Happy New Year Fellow Readers!
I trust all of you had a great time with friends and family. I got to spend time with my mom and my partner's father. Was a nice break from everything happening. I'm looking forward to the new year and what it brings. Hopefully, I'll have time to polish off Fell Dragon 4 and get ramped up to ending the series. I hope you will all be there for that.
“You are more machine than organic.” Silens touched Saita’s right eye. “Does it hurt?”
Saita pulled back but Silens grabbed her right arm and said. “This too? What else? How much of you is still human?”
“Rude much?”
“Rude? I am rude? I state facts. The giant wolves call you Metal-Meat and they are right. Not much is left of a human in here.” Silens tapped the centre of Saita’s chest. “How much is here though?”
Anger immediately bubbled in Saita’s chest and the older woman released her with a grin. “You might not bear his name anymore, but your anger is like his.”
“Don’t say that.” hissed the young woman.
“I lost a son to that senseless war. What did you lose?”
“Everything I had and everything that could have been,” said Saita bitterly.
Silens listened and allowed the words to wash over her before saying. “There is much truth in what you say, and your feelings mirror your words. Anger, white hot, right here.”
Silens pointed to her belly. “It may be difficult to understand but I understand you Human, more than what most would but my son still lies encased in earth, and you breathe. Understand?”
“No,” said Saita.
“Ah, the folly of youth.” Silens tilted her head. “There are so few of us left that even losing one son is too much to bear.”
“Are you talking about Bolx?”
“The one not of this time yes, him.” she smiled sadly. “He wears my baby’s face and uses his voice, but he has not crawled into my heart.”
Saita didn’t know what to say so she remained quiet.
“My daughter and husband wish for me to talk to you and find your motives, but it is difficult for an old woman that has grown hard with pain over the years to want to talk to what you are.” Silens continued as she got to her feet and started pacing around the table. “Daughter is right. You have a weapon inside of you, one which is alive and uses you but as to why that I do not know. Your memories are scattered, broken, and filled with pain I know and understand but there are others that are lost, damaged or hidden that I cannot touch. So, Human, what are your motives?”
“I don’t know,” said Saita sadly. “I have nothing. I fight to live.”
“Why come here when you know what Karesh did? Why come to the one place that would see you dead and return to your father in pieces?”
“I always planned to come here. Explain why things happened. How it was all my fault. I never wanted any of this to happen! I just wanted my family back.”
“And was it worth it?”
“It made me realise they were never my family to begin with. They cared nothing for me and only used me as was needed. When I was no longer needed, I was disposed of.”
“Do you hate them?”
Saita sat silently for a while before she said, “If I hated them it would be so much easier but no, I don’t hate them. They made me love them and now I miss not being with them.”
Silens nodded her head and said. “Would you return?”
“I can never return, and I will never be able to see my son ever again.” she gritted her teeth. “Can we just get to the point where you blame me for everything, and I ignore you?”
Silens set a hand on top of the young woman’s head and said. “I will leave it at that, Human. There is enough poison in your veins without me adding to it.”
Silens released her and added. “When you are ready the memories will be aided but until you get there you will be in the dark.”
“I don’t think I want to remember.” Saita rubbed at the top of her head.
“The man who wears my son’s face, he is quite partial to you. Is he enough?”
“Enough what?”
“Enough to aid you when the time of the Serpent is upon us.”
Sash had spent the better part of the morning ensuring that the testing facility was ready for the first of the foreign fighters. Each room had been designed to test their various attributes and abilities but when she had come to Saita’s testing room, she saw that someone had filled it with various training equipment, and she frowned. She immediately went to find someone who could explain this to her. When she eventually found someone, they simply stammered saying that they had been ordered to do this by her great-uncles Aastii and Kessa. Now she was furious. They had assured her that they had been happy with her design but now they had changed it right under her nose. She was not going to have any of it so off she marched to their office.
Aastii and Kessa should have been enjoying retirement but opened a rather successful prosthetics practice as well as a rehabilitation centre. They were supposed to be working on their own projects and not interfering with her work. She walked right into their office without knocking and simply demanded. “What the hell?”
“Well morning to you, Cupcake.” greeted Aastii as he danced around her and kissed her forehead.
“Yeah, what he said,” said Kessa as he continued to tinker at something on his desk.
“Not while I am at work!” Sash rubbed at her forehead. “Why the hell did you change my testing station for the human?”
“Because Saasha asked for it to be this way. She wants an endurance test to be run,” said Kessa without looking up.
“Then we might as well have Saita run laps outside. Why use that room?”
“Because then we can change the pressure and gravity of the room at will. Saasha suspects something and I have lived long enough to know that when Saasha has an idea you follow it,” said Aastii as he returned to his desk.
“Or because she is Queen?”
“It is because she is our older sister, and we still don’t want to upset her.” Kessa pointed a screwdriver at her. “Have you read the mail that was sent this morning with the new drill that Saasha wanted us to…”
“I have read it and it makes me wonder what exactly I am testing for.” Sash scanned through the information on her data pad. “This makes me think that I am…”
“Did you get the second message?” asked Aastii.
“What second message?”
“Saasha and technology.” Kessa rolled his eyes.
He tapped something on his desk and then flicked what appeared to be a screen up against the wall. “Here, take a look. These are Saita’s medical records.”
Sash looked at the wall growing paler as she read. She scrolled down and looked at x-rays as well as a few mentions by various doctors over the last 18 months.
