Chapter 2

Rone looked around the cave. He couldn’t see much. The light disappeared about ten feet inside. He focused on his nanos and his mechpaks opened. The little cloud of micro-robots quickly converged and created a flashlight. He turned it on, swinging the beam left to right. There still wasn’t much to see. The walls were scorched and the floor was churned up by a beast’s giant claws. There was no sign of Keiara. He walked around aimlessly for a while, feeling helpless. Then he froze in his tracks.

Faintly, he heard the rumbling growls again. They were closer now.

He turned in the direction they were coming from. In the back of the cave wall, he could just make out a narrow tunnel. He walked over to it, his heart hammering in his chest. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to squeeze through the crack, but the closer he got to it, the more sure he was that the growls were coming from a room beyond the tunnel. The only thing that made up his mind for him was the chance to find Keiara and try to help her.

He was examining the tunnel some more when far back in its depths, he saw an orange glow. He paused there, staring curiously. Then curiosity gave way to outright terror when he realized that the orange glow was racing toward him. He dived out of the way and shielded his face just as a column of fire exploded out of the tunnel and into the cave.

The roar of the flames was deafening and the heat was nearly unbearable but he managed to avoid getting roasted.

For now, he thought darkly.

The flames winked out of existence a few seconds later and Rone cautiously took his arms away from his face.

He stayed on the floor of the cave for awhile so he could get his body to stop trembling. He breathed deeply several times. After a minute, his heart finally slowed a little. His body stopped shaking uncontrollably and he was able to stand. He rubbed absently at his left leg. The sudden dive didn’t do it any favors. He felt a slight burning pain from where his stump rubbed painfully against the metal of the prosthetic. He grimaced slightly and then went back to inspecting the tunnel.

The walls glowed bright orange and were hot to the touch. Experimentally, he laid one of his gloved hands against it and instantly pulled it back with a slight hiss of pain. A curl of smoke drifted off it.

He backed away, irrational anger surging forward. He slammed a fist on the cave wall next to the tunnel. Pain blossomed in his hand but he ignored it.

I have to get to her!

That helplessness, that anger, all seemed to swirl and coalesce inside him. There was a faint, odd pull at his mind and then a screaming, icy wind flowed into the cave. It swirled around him and then shot down the tunnel.

A roar erupted from its other end. It was so loud, the insides of his ears vibrated and left them ringing.

Rone wobbled clumsily as a wave of intense dizziness hit him and he had to lean against the cave wall for support.

What was that? he thought to himself and not for the first time. He suppressed a shudder as visions of the prison came back to him and what he did to the Blak Army soldiers there. What is happening to me?

He didn’t know and although he was scared and wary of his newfound abilities, he ignored them for now and refocused on getting to Keiara.

When he felt stronger, he walked back over to the narrow crack and put his hands against its walls. The sizzling heat that had been there moments before was almost completely gone now.

He let his flashlight disperse, turned sideways, and wriggled into the crack. The air in the tunnel was still cool from the blast of frigid wind that had funneled down it, but the farther he went, the hotter it got. There was an overpowering scent of burning wood. It got so bad he coughed harshly and couldn’t seem to breathe. He managed to maneuver an arm up to his mouth and nose to filter out the smell and then pressed on.

Sweat started to run down his face. He could feel each drop collect on his chin and jaw line before they dropped and splattered on his clothes. His heavy coat wasn’t helping and he was pretty sure the shirt underneath was drenched. He looked ahead, but the tunnel seemed to stretch on for an eternity.

It got even hotter. So hot that he wasn’t sure he could make it all the way. The walls pressing in on him on both sides felt like they were cooking him. He tried to block out the pain, but the heat was soon too intense for that. For a panic-ridden second, he thought he was going to be trapped in that tunnel, unable to move forward or backward, and end up being cooked alive. Roasted like a plump turkey. He was too wide to keep going and he struggled as hard as he could to keep pressing on. Inch, by slow inch, he managed to keep a forward momentum going and he popped out of the tunnel. He burst into a much larger cavern than the cave he was in before. Up above, light poured in from some sort of opening.

He looked around and stopped suddenly. He could feel his fear working inside his mind but he calmly pushed it back.

In front of him, in all her magnificent splendor, was Keiara in her dragon form. He was awed. She was easily the biggest creature he’d ever seen. She crouched on her haunches, her massive head staring directly at him. Her glistening scales shimmered from the faint light of the opening above. They were a deep red that tapered off to black at their edges. Horns sprouted from her brow and down along her spine. A long tail lay curled behind her, twitching slightly. Blazing yellow eyes glared down at him and her white fangs seemed to sprout out of her maw. A long, forked tongue slithered in and out her mouth, tasting the air.

He couldn’t speak for a long time. The only thing he could think was that she was beautiful, even in that form.

