Dragon of Storms

Chapter 14

In the back of her mind, near the darkest, most unused parts, there was a door forming. She could practically see it. Light leaked through its cracks, and when she pushed it open, an explosion of laughter, talk, and other unintelligible sound filled her mind. Reyna cautiously went through the door. Around her streams of light filled with strange images twirled aimlessly, voices flew past her like howling wind.

The farther in Reyna went the more she noticed that some things she saw and heard were from her own memories. The princess looked around for any explanation and found another door on the other side of the room. It opened to show the dark recesses of another's mind. A small figure stepped out of the shadows, and Rena recognized it as Helios.

She tried to speak, but nothing came out. A stream of words flew from her side of the door, and into Helios'. "What the hell is happening?" It was what Reyna had wanted to ask.

Helios' form came closer to Reyna's, and she could've sworn he was smiling. A young voice, that was fairly familiar, flew past her, and through her own door. She watched it go. "It's what the book described." The princess knew that he was talking about the whole mental bond thingy.

"This is nothing like what the book described, Helios," Reyna thought, then watched as it flew from her to Helios. The little dragon had the audacity to shrug, then prance over to her like a puppy.

"That book is outdated anyways," His comment quickly went into her door. Reyna noticed that the thoughts were transferring faster and faster.

"Well, care to explain then," Reyna reached out to touch the twirling memory that came past her. Suddenly she was no longer in the hallway, but in the caves once again. A dark haired man with his back to her was placing the egg where Reyna had found it. The image quickly faded back into the strange mental place where Helios was.

"Think about it like a hallway. Your mind is over there," He motioned towards Reyna's door. "Mine over there. Our minds are protected by the doors, but with the hallway created we can open them up, and share thoughts, information, memories, etc."

"How do we get out, and what about our bodies?" Her question flitted into Helios' mind.

"Our bodies are fine, I think-"

"Think?" Reyna interrupted.

"I'm pretty new to this myself, so I can't really be sure." Great, just great. For all they knew their bodies could be on the ground, their hearts not even diening to beat while the mind was out. "That's not what's happening." Reyna realized that her door was wide open and that he could hear everything she was thinking.

"How can you be sure?"

"I can't, but I know that's not what's happening." His reassurances did nothing to calm Reyna. "Anyways, to get back, just go through the door." As he said, or rather thought it, Helios started going back to his own door. He went through without hesitation, and it slammed shut, cutting off a lot of the memories and voices.

Reyna stood there, feeling as if she was floating away, before she snapped out of her stupor and went through her own door. Her eyes opened as soon as the soft click of a door closing echoed through her mind.

Looking around, she found Helios flipping through one of the books. From outside the last rays of sun fought to be seen on the horizon. Candlelight filled the room, it's flickering causing shadows to dance across the ivory walls. "Well, that was interesting."

"Indeed," Helios' voice laughed in her mind, causing Reyna to flinch.

"That is going to take some getting used to."

"Here, read this," He pushed the book towards the princess after a few moments of silence. Did he even know how to read?

"Yes, I can read some, but your language is more difficult." His blue eyes stared up at her, something unidentifiable swimming in their depths.

"Is there any way to block you from hearing my thoughts?" She asked, but picked up the old book anyway.

"Yep."

"Care to share?"

"Nope."

"Great," Reyna sighed then began reading aloud. "The history of a Mother's Weakness." She looked over at Helios in question. He only nodded for her to continue. "A long time ago, a sorcerer, whose name has been forgotten over time, needed to kill the evil dragon, known as Adhira. She was the sister of the queen at the time, and on multiple occasions had tried to kill her for the throne." Again Reyna sent a questioning glance to Helios, but he seemed to be listening to the story intently.

"But Adhira was too powerful, so the sorcerer made it so that if he killed her child she would die as well." The hell kind of story is this?

"It's history, not a story." Helios' committed upon hearing her thoughts.

"Alright," Reyna breathed and began again. "By doing this he accidentally cursed every dragon mother, instead of just Adhira. The balance of the world was replaced with chaos and many mother dragons were being killed because their young were killed and many dragons no longer wanted to risk having children." Helios was still listening intently as if focussing on the words along as something far away.

"So the sorcerer made new curses to attempt to balance everything out," Because what could go wrong there? "The first gave every dragon a true name. The second, made crushing a baby dragon's heart with an iron gauntlet the only way to kill said dragon, and in turn it's mother. The third, made it much harder to get to the dragon's heart by making the chest armor almost impenetrable. Then the fourth and final curse made it so that the chest plates would open up by themselves if the true name was spoken." Reyna briefly wondered why the sorcerer couldn't just undo his first curse.

"This balanced out the scales again and nature was happy. The end." The book snapped shut and Reyna put it on the table. "You said that was history, right?"

"Yep."

"So, all that is true, to this day?"

"Yep." Helios' voice sounded a bit lost in thought.

"What about your mother?" Reyna was now putting together that if Helios were to die, so would his mother. And right now there was a large chance that somebody in Craylith would kill him if they spotted him.

"What about her?"

"If you die, the Queen dies." She reasoned out. "Do you know how many people, how many religious zealots, prejudiced idiots, and just humans in general would try to kill you just to hurt the northern continent?" Because Reyna sure as hell didn't.

"Your point?" Helios stared up at her quizzically, as if trying to figure out her train of thought, which at the moment was going way too fast. Reyna stood, and began to pace. Ideas came and went, until she came to one conclusion.

"How old do you have to be for the curse to no longer be in effect?" Reyna broke the tense silence.

"Five years hatched."

"Could your mother protect you?" Stupid question, but Reyna needed to know for sure.

"She's the Queen, so I'd assume so." Taking a deep breath, the princess knew what she'd have to do. "Why?" His question bounced around her racing mind.

"Because, I'm going to get you home."