"Zia." The voice was deep and powerful, yet gentle and kind, like she imagined a large man with a soft heart might speak. "Zia," it said again.
Zia's eyes fluttered open, and she immediately closed them again. A blindingly white light filled the room, and the sudden brightness was painful to her eyes.
"Zia, open your eyes," the voice said firmly.
Blinking rapidly, Zia did as she was told. What she saw when her eyes finally adjusted to the light surprised her.
She was lying on the floor, but it was not the floor of the room where she had fallen unconscious. In fact, she was not in a room at all. There was neither walls nor ceiling, just a flat, white floor that seemed to stretch for miles. The light seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once. There was no sky above her and no sun. It was as if the world was light itself.
"Am I dead?" she wondered aloud. The place around her definitely fit the descriptions she had heard of heaven.
The voice chuckled. "No, you are still very much alive." Zia looked around for the source of the voice, but she couldn't see anyone.
"Who are you?" she asked the voice. "Show yourself." She looked around for her sword to defend herself with, but it was not there. She scrambled to her feet, surprised to find that there was no pain from her wounds.
The voice chuckled again, and then the most amazing thing happened.
A shadow fell over Zia and she looked up toward the endless white sky, but was blinded by a brightness that exceeded that of the place she was in. She threw up an arm to block the brilliant light.
The great shadow descended upon her. A great whoosh of air blew her hair back as it landed in front of her and shook the ground.
"Here I am," the voice said.
Once her eyes adjusted to the added glow, she removed her hand and felt her jaw slacken as she saw the form before her. A pair of reptilian legs with scales as silver as the moon were planted firmly on the ground in front of her. Attached to those legs was a long, serpentine body with large, broad wings protruding from its back, a long, scaly tail, and a head shaped to closely resemble the head of a crocodile. The whole thing was covered from snout to talon in pure silver scales.
"The Silver Dragon," Zia breathed. Her eyes were wide as she looked the dragon over top to bottom, soaking in every detail. He was impossibly huge, and he cast a large shadow over her, despite the light coming from everywhere. He seemed to glow with an impossibly bright light, as if he were reflecting the light of a thousand suns. Zia knew she wasn't hallucinating because her imagination wasn't vivid enough to think up something so detailed.
Zia strained her neck as she tried to look at the dragon's face, and she gasped when she saw a pair of brilliant gold eyes staring back at her, exactly the same color as her own. But the dragon's eyes seemed sharper, clearer, as if he could see straight into her mind and fish out her darkest thoughts.
"You've done well, my child," the Silver Dragon said in the same voice that had woken Zia. Had she not still been in shock at seeing such a magnificent creature suddenly appear, her heart would have stopped at hearing it speak. "I have observed you and your behavior since your birth, and I must say you surprised me. You've done spectacularly well."
"I-I-I can't believe it," Zia said to herself. "What are you doing here? What am I doing here? Where are my friends? Are they safe? Where are we? Are my friends here?"
"Patience, my child," the Silver Dragon said. "I am not unaware of the many questions in your mind, all of which shall be answered. But let me start off by congratulating you. You've handled your task magnificently."
"My task?" Zia asked, confused.
"Ending the war between your people and their greatest enemy," he clarified. "You've done spectacularly."
"Ending the war?" Zia asked in confusion. "How did I end the war?"
"You don't know?" the Silver Dragon asked, though it didn't sound like a question. He spoke to her the way a teacher might speak to a student, nudging them toward the correct answer.
"That glow," Zia said slowly. "That glow that filled the room. That was me?"
The dragon nodded.
"So it's true then," she said in awe. "I really do have... magic."
The Silver Dragon chuckled. "'Magic' is the word used by foolish men who do not understand the higher nature of things. It is the human mind's feeble attempt at explaining something it does not have the capacity to understand. What you have is a gift given to you by your mother and her mother and other fathers and mothers back through time. The power you wield is something far greater than you can begin to comprehend."
"What do you mean?" Zia asked. "I thought the Golden-Eyed One had the power to call upon the Silv... er, you, to end fighting and battle? How can that be 'greater than I can begin to comprehend'?"
Zia wasn't sure if dragons could smile, but it looked like the Silver Dragon was trying. "Exactly my point," he said kindly, which just confused her all the more. "All you need know is that the ability to call upon my aid is only the surface of the potential abilities that you have been given."
