Seven
Calypso
“Dragon?” I inched closer to Azulin. I wasn’t sure he was particularly trustworthy, but something about him felt safe. And injured and vulnerable in this nightmare of a labyrinth, I couldn’t be picky. He had proven he valued my life enough to save it multiple times. For now, that would have to be adequate.
“There are no dragons.” The fae king growled, anger rolling off him in waves of prickling magic. “Only dragon shifters.”
I had heard of dragon shifters—men who could shift into dragons like my people could shift into cats. Unlike us, they weren’t mortal in either form. Long-lived like elves, powerful like gargoyles, and wily like fae, dragon shifters were formidable and frightening.
“Only fools mess with dragon shifters,” the pooka declared.
“What do we do?” I asked.
The rumble of the labyrinth shifting and walls moving signaled the end of our break. This time they didn’t narrow, they began widening as though preparing for a large creature.
“Shift,” Azulin instructed. “We survey the damage. If he is aware enough, we can reason with him.”
“Or her,” the pooka added.
“As far as I know there are no female dragons left. However, if it is female, you can try to use some of your persuasion skills.”
The pooka glared at the king. I shifted into my cat form with surprising ease. Each transformation continued to be smoother. I crawled to practically sit on Azulin’s boot. My back leg ached, but it no longer throbbed like it had before. I hoped that was a sign the bandage’s spell was working.
Azulin calmly picked me up and settled me against his ribs. “Let me guess. Dragons aren’t your type either.”
The pooka rolled his eyes. “Not in their draconic form.”
“A shame.”
The pooka snorted, and I laughed. It came out as a trilling chirp sound. Azulin glanced down at me without slowing his pace.
“What was that?” the pooka asked as he pranced around us in his horse form.
“A laugh, I suspect.” Azulin jutted his chin at the path. “Intersection ahead.” He drew his sword and dropped it down so it hid behind his leg.
“You know that thing is glowing, right?” The pooka transformed into a man again as the passage narrowed again.
“I do. I just don’t want it to be the first thing the dragon sees.”
“Good luck with that.” Drawing the short sword Azulin had given him, the pooka whipped it around and edged in front of us. “I assume we’re going to use the same tactics as with the ogre.”
I hissed.
“I agree with Calypso,” Azulin responded. “Considering I have no confidence in my ability to face a potentially crazed dragon shifter, you playing bait would be foolish and possibly fatal. As annoying as you are, I don’t want you dead.”
The pooka offered Azulin a mocking half bow without slowing his pace. “A fact I appreciate. However, we might not have much time to come up with an alternative plan. Any options for escape?” He arched an eyebrow at the fae king as the surrounding passage began morphing and moving, forcing them to jog. The change jostled me against Azulin’s side, but his gait remained surprisingly smooth.
“There is hope I may be able to portal us out, but I dare not risk your lives unless there are no alternatives.” Azulin’s whole body tensed, and I could hear his heart rate increasing despite his cool expression. “If I signal, make your way to me immediately. There will only be time to make one attempt. No return trips.”
“Who wouldn’t want to return to such a welcoming place?” The pooka smirked and rolled his eyes. “Banshees, ogres, sea monsters, lava, poison, and now dragons.” He shrugged. “All in a day’s work.”
As though in response to the pooka’s sarcasm, the ground rumbled and shook. I sank my claws into Azulin’s tunic front as his footfalls became irregular and unsteady. The walls rippled and the floor beneath us heaved, throwing both men off their feet. Azulin’s arm tightened around me as he hunched his shoulders to protect me as we landed on the seesawing ground.
A roar blasted our ears amidst the rumbling and grinding of stone against stone.
“Is it me or is that getting closer?” the pooka yelled.
“The curse is getting impatient.”
“Is this normal?” the pooka asked as the bucking ground threw him against a wall. He hit it with a painful grunt.
Before Azulin could answer, the floor dropped out from under us.
∞∞∞
Azulin
I lost my grip on Calypso when I hit the ground. She sprang from my arms, spitting and hissing as she scrambled for safety. The nearest shelter happened to be behind a boulder from a collapsed section of wall that had fallen from above. More chunks of stone and ash rained down as the passage we had been traveling along disintegrated around us.
