Stealing the Dragon’s Heart by Kiersten Fay

46

Aidan could no longer see where Onnika and Caryn were, and there was no getting through The Gauntlet’s barrier. It was an exercise in futility, a punching bag for their aggression. Neither he, Lear, nor Asher had even made a dent in the fucking thing. It was made of some kind of impenetrable material that even his dragon’s breath could not affect.

When the girls had dropped from his line of sight, he thought he might go mad not knowing what had become of them, so he shifted back into his two-legged form and toed through the corpses of countless machines on his way to find a holo-screen to anxiously watch the live feed. Hidden cameras caught the action as Onnika and Caryn scrambled to escape a deadly creature in what appeared to be the bowels of a desolate cave.

Accepting defeat, Lear and Asher joined him, breathing deeply, repressed aggression wafting off them in waves. “What were they thinking?” Lear snapped. “This is madness.”

“Caryn went in first,” Asher announced. “I do not know why, but I saw her as she entered.” As he spoke, one of the machines that still had a little juice limped closer to them, still following its programming.

“And of course Onnika followed,” Aidan deduced. She would follow her sister into hell itself. He both admired and cursed their undying loyalty to one another. “It’s up to them now. There is nothing we can do.”

Asher regarded the approaching machine with disdain, cocked his fist and smashed it into the metal casing, sending it flying to the other end of the room. The action was recorded and broadcast over the feed. It appeared their failed attempt at a rescue was just as entertaining as the girls’ near-misses with death.

“I hate this race,” Aidan spat. “I’m never doing it again.”

“You’ll get no argument from me,” Lear muttered.

Asher grit his teeth. “If Caryn does not survive, I will make it my personal mission to hunt down the commissioners and take their spines with my teeth.”

“There you are.” Zeek was crossing toward them, observing with mild interest the tattered machine parts along his path. “Did a bunch of cyborgs explode in here?”

“Something like that,” Lear replied with a sneer.

Zeek’s gaze snapped to the feed. “What is…are you kidding…are they…?”

“In The Gauntlet,” Ash groused. “Yes.”

Zeek’s expression twisted into reverence. “I can’t believe they did it without me.”

“Did you know about this?” Aidan thundered, yanking Zeek onto his toes by the collar of his shirt.

Zeek blinked up at him, taken aback by the unexpected aggression. “Did I know they were going to attempt The Gauntlet? No. Of course not. I wanted to. It’s a giant puzzle game.”

Aidan pointed up at the screen as that monstrous creature chased Onnika up the side of the cavern. “That is not a puzzle.”

Zeek looked closer. “I think it is. Do you see those bells on the back wall? They almost blend in with the rock. I’ll bet if you hit them in the right order, the creature would be immobilized or maybe a door would open up.”

Sure enough, there were a set of three bells lined along one wall near the ceiling. “Oh, come on!” Aidan bellowed. “How is anyone supposed to spot those while dodging a man-eating creature and with so much adrenaline coursing through their veins?”

“They don’t call it The Gauntlet because it’s easy,” Zeek calmly replied.

Resisting the urge to strangle his jovial friend, Aidan set him down and watched, horrified, as Onnika battled the creature. As usual, she didn’t follow the rules. She did things her way. Instead of working the puzzle, she simply eliminated the problem, nearly splitting it in half by dropping a massive shaft of stone on it.

He found himself anxiously biting his nails, pacing, clawing at his hair, while Onnika and Caryn made their way through two more rooms of death and destruction. The first had been another cavern-type environment with mammoth saws that shot up from the floor. In that room, Caryn had yanked Onnika back just before a razor-thin blade could rend her in two. Seeing that made him understand why Caryn might have assumed she could do this alone. Onnika had said Caryn’s magic led her in the right direction, like a walking good luck charm. But she was a fool to think she could have run this obstacle course without help, particularly in her weakened condition. Without Onnika at her side, she would have died several times over already. On the other hand, Onnika’s magic was of zero use. She could not determine the intentions of unfeeling machines or creatures. She was working purely on instinct and grit.

The second room had been the one with the burned pillars and the flaming vents, the one where he’d watched another man forfeit using a white flag, which neither Onnika nor Caryn seemed to be in possession of. As they leapfrogged through the room, he could tell the pillars offered little protection from the extreme heat. Their clothes were singed in places, their skin blistering. Caryn looked on the verge of passing out. Onnika practically had to drag her along.

