Kerry Schafer - Wakeworld

He tried to kill me.

“He tried to kill the sister you were pretending to be. Let me have him.”

No.

“Fine.” Vivian dropped the Key. “All of us, or none of us. That’s the bargain.”

A cry of rage, a puff of flame. Great wings clapped together in the air above the dragon’s back.

Vivian stood her ground, one arm shielding her face from the dust storm kicked up by the dragon’s wings. Zee was on his feet beside her now, steadying her with his warm presence, helping her stand braced against the onslaught.

At last the great wings stilled and the dragon quieted.

You may pick up your comrade.

The monstrous foot lifted, and Zee dragged Weston as far away as the limited space allowed. Vivian ran to join him. The old Dreamshifter’s chest barely rose and fell in rapid, shallow breaths. His skin was hot with fever. When Vivian’s hand touched his forehead his eyes opened, unfocused at first but clearing.

“Spiked me,” he whispered.

Oh no. No, no, no. Tearing away his shirt she found the marks on his shoulder where the talons had pierced his skin.

“What is it, Viv? What’s wrong with him?”

“Dragon venom.”

“It’s all right,” Weston said. His lips twisted into a smile. “Looks like I’m gonna burn one way or another. Funny how it all works out.”

“Shhh,” Vivian murmured, smoothing his forehead. “Don’t try to talk.”

Weston tossed his head side to side, restless with the fever and the pain. “Damned dragon reached right inside my head and picked up on my memories of Grace. Smart enough to age her to look like me . . .”

“How did you know?” Zee asked. “That it wasn’t your sister, I mean?”

“Grace always called me Morgan. She—” His words cut off as his body jerked in a sudden spasm and then went limp.

“Weston, wake up, stay with me!”

But his head lolled on his shoulders and his eyes didn’t open.

“Can’t you do something?” Zee asked.

Vivian shook her head, fighting back the sobs. She’d dragged Weston here, put him through so much heartbreak. This was so wrong, so unjust, that he should die, in the end, for nothing. And she couldn’t even pretend he was going to a better place. Her chest felt so tight she couldn’t catch her breath. Tears traced a cold path down her cheeks as she bent and pressed her lips against his hot forehead. “Say hello to my grandfather. And tell him I’m coming.”

Enough of this wailing, the Black Dragon said. Leave him or bring him, I care not. But if you don’t wish your Warrior to join him, we go now.

Without another word, Vivian picked up Poe, Zee dragged Weston up over his shoulder, and they climbed onto the dragon’s back for the flight to the Black Gates.

Sentient stone just wasn’t possible, but Vivian felt the Gates respond to her approach with what felt like watchful consciousness. The Key in her hand began to hum and the Gates responded, producing a chord that ran across her skin in waves of sheer pleasure. Her heart leaped in exultation and the word home chimed in her heart.

Behind her, the thudding steps of approaching giants shook the earth in a regular rhythm. Above, the sun was blocked out by dragons flying in formation. Wind created by their wings buffeted her face and hair. So strange, and yet so familiar.

Maybe she had dreamed this moment or maybe it was truly what it seemed—her destiny. Her body moved without volition, drawn toward the singing Gates by an invisible attraction. Metal to magnet. Moth to flame. It didn’t matter which.

Poe planted himself in front of her at a complete standstill, and she nearly tripped over him. When she tried to sidestep, he moved with her. Zee called her name, but his voice was no more than a faint tug. Even the thought of Weston, burning up from the inside out, held little meaning.

Vivian moved around the penguin and kept walking. The Gates were almost within reach now. A narrow beam of blue light shone through the keyhole—an octagonal shape that was a perfect match for the carved end of the cylindrical Key. It was that light that made her pause. Weston’s face flashed through her mind—night, a campfire, a cup of something bitter.

Dragons fighting over a woman who stood quiet and self-possessed among them, holding a baby in her arms. The wailing of a child. A dragon, black as night with eyes of flame, snuffing out all living things.

Vivian could feel the impatience of the Black Dragon, an irrefutable force, like gravity or light.

Open the Gates.

“Not yet.” Resistance was difficult. Her tongue felt heavy and thick, but she was the Chosen and the Key in her hand gave her power. Besides, she had her pendant back, and whatever spell had been cast over her seemed to be broken. No more crushing pain when she thought her own thoughts.

The Black Dragon roared, a spine-chilling sound. Open the Gates. Keep your promise.

In that moment, Vivian felt all the parts of her coalesce—sorceress, Dreamshifter, a tiny remaining spark of dragon. And above and beyond all, her own consciousness, Vivian, binding them all into one. She could open the Gates if she chose, or leave them closed, but it would be a decision made freely.

She thought about Jared, twisted and ruined by forces beyond his ability to resist. About Zee, so deeply wounded in body and in spirit, and Weston dying from the dragon poison. She pondered the child the dragon carried—Zee’s child—and all of the things that might mean. She thought about the dying dreamspheres in the cave, and the undead Dreamshifters caught in some sort of special hell.

So many things that might happen if she opened this Gate, so many things that might happen if she didn’t, two paths, both shrouded in mist and uncertainty. But one thing shifted the balance—the destruction and darkness and nothingness that followed the path of the dragon—and she understood at last what she must do.

She turned toward the Gates and lifted the Key. It was drawn to the keyhole, as though that ray of blue light had magnetic properties, and clicked into the lock with a sensation of completion that ran through Vivian from head to toe.

Home.

An odd euphoria, unlike any emotion she had ever felt before. A crack grew and widened between the two halves, and they swung slowly inward. Tendrils of mist swirled out through the opening, wreathing around her with a living touch, preventing even a glimpse of what lay beyond.

The desire to enter was intense, testing her resolve, and she would never be sure what she might have done if the rest was not decided for her. A gust of wind knocked her flat on her back, in time to see the Black Dragon fly low over her head and through the Gates. Hundreds of dragons followed, their wings creating a gale-force wind that dropped everybody, even the giants, to their knees. Vivian covered her eyes, blinded in part by dust and even more by the intensity of rainbow light refracting off millions of mirror-bright scales.

When the last dragon passed through the Gates, for a moment the plain fell silent. Then the voices of the giants rang out in a shout that shook the earth. They got to their feet and began to march—not toward the Gates, but away, back across the valley.

All except for one.

A female giant separated from the others and approached the Gates. Zee moved to intercept, but she ignored him, bending over Weston’s body.

“Leave him in peace!” Vivian said, turning away from the Gates and her deep desire. “Enough harm has been done today.”

The giant woman looked up, surprised. “Do you want him to die?”

Vivian could sense the dragons flying away into the Forever, and the lure of following was a driving physical need. It was difficult to pay attention, to find words, but this was Weston’s life at stake.