"You mean I can do more than just call you?"
"Of course," he replied. "Even I, who gave this power to the first Golden-Eyed One, do not understand it completely."
"But you're a dragon!" Zia protested. "You're thousands of years old! This power came from you. How can you not know what is does?"
The Silver Dragon held up a claw to calm her, and a sudden feeling of warmth swept over her, making her muscle relax.
"I do not fully understand all of the abilities you have been given, because I've only given you the one," he said.
"What?" Zia asked, now more confused than ever.
"You see," the dragon said, "I gave the first Golden-Eyed One the power to call upon my aid and to pass that gift on to one of her children. However, I did not foresee that my gift would not be the only one to pass on through the generations. Each Golden-Eyed One through the centuries had something about them that made them unique- as all people do. Some were bold and daring, others were kind and gentle. All of these things are power in and of themselves, and these qualities were passed down along with my gift."
"So what you're saying is," Zia said slowly, "that certain attributes of each Golden-Eyed One passed down to their children?"
The Silver Dragon nodded his scaly head. "Precisely. And because of that, it is impossible to tell what other powers you may wield."
"But they're just personality traits, aren't they?"
"How much you have yet to learn," the dragon said, shaking his head, almost as if he were speaking to himself. "Our 'personality traits' as you call them make us who we are. Those who have an eye for beauty often times help show that beauty to others. Those who are compassionate and great warriors come to the defense of others who are not able to defend themselves. Those who are humorous and prone to laughter spread grins and smiles like a plague."
"But what does this have to do with my gift?" Zia asked.
"Like I said," he replied simply, "these attributes were passed down from Golden-Eyed One to Golden-Eyed One, and each one of these attributes can be a power in their own regard. A little kindness can magically make one smile. A dash of laughter can brighten one's day. Each of these qualities from your ancestors reside in you, and they each make the gift I gave you stronger. And the gift, in turn, makes them stronger. It also allows the gift to manifest itself in ways more than just calming down others."
"I'm not sure I understand," Zia admitted.
The Silver Dragon laughed. "I don't expect you to. I've lived for thousands of years and still do not fully comprehend the power of it myself."
"The power of what?"
"Why, the power of love, of course," he said. He sighed dreamily. "Ah, love- the most powerful emotion of them all. Love can make you feel lighter than a feather and more powerful than the ocean, or it can make you feel heavier than a stone and as useless as a broken bow."
"Love is the key," Zia said softly to herself.
The Silver Dragon nodded. "Indeed. It is the key to everything: happiness, kindness, courage, laughter, peace. It is even the key to the darker things of life: anger, worry, hatred."
"Aren't hatred and love opposites? How can love be the key to hatred?"
"Opposition can be found in all things. You see, my dear, even complete opposites have things in common and are related in one way or another."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Take love and hatred for example. Both are deeply powerful emotions, but one brings a feeling of peace and light, and the other anger and darkness. You have to know love to know hatred, and vice versa. They are both intertwined into the very fabric of life itself."
Zia felt that her head was going to explode. Of all the things she had suspected the Silver Dragon might be, a philosopher was definitely not one of them.
"You do not fully understand," he said, as if he had read her thoughts. "I do not expect you to. Even we dragons do not understand it, and we are as old and- forgive me if I sound prideful- wise as the ages." The Silver Dragon lowered his head until he was at Zia's eye level. "It was your love for your friends and your people that saved them from a terrible, bloody death."
"So my friends are alive?" Zia asked, relief flooding her mind when the dragon nodded. "Even Heath?"
The Silver Dragon smiled. "Yes, he is alive and well."
"But how?" she demanded. "I saw him, I listened to his chest- he was dead. How can he be alive? Not that I'm complaining," she added quickly.
"Love is a powerful thing, my child," he said simply. "It burns like a fire with us. In your darkest hour, when you thought that all you loved was destroyed, you called upon me. You didn't just call upon the gift that was given to you by me, through your ancestors. You also called up the flame of love that burns within you. The two together mixed, spread, and were so overwhelming it sent all of Otar into a deep sleep."
"But how does that relate to Heath?"
"Have you learned nothing from our talk?" the Silver Dragon asked, sounding a bit disappointed. "Your love for him is what saved him. Heath was not dead, but he was certainly close. He was losing a lot of blood from his wound, but when you released the fire of the love within you, the heat spread throughout the entire kingdom, including to Heath. The heat cauterized his wound and staunched the flow of blood that Heath was experiencing. You saved him- healed him. You healed yourself as well."