Scrambling to my feet, I barely missed being crushed by a chunk of stone about double my size. I ached all over from the earlier fall. Nursing my side, I scanned the unfamiliar terrain for my companions.
Calypso hadn’t moved from her shelter, but the pooka was harder to spot.
A cavernous room spread out around us, dark and smoky; the air hung heavy with magic and the oppressive heat that dragon shifters produced in their draconic form. With the floor littered with rocks, boulders, and broken-up patches of stone slab, navigating was going to be difficult. A harsh cough came from behind me.
“Where’s the cat?” The pooka approached. The handkerchief around his neck was over his nose and mouth again. Despite it, he coughed again.
I didn’t blame him. With all the ash and smoke, my throat itched as well, and my lungs were already laboring more than usual. Coughing fits would soon follow.
“She is under a boulder over there.” Seeing the pooka’s widening eyes, I rushed to clarify. “She’s hiding. I dropped her when we fell. She seemed unharmed.” However, I was aware it could’ve only been pure adrenaline spurring her to foolish speed despite her injury. “Have you spotted the dragon shifter?”
A roar with an accompanying burst of flame and ash exploded above our heads and to the left.
Both the pooka and I ducked. Seeking shelter behind the boulder that had almost crushed me, I closed my eyes briefly as the wave of heat washed over us.
“So, is it worth trying to persuade him or her to—?”
I shook my head before the pooka even finished. “No. Let me collect Calypso, then I will attempt to open the portal.”
The pooka’s eyes widened as his attention moved upward. “Best get going on that. The dragon has spotted us. Duck!”
The pooka and I squashed ourselves back-to-back behind the boulder again. We barely pulled arms and feet out of reach before when the dragon blasted it and all the surroundings with an inferno of fire that made the air painful to breathe. I longed for a kerchief like the pooka’s that I could spell to filter the air for me.
In the midst of the blast, I heard Calypso cry out in pain.
A strangely intense anger swept through me. The vine on my right forearm throbbed. I didn’t have time to fully consider the implications of the strength of my response, but I knew for certain I couldn’t walk away from her fully after this. With a groan, I shoved myself off the boulder and into a crouch.
The moment the inferno cut off, I leaped for Calypso’s hiding place. Ignoring the smell and pain of the nearly molten rock singeing my palms, I scrambled over the debris toward where I had last seen her.
“Calypso,” I called. “Come to me. I’ll get us out of here.”
Her small soot-streaked cat face peered at me from a crevice beneath a precariously balanced boulder. The fire had completely missed her.
The dragon drew a great breath that pulled most of the air from the room. Calypso’s silvery eyes widened in horror as we both realized what that meant. Out in the open like I was, I was exposed, and the dragon’s next blast would catch me unprotected.
We were running out of time.
“Pooka!” I yelled as I dove for Calypso. She met me halfway, limping heavily despite her haste.
“Coming!”
Calypso launched her small body at me, and the moment my hands closed around her, I reached for my magic.
The familiar eagerness of my pre-curse magic responded to my command, and a portal immediately opened before us.
The dragon’s roar signaled the beginning of his blast. I stepped through the portal.
“Pooka!”
“Here!” He raced toward us and threw himself through the golden circle I had created.
I snapped it closed practically the moment his boots crossed the threshold. And not a moment too soon. A wall of heat burned across my face and my tunic began smoking. Calypso whimpered.
“About time,” the pooka declared. He lifted his head from where he lay sprawled at my feet. “Nothing like cutting things too close for comfort. I think you melted my boots.”
“Be thankful you have feet.” I grimaced as the curse fought me for control of my magic. Fearing I would lose the battle at any moment, I set Calypso on the ground.
“I am grateful.” The pooka let his head fall back so he could stare at the sky. “I just hate to see a perfectly good pair of boots ruined.”
The moment Calypso left my arms, the curse crowded into the gap her magic had left behind. It clawed at me, trying to rip me apart in different directions. I set my jaw and prepared for the excruciating pain, but it never came. Instead, exhaustion hit me like a solid wall, knocking me to my knees. I collapsed in the grass, slowing my descent with my burnt hands.
