Chapter 20 #2
A radiant purple light shone, bursting from the nib like a sword blade, and Leo wielded it much like Lia and Kayce had.
He lunged for the dragon, but the beast was ready.
Claws met amethyst, and sparks flew in a cascade of colors.
The older man moved with a foreign fluidity, parrying left and right while the dragon grew more agitated.
“We need to get in there—” It was all Kayce could manage. The blood drained from his face, his legs giving out as he took a step to rejoin the fray. The sword clattered to the floor.
And Lia’s heart stopped.
“MOM!” Her scream pierced the air as Lia rushed to him. Whipping off her sweater to press into the near-perfect cuts, she cried out again. “Mom, help me!”
Her mom fell to her knees beside them. “Keep the pressure on it,” she instructed, tearing the cloth away to assess Kayce’s chest. Her hands worked quickly. “Stuff it in the wound. It’s nothing stitches can’t fix.”
Kayce’s lips were bloodless; his brow glistened with a cold sweat. Lia jerked a nod, opening her mouth to speak, but Leo’s whistle captured their attention.
The dragon twisted, its barbed tail sailing through the air. Before it could knock Leo sideways, the pen flashed. Light morphed from the blade to form a rounded shield, under which Leo crouched as the spikes came hammering. Not one pierced the light, more sparks flying.
Far faster than reasonable for a man his age, he rolled to the side once the dragon let up, sprinting for its blood smeared across the tile.
Skidding to his knees, Leo struck down with the shield that had shifted to a pen again, scribbling furiously with a tool that was now imbued with the blood of the dragon, using the tile as parchment.
The letters glowed, illuminating Leo’s dark face. The dragon whirled on him. Jaws unhinged, the air smoldered, and embers spit forth as the dragon summoned fire.
Kayce’s hand trembled, but he tugged Lia closer, struggling to sit.
Lia’s pale face turned to his. Wasn’t there a line in a poem on how some believed the world ended in fire and some in ice? This couldn’t be that. She held his hand tighter, her mouth opening to speak, to say something—
Yet the heat never came.
“Look, you two,” her mom breathed, her voice filled with restrained relief. “No one’s dying today.”
Lia turned to look. Flames did appear—but they enveloped the dragon. The fiery embrace scorched horn to wing to claw until not even ashes remained. Only the familiar, faint scent of burnt paper. Burnt parchment, like Papa had smelled of…
Leo grinned, the light evaporating. Other patrons peeked out from their shelters at the growing silence.
Marcus, gasping for breath, appeared at the top of the escalator. He threw his hands in the air. “What’d I miss this time?”
Lia pressed Kayce’s knuckles to her cheek. He was safe. They were saved. He slumped against the floor, a flush on his cheeks and his gaze fixed on the ceiling. The words Lia had wanted to say evaporated. The relief, though, was short-lived.
“You were told to wait in the video store,” her mom admonished when Marcus inched forward, his expression shifting from exasperation to concern.
“Is Kayce okay?”
“I need to get him to the hospital.” She had that authoritative air about her, the nurse in her element. No room for argument.
“No,” Leo said, wincing as he stood with knees popping. “He has no records, and there will be enough questions about what happened here today. The Order can only do so much damage control.”
Her mom jerked a nod. “Fine. I have enough supplies at home to treat him.”
“Mom, how did that dragon get here?” Lia asked, keeping hold of Kayce’s hand as she pulled his arm over her shoulders to support him. Mom’s calm yet firm gaze settled on her as she supported Kayce’s other side. The tension in Lia loosened. She would make sure Kayce was all right.
“I take it those are not common,” Kayce managed weakly, his steps wooden.
“They aren’t,” Lia answered as they rushed for the exit. Her mom and Leo exchanged a look. And it was clear to Lia they were equally as confused as she was.
“Aurelia, I’m fine.” Kayce snapped, getting off the bed.
If he said that one more time, Lia would lose it. Patient or not.
“My mom said you shouldn’t be moving around,” she warned, blocking him as he made for her bedroom door. “Do you want to bleed all over another shirt?”
Why was he being such a stubborn mule about this?
He probably wishes I were Aurelia. She would never have wavered. Never had been so scared, frozen, useless. Helpless.
He wouldn’t really think that—he was her best friend. Right? But ever since they got back, he’d been tense. More than his injuries would impose—even after receiving a liter of IV fluids in their living room.
He glowered at her. “I have so much padding on, I doubt it will be much of an issue.” Beneath the white T-shirt he wore was a series of wraps, keeping at least an inch of gauze in place over newly stitched gashes.
