Page 56 of Redeeming the Dragon

“I’ve lived long and encountered much,” was all he would say, which I took to mean that he must have encountered so many different folk during the course of his life that he’d learnt mysteries of magic, even if he did not use it himself.

Before I attempted to depart, the Simathe stooped, rummaging in a pack beside the upended log where he’d been seated. He searched briefly before withdrawing an object.

“Take this,” he said, pressing the item into my hand. “May it be of value.”

Lying in my palm was a tiny dagger. It was curved like a cat’s claw. The handle was white, as of ivory, and on the sheath were carved…

“Dragons?” I asked, glancing from dagger to warrior.

“It is Warkin-made,” he explained.

I wondered how he, an immortal Simathe, had come by a blade fashioned by the Warkin. Nevertheless, that was of secondary concern to the issue at hand. I accepted the weapon, tucking it away into my pack as I had the fairy queen’s gift. Finally, I was ready to depart. Except…I was ignorant of how to go about it.

When I said as much to the Simathe, he offered me something else he’d drawn from his pack.

A white stone, luminescent and smooth, with a soft sheen that glowed in the weak sunshine, muted by clouds.

“Use this as your guide,” he suggested.

I accepted the stone, rolling it between my fingertips, debating how to use it as a guide. As I did, I allowed my mind to drift over recent events, from Kidron telling me goodbye and leaving me in the cave, to the mirror sending me to Braisley, then Braisley dispatching me to the Simathe in the Wastelands. Each of the persons I’d encountered held pieces of the truth, but it seemed I’d have to visit this third person, as well as Moonswept, to put all of the fragments together and make a whole.

Still, as I rolled the stone between my fingertips, studying it, my skin began to itch. Concurrently, a soft green glow seeped out from my fingertips and onto the white surface of the rock, coating it. Encouraged, I shut my eyelids and continued to roll the stone and to feel, shutting out the outward world by focusing on memories.

Doing as the Simathe had recommended, I concentrated on how it had felt to be spun through the magic of the mirror—not once, but twice. Also the feel of being encapsulated within the dome of Braisley’s magic, there in the mountains. The feel of my heart and how it yearned for the Warkin prince. Last of all, I recalled how Braisley had called my magic a “persuasive” magic.

“Help me,” I whispered, speaking the words out loud to give them more power. “Help me. Take me where I need to go. Lead me to the one who can help me find Moonswept and save the dragon prince.”

A curious sensation of power swirling about me, coupled with a tugging, sucking, straining sensation, compressed my body.

It’s working,I thought, elated.

Indeed, something was happening. Rather than fight the sensations, I surrendered, envisioning dropping off a cliff and into the embrace of the sea, allowing it to overpower me.

I drifted.

I drifted between the sea and the sky, between the surface and the deepest caverns of the earth. I drifted through time and space, eternity and death, darkness and light. And when I opened my eyes, it was to bright white. Light so bright and so overpowering that I lifted my hand to shade my vision.

Where am I?

It was as if I’d wakened in the middle of the sun itself.

“Take time, child. Be at ease. You be safe.”

A voice spoke to me. Calm. Aged. Feminine this time, so it was not the Simathe.

“Where am I?” I managed to say. My voice was harsh, croaking, as if from long disuse. However, I’d recently been using it to ask for help. That meant something else was affecting my voice.

Dryness. Heat. A startling lack of moisture in the air.

My senses informed me of these things before my eyes opened.

My skin felt dry as leather. The heat was like the blast of Mama’s oven in the cookhouse behind our cottage.

“You be with the Jearim,” the voice replied. “Do not open your eyes yet. Wait…”

I heard the rustling of fabric, then something soft as a whisper and thin as a cobweb was draped over my head.

“Now,” the voice instructed. “Now you may look.”

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