Chapter 6
“WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO do?” Zig asked as he all but ran to keep up with my strides. “Did you see that? They just popped out of existence!” He waved his hands, and a playing card appeared between his fingers. “I can make objects appear and disappear from sight but not evaporate altogether.”
I ground my teeth. “I know.” My mind spun with possibilities, but I came up empty.
I couldn’t fight the mages. They were powerful if they were able to vanish or teleport or whatever it was that they did.
I’d not encountered mages before that were more than flamboyant acts of sleight of hand, and it worried me.
I’d heard they existed, but they didn’t frequent the court, preferring instead to stick to the outskirts of the realm and society, similar to how the ancients and folklores were pushed to the edges.
That said, I had no idea if I could even vanquish a mage with a sword.
Would I need a magic sword to do so? Would they just disappear again if I took a swing?
Would I need an inordinate amount of luck even to get in a hit?
And as the last hour proved, I couldn’t talk my way out of it either. There were no deals to be made other than the one they’d offered.
I was out of my depth. I needed help. Magical help.
“I need to go.”
“Go?” Zig shouted. “Go where?”
“To talk to a friend.”
“You can’t leave me,” Zig argued as I wrenched open the door to our cabin and began packing my saddlebag. “What if they come back? What if they try to take my heart now?”
“They won’t,” I said, shoving a money pouch into my bag. “They gave us a day.”
“Yeah. A day. Where are you going that you’ll be back in a day? You won’t make it to the castle and back.”
I grabbed the leftovers from lunch and wrapped them up, adding the bundle to the mishmash of objects I’d gathered in my panicked haste. “I’m not going to the castle.”
“Then where are you going?”
“It’s not far. Don’t worry.”
“Can I come with you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you can’t.”
“Ellinore,” Zig pleaded as he followed me about the small room. “What am I going to do while you’re gone?”
I turned and grabbed Zig by the front of his shirt, twisting the fabric in my fist. His face was ashen from fear, and his eyes were wide. The composure I tried to gather slipped as sweat trickled down my spine and my pulse thudded in my temples.
“You will sit in this cabin and wait for me! You will not talk to the mages before I return. And you will not cause any more trouble. Understand?”
He nodded quickly.
“Good.” I released him, swung open the door, and marched out into the bright, sunny day.
I saddled Bluebell quickly, ignoring the bleating sheep as they butted against my legs. After I led her from the pasture, I swung up into my seat and took off at a gallop.
The landscape sped past me in the blurred colors of spring as I thundered out of town and down the road.
Bluebell’s reins creaked, the oiled leather biting into my palms as I clutched them.
Her long stride ate up the distance, but it paled in comparison with the race of adrenaline in my veins.
The sun beat hot on my face, my skin burning and tight, as the fabric of my tunic whipped and billowed around my body.
A soft breeze slightly tempered the heat, bearing the sweet perfume of wild honeysuckle and azaleas as the wind swept across the flowering fields.
It felt like centuries passed before I spied the entrance to Dave’s cavern, my body tense, my mind spinning with worst-case scenarios, but it had been only a few hours.
When I dismounted, my thighs quivered from the strain.
I led Bluebell into the shade of the rocky outcropping, next to a shallow stream, and tied her to a small tree.
She drank greedily while I staggered into the gapped opening of the grotto.
“Dave!” I yelled, before I’d even rounded the corner into the cavern. “Dave!”
With the high afternoon sun, I didn’t need a torch; the hole in the ceiling allowed enough light to reflect off the water and the veins of pyrite to illuminate the space with a soft glow.
Dave was asleep, the gold scales of his slack body blending in with the coins of the horde he was draped across, like gilded camouflage.
The sound of his snore cut off abruptly, tipping into a strangled snort as I approached.
He yawned, his jaw cracking, and a sliver of meaty flesh dangled between two of his lower teeth from his morning meal.
He mumbled something about impertinent questers, then flopped to his other side, turning his back toward me.
“Dave!” I shouted, panic bleeding into my tone.
“Zig made a bet with a duo of mages in a tavern. But not charlatan mages. Real mages. With magic. Real magic. And I have to get him out of it somehow. Because he wagered his heart! His stupid, reckless, good heart, and I don’t know how to help him.
