“Kate, open your eyes. Kate.”
I didn’t want to. I was comfortable, finally comfortable. All I wanted to do was stay here and not have to deal with whatever the world wanted to throw at me next.
“Kate.”
I wasn’t sure who grabbed my shoulder, but I finally opened my eyes, and my jaw dropped.
“Dad?”
He stood before me in his plaid shirt, dirty jeans from working outside, and grey short hair. He smiled warmly and threw his arms open.
I leapt into them, and he hugged me, kissing the top of my head.
“Wait, if you’re here… am I dead?” I asked, pulling back suddenly.
His laugh was warm, and I hadn’t realized how much I missed the sound of it. It’d been rare when I would hear it and should’ve treasured it more since our time together was so short.
“No, you’re not dead.”
“Then how are you here? What is this place?”
Everywhere I looked I saw nothing, but a gentle, blue and white light. I couldn’t even tell what we stood on, but didn’t care. My dad was here.
“I’ve always been with you, but you never needed me until now.”
I frowned, unsure of what he meant until he held up my wrist, my wrist without a bracelet. “Oh no! Where is it?”
“You removed it, just as you were meant to.”
I rubbed the spot where I’d worn it for so many years, trying to remember what happened.
There’d been yelling, lots of yelling.
Craig and Forrest.
They’d been in trouble, and the plagued shadow attacked us as we tried to escape.
I stared in amazement from my hands to my dad’s face, filled with pride.
“I’m a dragon.”
He nodded. “Yes, one of a very powerful, old bloodline.”
“But… why? How?” I shook my head as the past events hit me all over again. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“You weren’t ready to know, and it was too dangerous. It still is.” His smile fell away, and he held my shoulders. “Kate, you must listen to me. There isn’t much time, but you are in grave danger now that you’ve shifted. You’ve revealed yourself, and they will hunt you.”
“You mean dragons like Forrest?”
“Not just dragons,” he corrected, and my gut twisted. “I’m afraid you will never be safe again.”
I puffed out my cheeks and wished I could close my eyes go back to sleep, pretend none of this happened. “Why? What happened to our family?”
“Our history is a long and difficult one. I do not have time to explain it all now. You must find it out on your own and learn from it. It’s the only way to stop it for good this time.”
“You mean the plague?”
“Yes. We thought we contained it before, but we were wrong. There is only one sure way to end this. The shield of the Vindicar.”
I wrinkled my face. “I don’t know what that is… but the spawn… it called me that.”
His face tightened in fear. “It recognized your power. How you must wield it. We had it for a very long time, the shield, but when our family was betrayed, it was stolen and shattered into pieces. You must find them, Kate. Find them and bring them back together.”
“And do what?” I asked frantically. “I can’t do this!”
“Yes, you can. This is what you were born to do, Kate, and if you can’t, then the world is lost.”
I clung to his arm, wanting him to come back with me, but he was fading from sight right before my eyes. “Dad, please.”
He cupped my face in his hands and kissed my forehead. “I have faith in you, my daughter. Remember all I’ve taught you, and you will be fine.”
He hugged me again, and I clung to him as tight as I could, willing him to stay with me, but I felt his presence slipping away.
Tears slipped down my cheeks to lose him again.
And then he was gone, and I was falling backward through the bright lights.
“It’s that strong already? How can that be?”
I knew that voice.
Mama Lucy’s voice.
I was back home, safe and sound, in Mama Lucy’s house on the comfy couch in the living room. Maybe it was all a dream after all, and I was going to open my eyes and see Mama Lucy with the kids.
But when I did open my eyes, I looked right up into the eyes of Craig, the half-demon. “Damn.”
“Kate?” he asked confused.
“Sorry, I was hoping all of this had been a really bad dream,” I mumbled and tried to sit up, but stopped when my neck screamed in pain and my head throbbed. “Ow! Why does everything hurt?”
“Probably because you shifted into a dragon for the first time and went after the plagued spawn,” he offered. “Saved our asses, though.”
“I did?”
He nodded and smiled warmly. “Yeah, you did.”
With his help, I sat up, and Mama Lucy was there to hug me.
She was crying, wetting my shoulder, and I patted her back.
I told myself whenever we were safely back home, I’d let myself fall apart, but now, after speaking to my dad and fighting off that… that demon spawn, falling apart was the last thing on my mind.
A strength I never knew I had in me burst into life and I realized there wasn’t time to sit around and complain about the turn my life took.
