The Dragon and the Queen by Kaitlyn Davis
Rafe
Athrobbing at his temples woke Rafe. His blood pounded like fists against a locked door, the pulse pulling him from his slumber. With a groan, he rolled upright and pressed his fingers to his forehead, trying to dull the pain. But even as the ache subsided, the knocking continued, which was when he realized it was coming from the door.
"Come on, Rafe! You've been in there for a day. You can't hide forever."
He squeezed his eyes shut. Why not?
"Come on. The rest of the crew are starting to wonder if I killed you."
It was hardly the first time.
"I'm being kind, you know. I could pick these locks without breaking a sweat. So you might as well just let me—" Brighty cut off as he pulled open the door and a satisfied smirk widened her lips. "I knew you'd see reason."
"Go away."
He threw the door closed, but she stuck her foot out just in time and it bounced back open immediately. Not bothering to ask permission, she plowed inside the room, as he'd known she would.
"I get it," she prattled on. "You got new wings and for some reason it’s thrown you into the middle of a raging identity crisis, but you can at least show your face to the people risking their lives to get you as far away from Da'Kin as possible."
"You don't—" He broke off with a growl. She was right, as usual. It was one of her most frustrating qualities.
"Don't what? Understand? Here's something you don’t understand. I risked my ass pulling you from the fire last night and lugging you halfway across the city back to the ship. And when I showed up with a half-dead dragon man draped across my back, did anyone ask why? No. They took one look at your face and started raising the sails. Now, we find ourselves on the wrong side of a king with unparalleled power and it's all because of you. So the least you can do is put those flames away so as not to burn us alive and say thank you."
He swallowed and glanced to the side, finding that the leathery expanse of his wing simmered with fire. At the sight, all his pent-up rage disappeared, and a sigh racked through him. She was right again. He didn't know. His memory of that night was nothing but broken patches—walking into the warehouse, being strapped to the table beside the dragon, then burning in darkness until Lyana appeared, bright as the rising dawn to chase the shadows away. He remembered waking in her arms. He remembered watching her stop the wave threatening to drown the city beneath its might. He remembered stepping between her and the king, the man's magic somehow draining and reviving him at the same time. He remembered watching her fly away. Then…nothing. If Brighty hadn’t rescued him, he didn’t know where he’d be—probably locked in a dungeon somewhere, or worse. Dead.
"Thank you," he finally said.
"That's better." She crossed her arms, training those milky irises on him. Even though he had at least a foot on her, the urge to recoil raced through him. "Now, what’s got you hiding out all day? And don’t tell me it's just about the wings."
It was…and it wasn't.
His life had been altered in a way no one from this world beneath the mist could possibly understand. They hated dragons, and they killed them, but they didn’t fear them the way the people from his homeland did. To the world below, dragons were nothing more than creatures to be hunted. To the world above, they were godly beasts, symbols of pure evil. The ravens would cry out at the sight of him and curse his name. They would call him godless and demand his head. But the crew wouldn’t look at him as though he'd been tainted, and maybe that was why he couldn’t face them. He didn't want their acceptance. He didn’t want to feel any bit at home in this skin.
Yet it was more than that.
Nightmares haunted him. No matter what he did, he couldn’t shake the visions plaguing him—of blood-soaked claws and slashed throats and silent screams. He'd spent most of the previous day staring out of his window and into the fog, seeing not the endless gray but fathomless black. Only after hours of playing and replaying the scene had he realized the truth of what it was. The screeches in the background had been ravens, and the flashes of green the ancient trees in the sacred nest. The people dying by his hands had been priests and priestesses. And it had been real. Rafe didn’t know how or why or what, but he knew in his gut it hadn’t been a dream. It had been a memory—one he couldn't possibly explain.
"Rafe?" Her voice made him flinch. "You need to get out of this room."
He threw her a sidelong glance, trying to cover the unease raising the hairs along the back of his neck. "Do you ever tire of being right?"
"Not around you. Now, come on."
Brighty took him by the arm and pulled him above deck. He shielded his gaze the moment they stepped through the door, the silver mist vivid enough to sting after so many hours in the dark. Though there might have been another reason too. He didn’t want to feel their stares, their appraisal, their gawking eyes. None came. He lowered his arm and glanced around the ship, surprised to find everyone busily at work. They paid him no mind—Captain's doing, he was sure.
Of course, that all changed when Brighty cupped her palms around her lips and shouted, "Hey! Listen up! Rafe's got something he wants to say."
