Chapter 14
The Escape
DELILAH
Isoaked in the bathtub, plotting my escape.
The enchanting warmth of the water soothed the aches and pains from training.
I really was out of shape. How was I going to pull this off?
I bit into the sandwich the fire sprite had brought me moments after Calpurnia left, knowing very well it might be my last meal in the castle. Maybe my last meal for a while.
When I was done, I approached the bed in my towel. Lying on it was a satchel filled with food, water, bandages, and a small knife. There was also a cloak and my leather bodysuit from earlier, cleaned and repaired. Resting on top was a note that read,
~ Goodbye, Lila. I will forever be grateful for your friendship.
May the Guardians watch over you always. -Cal. ~
After I finished reading it, the note began to slowly incinerate, disappearing completely within seconds.
I waited until nightfall, until the normal sounds of the castle died down and suggested everyone was asleep. I put on my only true possession, the gift from the mermaid.
I snuck through the castle halls undetected. Finally, I made it to the main doors, but to my dismay, a different pair of guards stood at the entrance. I hid behind the curve of the hearth. One short sprint and I would be out the doors to freedom.
I took an apple from my bag. I hated the thought of wasting food, but I needed a distraction.
With as much strength and accuracy as I could manage, I hurled the apple at a piece of art across the room.
It shattered on impact. The guards rushed to investigate, leaving me only seconds to slip toward the door.
I was not expecting it to be so heavy. It barely budged. I threw all my weight into it, prying the door open just enough to squeeze through the narrow gap.
I knew there were armed guards posted throughout the castle grounds, so I made sure not to make a sound as I hid in the shadows.
With careful steps, I descended the endless stone stairs to the dragon’s keep.
It was so dark my vision took a moment to adjust. Using only the moonlight, I located the ominous cave that bored into the belly of the mountain beneath the castle.
I gulped. I could hear the rumbling of the beasts inside. I had a choice to make. Either stay and be used as an object, potentially bred like cattle for three high Fae males with questionable morals, or risk being eaten by a dragon while trying to escape.
I decided it did not matter. I was dead either way.
Retrieving the dagger felt like suicide, but allowing myself to be subjected to the will of three powerful males was worse. No. I was not going to die that way. At least this way was my choice. At least, if nothing else, I still had my dignity.
I was not sure why, but every instinct I had told me to hold out my hand in the darkness and summon Zephyros in my mind. I outstretched my timid hand into the eerie blackness, and my palm began to tingle. I called out to Aurelius’s dragon without speaking.
“Zephyros, sorry to bother you but I need a favor can you help me friend?”
I repeated the phrase a few times in my mind. My heart pounded so loudly I worried the nearby guards might hear it. I repeated it one more time, and then I heard heavy footsteps approaching. I began to shake. I was certain something was about to bite my arm off.
Instead, a blue-green dragon’s fiercely beautiful face emerged from the darkness into the moonlight.
She groaned and huffed a plume of hot steam.
It was her. Zephyros. Aurelius’s dragon.
As her eyes met mine, the familiar tingling sensation flared in my palm and echoed through my mind, the same strange pull I had felt with every dragon I had touched.
Our eyes locked. After a brief pause, she grew impatient and huffed at me again, bobbing her head as if she wanted me to pet her.
I slowly stretched out my arm and rested my palm against her cheek. Then the strangest sensation washed over me. My head felt heavy, and suddenly I heard a loud, clear voice that couldn't be mistaken for anything else.
I gasped in shock.
Zephyros: Friend?...dragons only have masters or enemies…which are you?
She was talking to me, in my mind! Holy shit. Holy shit!
“Neither. I am not your enemy, and I do not wish to command you. I only ask for your help, but the choice is entirely yours.”
She shifted her snakelike eyes and studied me with wild curiosity. Then she lowered her majestic head and chittered a pleased, throaty sound.
Zephyros: Very well, I accept your friendship, what does the child made ask of me?
There it was again. That name. Child made. I was not imagining it when I connected with Veyraxxies. He had said it too. What did it mean? There was no time to think about that now. I could hear guards descending the stairs.
“I can’t stay here. Can you fly me somewhere safe?” I asked in our mind-to-mind conversation.
