It had taken too much to call upon the roots, thus using that magic muscle after all this time had drained me considerably.

Rain pelted at me harder and harder, spitting aggressively from the sky as if it had a vendetta against me. I looked up, my body an aching mess as someone screamed my name. That person was even closer now, but I didn't deign a look around, couldn't even form a response. My awful actions today had scraped my soul clean and so out of disgust, I mashed my head into the cold, wet ground, uncaring of how much mushy soil and debris got enmeshed into my hair.

"Doralis!" My younger sister's voice was both a blessing and a curse in this place. "Get up, get up, get up!"

I grunted, peeling my forehead off a patch of rock-filled dirt as the face of my sister squeezed between two gangly limbs of trees, her mossy, green hair flowing down her bodice as she approached like a madwoman being chased by hounds.

The look on her face? Brimming with determination. Completely undeterred by the bodies of wildling wolves lying around the meadow, their eyes still open and flaring with red terror from how they died. Thick roots covered their bodies in snarls, but already they’d begun to slither and retreat into the ground like silent assassins.

By the stark colour of her hair and the glimmer in her eyes, she'd been actively using her magic to find me. If a human had discovered her like this...

"What are you doing here?!" I croaked; righteous admonition was capitalised on my face like a newsletter.

Eyes straight ahead, she slipped down a small mound trying to get to me, landing in a deep puddle of mud. Her dress was inflated around her hips as she floundered, undignified, resting on her backside with an unpleasant frown slashed across her face.

I crawled to my feet and just stared at my sister, who'd come all this way to be an extra burden on my shoulders, instead of waiting for me at the cottage.

She slapped the fabric of her dress, looking up at me with misplaced fury, as if I was the culprit of her bad luck. In a voice that could have scared off any invading force, she retorted, pointing a finger at me, "You abandoned me, Doralis!"

"I did no such thing, Anixae. I was trying to bring you supper and if you had only waited one more day–"

"One. More. Day." Her brows rose to the top of her hairline in suspended disbelief, and she looked ready to fly out of the mud, a tiny, angry Dryad of dishevelled appearance.

My sister sighed, pulling herself out of the mud and we walked toward one another, Anixae dripping with mud and I... I was leaking blood from places that I didn't want to stop and think about anytime soon.

Before I could offer up an apology, she threw her arms around me. I ignored the pain of my clavicle and after a second of my tense posturing, she released me and set her hand upon my wound.

"We need to get you to a Sorcerer." Anixae stated, whipping out her pendant from underneath her wet underclothes.

It was an enchanted piece of jewellery, an amethyst orb coated by sterling silver, the chain delicate and ornate with miniature Faerie symbols carved into the metal clasp.

I looked at the gift that she'd been given by a Seer many decades ago and shivered as blood loss began to make my body cool. "I don't trust it. That transporter totem is charmed with Faerie magic. How do you know that it won't take us to a Faerie city? I don't want to end up in Athasbayne."

"It won't take us to a Faerie city. The Seer who gave it to me promised that it's been coded to loop only in destinations that I've been to. Five places at most, I think. The cottage, Blackswallow City, Tillbrook Dam, Seneca Fort and The Resting Palm Creek."

"How did you get here so expediently, then?" I asked, barely swallowing the nervousness that had aroused when asking the question.

She shuffled, glancing at her feet as she answered back, "I, um... I left not long after you did. I followed you all the way here, Doralis. I stayed behind a day, at most... so you couldn't scent me."

"Fool." I hissed, snatching the necklace from around her neck. "What's the incantation that awakens this device?"

"There is none. Blood is required from the user, though. Squeeze a drop and speak the destination."

I pressed the orb against my open wound, allowing an exorbitant amount to flow around the surface of it before I clasped my palm around the chain and said, "Blackswallow City."

Anixae's arm was already linked through my own, and she reached down, swiping my lone dagger from the ground near my feet. In the next moment, our bodies were ripped from one end of the world, tumbling through the boundless ether for a fraction of a second, both space and time a foreign concept to us.