She turned to him with a grin.
Rafe's nostrils flared as a dozen eyes focused on him. There were few things he loathed more than being the center of attention. Blame a lifetime spent keeping to the shadows.
"Thanks for that." He ground the words through his teeth. Then louder, he said, "Brighty informed me of the risks you're all taking on my behalf, and I just wanted to say thank you. There's no need for you to put yourself in danger. I'm feeling much stronger now and I can take my leave as soon as—ow!"
Brighty dug the heel of her boot into his toe, just as Archer called out, "Do I need to fashion the man a muzzle?"
Before Rafe could respond, Squirrel dropped into view, dangling upside down from the sails with a bored expression across his youthful face. "Is that it?"
"You want more?" he asked.
"Well…" the boy drawled, too young to have so much attitude. "Aren't you going to do anything?"
"Do anything?"
"I believe the boy wants a demonstration," Brighty murmured as she leaned close, unable to hide her amusement. Squirrel’s light brown eyes widened with excitement. Inwardly, Rafe groaned.
"Ignore him." Jolt glared at Squirrel. She had a motherly way about her that included the elusive skill of silencing a rebellious child with a single glance. Her nearly black eyes could cut into a person's soul—Rafe almost envied it. The boy promptly scrambled back up to where he'd been hiding in the sails, though no one missed his dramatic sigh.
"I don't know," Pyro chimed in from the other side of the deck. In the breeze, her auburn hair flared around her face like flames, accenting the wild delight in her seafoam eyes. Red glittered around her fingers as she lifted her hand. An ember peeled off Rafe’s wings and sailed across the deck, igniting into a full blaze by the time it landed in her waiting palm. "I wouldn't mind a demonstration."
"I wouldn't mind a sample," Leech murmured behind him.
Rafe jumped and spun, backing away from the agro'kine. The man was short but stocky, and he could probably hold Rafe down just long enough to nick him if he wanted to. "Don't come anywhere near me with your needles. I mean it."
The older man's face fell as though Rafe had murdered his pet. "It would only take a minute."
"Leech."
"But—"
"Leech."
"Achoo!"
Rafe flinched again, this time turning to find Spout with her hands over her face, her chest already filling with more air. Framed by the dark, ruddy tone of her skin, her honey eyes shone with apology before clamping shut as another sneeze racked through her. He'd forgotten she was allergic to dragon scales. The sea exploded, showering them with salt water. The droplets sizzled as they landed on his skin. He didn’t need to look to know the flames around his wings burned brighter. He could feel the livening blaze inside his chest, mirroring his mood as the crew closed in around him. Their magic simmered across the air along with their intrigue. He might have dealt with their scorn better. Disdain, at least, he was used to. Heat tickled the back of his throat. Just as he feared he might explode, a voice cut through the madness.
"Enough," Captain Rokaro shouted.
At once, everyone froze. He could almost hear their collective groan as she stepped out from behind the wheel and made her way across the deck. Patch sidled into her place, the first mate's large frame dwarfing the wheel in a way hers hadn’t. But her presence commanded more respect than any other’s on the ship, and the crew parted before her. Rafe didn’t move as she approached. Those blue eyes pinned him to the spot, somehow both cold and warm against the backdrop of her tawny wrinkled cheeks.
"I do remember you making us one promise," she said over the slapping of waves against the hull. As she came to a stop before him, he swore he was looking not at the captain, but at the hawk who shared her spirit. Over her left shoulder, her copper feathers rippled in an invisible breeze. "You promised that when you got your wings, you'd come back to the ship so we could see a man fly."
Rafe closed his eyes in relief, his mind already going to the open air and freedom. Somehow, she knew exactly what he needed, and she was right. For all the horror of his new body, there was one benefit he couldn't deny. While the rest of the crew was bound to the sea, he was once more a creature of the sky.
Captain leaned in close, so only he could hear, and whispered, "Fly."
One pump of his leathery wings, and he was airborne. Wind ruffled the loose fabric of his untucked shirt and swirled unnaturally around his body as he took to the sky. When he opened his eyes, the mist glittered with yellow sparks of aero'kine magic. The captain was following him the only way she now could—with her magic and her soul. The thought propelled him onward.
I have to celebrate this one thing.
No matter the consequences, I have wings again.
Unlike so many others, I can still fly.