“Oh, and she can’t use any of the pain medication we have in stock,” said Aastii. “Her organs metabolize everything at ridiculous speeds. She does heal pretty fast, so I guess the trade-off isn’t too bad.”
“Are you two looking at the same information that I am looking at? She wasn’t born this way!” she pointed to the various discs and wires in the x-ray. “Is she a bomb or something?”
Kessa and Aastii looked at each other and exchanged a worried look with each other before Kessa said. “We are still researching what we have found but no, she isn’t a bomb, but she is a weapon.”
“Is my mother safe with her in the house?”
“Quite safe.” Aastii rummaged through some paperwork. “For now, Saasha wants the machine part tested, plus she wants to make sure that the biomechanical eye and arm do not give her an unfair advantage.”
“Her eye won’t. It was replaced when she was fourteen and looks to have been done with a single operation. Her arm is something I have never seen before. It looks as if it may have been grown. An unfair advantage may come in with whatever these machine parts inside of her are.”
“That is why your job today is to test Saita until she is on the verge of collapse. Keep some electrolytes handy and maybe something high in sugar. Saasha wants to know how hard you can push her.”
“You will need to push her very hard.” came a voice from the doorway behind Sash.
All three individuals in the house turned and looked to see Bolx standing there. He looked exhausted but smiled a little at their shocked faces. “Surely you all must have known about me.”
“We did but we were not sure if you would show your face yet!” Sash threw her arms around his neck. “You have no idea how it soothes my heart to see your face.”
“I had forgotten how much this family loves physical contact,” he said as he hugged the young woman. “It’s been years since I last saw you little Sash.”
The twins remained seated at their desks but nodded their heads at their sister’s brother. Once Bolx was able to get Sash off of him he came to stand at the screen that was still against the wall. He pointed to where Saita’s heart sat. “This is the central piece of the machine that is running in her body. It is responsible for the energy output that causes the marks to appear on her skin. You will likely see those marks later today. Don’t ask about them. They are pure energy that ebbs and flows as it is needed. She lost over a quarter of them not too long ago when this happened.”
He pointed to the metal plate in Saita’s right collarbone. “Sheesh, you can see she likes to take attacks from the right side. Three fully replaced ribs, plus the broken collar bone on that side.”
“You like her!” said Sash in excitement.
“Yeah, sadly the feeling isn’t mutual.” he sighed sadly, “But such it is. Saita has never had this machine tested to its limit. I suggested this course of action to Saasha.”
“Will this machine keep producing energy or does it have an off switch?” asked Kessa.
“I doubt it has an off switch and Saita can do nothing about it. As to whether this will really give her an unfair advantage will come down to how well her muscles hold out in endurance testing. If she stops because her muscles are exhausted, or the marks run out will be the true test.”
“Who did this to her?” asked Sash. “There is no way this was done to her because she wanted it.”
“Likely a Dekai,” said Aastii as he looked away from the screen. “Though I could only be sure if I could have a closer look at one of those discs.”
Bolx sighed and said. “His name is Edzeeker, and he is not of this time. He wasn’t even from my time. I have no idea when he is from, but you are right. He is a Dekai. I assume you know of the species.”
“We are uncle to one.” said Kessa, “Didn’t your Saasha have Jethron in her life?”
“I was very young when she died,” admitted Bolx. “I didn’t know a lot about her. I know of Jethron and Malekai, but not that they were part of the family. These are things I am picking up the longer I am in this time. My time was ravaged by the wasting disease before the Fell Dragon fell upon us. I did know her husband quite well. Took me and my siblings in when our parents died. Raised us as if we were his own.”
“Bet our Saasha loved that,” said Aastii with a smile. “Brucel always wanted a million children.”
“Can we please focus!” demanded Sash as she ran her fingers over the bones in Saita’s legs. “This thickening is old and predates the implants there. How old was she when this was done?”
“I don’t know and neither does she. She has no memory of what happened and likely for good reason. Almost all painkillers fail to work on her, so these experiments were likely done while she was fully conscious.”
“Now I see Saasha’s interest in this.” sighed Aastii. “She should not have sent Silens to the girl but rather gone herself.”
“With that level of torture do you think Saita would even want to talk about it? Do you think Saasha would want to? It has been years, let it lay buried.”
Bolx looked at them in confusion before Aastii explained. “Jethron, the adopted Dekai son, had a brother, Malekai, who killed Brucel and tortured Saasha for weeks in this timeline. All this before her second son was born. It was not a fun time.”
“I need to plan if I am to make her run for hours. I will not be held responsible if she has a heart attack.” Sash tapped at the central disc. “I would have liked a little more time to have scanned her heart to make sure this isn’t interfering with its function, but I suppose that is for a later time.”
Sash grabbed Bolx’s arm and pulled him after her. “Come, you know her better than me you will know what I can set out for her to remain hydrated and nourished.”
The twins exchanged a look as Sash left the room.
“Well then, the next few years should be an interesting adventure,” said Kessa as he turned back to his work. “If we survive.”
Just what does Saasha have in mind for Saita? So much more than what the girl thinks she does. Hang around as the story starts to unfold more.
For those of you just joining us, please note that this the third book in the Fell Dragon series. Follow this link to read the two earlier books:
Fell Dragon Book 1
Fell Dragon Book 2
As the series continues, it will combine with another book series I wrote. To avoid confusion about what is happening, introductory chapters will be introduced separately so that you don't have to be lost. However, these chapters will contain spoilers. You can find these chapters here:
Races Explained
Banishment
Royal Guard
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Haven't read the other parts yet? Follow these handy links:
Part 16>>You are Here>>Part 18