we can about Alekter. He’s clearly not the person he made himself out to be, but damn if he isn’t a fucking fantastic actor.” Kaster’s gruff voice filled the space abruptly, and Katra glanced up at him from her cup of tea as he paced the short length of the cottage, arms crossed and head down in concentration.
Or perhaps irritation. It was hard to tell.
“What does he look like?” Katra asked curiously.
“A crazy old kook.” Finley responded dryly. “But, you know—one in his late 20’s.”
Kaster reached into his pocket and pulled out a smartphone, swiping his finger over the screen and then tapping quickly. “I’ll put a line out to some of our connections. Since there were other people after her, then who knows how many people heard about the hit he put out. Someone might have more information on him.”
Were there still more people out there wanting to bring her in to this mysterious Alekter? She really hoped that Daromir’s wards he placed on the cottage lived up to their owner’s reputation.
“You know…it would really help to know just what kind of shifter you are.” Kaster’s rough voice was aimed at her.
She felt her hackles rise as her gaze fell on his, though she refused to back down to the silent accusation resting there. “And how would that help?”
“What if he’s looking for a certain kind of shifter? Maybe he’s searching for someone in particular, not just a thief, but a type of shifter that he needs for something. From the way Daromir was talking, this Alekter has some very bad plans, and it seems like you’re directly tied in with those plans. The only reason I can see for that would be due to the type of shifter you are.”
Katra crossed her arms tightly over her chest, not only as a sure-fire way of making clear that she was not offering up that information any time soon, but also as a silent mockery of Kaster, who’s arms were crossed in much the same way. It was a ‘two can play at this game’ gesture, and she was able to see its obvious effectiveness from the increasing intensity in Kaster’s gaze as it briefly flicked down to her arms before moving back up to her eyes.
“You don’t need to know anything about me.”
It was clear in Kaster’s eyes that he felt her demeanor was a challenge as the muscles in his biceps bulged, and if it were possible, he seemed to grow even taller right before her eyes. It was a clear intimidation tactic, though not one that would work on her.
Marclan must have seen it as well, because he took that moment to step between Kaster and Katra, both hands up and facing outwards towards the two in a placating manner. He was quite obviously the peacemaker of the group as he glanced back and forth between Kaster and Katra with undisguised anxiety written on his face. “Look. We’ll see what we can dig up with the information we have and go from there. Let’s just wait and see what comes up. Okay?” His eyes were glued on Kaster now, as if he were fully aware that the dragon shifter was the one who needed the most calming.
Katra was completely fine with that way of thinking. Let them think she was harmless.
The attempt at peacekeeping seemed to ruffle Kaster’s proverbial feathers even more, and his heated glare turned on Marclan. “Always trying to make things better, aren’t you? Ever since we were kids, trying to fix everything. Thought you would have learned by now that you can’t make it all better. None of us can.” With that, he stomped out of the cottage, off to gods only knew where.
The look on Marclan’s face was almost enough to break Katra’s heart, if it weren’t already broken in pieces at her feet, and she watched with growing sympathy as he quietly made his way to the back of the cottage, where a small back door led out to the jagged cliffs. His entrance was considerably less dramatic than Kaster’s, almost as if he were afraid to disturb anyone by leaving.
It could not have been clearer to her at that moment that Marclan the dragon shifter was gifted with a heart too big for this world.
“So, um…if you don’t mind my prying…I’m guessing your mom is gone too.”
Katra jumped, almost spilling some of the tea in her handmade mug, and she peered over at Finley in surprise as he stood at the end of the sofa. Every time her focus would zero-in on one of the shifters, it was like the rest of the world fell away, like it ceased to exist for just that one moment in time.
She shifted uncomfortably for a few seconds, not quite willing to answer.
“Our mother is gone, too. She died when I was 12. Our father died at the same time.”
Her discomfort increased. She’d never had any experience with comforting someone who’d lost a loved one, being that she’d never been around anyone long enough to get to that point, but she felt as though she was supposed to say something to make him…feel better? She wasn’t even sure if he actually felt bad at the moment, considering his loss had happened so long ago.
“Yeah. She died when I was 7.” If she couldn’t comfort, she could at least state the facts.
Finley nodded, not in agreement, but understanding. “That’s young. Do you remember her well?”
Katra took a deep, shaky breath before shaking her head. “No. It’s more like…bits and pieces. I remember her in certain moments. And I remember the kind of woman she was. Strong. Forceful. Where my dad was quiet and contemplative, my mother was vibrant and lively. She was a southern woman, and she didn’t let anyone tell her what to do. She was very territorial, like her lioness, but mostly only with people, not things. There was never anyone as fierce as her.” She felt a welling sense of pride at being able to describe how amazing her mother was.
