Episode 2.1

Softness beneath me, warmth all around, the smell of sizzling meat in the air—this had to be a dream. Here on Mystica, far from Shade’s reach, was I finally having a normal dream? Or maybe my flight from the dragon had been a nightmare. I could be lying in bed as the maids brought me breakfast.

Unfortunately, the pain in my legs made it perfectly clear that I was about as far from home as possible. Even my eyelids felt sore as I forced them open. I was in the middle of what appeared to be a domed tent made out of furs and supported by a thick stone pole in the middle. Was the inside of the glacial dragon furry? Doubtful. He must’ve brought me home to fatten me up for dinner. Or I could be his new sheep, kept to produce an endless number of feathers and claws.

Either way, he wouldn’t have kept the others alive. Humans and voidcats wouldn’t be useful to him as anything but a snack. My stomach twisted. This was all my fault.

How could I have been so stupid? Nearly two decades of reoccurring dreams, and I hadn’t thought for a moment that Shade might be real. Just seeing him for a few moments was enough to convince the others that he was more than a figure of their imagination. If I’d just listened to him—if I’d just stayed away from the portal—they would be okay right now. Shaken up, sure, but they’d at least be alive.

I wanted to hate the glacial dragon. And I did hate him, but he’d only been doing what came naturally, killing trespassers. He wasn’t the moron who brushed off signs of actual magic and damned his friends to a death between the pincers of a monster.

My instincts told me to look for ways to escape, but the weight in my stomach held me down. Did I even deserve to escape? How could I leave this place and go home knowing I would have to tell my friends’ parents what I’d done to them? I could already see Mom and Dad’s faces when I told them about Izzy. Mom would break down crying immediately. Dad would put on a strong face, but he would go silent for weeks.

I’d met Aster’s parents once. His stepdad was as hilarious as my dad was serious, and his mom had a prankster streak in her that nearly scared me half to death when an animatronic skeleton popped out of her halloween cake. No amount of fun and games would be enough to make up for the loss of their eldest son.

And Vance’s parents—I knew they worked on the estate, and I’d seen them pottering around as they took care of the grounds, but I didn’t know a thing about them. They would be surprised when I came to find them, probably worried Vance had gotten in trouble with me again. When I told them the truth… I didn’t know what they would say or do, but even the vague idea of their despair hollowed out my insides.

Part of me wanted to keep wallowing in the tent until the glacial dragon came to eat or shear me, but I couldn’t. The others’ parents deserved to know what had happened. Letting them go on wondering if they were alive or dead, getting their hopes up a little every time the doorbell rang—that was the only thing worse than what I had to tell them.

If I was going to tell them, I had to get up first. I dragged my twitching, cramping legs across the carpet of furs and tucked them underneath me as I rolled onto my stomach. My arms were enough to stabilize myself, but when I asked my legs to lift me off the ground, they refused. All I got was a stab of pain in my calves without a single inch of lift-off.

Across the tent, a flap of furs rustled open to let in a gust of cold air. Shivering, I bared my fangs and threw up my wings in an attempt to look scarier than I felt.

Two humanoids walked in, each sporting white fur coats and two sets of muscular arms. The taller of the pair carried a leather waterskin and an oily-smelling basket with sloshing contents, while the shorter humanoid carried a basket full of grayish jerky. No doubt they were local inhabitants of Southern Glacier, employed by the dragon to keep me alive.

Snarling, I stretched my wings as much as I could in the limited space. Even just halfway extended, they touched opposite walls of the tent. If I were one of those two natives, I would’ve feared me.

The taller one sighed and set down what he was carrying. “It’s okay, girl. It’s still me.” He was speaking English, and even though thick fur muffled his voice, I recognized it. He sounded just like Aster. Hope flickered in my second heart, but I squashed it down. A glacial dragon would have no problems forcing a mimic to work for him.

Hissing, I waited until the Aster stepped close enough to pounce on him, pinning him to the ground with my fore-claws. The oily basket toppled, splashing water over my feet.

The Aster mimic gasped and pushed at my wrists. “H-hey, girl, there’s no reason to be nervous. You’re safe here. It’s warm, and there’s food and water—well, not water, since you’ve spilled it all, but I can get more if you’ll just let me up…” He was using the smooth, warm voice he used to calm nervous horses. Or rather, he was using the voice that Aster used to calm them.

