Dragon (A Histories of Purga Novel)

“Keiara?” he asked as he popped up through the trap door and into Gar’s hut. Keiara and Asher were both gone. He felt abandoned and suddenly very much alone.

The old warrior glared at him, his hatred hot and vibrant. He got up the minute Rone came through the floor, short sword in one hand and a shield in the other.

“What have you done to her, Rook?” His lip was pulled into a vicious-looking snarl.

Rone stopped, keeping his body as still and unthreatening as he could. He put up his hands, showing Gar that he had no weapons.

“I honestly don’t know,” he replied. “Listen, Gar. I know you don’t want to believe this but I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t want to hurt Asher or any of you. Keiara was right. We have spent too long hating each other for no reason. It’s time we put that all in the past.”

“I’ve spent my entire life fighting your people,” Gar said, the snarl still on his lips. “You think you can just wash away the horrors and wrongs Rooks have wrought on us. You think you can smile, wave, pretend to understand or say sweet words and everything will be forgotten. My daughter was at the Battle of Ledun. She has a burn scar covering half her face. How will your words fix that?”

Rone didn’t say anything for a long moment. He couldn’t help but feel overwhelming guilt at all the pain his people had caused. And he felt angry that the reason was so stupid. Ignorance. Plain and simple ignorance. They didn’t understand the Terraquois and were scared of the things they could do.

“I can’t undo the past, Gar. I wish I could and I would in a heartbeat.” Rone stepped forward, his heart pounding in his chest. He was terrified. The old warrior’s anger was a nearly physical being. It lived and breathed and it was focused entirely on him.

Gar’s sword lifted, its point aimed right at Rone’s chest.

“But I might be able to help your daughter. I might be able to undo some of the damage. You said she’d been burned during the fight?”

Gar hesitated, unsure of whether or not Rone was trying to trick him.

“You can fix her?”

“Maybe,” he replied, his hands still up and open. “But you will have to trust me. Can you do that?”

Still he hesitated but there was also hope there. The pain his daughter bore because of that burn was a weight he’d carried around his neck since it first happened.

He looked at Rone.

“Do it,” he said. “Fix her.”

“How fast can she get here?”

“She can be here in just a few hours,” Gar replied. “She can become the cheetah.” His eyes lit up with fierce pride. “But I am not sure how long it will take to get a message to her.”

“Let me worry about that,” Rone told him, closing the gap between them. He laid his hand on the brawny warrior’s shoulder. He felt the man tense up but he relaxed a second later.

Gar lowered his sword and looked up at Rone.

“If you hurt or kill her, there would be nowhere you can hide yourself from me. That, I promise you.”

Rone nodded. He took a step away from Gar, opened his mechpaks and watched as a cloud of nanos hovered in the air. Rone focused on them for a moment, envisioning what he needed first and then watched as it took shape. It gradually turned into a drone not unlike the one he’d made for Asher. There was one difference however. Mounted to the front was a circular depression with a shiny, black eye. The drone hovered in the middle of the air and turned to face Gar.

“Talk to your daughter and tell her to come. The drone will relay the message.”

Gar looked unsure of himself.

“It’s okay,” Rone told him.

“Yiawe,” Gar began to speak. “You must come here and hurry. The matter is urgent and somewhat delicate so tell no one that you are leaving.” He deliberately left out Rone and what he had planned. If she knew what he was trying to do, she would refuse to come. She had ample reason to hate the Rooks. Although, he realized, she probably wouldn’t know what to make of the flying craft.

When his message was finished, Rone thought of a way to single her out so that the drone wouldn’t find someone else.

“Is her face the only one scarred by burns?” He didn’t want his question to sound rude, but there didn’t seem a roundabout way to ask.

Gar’s eyes filled with anger but he nodded.

“Does she still live in Ledun or has she moved to Vitari?”

“She is in Vitari now, staying in what used to be mine and her mother’s home. We moved there after what happened in Ledun,” Gar replied, looking solemn. “Her mother died of the white sickness more than a year ago.”