Zia felt for her wounds on her leg and arm, but felt nothing but soft, new skin. Confused, she rolled up her trousers leg and gasped in surprise when all she found was a large scar.
"So Heath is really alive?" Zia asked, looking at the Silver Dragon hopefully.
He nodded affirmation.
The thought of Heath alive made her smile wider than she had in days. But before she could see him again she would have to get out of here... Wherever 'here' was.
"What is this place?" Zia asked the Silver Dragon. "How did I get here?"
"This place is called the Taobh a-staigh, or, the Within. It is your subconscious."
"It looks so empty," she said, looking at the endless white.
"On the contrary, it is filled to the brim. It is filled with powerful emotions of love and light. Perhaps when you wake you will see the extent of what that love and light have done."
"So I'm dreaming?" Zia asked. She looked at the brightness and detail of the Silver Dragon's scales and decided that it was too realistic to be a dream.
"Yes and no," he answered. "While it is true you are unconscious and we are within your subconscious, this is not a dream."
"But, if this is my subconscious, what are you doing here? Is that another dragon power? Sneaking into people's minds?"
The Silver Dragon threw back his head and laughed a deep, hearty laugh. When he regained control of himself, he said, "No, I have not, as you put it, sneaked into your mind. Rather, I am part of it. To implant my gift within the first Golden-Eyed One, I had to implant part of myself along with it. That is why her eyes turned the color of my own."
"So you've been living inside the mind of the Golden-Eyed Ones for hundreds of years?" Zia wasn't sure how she felt about having a large, winged reptile in her brain.
"Part of me, yes. My physical body, however, is far from here, in Nordia."
"The Northern Islands?"
The Silver Dragon nodded his reptilian head. "Indeed."
"Why are you there? Why haven't you come here where the war is?"
"Because you are here, therefore, I am as well. I am here through you."
Zia shook her head, trying to make sense of the weird information. It didn't work.
"There is war in Nordia as well," the Silver Dragon said gravely. "They've been at war with Scullin for nearly a decade, and I've not been able to stop it."
"But you're the Silver Dragon! The Peacemaker! How can you not stop the war?" she demanded in disbelief.
"The gift that we share to make others feel at peace is a mighty one, and it is powerful. However, it is not powerful enough to force fighting to stop. Our ability will not and cannot override the agency of man."
The dragon suddenly looked up at the sky, as if checking the sun for the time. "Our time together is over," he said. He turned back to face Zia. "You have done well my child- spectacularly well- but I am afraid that this is only the beginning of your trials."
"Just the beginning?" she repeated, a sense of dread settling in the pit of her stomach. She wasn't sure she could handle many more hardships.
"Do not worry," the dragon said, and a feeling of calm washed over her. "I will be with you every step of the way. But until we meet again, peace be with you." The dragon spread his wide, glittering wings and jumped into the air.
"Wait!" Zia called up to him. "How will I see you again? Will you always be in my dreams?"
"I am always with you, my child," come the answer, sounder further and further away. "All you need do is look for me and I will be there." And with that the Silver Dragon disappeared within the whiteness.
Zia woke up wearing clean cotton clothes in a warm bed by a crackling fire. It was not the room she had been taken to during the battle, but it was not a room that she had been in before either. It was a very handsome room, with long drapes, tapestries, and thick rugs with intricate designs woven into the fabric. The only light in the room came from the fire, casting an orange hue on everything.
Zia sat up, rubbing her eyes. It was strange to be in a place so dark after the brightness of her dream, or her visit into her Taobh a-staigh, as the Silver Dragon had called it. She still thought it was strange to have some part of a dragon inside of her, but it wasn't the most disturbing thing that had happened in that week.
The door opened and in walked Link carrying a large tray piled with strange plants and leaves. When he saw Zia sitting up in bed he jumped and the tray flew out of his hands, clattering loudly onto the floor.
"Miss Zia!" he squeaked. "You're awake!"
Zia smiled and threw off the covers. She stood on her feet, feeling no discomfort at all when she put weight on her left leg. She walked steadily to Link's side and gathered the scattered plants and leaves back onto the tray. She handed it to him, and her smile widened at his shocked face.