She crossed her arms. “Then, please, be my guest and explain to her how you pulled your stitches a second time.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw before he sank onto the edge of her bed.
Scooping Fiore, who had naturally refused to leave his side since limping in from the car, Lia sat beside him.
It had taken her mom an hour, two rolls of gauze, a kitchen hand towel, and several dozen stitches to get the bleeding under control.
Lia had followed every order, a soldier under Mom’s command.
“You shouldn’t be going anywhere,” Lia admonished, scratching her cat behind the ear.
“If you think I’m staying here while you go to this Order meeting, you’re severely mistaken.”
There was that edge again.
He always was the worst patient. Then again, he had never quite had a wound this severe. He had collected minor cuts and abrasions from training with the rangers and his brothers. She thought Terranth gave him a black eye once, when he was sixteen.
But two gashes across his chest?
Lia barely suppressed a shudder. “You’re lucky it wasn’t your heart.”
Kayce shrugged, tension holding him upright. “Lucky it wasn’t your life.”
“If we had ducked into a store—”
“What?” he asked. “We could have been fine until your mother and Leo came to the rescue?”
“It would have been the smart thing. Better than becoming barbeque.”
“What about the others? Hiding isn’t what we do. Not as Norenthians, not as smugglers from good-for-nothing pirates, not as rangers—”
“Kayce, this isn’t a game!” At the mounting frustration in her tone, Fiore squirmed from her arms and darted under the bed.
But Lia couldn’t bring herself to care, hugging herself tighter under the guise of crossed arms. “How could you rush out there like this was the next adventure?” Lia pressed.
“You’re always jumping into things, but that was reckless. ”
“Because it’s not about an ‘adventure’.” Kayce fisted his hands. “Joining the Ranger’s Guild wasn’t a frivolous matter to me. It wasn’t about seeking a thrill. It was always about doing what was right, not what was fun. Together, we could have handled it. If you had trusted me—”
“Why didn’t you trust me? You don’t have plot armor here! You could’ve—” She cut herself off when his head snapped up, his gaze hard.
Lia wanted to melt into the floor and disappear as her words caught up to her.
“Could have what—died?” He sneered. “Yeah, because I can. Because I’m real.”
“Who are you trying to prove that to?”
Kayce’s stare burned right through her, his knuckles turning whiter.
“Is that what Norenth is to you—a game? And me—am I merely a toy to you, a piece for you to play with and relax when you need to escape?” He leaned in close, his voice low.
“You cannot corral me like the mother hen you claim me to be. I’m not an irresponsible boy you need to babysit.
I’m not this caricature of a prince bent on reckless endangerment and heists. ”
Lia’s breath hitched. This wasn’t about the dragon anymore. Kayce’s brows had drawn together the longer they stared at each other. Only several inches separated them, their breath and accusations filling the tense space.
“That’s—that’s not what I meant,” she stammered, frozen.
“But it’s what you said. We help people.
It shouldn’t matter where we are. It’s what we do.
” Anger splotched life back to his face and throat as he pointed to himself.
“It’s what I do. I couldn’t remain on the sidelines watching innocents suffer.
It’s why I started smuggling in the first place.
You, of all people, should know this. There was always risk.
” He shook his head. “I’m not a story. What about you?
If the Aurelia I knew isn’t real,” he muttered, “what does that mean about me?”
Shame engulfed her, stole her breath. Lia whirled toward the door, needing a moment to collect herself, to ease the pain at almost losing him before it made everything worse.
Because it never had been a game to her.
And it had never been about the adventure, either.
It was always about them, about being the truest version of herself without the masks she donned.
But today, in the face of death, she stood to lose everything.
Kayce’s reality wasn’t the problem—it had stared her in the face through his blood on her hands.
But in maintaining that Aurelia was fictional, that she wasn’t her…
she hated his point. Loathed it. As Lia, there were expectations here.
But she had moved into action when his life was on the line.
Could she be that way if she allowed herself to be?
“You’re more to me than you could ever know.” She angled her face away from him, eyes pricking. He didn’t need her tears. “Rest, okay?” Her voice cracked. “You’ll come to the meeting.”
The bed creaked as Kayce stood behind her, but Lia was already gone.
There was truth to his words, that’s probably why they stung so deeply.
But facing what he said, facing him—how could she say she feared for his life more than her own right now?
That meant dealing with feelings and emotions she wasn’t ready to address yet.
There was too much already, too much going on.
But she would have to decide who she was, in this body that had become both Lia of Earth and Aurelia of Norenth. Because when presented another opportunity, she knew she wouldn’t have luck on her side again.