Rone spoke quietly to the drone, giving it its search parameters. When he was sure that it would target only Yiawe, he commanded it to go to Vitari as fast as it could. Then it flew out the door of Gar’s hut and zipped through the forest.

While they waited, Rone drifted off to sleep. He found he grew tired easily since he lost his leg. The constant pain had a tendency to wear him down.

His eyes closed and there was only darkness for a few minutes. Then came images. They filtered through his mind as he slipped into a deeper sleep. They were just a rapid jumble of confusing pictures, sensations, and sounds. He had no direction over them. He tumbled through this insane dream world for what felt like forever with nothing making any sense. Then everything swirled into a single image and all he felt was mind-numbing terror. The image was of a huge dragon and it was roaring. It blanketed the world around him with fire and its glowing yellow orbs focused entirely on him. He tried to run, but the creature was too big and fast. It always managed to get in front of him. Then its vast maw opened, showing him rows of sharp, serrated teeth. The darkness of its mouth turned his legs to cement and he could no longer move. He could barely breathe.

He watched that darkness come for him.

“Rook.” A hand was gripping his shoulder and shoving him back and forth.

Rone jerked awake, his eyes snapping open. He let out a scream but quiclkly choked it off. He rubbed the back of his stiff neck and looked to the window. He was surprised to see that it was dark. He must’ve been asleep for almost two hours. He looked into the concerned eyes of Gar as the last fragments of his dream receded from his mind.

“Are you ill?” Gar asked.

“Uh...no, no. Just a nightmare,” he responded as he sat up.

That’s when he heard an ominous growling sound and realized there was a cheetah in the room with them. Its muzzle was pushed close to him, sniffing wildly.

The damage done to half the cheetah’s face made a piercing anger hit him. The fur had been burned away and the skin underneath was a red-purple map of waxen scar tissue.

He couldn’t believe the damage his people had done. The pain they’ve caused. And the only thing he’d been concerned with was how much he hated being a Prince. How inconvenient that life was for him. For the first time, he realized how much of a selfish idiot he’d been.

He got off the uncomfortable cot he’d been sleeping on and rose to his feet.

The cheetah backed away, hurriedly. She was afraid of him.

“Please, change back,” Rone told her.

The cheetah looked to Gar, clearly uncertain.

“Do it,” he said to her, nodding.

The cheetah shimmered briefly, growing indistinct. A second later a woman stood in front of him. She was a few years older than Rone, but there was no mistaking her beauty. Unless you looked at the ruined side of her face.

Rone stepped closer to her. Her eyes widened, showing a mixture of fear, loathing, and anger. He reached a hand to the scarred side of her face, grimacing slightly at the bumps and ridges he felt. He tried to imagine her pain. He tried to put himself in her shoes and a tear slid down his face.

Yiawe jerked her head away from his hand, a disgusted look on her face.

“Do not touch me again,” she said, her voice so full of rage that Rone felt like cringing. “Why did you bring me here, Oni?”

Rone wasn’t sure what oni meant but he had a pretty good guess. Dad. Father. Something like that.

Gar looked to Rone. “The Rook wanted you to come here. He thinks he can heal you.”

Yiawe backed away almost instantly.

“His people have done enough damage,” she spat. She turned to walk away.

“Wait,” Rone said.

Yiawe stopped and turned around.

Rone went down on his knees in front of her. He bowed his head. The next words he spoke, he did so on pure instinct. “What my people did, I will never condone. To prove that to you, I offer my life. Take it, if that is what your anger demands as payment. But listen to me first. I had your father bring you here to heal what was done to you. To make you whole. I may not be able to erase the pain you’ve endured, but I can take away the scars. I can do that much. Please, let me try.”

She paused, staring into Rone’s light blue eyes with an intensity that grew quickly uncomfortable. He could still see that anger reflected there. That pain. At first, he thought she wouldn’t be willing to let go of those emotions, emotions that had shaped who and what she was over the years, but then they softened.

“Do you speak the truth?” she asked. Her fingers absentmindedly brushed against the harshness of her scars. Tears streamed down her face. The anger in them vanished and was replaced by hope. A wary, cautious hope, but hope nonetheless.

Rone got up.

