Two
Kara's senses slowly returned to her in fragments. There was something soft and warm beneath her, a cot or narrow bed. Her head pounded dully, and the bitter scent of unfamiliar herbs and ointments filled the air. She was no longer lying in the damp grass by the Black Lake, that much was certain.
What had happened? With her eyes still pressed tightly, Kara strained her ears, registering the cadence of a heated discussion underway nearby.
"This can't be right," a female voice insisted, the words curled with a lilting accent that Kara could not place.
"I believe it must be," a male voice responded, his tone firm and clipped. "The mark upon her wrist confirms it beyond doubt. She has been chosen."
"But look at her!" The female's voice rang with incredulity and thinly veiled disgust.
Kara struggled to make sense of their words through the fog still clouding her mind. None of it seemed real, like pieces of a vivid dream she couldn't fully grasp.
The male speaker scoffed, his voice dripping with disdain. "Indeed. Though given her breeding, I suspect the girl's chances of surviving what's ahead are slim."
Kara's heartbeat quickened; the last clinging cobwebs of disorientation burned away by a spike of fear. These strangers spoke of her as though she were an undesirable pest. Where was she? And why did they speak so casually of her survival as though it were not guaranteed? She strained to figure out how she had gotten here, but her last clear memory was sitting beneath the stars at the edge of the Black Lake. After that, only hazy impressions of infinite darkness remained.
"Perhaps we should return her to that wizarding school she comes from and be done with this nuisance," the female elf proposed, a petulant edge to her melodic voice.
Kara's breath caught. She was no longer at Hogwarts?
"You know we can't. The Mark chose her, so she is bound to this path now, for good or ill. We have fewer novitiates this cycle as it is, though I expect she will fail swiftly."
His casual pronouncement of her imminent failure made Kara's hands tremble where they gripped the rough woven blanket. Novitiate? Training? None of it made any sense. She had to see where she was, had to get answers.
Bracing herself, Kara slowly opened her eyes, wincing against the glare of sunlight streaming through open windows. As her vision adjusted, she took in her surroundings - a simple stone-walled room lined with cots, sunlight pooling on worn stone floors. Some type of infirmary then.
And there, on the far side of the room, stood the source of the voices, still locked in tense debate. Kara's roving gaze froze, her quick intake of breath lodging in her throat. The room's other occupants were like illustrations that had stepped from a childhood fairy tale - elegant pointed ears, sharp angular features, skin that seemed to shine with an inner luminescence. Elves. Creatures she had never expected to encounter outside of stories.
Both were tall and willowy, with long straight hair so fair it appeared silver in the sunlight. They possessed an otherworldly elegance, clearly not human. Yet despite their apparent youth, their faces held a timeless quality, as though they had witnessed centuries come and go. Their fine garments were embroidered with elaborate symbols unfamiliar to Kara.
Even distracted by their argument, the elves exuded a detached grace, a stillness that belied their obvious irritation at the situation. Kara could only stare wordlessly, her mind struggling to reconcile their existence with everything she thought she knew about the world. Elves were the stuff of legends, extinct for who knows how long, not flesh and blood beings standing mere feet from where she lay.
Her heart pounded against her ribs. She was not dreaming. The throbbing in her head was real, the unfamiliar smells cloying in her nose were real, and so were the elves. Which meant wherever she was, it lay far beyond the boundaries of the wizarding world she understood. Her mind spun with questions she could not voice. How had she come here, wherever here was? What did they mean about training? And most pressingly, what was going to happen to her now?
As the initial shock ebbed slightly, Kara studied the pair more closely. The male elf radiated a palpable hostility. He was looking at her now, his flinty eyes seemed to look through Kara rather than at her, his expression one of annoyance, as though her presence was an insult to his senses.
The female elf held herself with the same aloof grace, yet her pretty features were marred by a moue of distaste as she stared at Kara, making it clear she found humans unfathomably beneath her kind. Their obvious contempt stoked the anxiety churning inside Kara.
The male elf had noticed her scrutiny, his lip curling slightly. "I see you have awoken," he remarked. Without waiting for a response, he crossed the room in a few long, fluid strides to stand imperiously over her cot, forcing Kara to crane her neck to meet his wintry gaze. She felt small and very vulnerable beneath that stare.
Kara swallowed, trying to steady the tremor in her voice. "Where am I?" she managed. "And who are you?" At least answers to those basic questions would be a start.
