Moonbeam

Chapter 4

Eighteen Months Later…

We were preparing for the Royal Chastniss tournament.

It wasn’t Warbel. Chastniss was much more fun. It reminded me a lot of tennis, but with dragons. Like all dragon games, this one was dangerous.

As I suited up under a glittering night sky and watched Blake transform into his dragon form, I reminded myself of the rules. We were allowed to use our abilities—except for Blake and me, who were only allowed to use one, no swapping. The pink kiss was forbidden, as that one was a killer. Literally. That ability inflicted a gruesome death at its mere touch. So, we usually went with lightning or frost.

I climbed up on Blake’s back and he leapt into the sky gracefully. My heart lurched with the thrill; I’d never get tired of flying.

The riders played with an old sheepskin ball astride a dragon. A huge racket was used to hit the ball, then the players chased it and hit it again. Teams were three against three. A dragon took up the position of keeper and stood guard in front of a net close to the ground or way up in the sky.

Our goal was the sky since Blake loved to fly, and our opposing team was on the ground. We had plenty of hard flying to do and plenty of defending, making sure that the ball stayed close to our opponents’ net.

In between all this, we had to duck and dive the other abilities. Blake cheated in the beginning, swapping and changing abilities to use on the others, but we would get suspended for ten minutes and usually ended up losing the game.

Love, stop daydreaming and hold on tight. Blake’s voice popped into my head and brought me back to earth—or more accurately back to reality where I was sitting on his back.

I rolled a few of his catfish-like whiskers slightly around my hand. I mentally sent the message: I’m ready.

My father disliked that we wouldn’t speak a single word to one another, but when we told him that we did speak, just silently, he relaxed. He was downright impressed with what we could do. Admiration often shone in his eyes when he realized we were speaking to each other in our special way. He was really in awe of us.

“GO!” Becky yelled. She and George were always on our side.

Since George got that first vision of Blake being stuck in what we now call The Nether, he had seen so many things about the two of us. Beautiful things and scary things he didn’t want to share. Those frightened me. He wouldn’t even tell Becky.

I yelled out of excitement as I wound up to hit the ball with the racket.

Sir Robert dashed past us. My father hit the ball first and it careened back down.

Blake grunted and swooped around, and my father laughed gleefully. We chased after the ball.

Becky served it cleanly back to me. I smacked it before my father could reach me.

“Slow down, Elena, before your hurt yourself!” my father yelled.

“I can take care of myself, old man,” I joked. After all, he was about two hundred and seventy now, give or take a couple years. But he still resembled a man in his late forties. His dragon, Sir Robert—my father-in-law—had given him his essence a very long time ago.

The game was fun. Laughter soared all around us. A couple of bystanders watched from below, crying out excitedly at our antics.

Sir Robert and Blake chased the ball. He’d gotten faster since my father’s return. Blake increased his velocity as his father was on his tail. The wind tore at my blonde hair, adorning it with microscopic pearls of moisture.

We streaked toward our goal post. Not far now.

“Let them go!” my father yelled at last. Sir Robert would kill himself if he tried to keep up with Blake at these speeds.

I felt as if I was on an insane rollercoaster with no brakes.

My enthusiasm ripped a scream from my lungs, clawing its way out of my throat. It echoed through the night sky as we climbed higher and higher, hitting the ball each time I passed it.

Emanual was my father’s goalkeeper. He lurked high up in the darkness—how high, we didn’t know. It was one thing to get the ball, but another thing altogether to get past him.

A bright light appeared right in front of us out of nowhere. Blake didn’t have time to stop.

We flew right through the dazzling light. He slowed down.

“What the hell was that?” I spoke out loud for the first time. I craned my neck to look behind us. The light was gone. When Blake turned around, it reappeared. But then I realized it hadn’t reappeared; I was seeing it through his mind.

I don’t know. It came out of nowhere.

The sky was crystal clear. A million stars were strewn across the black velvet blanket of night.

There were no signs of our game. The world was deathly quiet, all sounds of our onlookers and the other players simply vanished. I didn’t like this. Not one bit.

