Dragonfly by L. Kendecia Bastian (electric book reader TXT) 📕

I told him lightheartedly, sitting on the cold stone floor and placing the tray onto my lap. Glen ran withered old fingers through my oily and, no doubt, foul smelling hair. I had not been allowed a bath this week due to scaring five years off a new guard's life out of sheer lack of anything to do.

Glen let the thick raven locks flop to my head where they wish as he moved slowly to sit beside me. "You have grown much, young Dragonfly. Have you no intention of fleeing this dreaded place?"

I stopped eating for a moment of thought, looking at my feeder quizzically. After a decade of practically rotting in this Sentry tower, he had never posed the question of, or even alluded to my escape.

"But where would I go, Glen?" I asked, truly wanting to know. "Even if I had escaped the restrictions of the marks on my cage and the one crafted onto my nape, to where must I turn? You've heard of it yourself: I was the only one known in existence!"

"Ah," he said, looking up at the moon. "You take by gospel too foolishly the words of men."

Dinner now forgotten, I turn to face him. "You mean to say that there are others like me," I waved a hand toward the large window. "Out there?"

"No one will know for certain unless they find out for themselves, young one."

At that moment, my sensitive ears were nearly made to bleed when high pitched shrieks rang through the air. Those Shrikes may have been strong creatures but they yelled like banshees. Glen chuckled at my discomfort and rose slowly, nearly stumbling. I darted forward to assist, but he waved me away. He dusted himself and motioned me back into the cage with the deer meat. I handed him the platter of owl, thinking balefully of the one Roderick left with: the human meat.

"Do they really think so low of me?" I queried, looking to my only father figure for an answer.

"They think many things of you, Young One," he told me.

"Always with your riddles, old man," I grumbled. Not once had I gotten so much as a straight answer from him, but was left to figure things out on my own.

He merely smiled down at me. "Indeed, I am up in age. Therefore you should make your escape while I have breath in my body, child."

I felt my heart plummet at the inevitable coming of his death. "But…"

"Never you worry for my wellbeing, young Dragonfly," he told me, swinging the iron gate shut and taking the abandoned tray. "Just see to it you've gone before I leave this life."

I remained quiet, unsure of what to say as I watched him knock on the iron door for the soldiers to let him out.

2

My wrists were held in shackles through the iron bars, my cage shifting as the horse dragged my wagon through the predawn lit streets of Noirzhe's capital city. In the distance I saw the palace, a structure so grand that one can spot it days before reaching the city gates. I've only gone to the palace grounds once a month to have my run of the meadow behind it. It was a day I anticipated most for I had all of two days to spread my wings and flit about as I pleased.

Although, what with that accursed black mark to glow green and restrict my movement, being 'free' was a bit of a self-contradiction when in regards to me. Glen's words flitted though my mind and I shook my head. There was no method around that mark. And to make matters worse…

I leveled a secret glare at the shaman who rode alongside my wagon: Luxor. He was the one who embedded a smaller version of the seal to the scruff of my neck. That way if I'm ever free of the cage, he can activate the mark on my nape to subdue me. I turned my gaze to the other side of the street when he cast a glance at me. Two other pairs of eyes caught my attention as we rode by. Two tiny tots peeked through a window, their large, curious and innocent scrutiny affixed upon me. I blinked at the pair and they scurried away.

With a soft sigh I revisit the image of the mountains outside the city gates which now lay behind the tiny caravan: my 'happy place' if you will. But my focus wavers every so often and I can only gaze a bit uncertainly at the massive edifice just under a quarter mile away.

"Have you heard of that new archer?" A horseman, a cavalier I think judging from his armor, spoke up. The other one mounted beside him grunted.

"I heard he's got the sharpest aim yet and only a recruit." The first cavalier's voice was so full of admiration that I look to the backside of his head, wishing I could see his face. Maybe he is as young as he sounds. "Ingram's possibly vexed that another's come to take his title."

The other man again said nothing, but glanced back at me. Our gazes met briefly but I returned my attention to the speaker, eager to know who this archer was, although I'd gained a fairly good image of this esteemed recruit. The memory of his arrows, however, came to me rather than the archer himself. The tips wore a light sheen of something lilac. I'd seen many an archer's arrowhead, but his were far more unique.

