Dragons Awakening
CHAPTER TWENTY: Smoke and Ice

The whisperer comes. Words penetrated Akolo’s mind. The raspy voice scraped along his nerves. His hands flinched upward. Worms of terror dried his mouth.

Ezer and Zi halted a step behind Akolo. White light reflected from somewhere in front of them, revealing a cave barely large enough for the foursome. At first, the white dragon resembled one of the craggy rocks they climbed to reach this summit. Twitching blurred the image. Eyes blinked. A black pupil floated atop a pale iris.

“I am Akolo.”

“Time is short, brother.” Ezer’s comment reverberated inside Akolo’s skull.

The white dragon snarled at the black, baring icicle-like teeth. Frost billowed from the gaping maw. Akolo shivered even though his insulated polar wear kept him from feeling the chill.

“Why do you disturb me, whisperer? Does fire devour the earth?”

Akolo gulped, while his heart and stomach wrestled inside his chest. A glance left revealed Zi Yan gazing around the sparkling cave. Ezer’s hulking form blocked the exit. Time for him to step out of the shadow of prophecy into the reality of action. This is why they sought him and kidnapped him from his hotel. Did he expect help from his companions?

“Soon,” Akolo said directly into the whirlpool of the dragon’s mind. “The Visionary has seen the red dragon emerge from Vesuvius with magma at his feet and fire spewing from his mouth.”

”Qwystanak.” The white beast spat a shard of ice at the ground. Akolo flinched when it shattered at his feet. Zi jumped back, blue eyes wide.

“We need your help,” Akolo said. Understatement of a lifetime.

“Will my mountain burn?”

Akolo considered his reply. Scientific terminology or something simpler? “Rock doesn’t burn. It melts.”

The spiky white head turned and a single silver eye blinked, studying Akolo. A tumbling match in Akolo’s stomach burned the back of his throat. His feet itched to run. Another dragon blocks your escape. Besides, if you fail, the entire world turns into dragon hell.

“Fear.” The white dragon’s voice sounded brittle, not as deep or resonant as Ezer’s. He lifted his nose, as if sniffing out the terror engulfing Akolo.

“I’m standing in the cave of an immortal dragon who could destroy me with a single breath.” Akolo clenched his hands to stop their trembling. “What’s not to fear?”

The shimmering beast dropped his head, leveling his narrowed, unblinking gaze on Akolo’s face. Akolo pushed his mind toward the dragon, encountering a quagmire of resistance.

“I don’t fear Qwystanak.”

“Even though he killed your family?”

The silver eyes slitted, a dangerous look. Maybe not the best topic, genius.

“In the past. This is my home now.”

“And he plans to destroy it, too.” Akolo forced himself to match the dragon’s glare while pushing his thoughts into the miry wall around its mind. “That’s all he knows how to do.”

A low growl rumbled beneath Akolo’s feet. Instead of stepping back, he widened his stance, folding his arms across his chest. If only his knees would stop spasming, threatening to topple him.

“What do you know of destruction, whisperer?”

“Plenty. My home has been plagued with volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.” Akolo lifted his chin. “All thanks to that dragon.”

“What is a little shaking?” The dragon lowered himself onto his belly, stretching his head out so his frosty breath whispered across Akolo’s boots.

“I’m here to wake you up. You’re awake.”

“Indeed. And hungry.”

Akolo flinched. He eats rocks, not people. Akolo’s heart struggled against his chest, a caged bird fighting for freedom.

“I’ve fulfilled my destiny, dragon. Will you fulfill yours?”

The dragon pushed his maw against Akolo’s mid-section. Akolo stumbled backward, pressing Zi against Ezer before regaining his balance. “Destiny? You would make me destiny’s slave?”

“Better than being beaten by a fire-breathing dragon.” Akolo stepped forward, puffing out his chest. His teeth chattered so he gritted them.

“Why should I leave this place?”

Apparently fulfilled prophecy and destiny weren’t enough to motivate the ice dragon. Akolo glanced toward Ezer, pressing a thought into the black dragon’s mind. He doesn’t want to help us.

Ezer thrust his face toward the white dragon who reared away from the attack, nearly crushing his head on the ceiling of the cave. Akolo’s heart palpitated. Zi squeezed next to him. A glance at her face showed her blue eyes widened and perky lips gaping.

Time ticked. Ezer drew back and the ice dragon dropped his head to stare into Akolo’s face again. “So I should test you. Are you worthy?”

An avalanche of dread buried Akolo’s stomach. Worthy? How did he prove that? He shook his head.

“An honest human.” The dragon sniffed him again. Chills raced from head to toe, but Akolo refused to move or cringe. “What of pain?”

Akolo swallowed a lump swelling in his throat. Destruction was coming and this dragon wanted to know about pain. The grief of losing someone he loved ached inside Akolo. What did he know of pain? Only that his acquaintance with agony left irreparable damage.

“I watched my mother die.” He was glad not to have to say the words aloud. Somehow that made it easier.

The icy maw leaned closer, nearly touching his forehead.

“I would share this memory with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you want me to relive my greatest tragedy by facing Qwystanak, I require the same of you.”