I don’t know how to save him.” The words poured out of me in a torrent, tumbling over one another in my rush, barely intelligible.
“And yes, he’s annoying and impulsive and my exact opposite despite being my twin, but he is my brother.
And I love him. I tried to negotiate with the mages, but they were awful and unyielding.
They said the bet was sealed with magic, but magic can be broken, right?
Maybe? Hopefully? Anyway, when I drew my sword, one of them disappeared.
In a puff of smoke. Then reappeared! Like, popped back into existence.
Then they gave me one day to agree to a foolish quest or they’re going to hurt Zig.
And I can’t let that happen. I need your help!
” My shout echoed down farther into the cavern, bouncing off the rock walls.
My hands curled into fists, and my body vibrated with pent-up energy, like lightning, zinging from the tips of my fingers to the soles of my feet.
Dave snorted. “Is that a new tale by the castle bard?” he asked lazily. “If so, it needs work. Very cliché. Dramatic. And your delivery was awful. Where’s the comedy? Where are the pauses for theatrical effect?”
I picked up the nearest object—a hefty, jeweled goblet—and flung it at him. It bounced harmlessly off his scale-armored back, right between his wings. “I’m serious!”
“And I’m napping,” he grumbled. He rolled over onto his belly, eyes still firmly shut. A puff of smoke curled from his nostrils as he tucked his head under his wing. “Come back later.”
“I don’t have time for your antics. I need your advice. I need to know how to defeat these mages.”
He groaned and stretched, tail swishing behind him. Coins clinked as they toppled and fell while he squirmed in his bed of gold. “And what do I know of mages?” he asked, words slightly slurred, as he was on the verge of falling back asleep.
“You are a very old and wise being; you must know something.”
He let out a low chuckle. “Good try, Ellinore, but dragon magic is vastly different from hand waving while uttering spells.” A tongue of fire flared from between his lips when he let out a deep sigh.
“If you want my advice, give the mages what they want. Go on the quest. Complete the task they’ve asked of you. ”
“I’m retired.”
He scoffed. “Fine. Then your brother loses his heart. I imagine that means he dies.”
“Dave!”
“What?” Dave’s eyes cracked open, revealing annoyed slits of glittering green. “That’s my advice. Take it or leave it.”
“Why are you being so grumpy?”
“Haven’t you heard the adage about waking a sleeping dragon?”
I blinked. “No?”
“The prevailing advice is don’t.”
“But—”
“From what you’ve said,” Dave interrupted me, fully conscious now and highly irritated, “these mages have a substantial amount of power, and Zig’s bet was sealed in their magic. You should not trifle with them.”
“So, what? I’m just supposed to complete their quest?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes and groaned. Dave had all but confirmed my worst fear. That I would have to find the Elder Beast and take its horn. My shoulders dropped and I rubbed my hands over my face.
“What if I can’t? What if this is beyond me?”
“If that is what you believe, then Zig’s life is surely lost.”
I stiffened and opened my eyes, staring at Dave’s placid expression.
“No. No, that’s not an option. But I can’t…
” I swallowed down the anxiety that had built in my throat.
“What if there is not a way out of this? This isn’t…
I won’t be able to win this one by conveniently finding what I’m looking for washed up on a beach or hauling an already-dead carcass out of the woods or negotiating with swamp sprites.
I’m not going to be able to barter or trade or”—I waved my hands, gesturing to the grotto and Dave’s pile of gold—“make a beneficial deal.”
Dave hummed. “I don’t see how this is any different from your previous quests. You know the objective. You must find a way to complete it.”
“Dave, this isn’t a quest that a couple of pompous royals are sending me on for fun to make them look good, with a purse of coin for a prize. This is real life. Zig’s life.”
Smoke bloomed from between Dave’s teeth, a sign of exasperation. “You’re making this more complicated than it is. You don’t want your brother to die, so you do what the mages have set forth for you to do. I don’t understand—”
“Because I’m a fraud!” I yelled, my clenched fists shaking at my side.
I took a breath and continued with an even tone.
“I’m a liar and I’m a con. I am not the Ellinore the Brave from those stupid stories.
She doesn’t exist! There’s not a real person who slays dragons and kills manticores and giant spiders.
I’m a fake. And this… this is actual magic with actual consequences. ”