Chapter 11
Several hours later…
Dressed in a soft gown that she rather liked, Kate waited in Vilka’s chambers. The collar and chains had been removed, a nice touch in deference to Vilka’s parents. Apparently he did not want them to know that he was keeping her like a chained animal.
Vilka had gone to meet his parents without her, a move she did not blame him for. It must be an awkward reunion after such a length of time, and in such a dire situation. Vilka having stolen a crown was nothing on Vilka presiding over the clusterfuck that was the world eater situation.
She looked up as the door opened and Vilka came in, looking somewhat relieved, and somewhat worried.
“My father, Vyktor, wishes an audience with you,” Vilka said. “And he wishes to speak with you alone. I believe he thinks you could be coerced if I am present. I tried to explain that it is not possible to coerce you, but he will have to learn that for himself.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I will put in a good word for you.”
“Just try not to create more chaos, if you can possibly help it,” he said, taking her by the hand.
He led her through the fortress to one of the higher towers, which led out to a landing area.
Stopping before the great doors of one of the rooms, Vilka pressed a kiss to her lips and reminded her to be good.
“I’ll try,” she said with a smile. She was looking forward to meeting Vilka’s father. The man who had created him must be quite a beast.
Vilka pushed the door open and called out, “Father! Kate is here to see you.”
“Send her in,” Vyktor called from somewhere in the depths of the very large room. “I would speak with her alone.”
“Call out if she runs,” Vilka called back. “She’s a flight risk.”
“I’ve got some experience with that, son,” Vyktor replied. He came into view, turning a corner from behind a tall weapons case. Kate looked at him with intense interest as Vilka left, closing the door behind them.
Vyktor was much like Kate had imagined him, an older version of Vilka, more heavily lined, a gray beard and hair.
There was a weight to his presence, an imposing agedness—though there was nothing bowed or weak about him.
She could see how this man could be frightening, but there was a warmth to him, and maybe even a familiarity that made her feel comfortable talking to him.
“So this isn’t Vilka’s fault,” she said. “I mean, he is holding me captive, and he does lock me up at night in case I chew the chains off and run away, but I opened the portal that woke your dragon nightmare up, so that’s more on me, so don’t be too angry at him, okay?”
Vyktor’s lips quirked. “That’s quite an introduction, young lady.”
“I like to get the important things out of the way first, in case I don’t have time to say them later,” she said. “Like I said, I keep getting chained up places, and we might not get another chance to talk. I haven’t been gagged recently, but it’s probably only a matter of time.”
“I see,” Vyktor rumbled. “Very practical of you.”
“Oh, yes, I am practical,” she said. “That’s part of the problem.
You see, your son tried to keep me prisoner, but it’s actually pretty hard to keep me prisoner, so it’s been difficult, but you shouldn’t hold that against him either, because probably nobody could keep me prisoner for as long as he has, and I am still here, so…
” She trailed off, realizing that she was babbling nervously—and realizing that the reason that she was nervous was because this dragon man was Vilka’s father, and she actually cared about that.
Dammit. She could not afford to totally give into her feelings for Vilka.
That wouldn’t work. A relationship between a human and a dragon was literally impossible.
What realm would they even live in? What sort of holidays would they take?
The lifespans wouldn’t line up either, and that would just be sad.
“I’m somewhat familiar with how difficult humans, especially young human women can be to keep in any way contained,” Vyktor said, surprising her.
“Oh?”
“He hasn’t told you, has he?” Vyktor let out a chuckle. “He is still ashamed of it, I think.”
“Ashamed of what?” Kate was now thoroughly confused.
“His human side.”
“What?”
Vyktor let out a laugh. “For a perceptive scientist, you have missed an awful lot about the man who has taken you.”
“Well, I can’t be perceptive all the time about everything,” she mumbled, embarrassed. “I have been trying to escape, that takes up a lot of my time… what do you mean, Vilka has a human side?”
“I think you will enjoy meeting my wife,” Vyktor said. “She has taken to the sky for the moment, but she will land soon, I believe. She wished to look at the portal.”
