Chapter 7
Ever
I COME TO SUDDENLY, SO suddenly that the dream I’m having doesn’t get a chance to slip past the edges of my consciousness into obscurity. The memories replaying in my mind hurry to disperse, like they were caught doing something they shouldn’t, but I recognize instantly what woke me.
It was a flashback.
For a moment, I consider shutting it down.
I could shove the pieces of my past back into the dusty box they’re supposed to stay in, but I said I was done hiding and I meant it.
So instead of banishing the things my subconscious decided to dig up, I tug at the wispy tendrils of recollection and brace myself.
I’m six again, covered in blood and reeking of smoke. Fire licks up the doors of my father’s rookery, and Enslee and I have just abandoned our hiding spot. We need to get out, but we’re in shock, and despite the horrors we’ve just witnessed, we hope that someone else aside from us has survived.
I tiptoe between the parts and bodies littering the floor.
I tried to avoid the blood at first, but it’s impossible, it’s everywhere.
Ronin and Novak are the first two we check, but both of our brothers’ green eyes stay unblinking and fixed somewhere we can’t go.
It doesn’t matter how many times we quietly cry their names, they don’t come back.
Enslee tries a couple of our mother’s guards.
She shakes them gently while I check the few members of our father’s Wing I can identify; all of them are gone too.
We meet at our mother, following the trail of blood she left from pulling herself into an alcove.
A sword sticks out of her chest, and it takes both of us to pull it out.
I don’t know why we thought removing it might help her, but our six-year-old minds saw it as the only solution.
The sword clangs, heavy and loud, against the ground when we drop it.
Panic convinces me the monsters will hear it and come back, but they don’t.
The fire moves deeper into the room. Flames threaten the dragons etched into the white stone walls and begin to claim the bodies of those that fell defending my father and the others.
Enslee and I kneel next to our mother, our tattered dresses soaking up her blood.
Enslee clears the ash-blond hair from her face, and I thread my fingers between my mother’s long, slender grip.
I wait, desperate for her to squeeze my hand like she always does.
Three quick clasps that mean I love you .
But her hold is lax and our special code is lost to the sound of our quiet sniffles and the crackle of the growing pyre behind us.
“Mommy!” Enslee pleas, her small hand pressed against our mother’s pale cheek. Smoke billows through the room, but we sit and wait as though that one word will reverse death itself.
It doesn’t.
I’m lost, unsure what to do. Tears drip off my chin onto my mother’s alabaster scale armor.
The fire is moving closer, but everyone is dead and there’s nowhere to go.
My chest begins to burn with more than just sorrow and fear, and I try to hold back a cough that’s trapped in my throat from the noxious fumes steadily choking the rookery of oxygen.
“We have to go,” Enslee commands through her own choking coughs.
I feel numb, but she pulls me away from the growing blaze and the bodies, and I don’t fight her. We run through the passageways that lead to our room. It’s easier to breathe here, but the smoke follows us, promising the air won’t stay clear for long.
Enslee grabs a pack and starts collecting our mother’s things like we were told to do if anything ever happened to her.
I forgot the directive until now. I watch my sister work for a moment before I start to help.
I pick up the mirror my mother used to talk to our father and hand it to my sister.
She takes it and my fingers scrape over the symbol etched at the bottom, and then I remember something else my mother relentlessly hammered into us?. .?. protect each other, no matter what.
My eyes snap open, consciousness chasing the flashback away, and my mind rings with the strong cadence of my mother’s voice and her counsel.
I wipe the tears from my face and breathe through the waves of loss and devastation that pound through me.
I force myself to feel it, to sit with the grief and discomfort instead of fighting the bombardment like I want to do.
It’s time to heal. It’s time to face everything I’m up against, including the past. It’s not the most convenient time, but I’m understanding now that there never will be.
It’s dark outside. Everything is quiet, aside from several fans working to make existence more tolerable within the corrugated metal walls of the stack the Syphons reside in.
The cooler temperatures at night feel less like an all-out assault, but it won’t last long.
In a handful of hours when the sun wakes, it will be roasting again in no time.
I’m in my room, or rather, the shipping container I claimed as mine.
It should be familiar and comfortable, and yet it feels like a representation of a time and a person who no longer exists.
The air is stale and too many dust motes dance across the dueling drafts of the oscillating fans above me.
My bed rests low on cinder blocks that are a poor imitation of a proper frame.
The rest of the furniture I’ve collected was either badly made by hand or salvaged from one dump or another.
The metal walls surrounding me are empty, just like they’ve always been, and I can’t help comparing all of it to Aeson’s rookery.
Not the disparity of grandeur, but the discrepancy in how it all feels.
One is a home, lived in and cared for, the other more like a holding cell, built only for transition and endurance.
A small snore draws my attention. I find Enslee in the chair normally reserved for my clean clothes. She’s asleep, head back, eyes closed, chest rising and falling, slow and even. She must have been exhausted if she crashed in the corner instead of walking across the hall to her bed.
I study my twin, the flashback still fresh in my mind.
She looks peaceful, but I don’t miss the dark patches under her eyes or the signs that she’s lost weight.
We’re both a far cry from the scared six-year-olds we used to be.
We’ve grown and survived. We’ve found our strength and our voices, and now it’s time to find our place in the world again.