“I’m not a wild beast to be easily fooled by a few soothing words. Drop the human act, or your insides will soon become your outsides.” I snapped my beak shut, inches from his chest.

He stiffened. Swallowed. Cautiously reached up to pull back the low hood and high scarf hiding a distinctly human face—Aster’s face. I couldn’t find a single flaw in the mimic’s face, a single thing that could separate him from the real thing. This mimic was good. He’d even mastered Aster’s somewhat horsey and metallic smell.

“It’s me, Mars.”

I growled, using every shred of self-control I had to keep from snapping the imposter’s neck. “Why should I believe you?”

“I dunno, because it’s true? We’ve known each other for three years. Can’t you tell it’s me?” His imitation of Aster’s voice shook, threatening to betray his true voice. He must’ve worked with a telepath to learn about Aster’s history. Unfortunately for him, there was no way he could’ve memorized everything about Aster.

“What was my last painting?” If he was real, this should be an easy enough question. My last painting had been a gift for his birthday a little less than a month ago.

His brows furrowed. “That school project you’re doing of us—weren’t you going to paint that?”

“Yes, but that wasn’t what I was talking about.” The telepath had probably only gone through Aster’s memories of the last few days, or else the information would’ve been too much for the mimic to memorize.

Still frowning, he paused for a second before his eyes lit up. “My birthday present, the medieval shot of me as a knight on a rearing horse.”

Barely believing my ears, I folded and shuffled my wings. A good enough mimic could memorize a lot in a short amount of time, but what were the chances of him thinking to memorize what I got Aster as a birthday present? They were slim. Not nonexistent, but slim. Slim enough for me.

I extricated my claws from Aster’s fur coat and pulled back. “You’re okay.”

Sitting up, he winced and rubbed his shoulders where I’d hit him. “Yeah, they’ve been taking good care of us.” He nodded at the other humanoid, a female who was half-in, half-out the tent flap.

Now that I had a moment to look closer, I realized her fur “coat” wasn’t a coat at all. It covered her body everywhere except her palms and around her mouth, nose, and eyes. She also had only four fingers on each hand and thick hooves instead of feet. When she cautiously moved away from the tent flap, she flicked forward a pair of long, slender ears that ran alongside her nubby horns.

“Have you seen the glacial dragon much?”

Aster shook his head. “We haven’t seen him at all since they fished us out of the water.”

I squinted at the native woman as she moved closer. “Do you work for the glacial dragon?” I asked in Bontair.

She let out a little yelp and ran from the tent.

“What’d you tell her?” Aster asked with a smile twitching his lips.

“I just asked if she was working for the dragon. I’m not entirely sure she understood me, though.” Outside of the capital and a couple other large cities in Southern Glacier, this province didn’t have many Bontair-speaking people. They didn’t even have many Tenan-speaking people, which would make this whole communication thing even more difficult.

“How big is this place?” I shifted my weight to the side to take it off my aching legs. “And how far are we from the river?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t gone far from your tent, and it was dark when we came in, so I don’t know much about the location.” Frowning at my legs, he tugged off his gloves to reveal knuckles wrapped in bandages. Without a word, he retrieved the leather waterskin and opened it to squeeze out a pungent yellow paste. He rubbed the paste on my foot, and it stung like alcohol in a cut.

I jerked my foot away. “What is that?”

“I’m not sure, but it seems to help you heal. The first day I used it, you couldn’t move your legs at all.” When I hesitantly stretched my leg out again, he rubbed some more paste on it.

Gritting my beak against the sting of his paste, I asked, “What do you mean ‘the first day?’ How long have I been here?” And why didn’t I remember any of it?

He chuckled. “Four days, but I’m not surprised you don’t remember anything. You’ve been totally out of it the whole time. Every time I left and came back, it was like you’d never seen me before. Today’s the first time you’ve said anything.” There was a weariness in his face that overcame his smile. Relief was definitely there, but I sensed it only came about after four long days of worry.

I could imagine why he’d been worried; if I’d been senseless for days, it could only mean one thing—I’d died.