We were blind, we were nothing. We were intangible and in pieces and somehow everywhere at once.

The Faerie magic of the transporter totem dropped us within the familiar walls of our local town, Blackswallow City and it had probably all occurred within mere moments, a blink of an eye... although what Anixae and I had both experienced... it honestly felt like we'd been floating in a void of eternal spaciousness, our minds and bodies condensed into spectral strings that somehow got torn in every direction for years and years, for decades or centuries, even. I felt myself split apart and get pulled towards a constellation of thoughts and consciousness and magic that spiralled everywhere, to every part of the world at once.

I was everything; I was nothing.

A nexus of possibilities, that’s what I’d become. That’s what I’d tasted of.

And then we'd arrived in the middle of a street in a clap of sound, our carriage across the universe a tempest of gold, trilling wind that spiralled away leaves as it vanished, leaving us bereft and dazed.

I turned around, studying the clocktower and the almost empty town square that was paced with friendly faces coming out of the tavern. Musicians serenaded the ears gathered on the sidewalk and clusters of pigeons were scattered about. It was still night time.

My sister caught me as my knees buckled and I flailed, trying to steer myself toward the fountain ledge before I could hit the ground. We stumbled and she hissed as I fell chest-first onto the bench beside it, barely able to hold myself upright.

"Sorcerer. Now." She said, leaving no room for argument in her tone.

I was silent for a moment, but waved her away, my head sinking down toward the ground. "Go on, then. Barter with that fastidious blackguard, if you dare – and watch how quickly he'll ask for your firstborn."

"Nonsense. You've dealt with Rizzaget La'Barrier before, Doralis." She sniped, hanging over me as I fisted my hands upon the bench.

"And his terms get steeper with every breath I draw, little sister!" I started shivering badly and for some reason, the strange ache from my left shoulder began to flare up, making me curse aloud.

Everything right now was starting to infuriate me. The lack of my rucksack, mainly, considering all the excitement I'd gone through tonight for it; and an unbelievable chill had settled over me like a wet blanket, making it hard to speak in between full-body shivers. I'd lost one of my twin daggers in the Spikewood Forest. I was also bleeding profusely and Anixae should have been at home, waiting for me. Safe.

I also couldn't tell if I was dying or not. My magic was at a dangerously low level. I couldn't heal. Could barely move a muscle without prominent explosions of pain sparking through every joint in my body.

As for the flare-up in my shoulder, perhaps the Dragon magic was starting to reawaken and was messing with my biology somehow? Or was I merely succumbing to my dire wounds because I was in a state of poor health to begin with, my regenerative magic fickle and dormant when I needed it most?

After all, I hadn't eaten properly in three weeks, I rationalised.

"Well, what do you suggest? Am I to let my sister die like this? First of all, you would be an eyesore to look at if you bled out by the fountain. Who would want to touch your body? You're filthy, Doralis." My sister put her hands on her slim waist as I clenched my teeth.

Fuck this.

"Anixae, go find the Sorcerer and offer up your firstborn as payment, then. Whatever it takes. Give him your tongue for all I care."

"There's no need to be so rude."

"If I am to die, then it will not be to the sound of you. Now be gone, menace!" I may have overdone the last part, lifting my head up in a dose of fury, my manic eyes twinkling with promises of what I'd do to her later - because she took off running towards the Ah-Mazery Galore Store, an apothecary. It was run by Rizzaget, the only Sorcerer in town; he was a scathing piece of work, but he knew his craft and was a reliable healer, one that wouldn’t leave any lingering effects of his magic.

My heart was slowing down, and I could almost swear that there was unprovoked bristling from somewhere in my mind, followed by an angsty mental image of someone sitting on their throne, his attention briskly torn away from the discussion that had been going on at his royal court. The goblet that he'd been sipping from was hurled at one of his advisors as he stared dead ahead, all manner of civility wiped clean from his features, his psychic concentration directed across the continent at a faraway town.

Blackswallow City.

But how did I know that?

