Chapter 7 Axel
Axel
I don’t even know Liz, not really.
So obviously, I don’t care what happens to her.
The only reason I’m pacing a hole in the ground in the stupid wilderness in the middle of tiny-town USA is that she’s connected to the heart.
The blessed need her—without her, we might never find out whether the heart’s buried in the volcano.
We may never understand the origin of the demon-creatures swimming around in the angry, boiling hole of a mountain with the ridiculous name.
She’s valuable to our search.
That’s the only reason I’m worried.
Axel, it’s going to take her some time. Agrippa sounds like she really isn’t concerned. She has to convince the humans to help us and then get back to where we are without causing a panic. And she has wings—that’s not normal for humans.
I whip around, my talons churning up piles of dirt and rock as I turn to face her. This is your fault. If you’d told her no, I could have taken her and—
A truck stopped near her. I hid and watched long enough to see a man hand her his hand-held talking device. You could not have gone without being spotted with your bright golden scales.
Phones, I say. The handheld devices are called phones. You clearly know nothing about the humans. I should have gone. Then I could have determined whether the human in the truck was trustworthy or meant her harm.
You don’t even recall shifting into a human form, Agrippa snaps.
It’s the first time one of my earth blessed has ever snapped at me, that I can remember. Liz is a bad influence on all of you.
She’s teaching us to think for ourselves. Agrippa’s eyes flash, and I realize she’s worried about Liz.
I think she might be as nervous as I am.
Not that I’m nervous, but concerned about the recovery of the heart.
Elizabeth Chadwick’s helping us, Phileas says. Be patient and see what she can do.
I hate every single second of waiting—doing nothing as the seconds pass and pass and pass. It feels like time has slowed down until it’s barely passing, but eventually, the sun climbs to the highest point in the sky, and she’s still not here.
That’s when I start to make circles around the mountain.
I do spot a few humans, but they’re fairly easy to hide from—none of them are looking for a blessed, thankfully.
By the time the sun has fallen low in the sky, I’m genuinely agitated.
Her failure to appear puts our plans to recover the heart at risk in a real way.
What if the other humans recognized her and the military came to take her?
I spread my wings. We should fly into the settlement and look for her.
She’s a warrior, Phileas says. There would have been a big fight if the military humans came for Liz.
We’re on the opposite side of a mountain, I say. We would neither have seen nor heard it, which is the point. Her caution leaves her entirely vulnerable to their attack.
She’s not vulnerable, Agrippa says. She’s one of the smartest, most resourceful beings I’ve ever known.
That’s hardly reassuring. One tiny human can’t fight the spears and troops and war machines Hyperion told me they have—they used them to kill me. We need to go right now. I crouch down, preparing to leap into the sky.
If you’re this worried about her, why didn’t you just bond her? Agrippa asks. Then you’d already know whether she was okay. You’d know exactly where she was.
I couldn’t risk it, I say. The humans used her to weaken me last time. She’s destined to go back into the volcano—if she died, that could weaken me yet again, right when the blessed need me to be strong. A weak leader can’t defend their people, and my entire life’s purpose is to redeem ours.
Then let me bond her, Agrippa says.
My reasoning on bonding Liz being a risk is solid, but the idea of her being bonded by someone else?
It makes me want to melt my two earth blessed subjects into goo and return to Iceland without them.
The blessed are possessive, and Liz used to be mine.
I’m sure that’s why. No one can bond her.
What’s true of her weakening me is true of any blessed who bonds her.
I disagree, Agrippa says. We can test whether earth blessed can bond humans, and I’m willing to risk being weak if she dies. I really like her.
As do I. Phileas says. We can ask her when she returns which of us she’d rather—
She doesn’t like you at all, Agrippa says. She almost started crying when she was with me earlier, talking to me about Gaia’s loss.
You make her cry, Phileas says. That’s hardly a good thing.
You know nothing about humans. Agrippa’s practically snarling. We became friends when Liz saved us from the humans, and I hear she’s the reason the earth blessed are stronger. I owe her my life for that already.
What did you hear about her connection to the earth blessed’s strength?
Agrippa turns toward me slowly, her eyes wide. Nothing substantial, but the earth blessed are speculating.