A string of thoughts zigzagged through Blake’s head. The stars in this sky weren’t part of our galaxy. In Blake’s mind, I could see that some of these constellations didn’t exist.

This made no sense.

Threads of worry curled around Blake’s mind like clinging ivy. His fear became my own. My heart fluttered anxiously. I didn’t know what any of this meant.

Blake, where are we? What was that bright light? And what do you mean these aren’t our constellations?

I have no idea. I don’t like this. This place feels wrong, Elena.

I know, I feel it, too. What is it with the stars? I asked him again.

Some of them shouldn’t be in the sky. They fell a long time ago.

What does this mean? Just get us back, please.

Okay, hold on.

He veered off course. The hair on my neck stood on end as the wind brushed against my face. We weren’t even close to the palace, but a few miles away, we saw the palace standing tall in the horizon.

I loved flying. I lived for it. But his fear, his thoughts, had become mine. I shared his mounting unease.

Fire light caught my eye. I peered down toward Mount Likwa, a hulking mountain nearby the castle.

Atop the mountain a battle was being waged. War.

The whiz of fire arrows. Steel breaking against steel. Humans screaming in agony as they perished. These sounds pierced my eardrums.

I sensed Blake watching the images in my mind. He fanned his wings to slow down to make sense of what we were seeing.

It was a battle to the death.

What is that? Who is it? Why don’t we know about this? Alarm ratcheted through my tone.

We need to get back, Elena. We need to warn your father and the others!

Just get us the hell out of here, I ordered.

He sped up.

Sharp pain seared through my waist. But it wasn’t me who had been hit. It was him.

“Blake!” I yelled. Are you okay?

His wingbeats faltered, barely noticeable. Yes, I’m fine.

I prayed for the castle. He was always saying stuff like this—that he was fine, not to worry—but I always knew the truth. This thing hurt like hell. Another thing our connection let us experience: each other’s pain.

Drowsiness rose through me, sudden and unexpected. I glanced at my waist and realized it wasn’t Blake’s pain I was experiencing after all. It was my own. The feathers of a blazing owl placed in a beautiful formation at the tip of an arrow.

I’d been hit, not Blake, it was me…From that distance? How?

Elena! Blake must have sensed the turmoil inside my head. A soft keening sound left his core. My eyes felt heavy, so heavy. The last thing I was aware of before I blacked out, before I lost complete control of my sight, was slipping off his back. Into nothingness.

BLAKE

Elena was losing consciousness. I had to tune her out in order to fly straight. I saw her figure plummeting through empty air past my paw.

I darted after her and grabbed her with my claw. She was so tiny.

Got you. Just hold on, I begged. I flew like I’d never flown before. I raced back toward the castle, or at least back to where the stars made some sense. How bad was her injury? Where were we? What had happened?

The bright light was up ahead. I didn’t even try to stop this time. I picked up speed and zoomed straight through it.

A voice in the darkness. King Albert. “What do you mean they never came this way?”

“They never reached the goal post, my king,” Emanual said.

“Help!” I roared. I could hear from the rhythm of their heartbeats that they knew I was desperate.

“Blake!” King Albert yelled.

“Son!” my father shouted.

“Here,” I called. Is she okay? Miles melted before me. Within five breaths I saw two dragon silhouettes against the smudge of a cloud. The King’s figure perched atop my father.

“Something is wrong!” my father said as he picked up the deranged tone in my voice.

Elena! I tried to connect with her mind, but she was as vacant as a stone-cold wall. Either that or the connection had been broken again. I couldn’t go through that. Not again.

“Stay with me!” I said.

“Blake!” Her father’s voice was confused and worried tone. “Where is Elena?”

“In my paw. I think an arrow hit her. There is war on Mount Likwa.”

George and Becky came into view.

“War?” my father said.

“Get Elena back to Constance. Now,” King Albert ordered. “Blake, stay with her. The rest—” he nodded at George and Emanual “—Mount Likwa. Now.”

“Is Elena going to be okay?” Becky sounded deranged, but nevertheless followed King Albert and the rest. I nodded. What else could I do?

“George, be safe. It’s full-on war.”

