Chapter 11 Axel
Axel
The blessed who came with us each bond one of the brights we’ve found, and there are another hundred and six who are ready to go back with us. Thirty-seven are semi-bright, but it appears they do just fine as well.
It’s still not nearly enough, I say. I shouldn’t care—I don’t care—whether this plan of hers works, but I don’t like being associated with failure.
“We have two more places to go.” Liz’s flashing eyes and set jaw tell me she’s not giving up until she has to. “If we get another hundred at each one—”
It’s still not going to be close to enough.
“Why not?” She’s fuming, pacing back and forth. “If we have more each day, and if we have the humans we find bond the dragons who are the weakest, the ones who are most in need of food first, then—”
We came to find the heart. We should be making progress on that, not spending all our time on this useless fix for the mess you made in that volcano last time.
As she clenches her fists, I notice something.
The human behind her is wearing an outfit that looks. . .like it was made of my skin. I peer a little closer, shifting as close as I can without crushing any of the soft humans. Why’s that woman wearing something that looks like the scales from both my forms?
Liz follows my gaze, and then she smiles. “Uh, I had an outfit exactly like that.” She turns to look up at me. “You gave it to me.”
Are you implying I made you clothing out of my own skin? I wouldn’t do that. Only, as I say it, I consider. For the humans to copy it, they must have seen it. Liz would have been a relatively well-known human, being bonded to the leader of the recovery.
“I’m not implying it,” she says. “I’m telling you that you did. The reason she’s wearing it is probably because she saw me wearing that when. . .” She trails off.
Finish that thought.
“I wish I could say you didn’t always order me around before,” she mutters, “but that would be a lie. You’ve always been this irritatingly overbearing.”
A frantic human runs past us, bumping me.
Watch out, you big lummox, I say.
Liz laughs. “What did you just say?”
It’s an insult, is it not? I narrow my eyes at her, challenging her to deny it.
The human who bumped me spins around, eyes wide. Clearly she’s not a bright, and she’s also not very bright. “Sorry.” She bobs her head and scurries away.
“It is an insult,” Jean says from a few feet past Liz. “Where did you hear the word?”
Liz seems slightly annoyed that Jean’s a bright, especially as her husband Gary isn’t.
Either way, they’re both coming with us now, and that will please Gary and Liz’s friend Norm, so Liz’s happy about it too.
The human connections are confusing because I don’t care about any of them much, and they all look extremely similar to me, but I’m trying to keep up so Liz isn’t frustrated.
For some reason, when she gets upset, it upsets me.
I’m trying not to think about that very much. It’s almost as concerning as the fact that I gave her clothing made of both my identities’ skins.
“Lummox isn’t a word you hear much,” Jean says. “Did someone old say it?” She glances around. “That guy?” She points at a man with many wrinkles in his soft flesh.
No, Liz called me that this morning, and when I asked her what it meant, she changed the subject.
Jean lifts both her eyebrows and turns around.
“It’s a word to describe a large and stupid person,” Liz says. “Which you were being, with all your early-morning bellowing.”
It was close to midday in Iceland when I woke you.
“I hadn’t slept in two days,” Liz says. “Besides, in Utah, it wasn’t midday, so waking earlier would have been pointless.”
Did you injure yourself, not sleeping enough? Why do I care? Why am I even asking? She’s the one who appointed herself to take over this task, and how she does or doesn’t do it, or how much she sleeps, shouldn’t matter to me.
“Never mind.”
Another human wearing something similar to the faux dragon-hide outfit walks past. How many of these people are wearing something like what you wore?
Liz shrugs. “I noticed a few. Four? Maybe five?”
That’s when I realize that she did it again.
I ordered her to finish her thought about where they saw her gift of clothing, and she didn’t.
She changed the subject again. I step closer to her, lowering my head until I’m closer to her face.
When did they see you wearing the clothing I specially made for you?
“We still have another location to visit.” Liz gestures. “Actually, I just heard back from Jean’s friend, so now we have two. All of those who are coming with us, gather together. You’ll stay close to your bonded dragon to spare Axel any extra hassle or trouble.”
If they knew anything about the blessed at all, they’d know Axel couldn’t open portals.
Luckily, the humans are all clueless, though I’m not quite sure what we gain by keeping it a secret that I didn’t die.