The voice of my enemy rang clear through my head just then, his tenor clear as day and unmistakeably filled with mischief as he said, "Oh, my. Someone appears to be dying. You weren't supposed to do that yet."

I was nauseous and weak, but I muttered aloud in between gasps, unknowing if he could hear me from my side of the world, "Why are you in my head? Dragon magic, huh? Just wait until I get my hands on you, Balthazar. Those wings will look nice on my fireplace."

"Dragon magic is a fast-acting poison in most cases, but in your body, it seems to have adapted into a psychic, two-way bond. Consider yourself lucky, dearest. You're not in a puddle, begging to be put out of your misery."

"If I have to listen to your voice all day, I'm sure that'll be the outcome in no time." I coughed out blood and lost the strength to listen to more of his bantering as thundering footsteps sounded in my direction.

It could have been my sister, or it could have been someone else. Maybe it was the approach of someone with sinister intentions. I no longer had the aptitude to fend for myself.

My eyelids slid closed and a soft, slow breath whooshed out of my lungs, my head dropping back down.

I was spiralling into a state of purgatory, a sleep like death. I was consumed by unfathomable pain, but my subconscious had become a dauntless explorer, wandering into a catacomb of warbling nothingness, and it wasn't frightening. In fact, it was enlightening.

To be so... weightless.

And then after some time, I came into static light, abstract colour rubbing straight through me as I felt my consciousness ascend, go towards another destination. Warm air passing through my discarnate form was a study that I took to with slack-jawed wonder, ambling around the scenic coast I'd been spat onto with soft, disbelieving gasps.

My mind had eased away from my limbs in the time that I'd passed out. My mortal shell no longer contained my essence, I somehow perceived with growing sadness... and with that I was starting to grasp a critical understanding of my purpose here, in a place where spectres roamed in a pitiless twilight.

No, I couldn't be dead... Could I?

Already?

Anixae mustn’t have reached Rizzaget in time.

This new arena of fantasy was everything I could have ever wanted. In grass so high it tickled my nose, I waded in a white dress, feeling as if I were home at last.

I didn't want to go back to a world of pain, I thought shallowly.

I'd never wanted to stay so untethered.

I'd begun walking in earnest through the luscious field of grass, forgetting my immortal woes. Resignation had begun to fill my heart, and I was about to wish my final goodbyes to my sisters... but something gold and shiny had broken into my garden of paradise, hauling my soul back with the finesse of a pair of canines, those hungry teeth–

I spun around, wherever I was, trying to tear myself away from the force that was holding me back.

"Let me go!" I screamed.

It refused. The golden beacon was so, so strong. Blinding. But why did it remind me of a certain pair of eyes?

Again, I tried to run, tried to head toward a tree that looked like it was surrounded by the gates of heaven...

But something else stopped me.

I thought I heard someone's voice resonate out of the strobing, pillar of light. It looked disturbingly reminiscent of a humanoid figure...

Eyes crinkling, I studied the light, focusing on the sounds, the words that eclipsed themselves as they resonated at me, and I thought I sensed deep betrayal in the male voice - "Our eternity isn't here, you fool. You think I'm just going to let you die like this? Wake up, Dryad."

I was about to be enshrouded in a haze of gold, but I lunged in the other direction... straight into a green mist.

The transition was terrifying, so much so that I jolted awake, thrusting the sheets away from my body as I sat up, panting, confused, in an unfamiliar bed. My eyes burned holes into the face of the male sitting across from me in a slim dining chair – his bright, red hair catching rays of sun through the open windows as he smiled back at me, pure male confidence in his expression.

"I didn't ask for any firstborns, by the way. Children are too much work. Why on earth would you give your sister that horrendous idea?" he asked me, flicking an eyebrow up.

Rizzaget La'Barrier, famed Sorcerer of Blackswallow City. Magic Bloods who boasted any kind of self-preservation tended to stay away from large public roles or tried to appear 'hesitant' about owning land, or accumulating wealth – but Rizzaget was the exact opposite.