How on earth could he show the dragon his painful memory? Another confirmation of his ability to fail. Akolo pushed his hood back and looked behind him. He slid closer to Ezer, asking for an explanation of Jokul’s request.

“Link to his mind and remember.”The black dragon made it sound so simple.

Akolo fisted his hands. The gloves pinched the circulation from his fingers. He avoided thinking about the excruciating day when his life had been forever altered. He’d mentioned it to Zi. Now he was expected to relive each moment if he wanted this dragon to help them.

“Prove you know my pain, whisperer,” the white dragon taunted, frosty exhalation from his nose biting Akolo’s cheeks.

Did he have a choice? Without the ice dragon, they couldn’t stop the angry dragon from destroying the world. The price? Nothing much. Just revisiting the worst day of his life.

Akolo gritted his teeth. He stared into the dragon’s broad face, forcing his thoughts through the series of mazes keeping him out of the intricate mind. Jokul permitted Akolo’s intrusion. A strange chill pierced Akolo, as if his heart froze within his chest.

He closed his eyes, opening them in the dim hospital room. Several machines encircled the hospital bed. His mom lay there, skin grayer than the bleached sheets beneath her. A chorus of beeps drowned the cadence of her shallow breaths. The antiseptic smell indigenous to hospitals masked a fouler stench. Akolo’s stomach heaved, but he swallowed the acid burning its way up his throat.

His dad pushed around him, striding to the side of the bed, plucking the skeletal hand off the sand-colored blanket. A strange mix of hopelessness and adoration pinched his eyes into thin slits.

His mother’s eyes fluttered, butterfly wings against her cheekbones, before opening. A pang stabbed Akolo’s chest at the sight. On the best of days or the worst of days, her emerald eyes sparkled. Now they were hollowed out, the dirty green of a deep mud hole.

“Maddix,” she whispered. A cough followed.

Akolo’s chest ached at the harsh wracking. Dark flecks sprayed the pale sheets and blanket. His father retrieved a tissue from a rolling table and held it in front of her mouth, wadding it when the fit subsided.

“Don’t try to talk.”

Akolo wanted to hear her voice. Needed assurance that everything in his eleven-year-old world would be okay.

Her breath rattled in her chest. She raised her other hand in his direction, a mere two inches off the bed, and he could tell it taxed her.

His shoes might have been filled with wet sand. His feet dragged against the slick floor tiles. The corner of the bed gouged his thigh. A haze clouded his vision, and the moment seemed to happen to someone else.

Her hand on his chilled him to the bone. She closed her fingers over his, a claw gripping his bronzed flesh. Her face lolled in his direction. Lips trembling, she opened her mouth. Another shuddering inhale.

“You’re amazing,” she said.

Another wave of coughing shook her. Akolo gripped her hand. His father covered her wheezing with another tissue. Dark phlegm soaked it.

“Closer,” she whispered. Akolo didn’t really hear the word but somehow understood.

He leaned his face next to hers. The coppery scent of blood mixed with a sickly sweet odor. He held his breath to keep from gagging. Without the domineering purplish shadows beneath her eyes, they appeared darker. His ear brushed the bridge of her nose. Her skin, usually shades darker than his, seemed translucent.

“I love you,” she said, her breath tickling against his ear lobe. “Take care of your dad.”

Gasping hacks cut the last word short. Akolo leaned away while his dad ministered to her, keeping her infected blood from spraying outward. She twisted her head from side to side. Her eyes glared a silent message to her husband, who bent down, his face inches from hers.

Her breaths sounded like gurgles from a drowning victim. Akolo backed away from the bed, colliding with a chair behind him. He fumbled and sat down hard. Hot tears stung his eyes, an ocean of emotion. Fat drops of liquid plopped onto his clenched hands.

Whispers. Mechanical beeps. Weeping. Sounds meshed into a musical number he later named “The Death Watch.” A long, steady beep pierced the trance he’d fallen into. Through watery vision, Akolo saw his father squeeze the limp body to his chest, one hand supporting her head, as if she was an infant.

Akolo gasped. Pain tore through his chest, a ravenous beast. Someone ripped his heart from its proper place. He couldn’t breathe. Indefinable anguish shook his body, the sobs overpowering the persistent wail of the heart monitor.

Opening his eyes, Akolo felt the tears on his cheeks. They steamed in the icy surroundings. With the back of his glove, he wiped his face. The dragon shuffled back a step.

“Nothing will hurt like that again,” the beast said, his tone almost gentle.

Akolo shuddered. Zi Yan gripped his left arm. He turned his back toward her, jerking his arm from her grasp. She left her hand in the center of his back. He hated himself for allowing her touch, but the warm circle from her fingers oozed with comfort. After all, she knew how it felt to watch her mother die.

“I am Jokul, Chieftain of the Crystalline Clan.” The dragon, chest puffed out, drew himself up as high as the confines of the cave allowed. “I will aid you, whisperer. Your grief binds us.”

Akolo cleared his throat, unable to form any audible sounds through the clog of mucus. Sniffling into the sleeve of his coat, Akolo pressed into the dragon’s mind and said, “Thank you.”