My inner musings were brought to a halt as did my wagon. I looked up to see gold encrusted iron gates, looking something akin to solid stone. The sounds of the gears creaking and turning reached my ears, the gates swinging inward languidly as if in tandem with the slowly waking city. We continued through, the courtyard's immaculately trimmed hedges forming something of a maze as we zigzagged and curved nearly endlessly through the carefully constructed labyrinth. I once thought it was a folly of the King himself, but soon realized that it was a ploy to stall enemy soldiers if they managed to reach so far as the palace courtyard.

Workers of the early morn paused in their assigned duties to grace me with passing glances, some even looking to each other in confusion. Others, however few, looked on with shocked familiarity in their eyes. It may not have seemed that long to me, but it had been little over a year since I'd ventured anywhere outside the Tower. We had come to a stop before the doorway of Castle Noirzhe, and the shaman dismounted his steed, a stable hand leading the horse away.

"Release him." Luxor was already partway up the numerous steps, leaving the cavaliers to carry out the deed. The silent one keyed open my cuffs, opening the cage to let me out. I stood, noticing that I had about two inches on him in height. The more talkative of the pair reset the shackles and led me up to the door, the other following behind.

Luxor turned stern blue eyes to us, a foot not so far from tapping with impatience. He looked behind me at the two cavaliers. "You are dismissed."

Both the cavaliers bowed and took their leave, and I remained with my handler. Luxor looked to me and turned to enter the partially opened door of the castle. "I trust you wouldn't attempt anything shady, Dragonfly."

I did not answer, my self sworn vow of silence only broken when in the sole presence of Glen; civilly in any case. Luxor seemed not to care; his icy stare spared not a sparse moment longer on my face and I followed him. As usual I walked with my head bowed and a half pace behind, my matted hair falling like tendrils around my line of sight. After a time of following a quite familiar path, my feet gained minds of their own and I took in the obstructed view of the castle's interior. Not much had changed within the past year except the floral arrangements set atop the marble surfaces which stood to my shoulders.

It was not so long before Luxor's steps, and mine alike, ceased. I glanced ahead through raven fringes to see what had stopped our progress, knowing we were but halfway to our intended destination. Before my handler stood a girl, not so far from becoming womanly in her features, but a girl nonetheless.

"Take him to the baths," I heard him say and he left, not waiting for an affirmative response or casting a backward glance. His blue robes billowed around his ankles his as he made his way back in the direction from whence we came, only veering to the left rather than to the right at a corner.

"Sir?" The girl's voice was soft and I looked up at her. She was a pale thing, small but not sickeningly so: petite if you will. Her wide brown eyes beckoned me and I followed wordlessly. To be honest, it was not because of that vow of silence; it just was not often that someone called me 'sir.' Then again, what else was there to call me when I was not given a name much less recall the one given to me at birth?

When Luxor's scent had faded considerably, I allowed my head to rise and take in properly the walls around us. They were still the pale yellow color I'd come to recall quite easily, large portraits of past sovereigns and inconsequential objects like landscapes draped along their surfaces. One of them, however, I had not seen before. My steps slowed of their own accord and I paused to get a better look.

There, beside one of the numerous portraits of King Heath himself, was a masterpiece too grand for words. It was something to find in the dreams of a mere child: a large valley with a surrounding forest, and a lake in its midst. There were creatures of all kinds: dragons, elves, faeries, centaurs and the like. The details were worked in with so much care, that it struck me to wonder just how old the painter was to wield such skill. Surely no human hand could have crafted this.

Against the painted evening vista was a wingless beast, for lack of a better word. Its body was likened unto a snake of sorts: a black diamondback body, long and sinuous, hardened like sandstone and coils sharp along its curves. The head was similar to a lizard's, and around it like sepals to a flower were four long spear like red thorns elongated like a knight's lance. It's eyes were a striking cobalt, and they seemed to pierce my soul. The tail end of the snake-like creature was suspended mid air, fanned like a lily's petals with something sharp and needle-like jutting from it. And its head, the only thing besides the tail spike, left without scales, was floating nearest to the ground adjacent an olive creature I could not identify, body slightly coiled to surround it. The creature seemed to be…protecting the olive skinned thing.

This creature was oddly familiar to me as much as it was strange: its tail was like mine, that much I can decipher. The body, however, was stranger still. Though it was smaller than the floating Diamondback, it was like a normal flying dragon, but with a slender body, as to a dragon of the sea, but with impossibly thin and transparent wings: four on its back and two on its tail. But no matter how bizarre, it tugged