The elf drew himself up, his words clipped and precise. "You are on the island of Drakonia, in the fortress called Dragon's Nest. I am Beshal, and this is Tika." He gestured to the female elf still hovering near the far wall. "We are instructors here."
Kara's mind whirled, the names meaningless to her. She tried to sit up straighter. "Drakonia?" she repeated. "I'm afraid I don't know it." Geography had never been her strongest subject, but she was fairly certain she'd never heard of an island by that name.
Beshal gave a curt nod, clearly impatient at her ignorance. "Indeed. The isle of Drakonia, dwelling place of dragons. Dragon's Nest is our sanctuary and training ground."
Kara blinked rapidly, certain she had misheard. "I'm sorry, did you say dragons?" The word came out nearly as a squeak.
Dragons were powerful but rare creatures she had read about yet never expected to actually encounter. Most of them now resided in dragon reserves, with special dragonologists to take care of them. But now it seemed she was on an island surrounded by them.
"Yes," Beshal elaborated. "The dragons reside in a secluded part of Drakonia, separate from Dragon's Nest. We maintain this distance out of necessity for safety. Only those who have completed their training are allowed into their territory."
His impassive delivery of information did nothing to calm Kara's spiralling thoughts. A chill of fear trickled down her spine at the mention of training. What had she gotten herself into? She lifted her gaze back to Beshal, and she saw a glimmer of satisfaction in his eyes, like he took pride in her shock. A dozen questions bubbled up, but the intensity of the elf's gaze kept them bottled tightly behind her lips. She did not wish to test the limits of his scorn. She wished all of a sudden that she was back at Hogwarts, that this was all a dream.
Her continued silence appeared to satisfy Beshal, who surveyed her reactions with clinical detachment. The corners of his thin lips turned down as he studied her. "I see the reality still eludes your grasp," he murmured. "No matter. In time, you will comprehend your new position here."
Behind him, Tika sniffed disdainfully. "This is pointless," she complained to her companion. "The human is clearly incapable of understanding. We are wasting precious time."
Kara's cheeks flushed hotly, but she held her tongue with difficulty. Their open revulsion was humiliating, yet she was completely at their mercy in this foreign place.
Beshal flicked his fingers dismissively. "Patience, Tika," he admonished. "The human's mind is slow. We must at least try to educate her, despite the likelihood that she will fail."
His casual pronouncement of her imminent failure made Kara's hands clench in the blankets. Their disdain for her humanity shone clearly, presuming her inferior and destined to stumble in whatever training they referred to. But Kara had bested pureblood wizards at Hogwarts through dedication - she refused to falter at the first obstacle here. Spine stiffening, she met Beshal's gaze directly for the first time. There was steel beneath her uncertainty, and she hoped he glimpsed it.
Something shifted subtly in the elf's expression at her show of stubborn will. "Come Tika, let us hasten along with the tour," he directed abruptly. "Rise, human, and follow."
With that, he swept toward the door in a swirl of embroidered robes. After a beat, Tika stalked past Kara's cot, sparing her a final disdainful glance.
Kara scrambled out from beneath the warm blankets, ignoring the ache in her limbs. She had no choice but to trail after the elves as quickly as her wobbling legs could manage. Her shoes slapped against the stone floors as she rushed to keep their long-legged stride in sight.
Beshal led them through an elaborate maze of soaring corridors and grand staircases. Kara tried to commit the route to memory, but each hallway looked similar, with long slender windows that ran nearly floor to ceiling providing the only variation. They provided her fleeting glimpses of crashing ocean waves far below, though she could not spy any land mass across the steel-grey sea.
The pair of elves seemed intent on showing her the place without offering any context. They pointed out different classrooms, the dining hall, various entertainment rooms, but offered little more than the names. Here and there, other elves watched their passage, their piercing eyes and chilly expressions mirroring the hostility of her guides. Kara kept her focus on the back of Beshal's pale head, uncomfortable.
When they passed a set of towering oak doors, Kara's steps faltered. Her gaze lingered wistfully on the engraved words arching over the entrance: The Grand Library. Even through the sliver of space, she could make out seemingly endless bookshelves within and her fingers itched to explore them. What knowledge might the elves have recorded about their history, their magic? But Beshal's brisk pace left no chance to linger.
At last they emerged into open air, and Kara had to shield her eyes against the sudden glare. When her vision adjusted, she drew a sharp breath. The fortress was situated atop a sheer cliff, allowing an uninterrupted view of crashing ocean to the left and right. The brisk wind carried the scent of salt and sea spray as it whipped through her hair and clothes. Unfamiliar seabirds wheeled overhead, their cries piercing and haunting.
