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1053 Words
Clang.
My eyes flew open and in the darkness I saw a huge draconic face glaring down at me. Drakontos maior, probably, if the jaw horns were any indication. But it was hard to tell when the fourth-largest species of dragon was right above me. How did it even fit inside the cell? Or under the bed? I should have heard it coming in, but this was the quietest dragon I’d ever met.
The great golden scales burned across my vision, searing my eyes just enough to elicit a single teardrop in my right eye.
The head reared back—how it did that without bashing its skull against my bed, I couldn’t say—and inhaled with its secondary lungs.
I tried to scramble away, but I was too weak, too slow, so I saw everything:
The flare of its nostrils.
The chasm of its mouth.
The spark glands igniting at the moment it exhaled.
Blue fire unspooled from the back of the creature’s throat, turning white and red as it surged toward me. I squeezed my eyes shut and lifted my hands like I could protect my face. My knuckles scraped wood—the underside of my bed, not a dragon. There was no fire.
There was no dragon.
Just the darkness.
A faint whine escaped my parched throat as a distant part of me realized what was happening: I was hallucinating. And of course I was seeing a dragon. Dragons were the reason I was in here in the first place. Because I’d failed them.
I gathered the scattered threads of my thoughts and focused on breathing. Somewhere around fourteen or seventy, I lost count and had to start over, but even that was better than imagining dragons trying to kill me. I tried again and again, but the counting failed me every time, sometimes with sleep, sometimes with mind fog, sometimes with spikes of terror that came from the impenetrable darkness.
Then came the footsteps, a faint tap tap tap down the hall.
Finally.
Someone was coming to get me.
I tried to move—scoot out, sit up—but my limbs were too heavy and held me down. Even if I’d been able to move them, would I have been able to tell? The darkness made me question everything.
“Hello?” At least, I tried to ask. What really emerged was a faint, desperate croak.
The footsteps continued on like they hadn’t heard me. Because they were hallucinations. Of course. Anyway, footsteps couldn’t hear. Only people. And hallucinatory footsteps couldn’t belong to people.
Laughter threatened again, and I didn’t have the energy to stamp it down. But it didn’t matter, because my aching throat closed and refused to do any more. My entire body was breaking down. I could almost feel my organs slouching from hunger, becoming brittle and scattering apart from lack of water.
I was so thirsty. Even hunger fell behind the aching thirst.
For a while, the footsteps continued. Slowly. Maddeningly. I tried to count them, but as before, the numbers fell beneath the agony of starvation.
Tap, tap, tap. Like the quiet code.
Tap, tap, tap. Like my father’s fingers against his desk.
Tap, tap, tap. Like the weak motion of my heart.
Everything grew sluggish. Thoughts. Movements. Awareness.
Then the footsteps vanished.
I was alone.
Again.
In the dark.
As consciousness fluttered in and out—mostly out—the darkness crept toward me. Between the metal grille. Through Aaru’s hole. Across the floor.
The darkness went on and on, until it devoured me.
A LIST WITHOUT NUMBERS:
Drops of water in Aaru’s cup.
Too far away to reach.
How did anyone make noorestones go dark?
That wasn’t supposed to be possible.
I wished I were a dragon.
I’d burn everything.
“Galadriel?”
It sounded like Aaru was here with me, but his voice came from a million leagues away.
“Galadriel.” It was Gerel this time. Even farther. Why were they all so far away? Didn’t they know I couldn’t reach them, or move, or speak? Didn’t they know I’d give anything to answer except . . .
I wished I were a dragon. I’d . . .
The scrape of wood on stone caught my attention, like silk snagging on a nail. The sound was familiar. I’d been here before.
“Galadriel.” That was definitely Aaru, or at least a convincing hallucination. Like the clanging. Like the dragon face. Like the footsteps. He wasn’t real.
I wasn’t real.
“Must drink.” A note of urgency filled Aaru’s voice. “Galadriel. Drink.”
Drink. Oh, Damyan and Darina. I was so, so thirsty. But when I opened my mouth to say so, only a low groan emerged. My tongue was dry. Swollen. Scratchy. It hurt to move. I couldn’t even open my eyes because of the dryness. Like a desert. Some parts of Anahera were desert. I had visited the island three times, but never the desert part. Only one species of dragon lived in the sandy wasteland: the Drakontos sol, which was small and sand colored, and covered in scales that absorbed the sun’s light and converted it to fire energy. Most dragons couldn’t do that.
“Cup,” Aaru whispered. “Take.”
A cup? Of water?
Through the smoke filling my mind, I recalled the cup in Aaru’s cell—how I’d been listening to it fill and straining to reach it, desperately thirsty. But the cup was still on the other side of the wall, wasn’t it? Sitting in the middle of Aaru’s cell, collecting water, taunting me.
Or had it moved? I’d heard Aaru’s voice, but I’d heard footsteps before, too. It seemed unlikely he was truly here, but maybe. Maybe he’d come back and moved the cup for me. I needed only to pick it up and tip the water into my mouth.
I had to try.
My hand was too heavy to lift off my stomach, which felt too low, too hollow. I opened my mouth again, jaw popping in protest, and sucked in a shallow breath. Like maybe I could breathe in the water.
Frustrated tapping sounded from beyond the hole. I just wanted to go to sleep again. If I couldn’t reach the water, sleep would help.
- Writer
