Amáne of Teravinea - The Chosen One (The Teravinea Series Book 1) (5 page)

My mother taught me many dragon songs, and I had seen her detailed drawings from when she was a young girl. Song or painting could do no justice in comparison to this creature. Its beauty hypnotized me. I had never seen anything of its equal. Raising its head to look at me, its eyes locked onto mine. I became entranced in its whirling golden orbs. I couldn’t release myself from their intense gaze — nor had I any desire to do so. Its eyes reflected a blazing, golden fire — comforting, like a hearth or a camp fire. They spun me ever inward into their depths — holding me there for an undetermined amount of time.

Then the creature blinked. The spell that engaged me was broken. I struggled to get my focus back — to grasp what had just happened. A part of me was missing now that its eyes no longer held mine. I wanted to dive back into their comforting warmth. I watched in a stupor as its head pulled back slowly. Like lightning, it lunged and struck me on the right shoulder,
burying its venomous fangs in my flesh.

Horrified a beloved dragon could do such a thing, a thought drove into me that maybe it wasn’t a dragon. A flash of agony exploded through me, as if someone had taken a red hot brand and held it to my arm. The excruciating heat traveled across my chest. Breathing became close to impossible. The burn continued slowly to my opposite arm, spread up to my head and steadily down my body, paralyzing as it went. Acid-like venom flowed in an almost traceable path — like hot lava surging through my veins. The intensity increased every inch it progressed as my veins filled with the deadly venom. Over the throbbing sound in my ears I heard screaming. Then I realized the screams were coming from me.

Through my tears of pain, I could make out the creature’s golden eyes as it stared at me. It must have been the effects of the venom — I thought I could read pity or concern. However, that naive observation dissipated quickly as fear overcame me.

“Why are you waiting to kill me?” I shouted. “Do you keep your prey alive and plan to eat me bit by bit?” My voice shook in terror before I lost my ability for speech. I began mentally begging it to finish me off.

As shock coursed through me, my body convulsed. My mouth foamed as my throat began to close. I prepared myself to meet my ancestors. As my consciousness slipped, a line of a dragon song nudged a corner of my mind. “The Chosen’s life in balance hangs.” Then, my eyes rolled back in my head and everything went black.

I stood on a beach. It wasn’t daylight nor was it nighttime. An eerie luminosity filled my vision, but I couldn’t see clearly. The pebbles beneath my feet glowed phosphorescent in the half-light. I started running — looking for something. But what? The edge of panic closed in. I felt as though I had gone mad.

So, this is what it’s like to join my ancestors?
But I felt no peace. My mother told me it would be peaceful. Then I remembered I was looking for my mother, but I didn’t know why I needed to find her. She told me she would meet me on the other side and now I wondered if this was where I might be. But she wasn’t here, and I was in a state of fear instead of calm.

I found myself flying, but I didn’t know if I was flying like long ago in my childhood dreams, or if I was riding on something. Nothing seemed clear. I caught sight of a white figure below me on the beach. Upon landing, I saw it was my mother.

“Mother, where am I? Am I with our ancestors?”

“No, Amáne, you are in the shadows.” Her soft voice made me ache to remain with her.

“Am I dying, then?”

“That is not for me to say. The answer rests upon you and the healing powers of your dragon.”

“My dragon?” I couldn’t comprehend what she said. She stood before me, but she sounded like she was talking from the other end of a long tunnel, echoing off the walls. I thought she said something about my dragon.

“Recall the song, Amáne,” she encouraged.

“
‘Burning venom spreads like fire

The hope to die is the One’s desire

If both shall live, then they will soar

Together linked ... forevermore.’
”

The dragon hatching song touched the edge of my consciousness. My mother loosened the memory, but nothing stayed with me — I couldn’t concentrate.

“I don’t know what to do, Mother. I want to stay with you.”

“Only you can decide, my daughter. But, it’s important that you know, should you choose to stay, it would very likely mean the death of your dragon. The future of Teravinea would be at stake.”

“What does the future of Teravinea have to do with me?”

Before she could respond I heard a mournful wail from far away. A keening that started out low and raised its pitch until it would have been unbearable to human ears. I was torn. The dragon keened again. Instantaneously, my decision was made —
I must go to my dragon. She calls for me
. One last longing gaze at my mother, and I snapped in a flash back to intense pain.

My tongue was thick, my throat parched, but I couldn’t find water. I came upon a stream and drank from it, but my thirst was not quenched. It was only a dream — my mouth felt full of sand that I couldn’t spit out. I found nothing to bring relief.

The fact I was not dead was my only consolation. Although as I lay writhing in agony, I did wish for death. Thus I spent my hours passing in and out of consciousness. My head ached like it was split open. I could see the light through my closed eyes, but couldn’t open them as even the light behind my lids was too intense. On the occasions when I forced them open, I saw the dragon’s eyes hovering over me, watching.
Was this still part of my nightmarish dreams?
It looked larger than it did before — nearly as tall as I and even more beautiful than when I had first seen it as a hatchling. Had it grown that rapidly?

At last, my fever broke, and I awoke in my tent. As I moved toward consciousness, I became aware that my mind was incredibly clear. My hearing was sharpened, my body, unmindful of the torture it had just been through, felt stronger than it had ever felt before. I lay there wondering how long I had suffered as I sensed new strength coursing through me. Grabbing my water skin, I moistened my parched lips, letting only a small amount trickle down my throat, lest I choke. Slowly, still unsure of my condition, I sat up and found myself staring into the golden eyes of the dragon whose head was now in my tent, where she had dragged me.

“You’re the one that’s always been in my dreams.” I said.