He nodded as I opened up my speed again and zoomed to the west wing.

I tried to connect with Elena’s mind as our landing came into sight.

I landed. In three steps I turned back into my human form and carried her into our room.

“Constance!” I yelled. She had been looking after Silho, but I was sure Annie or someone would’ve told her that something had happened to us. They had to know something was wrong.

Elena’s body lay lifeless inside my arms. Her mind was one gaping pit of darkness.

My heart clenched as I looked at the arrow. I’d once made the mistake of pulling one out. Constance wouldn’t be able to heal her and neither could I, but Constance would know how to make her more comfortable.

Her heart was still beating, and she was still breathing. A beautiful sign of life. I didn’t like the blackout or the fact that her eyes were closed.

“Elena,” I slapped her face softly. “Stay with me!” I didn’t sound like me anymore. My sight blurred. Tears spurred on by my worst fear welled up in my eyes.

“C’mon, baby, wake up.” Begging harder, trying to tune in. She was gone. A pool of darkness had replaced the space where her thoughts used to be.

The door flew open and hit the wall hard. Constance ran toward us.

“What the hell?” she gasped as she took in Elena’s lifeless body covered with blood in my arms.

“She got hit.”

“Blake, how the hell did that happen?”

“I don’t know.” My voice shook.

Silho was still in her arms. My daughter started to cry. Constance handed her to a shocked Annie, who took her out of the room without a word.

“One minute we were okay, and the next…” I trailed off. The bright light.

“What? What came next, Blake?” Constance asked.

My gaze shifted to meet hers. “The bright light.”

“What bright light?” Constance asked, attending to Elena and the arrow that bristled from her hip. “We need to get this thing out of her.” She spoke more to herself than to me.

“There was a bright light, we flew into it, and then everything was just…wrong.”

“What do you mean?” She took out the arrow as Simone, Elena’s personal lady, came in with bandages and towels. Tears lingered in her eyes She loved Elena like a sister.

“She got hit?” Simone asked.

I ignored her.

Constance handed her the arrow she’d managed to take out of Elena without breaking it. She barked orders for warm water and more towels. “Make sure you don’t get your prints on the shaft. We can wipe it for fingerprints later.” She looked at Simone.

By now the commotion had alarmed more of the night staff. Soon everyone was bringing Constance what she needed.

“We saw a full-on battle on Mount Likwa. Nothing made sense,” I continued explaining. I knew I should go help fight, but I couldn’t tear myself from my love’s side.

“Mom?” Annie came back without Silho. Tears streamed down her face. “Plucky, what happened?” she asked.

I didn’t want to retell the story. The bright light? What was that?

“I’m sure it will be okay. Dad probably went to have a look.” Constance answered on my behalf, reassuring Annie’s worry. If only she could alleviate mine. But the fact that I couldn’t connect with her drove me insane.

“Will she be okay?”

“She has to be,” Constance said. “She has no choice.”

I looked at my torso and arms. My chest was smeared with Elena’s blood. Don’t die. Please. I can’t do this without you. I begged inside my mind. Hers was still dark.

“Where is she now, Blake?” Annie wiped at her eyes.

I shook my head.

“Nothing?”

Constance looked at Annie as she tried to cover Elena’s wound. “She is going to be fine, sweetheart.”

Annie nodded as Constance worked to stabilize Elena. “She’s lost a lot of blood, Blake. Why isn’t she healing yet?”

“She is out, Constance. It works slower when you lose consciousness,” I barked back. Tonight’s events had taken a toll on all of us. I was still in shock. I tried to help when Constance told me to press hard. She was screaming for the phone and Jeeves told her that they’d already called the hospital.

“We need to make sure that there wasn’t poison on that tip.”

My heart felt as if it wasn’t beating. Poison? It had never even crossed my mind.

“Jeeves!” I yelled again, and the old man entered the room a few seconds later. “Phone Ralph. He needs to come and look at the arrow.”

Jeeves nodded and left.

The more we knew, the better we could treat her.

“Good call, Blake.”

“I wasn’t the one who thought about the poison.”

I bent down over Elena and brushed my lips on her head. Don’t leave me.