She lifted her pant leg and unwrapped her bandaged leg to show a clean. closed wound.
"B-b-but, how?" he asked in a whisper. "This is the twentieth cauterized wound I've seen."
Link's eyes seemed to pop out of his head, though it was hard to tell in the dark. "I've been so busy. I've been scrambling from place to place trying to patch up wounds, but every one I found has been cauterized like yours." He looked at her with a strange look in his eye. "Who did this for you? Why didn't they tell me? They did a splendid job. I would have done it myself, but I was worried about the pain it might cause you."
"I did it," she answered. "It turns out I am the Golden-Eyed One."
"So it's true then," Link whispered. "You really did save us. Mr. Borton has made sure to spread the word far and wide about how your gift saved us, but there will always be those who doubt. And, of course, word has not reached those who are still asleep."
"Asleep?" Zia asked. She remembered the Silver Dragon saying something about all of Otar falling unconscious.
Link nodded. He gestured for Zia to sit on the bed as he began to mesh together various plants into a poultice. As he worked he said, "Misters Reems and Borton have been working very hard to move all those still sleeping to safe locations, and the Captain and Mr. Reems the younger have helped as well. They were the first to wake and hear Mr. Rockhower calling for help."
"Heath? Where is he? Is he alive?" she asked in rapid fire. She started to stand, but Link placed a firm hand on her shoulder and kept her on the bed.
"He's fine," he assured her. He's lost a lot of blood, but his wounds, like yours- like all the ones I've seen since I've awoken- have been cauterized. They moved you to this room once you had cooled down."
"Cooled down?"
"You were hot to the touch when they found you. Your body was glowing red," he informed her. "I had been awake for nearly an hour before you were cool enough to move."
A soft knock on the door cut off Zia's reply, and the door swung open quietly to reveal William Borton standing behind it. When he saw Zia sitting up in bed a huge smile broke out on his face. "You're awake!" he said, obviously relieved. He came into the room and made his way toward her as if to embrace her in a hug, but then stopped and stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. A long, uncomfortable silence followed. He looked around the room, his startlingly blue eyes like two glowing orbs of pure water in the firelight.
Finally he cleared his throat nervously and said, "Link, I was asked to tell you that the King and Queen are awake and would like to speak with you."
"But of course!" Link squeaked. "There's not much to do here, anyway." He turned to Zia. "I can't explain it, but you're fully healed. There's only a scar. But, that's been the case with every injury I've seen today. There might be a little discomfort for a while, but I'm absolutely confident that you will be totally fine." He smiled at her before rushing out of the room and closing the door behind him, leaving Zia and Borton alone in their awkward silence.
Borton cleared his throat awkwardly. "Y-you did a good job back there. I don't know if I could have done what you did."
"Uh, thank you," she replied.
The awkward silence returned and stayed longer than it had the first time, neither knowing what to say. Finally, Borton ran a hand through his hair and said, "I know I promised I would find you and give you answers, but you may not like what-"
"You're my father," Zia interrupted. She didn't look at him, but she could hear the surprise in his voice when he replied,
"Yes." He hesitated before asking, "How did you know?"
"My newfound Aunt Fraya," she said. The words felt strange on her tongue; she had never really had any family except for her adopted one.
"She's always been a smart one." He fell silent again for just a moment, and when he spoke again his voice was dripping with sadness. "I thought you were dead. One night, just a few weeks after you were born, the house caught fire. I was out that evening cutting wood for the oncoming winter, and you and your mother were inside. When I returned, the house was ablaze and you and your mother were trapped inside. I tried to rush in to save you, but..." He reached for the collar of his tunic and pulled it back, revealing a deep, ugly burn mark on his shoulder. "The roof collapsed and knocked me out. Someone pulled me from the fire. When I finally came to, he informed me that my wife had not made it out, nor had my little girl."
Borton's voice broke as he spoke, and Zia felt her heart ache for the loss that he had suffered, even if she herself had been part of that loss.
"How did you survive?" Borton's voice was barely above a whisper, and Zia had to strain to hear it.
"I was stolen," she told him.
Borton's eyes narrowed with anger. "By whom?"
"Daxtor."
Borton reeled back. "General Myrna?" A dark look entered his eye when Zia nodded.