Her low grumble was full of sadness and confusion. She looked at me with her large, slitted eyes, sparkling in the moonlight with the same heartbreaking pain I had just seen in Calpurnia’s.
“Can you find your way back on your own?” I asked.
She bobbed her head slightly in what I understood as a yes. Then she lowered her wing at my feet and gently lifted me onto her scaly back.
Oh no. No saddle.
I briefly scanned the area, searching for one, when I heard the voices of guards drawing closer. It was too late now. I settled onto her back where a saddle would have been and gripped one of the spikes on each side of her neck. In my mind, I told her to go easy, not to let me fall.
She gracefully unfurled her wings and dove off the cliff.
I dug my heels into her powerful back, hanging on for dear life. After a few terrifying moments of free fall, she spread her wings, caught the air, and glided low through the mountain range, slipping out of the castle’s view.
She flew west, bobbing and weaving around the unforgiving terrain of jagged rock that formed the mountains. Her wings flapped periodically to maintain the steady momentum of a smooth glide. When the mountain range was fully in view behind us and shrinking, I was able to breathe again properly.
A laugh tore out of me—half gasp, half sob—and then I was cheering into the wind like an idiot because I was actually doing it. I was flying. Alone.
“Zephyros, we did it. Thank you, thank you!”
Flying a dragon by myself was surreal, especially without a saddle.
Our bodies had to move as one to maneuver and maintain balance.
This wondrous, beautiful creature had saved my life.
I released her horns and wrapped my arms around her in a warm hug.
She responded with a sound that reminded me of a giant reptile’s version of a purr.
The deafening crack of thunder snapped my attention upward.
I had been so consumed with escaping and looking behind me that I had never looked at the sky.
The mother of all storms was rolling in fast, and we were about to be swallowed by it.
Thick black clouds churned. Lightning ripped across the sky, flashing so near I felt the heat of it on my skin.
Zephyros was scared. I could feel her fear, and I was sure she could feel mine too. There was no going around it. The storm was too vast. If we turned back, we would fly straight into Embris. I knew then we had only one option.
“We need to go higher, Zephyros. Fly over the clouds!”
She roared ferociously in response. To anyone else it would have sounded like anger, but I knew better. She was afraid. Afraid of the storm, yes, but more so of losing me. We both understood there would be no smooth, easy glide out of this.
The rain began to pour and slam into me, stealing my breath and soaking through my clothing in seconds. Her scales grew slick. My wet hands strained to hold on to her horns.
She shifted her axis, and we climbed higher into the sky and suddenly we were climbing straight up, the world dropping away beneath us. Her big, powerful wings fought valiantly against the fierce winds.
“You can do it. I believe in you!” I shouted.
Her wings flapped once, twice—hammering the rain-slick air, each beat answered by a pulverizing gust that pushed us back.
Her roar boomed across the land. This time it sounded like a cry for help, and my heart broke. This was my fault. I had put this innocent, beautiful creature in harm’s way. But we were almost there. I could see the clear, starry sky just ahead, peeking through a gap in the clouds.
Then, for a brief moment, the sky went completely black, blotting out the moonlight. Within a few feet of us, a vicious bolt of lightning cracked.
Zephyros startled. Her body thrashed violently to the side. The force of her powerful movement was too much. I was tossed from her back like a rag doll.
I began to free-fall through the air.
She looked down at me, screeching in horror, her cry even louder than before.
“It’s ok, I told her in my mind, thank you for trying, go home save yourself.”
She cried again. I could hear the pain in her roar. She cared about me. She was trying to save me, I could sense it, but the wind wouldn’t let her. It grabbed her, flung her, and all I could do was pray she would make it back to the keep.
I was okay with dying. I had been for a long time.
I was ready to die when I was attacked in foster care.
I was ready to die in the car accident with Danny.
I was ready to die during surgery. I was ready to die when I was attacked by the sea serpent, and I was ready to die when the three soldiers violated me.
I had spent my entire life on death’s doorstep, but he has refused to let me in. Perhaps today was finally the day.
I fell past the cloud line, losing sight of Zephyros in the storm.