“Perhaps. I am Eshshah — which means fire. You are my Chosen One — my rider, as I am your dragon. My venom running in your veins commits us to each other. We are inseparably linked.” I felt her relief at the fact I had lived through my dragon fever. The fever was a necessary part to linking. I noted her tone of regret as she repented the force she had used when she struck me.

I tried to ease her of her guilt as I sat entranced, drinking in her beauty, her spicy, exotic scent and the compassion in her warm eyes. I found no fault in her for whatever she felt she’d done.

At the same time my heightened senses noticed everything around me. The sound of the water lapping at the shoreline; the smell of the fresh morning air; the surrounding colors as I gazed outside of my tent at the azure bay. Even the islands scattered in the distance were more clear. I could see there were many more than I had previously thought.

“Hello, Eshshah. I’m Amáne, daughter of Catriona. My name means water,” I said hoarsely. I felt the strength of our bond — she was now a part of me.

“I’m so sorry for your suffering,” she said, agitated and ashamed at the same time. “I wasn’t able to restrain the amount of venom I injected into you. Our ancient memories recall grown men as riders. They require more venom to link. I couldn’t believe I’d finally drawn you in. Before I realized it, I gave you the full measure and almost lost you. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”

“Eshshah, you’ve done nothing to warrant asking for my forgiveness.”

I had to pinch myself to see if I was still not dreaming. I sat there holding a conversation with a dragon — the first dragon I had ever seen. In fact, as far as I knew, the only dragon alive in all of Teravinea. And, I was unequivocally linked to her. I was to be her rider. I swallowed hard. With some effort I managed to get my emotions under control. “What do you mean, you finally drew me in?”

“We dragons have an awareness before we hatch. We know there is a person out there who is destined to be our rider. There is no set incubation time, but we must wait until our chosen one is drawn to our egg. Some of us wait hundreds of years for our rider to be born, and when they are, we know. We entice them — lure
them to us and hope for the proper conditions where we can draw them in and link with them.”

“How long have you waited for me?”

“My egg was laid in this cove many years before you were born. I felt your presence when you and the other female came here many times. But I had to wait until you were old enough. I linked with you the day you came of age.”

She backed her head out of the tent to let me out.

More alive than ever before, I left my shelter. Breathing in the salty morning air, I began to stretch, feeling every muscle in my body had been rejuvenated — improved upon. I raised my arms above my head, and winced. A burning pain seared through my right shoulder. If everything else felt so right, why should this shoulder throb? I lifted my sleeve and inhaled sharply as I took in the markings that had been left from Eshshah’s fangs. It was not fang marks, but lines and symbols that resembled the body ink seen on merchants and foreigners who came to the marketplace. A tattoo. But more than just a tattoo, it was an intricate design incorporating a dragon, that was Eshshah, and fire intertwined in an elaborate device — an insignia. It was her linking mark upon me, claiming me as her rider. I gazed at it in awe.

Still distressed over the pain she caused me, she put her nose on my arm and breathed her healing breath. Promptly, my discomfort disappeared.

“You must be hungry. You haven’t eaten for days,” she reminded me.

“Days? How long was I stricken?” It certainly didn’t feel like days.

“Your arrival was three days ago. Your dragon fever should not have lasted that long. My memories tell me it should only have been a day, maybe two.”

In an effort to console her, I explained, “But I’m fine now, Eshshah. Better than fine. Your attention and your healing powers pulled me through and now look at me, I’m so much more alive than I’ve ever been and I owe you thanks ... and, yes, I’m hungry. I’ll get my angling rod and see if I can catch something.”

“Please, let me do that for you. Let me catch your meal,” she said, “I would like to do something for you in restitution for the pain I caused.”

“All right, I’ll start my fire while you’re gone. But first I have to get a replacement stone for my fire ring. It seems somehow one of them has cracked to pieces,” I teased.

“Imagine that,” she responded with a low rumble in her chest that sounded a lot like laughter.

I laughed with her. It felt good to laugh, when not that long ago I doubted whether it would ever be possible — I missed my mother so much. Under these circumstances, I had been lifted up. I now knew I could be happy again. I didn’t feel any shame in this revelation as I came to the conclusion I can miss my mother, yet still find joy. I understood she will always live in my heart and in my memories, making her never fully absent.

“May I start your fire for you? I’m still working on perfecting my fire skills. I may have all our ancient memories, but until I actually practice, I am functionally illiterate.”

I had noticed little burn patches here and there throughout my camp, obviously her practice sessions. I tried to keep my amusement to myself.

Finding a replacement rock for my fire ring, I stacked the wood, and then, fascinated, stepped aside to watch while she concentrated on summoning her combustion skills. She inhaled deeply and then belched out a massive flame that exploded into the
fire ring. The force of the inferno created such pressure the circle of boulders couldn’t contain the heat and energy. Needing a direction of escape, the blast curled around the back of the ring and shattered many of the stones. It created a whirlpool effect, shooting a fire storm in my direction.

In alarm, I covered my face, turned my body and leapt away as the flames engulfed me. Not knowing my new strength, I flew several yards as my gown caught fire.

Eshshah leaped between the fire and me to take the brunt of the out-of-control blaze. Unharmed by her namesake, she shielded me from the worst of the blast.

Landing in the sand I rolled several times and managed to put most of the flames out before too much damage was done. I sat upright, singed hair smoking, eyes wide open, and tried to take in all that had just happened in only a matter of seconds.

I burst out laughing as I patted at the last of the smoldering embers on the disaster that was my skirt. I looked at Eshshah, “Well done, Eshshah! If we ever need to burn down a village with just one pass, I’ll know who to call upon.”

Poor Eshshah was stunned, but when she saw me laughing and that I was unharmed, that same rumble started deep in her chest. We spent the next few minutes trying to replay the last few seconds as we laughed at each other’s reactions to the near catastrophe.