“Well, it’s a big one,” Kate said.
“Not as large as some we have seen,” Vyktor noted. “But significant enough,” he added, as if she might be disappointed by his assessment. “Large enough to allow a world eater to pass through.”
“It squeezed right through it, like it couldn’t help itself,” Kate mused, remembering. “Are world eaters like cats? Do they have to see if they can fit in small spaces?”
“I don’t know,” Vyktor chuckled. “Perhaps.”
He was very different from the elders, and not just because he was Vilka’s father. The other elders were tense and angry and stiff and unhappy. Vyktor seemed to be quite comfortable standing there on the verge of the chaos she had created. He seemed to almost be enjoying it.
“This reminds me of when I met my wife,” he said. “The air was then as it is now, charged with the winds of change. They have been stale in this realm too long, I think. What seems to be a disaster may yet prove to be an opportunity.”
“Tell that to Vilka,” Kate said. “He needs to hear it.”
“I will speak with my son soon. For now, come meet my wife, I believe she is about to land.”
He led Kate out of a balcony door that looked out over the landing. Looking into the sky, Kate saw the strangest dragon she had ever laid eyes on circling above.
“What kind of dragon is that?”
It really didn’t look like a dragon. It was partially see-through, structured in a way that dragons were not. It seemed to have struts and gears and… was it somehow mechanical?
The creature swooped lower and Kate strained to get a good look at it, leaning so far over the balcony ledge that Vyktor grabbed the back of her dress in order to ensure that she did not tumble out of it completely.
“Easy,” he rumbled. “You’ll see soon enough.”
Kate felt a rush of shyness sufficient enough to make her stand back and wait for the dragon to land.
It did so on the landing a few dozen feet from the window, and with wide, stunned eyes, Kate saw that it was not a dragon, but a flying machine made to very much resemble one.
It was the most sophisticated piece of machinery she had seen in all her time in the dragon realm—but what, or rather who was inside it was even more of a shock.
It was a woman, wearing a silken flight suit.
Even at a distance, Kate was certain that it was not a dragon who sat there, but a human.
The woman stepped out of the contraption and waved in Vyktor’s direction. Kate saw a broad smile establish itself on the older man’s face. The look on his visage was one of pure adoration.
Kate put two and two together and came up with the only solution that fitted: Vilka’s mother was human. Vilka was half-dragon, half-human.
He had kept that very quiet, and she couldn’t help but wonder why.
Though perhaps, she did not have to. He had told her in some way, in the story of the events that had led up to him stealing the king’s crown—the reason he had been passed over for promotions, ostracized from the higher echelons of society.
He was half human, and he was obviously still suffering for it.
Kate felt a wave of protective anger rush through her.
No wonder he was so conflicted, and no wonder he was so insistent about holding on to her.
She was the only human he had ever known that was not his mother.
Maybe she was a lifeline to the world that he clearly rejected in spite of it being part of him.
There was a thin gangway between the landing pad and the room in which they were standing.
Kate watched as the woman drew closer, and was puzzled to see that she had to be in her early fifties.
Her hair was streaked with gray and her face was lined with the effects of the sun, but that in no way marred her beauty, or took anything away from the adventurous gleam in her eyes.
She had a youthful demeanor, and as she drew closer, Kate could see touches of Vilka in her face.
“Kate, this is my wife, Aria. Aria, this is Kate,” Vyktor said. “She opened the portal and woke the world eater.”
“All by yourself, very impressive,” Aria noted with a smile.
“Um… thank you?” Kate was confused not only by the fact that a human seemed to have been living here for a very long time, but that she was the mother of the man she had seen take flight in the form of a dragon.
How could a human mother a dragon? And how similar must the essential structure of dragons and humans be to allow such a DNA synthesis?
Vilka had said that it was possible, but she had assumed that he was wrong.
“She’s looking at me like I’m a ghost,” Aria said to Vyktor. “Is she alright?”