After a couple of seconds, he finally got his scattered wits together again and he stepped toward her. His motions were stiff and awkward. He held out his arms, but they trembled with fear. He could feel his heart hammering at his ribcage, like it was trying to burst free. He tried to calm his fried nerves, but they didn’t want to obey any of his commands. They just continued sending signals to his brain to get out of that cave and get far away from that monster.

His heart, however, was telling him something completely different. His heart wanted him to stay.

He listened to that instead.

More steps brought him even closer to the monstrous beast. He was almost near enough to touch her. The smell of burning wood became nearly unbearable. He coughed several times. All the while his mind was racing. Two questions circled inside it, each one chasing the other.

Will she attack?

Or…

Will she let me help?

He got his answer a second later. The dragon growled deeply, her voice menacing, and then lunged.

Before he could even think to move, a huge, clawed paw slammed him into the ground and pinned him there. The breath was knocked out of his lungs. He spent a few dizzying seconds trying to breathe. When he finally gasped in a lungful of air, he struggled to get out from under her paw. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t. She held him there, trapped.

He looked up as her head swung down. Her blazing yellow eyes glared into his, spewing hatred and pure rage.

[Why have you come here?]

The voice in his mind was scary, even more so than the beast in front of him. It terrified him because it was obviously not Keiara’s voice that resonated inside his mind, but at the same time, it was. He recognized the lilting, almost melodic tones. What he didn’t recognize was the menace to it or the coldness he heard in it. Those were two things that he never would’ve associated with Keiara. This thing she was now almost seemed like a separate entity. Something completely opposite to the girl that he came to know…and to love.

[You come here to torture me further? Does your master send you here to taunt me? To show me that he’s won?]

She put more pressure on the paw pinning him to the ground. Rone let out a gasp of pain. He tried to speak, but couldn’t.

She brought her head even closer to his. He choked on the smell of her.

[You are not RONE!]

He screamed as the will of her powerful mind rampaged over his. The pain was enormous and several blood vessels in his eyes popped, turning the whites a horrible red. A trickle of blood flowed out of each ear as well. He struggled, but she only pushed harder on him. He tried to speak but couldn’t get enough breath to force the words past his throat.

[Rone is DEAD!]

He managed to pull in air, but he let it out in a scream of pain. More blood flowed out of his ears. It poured out of his nose now and he thought he was really going to die. It hurt so much he almost wished it would happen.

He stopped struggling. If he was going to survive this, then he needed to get through to her. He forced himself to be calm. He forced himself to just breathe. It was hard to get enough air past the crushing weight of her paw on his chest, but he was able to do it. When he thought he would be okay to speak, he talked to her.

“P-please,” he told her. His voice came out more as a whisper but the dragon heard him just fine. “I know you think I died. I know that’s what they made you watch, but I survived. I’m not exactly sure how, but I did. Asher is with me and Fowler too. They’re outside the cave right now.”

[LIES!]

This time the sickening wave of pain from her mental assault was almost enough to knock him out cold. He pushed the blackness creeping over his vision away and continued.

“I-it’s the truth,” he replied. “I can prove it to you, if you would just listen to me, Keiara.”

He could feel her hesitation. He could read it in the set of her body and it was clearly visible in her eyes. At that moment, he could tell she wanted to believe him.

[How can you prove it?]

Rone’s mind worked furiously. With a sigh of relief, it immediately supplied him with what he needed to verify his identity with her.

“Underneath Gar’s hut, on the edge of the Qarri Forest, I kissed you. It was the first time we kissed but you ran away. I tried to follow you, but Gar wouldn’t let me past,” Rone began. Gradually, the pressure on his chest eased. “It was also the first time I realized I was falling in love with you.”

The dragon backed completely away. There was confusion in its eyes.

[I saw you. You died. He killed you.]

“I guess he thought so too,” Rone replied. He got off the cave floor, wincing. He could feel numerous aches and pains across his back from where sharp rocks had dug into him. Luckily, the heavy coat he had on protected him from getting any gashes. Unfortunately, he was going to be feeling that pain-on top of the pain in his amputated leg-for a couple days at least.

The dragon was watching him, the confusion in her eyes even more pronounced. Rone walked over to her and she brought her head down to inspect him more closely. He could almost feel the hope that he wasn’t lying radiating out of her.

[Is it truly you?]

He laid a hand on her snout, careful not to cut it on the extremely sharp edges of her scales.

“It is.”

That was all she seemed to need. Her form started to shimmer and warp. A second later, Keiara was standing there. She looked worn and tired. Dark rings circled her eyes and they had trouble staying open. Despite all of that, however, she still looked as beautiful to him as the day they’d first met.

“Rone,” she said, whispering his name.

She smiled lovingly at him.

Then her eyes rolled up inside her head and she pitched forward. Rone moved, amazingly fast, and caught her before she could hit the ground. He brushed the hair out of her eyes. His fear for her was like a living thing inside him. It curled around his heart and stomach almost simultaneously, squeezing mercilessly.

“Keiara?” he shouted. He tried to shake her awake but that didn’t help. “Keiara, wake up!”