“What’s wrong?” the pooka asked.
“Azulin?” Calypso’s concerned query reached me right before I passed out.
∞∞∞
Calypso
It was strangely disconcerting to transition from cat to human. Balancing with a tail versus without a tail felt strange.
However, it didn’t frighten me like the sight of Azulin collapsing onto his hands and knees in the singed grass around where his portal had dumped us. The flame over my head blinked out and darkness descended.
“What’s wrong?” The pooka scrambled to his feet with strangely unreal speed.
“Azulin?” Taking a step before I recalled my injured foot, I gasped in pain but put weight on it, regardless. I stumbled, falling short of Azulin as he collapsed face-first in the dirt. Not giving up, I dragged myself to him and wrestled him onto his side so he wouldn’t suffocate. “What’s wrong with him?” I asked, glancing up at the pooka standing over us, the full moon at his back, casting him in shadow.
Then he turned his head, I caught my first glimpse of the unnamed pooka in the moonlight. He made a striking image standing there, his jet-black hair ruffling in the breeze and fanning over his forehead. Beneath his inky brows, his eyes shone an unnaturally vibrant green as he narrowed them at me. He looked back and forth between me and Azulin, which made me suspect he was assessing the way our magic entwined. The longer he studied us, the deeper his frown grew.
“I suspect it’s the moon.” The pooka nodded toward the orb behind him. “The curse hasn’t been completely broken, but you defanged some of its bite. However, as long as the moon is full, he’s going to have to continue to fight the curse.” He glanced over his shoulder. “And since the moon is at its pinnacle for this cycle, he should regain his strength as it wanes.”
“But what do we do while we wait for that?” I asked. Scanning our surroundings, my panic increased. “We’re exposed out here in the center of a strange field.”
“Not strange.” The pooka frowned at the stars above us. “We’re a dozen miles or so north of the Wild Woods’ border and a handful of miles south of the Miliander River that marks the meeting of Unseelie and Seelie lands.” He turned in a circle, surveying our surroundings. “Though you are correct that we need to seek shelter. The high fae’s impressive display of magic has caught the attention of the locals. Establish skin-to-skin contact with him and stay out of sight while I speak to the curious herd approaching from the south.” He motioned toward the approaching group. I could see them only dimly in the moonlight despite the glow their light sources gave off.
Hunkering down close to Azulin, I sought out his limp hand and threaded our fingers together. Pressing our palms flush, I watched over Azulin’s still body as the pooka reached the approaching fae.
At that distance, the most I could hear was the rise and fall of the conversation’s volume. Occasionally, one of the fae would gesture toward where Azulin and I waited. When they did, the pooka would shake his head and motion back the way they had come. Finally, one of the group threw his hands in the air and glared at the pooka. A second fae shook a finger in the pooka’s face. Then the whole group turned their back on him and marched away. After a moment, the pooka started back toward us.
“Get everything together. We need to move. Quickly. Roll him on his stomach. I’m going to have to carry both of you.”
I complied so Azulin lay prone, his head turned so he might not suffocate in the grass and dirt. “Why the haste?” I asked, scrambling to my feet as best I could with one lame ankle.
“The land owners are displeased with our presence and have already alerted the local authorities. The Unseelie king won’t be tickled that his pet victim escaped his new snare, so unless we want to leave Azulin to his fate, I suggest we best get moving.” The pooka surveyed Azulin’s position. “Lift him slightly on this side. I need enough space to get under him in my rabbit form. Once I change into a horse, you’ll have to find your own way onto my back because I won’t be able to help.”
“Understood.” Grabbing fistfuls of Azulin’s tunic, I pulled with all my might.
Azulin was heavy. But considering he was twice my size and well-muscled, the fact I could move him at all was miraculous. I’d barely lifted his shoulder when the pooka barked at me to stop and hold.
I only managed to comply for a few moments before my strength began to give out, but apparently that was enough. The pooka became a rabbit, scooted under Azulin, and transformed into a horse, lifting Azulin’s unconscious body onto his back. By some miracle of magic or trickery, he stated on.
“Get up. Fast,” the pooka ordered. With the king’s body slung over the stallion’s back and shoulders, it left little room for me to climb up, but I intended to try. I didn’t want to be left behind after all of this.