Now they limped into an empty room at the edge of The Gauntlet, where the glass allowed onlookers to get an up-close and personal peek, like some kind of grisly exhibit in a zoo that never should exist. Aidan, Zeek, Asher, and Lear all crowded around, visually checking the girls for wounds. Their skin was badly burned, new blisters boiling to the surface. They were both covered in grit and grime, their clothing torn in places, singed in others. Onnika had a grim-looking gash on her arm, dripping blood. Caryn’s expression appeared almost vacant, as if she were miles away…or wishing she was. She gripped her head and sank to her hands and knees. Onnika rushed to her side, saying something they couldn’t hear, but then her gaze swung around and met Aidan’s. Her jaw dropped, and she instantly appeared sorrowful.

Apparently, she could see out as easily as they could see in. Desperate to touch her and hold her safe in his grip, he began pounding on the glass, blasting into it with his fists and shoulders. Lear and Asher did the same, but as before, there was no effect, and Zeek urged them to stop, pointing out that the girls might need the aid of their hearing to figure out this next puzzle.

Their attacks instantly ceased.

The room was plain, with no visible markings that Aidan could make out, a metal-paneled room much like the one that had nearly suffocated them with poison.

Onnika’s head whipped around, studying the slate-gray walls. She shook Caryn, who appeared to be fading fast, slumped on her side, her chest heaving as though it was difficult to draw in breath.

Aidan grabbed Zeek by the arm and dragged him close. “Do you seen any hint of what they’re meant to do?”

“Not yet,” he replied. “Oh, wait! Here we go.” At that moment, three panels slid open on the opposite wall, and through them pushed three large spigots, each with a different shaped valve handle: a circle, triangle, and square. A mural of those same shapes was superimposed on the two adjacent walls, like a deck of cards evenly spaced out and extending from floor to ceiling. Many of the shapes went dark and then lit up again at different intervals. Onnika stood and turned in a circle, her eyes darting between the two walls and the spigots. A second later, a quick spreading puddle of water spanned out along the floor, sloshing past where Caryn lay with her eyes closed. She didn’t stir even as her clothes grew damp.

“Oh, gods.” Asher placed both palms flat on the glass. “Is she breathing?”

A pall fell over them, and no one replied.

Onnika splashed the icy cold water over Caryn’s cheeks, lightly patting them. “Caryn, sweetie, wake up. It’s time to work. What do I do?” Water sloshed in faster, already four inches deep. If Caryn remained unconscious, she’d drown in no time.

Trying to stave off her panic, Onnika took turns shaking her and studying the symbols on the walls. Periodically, the shapes flashed dark then bright again in a seemingly random pattern, but she knew there had to be some kind of order to it. It was a puzzle. The only problem was she had no idea how the pieces fit. She also surmised that she would need to turn those valves to get the water to stop, but probably in a specific order.

And…was the water coming in faster now? It inched past her ankles and was climbing.

Dragging Caryn to the corner of the room, she propped her up against the window. The men immediately started banging on the barrier near where her head lolled, their mouths opening wide as though screaming for her to wake up, but only muffled sound filtered in.

Spinning around, she concentrated on the flashing symbols and realized they weren’t just flashing on and off, but they were rearranging as they did, constantly shifting. She could make no sense of it. She regarded the valves, debating turning them at random and hoping for the best, but if she didn’t get the order right, it might flush more water into the room, which was now approaching knee height and was so cold she could barely keep her teeth from chattering.

What do I do?If Caryn were awake, she might be able to guess at the proper algorithm for spinning those valves and find success. Without her magic, neither she nor Onnika were equipped for puzzle solving, especially when one of their lives was on the line and adrenaline was making it hard to think. No wonder Zeek had been so keen on the idea of running The Gauntlet. Giant puzzle that it was, it was his wet dream.

Zeek!

She spun around, seeking him through the clear barrier. He was concentrating hard on one of the two walls, eyes narrowed, lips moving slightly as though muttering to himself. Sloshing over to him, she slammed her hands on the barrier to grab his attention and mouthed, “What do we do?”

Expression strained, he simply returned his attention to the shifting symbols, which, to her, meant he was still trying to figure it out.

Caryn’s chin was underwater now. Onnika trudged to her side and lifted her body higher, holding it up against the wall. This time when she splashed more water on her face, her eyes cracked open. “What’s going on?” she slurred.

“We’re in The Gauntlet still. I need you to use your magic now. Which valve do I turn? All three? Only one?”

Caryn’s head did a kind of circular dance over her shoulders. “You should never have followed me in. I was wrong. I can’t do this. You should have just let me die…long ago.”

“You die, I die,” Onnika declared, throwing the force of her conviction into her voice. “We’re a team, and a damn good one. I know you’re tired. I know you’re in pain. We just have a little farther to go and we’re home free.”

Caryn’s eyes closed again, exhaustion etched in her features, but she didn’t pass out. “I love you, Oni.”

