Chapter 2
Avelunne woke to a sensation so foreign that she lay paralyzed, certain it was a trick of the mind.
She was warm. Not the fever-heat of infection, nor the searing burn of a keeper’s prod, but a gentle, enveloping warmth that seep into the marrow of her bones.
The mattress beneath her yielded gently to her weight, and the blanket over her was soft.
Surely, she was dreaming. Or dead. Except the dead didn’t have pounding heads or throbbing aches in their ribs.
Or maybe they did; she’d never known any of the dead well enough to ask.
She forced her eyes open, half-expecting the perpetually moist ceiling of the breeding pens.
Her eyelids were gritty, like she’d been swimming in sand.
Blinking a couple of times helped her focus on a high, bright white ceiling.
The air felt desert-dry when she drew in a deep breath.
Miraculously, the air was clean and sweet.
She turned her head, the movement sending a sharp spike of pain through her neck.
She was in a room with three solid walls.
The fourth was a grid of floor-to-ceiling metal bars, interrupted only by a framed gate.
The light in the room came from long, bright tubes on the ceiling on the far side of the bars.
Beyond the metal, which felt like bespelled alfar, stood another wall, this one with a smooth wooden door and a high window.
Avelunne stared at that rectangle of glass.
It was darkened, but it was a true window, not an illusion.
And then, faint but undeniable, a sound reached her ears.
Singing. A chorus of voices in the distance was raising a melody that sounded familiar.
In the laboratory demesne, music was ruthlessly suppressed because it was one of the oldest magics.
That song was what finally convinced her she was not dreaming while still in hell. She’d actually made it to Kotoyeesinay.
She pushed herself up on one elbow, gasping as her ribs protested.
She looked down at herself. She was clean and clothed in loose, grey trousers of a remarkably soft, knitted fabric and a muted red short-sleeved tunic that felt like silk against her tight, tender skin.
The simple dignity of it brought a sudden sting of tears to her eyes.
She forced them back. She had not wept in the pens, and she would not weep now because someone had been kind.
I flew again, her inner dragon whispered, a disjointed flicker of memory surfacing through the haze of pain. I saw the lights. The bright sanctuary.
Memories returned in jagged shards. The desperate escape from the demesne, the dreadful magic and weapons of the pursuers, the dark winds of night, and finally, the way her wings had simply refused to beat another stroke.
She had fallen from the clouds like an eagle-struck dove.
The last spark of her strength got her past a formidable shield…
and then pain. Flattened blue and silver metal beneath her.
People and magic around her. The creeping chill of death, then… nothing.
Not the first impression she’d hoped to make.
She had meant to ask for help, not forgiveness.
But what did she expect? She was an artist, not a warrior.
She was a creature of flight, not fight.
She had survived the last dozen years by making herself small, by misdirection, by being unseen.
And now, she had awoken in another prison.
At least this one was more honest about it.
Her gaze returned to the bars that emitted a low, aetheric pulse. Likely dark-elf spells, hoping for the chance to hurt.
Calm, she told herself firmly, forcing her breathing to slow.
There is a window. There is singing. Another realization struck her.
And I have been healed. She raised her left arm, where her broken foreleg should have left her human form in agony.
Her pale skin was clean. A deep purple bruise and a stiff elbow were the only evidence of that injury.
She could not lie here, wallowing in comfort like a spoiled queen in her nest of silk-covered pillows.
People were counting on her. She had made a promise, and promises were the only currency she had left that held any value.
If she failed now, the guilt would consume her more surely than any manufactured monster in Surasa’s grotesque menagerie.
With a grunt of effort, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up.
The room tilted alarmingly, but she planted her bare feet on the hard, dry floor until the world righted itself.
The skin on her right thigh felt tight and sore where the spell-fire had scorched her, and her head ached abominably, but she could stand it. She had to.
A gleam of white porcelain in the corner caught her eye. A sink. A basin with a silver tap. The sight of it twisted her stomach with thirst. She pushed to her feet, then shuffled carefully toward the corner with small footsteps.