“Yes,” he responded. “All I want to do is make things right. As best I can.”

Yiawe hesitated a moment longer. “Okay. How does this work?”

“It’s best to just get it done.” He gestured toward the cot that he’d slept on.

She walked over to it and lay down, keeping her eyes focused on him the whole time.

Rone pulled a chair over to her and sat down, grabbing her hand and holding it.

“This is not an easy process and I’m afraid it will be painful. At home, we can use anesthetizing drugs to put you into a deep sleep so that you would feel no pain. I can’t do that here, so you will have to endure it. Can you do that?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “It will not be the first time I’ve had to endure pain. It won’t be the last either. Start, so that we can be done that much sooner.”

Rone admired her courage, but he knew that she had no idea of how bad the pain was really going to be.

“Okay,” he told her. “Try to remain still.” Then he turned to Gar. “No matter how much pain she is in; do not try to stop me. Halting the process for any reason can damage her in a way I won’t be able to fix.”

A hard glint rose in Gar’s eyes, but he nodded and stepped onto the suspension bridge without a word.

“Are you ready?” Rone asked.

Yiawe nodded to him and closed her eyes. She breathed in through her nose and exhaled through her mouth. She focused and controlled her emotions.

Rone opened his mechpaks and nanos surged through the air. Instead of forming them into something tangible, they stayed as a cloud. He slowed his thoughts and focused as hard as he could on what he needed them to do. He had never attempted to do this before. It was risky and dangerous and usually only the most experienced doctors could manage it, but he had to try.

He narrowed his focus and directed it at the nanos. As one, the cloud flew toward the woman’s head and hung suspended there for a minute. Then, without warning, they dropped and clung to her. He could tell she was afraid, but she didn’t let it overwhelm her. She continued controlling her breathing and keeping a respectful hold on her emotions.

“This part is not going to feel too comfortable,” Rone explained.

Then the nanos all began burrowing into Yiawe’s skin, digging until they were underneath the scar tissue.

Yiawe screamed out, her voice full of agony.

“Quit!” Gar shouted from the door before he could stop himself. He watched a second more and then forced himself to retreat back to the bridge after Rone’s words about harming her rang in his mind. He clasped his hands to his ears in an effort to block out his daughter’s screams so he wouldn’t be tempted to stop the procedure again.

When the nanos were at the right point inside Yiawe, Rone commanded them to do their work. Each one of the tiny, microscopic robots clung to the cells that made up the structure of her muscle and skin. He could sense the damage to her face through his connection with them while trying as hard as he could to ignore her yells of pain. Her body was writhing and contorting.

When he was sure that all of the affected areas were covered with nanos, he had them begin repairing the damage to the cells. Her face humped and rippled. The skin looked like some kind of living creature were under it, trying to burst free.

“I don’t believe it,” Gar whispered. He was back at Rone’s side.

The wax-like scar tissue on Yiawe’s face started to smooth out. Pink, healthy flesh took its place. Her lips recovered their cupid-bow shape and the flesh on the inside of her mouth was whole again. The sections of her head where hair wouldn’t grow suddenly sprouted long, black hair to match what she already had.

The process was long and agonizingly slow. Rone’s concentration threatened to waver on many occasions but he never let it slip. Losing control over the nanos could end with disastrous results. It didn’t help, either, that the burns were more extensive than he thought. The nanos informed him that they covered nearly 60% of her body and they were all as bad as her face. He took a steadying breath and then commanded them to restore the rest of her body.

Overall, the process took nearly four hours and when he was done, he slumped forward in pure exhaustion. Gar caught him before he could fall on his daughter, who had passed out twenty minutes before Rone finished.

“Thank you,” Gar told him, hugging him fiercely.

The hug was so strong that Rone could hardly breathe. He slapped a hand against the warrior’s arm and Gar quickly released his hold.

“W-welcome,” Rone slurred back. He could hardly keep his eyes open, but he managed to recall his nanos. They crawled out of the woman’s skin as gently as they could, leaving no trace behind, and flew into Rone’s mechpaks. When the last of them were safely inside, the vents closed.

Then Rone passed out.