About what? I arch one eye ridge.
You were exposed before she went into the volcano—Azar and Axel.
It was. . .quite the secret, and you shared it for her.
Then when she went into the volcano, the earth blessed all became.
. .more. Stronger. Agrippa shrugs. Perhaps it’s wrong, but it seemed like she did something to keep you safe.
If you’d seen how distressed, how broken she was when she thought you were dead. . .
I was dead, I snap.
As the sun begins to set, I’m done waiting. I’m going to find her.
At least wait for nightfall, Agrippa says. Fewer people would see us. We shouldn’t risk the humans discovering us without real cause. It could do the opposite of what you want and endanger her.
The fury inside of me about Liz’s absence swells with nowhere to go, and I shift into Azar, heat building, and I open my mouth to roast Agrippa.
Do you hear that? Phileas asks.
I freeze. Hear what?
Humans approach.
I’ll check it out. Agrippa eyes my massive, bright red form and shakes her head with disgust. You just can’t help yourself.
I wait, irritatingly hopeful, until a moment later, I hear them too. Humans, quite a few of them.
You can come, Agrippa says. It is Liz!
Tromping around the corner of this mountain is irritating in this form, my feet crushing rock, trees, and scree. Even so, I move as fast as I’ve ever moved as Azar without flying. And when I crash down a small decline, I slide to a stop by a rocky outcropping. . .
And I finally see her.
My heart swells at the sight.
Liz is standing at the front of a large column of humans, all of whom are staring up at us with dangling mouths and wide eyes.
There are at least a hundred of them, maybe a few more.
There are females, males, and a few forms I can’t differentiate thanks to the clothing and head coverings.
Some are tall. Some are very short. A few are rounded.
A few are bony. The hair colors that are not covered are as different as the blessed scale colors—some striped, some dark, and lots of light, golden.
“See?” Liz is smiling as she turns back to face them. “Majestic, right?”
“I want the red one.” The rounded human beside her has bright red hair, and he’s pointing at me. “I call dibs.” He tugs on the bottom of his puffy blue jacket.
“You can’t call dibs, Norm,” Liz says.
“Oh, wait, is he still yours?” the rounded human asks. “Or, like, you said that’s ended, right?”
I am not hers; she is mine.
Quite a few of the humans turn toward me when I declare Liz is mine. In general, I’ve heard that the incidence of brights among the human population is quite low. Maybe one in a few hundred or even a thousand humans seem to shine to us—those are the ones we can bond.
Out of the hundred humans Liz brought, we’d have been lucky if one or two were glowing.
Somehow, there are more than forty.
How did you find so many brights? Agrippa asks. Is that what took so long?
Liz beams. “Can you please identify which of them are brights?” She turns toward the humans.
“As I told you, we’re not totally sure what makes someone a person who can be bonded, but unless you shine for them, they can’t bond you.
I still ask that you not disclose what you’re witnessing here today, even if you’re not eligible to be bonded. ”
“You really don’t want to harm humans?” the rounded one asks. “You just want to get this heart thing so you can have baby dragons again?”
If some of them do go to the government with information, I hope they’ll pass along our good intentions. That would be nice.
We indeed only came to recover our people’s heart, I say. We’re dying off without it, and now things have gotten even worse.
“You really can’t eat?” a woman with long, dark hair in braids asks.
That’s true, Agrippa says. A dear friend of Liz and mine, another blessed Liz saved when she fled from the humans who held us captive, recently expended too much energy and died when she couldn’t replenish her reserves.
“Which of us can help?” a tiny human with a big ball of fuzzy hair around her face asks.
If you can line up, we’ll point out the ones who can, Phileas says. And if you’re not opposed, Agrippa and I would like to try bonding two of you right away. Until recently, the earth blessed couldn’t fly, and we couldn’t bond humans, either.
“Because you’re earth dragons,” the fuzzy hair woman says. “And only the water and electric ones could?”
Exactly, Agrippa says. And if we still can’t bond humans. . .
“Then they’ll all die,” Liz says. “So we’re hoping that when they got wings and a power upgrade, they also became able to ensnare humans.”
Why would all of you come to join us? I ask. Did Liz offer you something?
The humans begin talking too fast for me to understand them.