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M elissa

“Where is Ornix?”

I ask even though I don’t really want to care. I went upstairs after Ornix left and ended up going to sleep in the bedroom. I woke up alone in that massive bed, and nobody brought me breakfast, and I couldn’t even ask Equinox because he’s down in the dungeon.

The dragon I’ve asked looks at me as if I’m a bug who just spoke.

“Ornix does not answer to me, or to you.”

“I’m hungry.”

He gives me another faintly annoyed look. “I’m an accountant.”

“Where do I get food?”

He sighs and rolls his eyes, and walks past me. This is the first time I have been treated like I am less than here in this realm and it is a jarring experience. It makes me think that I have no place here, no standing except when Ornix is with me.

I go back down to the dungeon to see Equinox.

“They’re not feeding me,” I complain, slipping through the bars into his cell. Everything here is made for creatures far bigger than humans. Dragons, even in their dragonkin form without all the wings and whatnot, which is their normal form, are twice as big as most people.

Equinox smirks and slides the remnants of his breakfast tray over. “There’s some bacon if you like.”

“Thanks,” I say, sitting down on his cell bed with him and nibbling at a strip of bacon big and thick enough to comprise a whole meal. That’s one problem solved for the moment. “I don’t know where Ornix is.”

“Interesting. I wonder if he’s not here. I wonder if he went to the human world.”

“Probably. I left the fifth seal there by accident.”

“You what?” Equinox chokes with laughter and gives me a slight nudge with his foot, the energy of an older brother. “How did that happen?”

“Yeah. It kind of felt like mine. When I held it for the first time, I felt it sort of… you know… running through me.”

“It attuned to you?”

“Maybe?”

Equinox throws back his head and laughs. “Oh, this is hilarious.”

“Is it? Why?”

“Ornix isn’t going to be able to find it. He’s going to be seeking a seal with a certain signature. But it won’t feel that way anymore. It’s going to only speak to you. If he wants to find it again, he’s going to have to take you back to the human world. That was smart, Melissa. Really smart.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Take credit anyway,” he laughs.

“Why don’t you just portal out of here if you can make them. Ornix just clicks his fingers or whatever and then the world evaporates for him.”

“Ornix is older and more practiced. Portal magic is actually quite challenging. I’m lucky I can do it at all with computers, and he smashed mine all up.”

“He what?”

“When he found you were gone, he broke all my computers, threatened to kill me, and threw me in here. Honestly, it was a pretty restrained response given the situation.”

“Can you make another portal? I mean, even if it’s not perfect, can you make one at all? I think we should both get out of here.”

“If I helped you escape again, he would kill me. And in spite of how terrible the dungeon is, I don’t want to actually die. I’m sorry. I really am. But Ornix is a monster, and I’ve crossed him once.”

“He left me here with nobody to care about me. I don’t even know how to get breakfast. He told me he expects me to have his babies. I hope he doesn’t find the seal.”

“I can’t make a portal, but you might be able to.”

“Me?”

“You need to level magic, but there are books for that. I can get you started with a few low-level spells and you can practice them around the castle. Summoning food is a good start. Summon bread and water.”

“Okay, yes, please!”

“Take my hand,” he says. “Now, be aware, this is dragon magic, so it might make your hair fall out.”

“What?”

“I’m kidding,” he smirks. “But it isn’t inherently compatible with humanity. You’ve been inoculated with seed, though, and you’ve attuned to a seal, so you clearly have the capacity for it. Give me your hand, and listen.”

I put my hand out, and he folds it into his. I hear his voice, no longer speaking the English I am used to hearing from him, but in a tongue older and much more powerful than anything I speak.

I can feel something entering me, knowledge flowing between us. It’s quite intimate, but not sexual. It’s an exchange of energy, and of magic.

“Now. Try. Tavarth. That is the word for bread.”

“ Tavarth ,” I say.

A loaf of bread pops into existence, fully formed and in my hands.

I stare at it, like it’s the most fascinating thing I have ever seen in my life, like I am finally understanding how simple magic is.

It feels as though I could have done this all along, if I had really wanted to—like I’ve been lazy, even though I know I am anything but.

“Again,” he says. “You need to probably make at least fifty breads and waters before we can level your magic up to the next level.”