Still, I hardly want to point out to Liz that her ‘battle strategy’ is totally unnecessary for utterly unmatched opponents.
The blessed don’t need an edge. If we chose, we could utterly decimate the humans in every way.
I fear that facing that truth would upset her.
“My dragon says the gold one’s the prince of the earth blessed,” Jean says. “And that he’s also somehow the flame dragon—the one we all saw die.”
Liz frowns, but for the humans coming with us, they would have heard soon enough.
Jean presses forward. “Weren’t you bonded?” She frowns. “Why aren’t you now? Or are you? My dragon says you’re not bonded now, and your hair isn’t red anymore, so something must have happened, but he’s not dead like we thought.”
“We have less than ten minutes before we need to leave,” Liz says. “I need to talk to the humans who are staying and choose someone who will reach out to me about a time and place tomorrow.” She walks away.
Clearly I’m not the only one whose questions she ignores.
In this case, I know why she wandered off.
I suspect Liz would be agreeable to bond me again, with her weird nonsense about missing me.
That’s part of my reticence about it, honestly.
Bonding Liz won’t be simple. Things with us will grow even more complicated than before if I bond her again.
“I guess that’s not a question you want to answer,” Jean mutters.
I need to bond a human, I say. But I find that I don’t want to bond Liz, and yet the idea of bonding anyone else disgusts me.
“I didn’t grow up dreaming of dragons,” Jean says. “Even without a preconceived notion of what you’d be like, you’re not at all what I expected.”
Maybe she’ll tell me what Liz won’t. Why are so many human women wearing the strange outfits with both gold and red dragon scales?
Jean grimaces, but she pulls her phone out of her pocket. “I could show you, but I’m not sure we’ll have enough reception out here.” She starts tapping on her phone. “When I tried to call my brother earlier, we were disconnected.”
Reception?
“Actually, it’s working.” She holds up the tiniest little picture I’ve ever seen.
I crouch as low as I can, turning so that one of my eyes can see the speck. It’s—the humans are attacking us, and the ground is barren and in places, snow-covered. We must be in Iceland.
This is the attack where I die? I feel angry, sad, and curious. How are you recreating the attack? I peer closer.
Liz returns, her lip twisted in mirth. “You think they’re recreating it?” She rolls her eyes. “Humans use technology to save images of things—we call them video or movies. I think you called them transmissions, probably because we sent them via satellite.”
We thought those transmissions were human magic, so now I feel a little foolish. I was jesting. I knew it was a recording.
“Are you sure?” Liz tilts her head. “Because I feel like you making a joke is weirder than you not knowing about video recordings.”
Now it seems like she’s making a joke—at my expense. I have an excellent manner with others.
“Sure you do, Stalin. Everyone loves you.” Liz’s smirk bugs me, but not as much as it did at first. For some reason, it almost feels like I’m in on the joke.
Until Jean suppresses a laugh, and I wonder whether there’s another joke being made that I don’t get. Maybe something to do with the unfamiliar name, Stalin.
Before I can ask anything more, Liz raises her voice. “Does anyone have an iPad? Jean’s phone is really small, and I’d like to pull up footage of the dragon attack in Iceland that Axel might be able to actually see.”
It takes a bit of time, but eventually a large man with bright red cheeks and a large hat on his fuzzy head holds up a slightly larger screen. It’s still minuscule, but I can at least make out the figures.
It’s me.
Liz is riding on my back, just as she said, wearing my hide, just as she said.
The humans are lined up in nice, easy-to-flame lines.
It’s almost like someone read a book on how to prepare troops for war in a way that one flame blessed could most easily destroy.
Why would the humans be that dumb when they had fought us before?
Liz said her friend came to Houston and learned about us, and then he betrayed her.
He was, ostensibly, advising them, and their military leaders had engaged with us before.
Other than the ice spears, their attack makes no sense.
Why would they think humans would do anything but die in this scenario?
Unless they wanted them to die.
Was it a lure?
Hyperion flies right down one line, torching an entire row of humans. I fly past next, but Liz is clinging to me in a strange way, and then she slaps my neck. I don’t kill anyone. I simply fly past, roaring in frustration, but not unleashing any flames at all.
Hyperion loops around again, melting a second carefully prepared row of troops. The screams—the screams are loud. I’m sure Liz was distressed, watching and hearing and smelling her people being massacred.