Cel could not have imagined in her wildest dreams what Tuk was about to show her in the kitchen that evening. When she left the team’s office at the top of the academy, she headed straight to the kitchen, specifically the pantry where Tuk had said he would be waiting.
Since she was a good hour late, she expected Tuk to have already left, so she planned to go straight to bed after a long and exhausting day. She needed to lie down. She didn't believe she would be able to sleep because of tomorrow's battle and Eloken's crazy plan, but at least she would lie down and physically rest a bit.
However, Tuk was waiting for her in the pantry. The chubby boy with red cheeks, who constantly looked like he was ashamed of something, was more nervous than usual. He was pacing up and down the pantry, biting his nails while waiting for Cel to arrive.
“Sorry for being late,” Cel said, startling Tuk, who jumped at her words. “I was with Eloken and the team.”
“I heard,” he said after composing himself. “So I figured you would come when you finished, which is why I waited.”
“What’s going on? You seem much more nervous than usual.”
“It’s best if I show you so we don't waste time.”
“Okay,” Cel said suspiciously.
“Please lock the door…”
Cel looked at him, then complied. All of this seemed strange to her. She locked the pantry door and walked towards Tuk, who was standing in the middle.
“Step back a bit,” he told her and started waving one hand in front of him in a circular motion, while holding the other hand on the back of his neck.
His eyes were closed, and they seemed to be fluttering behind his closed eyelids. Then suddenly, some strange energy entered the room. The airflow in the closed room intensified, and Cel felt as if something was pulling her towards the center of the room right in front of Tuk. Then, a rift began to form between her and Tuk.
Cel watched in disbelief as the rift grew from a tiny ball to almost the ceiling of the room, then began to widen into a uneven circle. As it grew and widened, Cel couldn't see Tuk. The interior of this rift was completely black. But as the rift started to take on a circular shape, a blurry image began to appear in the rift instead of the blackness. After no more than half a minute, Cel could recognize the image; it was the abandoned building where students gather, on the outskirts of the academy grounds.
As the rift took shape, its edge began to glow a faint blue, resembling a flame gently dancing in the wind. Tuk finally lowered his hands, opened his eyes, and stepped out from behind the rift towards Cel.
“Tuk, what the hell is this?” Cel asked, staring at the glowing rift in the middle of the pantry.
“A portal, at least I think that's what they call it. I heard Utran and the other students who were in Azarim mention it. Apparently, they found one in a tomb there.”
“You can create them?”
“Yes, I don’t even know how…” Tuk said shyly. “I kept having these dreams and urges, and I decided to give in and see what would happen, and this is what formed… Come with me.”
He took Cel by the hand, and she didn’t resist. He pulled her towards the portal. He went through first, pulling Cel along with him. She felt a rush of cold and a moment of disorientation, as if the ground had disappeared beneath her feet. Then suddenly, she felt new ground, much softer, and she was standing on grass in front of the abandoned building.
“What the fuck, Tuk?”
“I know… this is insane.”
After a few minutes, once the initial shock had worn off and Cel had collected herself, she began bombarding Tuk with questions.
“How long does the portal last? How far can you create it? Who else knows?”
“Let’s go back to the pantry first, we’ll talk there. It will close soon and I don’t think I can open a new one right away,” Tuk said, heading towards the portal, which from this side showed the blurry image of the kitchen pantry they had just come from. Cel nodded and followed him.
“I don’t know how long they can last, this is all still new to me,” Tuk said once they were back on the other side. “Sometimes five, sometimes ten or more minutes. I think it depends on the distance and how much of that energy, or source as you call it, I have in me.”
“Makes sense,” Cel said, looking at him in wonder.
“To answer your other questions,” Tuk continued, “I don’t know exactly how far I can create a portal because so far I’ve figured out I need to have a good memory and have been to the place where I’m making the portal. I made a portal to our hideout on Moira the other day, and it lasted a little over two minutes. I didn’t dare go through it, fearing I’d get trapped.”
Cel continued to look at him in amazement as he explained everything he knew. His initial nervousness had passed, leaving only the usual blush on his face.
