Raxora

Raxora

Written by Jessica Burgess-Rose

Paolini Fantasy Writing Challenge

11 November 2022

“Step aside!” I snarled. Bruff’s feverish body lay limp in my arms, and the snow swirled around us in eddies. His blood was smeared on my clothes.

“We don’t serve your kind,” the innkeeper growled, crossing his arms and filling up the doorway. There was a roaring fire in the hearth behind him, and the salty smell of hot meat drifting out. My nostrils swelled.

“My cousin is dying,” I said, stepping closer. The innkeeper backed up a step. “You have to let us in.”

I hadn’t seen my own face in years - Aunt Meredith had broken all the mirrors when the first horn sprouted in the middle of my forehead - but I knew what I must look like now.

The last look I got of myself before she shattered the mirrors was of that gods-damned bone-grey tusk, and a line of blood cleaving my face in half. And a strange orange speck dappling my dusk eyes, like the first star at twilight. Now there was a line of short, curved horns from my forehead to the nape of my neck, and my body had grown scales, each protrusion painful and bloody as dragon features forced themselves through my skin.

My arms shuddered and the scales prickled, lifting up slightly to let the cool air in before clamping back down in a smooth armor. I understood the innkeeper’s fear - a cursed girl could be contagious. But I had to get Bruff to a healer before he bled out.

Bruff let out a pitiful cry, his voice hoarse from screaming, and the innkeeper peered into the bundle in my arms. I had wrapped my two year old cousin in the clothes of my aunt, whose corpse I found in the willow grove near our cottage. I was stirring the porridge when I heard screaming and saw a shadow pass over the land. I followed Meredith’s tracks in the light snow and found her body, with Bruff squalling nearby. My aunt had claw marks slicing through her stomach and eyes open wide with fear. Her hand clutched a talisman I’d never seen before - a chunk of dark wood sprouting clear crystals like clusters of mushrooms growing from a tree trunk. Sigils were carved into the open spaces of the wood.

Aunt Meredith did quiet magic when she thought no one was looking. Spells to ease sadness stirred into the soup, spells of sweet dreams whisper-sung while we slept. The talisman in her cold hand bore the same sigils carved into the rafters of our cottage, where I climbed occasionally when she was out foraging for herbs and berries. It must not have protected her, in the end.

“You can step aside, or I can burn your inn to a crisp. What would you prefer?” I said, staring him straight in the eye and drawing myself to my full height. Of course, I couldn’t breathe fire any more than the next person, but he didn’t know that. Doubt flickered in his eyes.

“Fine,” he glowered, sweat beading on his pale forehead. I stepped forward, but he held up a hand.

“Cover your face. Don’t need good folk knowing I’m lettin’ in a filthy curse.”

He shuddered involuntarily, his meaty neck jiggling. I nodded and swept my scratchy scarf over my scaly face and spiny horned scalp, and drew my hood over it for good measure.

He finally stepped aside. The inn was chokingly hot, and smoke burned my eyes. It was buzzing - people chatting, fire crackling, metal cups of ale clunking on the tables.

“I need a healer.”

The innkeeper led me upstairs, to a door at the end of the hall. He knocked once with his knuckles, and headed back down the hall.

A man in long robes and dreads opened the door, eyes falling instantly to the blood-spattered bundle in my arms. He opened the door wider, revealing a cool, herb-scented room with a bed, a table, and a shelf filled with dried herbs and healing supplies.

“I have coin,” I said, and threw a sack of coins on the table. I lay Bruff on the table next to it and peeled off the layers of snow-covered cloth, revealing tear-streaked cheeks and the bloom of blood on his tiny brown shirt.

“There was a dragon attack. I tried to stop the bleeding, but it took me over an hour to get here. Please, if there’s anything you can do–”

“Of course. Let me get my supplies.” He selected some items from the shelf. “I’ll need some hot water, too.”

He handed me a pail of water and I ran downstairs with it, approaching the hearth. There was no room on the iron rod, so I rolled up my sleeve and stuck the metal pail right on the hot coals. The heat licked my scales and I felt stares boring into the back of my head. The tavern hushed slightly as people noticed something wasn’t quite right about a girl sticking her arm into the fire. Her shiny, scaly arm. I grabbed the hot pail as soon as the water started to bubble.

A few minutes later, the healer tapped my shoulder. I was staring out the window, Meredith’s cold blue eyes peering back at me through the falling snow.

“I’m Chiatu,” he said. I turned, embarrassed.

“Oh! Sorry. I’m Raxora. Thank you for your help.”

