THE IMMORTAL: Dance with the Dragon

25: Bear Cliff

Where was she? Samara could smell damp earth. Dirt, rock, water. It was dark—her eyes were closed and she couldn't open them yet, still at that point between asleep and waking. Slowly she came to and when she realized she could finally move, she panicked. She tried to jump up. A hand gently pushed her back down.

"Don't move."

That voice. She knew it. Samara opened her eyes at the same time the voice called for someone:

"Roslyn, she's awake."

Samara squinted in the darkness as her vision came into focus. She was in a bed in a poorly lit room. An orange glow. Flames danced against a rocky wall. A cave?

Her head pounded. Her mouth was dry.

"Where am I?" Samara asked Danteous. Her voice was hoarse.

"Bring water." A new voice. Soft and feminine.

A woman with long blue hair sat at the end of the bed, placing a gentle hand on Samara's leg. Silver bracelets jingled on her wrist.

"Samara, sweetheart, how are you feeling?" The woman's light-colored hair was adorned with jewels. Her eyes were a striking blue color a few shades darker than her hair and didn't seem like they belonged to this world.

The woman was a blue dragon.

Yet those striking eyes seemed soft and kind. No malice in them.

"Where's everyone else?" Samara asked, ignoring the woman's question. The truth was, she felt like she had been beaten with a bag of bricks. Her whole body was sore. She was parched. But Leela, Kit, and Rufus were her only concerns at the moment.

"They're safe. They're here too, see?" Danteous pointed and Samara squinted in the dark. Barely, she made out the figures of Kit, Rufus, and Leela, all in their own beds in what looked like a makeshift hospital room. The beds were made of logs tied together. The mattress beneath Samara felt like it was filled with feathers. In between the beds were privacy screens, but she could still see that her friends were being well cared for, just as she had been.

"You're the first to awaken," the woman said.

Another woman with short, wavy blue hair handed a cup to the woman sitting beside Samara. Her hair was a darker shade of blue, but her skin was just as pale as the other dragon's. She gave Samara a friendly smile before leaving.

"Drink slowly." The long-haired woman with the kind eyes held the cup of water out for Samara.

She wanted to gulp the whole thing down, but knew it would make her sick if she did. As she sipped, she tried to remember what had happened. She remembered running to Kit when the girl had fallen, but nothing after that.

"What happened?" Samara asked, leaning back against the pillow. She grimaced as the movement caused pain throughout her whole body.

"You and your friends were inflicted with mountain sickness," the woman explained. "It's something that happens when your body isn't used to the thinner air at such a high elevation."

"Oh...." Samara felt foolish. She should have known. They all should have, well except maybe Kit. "And who are you?"

"My name is Roslyn." The woman smiled.

Samara glanced around the cave as a horrible thought occurred to her. This woman was a dragon. The woman who gave her the water was a dragon. The people taking care of her friends (checking pulses and writing on sheets of paper) had green and blue hair. One even had silver hair like Danteous. All these "people" that were caring for her and her friends were dragons.