“No one else knows except you,” Tuk concluded his speech.
“Let’s keep it that way until this battle mess is over,” Cel said with a smile. An idea had formed in her mind while listening to Tuk’s story. She remembered they had snuck out a few days ago and visited the ship Eloken was planning to take to Pyre Crest, the Mythic Whirl.
Something was gnawing at her; she felt she had to be with them in that battle, that she would be important, that they would need her help. So, with a wide smile and full of adrenaline, she shared her idea with Tuk, who initially opposed it but in the end he never couldn’t resist her persuasion.
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"What are you doing here?" Eloken said as Cel emerged from her hiding spot below the deck of the Mythic Whirl.
She couldn’t answer him yet, focusing all her being on the dragon, burning through all her Dol reserves she had stored. When she tamed Serapion, she felt the connection being made, a sync with their minds like something just clicked and a bond was created for life. She somehow knew that bond would be there forever unless she broke it, but with this creature, it was different.
This dragon was intelligent. It wasn’t that Serapion wasn’t; he knew how to follow commands, even the more complex ones, and to hunt prey with various tactics, but this creature thought almost like a human.
Cel felt it fighting against her control and connection. The creature didn’t ask her anything, but its feelings said, “Why are you doing this to me? What do you want from me? Please stop?” But Cel couldn’t stop; she had to continue. She felt that if she let go now, the creature would incinerate them out of sheer rage in an instant. She had to break it.
The problem was she was already at the end of her Dol reserves. If she couldn’t subdue it in the next thirty seconds, they would be in big trouble. She decided to burn all her reserves and attack it with a massive surge, similar to what she had done with Serpion, but on a much larger scale.
She burned all the Dol and directed it at the dragon, feeling resistance, a rush of emotions. Her head began to ache; she felt her emotions swing from pure anger to indifference, and then, just as her reserves were about to run out, total silence—nothing, emptiness.
Eloken probably noticed something happening to her because he started shouting louder and louder, but his voice was muffled to her until she finally broke the dragon.
“Are you okay? Cel, hey, Cel! Can you hear me?” Now she heard his voice clearly. He was standing just a few steps away from her, shouting at the top of his lungs.
Cel still didn’t answer him but commanded the dragon to land gently on the ship. As the dragon moved, everyone on the ship flinched. Eloken grabbed his sword with both hands and assumed a battle stance.
“It’s okay, it's under my control!” Cel finally said.
On the ship, everyone looked at Eloken for an answer, and he just shrugged.
“Let’s try again, what are you doing here?” Eloken said, looking at Cel, who was still focused on the dragon.
She hesitated a little, her confidence always crumbling in front of Eloken. “Long story, can we talk about it later?”
“Fine,” Eloken said. “But you’ll have to learn to follow orders someday… we’ll have a long talk!”
Cel nodded. “Has the battle at Moire started?” she asked.
Eloken calculated for a few seconds and then replied, “It should be starting right about now, we need to go, time is running out.”
“I have an idea,” Cel said with a slight but shy smile.
And so, a few minutes later, Cel and Eloken found themselves on the dragon’s back, flying not far above the water toward the Island of Moire. Eloken was shocked by Cel’s idea, but who was he to call anyone’s idea crazy, especially when every minute could mean the life or death of their friends, the fate of the kingdom, and possibly the fate of the entire realm.
“Are we the first humans to fly?” Cel shouted to be heard over the wind.
“Probably,” Eloken replied. “People try all sorts of crazy things; I’m sure they’ve tried to fly, but if they had succeeded, we’d have heard about it by now.”
Cel smiled and enjoyed the flight, the wind in her hair, the fresh sea air. If they weren’t heading to a battle, she would have thought this was the pinnacle of her life. But the harsh reality of what awaited them at Moire prevailed, and a knot formed in her stomach again.
“Do you know where we’re going?” Eloken asked, momentarily breaking her anxiety.
“I do. The dragon is guiding me; it knows where the Island of Moire is.”