At the basin, she turned the handle. Clear, crystalline water gushed forth. She bent over and put her mouth to the stream, gulping greedily, not caring that the excess splashed onto her ear and neck. It tasted of metals and chemicals. It was the finest vintage she had ever swallowed.
Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she looked to the left and noticed the fixture beside the basin.
A toilet. Not a noisome, stinking hole in the corner, but a pristine, white porcelain seat over clean water, and a tank of silver.
In her time before captivity, such things were novelties, symbols of supreme status. Here, one sat in a jail cell.
A ragged chuckle escaped her despite the pain in her ribs. She was bruised, broken, trapped behind magical bars, and wearing strange, clingy clothes, but she had running water and a royal privy.
“Well, Avelunne,” she whispered to the empty room. “You’re moving up in the world.”
A scrape of metal made her freeze in place.
The wooden door swung open to reveal a human woman with dark-blonde hair in a braided crown and tired blue eyes, carrying a small sage-colored bundle.
Avelunne’s lungs quivered, but then the scent hit her — not the acrid burn of a keeper, but the aroma of fresh herbs, antiseptic, and the unmistakable vibration of a witch’s restorative magic.
The woman briefly put her palm to a square of metal about shoulder height, which caused the metal gate to unlock and swing open on its own accord.
She stepped inside, her movements sure but unthreatening.
“Hello,” she said, her voice a soothing alto. “I’m Denise Voski. I run the medical unit at the Transition Center. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up. I was grabbing supplies.”
Avelunne realized with a start that she was hearing actual English. In the demesne, powerful translator magic meant captives heard words in a language they understood, but not necessarily the language being spoken.
Denise set the bundle on the bed, then gently took Avelunne’s elbow, guiding her back to the mattress platform with a firmness that brooked no argument.
“Let’s get you into something warmer. It’s chilly in here.
” She unfurled green cloth, which turned out to be a thick, soft half-coat of fuzzy material.
It had a hood and rows of metal teeth down the front lapels that Denise deftly joined at the bottom and pulled upward with a tab, sealing the fabric shut.
Avelunne touched the slider mechanism, fascinated.
It was a marvelously clever contraption, far superior to laces or buttons, and the warmth was instant.
“I’ll bring you shoes and toiletries later,” Denise promised, though Avelunne had no idea what a “toiletry” might be. “What should I call you?”
“Avelunne,” she replied, the name feeling strange on her tongue after so long being called Shifter H-57523. She smoothed the front of the magical zippered coat. “What is the current date and year?”
Denise told her matter-of-factly as she gently touched the part of Avelunne’s scalp that made her twitch in pain.
Given the smell of new snow, Avelunne wasn’t surprised to learn the date was close to the winter solstice.
But the year staggered her. She’d lost the better part of two hundred years of time in the real world.
In the demesne, for her, it had only been twelve or thirteen years, though she was guessing.
The breeding facility played malicious fairy tricks with time, with holding pens like hers running slower, while in the breeding pens, time moved faster.
In the central hub area, where she’d been a part-time servant, facility manager Tippizoars said time was synchronized with the outside world to make transfers easier. They had no reason to lie about it.
Discussing time theory with her holding pen cellmates was one thing.
Living it was quite another. The humans she’d known were dust. Long-lived species might remember her, except she’d never stayed in one place very long.
Fear of discovery, fear of starving, and fear of pain kept her moving.
She took a deep breath and let it out. She was an artist; she was nothing if not adaptable.
Denise’s healing magic washed over Avelunne. “Your human form is anemic and malnourished, and your bones are knitting slower than I’d like.” Her hovering hands paused over Avelunne’s ribs. “Usually, you shifters heal faster than this with the shift.”
Avelunne shook her head. “I am a dragon. We are born as dragons, hatched from eggs. The human form comes later. I heal faster as a dragon.” She glanced around the small cage and snorted in amusement, but her sore ribs made her regret it. “I wouldn’t fit.”