His brow was furrowed.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

My stomach sank.

“I’ve done all I can for his physical wounds,” he began, “but he’s wounded magically. The dragon must have nicked him with a claw or tooth – there’s magical venom leeching his life essence away. If we don’t make an antivenom, he’ll be dead by tomorrow.”

He set an empty vial on the table. I picked it up, running my fingers over its cold form.

“What does the antivenom need?”

“We’d need a pure sample of the venom. Then we’d need a mage powerful enough to convert the venom into the cure. I’m sorry, he’s not going to–”

Chiatu was interrupted by an earsplitting screech that pierced the air. My hands flew to my ears, and Bruff started screaming along with it. I ran to where he lay on the table and clutched him, covering his ears and pressing him to me. When the sound finally subsided, my ears were ringing and normal sounds seemed muted, even Bruff’s pitchy cry. I rocked him back and forth until he quieted and my hearing returned.

I looked up. Chiatu stood perfectly still, staring at where my sleeves had fallen down to my elbows. My iridescent scales glinted in the pale light.

The innkeeper stood in the doorway.

“That was a dragon,” he said, glowering.

I ignored him and turned to Chiatu.

“I’ll find a way.”

The innkeeper stepped into the room. Several men murmured angrily behind him.

“Some say you brought the dragon here, to Haymane.”

Suddenly, I noticed the rope in his hands. I stood up, and Chiatu stepped in between the innkeeper and the table.

“Heth,” Chaitu said in a warning tone, spreading his arms slightly, in a protective gesture.

The innkeeper, Heth, looked past him, directly at me.

“I think it’s looking for its next meal.”

With an explosive movement, he knocked Chiatu to the side and lunged straight for me. I roared and tried to dodge, but he caught me by the throat with one giant hand and lifted me off my feet. Adrenaline raced through my body like lightning and I scrambled wildly. The other men restrained Chiatu, who was fighting as well. Black spots appeared in my vision and I tried to pull in raspy breaths. My body and mind separated, and everything faded.

I came to with my hands tied around a tree, my wrists bruised under the tender scales where I used to see blue veins running like rivers under my skin. The snow swirled and the sky was dark grey. I was at one end of the village. Heth and the men stood looking out the window of the inn. I roared in anger, a hot ball burning in my chest. I needed to get free and figure out a plan.

The sky darkened and above the howling winds was the whooshing of great wings flapping. A copper dragon landed, spraying snow in all directions and making the earth shudder.

Its long neck descended from the heavens, leveling its head to look me straight in the eye.

“Hello, darling.”

Its voice was overpowering. All I could see was its great unblinking eye, the size of my head. The rest of the world faded to nothing.

“Who are you?” I managed to reply, although my whole body shook in fear.

“Oh, Raxora. It’s me. Your mother.”

Distant memories flashed behind my eyelids. Running in a meadow, chasing after glints of copper hair flashing in the sun. Pained screams and bloody copper scales where soft warm hugs used to be. Gods-damn. The dragon must have poisoned me too, and I’m hallucinating in my last few minutes, I thought. I took a scratchy breath and shouted,

“I can’t die. I need venom!”

“Oh, Raxora. It’s time for you to come home.”

I opened my eyes and saw that I wasn’t dead. Were those memories real?

“I won’t go with you.”

The earsplitting screech pierced the air once more, and I ripped free of my restraints with strength I didn’t know I had, to cover my ears.

“If you want me so bad, give me something I need, and I’ll go with you,” I acquiesced. Maybe I could still save Bruff before the dragon decided she was done playing with her food.

Her head cocked like a curious dog.

“What do you need?”

“Your venom.”

My cold fingers fumbled for the vial in my pocket. I walked stiffly towards her.

She agreed, and I approached her parted mouth, which was steaming like a hot spring in the snowy night. It smelled rank, like fetid meat and death.

I uncorked the empty vial and lifted it up. A spurt of green acid hissed out, warming my scales but burning my sleeve.

I corked the vial and chanced a glance at the window, where the innkeeper was red with rage and the others were slack-jawed. Suddenly, Chiatu burst out of the door of the inn.

“Run!” he screamed.

As if the spell on me was broken, I bolted, sprinting towards the inn.

The copper dragon roared. I was almost to Chiatu when I felt her great talons close around me.

“Save him!” I screamed, and threw the vial towards Chiatu. The breath was squeezed out of me as the dragon ascended with me in its clutches, and I shot into the air at a dizzying speed. The last thing I saw before I blacked out was a horde of men descending on Chiatu’s purple robes.