Soon after, a castle in the sea appeared on the horizon, its cliffs like stone walls like rising from the water, the Island of Moire.
“There it is,” Cel shouted.
“I see it, but I don’t see any ships.”
“They must be on the other side, let’s go there.”
They flew directly over Moire at great speed, and everyone they passed by looked up and pointed at the enormous dragon. On the opposite side, they saw archers in defensive positions, as well as several pirate and Joixari ships standing guard in case Moire’s navy decided to attack from behind. Unfortunately for Eloken, they didn’t, waiting instead for the battle to unfold.
“Where are they?” Cel asked.
“There,” Eloken spotted black smoke in the distance and tiny ships moving like ants against the blue backdrop. “Whispering Reefs, take us there.”
Cel directed the dragon, and it swooped lower, speeding towards Whispering Reefs.
“Circle the battle so I can see the situation,” Eloken shouted. Cel nodded.
Cel saw several sunken ships, fires, and black smoke in at least three places. She had to double-check to believe it: a glacier in the sea on this side of the world in the middle of summer. They circled the entire Whispering Reefs twice before Eloken spoke up.
“Cel,” he shouted. “Echo and Dalamir are in trouble on that ship there,” Eloken pointed over her shoulder, and Cel hadn’t even noticed.
“Take me there, and I’ll jump to help them. You start burning that part of the fleet heading through Whispering Reefs towards our convoy exiting on the other side,” Eloken pointed to where the convoy of ships was moving towards the exit, with pirates attacking them with cannon fire.
Cel mentally commanded the dragon, which swooped low, almost touching the reefs and sea, speeding towards the ship where Echo and Dalamir supposedly were. As they approached, Eloken stood up, holding onto her shoulders. When the dragon flew over the ship, Cel wasn’t sure whether to command it to slow down, but before she could think, Eloken jumped off with a roll onto the ship below.
Cel saw he was fine since he immediately stood up and raised his hands. She commanded the dragon to turn and head towards the pirate fleet chasing their ships and start breathing fire.
Cel always felt connected to the dragon, sensing its emotions slightly, but when it first breathed fire and scorched two pirate ships, she felt a massive surge of the creature’s anger and a slight pity for the humans it was killing. For the dragon, humans were like pests, not quite like ants, but Cel felt they might be like bats, if you as a human killed fifty bats with one motion you would feel somewhat of a pity towards the creature.
The dragon would breathe fire, circle, and then start burning pirate ships again in a new loop. By the third loop, the pirates had adapted and began shooting cannonballs at it. Since they didn’t have archers, only the Joixari ships did, a few arrows also flew towards them.
The dragon’s scales were very tough, and cannonballs bounced off its hard armor, but Cel knew the creature felt every hit. The real problem came when a cannonball hit the thin membrane of its wing and pierced it. The dragon let out a loud roar and changed direction. Cel felt the creature experiencing great trauma, but it continued circling after recovering.
They had burned over thirty ships when a large arrow from a ship that bore Joixari's flag flew towards them. The dragon tried to dodge with a swift maneuver, but the arrow struck its tail. The dragon roared again, and Cel saw ice forming on its tail. Only then did she connect the glaciers in the sea with the arrows Trokt had stolen from the Joixari.
The dragon extended its tail beneath itself and breathed fire to melt the ice. During this, another arrow from the ship below hit the creature directly in the eye. The dragon started flying erratically, and Cel nearly fell off, holding on with all her might to stay on. The creature was now in immense pain, and Cel felt their connection weakening as the dragon’s pain and anger increased. She used this to command the creature to drop her off at the ship where it had dropped Eloken.
The dragon flew close to that same ship, and at Cel’s command, slowed down enough for her to jump onto the ship. As her last command, Cel ordered it to burn the pirate ships once more. But as she landed on the ship, she felt her connection with the dragon completely sever. The creature let out an enormous roar, the loudest yet, breathed fire at the pirate ships that had injured it, then soared into the sky and headed towards Pyre Crest.
As Cel landed, rolling less gracefully than Eloken, she found herself amidst complete chaos on the ship.