“Centaurs incoming,” he warned, pawing the ground in his impatience. “I can outrun them, but you have to get on now.”
With a running start, despite my aching ankle, I jumped for the pooka’s back. I managed to sling myself over the halfway point. The pooka didn’t wait for me to adjust my position before he started galloping for the tree line to the north.
Apparently, not a moment too soon. The pounding approach of a herd’s worth of hooves thundered around my bobbing head. Pressing my hands against the pooka’s side, I tried to lift my head to look around. I glimpsed flashing hooves and heaving horse flanks. A glint of moonlight on a metal weapon caught my eye just as someone yelled for us to stop.
“Not a chance,” the pooka replied. A swell of magic tickled my nose, and I sneezed. Losing my balance, I face planted against his side. Disoriented and bouncing painfully across the pooka’s spine, I missed whatever spell he released.
One moment we were surrounded and the next we were galloping across an open field with no one nearby. Angry shouts in the distance made me strain to look back. The centaurs were far behind us brandishing weapons and hollering.
“We are approaching the river. Hold on.” The pooka’s magic swelled around us, tickling my nose again. I sneezed hard just as he leaped into the air, so I missed whatever it was we hit. It might’ve been a spell, flooding in like a great prickly blanket of watchfulness. Whatever it was, it held us a moment in midair as it prodded at me, and I glimpsed the roaring white water beneath us. The wild, churning waves reached for us unhindered by the strange time suspension that affected us. But the water couldn’t do more than spray the pooka’s hooves and sprinkle my forearms and feet before the spell released us.
It spat us out onto the opposite bank in a chaotic jumble of limbs and bodies. Somehow the pooka transformed into his human form, landing in a graceful roll and elegantly bouncing up onto his feet. Meanwhile, unconscious Azulin and I collapsed in an untidy heap.
Azulin let out a pained groan, but I had no air to make noise. It had all vacated my lungs when I hit the ground. I closed my eyes, blocking out the velvety sky above us and focusing on trying to draw in breath. Somehow Azulin’s hand had found mine, and his fingers locked with mine so that I couldn’t separate them if I wished. Strangely, my breathing eased.
I hurt so badly that I didn’t even register the thundering of approaching hooves until a new arrival drew up his mount in a shower of dirt clods that peppered my face.
“Unhand the king!” a harsh voice ordered. He jumped down from his horse with a flare of magic that made my whole body tighten in pain. Stalking forward to stand over me, he kicked more dirt in my face. “Release the king, or I will remove your hand from your body.”
I blinked up at him in confusion.
Azulin stirred next to me. “Ghost, you will do no such—” Azulin erupted into a ragged coughing fit. Rolling onto his side, he struggled to breathe for a moment. But through it all, he never let go of my hand. Instead, he pulled it closer to his chest as he coughed.
“Sire?”
I couldn’t get a good look at the new arrival, but his shadow in the darkness appeared massive as he loomed above us, blocking out the stars.
“Leave him a moment and he will recover,” the pooka advised. “We’ve been through an ordeal.”
The new arrival stiffened. “And who might you be?”
The heavy sensation of magic brushed past me. This time I wasn’t the target; the pooka was.
True to form, the pooka laughed. “Wouldn’t you like to know, O intimidating one? Your spells won’t work on me any more than your heavy-handed skills will force me to answer any of your questions. Pookas are immune to persuasive magic.”
The fae’s dark throaty laugh held no humor. “All the better for me. I’ll get to use a more hands-on approach with you, miscreant.”
“Ghost,” Azulin whispered hoarsely. I could barely hear him, but the man looming above us snapped to attention.
“Sire?”
Azulin groaned. “Leave the pooka alone. He just saved my life.” His voice rasped in his throat in a way that didn’t sound healthy.
Ghost bowed. “Perhaps you can explain, sire, after you have seen the royal healer. That cough doesn’t sound good.”
“No.” Azulin sat up, which brought on more coughing.
I tried to extract my fingers from his clasp in order to get out of his way, since he clearly intended to stand, but Azulin tightened his grip, preventing my escape.
“We visit this one’s village first.”