“I think she assumed she was the first human here,” Vyktor said.
“Second,” Aria corrected Kate. “Well, third, but the first one did not last very long unfortunately. How are you managing? Are you already pregnant?”
“No!” Kate blushed bright red. “I certainly am not…”
“But you are not suffering the effects of the radiation?”
“I made a formula which protects human cells from the radiation present in this realm. It’s quite a different form than the kinds which are so dangerous on Earth.
The particles are larger and don’t tend to penetrate the DNA, so it’s really a matter of shielding the cell proper and…
” She was babbling and she knew it. Aria and Vyktor exchanged amused looks.
“You must be very smart,” Aria said kindly.
“Not smart enough to be able to get out of here.”
“Well, when a dragon takes a prisoner, he tends to do a thorough job of it,” Aria said with another smile at her husband. “Don’t be too down on yourself for failing to escape. I had little success myself.”
“How did you come to be here? Were you taken through a portal? How long have you been here?” Kate was full of questions, fired at rapid pace.
Aria smiled indulgently and answered them without hesitation. “It was at the very end of the dragon war. I was a rookie fighter pilot. I tangled with this lizard,” she said, nudging Vyktor affectionately, “and got more than I bargained for,” she laughed.
“The dragon war? But that was only three years ago. And you’re… well…” Kate’s voice trailed off. “More mature than I would have expected for a rookie fighter pilot.”
“Three years on Earth, yes, but I have lived thirty years here in this realm,” Aria said. “I have not left it, not even for a day, so I have aged in this world, not the one I came from.”
“That is incredible,” Kate said. “You have more knowledge of this place than any human, decades of research potential in a few short years.”
“Earth years, yes,” Aria agreed. “But as you see, time passes just the same.”
Kate nodded. There was a price to be paid for living in the dragon realm, and that price was to miss much of human history, for so little of it passed compared to dragon years.
“Mathematics aside, we have greater problems to worry about,” Aria changed the subject. “Like closing the portal. Can you do that?”
“The portal I made, the first one, it was a small one which needed continuous power. That’s how I made something stable.
These huge portals, they’re self-sustaining, but they’re also unstable.
A significant electrical charge can destabilize and evaporate them, but I can’t really figure out how to generate one of those over here.
I probably could with time, but the elements are sort of out of phase and electricity doesn’t seem popular, so there’s no infrastructure, and besides, that massive dragon is still on the wrong side…
” She trailed off. “You know you’re the first person to even bother to ask me if I know how to close the portal? ”
“Dragons tend to act first and ask questions later,” Aria said. “I’m surprised Vilka is still in this realm at all and hasn’t flown through to deal with Avastias himself.”
“He’s worried I’ll escape if he takes his eyes off me,” Kate shrugged.
“Which you probably would.”
“Of course,” Kate agreed. “Though I have no idea how I’d get that high into the sky. Maybe you could drop me off through it?”
“And who is going to stop you from falling to your death on the other side?” Aria shook her head. “I think that plan may need a little more thought.”
“That plan will have no more thought given to it,” Vyktor interjected. “Do not give her ideas. We did not come here to create more trouble for Vilka.”
“Yes, dear,” Aria said. “Best behavior, I promise.” She flickered a little wink at Kate, who couldn’t help but smile.
Aria made Kate feel as if perhaps she were not such a terrible person.
Vilka had never said that she was, of course, but the sense of guilt had been building for quite some time and as much as she had tried to resist it, it had crept up inside her soul.
This was all her fault, and she knew it.
She just couldn’t bear to admit it, any more than she could bear to think what was going on back in New York with a dragon on the loose that made the Empire State Building look like a toothpick.
It occurred to Kate that out of all those who had come to the fortress, only Vyktor and Aria were real elders.
They were the only ones who had spoken to her directly, and they were certainly the only ones who had made the situation feel containable and who seemed to be prepared to offer some assistance, even if it was only of the moral kind—quite unlike the others who seemed to have made an appearance to leer at the misfortune of the unfavored son.