But the White Dragon Spirit didn’t answer.
Iolaire?
Nothing. There was almost a pregnant feeling to the silence, as if it were not empty, but filled up with… something.
Iolaire, are you sleeping? Caden’s mind voice sounded thin and reedy. I--I really need you to wake up here.
Caden did not “see” Iolaire curled up in his chest, snout tucked under its tail with Raziel spooned around it. His shoulders twitched. Something was very wrong here. But the beauty of the place plucked at him, trying to soothe him, trying to distract him from these disturbing things.
Surely, Iolaire was with him. Iolaire would always be with him. Now if he could just figure out where he was. He would figure it out. All would be well. Now what had he been thinking about?
The dark leaves above him rustled as a warm breeze rushed through them. Caden’s eyelids half closed as the sweetly scented breeze passed by him as well.
I wish Valerius was here to see this with me, Caden thought. I’ll just call him. He’ll come here.
And Caden did call him, but, like with Iolaire, there was no response. The “sound” in his head was muffled as if his skull was filled with cotton. Caden swallowed suddenly acrid bile. He opened his eyes fully.
Valerius? Iolaire? Raziel? He said each name with as much clarity and force as he could.
But it was as if he were “speaking” through layers upon layers of cotton. He didn’t think his call was getting out to any of them. He was alone in his head. Cut off from Iolaire and Valerius and Raziel.
His heart began to hammer his chest. Cold sweat broke out on his upper lip and forehead. That sick, metallic taste of adrenaline filled his mouth.
Fear.
Fear.
FEAR.
He was alone. How could he be alone? No Iolaire twittered. No Valerius interrogating him as to what was wrong. No sound other than the whisper of the breeze all around him. This was impossible! He and Iolaire were bonded. Iolaire and Raziel were mates! He and Valerius were… Well, when they made love a goddamned helix appeared in the sky!
The world started to spin as the blood rushed from his head. He clutched at the tree and rested his forehead against the shimmering bark. He shut his eyes tightly and counted to ten. He had to get a hold of himself. If he truly was alone he had to figure this out and panicking never helped anyone or anything.
The world stopped spinning. His breathing evened out. His heart stopped beating so loud that he couldn’t hear anything else. He slowly opened his eyes and drew back to look around him. He needed clues as to where he was and what had happened to get him here.
The scene had not changed. It was still a peaceful forest with the impossibly beautiful sky above it.
This isn’t a sky on Earth. Nowhere does this exist, Caden thought, which had another rush of adrenaline coursing through him as his body rebelled at the thought of being in such an unfamiliar place. If I’m not on Earth, that’s a real problem. But I got here somehow.
He couldn’t have just appeared in this spot. Maybe he had walked her from… from a house? Could such a place have something so normal as a house? No, maybe a castle made of spun glass or a palace of palest marble.
His eyes scanned the forest, but there were no towers that poked through the green canopy. There were just unending miles of trees and nothing else. Slowly, he turned in a circle. The forest’s edge was visible curving around him until… until he was looking directly behind him.
His mouth dropped open and immediately went dry as the desert.
There was a--a crater. That was the best way he could describe it. A crater where all life had been blasted away. It went down hundreds of feet. The earth itself looked scarred. There were no trees, no flowers, no vegetation at all from the edge of the crater to the center. This lonely tree was the only one that he could see separated from the forest.
I know this place, Caden realized as a memory burst fully into his head. This is where the Dragons fought the Behemoth the first time! But that can’t be possible! I can’t be here! For that place is in the Spirit Realm!
More cold sweat coursed down Caden’s temples from his hairline. He spun in a circle again, still looking for signs of civilization. Looking for…
Reach. The Mid. The tunnels. Being carried away. The Behemoth! Iolaire and I were captured and… what happened after that? Think! THINK! He commanded himself and his mind answered his command as best it could. I passed out. The Behemoth was threatening right before that to… to enslave Iolaire again...
“Caden?!” Landry’s voice was uncertain.
His head snapped towards where her voice was coming from. She was just down the rise at the treeline to the forest, peering out from behind one of the silvery trunks. Her face was mostly in shadow. Her face looked like a white blob with raisins where the eyes, nose and mouth should be. There was no nightshine in her eyes. It would have shown up in this half-light.
Anger boiled up in Caden. His affection for Landry had led him to take chances he shouldn’t have back at her house. It had distracted him from thinking that maybe instead of him chasing her, she had been leading him to the other possessed humans. He had been cocky to think he couldn’t be hurt by another Shifter. His hands balled into fists.