I was a Darrah, and though I might not know exactly what it meant, I knew it was important. People were relying on me, the world actually. I had to be strong now. Had to be fierce enough to save them all.
“Mama Lucy, you’re smothering me,” I mumbled after a few minutes of letting her hug me so tight.
“Sorry, sorry!” she mumbled and leaned back, smoothing my hair from my face. “Craig was telling me about what happened. Are you sure you’re alright? I didn’t see any injuries, but everything happened so fast.”
“Yeah, guess it did.” I glanced at Craig, but he looked unharmed for the most part. I looked around the living room and paused when I spied Forrest. “What’s wrong with Forrest?” I asked, seeing him propped up against the wall, not saying a word.
“He wants to take you back to the dragon world because you are, in his words, a traitor.” Mama Lucy lifted her chin and glared at him fiercely. “I should turn him into a toad.”
“Can you do that? I mean, with all the other magic you can apparently do?”
She sighed and patted my cheek. “I’m sorry you had to find out that way, hon. I was going to tell you at some point, if you really wanted to know.” She glanced once more at Forrest. “And no, I can’t turn him into a toad, at least not permanently.”
That was too bad. I knew I couldn’t trust him. Dragons killed my family, and as soon as Forrest learned who I was, he wanted to take me out to. Dad was right, it appeared. Thinking of Dad reminded me of what he said, and there was no time to waste.
“Craig, do you have that glass shard still?”
His eyes widened in panic, and he dug through the pockets of his leather coat laid out across the back of the couch. He breathed a sigh of relief as he pulled it out.
I reached for it, but he pulled back.
“You sure about this? Last time you went a little crazy.”
“I’m sure.”
He waited another moment, holding my gaze, before he rested it in the palm of my hand. This time when I closed my fingers around it, I was ready for the power radiating off it. This was a part of me, this power, and there were many more pieces out there we needed to find.
I opened my eyes and smiled at Craig. “I’m good, but I think I need your help.”
“My help? For what?”
I held up the glass shard, so it caught the light. “This is a part of a shield, one that once belonged to my family,” I explained. “Or at least that’s what my dad said.”
“And when did he tell you this?”
“A few moments ago,” I replied quietly.
Lucy and Craig nodded slowly. “You saw him?” she asked.
“I did, and he told me this is part of the Shield of the Vindicar.” I let the glass rest flat in my palm. “And according to him, I’m meant to wield it somehow against this thing that’s coming so this time we can stop it for good.”
“And did your dad happen to tell you where the other pieces are?”
“Nope, and I have no idea where to look for the other ones.”
Craig tapped his fingers on the couch, but then his lips curled into a grin, and he glanced over his shoulder at Forrest. “Maybe you don’t, but I do,” he mused. “The dragon archives. They’ll be filled with information we could use, clues to track these pieces down. You are after all a dragon and if I’m not mistaken, a Darrah.”
I still wasn’t sure what exactly that meant, but Craig seemed to.
“Care to share?”
“It means you are royalty, just as Forrest is. And,” he added, holding his finger up, “if I also recall my history lesson correctly, courtesy of Forrest himself, the Darrah clan was the rightful rulers over the Chimalus clan until his family rebelled and took over.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes, yes, it is, so therefore you do not have to listen to him,” Craig told me. “And it also means that you have every right to return to the lands of your ancestors.”
“No,” Mama Lucy argued. “It’s too dangerous. You’d be going right where he wants you.”
I swung my legs around, so my feet were on the floor, and with Craig supporting me, managed to stand upright. “If we don’t do something about this plague, it’ll spread from the Burnt World, my old world I think, to the demon world even faster and eventually, it’ll come here. We have to stop it, Mama Lucy.” I might know everything there was to know about this new world around me, or demons and dragons, or witches, but I would have to figure it out as I went.
What I did know was that plague spawn was not the true enemy. The voice in my head had been, and it was much more powerful than the spawn we faced. If we weren’t ready when it came, we’d all die.
Slowly, my legs shaky from shifting into a dragon and back again so quickly, I approached Forrest. This time when I stared into his eyes, my dragon shifted in response to another being so close. But it wasn’t happy. Smoke trailed from my nose, and a growl reverberated deep in my chest.
“I think it’s time you and I have a real honest chat, Prince Forrest,” I said, crouching down before him. “What do you say and remember, it’s treason to disobey your princess.”
His eyes narrowed in rage, but that was just fine with me.
The time had come for me to learn all about my history and I was going to start with learning how Forrest and his kin betrayed mine to their deaths.