Knight Rider (DISCONTINUED)

Chapter Two (IN REVISION)

          * * Dedicated to a very special friend of mine. She was one of the first people I ever met on Wattpad, and was the very first to volunteer as an editor for this story. Even though I am not in constant contact with my editors anymore, they still deserve recognition! You are the greatest, Emily!

          * * The image on the right is the most recent one that I created for this book. I liked it for a while, but now that I am determined to get one of my stories published, I have hired one of my good friends to create professional covers for me.

Chapter Two:

“You? You are the one who stole my beloved Dragon?” a familiar, menacing voice avowed with a chuckle.

Eliza’s hand instinctively grasped the hilt of his sword. “It is n-not a power that you can control,” he stuttered as confidently as he could before hearing the man’s cold and unpleasant laugh rattle his insides.

“It was not a power for you to thieve!” the man hollered. “Eventually, you will learn how futile a child’s game is.”

Those last words faded into sheer silence. Their coldness sliced through Eliza like an iceberg, then left him in a dark and barren place. His eyes frantically searched the blackness, trying to make out someone, anyone. Instead, his mind created monsters from the shadows.

“Kareia?” he prayed, “Are you there?”

“Eliza.” The voice was distant, but definitely hers.

The shadows gradually closed in like murky fog; within the mass, some creature’s profound, icy-blue eyes fluttered open, and glowered in Eliza’s direction. A new tone rang in his ears, “Don’t waste your time. It’s far from over.”

He shuddered, and replied to Kareia, “Yes! It’s me! Please help me!”

“Eliza!”

Eliza’s knees grew weak and his vision grew fuzzy. He could hear Messiah’s maniacal laughter echoing through his ears, tearing his brain in half.

“Eliza!” Kareia barked. Without warning, a sudden pain lurched through his fingers.

Eliza’s eyes shot open, to the baby Dragon, who crudely bit his fingers again. “Ouch,” he grumbled to himself, wiping the aggrieved sweat from his forehead.

“About time!” Kareia exclaimed from behind him. “How about tomorrow, I get some sleep while you flounder in my nightmares?”

“Sorry,” Eliza meekly apologized whilst rubbing his forehead with his right palm. His thoughts were still clouded with the vile idea of being captured.

His mind drifted back to the previous day, where time without end was spent fleeing through Callahum’s underground fort. The city had used the hostile maze to hide the legendary Dragon of Earth’s egg. For long, it had been left untouched.

Under no circumstances did Eliza plan for this egg to hatch. When he had finally gathered the courage to leave home and steal it from the infamous king of Callahum, the idea was to simply carry it back. But it had hatched; moreover, it had hatched bearing Messiah’s dark mark. Can Messiah use it to track us?

“You’re troubled, Eliza,” Kareia acknowledged with a change in tone. Her head drooped to level with his. “You don’t need to be afraid of him.”

“I’m not afraid,” he lied, looking away.

Kareia huffed and rolled her eyes, then smiled at Eliza’s stubbornness. Through her shimmering, amethyst-like eyes, she switched her attention to the sea and dreamily watched as rays of sunlight bounced off her radiant scales. “Regardless, we’re almost home.”

Eliza continued, “And if we stay along the shore—”

“—It would be less than a day of flight time,” the silver Dragon concluded with a nod. “But it might be safer to keep the hatchling hidden within the forest,” she added.

The youngling brashly pranced between them. “That’s Emeral to you!” he established, pulling his lips into a smirk and stretching his neck to appear as tall as possible.

Eliza chuckled, and caressed one of the Dragon’s outstretched wings. “Oh, sorry,” he muttered when blood from his fingers strewed into the feathers.

“It’s my fault,” Emeral confessed, “had to wake you up somehow.”

Eliza shrugged, but immediately noticed that it did not hurt to do so. “Wha-?” he queried, sitting up to look over his shoulder and left hand. Both were completely healed over.

“You can thank him for that,” Kareia professed.

Emeral closed his eyes and beamed widely. “It’s my special power,” he declared merrily.

“What?” Eliza repeated, dumbfounded. Emeral cheeped in reply and stepped closer to him.

“Just give me your hand,” he instructed before leaning forward to lap at Eliza’s bleeding fingers. As they became coated in the young Dragon’s smarmy saliva, Eliza felt the flow of blood quickly stop. He then wiped away the last drops to reveal nothing.

It was as if the youngling never bit him. It was as if he never took an arrow to his shoulder, or injured himself while flying with Kareia. It was then when Eliza realized, “You have healing powers!”

“I would expect nothing less than amazing from him,” Kareia wisely advised.

Emeral’s eyes widened with his smile, his tail wagged quickly enough to shake his entire body, and his excitement escaped through his long neck in chirps and bays. He eventually spread his tan wings, flapping them vigorously. “Oh, right,” Eliza remembered aloud, “You can’t fly yet.”

“He needs a couple weeks,” Kareia stated with a playful smirk.

“We’ll be home before then.”

“Then let’s get moving,” she finalized, rising to her feet. Eliza did the same, but stumbled a bit from soreness. He yawned and looked to the horizon. There were very few places he had seen in his life where we could actually see the sun rising straight from the ocean. He watched as the large yellow sphere rose slowly into the dull morning sky; it casted sunbeams in every direction while it illuminated the great waters. The colors created by the sun changed, growing more vivid with the passing time, making the sky more radiant as it climbed higher and higher.

Emeral leapt and clung to Eliza’s shirt, climbing to his shoulders like a large macaw. “Fly hidden, Kareia,” Eliza directed.

“Of course.” Kareia arched her back, stretching out every limb she had before spreading her wings as wide as a fan. With a single jump, she shot back into the sky, kicking up sand that twisted and followed her path into the air. The grains then began to descend, scattering along the shore and into the ocean. Eliza closed his eyes to avoid getting anything in them, and covered Emeral’s head for the same purpose.

As he reopened them, Eliza caught the last glow of Kareia’s silver armor before she disappeared among a chain of clouds.