I scoot to the edge of the bed, no longer able to ignore the overwhelming need to piss. I cringe when I catch a whiff of myself. I smell like dried sweat and desperation, and it’s not a winning combo.
Unbidden, Aeson’s masculine, musky scent pops up in my head. I quickly punt that intrusive thought as far as I can send it, because, nope, not going there.
I tiptoe toward the bathroom that separates my room from Enslee’s, passing a dresser with my weapons laid across the top.
My com and credit band are there too, and I know Enslee is responsible; she’s the only one who would take the time to arrange things how I like.
I step into the bathroom, and panic suddenly overrides the call of nature.
If Enslee disarmed me, does that mean she?.?.?. shit!
“No, no, no, no, no,” I plead as I bend and look for the spelled jewelry I’m hoping is still fastened around my ankle. Frantically I pull my socks off and strip out of my pants, refusing to glance at my arms or anything else until I have an idea of what I’m dealing with.
My fingers graze the decorative metal, and I melt with relief.
“Thank fuck,” I sigh, not at all prepared for what I would do if the anklet wasn’t still guarding my secrets.
I know the magic will run out eventually and I’ll have to face the full extent of what’s been done to me when it does, but I’ve been through enough today. That’s tomorrow’s problem.
A pile of clothes waits for me on the bathroom counter, evidence that Enslee anticipated this would be the first thing I’d do after waking up.
I want to appreciate the thoughtfulness, but my feelings are a knotted mess at the moment.
I’m happy to see my twin and beyond relieved to be back together, but I’m also pissed and very aware that there’s no time to really dig into any of it.
I don’t bother turning the lights on as I relieve my screaming bladder and situate myself in the shower.
There’s something oddly comforting about standing in the dark while purging the last five days from my skin.
The water our hodgepodge plumbing sprinkles into the compact shower is a few degrees shy of boiling.
I used to find it uncomfortable, but today it feels like the perfect baptism by fire needed to recalibrate my life.
It feels surreal to be here, like I’m still trapped in a dream, and yet the reality of it all bears down on me like an avalanche. I try to think through the conversations I know I need to have and the questions I need answered, but it all seems so daunting and destined to fail somehow.
When I’ve scrubbed several layers of skin off my entire body and combed through my hair until I’ve slayed every tangle, I get out and dry off.
My underwear is concerningly loose when I pull it on, but it isn’t until I step into my pants that I realize just how altered my body is.
This pair used to fit me perfectly, and now they hang low on hips that are a little too pointed.
I need to eat.
My magic surges in undeniable agreement, and I revel in the sensation.
It’s the first time my affinity has spiked and I haven’t instantly tried to squash it.
It feels good?.?.?. right. My reflection shows a concerning loss of muscle and fat all over my frame.
Once again, I can hear my mom’s voice as she explains that affinities consume calories like flames burn through paper.
She always stressed how important it was not to starve your magic once it appears, to eat regularly until your dragon is full and rest as often as you need.
Regret settles through me. I’ve done neither since I killed the Conduit.
“Well done,” I admonish my reflection. I’ve had my dragon for less than a week, and already I’m fumbling it. If I keep this up, I’ll send myself into a feeding frenzy, and that won’t be good for anyone.
I run a hand over my dragon mark, a silent promise to do better. The manifestation of my dragon and my affinity will require extensive training and a lot of hard work, and I don’t have the luxury of time. I need to get my shit together, and I need to have started yesterday.
Carefully I prod my memories for other things my mother told me and Enslee about revealing. But instead of recalling her lessons, an image of her dragon coalesces.
She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, graceful, formidable, and everything I wanted to be when I revealed.
She’d let me and Enslee hitch rides while she stretched her wings and played in the currents, imparting lessons and filling our minds with the best memories.
The rich chuff of dragon laughter accompanied by our little giggles settles lovingly in my chest. I can almost feel the warm puff of my mother’s breath against my cheek before she would dole out dragon kisses.
I close my eyes and relish the phantom sensation.
I’m pushing it with the flashback and now this, but it’s been so long since I let myself remember anything.
I was so intent on keeping the horrific and painful things at bay, I didn’t really think about how I was trapping the beautiful and happy things within the tomb of my trauma too.
Untethering myself from those thoughts, I pull on the tattered shirt that’s been laid out for me and take in my reflection one last time.
A small smile slips across my face when I picture the outrage and disgust the group of stylists in Four Tiers would have over my baggy pants and short top.
The skin I’m showing wouldn’t be an issue—there’s plenty of that in King’s Keep—but to shirk all of their fittings and fancy fabrics in favor of clothing built for struggle and survival?
Oh yeah, that would most definitely ruffle some scales.
Quietly I exit the bathroom, shaking more water from my hair to help the thick mass dry.
I’m halfway across the room before I notice that Enslee is awake and watching me.
I freeze and take her in, unsure of what to do or say.
Should I hug her, or will that make her think everything’s fine when it isn’t?
Do we hash things out even though there’s nothing she can do or say that will fix what’s happened?
“You look better,” she offers hesitantly, like she’s just as unsure how to navigate things.
I look down at myself and shrug. “It’s not exactly playing dress-up for the dragons , but it’ll do.”
Annnd we have our answer. We’re going to hash it out, and I just came out of the gate swinging.