Finley remained quiet for a moment before he spoke again. “About your father…”
“Um…yeah?” She wasn’t entirely sure if she was comfortable talking about her father yet, and even though she’d just gone into as more detail about her mother than she’d ever thought herself capable of doing, the loss of her father was too fresh in her heart and mind, and Finley was still a complete stranger. What right did a complete stranger have to share in her recent loss?
Although, technically, due to her lifestyle, everyone was a complete stranger.
“Was he a historian? I saw a lot of historical volumes back at that cabin you were at when we first found you. Some of those…some were first editions, hundreds of years old.” Finley moved to sit at the other end of the sofa as he spoke.
Ah. This was something she could happily talk about.
“Yes. He was a historian, specifically a supernatural historian. He knew pretty much everything about everything. He knew all the details of every war—his favorite was the War of Elves back in the late 1400’s, when the dark elves and light elves battled over the Blessed Realm—and he could tell you every single little event that led up to them. His favorite thing to study though was rare and extinct supernatural races, which is really difficult, you know, since there is so little information about them. All he really had to work with was myths and legends, stories passed down from person to person. You wouldn’t believe how many people he’s interviewed in his lifetime. He’s traveled the world to track down as many stories as he can, from Tibet to Lithuania to Burundi to Peru to Somalia to Russia. He’s been to every landmass multiple times. But…most of that was before I was born. When I came along, he stopped. I mean, granted, he cut back a lot on his traveling when he met and married my mother, but…with me, he stopped altogether. He never stopped reading, though, and over his life he had acquired many friends around the world who would send him historical volumes when they were able to. I remember this one time, he received a package in the mail, and when he opened it—dear gods, you’d think someone was killing him with how loud he was yelling. My mom freaked out and knocked over a chair running into the kitchen. She just about killed him when she realized it was just a few parchments about hellhounds. I mean, they were really, really old parchments—might have even been written on papyrus for all I know and looked like they were going to crumble into dust at any second—but still…she wasn’t pleased.” Katra smiled and chuckled softly at the memory as she glanced over at Finley.
The expression on his face was one she recognized instantly, because she had seen it on her father’s face more than a few times. It was complete and total fascination.
Finley was a history fanatic.
“You’re a total history nut, aren’t you?” She couldn’t help the slow grin that crept up her face as she watched him blink in surprise and quickly shut down any and all expression. “No, no—it’s too late for that. I’ve seen that look a million times every time my dad would read about history, or even just talk about history. You totally get off on it, don’t you?”
He looked completely aghast. “Well, now, I wouldn’t say I ‘get off on it’…”
Katra’s eyebrows lifted in disbelief. “Oh yeah? So tell me—if you had to choose between a girl and any one of my dad’s historical volumes, what would you choose?”
His mouth opened and closed before his eyebrows drew together in frustration.
“Yeah-huh. That’s what I thought. It’s okay. We all gotta be in love with something.”
Finley sighed with half-hearted irritation. “Yeah, well…don’t tell the ladies in on that little bit of information, okay?”
Leaning forward, she lowered her voice into a conspiratorial whisper. “Hey Finley.”
He leaned forward as well and dropped his voice to the same level as hers. “Yeah?”
“I don’t even know any ladies to tell it to.”
His head fell back as he guffawed loudly, and his hand smacked against her thigh once, causing her to jump in surprise. “You’re quite the girl, you know that? Just make sure, if you ever do happen to fall into acquaintanceship with a lady, that you don’t tell her.”
“Cross my heart.” She made the motion of crossing her heart as she spoke. “But if you want my opinion? Eh, well—I’m gonna give it to you whether you want it or not. In my opinion, it shouldn’t matter. The right girl won’t give a flying fuck if you’re cuckoo for history. In fact, the right lady will love that about you. Buuuut, then again, it kinda sounds like you’re not really looking for that type of lady. Am I right, Mr. Player?” She quirked a sarcastic grin in his direction, thoroughly enjoying this rare opportunity to joke with and tease someone as if…well, as if they were friends.
He placed his hand over his heart in feigned insult. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m a gentleman, thank you kindly.”
“A gentleman who’s conquests number in the upper hundreds?”
His eyes narrowed to glare at her. “Hey, now. First of all, I do not ‘conquest’. I am not a conquistador. I just happen to enjoy women’s company, and they enjoy mine. And also—low hundreds, thank you kindly.”
It was Katra’s turn to laugh, something that sounded strange and slightly off to her, seeing as how it was not an act she engaged in frequently. “Okay, okay. Sorry.” She wiped a few tears of laughter from her eyes.
They were silent for a moment after that as she sipped her quickly cooling tea and stared out the window at the cloudy, grey sky overhead. It was a beautiful place, no doubt of that, and she could easily see herself living the rest of her days in a place like this, quietly minding her own business and reading books, or perhaps learning to garden. Maybe she could even read books that teach you how to garden. It sounded fantastic.
And highly unlikely.
“I guess your father’s underlying knowledge of rare and extinct supernaturals was pretty useful when you guys discovered you were a phoenix shifter, huh?”