“Funny how this works, isn’t it? You don’t necessarily have to do more complex spells, you just have to learn how to do one spell very well.”

“That’s life. There’s a lot of people going very far with a few basic skills they’ve honed well. Literally, bakers.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I guess. Though bakers can usually make more than one kind of loaf.”

“More bread,” he says. “Less talk. Ornix could be back at any moment, and god knows what he will do to me if he catches you in here with me and a hundred loaves of bread.”

“Is this what Jesus did with the loaves and the fishes?”

“Don’t even go there, that’s a theological clusterfuck we’re forbidden from discussing.”

“So, yes?”

“More bread,” he says. “You’re stalling.”

“Can I eat some of the bread?”

“Sure. Just keep making it.”

Hours pass, and the cell fills with bread. We stack it up against the wall.

“Alright. That’s enough. Your magic is actually almost as full as it can get now, given your general leveling.

I can teach you a low-level portal spell.

It will be small. You might have to crawl through.

And I can’t promise it will take you exactly where you want to be.

In other words, it’s a bad idea and we shouldn’t do it. ”

“I’m going to do it.”

“I thought you might. Come here again.”

We do the handshake of magic knowledge, and I get a tingly feeling in some very sensitive places that tells me I have learned something powerful.

“Try,” he says. “The dragon word for portal is Drauf.”

“Drauf,” I say.

Nothing happens.

“It didn’t work,” I say, obviously.

“Not yet. But try again.”

“Drauf!” I say, putting a little more energy into it. The air in front of me shimmers slightly, then goes back to normal.

“Fuck!”

There is an explosion as I curse out loud, full of frustration and fury at how hard I’ve worked to try to achieve the simplest, smallest thing and yet somehow it still hasn’t gone to plan.

When I turn around, the bread is gone. But that’s not the biggest problem.

The bigger problem is that I seem to have somehow blasted a hole right through the wall of the Golden Keep and into the tunnel system that winds around the outside of it—it’s a secondary dungeon in the game, I don’t know what purpose it serves in this more real life.

“Uh. So. Do you want to escape or something?” I turn to Equinox, who is looking at me with no small measure of horror.

“That should not have been possible,” he says. “For one, that’s not a dragon spell word. For two, you just breached the keep. It’s magically sealed.”

“Well, the good news is the fucking portal didn’t work, which was the whole point.”

“Are we sure?”

Ornix

I did not mean to be here this long. I know the night is long past, and my mate has woken up to a new day in the dragon realm alone. I did not leave instructions for her care because I assumed I would be back.

The seal remains missing. I have searched the local area, and put out a request for any of my associates to let me know if they see anything matching its description.

I say it is a family heirloom, an antique, though I am almost certain that it will be recognized as having more power than that if a human finds it.

It could have horrific effects on them. It could do terrible damage.

Why did she have to bring it with her? Why does everything my mate does lead to immediate and worsening trouble? I wonder if perhaps I made a mistake in the selection process, even though I know it is not actually possible to make such a mistake. Mates are not so much chosen as they are recognized.

Just as I am mulling these thoughts, a portal opens above my head, and hundreds of loaves of bread come tumbling out of it before rolling away down the steep Californian hill. To say that I am confused is an understatement.

Something is going wrong in my realm, that much is clear.

I glance down at my phone, checking my feed. The space between event and report is so short now that I almost immediately see ten different articles with ten different photos and videos of the heavenly bread-fall.

Manna From Heaven? Bread Tumbles From Sky

I can already see the headlines. If we are not careful, my mate is going to found a new and entirely incoherent, chaotic religion.

I open a portal in what I hope is a private place, and step back through to the Golden Keep. The first thing I notice is the smell of fire. Certainly not what I expected. Second is the rich and almost overpowering smell of bread.

“ Melissa! ”

I call for my mate in a voice that shakes the castle to its foundations. Possibly not a good idea given the currently fragile state of things.

“Sire, your mate is in the dungeon doing forbidden magic,” one of the accountants informs me, as if I did not already know. Arkos is not far behind, an ‘I told you so’ expression plastered all over his face.

“I left an entire keep of guards, advisors, soldiers, and more to maintain order, and somehow my mate and my nephew have managed to undermine it all in a matter of hours?”