“Don’t you fucking dare say goodbye! We aren’t finished yet. You remember home? You remember our family? Aidan met Uncle Ethanule. Did I tell you that? It’s fate that we came to be with them on Dragoon. That was because of you. You did that, Caryn. You brought us to them. Aidan’s going to take us home. The both of us.”

Water gushed around them as if fed by a frigid river, rising past their shoulders, forcing them to tread the surface, and completely consuming the valves.

“He met our uncle?” muttered Caryn. Her tone was dreaming and strained from shivering, her lips turning blue. “How s-strange.”

Onnika shivered, too. The freezing water stabbed through her flesh, straight into her bones. How long before hypothermia set in?

“Can you keep yourself above water?” she asked.

Caryn nodded and placed her palms on the glass for support.

Leaving her side, Onnika swam to the barrier and peered down at Aidan’s miserable gaze. The water was now well over his head. Flattening her palm on the surface she said, “I’m sorry.” She knew he couldn’t hear her, but she trusted that he would read her lips.

His features shifted into a snarl, and he shook his head. “No. You don’t get to say that now. Not yet.” At least that’s what she thought he said.

He tugged Zeek by the arm and yelled something she couldn’t make out. Distraught and seeming on the verge of tears, Zeek rocked his head back and forth.

The water rose and rose until both Onnika and Caryn were face to face with the ceiling, gasping for air, iced through. She had to do something at least. Turn the valves in any kind of order and hope for the best.

Sucking in a deep breath, she dove under. The water turned glacial as she moved through it, sending a million needles of pain through her skin. She made it to the square valve first and was preparing to turn it when she heard a distant thump, thump, thumping behind her. All four men were pounding on the window with all their might. With his finger, Zeek began drawing shapes. First a circle, then a square, then tringle, then a—

Her lungs demanded air. She could wait no longer. Shoving off the floor she shot to the surface. Her forehead banged into the ceiling. There was an inch left of air. “Caryn, she gargled. Hold on. I think we got it.” But there was no answer.

Gulping in air, Onnika dove once more and spared her unconscious sister a glance as she slowly sank to the bottom and then turned her attention to Zeek. Following his frantic direction, she turned the circular valve, followed by the square and triangle, then square again, circle again…how long would this infernal sequence be?

Her lungs burned for air, she tried to race up to the top once more, but the water had completely filled the room. Growing lightheaded, she shot back down and tried to concentrate on Zeek’s instructions. Square again, circle twice, triangle. Her vision became tunneled. Ice invaded her lungs. Pins sliced her skin, her veins, deep into her muscles. Her hands were growing stiff like icicles, and she feared they could shatter at any moment.

Another turn of the square valve…

Her world was growing dim. Her mind wanted the pain to end. Her lungs were struggling to keep from drawing in a gush of icy water.

She thought she heard an echo that sounded a lot like a boulder hitting a rooftop. It made little sense. Then something glossy lit up in her vision, gliding through the water in front of her. They say that when one dies there is a light, and you’re meant to follow it. She reached out for the light, and her hand clasped around something solid. She blinked and tried to force the encroaching darkness from her vision.

In her hand was a tool of some sort, an object with a handle. What a strange thing to find here, her woozy mind mused. What was its purpose? One end of it was fitted with a kind of gem, clear and sparkly and beautiful…like a diamond!

Wait a minute! Didn’t diamonds cut glass?

Her slowing heart revved with new life, even as she choked on frigid water.

Kicking out, she made her way to the barrier. It seemed miles away and getting farther. Or maybe her arms and legs were no longer responding properly. After what felt like eons, she met the glass with her palm. With all the energy she could muster, she slashed at the surface until finally the glass splintered in a thousand directions, like billions of tiny spiderwebs fanning out. Then the entire thing shattered.

The pressure of the suddenly uncontained water pulled her forward in a massive surge, sending her spilling out of The Gauntlet. Somewhere in the watery chaos, arms caught her and rode the wave with her. She may have blacked out for a moment. When she came to, she could only comprehend her lungs laboring to expel liquid while also gasping for air. Then, miraculously, she blinked her eyes open and realized she was alive, lying prone on a drenched floor. Aidan hovered over her, dripping wet.

“Caryn?” she croaked.

He glanced up, then back down at her. “She’s…they’re working on her.”

Onnika didn’t like the worry in his gaze. She tried to sit up, but he easily held her fatigued form down with a hand lightly pressed to her chest. “Easy. Just breathe.”

Her head swam as though she were still trapped in that hellish fish tank. She heard a strange noise in the background, like a river roaring, and her adrenaline surged once more, fearing there was more danger headed their way, but after several intense heartbeats, she realized she was hearing the cheers of thousands of onlookers, peering down at them from the safety of the upper floors. She wanted to flip them off and let them know how she felt about their excitement. Maybe she did, but they only cheered louder.