Rafe grinned, forgetting the ship as the breeze pressed against his cheeks and swept through his hair. These new wings were more aerodynamic, with bones he wasn't used to and a flexibility he didn’t quite understand, but the dragon sharing his spirit did. Together they dove, one learning and one teaching as the leathery folds bent in and out to catch the wind. At a soar, this new body was slower, but in other ways it was as though a whole new range of the sky had been opened, allowing him to flip and spin and roll, to move with an agility he had never dreamed possible. In the solace of the impenetrable fog, no one else around to see, he quietly admitted he was enjoying himself. Part man, part dragon, entirely alone in the world, and yet he was having fun for the first time in—well, it'd been so long, he couldn’t even remember.
So he didn't try.
He turned off his mind, locking away the doubts and the fears, so he could simply experience this glorious return to the sky. There was no telling how much time passed before he came to, realizing he'd lost sight of the ship and the crew entirely. Rafe widened his wings to catch the air and hovered for a beat. Glancing around, he had no sense of up or down or left or right. He was adrift in a sea of endless gray, completely and totally lost.
Gods alive!he silently cursed. Idiot.
A gentle current in the air made his skin tingle, lulling him closer. His stomach felt hollow. Yearning filled the vacant spaces—yearning and a hunger unlike any he'd felt before.
A brilliant blast of light suddenly sliced through the fog.
His craving flared.
Magic.Rafe sucked in a sharp breath. I feel their magic.
Now that he knew what it was, he closed his eyes and gave in to that newfound need. A sixth sense entirely new to him reached invisibly through the air, drawn in by their power. Captain's aero'kine magic searched the winds for the subtle disturbance of wings. Brighty's photo'kine magic cut tunnels through the mist. Pyro's pyro'kine magic grasped for the heat alive beneath his skin. They were looking for him. They were following him. And—
Wait.
Rafe spun in midair, his brows pushing together as another whisper of magic pulled at him from the opposite direction. It was being used with more force, creating a stronger current. The power called out, but it was something else that lured him in, another new instinct he didn’t quite understand. This one formed deep in his mind rather than his stomach, unfurling like a flower in spring, drawing up thoughts of ash and fire.
It was a…dragon.
He didn’t know how he knew, but he did. A dragon was close by, and judging by the powerful flares of magic pulsing across the sky, there was a ship in dire need of help.
Not thinking, he raced toward the site. The smell of smoke hit first, then the gradual darkening of the fog, until he carved through charcoal soot. Bright orange flames licked the sky, cutting through the mist, and heat struck his cheeks. By the time he reached the ship, it was already engulfed in flames. Magic lit the skies, peppering the billowing smog with bright sparks of color. Hidden within the fog, the dragon roared. The sound didn't reverberate through Rafe’s soul the way it once had, filling him with fear. Instead, purpose sharpened his movements.
Letting instinct guide him, he soared closer. The people onboard probably thought he was mad or a monster as he dropped onto the ship, ignoring the flames burning his clothes. They didn’t touch his skin—not anymore. And he was beyond feeling, too distracted by the new awareness burgeoning to life inside his body. Power prickled along his exposed arms. The flavor of magic saturated the air. As he breathed, he drew it in like one might consume a meal. Just out of sight, another dragon did the same, feeding on the feast that both killed and sustained it. Rafe could feel the beast. They were connected somehow. Their minds grazed.
He knew when it decided to fly closer.
He felt when it sucked in a long, full breath of air.
He sensed the heat gathering at the back of its throat.
Just as the dragon appeared through the haze and reared back its head for a killing blast, Rafe held up his hands, spread his wings to brace himself, and silently screamed, No!
The beast stopped.
No, Rafe thought again. Go. Leave. Fly.
For a moment, it did nothing. Two bulbous red eyes found his across the distance as those expansive leathery wings pumped once. The silence stretched, nothing but the crackling of flames and the smoldering of wood, as though the rest of the world held its breath. Rafe was too afraid to move, to breathe. The dragon stared and he stared right back.
Leave.
The beast dropped its head, jaws widening as they neared Rafe. Its teeth were the size of his torso, and they gleamed with the reflection of flames. Closer and closer they crawled, until the flat expanse at the front of the dragon's snout pressed gently into his open palms. Rafe sucked in a sharp breath as visions flickered behind his eyes, of barren, rocky landscapes and tangerine skies, of flames and heat and a soul-crushing absence he couldn’t explain.
Fly.
The dragon retreated into the mist, its ebony wings gradually fading as it fled. Rafe lowered his hands and stared at his perfectly unblemished palms, still feeling the heat of those smoldering scales on his skin.
What in Taetanos's name was that?