Before them stretched an extensive courtyard of pale stone. Elegant benches surrounded burbling fountains, and paths wove between precisely manicured shrubberies. Kara spied elves seated alone or in pairs around the space. A few shot her penetrating stares, but most ignored the trio entirely as they passed by.
They walked the perimeter until coming upon even more sprawling lawns of emerald grass beyond the courtyard. In the distance, Kara could make out a vast forest blanketing rolling hills that gradually smoothed into craggy mountains. Those peaks were wreathed in mist and clouds, disappearing into the steely sky. She shivered, reminded again that dragons supposedly roamed these wilds according to Beshal.
When they drew even with a wide sandy arena lined by racks of vicious looking weapons, Kara's stomach swooped uneasily.
Beshal turned to her, his expression barely concealing bored indifference. "Here is where novitiates begin Swordplay," he intoned. "I am Master of Arms. Frankly, I expect your kind possesses limited capacity for proper fighting skills." His lip curled derisively. "Training a human will pose... unique challenges."
Despite herself, Kara felt a heated blush creep up her neck at the insult, her earlier nervousness briefly morphing to indignation. She opened her mouth to retort before catching herself. She didn't know what these elves were capable of, and she didn't want to provoke them. Clenching her jaw, Kara glanced away from Beshal's contemptuous sneer, thinking longingly of her classes back at Hogwarts. Of Felix and her brother Jari.
"What does any of this have to do with me?" She looked beseechingly between the two aloof elves, unable to contain her questions any longer. "You speak of training, but I'm not one of you. I don't belong here, I never asked for this. Why am I here?"
"You are here, human, because you bear the Dragon Mark. You were chosen, so you must remain here until your training is complete."
"Dragon Mark?" Kara echoed.
"Your wrist," Beshal said impatiently, as though that explained anything at all.
With a growing sense of dread, she slowly looked down, pushing up the sleeve of her robe. There upon her forearm, stark against her pale skin, was a marking that most certainly had not been there before. The design was of a sinuous dragon, inked in deep azure with such intricate lifelike detail that it seemed almost to writhe across her arm. The mark appeared to emit a subtle glow, as though infused with a magic all its own. Kara could only stare wordlessly at this impossible tattoo.
Oblivious to her shock, Beshal continued, "That is the Dragon Mark. It chooses whom it will, selecting the worthy to become novitiates, who will graduate into custodia and eventually join the Draconian Watch, the dragon riders. Regardless of who you are or where you come from, once the mark chooses you, you are bound to it."
Beshal's voice was cold, but it didn't hide the undercurrent of resentment. They would be forced to train her, to accept her among them, because of a mark that had inexplicably appeared on her wrist. A mark they clearly did not believe she deserved.
Kara swallowed. Her fear was sharp. "And if I refuse?"
Beshal snorted derisively. "Refusal is not an option. The mark binds you to its will. If you try to leave, it will pull you back. Its magic prevents you from leaving."
His admission sent a chill crawling down Kara's spine. This foreign mark had chosen her, magic she did not understand had spirited her away from everything she knew, binding her to a dangerous role she had never sought. She traced the dragon's coiled shape, feeling the power thrumming just below the surface of her skin. It was a chain, an obligation forced upon her.
"But why me?" The question tore from her throat. She glared accusingly at the mark marring her flesh before switching her gaze desperately to the two elves. Surely there had been some mistake. She was the model of an ordinary student, not anyone special. The mark had chosen incorrectly. "Please, I don't understand any of this! Just let me return home, I want no part in this training."
For the first time, Tika's frosty indifference slipped into unveiled scorn. "You believe we want you here?" she asked. "That we would actively choose a weak human for such a sacred duty?" Her musical laugh held no warmth. "No, the decision was not ours. The mark selects those it deems worthy, though by what criteria, none can say."
Kara recoiled at the contempt in her voice, feeling smaller than ever. Yet she still clung to a thin shard of desperate hope that the elves would show her mercy. "But if it was a mistake..." she tried again weakly.
Beshal's angular features hardened, his patience fraying at last. "Cease your foolish babbling," he snapped, icy power reverberating in his voice for the first time. "The mark has chosen, and so your path is set. You will train to join the Draconian Watch, or you will die here. These are your only options now."
His casual mention of her potential death made bile rise in Kara's throat. She shrank back, properly cowed by the fury radiating from the elf. Her heart slammed against her ribs as the last of her hope crumbled away, leaving stark fear in its wake.