"He raised me for six years, beating me almost daily for four of them," she said softly, her mind wandering back to when she was a scared little girl, curled up on the floor. "He said he did it to make my gift manifest, to be sure that I had the gift before he took me back to Skilae and used it to bring Otar to its knees."
"Why that son of a half-troll, mud-eating, scum bucket!" Borton cursed. "I'll kill him!"
"No need," Zia told him in an attempt to calm him. "He's already dead. You stabbed him, remember?"
But to her horror Borton shook his head. "No, he's not. He's as alive as you or me. He and his daughter are locked in the dungeon, awaiting trail and execution- if I don't get to him first."
"Daxtor's still alive?" Zia asked in a small voice. Would she never be rid of the man? Would he forever haunt her like a shadow, always there, a constant darkness in her life?
"For now," he growled. "I always knew that man was not to be trusted, but for him to actually kidnap..." His voice broke again.
Boston then questioned her about everything that had happened in her life- how she had gotten away from Daxtor, why she had come to be in the Westfell Pass, where she had learned to fight. Zia answered all of his questions, and with each answer she gave the more sad he seemed to look.
"All these years I thought you were dead," he said. "Who would have thought that you were living more than I was?" He huffed a laugh with no real humor behind it. "I guess one good thing came out of joining the armed forces- I got to see you again, all grown up. I have no doubt that your mother would be very proud of the woman you've become."
"How did you come to be of service in the Skilae army in the first place?" she asked, embarrassed at his praise.
"After the fire, my home- our home- was gone, and I went to live with my great-grandfather's family in Skilae. Years later, the war started, and I was forced to join."
"Forced?"
Borton nodded. "King Holen passed a decree many years ago that in a time of war any and all able men can be drafted for the armed forces. Any who resist are charged with treason and treachery."
"But that's awful!" Zia protested. "No one should be forced to fight."
"I agree. But King Holen does not, and I do not have the ability to change that law- or any laws. But you can."
Zia looked confused. "I can?"
"Yes, you can," he said. "I'm sure Fraya has already spoken to you about it, but you are the closest in line to the throne of Otar."
Zia swallowed. She had completely forgotten about that, but she was still sure that a fifteen-year-old would do a better job of running the country than she would. "Yes, she did mention it," Zia admitted.
"And?" he prompted. "Are you going to accept?"
"I-I don't know yet," she admitted. "I don't think I'd be very good at it."
Borton nodded. "Your mother said the same thing when I asked her once shortly after you were born if she wished she had married Donathan instead of Fraya. She laughed and said that Otar would be better left in the hands of her sister. You remind me of your mother, you know. You have that same fiery spirit. When I first saw you in the Pass, I thought that perhaps you were your mother young again- how I knew her when we were young. But then I remembered that in the last few weeks of Felicity's life, her eyes were blue, not gold, and I knew it must have been you."
An awkward silence fell upon them once more. Zia wasn't good with awkward silences herself, but Borton really seemed to struggle. He tapped his toes and shifted his weight from leg to leg. Perhaps I get that from him, thought Zia.
"I'd best let you rest," Borton finally decided. He made his way to the door and was about to pull it open when he stopped and turned back to face her. "Zia," he said slowly, "I know I haven't been in your life when I should have been, and I'm sorry for that. And I know you've made a new family for yourself over the years- a good, strong family that I could never give you. I know you can never see me as a father- well, not as a real father at any rate. But I hope that you will allow me to be part of your life, however small a part that may be. I'd like to make up for lost time- time that was stolen from us."
Borton was right. Zia wasn't sure if she could ever see him as a father- not like the kind of father Arch had been to her, anyway. But he was also right about time being stolen from them, and Zia wanted to mend that.
"I don't expect you to start calling me, 'Father' or 'Pa' or anything like that," Borton told her, as if he could see what she was thinking. "But I hope that, with time, you can start to see me as family."
A smile broke out on Zia's face. "I'd like that," she said. And she meant it. Since she had discovered her kidnapping as an infant, the thought had not seemed important to her that she had a family outside of her adopted one. But now that she thought of the life that was stolen from her, she realized that that same life had been stolen from William Borton as well. She felt a feeling of love for him, and she thought that maybe- just maybe- she could accept him into her life.
He smiled back and turned to leave, but Zia called him back. "Thank you," she told him earnestly. "Thank you for saving my life."
His smiled widened and he nodded in reply before closing the door behind him.